After a few seconds, he carried the envelope toward a side passage beside the building.
The next camera showed Blake approaching a black government sedan parked near the administrative entrance.
Someone was waiting beside the vehicle.
A tall man wearing an expensive gray suit.
Adrian recognized him immediately.
Graham Voss.
His former mentor.
His colleague of nearly three decades.
And the deputy chief who had supposedly resolved the complaints Simone had tried to report.
Blake handed him the brown envelope.
Voss opened it, looked inside, and quickly closed it again.
Then he reached into his jacket and removed a folded piece of paper.
He handed it to Blake.
The officer unfolded the paper and studied it.
A few seconds later, he looked toward the street.
He appeared to be examining something on the page.
Adrian leaned forward.
ADRIAN COLE: "Can you enlarge that section?"
Aaron adjusted the image.
The footage became slightly clearer, although the writing was still difficult to read.
There was a photograph attached to the folded document.
A man wearing a black bomber jacket.
Adrian stared at the screen.
It was a photograph of him.
He recognized the jacket.
He recognized the shape of his face.
He recognized the image as one taken from an official photograph used during the announcement of his appointment.
For several seconds, he did not speak.
The water thrown into his face outside had seemed like a random act of cruelty.
The officer's hostility had seemed like an isolated incident.
But now the footage suggested something different.
Blake had received a photograph of Adrian before the confrontation.
Graham Voss had handed it to him.
And shortly afterward, Blake had been waiting outside the headquarters when Adrian arrived.
Adrian slowly turned toward Aaron.
ADRIAN COLE: "Preserve this recording separately. I want an independent copy under the evidence hold."
AARON BELL: "Yes, Commander."
ADRIAN COLE: "Do not send it through the ordinary administrative reporting chain."
Aaron looked surprised.
AARON BELL: "Sir, does that mean you're opening an investigation into Deputy Chief Voss?"
Adrian continued looking at the frozen image.
He had spent twenty-seven years believing that Graham Voss was one of the people he could trust most.
He had defended his decisions in difficult meetings. He had recommended him for positions of greater responsibility. He had listened to his advice during some of the most important moments of his career.
But evidence did not become less important simply because the person involved was a friend.
ADRIAN COLE: "I'm not making an accusation before the evidence has been examined."
He paused.
ADRIAN COLE: "I'm making sure the evidence cannot disappear."
Aaron nodded and returned to the workstation.
Adrian took out his phone.
Before he could contact the external investigations division, a message appeared on the screen.
It came from an unknown number.
THE WOMAN IN THE GREEN COAT HAS THE ORIGINAL RECORDS.
Adrian read it once.
Then another message arrived.
IF VOSS FINDS HER FIRST, FORTY-NINE PEOPLE WILL LOSE THEIR LAST CHANCE TO CLEAR THEIR NAMES.
He stared at the two messages.
Forty-nine people.
The number was too specific to ignore.
The woman in the green coat was not simply another visitor who had been turned away from the headquarters.
She was carrying something that someone inside the department desperately wanted to keep hidden.
And Graham Voss appeared to be connected to it.
Adrian looked toward the monitor once more.
The recording showed his former mentor standing beside the government sedan, holding the brown envelope.
For the first time that morning, Adrian understood that the water thrown into his face might have been intended to do more than humiliate him.
Someone had known he was coming.
Someone had identified what he would be wearing.
And someone had arranged for an officer to confront him before he could reach his new office.
Adrian placed his phone on the desk.
ADRIAN COLE: "Aaron, I need you to help me identify every time Iris Whitcomb came to this building. I want the dates, the entrance records, the camera footage, and every documented interaction with security."
AARON BELL: "I'll start searching immediately."
ADRIAN COLE: "Also, find out whether any of her complaints were entered into the department's official case management system."
AARON BELL: "Understood, sir."
Adrian looked at the messages again.
Forty-nine people.
He did not know their names yet.
He did not know what had happened to them, why their records had become so important, or how deeply the problem reached inside the department.
But he knew one thing.
He would not allow the evidence to disappear simply because it implicated someone powerful.
And before the day was over, he intended to find out why a woman carrying a brown envelope had been prevented from speaking to the police department that was supposed to serve her.
Adrian remained in the surveillance office for several minutes after Aaron began searching the records.