Damage Control

by Gordon Savage

  – Robert Cannon, Channel 6 News

  Day 6, 7:00AM

  When I woke the next morning, I felt rested and my head was clear for the first time in days. Before getting up, I lay in bed enjoying the feeling. Then I went back to thinking about what to do next. I wondered if I was becoming obsessive, but it was my assignment, after all. I wasn’t going to kid myself; I was flying blind into a mountain range. The obstacles Wells had thrown up were making what should have been a simple matter of collecting expert reports into an almost impossible task, and I had to wonder if I was really up to it. Despite Frost’s praise for my sleuthing abilities, if I wasn’t in over my head, I was at least up to my chin. I hovered almost on the edge of giving up – almost, but that discovery of a possible video that hadn’t been confiscated and destroyed meant I hadn’t run out of options – yet.

  One option was tracking down Williams’ brother to find out if he could gain access to Williams’ account, but other than trying to get a letter forwarded – which I was sure Channel 15 was doing – the only way I could think of was an Internet search. How many Laurence Williams were out there? Probably more than I could sift through in a reasonable amount of time. I decided to save that as a last resort.

  Another option was gaining access to Williams’ home, and that seemed to be my best chance. His address was an apartment number. I wondered how hard it would be to convince the building manager to let me in to his apartment. I didn’t want to have to get a warrant because I didn’t have the slightest idea of how to go about it. Plus I didn’t want Wells’ flunkies finding out about it until I had the video in my possession.

  I pulled up a map of Williams’ apartment building on my laptop. It was only a block and a half from a Metro stop. The trip would take less than an hour. If I hurried, I could catch the next train leaving the local station. I grabbed my coat and headed out.

  The snow had long since stopped and the road was clear, but the air was frigid enough that I could see my breath as I hurried toward the station. At least this time the walk to the Metro didn’t wear me out, but I still missed the convenience of driving my car.

  ◆◆◆

  Day 6, 9:00AM

  The whole trip into town I was edgy. I desperately wanted to get into Williams’ cloud account to see his video. Everything I had found out up until then had been suggestive but not conclusive. If his video had evidence I could point to and say “There, the explosion didn’t even come from the portal,” then I had a serious chance of derailing Wells’ effort to block work on teleportals.

  To keep occupied on the way I went through my notes looking for anything I might have missed. By the time the train arrived at the transfer station, I had gone through my notes three times without something new jumping out at me. I climbed off the train feeling vaguely dissatisfied and stood on an empty platform waiting for the train to Williams’ apartment. It rolled in five minutes later.

  I climbed aboard the train and sat with my thoughts growing blacker by the minute. I wasn’t trained for this job. I didn’t know what I was doing. All the real evidence had been destroyed and couldn’t be recovered. When the train squealed to a stop at my destination, I got off with a distinctly gloomy outlook. I made my way to the stairs and pushed myself up to street level. Even before I reached the top of the stairs, I could see the apartment building. I trudged toward it wondering if I could even get into the building.

  The main entrance opened when I pushed on one of the doors – one less obstacle. At least I didn’t need someone to let me into the building. The ground floor consisted of a lobby with offices on either side and a bank of elevators at the back. I looked around for a way to contact the manager and saw a bell on the counter to the side of the entrance. I rang the bell and waited for him until he appeared through a door in the back. For some reason I had expected him to look like an actor I had seen on television: tall, dark haired with a brushy mustache, and wearing overalls. Instead, he was a short, somewhat chubby older gentleman wearing slacks and a polo shirt.

  When I said I was investigating Williams’ death as a possible homicide, he looked shocked and was more than willing to help – another unwarranted concern gone. He led me to Williams’ apartment without hesitation. As we rode the elevator up to the apartment, he regaled me with information about his late tenant. He said Williams was well liked by everyone in the building, always friendly and smiling and helpful.

  At Williams’ door the manager surprised me by knocking. I didn’t have time to wonder why because the door opened almost immediately. I was in for a bigger surprise. A good looking blond young woman wearing jeans and a t-shirt that had “NEWSHOUND” printed on it stood in the door. “Hi, Mr. Daley.” Then she noticed me. “Uh, what …”

  I spoke before Daley could. “Sorry to bother you, Miss …” I paused for her to say her name.

  She glanced at the manager, as if to make sure I was on the up and up. After he nodded, she said, “Williams, Rebecca Williams. How can I help you?”

  I showed her my badge. “I’m Federal Agent Samantha Pederson…”

  She interrupted. “Do you have information about my dad?”

  Oh crap! She’s his daughter. Does she know he’s dead? I cleared my throat. “Do you mind if I come in?”

  Looking puzzled, she gestured me into the apartment. Daley followed, clearly curious about what a federal agent was doing investigating his tenant. I recalled how my brother Brian’s death had been announced and how painful it had been. I indicated the couch and said softly, “Perhaps you should sit down.”

  I took a deep breath and pressed on. “I’m so sorry to tell you this.” The look in her eyes choked me up, but I had to get it out. “Your father was killed in the explosion last Monday night.”

  “What!” she gasped. She covered her mouth and burst into tears. “No. It can’t be.”

  I stood there unable to think of anything to do or say. I mumbled, “Sorry …” Her grief tore at me, and my own eyes started welling up. I wiped them with the back of my hand and looked at the manager. “I’ve never done this before.”

  Daley’s voice was shaky. “None of us knew. He just hadn’t been home in a few days, but that’s pretty much normal. Sometimes his job keeps him away for a day or so. Rebecca came in yesterday. She’d been here before so I knew her and let her in. … I’ll be right back.” He went into the kitchen and came back with a glass of water, which he handed to Rebecca.

  She had stopped sobbing, but tears still ran down her cheeks. “Could you tell me what happened?” She waved at the couch seat next to her.

  I sat and hesitantly said, “First, let me apologize. I wasn’t expecting to find a family member here, and I wasn’t thinking clearly when you showed up at the door.”

  She tilted her head. Her voice still trembled. “I understand … What happened?”

  “You are obviously aware of the explosion that was on television last Monday.”

  She nodded. “I’m a news anchor in Cincinnati. Our whole station was watching when it happened.” Her eyes widened. “You mean Dad was there?” She glanced at my bandages. “Were you there?”

  “Not exactly. I was across the street. I had just arrived when the building blew.”

  At that moment Daley’s phone rang. He glanced at it and excused himself. He left the apartment, closing the door behind him.

  I continued, “Your dad was covering Reid’s demonstration. The explosion was so powerful and so sudden I don’t think he had time to be frightened.” I paused to let that sink in, hoping it would ease her pain. “The government is calling it a matter/antimatter explosion. Personally I don’t believe that, and I’ve been assigned to find out what really happened.”

  I could see that her shock was fading. She said, “So what brings you here? Do you think someone deliberately set the explosion to murder my father?”

  I shook my head. “Not likely. If it was murder, the most likely target was Reid, the student who put the teleportals together. I’m here because s
omeone mistakenly ordered all the videos, except the actual broadcast, destroyed. However, yesterday I found out that your father always saved his videos to the Cloud, so his video of the explosion should still be available. It may have information that will clarify what happened. I came here to try to find the password to his cloud account and didn’t expect to find anybody here. The station didn’t have you listed as next of kin – they only have his brother.”

  She nodded. “I see. I must have been quite a surprise.” She paused to blow her nose. “You see, Mom and Dad had a really difficult breakup when I was little. Mom got sole custody. She died a couple of years ago, so I looked Dad up and came to visit him a few times. I have a TV job in Cincinnati – I guess you could call that quite a coincidence, so I was only able to visit once in a while.”

  Her statement reminded me of an announcement I had seen posted at the station. “By the way, the station is holding a memorial service tomorrow for those who died in the blast. I’m sure they would want you there. Besides, you need to let the personnel office know you exist.”

  She smiled weakly. “Thanks for telling me that. I definitely should go.”

  I looked around the room and noticed a computer monitor and keyboard. “Rebecca, would it be okay if I checked out your dad’s computer?”

  She nodded, still looking distraught although the tears had stopped.

  The computer startup screen asked for a pin number. I picked the easiest I could think of, “1234,” but wasn’t surprised when it didn’t work. Then I remembered the condo’s street address and tried it. The second combination worked. There was a cloud icon on the desktop, and I clicked on it. The log in screen came up with the user name and password already filled in. Could it be that easy? Crossing my fingers, I hit return and there it was, a collection of files, mostly video. I sorted them by the date modified. The one I wanted had to be the most recent.

  The file was gigantic. I had a USB drive in my purse but it was only 16 gigabytes. I scrounged in the center desk drawer and came up with a 64. Rebecca had pretty well pulled herself together and came to look over my shoulder. “Is it alright if I borrow this drive?” I asked. “I’ll have to erase whatever is on it.”

  She nodded her head slowly. “I suppose so, but maybe we should check what’s on it first.”

  After taking a quick look at what was already on the drive, I realized that I had no way of knowing what would be important to her. Under the circumstances she didn’t either. I made a command decision. “How about I move everything over to the hard drive?”

  “That should work,” she agreed.

  Once everything was moved, I reformatted the USB drive to be on the safe side and started downloading the video from the cloud onto it. Because of the size of the file the download would take a while, so we went back to the couch.

  “I appreciate you letting me do this,” I said. “I don’t believe this was a matter/antimatter reaction. If it isn’t … it very probably was murder.”

  Her jaw dropped. “I see what you mean. And you don’t think my dad could have been the target?”

  “Well, if the explosion was targeted at someone, I doubt it was your dad. He was probably collateral damage. As I said, my guess is the target was Duncan Reid, but right now that’s only a guess.” I gave what had happened a little more thought. “Of course, it could have been terrorists. An attack on live TV would have been a real coup for them. In fact, even if they didn’t do it, I’m surprised one of the terrorist organizations hasn’t tried to take credit for it like they did with that French killer a few years back. Or it might have been a gas explosion. There were a number of them in the news a couple of years ago that were surprisingly powerful. Still, that was a solid brick building – I’ve got the scrapes and bruises to prove it – and nothing of the building but the stubs of girders was left standing.”

  “I’ve read a little about antimatter. Wouldn’t a matter/antimatter reaction be like an atomic bomb?”

  “We don’t really know. Scientists have only been able to create the reaction on a microscopic level. An astrophysicist I’ve been working with thinks the heat of the reaction would vaporize the portal hardware before any significant atmosphere exchange took place.” Thinking out loud, I continued, “Of course the heat of the energy release still might be enough to explosively expand the air that wasn’t involved.”

  “It sounds as if you’ve given this a lot of thought.” Rebecca seemed to be settling into reporter mode, but I was glad of it. It seemed to take her mind off her grief for at least a little while.

  “Right now it’s pure speculation. The one thing I do know is that the universe we’ve been communicating with hasn’t reported any comparable explosions. …”

  “Wait. You’ve been communicating with another universe?” She looked astonished. “I hadn’t heard anything about this.”

  That was probably true. The government had quietly suppressed most of the story about the hostage event, so the world really hadn’t heard much about Melissa and the trio. Duncan Reid had stolen the spotlight while the trio was incommunicado. “Reid wasn’t the only one who made teleportals. Dr. Kim and her associates did it first and made contact with another universe a few weeks ago. We are actually able to see and talk with them.”

  “We?” She leaned forward.

  “I was with Dr. Kim to help make sure teleportals are safe to use.”

  Rebecca pressed me for more details. I spent the rest of the time that we were waiting for the download to complete explaining my role in the teleportal development process. I forgot about the fact that she worked for a TV station.

  ◆◆◆

  Day 6, 11:00AM

  Williams’ video editor was one of the best I had seen, so once the video was downloaded, we used it to watch the video. As soon as the playback started, we saw why the file was so big. Williams had started recording the minute he had his camera set up, and he had shot it all in slow motion. We had to play it back at eight times speed to make the action look normal. I was about to bump it up to times-32 when two people in the video got into what looked like a heated exchange. One of them was Reid. I later learned the other was Reid’s roommate, McKenzie Gardner. The exchange looked none too friendly, especially on Gardner’s part. It only lasted about two minutes, and Gardner stormed off. Reid stood there afterward with a satisfied smirk on his face. Then he walked to the center of the room and maneuvered one of the portals to face his audience. He started talking to the cameramen and reporters. I wished I could read lips, but it must have been about setup because this portion hadn’t been shown on any of the rebroadcasts.

  I switched to times-32 and waited until I saw Reid give his pitch to the viewing audience and sit down at the desk. I almost waited too long. When I went to play-speed, the explosion already occupied most of the screen. I hit the pause button and backed the video up one frame at a time until the frame before the explosion started, then I stepped it forward a frame at a time. The next frame showed the first indication that anything was happening. A hump had appeared in the floor. Rebecca and I stared at the image for several minutes. I mentally traced the cracks and broken flooring to an origin a good five feet away from the portal. I pointed to the spot on the screen, and asked Rebecca, “Does that look like where the center of the bulge is to you?”

  She nodded her head in agreement.

  I stepped the video forward to the next frame. Fire and broken flooring had erupted from that same location. With each succeeding frame the eruption spread outward, even at 240 frames per second once the explosion started there were only four frames—about a sixtieth of a second— before the explosion engulfed the portal and took out the camera.

  Rebecca shook her head. “That was it? Only four frames?”

  I pushed the chair back and mulled over what I had seen. “That was it. Did you see what I saw? The explosion clearly originated below the floor the portal was on.”

  “That’s what I saw. The way the floor swelled up and the explosion
spread. What does it mean?”

  “My take is that there was no way this could have been a matter/antimatter reaction. If it had been, the explosion would have started at the portal interface.” I backed up a frame. “Look. You can see that Reid hadn’t touched the keyboard and the explosion had already started. The interface wasn’t even close to opening. I have to show this to Frost and Wells.”

  When I turned around, Rebecca still had a dazed look on her face. She shook her head and asked, “So that was it? That’s what killed my father?”

  “I’m afraid so. He didn’t even have time to realize what was happening.”

  Okay, I work in a high security environment. Was what I was about to do was a security violation? I thought hard about what I had found out over the past few days. Everyone involved had treated the information as if it were Top Secret, but I noticed that none of the agents had told anyone a real classification. All they had said was “national security issue.” Even Wells had avoided labelling it with a classification, nor had Kaminski actually given a classification. Good, so technically it wasn’t classified. It might make Wells mad as hell, but I was legally safe with what I was planning.

  I stood up. “I’m going to take this drive to Channel 15 and make them a copy. How about coming with me? I can introduce you to your dad’s producer … And you should let their human resources department know you exist.”

  She still looked dazed. “Yes. That would be a good idea.”

  I doubted Wells would think it was a good idea.