by Mike Arsuaga
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next morning, the Chairman’s secretary called to inform her Ed had to take an unexpected trip to South America. The company’s largest electrolysis facility in Rio suffered an unexpected shut down. The volume of government contracts tied up with the project demanded his personal attention. He’d be gone at least week. Also on the agenda was the signing ceremony of a contract to build cargo aircraft for the Brazilian Air Force.
“I suppose you’re pleased with how things ended at your facility.” A host from the British business channel quizzed Ed three days into the trip. A hand held a microphone up to his face.
“Yes, we were fortunate. They completed repairs almost before I arrived.”
“And the aircraft contract must’ve been like frosting on the cake. Beating out General Electronics in the bidding must’ve been exciting for your company. How did they take it?”
“You’ll have to ask them.” He glowed with pride at besting CI’s biggest rival. “But we were lucky to have the perfect design available. Moreover, we can build them at a good price.”
“Does this signal a move by your company into the field of military contracts?” the reporter asked from off-camera.
“No. If this had been a war plane, we wouldn’t have bid. The design for this aircraft is utilitarian, with a host of non-military applications. I predict it will be in use for decades.”
The host adjusted position to improve the camera angle. “So with everything settled, where to next?”
“Since I’m already here, I decided to extend my time to include a brief visit with old and dear friends.” Not the answer Lorna wanted, but better than some that came to mind.
To keep busy, she threw herself into work, signing up for a ton of overtime. On the regular shift, she had to face Mike’s empty desk. In the beginning, she assumed in the wake of the tense parting, she and Ed both needed time alone, figuring after cooling down for a few days, he’d call to patch things up. When he didn’t after the first week, she decided maybe he needed a lesson in manners, so she ignored his first attempt to phone her.
There was no second.
Two more days passed.
“Check it out,” a female detective cried from the bull pen. A crowd gathered in front of the monitor carrying the news stream. “Damn, she’s hot,” one of the men said.
Lorna rose from her desk to see what caused the commotion. When she approached, a silence fell over the small crowd. One or two wandered away, intent on distancing themselves from the impending nuclear detonation.
“What’s up?” Lorna asked of the group.
“Oh, nothing, boss,” the female detective answered. “Just some news about Edward White.” Being the newest member of the shift, she was ignorant of Lorna’s involvement.
“What news?”
The guileless reply cut like a Bowie knife. “See for yourself. There he is with his new girlfriend. She’s quite lovely.” By then, everyone else had cleared out, leaving the unfortunate woman to bear the full brunt of Lorna’s legendary wrath.
Lorna’s heart dropped to her stomach. The screen filled with Ed accompanied by another. A tall, blonde woman, no older than twenty, hung on his arm. Her hair was pulled back in a tight chignon. Thin, dark streaks wove through the mass that shone like polished gold. A silver sequined gown molded to narrow hips, small erect breasts accompanied long legs.
The program originated from the Red Carpet Ceremony for the Brazilian Academy Awards. “Of course you may,” Ed was saying to the interviewer. “This is Valeria.”
“Valeria, how do you like Brazil?”
“Oh, dear boy, I am not visiting. This is my native country,” she answered in a husky Portuguese accent with an elegant forward tilt of a narrow, diamond-shaped face. The brow and chin were softly rounded, but the cheeks made creases at the widest part of her face, curving to small jewel-studded ears, giving her tiny, painted full lips a pouty appearance.
“Well then, are you being a good tour guide?” the interviewer asked.
Valeria giggled, and kissed Ed’s cheek. “We have been everywhere.”
“I’ll bet you have,” Lorna muttered bitterly, snapping the monitor off. Spinning around, she faced a hapless crowd of one. “We have cases to solve. Get back to work.” She snarled, stalking back into her office, leaving the bewildered female detective not sure what just happened.
The bastard!
If he’d planned to end the relationship, he should have been man enough to tell her face to face, rather than by way of a cheesy interview on the Brazilian Entertainment feed. Cynically, she wondered how long before he’d ask her to leave the condo and return to taking the bus to work.
As she lunged at the phone to call Ed and give him an earful, it started ringing. “Lieutenant Winters,” she snapped into the receiver.
“Lieutenant,” said a voice that sounded like it came from the bottom of a well, typical of the acoustic quality from a police car radio patch. “This is Patrolman Larry Hicks out in Oakridge. I have one of Mike Geurin’s informants. He says you really need to see him.”
“Do you have him in the car?”
“Yes, ma’am, we collared him so as not to compromise the cover arrangement. The neighborhood thinks he was busted for drug possession.”
“Let me speak to him.”
The sounds of a lot of shifting around, augmented by a little cursing, came through before a reedy voice said hello.
“You have something for me?”
“Mike had me checking into some things,” the voice said noncommittally. “He told me to call you direct if I found something and he wasn’t around. He was a good man. We all miss him.”
“No more than I do. What do you have?”
After a pause, he said, “Mike told me if I talked to you to say it’s about Claire and Cassandra. He said you’d know what it meant.”
“I see,” Lorna’s voice trailed off while she considered the possibilities. “Put one of the patrol officers on.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Hicks returned.
“Listen to me very carefully. Bring him to booking. I’ll meet you there to take custody. Turn him over to no one else.”
The seriousness of her tone, along with the prospect of participating in an important case, commanded his rapt attention. “Right away. We’ll be there in ten.”
Booking occupied a large room on the ground floor of headquarters—a well-worn space and, like the city buses, saturated with the reek of effluvia and grimy bodies. In the case of this place, decades of criminality left their marks. A battered, high desk dominated the area. Most of its walnut varnish had peeled away, leaving long streaks of gray wood. Perched behind on a high stool sat an overweight desk sergeant.
Lorna came from the back, at the perfect angle to see his hams drooping over the edge of the seat. They often shifted position, driven by a hemorrhoid, plague of the sedentary.
Officer Hicks, accompanied by his partner, slipped in through the front door, followed by a small gust of grit. They manhandled a dwarfish man between them. He groused and complained with every step. The little drama continued even after Lorna caught their attention. The desk sergeant turned laboriously to her. His face of aggravated scrutiny suggested she represented another brass come to disrupt his routine for some harebrained reason.
“Thank you, sergeant. I’ll take this man. He’s also a witness in a major case.” She spread on a thick layer of gratitude.
He ignored the effort. “Anything to help the front office.” The sarcasm in his voice came through loud and clear.
She walked the informant away, catching a glimpse of the desk sergeant on the phone, staring after her.
Lorna brought the diminutive informant to an interrogation room, which contained two chairs parked under a stainless steel table. He watched her with cunning, black, rodent eyes while she took off the handcuffs. “Thanks,” he said, rubbing his wrists. The man reeked of body odor and bad breath.
Lorna dismissed the officer
assigned to be in the room for her protection. “I’m lycan,” she told him. “This rube would make the biggest mistake of his life by attacking me.”
Nodding understanding, he told her he’d be right outside.
Lorna turned to her charge. “All right,” she said, taking a seat across from him. “What do you have?”
“Mike said you’d take care of me.”
Leaning forward, she folded her hands on the table in front of her. “What’s your name?”
Seeing him admire the finish on her expensive manicure, she figured he raised calculations for remuneration by at least twenty percent.
“Russel, ma’am. Russel Larson.” He smiled through crooked teeth.
“Okay, Russel, you got me away from a desk full of unsolveds. This better be good.”
Licking thin, purplish lips, he said, “I need five hundred to get by.”
Lorna thought about the wad in her purse back at the office. Since being with Ed, she always seemed to have plenty of cash. “I can do that.”
“Okay, then. Mike asked me to keep an eye out for X-10 action. I got some. The Orlando gang’s putting on a to-do. The whole region’s coming. The buzz is they’re planning something big against the woofers.”
Lorna ignored the deprecation. “Do you have any idea what’s going down?”
“No, except they’re having a meeting to talk about it.”
Sliding a note pad and pen across the stainless steel, she ordered, “Time and address.”
* * * *
Back in the office, Lorna used satellite images to examine the building where they planned the meeting, avoiding the risk of being spotted during a drive by. The image showed an old warehouse standing alone in a field. Years before, everything within a quarter-mile had been leveled. No chance to sneak up on them to peek in the windows.
Could she infiltrate the meeting?
Ethan would help her with getting proper identification. The main problem remained the damned dogs X-10 brought to their gatherings. The animals were trained to alert to the presence of vampires or lycans. Every corporation attempt to infiltrate ended in frustration or disaster. A meeting of this magnitude would have the best security precautions in place.
Lorna discarded the idea.
Russel identified one name in the local X-10, a woman named Elsa Travers. Lorna pulled her up on the OPD search engine. The monitor displayed a round, black face, with salt-and-pepper hair puffed out and combed back. A sealed juvenile record supported by a couple of arrests for demonstrations stood out, but nothing connected her to X-10. Still, the name sounded familiar. For the rest of the shift, it darted around in her mind like a bird without any place to light.
As she fell asleep, the name still hung in her thoughts. When she woke up, the avian flutter resumed. Back in the office, she pulled out recent case files.
In the one relating to Mike’s death, she found what she sought. Among the arrested from the eighteen-wheeler was one Ben Travers, presently held on a half-million bond in the county jail, charged with grand theft and evading arrest. Lorna contemplated the sad-eyed, desperate face in the booking photo. If ever someone needed a friend…
On the intake sheet, he listed ex-spouse Elsa Travers among his next of kin.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Lorna muttered to herself. What were the chances Ben didn’t know something about his former wife’s affiliation with X-10? Answer: between slim and none. He had to have answers.
The next afternoon, Lorna met with Ben Travers, accompanied by his court appointed lawyer, in one of the visiting areas at the jail—a group of open cages with a checkpoint at one end. Lorna sat in silence with Travers across a steel table, waiting for the attorney to finish signing in. Ben avoided eye contact, preferring to stare at a pair of small, brown hands folded in his lap, which he worked like they were washing each other. The intermittent buzz of a failing ballast in one of the overhead fluorescents bored into Lorna’s head. Presently, a young man in a seersucker suit, wearing the harried expression of the overworked, entered the search area, taking the empty chair on Ben’s side.
“You called the meeting,” the attorney began. Lorna was sure he was trying to show his client he could be tough for him.
“Mr. Larson. We think Mr. Travers may have information critical to another case we’re pursuing.”
“Is there a deal on the table?” he asked.
This guy watches too much Crime and Punishment. “If he has useful information, I can put in a word with the prosecutor.” Lorna worked hard not to laugh.
Attorney Larson appraised her for a moment. She could almost see the wheels turn. Her involvement with Ed White had graduated to common knowledge, meaning he was dealing with more than an ordinary police lieutenant. One word from her could start good things happening for his client, not to mention himself. After a minute, he nodded in the affirmative. “Okay, how can Mr. Travers help?”
Lorna turned her attention to the owner of the nervous hands and their process of mutual massage. “I need to learn about your ex-wife’s involvement with the X-10 organization. Is there anything you can tell me?”
Ben began to work his hands faster. “It’s not healthy to talk about them. They find out, and you’re a goner.”
“They have a presence in every prison in the region. Even among the guards,” the attorney added.
Lorna weighed the concern. Background checks on cops, even prison guards, were too stringent to allow anyone with X-10 affiliation to pass, but that didn’t preclude some from taking bribes to look the other way. “Tell you what. Talk off the record. If your information is useful, I won’t take an official statement until after I arrange for transfer to solitary for your prison term.”
“Okay,” Ben said doubtfully.
“Tell them what you told me,” Larson said.
“Well, it’s like this. Last month, right before you busted us, a bigwig comes to town from out West.”
“Do you mean like from Texas?”
“No, from out west. Way out west. California.”
“Did you catch his name?”
“I heard Elsa call him Jeremy or Jeremiah, something like that.”
Lorna took a breath and made a silent prayer before asking the next question. “Was his name Jeremiah Winston, by any chance?”
“Yes. Yes, that’s the name.”
Lorna rolled her eyes. At the last convention, the membership had elected Jeremiah Winston the North American leader of X-10.
“Did you learn anything regarding Mr. Winston’s plan?”
“They didn’t talk about any details around me, but I know it’s big. I caught bits and pieces.” He hesitated. “No one’s hearing this but you and me, right?”
“Right.”
Okay, they’re on to something they think can take care of the woofers once and for all.”
“What about the big meeting they’re planning for next week?”
Ben seemed surprised. “How’d you know about that?”
Lorna smiled. “I have many sources, Mr. Travers.”
The black man made a low whistle. “Elsa thought sure the secret was safe. The meeting’s where they make the final arrangements.”
“Is that everything? Think hard. Any detail, however small could help.”
Ben rolled his eyes in frustration. “I wish I knew, ‘cause the information would probably be my ticket out of here.” He stopped and a light went off in his head. “Oh yeah, one more thing. They keep talking about whatever they’re doing having something to do with gap.”
“Gap, the drug?”
“Yeah, but I got no clue how it fits together.”
With the meeting over, Lorna returned to her desk. A message from Ed waited on the phone. “I need to see you. We need to talk about some things. Call as soon as you can.” The speech of the encrypted line’s computer-generated voice seemed to wheeze. The time stamp on the call indicated it had come over two hours earlier. Quickly, she picked up the receiver and speed-dialed his privat
e number.
“Edward White’s office,” a young female voice answered.
Lorna frowned, picturing a bimbo du jour in a thong bikini—or less—screening his calls at poolside in some tropical paradise.
“Edward White, please.” Her voice quaked. She hoped her anxiety hadn’t come through the phone.
“Ma’am, this is the answering service. Mr. White is incommunicado for the next four hours. May I take a message?”
“Yes.” She cheered to the reality that the alluring voice was no more than a paid employee. “Tell him to call Lorna Winters. He has the number.”
“I will be sure to, ma’am. You have a nice day.”
“I will. I will,” she gushed. “Thank you very much.”
Putting the receiver down, she sighed, relieved at being no worse off than before. The speeding bullet of coming face to face with a new girlfriend might have been dodged, but there remained the very real prospect the next meeting with Ed could be the last.
After a cup of coffee, Lorna refocused on the case, calling up everything the search engines had on gap. A General Electronics scientist named Armendariz, working in the Mexico City laboratories, had invented the drug over thirty years ago.
Reading on, however, she learned inventing gap was a footnote to the good professor’s career. The life work of Lorenzo Armendariz centered on the Plague of 2026. His research into the nature of the virus resulted in isolation of the quality that made the agent so lethal to males. This led to the creation of new viruses—racially, even ethnically, selective. Gen-El called them “bombs”. Armendariz designed the Muslim Bomb for the Americans. The weapons killed eighty percent of everyone twenty-five percent or more Arabic, ending the wars in the Middle East within weeks. When Washington, D.C., burned to the ground during The Dissolution, his research went up in smoke.
Or did it?
Suppose the papers were discovered by X-10 in a lost archive…
But even if they had the formula, they wouldn’t have laboratories or resources to rebuild the virus. It’d take a company like CI.