"Look for anything suspicious," I told him. "The commercials had to be doctored there. VanBuhler’s people have used the Media Center for months."
"You've got it. Tomorrow's Sunday. The place'll be deserted. I'll be there early."
72
Sunday, Oct. 24 9:58 a.m.
"They must have you guys humping. This is the second Sunday in a row you’ve been here.” The young dark-haired security guard pushed the logbook forward and handed Matt Carter a pen.
"They can't run the place without me, Scotty."
The mammoth A & B lobby stood empty and probably, Carter suspected, so did the rest of the building. He walked to the elevator and pushed the button for seven. He’d have plenty of time to search the Media Center. He wished he could be equally confident of what to search for. "Evidence," Darcy had said. But what the hell was that?
On seven he headed for the Media Center. He walked through the waiting room, down the narrow hall to the editing suite. Switching on the light, he stopped dead in his tracks. Just inside the door sat a large plastic mailroom cart on wheels, packed with flat cardboard envelopes. The kind used to ship DVDs.
Picking one from the cart, he saw a label addressed to a Minneapolis television station. He cut the tape with his thumbnail, extracted the disc and read the label: "AVC Ampere: sixty second commercial."
The copies had been made on Media Center equipment. Given the secrecy surrounding the Ampere, they would remain here until after the vehicle’s introduction tomorrow night.
Carter inspected the disc, wondering if it were infected with a subliminal message. With the election hairbreadth close, it made sense that the conspirators would make a final attempt at influencing voters.
Carter began pushing buttons on the control panel. He inserted the DVD and, as the commercial began, pulled one of the levers forward, slowing the action until the spot ran frame by frame. There was the Ampere in one city, followed by another. Singers appeared on screen, then the action returned to the car. Carter ran the entire commercial, finding nothing.
He reached for another DVD, this one addressed to the ABC-TV affiliate in St. Louis, and soon had it running frame by frame. Color bars, then Ampere driving city to city. Suddenly the words "VanBuhler: Leadership" appeared on screen, then vanished. Carter reversed the action and as the message reappeared, froze the frame. He stared at the words, his excitement growing. Then he ran the commercial forward, counting twenty more frames with the identical message before the spot ended.
He hurriedly viewed five more DVDs, finding the same twenty-one subliminal frames on two. If the ratio held true, forty percent of the commercials carried a message aimed at altering the outcome of the election.
With Bacalla and Roland in hiding, there had to be at least one other person involved. But how many were there? Carter remembered his father's addendum to Murphy's Law: "There's always one more son-of-a-bitch than you counted on."
Carefully, Carter repacked the discs. As he sealed the last, he heard the door to the Media Center open. He threw the envelope into the cart and switched off the equipment.
At the far corner of the room was a closet. He focused on the position and killed the lights. Placing a hand on the cart to avoid it, he took huge, quiet strides across the darkness and felt for the door handle. Mercifully, the door wasn't locked. He stepped inside and pulled it shut.
His back pressed against the metal shelves behind him, Carter heard the studio door open and footsteps on the carpet. He heard the click of the switch and saw a shaft of light appear beneath the closet door.
Someone moved about the studio. Carter heard the rustle of cardboard envelopes as the intruder shuffled the contents of the cart. He hoped the envelopes he’d opened would go unnoticed.
Footsteps approached the door. Carter pressed himself against the shelves and raised his hands chest high. If the door swung open, he wanted as much room as possible to fight...or run.
Instead of opening, the door remained closed and Carter heard the lock click.
He was trapped.
73
11:36 a.m.
Rosie D and I were at her kitchen table when the telephone intruded on our conversation.
Rosie walked to the white phone on her kitchen wall.
"You've reached Rosie D," she said. Her phone greeting was one of the colorful mannerisms I had noticed. No one could accuse Rosie of lacking personality.
She listened for a moment, then handed me the phone. "Matt Carter. On his cell phone; he's locked up somewhere."
"Matt, what's going on?"
Carter explained what had happened, right up to finding Rosie Dombroski's number through information. "Darcy,” he said, “you've got to get me out of here."
"Hang on. I'll call Garry."
***
Twenty minutes later the security guard, Garry Kaminski behind him, opened the closet door to a blinking Matt Carter.
"Thanks." Carter stood rubbing his eyes. "Well, I guess I've got the proof you need."
But the cart full of DVDs had disappeared. Kaminski's face showed his skepticism.
"I swear, Kaminski, there were two hundred DVDs in a cart right there. I ran five on the equipment and two contained subliminal messages."
"Yeah? What kind?"
"Just two words: Vanbuhler and leadership. Twenty-one times in each commercial, seconds apart."
"If the DVDs aren't here, where did they go?"
"Whoever locked me in the closet took them."
Kaminski turned to the young security guard. "Who's been here this morning?"
"Just Carter. I haven't seen another soul."
"Could anyone get in without you seeing?"
"There's a back door. I suppose someone could have come in through the mailroom, down the hall and up the freight elevator."
"Who has keys to the back door?"
"Not many people. The security staff. Don Rotunda, he's head of the mailroom. Maybe a few executives. Everyone else has to come and go through the glass doors in the front of the building."
"Which executives?"
"The list’s downstairs."
"Let's see it. And let's look around for that mail cart."
A search of the building proved futile. The list of executives with keys to the back door was longer than the guard had remembered: a dozen people had keys. The security guard was writing a note recommending the changing of the lock when Kaminski and Carter left the building shortly after three.
74
Sunday evening
Sean, Garry, Rosie D and I sat in Rosie’s living room, devouring two large pepperoni pizzas and chewing over our predicament. Much of the room’s illumination came through the window from the yellow lights of the tall buildings a few blocks away.
I had lost interest in the pizza and concentrated on convincing my ex-husband that, with a bit more time, we could find evidence proving our innocence.
"Garry, you can see how close we are. You've got to give us another twenty-four hours."
Garry played the hard-ass cop, sitting silent in one of the two large light blue easy chairs, an empty paper plate on his lap. His chin rested in his hands and he wore one of those stubborn looks I’d come to know all too well during our brief period of so-called wedded bliss.
"What do you think, Garry? That Matt Carter locked himself in that closet? That all of this is our imagination?"
"No, Darcy, I don't think you're imagining anything. I'm imagining my career is on the line. I could lose everything I've worked for. On the other hand, if I take you in, you'll have every chance to tell your story...to people who can do more than I can."
“One thing they can do more of, is throw us in jail."
"Darcy, I want to help, believe me. But I need assurance there's a chance of proving your story."
It was time to bring AVC’s top-secret project out of the garage. The Ampere debut hadn’t seemed important to our situation until now. But maybe, just maybe, it represented a chance to catch the people
behind our nightmare. I began describing A & B’s confidential plans, watching for Sean’s reaction. To my relief, he jumped in with details of his own.
When we concluded with the Ampere introduction tomorrow night and the airing of the new commercial, Garry sat staring at us, chin still resting on his hands. Rosie D saved the day.
"Garry, how can you sit there with your head up your rear when this whole thing is so obvious?"
Garry’s head shot up, his chin coming off his hands.
"Why, everybody in the country's going to be watching that game tomorrow night. Isn't it perfectly clear they're going to run one of those...those sub-whatever commercials."
I could have kissed her. Whether because of Rosie's prompting, or some underlying desire to believe in me, Garry began to nod his head.
"Is there any way to get a look at the exact copy of the commercial they'll be airing?"
A call to Matt Carter indicated there was. Maybe. If it were scheduled for telecast from the Media Center at half time, the commercial would most likely be logged in tomorrow morning. Carter was confident he could sneak Garry in to view it during lunch hour break.
75
I still can’t explain what happened later when Garry and Rosie D left Sean and me alone.
Maybe it was the frustration, the situation, the fact we had our backs to the wall. But, as we found ourselves alone in Rosie’s apartment, the atmosphere suddenly became tense, awkward and extremely uncomfortable.
It was difficult to figure why. We had spent five days together up north. Outside of kissing, nothing sexual had gone on between us. Absolutely nothing.
Yet, the minute the door closed, I felt like a ninth grader on my first date. Tongue-tied, halting in my speech, tripping over myself. I would have felt more comfortable addressing AVC's Board of Directors naked than to find myself here, alone with the man I found so captivating.
At first, I told myself my attraction to Sean Higgins was simply a product of our situation: two people thrown together, shut away from the rest of the world. But now, I wasn't so sure. My feelings seemed more and more like the real thing.
And now, as we were finding our relationship had depth, it had no time. My ex-husband had given us twenty-four hours to come up with proof of our true but highly improbable story. If we failed, we would spend the next twenty years or more in prison.
This could very well be our last night together.
I confess. I suggested we adjourn to Rosie D's bedroom, where we experienced a slow, deliberate love making that each of us found immensely satisfying.
When we finished, we talked, wrapped comfortably in each other's arms. We spoke of our pasts. We shared experiences and talked of hopes for the future, when and if this experience ended. Each of us listened intently as the other spoke, hungry to know more.
During a pause, Sean leaned over and kissed me. As the kiss lingered, I began to explore his mouth again with my tongue.
"Does this mean the conversation is coming to a close?"
"Just postponed."
Our limbs intertwined one more time, and I felt Sean’s body press tightly against mine. We were soon lost in an enjoyment of each other, better even than the first.
We both knew if tomorrow went wrong, this could well be the last time we made love.
76
Monday, Oct. 25 8:48 a.m.
The white-haired man nodded at the smiling flight attendant, stepped through the doorway of the plane, down the narrow tunnel, and into the bustling McNamara Terminal of Detroit's Metropolitan Airport.
Anyone who saw him leave Detroit little more than a week ago would have difficulty recognizing him. He had aged twenty years: his mustache gone, his straight black hair now snow white. His hairline had been shaved back three inches to the top of his head. Contact lenses turned his brown eyes brilliant blue, and he wore rimless spectacles. He stood two inches taller, thanks to lifts in his Italian loafers.
People passing the elderly, kind looking gentleman toting a small black bag would have guessed him a doctor. He attracted no more attention than he had leaving Washington's Dulles Airport earlier that morning. There, he had passed easily through security even though the weapon he carried rivaled any pistol in its ability to inflict death. Inside the black bag rested a vial of the poison ricin, a KGB favorite. Fused with an oleomargarine base, it formed a combination so deadly that an untraceable amount would provoke a massive heart attack, while leaving no clue in the body of the victim. It was the poison that had killed Darren Cato.
Outside the terminal, the man shivered in the cold rainy October day. He cursed the United States and its weather. Pulling his coat tight around him, he waved down a courtesy van to take him to his waiting rental car.
77
11:34 a.m
The blood red Dodge Intrepid stopped dead in the narrow cement driveway of a two-story brick home on Detroit's near east side. The white-haired man emerged from the car, the small black bag in one hand, a paper sack in the other.
Roland answered the knock, but not until the man spoke his name did he know who stood on his front porch.
"Damn, Bacalla, your own mother wouldn't recognize you."
The visitor maintained his deadpan expression as he walked past Roland into the sparsely furnished living room.
"I hope you came to get me the hell out of here," Roland said. "I'm tired of baby-sitting that damn Russian. I can barely understand a word the SOB says."
The white-haired man ignored the comment. The Russian had served them well, but had also served his purpose. He would be taken care of, today. Andre Kursov, a world-renowned authority on the science of subliminal persuasion, had used the method to cure drug addicts, and his work had been reported in virtually every international medical journal. When funds for research ran low in his native country, it took little to persuade him to continue his work in the United States. Here major television networks were his laboratories, American voters his guinea pigs.
"Are the Ampere dubs taken care of?" the white-haired man asked.
"Yeah, yeah. I took Kursov to the agency, and your friend there did the rest. Got him into the Media Center to fix the duplicate DVDs. Had some trouble, though. That young producer stumbled over the finished product inside the control room. But that's taken care of. No one's going to find them where they're at now. And they go to the stations Tuesday morning."
"Very good. Here, I brought this." The man handed Roland the brown bag. He opened it and extracted a fifth of Johnny Walker Red. His hands began to shake.
"Thanks, thanks," he repeated, eyes glued to the bottle. "Scotch, not whiskey, but it'll do." Roland laughed to himself. "Yeah, it'll do just fine."
He headed for the kitchen, breaking the seal and screwing off the cap as he walked. He found an empty glass on the counter and poured it full. He took a drink, then others in rapid succession.
The white-haired man watched for a moment, then walked across the small living room and into the bedroom. He closed the door carefully and locked it. He set the black bag on the bed and went to the closet. Reaching up and as far back as he could, he withdrew a nine-millimeter pistol. He reached again and his hand felt the silencer. He attached it to the pistol barrel.
No hurry. He'd wait until tonight to make his move: to kill Manny Rodriguez in his hospital room. Then it would all be done. Niles VanBuhler would be elected President of the United States, and they could return to Mexico knowing the border would soon be open to the drugs that poured billions of dollars into the three major Mexican drug cartels. He laughed to himself. Mendoza and Lobo. The Monster and the Wolf. Soon they would be back home. They had done their job well.
78
When the American President declared war on narcotics, doubling the country’s efforts to block drug trafficking along the U.S.-Mexican border, the Arellano Felix brothers who ran the Tijuana cartel declared war on President David Nordstrum. They sent for the man whose name was spoken in whispers.
Mendoza. The Monster.
The only son of an affluent Marxist lawyer, Ernesto Mendoza had been born in Colombia. His mother died when he was six. A rebellious youth, ignored by a father more dedicated to his causes than to his only son, he joined a gang at ten and killed a man by the time he reached the age of eleven.
Mendoza's father sent him to the Jesuit school in Bogota where his IQ tested at 182. A brilliant student, but an incessant problem, he skipped school and harassed his teachers constantly. He was accused, but never convicted, of killing an instructor who failed him. He left the school shortly afterward.
He traveled to Europe, living for a while in London. Proficient in half a dozen languages by his twenty-third birthday, he found his way to the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, notorious training ground for Third World terrorists and future KGB agents. By the time he reached thirty, he found himself in demand as a paid assassin on three continents. Soon afterward, he settled in Colombia, becoming personal assistant, bodyguard and confidant to Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellin cartel. There, he met Lobo.
Lobo had been a child of the streets, born out of wedlock to a mother who died giving him birth. He, too, had learned to kill early, and was employed as a bodyguard to Pablo Escobar. At twenty-five, Mendoza became his mentor. Mendoza saw himself in the younger man, the way Lobo killed without remorse, and schooled him in the arts of terrorism.
In 1993, Pablo Escobar sent Mendoza to assassinate the head of the Cali drug family. The day Mendoza left Medellin, Escobar himself was gunned down by Colombia's anti-drug forces. His death caused a shift of power, with the Cali drug cartel now dominating the South American narcotics trade. Lobo found work with them, but when word of Mendoza’s intent to assassinate the head of the Cali family leaked out, it forced the man they called “Monster” to flee to Europe.
During the early nineties, the Cali cartel depended on the Mexicans to smuggle cocaine across the U.S. border, then hand it over to their representatives in the United States. At first, they paid the Mexicans in cash, then in cash and cocaine. This opened an entirely new avenue to the Mexicans; they began to trade in cocaine independently.
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