by Bob Finley
"Line seven." She pointed at the place on the form that required a signature.
"Hi, Beth. What's this?" Carla picked up the package. It was addressed in hand-printed block letters to DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMING and had URGENT! OPEN AT ONCE! scrawled on its face.
"'Dunno, but somebody must sure be in a hurry to get it...it's a P. O."
"A what?"
"'Priority Overnight'...delivery's guaranteed no later than 9:00 a.m. the next morning."
"There's no return address," Carla noted.
"Yeah, I know...if you could, just sign...?" Beth pointed again at the signature line. Her no-nonsense nails unconsciously galloped on the counter top.
Carla hefted the package in the palm of her hand. Then she carefully laid it back on the counter and gently ran two fingertips over the face of it, lightly tracing an outline.
"Um," she said, "feels like a CD or a DVD." She looked at the courier. "And you don't know who sent it?"
The look on her face made Beth pause. "No, why?" she asked.
Carla said nothing, thinking.
"Hey, you don't think it's a..."
"Did you pick this up?" Carla asked.
Beth shook her head. "Huh-uh," she said. "It was in my pouch when I got it this morning. That's all."
They stared at each other.
"You gonna sign for it? I gotta go...I'm already late for my next stop."
Carla looked at the package and hesitated. "Yeah," she finally said and picked up the pen. "I'll take care of it." She meticulously wrote her name...she took pride in her penmanship...and slid the clipboard back.
The uniformed courier looked relieved, grabbed it, and headed at a fast walk for the steps.
"Next time, don't bring the rain with you," the receptionist called after the retreating figure. Beth raised the clipboard over her head, waved it without looking back, and pounded up the two flights of stairs.
Carla stood for a moment looking at the package lying before her. She was mentally checking off recognition signs for a letter bomb...no return address...plain wrapper...handwritten address...not addressed to a specific individual... Making up her mind, she finally reached for the telephone.
"Johnny, Carla. You got a minute?"
Johnny Weaver entered from a hallway behind Carla's desk. His uniform said he was Security and the silver metal plate pinned over his left shirt pocket said SGT. J. WEAVER.
Carla pointed at the envelope. "This just came special courier, hurry, hurry. No return address."
He leaned closer and read the addressee, but he didn't touch it. "You handle it?"
"Yes, before I noticed there was no return address. What do you think? Did I interrupt your coffee break for nothing?" She smiled and nudged him good-naturedly in the ribs. He grinned.
"You know the rules," he said.
"That's why I called you."
He picked up the telephone and punched an internal number.
"Bailey, bring a box to the rear security desk. I don't know. Bring Jonas and Kenny with you. That's right...by the numbers." He hung up. He turned to Carla and handed her a massive key ring, holding one key between his two fingers. "Lock the plaza doors and wait down at the end of the hall." She looked at him with wide eyes. "Don't worry. It's probably nothing. You did the right thing. Now, go on."
As Carla was locking the doors to the building, three more security guards arrived, carrying a two-foot square metal box. Weaver assigned "Skinny Kenny" to block internal access to the lobby. From the way the other two set the box down on the floor, it was obviously heavy. One of them unbolted the lid and laid it back. Weaver took a small pair of hemostats from his front jacket pocket, clamped the package along one edge to both prevent smudging latent fingerprints as well as assuring a firm grip, and gently deposited it inside the box. They secured the lid and the two men picked it up and gingerly disappeared down the hallway in the direction from which they'd come. Weaver waved Kenny off and motioned to Carla that it was safe to return to the lobby. He took the keys from her, unlocked the door, and made shallow excuses to the three people who were peering in and rattling the door. He winked at her and followed the box. Fifteen minutes later he called her.
"DVD," he said unceremoniously. "No bomb. This time," he added.
"Don't say that," Carla Rossata shivered. "I'm sorry for bothering you."
"If you hadn't, you wouldn't have been doin' your job," the balding veteran reassured her. "Don't take any chances."
"What did you do with the tape?" she asked, back to business.
"I had Jonas hand-deliver it upstairs. Told him there weren't any naked women on it, so he wouldn't try to peek at it." He chuckled.
"Thanks, Johnny. You can get back to your coffee break."
He laughed again and hung up the phone.
As Assignment Editor, Jeffrey Valance didn't have to be at his desk until eight. But he was there every morning, including some weekends, at seven-ten. He liked staying a step ahead. Which was the main reason he'd beaten out four other very envious and equally qualified candidates for his current position. That, and his compulsive curiosity were the reasons he didn't relegate the DVD to his "deferrable" pile. The security guard's curt explanation of why the envelope had already been opened when it reached his desk intrigued him. A bomb? Letter bombs weren't all that common, but, still, they did happen. He decided that this was at least one company policy that made sense. He finished opening the rest of his mail, presorted by the mailroom at his request into stacks of "Probably Important", "Who Knows?", and "Junk". By the time he got to the "Junk" pile, his attention had already wandered to the DVD three times. Finally he pushed aside the offending pile, scooped up the DVD, and stopped by the coffee pot on his way to one of the small conference rooms where a tour group wouldn’t be peering over his shoulder. Keith Presnell, a Headline News assistant producer, was dumping a second heaping teaspoon of Coffee-mate into his mug. Keith shared Valance's penchant for early arrival.
"Yo, bro', wha's happ'nin?" Valance said as Presnell moved over to make room for him. With both approaching thirty-something, they'd discovered over the year-and-a-half they'd worked in the Atlanta office that though they were geographically divergent they still shared a commonality. Presnell had grown up in the Gainesville, Florida area and graduated from the University of Florida. Valance came from the mountainous north Georgia town of Dahlonega, home of the southern end of the Appalachian Trail, but had been through N. C. State. Swapping lies about hiking trips had led to cut-throat racquetball every Thursday night and a loose and easy friendship. Presnell called his white friend a "redneck cracker" and Valance referred to his black friend as his "bruhtha of cullah". Had anybody else been foolish enough to make racial slurs against either of them in the other's presence, he'd have been picking shrapnel out of his ego for a week.
"Not much. You?"
"Nah. Politics, pestilence, and perverts...not necessarily in that order. Got anything for me?"
"We're covering the vice-president’s non-campaign campaign speech next door at two," Valance said, referring to the neighboring Georgia World Congress Center across the street. "You going?"
"You kidding?"
"Yeah, me too. That's why I'm Assignments Editor...so I can send somebody else out on the dumdum jobs."
Presnell chuckled. "Hey, we've both had our share of those. By the way," he added as he opened the door, "try to keep a low profile today."
Valance took a sip of coffee and glanced at his friend. "Why's that?"
Presnell grinned evilly. "'Cause you're goin' to need all the energy you can muster when I get your butt on the court tonight."
"Yeah? You wish!" Valance absently picked up the DVD case and suddenly remembered. "Hey!" he called after Presnell's retreating back. The door popped open again.
"What?!" he stuck his head in and demanded in mock frustration.
Valance held the plastic case up and wiggled it.
"Wanta watch this with me?"
"What is it?"
"Don't know yet." He related the strange circumstances of its arrival.
"Naaaah, I got a full plate this morning. Think I'll pass."
Valance leered at him. "Might be another one of those home-made porn vids like Clooney got in the mail last week...?"
His friend grinned. "Only if she's black and built...I ain't into this cross-breedin' stuff." And with that he let go of the door and retreated.
Twenty minutes later, in Suite 4, Jeff Valance dialed his friend's extension.
"Presnell." There were telephones ringing in the background.
"You know that DVD I had?"
"Yeah."
"Suite 4. You're gonna love it!" He hung up the phone and grabbed the thin plastic case.
They looked at the recording three times together, the last time with no sound, concentrating on body language and facial expressions. In the light cast by the four-foot wall screen their faces were intent.
"What do you think?" Valance asked carefully.
Presnell gave a slight shake of his head and a small sigh. "I don't know. He does run a good tease."
"Think he's for real?"
"Do you?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"I can smell it. There's a story here.
"He doesn't give you much lead time."
"Give ‘you’?"
His friend cut his eyes his way and frowned. Finally he shrugged and grudgingly said, "Okay...‘us’."
"Attaboy! I'm going to need some help selling this to Dickson. Will you go up with me?"
Keith sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. "I guess so."
Valance bounced out of his seat and ejected the disc. "I'll call you," he called over his shoulder on his way out the door.
At ten past ten they sat nervously at one side of a battle-scarred conference table that abutted the desk of Coleman Dickson. The table was known throughout the Atlanta Bureau as The Beachhead. It was said that any news item that landed there came under immediate fire and only the strong survived. He was a twenty-two year veteran of televised news broadcasting, having ‘made his bones’ as a cameraman in the Desert Storm campaign back in the ‘nineties. It was his responsibility to represent the network in deciding whether any potential news story would turn out to be, in his own words, ‘trash or cash’, and his almost mystical ability to differentiate between the two was legendary. He worked a sixty hour week, detested small talk, and admired courage. The nameplate on his cluttered desk said it all. "Cole".
He ejected the disc from the DVD player built into his desk and tapped a switch that brought the room lights back up. He slid the disc down the table so that it came to rest between the two. One at a time his eyes bored into theirs and he said, "Who feels lucky?"
After a couple of seconds hesitation...more would have been suicidal...Jeff Valance reached out and delicately retrieved it.
"I guess that's me, sir."
Cole riveted Presnell. "What about you?"
Keith nodded toward his companion. "I'm with him."
Dickson leaned back in his chair and intertwined his fingers in his lap. He nodded and looked back at Valance.
"Talk to me."
Valance cleared his throat. "Well, sir...”
"Don't try it."
Valance was startled. "Sir?"
"The ‘sir’ crap won't buy you ten seconds. You came here to sell me something, didn't you?"
The two looked at each other. "Well, yes, sir, I guess..."
"Then do it. I'm listening. So far."
Valance regrouped, took a deep breath, and jumped in. He, and then the two of them together, talked non-stop for six minutes. Until Dickson raised one hand, palm toward them.
He nodded once and said, "I agree."
Valance's eyes widened comically. "You do?"
Cole smiled. He'd been there. "Do it. I'll make the calls to monitor and record whatever comes over the satellite, and have it downlinked real-time to Suite 4. Call and reserve it for yourselves for whatever time slot you need. Keith, you've got the VP covered at two?" Presnell was impressed that Cole knew anything about his schedule. "If you haven't already done it," he carefully kept a straight face, "hand it off. Jeff..."
"Sir?"
"...let me know if anything comes of it."
"Yes, sir. Thank you." He scrambled to stand.
"Don't thank me yet," Cole Dickson said. "It isn't news until it happens."
During the next six hours, having received identical DVDs, and after covert verification between the rivals, NBC and CBS in the United States decided to listen in to the promised two o'clock satellite broadcast, just in case. ABC declined. Of all the foreign services, only the BBC chose to bother, and they mostly due to their long and often bitter history on the African continent.
It was enough. Jambou would make history and enough media would be there to assure his infamy, if not his success.
Chapter 40
He hadn't slept well at all. He'd finally given up, dragged himself out of his fortified bedroom, and piddled at busy work to keep his mind occupied. The security tapes had been a diversion but certainly didn't constitute any real threat. That Matsumoto...why did he sneak aboard the ship? "My ship."
Banner said he couldn't have contacted anyone. Did Banner know for sure, or was he covering up for his own stupidity? Mustn't underestimate Mr. Matsumoto. A man like Justin wouldn't have an incompetent working for him in such a critical position when he could afford anybody he wanted. So, if he had tried to reach somebody on the outside and failed, would he have kept trying for three hours? Or would he have realized the futility and given up? But he stayed in the ship..."My ship"...for more than two hours after he must have known it was futile. Why? What other reason would he...‘they’, he remembered...have had for risking discovery by staying so long after having failed? ‘They’. Why had he doubled the risk by taking someone with him? Wojecki. A nuisance, but a gifted one. Probably a genius in his field. In his field. Electronics. Matsumoto, a recognized computer genius, together with an electronics genius for three hours aboard his ship. Why? If they weren't trying to call outside, what were they doing? The answer was obvious. Matsumoto had ‘it’ in his hands when they sneaked back to their quarters past the idiot guards.
He glanced at the clock. Nine-fifteen. He put down his second cup of coffee and went over to sit in his custom-built, high-tech captain's chair. He keyed a switch on the arm.
"Mr. Banner." There was silence for several seconds before Banner came on.
"Yes, sir." Jambou smiled. How that must hurt.
"Can you talk?"
"Yes."
"I want you to go ahead and bring Captain Justin up now instead of nine-thirty."
"Okay. I'll go get him."
"There's something else I want you to do, after you've brought him up."
"Yeah?"
"I want you to find whatever it was that Mr. Matsumoto had in his hand when he left the ship this morning and bring it to me."
Banner's contempt was barely restrained. "I've already taken care of that," he said curtly. "He was carrying a bundle of wet clothes. He showed them to me, in his room."
"Idiot," thought Jambou. "You saw the video, did you not, Mr. Banner? The same ones I saw?"
"Yeah. I saw it. What about it?"
"What were they wearing when they went to the ship, Mr. Banner?"
There was a moment of silence while Banner considered whether this was a trick question. Then he thought about it.
"Pants...tee-shirts...no shoes...why?"
"And what were they wearing when they left the ship, Mr. Banner?"
"The same thing," Banner spat, tired of the cat-and-mouse, "so?"
"Mr. Banner," Jambou said slowly in a voice both soft and contemptuous, "if they were wearing the same clothes when they left the ship as they had on when they went to the ship, where did the wet clothes Mr. Matsumoto was allegedly carrying come from?" He waited, but Banner was conspicuously quiet.
"Mr. Banner, y
ou have been lied to...again. And you have fallen for it...again. Now, I want you to find whatever it was that those two had with them when they left the ship. And I want it brought to me. And I don't want any more delays. Do I need to explain it to you in any simpler terms, or do you think you can handle it this time?"
There was a long moment before Banner's strangled reply came.
"I'll take care of it." "And them," he thought.
"Thank you, Mr. Banner," Jambou's words fairly dripped with acid. "Now, if you would, please bring up Captain Justin."
When Justin arrived, he took a seat in what he had come to think of as ‘The Fishbowl’. The full 360 degree panorama of the sea surrounded him. His own undersea home in Miami was a ‘fishbowl’ as well, but not to this degree of virtual reality that gave the illusion that there were no barriers of any kind between him and the sea...that he was, in fact, a part of it. HDTV resolution had its finest hour in this room. The realism was so great that he held his breath in anticipation that any second now the sea would come cascading into the room. It was as if he could walk to the edge of the room where the carpet stopped and fall headfirst into the blue vastness, and he experienced a dizziness that actually made him grip his seat. He had difficulty tearing his eyes away from the ‘un-walls’ to look at his captor when Jambou finally rotated his chair in his direction and smiled.
"Wonderful, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Nice toy," Justin said laconically.
Jambou nodded in acknowledgment. "You have some very nice toys yourself," he said, casually touching his fingertips together, with his index fingers pensively brushing his lips. "Your ship, for example. I've long admired it. You must take me on a tour of it."
"Must I?"
"Please. Is that better? And I'll do the same for you...a tour." He smiled. It didn't help. "You know," Jambou continued expansively, "you and I are alike in some ways." Smile. "Your submarine and my...facility...are both creatures of the sea. Of course, your ship takes you all over the world, whereas the world comes...will come...to me. You're the master of your vessel, as I am of mine. We both enjoy the kind of wealth that allows us a certain...aloofness...from the rest of the world, a power that few enjoy, and even fewer know how to use."