When The Chips Are Down

by Aiden Vaughan

  “It sounds like you are doing a lot better. And I am glad to hear that you are making new friends! Listen, Justin, I do have one question for you about that day. I’m sorry to remind you of it again, but it is really important. Remember when you were describing what happened in the warehouse? You told us the man called Rubino said something that sounded like ‘swordfish nachos’, right?”

  “Yeah, he said something like that as he was starting to tie me up.”

  “Are you sure he didn’t actually say, ‘no es su dia afortunado’?”

  “Oh yeah, that’s what he said, Jason. What does that mean?”

  “It means ‘it’s not your lucky day’.”

  “Well that was true in one sense. It was very unlucky for a while. I was attacked and made to suffer. But then you and Daniel came and helped me out. I got to spend some time with your family, you took care of me when I really needed help, and you gave me a lot of good advice! Now I have learned how to be a little more outgoing and casual about things, and I wear those white high top chucks you gave me every day. They are like a good omen, and they remind me of you, Jason. They are cool looking and comfortable to wear. A girl at school actually complimented me for the way I looked! I am beginning to understand why you and Daniel always are wearing a pair. So maybe that day wasn’t so unlucky after all.”

  “Wow, Justin, I am really impressed with what you just said. Remember when you left my house to go back with your family, I told you that you were awesome? Now you see that I was right! Keep it up, little buddy. You are on the way to a very happy life now. Take care and stay in touch.”

  * * * * *

  The next morning Jason and Captain Garcia were waiting for Lieutenant Lehman when he arrived promptly at nine. After some initial small talk, the three went into an interrogation room and got down to business.

  “Jason,” Lieutenant Lehman began, “I have requested this interview because we would like to get more information about what happened at Camp Chinquapin last Friday morning. It’s not often that we have what seems to be a type of commando raid happen in our area, and it is especially unusual for us to find out that it was run by a couple of teenagers! Could you begin by explaining to me what your intent was in going to the camp, and how you accomplished what you did?”

  “I think that it should be pretty clear what my intentions were going to the camp,” Jason began. “It certainly has been all over the media here in the Bay Area, and I would imagine so in your area as well. We went in to locate and rescue two teenagers who we had learned were most likely being tortured and abused by the camp authorities. When we discovered that what we had heard was actually true, we did what was necessary to rescue those two boys, get them out of the camp, and airlifted to a hospital, where they are now nicely recovering from the brutal injuries that each of them suffered, thank you very much!”

  “Jason, I hope I have not offended you with my question,” Lieutenant Lehman replied, “but I do need to get some answers. I apologize for not asking about the two victims in this case. That was thoughtless of me. But there is a third person who is also in the hospital right now. His name is Walter Gaither, and when my deputies found him, he was lying unconscious on the ground in the causeway between the two camp fences. There was an arrow from a crossbow in his chest, and he had been severely beaten by someone. According to the hospital, he has severe bruising on his chest and face, a broken arm, and some severe lacerations on his groin and hips, most likely cause by someone kicking him. Apparently Mr. Gaither was the man in charge of the camp prison and someone gave him a taste of his own medicine. What can you tell me about that?”

  “I have no personal knowledge of what was done to Mr. Gaither. This is the first I have heard about it. As we were making our final escape from the camp and helping Tim and Cody onto the raft, we heard a motorcycle coming in the distance, so one of the men helping us went to head it off, while the rest of us hustled out of there to our rendezvous point with the med-evac helicopter.”

  “So there were other people helping you with your rescue?”

  “Yes, Daniel and I could not have done this alone. We are just two teenagers with a desire to help crime victims.”

  “Would you tell me the names of these other people who were helping you out?”

  “I would prefer not to at this point. Those men risked their lives to help Daniel and I rescue those kids who were being tortured. Are you thinking about arresting them or something?”

  “No, Jason, not at this time. I am a little concerned that one of your helpers, as you describe him, apparently took the law into his own hands when it came to Mr. Gaither.”

  “I don’t know about that, Lieutenant. If Mr. Gaither, the head of the prison and most likely the man responsible for ordering the beatings, whippings, stakeouts, and torture sessions that Cody and Timothy endured had not been stopped, our escape could have failed. We had made it 95% of the way when we heard the motorcycle coming. To me it is a case of self-defense. The man did what he had to do to stop Mr. Gaither from preventing our escape and retaking his two prisoners. I imagine that he was as appalled as Daniel and I were with the treatment that Cody and Timothy had received.

  “Cody had been so weakened by his imprisonment that he had to be literally carried out on a stretcher. Here was this big surfer kid brought to this camp against his will because a corrupt relative signed the paperwork, forced into a camp way of life he didn’t deserve, then beaten and tortured within an inch of his life when he protested his treatment. We found him staked out on the ground in that lower cave area, his body all bruised plus severe rope burns on his wrists and ankles, and only wearing a pair of shorts. That was all he was allowed to wear the whole time he was in that prison! So I can understand why the man might have wanted to remind Mr. Gaither about what it was like to be beaten within an inch of your life. Personally, I hope that Mr. Gaither rots in jail for the rest of his life for what he did to Cody and Tim, and perhaps to other kids in that camp!”

  Captain Garcia decided to interrupt at this point. “Marvin, I told you on the telephone what an extraordinary and passionate young man Jason is. I must say, off the record, that I would have done exactly the same thing if I had run into Gaither after seeing what he did to those kids!”

  “As would I, I hate to say it, although we are supposed to be dispassionate in enforcing the law and not countenance violence even when we are arresting the most reprehensible and vile criminals! So yes, Jason, we all admire what you did! It’s just that we get very concerned when it seems that citizens are taking the law into their own hands! And this entire operation just seems to be too professional to be run by a kid!”

  “Again I would caution you to not be so judgmental about what Jason is capable of,” Captain Garcia said. “Are you aware that Jason started and continues to run a multi-million dollar foundation devoted to helping teenaged crime victims?”

  “No I wasn’t, quite frankly. Maybe you could tell me a little about your foundation, Jason. I assume that somehow your foundation’s resources had something to do with the rescue operation.”

  Jason took some time to explain the purpose of the Whatever Foundation and how he had decided to make available its entire resources when he heard what was being done to Cody and Timothy. “So many times, we hear of horrible crimes being committed against teenagers but no one has the resources to do much about it. But I do! And I am committed to using these resources when there is a need for them. Clearly that was the case here. And since we are being judgmental about what agencies do, let me ask you if anyone in your sheriff’s department had ever bothered to take a look at what was going on at Camp Chinquapin? Or was there any other county agency that had an interest in whether or not the camp was actually providing some sort of education to these teenagers, beyond their stated mission of getting their inmates to blindly follow their disciplinary rules?”

  “I am afraid that these so-called boot camps are often allowed to run with impunity,” Lieutenant Lehman stated wit
h a sigh, “especially when they are careful to get the parents or guardians of these kids to sign over complete custody while their kids are in the camp. Unless we get a specific complaint from a parent, or a crime report from the camp itself, we really do not have much authority to regulate what goes on there. If there is abuse at these camps, it is seldom if ever reported!”

  “So that was what I was up against, Lieutenant,” Jason replied. “The Camp Chinquapin authorities were used to doing whatever they pleased when it came to getting the kids in their charge to conform. I was pretty sure that there was abuse going on, because of the risks that Tim and other kids took to get me that message. But let’s face it, Lieutenant, without any concrete proof, there was no way that the sheriff’s department could be involved.”

  Jason went on to explain how the operation was carefully planned out, but that only he and Daniel actually entered the camp property until they had located the prison and discovered Tim and Cody. “Once they were discovered and we had confirmation that the rumors about them being tortured were true, the operation went into high gear and we hit them with everything we could, a one-two-three-four punch of rescue, escape, bringing in the media and the authorities. We caught them red handed and saved two young teens from a horrible fate! I have no regrets about the operation. If I broke some law in doing it, I am sorry, but I would do it over again if I had to!”

  Lieutenant Lehman sat back in his chair, thought about what he had heard, and then looked at Captain Garcia and Jason. “I guess that I need to take back what I had said earlier. A high school kid is capable of planning this operation. It’s clear to me that you had some very professional help, but I sure cannot say that you personally did anything that we would want to charge you with. What you did was save two lives, and probably in the process a few more. As for the only people that were hurt in any way, the two guards who were left tied up in the jail cells and the camp director who was wounded and beaten up, I think that most everyone would say that they got what they deserved, certainly 99 out of 100 jurors who might serve on a jury in Mariposa County would.

  “Jason, you are a remarkable young man! What you did is still unbelievable to me, except for the fact that you did it! I will report what you have told me to the Mariposa County sheriff and district attorney. I’m sure they will have the same conclusion that I just gave you. Thank you for your cooperation and for being so open in talking with me.”

  “You are welcome, Lieutenant. I appreciate you being up front with me and you not prying into some areas where I couldn’t be so cooperative with you.”

  “Oh, one other thing, Jason,” Lieutenant Lehman said, finishing his conversation. “If you ever suspect any wrongdoing in Mariposa County in the future, proven or unproven, please call us! Trust me, we will definitely listen to you!”

  * * * * *

  After Lieutenant Lehman left, Jason and Captain Garcia talked about the DCC case. “Ever since I opened that report,” Jason told the Captain, “I have been trying to figure out who exactly inside the company was responsible. Every time I go over it, it seems to me that people at the top of the corporate structure have to be the ones involved. So I listened again to the interview tapes from when Daniel and I visited last Monday.”

  “Did you find anything significant?” Garcia asked.

  “Yes, I think there were two compelling things that were said,” Jason went on. “They were just off the cuff remarks but I think very telling. The first remark was made by their head of security, Urbano Santos. He used the phrase no es su dia afortunado to describe what it would be like for an intruder at DCC under their new security system. The exact same phrase was used by the man called Rubino when he was tying up Justin in the warehouse. I ran it by Justin to be sure and he agreed that that was the phrase the man said. I believe that Urbano and Rubino are the same person! And of course it makes sense that he would be involved.”

  “Who else do you suspect?”

  “I have to believe that Dr. Ramanathan, the man in charge of their research and development department, would have to know. Paul Schwartz’s report states that it would be unbelievable for the company to not be aware of such a major flaw in their chip’s design. Whether or not Dr. Ramanathan had anything to do with the criminal activities is questionable, but who knows these days!”

  “That makes a lot of sense,” Captain Garcia agreed. “I believe that he would have knowledge of who in the top management of the company was informed when the flaw was discovered. My hunch is that it wasn’t discovered until after the chips had been cleared for manufacture.”

  “I have one more suspect, Captain, based on something he said during his interview. The scary thing is that this man is the CEO of the company, Chang Chao Ling! When I asked him about how the crimes committed against the company were impacting the distribution of the new Ultimo line of chips, he stated that ‘our attempts to do so have been thwarted on several occasions.’ The key word is several.”

  “You are absolutely right, Jason. Whether or not that shows his complicity in the crimes, it certainly shows that he was aware of the third so-called hijacking, because only two of the hijackings have been formally reported to us.”

  “Now that we know the crimes are an inside job,” Jason went on, “they need to be looked at from a different angle. Who stands to benefit financially from them, and why was each crime method chosen?”

  “Yes, Jason, I see what you are saying. Follow the money!”

  “The first crime was a direct attack on the actual plant. The employees were tied up and a huge shipment of chips was driven away right from the plant. Who benefits or loses?”

  “The only benefit might be that the reputation of the new line of chips is enhanced,” Captain Garcia replied. “Someone has stolen the entire shipment of them before they are even out on the market! The big losers would have to be the insurance companies that insured the plant and the employees.”

  “The second crime was a hijacking on the road,” Jason continued. “The truck driver was overpowered, tied up, and eventually left on the side of the road somewhere. Same question: who benefits or loses?”

  “On the plus side, the chips are again being seen as a valuable commodity. How would you know they are flawed if you can’t actually use them! The insurance companies lose again, but it is a different set of insurance companies. That seems calculated to me, Jason. If they hit the same company too often, their policies would just be cancelled. This way the loss is spread around.”

  “So the company benefits from an insurance settlement a second time. Now we come to the last crime, but it isn’t even reported. Why?” Jason asked.

  “Another good question. Clearly they didn’t want the police to be involved in this one. If it’s not reported as a crime, we can’t pursue it!” Garcia exclaimed. “But from what was described at the warehouse, it was a large amount of chips, because several trucks were involved. Where did the chips go and who benefits?”

  “I remember in the newspaper article that the word was put out to look for chips being sold at a bargain basement price,” Jason stated. “Did you ever hear of any such attempts after the hijackings?”

  “No, now that you mention it. There were no attempts to flood the market that we ever heard about. Now I realize part of the reason had to be that the chips were flawed. The stolen chips would only be valuable on the black market if people thought they were worth something!” Captain Garcia reasoned.

  “Maybe this time they are actually going to sell the chips,” Jason replied. “How else could they make any money on this hijacking?”

  “That is worth checking into,” Garcia said. “But for the most part our hands are tied. No crime has been reported, other than the first two, so no new investigation is warranted until either the hijacking is reported or evidence of some other wrongdoing comes to light.”

  “The only way to find out for sure is to force their hand! That’s why I want to go back there today. Now that you have heard the results of the report
, doesn’t that give you enough evidence to go in and investigate?”

  “Well yes and no, Jason. I can go in with a search warrant on a general basis but I doubt that I would find anything. Then the investigation would get bogged down in legal maneuvering. I hate to say it, but the situation is very similar to what was going on at Camp Chinquapin. We know that something very wrong is most likely going on, but to prove it, we need to catch the responsible parties actually committing a crime or obtain eye witness or documented testimony about the cover up of the flawed chip design.”

  “Will you back me up if I go in there and find something out?” Jason asked, putting everything on the line. “You know, come in and make arrests, or get me out of there if they try to detain me?”

  “You seem really determined to take chances, Jason! Why is this case so important?”

  “I promised my friends the Lius that I would investigate. Now I have found the smoking gun! If bad things continue to happen at DCC, Mr. Liu will no longer have a job, and his family will suffer as well.”

  “I don’t know, Jason. You know I don’t like putting civilians in danger, and it sounds like that is exactly what your plan involves.”

  “But what could they actually do to a teenager in broad daylight?” Jason continued to plead his case. “The company invited Daniel and myself to tour their facilities, and interview their employees and executives for an article in the school newspaper. It is only logical that we might have a few follow up questions. And that gets us in the door! As soon as I find anything, then I would want to call you in, Captain. If I don’t find anything out, I’ll just leave and be done with my investigation. What’s the saying, ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’?”

  “You are persuasive, Jason, but what about your parents? Are they going to give us permission to try this out?”

  “They already gave us permission to go and visit the company. Daniel’s mom even drove there and picked us up! Do you want to solve the case or not, Captain?” Jason challenged. “I think going in today is the best shot we have to do that.”