“Hey, I’m sorry I had to intrude on your date, dude,” said Vinny. “It seemed important.”
“You did the right thing, Vinny. Sharon had to leave anyway.”
“And I was sure you would get lucky.”
“We had a nice dinner.”
“Sounds boring. So, what did you find out from Detective Rafferty?”
“I’ve decided it’s time we go see the governor.”
“You are kidding, right? You do remember that the last visit almost got you killed.”
“The governor has motive. He was sleeping with Jennifer slash Cherry Long. It looks like Charlie Sheen is not the only one who favors porn stars as bedmates.”
“That is amazeballs.”
“Perhaps, but now we go to see the governor. We should ask him about his relationship with Cherry Long.”
“This should be ripe.”
“You doubt my tact?”
“Doubt? No. You have absolutely no tact. It’s your tactic, I question.”
“Just tell me where to find the governor, please.”
Vinny went to work with her computer. “That won’t be hard. The governor will be in downtown Los Angeles tomorrow at noon giving a speech at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon.”
“Perfect. I’ll be home in fifteen minutes. I’m going to need my beauty sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a big day.”
Chapter Twenty: Operation All In
Raja woke to the smell of his favorite French roast coffee brewing in the kitchen area. He closed his eyes and touched his lips, recalling the kiss with Sharon from the night before, and almost drifted back to sleep.
When the image faded, he opened his eyes and saw the clear blue sky through the extensive skylight that ran the entire length of the twenty-foot arched ceiling. Space was the valued commodity. Despite covering over three thousand square feet, the expansive loft had almost no interior walls anywhere. Raja had a thing about that. He considered walls as unnecessary barriers between people. There was one switchable glass partition for bathroom privacy that could be turned nearly opaque. The bedrooms were nothing more than raised platforms without walls, and were accessed by spiral stairs.
Vinny came up the staircase holding a cup of coffee and singing, “You got to get up, you got to get up, you got up this morning,” all to the tune of reveille.
What usually annoyed Raja only made him smile.
When she got to the top she said, “Rise and shine. Time to get up, soldier.”
“Have you been playing Soulcaliber again?” asked Raja. Soulcaliber was a fighting video game featuring bad-ass female warriors, and it was one of Vinny’s favorites.
“Too easy. I hacked into a new game still under development in Korea that features special forces combat teams. Much more fun, warts and all.”
“Hooo-rah,” said Raja.
“True dat.”
Breakfast gave Vinny a chance to tease Raja about his date.
“So, you and Sharon,” she said.
“What’s wrong with that?” Raja had been expecting a tease.
“Nothing. She is nice.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean she’s nice.”
“Well, I think so.”
Vinny laughed. “You are just too easy.”
“Let’s go,” said Raja. “You drive.”
Vinny drove them to the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in downtown LA.
“So, what is the governor’s speech about?” asked Raja.
“He’s giving an award to the Chamber of Commerce, and a pep talk to key SoCal business leaders. It’s a celebration of the first two consecutive quarters of growth from the business sector in SoCal in the last five years.”
“Doesn’t sound like much to party about.”
“In the desert, an old wet rag tastes delicious. In this economic climate, the governor needs any good news he can muster.”
“Yes, I suppose it is a rare chance for him to make some political hay on the economy.”
Vinny pulled up to the hotel on South Figueroa Street. Outside, press photographers crowded the entrance, held back by private security men. The governor’s attendance made it a major event. There were already rumors floating of his possible run for president in the next election cycle. A valet took the car and handed Vinny a ticket.
Inside the building, temporary metal detectors hid behind tall potted plants on either side of the doorway to the hall. Raja and Vinny breezed through. Serious men in tight suits and military cuts watched the crowd from the wings. Once inside the hall at the luncheon, Raja looked for the governor. He had already given his speech and was circulating among VIP tables in that perpetual campaign mode politicians are in most of the time these days. Close to the front dais, Raja spotted the governor’s aide, Stanley Bryce, hovering and watching the governor’s every move. Vinny hung back, while Raja worked his way over to Bryce.
“Mr. Williams. I see you are still in town,” said Bryce. He couldn’t hide the disappointment in his voice. “I was glad to hear you walked away from your automobile accident unharmed. Mulholland Drive can be treacherous, especially at night.”
If there was any treachery, it was staring Raja in the face. Raja was still mad about his car. He wanted to smack the little weasel, but checked himself. Somehow keeping it together, Raja said, “There is a short story I’d like to share with you.”
“As you can see, we are busy.”
“Too busy for a tale of romance and intrigue?”
“What are you talking about?” asked Bryce.
“I’m talking about the governor and Cherry Long exchanging body fluids.”
“Who?”
“Cherry Long. You might know her as Jennifer Gowan.”
“Never heard of either one.”
“Nice try, but the email traffic tells a different story.”
“That’s ridiculous. Anyone can fake emails.” The vein in Bryce’s neck throbbed.
“I just thought you should know that the girl was murdered.”
“The governor will deny any connection, period. And, you better watch your step. You don’t know who you are messing with.” Bryce was losing it.
“A threat. Attaboy.” Raja smiled and waved to the governor who looked up from glad-handing patrons at another table. Then Raja walked away, leaving Bryce to fume alone.
Raja found Vinny by the dessert table, sampling the strawberry cheesecake. “I just dropped what I hope is alarming news on the governor’s aide,” he said. “Now we find out who has the most to lose. Let’s go.”
“I don’t like it when you play chicken, boss,” said Vinny.
“And I don’t like when you call me boss.”
“Calling you boss won’t get either of us killed.”
“You’ve made your point. Let’s move on.”
The two left the way they had come in. Neither noticed the attractive blond who snapped both their pictures while they waited for the valet to bring around their car.
Chapter Twenty-one: Red Riding Hood
As was her habit since being at her ranch outside Santa Barbara, Clarice took a morning ride on one of her stallions. Today she chose Mister Ed, a gorgeous purebred cream palomino much like the one from the original television series, and trotted onto the path in the woods that ran along the north edge of her property and up into the foothills beyond. Once out in the open, Clarice urged the beautiful horse into higher speed. With the hooded red riding cape flying behind her, the scene could have been from a fantasy story.
Clarice certainly needed some escape. The rhythm of a steady canter soothed her soul, and Clarice imagined that the wind in her face could blow away her troubles. After a refreshing ride, she slowed her gait on the return trip, and dismounted near the edge of the woods to check one of the horse’s hooves for a burr. A loud snap startled Clarice, and the palomino snorted and began side-stepping nervously.
“Easy, boy. Easy, now,” said Clarice, her own nerves jangling as she surveyed the terrain. Despite the feeli
ng she had of being watched, there was no one in sight. Once the horse settled down, Clarice swung up into the saddle and galloped out of the woods and back to the barn. She wished the ranch manager Joe was there, but he was still visiting his daughter in San Diego for another few days. Clarice put the horse into his stall, quickly dumped oats in his feed bucket and hurried down the stone path to the house.
“Nothing to worry about,” she said out loud, trying hard to convince herself. “You’re just a little stir crazy, that’s all.” The truth was, she was lonely without Randy. The thought of never seeing him again brought tears to her eyes. She sat by the front window staring out at nothing. Too absorbed in her grief, Clarice never saw the faint red glow from the end of a cigarette at the edge of the woods only twenty yards from the front of the house.
Chapter Twenty-two: Underdog
Raja loved the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team. He never missed a home game when he was in Clearwater. He had box seats right behind the home dugout. Despite a total payroll budget equal to that of one Yankee star, the Rays were making waves, even getting to the World Series one year. For Raja, it was all about the underdog, all about leveling the playing field for the decent people who played by the rules. Sometimes they needed a helping hand.
That’s why Raja liked baseball so much. The batter is a decided underdog each and every time he steps into the batter’s box. The odds are 2 to 1 against him getting a hit, but when he does, sweetness reigns.
“I’ve been thinking about the case, Vinny,” said Raja.
“No doubt.”
“We know these deaths are not random, despite appearances. We also know that whoever is behind them is leaving no stone unturned to cover his tracks. There must be a linchpin.”
“A what?”
“A linchpin. Something or someone to tie everything together. This whole time I’ve been thinking we have too many deaths. Too many dead bodies confusing the issue. What if that’s not the problem at all? What if it’s not enough deaths?”
“I don’t follow.”
“What if there’s another death we don’t yet have on our grid.”
“You already had me look for other deaths at the time Randall Hope died. We didn’t find any.”
“Yes, but perhaps we did not look early enough. I’m betting we need to go earlier.”
Vinny re-configured her search program to scan all the news site archives going another two months earlier. After eliminating the obviously unrelated deaths, she still had more than two hundred for Raja to review.
Raja studied the glass screen as Vinny flipped slowly through each one. There were plenty of violent deaths, but this guy liked subtle. Something grabbed Raja’s attention.
“Hold on,” said Raja. “Go back.”
Vinny reversed direction.
“There. The bombing.”
Vinny pulled up a major story on a suspected terrorist bombing of a Starbucks in LA over a month ago.
“Clever boy, hiding your work in plain sight. Who died in that explosion?” he asked Vinny.
“There were six people killed.” Vinny pulled up the list of names.
Raja studied it. The CEO from a solar tech company piqued his interest momentarily, but he might just have liked the Starbucks Breakfast Blend. Nothing else stood out.
“What about injured?” asked Raja.
Vinny worked her computer. “Says twelve people were injured, but nowhere do I see the names.”
“We need to find those names.”
Chapter Twenty-three: Meet the Press
When the tall brunette climbed out of the small Honda to stretch her legs and walked into the corner Seven Eleven store for a bathroom run, every pair of nearby male eyes noticed. Several minutes later she came out and climbed back into her car. The eyes were waiting, and followed her every step, but she was too tired to notice. She had already spent a week sitting on a very thin lead to a story that probably would never get aired.
As she watched the Starbucks cafe across the street, her thoughts drifted to how she had ended up there. She knew she was perfect for television reporting. Her attractive and intelligent face worked well in front of the camera in the studio. And, at five-eight, she was leggy enough to look good during the full-body, reporter-in-the-street shots, as well as being the perfect height to interview either gender. She just needed to be taken seriously. Her problem had always been her name. She had even considered changing it.
Sue Storm got a lot of ribbing about her name for multiple reasons. When she had started doing weather at Channel 9 in Cleveland everyone assumed she had made up the name for the job. However, after three years of pointing at a green-screen map and predicting rain or sun, she finally got a break. Once she had moved on to serious reporting, her name became a nonissue. When an opportunity opened up in the bigger Los Angeles market, she jumped, despite having to start at the bottom on the back lines in research. Ambition could be a bitch.
A month after she arrived at the Los Angeles station, the Fantastic Four movie hit the theaters nationwide. It popularized four comic book superheroes, one of whom happened to be named Sue Storm, and the jokes started again. At the station they called her the invisible woman, because the comic book Sue Storm had the superpower of invisibility. Ironically, the only invisibility the reporter Sue Storm managed was languishing in the research department while hoping to break into the good old boys club of serious news reporting. It wasn’t the superpower anyone might hope for.
When an anonymous call came in late one Friday afternoon claiming to have information on a solar company, all the other investigative reporters had blown it off, mostly due to an Angel’s game they were going to that day.
Sue took the call at her desk. The caller ID had been blocked.
“This is Sue Storm. I understand you have information we might want. Something about the solar energy industry?”
“I don’t know if you’ll want it or not, but I do know there is a major problem with some of the technical aspects of a new solar battery in development.”
“How is that news?” asked Sue. She sounded bored.
“It is news because the failure rate in the test results has been deliberately skewed.”
“Go ahead.” Mild interest now. Green energy was big business in California and a lot was riding on it economically for the state. Sue listened carefully, deciding the voice was male, probably around forty, and college educated.
Soon the voice started to speed up, spouting technical words and numbers.
“Hold on, hold on,” said Sue. “Let’s back this up a bit. What’s your name?” After an empty pause she said, “Hello?”
The call was over.
The tripe she had been assigned by her boss showed no promise, so Sue spent an afternoon doing research on solar batteries and the energy companies that used them. She went back over the data from the mysterious phone call. So far it seemed the voice on the phone, who she had dubbed Solarman, knew his stuff when it came to solar batteries. There were major players in both the wind and solar industries that used batteries to store energy. In solar, other than the panels to collect the sun’s energy, the storage batteries were the critical components. All the new electric cars needed effective storage batteries to be practical, as well.
Sue didn’t hear from Solarman for another two weeks. Then a call came in asking for her by name.
“You’ve got Sue Storm. How can I help you?”
“I have more data you should have,” said the voice on the phone.
Sue recognized it immediately as Solarman. Strong interest, now. “Yes, yes. I would like that very much.” She didn’t want to scare him off again, and decided to dial it back to a passive approach. “How would you like to proceed?” she asked.
“I want to make something clear. I cannot be linked to this under any circumstances. I will deny everything in the event you try to pull me into any open investigation.”
“Agreed. But, why is that? You are doing the right thing.”
&nb
sp; “This isn’t open for discussion.”
“Right. No names. How about I call you Solarman?” There was a soft chuckle on the other end. She was making a much needed connection.
“Solarman. That will do,” he said, sounding satisfied. “There are many companies involved in solar development and battery storage. I only have direct access to one.”
“What company?” Sue had trouble being passive.
“We’ll get to that in time. I want you to understand I’m not some disgruntled employee who feels overlooked or underpaid.”
“Of course not,” said Sue, trying to be agreeable.
“Don’t patronize me.”
Sue said nothing. The command factor in Solarman’s voice told her this was no low level employee.
“Most of the companies are vying for government money. There are many billions of dollars involved. A small shift in tested success rates or specs on a key component could be a deal maker—or breaker. Our battery has been scheduled for use with several top energy companies. But it never met the spec requirements. Not even close. Yet, somehow the reported test results have been on spec.”
“How do you know that?”
“The Department of Energy has to approve all proposals. When two other companies applied for interest-free grants, our battery specs were included, but at much higher, more favorable, levels. I only found out due to a DOE memo that came in requesting a hard copy of some test results. When I checked into it, all our data files had been skewed and the original results were long gone.”
“Someone in your research department?”
“That’s what I thought, at first. But, this didn’t originate inside the company. We were hacked. Someone else has been manipulating the results. And, I’m afraid we may not be the only company targeted.”
Over the next month Sue spoke to Solarman on five different occasions. She figured out the company he worked for, but not his name. All attempts to trace him had failed. He had been using public WiFi access from various locations for all calls and data transmission. Sue had proposed a story to the editor, but, with Solarman remaining anonymous, the editor insisted on outside confirmation before he would use it.
The Color of Greed (Raja Williams 1) Page 11