‘Breakfast.’ She explained and washed the carbon monoxide down with a glug of caffeine.
‘Most crucial meal of the day.’ Leroy replied smiling.
‘So, Mr LaPortiere, what brings you here? I’m sure it wasn’t to discuss my dietary habits, which...’ She drew on the cigarette once more. ‘...are even beginning to disgust me.’ She exhaled a plume of blue smoke, which passed Leroy’s cheek.
Leroy produced the videotape.
‘Got an image, it needs cleaning up, clarifying. I was hoping you could help.’
The expression on Barbara’s face changed to one of surprise. ‘I thought you had specialists to deal with that sort of thing?’
‘Yeah, we have but they’re kinda busy. I need this right now.’ Leroy tried to look apologetic while retaining a mood of authority.
Barbara took the tape. ‘Okay, as long as we get to transmit whatever you have on that tape.’
‘If you transmit this then you’ll lose your license.’ Leroy wagged the tape in the air
‘No, I just mean the face. I take it that this is John Doe or am I mistaken?’ Barbara continued walking to the open lift.
‘He’s a player. We can’t be sure if he’s the key player yet though.’
Barbara stepped back into the lift. ‘I’m waiting Detective, I’m waiting.’
Norman Frusco tapped the National Reserve pilot on the shoulder and asked him to swoop down to the house where Charles Fleisher was found. From the air the picture became whole and with the clarity came a sense of shock. Turtle Island, his Island was in danger of becoming grid-locked. The helicopter twisted and snaked along the river that amputated the Island from the mainland. The river that made Turtle Island into the anomaly that it was, surrounded by water and the water surrounded by land. The rain on the windscreen threatened to obscure his vision totally. The operation of the wipers had become almost pointless, merely smearing an opaque landscape. Frusco watched a detachment of troops scouring the land below, searching from house to house, moving on, crossing the next field. All the time he was hoping that Agent O’Neil and Leroy were having more luck than him.
The editing suite was a large air-conditioned room stacked with pieces of technology that baffled Leroy. Barbara Dace sat behind a large desk that housed three video players and two twenty one inch monitors. A man she introduced as Andy White sat next to her. He took the tape from Barbara and slotted it into the machine furthest from him. He opened a fresh tape and slotted it in the machine to his right.
‘What am I looking for?’ Andy rattled a biro between his teeth constantly. His hair was nearly shoulder length and he dressed in a grungy style, faded worn out tee-shirts and equally faded denim, with worn out trainers. Leroy knew it must cost a lot of money to look that bad, he guessed that the job of video editing paid well. The tape began to play; Leroy leaned forward and pointed to the man about to climb on the bed next to the young boy.
‘That’s the man. Can you enhance the image so we can get a clearer picture of him?’
Andy looked at the blurred out face and upper body on the screen. ‘This image has already been doctored. Someone has gone to great lengths to hide this man’s identity.’
The tape played on. The man started to masturbate in front of the boy, grabbing the child's hands and placing them on him.
Andy rewound the tape back to the point where the man climbed on to the bed then slowed the image down to one frame per second, stopping every now and then, hoping to get a better view of the man's face.
‘I’m sorry to have to ask, but to get the very best image of the man I think it would be best to view the whole film. Do you think you can do that?’ Leroy asked the technician.
‘Believe me, if I didn’t have to I wouldn’t, but if it helps to catch this guy...I take it it’s the net guy?’
Leroy shrugged. ‘To be honest; we really don’t know. Suddenly it seems like some sort of sick cancer had enveloped this whole Island. He may only be part of a much bigger problem.’
‘You know we're not miracle workers.’ Andy said scrolling the images a frame at a time. ‘There's a whole mythology surrounding the abilities of image enhancement. Movies and books generate the idea that all we have to do is take any blurred image run it through some non-existing software and ...hey what's that?’ Andy stopped mid-sentence and looked at the screen. The man was partially facing the screen with his back turned toward the camera. Although the image had been doctored it was clear that he was either wearing something or had some sort of disfigurement covering his back. Andy moved the mouse cursor and clicked on a tool bar at the top of the screen. The pointer icon changed to a lasso with a small box underneath. Andy placed the new icon over the area of the man’s back and clicked the mouse and dragged the lasso icon. A section of the man's back was highlighted.
‘What they've done is quite crude but still effective.’ Andy clicked on the toolbar again and ran his cursor down a list, stopping at 'filter noise' and clicked once more.
‘I'll be damned...It's a tattoo.’ Leroy said.
The area on the man's back became slightly clearer.
‘Can you improve on that, so we can see exactly what it is?’
‘Give me an hour.’ Andy turned to the detective.
As she worked at the jammed door Jo-Lynn began to notice the increased noise of air-traffic as the sound of helicopters and light planes echoed through the air duct in the wall above her. She ran the edge of the ring along the seized joint for what seemed to be the hundredth time and tried to prize free the ring that was set in to the door. A groove had been worn around the small handle, all she needed was something to wedge under the small gap and she would be able to pry the handle free.
‘My God, I can't believe this is real.’ Maria Codez sat back in her chair, her office colleagues were either glued to their own screen, logged on to the same site or gathered around any available monitor, watching the drama unfold. What made it so real to Maria was that Jo-Lynn was a senior member of the small law practice that she worked in. Coffee was placed by Maria's side by a tearful secretary. The atmosphere in the office was solemn and the usual hum of activity had been replaced with intense concentration as the employees of Sagem Carter willed Jo-Lynn free. Maria flicked back to the voting screen. A clock was ticking inexorably toward eight o'clock. Maria could not believe that nearly eighteen million people had actually voted to see her friend executed.
Georgina continued reading through the long list of e-mails, opening each communiqué and scanning it for relevant information. Some were innocuous, some had links to other web sites, others contained downloads of child pornography, pictures that Georgina had to look at, images that defied humanity. She made a note of various files on a note pad in front of her. Some names kept appearing, though names used in this secret underworld were undoubtedly pseudonyms.
Narla Fleisher rubbed her eyes, weary of reading from the screen. ‘I don't know how kids stay on these things for so long, it must drive their eyes crazy.’
Georgina scrolled down the page of the latest opened e-mail to the sender information and transfer coding. Something registered in Narla's brain. A subliminal message, a name she recognised as it flashed past her eyes.
‘Stop a minute could you?’ Narla grabbed Georgina's arm.
‘What is it?’
‘Go back up the page.’ Narla watched as the lines of text reversed from the bottom of the screen. The name appeared again.
‘Stop, stop.’ Narla pointed to a name sandwiched between lines of coded text.
‘There...John Kiers...I know that name.’ Narla bit her into her lip, trying to force her brain to remember. Georgina looked at her, hoping that this was the break she needed, everyone needed. Narla stood up, walking away from the computer, needing to put distance between herself and the flickering screen for a second. She gazed out of the bedroom window, racking her mind.
‘Kiers, Kiers, Kiers.’ Narla repeated the name, hoping that hearing it echo through her head woul
d jar a distant memory. An image flashed in her mind. A face. ‘Oh my God.’ She sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I've nearly got it. I can see his face.’ Narla leaned forward and put her hands to her face, covering her eyes and closing them in the same instant. The face was still there, floating in her mind’s eye. A picture of Charles smiling and shaking hands with John Kiers joined it.
‘That's it…’ Narla said. ‘He used to work with Charles a long time ago. God, yes. We had dinner with him once. I remember him now.’ Narla shuddered. ‘He was really...overpowering...You know?’ Narla lifted her head and stared at Georgina. ‘A real creep. We were eating and he was trying to touch me, you know, under the table. He had this 'butter wouldn't melt’ look on his slimy face. It seemed to be part of a game with him. I don't even think he was doing it because he fancied me. I just think he enjoyed making me feel uncomfortable.’ Narla stared into her distant memory, lost in thought. Georgina opened her mobile phone and began to dial, as soon as the last digit was entered an operator’s voice spoke.
‘I'm sorry but all lines are temporarily busy. We are experiencing severe demand on this network, please hang up and try again later.’ Static followed, cutting the line dead.
Georgina closed the phone. ‘Great. Can I use your phone?’
‘Of course.’ Narla pointed to a handset sitting next to the computer. Georgina picked up the phone but was greeted with the same white noise of static. She slammed it down.
‘Shit! The lines are down.’ She looked at her watch, it was nearing midday. ‘Okay, stay cool, O’Neil, stay cool.’ Georgina tried to calm herself down. She was faced with a decision, to stay where she was and continue sifting through a backlog of computer files, hoping that the phone lines would clear, or get in her car and play a hunch. She picked up her files, phone and keys and started heading out the door. As she walked down the hall to the stairs she scribbled a phone number on a piece of paper.
‘I want you to keep ringing this number. If the lines come back on, ask to speak to Detective La Portiere.’ Georgina passed back the scrap of paper into Narla’s waiting hands. ‘Tell him to run a check on John Kiers.’ O’Neil’s voice quivered as she was running down the steps and out through the front door. ‘Oh, and whatever you do keep the Internet connection logged on.’
The traffic jam started two miles out of Narla's house and was solid both ways, going onto the mainland and crossing Independence Bridge to the island. Georgina begrudgingly brought the car to a halt. The rain hammered down from the sky, bouncing like bullets off the windscreen. There would not have been any point turning a siren on even if she had one. To her right there was no grass verge with a high bank and the cars to the left formed a formidable wall of steel leaving her no place to go drive other than remain static in the roadblock. For a moment she contemplated driving down the median in the centre of the carriageway, but she could see metal crash barriers erected forty yards ahead. Georgina picked up the mobile from the passenger’s seat and tried ringing Leroy once more. She was greeted with static fuzz this time and no message from the operator. She flicked the radio on and tuned to a local station.
‘ The word, Bob, is that it's chaos out there. Believe me if your thinking of travelling anywhere today forget it.’
‘Yeah Mike, our eye in the sky has just passed over the incident and Arlene in the chopper tells me that the traffic is queuing back a solid five miles in either direction. Wouldn't want to be in that, Mike.’
‘No, Bob. More after Celine Dion and the love theme from Titanic.’
Georgina frantically searched for another radio station. Being in the traffic jam was bad enough, but watching the time tick away until the Montoya family were slaughtered before the eyes of the world, left Georgina cold with fear.
‘WkFM, You're listening to WkFM and I'm Phil Slaver taking you through to drive time, not that anybody’s going anywhere today thanks to the jack-knifed articulated wagon and the thirteen car pileup that followed…’
It was as she was being informed by the radio that Georgina noticed the thick plumes of black smoke rising into the air, a mile or so north.
‘First reports mention up to 18 casualties, three of which are confirmed fatalities. Rescue attempts have been hampered by the heavier than usual traffic, the weather and the loss of telephone communications in the area, which I have been informed is a temporary fault which should be rectified in three to four hours. Full report in the news after Celine…’
Georgina clicked the off button, knowing that she was going nowhere fast. The rain continued a relentless assault against her windscreen. Her wipers smeared the latest collection of bugs across the constantly smudged screen. She turned her engine off and opened the door. Lifting the tailgate, she searched through her bags in the boot and found what she was looking for. She took the bundle of clothing and threw them into the passenger’s seat. Georgina sat in the driver’s seat once more and turned on the air-conditioning to full blast, slowly the windscreens started to mist. She turned the radio back on, Celine was in full effect as Georgina started to take off her jacket and unbutton her blouse. She pulled on the hooded sweat top quickly, not because she was worried about being seen stripping in the vehicle but because she was more concerned with the plummeting temperature as the air-conditioning did its thing. She pulled up the sweat pants and then unzipped her skirt, her shoes was lying discarded in the foot well, the only problem Georgina had was in tying the laces of her running shoes. The confines of the car made it nearly impossible without eating part of the steering wheel. Celine finished singing and after three minutes of adverts, the news bulletin arrived as promised. Georgina sat and listened to the worsening picture developing a mile or so up the road. The death toll had risen to five, the result of a truck and trailer spinning out of control and crushing a car and its occupants, before careering across the verge and coming to a rest, blocking both north and south bound lanes. Georgina wrote a hasty note and pinned it to the dashboard before abandoning her car and starting to run through the metal jigsaw of stationary vehicles. The rain pressed against her face, immediately soaking her jogging top, although it wasn’t cold, air vapour puffed out through her mouth and nose at regular intervals. The police precinct was at least five miles away; Georgina guessed that at her current pace it would take her at least 40 minutes. She injected a little speed, hitting seven-minute miles; hoping she could sustain the pace for the distance. Georgina ran along the narrow grass verge, occasionally weaving around overheated cars that had pull over to cool down. Sporadic wolf whistles followed her progress, something that managed to bring a smile to her face, those neglected muscles almost protested at being woken from their dormant stasis, bringing light relief to an otherwise dour situation. After twenty minutes she began to notice drivers standing outside their cars, even though it was still lashing with rain. The curious were craning their necks for a better view of the overturned truck and trailer. The windshield was sitting in the road some thirty yards from where the truck came to rest. The blackened cab, was now nothing more than a twisted carbon filled shell, with molten plastic and metal dripping through the open aperture. Georgina spotted a burned-out vehicle. She guessed it was the one from which the majority of the fatalities came. She mentally blamed another five deaths on the monster that was bringing chaos to Turtle Island. The emergency services were still tending to casualties, dousing the vehicles with foam. The Police were starting to erect a huge plastic blue screen to cordon the area from the prying eyes of the morbidly curious, who were gathering in silence by the scene, watching as though they were watching something reverential. Georgina held onto her warrant card and cut through the crowd, attracting the attention of an officer who was trying to get some of the traffic to reverse off the bridge.
‘Sorry ma’am, you can't come through here.’ The policeman held up his hand in an effort to stop her. Georgina flashed her FBI identification.
‘Officer, do you have communication with your HQ.’
‘Yeah, the radio link’
s still operational.’
‘Thank God. I need to get a message through to Captain Frusco.’
The policeman stepped back and smiled. ‘Well that shouldn't prove to be too difficult.’
He turned and called out. ‘Captain, there's an FBI agent here who wants to speak with you.’
Norman Frusco walked out from behind the blue screen.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The bell never stopped ringing. Every two seconds the slightly swollen door would jar against the frame; followed by the bell announcing yet another customer. During a quiet moment Gary Clarkson stopped for a brief coffee, whilst making it, he stopped and breathed the scent of money from his hands. Food, maps, alcohol, bumper stickers, everything flew from the shelves. The afternoon brought the first of his regulars in through the door in deeply paranoid panic mode. Clarkson was shrewd enough to put aside his regular orders, he didn’t mind ripping off the tourists but a living still had to be made when the fuss eventually died down. Regulars came in the store in bunches, whispering conspiratorially until the strangers had left the shop before talking openly about their fears.
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