by Luis Samways
He looked down at his watch again. Eight minutes to go.
Time moved slowly. He sipped his coffee and looked around the canteen. He was the only one there. Maybe no one else had the stomach to eat or drink anything, but he wasn’t just anyone. He did what he needed to do to look after himself. It was the only way to keep focused on the case at hand. But guilt was setting in. He shouldn’t have taken that hit of heroin an hour ago. He regretted it; the feeling of not being in control weighed heavy on him.
Maybe that’s what made him who he was. His demons were ever present, nibbling at his subconscious. Maybe that’s what fuelled Frank McKenzie. He realised the drugs would consume him and destroy him, but he needed the edge normal detective’s didn’t have. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire; He needed as much heat as possible going into this thing. Then it hit him.
Fourteen
When Frank made the short walk from the canteen to the incident room, he was too late to talk to the DA. The news was on and a live feed of Connor Chase played on the TV. What Frank wanted to say to Eddie had to wait. Business had just picked up.
Connor stood in the same room as before but only two guards stood with him this time. The small army was gone. Frank could only dare think why. Static sounded from the microphone and Connor Chase cleared his throat.
‘I am here to answer why I’m doing this. I imagine that's what's everyone wants to know. As you can tell, I’m not shy about showing my face. My fellow comrades in this revolution are. They wear their masks because I’m the one everybody is interested in. Don’t get me wrong, these men are important. Without them, I could not do this. Five years of planning are behind us and the movement is finally underway. Forty five heavily armed men are with me and they shall remain armed until the last minute. They are willing to lay their lives on the line. Our cause is a noble one. With every revolution, there is a face. I am that face. That’s why mine is not covered. The ski masks are symbols of what we want to achieve. Every man on earth has the God given right to be anonymous. That right has been taken away by the US government, with its census collecting and information harvesting. I’m here today to let the US government know that this will stop. It will stop today! I have one hundred and ninety three hostages with me. They all work here. They were easy pickings when we took this building. How much are they worth to the US government? Does our government value its citizens? I’m not after money, and I'm sure that will come as a shock to you; but I am just as serious as someone driven by greed. I want change, I want a 28th amendment. It shall be a law in which every person has the right to their privacy and the right to defend it at any means necessary. Just like I have the right to protect my home from invasion by force, my privacy and that of my fellow Americans will be protected by international law. If you don’t have privacy, what have you got? If my demands are not met, then I shall kill all the hostages. I’m going all in; I expect nothing less from the government. Please don’t waste my time by trying to be heroes. It’s as simple as this: You have seven hours to make an amendment and to have it take effect. If you do not comply, it’s game over for the hostages.’ The TV screen goes blank for a second before cutting back to the news anchor. Frank looks at the TV. Connor Chase isn’t just some paranoid killer. The man is spearheading a home grown militia. The group itself poses a threat, but with the news coverage, this group could cause a tidal wave of support from right winged nationalists who eat up his propaganda.
‘This is bad.’ he says to himself.
Fifteen
Frank is in the temporary office of the DA at the central crime unit’s incident room. They call it an incident room, but it’s more like a castle. The building is an old fort-like structure that is saturated in history.
Eddie Smith has a scornful smile on his face and he chuckles lightly. ‘This asshole is fucking with my patience. He surely can’t believe Washington is going to write a 28th amendment?’ Frank nods but doesn’t answer. He knows a rhetorical question when he hears one. Eddie wants to blow off steam, so Frank lets him babble on. Frank’s not paying attention. He has too much on his mind.
‘Hey Frank?’ Eddie asks. ‘Are you listening to me?’ ‘Yeah boss. I’m just thinking that maybe we need to deal with this in another manner’
‘What do you suggest?’
‘Well sir, we are the ones giving Chase all this exposure. We, the authorities aren’t, but the media is. People can get drunk with power. If we cut the media out of this then Connor and his men lose their power.’
‘I don’t know, Frank. We’d piss him off. He has hostages remember, we can’t risk it.’
The DA is not seeing the big picture. How hard it is going to be to convince a politician of something they can’t see. It’s time to take the blinders off thinks Frank.
‘If we don’t turn the spotlight off of Chase, we run the risk of him inciting a following. A following that could get out of hand. That might mean we would be dealing with more than one far right group.’
‘We could also make him extremely angry. He could take that anger out on those people, Frank. Innocent people at that!’
‘I disagree. The man craves attention. Without it, we will have him neutered.’ Frank smiles. He wants to come across as convincing as possible. He knows that he’s right, but convincing everyone else may be a problem.
‘Or we will give him motive,’ the DA counters, immediately crushing Frank’s hopes.
Sixteen
Jason easily blends into a crowd. He knows that as sure as he knows the importance of this day. He sits on a bench on the southbound platform waiting for his train. His IPOD blazes thrash metal at the much higher decibel level than the recommended 10.
Two girls walk by and stop in front of him. They talk among themselves with their backs to him. He looks at the girls and smiles to himself. They are average looking collage girls, more beautiful than the usual passengers on this particular platform. He immediately feels a connection to them.
Jason turns off his IPOD and takes the ear phones out. He stands and strolls over to the girls. They are still laughing and joking with each other. He taps the brunette on the shoulder. Her blonde friend turns around and smiles. Jason soon has the welcoming eyes of the girl he tapped on the shoulder. Jason smiles as they look expectantly at him. They look Jason up and down and share a smile. At six feet tall, Jason towers over them. His jet black hair gives him a beach boy look. His lean physic shows through his tight vest and they can see his abundance of toned muscles, covered in tribal tattoos. To say he is good looking would be an understatement. He knows that, too, and has used it to his advantage many times.
‘I’m sorry to bother you two lovely ladies,’ he finally speaks, ‘it’s just... I’m wondering whether or not I’ve missed the 9.00 o’clock train.’ His soft tone is mellow. The southern accent he dons at will makes most women feel at ease. It’s no different this time either.
The blond girl blushes. ‘That’s what we wondered as well, but the information kiosk told us the train is two hours late. We have a bit of a wait on our hands.’ She stares deep into Jason’s brown eyes.
He sees her attraction to him. ‘That’s a relief; I thought I’d have to stay at the station another day or two. This train isn’t as regular as it should be’ he says.
Both girls smile. The brunette Jason tapped on the shoulder looks confused. ‘I thought there were trains every hour to Boston?’ He smiles at finally knowing what she sounds like. ‘It’s not that there aren’t regular trains,’ he says. ‘But I don’t like traveling at night. Too many weirdoes. I have an appointment tomorrow so I can’t miss this train.’ His voice is as smooth as leather.
The brunette nods and her friend nudges her. ‘We don’t like travelling at night for the same reasons. There are a lot of creeps out there and we seem to attract them all,’ The brunette smiles and Jason wonders if her near perfect white teeth could be visible from the other end of the platform. ‘My name’s Crystal,’ the pretty brunette says impulsively. ‘And th
is is my friend Jenifer,’ ‘The name’s Jason.’
The girls laugh shyly.
‘We both go to college at B-Mass,’ Crystal says as if she needs something to say.
‘Is that so? I’m going there for my meeting tomorrow. I got a job there as the computer technician a few weeks ago. The job briefing is tomorrow.’
‘Wow, you’re a professor?’ Jenifer asks.
Jason gives Jenifer a twinkling gleam.
‘I’m just going to fix the PC’s and reroute the network.’
‘Oh, I feel silly now,’ says Jenifer
Jason touches her shoulder. ‘Don’t’ worry, it’s alright.’
‘You must be pretty good at fixing things, then?’ asks Crystal
‘I’m particularly good at what I do, let’s just say that.’ Jason winks.
Crystal and Jenifer look at each other and then back at Jason. He doesn’t doubt for a minute that both of them are intensely attracted to him.
‘Wanna ride with us to Boston?’ Crystal asks, ‘We could do with the company. It’s a long ride.’ ‘Sure. My IPOD is running low on juice. I’m going to be pretty bored without it. The two of you will have to keep me entertained.’
Crystal and Jenifer both giggle. Jason escorts them back to the rickety seat he’s been sitting on for the past few hours and invites them to share it. Jason certainly is good at what he does.
Seventeen
The news room Sandra stood in was quiet for the first time in over 6 years. Usually loud and energetic with people reeling for the next big scoop, the past 24 hours had been absolute chaos. The massacre at Stella Avenue on the outskirts of Boston was big news for the community and especially big news for the station. Boston’s outskirts were well known for being Channel 72’s territory, a fact that annoyed the 20 something workforce who worked there. They were usually relegated to fluff about yard sales raising money for charity and missing dogs. No one in Boston watched, until today.
Now, they had the advantage over their competition with the breaking the news in the Rixton area. They’d reported on the massacre at Rixton, 25 minutes before the more prominent channels with alphabet jumbled names showed up. That meant the other channels had to keep up by using the live feed from channel 72 with a nice little courtesy image that said, “Channel 72 news feed.” The exposure was good for the struggling news channel; selling the ‘live feed’ was quite lucrative.
‘Today has been a monumental day for channel 72 news.’ Sandra stood in front of her colleagues to address the situation at hand. ‘Our hard work has provided the world with uninterrupted coverage of the shocking events at Rixton. We’ve succeeded at presenting a professional news cast with our small workforce. Today’s success has been possible because of you. Without all of you, we would have sunk long before today. That being said, I have some bad news.’ She had everyone’s rapt attention, the cameramen, the journalists, even Bob Sinclair’s, the station owner. ‘The FBI and local police have announced the censorship of the Rixton massacre. No news station, including ours, can run a story on this case. The statement from the authorities is that they believe if we ignore the story, the extremists who have taken M.I.T hostages will not have the spotlight they need to succeed in starting a revolution and public uprising. The censorship means we cannot broadcast Connor Chase’s live video link when he addresses the public about his crimes every hour for the next 12 hours.’
Bob Sinclair’s reaction mirrors the general response in the room. He shakes his head.
‘We cannot broadcast any of those hourly video streams,’ Sandra reiterates. ‘The authorities insist the lack of publicity will help flush him out. They have profiled him as killer who murders to make a statement. So taking the cameras and coverage away from him will take away his ability to make one,’ she finishes.
‘What if it forces him to make a bigger statement?’ Bob Sinclair mutters and shakes his head again. ‘Remember he did not have cameras on him when he murdered those 15 people at his house.’
Eighteen
The M.I.T building is turned inside out. The PC’s and paper files dealing with the business of the company is piled in the middle foyer of the building. The mass of computers and hard drives form an incoherent pyramid that almost reaches the ceiling. A man on a ladder with a hammer is searching for something. He finds it and swings the hammer at the fire sprinkler just above the mass of hardware piled underneath. The thud echoes off the walls and only one swing is needed to completely destroy the sprinkler.
The man’s satisfied gaze follows the plastic and metal debris from his handiwork to the floor.
He makes his way down the ladder and stands in front of the pyramid pileup, then grabs a large gas can from beside the pile. Pouring gas around the base of the pile of documents, he forms a crude circle with the gas and throws the empty can onto the heap. With a box of matches from his pocket, he lights a cigarette and takes a couple of drags. He smiles as he flicks the cigarette onto the heap of documents and walks toward the atrium, closing the heavy security door behind him.
‘The fire is lit sir,’ he says to the man waiting for him. ‘All of the documents and hardware are being destroyed,’ ‘Ah good,’ Conner Chase responds. ‘You sure the fire won’t reach us here?’ ‘The metal door will stop the fire from spreading here, and once it reaches the outside of the building, we’ll be long gone But if you ask me, it’s a bit risky to set fire to a building you plan to occupy for another 10 hours.’
‘That’s the whole point. We’ll block out any attempts at gaining entry to the building. The feds will have to come to the front passage of the building’
‘What about the fire exits?’
‘They are armed with sensors that will set off a kilo of C4. The blast will take out anything in a 400 yard radius. Five men are on the roof and each of them is armed with a stinger missile launcher.’ ‘What if they come in from one of the exits? Do we get blown up as well?’
‘We’re situated in the middle of the building, 7 stories up. There are no fire exits on this floor, only lift shafts and two stairwells. They’re barricaded off until our job is done here. Then with covering fire and support of the five sentry guards on the roof, an Apache will land and take us away to our destination.’
The man nodded in understanding.
‘Let’s get this show on the road then,’ Connor says.
Nineteen
Frank sits near the phone waiting. He knows Connor Chase will be majorly pissed that they’ve cut his line to the press. Frank isn’t sure anymore whether it’s a good idea or not. The one sure thing is that nobody else will witness Connor’s heinous crimes and copy them but there is still the danger that Chase will go nuts and kill all the hostages.
Conner did not demand to be the center of the news, however. And no matter how many hostages Chase holds, the State will not be agreeing to create a new amendment for such a violent lobbyist.
The DA’s personal office is quiet and Frank wonders if the only reason Eddie loaned him the office was because of the guilt he feels for firing Frank.
Frank’s rambling thoughts make him decide to turn on the TV. Were any of the news channels finding ways to get the big story out despite the cease and desist order the Boston PD had pressed on them?
He skimmed through the listings. They were all complying. Most of them were reporting on other world events. The prime minister of England’s car crash a few days ago was old news, but they had to make do with what they had. Frank lit up a cigarette and smoked it slowly. He was running low. His pack now had a mere 3 cigarettes in it, including the upside down one for good luck.
The door to the office abruptly opened and Chief Shaw walked in.
‘Alright laddie. No time for small talk. You need to come to the incident room.’
Frank sprang from his chair, trying to look alert.
‘Are you okay?’ Shaw eyes him closely.
‘Just feeling the long hours, Chief.’
Shaw laughs out loud. ‘You never cease to
amaze me, Frank. I’m nearly double your age, and I’ve yet to fall asleep with a cigarette in my mouth. You burned a damn hole into your jacket!’
Frank looks down at his jacket and shakes his head. One more casualty of the day.
Twenty
Crystal and Jenifer had been on the train for 3 minutes, waiting for it to start moving. On this line, it wasn’t uncommon for the drivers to get out of the cab and go for a break. No one really minded the 10 minute break because it gave them time to put luggage in compartments or to go to the toilet without fear of falling as the train gained speed.
Jason Bordello took advantage of the train being idle and stood and looked at them with smiling eyes.
‘I need to let the hose out. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’
The reference to “hose” made the two girls blush as Jason walked off down the aisle toward the toilet. They watched until he was out of sight.
‘Damn, I wish I would have gotten one of those cabins instead of this open seating,’ Jenifer says.
Crystal gives her a confused look. ‘Why on earth would you want a cabin? These seats are fine.’
‘Hello! A gorgeous guy and a cabin equal a much more entertaining train journey.’
Crystal looks shocked at her friend’s outlandish comment.
‘You can’t just sleep with a guy you just met. Plus you don’t know him from anywhere. He could be a creep for all you know.’
‘Who said anything about sleeping with him? He’s hot anyway. What’s wrong with having a little fun?’
‘There’s fun and there’s danger, I’d rather stay on the safe side than jump on every guy I see.’
‘You’re so lame, Crystal. That father of yours puts too many bows around your life. Live a little, maybe Jason would enjoy the both of us giving him something to smile about.’