Prologue -- Incident
It was too easy. Getting higher energies was supposed to be hard. Doing this seemed like magic.
It had been a long time since he had seen an accelerator. Special Agent Tom Kitchen looked at the hulking, gleaming machine from steel-blue eyes. Standing on the raised tile floor inside the ring among the riot of computer towers, Tom gazed at the confusion of pipes, conduit and cables snaking around the inner circumference. This was a small synchrotron, but his apartment could sit inside of it.
As Dr. Ganz explained, his team was getting around the need for bigger accelerators by modifying this one to create more particles, not more energetic ones. Analogous to a shotgun, instead of high-powered rifle, they were reaching much higher energies than CERN, using a lot less power. And, he intimated, they had added something else.
He went on, telling Tom that because they were creating and accelerating muons, they didn’t have to worry about the radiation that electrons or other charged particles would emanate. Then he stopped.
“Do I know you?” he asked, peering at the special agent.
“A long time ago,” Tom answered.
The physicist shuddered and stepped back. Dr. Fedders, the head of the department, looked on, concerned.
Then Ganz relaxed, looking sad. He said something in Magyar, then continued in English, “I remember. It was sad. My daughter’s death was not your fault”
Tom looked like he was going to answer, but remained silent.
Shaken, Dr. Fedders led Tom out. They finished the tour, Tom silent, Fedders describing listlessly the various projects and departments as they passed.
"Well, that's it," Dr. Fedders said as they returned from the labs to his office, "That's the grand tour, as is were."
"Thank you, Dr. Fedders," Tom answered, conscious of the strain showing on the man’s face.
“What…?” Fedders began, then faltered.
“When I was young I started a doctoral program. Dr. Ganz…I, uh, didn’t finish.”
On their way out, Tom spotted the facility’s security manager, Dan Caruthers. Tom knew him; Caruthers had left the Air Force, opting to become a ‘godless’ contractor. Tom had to admit that maybe he had made the right decision. It certainly paid better.
Ten minutes after four, Caruthers was arguing with Sam White, chief of the contract guard force. It was all right at this time of day; the campus was practically empty by now.
“Now Sam, you know the budget won’t allow for any more men between midnight and six in the morning. You’ll just have to keep them on their toes, that’s all.”
“Yeah,” Sam answered grumpily, “What about when they keep the science building open until two a.m.?”
“Well, what about it, Sam? If there’s people in it…”
A glass-shattering roar thundered from the large angular building across the quad. The plate glass windows in the library, just behind them, burst, showering them with shards, cutting their clothes. Tiny glistening particles were left in their hair and bloody faces.
“Get away!” Caruthers shouted, “Get to administration! Call the rescue squad!”
Not waiting for a reply, he sprinted for the science building. Before he took three steps, another larger explosion knocked him down. Jumping up, he continued to run toward the structure, glancing back to see that White was running toward the administration building.
People were screaming, streaming out of the smoking building. It looked like it was hit by a tornado. His running strides skidded over shredded glass. Looking around, he noted that all the windows in the surrounding buildings were broken; the grass and concrete walks were glittering.
Nearing the building, he saw a few prone forms. Stopping at each one, he helped them up; but one who would not be going home that night.
Several buildings around the quad seemed to be smoking; black-gray wisps rising in the still afternoon air.
At the side door of the building, nearest to the lab, two grad students staggered out, coughing. Reaching to help the nearest one, Caruthers saw his radiation badge, glowing a dull red.
“Oh shit,” he murmured, helping him up. The other student, a coed, came over; her badge was yellow. “Get him to the nurse’s office now!” Caruthers ordered, “You’ve both been exposed. Tell them we have a rad hazard here.”
As they staggered away he peered into the smoky corridor, then cautiously took a few steps in. Satisfied that nobody was in the immediate area, he shut the door, locking it. Going around front, he stood by the door until more campus security could get there.
Tom answered the phone. It was twenty-five minutes past five; they were closing up. After he hung up, he called out to McNamara.
“Sean, get the keys. We have to go.”
“At this hour? I have a date tonight!”
“You’ve got the best excuse in the world. She’ll see it on the news tonight. It’ll be all over the internet.”
“Uh,” McNamara asked uncertainly, “should we be covering…?”
“Garfield D. Caruthers is a precise man. When he says there’s been an incident, he means that’s there’s been a nuclear accident. Get the keys.”
It was going on six when they arrived, where a police barricade held them up. The roadway in front of the science building was clogged with official vehicles. Blocking their way was a TV news van trying to get closer. The police were shouting at the driver, gesturing toward the facility parking lot. Thin wisps of black smoke were still curling from the building.
“Take this thing to the parking lot, then get over to administration. Don’t talk to the media. Especially not them,” Tom instructed, pointing at the news van.
He got out of the car and made his way past the police, clipping his badge to his front coat pocket. Caruthers was still at the entrance, talking with a fire official. His face was care-worn: the fireman apprehensive.
Tom was stopped by another policeman, just as he reached them.
“It’s all right, officer,” Caruthers said, “I sent for him.”
Tom surveyed the area. Without preamble he asked, “Have they cleaned up the scene yet?”
“No. Why?”
“Because there’s not enough glass on the ground to match all the empty windows.”
“I know. I saw it go. Some of the windows were sucked in. Just before the explosion.”
“What have they got in there that could cause an implosion that strong?”
“Not a thing. Nothing anybody here knows about.”
Just then a step-van arrived. The back doors flung open and three men dressed in anti-radiation suits jumped out. They handed two more to Tom and Caruthers .
Tom clambered into the suit helped by one of the emergency team. One of the men had a radiation counter. It read only normal background.
They entered behind two firemen with foam extinguishers, and an emergency technician with a sensor.
“What’s the source of the contamination?” Tom asked.
“Has to be isotopes stored in the lab vault. If that’s all, we don’t have much of a problem,” Caruthers answered.
Tom started to speak, but Caruthers continued, “The two grad students that got doses were working with some when the blast hit. I’m afraid they got it all over themselves. Fortunately is was low grade stuff.”
The fireman’s radiation sensor was ticking faster. Caruthers looked at it, then relaxed.
“We’re just outside the vault area, and that’s all that’s showing. It’s a good sign.”
The door to the synchrotron room was hanging on one hinge. Smoke was still hanging in the air, but slowly clearing. A fireman quickly doused a small fire just inside the room.
The laboratory, so recently filled with the huge blue metal torus, was a shambles. One third of the synchrotron’s circumference was missing, along with most of the flooring and equipment in the interior. Much of the raised tile floor was sliced away in a large arc, centered on the missing torus section. Half the computer racks were gone. The others were mangled, leaning in crazy directions, but mostly toward the empty area. The riot of pipe, conduit and cabling was hanging, swinging idly; the liquid nitrogen for the magnets had all leaked out, leaving marks where it had vented before evaporating.
Peering into the wreckage, slowly making some sense of it, Tom thought he saw a body, pointing. A fireman pointed his sensor at the equipment; there was some radiation, but nothing hazardous. Picking his way inside, Tom found his steps descending—not only the raised floor but also the concrete underneath was sliced out in a large, shallow bowl. There was some debris lying about, but the area was strangely clear for the epicenter of an explosion.
Getting closer, he recognized the form of Dr. Ganz, but only the head, shoulders and torso down to his waist. The rest of the body wasn’t there, sliced away and cauterized. Grimly he looked back at Caruthers, who was pointing: across the room near a computer rack, was a hand. It wasn’t the physicist’s—the pigmentation made that clear.
The firemen had shrunk from the body; Tom took the radiation reader, passing it over the lifeless form. Only where the torso had been cut did the sensor react, ticking furiously. Nowhere else. The same thing at the hand, where it had been sliced. Tom repeated the exercise on the cut off sides of the synchrotron, with the same result. Same with the sliced away concave dish of the concrete floor, with rebar exposed.
They backed from the room.
Other people were standing at the door. Caruthers ordered one to get a radiation placard.
Nodding at him, Tom went out. He managed to get out of the radiation suit before he threw up in the parking lot.
Going back to his office, Tom cleaned up in the men’s room, then consulted his contact list. Dialing the number, he was disappointed to get a message. Fidgeting while it droned, he spoke when the beep sounded.
“Gregory, this is Tom Kitchen. You may remember me from the Air Force. I’ve got something here you need to see.”
Chapter 1. -- Mysterious Sisters
I had a star in heaven;
One Pleiad was its name,
And when I was not heeding
It wandered from the same.
And though the skies are crowded,
And all the night a shine,
I do not care about it,
Since none of them are mine.
Glen French frowned at the computer screen. Pushing back from the computer, stretching, he swung his arms high over his head, bumping Kristi Daniel as she tried to weave past his work station. The petite blonde swerved, barely managing to avoid Bud Wright, who was also negotiating the narrow aisle, his elbow, as always, attached to a steaming cup of coffee.
“You mind? “ she objected absently.
“Sorry,” Glen muttered. Then, touching her arm, “Look, what do you make of this?”
Kristi glanced, then peered at the graph on Glen’s computer screen.
“What am I looking at?”
“Readings from the Space Telescope, of the Pleiades.”
“Okay, what am I supposed to see?”
“The light curve is down. Not any specific star, but overall.”
She looked at the two graphs; one from this latest download, and one from a month ago. “Do you have something else? I see the differences in the graphs, but what do we have in X-ray, or infrared?”
“Most all down. See?” he said, pointing, getting more fingerprints on the screen. “It’s almost as if …”
“Has Doctor Chen seen this?”
“He’s been busy. This is just a routine scan, you know, part of checking the instruments for NASA. I put in a report, but...” his voice trailed off.
“Is there a picture?”
“Just visible light.”
“Let’s see it.”
He called up the file. The picture was taken three days before.
“Do you have any comparison pictures?” Kristi asked. Glen put up a month-old photo set, then overlaid the second set.
“I can’t vouch for registration of the earlier scan.”
“That’s Okay. Can you mask out the bright stars?” A touch of a button and the brightest stars dimmed. Kristi frowned and shook her head.
“I can’t see anything. We’ll have to subject this to analysis.”
“I think I have and idea …” He typed in a coordinate. Where several small brown dwarf stars should have been, there were only background stars. “What the…?” He slewed the picture, looking above, below, and to the sides.
“There’s a patch of stars missing.”
“Do we have anything larger of that area?” she asked.
He checked the database; yes, there was, but it was the foreground of a deeper shot in that zone. It took the computer a few seconds to retrieve the picture. When the picture came up on the screen, Glen ran an enhancement program against it, and, as the results appeared on the monitor, he sat back gasping. “This one shows missing stars as well! How many…?”
“It looks like a poor shot. Look, two or three of the small stars are smudged.”
“Then why are the others nearby in focus? They are part of the local group.”
“If that was proper movement they’d have to be, uh…”
Parag, their Pakistani genius, had been looking over their shoulders. He began gesticulating excitedly, lapsing into Urdu. After a second he recovered. “They would be moving at least at a quarter of light speed.”
Dr. Chen, arriving at Glen’s cube, took in the news.
“Everyone! This can be very bad for our contract!” for a second he lapsed into Mandarin. “Sorry…we only have two contracts with NASA. Obviously there is something wrong with the software. We need to resolve this quickly! Not a word about this to anyone. Not until you have figured out what is wrong. Parag, drop everything and gather a team. Take the software apart. Glen, you found it, you and…Kristi, please to…please collect as many pictures and other data on this patch. Do a chronological and spectrum analysis. Please have something for me by… Monday morning. To everyone, not a word leaks out! I thank you all for your discretion!”
Monday came, but no answers. Software is made up of modules which are separately written, tested, and in many cases used for years. Most of the new code had to do with interpretation of the signals received by various detector instruments, which is where they expected to find the problem. It had been tested against known sources, and until this case, had been reliable. Its algorithms tested as superior to any previous product.
Glen French’s spectrum review was only deepening the mystery. As more archive records were added, they detected more and more anomalies. They brought in Doug Milton to string the data together. He developed animations which ran the data historically, going back for several months. These clearly showed brown dwarfs disappearing, one by one. In the animations the occasional smudges like those seen in the original picture resolved to the stars moving across the field. Kristi ran some comparison records of patches of sky at about the same distance in different directions. They were all normal. None showed anything like the Pleiades anomalies, either from conventional analysis or their new algorithms.
“Thus,” Parag reported, gesturing toward the charts and video on the twin screens at the end of the conference room, “we are convinced that this is some local, uh, natural phenomenon. One hypothesis is that a rogue black hole is passing through the cluster, either consuming these stars or ejecting them.”
Chen gazed glumly on the graphs, and the animation. His lips could be seen moving—when he did that he was agitated—he would be muttering to himself in Mandarin.
“I do not see any signatures for material falling into a black hole. It must be very small, or we would see evidence of microlensing. If the stars are being ejected, I would expect them to travel in random directions. These are all moving in the same direction. And then, uh, just disappearing.”
Parag grimaced. He knew that the old man would see those problems.
“There would be a whole gamut of evidence if a star was being swallowed by a black hole,” Chen went on, “Where is it? Where are the x-rays? Why is this not a problem with the sensors? Is that not a simpler explanation?”
“If it was our algorithm or other software failure, it would show up in the comparison data. It does not. If there was a sensor malfunction in the Space Telescope, then why do all the readings of different sensors across the spectrum agree?” Glen responded.
“You are giving me questions, when I needed answers,” the old man chided. “What are we to say to NASA?”
Kristi spoke. “I have been in touch with some friends,” [Chen shot her a stern look] “I did not say that there was a problem. I just asked if they were looking at the Pleiades. Nobody I contacted was.”
“But now someone will get curious,” Chen observed. “If this is something real, then we might be scooped on what could be a significant discovery. You should have spoken to me about it first.” He was getting angry.
“Nothing for that now,” Milton interjected, “If there is something—real, out there, it will be common knowledge soon enough.”
Chen was not to be mollified.
“If it is a race, then you must win it. As of now, everyone is on this,” he ordered, “and, no more communications with anyone without my approval!”
* * *
Ted Haack wasn’t acting right. Gloria could see it. Every time she would pass behind him, he would blank his screen. Finally she had to jostle him. “Well, what is it? You got dirty pictures on your screen? Or playing ‘Galaxy Domination’? Show me.”
Ted was distressed, but unblanked the screen. What Gloria saw were graphs. She studied them for a few seconds. “OK, I see…uh, the neutrino results from CERN, which I thought you were supposed to be looking at, and…what are these?”
Ted looked around, to make sure professor Pritchert wasn’t nearby. He pointed.
“This one is the experiment where they slowed light and stopped it. [she nodded] This one is a report I got from a friend, who’s working in that area, of muon persistence—some lasting too long, and some not long enough. They’ve seen that in accelerator experiments, and in some cosmic ray data.”
She looked at the graphs, and the underlying data.
“Not exactly six-sigma stuff.”
He shook his head, just perceptibly. “I know, but some of it is four-sigma. Brad, my buddy, said he’s getting more muon data all the time.”
She backed a step. “OK, so what does it mean?” in a ‘who cares’ voice.
“And there’s this,” he said, handing her an email. She read the paper, then gave it back.
“So-o they got a reading wrong. Bending of light disagreeing with general relativity? No, it says that subsequent measurements were normal.”
He fidgeted, gesturing at the paper.
“He said—that was Paul, a guy I met last year at CERN—they were looking at Pleiades—they took four measurements with strange results, after two normal, then later, the results were normal again! See, he said that they took the equipment apart, as far as they dared, then ran readings at other parts of the sky. They could find nothing wrong!”
Gloria put her dark brown hand on his shoulder. “Look Ted, I’m just a post-doc. You’re a PhD candidate. If Pritchert sees us wasting time, we’ll be washing test tubes for the Chemistry department.” She turned away, “I for one don’t want to break my nails on no test tubes!”
* * *
“Oh God,” Eddie whispered as he pulled his car up to the scene. Detective Sergeant Edward McEvoy was a 14-year veteran; he had seen worse pile-ups on the 405, but this was a bad one. It would have been better if it had happened at rush hour, when the cars would be tailpipe to bumper, going maybe 30 miles an hour. This was Sunday afternoon, just after churches let out. It was crowded, but they were able to do over 50. It looked like 30 cars or more were involved. Most were fender benders, but some were damaged pretty severely. There was a three-lane stretch with over a dozen cars, and two semis sitting on small, twisted, burning hulks that had been sedans.
Getting out of his car, Eddie climbed over the median divider, and walked up to a patrolman, showing his badge. “Need any help?”
The officer just pointed to the front of the mess, where Eddie could see a traffic lieutenant standing, talking to a fireman. He picked his way past smoking wrecks and debris until he reached them. He introduced himself and asked the question again. The lieutenant took him to the front of the line of wrecks, just a few yards away.
“See that car, toward the front?”
“Yeah.”
“Go look in front of it.”
He followed the lieutenant over to the wreck. The driver door was jammed tight. The other doors were jammed as well. The windows all around were badly cracked, but intact, except for the front passenger window, which was smashed, its glass laying on the body in the seat. Peering in through the driver window, he saw that the driver’s seatbelt was still connected. He could just see, under the accelerator, a large circular hole. Stepping to the front of the car, he saw how the car had nearly fallen into a hole, about six feet in diameter, and deep enough that a small opening in the overpass could be seen. Beyond it maybe 10-12 feet was the front of another car. He could see the license plate, and part of a tire.
“You notice anything funny?” the lieutenant asked. Yes he had, the hole was perfectly round, cut as neatly as a new scoop from a gallon of ice cream. There was no road debris anywhere. The car and pavement were just gone.
“Come see this,” the lieutenant led him back to the wrecked car, pointing. Eddie looked and saw part of a rear quarter panel and bumper, with the same license plate. “It doesn’t belong to any car in this pile-up.”
He looked at the lieutenant and shrugged. “OK, one for the books.”
“Because,” he answered, “did you see anything funny in the car?”
No he hadn’t. They went back to the driver’s side, and he peered in and down at the hole he had seen before. It was also apparently perfectly round. Then he saw that the driver’s foot was missing.
Eddie thought for a moment. “Under the car?” The lieutenant said maybe, but a quick check didn’t show any.
“All right,” Eddie said, “get me what you can out of the wreck. I’ll look into it.” Stepping around to the front of the car he jotted down the license number. Then he copied the number from the orphan bumper. He would run the two plates back at the station. That would at least allow him to reach next of kin, and maybe find out who dropped parts of a car onto the freeway.
DMV records showed the bumper came from a car that was registered to a Kester Freeman. Cross checking driver licenses by the Freeman address found that a Cassie Freeman lived there. After checking with his lieutenant, Eddie drove out to the Freeman home. The scene when he got there was chaotic. Cars were parked every which way, some almost blocking the street. People were outside, hugging and crying. He found a place to park and walked over to the house. It was a neat, middle class neighborhood, mostly African American. He could feel the black faces watching him as he stepped up on the front porch. He was used to glares and catcalls; today there was little enmity. Some suspicion, yes; there was always that.
Mr. Freeman was not at home. He had been turned away at the scene and had gone to one of the hospitals, where he was told his family might be. An aunt finally talked to Eddie, when he told her that he was trying to find out about the car. She told him that Cassie had gone to a friend’s church with her daughter, and her grandmother. They had not returned. They had gone across town to the church, which is why they were so far from home. The aunt was not aware of another person in the car.
Another woman came up. She was looking for her daughter. She said that she had gone with Cassie and her family to the church. He wrote that down, and circled it. He thanked them and left.
According to the aunt and friend, the car was not junk, it was being driven that day. There was no record of Cassie’s friend, a Latasha Moore, in DMV files. No record of ID issued, or revoked license either. He checked criminal records, and wants & warrants; nothing there either. Cassie’s record showed a minor moving violation, two years before. Nothing else. What he had then, was the front and back bumpers of a car, with no car and no occupants.
The next step was fairly straight forward. He interviewed friends, and people at the church where they worshiped that day. Everyone was mystified at the disappearance; he did not mention the unusual circumstances about the car. When Eddie was trying to interview a woman who knew her at church; another woman piped up that Cassie was taken, in the Rapture. The second time she offered the explanation, he had to respond.
“I thought the rapture was all the just, all at once.”
“Oh no,” she answered, “The Lord might take some especially deserving early!”
“Thank you, we’ll look into that.”
* * *
Stan Barbar was not pleased. He thought his junior correspondent, despite her photogenic assets and hard-as-nails attitude, was turning out as he feared: lightweight and maybe not all there. He stopped outside her office—it was a cubicle, really, with a glass front and door, to be sure, but smaller than the space allotted to the drudges on the floor. Her chair was wedged between a small one-pillar desk which rubbed against the glass, and a narrow credenza-cum bookcase behind her. All in garish yellow and dirty chrome steel, with a fluorescent light under the top cabinet that kept blinking, and driving her to distraction when she turned around to use the phone. Her laptop sat awkwardly in front of her. There was barely enough room between the door and the corner where the plastic trash can sat to accommodate the old stack chair Derek had stolen from somewhere, so he'd have a place to sit when they met to go over spots they were doing. Most of the time she would go to him. He had a desk in a spacious tech lab, where they could review and digitally splice her segments on the fly.
Her face wasn’t quite perfect. That gave her character. She had to struggle to keep her figure. She looked up; he remembered pressuring her into contacts—the glasses did nothing for her. Her eyes were pretty though; green. He stopped looking at her when their eyes met; instead he jerked his hand, fingers pointing in the direction of his office. Getting there first in long angry strides, he didn't look up from whatever was on his own desk until he heard her approaching, then saw the shapely legs in stylish patent leather heels, which supported a slim figure, above average height, with bouncy dark, shoulder length hair. Stopping for a second outside his office, she tugged at the short skirt of her gray business suit, then the sleeves of her jacket, making sure the cuffs of her pale blue blouse showed. He scowled at her when she walked up to his desk.
“Well, what have you got Nancy?”
“So far, nobody seems to have gotten anything on State Senator Talbot, except he's running for the U.S. Senate seat. He appears to be squeaky clean.”
Stan snorted. “So, Dickie, you're a boy scout. Nobody in politics is squeaky clean…”
“Which is why I’m still on him. If he is a white knight, that would be novel enough for maybe three or even five minutes.”
“Maybe. What else?”
“Regarding the riot. I’m thinking of following up the African American community angle with, uh, Henri Meurel.”
“Be careful with that guy.”
“I was planning on a sympathetic interview.”
Stan grunted sourly.
“Look, there's a big to-do next month. All the bigwigs'll be there, and Dickie Talbot. I want you to cover it. Wear your spiked heels and a party dress.”
"Boss, I…"
"What?!"
"No, nothing."
They were both quiet for a moment; he was reviewing emails.
“You got anything else?”
“No.”
“Then get outta my office and get a story!” He looked back at his screen.
Nancy thought glumly that getting something on senator Talbot was a job which promised to be long and barren. His background had been plumbed by the muckrakers, who essentially came up empty. If he had any skeletons, they were deeply hidden. Finding out about the people behind the recent riots looked easier, especially since Nancy had friends who tracked bad guys for a living. There were also those murders, allegedly done by Haitian thugs. Thumbing through the contact list on her smart phone, she found the number she wanted, and pressed send.
“Hello,” a voice answered, noncommittal.
“Hi!” she answered, all perkiness, “is David there?”
“And I should say is calling …?”
“Nancy, from Taekwondo.”
There was a delay, then muzak. Then, “David.”
“Hi David, this is Nancy.”
There was a pause. “Nancy, always a pleasure!” His voice didn’t sound sincere.
“I would like to see you.”
“A nice little out of the way place, with…soft music, maybe?”
“Maybe.”
“Ah,” he said, wistfully, “If you had only called nine months ago. Now I’m married, with a baby on the way, and have no reason to see you. But…” he was teasing, “What’s this about?”
“Well,” she tried to sound pouty, but didn’t want to push it too far, “I could perhaps use a pointer or two about my kicks.”
“As I remember, your kicks are just fine,” he said, “so are your throws. Say, did you ever test for instructor?”
“No, I’m still only a humble 4th dan black belt. Too busy these days to do more than maintain.”
David was dubious. He had seen her in action, and remembered the bruises, and limping home after trying to best her.
“Really, just on background. I just need to learn something about what the police think of the unrest this spring. On background,” she repeated.
He paused before answering, “In my official capacity, I assume.”
There was another pause. Longer.
“OK, but not now. I can meet you, officially, at superior court today, if you can make it. I’m tied up, waiting to testify. I’ll be there after one o’clock.”
She met him in the hallway outside the courtroom, sitting on a hard wooden bench in a drafty hallway. Her knees were cold.
Detective Sergeant David Wilson was barely an inch taller than Nancy, with sandy hair and shallow cleft on his chin, which you could see when he wasn’t wearing a beard, which was rarely. She surprised him with questions about Talbot, pumping him for names, places, leads. He wouldn’t, even on background, talk about the politician, but regarding the riots said that there were rumors that there were provocateurs behind some of the worst violence. If she could get some names, then he and the department would be grateful.
“Be careful,” he warned, “we think there’s some very bad guys involved. You can handle yourself one on one, but if our leads are correct, then they won’t fight fair.”
“I didn't know you cared."
“Maybe I don't. Still, be careful.”
She assured him that she would be careful. As she left down the hall, her heels clicking on the marble, he looked wistfully after the shapely retreating figure. Then he leaned back and tried to find a comfortable position on the hard bench, hoping that he would be called; that day would be nice!
Getting into her car, Nancy huffed. <Well, that was almost useless! At least I know there’s something to look for. I guess that’s a start.>
She reviewed her options, sourly deciding that she would have to make the rounds of ‘community leaders’ which meant a bunch interviews with faint chance a lead. Well, Stan had producers and other flunkies (including her, when it came to it) to do the grunt work. She had only her. She couldn’t bring Derek, he was with a crew working on another story. Besides his camera would make anyone he came near just clam up. <So, who to go see first?> Perhaps Henri Meurel. He represented the Creole community. Since most of the rioters this spring were Black, perhaps he could help, if he thought it to his advantage. <I'll leave the 'Haitian' killings alone, for now.>
Meurel was usually fairly easy to find, in his storefront office. She glanced at her phone for the time. Already getting late. Better to call and set up an appointment. Since he was trying to expand his base to the larger African American community, perhaps he would be amenable at the promise of a sympathetic interview.
Meurel agreed to meet her. He was flattered by the attention of a nationally known TV reporter. He was even more pleased that she listened to his litany of complaints with interest and sympathy. He was less pleased when she told him that she did not have authorization to do a story about his community “just yet” and was only gathering background information.
Getting an interview with Senator Talbot should be fairly easy as well, and at least would give her something to report back. In the meantime, she tracked him down at one of his rallies. She felt fortunate to have Derek, back from an assignment. There were so many cameras there that he wouldn’t be noticed. She had him take some crowd shots, then keep his camera on the senator, wherever he went. She went up to his handlers but found that they were singularly unenthusiastic about an Insider reporter getting an impromptu interview with the candidate for US senate. After 30 minutes of trying to get to him, she gave up.
Collecting Derek, she asked him if he at least got some good shots.
He nodded, then said, “that Meurel guy is here.”
“Where?”
“Just in the crowd. I don’t think he ever got near Talbot. Gosh! His handlers are good!”
They returned to the studio. Nancy would have to get an appointment. <That will make for boring TV!>
* * *
Eddie sat in the back of the briefing room. There was going to be a drug bust. The undercover operation had been going on for some time, and now they were ready to make arrests. Surprise was a major concern, so they were keeping uniforms well away. They wanted experienced officers to support the operation, thus they were assigning some detectives to secure the perimeter. He had to force himself to pay attention. His mind kept straying to his arson case, with two dead. <Strange one that, the arson investigators were having a time identifying the origin. What did they say? The gas line was neatly cut in a circle?>
Looking around, he recognized the vice guys, including one who had worked the case under cover. There were some strangers in the room. One, who just got introduced as DEA, and a woman. She could be pretty, he decided, if she would wear makeup and let her hair grow out a little. Maybe she was putting on a tough face for the bust. She was young but didn’t have the look of a rookie. He noticed that as the assignments were being handed out, her expression was darkening into a glower. She didn’t appreciate being put into a backup role. He wondered why. Backup suited him fine—not his case. <Just draw some overtime and hope the perps don’t come out in my direction.>
They drew the same car. She let him drive. A surprise—these women who had something to prove could be a pain about things like that. He was particularly gratified because she was seething. He didn’t want to get in a wreck on the way, because her mind wouldn’t be on the traffic. He tried to chat, introducing himself, but couldn’t draw her out. He left her to her thoughts.
They arrived. At the briefing he was surprised by the address, expecting the area to be seedy. This was a quiet middle class neighborhood, getting a little down in the heels, but not taken over by bad times or—except this house—bad people yet. He stopped the car on a street just a block over, and got out, leaving her with the car. Then he walked quietly into a back yard of a house with a ‘for sale’ sign on the front lawn. He settled as comfortably he could under a tree. There was a large bush between him and the target house, just on the other side of a low cyclone fence. Then he waited. It was already dark; he expected it to get pitch black before the arrest, which they timed to coincide with the rise of a half-moon. It was clear; it would soon get chilly.
In his earpiece he could hear quiet transmissions. When he was challenged,
Impressum
Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG
Texte: Chris R. Beals
Bildmaterialien: public domain
Cover: Chris R. Beals
Lektorat: Chris R. Beals
Satz: Chris R. Beals
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 10.08.2018
ISBN: 978-3-7438-7754-2
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