Deadly Paths

by Jack Parker

  "A dead hooker doesn't really refresh my memory, no," Grace said flatly. She didn't appreciate the detective's shock factor tactic. "Thank you for ruining any chance I had at enjoying a breakfast though."

  Wrigley shot her partner a small glance, then placed a finger on the pad and swiped it to the side, flipping through three more grisly pictures of the dead woman before coming to a pleasant looking picture of a smiling red headed woman cheek to cheek with a distinguished looking man in a suit.

  "This woman was found dead by a homeless man. All the evidence indicates that she evidently fell from a six story apartment building sometime last night. It took us a few hours to identify her as Mila Masters, and might not have run across who she was at all except for a member of our team, who is a big fan of your show, happened to be following up on rumors that your show was going to be involved in the first five weddings at the Grande Chapel hotel."

  Wrigley tapped the picture of the smiling couple. "This photo is from their wedding announcement photo which can be found online under the Grand Chapel's news blog. Were you not keeping track of a woman who's wedding you were going to be filming at the day after tomorrow?"

  "Let me get this straight," Grace said, steepling her fingers in front of her. "You think I would be able to help you solve this murder, based on internet rumors that our show was involved in this grand opening?"

  "Your man Mr. Powers here already confirmed the show was involved for us, Ms. Goodson." Spears said, his voice still sounding quite pleasant, as much as Grace already disliked him. "We were hoping you could help us figure out why she ended up dead, dressed like a hooker, on the same night that the nearby Clark County Detention Center was hit with a tear gas attack in the main processing lounge."

  Grace shot Steve a look. He shrugged met her unspoken chastisement with a shrug.

  "You think this tear gas attack is related to this woman?" Grace asked.

  "Besides the police, your show is known to use it from time to time,' said Wrigley.

  "And why exactly would I know what little miss Masters was up to more than, say, her fiancé? Or even the hotel owner showcasing her wedding. Let me tell you Carlo Benedetto is a real class act. Wouldn't be surprised at all if he was a pimp or mobster. Asshole."

  "We already checked out the fiancé," Wrigley said, contempt creeping into her voice. "Also a real class act. He had an alibi. Some woman admitted to being with him last night in a Jacuzzi room at the Belagio, if you take my meaning. The man claimed to be stunned and saddened. My ass."

  Grace was starting to like Wrigley. The woman had spirit; she had to give her that.

  "Unfortunately, we don't know anything either," Grace said. "I do wish I could be more helpful. Maybe she was leading a double life and was just so sick of her street life she ended it?"

  "We don't think so," said Spears. "Witnesses describe a similarly dressed prostitute being brought in by a female cop, and was awaiting processing when all hell broke loose at the detention center."

  "Why would a woman about to get married, dress up as a skanky ho and tear gas a jail?" Steve asked from the couch in the corner. "It doesn't make any sense."

  "Why indeed?" asked Wrigley, who turned to gaze at Steve. "We think all of it may be connected to another murder that took place inside the detention center itself. Some street punk named Raymond Kim was found strangled to death at a visitation booth for inmates."

  Spears switched the image on the pad to a mug shot of the aforementioned victim.

  "Ever seen this guy lurking around your show perhaps?"

  Grace shook her head in completely honesty. "Don't know that guy from Adam."

  "We think you should," said Wrigley. A cold edge was creeping into her voice. "He was arrested on charges of trespassing and endangering contestants during some kind of race being filmed for your program."

  Fuck! Grace wanted to walk over and slap Steve. The whole incident was just supposed to go away now, but things kept getting worse. This was an absolute nightmare. She bit her lip.

  "Oh that!" Grace managed enough amusement in her voice to make it sound like she thought nothing of it. "We never saw the guy's face. There were two others as well, but they got away. We just wanted to keep it off the news."

  "So you had Kim killed?" asked Spears.

  "Yes detective. I sent my super lethal bride assassin to kill a street punk."

  Steve stifled a laugh. All turned to glance at him.

  "She was really getting married, you know." Grace added. "We were just taking advantage of the occasion to have a little mission happen during it. Now we will just be down to four weddings instead of five it seems."

  Wrigley looked like she wanted to slap Spears upside the head, but she cleared her throat.

  "I think we are about done here, Ms. Goodson. But we would like the chance to confirm were all your personal and contestants were last night. If you could provide us records and allow us access to them?"

  "That will be fine detective, but I think for the contestants we will have to get them to sign some sort of waiver, as by records I assume you mean the video evidence that confirms they stay in their rooms?"

  "That will be fine," Wrigley said. "In the meantime we are going to pay Mr. Benedetto a visit as you suggested. Have a good day, Ms. Goodson, Mr. Powers."

  The detectives left the office. Grace waited a good long minute for them to disappear from the control area, then turned to Steve.

  "Steve, when you said you were going to make sure the news didn't get out . . . you didn't mean by tear gassing a jail did you?"

  Steve laughed and shook his head. "No Grace, I had something much more subtle in mind?"

  "Like what?"

  "Like bribing certain people with a chance to be on television and other sneaky offers like that. It's all in who you know. You know that, Grace."

  "Yeah," Grace said, uncertain if that kind of bribe would be enough.

  "But there's something else that has got me worried now," Steve added.

  "Oh God," Grace whined. "Something has you worried? You never worry."

  "Both Jake and Nova were out after curfew last night," Steve said. "I was going to let it go as some sort of romance developing, but they were the ones attacked by Kim and the other thugs. And now that Kim guy is dead, along with Mila."

  "Oh fuck me, really?" Grace stood, walking around her desk and sitting on it. Her foot began tapping nervously. "Why didn't you tell those cops about this?"

  "Because I wanted to be able to talk to them myself first."

  "Steve, they could charge us with obstruction! It's not up to you to decide if they were involved."

  Steve frowned, grumbling as if slighted. "Well fine, we can call them back and risk all the bad publicity that will come with a full out murder investigation right in the middle of our show. It's one thing if everybody gets asked a few questions, another if two of the actual contestants get taken in for questioning! The show can't afford that."

  Grace folded her arms, her foot still tapping as she thought on his words. After a long tense moment of staring into those gorgeous brown eyes, she sighed.

  "You're right. Assuming they both don't get executed or burn noticed this morning for all the trouble they've caused, well talk to them and find out where they went. I'd rather offer that information to the detectives myself then have them start more trouble."

  Steve nodded in approval.

  "Now, let's get this circus of a debriefing filmed," he said with a smile.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mako stood at a chest high computer console in the gloom of a room lit only a bright blue light in the center of the room. The light did not extend very far beyond about a five meter radius from a two foot raised circular platform, casting the surrounding walls and people at their respective computer consoles in shadow. Thirteen human silhouettes joined him in a circle, spaced far enough apart that no person could very well see the contestants adjacent to them. Each person wore a bulky earmuff style black headset. Thi
s was the debriefing room, and it was the third time to be here for everyone present. Debriefing so far had lived up to its reputation as always a stressful time.

  Mako was sure he had seen this sort of design in a movie once, something before the Soviet Union fell, but he couldn't remember if it was more that movie with the guy who gets sucked into the computer game or Superman. Whatever the case, this really was all just make believe too. Reality Television was the biggest oxymoron Mako had ever heard spoken in the English language. When this show aired, these debriefings would be led by a blue holographic female character with buxom features sporting a sleek black stealth suit and a British accent. This construct, known only as the Avatar, was supposed to act like the host of the show. The Avatar did not appear in the center of the room while filming, but she did make a computer generated appearance on Mako's screen as she greeted all the contestants at once.

  "Welcome agents," blared the digital Avatar in his headset. "Please check in by code name and verify with your hand print."

  Cringing, Mako adjusted the volume on his console. Each agent was arranged in the circle, and checked in alphabetically, one at a time. A camera on the console would record the face of each agent as they complied with the check in procedure, reminding the audience at home who was left. Blade, Butch, Charlie, Diamond and Jake each checked in. Their spoken names came across in his headset disguised by an electronic voice modulator.

  Mako had to wait for a green square to appear on his screen before he could place his hand on it and speak into a microphone at his console. This allowed the producers to add a bit of a dramatic pause before each check in. Ming, Nova, Rain, Robin, Rowdy, Salsa, Siren, and Tora all checked in after him. The Avatar began to review the mission specifics, and a summary of her words appeared in bullet form as if freshly typed on his screen in green letters.

  "Mission debriefing for operation codenamed Big Wig, will now begin," the Avatar said. "Big Wig was a find, capture, detain, and interrogate operation of a high profile target. Target identity was revealed in mission to select agents, location to others. Due to unforeseen circumstances, target's location changed mid-mission. Results . . ."

  The words on the screen changed, showing agent pairings by code name. A number indicating points in the thousands appeared to the right of each pair after several dots. The mission scoreboard. Mako studied the results carefully as the Avatar continued to speak.

  "First to accomplish the mission was Rain and Butch. Each are awarded twenty five thousand points, with Rain and an additional twenty five hundred for style. Zero penalties were awarded and the interrogation was successful in extracted the desired information."

  The mission scoreboard moved itself to the left side of Mako's screen, and a scoreboard by individual player materialized on the right. Rain's name was sitting in fourth place, but as points slid from the left side of the screen to the right and added themselves to both her and Butch's name in a short animation, Rain jumped to the top of the list ahead of Jake, with Butch moving up just above a glaring red line into ninth.

  Now a small moment of truth, Mako thought as he waited for the stupid digital woman to get on with it. When the show aired, the music would swell to add a slight amount of tension to the Avatar's next words.

  "Rain and Butch you are safe from elimination. Do you have anything to add?"

  A higher digitized voice, probably Rain, said no. Butch did likewise. So neither Rain or Butch were eliminated via hit, and neither were likely to be working with MANTA, at least for the moment. Mako started to tune the Avatar out as he concentrated on just the information and began to formulate his strategy for the important part of the debriefing—the voting.

  The debriefing was very similar in structure for Ming and Siren, who had successfully captured and interrogated the target in the third and final round of the mission. Mako watched as their team scores were transferred over to the personal scoreboard. Both Ming and Siren moved above the red line, and would be safe from the voting for a burn notice.

  Now to figure out if anyone else is for MANTA, Mako mused.

  The rest of the debriefing would not go so easily, as everyone in the room knew the Avatar would try to pick apart every mistake, start to get agents pointing fingers and accusing each other, and ultimately create pointless drama until someone was eliminated from the game.

  "Tora and Blade, Salsa and Rowdy," said the Avatar, turning her attention on the four. Another pause for the music to swell to a note of warning. "You four all completed the mission alive."

  So no hits in that first round. Mako realized. If there was another MANTA agent, he agreed it was wise not to make a try for it this early. Mako brought up personal data files on the four players as he listened. If he had worked with them before, a picture would pop up in the profile. If not, all he saw was a silhouette and some basic, useless information, like height, weight, home town, and current score. Mako had worked briefly with Rowdy on the first mission, and excitable bearded man from Alabama. The only other people he had any contact with this early in the game were Charlie, and of course, that other very dangerous and cunning player from the second mission. The avatar continued.

  "You reached the first round of the challenge area, but did not achieve the objective. Rowdy, what factors can you attribute to your failure?"

  Rowdy somehow managed a southern drawl even through the voice disguiser.

  "Ma partner, dissapeart on me for' we could start our plan, then all the sudden there was all this shooten. I had to try ma best to get to the target before anyone else, but this big feller wrastled me to the ground before I could."

  "Salsa your partner implies you didn't stick to the plan," stated the Avatar. "Is this true?"

  And so it went, back and forth as each of the four runners up of the first round explained away their losses, blamed each other, and even accused each other of being MANTA agents. Mako was counting on being accused, especially since his round included a successful assassination and only had four players total to choose from. His strategy for this debriefing would be to draw the accusation on his own terms, and then shift the blame onto other players. The tricky part was that he would need to be able to do it without himself making any direct accusations. Pointing fingers would only make him stand out to the other players in a time when he needed to seem much too conservative to be a MANTA agent. He hoped he could still protect Charlie at this stage in the game. There was a chance she could be accused instead of him, but Mako would be prepared for that too. The girl was too useful to sacrifice just yet.

  It helped his game somewhat that there was obviously a MANTA agent among the six players that made it to the first round. If there was to be an execution, he could perhaps persuade players that the higher threat would be the MANTA agent with the most points. From the different accounts of the four players being debriefed, it sounded like Rain and Tora had some kind of alliance. That was useful information. If Mako were a betting man, and he was not one to gamble foolishly, he would feel rather certain that Salsa was the MANTA agent in the round. She was doing a good job of staying below the radar, as Tora was emphatic about accusing Rowdy of being the double agent, since he and Butch were making it clear they suspected her.

  Mako wondered if Rowdy and Tora had met on either of the two previous missions. He busied himself with looking up the past mission pairings on his computer console as the Avatar concluded with the first group and began to move on to debrief and interrogate the players in his round.

  They had. Rowdy met Tora briefly as an exchange took place in the first mission. It was time to start a private conversation with Rowdy. Mako touched his screen as discreetly as possible as he selected the private message option included with Rowdy's profile. Even cloaked in shadow it was sometimes easy to tell if another player was typing. This would draw unwanted suspicion. He was careful to look straight ahead and listen as the Avatar listed several rule infractions by both Jake and Nova and forced them to answer as to why they had broken each one. Slowl
y, He texted:

  Call a trial for Tora when this pointless review is done.

  Rowdy's reply came a moment later.

  Why? You heard. They think it's me now. There won't be enough execution votes. It's got to be a two thirds majority.

  Rowdy was correct of course, but he didn't need to know that. All Mako needed was to convince the man that a trial might succeed and would not get turned around on him. Despite scoring high in the first group, Rowdy was so far behind on points from the first two missions that he was going to be in danger of a burn notice vote unless there was an execution. Mako was counting on him to be looking for any ally.

  Trials would happen in the order that the accusations happened. Mako predicted if Tora were accused Rain would stand by her, and then if any other agents were accused of being MANTA, those two would vote for execution out of spite and survival no matter who was accused. Mako could be fairly certain his accuser was going to be either Jake or her partner Nova. He sent his reply.

  Let me worry about getting the majority. I'm about to create the suspicion you need.

  Nova, to her credit, was able to make the infractions of her and her partner for the mission sound more like effective strategy than anything the other players should be worried about. After this she also managed to turn their failure into something of a clumsy joke, teasing but not blaming her partner for tumbling off the stage in his attempt to grab the target while she was trying to stop Agent Charlie from her wicked plan.

  Mako would have to take care not to insult Nova's likeability. It was going to be difficult to get her eliminated from the show even though both she and Jake ended up with a low score that would most likely leave them in the bottom five agents and in danger of being voted off. Sometimes the consensus among agents was to simply vote off the very bottom of the list, but Mako could not allow that this time. Nova was too dangerous a foe and a true threat to him. This was his chance to take her out. Even on his brief meeting with her on the show's first mission he could see in her that she had the eyes of someone who had killed before.