Locking the safe, she looked in her desk drawer and removed the bundle of nylon restraints and placed three in her pocket. Police favored this type of restraint over the traditional handcuffs due to availability of illegal handcuff keys on the street. Back in the early 2000’s, a prisoner arrested for assault, killed two Florida Highway Patrol officers in their car after he unlocked his handcuffs while being transported to the police station for interrogation. Following that incident, almost all restraint was done with the nylon straps.
She took a final look around the room and left for her rendezvous with the mysterious informant. She drove the security sled to the end of the dumbbell furthest from the elevators that brought people down from the reception area.
There were not yet any inhabitants in this end of the station. As new staff arrived and the station was opened up to their families, those families would be housed at this end of the station in dependent housing that was yet to be built. Currently, pallets of modular walls were being stored in an almost haphazard fashion around the area.
Several pallets shielded the entrance to Closet 21 from view.
Kim dismounted the sled and walked cautiously toward the emergency shelter entrance. She pulled her weapon as she neared the opening. The exterior lights near the entrance were out. The entrance was cast in gloom. She gave herself a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the gloom. “Okay.” She muttered to her self, “On three I go in. One … Two …”
24
Seeking Aid
Francine was worried. If they found out about her affair with Brad Bolino, and her relationship with Rafael, they might put two and two together. If they figured out she had taken Brad’s security card and let Rafael use it, she was toast.
The affair had been all her idea. She liked Bradley a lot, and felt that both of them were very lonely and neither wanted a permanent or serious relationship. She had a solid relationship on the ground with a wonderful person who made her heart sing. He had a wife whose picture was always on Brad’s desk. But a little no-strings attached fun on the station would be okay. No one would know and no one would be hurt.
She never expected her brother to ask her to exploit her involvement with Brad. When he ordered her to steal Brad’s card, she had complied. He had threatened to make Brad’s wife aware of what was going on. Better to give in to Rafael’s demands than take a chance of having everything exposed.
Even if she said she had no idea what Rafael wanted with the card, the very act of taking it would make her guilty of being an accomplice in whatever Rafael was doing.
She needed to call in some favors. And confess to her Earth-side lover.
She scanned through her cell phone address book until she found the Earth-side number she wanted. She selected the number and waited for it to connect. It rang twice at the other end and voice answered, “Hello?”
“Hi, it’s me. Francine. I need your help. I’m in trouble.” Francine blurted out.
The voice responded in a soothing tone, “Now, now, calm down my dear. What’s wrong? How can I help?”
Francine launched into a lengthy summary of what she had done for her half-brother. She explained what was happening on the station at the moment and what she thought would happen to her when the security team delved into the facts. Her voice quivered with nervous energy and some fear as she described her role in Rafael’s plans.
The person at the other end of the phone listened quietly and didn’t interrupt Francine as she poured out her problems.
Francine hesitated and seemed unsure how to continue.
The voice asked, “Is there more?”
“Yes. But you’re not going to like it. You’ll probably hate me. You should hate me.” Francine replied.
“I could never hate you. I love you.” The voice stated.
“I --- I love you too. But you will never believe that after I tell you.” Francine sobbed into the phone.
“Tell me.” The voice ordered with some trepidation.
“I --- I slept with Brad Bolino.” Francine cried.
“You what? I thought we --- I mean, I thought you and I were…” The voice seemed to be struggling with Francine’s last admission. “How many times?
“Maybe eight or nine.” Francine admitted to the faraway voice.
The growing silence from the other end of the line was more than Francine could stand.
“It meant nothing! He was just a diversion. It’s so lonely up here. I feel so isolated with Rafael’s constant demands. I just wanted some companionship. I’m sorry!” Francine cried.
“Okay Francine. We’ll talk about this whole affair thing when you get back to Earth. Is there anything else you need to tell me?” The voice said without a hint of emotion.
Francine told of Rafael’s threats about Brad’s wife and his pushing her to steal Brad’s security card. She continued until she brought the story completely up to date and then stopped.
When Francine had finally rundown, the voice had responded. “How did you get yourself into such a position? I don’t know if I can do anything to get you out of this. Maybe I can do something. I don’t know. Let me work on it. Alright?”
Francine replied, “Yes please! That’s why I called you. Maybe when the facts come out people will see I’m just a pawn in this too. Your so close to the President, maybe you can do something to persuade him to forgive me?”
“Alright Francine. I’ll do what I can.” The voice promised and hung up.
Francine was left with a dead phone line and a dying outlook on her chances for the future.
25
Attacked
“And three!” Kim finished her countdown and taking a deep breath, she crossed the threshold into Closet 21. The emergency lights came on as the sensors detected her movement. For a brief instance, the bright emergency lamps blinded her. An arm clamped around her neck and pulled her backward. At the same instance, a hand placed a wet cloth over her mouth and nose.
Surprised, Kim took a breath and immediately her head seemed to explode and she spiraled down into unconsciousness. Her last clear thought was, I’m being drugged. Whatever it is has a pungent odor. She struggled for a few seconds and went limp. The assailant struggled pulling Kim’s body deeper into the room.
The figure reached down and patted Kim’s body, stopping when the bulge of the gun was detected. The figure took the gun and threw it on a table close by. Continuing the pat down, the restraints were found and the extra ammunition removed. The assailant used the restraints to tie Kim’s hands behind her back and tie her ankles together.
The attacker checked Kim’s reactions by raising an eyelid and shining a flashlight into the eye, and measuring her pulse. Taking the wet anesthetic drenched rag, the figure placed it over Kim’s mouth and nose and held it there while Kim took three or four shallow breaths. Her breathing perceptibly slowed.
Throwing the rag on the table, the figure picked up the pistol and ammunition, tossed them into a black leather bag. Then, using a screwdriver, disabled the automatic sensor that controlled the interior lights. The room was plunged in darkness. The assailant checked the exterior and then exited, and closed the entrance door. The figure stopped, cursed a mild oath, and turned back to the room. The shadowy figure walked back to the table and picked up the rag used to knock out Kim. The rage was stuffed into the black leather bag as the figure exited the safety closet.
The assailant walked to Kim’s security sled, reached in, and touched the auto-return function on the keypad. The sled moved away heading back to the garage at the base of the elevators at the other end of dumbbell. Buckling on a PPU, the assailant lifted toward Core City at the station’s weightless center.
The PPU only needed to fire for a second and the figure was moving upward toward the jungle of flying offices. Moving swiftly, the figure took off the PPU and hung it on a PPU rack at the first flying office encountered.
The assailant began moving along the center of the flying offices and soon merged with the norma
l public traffic and disappeared into the human hubbub.
26
The Saboteur Strikes Again
The crystal-growing experimental laboratory was in the zero gravity point of Core City.
Crystals are grown by separating all the building block molecules into individual units in water and letting them fall naturally into their appropriate place in the repetitive structure as the water evaporates. By applying a low voltage direct electrical current to the water solution, the shape of the repetitive structure can be influenced and controlled.
Zero gravity allowed the experimenters to create precise molecular structures without the inherent problems caused by effects of gravity on the different structures being built in the electrical field.
Current experiments were creating a crystal knife blade one-molecule thick on its cutting edge. This was a sharper cutting edge than any current medical scalpel manufacturers could boast. And it could be made much cheaper than any of the currently produced medical scalpels.
Half of the lab had been turned into a rudimentary manufacturing plant to validate the feasibility of mass-producing the super sharp knife blades. Several thousand blades of different size and shape were now packed in special boxes awaiting shipment Earth-side for live testing on the blades’ life and uses.
The blades were so sharp that special packing boxes had to be designed that held the crystal by the spine, the thickest part of the blade. If the sharp edge of the blade came in contact with any substance weaker than a diamond, the knife was guaranteed to cut through the substance like butter.
As Kim was rushing to Closet 21, two small shaped charges placed hours before at each end of the crystal lab detonated severing the lab’s tether lines. A third small charge taped to the underside of the lab detonated in a planned action to overcome the lab’s inertia, and the lab began slowly moving away from the center of the core.
The lab began a gentle float toward the station’s floor a half-kilometer below. It took forty minutes for the lab structure to impact with the floor. When it did, the lab’s forward momentum caused its complete destruction.
Impacting the rotating floor, the lab turned over and over and began to disintegrate as it hit more substantial structures attached to the floor. The thousands of knife blades released from their packing cases caused part of the disintegration. They cut through the lab walls and floor with ease as they randomly flew around the tumbling structure. It rolled almost half a kilometer before coming to rest.
Lab contents and razor-sharp, broken crystal was strewn from the point of impact to the point of rest almost half the way around the interior of Storm Killer. Parts of the knives had sliced through the inner wall and were imbedded in the inner wall of the station. Two crewmen had bee unlucky enough to be where shards of the knives landed. One man lost his right foot as the shard sliced through his ankle. The other died within minutes from multiple internal injuries from several shards that had passed through his body. Murder was now to be added to the list of charges against the perpetrator.
27
Rescue
Lt. James was waiting by Kim’s desk when Hoch strode into the room.
“Have you seen Kim?” asked Lt. James.
“Why, no. I sent her a voice message about my latest findings. She hasn’t answered yet.”
“This worries me. It is not like her to ignore her voice messages. I left her one, too. If she is not here in another ten minutes, we start a search,” Lt. James said. He was worried. He never admitted it until now but he really liked the gutsy, smart woman. She was his equal in every way. After all of this was over, he would tell her how he felt. No use throwing a monkey wrench into the works and screw up the investigation with emotions at this point, he thought.
Lt. James cleared his mind and asked Hoch, “So, what have we learned so far? We might as well share our latest facts and set a plan of attack that we can pass by Kim.”
Hoch nodded and said, ”I found a white powder on the arm of the chair at the workstation that the perp used to get the worm into the system. Also found it on the memory stick reader. Didn’t you find some powder at the first crime scene?“
Lt. James nodded. “The powder I had the lab check out turned out to be a modified corn starch. And it was everywhere that one would assume a person might touch. I checked the station stores catalog and found only two cornstarch items onboard. One is a standard cornstarch used by our kitchen. The other item is medical examination and surgical gloves. Did you know many doctors favor the medical examination gloves containing cornstarch as opposed to a powdered glove? Interesting, don’t you think? Maybe we need to check with Dr. Cruz on her supply of gloves.”
Lt. James had been startled at Hoch’s first mention of the powder. That he had found a similar powder on the reversed input wires from the first incident was a matter of record. Powder from medical examination gloves at both scenes and the good Dr. Cruz was at the first scene. This house of cards may be falling! he thought. Just one or two more pieces of evidence and they might narrow the list to one suspect.
A problem with getting to one suspect was what he had learned about the reported broken camera. The camera had stopped functioning four days earlier and had been written up as ‘NRTS’ by the technician. NRTS meant Not Repairable This Station. Lt. James had personally tested the camera and found it functioning perfectly. The technician who had NRTS’ed the unit was none other than Rafael Denuza, the technician that Dr. Cruz had treated at the site of first incident.
“I’ll package a sample of the powder I found and send it down on the next shuttle. The lab should be able to verify it is the same stuff you found. Although, I have no doubt it is the same,” Hoch said.
Lt. James nodded and quickly filled Hoch in on his latest information. They discussed the case for a few minutes when Lt. James looked at his watch and stated, “OK. Kim is now officially missing in action. Let’s find her!”
Hoch, who had been sitting on the edge of Kim’s desk, started rummaging through the papers on top of the desk. Finding nothing there, he tried to open the desk drawer only to find it locked. He snapped to attention at this. It was standard protocol for the security agents to leave the desk unlocked and always place materials needing protection in the safe in their office. Same with their weapons; they were always kept in the safe.
“Lt. James, her desk drawer is locked,” Hoch reported pointing to the desk.
As senior security agent at the station, Lt. James had master keys for all desk drawers on the station. He went to the safe and got the key ring. He located the key that corresponded to the lock number and unlocked the drawer.
He immediately saw the evidence bag and the note addressed to him. Grabbing the note, he read, “I’ve received an anonymous message telling me to come to emergency closet 21 for important information about the case. I’m going armed and ready. Here are some interesting facts I got out of Brad Bolino that points a strong suspicion at Dr. Cruz somehow being involved.”
The note went on to describe Bolino’s confessions.
While Lt. James had been reading the message, Hoch called up the real time vehicle map and found Kim’s cart back at the reception garage.
With quick agreement, Hoch headed off to check out Kim’s vehicle while Lt. James pocketed his Glock and headed for Closet 21.
Before he left, he had opened Kim’s desk drawer and picked up the small black leather bag he had seen when he was searching earlier. He unzipped it, surveyed the contents, closed it, and stuck it in his pants pocket. Kim and I have something to talk about later, he thought as he exited the room.
Lt. James decided to ignore firearm notification since he was now uncertain as to Bolino’s involvement. He was fairly certain that Kim would have notified someone of her intention to carry her weapon. He would just accept the consequences of carrying his gun without proper notification.
Lt. James arrived at Closet 21 in less than ten minutes. The door was shut. He pulled his weapon and shouted Kim’s name.
Nothing. Silence. Positioning himself at the right side of the door, he quickly opened the door and yelled, “Security, Freeze!” The closet was dark - nothing could be seen of the interior.
He reached around the door edge and touched the interior light panel. Nothing happened. Lt. James requested the mainframe’s to turn on the interior lights. Nothing happened. He called for Kim and got no reply.
Lt. James pulled his small flashlight and assuming the classic police stance with the flashlight and gun, he took a deep breath and entered the closet.
Kim was slowly returning to consciousness as twirling stars and rockets exploded in her head. She felt deathly ill from whatever anesthetic had been administered to her. She tried to sit up and found her arms immobile and her hands bound behind her back. Unable to sit up, she rolled over on her side and threw up. She lost consciousness for a moment and when she awoke again, she found her face resting in her own vomit. She threw up again and successfully rolled over.
She couldn’t see anything. It was totally dark wherever she was. She was still slipping in and out of awareness. She dropped her head back to the floor and slipped into a deep, drugged sleep.
The next thing she remembered was Lt. James leaning over her with a very concerned expression. He was gently holding her head and wiping the vomit from her face. He saw her eyes flicker open and recognition register. He lifted her up and hugged her tightly to his chest.
Laying her back down, he touched her face, smiled and said, “Danby, I told you that you were in over your head. How do you feel? Can you move?” as he cut the restraints binding her hands and legs. She stretched her extremities to work the kinks from her stiff muscles. She simply nodded to him that all appeared to be working OK.
Storm Killer Page 9
