“I want the building in shot.” Kristina waved her man back. “And the employees. This is the story of the year. Let’s give it the backdrop it deserves.”
The camera operator retreated, while the microphone-man had some difficulty keeping his equipment above the constantly-moving Kristina. Seeing a crowd of other reporters approach, she didn’t wait for her assistants to give her the go-ahead.
“We’re live on the scene at Taurus Studios.” Kristina shouted to inject melodrama. “It was announced only moments ago that the games developer is to close its doors and lay off all staff. For these workers, this is certainly not a merry Christmas or a happy new year. Could it possibly get any worse for Taurus, or Philadelphia’s inept police department?” Kristina put brutal emphasis on her rhetorical question. “Not only have four victims fallen prey to the Taurus Strangler - who detectives mistakenly assured us was James Fitzroy - but now it seems the empire Adrian Pryce built is well and truly crumbling. Details are sketchy, but speculation is rife that—”
Kristina cut her report short as a taxicab turned onto the approach road. It detoured around the news vans, and parked on the roundabout lawn. Adrian stepped down from the passenger seat, and every reporter on site fought to be first in line. Those that had arrived late were suddenly at the front. Dazzled by spotlights, Adrian was surrounded in seconds.
Questions came from all directions, each reporter shouting over the last.
“Is is true that Taurus Studios—”
“—any connection between the two recent victims—”
“—planning to issue an apology to James Fitz—”
“—affect the Christmas schedule. Will the company honour—”
Kristina was a frustrated onlooker, buffered from Adrian by the thick crowd. The ‘interview’ degenerated into a hysterical shouting match as reporters jostled for position. Adrian forced his way through. It was a slow and difficult trek to the Taurus tower.
“You bastard!” a woman screamed over the noise.
Suddenly-silent reporters backed off to allow the stiletto-heeled employee to confront her boss. Cameras rolled, and news crews held out microphones over Adrian’s head in anticipation.
“Please!” he begged. “This is all a misunderstanding. If you’d just calm down while I—”
The woman took a typed letter from her coat pocket, and clutched it at the top. She waved it around, constantly turning. Spotlights failed to keep up, but the Taurus company logo was clearly visible.
“Seven years I spent working for him,” the woman raged. “And this is how he treats me. A termination notice. Are you planning to kill the rest of us now? You may as well. How am I supposed to feed my family, you money-grabbing leech?”
She screwed the paper up, threw it in Adrian’s face, and slouched away in disgust. A few of the reporters chased the disgruntled ex-employee’s story, but most stuck to the Taurus president. Kristina took advantage of the lull in questioning to get closer.
“Mister Pryce, does this closure have anything to do with the recent murders?”
She spoke quickly, and got her question out before anyone could interrupt. Microphones dangled above Adrian, ready to record his answer. By some miracle - or expert handling - none of the rods collided.
Adrian turned to face Kristina, and gave the cameraman time to focus on his face. “Whoever is doing this to me,” he said determinedly. “To my company… I will find you. And you will regret it.”
Kristina hounded him. “So you’re saying it wasn’t your decision to shut the company down?”
“I have nothing further to add.”
Adrian continued toward the office tower. The reporter’s questions started again, and quickly became an incoherent mess.
Kristina signalled her assistants to stand back. She waited for the camera lens to focus on her. “You heard it here first, folks,” she said, unable to contain her delight. “Live comment from the prime suspect in the Taurus Strangler case. Reporting for Philly Today, this is Kristina Malloy.”
The mass employee exit had slowed during her interview. When Adrian finally reached the tower doors, a cordon of police officers waited behind. Burly men - and one short-but-strong female - kept reporters at bay.
Ron was there to greet Adrian on arrival. “You look stressed out, Mister President. What’s the matter? Bad day at the office?”
Chapter Twenty
Lucy pressed the redial button on her cellphone, standing firm in a gust of wind that blew many other pedestrians off course. She’d stepped out of her tenement building without a coat on. Her shirt pressed against her body as the breeze intensified, and formed a skin-tight sheet around her muscular figure.
Tania’s eyes sparkled with admiration. One hand on her crash helmet, she snatched her long, flowing, black hair into a clump and fastened a ponytail with her jade clip.
“You were right about us being strong women,” she complimented Lucy. “We don’t need men in our lives. Especially not men like Adrian Pryce.”
“He’s still not picking up.”
Lucy stabbed her thumb on the ‘terminate call’ button. She quickly scrolled through the phone’s options menu and checked her mailbox. There were no new messages.
“I’ve tried him four times,” Lucy said. “And Ron hasn’t got back to me. Do you think something’s happened to Adrian? That the killer…” She trailed off, and looked worriedly at Adrian’s name on the cellphone screen.
Tania lowered her helmet onto her head, with the edges aligned carefully so she didn’t nudge her spectacles. She mounted her motorcycle, and lifted her reflective visor to expose the middle section of her face.
“He’s alive!” Tania shouted to counter the muffling. “He just doesn’t care. You don’t mean anything to him. Nobody does. Every project I’ve worked on has been the same. The employees do all the hard work, and Pryce takes the credit. You think the police force’s rules are bad? You should try Taurus. Outside the office, I get to be myself. But at work, we all have to follow his rules. That man you shot… Fitzroy. He was crazy, but he was right about Pryce stifling creativity.”
“Adrian’s different outside work too,” Lucy argued in his defence. “Flawed like the rest of us, but not a bad guy. If you knew him socially…”
Tania revved her motorcycle engine. “I don’t!” she yelled. “And I don’t want to.”
“If you’re not a fan, why did you help him?”
“I didn’t.” Tania lowered her visor. “I helped you.”
She let go of the brake. Her motorbike sped off, tires screeching against the tarmac.
***
A uniformed cop stood on Adrian’s office desk. The removed ventilation grille rested against his knees. Black glass creaked as he reached into the recess. The policeman’s face contorted as he grabbed onto something and pulled. Shifted off-balance, the grille tipped over and landed on its flat side with a resonant clang. There was a loud crack, but no visible sign of damage.
“Careful!” Adrian chastised. “What are you guys looking for anyway?”
When the cop responded with an uninterested grunt, Adrian turned to Ron. The detective knelt by a display case and checked the panelling.
“Got a tip from your girlfriend,” Ron said. “You’re a popular man these days. It seems our strangler paid you a visit. Even left you a gift. Maybe more than one.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Got it, Detective,” the policeman said.
He jumped down from the desk. Adrian cringed as the glass wobbled in its chrome frame. His anguish turned to curiosity when he spotted the device in the policeman’s hand. Adrian grabbed it without asking permission, and ingested the key details: black box, lens, antenna.
“A camera.” Adrian’s grip tightened in rage. “Someone’s been spying on me!?” He glanced up at the open vent, then at his computer directly below. “So that’s how that bastard—”
Adrian stopped, realising the policemen were watching him.
“Someone cleared out the company’s main bank account,” Adrian explained. “Used my login details to make a transfer of thirty million. Everything we had in reserve.”
“That’s some reserve.” Ron sounded more cynical than impressed. “Thought the company was struggling. You couldn’t afford fifty grand for Norris, or to hire decent security. Turns out you just kept it all for yourself.”
“For the company,” Adrian stressed. “Most of that money was left over from investment capital. We have to plan for our titles not doing as well as expected. Do you know how much it costs to make a videogame these days?”
“Have to confess I don’t. So what happened to the cash?”
“Numbered account, no way to trace. Dawson thought it was me that took it. It wasn’t, but that didn’t stop him issuing a wrapping-up order.”
“A lawyer concerned about money.” Ron’s tone was smarmy and confrontational. “Who could have predicted that? Guess that means Taurus Studios won’t be on this year’s top-places-to-work list. So, does this mean I’m actually richer than you now?”
Adrian threw the wireless camera at Ron. The detective caught it without a blink.
“How about you stop gloating and do your job!” Adrian bellowed. “Find out where that thing came from. Who put it there. And where…” Bubbly saliva foamed through his teeth.
“Where your money is?” Ron ventured. “Thought that would be priority number one. You should watch that temper, Mister Pryce. Cops are trigger happy right now. It might get you killed.” He turned over the camera and tapped the aerial. “This seems like a computer gadget to me. Like those in your display cases. And here was I thinking you were a whiz with computers. The great Adrian Pryce asking me to solve a problem. Suppose I should feel honoured.”
Adrian let out an exhausted sigh, sat down in his chair, and looked despairingly up at the open ceiling panel. “I design software, Detective. Not hardware. I do some coding but my role at Taurus is… mainly to manage things,” he confessed reluctantly. “I might have the business acumen, but it’s my staff who have the real expertise. Had the real expertise.” His eyes dropped to the black glass. There was no reflection, only darkness. “One of them might have helped you.”
“Someone like Tania Chin?” Ron asked.
“Tania?” Adrian sounded surprised. “She’s just a programmer.”
“Well, maybe you should give that programmer a little more credit. She’s the one who found your hidden camera.”
***
Tania typed furiously on the server room terminal, downloading software onto the computer. It remained the only functional workstation. Debris had been cleared, but there were a lot of empty slots where hard drives used to be. Dozens of criss-crossed plastic cables linked power units and electrical systems - a complicated and treacherous web.
Tania ducked under one and checked the wireless camera. The antenna was clipped with jump leads, and connected to an exposed circuit board. Ron and the police officer remained by the sealed airlock, well out of the way.
Adrian watched Tania’s every move, head hung in shame. “I didn’t know you were so… skilled with electronics.”
“I helped install your home security system,” Tania said venomously. “Did you forget that? If you’d bothered to come down from your ivory tower, or talked to your employees, maybe you would have known what I could do.” She continued to type without a glance at Adrian.
Adrian moved a step closer. “Why the hostility? I realise I’ve not been the best boss…”
“Well, you’re not my boss any more. I’m doing this as a favour for the police. And now I’m free to tell you what I think.”
Tania stabbed two fingers on the enter key. The computer screen lit up blue, and displayed a street map of Philadelphia. Bright green, triangular-tower icons were spread across the city, each labelled with an identification number. A sonic ping played over the speaker, and a series of red circles emanated from two distinct points. The area they covered was several blocks in diameter. Every few seconds, the pattern repeated.
“The signal’s very weak,” Tania said. “And intermittent. It might take a few minutes to get a fix on the location, but I should be able to use the wireless network towers to triangulate the camera transmission back to its source.”
Ron came across, almost catching his foot on a dipped cable. “So you’re telling me… you can use…”
“I can find the killer,” Tania clarified. “Or at least the computer the camera’s transmitting the signal to.”
Ron whispered in Adrian’s ear. “She’s a very talented girl. Maybe if you’d respected your staff, they wouldn’t have left you to clean up the mess. Guess it’s too late now, though.”
The pings got closer together, and the red-circle zones smaller. The two epicentres converged at a single point in downtown Philadelphia. Tania hovered the mouse pointer over the marked location. An information window appeared below, the text difficult to read from distance.
“That’s two blocks west of here.” Adrian turned pale. “I know that place. Let me see.”
He attempted to look over Tania’s shoulder. She stood tall and refused to budge. Unable to see the screen, Adrian walked round her side. The information window text read Frank & Bennett - Law Firm Offices.
“Dawson.” Adrian thumped the desk in anger. “That greedy son of a bitch stole our money, and had the audacity to accuse me?”
“Well, they say like attracts like,” Ron said. “You’d better stay here where it’s safe. Don’t want Dawson killing you, do we?” He turned to the cop, and shifted his mood to serious. “Joking aside, these two are still in danger. Don’t let them out of your sight. I’ll call Blake. Have him send some backup. You get the address from our girl wonder.”
Ron exited through the sliding door. Adrian put both hands on the central console, wiped his brow, and looked pleadingly at Tania.
“I’m sorry I didn’t… value you.” Adrian struggled to find the appropriate words. “It’s just… well, I screwed up. With you. Norris, Sophie. Everyone. Will you at least let me apologise?”
“Officer!” Tania beckoned him across. “You wanted the law firm’s address.”
The policeman negotiated the obstacle course of wires and discarded hard drives. He just about made it to the screen safely. As he bent forward to read the information window, Tania headed for the exit. She expertly ducked and weaved through the cables, and never looked like tripping.
“I’ve had a lot of practice working with wires,” she explained to the stunned Adrian. “And gymnastics. I did the motion capture, before you decided I wasn’t good enough and hired Jenna. You can apologise if you want, but don’t expect me to listen.”
“Where the hell are you going?” the policeman asked. “Detective Wallace told you—”
“Detective Wallace isn’t my boss, and neither is he.”
Tania left through the airlock. The cop chased her. His attempt to leapfrog the cables was clumsy, and he soon tangled himself up. The policeman attempted to break free, but the wires were interlocked - with little room for manoeuvre - and the connections secure.
“A little help?” he requested.
Adrian ignored him. “Sorry. I don’t have time.” He trod carefully through the cables. “I’ve got some important business to discuss with my attorney.”
***
Lieutenant Blake slid Lucy’s wallet across his desk, then her unloaded firearm and clip. No natural light came through the window blinds, only isolated bright spots arranged in rows and columns. The Sun had set on Philadelphia’s skyscrapers.
Blake lit up a cigarette, took a deep puff, and relaxed back in his chair. Lucy strapped a plain black Kevlar vest over her shirt, and secured it at the side with Velcro straps. She reached out to collect her badge, only for Blake to place a restraining arm on her wrist.
“Your reinstatemen
t’s provisional,” he told her.
“I get it.”
Blake waited a moment, then released her. “Still got my doubts about this, but Wallace told me about the tip you gave him. Nice work. Really paid off.”
“Thank Tania.” Lucy collected her wallet. “She’s the programmer that helped us.”
“I will. When we find her.”
His response gave Lucy pause. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Wallace said she was at Taurus.”
“She gave Capshaw the slip. So did your boyfriend. While our man was busy untangling himself. Don’t ask.”
“They’re not safe.” Lucy buttoned her suit over her vest, obscuring it except for a bulky, V-shaped section below the neckline. “Not until we nail Dawson.”
“We’ll find them.” Blake casually blew out a puff of smoke. “We got cops all over the city on panic duty. Do you know how many crank calls we’ve had about the Taurus Strangler? Confessions, stalkers. You name it. Point is, we’re running low on manpower. So I need everyone I can get. And I need them focused.”
Lucy rammed the clip into her pistol, and flipped off the safety catch. “I’m focused,” she reassured Blake.
“Then it’s time to marshal the troops.”
Blake stubbed out his cigarette, stood up, and strode past Lucy to the door. She holstered her weapon as she followed.
Every desk in the detective’s office was unmanned. Plain clothes personnel - every last man and a few women - all wore bulletproof vests and shields on lanyards. They’d been joined by police kitted out in full riot gear and protective helmets. A tall, African-American man stood at the back, long barrel of his automatic rifle stuck above the heads of the assembled strike team. The office had been converted into a war room, with building plans of Frank & Bennett taped over the Christmas tinsel and trophy cabinet. Photographs of Dawson and Lisa were pinned to a fold-out board. Real-time surveillance footage of the front entrance - lit up in night-vision green - was relayed via a TV screen.
Termination Notice (Action Girl Thrillers) Page 15
