FACT:
As the result of rumors that American POWs were brainwashed by Chinese communists during the Korean War, CIA Director Allen Dulles authorized a top-secret program known as MKULTRA in April of 1953. The program financed ultra-sensitive medical and psychological experiments in mind control; the scope of which included areas such as truth drugs, hypnosis, sleep deprivation and subliminal persuasion. The more troubling aspects of MKULTRA became the subject of executive and congressional investigations during the 1970s.
While the government reported that MKULTRA was discontinued in 1966, much of the program’s research remains highly classified.
1
No time to think, just react.
Mashing the accelerator to the floor, the power of the engine thrust me back into the seat as the Avatar AVX sprang forward, reeling in taillights from the darkness of the road straight ahead. In seconds a vehicle a hundred yards away was suddenly just a car length in front, its red taillights slipping to the right and disappearing as I whipped the Avatar around and past.
"Darcy!" In the passenger seat beside me, Sean Higgins stomped the floor in a vain attempt to slam on an imaginary brake. I wondered whether his anxiety sprang from the blinding speed of the seven hundred horsepower sports car or the fact that a female controlled the wheel.
A bright yellow Ford had pulled onto the road just ahead, oblivious to my Avatar eating up the street behind it. I slammed the brake pedal, pushed the clutch to the floor, downshifted and swerved left, flying past a shell-shocked driver.
Numbers on the digital speedometer blurred: sixty-four...eighty-five...fifty-three...forty–seven...fifty-eight.
My heart beat wildly; my mouth felt dry as dust.
In the mirror I saw the Dodge Viper in pursuit reflecting my moves; a pair of headlights dodging left to right, right to left across all three lanes.
From the moment I sat at the wheel of the Avatar AVX, this car felt special -- the way the interior wrapped around me in the driver’s seat and its acceleration pressed my body back into leather. I wished I could enjoy the experience now, but this ride threatened to turn deadly any second.
In spite of the Avatar’s overwhelming power, the Viper gained rapidly. In heavy traffic I couldn’t maintain a speed above sixty miles per hour for long. Slashing through slower vehicles, I alarmed drivers as I screamed past, causing them to pull aside, making it easy for the two men in the Viper to follow.
"Darcy!"
A giant semi dead ahead. I spun the wheel, nearly side-swiping a Jeep on the left, then pulled a hard right avoiding a pickup truck. I raced past and braked hard, downshifting, and barely missed becoming part of the backseat of a red Camaro. Swerving left, I found myself behind a Dodge Durango. I felt sure I had put pavement between the Viper and me, but no such luck. With the advantage of following in my tracks it now loomed just a car length behind.
Suddenly the Durango ahead turned right and I saw clear road.
Downshifting, I pounded the accelerator, our bodies slamming leather as the V-12 roared and speedometer digits blurred. Nothing could match this acceleration. Looking back, I saw the Viper now trapped behind a gaggle of cars. The yellow eyes in the rearview mirror grew small.
An exhilarating three minutes passed before Metropolitan Parkway appeared dead ahead, the intersection empty but traffic signals burning bright red. With the Viper now gone from the rear view mirror, I killed the Avatar’s lights and put it into a four-wheel drift, screaming into an illegal left turn. Tires shrieking against pavement, the car suddenly headed west, leaving Gratiot Avenue behind.
Thirty seconds passed before I switched the lights on and slowed to avoid attracting attention.
As the Avatar resumed normal speed, I glanced sideways at Higgins. The agency vice president who had pissed me off a few hours earlier by referring to the Avatar AVX as “a real man’s car,” now appeared shell shocked. His eyes were deer-in-the-headlights wide and as we passed under a streetlight I could see that all color had drained from his face. His lips were moving, trying to form words, but without sound. I spoke first.
“You’re right. This is a real man’s car.”
2
What now?
How many were there? And how long before they came after us again, now that we held the DVD they’d proved so willing to kill for?
My body was coming down from a serious adrenalin high. I hadn’t driven that fast in months, never on city streets. My heart still pounded, albeit slower, and I became aware of my palms -- wet and slippery against the leather steering wheel.
A digital gauge on the instrument panel began blinking the news -- the Avatar's fuel tank needed nourishment. Higgins slowly regained his composure as we turned into a Shell station off Metropolitan Parkway. He used a credit card at the pump farthest from the cashier's booth, filling the Avatar with high octane.
I thanked God I had kept up the training the Adams & Benson advertising agency provided its creative people five years ago. Back then it was common practice to send writers and art directors assigned to its American Vehicle Corporation account to the famous Skip Barber Racing School. They wanted us to have an intimate feel for the subjects of the ads we were assigned to create.
I took the training more seriously than my contemporaries. When I left Detroit after my divorce five years ago, I became a regular at the two-mile, fourteen-turn Grattan Track near Grand Rapids. There I practiced skills like heel-and-toe downshifting, trail breaking and finding the fastest racing lanes.
When AVC made plans to introduce this souped-up AVX version of their hot Avatar sports car last summer, company officials asked me, Darcy James, to drive one of the first prototypes. They wanted, get this, "a woman's opinion."
My opinion? The same as a man’s -- with a top speed well over two hundred miles an hour and a zero-to-sixty time under three seconds, this car was one fast mother.
I stayed in the driver’s seat as we pulled back onto the road, checking the rearview mirror for signs of the Viper or the police. We drove aimlessly, both of us near shock from the events that had just taken place: the shooting of a policeman and the high-speed escape from two armed men. The image of the officer crumbling to the pavement kept tumbling through my mind. Had he died? Did he have a wife? Children? A feeling of sadness stuck to the mental picture.
To my right Higgins fumbled with the stereo; "I could use some 'Music to Relieve Stress By.'"
He found a newscast instead. We listened in horror as the breaking story unfolded; a police officer killed near Roseville, a community north of Detroit. Two males were being held for questioning; two other persons, a man and woman, had fled in a black Avatar. It would be a matter of hours, at most, before those “two other persons” were identified as Darcy James and Sean Higgins, executives employed by the Adams & Benson advertising agency.
Higgins hit the "off" switch. "They’re saying we killed that cop."
"Maybe we should get to the police and tell them what really happened.”
"No. You can bet the two guys chasing us have already spilled their version. What chance do we have when the cops, including your former husband, already have me in their sights for another murder?”
I hated to admit Higgins was right. “It’s our word against Bacalla and Roland’s,” I said. I glanced over at the small metallic disc in his hands. “We’ve got to find out why they’re so desperate to get their hands on that DVD.”
Higgins thought for a moment. “It keeps coming back to this disc and Vince Caponi.”
“Yep.”
I felt the impact of the situation wash over me. There seemed to be no one to turn to, and my fate was partially dependent on a man I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with just days before.
With the police loo
king for us, driving the black Avatar was like riding around under a spotlight. I left the main road and meandered through side streets.
We rode in silence. At one point, as Higgins pulled out his cell phone and started punching a number, I stopped him.
"I've got to tell Cunningham we won’t be at the presentation tomorrow morning," he said.
"Not on your cell. I read that police can pinpoint their location, like tracing any call. You can bet Bacalla’s told them who we are. Let's find a pay phone."
Higgins agreed, but for the next few hours we simply drove, as if moving made us less vulnerable. Staying clear of major highways we wandered from side street to side street, from suburb to suburb, from late night to early morning.
Somehow we had to uncover what Vince Caponi found on that disc, but without suffering the same fate.
3
Ten Days Earlier
Friday, Oct 08 -- 6:13 p.m.
A devout Roman Catholic, Vince Caponi would spend the last few moments of his life viewing a pornographic movie.
He would have had a logical explanation if Father Brezinski of St. Germaine’s Parish had walked through the door instead of the killer.
The evening had begun with the prospect of another late session at United Color Studios. For the tenth day in a row Caponi found himself alone at the studio, camped in a dark, windowless editing suite surrounded by three naked white walls and a fourth covered by a dozen TV monitors. A control panel housing rows of dials and switches that operated those monitors ran the length of the wall.
To relieve the boredom, Caponi decided to rent a movie from the Video Giant that recently opened down the street. The plan called for running the movie on one monitor, while editing the commercial for American Vehicle Corporation on two of the other screens. The agency needed the finished spot the next morning, but after eight years in the business Caponi could turn out a thirty-second spot in his sleep.
Unfortunately, Video Giant’s selection fell far short of its name. He had already seen the few current titles, and found nothing of interest in the older, classic video section. About to leave, he noticed a room marked “Adults Only.” Entering, he discovered racks filled with DVD covers featuring pictures of the actors and actresses who cavorted on the provocative digital discs inside. One in particular caught his eye: Titillating Ta-tas. The attractive blonde on the cover looked oddly familiar. In fact, she could have been the identical twin of an actress in a certain AVC commercial he had edited a few months back. It couldn’t possibly be the same woman...could it? He decided to check it out.
Back at United Color, he put Titillating Ta-tas up on Monitor A, fast-forwarding through the credits and freezing the frame as the blonde in question appeared wearing a seductive smile and little else. Next, he retrieved the single copy of the AVC commercial in question from the storage room. He inserted the disc labeled Avion on the Beach and hit the switch for Monitor B.
The commercial began with the Avion, AVC's top selling vehicle, parked on a beach and surrounded by a host of bikini-clad women. As the camera zoomed in for a close up, Caponi leaned forward in his chair. The blonde next to the car appeared to be a dead ringer for the woman smiling down at him from Monitor A. But whether she was more than just a look-alike he couldn’t be certain. Turning a dial in front of him, he slowed the action on Monitor B until the commercial ran virtually frame-by-frame.
That's when he noticed something funny. Strange funny.
He felt unsure of what he saw, but it concerned him enough to call Darren Cato, the TV producer at Adams & Benson, the advertising agency that filmed the spot. Finding Cato long gone on a Friday evening, he left a voicemail message. Then he burned two copies of the commercial, put the discs into clear plastic protective covers and inserted each in a cardboard envelope. He enclosed a short note in Cato’s package, called to arrange a special pickup, and carried both outside to the FedEx box at the front door.
A ringing nightline greeted him back in the editing suite. The caller turned out to be someone at the agency who had heard his message for Cato; a name he didn’t recognize. The man told him not to worry about his discovery; the disc must have been sent to United Color by mistake. Said he’d send someone to pick it up. Caponi hung up and unlocked the studio’s back door.
Returning to the editing suite, he began thinking about what he had seen. He hit the button on the Sony machine and replayed the commercial. When he got to the blonde, he slowed the action once again. That’s when the significance of the aberration dawned on him. He sat stunned; realizing the brief note he had enclosed in the package to Cato wasn’t enough. No, my god, not nearly enough.
He ran out to the FedEx box, finding the two copies gone. Damn. FedEx must have had a truck in the neighborhood when he called.
Caponi dashed back in, careful to lock the front door. As he returned to the suite he heard a noise from the rear of the building -- the messenger coming for the disc. He couldn’t let him have it, not now.
He had to tell someone what he had found. Caponi reached for the telephone and dialed Cato’s home number. He got the usual “your call is important” message after the fourth ring and began to speak into the receiver, leaving a detailed message.
He felt rather than saw the figure in the open doorway and began to turn when the nine millimeter hollow point ripped through his cheek, shattering teeth and taking out part of the roof of his mouth before tearing through the other side.
That bullet would have made certain he never talked again, but it wasn't enough for the man now four feet from the back of Caponi’s head. A second hollow point ripped through his brain, blowing his forehead open and painting the control board with blood, cerebrospinal fluid and bits of bone and brain tissue.
What remained of Caponi’s head crashed against the control board amidst a spreading pool of red just below the blonde on Monitor B, still smiling, oblivious to the blob of crimson matter now oozing down the screen.
4
Now
We had driven for hours in the darkness when we spotted a Meijer discount department store on M-59.
The sign outside trumpeted 24-hour service, but the only vehicles in the brightly lit parking lot were the half dozen employees’ cars parked in a cluster seventy feet from the entrance. I noticed a vacant spot near the center of the formation and eased the Avatar in. Higgins and I got out and headed for the store.
I hoped the Avatar would go unnoticed, but glancing over my shoulder, it looked like a lion among a group of pussycats.
Good thing the store was deserted. Noticing our reflections in the store window on the way in, I realized we’d be hard to miss, even in a crowd. Higgins, dressed carefully in black to match – oh brother! – the Avatar he drove earlier in the day, stood a rangy six-three. His pretty boy Brad Pitt look was saved by a nose. That is, a proboscis that looked like it might have been bashed a time or two in “The Big House” where he played football for the University of Michigan.
I had grown up sensitive about my height, somewhere just under six feet in heels, thinking of myself as the typical gawky teenager. A more comfortable feeling of “self” came later when I played point guard for the Michigan State basketball team that went to the Final Four my junior year, and got voted onto the Homecoming Court as a senior. Now the reflection in the window showed a woman in her early thirties, with light brown hair that fell just below her shoulders, dressed in the navy pantsuit her father had given her. Dad and I had grown especially close since Mom died three years ago, and I treasured the outfit.
All in all, I thought, the picture wasn’t bad for a once ugly duckling.
We found a bank of telephones inside the sliding glass doors. Higgins pushed coins into the first and entered Ken Cunningham's home number. He cocked the receiver so I could hear. The Adams & Benson executive vice president picked up after the fifth ring.
"Hello."
"Ken? Sean Higgins."
"What time is it?"
"Quarter to five, Ken. I
've got to talk to you."
"What is it?" Cunningham suddenly snapped wide-awake.
"You’re going to have to give the presentation to AVC management alone this morning, Ken."
"What?"
Higgins went through the story, starting with the Avion disc, the car chase and ultimately, the shooting of the policeman.
"Where's the DVD now?" Cunningham asked.
"We've got it."
"Are you sure it’s the disc they’re after?"
"Ken, three people are dead, another is lying in a coma. That DVD figured in at least three cases and probably all four."
"Who wants it and why?"
“I wish I knew.”
"You said the disc contained an Avion commercial... the one with all those bikini-clad women on the beach.”
“That’s right.”
"Hell, we ran that thing six months ago. Don’t see why anyone would want it now. But bring the DVD to me," Cunningham said, "I'll have it checked out.”
"Too risky, Ken. We've got to get out of town.”
"Where are you going?”
"My uncle's cottage near Gaylord."
"Not a good idea. The police’ll look for you there."
"Not unless someone tips them off. The uncle is my mother's brother. His last name's different from mine."
"I still think you'll be safer somewhere else. Let me do some checking. Where can I call you?"
"I'm at a pay phone. I'll have to call you."
"Give me fifteen minutes."
Now it was my turn to make a call. I started to dial.
“Who are you calling?” Higgins asked.
"Garry Kaminski. I want someone on the police force to hear our side of the story.”
"Okay, but make it quick. I’ll be inside grabbing a cup of coffee."
The phone rang six times before my former husband answered.
"Kaminski. You'd better have a damn good reason calling this early."
"Garry...it's Darcy."
"Darcy? Where the hell are you? The Roseville police put out an APB on you and your buddy Higgins. Our desk sergeant recognized your name and called me after midnight.”
Freeze Frame Page 1
