Freeze Frame

by B. David Warner

  The original wedding date had been mid-December, but Kaminski hadn't recovered enough to go through with it. They rescheduled the ceremony for January, and asked Darcy and Higgins to serve as Maid of Honor and Best Man. It was Rosie's idea that the two join them on their honeymoon.

  Higgins had joked about making it a double wedding, but that's all it was: a joke. For Darcy, it was far too soon to know how she felt toward Sean. Time would tell, and right now she couldn't think of a better place to spend time.

  "Okay, let's go," Darcy said. She and Rosie strolled toward the tent set up for the convenience of hotel guests who didn't want to stray from the sand and surf for lunch or drinks.

  "Hey, Darcy."

  Higgins came running toward her from the hotel, a huge smile covering his face. Reaching her, he picked her up, swung her around, and set her back down in the sand. He leaned forward and kissed her.

  Darcy felt euphoric. Maybe it was the warmth of a perfect day, or the warmth of a relationship that seemed to grow more perfect by the day. Or perhaps it was the lifting of the dark veil of horror that covered them for so many days.

  Whatever the reason, she couldn't remember being happier than right now, right here, at this moment.

  Freeze frame.

  Read the beginning of Dead Lock, the next novel by B. David Warner

  Prologue

  On October 4, 1942, the top secret MI6 branch at Bletchley Park, England, decrypted a German Enigma radio transmission that pointed to an attack on the locks at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. The transmission indicated that the attack would take place the following year during dedication ceremonies for the new MacArthur Lock. The attack was scheduled to wreak maximum damage on both property and the lives of the hundreds of people who would be present during the ceremony.

  The vast majority of iron ore that supplied the Allied war effort passed through these locks by lake freighter, and destroying them would shut down every airplane, tank, ship and munitions plant in the United States.

  The message was taken very seriously.

  Chapter 1

  Detroit, Michigan

  Wednesday, June 16, 1943

  25 days before the dedication of the MacArthur Lock

  The problem, Lyle Banner figured, wasn’t the gunman or the hostage. It was the rotten timing.

  You’re a Lieutenant on the Detroit Police Force, you’ve faced this kind of situation before: a gunman holding some poor schnook hostage. The fact that the hostage is a popular reporter for the Detroit Times and the gunman is a mob hit man makes it even better. Play it smart and there could be a promotion in it.

  But not now. Not ten days from retirement. Screw this up, and the reputation you’ve nursed for thirty years goes into the tank like a trick pony off a high board.

  Banner looked around, sizing up the situation for the nth time tonight. Half a dozen police cars parked side by side on the street, headlights trained on the reporter’s white two-story house. The house, with its postage stamp cement porch and tiny front lawn, sat close to the street. The porch, sidewalk and grass were still damp from the rain that fell for a few minutes just after dark. The street had been cordoned off at both ends, and houses on either side of the reporter’s evacuated. The crowd had grown steadily since the police cars arrived just before dark, and stood behind ropes three houses away on either side. The small group of people milling around inside the roped area included police, emergency personnel and a few reporters.

  “They say stall him, Lieutenant.”

  Banner squinted toward his sergeant, John Wolenski, seated in the squad car six feet away. The car’s two-way radio connected them with the Chief of Police and his staff downtown.

  “Stall him? Stall him? A mob killer’s demanding a car and a thousand dollars cash, and that’s the best they can do?”

  Banner went on. “I can see them sitting around that table in the Chief’s office right now, figuring what they’re gonna say when everything blows up in my face. Which it damn well may do,” he looked down at his wrist, “in exactly seven minutes.”

  Chapter 2

  A headache formed at the base of his skull as Banner pictured the front-page headlines of all three Detroit newspapers if he screwed this one up.

  They had been here, twenty-two cops strong, in the middle-class east side Detroit neighborhood for almost three hours. The sun disappeared a half hour ago, but windows stayed open this warm June night of 1943. A soft breeze carried the hint of newly minted elm leaves and Billie Holiday sang I’ll Be Seeing You on someone’s radio.

  The irony of the song’s title wasn’t lost on Banner.

  “Everything under control, Lieutenant?”

  Banner turned to a tall, gaunt figure behind him. With the collar of his long trench coat pulled up around his face, Reese Cobb looked like the grim reaper. Cobb, from the mayor’s office, had a reputation as one of the Police Department’s staunchest critics. At the sight of him another knot seemed to twist in the Lieutenant’s stomach.

  Banner nodded, affecting a coolness he didn’t feel. “Hello, Cobb. You just happen to be in the neighborhood?”

  “Got a call from one of the taxpayers around here saying there’s someone inside holding a woman hostage. The mayor’s always interested when the life of one of his constituents is threatened.”

  Especially when it’s a popular reporter, Banner thought.

  “Know who the gunman is?” Cobb had a way of talking without much moving his mouth. In calmer times Banner got a laugh picturing the man with Charley McCarthy setting on his knee. Not tonight.

  “Frank Valvano. Small time punk. Works for the mob.” Banner reached inside his dark blue uniform jacket for the half-empty pack of Luckies in his shirt pocket. He’d switched to Lucky Strikes when they changed from the old green pack to the new red and white. In a weak moment he’d confess it wasn’t taste of the cigarettes that prompted him to change after twenty years of puffing on Pall Malls. He liked the slogan, Lucky Strike Green Went to War. Sounded patriotic.

  “He’s holding a woman reporter hostage, I hear,” Cobb said. “One who works for the Times?”

  “Name’s Kate Brennan.” Banner struck a match and held it to his cigarette. If Cobb wanted facts he’d get them, one at a time; pulling them out like wrestling tent stakes from hard ground.

  “She the one behind those stories about the mob counterfeiting gasoline rationing stamps?”

  Banner shook out the match and dropped it on the ground. He took a deep drag from the Lucky and nodded.

  The mayor’s man whistled. “Looks like they’re trying to put her out of business.” When Banner simply inhaled and blew long trail of smoke into the night air, Cobb spoke again. “Who called you?”

  “The woman.”

  “The woman?”

  Banner nodded. “Found Valvano in her living room when she came home. He apparently planned to take her for a ride, one-way. She broke lose, ran into her bedroom and locked the door. She barely had time to phone the switchboard downtown before he forced his way in and grabbed the phone.”

  “Excuse me, Lieutenant.” Wolenski, now out of the squad car, stood next to a man holding a canvas rifle case. “There’s a Corporal Harrison here. Says the Chief sent him.”

  Chapter 2

  The Corporal stood taller than Banner, well over six feet. He had salt and pepper hair and Banner guessed him to be in his mid-fifties. Banner cocked his head to the side, looking at the man. “The Chief sent...who the hell are you?”

  “Harrison. Corporal Ben Harrison, sir. Chief thought you might be able to use me.” Harrison looked down at his rifle case.

  A marksman. The Chief of Police wanted him to force the hood’s hand. What if his marksman misses? Banner could envision a small trick pony beginning to climb the metal stair to a high board over a water tank in the center ring of a circus somewhere.

  “Why haven’t I heard your name before, Corporal?”

  “Moved up here about a month ago from Nashville, Lieutenan
t.”

  “You any good with that thing?” Pointing to the rifle case.

  “Get me a clear shot and you’ll be home by eleven thirty.”

  Yeah, if you do my paperwork, Banner thought. But, he took it as a good sign, the guy being confident.

  “Where do you want to set up?”

  Harrison looked around, then pointed to a thin tree in front of the house two doors down. “I’ll stand over there on the lawn. Use that tree for support.”

  “Why, the trunk of that tree isn’t more than three inches thick. You’ll be an easy target.”

  “Chief said he had a small-caliber pistol. I’ll be out of his range. But he won’t be out of mine.”

  “He’ll spot you.” Banner’s nervousness seemed to grow by the second. He could see that trick pony on top of the ladder, almost to the diving platform.

  “That’s the idea. Him knowing there’s a rifle pointed at him might cause him to think twice about killing the lady.”

  “Lieutenant, someone’s coming out of the house,” Wolenski called.

  The gunman, Valvano, had moved onto the porch of the white house, lights from the police cars playing on him like spotlights. He held the woman directly in front of his body, one hand pressing a small pistol tightly to her temple, the other arm wrapped around her upper torso. Only the top half of her face showed, but Banner could see she was an attractive woman, with a thin, straight nose and large, expressive eyes.

  “You cops got the car and the grand, or do I kill the woman?”

  Chapter 3

  At the sound of the gunman’s voice, Harrison began sprinting toward the tree he had spotted two houses down. Ripping the rifle case open as he ran, he checked the clip in the M1 CD. As he reached the tree, he pressed the rifle against its damp trunk.

  Through the scope, he could clearly see the pair on the small cement porch. The gunman clutched the woman so close that Harrison couldn’t chance a shot. When he saw the man’s face just for an instant, it appeared dark and thin with eyebrows that seemed to meet in the middle. Harrison felt shaken by the brutality in the eyes. Some people are born cruel, he thought, cruel and crazy. This woman would die if the son-of-a-bitch didn’t get what he wanted, no question.

  Still looking through the scope, Harrison moved the tip of the rifle muzzle downward. That’s when he saw what she was doing and thought, God, that woman has balls!

  She must have seen him running toward the tree, because she appeared to be signaling to him. She had to be; why else would she be doing that with her fingers? He focused the scope on her hands, held together in front of her. He could see her pointing straight downward with the index finger of her right hand. Then, with her left hand clenched, she extended each of three fingers, one at a time, in a one-two-three counting motion.

  God, that woman has balls.

  Harrison moved the scope back to the woman’s face. She was pretty, and young; and should have been scared out of her wits. Instead of fear, though, her eyes burned with defiance. Screw the bastard with the gun at her head, she seemed to be saying, she was going to hit the ground on the count of three.

  But she had to be sure he saw what she was doing.

  “Lieutenant!” Harrison fought to get Banner’s attention. The Lieutenant was busy calling back and forth to the gunman on the porch, trying to stall, to negotiate. Something. Anything.

  “Lieutenant Banner!” Banner finally swung around.

  “Lieutenant, have one of your men shine a light on me. I want the two on the porch to see me.”

  Banner had momentarily forgotten about Harrison, pushing him to the back of his mind, hoping he wasn’t serious about shooting at the gunman. No one could be sure of hitting a target that small from way back there. Nearly two hundred feet. And if he missed by just a little… Banner could see the pony poised at the end of the diving platform.

  But he gave the order and one of the black and white jockeys swung the spotlight on his car over to illuminate the rifleman behind the tree. The gunman saw him from the porch, but didn’t move, keeping his pistol pressed to the woman’s temple. Harrison made sure she saw him, holding the M1 sniper rifle against the tree trunk, raising and lowering it slowly three times. Then he called. “Okay, lights out.”

  Back in the scope, Harrison watched the woman’s face and saw by the way her eyes looked straight at him that she had understood. He lowered the scope to look at her hands … but they weren’t moving. What the hell was she waiting for?

  Bringing the scope back up, he saw. The gunman had tightened his grip around the woman’s head and neck. No way could she get loose enough to drop. Her lips moved, she said something, maybe asked him to loosen his hold, because that’s what he seemed to do as she let out a breath. Her eyes dropped to the ground once again. Harrison lowered his scope to her hands. Again the index finger of her left hand pointed downward. She was ready.

  One. Her right index finger shot out.

  Two. The middle finger came out and Harrison raised the scope to head level. There would be just one chance.

  One shot.

  The woman’s face now filling his scope, Harrison couldn’t see her finger signals. But on what would have been the count of three her head dropped from the frame, exposing Valvano’s face for an instant before he moved quickly to raise her up.

  Not quickly enough.

  The .30-06 slug from the M1, traveling at 2,837 feet per second, tore through the right side of Valvano’s scalp, blowing away a portion of his head. His body slammed back against the door of the house, then sagged to a heap on the porch. Having regained her balance the woman stood, hands clenched, glaring down at her would-be-killer lying in a pool of blood rapidly spreading over the porch.

  God, that woman has balls.

  Chapter 4

  If you’re wondering where the woman on the porch got the guts to act so bravely, you’re not alone.

  I lay in bed later on that evening wondering the same thing.

  I rolled over and reached into the drawer of my bed stand and retrieved an envelope with its carefully folded paper inside. I read the printed message for what must have been the one-thousandth time:

  Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Strickland request your presence

  at the wedding of their son Ronald Jr. to

  Kate Brennan,

  daughter of the late Harold and Margaret Brennan.

  We had picked the perfect date for our wedding; Valentine’s Day fell on a Saturday in 1942. But it never happened. World War II got in the way.

  Ronny enlisted in the Navy the day after Pearl Harbor, a cloudy, snowy Monday in December. He got to stay home for Christmas, a time I’ll remember forever, because it was our last together. Ron shipped out for the Great Lakes Naval Station on January 2, 1942. It was a cold, dark day. But not as dark as June 5, when word came that Ronny had been killed when the Japanese torpedoed the Yorktown at Midway.

  I cried every day for weeks afterward. There’s still an emptiness that surfaces every time I pass one of the places we used to frequent, or hear a joke I know would make Ron laugh.

  The healing process came slowly. In time, I got past Ronny’s death, but I know I’ll never get over it. The healing left an emotional scar that gave me a new outlook on life. Things that once seemed terribly important aren’t quite so vital. Events that once would have terrified me aren’t so frightening.

  I think that’s what saved my life tonight.

  You’ve just met Darcy James’ great aunt Kate Brennan, a 21st Century woman who just happens to life in the 1940s.

  Leaving Detroit and taking a job with her grandfather’s newspaper at the Soo, Kate uncovers a Nazi plot to destroy the locks and paralyze the U.S. war effort.

  Watch for Dead Lock coming soon in hardcover and paperback.

 

 

 
<
center>