Charlie, Sonia and their other two colleagues left hurriedly for their rooms as they needed to be ready for their pick up in half an hour. Six was still kicked back in the lounge area on comfortable couches when they came back down headed at a quick march through the door and into the already waiting auto with one of their assigned deputies in the driver’s seat. Off they went with a quick wave from us. Six was waiting for results from Superintendent Boggin and his team. That would dictate where and on whom the next pressure would be applied. Six was hoping to hear something by 0830am. It was now 0815am. In the meantime, they all wanted to luxuriate in the restroom and shower a bit so all headed up. After sending off their clothing for a cleaning and now feeling fed and fresh, they gathered in Mader’s room and decided to call in to the Superintendent themselves.
The Superintendent answered his vidphone promptly. “I now have lots of info and was just about to call you,” he started. “We have clear data that shows Robert spent hundreds of hours researching the old data on coding and its use to reprogram minds that had caused catastrophic problems to humans 10,000 years ago and that had been banned from use. We found that he got together with two other blokes to work on this code together. We have had to use our top secret methods to infiltrate his memory caches on those computers he currently has on line, and we have extracted the easy pickings such as financial information to disguise what we were really after. Therefore if he did discover it, he would not likely think that his old research material was the objective. We didn’t want to spook him, but also didn’t want him to have a chance of wiping everything if he should somehow get an inkling suspicion that we were looking at him. I don’t know really how you all honed in on him so quickly, but after we looked at that stuff, and then compared it to what was on that disc you got out of Cayle, we already know that we have enough to hang the little bugger. We even found research on the various poisons that were found to have been used by likely him, when he poisoned Sri - Michael’s business partner. These are the same types of poisons that were subsequently used all over the various planets.”
He continued, “The treasure trove from his hard drives showed details of how he alone researched coding these instructions to use specific poisoning techniques into the framework of his brain programming software. We literally have all of it. The other two people who helped him would bear complicity and no doubt could easily be persuaded to implicate him to get a lighter sentence, unless we can find out that they too did some killing. It was shocking to all of us that he left such a clear trail to follow really. We have seen this before where terribly brilliant blokes feel that they can’t possibly be caught. Ha Ha he may still be laboring under the false information that quantum computers can’t be hacked. Oh dear I shouldn’t have said that! There goes my big mouth again. Of course we have the contents of the other two’s computers too, but so far it seems they did not participate in the poisoning research and they started about six years ago and then their involvement ended, best we could tell, four years ago about a year before the killing of Sri.” He stopped to take a long shuddering breath. Six just stayed silent, understanding that he had more to say.
He went on, “We also have him doing research on cloning fingerprints, though not vidcoms. However he may simply have paid someone to do that for him. With the right contacts its easy to get that kind of low life criminal with that kind of expertise..” he trailed off. Dillion said, “Might it be a good idea to see if anyone, low life mafia type was also killed in the last three years too. That Robert seems like someone who might go back and sweep up his loose ends. Cayle may have just been lucky or just too close to him, to where he feared the heat may blow back in his face. Maybe he figured that Cayle was grateful for the money and the job he got him too, so he let him ride. Also too many deaths in such a small population might bring too much heat.” Boggin said, “We will look into that, absolutely.”
Jonah said, “Congrats on a job well done. We now understand that you did not get much sleep. We were wondering why you took so long to call us.” The superintendent laughed loudly and said, “I am so glad that I don’t have to work with you hard driving Toigan’s often, praise the Lord, slave drivers the whole lot of you!” At that the whole of Team Six burst out laughing, “You can rest after we are gone Boggin. Some say that one should not rest much, since after death, you’ll have eternity to rest.” Obviously Lieutenant Shoneburger was in the background because they heard him say morosely, “We’ve done months worth of investigation in less than 24 hours and that Team Six is barely satisfied.” Cherese said, “Can you lease Lieutenant Shoneburger to us and particularly to me please so we can take him back with us?” There were now several guffaws in the background. Oh well the man had his whole team with him! Jonah said, “We want to have time for sightseeing, so can we go take on Robert in an hour or so? You all can take him in, right after we are done with our interrogation and then you can get us to his two partners from years ago so they can get the same treatment. We ought to have this all wrapped up by 5pm today right!” There were moans to be heard but more for the fun of it. “We will go as a full team to within three blocks of his office and make final arrangements as we muster to the area. He might have a suicide button at his desk. His home will need to be hit right after too. Six will immobilize him, if that’s needed.” No one asked how, even if they were puzzled.
Lieutenant Shoneburger and Superintendent Boggin showed up less than an hour later. Boggin looked a bit tired but energized too, all at the same time. Jonah, Jessi and Cherese were in the back again. Jessi said, “The plan is for us to enter Robert’s office once we know that he is there and have a chat. Of course Superintendent Boggin you will be with us and the others will be conducting surveillance for unanticipated dangers. We will let the Lieutenants know when it is time to come make the arrest. We will need a lady Officer to search his secretary so that she does not spirit away evidence out of a sense of loyalty or destroy evidence locally or in distance. We do not like ‘oh ohs’. Everything must be 100% done with no slip ups. Does anyone else have anything else to contribute? We must have eyes on the other two who had helped Robert with his research so that we can go straight to them right after.” Superintendent Boggin had earlier indicated that the folks in the other two cars could hear the conversation. The other Lieutenant with the rest of Six would be there too. The third car contained two deputies one of whom was female.
The eyes in the sky plus ones on the ground confirmed that Robert was in his office. The three of Six would appear along with Boggin in civilian clothes and hopefully would come off as folks who were in the business of procuring vidgame contracts etc. Six would plant that suggestion in the secretary’s mind and Robert’s too. They knew he had seen them visit Truereal’s office yesterday, so it would be no big stretch of the imagination. He might even feel honored and important to be visited as well, they reasoned. So they exited and the four of them came like business people up to the office of Satvid. The secretary looked up and once Cherese reached for the door handle, she started to smile. No threat so far they mind talked. The two males walked calmly behind Cherese and Jessi and were just able to fit into the small foyer together as the door closed. Cherese did the talking, “Good morning to you Ma’am, we are here on a fact finding tour of the video game production companies in the area and wondered whether you had any one who would mind giving us a little of their time. We may sign contracts for games that suit our clients’ taste and we heard your company’s name mentioned.” The receptionist/ secretary beamed broadly and got up saying, “I’m sure my boss would make some time for you folks, please wait.” Cherese, Jessi and Jonah were aware that Robert had been observing them with curiosity but no alarm and they did not do anything to tip off their quarry. They stared with a calm waiting posture at the door where the receptionist had gone through. They could clearly hear all of the exchange too behind the door, even though Boggin could not. They had taken the chance to bring Boggin, because they did not read Robert as having re
cognized him yesterday to be law enforcement. In fact Robert was eager to meet them all thinking that they might bring him business.
22. CORNERING A LION IN ITS DEN
The door opened and the middle aged lady motioned for them to follow her. One door down and left into another and there was Mr. Robert Fuschon as his embossed nameplate stated, rising respectfully from behind his gargantuan desk embossed with banks of monitor screens. He said, while looking from one face to another, “Welcome folks to Satvid, please have a seat. Our staff work remotely, so there are just two of us here today. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking and how may I be of help to you?” The others of Six were hearing the narrative ‘he is our man, he does have a fry button to dispose of memory banks so come to the front desk and he does have a stash of poison in the garage of his home with a trip wire to blow up the house.’ There were deputies ready to get into his home already and this would be valuable info. In the meantime, Cherese was explaining to Robert that these were her colleagues and they had travelled great distances to meet the movers and shakers of the industry in Threeme. As he took a seat and motioned for them to do the same, she sprang the surprise, “Robert I have to be honest with you. We do have an interest in vid games and yours in particular, but not for the reason we just gave you. Lots of people have died in Toigan and Baclet and here on Threeme and we have done our homework. What can you tell us about your involvement?” As he moved to lower his arms from the top of the desk, Jonah put the ‘kibosh’ to that, pinning his arms there. His face contorted with the effort he was making to drag his arms off the top of the desk and he looked down at his arms with puzzlement. He tried moving his knees up to reach the buttons under the edge of his desk but they could not move either. He and his heavy padded chair seeming on its own suddenly moved back five feet behind his desk and he looked around like a trapped animal sitting with his arms held out as if they were still on the desk, but none of his limbs could move. He called out loudly to his receptionist, “Yvonne press the alarm and self destruct button.”
Superintendent Boggin was as surprised as Robert was, but being the cop that he was, he did not twitch a muscle at all. Cherese said, “So sorry, but she is quite indisposed and cannot do that. She cannot destroy evidence Mr. Fuschon! Now would you like me to talk to your heart,” and she paused. A look of dread cracked over his face as he felt his heart slow and go very irregular and he could feel the room gradually growing darker as pain in his chest gradually built up. Cherese clasped her hands over her knees as if she had all the time in the world. She said, “It is unpleasant you know those few seconds when the poison you have administered start to work. You will tell us where you keep all of your ingredients now. You will tell us how you executed your plan to kill off your competitor Sri just next door. A full confession is in order, are you smart enough to know that the game is up though?she asked and without expecting an answer continued, “We know everything and you are going to tell the world all about it, NOW.” He was pale and green from nausea, but he nodded weakly, what else could he do he thought, “These people hold all the cards, maybe if I cooperate, I can lull them into a false sense of security and take my pill that I keep in my shirt and be done with it. So I will give them what they want.” Of course, he could not know that they all had things under control, even that too! Cherese said, “Ok you will be recorded fully and everything you say can be used against you for your prosecution.” He nodded agreeably again and suddenly his heart was working smoothly again, there was no pain in his chest and he had the use of his arms and legs again. “That’s better,” he thought grimly.
The other members of Six had moved to be within a half block walking normally just as they’d done yesterday toward Truereal, but now headed to Satvid. The Lieutenants Shoneburger and Jake brought up the rear after Mader, Matt and Dillion. As they neared the office, the other security vehicle moved in close by in readiness. Dillion had turned around to let the Lieutenants know that they were going in, as a result of the signals given to them by the team entering Robert’s office. So the receptionist just having sat down, looked up to see five men reaching for her office’s door handle and entering. They all stood still in front of her desk and put their fingers on their lips motioning her to be silent. It was a most strange and surprising turn of events. Otherwise they did not seem to be threatening to her. She sat open mouthed for about a minute not moving and not saying anything either. She was thinking, “this is weird”. Then she heard her boss call out in a sort of panicked voice to ‘press the alarm and the self destruct button.’ The young rather handsome man directly in front of her said firmly but kindly, “We are here to look into some crimes that we know your boss has committed and so if you do what he asked, you will be destroying evidence and you will be complicit in his crimes. As of right now, although we plan to ask you a few questions we do not see any reason to arrest you, but you likely will be called to testify. We are the security men you’d be summoning anyway if you did press the alarm; meet Lieutenant Jake and Shoneburger and there are other deputies right behind us.” Just as he said it, two uniformed deputies one of them a female officer, came barging in, stepping to the sides of her desk and grabbing her by the arms, part lifting her up out of the chair.
They said, “Ma’am we need to take you downtown for interrogation. Where is your personal effects and show us the keys and codes for the office so we can lock it up safely. Your business place is now closed.” The young man in front of her said, “Do not do anything silly, but show us where the self destruct is and all of the safety storage hiding spots. Cooperating will demonstrate that you have nothing to hide and you’re not part of his nasty games.” He was obviously trying to help her she realized and she immediately told them and the deputies everything that she knew that might be related to the location of the business records. She was then made to stand with no restraints, off to the side in the foyer. The young man stepped forward and touched the destruct button, seemed to freeze in place for a few seconds and the built in safe, so well camouflaged, simply popped open. He then reached inside after putting on a glove handed him by a deputy and pulled out a wrapped package. He placed it gently on the table, unwrapped it, revealing a long narrow circuit board and a few clay looking bricks with wires. The deputies and the other two older men who she learned were Lieutenants all started backing away heading toward the door, but the young man proceeded to carefully and gingerly remove the wires until there were only individual components spread out. The deputies had all turned back looking in amazement at the young man. One of them said, “We normally get demolition to do that sort of thing you know. If that bomb had gone off, the whole block would have been flattened.” Yvonne the receptionist nearly fainted. “Do you mean to say that if I had pushed the button as my boss requested, then I and all of us here would have been blown to bits?” The young man answered, “Yes ma’am.” But he had told me that there was only a device there to start a fire inside the box in case someone was coming to steal the company’s vital products and I believed him since he would put the originals of new games the company produced there.” The young man nodded, “We believe that there may be other incriminating things in there that he did not want anyone, especially law enforcement to get their hands on. Are you aware of any other hiding spots or any criminal activity that your boss may have hidden or carried out?” he stared at her long and hard, as she shook her head in the negative. He then said to the deputies, “You can take her for the full line of questioning on the record now.”
In the meantime, the teams were sharing the bounty of information drained from Robert’s head and they knew all that was needed to break his scheme, from bank accounts to the location of all his hidden booty. This information was ready for use against him. All of it was going to be retrieved and used to nail his coffin. Six was now clear that he was the sole plotter and planner of this diabolical crime spree. The warning went out about his different booby traps as well to the Lieutenants just outside the door by Jonah typing i
t out on his vidcom to theirs. It had all been about his bruised ego and his vengeful nature they realized. As they say, some people are just plain evil. After Robert had disclosed on camera, several cameras to be exact, the essential details of his last seven years of plotting and he felt that his ‘tormentors’ had begun to let their guard down. He was ready to embark on his next phase. It therefore was with puzzlement then anger, that he watched as the young lady got up from her chair, walked over to him and said, “I am going to have to take your shirt you know, after all the suffering you have caused on three planets you will have to face the music.” He found himself unable to move any of his limbs once again and she motioned to the two men who had been with her to deal with the removal of his clothing. Try though he did, he could not move a limb and eventually just gave up as they gently removed his shirt and and made him stand so they could take off his pants too. His suicide pill was now gone laying among the pile of clothing at his feet. He was both puzzled and incensed when she looked him directly in the eye and said, “Make sure to get his poison pill out from his pocket before you bag the clothing as more evidence.” The ‘expletive bitch devil’ with her coy grin somehow knew about his poison pill and was now leaving him standing in only his underclothes he was thinking. The door to his office opened and uniformed deputies entered and were told to take him. The bite of the cold metal handcuffs on his wrist was shocking and unpleasant. He was led outside where he paused to look at Yvonne’s desk noting his opened safe and his carefully crafted explosive charges neatly deconstructed there. The tall dark young man standing in front of the desk looked at him and said two things to him, “Games up.”
KILLER GAMERS Page 15
