by Blake Banner
I grunted. “OK, stand by. Do nothing. Call no one. We have this covered. I’m going to have a look upstairs.” I held out my hand. “Keys.”
He hesitated. If he refused I was going to have to knock him unconscious. But it wasn’t necessary. I was the FBI, and everybody trusts the Feds. He handed me a bunch of keys and said, “They’re numbered. It’s an office per floor.”
I walked toward the elevators pressing my finger against my ear, and muttered, “Alpha one, be advised I am proceeding to investigate upper floors. Be alert. We may have hostiles.”
I rode the car to the top floor and stepped out into a small but luxurious reception area, with a mahogany reception desk, parquet floors and leather armchairs set in nests around heavy, dark wood coffee tables. There was a door on the far right, and another behind the desk and slightly to the left. I went for the one on the far right, and my hunch proved to be correct. Once I’d identified the key and opened the door, I found myself in a large, airy office overlooking the boulevard. The walls were paneled in wood and hung with what seemed to be genuine Picassos. The floor here was also parquet, and strewn with Persian rugs. A sideboard on the right held the obligatory silver tray of decanters and a genuine 1960s soda bottle. On the left there was a nest of black leather chairs and couches. A huge oak desk that appeared to be antique sat with its back to the curved windows.
This was where Aaron Fenninger created his shows and his movies. Or was it where he played Goebbels and decided what propaganda to package as Hollywood entertainment, and feed to the Western world? I stood a moment taking in the room. It reeked of power, and yet somehow it wasn’t convincing. There was something that didn’t gel: something that didn’t quite ring true.
I sat at his desk, pulled on some surgical gloves and went through his drawers. All of them were unlocked. There were a dozen film scripts and a stack of contracts, none of which was of any interest. There were ink cartridges, paperclips, elastic bands, pens, paper and blank notebooks.
I got up and walked around the room, looking behind the paintings. I found the safe behind a geometrically challenged woman with both breasts on the same side of her chest. I grimaced. It was a decent safe, but it wasn’t a super-safe. I took my driver’s license from my wallet and slipped it into the fine crack on the right side of the safe door, then began to slide it down slowly till I found the reset button. A little pressure depressed it and I punched in the new code, 123456. I pulled out my license, punched in the code again and opened the safe.
It really is that easy.
There was not much to see other than a stack of papers about two inches deep. I took them to the desk and sat to look through them. The title sheet said simply, ‘INTELLIGENT IMAGING CONSULTANTS’ and underneath, ‘Five Year Project’.
I was aware I didn’t have long before my guy downstairs started getting antsy, so I photographed the first ten pages and put the rest back in the safe. Then I placed a micro-bug in one of the carved curls on the side of his desk and another under his coffee table, and made my way down in the elevator again, removing my gloves. As I stepped through the sliding doors I was pressing my ear again and muttering, “All clear, Alpha, stand by.”
The security guard was staring at me fixedly. I frowned at him and said, “I think we must have scared them off. You better call your tech guys to check out your equipment and your cameras.” I drew a deep breath and studied his face a moment, like I was thinking. “My advice.” I shook my head. “I wouldn’t talk about this. Nobody got hurt. Let’s be thankful.”
He nodded, uncertain and a little scared. I stepped into the street and made my way back across the road.
I climbed in the Chevy, slammed the door and sent the drone to collect my hardware. Once I had it in the truck and safely under a tarp, I started a leisurely drive back toward Watts, going over what I had seen. There was no indication, apart from the contents of the safe, that Fenninger’s office was used for anything other than writing and producing his shows and his movies. Apart from being eighteen karat politically correct drone fodder, I didn’t think there was anything especially sinister about his movies or his TV shows.
So that meant that the part of his work that was directly related to Omega was handled, albeit unwittingly, by Intelligent Imaging Consultants. I thought briefly about paying them a visit and nosing around in their offices, but I decided I was more interested in talking to them than looking at their papers. I wanted to know what was inside their heads, more than what was inside their safes.
On the way back to El Toro I pulled into an all night Walgreens and printed the photographs. They were clear and sharp, but I didn’t stop to look at them. I went back to the desolate parking lot, climbed into the truck and drove back through the broad, empty streets to the guest house. There I left the truck around the corner and went inside. The same Mexican woman was standing behind the reception desk. She stared at me as I came in. I said, “Good evening.”
She said, “Are you drunk? We don’t want any trouble.”
I shook my head and smiled. “No, I’m not drunk. And I don’t want any trouble either.”
Her face registered no reaction, but she said, “You been smokin’ in your room.”
“Yeah. Is that a problem?”
“I left you an ashtray on your bedside table. Don’t smoke in the bed. We don’t want a fire.”
“I won’t.” I went to move on but stopped and hesitated. “You always on night duty?”
“Yes. Why?”
“You ever get trouble at night?”
She scanned me quickly with her eyes, then shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“Your husband on hand if you need help?”
“He’s not my husband. No, I call the cops. Sometimes they come, sometimes they don’t.”
I nodded. “Well, I won’t give you any trouble. If you need a hand, shout.”
She didn’t say anything and I went to my room to look at the pictures. I poured myself a stiff whiskey, threw myself on the bed, poked a Camel in my mouth and lit up. Obedience was never my strong suit. I read slowly through the ten pages of documents.
Intelligent Imaging Consultants was composed of three men and a woman: Ahmed Musa, Erick Dunbar, Elena Sanchez and Izamu Suzuki. The document I had photographed—partially photographed—was a proposal that might or might not have been written by Fenninger, suggesting how and why Intelligent Imaging Consultants could and should shift from passive analysis to a more aggressive role in actually driving the direction of what it called ‘popular visually-based culture’.
The text then took a very rapid and unexpected turn, and started talking about child psychology. It began by stating that, “It has been clear since Albert Bandura’s development of social cognitive theory in the early 1960s that children learn behavior by imitating role models, and that television can become a very powerful delivery system for such role models. Later work by Hill, Eggen and Kauchack and Eden have shown that modeling of this type can continue in later life, where the social environment is conducive to retarding adulthood and discouraging self-reliance.
“It is proposed here that our society is eminently well suited to this kind of modeling, in that the visually-based media occupy a central role in social life and social interaction, and provide us with a wide range of ready-made celebrity role models from the earliest age. These models have already assumed a large part of the role traditionally reserved for parents and, to an even greater extent, that reserved for priests and other spiritual guides who both prescribed and proscribed particular types of behavior…”
The next few pages were in a similar vein. Then I came to a passage that stated, “The Omega Behavioral Research Team has conducted a number of experiments over the last forty years in which the potential of television, IT and cinema as tools for behavioral conditioning have been explored. Certain limitations have been identified, but the power of these media not only to promote, but to dictate behavior as diverse as eating habits, violence, aggression and sexual orientation, has been esta
blished beyond any doubt. It is proposed therefore that…”
That was where the photographs ran out. I didn’t need to read any more. I knew what they proposed. They were like the Wile E Coyote, constantly trying out new methods from the endless ACME store of mind control devices. With the one big difference that instead of the Roadrunner they were successfully preying on almost eight billion people who were, steadily, according to Omega’s plan, turning into quasi-zombies.
I sat for a while, indulging in my proscribed behavior, smoking on the bed and drinking whiskey, and wondered what our ancestors would have made of the world their descendents had created for themselves. I tried to think back and identify at what point we had entered this dystopian nightmare without even realizing we had crossed through the portal from sanity to madness. Was it, as Senator Cyndi McFarlane had suggested, in the 1960s? Or was it earlier, when we made the first steam engines and trains? Or was it when the Romans started standardizing things and spreading their empire, their culture of citizenship, of all roads leading to one place, one God. I remembered reading an old Viking saga where they described the spread of Romanized Christianity across Europe as a black tide.
And that made me think of Malthus. Because that was pretty much what he had predicted for a humanity: a black, unstoppable tide, where the victim is the disease itself. Only it was so much worse than anything he had ever predicted.
Four
I slept for four hours, showered and went out to the reception. The dark-haired woman was still there. She said, “You want breakfast?”
Something barely perceptible had thawed in her manner.
“Thanks.”
“I put you a table in the garden.”
She pointed to a door in the yellow, lime washed wall. I opened it and found myself in a garden densely populated with yucca, cacti and rhododendrons. There was a white, cast-iron table laid for breakfast on a small patch of lawn under a group of three palm trees. I sat and pulled my burner cell from my pocket. I checked my watch. It wasn’t nine yet. So I sat and listened to the birds for a while.
After about five minutes she came out with a tray of coffee and hot rolls. I watched her set the tray on the table and start to unload it. It struck me for the first time that she was beautiful. I guessed also that she was probably permanently mad at the world, which hid the fact that she was beautiful behind a mask of sullen hostility. On an impulse I said, “My name is Lacklan.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Lacklan? I have never heard this name.” She suppressed a smile of amusement. “You have no land?”
I gave a small laugh. “It means one who comes from the lochs, from the fjords. A Viking raider. What’s yours?”
She hesitated a moment. “Maria.”
She turned and walked back inside. I poured coffee and buttered toast, ignored my gut and decided this was my reward for paying lots of money and not causing trouble. There was nothing more to it than that. I didn’t need to get sidetracked and I did need to stay focused.
At five past nine I called Intelligent Imaging Consultants and was answered by a pretty young voice that was full of sunshine and all the positive stuff she had learned from whatever shows had replaced Friends since I’d grown old.
“Good morning!” she said, and I almost heard the twitter of birds. “Welcome to Intelligent Imaging Consultants, this is Lisa speaking, how may I direct your call?”
“Good morning, Lisa. I need to talk to…” I plucked a name at random from my memory. “Ahmed Musa.”
“May I inquire about the nature of your call, Mr…?”
“No. My name is Reginald B. Franklin, I am a financier from New York and I am looking to invest twenty million bucks in cutting edge research and development in social cognitive modeling in visually based media. Got that? Now find me Musa, sweet cakes, before I get bored.”
“One moment please, Mr. Franklin”
She put me on hold and while I waited, through the iron fence, I watched Don pull up in his car. He climbed out and caught sight of me in the garden. A minute later Maria went out, climbed into a small Honda and drove away. Then there was a voice in my ear. It was a cultured voice with an English accent.
“Mr. Franklin, this is Ahmed Musa speaking, how can I help you?”
“Mr. Musa, I represent a small consortium of very wealthy investors out east who are looking for interesting, ground breaking areas in which to invest their money. One of the areas we are especially interested in is TV, web-based TV and movies, and cinema. But what we are really looking to invest in, Mr. Musa, Ahmed, if I may, is the application of cognitive behavioral theories to these media. And I don’t really want to discuss this in any more depth over the telephone, you know what I’m saying? We have an initial budget of twenty million which we are looking to invest, and we are interested in your company.”
He was quiet for a moment, then he said, “And what form exactly would this investment take, Mr. Franklin?”
“Well that’s something I figure we can discuss in person, whad’ya say?”
“Naturally. When would be convenient for you? I am free…”
I didn’t wait to see when he was free. “Twelve o’clock, midday today. Back east, time is not something we like to waste, know what I’m saying, Ahmed? It ain’t like California.”
“Of course, I appreciate that. Twelve noon. I look forward to seeing you then.”
“Yeah, you too. Take it easy.”
I hung up and saw Don standing in the doorway watching me. He said, “Good morning. I see Maria has pulled out all the stops for you. Can I get you anything else?”
I studied him a moment, wondering if I was seeing jealousy lurking in his expression. I decided I wasn’t. I said, “It was very kind of her. I have everything I need. Thanks.”
He hesitated, then stepped out into the yard, closing the door behind him. “She’s a remarkable woman. People think it’s my place, she prefers it that way, but it’s not. It belongs to her. I just manage it during the day.” He took a step closer. “People think she’s my wife too, sometimes, but she’s not.” He shrugged, half-smiled. “Unfortunately. I care for her, a lot.”
I nodded, waited. After a moment I shrugged and said, “I’m just passing through, Don. I’m not getting involved.”
“Right. Well, anything you need, just let me know. She seems to have taken a shine to you.”
I nodded again. “Thanks. I don’t need anything. I’ll soon be on my way.”
He went back inside and I called Ted Wallace.
“Yeah.”
“Good morning. Anything to report? Do I need to come in?”
“Yes and no. Yes I have something to report, no, it is not worth your coming in.”
“OK, shoot.”
“Nothing happened during the night, at all, except for the security patrols. And that means we have a problem. This is Malibu, ninety percent of the inhabitants are multimillionaires and above. You saw yourself, there are very few cars parked on the road, everybody has their own garage. The cars that are parked on the road go back to Poorlandia at night. If we keep these two cars alternating in the same area, long before a week is up, they are going to become conspicuous. If it was a Bentley, or an Aston Martin, people would assume it was somebody visiting a friend, but two mid-range saloons alternating every twelve hours for a week?”
“Rent a couple of cars. Put it down to expenses.”
“It is still going to be conspicuous. I am telling you, nothing ever happens in Malibu. You’re staking out a house on a street where the most exciting thing that ever happens is that Jack Nicholson takes his dog for a walk, and now you want to put two unidentified cars within a hundred yards of Aaron Fenninger’s house, for a week. You may as well paint them day glow yellow and put a neon arrow on the roof. These people employ high end security. You’re not talking ex-cops here, you’re talking ex-special ops and secret service. Somebody is going to notice. As of today we are going to be sticking out like luminous dicks.”
I
knew he was right. It had struck me the first time I went there. I asked him, “Any suggestions?”
“Nope. If I knew what this was about, maybe. But right now all I can tell you is we will be noticed—if we haven’t been already.”
“Can you try to look like paparazzi?”
He sighed noisily. “Will that do it for you? You don’t mind being seen as long as they don’t know it’s you?”
“That’ll do it.”
“You’re the boss.”
“I’ll talk to you later. Anything you think is important, you can get me on this number.”
I hung up, poured the last of the coffee, lit a cigarette and sat smoking and thinking. There were four prime locations where I could make the hit: one, at home, where security would be high and a getaway could be difficult and risky; two, at his office on Sunset Boulevard, where I knew security was not very high and a getaway would be easier, because I had nine million people among whom I could get lost after the hit; three, Intelligent Imaging Consultants, where much the same applied only I was pretty sure security would be higher—I would find out in a couple of hours—and finally, four, en route between his house and either his office or Intelligent Imaging Consultants.
So far I liked the last option the best. From the limited intel I had so far, I knew he drove himself in an F-Type Jaguar. I had no reason to believe that it was armored in any way and, when I had tailed him, he’d had the window down. Pulling up beside him in the Zombie would be easy, and if I chose my spot with care, the getaway would be a cinch.
For the sake of completeness I would make sure he followed the same routine for the next day or two, and if he did, I told myself I’d make the hit before the week was out. That left only one thing to decide—and that was, how to destroy his work with him. That might not be so easy, because most of his work seemed to be done by Intelligent Imaging Consultants.
At ten I collected a couple of micro-bugs from my kit bag, drove downtown again and left the Silverado at the USC Shrine Parking Structure on Jefferson Boulevard. Then I went up a floor in the elevator and collected the Zombie. After that I drove to Macy’s on W 7th St and bought myself the most expensive Italian suit I could find. On the way I pulled over to switch the plates on the Zombie, telling myself I needed to automate the process, like James Bond’s Aston Martin, and drove the two blocks to the Ernst and Young Plaza building. I had a cup of coffee and turned up ten minutes late for the meeting, wearing a pair of black wayfarers and a bad attitude.
