However, a seventeen year-old student, driving an old but well-maintained Mustang, decided that he was fed up with strolling along in the sun, and boosted his vehicle forward, as he saw a gap which would give him access to the faster outside lane. A Toyota, driven by a elderly man who had very slow reflexes, had it's brakes slammed on hard, as the driver thought he was threatened by the faster Ford. A ripple effect began, with cars sliding under heavy braking, as the stream tried to avoid a multiple pile-up. Ben saw the red brake lights, and reflexively hit his own, harder than normal. The sudden overpressure, boosted through the power servo, blasted straight through the brake pipe wall, his brake pedal slid straight to the floor, and the brake pressure disappeared. Not being ready for this happening, Ben swung his steering to the side, but his auto, travelling at a speed of fifty-five, with an all-up weight of just over a ton and a half; would not accept the change in direction, flipped over like a childs toy, hit the separator and ploughed straight through, dropping forty feet from the elevated highway, on to a concrete verge. Ben only knew he was sliding, then suddenly, nothing! Vince Lombardi, stationary by the roadside, after turning off the freeway at the next off-ramp, and heading back towards the wreck site, had a grin fixed to his lips as he watched the ambulance crew lift the covered corpse, and deposit it on a stretcher, ready for transferral to the morgue. The accident report specialist, hours after the body had been pried out of the wreck, started with the brake system, where he could locate it, found the burst pipe, shook his head and marked the auto death down as 'maintenance-related'.
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Bob Webster, media director for Morson, Zeno on the Continental account, as well as the new jet for Boeing, sat in his study at his home, alone, as the work he was processing required utmost concentration. He wasn't particularly worried about the fact that the work he was progressing had already cost five lives. He sat in front of a video playback system, but one with many differences to the ordinary VCR which was sold over the counter. He had a modified graphics package, set on a computer, tied in so an expanded or zoomed sector of the scan lines of the tape could in fact be modified to accept a pixel change. As a pixel was the smallest amount of area which accepted change on a television screen, it literally did not exist in conscious terms, but Webster had determined that, if the pixel scan was interrupted in a preset fashion, given the correct frequency response, a subconscious message was delivered to around thirty percent of those watching.
His first efforts had taken a great deal of time to prepare and test, but he had streamlined the modifications needed, so he could add or change a message to a pre-recorded tape in little over a week. He studied the tape, marked 'Continental No. 3' which had been the cause of the fantastic drop in Continental's share price, decided that the damn thing worked like a charm, and decided to leave it as it was, ready to be broadcast the day before the return of the Auto company to the listings, and continued his work on what he had labelled the 'Revival' tape. This was to be broadcast immediately his employers gained control, and would hold a message which would reverse the negative image of the Continental Cars, and boost the need to buy shares, which would quickly return to their normal pricing levels; "At least," he mused, "that's what's supposed to happen." He scribbled the sequence for transmission on a pad, and then closed his system down.
Chapter 20
The Detroit police patrolling the roads around the old Seventh Day Adventist church building tended to be on their guard against ambush, and attack. The old time prosperity had given way to a keen wind of decay, and deprivation; which brought drug use and crime in it's wake. Desperation for a quick fix drove normally careful people to try wild things, and the armour-plated liquor stores and pharmacies bore the marks of continuous attempts to change the perpetrator’s luck. The police cruisers carried shotguns on racks as a matter of course, and the weapons had been used several times, just to extricate the officers from a situation which had gone wrong. So when a mobile unit received a call to proceed to a fire in that area, late in the evening, it was almost reflex action to check the loads in the pump shotguns, and loosen the revolvers in their belts, before setting their course, sirens blatting, towards the abandoned church. They came up to the church corner, slewing their cruiser across the road, and watching as the big car in the middle of the street burnt. The police driver called in the tag plate number, and, as the flames slowly died down, heard his radio give confirmation that the registered driver was a Drew Garnett, with an address in one of the quieter suburbs of Detroit.
"If the guy frying in the road is Garnett, either our taxpayer was trying to make a buy, and it went wrong somehow; or he got hit before the buy took place, and the perps burnt the auto just to keep us busy." remarked the second cop, "Funny, we normally don't get taxpayers making drug buys around here, the distributors have all the areas serviced, wouldn't have thought a guy from near Grosse Point would need to drive way down here to make a coke or crack connection."
The driver answered him, with his eyes still alertly roving the surrounding area, "Maybe he was a dealer, but whichever way it was, our local concerned citizens are queuing up to give vital information, as usual" while eyeing the people on the sidewalks, who did not even slow to watch the death of another, but instead kept their eyes firmly on the pavement in front of their path.!" The arrival of a fire appliance, complete with sirens, to douse the flames, ended their conversation, as they rapidly made their notes, and filed the reports which would lie forgotten within a very short time, concerning the death of one Drew Garnett.
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Virginia Horrigan, involved as she was in a series of multiple murders, even at third hand, was very careful when she went out, especially when in town alone, for Detroit was no place for the faint-hearted. She had a carry permit for a thirty-eight revolver, had taken the prescribed training course, and was determined to strike first, as the instructor had told the class; "You gotta learn that there is no such thing as shooting someone in the leg, or the arm! You have a stopping area, and that is what you aim for, because you are gonna stop the son-of-a-bitch from moving against you. There are no prizes for coming second, because you will be dead. Make no mistake, if you don't drop an attacker, he is definitely gonna kill you!" She remembered the tall ex-marine instructor with clarity, because of his words, "You have bought a gun, and you should only draw that gun if you intend to use it, and the only way to use it is to shoot to kill!" She stood on her town house steps, checking the position of the gun in her purse, before locking the door and descending the steps towards her car. She spotted the man's shape in the reflection from the car window as he moved out from the shadows, dipped her hand into the purse and came out with the revolver. She swung the gun up, adopting the crouch she had been taught in class, and called, "Move one step further, and you are dead!"
The figure paused, then moved forward again, but the woman cocked the hammer back and took aim, preparing to fire. She squeezed the trigger, and the shot sent the man back three feet, dropping to the ground to lie, moaning in agony, before quivering into silence. Virginia stayed still, as lights flashed on, and doors opened, with anxious neighbours calling to find out what had happened. "Will someone call the police? I've just shot a mugger, and he needs an ambulance!" she called.
An anonymous voice called assent, and the standard crowd filled the sidewalk, gazing at the man's body, as he lay on the pavement, knife still held in one hand; and also at the slim woman, still gripping the revolver, as she leant against the side of her car, breathing heavily as what she had done permeated into her consciousness. Fifteen minutes later, the road was cluttered with police cruisers, all with their strobe lights flashing, illuminating the medics as they finished wrapping the body of the mugger, before lifting him into the ambulance for the non-urgent run to the hospital morgue. The investigating Homicide detective was comforting Virginia, who only now was reacting from her actions, and was shocked by what she had done. "Miss Horrigan, you d
on't have a thing to worry about. You did the right thing, by aiming and firing at that low life in the ambulance, he was out to rob or rape you; just remember that. He was trying to take away your rights, and by ventilating him, you did society a big favour."
The crowd started to move away, as the body had disappeared, and there didn't look like any more shooting was gonna come their way. Virginia, clutching a blanket around her shoulders, asked the detective what happened now.
"Well, Miss Horrigan, we have to submit a report to the District attorney, as there has been a death, but as you were acting in self-defence, it's just a formality. He came at you, you warned him, he didn't stop; so you fired. I think you did the only thing possible, and remembered your training. You know what I mean, there is no such thing as shooting to wound! You did real good, and you don't have a thing to worry about. Would you like one of our female officers to stay with you for the rest of the evening?"
"Er, no.. no thanks, Detective, it's kind of you to offer, but I really am feeling better, and the paramedic gave me a pill to get me some sleep if I need it, later on."
The two policemen sat in their car, doing the wrap on this call, and the driver, a man who had been on the streets of Detroit for over twenty years, was puzzling something in his mind. Finally, he turned to his partner, and asked, "Josh, that perp, the dead one, I just remembered where I seen him before, he used to hang around the edges of our own little organised crime syndicate; you know, Joey DiFalco, his mob. What's he doing trying his hand at mugging taxpayers?
Josh answered, "maybe a little freelance work, Joey usually keeps his boys on a tight rein, but it is a bit unusual. Nothing spectacular about the woman?"
The first detective glanced at his notes, and shrugged his shoulders, "Finance VP for Continental, looks like she's hard as nails. Good shooting!"
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Vince Lombardi caught the call, as he sat at breakfast the next morning. "Vince, Joey here. Can we talk?"
"Go ahead, Joey. Everything okay at the track?"
"No it ain't! The broad took Silvio out with a thirty-eight. She plugged him with one shot, and put him down. He must have moved too soon, or something. Do you want to try again?"
"No, we'll have to think of a nice accident for our Miss Horrigan. Two mugging attempts in two days might start alarm bells ringing in our wonderful policemen's ears, and we can't have that! Thanks for the effort, Joey. My condolences to the family. Tell me when the funeral is, so we can make our regrets in person!"
"Sure thing, Vince, I'll call you on it. See ya, Vince."
Harry Mettaliou cocked an eye at his partner as he switched his phone off; "Trouble?"
"Yeah, seems the clown that Joey Falco sent up against Virginia Horrigan got himself blown away by the broad. She had a gun, and dropped him in one. Shit, now we gotta arrange an accident, and people might start counting!"
"You mean, with Drew supposed to be burnt, and Ben taking diving lessons in his car; it could be termed unusual," Harry nodded in agreement, " we still got to clear her away from the field, before Ray supervises Nick's resignation. You want a domestic accident? I used to be good at the old kitchen routine!"
"That might see us out of our troubles, Harry, and keeps it in the family, as well. Yeah, go for a domestic, it's probably the best bet!"
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Joe Kozcinski came out on to the main concourse at Kennedy airport, and was met by Brad Davis. He dumped his overnighter in the trunk, and climbed in to the front and sat back as the policeman moved his car out on the route into New York. "We got a tricky situation with the advertising agency office." Brad said, "The Commissioner is buddies with one of the partners, guy called Zeno, and he's given the okay for us to go in after hours, to run a check on the computers which Allison Klein used, as well as Bob Webster. My partner, Ken, was able to speak a few words, before he went back to sleep in the hospital. He warned me about Webster, said it was definite that the information given you about the poll results was false. Do you have the discs which were sent you by Webster?"
"Yes, they arrived about two days after we got the faxes through telling us that, according to the survey, the ads which were done by Morson, Zeno were doing a fair to moderate job; nothing exciting, but getting there."
"Ken also told me that Claudia had thought that there was definitely something wrong with the adverts which were screened!"
The Marketing VP swung his head around to gaze at the policeman, "Wrong; how?"
"He didn't say, guess he was too weak. But, have you watched your advert. clips on the screen?"
"Well, no. We always get them screened in the office, or in a view theatre. Gotta admit, I never watch television, too much crap on for me."
Brad had recommended a hotel near to his Precinct House, and after getting Ken checked in, they rolled on to the Police Station, and up to be introduced to Lieutenant O'Leary. The senior police officer sat Ken down, and offered him coffee, then explained the situation with the Advertising Agency offices. "One of the Partners, Alois Zeno, has agreed that we can enter the premises, and conduct our own search." he said, "Trouble is, evidence gained during a surreptitious entry , such as ours, probably would not stand up in court. So, anything we find cannot, in itself, be lead out in open court. We gotta go by what is called 'Probable Cause'; which means that if we go in somewhere, we gotta have reasonable grounds for thinking there is evidence of a felony, before that evidence can stand up in court. What we are working on is a flimsy connection between a black guy who firebombed a car, and a nickname for a high level advertising executive. I am personally going along with Officer Davis' request for a search on the computers, but we gotta be able to unearth something solid, otherwise the accused will walk; we got too many judges who are to willing to give the suspect the benefit of the doubt!"
Ken nodded, "We'll just have to wait, and find out what there is when we search. When are we due to go in?"
"Nine this evening. We have clearance from the local force, and as I said, the partner will be letting us in. There is no nightime security watch, so no loose mouths around; we should be okay!"
The three said their farewells, and the Detroit man departed for his hotel, to catch a little sleep before the evening's activities, and the Patrolman went to the hospital, to check once more on his buddy.
At nine prompt, the two car convoy stopped outside the Madison Avenue entrance to the agency, and were met by Alois Zeno, who quickly ushered the team inside the building, before locking the door once more. He then led the way into the elevators, and up to the floor which Brad had visited before. "Make yourselves at home, Gentlemen," the partner called, "I'll be in my own office if you need me!"
The police team, which included the Lieutenant, Brad and Joe, also included a computer specialist, with a software package which could, in the expert's own terms, raise the dead from a disc. On being told which computer Webster had inherited from Allison Klein, he installed the search package, and simply asked the pack to log the directories and files on the hard disc, then to check which files had been erased. As standard computer operating software, when directed to 'erase' a file, only erased the first identifying letters from the file, which freed up the space for an overwrite without actually erasing the offending file, it was easy to identify the files which had been 'erased. The police computer man then kicked in the 'Retrieve' section, which actually recreated the file, and set it back into an appropriate directory. Then he asked Joe what package had been used by the agency to establish the trends, and loaded the database package into the system, after which he set in the original files from the retrieval software. As the graphs showed up on the screen, Joe stared in disbelief, "Jeez, he was hiding this from me. We paid Morson, Zeno a total of nearly 7,500,000 dollars, and we get this heap of crap back as a result! But I saw the damn clips, and they were good!"
"But you saw them in your offices, not on the television," the Continental man was reminded by Brad.
> "The effect should be the same but we can always check. Can you take copies of all this stuff?" Joe asked the computer man who promptly nodded in assent.
The lieutenant leant forward, "This doesn't tie in our friend Webster to the firebombed Volkswagen. All we got is a set of graphs which don't correspond with those sent you by this guy Webster."
"Yes, Lieutenant, but this is proof that our friend Webster is definitely dirty, and we are on the right track! If I had seen these on a printout, I would have known immediately that there was something up in the advertising sector, and make big changes. Remember, we think Claudia Crickell was first the target for the bombed Volkswagen, and secondly she was shot, and Ken Melchek reckoned the only thing that tied her into Webster was the computer work she showed to Allison Klein. The next thing I do, is sit down somewhere and watch television!"
Joe returned to his hotel, being dropped at the door by the policemen. He retrieved his key, entered his room, and, after pouring himself a cool drink from the mini-bar, flicked the television on, and checked his schedules for when the Continental clips were due to be shown. He had fifteen minutes to wait, but left the t.v. on, to sample what was being shown at the late hours of the evening. when the commercial breaks started, Ken actually felt relieved, as the dross that was showing on all sixty channels was the same, suitable only for the lowest common denomination of intellect. He watched a smart clip for Marlboro', feeling that if half the effort which had gone into the commercial, had been reflected in the main programmes, the Channel would be a winner. The start of the Stiletto advert. came onto the screen, and he settled back to watch what he thought was a familiar run, but as the images raced across the screen, he literally felt the word 'Turkey' forming itself in his imagination. He watched the screen without cease for another four hours, well into the night-time viewing period, and watched the same commercials run time after time, and at the end, setting his alarm for eight, he settled back on the bed, and drifted off, wondering how the hell the message was being sent.
Continental Attack: Murder and Mayhem in Detroit's Auto Industry Page 20
