Ryan paused the video and nibbled his cheek as he thought. He jumped up from the sofa and ran for his phone that sat on the kitchen counter. He pressed speed dial for Gil.
“Bingo,” he said when Gil answered. “We got us some kind of homeless vigilante on the loose. Let’s do yellow safety placards for cars… I think five thousand to start… No, it’s not too many. If I’m right then we’ll move that inventory in two days… Call Signs Plus and see if they’ll do us a wholesale deal—make ‘em say, ‘I Love the Homeless’… What do you mean they won’t buy it?... Okay fine, make it ‘Homeless Friendly.’ Also get a vinyl skirt banner for a roadside booth. Make it say, ‘Show Your Love for the Homeless.’” Ryan paused for a loud cackle with Gil over the cleverness of the sign. “Get a thousand signs rushed by tomorrow and we’ll hit Colorado and 4th for a test run—just pray this guy doesn’t get caught before this weekend and we’ll do fine.”
Chapter Fifteen
“I WANT TO get back to the ALCO building as soon as possible,” Mark said when Morana offered him a quick tour of the Trail Bladers facility which they called the Nest.
In the hallway outside Pop’s office, Mark felt overwhelmed and sick to his stomach by the information he had learned. As Morana ushered him toward the garage, he stayed close to the wall and checked back over his shoulder a few times, half expecting Pop to run out of his office having changed his mind about letting Mark leave.
“You don’t listen well, do you?” Morana said.
“What? Why do you say that?”
“You still look shell-shocked and you seem ready to run at any moment, even though I promised that you are in no danger.”
“It’s just a bit much for me to take in—the news, your mission, everything.”
“I would expect you—of all people—to buy in! Wouldn’t you like to see homelessness eradicated?”
“Of course I buy in—”
“No you don’t,” Morana said. “But you will. Meanwhile, you should know that if we were going to kill you, then you would already be dead.”
Her words chilled Mark all over again.
“I know you will decide to join us—eventually. You’ll be a tremendous leader for our cause.”
“Wait a minute,” Mark said. He stopped, keeping his back to the wall. “Leader? What do you people want from me?”
Morana checked her watch and pulled him to keep him walking. “I can't tell you any more than Papa has stated. Right now, it is imperative that you return to the outside to consider our offer. I have faith that you will make the right decision. And if you do, all your questions will be answered to your total satisfaction.”
“How can I make the right decision about a job without a job description?”
Morana smiled. “You’ve heard enough to make a decision.”
They rounded a corner and Mark recognized the foyer’s black door in the distance. He remembered his bigger-than-life photo on display, featuring his near nakedness, for everyone who entered the bunker. He wondered if there might be another exit—maybe more than one.
“Where are your elevators?” he asked.
“You rode the only one we have,” Morana said.
“The truck lift?”
“Yes. It’s the only way into our facility. It’s a security measure. We have a staircase, but it is locked and only Papa has the key. He had us wall it off. Everybody who visits arrives by truck and enters through the foyer,” she said, pointing ahead to the black door.
Midway down the hall, Morana said, “Before we board the truck, please step in here with me.” She put her hand on the entry console beside a door. It clicked open. Inside a narrow office that resembled a doctor’s examining room, a Trail Blader sat at a desk and jumped to attention when he saw Morana. He beamed when he saw Mark.
“Scan him please,” Morana told the associate and pointed to Mark.
“Mr. Denny, it is an honor to meet you. May I please have your hand?”
Mark reluctantly held out his hand. Morana nodded. The associate put on a pair of latex gloves, snapping the wrist of each before taking Mark’s hand and placing it on a glass console larger than the ones used to open the facility doors. Mark saw his fingers spread on the glass. A bright flash popped underneath.
“Thank you, sir,” the associate said, holding out his gloved hand, but Mark didn’t see it because he was still blinking the flash away. Morana put her hands on Mark’s shoulders and guided him toward a tall cabinet at the back of the room.
“What was that?” Mark said.
“We are entering you into our biometric database. Your palm print will grant you access to most of the rooms in our facility,” she said.
She produced a tape measure from the cabinet above a desk, squatted, and stretched it along his inseam. She then measured his arms, waist, shoulders, and neck.
“I haven’t said I’d join you. Shouldn’t this wait?” Mark said.
“No. When you come back, you’ll have free access to our facility.”
She pointed to a metal plate in the floor and said, “Empty your pockets, take off your shoes, and step on that please.”
Mark removed his keys and wallet from his pocket and handed them to the Trail Bladers associate. He sat on the floor to pull off his shoes. The metal plate was cold under his feet and no sooner had he stepped on it when Morana said, “One hundred eighty six pounds. Thank you, we’re done.”
“Do you want a DNA sample?”
“We already have it. We'll collect it from your suite,” the associate said. Mark took back his keys and wallet from the associate. He felt resentful of their control over him.
They exited the small office and made their way to the foyer. Once again, Mark paused to gawk at the enormous mural featuring his shivering body standing next to Pop on a rooftop. He checked his watch—12:30 p.m.
In the garage, Mark saw the Trail Bladers associate who had driven them there. He stood on the truck wiping it with a fluffy white cloth. Two other associates buffed the sides of the truck until every surface shined.
Morana and Mark entered the back of the truck alone. His seat on the bench beside Morana prevented him from seeing much of anything outside the truck. He would not be privy to the location of the Trail Bladers bunker on this visit.
Mark spoke little on the ride back to the ALCO building.
“How are you feeling?” Morana asked, after they rode in silence for ten minutes.
“Look, I understand that your goal is good, but I don’t agree with how you are trying to reach it.”
“That’s why Papa has given you time to sort it out in your mind. If you join us, it will be the best decision you ever made.” She pulled a small bag out from under their bench and put it on her lap. She removed a phone like the ones Pop had left for Mark on his doormat. “We’re almost back at the ALCO building. It is very important that you keep this phone with you always.”
Mark took it and flipped it open, glanced at the missing keys, and then closed it. He placed the phone to his ear and said, “It feels like more of a short wave radio than a phone.”
Morana smiled at Mark and in a soft voice said, “Jim Kourokina is an excellent diagnostician of microelectronics.”
Mark let his arms flop down onto his lap. “What don’t you know about me?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“Calm down, Mark,” Morana said. “We have observed your habits carefully in the hope that we can discover what you’ll require to join our cause. After all, control of information is our profession. We have not tampered in your life any more than your two phone calls with Pop and this visit from which we are returning you.”
“You’ve invaded my privacy, yet you tout how much you admire and respect me.”
“Listen, Mark,” Morana shifted sideways to face him. “What we have done will be justified by the result. Papa said it would be that way and he doesn’t lie. Until now, our surveillance was to gather information on you. From now on, it will protect you. I can’t explain everythin
g to you now, but I want to encourage you to join us in changing the world.”
“You’re going to kill me if I don’t join you, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“What could you be protecting me from, then?”
Morana reached over and tapped her finger on the phone Mark held in his hand. “When you need us, use that phone.”
Mark felt the truck hit a bump—the driveway of the ALCO building’s freight dock. He heard the truck beeping as they backed to the freight dock. Morana placed her hand on the console. Then the driver swung open the back doors for them to exit.
He was free.
As Mark walked through the lobby he saw Neville at the information booth, eating a sandwich. “Thought you got lost,” Neville said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Were you up on fourteen that whole time?”
“No,” Mark answered, without slowing to chat with him.
“Now that I think about it—I probably should have called the cops. With so many folks disappearing around here, you could have been the next,” Neville joked.
Mark continued past Neville’s desk to the garage elevator and pressed the P1 button.
“Wow, your appointment must have stunk. Didn’t get the deal, eh?” Neville kept sparring.
Mark abandoned the elevator wait and exited through the stairwell door.
On his drive home, Mark slowed below the speed limit as he came to realize the weight of his predicament. His thoughts alternated between fear of his own entanglement in Pop’s diabolical plan and worry for the captive “fodder”. Having been so close to the victims—yet having no way to rescue them tormented him. Mark wondered how long Pop would be willing to wait for his decision.
He stopped at the intersection of Broadway and Lincoln. A Ford Explorer passed by with a yellow Homeless Friendly sign suction cupped to the inside rear window. It was reminiscent of the Baby on Board placards of the mid-‘80s. Mark wondered where the driver had gotten the sign.
He saw two other yellow signs in car windows before he reached his apartment. Statistically, three signs may be insignificant in a city the size of Santa Monica, but if Pop was correct, the signs and other symbols of affection for the homeless would multiply. People would scramble to advertise their affiliation with the city’s new social paradigm—a city with a sudden disproportionate number of homeless sympathizers and advocates. As long as Pop could fuel his engine of fear, Santa Monica would have a robust volunteer army to fight homelessness—all while the entire world watched.
Mark usually came to decisions with ease, but since visiting the Trail Bladers’ Nest his brain couldn’t wrestle down his best move. He believed that if he went to the police, Pop would indeed kill the captive victims before the Trail Bladers’ Nest could be located.
Even if they did find it, Mark had no confidence that law enforcement could rescue the abductees—not after seeing firsthand how impenetrable the bunker was. There was no way SWAT could get a clean shot at anyone in the Nest, nor could they infiltrate it. There was no door to kick down, no stairway to descend, not even a window for a sharpshooter’s reticle.
Pop had assured Mark that he would be watching his every move. After having seen the technology used by the Trail Bladers, he was sure Pop had placed GPS tracking on his car, and any object in his apartment could be a microphone—or video camera for Pop’s surveillance.
Mark also realized that the cameras he had seen in the hallways of the bunker must certainly record every second of every day. If he went to the police, Pop would probably implicate him in the abductions.
When he entered his apartment, Mark let his computer bag drop to the floor and he paused to look around. The digs that awaited him at the Trail Bladers bunker were spectacular and offered more luxury than Mark had ever experienced. But Pop’s offer was ruined by the unthinkable requirement that Mark tolerate the abduction and murder of people the Trail Bladers used as fodder for their cause.
He opened his computer bag. He had left it in the Trail Bladers truck during his time at the Nest and assumed it was now hacked and bugged.
He turned on the television and sat on the sofa. Special reports had become a daily occurrence, interrupting regular programming to repeat updates of information presented an hour earlier. Channels scrambled to be the first with any developments. Mark saw the Mendalsen and Chargon tapes playing again. He changed the channel. The private screening with the filmmaker had been more than enough.
A reporter announced that a press conference would be held at City Hall the next day at 10:00 a.m. The family of the latest victim would make a statement followed by new information from police. Mark had a new interest in finding out exactly how much information the police had gathered. He had more information than anyone outside the Nest and would know if the police were close to solving the murders.
That night Mark went to Bonfiglio for dinner. Henry greeted him while a light dinner crowd watched the TV. A local channel showed non-stop commercial-free coverage of the missing-persons investigations, and a split screen looped the ubiquitous video footage of Mendalsen and Chargon assaults on someone who held a camera—assumed now to be the killer. The café was quiet as patrons gazed at the TV, mesmerized by the footage. When the news changed to an obligatory weather report, several people sat back and their discussion and speculation began anew.
“I don’t think we’ve ever seen a homeless person doing any killing like this,” Althea said. She dabbed a napkin to her lips after tasting a new batch of lentil soup.
A chunky bald man added, “I went down to the shelter and fed those people last Thanksgiving. The killer don’t want me. Besides, I never hit one of ‘em.”
“Everybody and their brother serves at a shelter on a holiday,” Henry answered, lifting salt and pepper shakers to wipe the counter under them. “Hell, I give food away on holidays. That’s no safety in this situation the way I see it. You better hope you didn’t get filmed on a day you were in a bad mood—that’s all I have to say.”
Several patrons nodded.
§
When Mark's alarm clock sounded at 6:00 a.m., his eyes had already been open for over an hour. He reached out from under his covers and swatted the clock’s off button without looking at it and continued staring at the ceiling. He had hoped that sleep would help him come to a clear decision about the best way to handle Pop and his offer. It had not.
He thought of Pop’s promise to execute the trapped fodder, littering the streets with their bodies. Pop had taken special care to make sure Mark understood the futility of going to law enforcement.
The only way to save the missing people would be to join Pop’s mission and somehow conduct a rescue from the inside.
Mark felt ashamed that Pop’s plan to end homelessness intrigued him. He believed that killing was always unnecessary and always wrong. He had extended that philosophy to animals, too, by becoming a vegetarian.
He threw off the covers and on the way to the bathroom grumbled, “This sucks.”
The 10:00 a.m. news conference was to be held outside the Santa Monica police station, only a ten minute drive from his home, so he decided to attend in person.
When he arrived, a large crowd had descended on a wide lawn and spilled over onto the surrounding sidewalks. Media vans and trucks dominated the adjacent parking lot with their satellite dishes aimed at various parts of a clear blue sky. Spectators who managed to get their cars into the lot sat on the hoods or in truck beds to see the press table.
Every person Mark passed had a paranoid tension etched in their expression.
Mark—to his knowledge—was the only non-Trail Blader who could identify the culprit in the abductions. As he made his way through the crowd, he felt an unfair calmness. Most of the people standing around him had probably seen Mark rescue the very man who now terrorized them. Mark had nothing to fear. This serial killer was his fan and probably watching him this very moment. That thought was eerie to Mark.
He could easily enter the police statio
n less than a couple hundred feet away, and tell what he knew before anyone could stop him—even if Pop had a henchman nearby. But if he did, Mark believed that Pop would keep his promise to kill the captured fodder in a matter of minutes, and then surely come after him. After his experience at the Trail Blader Nest, it was hard to imagine Pop or any Trail Blader treating him with anything but the utmost deference. Even so, getting on Pop’s bad side was obviously suicidal.
On the other hand, if he said nothing and joined Pop’s mission, could he buy enough time to work a rescue plan from inside the Nest?
As he neared the press table, he saw a couple with their two children taking seats behind it. The press began shooting photos, the rapid clicks sounded like a crackling fire. Two police officers sat down beside the family. The man put his arm around his wife and offered her a tissue. She took it and balled it up in her hand without using it. She was angry and she let her face be wet.
An officer stood to take the microphone. The buzz of conversation muted for the announcement. It reminded Mark of his own press conference and he was relieved that he didn’t have to speak at this one. He hadn’t been recognized by anyone in the crowd—perhaps rescuing Pop was fading from public memory. He welcomed the anonymity. He remembered Pop’s warning—that he would be thrust into a media spotlight again when homeless sympathizers became “persons of interest.”
The officer tapped the mic with his finger. “Good afternoon,” he said. “I’ll keep this brief. Due to the sensitivity of our ongoing investigation, we won’t be entertaining any questions today.”
At each of the prior press conferences, the reward amount was announced. This time there was no mention of the reward.
“As has been reported, the body of another missing person has been found. We will release more details on this at a later time. We are in the process of interviewing a great number of our homeless citizens. We hope to find answers that will help us to end these tragedies.”
Mark scanned the crowd again. On any given day, hundreds of homeless people walked the downtown streets and sidewalks of Santa Monica, clustering on the lawn of City Hall. Volunteer organizations offered assistance at that location: serving free hot food, giving away soap, shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant and sometimes, clothing. Today there were no homeless people in sight.
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