Freeze Frame (18 page)

"If I'm right..." he hesitated. "God, if I'm
right..."

"What is it, Garry?"

"What do you know about international
terrorists?"

"Too much nowadays. And most of them seem
insane.”

"Ever hear of a guy named Mendoza?"

"No. Should I have?"

"Ernesto Mendoza. A.K.A. 'Mendoza the
Monster.' A South American terrorist. No one really knows for sure
exactly who he is. In fact, he may not exist."

"You found a mug shot of someone who doesn’t
exist? What the hell are you talking about?"

"No one knows much about him. The man we
think is Mendoza was born in Colombia. Went to school in Bogotá,
then disappeared for ten years or so. Turned up in Europe, where he
supposedly knocked off people...big people...for big money.
Government officials, that sort of thing. He eventually went back
to South America."

"And you think Bacalla is this guy
Mendoza?"

"I’m not sure. But Darcy, if Bacalla is
Mendoza, you’ve got to stay away from him. Leave him to the
police."

"What do you mean?"

"You’re talking about an animal who’s coldly
murdered people on three continents for no other reason than money.
Sometimes for no reason at all. The file says Mendoza’s first
killing happened when he was only fourteen. Know how? He showed off
a stolen pistol by pointing it at a passing car and killing the
driver. Just like that."

"My god."

"The case never went to trial. The only
witness was murdered walking out of a police station."

"If there's doubt that Mendoza exists, how
did his picture wind up in the computer?"

"Good question. What we have is a
computer-enhanced photo of a face in the crowd. It was taken just
before the assassination of a Latin American presidential
candidate."

"And it looks like Bacalla?"

"Not exactly, but a hell of a resemblance.
The picture's nearly five years old. These guys are known for
altering their appearances with plastic surgery."

"Can you have him arrested?"

"No. But I'm going to call the D.C. police,
right now. The judge allowed Bacalla to leave Detroit under the
condition that he agreed to check in with the Washington police.
They supposedly have him under surveillance. But I want to make
damn sure they keep a tight watch on him. Tell Rosie I'll be home
in twenty minutes."

I was going over the conversation with Garry
with Sean and Rosie when the phone rang again. Rosie answered,
listened for a minute and then put the receiver back on the
wall.

"It was Garry," she said.

"What did he want?" I asked.

"He said he called Washington...to make sure
the cops were watching your guy Bacalla?"

"Yes?"

"Washington cops say he's been missing since
Thursday. They think he might be headed this way."

71

11:36 p.m.

Matt Carter joined us in Garry’s apartment
and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch.

My phone call had found him in bed after a
dozen hours at the agency putting finishing touches on the Ampere
spot. The urgency in my voice snapped him awake. He knocked on the
door twenty minutes later.

A few feet from Matt, Rosie D rode the arm of
Garry’s recliner. She had replaced the negligee with a
tight-fitting blue t-shirt and jeans.

As the conversation progressed, I surveyed
this gathering, the white and yellow lights of Motown playing
outside the window, and realized more than just my future depended
on these few people.

My hopes had taken an uppercut to the chin.
Garry’s attitude had changed since he discovered the so-called
Mexican Connection.

“These are drug people, terrorists. It's time
to stop playing cop and let the people downtown handle it.”

"What are the odds they'll believe us?" Sean
asked.

Garry shifted uneasily in his chair. "I'll be
behind you all the way."

“That’s not what Sean asked.” My eyes bored
into my former husband. "A plot to compromise the U.S. Presidential
election would be hard to swallow even if the Attorney General
discovered it. What are the chances of authorities believing a
couple of fugitives?"

"I can't answer that. But I am saying that
you can't mess with these people. They knew you were here, they'd
kill all of us without a thought."

"Garry, you're the only hope of stopping
them."

Garry didn't answer immediately. "Understand
where I'm coming from," he said finally. "Twelve years on the
force...and I'm hiding two fugitives. One of the guys from my
precinct stops by for a beer, sees you two, and I'll be lucky to
get a job as a crossing guard.”

"You're saying you're going to turn us
in."

"You’re catching on."

"Look, Garry. You've let Bacalla and Roland
go. The least you can do is give us more time. I've got a couple of
ideas, but we need two or three days."

"You’ve got twenty-four hours."

***

"What are those bright ideas you mentioned?"
Sean asked, yawning.

Sean, Carter and I remained in Garry’s living
room. Garry had retired for the night, Rosie D had gone back to her
apartment after inviting me to sleep in her extra bedroom. Sean
would ride out the night on Garry’s couch.

"Damned if I know. But if I hadn't said
something, we'd be headed for jail. So let's think fast."

We spent fifteen minutes pouring over
options. In the end, we had only one: find evidence. The A & B
Media Center was the place to start, and Carter was the man.

"Look for anything suspicious," I told him.
"The commercials had to be doctored there. VanBuhler’s people have
used the Media Center for months."

"You've got it. Tomorrow's Sunday. The
place'll be deserted. I'll be there early."

72

Sunday, Oct. 24 9:58 a.m.

"They must have you guys humping. This is the
second Sunday in a row you’ve been here.” The young dark-haired
security guard pushed the logbook forward and handed Matt Carter a
pen.

"They can't run the place without me,
Scotty."

The mammoth A & B lobby stood empty and
probably, Carter suspected, so did the rest of the building. He
walked to the elevator and pushed the button for seven. He’d have
plenty of time to search the Media Center. He wished he could be
equally confident of what to search for. "Evidence," Darcy had
said. But what the hell was that?

On seven he headed for the Media Center. He
walked through the waiting room, down the narrow hall to the
editing suite. Switching on the light, he stopped dead in his
tracks. Just inside the door sat a large plastic mailroom cart on
wheels, packed with flat cardboard envelopes. The kind used to ship
DVDs.

Picking one from the cart, he saw a label
addressed to a Minneapolis television station. He cut the tape with
his thumbnail, extracted the disc and read the label: "AVC Ampere:
sixty second commercial."

The copies had been made on Media Center
equipment. Given the secrecy surrounding the Ampere, they would
remain here until after the vehicle’s introduction tomorrow
night.

Carter inspected the disc, wondering if it
were infected with a subliminal message. With the election
hairbreadth close, it made sense that the conspirators would make a
final attempt at influencing voters.

Carter began pushing buttons on the control
panel. He inserted the DVD and, as the commercial began, pulled one
of the levers forward, slowing the action until the spot ran frame
by frame. There was the Ampere in one city, followed by another.
Singers appeared on screen, then the action returned to the car.
Carter ran the entire commercial, finding nothing.

He reached for another DVD, this one
addressed to the ABC-TV affiliate in St. Louis, and soon had it
running frame by frame. Color bars, then Ampere driving city to
city. Suddenly the words "VanBuhler: Leadership" appeared on
screen, then vanished. Carter reversed the action and as the
message reappeared, froze the frame. He stared at the words, his
excitement growing. Then he ran the commercial forward, counting
twenty more frames with the identical message before the spot
ended.

He hurriedly viewed five more DVDs, finding
the same twenty-one subliminal frames on two. If the ratio held
true, forty percent of the commercials carried a message aimed at
altering the outcome of the election.

With Bacalla and Roland in hiding, there had
to be at least one other person involved. But how many were there?
Carter remembered his father's addendum to Murphy's Law: "There's
always one more son-of-a-bitch than you counted on."

Carefully, Carter repacked the discs. As he
sealed the last, he heard the door to the Media Center open. He
threw the envelope into the cart and switched off the
equipment.

At the far corner of the room was a closet.
He focused on the position and killed the lights. Placing a hand on
the cart to avoid it, he took huge, quiet strides across the
darkness and felt for the door handle. Mercifully, the door wasn't
locked. He stepped inside and pulled it shut.

His back pressed against the metal shelves
behind him, Carter heard the studio door open and footsteps on the
carpet. He heard the click of the switch and saw a shaft of light
appear beneath the closet door.

Someone moved about the studio. Carter heard
the rustle of cardboard envelopes as the intruder shuffled the
contents of the cart. He hoped the envelopes he’d opened would go
unnoticed.

Footsteps approached the door. Carter pressed
himself against the shelves and raised his hands chest high. If the
door swung open, he wanted as much room as possible to fight...or
run.

Instead of opening, the door remained closed
and Carter heard the lock click.

He was trapped.

73

11:36 a.m.

Rosie D and I were at her kitchen table when
the telephone intruded on our conversation.

Rosie walked to the white phone on her
kitchen wall.

"You've reached Rosie D," she said. Her phone
greeting was one of the colorful mannerisms I had noticed. No one
could accuse Rosie of lacking personality.

She listened for a moment, then handed me the
phone. "Matt Carter. On his cell phone; he's locked up
somewhere."

"Matt, what's going on?"

Carter explained what had happened, right up
to finding Rosie Dombroski's number through information. "Darcy,”
he said, “you've got to get me out of here."

"Hang on. I'll call Garry."

***

Twenty minutes later the security guard,
Garry Kaminski behind him, opened the closet door to a blinking
Matt Carter.

"Thanks." Carter stood rubbing his eyes.
"Well, I guess I've got the proof you need."

But the cart full of DVDs had disappeared.
Kaminski's face showed his skepticism.

"I swear, Kaminski, there were two hundred
DVDs in a cart right there. I ran five on the equipment and two
contained subliminal messages."

"Yeah? What kind?"

"Just two words: Vanbuhler and leadership.
Twenty-one times in each commercial, seconds apart."

"If the DVDs aren't here, where did they
go?"

"Whoever locked me in the closet took
them."

Kaminski turned to the young security guard.
"Who's been here this morning?"

"Just Carter. I haven't seen another
soul."

"Could anyone get in without you seeing?"

"There's a back door. I suppose someone could
have come in through the mailroom, down the hall and up the freight
elevator."

"Who has keys to the back door?"

"Not many people. The security staff. Don
Rotunda, he's head of the mailroom. Maybe a few executives.
Everyone else has to come and go through the glass doors in the
front of the building."

"Which executives?"

"The list’s downstairs."

"Let's see it. And let's look around for that
mail cart."

A search of the building proved futile. The
list of executives with keys to the back door was longer than the
guard had remembered: a dozen people had keys. The security guard
was writing a note recommending the changing of the lock when
Kaminski and Carter left the building shortly after three.

74

Sunday evening

Sean, Garry, Rosie D and I sat in Rosie’s
living room, devouring two large pepperoni pizzas and chewing over
our predicament. Much of the room’s illumination came through the
window from the yellow lights of the tall buildings a few blocks
away.

I had lost interest in the pizza and
concentrated on convincing my ex-husband that, with a bit more
time, we could find evidence proving our innocence.

"Garry, you can see how close we are. You've
got to give us another twenty-four hours."

Garry played the hard-ass cop, sitting silent
in one of the two large light blue easy chairs, an empty paper
plate on his lap. His chin rested in his hands and he wore one of
those stubborn looks I’d come to know all too well during our brief
period of so-called wedded bliss.

"What do you think, Garry? That Matt Carter
locked himself in that closet? That all of this is our
imagination?"

"No, Darcy, I don't think you're imagining
anything. I'm imagining my career is on the line. I could lose
everything I've worked for. On the other hand, if I take you in,
you'll have every chance to tell your story...to people who can do
more than I can."

“One thing they can do more of, is throw us
in jail."

"Darcy, I want to help, believe me. But I
need assurance there's a chance of proving your story."

It was time to bring AVC’s top-secret project
out of the garage. The Ampere debut hadn’t seemed important to our
situation until now. But maybe, just maybe, it represented a chance
to catch the people behind our nightmare. I began describing A
& B’s confidential plans, watching for Sean’s reaction. To my
relief, he jumped in with details of his own.