Freeze Frame (23 page)

"The names, please." Mendoza motioned with
the pistol.

Cunningham glared, his face a mask of pain,
fear and anger. "I don't know what you're talking about."

The gun barked again and Cunningham let out
another yelp, this time clutching his right knee.

"Ken!" I cried. I couldn’t help it, I
couldn't bear seeing my friend suffer. "Ken, I'm so sorry."
Immediately, I regretted letting Rathmore see my weakness.

"Mr. Cunningham apparently doesn't have the
answers. But, Miss James, I know you do." Mendoza moved to Ken’s
writhing form on the floor. "I’ll give you five seconds to tell me
what I want to know, or the next bullet ends his life."

"Don't tell him, Darcy. Don't..." Ken fell
over, passed out from pain and shock.

Baaammm!

I jumped as the explosion of a gunshot echoed
through the empty room. It took a second to recognize it hadn't
come from Mendoza's weapon.

Mendoza reacted with the spring of a jungle
animal. Suddenly behind me, his arm reached around my throat, using
me as a shield between him and the doorway fifty feet away.

"Whoever you are, give up your weapon and
show yourself, or the woman dies.”

Seconds passed. A gun came sliding across the
cement floor. A moment later Garry Kaminski materialized from the
darkness, hands over his head.

Why the hell did he surrender? Our last
chance lay in his coming back with more cops. "Get out of here!" I
screamed.

"Come here,” Mendoza countered. "The woman
dies in five seconds. One...two..."

Garry walked slowly toward us, stopping a few
feet away. Mendoza recognized him immediately. My ex-husband had
questioned him after Vince Caponi’s death.

"Turn to the wall, Sergeant Kaminski. Spread
your arms and legs." Mendoza pushed me away and faced Garry, now
spread-eagled against the cement wall.

"I have heard police often carry a second
weapon." Keeping a discreet distance behind my ex-husband Mendoza
leaned in, running his hand up and down Garry’s sleeves, and around
his middle. He found nothing.

Mendoza kneeled and ran his hand down one
leg, then the other. He smiled as he felt Garry’s right ankle.
Lifting the pant leg, he pulled a small pistol from the ankle
holster.

"You policeman aren't so smart." He looked at
me: "What is your connection to Sergeant Kaminski? You referred to
him by his first name."

"I don't have to answer that, you bastard."
If this man was going to kill us all, he sure as hell wasn’t going
to get the satisfaction of seeing me squirm.

"That woman is my former wife," Garry said
suddenly. "Don't kill her. And please...please...don't kill
me."

Garry? Whining? This from the tough cop I had
been married to?

"So this is the kind of policeman you have in
Detroit." Mendoza sneered. "Cowards."

"Don't shoot. Please don't shoot."

"Look, he's pissing his pants." Mendoza
laughed and I saw a dark spot forming at the crotch of Garry's
light chino trousers.

In the past, I sometimes wondered what went
through the minds of people in the moment they realized they were
about to die. Now I knew. A feeling of sheer terror. No pictures of
my life flashing before my eyes. Instead, my heart pounded wildly
in my chest, my throat felt dry and tight, like someone choking
me.

"My pants. I'm peeing my pants." I felt sorry
for my ex-husband. I once looked to the man as a hero, and now his
reaction was making things worse. I felt terrified for myself, and
embarrassed for him. The cops he worked with always talked about
his nerve under fire.

As Garry unbuckled his belt, Mendoza reveled
in the display.

"I can't stand the wet." Garry now unbuttoned
his trousers.

"He's performing a strip for us," Mendoza
said.

Garry’s pants hung around his knees, and he
reached into his under shorts. I had the horrible thought he would
pull them off as well.

"He's going to take out his...his
business."

"Here's my business." Garry’s voice no longer
a whine, but a growl. He yanked a pistol from his under shorts and
fired it directly into Mendoza's face.

The bullet slammed through Mendoza's right
cheek. As he fell, he managed to lift his gun and shoot.

To my horror I saw the last bullet Mendoza
would ever fire had struck home. Garry fell backward, a spot of
blood expanding rapidly across his white shirt.

"Garry! Garry!" I cried, running to him as he
crumpled onto the cement floor.

Too late. He couldn't hear me.

EPILOGUE

A cool January breeze meandered across warm
white sand, carrying welcome relief to tourists baking on the ocean
side of the Xanadu Hotel.

The breeze found Darcy lying on a towel, face
to the sun and eyes closed, wondering why everyone didn't spend
January in the Bahamas. Here winter refused to intrude on crystal
clear waters, sandy white beaches and warm moonlit evenings. Here
waves could be heard stroking the shore every evening from a tenth
story bedroom window. And words like cold and snow were as distant
as the events of October.

The wedding had come off smashingly, and it
would be another week before they were expected back at Adams &
Benson.

The agency had taken over all American
Vehicle Corporation business as of January first, and with Ken
Cunningham still recuperating, the transition hadn’t gone
particularly smoothly. But Baron Nichols could handle it.

Getting the business had meant good and bad
news for Nichols. The good news: he finally got his wish to head up
an AVC creative team. He’d been appointed creative supervisor on
Advancer sport utility and AVC pickups. The bad news, at least for
him: he reported to Darcy James. She had been promoted to vice
president, creative director, over the entire AVC account.

More good news: with the drug cartels’ plot
exposed and the truth behind the murders known, she and Higgins
were looked upon as heroes, a major turnaround from October.

It had taken time for the evidence to reach
the proper authorities, and for those in power to act. In fact, it
hadn’t happened soon enough.

Niles VanBuhler’s election to the nation’s
highest office shocked political pundits who had given him no
chance six months earlier. But the surprise of his election was
nothing next to the shock that came days afterward when VanBuhler’s
deception was disclosed and he went from being hailed to jailed, as
a traitor. He and running mate Reed Conley were currently free on
bond and managing to stay clear of the national spotlight. It would
be months before a trial date was even set. Darcy felt sorry for
Conley, a former Congressman from North Carolina, who may have been
innocent of any wrongdoing.

A week of political intrigue followed the
election as the nation found itself without a President-elect. The
Supreme Court resolved the issue with one of the most controversial
decisions in its history. The Court voted five to four against a
new election, awarding victory to David Nordstrum. Nordstrum had
come within an eyelash of winning and few doubted he would have
gained reelection had it not been for the cartel plot.

David Nordstrum's inauguration would take
place just days from now. He called the cartels’ action an “act of
terrorism” and intended to announce, with the cooperation of the
other countries involved, the expansion of America’s war on drugs
to include raids on cartel properties in Mexico and Central and
South America.

The plot to guarantee VanBuhler's election
had been a combination of genius and blind luck. Mendoza had
carefully scripted the planting of subliminal messages, right up to
importing the Russian expert; but discovering their candidate had a
former college friend who headed a major advertising agency was
pure good fortune. Once they uncovered Joe Adams' love for alcohol
and gambling, the rest came easy.

VanBuhler arranged a weekend trip to the
Bahamas, a friendly reunion of two old college buddies. Adams,
delighted that his friend had named A & B to handle his
advertising, took to the bait like a ravenous rainbow ravaging a
fly. There followed a weekend of booze, broads and big time losses
at the crap tables, courtesy of the Mexican connection. Gambling
debts became the nail in Joe Adams' financial coffin that forced
him to sell the agency his father had founded. The highest bidder,
the British holding company Solomon & Solomon, turned out to be
a laundering operation for Mexican drug money. Once the agency
became the property of Solomon & Solomon, Bacalla, a.k.a. Lobo,
took over as head of the VanBuhler team. The fact they had
monitored agency telephones early explained a number of things.
Intercepting Caponi's call to Darren Cato was one; pinpointing
Darcy and Higgins' whereabouts in northern Michigan had been
another. And once Bacalla learned of Darcy’s suspicions, he had her
home telephone monitored as well, overhearing the call that led to
Manny Rodriguez’s savage beating.

Not everyone on the VanBuhler staff was privy
to the plot. Mendoza hired advertising and political professionals
to carry on the day-to-day business of electing a third-party
candidate, providing an effective front for his henchmen’s
activities.

But it was Kaminski who saved the day, and
saved Darcy’s life. Darcy learned the story from the security guard
who led Kaminski downstairs to where she and Cunningham were held
by Mendoza. Kaminski had left Higgins and returned to Adams &
Benson to arrest her. He found no one in the lobby except a
clean-up crew and the night security guard. The guard told him no
one remained upstairs.

Kaminski had a sudden inspiration; he asked
the guard to play the last fifteen minutes of a disc from one of
the lobby security cameras. When he played the action in
fast-forward fashion there they were: Cunningham, then Darcy and
finally C. J. Rathmore crossing the lobby and entering the basement
stairwell.

The security guard led Kaminski into the
basement and through the labyrinth of halls to the large room. They
heard voices as they approached. Looking in, Kaminski saw
Cunningham on the floor, blood bubbling from his leg, Mendoza
pointing the gun at Darcy. Kaminski quickly dismissed the idea of
taking a shot from where he stood, fifty feet away. He had seconds
to piece a plan together.

The pressure of a full bladder made it
difficult to concentrate. He had spent the earlier part of the
evening drinking coffee in his car, and was paying the price. But
the discomfort gave him an idea.

Knowing he might be searched for a second
gun, he borrowed the security guard's weapon, placing it in his
ankle holster. He shoved the tiny Beretta he carried in his ankle
holster into the crotch of his underwear. It was a high-risk plan,
but all he had. He prayed that Rathmore wouldn't go near his crotch
when patting him down.

The plan worked, right up to the time
Kaminski took a bullet in the chest.

"Hey, Darcy. You gonna lie there all day?
It's almost noon...time for a Bahama Mama."

Darcy opened her eyes to see Rosie D standing
over her. She sat up, one hand shading her eyes. "Where's
Garry?"

"Over at the drink tent, where'd ya think?
Sean's meeting the three of us there for lunch."

The original wedding date had been
mid-December, but Kaminski hadn't recovered enough to go through
with it. They rescheduled the ceremony for January, and asked Darcy
and Higgins to serve as Maid of Honor and Best Man. It was Rosie's
idea that the two join them on their honeymoon.

Higgins had joked about making it a double
wedding, but that's all it was: a joke. For Darcy, it was far too
soon to know how she felt toward Sean. Time would tell, and right
now she couldn't think of a better place to spend time.

"Okay, let's go," Darcy said. She and Rosie
strolled toward the tent set up for the convenience of hotel guests
who didn't want to stray from the sand and surf for lunch or
drinks.

"Hey, Darcy."

Higgins came running toward her from the
hotel, a huge smile covering his face. Reaching her, he picked her
up, swung her around, and set her back down in the sand. He leaned
forward and kissed her.

Darcy felt euphoric. Maybe it was the warmth
of a perfect day, or the warmth of a relationship that seemed to
grow more perfect by the day. Or perhaps it was the lifting of the
dark veil of horror that covered them for so many days.

Whatever the reason, she couldn't remember
being happier than right now, right here, at this moment.

Freeze frame
.

Read the beginning of
Dead Lock
, the
next novel by B. David Warner

Prologue

On October 4, 1942, the top secret MI6 branch
at Bletchley Park, England, decrypted a German Enigma radio
transmission that pointed to an attack on the locks at Sault Ste.
Marie, Michigan. The transmission indicated that the attack would
take place the following year during dedication ceremonies for the
new MacArthur Lock. The attack was scheduled to wreak maximum
damage on both property and the lives of the hundreds of people who
would be present during the ceremony.

The vast majority of iron ore that supplied
the Allied war effort passed through these locks by lake freighter,
and destroying them would shut down every airplane, tank, ship and
munitions plant in the United States.

The message was taken very seriously.

Chapter 1

Detroit, Michigan

Wednesday, June 16, 1943

25 days before the dedication of the
MacArthur Lock

The problem, Lyle Banner figured, wasn’t the
gunman or the hostage. It was the rotten timing.

You’re a Lieutenant on the Detroit Police
Force, you’ve faced this kind of situation before: a gunman holding
some poor schnook hostage. The fact that the hostage is a popular
reporter for the Detroit Times and the gunman is a mob hit man
makes it even better. Play it smart and there could be a promotion
in it.