Even though it meant setting the alarm clock for 4. 30 a.m., Dana had insisted on taking Kerrin to the airport.
They arrived early, giving them the chance to check in then grab a coffee together in Starbucks. He didn’t want to admit it, but Kerrin was a little nervous. He was a good reporter. He enjoyed his work, but it had been years since he had been a policeman, and he had grown accustomed to a relatively quiet life. Although he was enjoying the thrill of the chase, it was a sudden jolt to the system to be thrown back into the stress of living on the edge. What had started out as a few visits to some mourning widows had now turned into an adventure which at every turn thrust him closer to an unknown danger. A danger which seemed to lurk in the shadows, becoming more menacing the closer he came to revealing the hidden face of the person lying in wait around the next corner, the person who was responsible for the deaths of his brother-in-law and the others he worked with, and the person whose identity Kerrin had vowed to uncover.
He couldn't admit to Dana that she could be right. Perhaps he was flying to South Africa only to come face to face with the man who had murdered his work colleagues in cold blood. Yet, he had to know. Like a moth drawn to a burning flame, Kerrin could not avoid the task before him. He had to find and meet with Alex Swinton.
When the loudspeakers announced his flight, he gave Dana a hug, kissed her passionately in a public display of affection that surprised even himself, and walked through the departure gates.
When he got to gate nineteen, he found the flight was not yet boarding, so he walked back to the nearest shop and picked up a selection of magazines to read en route. Checking on the gate again, he found that the flight was still not boarding, so he walked across to the bar and sat down. Time for another coffee. As he waited for the waitress to come to his table, he noticed a paper lying on the seat opposite him, recognising it immediately as the Miami Chronicle. He leant across and scooped it up, checking the date to see how old it was. It was yesterday's, the late edition. A passenger from Florida must have brought it up on a flight last night.
His coffee arrived and as he lifted the cup to drink from it, he spread the broad-sheet out on the table in front of him. His eyes were immediately drawn to the main story of the local paper: "Two Miami Policemen die in Bungled Raid".
Immediately below the by-line were two pictures of the policemen who had died.
The one on the left was his friend James 'IceBreaker' Callaghan.
The picture had been taken some years ago, probably just after he had graduated from the academy and before he had started to put on the extra weight, but Kerrin recognised the picture of his friend immediately.
He scanned the story quickly, sat back in his chair and took a few deep breaths, then leant forward across the table and read the story again slowly. The article only took up a third of the front page, but it took Kerrin several minutes to take it all in and digest it properly.
He couldn't believe that James was dead. When he came to the end of the article for the third time, he realised that his hands were shaking and that his heart was beating fast. He had even broken out into a sweat. He stood up slowly, slightly unsteady on his feet, and made his way to the restroom where he splashed his face with cold water, dabbed it down with some paper towels, then found a cubicle and closed the door behind him and sat down.
He unfurled the paper and reread the article again for the fifth or sixth time. One of the sentences stuck in his mind.
"…obviously disturbed in the middle of the raid, the gunmen shot their way out of the shop, dropping most of the stolen money behind them as they ran. Relatives of the deceased shopkeeper estimated that they only managed to escape with about $200…"
$200! Was that all a life was worth nowadays?
He read the article again.
Now that he had begun to calm down, something about the article began to trouble him. Memories of his days as a policeman on the beat came rushing back to him. His instinct, once finely tuned from years of patrolling the crime ridden streets of America, was telling him that something was wrong.
Then he spotted it. It was really a combination of two things:
'…The two police officers responded promptly to the alarm, and arrived within ten minutes of the gunmen entering the premises…'
and
'… the gunmen shot their way out of the shop, dropping most of the stolen money behind them as they ran.'
What had the gunmen been doing in the shop for over ten minutes? In Kerrin's experience, the gunmen got in there, grabbed the takings and got out immediately. Four to five minutes tops. But ten?
And then they left all their money behind?
It seemed too much of a coincidence to Kerrin that James had died just as he had started to help him investigate the Orlando Suicides.
And then suddenly it all made sense.
It hadn't been a robbery. It had been an execution designed to look like one. The robbers hadn't really intended to steal the money. They had only wanted to lure the policemen to the shop so that they could kill James… to stop him from asking too many questions…and then make it look like a bungled robbery!
Grabbing his stuff, he left the toilet and ran to the nearest phone. He dialled Dana's cell phone, swearing to himself, and urging her to answer it. It took a few minutes for her to pick it up.
"Dana? Where are you?"
"Almost home…I'll be there in about ten minutes? Why?"
"Listen to me. Please, please don't argue with me, or ask too many questions. Can you remember how I told you about my friend James in Florida, and how he helped me over the past few days?"
"You mean 'the IceBreaker?' "
"Yes! …James…He was killed yesterday. Shot. Dana, James is dead…" he paused for a moment, trying to grab his breath. "Dana, I want you to pack some things, and go and stay with a friend. Just get out of the house. Don’t stay there…Call my boss Paul from a payphone and tell him where you are. I'll come to you when I get back!"
"Kerrin? Do you think they'll try to kill you next? And me? …I'm scared."
"So am I honey. So am I. I don’t know, maybe they don’t know about me yet, but I think they do. I told you that I think someone must have tapped my phone? Maybe I'm just being over cautious, even a little paranoid, but I don't think so….Listen, I have to go to South Africa and find this guy Alex Swinton. If he's behind this, I'll catch him and that'll be the end of it…and if he's not, then maybe he'll know who is…I have to go…but I can’t go if I know you’re in the house alone!" Kerrin almost shouted down the phone, the words spilling out of his mouth and unable to hide the fear in his voice. "Will you go to a friend's…please…as soon as possible?"
There was a moment's pause, then the answer he needed to hear.
"Yes. Okay. And I'll leave the number with Paul."
Behind him Kerrin could make out the voice on the P.A. system urgently requesting the last remaining passengers of Flight 203 to make their way quickly to gate nineteen, where the flight was now closing.
"Dana, I have to go. My flight’s just leaving…go to your friends…Today! Now!"
He dropped the phone onto the cradle, grabbed his papers and ran to the gate, the last person to board the plane.
As he walked onto the flight, searching for his seat in the fifth row in Business Class, an attractive young lady looked up from an aisle seat in the second row as he passed her by. She looked away again quickly, burying her head in the magazine she was reading. She had recognised him immediately. The question was, had Kerrin recognised Agent Laura Samuels?
Chapter 20
Day Fourteen
The Gen8tyx Company
Purlington Bay
California