The Orlando File (Book One)

  Try as he might, Kerrin could not shake off the Mazda. It wasn't as easy as it looked in the films and the last time he had been in a car chase, he was the one doing the chasing. He tried stopping and letting the car behind him pull past, but a few minutes later the car was there again, back on his tail. He pulled into a gas station. The car waited outside.

  He doubled back on himself. The Mazda followed.

  He tried everything he could. It didn't help.

  Whoever the person in the Mazda was, they were pretty good. The sort of 'good' that only came from being a professional.

  "Come on…you used to be a professional too…Think boy, think!"

  The car had been tailing him for almost an hour. He was passing through the outskirts of Miami now, his heart racing at over one hundred and twenty beats a minute, even though he was sitting still and the car was doing the driving.

  He frantically absorbed his surroundings as he drove, mentally noting all the alleyways and shops on either side of the road.

  "How can I lose him? How?"

  He was looking for somewhere to hide. Somewhere to disappear.

  It was almost dark now. That at least would help him.

  The Mazda was about five cars back. Good, that was giving a little distance between them.

  Suddenly on the left hand side Kerrin spotted a garage. A car was just driving out of the attached car wash, and there was no queue behind it. When he looked back to the road he realised he was just coming up to a changing light, and on instinct he gunned it, pushing down hard on the pedal and shooting across the junction.

  The cars behind him stopped, trapping the Mazda behind them.

  Kerrin accelerated, heading towards the next junction as fast as he could. He reached it just as the lights were changing, and as he pulled through it he immediately hung a left. As he shot off into the street ahead, he glanced sideways, noticing the Mazda just clearing the first set of lights.

  The street he had entered was quite clear, and using every ounce of skill he could remember from his police driving courses, he threw his car into a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree hand-break turn and headed back to the junction he had just come from, his high beams on full. As soon as the lights changed, he turned right on the inside lane, a row of moving cars flanking his left hand side.

  As he made the corner he noticed the Mazda passing him in the other direction, turning left into the street now behind him.

  Kerrin accelerated again, this time easily making the light ahead before it turned to red. Without slowing down he pulled into the garage twenty yards past the lights, and drove straight into the covered car wash.

  He jumped out of the car, and walked to the edge of the covered exit, poking his head round the corner just enough to see the road. He waited.

  About fifteen seconds later the blue Mazda accelerated past him, heading back down the road towards the edge of the city.

  He walked across the forecourt into the shop.

  "What's the slowest wash?"

  "Wash, wax and dry. Six dollars."

  "Fine. Give me four!"

  "Four?"

  "My car's very dirty."

  The man flicked him four blue tokens and change from thirty dollars and Kerrin walked back to the car, popping the first token into the slot. As the machinery around him whirred into action, and the water poured down over the car, he slid back into his seat and started to relax.

  Twenty minutes later, he pulled out of the car wash. The blue Mazda was nowhere to be seen.

  Two blocks away he found a Hertz rental agency. He took the car in, and swapped it for something a different colour and a little faster. But not so clean.

  --------------------

  As soon as Kerrin got back to the hotel room he paid the bill and checked out. Keeping a careful eye out for any suspicious looking cars, he drove about ten blocks away and checked into a motel, where sixty dollars a night got him air conditioning, a T.V. and a room with no view. For now, Kerrin wanted to disappear.

  Who had been following him? And why?

  He needed to think. To pull together what little he knew, sift through it all and see if there was anything solid that he could go on.

  Using the pillows, he propped himself up on his bed against the wall, kicked off his shoes and settled down to do some work. Changing the batteries in his tape-recorder, he pulled out his notebook and listened to each of his interviews once again. This time he made notes, picking up a few new things, some important, some not, that he hadn't caught the first time around.

  It was ten o'clock when he had finished, and as he scanned his notes, he satisfied himself that something interesting was beginning to emerge.

  He wandered through to the bathroom and ran himself a bath. As he lay back in the warm water, he emptied his mind. His heart was pounding and his mind was racing, and only then did he realise just how wound up and excited he was. Trailing round the relatives of the those who had died, asking questions and trying to unravel the puzzle that was beginning to appear before him, then the car chase… It reminded him of the old days when he had been in the force. He hated to admit it, but even though he shouldn't be given the circumstances of the investigation, he was beginning to enjoy himself.

  He took a breath then sank down under the water, trying to relax. But try as he might, he couldn't. Questions kept popping into his mind, new questions, good questions, questions which needed to be answered.

  Who were the owners of Gen8tyx?

  Henry Roberts had been planning to go to California, but had changed his mind. Why? His widow had guessed that perhaps he had found out that he wouldn't be needed after all.

  How could that be? Why would Gen8tyx want to replace their Chief Financial Officer, at a time when he should be needed more than ever?

  And what were all those late night long distance phone conversations about? And why had Henry gone to the office so late at night on the evening he had hung himself?

  Did he actually make it to the office?

  What was it that Henry knew about the business that the others didn't?

  Questions. Questions. And more questions.

  He got out the bath and towelled himself down, returning to his bed. He decided to go with the flow, and started making more notes as the questions continued to flow into his mind.

  His thoughts returned to the suicides…

  What amazed him was just how quickly the police had closed the files on their deaths. It was obvious to Kerrin, after just three days of investigating, that none of the deaths were clear cut suicides. The circumstances of their deaths were highly suspicious, and everywhere you started to scratch at the surface you uncovered more questions.

  Coupled with the fact that those who had died had all worked for one of the most advanced Genetics companies in the world, on a secret project that none of them could talk about. A project, that according to Mike's fiancée was just about to, or possibly already had, just come to some fantastic conclusion, before they were all fired!

  And then again, why had David Sonderheim brought new people into the company months in advance of the move to California? Thankfully, that question at least, was probably easily answered.

  Sonderheim had obviously been planning the move for a while, and had perhaps known that the core team wouldn’t go. So he had planned it in advance, bringing new people on board, all master scientists in their own right, to slowly take over the work from the original team members.

  The question that deserved to be asked though, was 'Why did Sonderheim want to move the company in the first place?' Why was he prepared to lose the experience and enthusiasm of the founding core staff and run the risk of hindering the ongoing development of the company?

  The more you thought about it, the more suspicious it became.

  "Conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theory…"

  The words rattled round inside his head. He quickly shut them out, refusing to let his imagination run wild. He had to look at it all objectively.


  But the more objectively he looked at it, the worse it got.

  Why had the files in the police station disappeared?

  Why were the files on the computer classified by the FBI?

  And then, in the midst of all these questions, he remembered Martin's jet blowing up miles above the Atlantic Ocean. He had already concluded that a military jet had been in the same airspace when the explosion had taken place, but that its flight plan had possibly been covered up.

  But who had the authority to make a military flight take off, then erase the records as if it had never happened?

  "Conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theory…"

  Kerrin got up and walked to the fridge. He took out a cold can of coke, and popped the lid, drinking it slowly as he sat back down on the edge of the bed.

  "Military jet…explosion…cover up…" His mind was racing. Then suddenly a new thought entered his mind.

  "Did the military jet deliberately shoot down Martin's plane?"

  The thought filled his head, and for a few minutes Kerrin sat there in silence, staring into space.

  Slowly he became aware of a regular, annoying, dripping sound. He got up and went to the sink in the bathroom, turning the tap off tight. He leant on the hand-basin with both hands, staring at himself in the mirror. His face was tired and drawn. Beads of sweat were beginning to appear on his forehead, and his pupils were tiny pinpricks in the centre of his eyes.

  The face looking back at him was of someone he did not recognise. It belonged to someone who had just begun to experience the sensation of fear. Kerrin was scared.

  --------------------

  "Hey, James, what are you doing?"

  "Just got off my shift, heading home! It's been a long day. Two homicides and an armed hold-up. Why, what are you up to?"

  "I'm buying you a beer. I need to talk to someone…and I need your help again."

  Thirty minutes later the girl behind the bar at Hooters plonked two large cold Budweisers in front of them, pulled a pen from behind her ear, and made two marks on their coasters.

  James picked up his beer, studying the bubbles bursting from the bottom of the glass and racing towards the surface.

  "So, what's up? I thought you'd be back in Washington by now. Not that it ain't nice having you around. It makes a break from watching re-runs of Friends on cable!"

  "Would you believe I just like the weather so much that I don't want to leave again?"

  "Nope. You've already told me you need my help. So being the great detective that I am, and using all my powers of deduction, would you be surprised if I guessed that it had something to do with the Orlando Suicides?"

  "Wow. I'm impressed. Truly impressed."

  "I'm a man of wonders. So what's the deal…what did you find out?"

  "Not enough. I've now got more questions than I started with. But one thing's certain. They didn’t commit suicide. They were killed," Kerrin said, watching for James's reaction.

  "Are you sure? Why don't you run it by me from the top?" James turned to Kerrin, making himself a little more comfortable in his seat at the bar.

  Kerrin looked around him quickly. Satisfied that the other people wouldn’t be able to overhear them, he started off from when they had last met. James listened attentively, stopping him every now and again to ask a few questions, but on the whole listening to everything Kerrin had to say. When he got to the part about the blue Mazda, his eyes lit up. At the end of it all James whistled aloud. Then he went silent for a while, and Kerrin decided to take a convenience break, leaving his old friend to absorb what he had just heard. He returned a few minutes later.

  "So what do you want me to do, good buddy?" James asked him.

  "First of all, I want your opinion. Your gut reaction."

  "Okay, gut reaction? Catch the first stage out of town, and don't look back. Something funny is going down. And without your badge, you're in way over your head."

  "I'd reached that conclusion myself. But I'm glad you agree."

  "Second…" James turned to his old friend, resting his hand on his shoulder…"We both know that you're not going to walk away from this, so you're going to need help. And since I'm the only other fool in town, I suppose that means me. "

  "Bingo. That's the other conclusion I had reached too. But that's as far as I got…what do I…we?…do next?"

  "I'd say your next step is to try and track down the guy Alex Swinton. Either he's dead in a ditch somewhere, or he's the only person alive that might know what's going on around here…"

  "But how do I find out where he is?"

  "That's where I come in. Leave that bit to me."

  "What about the obvious?"

  "And what's that?" James asked, annoyed that he might have missed something.

  "What about going straight to this guy David Sonderheim?"

  "Why? What can he tell us just now? If he's the guilty one, and you start sniffing around asking him questions, he'll just get defensive, and you'll lose any element of surprise you may have. No, you can't talk to him unless you know a bit more about what's going on. Anyway, these deaths might have nothing to do with him."

  "You're right. But can you get me some information on him?"

  "Like what?"

  "Anything. Something's better than nothing. Like, for example, where is he now?"

  "I'll see what I can do."

  "What about the police files on the suicides? Are you sure you can't get access to the files?"

  "No. As I said before, it’s not easy. They need Federal access codes. I would have to get somebody else to do it for me…pull a few favours…but the Feds would soon know we were messing around. What's the point anyway? If you know already they were killed, you won’t get any new information that way."

  "Okay. Okay…" Kerrin agreed. Perhaps seeing the files would give them nothing new.

  "What about the hospital? Would they have done an autopsy on Henry Roberts?"

  "Maybe."

  "Something happened the night Henry Roberts died. There was a phone call late at night and after he took it, he told his wife he had to go back to the office. It would be good to know if he actually made it there."

  "Who's to say he was going to the office? He could have been going anywhere. What would really help you, is to know where the call came from, and also where all those long distance calls you mentioned were coming from? Why don’t you ask me to get copies of the phone bills?"

  "Could you?"

  "For you? Sure. No problem."

  "Great! The thing is, I was wondering if Mr Roberts had met somebody that night. Somebody who wanted to kill him. Maybe they tried to make it look like suicide by hanging him from a tree, but forgot about the dogs patrolling the grounds. Then they got chased off before they could make sure the job was done properly."

  "Feasible…"

  "Then luckily for them, …"

  "…Whoever 'they' are…" James interrupted.

  "Exactly, then luckily for them, he goes into a coma. But what would happen if he woke up, and told everyone what had happened?…" Kerrin waited to see if James could see where he was going.

  "…So they had to make sure he didn't wake up?" James suggested, beginning to enjoy the train of thought.

  "…The police told his wife it was a heart attack. Are there any drugs that can kill a man quickly but would make it look like a heart attack?"

  "Quite a few, but you wouldn't know they had been used unless you thought the death was suspicious and you were looking for them. When's the funeral?"

  "I don't know. "

  "Well, if it hasn’t happened yet there's still a chance I could have a word with the coroner and ask him to run some basic tests for me."

  "Okay. Can you get on to that tomorrow?"

  "No problem. Is there anything else?" James asked cheekily.

  "Don’t think so."

  "So what are you going to do next?" James asked him.

  "I'll head back to Washington tomorrow. Spend a few days
with Dana. Then as soon as you get any information on the whereabouts of Alex Swinton, I'll go after him. In the meantime, I want to find out a bit more about Gen8tyx. I've got some friends in Washington who can help me with that."

  "Boy, what would you do without friends?"

  "That, my friend, is one question I hope I never have to answer."

  Chapter 14

  Day Eleven

  The Gen8tyx Company

  Purlington Bay

  California