Deadline

DEADLINE

A Thriller

By James A. Anderson

Copyright © 2010 by James
A. Anderson. Published by Smashwords.

All Rights Reserved. Except as
permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this
publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any
form or by any means, or stored on a database or retrieval system,
without the prior written permission of the author.

The characters and events in this book
are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, either living or
dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

ISBN: 978-0-557-65617-2

For Sherry, my wife
and Joan, my mother

Chapter 1

Toronto Wednesday 11:25 PM
(EDT)

HIS TARGET came into view.

She strolled casually down the
concrete steps of the 18-storey office tower located downtown on
Bay Street.

It was a muggy night. The humid
weather was typical for mid-August. The temperature sign on a
nearby building flashed 25 Celsius, but it felt more like 30
degrees. The air felt hot and steamy, conditions that caused
clothing to cling tightly to the body. It felt like walking fully
clothed into a steam bath.

His eyes followed her as she casually
walked on the pavement. Her lithe body was elegantly attired in a
trim, form-fitting grey skirt and matching jacket. Her short-length
honey blond hair slightly swaying with the movement. She carried an
attaché case, very businesslike. Her high heels ticktocked a steady
rhythm on the sidewalk.

His excitement began to
build.

Antoinette Bower was an up and coming
young lawyer. Her night work with Bannerman, Evers, Ingham and Otis
was typical for her heavy caseload. Many nights Bower worked until
after midnight.

Today was slightly easier as she
completed preparations for her court date tomorrow morning at 9
a.m. Time to walk home to her apartment eight blocks
away.

She looked forward to a nice hot soak
with bubble bath, a martini and an hour or so with a good trashy
romance novel. It was the only romance in her life right
now.

At age 28, Bower was too busy building
a legal career to get seriously involved with men.

Yes, that sounded made to order for
her tonight. Bower’s thoughts were so concentrated on getting home
she failed to notice the street was strangely deserted at this
hour. There were no other pedestrians around and only the odd
passing vehicle.

Bower also didn’t observe the maroon
Ford Explorer pulling up slowly behind her. He drove slowly,
closely scanning the street ahead and beside him. The moonlit
street was isolated except for the occasional passing vehicle. He
saw her turn down a side street just a few yards ahead.

Perfect.

Bower moved down the side street. The
entrance to her apartment building was only a few hundred yards
ahead. Home Sweet Home came to mind. Her thoughts were suddenly
interrupted.

“
Excuse me, Miss,” said a
bewildered voice. “I’m new to the city and I’m trying to find a
friend on Lombard Street. Is it anywhere near here?”

Bower now saw the Explorer parked
alongside her at the curb. A man behind the wheel was leaning over
and speaking through the open passenger side window.

A sense of apprehension and caution
immediately overcame her. She realized she was alone on the street
with a male stranger in a parked vehicle. All the signs screamed
she should ignore the man’s request and walk away.

“
Listen, I realize this
must be distressing to you at this time of night. I assure you I’m
harmless. I’m just a guy who is lost late at night. I have a map
here but it is hard to make out where exactly I am in relation to
Lombard Street. Any help would be most appreciated.”

“
Okay, but I’d like you to
get out of the car and bring the map here.” Bower cautiously kept
her distance from the vehicle.

The man stepped out from the Explorer
with a map in hand. He stood next to Antoinette Bower holding the
map as she tried to explain directions to Lombard
Street.

“
It’s only a few blocks
this way,” she pointed to the map. “You’re not far
wrong.”

His other hand emerged from a side
pocket. A handkerchief edged upward as the stranger let the map
drop to the ground. Bower suddenly felt a vice-like
grip.

She started to struggle. A scream
began to surface, but was suddenly cut off. The handkerchief
smothered her mouth. She sensed the strong smell of a chemical
odour. She briefly continued to struggle but an overwhelming
drowsiness arose.

Then everything went black.

The Wolfman had his next
victim.

Chapter 2

Toronto Daily Express 11:35
P.M. (EDT)

BRADEN YOUNG felt as if time was his
greatest enemy. He constantly raced against the clock.

This was an occupational hazard for
Young, managing editor of the Toronto Daily Express.

The 55-year-old American editor and
journalist had been brought in 18 months ago from USA Today to try
to salvage the Express. The paper’s sales were slumping against the
competition – The Star, The Globe, The National Post and The
Sun.

The Daily Express was running fifth in
the Metro Toronto market of more than three million people. The
paper had a daily circulation of 177,000, just behind The Sun. The
market really could not sustain five daily newspapers. There
weren’t enough readers and advertising dollars to go around. It was
a daily battle for survival of the fittest. And Braden Young was
committed to ensuring The Daily Express would be a
survivor.

The paper was losing about $3.8
million a year and circulation continued to erode until Young took
the helm. Over the past 18 months, he managed to trim the losses to
$1.2 million and boost circulation to more than 200,000 daily. The
Daily Express had moved into fourth place, just behind the National
Post.

Young achieved this turnaround by
strategically cutting staff and getting rid of the
deadwood.

He hired young, ambitious reporters
who would work for half what the other papers were paying. They
wanted the chance to work in a big media market where they could
make names for themselves.

He also shifted the paper’s focus to
emphasize crime stories, human interest, more international news,
commentary and entertainment. He believed people really relate to
such stories than the usual political claptrap that fills so many
newspapers. A juicy murder or a rescued child sells a lot more
newspapers than a politician’s rants and ravings.

Kids, pets, sex and scandal are
guaranteed to sell papers an old-time editor once told Young when
he was a young cub reporter. Public tastes have not changed much
with the times. If anything there is more of an appetite for the
sensational, Young thought.

Now he faced yet another deadline. The
press run for the morning edition loomed at 12 a.m. and the front
page was not yet finalized.

“
Twenty-five minutes until
press time and we still don’t have our top line story,” Young
complained.

“
Katie’s just finishing
it,” said Paul O’Connor, the assistant managing editor. “She’s
never missed a deadline yet. It’s the latest update on the Wolfman
killings and his seventh victim -- the young female accountant who
disappeared while waiting for a midnight bus.”

At that moment, a pretty redheaded
face entered Young’s office after a strong rap on the
door.

“
Boss, the story is
finished and in the final copy folder,” said Katie Cannon, the
Daily Express crime reporter. “Sorry for the delay, but the cops
were stalling me on the latest progress in the case. I think
they’re embarrassed they have few leads on this creep. They appear
to have no hope of catching him unless they get lucky or he slips
up somehow.”

Cannon was a hottie in both looks and
talent.

The busty redhead stood in the doorway
bathed in the stark, neon light of Young’s office. She often
attracted looks and attention from men. She put her physical assets
to good use to extract interviews and information from people
otherwise reluctant to talk with reporters.

Cannon also was one of the paper’s
best writers. She was a highly efficient crime reporter with a
reputation for thoroughness and accuracy in her
reporting.

“
Thanks, Katie. Just wait
here while I quickly check it over.” Young punched some keys and
pulled up the story on his computer. He glanced at the copy, which
ran four takes (typed pages) and covered details of the murder of
Joyce Semchuk, a 26-year-old accountant.

Semchuk had been working late on
company accounts and left her office at 11:30 p.m. two nights ago
to catch her midnight bus home. She simply disappeared.

Her nude, mutilated corpse was found
several hours later in a wooded field in Scarborough by an early
morning hiker. The police said they recovered plenty of DNA at the
site and were checking against records of known
offenders.

“
Good job, Katie,” said
Young after perusing the copy. “It’s a thorough review of the case,
the previous victims -- all young professional women under 30 --
and the fact that the cops so far have shit. Paul, run it top line
on the front page with a heading:
WHERE
WILL THE WOLFMAN STRIKE NEXT?”

Chapter 3

Kandahar Thursday 8
AM

(Afghanistan
DST)

THE SAND was dark, thick,
choking.

It swirled with a stinging ferocity
that struck the face of Trevor Trevanian.

He sat aboard an open
eight-wheeled Bison
armored
personnel carrier
alongside several Canadian Forces soldiers on regular patrol
outside their base in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan.

The soldiers aboard kept their eyes
peeled and their rifles at the ready. This highway from Kandahar to
the Panjwaii district is prime hunting ground for Taliban suicide
car bombers and snipers. Several soldiers already had been killed
or seriously injured along this route.

Things seemed routine, so far, for the
convoy of four vehicles headed to a nearby village. They were
delivering medical supplies to a small regional hospital and
building a schoolhouse in the village. It was all part of the
reconstruction mission trying to put Afghanistan on a stable,
self-supporting basis.

The sandstorm perhaps would serve as a
deterrent for the insurgents this day.

Trevanian was the Afghanistan
correspondent for the Daily Express. He was based in Kandahar and
covered the war from there. He filed stories on the ongoing fight
against the Taliban and al-Qaida. He also wrote about the ongoing
reconstruction efforts of the allied forces.

If ever there was a country that
needed help, Afghanistan was it. The poverty and desolate
conditions Trevanian observed on a daily basis were a constant
reminder why the troops were there. Without the terrorism and
poverty, Afghanistan was a truly beautiful country surrounded by
breathtaking, majestic, snow-capped mountains.

A veteran of war zone reporting,
Trevanian was no apologist for the military. He knew that there
were always two sides in a dispute. In war, both sides always felt
they were fighting for the just cause. God was not known to choose
sides, but often each army called upon his help.

His job as a journalist was to tell
both their stories and cover the war as an impartial viewer on
behalf of the public’s right to know. That sometimes made him an
enemy on both sides. Many journalists had died in combat zones in
pursuit of a story and the truth.

Trevanian, now 45, tall and lean, with
thinning black hair, streaked with a hint of gray, had served
stints as a correspondent in Baghdad, Darfur, Bosnia and the Middle
East. He experienced a few close shaves from time to time. He had
the scars on several areas of his body to prove it.

But he was still here, breathing,
writing and generally being a pain in the ass to those who didn’t
want the people to really know what was going on.