Playing the Game (3 page)

Click.

Yeah, that was a good one!

Click.

Oh, yes, you can really tell who that is can’t you?

Click.

I hope you had a good time up there.  It will cost you more than you think!

Click.

One more? Just to be on the safe side?

Click.

As he lowered the camera, despite the cold, a wry smile came over Britland-Jones’ face. Knowing there was no-one around that could hear him, he couldn’t resist gloating over the images he had just captured.

‘Thank you very much Senator Conway’, he was almost laughing now. ‘We will speak very soon. Very soon indeed’.

7

            It took us no time at all to compile a list of who or what Kavannagh could be, or what Kavannagh might mean. In fact, just doing a quick sweep of the LAPD databases brought back only one possibility – a small coffee house in Eagle Rock. Something I suspected was no accident on the part of The Chemist. It seemed that The Chemist was just as careful with the locations of the games as with leaving no trace of evidence.

            It was also no surprise that The Chemist now seemed to be including Charlie in the game. Charlie had remained by my side during the games for the first two girls, Keeley Porter and Jennifer Hughes, and he was as determined as I was that we wouldn’t be adding a third dead girl to that list. The Chemist had no doubt been keeping tabs on our lack of progress during the first two games and it therefore made complete sense that The Chemist would know about Charlie. This was the first time Charlie had been mentioned in any aspect of a game though, an accolade which gave him no concern.

            ‘Bring it on’, he growled. ‘Let The Chemist play my fucking game and see who wins’.

            Neither of us had any idea what lay in store at the Kavannagh, I only knew that whatever it was, it was only the first of many steps.  Fergs was having a tough time at his end, after more than two hours working on the code he was nowhere, despite having another four ‘techies’ who had joined him over the course of the morning. He had even had the PD bring in a recently paroled Richard Bradshaw to ‘voluntarily assist’ them as a gesture of his commitment to his reformed ways. Bradshaw, I was told, had just served eleven years for major computer fraud which involved breaking the security codes of LA’s Federal Reserve and transferring around forty million dollars into various accounts around the world. Now Fergs had mentioned it, I seemed to remember reading about it somewhere a long time ago.

            It didn’t take us long to get to Eagle Rock but we knew that we were now racing against time. By six a.m. tomorrow morning, one way or another, it would be game over.

            Pulling up outside the Kavannagh at around ten to eight, from a preliminary scan of the outside it seemed like business as usual. Several customers could be seen sitting inside and people were coming and going like they usually would on any ordinary day, seemingly oblivious to anything outside their own little worlds.

            Nevertheless, I wasn’t taking any chances. Guns drawn at the ready, we ditched Charlie’s Subaru Impreza WRX, which had made such good time from our station to Eagle Rock, in a side alley. We did a quick sweep of the parameter of the Kavannagh, then burst through the front doors, badge in one hand identifying myself to the two guys behind the counter.

            The look of initial shock of us bursting in gave way to a nod; almost a gesture of recognition, once I’d identified myself as Patton.

            ‘Yeah man’, Graham – well it said that on his badge – nodded. ‘This came for you in the post this morning – couple hours ago. ‘We wondered who the fuck you were’.

            Keasty reached to the side of the counter and brought out an envelope. ‘We opened it – we didn’t know what it was’, he continued. ‘It’s all there though, even the key’.

            As I reached for the envelope, I heard the couple of black and whites that had been dispatched as out backup, arrive outside. They had left at the same time as us but the way Charlie drives no-one was catching him. If he wasn’t a police officer, let’s just say that Formula One could have been his chosen profession.

            ‘OK guys’, I gestured to the pair, ‘who was here when it was delivered, just you two?’

            ‘Yeah, just us’, Tel confirmed.

            ‘You both handle this?’ I waved the envelope.

            ‘Yeah we did’. I just hoped they hadn’t completely covered the thing in prints.

            ‘OK, we’re gonna need statements and prints off you both. You’re gonna need to close. You want to tell your customers? You got two minutes’. Charlie was already itching to get things in motion and to have a look in that envelope.

            Keasty and Tel began announcing their apologies to the customers, most of whom had taken an interest in what was building as soon as Patton and Holland had burst in. Those who hadn’t initially been interested certainly began to be when the black and whites pulled up, sirens screaming, disrupting the tranquillity of their early morning coffee; looking up from their various chairs and the couple of black leather sofas that aligned the far wall of the coffee house. ‘I’m sorry’, Tel said to a nearby customer who had just over half a cup of latte left, ‘but I’m going to have to ask you to leave – we have to shut. I’m not sure what’s happening but the LAPD have asked us to close’.

            Taking a final swig of latte, leaving the cup just under half full, the customer stood up, picking up a newspaper and coat obligingly from the clean black leather on one of the sofas.

            ‘No problem’, The Chemist replied, gesturing to Patton and Holland. ‘Looks like you’ve got your hands full’.

            In an irony not lost on The Chemist, a member of the LAPD, one of the black and whites, actually held the door of the Kavannagh open for them to leave and in so doing, The Chemist couldn’t help but smile. Patton and Holland were right on schedule.

8

Last week

            Despite only having had a couple of hours sleep the previous night Senator Conrad Conway was in a good mood, he loved this time of year as it affirmed just how powerful an individual he had become. He was in the lift of the Aon Centre, the second tallest building in Los Angeles, ascending towards to sixty-first floor which, as always, took a good few minutes. From there he would walk casually to the end of the corridor, swipe a card and use his right thumbprint to gain access to the stairwell leading to a room on the sixty-second floor. To his knowledge, you could count on two hands the number of people who could access that room at this present time. The reason for that was simple; the exclusive room on the sixty-second floor was the designated place for the bi-annual meetings of the Animi – a group of individuals who could influence the major events and decisions in Los Angeles for their own personal gain, desired outcome or political ambitions. He had been told by the member that proposed him, that they were called the Animi after the ancient concept of Animism that refers to souls as ghosts and that’s exactly what they were as far as Los Angeles was concerned – ghosts. No-one, other than its members, had any idea whatsoever of the events that they had controlled over the years or the magnitude of change their actions had resulted in.

            As the lift ascended, he afforded himself a glance at his reflection in the mirrored panels and he broke out in a wide smile, revealing the perfect white teeth he had flashed so many times during his political career. His permanent tan suggested he took far more holidays than he actually did and made his thinning blonde hair seem even blonder His stocky build meant that he cut a daunting figure when arguing his point in the political arena.

            Reaching the sixty-first floor, which was, as usual, deserted, he walked to the end of the corridor to an unmarked door with a card reader. Swiping his gold card, he made his way to another door with fingerprint detection. Once his thumbprint was recognised, he entered a ten digit code he had committed to memory many months ago. Opening the final door, he then eagerly marched up the stairs to the meeting room and despite being a couple of minutes early, he saw he was the last to arrive.

            Looking round the room, he gave the customary nods and greetings to his fellow Animi – City Attorney Jameson Burr – the individual who had proposed him almost two years ago. Mayor Cyprian Hague – the very public face of the anonymous Animi, now in his second term as Mayor, Justice Of The Peace Thomas Brittles, Joint Chief of Staff Lee R. Brindle, Animi Chairman – District Attorney Paul McCrane and finally, owner of one of the biggest television networks in the United States – Robert Farrington.

            Powerful though he was, Conway knew he was among esteemed company and always acted accordingly. These meetings, although always seemingly informal, had, at times, altered the course of LA's history; through mutual consent of decisions the Mayor would publicly take, sentences that would be passed on certain individuals, influence within the White House and, when circumstances dictated, the removal of troublesome individuals from the public eye – all reported with whatever slant they needed by the Farrington Network.

            It went without saying, that whatever was discussed within these walls was never repeated. There were certainly no minutes taken, and it was with the up-most care that each member ensured there was no record of them ever having being there.

            It was Chairman Paul McCrane who spoke first. ‘Gentlemen, once again here we are. I’d like to thank everybody for taking time out of their hectic schedules to find the time to attend, but as I’m sure you all agree, we have one or two pressing matters to attend to this time around’. There were various grumbles of agreement from the members around the room.

            ‘Not least of which, the activities of who the media’, he turned half-nodding to Farrington, ‘has dubbed
The Chemist
. Jameson, would you care to update us?’

            Jameson Burr cleared his throat and stood up. ‘Well we’ve all seen the news, haven’t we? It seems we might have a problem. As we discussed just over six months ago, Paul and I drew up a list of candidates of individuals that could, well, operate on our behalf. Individuals that would have no hesitation in assisting us with a problem in an upcoming trial. We settled on one person who we thought was right for the job. The person that the media, as Paul quite rightly pointed out, has since dubbed
The Chemist
’.

            ‘So where did you dig this person up from?’ Thomas Brittles was keen to know more, ‘It’s not like you can randomly walk up to someone in the street for this line of work is it?’

            ‘Indeed not’, Jameson continued ‘and it’s funny you should say that Thomas. This person was convicted of a particularly nasty triple homicide seven years ago, you denied their appeal personally’. A look of surprise dawned on his face, as if he were fitting the last piece of a jigsaw into a particularly difficult puzzle.

            ‘You mean to say that
that
individual is free, roaming the streets of LA as we speak’, Brittles was almost incredulous.

            ‘That is exactly what I mean to say’, Jameson nodded in a sombre tone. ‘We had this individual covertly released from San Quentin six months ago, although you can be assured that there is no paper trail – as far as the system is concerned, this person has not, and never will be, a recorded inmate of San Quentin. The governor is a very close personal friend of ours. In fact, we have, at some considerable cost to ourselves, practically erased this person from existence. As far as we can tell, there is no record on any system, anywhere. This person was supposed to be at our service, to carry out several actions at our discretion, after which, we would have returned this person to San Quentin for life. Solitary confinement would have been the order of the day. However, as we now know, things didn't quite go according to plan’.

            'We should have used one of our existing contractors', Conway chastised, shaking his head. 'It's not as if we don't have several people we can reach out to for favours is it?'

            'Well that was an option that came up, Conrad', Burr responded. 'But as we know, this isn't one action, it's four; and four actions means that the manhunt for the perpetrator would be massively increased once the obvious link between the actions is established; and with that, the risk that the perpetrator could be linked with us increases also'.

            'Remind me again why we thought it pertinent to go down this avenue', Brindle wanted to know. He had been absent from the last meeting of the Animi six months ago when this plan was implemented, having to remain within easy reach of the president as the campaign trail intensified throughout the country. His attendance today had only been confirmed last night. Even though he had been sure he would be able to attend, his schedule was often subject to external factors beyond his control. He had, of course, been apprised of the contents of the last meeting but was keen to go over the reasons for their current course of action one more time.

            'Four witnesses in the upcoming Peroza trial could not be persuaded to retract their statements', Burr said. 'Surprising I know; we don't usually have too much trouble in this area. They are due to testify in two weeks. We have stalled this process as long as we can, they should have testified almost six weeks ago. As we know, their testimonies will no doubt result in the conviction of Manuel Peroza who we used last year to convert five million of the Animi's laundered capital into untraceable real estate in Los Feliz'.

            'Why go after the witnesses?' Brittles asked, 'Why not just go after Peroza? Seems to me if there is no Peroza, there is no problem'.

            'Manuel Peroza is the cousin of one of our most influential backers and they have called in their marker', Burr stated. 'His elimination was not, and is not, an option. I can say without any reservation at all that we do not want to make an enemy out of this particular backer. That of course, left us the only choice of ensuring that the witnesses at the trial do not testify. And that in turn left us with the problem that we are dealing with today. Four witnesses disappearing at the same time are a problem – and one that would not come without its own substantial investigation. We needed to ensure that we knew exactly where whoever was carrying out these actions was going to be once the actions were completed. We can't run the risk of employing anyone to carry out these actions then being picked up somewhere down the line on an unrelated charge and having us as leverage to plead out a lesser charge. Our plan was for Caldwell, The Chemist's real name by the way, to be released, eliminate the four witnesses, then be returned to San Quentin, no questions asked'.