Chapter Five
Witness
Artie and Leena, having gleaned what they could from the conversations with Mary Stewart and Carol Estes in the offices of West Palm Beach's Community Board Four, of which Alfred Ganze serves - or in Leena's interpretation ran this portion of the city - as President, have left the offices to plot their next move.
Thus far they have accumulated a few possible motives and some potential suspects in the sub-zero attack on Alfred Ganze, but their impression is that they are beginning with a plethora of persons with motive.
The trick, as always, is to narrow down who has an at-this-moment unknown artifact.
x
Every known artifact that is capable of flash-freezing a human body, including Victor Fries' Freeze gun, Driftwood from the Titanic, the Freezing Snow Globe, William Parry's Inukshuk, is already shelved and accounted for in the Warehouse.
Unfortunately, the creation of an artifact is quite unpredictable, for an object can attain such a status through a seemingly infinite number of causes, a common factor being strong emotion. The potential for strong emotions in a Political setting is discouragingly high.
There could be a new object that received the impetus specifically for this use on this victim, or else one that has managed to remain unknown though used on more than this one occasion.
x
West Palm Beach is not a place one would generally look for, or find, many things frozen, most especially people.
In an attempt to find a clue in why Alfred Ganze had been deep frozen in his office while sorting through the day's mail, Artie and Leena have researched him through his staff in the inner and outer offices; Artie with Carol Estes while Leena sought to gather clues from Mary Stewart in the outer room.
"Can you think of anyone who'd want to hurt him?" Artie had asked, knowing he was wading into a verbal morass.
"You mean like freeze him solid and put him into Intensive Care?"
"Good point."
He couldn't say that this is exactly what he'd been thinking, which is why he hadn't wanted to raise the issue of possible enemies, for the woman was not in any way prepared to deal with an artifact related attack.
"No, even if it's not like this, no one would want to do anything to hurt him. He doesn't have an enemy in the world."
xx
"If you tell anybody this, I'll deny it," Mary Stewart had declared to Leena in the outer office, "but Alfred Ganze is as cold and unfeeling a boss as I've ever had the misfortune to work for. If I could figure out who did this and how it was done, I'd probably thank him or her."
"Is he this way with everybody he deals with?" She'd hoped the woman would have said 'no', because there are presently far too many potential suspects with which to deal.
"He is cold on many issues, now he's very cold."
xx
In the outer hall, while awaiting the elevator, the pair have a moment to exchange information while they plan their next step.
"Steward says that Ganze treats this office as a private concern," Leena says. "Those he likes did well in the Community when it came to Licenses, Land, Opening or Closing of Businesses, etc. Those he doesn't must endure delays, hardships, the cooling of politicians and others whose ears he has. His term lasts another year and since he has neither broken any laws nor violated any regulations, he cannot be removed before the next election, which he also has locked in with a majority of the Board.
"The membership on the Board is by application that goes through Ganze, while selection of Officers is internal."
It sounds to Artie like there is a vast dichotomy of views between the two women. "Estes thinks things are fine between him and everybody else." His tone conveys how much he believes that assessment and Leena is happy to disabuse him of that impression.
"Stewart says he's really disliked, mostly because he's cold and unfeeling."
"Well, now he's cold."
"As a 'for instance'," she's not going to mention that Steward had made the very same point, "he would never let me get on the Board. I have three strikes against me: I'm under 50, I'm black and I'm a woman."
He looks at her as though seeing her for the first time. "You're kidding." He removes his glasses, polishes them, replaces them and gives her wide eyes. "You arrrrrr."
"I don't like him already," she says, pressing the elevator call button again. She wonders who else in this building may ignore some people.
"So our best suspect is a young, black woman."
"I have an alibi for the last General Meeting: I was dead."
"I never considered you."
"You're just like him."
xxx
The seventeen bodies scattered throughout the Plaza outside the main entrance of Brooklyn's Barclays Center brings the total number of known deaths from this deadly artifact to twenty-nine.
They are also an excellent cross-section of the population of Brooklyn, young, old, white, Asian, black, male, female, able-bodied and not; if they were specifically targeted neither Agent can detect a pattern.
Neither do they expect that there will be no more such attacks, so their first concern is identifying the shooter before he, or she, strikes again.
They had been directed by the officer in the Command Truck to seek out a Captain Wilson, the Incident Commander, but do not intend to do so. The bodies scattered throughout the Plaza are their sole interest.
All have been covered with the ubiquitous white sheets but presumably lie where they fell. Evidently the Crime Scene Investigators have photographed and documented them, but the Agents have not yet seen anyone from the Coroner's Office.
"You see?" is all Myka will say as they scan the covered corpses before and along the side of the building.
"Can't miss it." The bodies are, with two exceptions, scattered but by the protrusions under the sheets their heads are toward Pacific Street, feet toward their position on Flatbush. "Shooter…" he looks several times along the carnage, measures the angle as best he can, then turns around and looks to the largest of three stores behind them on Flatbush, "was around there, maybe a twenty-foot margin of error."
x
Unfortunately, 'there' is already crowded with some three hundred 'gawkers' with cameras and cell phones, and twenty uniformed officers trying to keep them from pressing closer. At odds of 15-1, Pete gives the crowd the advantage, yet none seem inclined to challenge.
By the time anyone will be able to triangulate the likely position of the shooter, unless he was somewhere other than on the sidewalk, the site is not tainted; it is obliterated.
Nevertheless, they cross over to get closer, for it's possible that some clues will be exposed.
x
"Do you smell fudge?" Myka asks as they stand outside the line of Emergency vehicles that line the street, themselves keeping the crowd away from the scene and its evidence.
For some insufficiently defined reason, the presence or action of an artifact is frequently characterized by an odor that most resembles that chocolate confection. It is not always present, or even detectable, but when it is, it is indicative of the action of an artifact.
Pete shakes his head. "I smell peanuts, hot dogs, ice cream, unwashed bodies and a half dozen vendors doing booming businesses."
"Check out the woman by the big store, one-thirty."
"Thanks. You're right; she's hot."
"That's not what I meant." Sometimes… no, all the time he's…. His saying to her, and to one and all, how much he loves her has not changed him significantly in this respect.
Okay, the blonde is tall and generously gifted, filling out the halter too well, but –. "Get your head out of her boobs."
"I think I know several other –."
"No. Look at her."
Pete can say he's doing that, but her tone warns him of great danger if he doesn't discover quickly what she's seen.
"You are right," he says, still enjoying the inspection, but he sees his partner's discovery. "Three hundred people filming this like it's a movie, or an episode of CSI, or a CSI Movie, but she's the only one who's super pissed."
"What say we go find out what's got her …." She stops, knowing that most of the metaphors she can choose will send him back to a sex fantasy.
x
When they make their way through the crowd to the building, then left to where the girl is standing by the wall, Myka regrets finding out that the statuesque blonde beauty in too high heels not only strains the halter she wears but is giving the painted on blue jean shorts a challenge of their own, and she wonders which portion of the woman's attire is going to lose.
"Excuse me," she says, offering introductions and a silent prayer her partner will keep professionalism if not silence.
She doesn't think that, with twenty-nine dead people, miracles are very likely today. "May we ask you a few questions? Did you see what happened here?" comes out before the woman can consider an answer to the first question.
"Yeah, I saw. I told those bastards too," she says with a chin point they decide must be for the Police, "but they ignored me."
"We won't ignore you," Myka promises.
"Right. How could we ignore you?" sounds too much like the next thing out of his mouth will be to ask her for her phone number. He may strive for fidelity, she'll give him that, but the habits of a lifetime are difficult to break without realization of the dangers he faces.
"What is your name?" Myka asks quickly, trying to keep the conversation professional before the woman, whose left-hand sports a silver ring with mounted diamond, which he probably hasn't seen because her hand is not at the level of her strained halter, takes offense.
"Betty. Betty Cooper." She evidently sees something, for her eyes and voice flare. "And one Veronica Lodge line an' I'm outta here."
"It never occurred to me," Pete declares.
Myka looks back over her shoulder and gives the man her best 'don't lose us this witness.' glare. She doesn't believe his protest for two reasons: first, after five years she knows him too well, and second, for any grown man who could pull 'Ricochet Rabbit' out of the ether this morning, everything is on the table.
She turns back, concentrates on holding the woman's eyes. For what she remembers of the fictional namesake, 'Betty Cooper' of Archie Comics fame had been the quintessential 'girl next door', an unlikely description of this walking wet dream unless she resides next door to the Playboy Mansion.
x
"What did you see?"
"This guy," she fires. "He kept hitting on me but he was gross. Besides, I'm engaged," she emphasizes in broad warning, "and if Frank finds out he'd –."
"Yes, ma'am. But this 'guy'."
"Cops wouldn't believe me. Probably thought I was … whatever."
"Yes. What about the guy?"
"Yeah, he had this bow, quiver and invisible arrows."
xxx
Steve drives the rental car, having been quite surprised by his partner's call of 'shotgun' for he'd specially requested and obtained a Prius from the market, but he keeps alert for anything unusual in their surroundings as they ascend and descend the high hills for which San Francisco is justly famous.
"Can you stop here?" she asks with that suddenness that belies the words being intended as a question.
"What's up?" She has been using her tablet computer from the moment they'd left the airport, and this is the first time she's shown any interest in their surroundings.
"Phone booth," she indicates the device across the street, "which these days almost qualifies as an artifact. I'll bet you it doesn't have ten quarters in it."
"No bet." He double parks opposite it, having no interest in making a U-turn on the steep hill. It's 21° of incline, midpoint on the challenge meter but still nothing to get overly confident about.
"We tested a landline to cell connection. I want to see what a cell to landline gives us."
"You're a glutton for punishment."
She checks her midsection over the seatbelt, but of course the word does not describe her. "For that, you get out and use it."
"Least I don't need mountain gear."
"I figured I'd go easy on you. I could have done it when we reached Filbert."
"No, thank you." That street has a segment that attains a formidable 31.5° grade. He crosses, deposits his coins, punches in Claudia's cell number and hangs up. A moment later the phone rings and he watches her lips as he braces himself.
/I want to suck your c*ck,/ does not match her mouth movements, though the voice seems a perfect rendition.
"I think we can call this a 'yes'."
She pulls the phone from her ear, her expression one of deep disgust. She sets the phone down and leans across the seat to call out his window "Your mother and I are going to have a really long conversation."
He hangs up and crosses back, not wanting to know.
xxx
Alfred Ganze had been taken to Columbia Hospital, and Artie and Leena's first attempt to see and help him had been hindered by the presence of several doctors. This time, having the 'lay of the land', they have a skeleton plan, which involves the doctors not being in the room for at least sixty seconds, time enough to help the frozen victim but with diminished risk of their getting caught.
Several plans have been proposed and abandoned. They do, however, allow the agents to use their NSA Identifications to return to the ICU division.
Intensive Care in a Hospital dedicated to Critical and Trauma patients constitutes a large area, of which Room B is at the far end of a multitude of isolated rooms serviced every twenty yards by a dedicated Station. Still, looking like they know where they're going is the first step in acting like they're allowed to be in the facility. Against most odds, they do get within four doors of their target when Leena veers away, having seen a blue scrubs clad woman pull a specimen cart out through an open door.
The cart contains vials of blood, urine and assorted samples from the patients in this section, and as the woman draws near to enter the next room in her path, Leena steps toward her.
"Excuse me," she asks the black-haired woman, "could you…?"
She looks in the cart which contains several vials of red specimens, each vial sealed with one of three colors of rubber stopper, and her eyes fall wide, her gaze locked upon the blood. She makes her body relax completely and does her best impression of a marionette whose strings have been sliced.
She goes so far as to let her head strike the linoleum hard enough to hurt, and while she keeps her eyes closed, she knows the corridor around her is quickly becoming crowded.
xx
In Room B, Artie is pleased to find himself alone with Alfred Ganze. He had been uncertain if anyone would be in the room, so he'd prepared a semi-plausible story to confuse any medic he encountered, but for the moment fortune is with them.
Alfred Ganze is icy blue and very much unchanged from this morning. While the temperature in the room has been raised and the heat supplemented by an electric heater on the floor beside the bed, few if any in this building have any experience with thawing out someone who has been flash-frozen, or who now hovers, according to the attached instruments, at -13° Fahrenheit.
In fact, he would claim to be the only person in this hospital who has the necessary knowledge or skills to thaw out Ganze without killing him.
x
Knowing he has bare moments, there being no guarantee how many people would be swept up in the commotion down the hall, he sets his black leather satchel upon a chair at the head of the bed and pulls it open.
The bag is frequently filled with useful safe items based upon the suspected parameters of the assignment - not every artifact is dangerous - and from the top of the pile he pulls out Alfred Butz's wire rimmed glasses.
Alfred Butz had, among other things, developed the first working thermostat, and the glasses had very recently saved his life during the hunt for the dimension-jumping Major Benedict Valda, an alternate universe version of the late Regent who had lost his life at Warehouse 2.
Wasting no time, doubting he has any to waste, Artie slips the glasses into place.
x
An aspect common to artifacts is that whatever is to be done happens with dispatch. In moments Ganze's blue parlor is replaced by normal flesh tones, even the hairs on his head are no longer stiff and brittle but lie normally, and his arms and hands fall naturally to his sides.
The man is not conscious, something for which Artie is thankful. After a measured five seconds more, to be certain the man's body has thawed through, he removes the glasses, puts them into the satchel and makes a not overly rapid retreat.
x
When he eases open the door and cautiously scans the hall, he finds a sufficiently large crowd of the helpful and the curious surrounding his partner, who has been moved into a chair.
He decides they can do with one more helpful person.
"Okay, people, back off, let her get some air." Carrying on a running patter, he makes his way to the front of the crowd before his 'barely conscious' partner and bends over her. "You saw the blood, didn't you?" he asks from two inches before her face, then looks to the nurse beside them. "Can't take the sight of blood; happens every time. Come on, upsy daisy," he urges, taking her arm and virtually dragging her upright.
"Please, we should have her ex –."
"Nonsense, she's fine, happens all the time. She'll be fine with some fresh air."
"I suppose I should," Leena admits, milking the grogginess.
"What you need is to walk it off."
"Maybe you're right," she says, regaining a little more coordination.
"Of course, I'm right." He escorts her out of the gathering and toward the elevator bank.
As soon as they are out of earshot Leena, leaning on his arm, says sotto vocé, "Shouldn't I be examined?"
"The last thing we need is for them to discover that you spent a month and a half dead. Besides, in five minutes they're going to learn that Alfred Ganze has made a miraculous recovery." He pushes the elevator call button. In seconds a car pauses and the doors open.
Once inside, Leena straightens up. Before the doors reclose, a commotion fills the corridor from whence they'd come.
"Make that zero minutes."
xxx
In San Francisco, California, Claudia Donovan and Steve Jinks have selected the first available motel that boasted vacancy and decent WiFi. They find their first obstacle within seconds of entering the lobby.
"Good afternoon," the post-teen at the desk says in a manner that shouts that he needs more practice.
Immediately Claudia laments having passed up the Airport's Grand Hyatt in favor of accommodations further into the city. Her first sense, while feeling his gaze petting her, is that this place, while epitomizing non-descript and unobtrusive, in no way typifies accommodating.
Steve steps closer to the counter in a 'speak to me' manner. "Good afternoon, we'd like to book two rooms," raises the clerk's eyebrows.
"Two?" He has noticed the lack of luggage and the shoulder cases that each of them carries.
This place and the Grand Hyatt are quite distant from one another on any conceivable scale, but the most notable aspect is that this Motel is unlikely to have any form of security, which is beneficial, for what Claudia intends to do can in no way be implied as being legal.
"Yes, two," he clarifies, as though the kid is not very experienced in renting rooms.
"Well, okay. That's $50 per day per room, cash. Overnight is $100 per."
"What are you –?"
But Claudia steps in, takes hold of the offended man's arm in both of hers. "We'll just need the one room," she says with a wink to the kid, "and not for the overnight." Steve is too outraged to interrupt, allowing her to look up to him. "Pay the man, honey." She gives the clerk her sauciest smile. "I've waited long enough."
The cash and keys are exchanged with dispatch and she urges him every step to the door.
"Claudia," is out as the door closes behind them.
"Oh, don't worry. I don't intend to spend very long in this flea trap, once I set up my hot spot and a VPN."
"I think he was too interested in your hot spot."
"Oh, please. You know you're the only stud for me."
xx
The room has little to recommend it, unless the recommendation is to leave it, but in less than two minutes of reaching the table at the far wall past the Queen bed, a reference Steve is glad she has spared him, she has her laptop set up and linked to a quadruple-secured Hot Spot running at 10G plus a VPN that is proof against the best of Homeland Security's Agents, all courtesy of Eureka's Director when she enjoyed a very fruitful relationship with the man.
Steve has lain down upon the bed and watched her progress, but his first assessment is "Lumpy."
"I doubt anyone who uses this room stays still long enough to notice."
"I should have hit him."
She glances back. "I love it when you're butch. But don't worry, he doesn't matter and your honor is secure."
"It's not my honor I'm thinking about."
That gets him a full turn. "That is so sweeeet. But don't worry, I don't have any honor to secure." She turns back to the computer and shuts him out, leaving him to ponder that remark.