Chapter 16

"Visiting Pan Am's Alert Security"

Having been bailed out from an ATF agent, we were free to study the employment history of the man known as Looker and his involvement as head of Pan Am's security program. Could it be that because of his involvement as head of ALERT, explosive Pokemon were smuggled aboard Flight 103?

Boarding the elevator once more, we proceeded towards the floor where ALERT kept its offices in the Pan Am building. Hey, at least we weren't going back up to Human Resources.

"Is there something I can do for you?" asked a young woman with green hair and dressed in a red business suit, gray stockings and black flats.

"Um yes, we're looking for information about a man named Looker," I said, showing my badge to the woman. "He used to be the head of ALERT security for Pan Am before going to Frankfurt."

It seemed that the woman knew just exactly what we were talking about.

"Yes, Carl Looker," she said. "Good riddance to him as far as I'm concerned. Being someone that lived a life of bad luck, that's one of the bits of good luck in my life."

"What do you mean, Miss…?" asked Rally.

"Shiragami, Kelly Shiragami. I'm the current acting head of ALERT security."

She seemed nice, but there was a red flag going off inside of me that Kelly Shiragami was thrown into the role of running Pan Am's security program.

"You're the head of ALERT security?" asked Tim. "How long?"

"For about five months," Kelly answered, seemingly uncomfortable. "But, I do have a degree in business management. I don't have a lot of field experience, as this is my first true leadership role."

"You didn't have any training, whatsoever?" I wondered, as we followed Kelly to her office.

"No, none. I wish I did. Being a woman of 23 years old and thrusted into such a role, I'm even wondering if this is just another case of bad luck."

Even stepping into Kelly's office was another red flag. Most individuals that are in such leadership roles aren't usually in their 20's…usually, it's people in their late 40's or early 50's.

"Um, Kelly…" I asked, sitting down at her desk. "Were you ever aware of any FAA visits to Pan Am's station in Frankfurt a few months ago?"

"Yes, the name of the inspector was Tommy Dome, who recommended that our team in Frankfurt beef up their security screening to luggage and passengers coming from other airlines. He came here after his Frankfurt inspection and recommended that I do the same thing to all our other stations throughout Europe. But again, being young and inexperienced, what was I to do?"

The look of Kelly's face made it apparent that this was a case of someone thrown into a position that she didn't want to be in.

"Kelly, this is a kind of personal question…" said Rally. "But, did Looker force you in any way to take this role?"

Taking a deep breath, Kelly answered bluntly and carefully.

"Pan Am did have a replacement to succeed Looker, but he selected me because I guess he wanted to cover up his tracks."

"His tracks?"

"Well, there were times where people claiming to be Pan Am employees would come in and have a conversation with Looker. There was even one guy who came in, some sleazy straight haired guy came in and I remember him giving me a kind of perverted look."

"Perverted? In what way?"

"In a just a general perverted way and then he followed Mr. Looker into this office and they were talking for about 20 to 30 minutes about something."

"And do you recall when this conversation took place?"

"About five months ago," Kelly answered. "I guess I was just selected at random, I suppose, to lead this division without any experience. It's just been one stressful moment after another."

Having absorbed what was said, it was clear that Kelly was thrown into a situation that she wanted no part of. Then again, this Carl Looker needed to cover his intentions and had no one else to turn to.

"This guy who came in," said Tim. "Did he give you a name or something? Do any visitors need to sign in or something?"

Reaching into her desk, Kelly handed a sign in sheet from September of 1988. She moved to a page for the 14th of September and found the name of Philly Ross on the list.

"This is him, Philly Ross," Kelly said, pointing to the name. "We require a legal name, but he refused to sign it, saying that he is a Pan Am employee, isn't above the law and felt like he didn't need to play by the rules."

Suddenly, I began to get a hunch that I knew who this Philly Ross was. The name seemed familiar and I needed to dig a little deeper.

"I want to get out of this position, but there's no one willing to take command," Kelly continued. "I took my complaints to human resources, but they don't seem to know of anyone willing to run ALERT."

Leaving the ALERT security offices, I set about deciding to give a fellow detective of mine a call at the nearest opportunity to give us more information about this Philly Ross.