Free Fall Page 8

  “What do you have in mind, Robinson?”

  He told her. She giggled all the way to the bedroom when she realized her anger had disappeared.

  The following morning when the two reporters woke, Ted rolled over so he could see out the window. Shit, it was still snowing.

  Maggie squirmed, her leg stretching out to find his for warmth. “Is it still snowing, Ted?”

  “Yeah, but lightly. Listen, either I dreamed all night or my subconscious was at work. Hell, maybe it’s one and the same, but I changed my mind about going to see Frist. Maybe it’s my reporter’s intuition or my gut. Whatever it is, it’s saying don’t do it. I had another thought, too. Jack Emery is the key to all this shit that is going on. I know it as sure as I know I have to go outside and go to work. That bastard is in this up to his neck. For all we know the son of a bitch is calling the shots. Yeah, yeah, we have to concentrate on good old Jack.”

  “Hmmm, okay. C’mere, pussycat, and keep this little kitty warm.”

  Ted didn’t need to be asked twice.

  Chapter 9

  Myra Rutledge’s heirloom dining room table was awash in laptops, yellow legal pads, pencils, coffee cups and seven angry, disgruntled women.

  Kathryn threw her pencil across the table, the expression on her face beyond furious. “I cannot enter another chat room to listen to that sick crap! Why doesn’t someone do something about those sick perverts? I refuse, do you hear me, I refuse to download one more page of that horrendous filth.”

  Isabelle looked across the table at Myra, who was doing her best not to show the disgust she felt. “Why is Charles making us do this?”

  Myra cleared her throat. “To show you the enormity of what we’re up against. At any given moment there are three million four hundred thousand active chat rooms that can be accessed by anyone who so desires. Even children who know their way around computers or children whose parents are not computer savvy. We haven’t even begun to access one percent of them.”

  Alexis’s pencil joined Kathryn’s on the floor. “We’ll be here till eternity. I can’t do this anymore. It makes me sick. I don’t want to pretend I’m one of…of those…those people.”

  “I agree,” Nikki said. Her pencil joined the other two on the floor.

  Yoko stood up, her eyes moist. “This is a mistake. I am so sorry. None of you should be subjected to this disgusting filth. I want to call this off right now. I agree with the others, I cannot keep doing this. We should be speaking with the police, somebody, anybody who will listen to us. We need to lodge complaints.”

  Annie stood up. It was obvious she was as agitated as the others but her voice was a little more calm. “Ladies, ladies, listen to me. I know I’m new to all this and I am as sickened as the rest of you, but we can’t walk away from this. People like those we’ve been meeting in the chat rooms don’t deserve to breathe the same air we do. Now, let’s all put our heads together and see if among the seven of us we can’t do something to at least cripple some of these organizations. If word gets out that someone is invading their space they might make a mistake. This is a job and we can’t let our personal likes and dislikes interfere with our brand of justice.”

  “Annie’s right,” Myra said.

  Nikki was shredding a paper napkin with a vengeance. “We all need to get real here. We only have a few weeks if our target date for Yoko’s mission is the Academy Awards. How can we infiltrate these clubs and organizations in a few weeks? These people aren’t stupid. They know how to play the game so they don’t get caught. We don’t know the name of the game, much less the rules. They use key words and ask innocent questions we don’t know the answers to. They aren’t playing doctor/ nurse here. This is hard-core. We haven’t even come up with a word or phrase that would indicate there is some kind of slave ring out there.”

  “All of us have been at this for over nine hours,” Kathryn said. “Collectively, that is 72 hours and the only thing we know is there’s a lot of pornography out there. Nikki’s right, we haven’t come across one thing that will lead us back to Michael Lyons. Not one single thing.”

  “Maybe that Web site I set up last night on the fly will produce some results,” Isabelle said. The others hooted at that statement.

  “Don’t be so quick to negate my endeavors,” Isabelle said. “We announced the site in every chat room we entered today. The site I set up is geared to people who like Asian women. Alexis gave Yoko seven different looks, we photographed her and then scanned her likeness onto the site. The caption under her pictures says that she and her sisters and cousins are looking for a new home. I also added ‘reasonable fees.’ I just hope that was the right lingo. I bet by now we have at least fifty hits.” At the others’ skeptical expressions, she said, “It’s a gamble, okay? If it doesn’t produce results, we’ll try something else. We did learn something whether you realize it or not. Any posting is immediately picked up and spun around the world within minutes. Who wants to be the first to check out the counter?”

  “I’m bringing it up right now,” Annie said. Her face suddenly contorted as she looked over at Isabelle. “How many hits did you say you expected?”

  Isabelle’s voice was defensive. “I said fifty. Maybe I was a little overconfident. Okay, maybe twenty-five. There’s nothing spectacular, no gimmicks on the site. How far off was I?”

  Annie turned her laptop around. As one, the sisters gasped. Myra’s death grip on her pearls was fierce. Alexis was the one who gave voice to the number flashing on the screen: “977,000 hits.”

  “Un-be-lievable! It hasn’t been twenty-four hours,” Kathryn said. “Did any of those perverts write messages?”

  “The Guest Book is full. We’ll have to download them out so more can come through,” Isabelle said. “In a million years I would never have believed this.”

  “Are you saying we have to respond to this smut?” Alexis demanded.

  “That’s what it means, dear,” Myra said. “We need to discuss this with Charles. This is just a guess on my part but I think each reply has to be authentic in case any of those…those people know one another. As Nikki said, they’re careful and they know how to play the game.” She looked down at her watch. “We need to pack up our things and go to the war room now.”

  Charles looked up when the jabbering women entered the underground room and then looked down at his watch. Time had gotten away from him. But it was worth it. The man Steve Landry had put him in touch with had delivered what he had promised. In his sweaty hands he had Michael Lyons’s passwords to five different e-mail accounts. He could hardly wait to tell the sisters.

  Myra called the meeting to order, and Charles waited until the chattering women turned silent. “Before we go any further, Yoko has to tell us what she wants in the way of punishment for Actor Lyons, at which point the rest of you will give us your input. Only then will we discuss whatever it is that has you all so excited. I’m also bearing in mind that the award ceremonies are just weeks away. Now, let’s get down to business and do what we do best.”

  Yoko stood up, her small hands gripping the edge of the round table. “I have given this moment years of thought. For some reason I could never get beyond my aunts’ description of my mother’s death. Now that I am faced with saying the words out loud, I do not…What I want is beyond what we swore never to do, commit murder. I must settle for something less. Prison, disgrace, poverty? I want the world to see how ugly the man is. I want him to know I am the one who brought about his downfall. I want to look in his eyes so he will know I am the one. I want his downfall to happen at the Academy Awards.” She lowered herself into the swivel chair and looked around at the compassionate faces staring at her. She dropped her head and waited, her tiny hands clasped in front of her.

  “I see it as doable,” Isabelle said.

  “A work in progress,” Nikki said, looking down at the heavy file on Michael Lyons.

  Alexis looked fretful. “This is Virginia. Lyons lives in California. Are we going to hijac
k him or are we going to California?”

  Kathryn looked as fretful as Alexis. “We don’t have much time if we want to pull this off at the Academy Awards and get safely away, assuming we all go to California. I suspect this little caper is going to take a lot of planning. We need a plan. A good one.”

  “Does that actor surround himself with security?” Annie asked.

  Charles stepped forward. “No, strange as that may seem. The persona he presents to the public is that of the guy next door who just happens to make movies for a living. Oh, his estate has the usual security to keep fans out but he doesn’t have bodyguards or anything like that. He drives himself and most times uses a battered pickup truck. He likes to go among the masses in a baseball cap and sunglasses. He does appearances, goes to premieres but he doesn’t do the party scene. The people who work for him on his estate go home at night. No one lives in. He is so far under the radar it’s mind-boggling.”

  “If all of that is true, then our work shouldn’t be too hard,” Annie said. “Earlier you said Lyons goes abroad between movies. If he’s going to be away for the next few weeks, we could set things up and be ready for him when he returns.”

  Charles held up a copy of Variety and waved it about. “According to this latest issue, Mr. Lyons left aboard a commercial flight for Japan two days ago. He’s expected to return five days before the awards ceremony. If he runs true to form, he gives his help a month off with pay. He notifies them before he returns so the house is ready. If you believe any of this,” Charles said, pointing to a stack of files, magazines and books, “the guy is an open book, just your typical guy next door who is the next thing to a saint. He’s rich, handsome and generous to the world at large.”

  “A modern-day trifecta,” Kathryn snorted.

  Myra tugged at her pearls. “How are we going to get the proof we need to…to…nail him, Charles?”

  Charles smiled. The women relaxed, even Yoko. He was still smiling when he said, “I have operatives in place as we speak who are the best in the business even though they’re retired. Mr. Lyons cannot make a move that isn’t being recorded. I expect some reports momentarily. What I want you all to do right now is to come up with a plan. Give me something to work with and I’ll make it happen for you. Get on with it, ladies, I have work to do.”

  The Ladies of Pinewood decided to get on with it. Ideas from the bizarre to the surreal popped out of their mouths, their voices going from normal to strident to angry in seconds as they threw out idea after idea.

  On the dais above the women, Charles listened with half an ear as he tapped out messages to his operatives abroad. He stopped when he heard Kathryn say, “Let’s go with a home invasion. Charles can get us a helicopter and we can drop down onto the grounds and swoop in like those guys in that movie where they used those Black Hawk helicopters. Of course Charles would have to turn off the power to Lyons’s house ahead of time and somehow scramble his cell phones.”

  Of course, Charles thought. He wondered how hard it would be to get his hands on a helicopter. The women were clapping their hands. Obviously, they all liked the idea of jumping out of a helicopter. He shuddered at the thought of Myra and Annie dropping out and doing a double tuck and roll without breaking any bones. He tapped some more as he continued to listen.

  “How about this?” Alexis asked. “We somehow manage to get in. For the sake of argument, by invitation. Myra and Annie go in. Annie says she wants him to chair some charity she’s working on. Once they get inside, she pretends to collapse and die. Myra dials 911 and we all arrive in a hearse. Or an ambulance. Charles does his thing with the power and disables the cell phones.”

  That would work, too, Charles thought. He stopped tapping to give the conversation a hundred percent of his attention.

  “And then what?” Nikki asked.

  “We’re just getting started here, Nikki. Let’s kick it around. We’re in, we got him in our clutches. Let’s go, people, what do we do next?” Kathryn demanded.

  “Search his house, find his records, maybe he has secret rooms,” Isabelle said.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s the easy part. Then what?” Kathryn shouted, her words echoing around the war room. All eyes turned to Yoko.

  Yoko chose her words carefully. “What we do to Mr. Lyons, I think, should depend on what we find when we search his house. Whatever we decide, I get to go first. If there is anything left to him except his shoes, you can have them.”

  Charles frowned. He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he saw the women nod in agreement. This was, after all, Yoko’s mission.

  “What if his house turns out to be just a house? What if he doesn’t keep records or pictures there? Maybe he has another place, you know, his place of business where he does all that ugly stuff,” Nikki said.

  Then what, indeed, Charles thought.

  Kathryn got up and slammed her clenched fist into the open palm of her other hand. “Then we beat it out of him. Oops, Yoko beats it out of him. One way or another, he’ll cooperate with us. I guarantee it. I’m not above voting to cut his dick off if need be. In case you’ve forgotten, we have experience along that line. I for one paid attention to Julia when she was doing the quick and dirty. The man hasn’t been born who can deal with seven women holding sharp knives threatening to turn him into a soprano. Without anesthetic.”

  Charles flinched at the enthusiastic response to Kathryn’s solution. He went back to what he was doing as the women waxed on and on and on.

  An hour later Myra signaled Charles that they were ready to make their decision. He joined them at the table, wondering what their plan was going to be. If he were a betting man he’d go with the Myra/Annie/hearse solution. He felt rather smug when the decision came down just the way he’d expected it to. The helicopter might have presented more of a challenge than he wanted to admit.

  “Now what?” Kathryn demanded. “Do we have to continue to invade those chat rooms? Because in my opinion it’s an exercise in futility. If we use those five days after Lyons gets back, we should be able to get everything we need from him personally.

  “I just read earlier that there are over thirty-four million Web sites on the Internet. There’s no way we can get a handle on all of that. For whatever my opinion is worth, I say we shelve the chat rooms and the porno sites and take it on as a separate mission later on. Anonymity is the best defense to getting caught. Think about it, those people have no clue that the seven of us invaded their space. Let’s vote on it, girls.”

  “It’s unanimous,” Kathryn said as she scanned the circle of raised hands, grateful that she wasn’t going to have to converse with another pervert even if she couldn’t be physically seen and heard.

  Nikki looked up at Charles. “Do you have Lyons’s passwords?”

  “Yes, but I can’t give them to you yet. I have to traverse the firewalls and make sure all the doors are closed so he doesn’t know his operation has been compromised. Patience. Another day and we’ll be good to go.”

  Myra called the meeting back to order. “All right, ladies, let’s make our plans to get to California. Nikki will make notes so we don’t overburden Charles. I rather think he has his hands full right now. For starters, we’ll need a hearse. I guess the safest thing would be to buy one. Fully outfitted, of course. We’ll need temporary quarters in Los Angeles, several rental cars, maps and, of course, airline tickets. We should fly separately on different airlines as opposed to going together or taking the company jet. To do so might raise a red flag. Did I forget anything?”

  “A lot, Myra, but not to worry, we know what to do. While we’re doing it, you and Annie get your story together and, remember, this guy is an actor so you’ll have to be convincing.”

  “Oh, this is so exciting!” Annie said. “Just talking about it is so exhilarating. I can’t even begin to imagine what it will be like to be an active participant. I won’t let you down.”

  Tongue in cheek, Kathryn glared across the table at their newest sister
. “You better not, sister, or your ass is grass.”

  Annie blinked and then grinned when she realized Kathryn was pulling her leg.

  “Gotcha!” Kathryn said.

  Chapter 10

  Maggie Spritzer walked around the block for the third time, trying to get the lay of the land. Breaking and entering was not something she took lightly. The last time she and Ted did a little B& E, she’d just been along for the ride. This was a whole new ball game, one she was definitely wary of. The last time there had been deadly repercussions when Charles Martin and his goons banished both her and Ted to exile in New York, and it was a whole year before they got the guts to thumb their noses at him and return. Facing the music on their terms, Ted said, was better than letting some schmuck from England call the shots. And, here she was, freezing her tits off outside Alan Nolan’s apartment building on O Street. Alan Nolan, the dweeb she’d been dogging for days now. The same dude she’d followed that day in Lafayette Park when he met up with Charles Martin.

  Ted had run a check on Alan Nolan but the most he could come up with was that the man was a computer genius of some kind. Probably a big-time hacker, was her personal opinion, if Martin was meeting up with him.

  One more circle around the block and she would be ready to make her move. With the cold weather, few pedestrians were out and about, even traffic was light for midmorning. As she trudged forward fighting the wind, Maggie reviewed what she knew about Alan Nolan. He lived alone. Definitely a nerd. He worked the early-morning shift in a bakery. He got off work at noon, went back to his apartment for an hour, and then went to his second job where he managed a cybercafe from two till eight in the evening.

  Three days in a row she’d gone into the bakery and bought a bagel and coffee and three days in a row she’d used the cybercafe. It wasn’t until yesterday that Alan had actually noticed her. She’d openly flirted with him, hoping to draw him out, and she had, but the man was incredibly shy. He blushed. She’d suggested going for a bite to eat when he closed the café at eight o’clock. “Just a burger,” she’d said. She followed that up with the fact that she was new in town and really didn’t know many people. When it looked like he was going to turn her down, she decided to feed his ego by telling him he had to be the smartest computer person in the world. “All those people who come into the café think you’re the best.” He’d puffed out a little at that and finally agreed to a burger and a beer at Snuffy’s Bar and Grill.