Water Dictatorship Part 10

After a few brief seconds, George said "Come on, I think you'd better go now."

Spiky Hair turned to his staff stunned. "He didn't believe it! He didn't even believe it!"

Back in Vista City, Angelo was on the phone with Jim Anderson.

"And that's how it breaks down." Angelo said.

"Do you know how that sounds, Detective?" Anderson said.

"Think about it. Both Dornan and Marlowe are filthy rich. How did they get that way? By controlling access to computers and the net. That was in a compet.i.tive environment with other alternatives. The modern world is a water dictatorship with computers and net access replacing water. Anyone with sole control of access to information can make ten times as much money as Dornan or Marlowe. Large incalculable piles of money are a solid motive for murder and extreme hacker vandalism." Angelo explained.

"There's just not enough hard evidence to justify the investigation, even if Franks and I were still on it." Anderson said. "You know how bullet proof Marlowe is."

"Who's on the case now? Maybe I can convince them." Angelo wheedled.

"Mangar and Souza." Anderson said grimly.

"Ugh." Angelo said.

"Yep. They've got it b.u.t.toned up as an accidental. They won't want to hear anything more complex." Anderson said.

"If this thing goes through, Marlowe will be beyond bullet proof. He'll have gotten away with murder." Angelo said.

I'll see what I can do," Anderson said, "but don't get your hopes up.

"Thanks." Angelo said. He hung up the phone.

"Why did Marlowe kill Randi?" Angelo mused.

"You don't even know for certain that he did." Uhura said.

"True, but to a.s.sume that leaves nothing for us to do. Work with me here." Angelo said. "Marlowe killed Randi to control knowledge she had."

"Knowledge of the virus and Marlowe's plan, right?" Uhura said.

"Right. What if we tell Marlowe that Randi pa.s.sed the data on to me?" Angelo asked.

"Then either he kills you, or sues you until you wish you were dead." Uhura said.

"Well, if he tries to kill me, then at least we know we're onto something." Angelo said.

"Hey, hey, hey! What's this we stuff, paleface?" Uhura demanded.

Angelo just looked at her. Would she really let someone get away with murder and vandalizing most of the computers in the world for his own personal gain? He didn't think so.

After a few seconds Uhura gave up with her hands tossed in the air, "All right! All right! What do we do? I won't forget this Mancuso!"

"What do you want, Detective?" Marlowe's voice was calm and reasonable sounding.

"Well, I wanted to let you know that Randi had a safe deposit box in Seattle." Angelo said. "She left some things in there that I think bear discussion."

"What's there to discuss?" Marlowe said.

"Well, let's try Shane Chee's virus, for starters." Angelo said.

"Mr. Chee no longer programs viruses. I pay him to protect my systems, not destroy them." Marlowe huffed.

"Well, that's interesting, because this virus only attacks Geos based systems. It's very clever."

Again Detective, What do you want?" Marlowe's voice was thin.

"I want to speak with you in private, Sir." Angelo pushed.

"Hmmm." Marlowe named a manufacturing plant in Torrance. "Be there at midnight, come alone. We'll talk." Marlowe hung up.

On a deserted street in Torrance, Uhura young sat waiting. Uhura had a camcorder and a shogun microphone trained on Angelo, who sat in his car in the middle of a deserted parking lot. They had been waiting for an hour.

"This might be them," Uhura said to herself A black car slid past and kept going. "Or not."

They waited for another hour. Then Angelo waved her off and they began to drive back to the Century Hilton.

On the way back to the hotel an LAPD Patrol car popped it's pursuit lights and pulled Uhura over.

"May I see your license and proof of insurance?" The LAPD patrolman asked. Uhura dug out her papers and a.s.sured herself they were all in good order before handing them to the patrolman.

The patrolman took the papers and walked forward to where Angelo was stopped. "Are you with this person?" He asked, pointing back towards Uhura's car.

Angelo put on his best stupid look. "No. I thought you were pulling me over, Officer. Hey. if it's them that you pulled over can I go?"

The patrolman considered it, briefly. The book said focus on one thing at a time. Don't let yourself get distracted during a traffic stop. "Yes, Sir. You're free to go. Have a nice night."

Angelo pulled away from the scene.

"That's interesting. Why would a cop from some podunk town up north be staking out a manufacturing plant in Torrance?" One patrolman asked. The anonymous warning was odd enough, but it was accurate.

"New message. Downtown wants us to bring her in." His partner read.

The patrolman blew out a breath. "Oh, this is going to be a fur ball before we get done."

They arrested Uhura and took her straight to the downtown headquarters.

Angelo got off his cell phone with Moody as he arrived at the Century Hilton. Things were looking bad. Now Moody had to get legal representation for Uhura. There was no way this was going to stay out of sight of the elected chief of the VCPD. His political capital would be harmed by the scandal, and he'd take it out on Moody and the SIS. Angelo sighed. Maybe being a civilian detective wouldn't be that bad.

Angelo walked into his room and face first into a gun.

"Angelo Mancuso?" A quiet voice asked.

"Um... who are you?" Angelo's hands were frozen at his side. Even the slightest move could get him shot.

"That's not your concern right now, Detective. Your concern is to do everything we say the moment we say it, calmly." The calm man spoke with quiet authority. He was short and bland looking. His business suit came off the rack and was generic. There was nothing to mark the man apart from the millions of yuppie sc.u.m businessmen who roamed L.A..

Angelo's legs began to shake. His guts felt like jello. He took a deep breath.

"Don't make me do anything rash, Detective. Neither one of us would enjoy that." The small man moved forwards. Angelo realized that he was being covered by a blandly handsome woman cut from the same yuppie mold. Her gun was a generic 9mm automatic and it never wavered. The man patted him down and came up with Angelo's weapon, his cell-phone and the microphone that radioed Angelo's conversations to a recording device in Uhura's car.