Turtle Island (35 page)

‘He never let me in the room when he was on-line. I tried; you
know all the usual things. Our names, pet names, nicknames, house
names, birthdays. Backwards and forwards and then I got
lucky.’

‘You managed to guess the password?’

‘Yeah, it was Lucky.’

Georgina smiled. ‘Very clever.’

Harley leaned forward and typed Lucky in the password box and
hit the enter button, within seconds Georgina was in.

‘Choose the name underneath your own, Harley.’

Harley clicked on the name, Frank Timms.

Georgina placed her hand over Harley's and guided the cursor
to a column marked file. She pushed down gently on Harley's finger
and clicked, another list appeared. Georgina guided Harley down to
a line that read Personal Filling Cabinet and double clicked. The
screen changed and an animated filling cabinet appeared with the
middle drawer opening. A folder popped up out of the cabinet and
opened. On top of the folder was the name Frank Timms.

‘If I’m right this should hold every e-mail and attachment
that Frank Timms has downloaded.’ Georgina ran down the long list
of e-mails, reading the subject titles. ‘Maybe you should wait
downstairs, Harley. There may be things here that you really don't
need to see.’

Harley looked at her mother. Narla didn't say anything but
nodded, gesturing for her to go downstairs. The girl stood without
protesting, and walked silently down to the kitchen.

Georgina's hand hovered over the mouse for a moment, before
she clicked and opened the first e-mail. The sound of her phone
ringing stopped her from opening it. ‘Yeah.’ She answered
distractedly, her eyes reading the long list of electronic post,
scanning for anything that she might recognise.

‘Hi, Georgina, it's Leroy. We got another break, a John Doe on
one of the tapes. I'm on my way to get the image enhanced to iron
out the fuzzy edges. I think we can get a positive ID on this
guy.’

‘Where are you now?’ Georgina asked, her finger finally
clicking the mouse. The e-mail opened.

‘I'm taking it to the TV station. The guy's in the lab are
still snowed under trying to find out where the web site is that
our mutual friend is operating. Frusco's pulling in favours with
Barbara Dace.’ Leroy replied.

‘Tell the lab rats to start looking at AIA as being the net
provider. Things are starting to...’ Georgina fell silent as her
brain started to decode what she was subconsciously
reading.

‘Georgina?’ Leroy shook his phone. He hated cell phones at the
best of times and cursed their poor reception, which always seemed
to occur when they were needed most.

‘Georgina?’ Leroy repeated.

‘...Listen Leroy, I’m gonna call you back, something’s come
up.’ She closed her cell phone, snapping the small trap door shut
that covered half of the black plastic phone. Her eyes furiously
read then re-read the message.

She could have grabbed his ankles as he walked down the
stairs. ‘Why didn’t she do it?’ Arlene Trimiota cursed the lack of
fight and recourse in the lawyer. She had heard all about the death
cam site and as soon as her husband had left for his shift, hauling
tobacco across the country, she fired up her computer and went
on-line. Arlene had been trying to access the site for over four
hours when she suddenly found herself inside. Since then she stayed
on-line, determined not to break connection until she had witnessed
an execution. Her husband, Earl, had bought her the PC to stop her
getting lonely at nights when he was away haulin’ bacca’ ‘cross the
States. Earl had a laptop fitted in his cab with a cell phone
connection that ran from the truck. Many a night the two of them
would spend an evening apart but linked via their modems, and many
a night Arlene would spend on-line talking filthy to some guy in
Alaska or Albuquerque. God knows, there was even a guy in the
Soviet Union, only they don’t call it that no more. But today she
was gonna stay watching this lawyer woman and see if she gets
it.

‘Damn Woman.’ Arlene complained watching Jo-Lynn’s failure to
take action against this man who was holding her captive. Arlene
admitted to herself, more than a little perverse enjoyment in
watching the black woman’s predicament. ‘Your fancy job don’t help
you out none now does it honey.’ She watched the man step down the
final step, tray held out in front…

Jo-Lynn knew that now might be her best chance. He had left
the door open. Somewhere down the passage that led off from it, she
could hear a television set on. The sound of children’s laughter
drifted through. Above the canned recorded joviality came the
solitary laugh of a small boy. The laugh she knew so well. She
could hear Ray. The sound of her son fogged her mind, ending any
remote possibility of trying to escape. Jo-Lynn was suddenly
paralysed with raw emotion. She found herself accepting the tray of
food and watching him turn and walk back up the stairs. The word
escaped from her lips like a pathetic newborn kittens mew; a name.
The reason she had kept her sanity. ‘Ray.’

He was approximately half way up the steps. The sound of her
voice made him stop. He turned to see the shambles of a woman,
shaking uncontrollably. Tea spilling out of her cup onto the plate
of beans, the toast upon which they sat eagerly sopped up the hot
liquid.

Her voice a little stronger this time. ‘Ray.’

He continued his journey, allowing a laugh to escape his lips
as he neared the top.

Jo-Lynn summoned up all the strength that she had in her body,
breathed deeply and this time screamed. ‘WILL.’ Just as he slammed
the door shut.

She wanted to throw the tray to one side, smash it into the
wall but part of her told her not to. Part of her was saying ‘Eat
the food, drink the tea. If you are to escape you will need to be
strong.’ She knew to listen to that part of her rationale. It was
her instinctive side, the side she had come to know well and rely
on in her job. Jo-Lynn sat and started to eat the beans on toast
and a mug of tea; it tasted like the best meal she had ever eaten.
She cherished each mouthful, savouring what seemed to be a
multitude of flavours, the tea, hot and sharp tasting, each sip
quenching her thirst. With the final swallow of the last chewed
mouthful came a moment of sadness; Jo-Lynn finished off the last
dregs of tea in her mug and sat for a moment in contemplation. She
twisted the ring on her finger, using some of the melted butter
left on her plate to lubricate it and slowly pulled the ring
upwards and off. She lifted her nightdress until it rested on her
shoulders and tied it so it wouldn’t fall into the water, then
stood up and entered the thick brown murky pool and headed for the
trap door. Finding the edge of the door under the water, Jo-Lynn
started to rub her wedding ring along the lip, hoping to free it.
She could feel the ring grind and knew that the rusted edge was
doing irreparable damage to her wedding band but not to the large
solitaire diamond. She kept scraping it along and occasionally
would tug, waiting for a little movement…hoping.

The early morning drizzle had finally given way to a
full-blown downpour. The rain bounced off cars and overfilled
guttering and down pipes, running along the gutters in little
ravines, spurring at the sewer inlets before going deep down into
the underground system. Leroy pulled his car to a halt, what should
have been a ten minute journey was stretched in to twenty five
minutes as he tried to navigate through the milling throngs of
journalist’s and TV crews that failed to have their spirits
dampened by the weather. Turtle Island was fast becoming a carnival
and Leroy could only see the media circus hindering their progress
but here he was knocking at their door asking for favours. He
entered MRTV’s prestigious building and asked at the reception to
speak with Barbara Dace. A request that was met with utter refusal
until Leroy produced his badge. Within minutes he heard a lift bell
ring and saw Barbara Dace exit. She was beginning to look tired,
only having caught two hours sleep since the story broke. Leroy
noticed the ever-present cigarette in her hand as well as a carton
of coffee. She drew on the cigarette

‘Breakfast.’ She explained and washed the carbon monoxide down
with a glug of caffeine.

‘Most crucial meal of the day.’ Leroy replied
smiling.

‘So, Mr LaPortiere, what brings you here? I’m sure it wasn’t
to discuss my dietary habits, which...’ She drew on the cigarette
once more. ‘...are even beginning to disgust me.’ She exhaled a
plume of blue smoke, which passed Leroy’s cheek.

Leroy produced the videotape.

‘Got an image, it needs cleaning up, clarifying. I was hoping
you could help.’

The expression on Barbara’s face changed to one of surprise.
‘I thought you had specialists to deal with that sort of
thing?’

‘Yeah, we have but they’re kinda busy. I need this right now.’
Leroy tried to look apologetic while retaining a mood of
authority.

Barbara took the tape. ‘Okay, as long as we get to transmit
whatever you have on that tape.’

‘If you transmit this then you’ll lose your license.’ Leroy
wagged the tape in the air

‘No, I just mean the face. I take it that this is John Doe or
am I mistaken?’ Barbara continued walking to the open
lift.

‘He’s a player. We can’t be sure if he’s the key player yet
though.’

Barbara stepped back into the lift. ‘I’m waiting Detective,
I’m waiting.’

Norman Frusco tapped the National Reserve pilot on the
shoulder and asked him to swoop down to the house where Charles
Fleisher was found. From the air the picture became whole and with
the clarity came a sense of shock. Turtle Island, his Island was in
danger of becoming grid-locked. The helicopter twisted and snaked
along the river that amputated the Island from the mainland. The
river that made Turtle Island into the anomaly that it was,
surrounded by water and the water surrounded by land. The rain on
the windscreen threatened to obscure his vision totally. The
operation of the wipers had become almost pointless, merely
smearing an opaque landscape. Frusco watched a detachment of troops
scouring the land below, searching from house to house, moving on,
crossing the next field. All the time he was hoping that Agent
O’Neil and Leroy were having more luck than him.

The editing suite was a large air-conditioned room stacked
with pieces of technology that baffled Leroy. Barbara Dace sat
behind a large desk that housed three video players and two twenty
one inch monitors. A man she introduced as Andy White sat next to
her. He took the tape from Barbara and slotted it into the machine
furthest from him. He opened a fresh tape and slotted it in the
machine to his right.

‘What am I looking for?’ Andy rattled a biro between his teeth
constantly. His hair was nearly shoulder length and he dressed in a
grungy style, faded worn out tee-shirts and equally faded denim,
with worn out trainers. Leroy knew it must cost a lot of money to
look that bad, he guessed that the job of video editing paid well.
The tape began to play; Leroy leaned forward and pointed to the man
about to climb on the bed next to the young boy.

‘That’s the man. Can you enhance the image so we can get a
clearer picture of him?’

Andy looked at the blurred out face and upper body on the
screen. ‘This image has already been doctored. Someone has gone to
great lengths to hide this man’s identity.’

The tape played on. The man started to masturbate in front of
the boy, grabbing the child's hands and placing them on
him.

Andy rewound the tape back to the point where the man climbed
on to the bed then slowed the image down to one frame per second,
stopping every now and then, hoping to get a better view of the
man's face.

‘I’m sorry to have to ask, but to get the very best image of
the man I think it would be best to view the whole film. Do you
think you can do that?’ Leroy asked the technician.

‘Believe me, if I didn’t have to I wouldn’t, but if it helps
to catch this guy...I take it it’s the net guy?’

Leroy shrugged. ‘To be honest; we really don’t know. Suddenly
it seems like some sort of sick cancer had enveloped this whole
Island. He may only be part of a much bigger problem.’

‘You know we're not miracle workers.’ Andy said scrolling the
images a frame at a time. ‘There's a whole mythology surrounding
the abilities of image enhancement. Movies and books generate the
idea that all we have to do is take any blurred image run it
through some non-existing software and ...hey what's that?’ Andy
stopped mid-sentence and looked at the screen. The man was
partially facing the screen with his back turned toward the camera.
Although the image had been doctored it was clear that he was
either wearing something or had some sort of disfigurement covering
his back. Andy moved the mouse cursor and clicked on a tool bar at
the top of the screen. The pointer icon changed to a lasso with a
small box underneath. Andy placed the new icon over the area of the
man’s back and clicked the mouse and dragged the lasso icon. A
section of the man's back was highlighted.

‘What they've done is quite crude but still effective.’ Andy
clicked on the toolbar again and ran his cursor down a list,
stopping at 'filter noise' and clicked once more.