Outstanding Subject
Part 10

Vero


"Your life is in danger. In this same instant, while you read this, you're within the reach of a murderer. Death is behind you, silent, invisible. At any moment, you can feel her icy breath in your nape when she leans to touch your shoulder... in little time I will kill you and it will be a horrible and grotesque death. I know you are telling yourself: impossible, not for me. The fact that the message has arrived to you is proof that I am able to be wherever you are.. . You're exposed. You're as open and bare before me as a naked prostitute tied to the four pegs of a bed. Carefully, without difficulty, I will do a vivisection of your body, to examine you and to divide you. You're in my hands."

This way the murder announcement lay in front of the amazed Sam Seaborn´s eyes.
*****************************************************************************************************

The last known address of Arthur Grutt´s was 325 Dickens. The superintendent, Nanette, told him while they walked,

-Detective Karlie, Mr. Grutt was a good man, he lived alone and didn't cause any problems, and he paid the rent on time.

-Did he has friends? - Asked Karlie, licking the bottom of ice cream cone to avoid spilling it on his hands -

- No, I don't know his friends, - she said.

- And girlfriends? Or boyfriends?

- I never saw anybody.

-Come on! ... - Shane Karlie said -, you have an apartment on the ground floor, exactly between the stairway and the main door. And... How many? Eleven more apartments to watch over? And you tell me you don't notice who enters and who leaves?

-Of course, I notice, - she said - all the time. For that reason I know that Mr. Grutt didn't have friends.

She opened the door and allowed him to enter Grutt´s apartment.

The place was simple and orderly. Karlie stayed for an hour, looking for something that would tell him who Arthur Grutt was and why somebody had wanted to kill him. Arthur Grutt had a television, a stereo, and a computer on the oak desk in a corner of the living room.
Shane´s clumsiness with any mechanical thing was notorious. He lived in constant fear that his car, television or stereo is broken; he looked at all them like traitors or deserters in power. Shane stopped for a moment in front of the computer. The monitor was out but the machine whispered. He turns on the monitor and looked as the screen illuminated.
Shane Karlie was 58 years old, born into the generation that had faced the computers in their maturity, not in childhood, which is infinitely adaptive; to him, the computers were confusing and complex phenomenon. Karlie thought that it was a situation of those that one enters in that shit. ..O stayed out.

And the he had stayed away. The computers invaded the police work; gradually they had settled in the squadron´s desks. The only thing that he knew about them was that when he had no other choice than to use them, he had to look for a 22-years-old lunatic boy who´d explain to him how to use them.

When the monitor was lit, Shane´s first impression was surprise. The only thing that he saw was a group of toasters with wings. Winged toaster squadrons that moved on the screen.
' Had to be a to joke, ' - the detective thought, 'something else is going to happen soon'. But the scene didn't change. Only toasters, incalculable groups of toasters in flight. It surprised him that Arthur Grutt or any other person could sit down in front of the screen and look at that for longer than one minute. 'Only an imbecile without a brain could endure it'.
Dismayed by the flying toasters, he didn't notice his ice cream melt through his fingers. A drop strawberry ice cream fell down on the keyboard, and he took a wrinkled Kleenex of his pocket and leaned on the keyboard to clean it wiping the key with his index finger. The hard disk became active and the screen changed, as the toasters immediately disappeared. Shane looked at the monitor as it had changed. He read the letter that had appeared on the screen, then took his notebook and wrote down the name to whom was it directed, Sam Seaborn.



*****************************************************************************************************
Napoleon Tamsin, was a published person? Gregory Cambryas persuaded him to participate in his first National Senate Campaign. Cambryas won and rewarded him with a position in the Senatorial Committee of Transportation. Tamsin had a dark past, accepted bribes, consumed drugs and at one time traffic with drugs, and managed a brothel. He had never been condemned him for anything save small charges on drugs possession. Gregory Cambryas knew it when he ran. And Cambryas achieved the acquittal..

Occasionally, Cambryas mentioned Napoleon's past dark .He applied the pressure directly with "your previous experience as performer qualifies you for this singly".. For that reason during his years in the Capitol, Tamsin had done several "missions" for Cambryas in favor of C&L Oil. .

Joseph Pruist met with Napoleon Tamsin on the Roosevelt Island. He felt fear of Tamsin whom he didn't know his antecedents; only wanted to complete his matters and to finish with this case.

Tamsin had known how to detect the six phases in the secret operative process of recruit personnel. The first was recognition, ability to identify and take objectively to those with access to the information that he needed. The second phase was evaluation, ability to decide if a person has the information that he needs and if he is susceptible of being recruited, what are his motivations, whether he feels animosity against his boss, or have ever had financial problems due to spending more than he has. If the candidate was accessible and a motivation could be exploited, then phase three is faced.

The phase three, the development, was establishing a relationship with the candidate. The following phase is the recruitment, served to work psychologically on the candidate. To use all the psychological weapons on him, vengeance toward his boss, money, and emotion. The following step was to manage them and for the last, the disconnection phase, when the person was no longer needed, when the relationship arrived to the end, it was important to finish it in such a way that the recruit was not feeling used and looked for vengeance. . To use the "maximum degradation", to punish with the death.

Joseph Pruist was the ideal person, he never hid his frustrated and fury for his career in the government, or his lack of mundane things. Tamsin noticed it would be easy to manipulate Pruist, and wasn't mistaken.

Tamsin notices that Pruist moved restlessly, bit the fingernails on his right hand wiped the perspiration's drops off his upper lip. He looked scared, and Tamsin was happy for that reason, for it was easy to dominate a frightened man.
Pruist was willing to accept the bonuses of that work that he was doing, but he worried deeply about risks.

-Who doesn't take a risk doesn't win - Napoleon told him - but I want to point out that if you leave the deal, life will continued without you in it, if you understands what I mean.
Joseph Pruist swallowed with difficulty. It made Napoleon look at his face, evaluating each reaction. He rose his eyes and when he met the eyes of his opponent he understood that he was caught.

- Although the risk that you assumes is immediate, the gain also begins immediately - he took a thick envelope out of an impermeable pocket, and hit Joseph's chest with it, - this is a bonus to take care of Grutt. - He pressed the envelope harder against the engineer's chest, as the latter grasped it with both hands.

- I don't have another alternative, right? - Asked in a low voice.

- In fact, no. You discarded that alternative when you carried out my proposal of sabotaging the ROGELIA investigation and when decided to kill Grutt. - Tamsin´s teeth glowed for a moment.

Joseph opened his mouth to say something, to express some objection, but didn't say anything
-My men will continue working with you. They have my complete confidence. They are evaluating your acting, as well as helping you. And until now you have done a splendid job. Continue this way, my interest and your future depend on your actions..

- What do we do with Seaborn?

- It's done, at these very moment my men are sending him a message, for Seaborn´s own good I hope he understands it.. Based on what I know, he doesn't know anything. We will encourage that so that he leaves us alone.
Joseph Pruist agreed and nodded, the fear hitting his temples like a hammer. In his mind Arthur Grutt´s image appeared, with his eyes startled after hearing how he had sabotaged the ROGELIA

Then Napoleon Tamsin decided to put an end to the interview. He turned and walked to the parking lot. Joseph Pruist listened to his steps for several seconds, and then he was alone.
He allowed himself to fall against the statue and shivered deploy.

-God, I don't want to kill any more people - he murmured weakly


part 11

HOME | TITLE | AUTHOR | CATEGORY