Dire Means Read online

  The Taser-wielding brunette stepped to the door and placed her palm on a waist-high glass console to the right of it. A green light silhouetted her fingers and then flashed under her hand like lightning. The door reacted with two heavy clanks and swung open a few inches as if it had been held by magnets that suddenly gave way. The crew of four wheeled Keith Mendalsen through the door.

  He would soon desperately wish that a warm bottle of water, forgotten by a temp, was his life’s biggest inconvenience.

  Chapter Three

  BRANDON CHARGON PUSHED his way to the front of the elevator to exit ahead of the eight other passengers. He wasn’t late; he always rushed to everything. He didn’t wait for the doors to open completely before he shouldered his way out into the grand lobby of Santa Monica’s Pacific Grove building. Roman columns flanked a thirty-foot indoor fountain whose hissing water padded the echoing footsteps and conversations of the lobby’s guests.

  As Brandon passed the large security check-in desk en route to the VIP parking exit, he saw a gorgeous brunette woman approaching from the opposite side of the lobby. She wore a low-cut, red satin blouse and a fitted black mini-skirt. She held eye contact with him and smiled. He slowed his pace. At six feet tall, the woman had a two-inch advantage over Brandon—even without the three inch heels that clicked on the polished floor under her graceful legs. Her trajectory and growing smile made it look as if she intended to speak to Brandon, but he couldn’t be so lucky…could he?

  She carried no clipboard, so he knew she wasn’t taking an annoying survey, nor could she be what Brandon referred to as “scummy bummys”—homeless people that frequently timed their solicitations near closing time on the concrete walkway of Brandon’s office building. He had strong-armed property management into funding private security guards for the sole purpose of throwing such bums off building property. No, this girl wasn’t a scummy bummy. She was clean, classy, and sizzling.

  She tilted her head coyly and leaned to one side—tentative—seeming ready to apologize if Brandon showed the slightest offense at her approach. “Excuse me, sir. Are you Mr. Chargon?”

  A smile spread on Brandon’s face. “Yes, that’s me,” he said. His eyes drifted from her long dark hair down to her candy-apple high heels and back up to her eyes.

  At fifty-one years old, Brandon had a belt-straining paunch and was bald—except for sideburns that looked like fuzzy, mirrored maps of Florida that didn’t quite make it over the tops of his ears.

  “I’ve been searching for you,” she said, extending her hand. Her grip was firm and her need to look down into his eyes wowed Brandon.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked. In his instant fantasy, her answer might lead them somewhere private—for the alcohol that could enable all sorts of possibilities. From experience, he knew he had no chance to score with a woman this hot without getting half a dozen drinks in her first.

  “I’m sorry to be so forward, but are you the man who drives the ‘57 Ford Fairlane convertible I see pull into the parking garage almost every day?”

  “Darling, could we talk a little while longer if I was that man?”

  “Oh, God, yes! I love that car! Please tell me it’s yours!” She folded her hands and pressed them under her chin to contain her excitement.

  Brandon grinned like a terrible poker player who had just drawn a royal flush. He tucked his left hand in his pocket and worked his thumb to remove his wedding ring. If he had carried some tanning lotion to remove his ring’s tan line, he would have tried to smear some on.

  “As a matter of fact, young lady, you’re in luck! That Fairlane is one of my kids.” Brandon loved his cars. The Fairlane convertible was his favorite of the more than thirty classics he owned. His “kids” had his undying love, time, attention, and patience—often to the exclusion and envy of his wife of twenty-two years. “Care to take a ride in it?” he said, offering what he hoped was an unfair temptation.

  “Oh, you wouldn’t!” She touched his arm and held her mouth wide open.

  “If you have the time, let’s go,” Brandon said. He pulled his ringless hand from his pocket and made a point of scratching his nose in exhibition of his erased marital status.

  “NO—are you serious? You’ll take me for a spin?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Can we ride her topless?” she asked.

  Brandon felt an adrenaline rush at what he hoped was innuendo and he jerked his gaze from her breasts back to her face. “Sure, but if we go topless, you might want to take a sweater since it’s cool out today.” Before he finished his sentence, he cursed himself; a chill would only enhance the scenery this girl offered.

  “I’ve got a sweater and hair clip in my office. Do you mind coming with?” she said, pointing up.

  Brandon checked his watch.

  “I’m on the third floor—come with me. It will take only a minute,” she urged, and then winked at him.

  “Well, if you’re going to beg...” Brandon laughed. He turned for the elevators that had just opened and disgorged a load of tired workers, headed home for the day.

  She tugged his arm and leaned close enough for him to smell a hint of her perfume. “Wait, I’ve got a faster way.” She led him around the corner of the lobby to the freight elevator.

  “So, do you work in building management?” Brandon asked, pointing to the freight elevator that required coveted key cards from the building management.

  “No. I supervise security upstairs. I’m rarely out and about so you probably would never have seen me.”

  “And that’s a shame!”

  She laughed and pulled a key card from her purse and then held it to the elevator’s security pad. The pad beeped and the doors opened to a large, worn elevator car.

  When the doors closed them in, she stepped away from Brandon and turned to face the elevator panel. Her smile disappeared as she buttoned two buttons on her blouse.

  “Maybe our spin might roll us to a place where I can buy you a drink,” Brandon grinned.

  “You wish,” she answered, her voice now lower in pitch.

  Brandon, startled, said, “Pardon me. I can be too forward sometimes…I apologize.”

  She sucked her teeth and then folded her arms over her purse.

  “So, you’re into cars. Is the Fairlane your favorite classic?” Brandon asked, hopefully.

  She poked her tongue into her cheek and shook her head without answering. The illuminated Floor 2 on the elevator panel had her full attention.

  “Something I said?” Brandon forced a nervous laugh and cleared his throat. “What’s your name?” he asked. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I actually forgot to ask you your name.”

  “My name won’t be useful to you,” she said as the elevator door opened to the third floor. The small 15 x 10 foot vestibule was barely lit by a single 40-watt bulb in the center of the ceiling and dark gray foam padding lined the walls. She stepped out of the elevator and motioned for Brandon to follow.

  “Whoa! What’s with the bat cave?” he said. The soles of his shoes sank into the spongy floor.

  “Oh, we store some supplies for sound-staging here,” she said. “Just come through, my office is around the corner.”

  On Brandon’s third step into the vestibule, a padded wall slid from the ceiling and slammed down between him and the open elevator door, blocking retreat. He jumped. The woman pivoted to him. A door behind her opened and two men in matching red Polo shirts and black slacks entered. One man was muscular with a crew cut, and his smaller partner pushed a silver, enclosed metal cart the size of an office desk. He swung open a side panel on the cart, exposing an interior, padded like the walls. The woman pulled a Taser gun from her purse. A red, laser sight quivered a spastic, two-inch pattern on Brandon’s stomach.

  “Remove your pants and then enter the cart willingly,” she said calmly.

  “Wait! What the hell is this?” Brandon said, searching the faces of the three.

  The Taser’s probes pierced Bran
don’s skin and he dropped, stiff, to the padded floor. He writhed with his teeth clenched and fists balled up and pressed against his hips as the Taser ticked. When the woman released the trigger, Brandon staggered to his feet.

  She repeated her instruction. “Remove your pants, and then enter the cart willingly.”

  Brandon unbuckled his belt with trembling fingers and dropped his pants to the floor. He stepped out of them and stumbled toward the cart, dragging his Taser leashes. The woman nodded at him with no smile, approving his progress to the container.

  He squatted and managed to squeeze into the cart. He fought his gut to raise his knees toward his chin. While one man strapped a ball gag around Brandon’s head, the other picked up his pants and fished through the pockets. He retrieved Brandon’s keys, cell phone, and then a wedding band that he handed to the woman. She sucked her teeth in disgust, reached down, grabbed the Taser wires two feet from Brandon’s stomach, and snatched the probes out. The man who held Brandon’s pants, pockets pulled inside out, tossed them into the cart. The bulky man slammed it shut and locked it before opening a slat on the side that exposed four quarter-sized holes for ventilation.

  The padded separator wall that had blocked the elevator retracted into the ceiling and they pushed the cart onto the elevator. The cart shook a few times as Brandon moved his hips to adjust his position inside his padded container. The ball gag and foam lining of the cart’s interior dulled his pleas to garbled babble heard only by him.

  On the loading dock, they wheeled Brandon’s enclosed container into the back of a shiny red and black truck. Its rear door swung wide to accept the cargo. Brandon Chargon’s final ride in a vehicle was not to be next to a gorgeous woman in the breezy freedom of his beloved ‘57 Ford Fairlane convertible. Instead, he rode entombed in a latched steel container carried in the locked bed of an armored truck.

  Chapter Four

  IT WAS 9:30 P.M. and forty-one year old Jackie Dunbarton had put in another long day at the office. She was an old timer with twelve years of service at Star Mortgage in the Terra Fina Tower Building, now the office manager after a promotion the week before. She intended to prove the wisdom of her bosses by burning the midnight oil six days a week to accomplish more than was expected of her. Her first week of late night departures had put her on a first name basis with Nate, the night security guard.

  She reclined and looked out her eighth floor window. Arizona Avenue routed cars below that carried nine-to-fivers, probably on their way home from dinner. Jackie planned to enjoy a frozen turkey dinner she had purchased to get into a Thanksgiving frame of mind.

  As she straightened some papers on her desk and thought about taking home some of those delicious oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies someone had brought for the office breakfast, her phone rang. She checked the time. Who could be calling this late? She considered letting the call go to voicemail, but figured that the call could be from one of her bosses and their discovery of her diligence was too great an opportunity to pass up.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Star Mortgage?” a deep male voice said.

  “Yes, but we are closed,” Jackie said. She rolled her eyes, sorry she had answered.

  “This is evening security and we are contacting any tenants who remain in the building because we need to do some elevator maintenance. Could you tell us how much longer you’ll be tonight?”

  “Nate? Is that you?”

  “No, ma’am, there’s no Nate here.”

  “Fine, well, I’m actually on my way out right now,” Jackie said as she slipped her purse over her shoulder and pushed her chair in.

  “Well then, your timing is perfect. Could you please use the freight elevator instead of the passenger elevator when you leave?”

  “Certainly, but I don’t have a key card,” Jackie said.

  “That’s no problem. We’ll leave it open on your floor for you. Are you familiar with the location of the freight elevator?”

  “Yes, it’s the one around the corner beside the restrooms, right?”

  “Exactly. We appreciate your cooperation, ma’am.”

  Although she had passed by it many times to and from the restroom, Jackie had never ridden the freight elevator. As promised, it waited, door open, and she stepped inside. The metal button panel was surrounded by scratches and gouges, engraved by movers and delivery personnel who had used objects to press buttons. The elevator car was twice the size of the passenger elevator, but was filthy and worn. It smelled like sweat.

  In the ceiling, a fluorescent light flickered as the large doors slid toward one another, kissing with surprising delicacy, closing Jackie in.

  The number 8 illuminated above the door blinked and changed to an L, but Jackie sensed the elevator rising instead of sinking. Although she felt movement and heard the air of the elevator shaft, the L stayed lit. After ten seconds, the elevator shuddered and stopped, and the large doors opened to an undecorated foyer with no chairs and only one door. Two men in matching red Polo shirts and black pressed slacks stood on either side of a metal wheeled container the size of a kitchen stove.

  One man swatted his hand toward Jackie, instructing her to move back, deeper into the elevator to make room for their cart. She complied, stepping to the back of the elevator while patting the back of her hair—a nervous response to an order given more forcefully than she felt it needed to be.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, making sure to inject plenty of sarcasm.

  The men ignored her, focusing instead on positioning the cart. They turned their backs to her and faced the closing door. The man beside the button panel suddenly pressed all twelve of the floor buttons and the elevator began descending.

  “Nice move. We might reach the lobby by tomorrow,” Jackie said to their backs.

  The struggling fluorescent light blinked off, leaving the elevator in total darkness. Jackie heard feet scuffle on the floor and the container bang against the elevator wall.

  She got out half a gasp before a hand clapped a cloth over her mouth. Strong arms hugged her, pressing her arms to her sides while another set of arms grabbed her kicking legs and tamed them into submission. She and her attackers fell to the floor. A long snarl of unspooling duct tape cut through the sound of the struggle. They pressed her ankles together and bound them. She got off two arm swings, one landing on what felt like a man’s shoulder and the other slamming the elevator wall. Within fifteen seconds, her arms and legs were secured and a soft rubber ball gag was shoved into her screaming mouth before its rubber strap snapped tight at the back of her head.

  After subduing Jackie’s sound and movement, the men lifted her and gently lowered her into the foam-lined cart. When they closed the lid and latched it, she heard only her own panicked breath racing in and out of her nostrils. She tried to kick the inner walls of the container as hard as she could with bound feet, but the thick padding softened each kick to a thump barely audible outside the container.

  The elevator door opened on the Terra Fina Tower Building’s freight dock, its fluorescent lights flickering. The men pushed the cart out of the elevator and a short distance onto the enclosed bed of a grumbling armored truck. They swung the truck’s steel doors shut, producing a heavy clunk and then the truck jerked away from the freight driveway onto Arizona Avenue.

  Business was good.

  Chapter Five

  TWENTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Mark Denny thrived on order and predictability. His immaculate apartment was the epitome of organization. The key hook just inside his front door was worn down by key rings having slid on and off thousands of times over the years. Mark never lost his keys. The shoes he would wear the next day were always placed under this hook.

  Each evening, his coffeemaker was preloaded and set to turn on at 6:43 a.m. so that his brew was ready to pour into his thermos at 6:58 a.m.—in time to walk to the car and exit his driveway by 7:00 a.m.

  He dressed in clothes he had laid out on a recliner in his bedroom the previous night. His bathroom was
sparse and spotless, and his kitchen sink never saw a dirty dish or utensil for more than a few hours, and never overnight. This perpetual order kept Mark comfortable.

  He began his career as a support technician for a small support company in West Los Angeles. After a short stint there, Mark left the company to begin his own entrepreneurial venture with his best friend from college, Carlos Rais. They began their own computer service business named Combobulators. They visited homes and businesses, providing desktop computer support and repair for a small-business clientele.

  While fixing printers, correcting Internet connectivity problems, installing software, and performing general maintenance, they developed a bond of friendship with their short list of regular clients. In a business where trust is critical for success, Mark and Carlos earned more confidence from their clients with each task they completed.

  In the beginning, business was sporadic, and for two years they struggled. Despite the tight cash flow, they invested in some newspaper ads and asked clients for referrals to generate leads. Recently, their efforts paid off with rapid company growth and a waiting list for their services.

  Their clientele grew to include a rather exclusive list of powerful Los Angeles entrepreneurs that included publishers, producers, investment bankers, and several prominent CEOs. Each client had Mark or Carlos on speed dial.

  While Mark played the “people person” of the duo, Carlos was technologically brilliant. A gadget freak, Carlos constantly took apart and reassembled computers, cell phones, pagers—anything that had a circuit board inside was a candidate for dissection.

  Of particular interest to Carlos was electronic surveillance. Through his tinkering, he developed a device that could recreate screen images of a nearby computer by reorganizing electromagnetic radiation interference from the computer’s motherboard and monitor. It was the ultimate form of computer surveillance. Though that feat alone was impressive, Carlos wasn’t satisfied. He continued to refine his invention, barricading himself in his apartment for hundreds of hours of intense experimentation and testing.