Stephen Cannell - Final Victim

The Rat had cultivated Robbie, his one-time foster brother, and had used him to catch the Shirley-like bitch. The Wind Minstrel, working on the laptop, had established a cellphone hookup. He had just started his logon:

bitran login:

He logged in as root using a stolen password. He was immediately accepted to the City of Miami's transportation computer control system:

WELCOME TO "BI-TRAN"

root

He typed in:

DTCS

In seconds the Distributed Traffic Control System appeared on the screen. It had been named SCOOT by the City of Miami.

In the back of the cramped van, Karen pushed herself as far away from the huge, sweating man as possible. The rear door of the van was locked and there was no escape. The pungent smell of him filled the small space. His odor was rank and reminded her of bad meat and sour dough. She could see the computer in his lap and wondered what he was doing.

And then the traffic light grid for the City of Miami came up on the screen.

"Street?" The Wind Minstrel yelled at Bob Shiff.

"They're back there. They're gaining on us. I can't go any faster," the skinny Death Rocker screamed. "We shoulda gone the other way. We're gonna hit traffic. They'll be on us!"

"What street?" The Wind Minstrel said, growling ominously. "Old Cutler Road," Shiff called back.

The Wind Minstrel typed it into the computer, and up on the screen came an enlarged map section of Miami that featured Old Cutler Road.

"Cross streets?" The Wind Minstrel yelled at Bob Shiff.

They were approaching a street that Bob Shiff knew ran north.

straight into Miami. "Twenty-seventh Avenue!" he yelled out. "Turn left," The Wind Minstrel instructed.

"I'll hit a million cross streets," Bob Shiff pleaded. "We'll be trapped in traffic."

"You are in a holy presence," The Wind Minstrel growled. "This is my temple. It is written that the wicked risen in the Second Resurrection will go up on the breadth of the earth with Satan and follow his commandments. Now, turn fucking left, goddamn it!" he shouted; the veins on his rash-reddened neck bulged.

Bob Shiff cursed but turned left. Twenty-seventh Avenue was absolutely straight and filled with stoplights and five o'clock cross traffic. He was certain they would be blocked and quickly overtaken by the car behind them. Somewhere in the distance he heard a police siren. Then a strange thing happened… Just as they got to the first stoplight, which was Coral Way, the red light turned green and they shot right through. Bob Shiff looked in his rearview mirror at the gray sedan following them. The light stayed green for only a second. Just before the Lincoln hit the same intersection, the light turned red, and the Lincoln slid sideways to miss a red Volvo accelerating down Coral Way. The Lincoln missed the Volvo by inches, then finally ran the red light and was again after them.

"Cross street!" The Wind Minstrel yelled.

"Eighth!" Shiff called back, and he heard the computer keys clicking… Ahead of him, at the last second, the Eighth Street light turned green. They shot through it, and in the rearview mirror he watched as it immediately turned red again. It was then that Bob Shiff understood what The Wind Minstrel was doing. He had cracked into the traffic-light computer system and was controlling all the lights on Twenty-seventh Avenue.

In the Lincoln, Lockwood was too slow as he slammed on the brakes. The light on Eighth Street had turned red a second before they got to it. Lockwood was still fighting his bad depth perception and went squealing through the red light in a four-wheel skid, leaning on the horn as the flow of cross traffic swarmed into the intersection. He crashed into a yellow pickup truck, throwing Malavida into the dash. Fenders crunched and locked as the two vehicles skidded together toward the curb and came to a smoking, shuddering stop. Lockwood threw the car into reverse and floored it. The bumpers were hooked, and the Lincoln's tires smoked and screamed on the hot, sun-cooked pavement. Then, finally, he pulled loose, after dragging the pickup about ten feet into the intersection. People were yelling; horns were honking. Lockwood floored it, driving up onto the sidewalk and around the mess he had caused, then off again in pursuit of the VW van.

Lockwood looked over and saw that Malavida was curled up in pain from the collision. He was doubled over in his seat, holding his stomach. "Great move, Zanzo," he grunted through a clenched jaw.

"Something wrong with traffic lights," Lockwood said.

"He's into the system," Malavida whispered in pain. "He's controlling them."

Suddenly all of the lights ahead of them turned red. The next intersection they hit was the four-lane downtown junction for the Tamiami Trail. The cross-traffic was intense and Lockwood and Malavida sat in frustration at the red light, watching the heavy traffic flow past in front of them, completely blocking their pursuit. Finally, Lockwood slammed his hand down hard on the wheel.

"Now what?" Malavida said as they both scanned the street up ahead. The van was nowhere in sight.

They were huddled in the basement of the main branch of the Miami-Dade Public Library. The room was too cold and the stone, turn-ofthe-century architecture didn't offer much warmth. Malavida was in bad shape, still bleeding from the opened incision. They couldn't get it to stop.

"Leaking like a Mexican fishing boat," he said through gritted teeth.

Lockwood attempted to put his hand on Mal's forehead to check his temperature but Malavida knocked it away. He looked flushed.

They had been plowing through microfilm for an hour, looking for the obit on Shirley Land. Finally, an article about her death came up on the screen. The date was July 10, 1984. There was a small picture with the article, which was the same one Karen had shown to Malavida. They both leaned in and read the story quickly…

The article gave a brief description of the fire that had burned Shirley to death. There was very little about Shirley Land's personal history.

The article said she was the only daughter of a Baptist minister, who also made a meager living by designing underground bomb shelters in the fifties. It noted that she was survived by a son, Leonard, who was fifteen years old. It went on to say that she had been active in church affairs and that she was being buried at the Old Manatee Cemetery in Bradenton, Florida.

"Dead end," Malavida said. He started shivering and now Lockwood was sure he had developed a fever.

"You gotta go to the hospital, man, before you shake apart and die from infection," Lockwood said, forming one of his first complex sentences since the halon attack.

"Shut up. I'm in this," Malavida said, determined to hang tough. "Your funeral," Lockwood said, then added, "We're down to seeds and stems here."

He knew if he were working a regular investigation for Customs and had time, he would do a full search for Tashay Roberts. He would have choppers searching the Manatee wetlands for The Wind Minstrel's barge. And he would check all the old addresses where Leonard Land had lived, hoping to interview an acquaintance who could give them more information. But he had lost his power base. The cops would arrest both of them on sight and they were out of time. Karen might be dead already. Lockwood knew they had to get some traction and get it fast.

"Sometimes," he said, forcing the words into the right slots in the sentence, "sometimes delusional people will go someplace they feel safe, like home…"

"He won't go back to that bomb site near Tampa," Malavida said. He was now shivering so badly he was having trouble staying on the chair. "We'll never find that Barge again. There's a hundred square miles of swamp he could hide in… We're flicked."