JUSTICE REBORN (A Charlie Taylor Novel Book 1) (12 page)

Manuel started. “Let me go in a wild
direction. Gloves to cover battered hands. Horny Harry is clubbing women. Also,
he appears to be picking his victims from the same general area of the city any
closer and they would trip over each other. Ok hold on ..here is  my
thought…………..what if we are only dealing with one person.”

“Jesus Manuel that is wild…your suggesting
that one of the Couple morphs into Harry.”

“Why not? A psychotic who is directed by
inner voices might have more than one set of directives or drives. Or multiple
personalities……different one dominating at different times.”

“No Manuel that one is not going anywhere.
You have three, you’re going to turn into one? I don’t think so. Jesus, the
crime scenes are too different; the hotels leave no clues whereas the rapes
have every clue we need. Too different. One too many characters.”

Manuel didn’t argue. Charlie called a
break. “Time for the bathroom and fresh coffee and a new roll. Take 15.”

Everyone got up, stretched and walked the
room. The whiteboard was full of single words or one-liners: sign, expertise,
escape route, hands, martial arts, big hat. Numerous words which, regardless of
the sequence Charlie entered them, always became rearranged into a random
pattern on the whiteboard. Would any words trigger more ideas?

Once they were all back in their chairs,
Charlie turned to the Historian. “John, would you like to ask the crew some
questions or do some speculating?”

“Thank you. I would. Let me try my way.
First assume I’m a perfectionist; where would I get the knowledge to able to
even know how to clean up and what to use?”

“Well, there is the obvious Goggle search
with many on-line experts willing to share, the public library and the
University library, with some excellent books written by experts in various
fields. And, of course, if you had access the FBI material, there should be
tons of material.”

“And all the libraries have records of who
was accessing this material.”

“I want to keep going. The couple also had
a thorough understanding of the way the high-end escort agencies operated.”

” This would not be difficult. They just
had to try a couple of them to ensure they had the pattern, but it would have
been recent visit. The Couple had to be sure the agencies had not changed their
operating practices……… how girls are assigned and protected.

What I’m saying is they must have conducted
some dry runs, dialed up for girls and had one or more delivered. But I afraid
this leaves us nowhere because we know so little. What could we ask any girls
who may have been part of a dry run? Except, since none of our victims were
raped, maybe on the test run he didn’t want sex with the girls or maybe his
partner was there and they asked for some weird action.  I know it is a long
shot but if this happened in the last year, possibly a girl remembers a strange
encounter.”

Everyone started kicking in and numerous
suggestions filled the air simultaneously; Charlie had to step in and regain
control. During this intense exchange the Historian just sat, deep in thought
then he started again. “These new forensic tools to analyze a crime scene: what
are they and when were they first introduced?”

Terry responded. “Look we are way beyond
luminal…..the latest techniques started about two or three years ago. The
forensic team now have special sprays and lights. Listen after they get through
with a room they can tell you the guy is 6’2” and when fully erect his penis is
6.25 inches in length and that he had been shaking it around before he left the
room.” Manuel was the only one who laughed, Terry was wearing thin.

Charlie intervened. “Terry’s description is
rather vivid but close to the truth. None of us knows the details about the
technology. The development and field testing took place, by Special Victims
forensic units, in a different Sector. It took months before all the bugs were out.

This testing and trials ran in a couple of
cities on the west coast. Today, the process is a part of all crime scene
investigations, but this is very recent and our techs are still not fully up to
speed. I mean, they can use the tools, but I think their in-depth understanding
will take some time.”

The Historian remained focused, silent and
stared at the desk in front of him; the room, for once, was silent, a couple of
people up for a coffee refill. Finally, the Historian spoke.

“If I add everything up, the only logical
conclusion is that one or both members of your couple are on the police force.”

He tilted the glass and drained all the
scotch.

It was too early in the day to start
drinking, but he had to reduce the tension. The extraordinary Board meeting
still permeated his thoughts; but the chaos of the last week had not provided
an opportunity to review, in privacy, the confidential recording of the
meeting. Today secure in his own office, he ignored the luxury of his
surroundings, generally a source of pride, and focused on what he was about to
hear. Locked doors and no secretary.

The audio player was loaded and ready.
Still he procrastinated. The fear and anxiety associated with this outlandish
act seemed to control his hand. The schemer knew he had taken a tremendous risk
in recording the confidential sessions. His reason: if any questionable
decisions resulted during these classified segments, he might be able to put
pressure on the Judge or use it in other ways to further his own career. He
knew the Judge had enemies.

 As soon as Dr. Kate declared Condition
Confidential, he turned on his recording device which he was assured was
undetectable and cost accordingly. He drained the remaining scotch and
positioned the machine to begin at the central part of Kate’s presentation.
Although he had been present when she first described the problem, this
afternoon he wanted to hear it all again. It was like reading a book for the
second time and finding the parts to savor. Her voice filled the room:

“Let me start by saying that
Emma Collins and I assisted Sector 13 with some S3 Interrogations at White Rock
Prison.  Although there were 165 convicts eligible for the process, a
surprising number elected to proceed directly to the execution chamber. It
appears once the prison grapevine became convinced they couldn’t beat the
process, only the innocent or real hardcore cases challenged the interrogation.

Sector 13 did most of the
processing; Emma and I conducted twelve of the scans and observed another
seven. I mention this because my conclusions are tentative and based on this
small sample. All the sessions were recorded and Emma is collecting every
session; once we have isolated all the duplicate memory cell segments our
in-depth analysis can begin.

As you know the scanning
process is a variation of a three-dimensional Binary Search, at least it starts
that way. But, then literally depends on the Medical Tech to use her touch to
feel her way around the emerging patterns of memory.

 I know how ill-defined this
sounds. However, there is no point asking the Medical Tech why she moved to a
particular point; the answer is like asking a visual artist why she used Hansa
Yellow instead Cadmium Yellow on one particular spot on the canvas. The answer
will not satisfy you.

Once the Tech develops a
rhythm, their moves and decisions are ineffable.  The problem with the
duplicate memory scenes was: it took some time for us to figure out what was
happening.  At first we thought it was an error in the equipment. The probe had
been moved to another spatial location, but we were still projecting the
original memory stream.

 The question became: was the
probe back at the original physical location? The Techs develop a certain rhythm
and maintain a pace with their visualization. The appearance of the duplicates
completely disrupted their rhythm and with the 45-minute clock we couldn’t
afford these disruptions.

Each appearance of a duplicate
caused confusion. The Watchers thought the Techs had not heard their
instructions and were sending back the same event; the Techs thought the
equipment had not responded properly. All this meant recovery time and time was
not available to deal with continued retries and repositioning of the probe.

Why the duplicates? My theory
is when an incident is very emotional, it tends to be stored multiple times and
in different locations. Why?  I don’t know. Maybe the multiplication makes it
easier to remember some events or so difficult to forget some events……….. their
greater quantity dominates and they surface easier and more frequently.

 The other unfortunate aspect
of the situation: innocent men appear to have significantly more of these
duplicate memory cells. This means these prisoners became the most difficult to
process. My guess: if you are innocent and falsely accused, your life will be
filled with a great deal of emotion; in particular, some special events
invariably come back to haunt you. Maybe there is some credence to the old
adage that a cold blood criminal will not be haunted by recurring memory
flashbacks, brutality not an emotional hang-up.

As you know, Sector 13 did
find ten men innocent. Of this group, five were sent home in good condition
with a minimum impact as a result of the S3 interrogation; they only lost a few
IQ points. Three other innocent men had significant losses, close to 15 IQ
points. The impact depended on their starting IQ, but they are being held, not
released; more testing is necessary to see if, after a rest period, there will
be some recovery.

 The last two inmates will
have to be institutionalized; there is no way they can be looked after by their
families. They are bedridden, the classic vegetable. Again there may be some
recovery in the future, but it is very unlikely.

In all cases, it was the time
issue. During any probing, there is always an outside chance of some minute
brain damage, and beyond 45 minutes the risk significantly escalates and the
individual will be fortunate to escape unharmed.  In all cases, it was the
duplicate memory cells which caused the extensive searching and restarting.

This is leading edge
technology. And now, I even wonder about these men who appear unharmed; do we
really know what may develop later in their lives?

I recommend we suspend the
Fort Green process until we get all the data and have a chance to review the
material.”

 “Dr. Kate, are these extra
memory cells true duplicates, exact copies of each other or do they provide a
different version of the event?’

“Judge, I can’t answer that
question. Everyone assumed it was an operator problem, and we all focused on
getting the probe into a better position. There was no time for comparisons.

My other concern is: when
individuals remember and review past events, they may be modulating memory as
it’s being perceived. Why? Again, I don’t know. Maybe this is where our
emotions override.  Do we selectively block out actions that are too painful? Do
we turn ourselves into heroes?

The fact is there are multiple
streams of some events in a person’s memory banks. And unless we understand and
can deal with them, it is impossible to keep our scanning under the 45-minute
barrier.  In conclusion, I repeat: all the recordings from White Rock are on
the way to our Combination Room.”

 “Does anyone have any
questions?”

 “Alright let me summarize.
There are three fundamental questions which must be answered and I’m afraid Dr.
Kate…… you and Emma will have to provide the answers:

First, the obvious: are these
true duplicates or different versions of the same event?

Next, if they are true
duplicates, how will the process be changed so as not to confuse the Medical
Techs or the Watchers and keep us under 45 minutes?

Last, why was this situation
not uncovered in the early work? The pioneering work was extensive with many
top scientists taking part, and our current legislation is based on their
results. What happened between this early work and our current situation? Was
something overlooked in the original studies?

 I’m not concerned about
discovering who is culpable. At the moment, all that is secondary to knowing
what is going on with a process which was to be our foundation.

Kate, I’m going to ask you to
restrict the research team to yourself and Emma; Dr. Max is not to be
contacted. I’m not trying to make this difficult, but there are other
developments which can’t be revealed today; they make it impossible to utilized
Dr. Max.

 I’m going to adjourn. And, let
me repeat the obvious: you all know the nature of this discussion and the
consequences of any leakage outside this room. Please be careful and I will see
you all very shortly, hopefully with many answers.”

The recording ended. The schemer sat rigid
in his chair stunned with the news and realized the entire system was in
jeopardy. Different versions of the same event: what a mess. The question was
how could he take advantage of the situation and be part of any changes which
may have to come?

The stark image of Dr. Kate persisted. 
During her presentation, she appeared confused and frightened, trembling hands
and her eyes flitting from one corner of the room to the other. Was the Judge’s
confidence misplaced? Throw in the Dr. Max’s situation, another anomaly. Our best
scientist barred from participating. What the hell was that all about?

He vigorously shook his drink causing the
ice cubes to rattle against the glass. The ricocheting ice cubes were the only
sound in the room.

.