The Color of Greed (Raja Williams 1) (22 page)

When the performance ended, Raja was unsatisfied.
Although the orchestration was tight, the costumes colorful and the
singing technically superb, Raja did not get the emotional release he
had hoped for. Once outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, he
strolled along the quiet city street. It was late and everything was
closed, but he always did his best thinking outside and at night.
Something about this case still tugged on his attention. He walked
idly on, hoping the issue would come into focus. When it finally did,
he called Vinny.

“Where are you?” she asked.

Raja looked up at the sign on the corner. “I’m
on Fourth Street near Broadway. Where are you?” he fired back,
mostly because of the dull headache throbbing in his temples. Raja
had expected it to be gone with the resolution to the case, but here
it was nonetheless.

“I’m in the loft playing with the toys
you got me,” said Vinny, cheerfully. Actually, she had been
sitting in on an MIT computer science class that was being broadcast
online. The internet was Vinny’s playground.

The pressure in Raja’s head increased. He
looked warily up and down the street and saw nothing but an old woman
who was pushing a shopping cart and having an animated conversation
with an invisible man. She hadn’t even noticed Raja.

“You know, Vinny, something has been bothering
me. How did Stanley Bryce know about the government computer fraud
that Sue uncovered? And how did he do all the fancy computer stuff?
He didn’t strike me as a computer nerd. No offense to you.”
Raja could hear the tap of Vinny’s fingers on her keyboard.

“None taken,” said Vinny. Raja was
right. Bryce didn’t have the skills. Her fingers flew over the
keys. She highlighted a line of code from one of the case files and
searched all the documents she had on their case. There it was again.
“I may have found something. Let me call you back,” she
said, and ended the call. It was more of the code that she recognized
from Bryce’s computer. Most of what was on Bryce’s
computer showed none of the sophistication necessary nor the hacker
skills needed to track everyone connected to this case. There had to
be someone else. Moreover, something Sue Storm said had been
bothering Vinny. There it was again. Vinny had seen this code
somewhere before. More typing.

Vinny’s eyes popped open wide when she found
what she was looking for. She called Raja—it rang, but no
answer. He had his ringer off as usual. The call went to voice mail.

“Damn it, Raj,” said Vinny, out loud.
More typing, and then she stood up, manipulating the computer screen
in front of her. Out of habit, she plugged into the surveillance
cameras near the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to locate Raja. She saw
the crazy cart lady waving at nothing, and then found Raja walking
alone, unaware she was trying to reach him. She saw something else.
“Damn it, Raja,” she said again. Vinny had programmed
Raja’s phone to always keep the text notification active. She
typed quickly and hit send.

Raja had stopped walking and was now rubbing his
temples, desperate to relieve the pain. His phone made the cheerful
melodic trill it always did whenever he received a text, which was
almost never and was always Vinny. He looked at his phone and read
one word in all caps: DUCK!!! Raja instinctively dropped to the
pavement and heard two muted popping sounds in rapid succession.
Bullets zipped over his head and through the plate glass window in
the storefront behind him. He was out in the open on the concrete
sidewalk, an easy target for whoever was firing. Raja scanned for
cover that wasn’t there and felt the adrenaline that flooded
his body urging him to act.

One loud report from a gun echoed back and forth
between the buildings.

Raja looked up in time to see a man crumple forward
from the shadow of a doorway directly across the street from him.
Raja whirled to his right and saw someone with arm extended pointing
a handgun and striding rapidly toward the wounded man who was now
writhing on the sidewalk.

Claus. Raja had forgotten he was there. Claus kicked
away the silenced weapon the man had dropped when a bullet blew a
hole through his shoulder. Claus pinned the man roughly to the
pavement with his foot, keeping his Israeli-made Barak pistol aimed
at the man’s head.

Raja got up and walked back to the picture window,
inspecting the two holes that had been meant for him. He tapped his
knuckle idly on the glass, and heard crackling as a spiderweb of
cracks spread over the window.

Chapter Forty-five: Montezuma’s Revenge

After the loud pop of a champagne cork, the waiter
filled four glasses with the golden fizzing liquid. It was three days
after the attempt on Raja’s life, and he, Vinny, Dr. Becker and
Detective Rafferty were having dinner at Wolfgang Puck’s
restaurant to celebrate closing the case. Rafferty had agreed to come
only after Raja had insisted, and only after Raja made it clear he
would be picking up the tab. It wasn’t long before they dove
into discussing the case.

“Who was the guy shooting at Raja?”
asked Sharon.

“You mean the guy we found hogtied and
bleeding on the city pavement?” said Detective Rafferty. He
looked squarely at Raja.

Raja held his gaze without reacting.

“He’s a professional hit man,”
continued Rafferty, “out of Detroit. He had been working for
Michael Bates for a while. We tied him to the killings of Judge
Griggsby and Jennifer Gowan. He also claims his partner was the one
who bombed the Starbucks; but, of course, we can’t ask that guy
since he was killed at Clarice Hope’s ranch.” Again
Rafferty glared at Raja. “Anyway, the shooter has already taken
a deal and rolled over on Bates as the one who hired him for the
deaths I mentioned, and for two unrelated and previously unsolved
murders.”

“So Bryce wasn’t the mastermind after
all,” said Vinny, feeling partly vindicated.

“All right, all right, I may have jumped the
gun on that one,” said Rafferty.

“Oh, no, Tommy, you were right,” said
Raja. “Bryce had his fingers deep in the pie. He raised
millions for the governor’s campaign from the Hollywood gay
community by promising a favorable stance on pro-gay legislation and
used some of the money to directly bribe judges. He also had Vinny
kidnapped. That was all Stanley Bryce. In an odd way, you might say
his were crimes of passion. While Stanley Bryce only thought that he
was protecting the governor, he was actually covering for Bates and
his scheme. Michael Bates was using Bryce to forward his own agenda.”

“Who is Michael Bates and what exactly was his
agenda?” asked Sharon.

“Michael Bates, CEO and owner of SunGod
Systems, was a brilliant computer programmer who invented and
patented a programmable chip that was vital in the solar energy
industry,” said Raja. “With the patent due to expire, he
had to move up the timetable. He had a plan to bring U.S. government
funding, Chinese investment, and his company together in a perfect
storm that would net him billions of dollars from the patented devise
he owned.

“Bates sent Bryce the governor’s sex
video, knowing it would compel him to act.”

“How did Bates get the video?” asked
Sharon.

“Bates hired the men who recovered the video
from the judge’s locker at the Hillcrest Country Club.”

“Then it never was about the sex video,”
said Sharon.

“We had assumed Bryce was desperate to protect
the governor when he kidnapped Vinny. He was, but there was a hidden
agenda. Bates had been the one manipulating the technical specs to
get government funds for several energy companies linked to his own.
Through Bryce, he got the governor to help grease the wheels at the
federal level. Bates was so leveraged that he needed the government
grant money and the money the Chinese had promised to guarantee the
long-term contracts for his chip. Without that, he and his company
were going to be buried.

“It was the incriminating files on the fraud
that Bates had to stop at any cost. That’s what got Sue Storm’s
source killed. Any hint of impropriety would kill off the government
funding and the investors, especially the Chinese, who are very
cautious in the U.S. marketplace.”

“You said the governor was helping to get the
funding Bates wanted,” said Sharon. “Then why would Bates
use the sex video? He must have known you can’t put that kind
of scandal back in the bottle once it’s out.”

“On the contrary, Bates was counting on it
ruining the governor’s political career. He needed to end the
governor’s term, fast and in an ugly way. Ironically, the
governor’s stringent environmental protection agenda that paved
the way for green energy, now was a major roadblock to the use of
toxic compounds needed in certain green energy products. Simply put,
those green energy companies were not yet green enough to pass their
own muster. Bates needed the laissez-faire republicans back in power.
Throwing Governor Black under the bus was the fastest way to get
there. Bates’ insane but ingenious plan would kill two birds
with one stone, protect his investments and take out the governor.”

“Then, when the investigation got too close,
Bryce made the perfect scapegoat,” said Sharon.

“It almost worked, too,” said Raja. “He
just didn’t count on Vinny.”

“I still say green energy is vital to
protecting the environment,” said Vinny.

“And you would be right,” said Raja.
“Even Bates, in his own way, was trying to make green energy
happen. I would only argue that, in this case, the ends don’t
justify the means.”

“His means being fraud and killing whoever
threatened his plan,” said Rafferty.

“Precisely,” said Raja.

“So once it was clear that Vinny still had the
documents and that the cat was out of the bag, why kill Raja?”
asked Sharon. “Bates was already ruined financially. What good
would it do?”

Detective Rafferty offered a theory. “I think
Bates knew it was over, and just wanted to exact his pound of flesh.
He saw Raja as the one person responsible for destroying him.”

“Montezuma’s revenge,” said Vinny.

“What? I thought that was a bad case of the
runs,” said Rafferty.

“I’m talking about the real
Montezuma—king of the Aztecs. When the Spanish conquistadors
came to Mexico, they slaughtered Montezuma and most of his people.
Although utterly defeated, the king did have his revenge. The
Spaniards all got dysentery from drinking the local water, and most
of them died.”

“So Raja ruined Bates, and Bates wanted a
final measure of revenge,” said Sharon.

“Revenge, maybe,” said Raja. “On
the other hand, sometimes crazy is just crazy.”

“True dat,” added Vinny.

“No kidding,” agreed Sharon. “Bates
might have gotten off scot-free, if only he had let it go.”

“I don’t know about that,” said
Raja. “I’m confident Vinny would have found him.”

“Bam shizzaam,” said Vinny.

“You did uncover most of the evidence,”
said Sharon. “Without you, we never would have found out about
Michael Bates.”

“And Raja would be dead,” said Rafferty.
“You really should be buying Vinny something nice, don’t
you think, Raja?”

“Hmmmmm,” said Vinny, rubbing her chin
and teasing Raja.

“Vinny already has carte blanche for anything
she wants from me,” said Raja.

“So, Bates used Bryce to keep himself at arm’s
length from the whole mess,” said Sharon. “And the two
men were not really working together.”

“Right. They were two men, joined by mutual
crime and ambition, yet destined to destroy each other. And in the
end they were both insane.”

“I see that now,” said Sharon. “What
I still don’t understand is how did Vinny know to tell you to
duck?”

“You want to answer that, Vinny?” asked
Raja.

Vinny’s face lit up. “That night I was
stuck on something Sue Storm had said. I remembered she was surprised
on hearing about the sex video of the governor. We thought she had
sent it to us, so I got to thinking.”

“I told you how dangerous that is,” said
Raja.

“Shut it, Raj. When I took a second look at
the video file I saw that my hunch was right. Someone had doctored it
to look like it came from Sue Storm. I traced the code to the video
file of the governor on Bryce’s computer, only that time it was
doctored to look like it came from me. I traced both files to Michael
Bates. When I couldn’t reach Raja, I hacked the security
cameras on the street. A good camera is a lot more sensitive than the
human eye and with proper adjustment I picked up the shooter hiding
in the shadows across the street from Raja. I was just lucky on the
timing.”

“I am pretty sure I am the lucky one,”
said Raja.

“True dat,” Vinny added.

“You’re lucky to have someone like Vinny
looking over your shoulder,” said Sharon.

“Raja does have some skills of his own,”
said Vinny.

“Like his way of pissing people off,”
said Rafferty.

“Speaking of that, who did shoot the man who
tried to kill you, Raja?” asked Sharon.

“I can answer that in part,” said
Rafferty. “Ballistics have already matched the bullets to the
same ghost who stopped the killer at Clarice Hope’s ranch.
Whoever he is.” Rafferty leveled his gaze at Raja.

“All I can say is it pays to have an angel on
one shoulder and a ghost on the other,” said Raja.

“See what I mean?” said Rafferty. “You
may have forgotten, Raja, but technically you are still in my
personal custody.”

“Yes, what happened to those assault charges
against you for attacking the governor?” asked Sharon.

“The governor dropped them like a hot potato
after Bryce killed himself,” said Rafferty.

“What’s going to happen to Clarice
Hope?” asked Vinny.

“Are you kidding? A woman like that always
lands on her feet. Like a cat,” said Raja.