Chapter 10

I was vaguely aware of a tearful Vanessa hugging me, whispering, “Sorry, so sorry.”

My screams had brought Walker and Pilar racing into the kitchen. They must have been terrified. First by my wailing shrieks, then the sight of Vanessa and me sobbing.

I was dimly aware of sirens all around us. The Wrigley is only a couple of blocks north of Union Station and there was pandemonium all around us. Horns were blaring; we could hear the sounds of cars crashing into each other as panicked drivers fled the scene. The damage ranged from fender benders to three crash-caused fatalities.

Two people, both women, were trampled to death as more than 4,000 screaming audience members frantically tried to escape in every direction. Another 74 were hospitalized in the melee.

I shook my head, trying to clear it, trying to comprehend what we’d just seen; desperately trying to get that final, fatal image out of my mind. Impossible.

The three television station managers were apoplectic. Torn between apologizing for the unbelievable carnage shown, live and in full color, and their hunger to cash in on the most spectacular video any of the broadcast executives had ever seen.

Such a handsome, confident, accomplished man. Reduced to a dead grotesque in a nanosecond.

The New York Post, of course, had no hesitation at exploitation. A photo capture from the video with the bullet three inches from Winston’s forehead appeared over a one-word headline: HEADSHOT!

And that became the name for everything regarding DJ Winston. A shorthand, a descriptive, a tragedy encapsulated by a single word. HEADSHOT!

The video itself became the most viewed ever as word flashed around the world. Psychiatrists will be analyzing that viewership for decades. Unlike with war footage and terrorist decapitations, parents could not keep HEADSHOT! away from their children.

Even had they banned all digital devices, the kids would see it at friends’ houses, during breaks at school; HEADSHOT! was everywhere.

When Walker and Pilar rushed into the kitchen, I began forcing myself to calm down. Vanessa was doing the same. We were still crying, but I was no longer sobbing.

We sat the kids down, explained what had happened. Then we went over to our Main Street Windows and looked at the slow-motion panic in the streets. Traffic around Union Station had come to a complete halt. There were so many car accidents that the streets were impassable.

Families, couples, singles, abandoned their automobiles and were fleeing on foot. Sirens wailed all around us.

Vanessa had her arms around Walker and Pilar. She asked me, “What can we do?”

I felt the same way, felt that we should be doing something. Neither of us could figure out what.

Gene Austin, the Wrigley’s owner, opened the lobby to anyone who simply wanted to get off the street. To be out of the line of fire.

The panic was understandable, but I believed Mr. Laser was finished for the night. He’d lain in wait, south across Pershing Road, up the hill toward the Liberty Memorial, and assassinated Donald Jefferson Winston. The distance turned out to be 176 yards.

Mr. Laser’s work was done. He’d melted away into the night, merely one of thousands leaving the area.

Later, law enforcement would learn that he’d used a 10-year old bolt-action sniper rifle manufactured by Accuracy International Arctic Warfare. He hand-loaded his own ammunition for maximum consistency, maximum accuracy.

Mr. Laser was a professional killer.

Vanessa, Walker, Pilar, Hobo and I went downstairs to the Wrigley lobby. Maybe we could do something, anything, to help.

People, once inside, began calming down. They believed, or sensed, they were out of the line of fire. No one was joking though. it was a serious, thoughtful crowd still buzzing about the assassination. Seen live. Or magnified on that jumbo screen.

Gene Austin opened the lobby bar, drinks were free that night. Vanessa and I helped serve wine, beer, and more substantial stuff. Coffee too. Soft drinks for the few kids in attendance.

Hobo though, was doing the most good. He sensed the general anxiety in the room and went from group to group offering the kind of quiet solace that only a dog can provide. He would lean against a leg, nuzzle a little boy, wag his tail in friendly greetings.

For the first time, watching kids hug him, grownups kneel down, smiling, to pat and stroke his thick coat, I began to understand the concept of ‘comfort dog’. Pilar could take Hobo to a nursing home, a children’s hospital ward, an AA meeting, and he would provide his own simple, positive support.

It wasn’t that much we were doing, that night in the hotel lobby. But it was something.

Two weeks after I had returned from Silicon Valley, my Uber driver, Felicity Adams, flew into Kansas City for a week-long vacation. On me. Well, really on my then-client, Bobsy Atwater.

In retrospect, I’d decided to decide that I had been successful in California. I’d discovered, and contributed to the closure, of a rogue lab in Oakland that had begun experimenting on humans.

That I hadn’t helped my client achieve his originally-hidden agenda -- to profit on that lab’s anti-aging research -- was, I determined, beside the point. The bad guys had been stopped. And many of them were in durance vile. Or at least trapped in the judicial process.

True, Bobsy Atwater had paid me, financed the entire operation. And what did he have to show for his investment? A slightly depleted bank account. His expenditures on the case would have caused me to declare BK, but it was barely a rounding error to him.

In any case, Felicity had been smart, loyal, far more than just a paid driver. Plus she had become intrigued with the whole private detective idea. And I think she had a good perspective. Probably 95% of our time on Bobsy’s case had been boring. Stakeouts, suspects that turned out to be innocent, false leads.

Since she was still interested in my profession, it would be like Bring Your Daughter to Work. Except that Felicity is more than 10 years older than I am. But I’d planned on working on a variety of assignments to give her an overview of life in the medium fast lane.

Of course she knew Walker and Daddy from their time in California. Vanessa and Pilar would be new. Felicity knew that I’m married and that Walker has a little girlfriend. But seeing them in the, so to speak, flesh ... well, Show and Tell.

Helsinki already had a tech team in Kansas City, but no top executives. They flew in two senior vice presidents, both women, but kept them in the background. They wanted the Kansas City operation to be perceived as an American-run company.

So Oasis promoted DJ Winston’s second in command, Dan Bartlett, to the CEO slot. He was to be the new face of the Oasis. The Helsinki duo, working behind the scenes, were really running the operation.

Their first major move was a marketing campaign to attempt to reassure current policy holders that nothing would change despite Winston’s murder. Bartlett was sent on a seemingly endless round of media appearances. He didn’t have the fierce intelligence that DJ did. Nor the charisma. And certainly not the looks.

But he was an amiable plodder, articulate, polite, and affable. He was damage control.

Damage control with three armed guards surrounding him.

Using the assassination footage from three television stations, from three different angles, the FBI was able to triangulate the sniper’s position. Mentally, I still referred to him as Mr. Laser, but for all I knew there could be a team of them, an army. Then, after the assassination, I changed his name to Mr. Sniper.

Corrine Anniston was taken into custody immediately after DJ was killed. She’d been under surveillance so two agents almost instantaneously placed her under arrest. By morning three other hackers who shared a private chat room with Anniston were apprehended. They shared common interests, but were thousands of miles apart.

Even though I was off the case, at least as far as the FBI was concerned, I couldn’t walk away.

I changed my mental checklist into a handwritten one. Not on my laptop, just ink on paper. Too many digital snoops out there.

Starting at what was, to me, the beginning, the players were:

> ‘gorightnow’. The hacker who first had the illegal software. He was the one who shared it with Corrine Anniston.

> ‘showmemoney’ was Karl Nelson, the less skilled hacker who had been contracted to backdoor his way into the Oasis system. He couldn’t.

> Boog Adams was the connective tissue between the hackers and Mr. Laser. Except we, all of us, had mentally changed his name to Mr. Sniper.

> Corrine Anniston could sneak into Oasis using the software from ‘gorightnow’. She had split the $10,000 fee with the banker, Karl Nelson.

> Someone Else. The FBI was convinced that there was at least one layer between Boog Adams and Mr. Sniper. The profilers believed the sniper was too high on the totem pole to do gopher work. And snipers have a different skill set ... a trigger instead of a mouse.

> Mr. Sniper. An individual? Perhaps. Part of a team? More likely.

> Shadow Group. The FBI believed also that Mr. Sniper was merely a contractor, a gun for hire. Someone with an agenda, and money, was behind the assassination of Donald Jefferson Winston.

The DJ Winston murder changed the pace of the investigation. The FBI was still focused on the source of the proprietary software, but a globally visible killing brought tremendous pressure down on Kansas City from DC.

The assassination had occurred immediately after Boog Adams had been arrested. That arrest, and the timing, reinforced the link among the hackers and the Mr. Sniper team.

Anniston, the other hackers, and Boog Adams were now in custody. Everyone I knew of was, understandably, speaking only through attorneys. Everyone I didn’t know of was out there. Somewhere.

David Meriwether -- speaking through an intermediary, neither of the Meriwether brothers appears publicly -- showed remorse at the ‘senseless killing’ of a decent man. Donald Jefferson Winston.

“But that’s the sort of thing that happens when radical foreign interests try to impose their failed policies on the American way of life.”

Almost overnight, Oasis became a Radical Foreign Interest. Fox led the charge as conservative radio, magazines, newspaper columns, web sites, podcasts, direct mail, robocalls ... each and every medium picked up the chant: radical foreign interests.

In a particularly nasty twist, the anti-Oasis campaign played off that New York tabloid’s memorable assassination headline -- HEADSHOT! -- with its own graphic element. A white diagonal slashed through the Oasis logo with BRAIN-DEAD! in blood red letters.

In this money-drenched multimedia campaign, Oasis and BRAIN-DEAD! became inextricably linked.

My mother and father invited us to a Saturday cookout. Good news, the backyard meant Daddy would be cooking. The ‘us’ included Felicity Adams. And of course Vanessa, Walker, and Pilar. I assumed I was invited too.

Daddy hugged Felicity, he’d been impressed with her calm demeanor in Silicon Valley and environs.

Felicity continued her flirtatious ways with Walker. Pilar didn’t mind, it seemed to amuse her.

But mostly Felicity’s KC visit was to hang with me. At my office, as I made the rounds of insurance cases, attorney assignments, private referrals. She seems determined to pursue a private ticket once she’s back in California.

But I think what made the biggest impression on her was seeing the warmth, the easy familial interaction, the love, that just flows naturally in our Wrigley loft. This worried me some; since her divorce, Felicity lives alone. But I can’t fix everything. In fact, not most things.

But I could get her laid. I took her to the Unicorn Club and introduced her to three fellas. Guys that I used to know ... um, rather well. Pre-Vanessa, of course. Felicity spent one night with each of the three. And still showed up in time for a Wrigley breakfast and a ride to my office. All three mornings.

One night after dinner, Pilar took Felicity’s hand and led her to a far corner for a girl-girl chat. I glanced at Walker. Pink ears. Yep. Autofellatio.

The girls came back into the kitchen and Felicity looked at Walker appraisingly. Calmly. Not shocked, not disapproving. More ... hmm.

I woke up, came-to really, in the hospital. St. Luke’s. Room 314, a private room. Pilar, with her round, solemn eyes, was regarding me gravely. She touched the back of my hand and said, “I’ll get Vanessa, they’re down in the cafeteria.”

My head ached dully. My mind was fuzzy. An IV was taped to my wrist. I was awake enough to know some sort of meds had robbed me of most of my clarity. I felt dizzy. Tired. I closed my eyes.

Boog Adams was the fulcrum of the FBI’s search for Mr. Sniper. When a national law enforcement organization puts the full weight and majesty of its office ... well, Adams felt the pressure.

He was the one direct link to the Mr. Sniper team. Someone had contacted him. That someone delineated the goal: hack into Oasis. Mystery man had offered, and then paid, $10,000 when Anniston softwared her way inside.

Under Hank’s direction, Marcy and her tech team were going over every bit of Adams’ digital existence.

And Adams was not a standup guy. He had started singing the minute they arrested him. And kept warbling. Problem was, he didn’t know that much.

But he gave Marcy every password, every online contact he had. Which opened the caseload door to additional investigations. Boog’s world wasn’t the mother lode, but it contained enough digital outlaws to keep the techies busy.

And all this was in addition to Mr. Sniper.

Vanessa held my hand. Walker and Pilar stood on the other side of my bed. Daddy was on his way back, he and Vanessa had spent the night in my hospital room.

Sergeant Louise Finch was waiting in the hall to talk with me once my family had its turn.

Vanessa said, “You were mugged walking from your office to the parking lot. Someone hit you on the head with a piece of pipe. Stole your purse and ran. You have a concussion.”

She squeezed my hand, “They had to shave the side of your head, 17 stitches.”

Walker said, “The doctor says you’re okay. You’ll be sore, but no permanent damage.”

Pilar looked solemnly on, holding Walker’s hand.

Daddy arrived and he and Sergeant Finch came in together. Vanessa took the kids downstairs for a snack.

Daddy kissed my cheek gently and said, “The x-rays, the scans look good. Doctor Harriman is ... confident you’ll make a full recovery.”

Sergeant Finch kissed my other cheek, a first. My eyes felt teary. She said, “It’s a local scumbag. Named Russell. Pronounces it RusSELL. Rascal Russel. We have him on three different security tapes.”

Daddy said, “He’s not in custody yet, but we’ll be chatting with Mr. Russell very soon.”

Sergeant Finch said, “Vanessa erased your cell, but he had already ditched it. Even creeps know about Find My iPhone. She cancelled your debit and credit cards. How much cash did you have?”

My voice was croaky. Daddy held a straw to my lips and I sipped. That hurt. I whispered, “Around $100, not much more.”

Daddy said, “No connection to the Oasis investigation. Just a random cocksucker, a crime of opportunity.”