Every redwood chair surrounding the long mohogany table in the conference room of the 13th floor was occupied. Max Trowell stood at the end of the table loosening his tie and unbuttoning the top button of his collar. He needed to breathe and the temperature felt like it was rising even though it was only his blood pressure rising.
Max was not having a good day. His two boys were turning into hellions. Yesterday one of the boys held the family cat under the electric garage door while the other one pushed the button. It turned out to be a bloody mess. Max had to run the cat to the vet where it was pronounced dead on arrival. When he got home he took both of the boys into an empty bedroom and spanked their behinds.
Murmurs echoed throughout the conference room as Max tried to come up with an opening statement. The 15 Federal employees seated around the long mahogany table were all good looking people except for an old haggard man sitting next to Carter and wearing a red Beret.
“ Who are you?” Asked Max looking sharply into the old man's lurid eyes.
Carter stood up immediately and rested a hand on the old man's shoulder who seemed to be shook up by Max's blatant tone of voice. “ Mr. Trowell, this is my friend private investigator John Stiller. He's investigating the murder of Horace Burns which we feel might be linked to our suspect. I asked him to join us in this meeting.” Carter looked around at the other agents to tell if they had a problem with Mr.Stiller sitting in on the meeting.
Nobody objected so he sat back down in his seat. Max still looked upset and exasperated. He folded his arms and glowered at Carter. “ How come I never was told about the Horace Burns case?” He asked with a green vein throbbing in his forehead.
Stiller whispered “ How come this guy is so uptight?” Into Carter's ear. Carter tried not to smirk and cleared his throat. “ Sir, we've been extremely busy and I guess it slipped my mind. We're still not 100% positive there's even a link at all but....” Max interrupted him in mid-sentence and raised his hand to silence him.
“ Okay, understood. Let's talk about what we know so far about this so called Gadget Man.” He said loosening his crimson tie a little more.
Almost in perfect unison everybody seated at the table took a long sip of their coffee and picked up their pens ready to jot down notes. This was the part where Paul usually took over since he was always the smart one. Unfortunately Paul was not in today and everybody knew why. Today was Paul Newman's 33rd birthday and everyone suspected he was probably celebrating his special day with his queer boyfriend. Nobody had ever met or saw pictures of Paul's boyfriend but they all knew he existed.
Carter boldly got out of his chair like a lawyer getting ready to call out an objection. He waltzed over to the whiteboard and picked up a black marker. A persona had already been written out about the things they already knew or thought they knew about the Gadget Man.
Carter pulled the cap off of the marker and circled the word 5 twists. Max began to pass out sketches of the Gadget Man that had derived from the help of the ex-city councilman and Steve's friend Bobby Fisher who spotted the Gadget Man at the races.
The sketches showed the Gadget Man wearing a hoody and big thick sunglasses. His eye patch had never became known.
Carter cleared his throat and sneaked a quick glance at his Doc Martins shoes. “ I thank you all for coming today. I'm sorry my partner agent Newman can't be here today. It's his birthday and I guess he's doing only God knows what.”
The whole conference room giggled except for Max. Max never caught wind of the rumors about Paul. Carter wiped the cocky smirk off his face and continued on. “ The good news is Tina Anderson has fully recovered. However, the amnesia she sustained is so bad she now has the mentality of a 5 year old child. She could be the only tangible evidence we have but she is of no help to us because she can't remember a thing. All she remembers is something about a lot of trees and running towards a light.”
Carter paused for a moment tapping the marker on his chin and looking at John Stiller. The private investigator gave him a curtly nod as if to say “ You're doing okay.” Carter pointed to the 5 twists on the whiteboard. “ This is what I want to focus on right here.” He said tapping what he circled, “ All the wiring configurations from the remnants of the devices we found always had 5 twists. Not 3 or 4 but always exactly 5. We've also concluded that by the way the wire was spun our perp is left handed. These 5 twists are believed to be some kind of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). This discovery was made by agent Newman upon close examination.” Carter paused again giving the note takers a chance to catch up. He squinted a little and couldn't believe what he was seeing. A young male agent with spiky hair and a chiseled chin was playing footsies with a cute blond seated across from him.
Carter thought about embarrassing them both but the blond was his friend. “ Oh yeah, before I forget. We also presume that the perp is a smoker. Tina's clothes reeked of cigarettes when we found her.”
One of the agents raised his hand. He was a well groomed fledgling trying to make a good start on his new career. “ Were any cigarette butts found at any of the crime scenes that we could draw DNA from?” Asked the freckled agent.
Carter shook his head incredulously like he had just head a stupid question. “ No we didn't find any. I have a gut feeling that our perp may have once worked as an electrician or HVAC or even on telephones. He may have done some residential work that we could investigate to look for these 5 twists. I say we call around to different companies and inquire about any current or former employees that are tall,left handed smokers with a possible background.”
Carter paused again watching Max completely ignoring him and walking over to the window. “I think we should show this sketch to every company involving electrical wiring even the cable companies.......boss what seems to be the problem?” Carter was filling with ire as he watched Max off to the corner staring out the window.
The room got quiet and everyone focused their attention on Max who seemed intrigued by whatever was going on outside. “ Something weird is happening. Come check this out.”
Carter still felt thwarted but he reluctantly walked over to his boss. As he approached him he could hear car alarms going off and what sounded like an incessant horn growing louder.
“ The truck!” Pointed Max, “ Look at the truck!”
A huge U-Haul truck was zig-zagging down the street sounding a horn and bumping into parked vehicles while it came towards the FBI building. A few other agents stood up from the table and joined Carter and Max by the window to see what all the commotion was about. The big U-Haul truck looked like it was out of control and picking up speed.
Max folded his arms and squinted in disbelief as the sounding horn grew louder coming towards them. “ Who's driving that truck?” Asked Max resting his sweaty palms against the glass and leaving a smudge.
Carter gaped in horror. He could not believe what he was seeing! “ Sir, nobody is driving the truck. We have to leave here immediately!”
Murmurs echoed across the room as people shuffled around looking at each other with awkwardness as if someone might know what's going on.
Carter shouted while waving his hands. “ People this is an emergency! We're about to be attacked. Everyone must evacuate the building immediately!”
Just as the agents scrambled towards the door crushing each other and forgetting everything they were taught, the building shook like a violent earthquake. Then there was a pause like the calm before a storm. That's when bedlam broke loose.
Vinny sat in his Toyota Tacoma parked on top of a parking garage. He was completely enthralled. This was fun. The Gadget Man likes gadgets. A wire ran from his laptop into the antenna mounted on the truck. This was the coolest most realistic video game ever! He had just crashed a stolen U-Haul truck into the FBI building by remote control using the joystick on his laptop. An idea he got while watching the television show “Myth Busters” when they used to rig up old police cars by remote control to perform experiments. Vinny had taken his project one step further and used a U-Haul truck. The U-Haul truck had a wireless camera mounted on the dashboard so he could see everything on his laptop. But that wasn't all. The U-Haul truck was full of enough explosives to take out the entire building!
“Do it now! Do it now!” Taunted the voices inside his head. Vinny's shaky index finger made it's way to the enter key on the laptop. “ Hasta la Vista Baby!” He muttered to himself as he pushed down on the button.
A thunderous sound reverberated through the building. The building shook more. Lights shattered from the ceiling and fire broke out everywhere. Frenzied FBI employees ran down the corridor screaming only to run into an escape route blocked by fire. Then they ran in the other direction looking for a safe exit as debris and rubble fell on their heads. Carter was amidst the fury and panicking along with the others. He heard a woman crying from inside an elevator. She seemed to be trapped.
“ Help me! Help me please!” She cried.
The elevator door was slightly ajar, maybe three inches open. Carter wedged his manly hands into the crack of the door and tried to pry the door open. It was of no use, he simply wasn't strong enough. He heard a clanking sound down the hallway of a water pipe falling onto the floor. God is good, he thought to himself. “ I'll be right back!” He hollered to the distraught woman. “ No,no, please don't leave me!” She pleaded.
Carter raced down the smoky hallway while taking notice that the frenzied crowd was depleting. Praise the Lord they must have found an escape route. Carter picked up the pipe and ran back to the elevator. The helpless woman was sitting down head in her knees crying. Carter rammed the pipe into the crack and pulled with great adrenaline force. Slowly but surely the elevator door began to open. A few more tugs and there was finally enough room for the woman to slip through. Carter grabbed her hand and led her to the crowd that was making a bee-line towards an exit.
A series of explosions erupted from underneath the building making a loud popping sound. At first Carter thought someone was shooting but then it dawned on him what was going on. The evidence room down below must have caught fire. Among the confiscated contraband was all kinds of ammunition, even some grenades the Feds had recently seized from a White Supremacist group in Virginia.
Carter's eyes burned as he tried to see through the black haze of smoke as he grasped the woman's hand leading her down a fire escape. The building had turned into an inferno that Lazereth had once described in the Bible. Carter could hear human screams of people sounding like they were trapped but he could not identify where they were coming from. His lungs were filling up with smoke that partially smelled like reefer and he needed to get out of the building before it was too late.
Vinny sat in the driver's seat gazing through his Bushnel binoculars watching the show on the roof top of the parking garage. His favorite song from the BloodHound gang was playing on the CD player. “ The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.” A song his Marine buddies used to play inside the tanks right before they blew something up usually to get the soldiers all jazzed up.
The Gadget Man watched the FBI building ablaze as Federal employees trapped on the 10th floor jumped out the window and splattered onto the streets. This was so neat and phenomenal. It was like 9/11 all over again! Fire trucks and ambulances encompassed the building trying to stifle the enormous fire while survivors eluded the building waving their hands frantically for some medical assistance from EMT.
Vinny squinted through the Bushnels with contempt watching survivors emerge from the edifice and out onto the streets. He was hoping for no survivors but he felt enlivened when he saw their faces covered in soot and blood. This was a big victory for the Gadget Man. He was wondering how he compared to Timothy Mcveigh when suddenly there was a knock on his window.