Darwin's Blade (25 page)

Lawrence sighed, obviously disappointed that Dar knew the punch line. “Well, Saturn is promoting this new so-called shatterproof windshield glass—actually it just has about thirty percent more plastic composite than the usual safety glass—and the owner of this dealership decided to borrow a chicken cannon from the Los Angeles FAA headquarters to demonstrate.”

“I didn't know the FAA was in the business of loaning its chicken cannons out,” said Dar.

“It's not, usually,” said Lawrence. “But the L.A. FAA guy is the Saturn dealer's brother-in-law.”

“Oh,” said Dar. “Well, I hope they didn't fire a dead chicken into even that new Saturn window at six hundred miles per hour.”

Lawrence shook his head and sipped his own coffee. “Naw. Just a little over two hundred miles per hour. But it was still supposed to be hot stuff. They were shooting one of Up Front Sam the Saturn Man's commercials this morning and they used the chicken cannon and Sister Martha.”

“Oh, shit,” said Dar. Sister Martha had been a nun before leaving the convent to peddle Saturns full-time. She starred in most of Up Front Sam's Saturn commercials. Sister Martha was about five feet tall, sixty-one years old, and looked like an apple doll with rosy cheeks and vaguely blue hair. Her favorite sales practice had been jumping up and down on a removed plastic door of a Saturn sedan, to show how they wouldn't bend or ding. That was before Saturn went back to steel doors because in accidents, the plastic tended to burn like the smelly petroleum product it was. Now Sister Martha just kicked tires and looked lovable while advertising non-negotiably priced sedans and coupes to the haggle-challenged. Trudy had once commented while watching a Sister Martha from Up Front Sam's commercial, “Butter wouldn't melt in that old broad's mouth.”

The salespeople were running around in agitated circles. The commercial video crew members were equally nonplussed, arguing with each other over portable radios even though they were standing only twenty feet apart. The commercial director appeared to be about nineteen years old and wore a ball cap, a ponytail, an attempt at a goatee, and a pale, shocked expression.

The chicken cannon was relatively imposing: a thirty-foot barrel mounted on a tractor-trailer platform that could be raised on a hydraulic scissors hoist—Dar immediately thought of poor Counselor Esposito—with a jury-rigged breech mechanism that looked like an air lock for a chicken-sized space shuttle. The compressor was still humming away, the cannon aimed at a brand-new Saturn coupe sitting about fifteen meters from the muzzle.

Dar walked through the milling, babbling crowds and took a look at the coupe. The chicken had passed through the windshield like a bullet, taken off the head restraint on the top of the driver's seat, punched a chicken-sized hole in the rear window of the coupe, and embedded itself in the cement-block wall of the dealership about fifty feet away.

The dealer, Up Front Sam, a skinny liberal-arts major gone bad but still given to wearing nubbly Harris tweed jackets—even on this broiling summer day—had no clue as to who Lawrence and Dar were, but he was babbling away at them as if confessing to his parish priest. “We had no idea…I had no idea…My brother-in-law's FAA experts.…
experts
…said that the windshield would be fine in impacts up to two hundred and fifty miles per hour…The dial was set at two hundred…I'm sure of that…Sister Martha was in the driver's seat…we were ready to roll tape…then the director suggested one test run…I didn't want to waste the time and money, they charge by the second, you know…but Sister Martha insisted, so she got out of the car…We figured it would just take a few minutes to clean up the mess on the windshield and then we could shoot for real…”

“Where's Sister Martha?” interrupted Lawrence.

“In her sales cubicle,” said the dealer, close to tears. “The paramedics are giving her oxygen.”

Lawrence led the way into the showroom, sniffing appreciatively at the new-car-temple incense of new-car smell. Dar thought they'd be lucky to be on their way before Larry bought a new car just for the hell of it.

Sister Martha, in full nun uniform, had finished her intake of oxygen but was sobbing uncontrollably. Two female paramedics, Martha's family, and a herd of curious bystanders stood around trying to comfort her.

“It w-w-w-w-w-was the ha-ha-ha-bit,” she said. “I've never w-w-w-worn it on any of these com-com-commercials b-b-b-before, never. It's the L-L-L-Lord's way of telling me that I c-c-crossed the line this time.”

“She's all right,” said Lawrence. He and Dar went back outside to inspect the tail end of the chicken still visible in the impact crater in the wall. They headed for Dar's Land Cruiser.

“Whose insurance brought you out here?” asked Dar as they passed the video crew.

“None. No involvement at all,” Lawrence said. “Trudy just heard it on the police scanner and I thought it might brighten your day.”

Suddenly Up Front Sam was beside them again. Evidently someone had told him that they were accident investigators. “I talked to my brother-in-law,” he said. “The engineers insist that if the specifications for the windshield were accurate, the chicken should have just bounced off.” He looked back at the hole in the windshield. “Mother of God, what did we do wrong? Did Saturn lie to us?”

“No,” said Lawrence. “That windshield could probably take an ostrich strike at two hundred miles per hour.”

“Then what…how did we…why…how in God's name…” said the dealer.

Dar decided to be succinct.

“Next time,” he said, “defrost the chicken.”

They were two thirds of the way back to San Diego when Dar saw the huge traffic tie-up ahead of them. Emergency lights were flashing. All but one lane was closed heading into the city. Cars were backing up to the last exit ramp or illegally crossing the median to head back north to avoid the tie-up. Dar drove the Land Cruiser onto the breakdown lane and then far out onto the grassy shoulder to get as close to the mess as possible.

A CHP officer angrily flagged them down fifty yards from the actual scene. Dar saw at least three ambulances, a fire truck, and half a dozen CHP vehicles around the jackknifed trailer truck and the heap of automobiles in the right lane. He and Lawrence showed their credentials—Larry had legitimate press-photographer credentials as well as his insurance investigator's ID and an honorary membership in the CHP.

Even with all of the vehicles blocking the scene, Dar could see what had happened. The truck was a car-carrier hauling new Mercedeses—E 500s from the look of those still on the bottom layer of the carrier and those in the heap on the highway. There were striated skid marks across all three lanes of traffic. The hood and windshield of an old Pontiac Firebird were just visible, squashed under a heap of tumbled silver Mercedeses. When the trailer had jackknifed and finally struck the Pontiac, the impact had torn loose all of the new cars on the top level. Not all of them had fallen on the old Pontiac—Dar could see one new Mercedes upside down on the breakdown lane and another battered but on its wheels two hundred feet down the highway—but at least four of the heavy vehicles had dropped on the Firebird. Tow trucks and a small crane were carefully lifting the Mercedeses off the Pontiac. Firefighters and rescue crews were using the Jaws of Life to cut through the A-pillars of the smashed Firebird, and at least one medic was on all fours, shouting encouragement to someone still in the wreck. The occupants of the Firebird obviously had not yet been extricated.

Dar and Lawrence walked back to the cab of the trailer where the driver—a big man with a beard and beer belly who was shaking and weeping much harder than Sister Martha had been—was trying to talk to the CHP. The state patrolmen started to push Dar and Lawrence away, but CHP Sergeant Paul Cameron saw them and waved them forward. The trooper's face was set in grim lines as he leaned forward, gently patting the trucker's shoulder and waiting for more description. Dar looked beyond the accident scene and saw young Patrolman Elroy on his knees amidst the flares and all the broken glass, vomiting into the grass.

“… and I swear to Christ, I did everything I could to avoid the Pontiac,” the trucker was saying, oblivious of his own shaking or the tears pouring down his sunburned cheeks. “I was just trying to get around the poor bastard, but there were cars on either side of me. Boxing me in. They didn't stop. Every time I changed lanes, the driver of the Firebird changed lanes…When I braked, he braked harder…We must have crossed five lanes like that. Then I hit him and jackknifed. Couldn't hold it…all the load…Jesus.”

“How did you get out?” asked Sergeant Cameron, gripping the trucker's heaving shoulder tightly with his huge hand.

“The impact popped the windshield of the cab right out,” said the trucker, pointing. “I crawled out onto the top of the wreckage and managed to get down…That's when I heard all the screaming…the screaming…”

Cameron gripped harder. “You're sure it was the adult male who was driving, son?”

“Yeah,” the trucker said, and lowered his eyes, his huge frame shaking.

Dar and Lawrence walked back to the wreckage, being careful to stay out of the way of the rescue workers. They had managed to pull all but one of the heaped Mercedeses off the flattened Firebird and now they were busy cutting away the A-pillars and peeling back the roof to get to the victims in the front seat.

The driver was still alive, but covered with blood as the paramedics gingerly lifted him out, immediately getting him strapped onto a litter and bracing his neck. He was an overweight Hispanic man, groaning and saying over and over,
“Los niños…los niños.”

His wife was dead in the front seat. It looked as if she had not been belted in but had curled up in a fetal position on the passenger seat. To Dar's eye, it looked as if impact concussion had killed her, not the crushing of the roof, which only came down to the level of the headrest in the front of the car.

The workers redoubled their efforts to get the last Mercedes lifted and pulled off as they continued peeling back the roof and cutting the B-pillars away. Actually, there were no real B-pillars left. As the last Mercedes was lifted off by chain and unceremoniously dumped into the grass, it was obvious that the rear of the Firebird had been crushed down to the level of the seat cushions by the terrible weight of the heaped cars. All of the Pontiac's tires had been blown and flattened. One paramedic was still on his knees, still calling encouragement to the victims in the back, even as the firefighters tore at the collapsed roof with their gloved hands, attempting to peel back the metal like the lid of a sardine can.

“There was a lot of screaming and crying for the first twenty minutes or so,” Cameron said softly to Dar. “Nothing for the last few minutes.”

“The wife maybe?” said Lawrence.

Cameron shook his head. He took his trooper hat off and wiped the sweatband. “Dead on impact. The driver…the father…he could just moan. The screaming was all coming from the…” He broke off as the power tools managed to tear the last of the roof of the Pontiac free, ripping the trunk lid off as it did so.

The two children were on the floor of the Firebird, beneath the level of the crushed roof. Both were dead. Both the girl and her little brother were cut and bruised, but none of the cuts or bruises looked serious. As the paramedics gently wiped away the blood, Dar saw how bloated their faces both were. The little girl's eyes were still open, very wide. Dar knew at once that they had survived the crash only to be asphyxiated by the weight of the vehicles pressing down on them. The dead little boy was still desperately clutching his older sister's right hand. Her left hand and arm were in a fresh cast. Both children's faces were blue and swollen.

“Fuck,” said Sergeant Cameron softly. It was a prayer, of sorts.

The ambulance roared away with the father in the back. The rescue workers began the slow process of extricating the bodies.

“There's a baby,” Dar said dully.

Lawrence and the CHP men around them turned their attention his way.

“I saw this family just a couple of days ago in the Los Angeles Medical Center,” said Dar. “They had a baby with them. Somewhere there's a baby.”

Cameron nodded to one of the CHP men, who began talking on his portable radio.

Lawrence, Dar, and Paul Cameron walked around to the back of the flattened Pontiac.

“Oh, goddammit,” said the sergeant. “Goddamn them. Goddamn him. Goddamn them.”

In the flattened trunk of the Firebird, Dar could see three sandbags and two fully inflated spare tires, still on their rims. A buffer for absorbing the shock of a rear-ending. Standard swoop-and-squat protection. A capper's guarantee to his recruited squat-car drivers that there would be no real injuries on their shortcut to big insurance payouts and riches in
los Estados Unidos.

Dar turned abruptly and walked farther into the grass of the roadside.

“Dar?” called Lawrence.

Dar kept his back to the accident scene. He took a card out of his wallet and his Flip Phone out of his shirt pocket.

She answered on the second ring. “Olson here.”

“Count me in,” said Dar. He cut the connection and closed the phone.

S
ydney Olson seemed to have taken over the entire basement of Dickweed's Justice Center. She had at least five more assistants working at an equal number of new computers and six more phone lines; her operation had spilled over from the single old interrogation room to the observation room behind the one-way glass, into two more unused interrogation rooms, and even out into the hallway where the male secretary now screened visitors. Dar wondered if the prisoners in the holding cells at the far end of the long corridor and their sullen guards were the only ones left in the basement not involved in this expanding empire.

The meeting started precisely at 8:00
A.M.
on Friday morning. A long folding table had been set up in Syd's main office. The map of Southern California still took up most of the blank wall, but Dar noticed that there was an extra red pin—standing for a swoop-and-squat fatal accident—on the I-15 just outside the San Diego city limits, a new green pushpin where Esposito had died at the construction site, and a second yellow pin—a Dar assassination attempt—right on the hill in San Diego. Half a dozen more yellow pins still waited at the side of the map.

This was a serious operational meeting: neither Dickweed nor the local DA had been invited. Dar was surprised to see that Lawrence and Trudy had been.

“What?” said Lawrence when he saw Dar's quizzical expression. “You expect us not to be in on this?”

“Besides,” Trudy had said, bringing Lawrence a Styrofoam cup of coffee from the big urn near the door, “the NICB is paying us.”

Jeanette Poulsen, the attorney representing the National Insurance Crime Bureau, looked up and nodded at this.

While Syd was connecting her laptop computer to a projector, Dar looked at the other people taking their places at the table. Besides Larry, Trudy, and Poulsen from the NICB, there was also Tom Santana—sitting at Syd's right—and Santana's boss at the State Division of Insurance Fraud, Bob Gauss. Next to Gauss was Special Agent Jim Warren, and across the table from the FBI man sat Captain Tom Sutton from the CHP. The only other law enforcement officers present were Frank Hernandez from the San Diego detectives' bureau and a man whom Dar hadn't met before—a quiet, middle-aged, accountant-looking type whom Syd introduced as Lieutenant Byron Barr from the LAPD's Internal Affairs Division. Both Captains Hernandez and Sutton gave Barr the kind of suspicious, malignant squint that police reserve for all Internal Affairs officers. Syd kept it sharp and succinct, saying flatly that Lieutenant Barr was there because there was overwhelming evidence that some plainclothes detectives in the LAPD were involved in this conspiracy.

Dar saw Hernandez and Sutton exchange quick glances and nods. He interpreted this as
Oh, well, the LAPD, yeah, sure. Fuck 'em.

“All right,” said Syd, turning off all lights save for her computer and projector. She had a remote in her right hand. “Let's get started.”

Suddenly the white screen at the far end of the table was illuminated with a color photograph of the pile of Mercedeses on the flattened Firebird.

“Most of you are aware that this accident occurred yesterday morning on the I-15 just beyond the city limits,” Syd said softly.

More photos. The cars being lifted off. The driver being extricated. The bodies. Dar realized that these were Lawrence's photos, taken with his regular Nikon as they viewed the wreck, then scanned and sent to Syd via e-mail. The focus and detail were very clear.

“The only survivor of the crash was the driver, Ruben Angel Gomez, a thirty-one-year-old Mexican national with a temporary U.S. driver's license. His wife, Rubidia, and their children—Milagro and Marita—all died in the collision with a jackknifed car carrier under lease to the San Diego dealership of Kyle Baker Mercedes.”

The close-up photos of the dead children clicked by. Syd stepped into the light of the projector. “There was a baby—seven-month-old Maria Gomez. We found her late last night in the care of a neighbor in the apartment complex where the Gomezes were living. Social services has taken charge.”

Syd stepped back. The photos showed the trunk of the Firebird. She did not have to explain to this audience what the sandbags and extra wheels meant.

“Mr. Gomez is in critical but stable condition,” said Syd. “He underwent two operations yesterday and still hasn't regained consciousness long enough to talk to investigators. At least this was the last I heard this morning…”

“He's still out of it,” said Captain Frank Hernandez. “I called over there ten minutes ago. Keeps calling for his kids. They had to sedate him again. We have a Spanish-speaking uniformed officer there waiting for him to come out of it, but so far nothing.”

“Is he in protective custody?” asked CHP Captain Sutton.

Hernandez shrugged. “To all intents and purposes,” he said.

Syd went on with her briefing. The projected computer image now displayed a flow chart, in pyramidal form. The bottom dozen boxes were filled with the photos of the four Gomezes involved in the crash, Richard Kodiak, Mr. Phong—the man who had been impaled on the rebar—Mr. Hernandez—an earlier swoop-and-squat victim—and other faces and names, most of them Hispanic. The second tier of boxes in the pyramid included photos of Jorgé Murphy Esposito, Abraham Willis—an attorney also known to be a capper, who had died in a suspicious auto accident recently—and well-known Southern California injury-mill cappers: Bobby James Tucker from L.A., Roget Velliers from San Diego, Nicholas van Dervan from Orange County.

Above the cappers were several empty boxes over the word
Helpers.
Above that another long row labeled
Doctors.
Above the doctors' row, there were several empty frames labeled
Enforcers.
At the top of the pyramid were three boxes—two empty and one with a photo of Dallas Trace.

Dar saw the San Diego police captain and the CHP officer react with visible amazement. The others in the room, including Inspector Tom Santana, Special Agent Warren, Bob Gauss from the Insurance Fraud Division, and Counselor Poulsen from the NICB, seemed to be in on the news. If Lawrence and Trudy were surprised, they did not show it.

“Jesus Christ,” said the CHP's Captain Sutton, “you can't be serious, Investigator. He's one of the most famous lawyers in the goddamned country. And one of the richest.”

“That's where some of the seed money has come from for this expanded fraud operation,” said Syd. Her computer remote included a laser pointer and now she put a red dot right on Counselor Trace's forehead. She clicked a button. A lean, expressionless man's face appeared in the
Enforcers
row of frames. It was a fuzzy photograph.

“This is Pavel Zuker,” said Syd. “Ex–Red Army sniper. Ex-KGB. Ex–Russian mafia…although that title is probably still active. We found his fingerprint on the Tikka 595 Sporter that was used as a sniper weapon in the attack on Dr. Minor.”

Captain Hernandez's dark complexion darkened further. “My forensics people went all over that weapon…They didn't find a thing.”

Special Agent Warren folded his hands on the tabletop. “The Bureau lab at Quantico found a single print on the inside of the recoil lug mortise when they disassembled the weapon,” he said softly. “It was very faint, but computer augmentation brought it out. We have a positive match on Zuker through the CIA data banks.”

Syd clicked a button and a drawing appeared in the empty panel next to Pavel Zuker. It was a police artist's sketch of a man in a beard, labeled
Gregor Yaponchik.

“The FBI has reason to believe that Yaponchik entered the country early this spring,” said Syd. “At the same time Zuker did.”

“Where did we get such information?” Captain Sutton asked. “Customs and Immigration?”

Syd hesitated.

“It came through channels from various Russian assets,” said Special Agent Warren.

Sutton nodded, but the massive CHP officer also sat back and folded his arms across his chest as if expressing doubt.

“Yaponchik and Zuker were a sniper team in Afghanistan,” said Syd. “They probably were working for the KGB even then, but they came to our various agencies' attention in the late eighties…right before the fall of the Soviet Union. After the dust settled, both were working for Chechnyan elements of the Russian mafia.”

“Hit men?” said Lawrence.

“General enforcers,” said Syd. “But in the end…yes, hit men. Both the Bureau and the CIA think that Yaponchik and Zuker were directly involved in the Miles Graham affair.”

Everyone in the room had heard about the millionaire entrepreneur Miles Graham. He had been the most famous of the capitalist wheelers and dealers shot to death in Moscow in recent years for not paying enough in bribes to the proper people.

Dar cleared his throat. He was reluctant to speak now, but also felt compelled to. “You say that Yaponchik and Zuker were in Afghanistan,” he said softly, “as a sniper team? Americans and British use two-man sniper teams, but I seem to remember that the Soviets in Afghanistan were slow to deploy snipers, and when they finally did, it was a three-man section for every rifle squad.”

Syd looked to Special Agent Warren. The FBI man nodded. He was holding a PDA with a dimly lit screen. From any angle other than his, the screen would be unreadable. He tapped at its buttons. “You're right,” said Warren. “Three-man sniper squads were the rule, but this information says that Yaponchik and Zuker worked as a two-man team, more in the American style.”

“Who was the shooter and who was the spotter?” asked Dar.

Special Agent Warren tapped at the handheld PDA and looked at the screen for a second. “According to the CIA field reports, both men were trained as snipers, but Yaponchik was an officer—a lieutenant in the army and then promoted in the KGB. Zuker was a sergeant.”

“Then Yaponchik was the primary shooter,” said Dar, who was thinking,
But Zuker, the number two man, was sent out to deal with me.
“Do you happen to have an assessment of the weapons the team used in Afghanistan?”

“The notes I received mention, quote, ‘assumed to have utilized Dragunov SVD sniper rifles in Afghanistan and in training Serbian snipers near Sarajevo.' ”

Dar nodded. “Old but reliable.
Snayperskaya Vintovka Dragunova.
”

Syd's head turned quickly. “I didn't know that you spoke Russian, Dar.”

“I don't,” said Dar. “Sorry for the interruption. Go ahead.”

Syd said, “No, go on. You know something relevant here.”

Dar shook his head. “When the American businessman in Moscow was killed…Graham…I remember reading that it was a double tap to the head from a distance of six hundred meters. A newspaper report said that the bullets recovered were 7.62-by-fifty-four-millimeter-rimmed. An SVD shoots that type of load and is accurate at that range. Barely.”

Syd stared at him. “I thought that you didn't like guns.”

“I don't,” said Dar. “I don't like sharks, either. But I can tell the difference between a great white and a hammerhead.”

Syd resumed her briefing in a concise but clear and unhurried voice. “Gentlemen, Jeanette, Trudy, we're officially authorized to extend and intensify this investigation. We have reasonable cause to believe that Counselor Dallas Trace is involved with the recent dramatic increase in staged highway and accident fatalities in Southern California and that a new network of fraudulent liability claims has been established by Mr. Trace and other prominent lawyers, as yet unidentified.”

She clicked on another picture, this one of an elderly priest, smiling above his Roman collar. “This is Father Roberto Martin. Father Martin is retired now, but for years he was pastor of St. Agnes Church in Chavez Ravine—the Latino neighborhood near Dodger Stadium. Father Martin is a compassionate man and looked out for his mostly Hispanic parishioners. As long ago as the 1970s, Father Martin dreamt of founding a charity organization which would help the poor Mexican and Latin American immigrants. He helped raise money through the diocese and various L.A. businesses willing to donate to such a hypothetical charity—Father Martin had come up with the name long ago, Helpers of the Helpless—but to get the foundation organized, he turned to this man…”

A photo appeared of a plump, vaguely Hispanic-looking man with perfect hair, a smile as broad as Father Martin's, and an obviously expensive suit and tie. “This is the attorney Father Martin turned his dream over to,” said Syd. “Counselor William Rogers…You probably know his name, an important attorney with several offices in East L.A. and impeccable political connections. Rogers is a well-known fund-raiser and was the number two man in the election efforts of L.A.'s current mayor. Father Martin hoped that Attorney Rogers would head up the Helpers of the Helpless and keep the charity going after he—Father Martin—retired.”

“Did Mr. Rogers agree?” asked Lawrence.

“Not quite,” said Syd. “Rogers set up a codirectorship, with his wife, Maria, sharing the leadership with a community activist and one of Rogers's own investigators, Juan Barriga.”

Barriga's photo joined that of Rogers on the
Helpers
row of the pyramid. The men and women around the table nodded. They all knew that investigators working for attorneys who specialized in liability cases all too often found insurance fraud irresistible, these men and women spent their lives and careers interviewing slip-and-fall artists, swoop-and-squat experts, cappers, Medicaid cheats, flop artists, accident gangs, unethical doctors, professional whiplash victims, and fraudulent claimants of every sort. More important, the investigators invariably saw how quickly most insurance companies settled with these claimants to avoid more costly litigation.

“Juan Barriga has spent the past three years setting up a network of attorneys and doctors to work with those referred from Helpers of the Helpless. Both Bill and Maria Rogers select the Helpers volunteers personally. In addition, the Helpers of the Helpless receive referrals from the Mexican, Colombian, El Salvadoran, Costa Rican, Panamanian, and other consulates, as well as from Catholic parishes and various Protestant churches from all over the state.”