Programmed for terror, p.1
Programmed for Terror, page 1
PROGRAMMED FOR TERROR
By B. W. Battin
A Gordian Knot True Crime Novel
Gordian Knot is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Digital Edition Copyright © 2016 B. W. Battin
LICENSE NOTES
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Meet the Author
B. W. Battin grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. After serving four years in the U.S. Coast Guard, he graduated from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He became a reporter at KOAT-TV in Albuquerque, then moved on to TV stations in Shreveport, Louisiana; Rapid City, South Dakota; and Duluth, Minnesota, where he wrote his first published novel, Angel of the Night. After it was published, he became a full-time writer. One of his novels, Smithereens, was made into a TV movie for NBC. His novels and short stories have been translated into various languages, and he has ghost-written novels for other authors. He lives in Belen, New Mexico, with his wife Sandy, whom he describes as the love of his life. They met in Albuquerque while they were both in the news business.
Book List
Thrillers
Angel of the Night
Catch Me If You Can
Demented
Fair Game
Programmed for Terror
Serial Blood
Smithereens
Tender Prey
The Attraction
The Boogeyman
The Creep
Horror
Into the Pit
It’s Loose
Mary, Mary
Night Sounds
Satan’s Servant
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For my mother, Dorothy Battin
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This story takes place when few homes had computers, at a time when commercial Internet service was still years away. A home computer was a clunky box with a monitor that took up most of a desktop. It could communicate with other machines only by using a dialup modem. Squeaking, squawking, and hissing, it would tie up the phone line for hours. Those early computers used big floppy disks that held a tiny fraction of the information on a USB flash drive so small it can get lost in one’s pocket. Those first machines were less powerful than a cell phone. But even then, even with the technology in its infancy, bad people were figuring out how to use it to do bad things. This story can be considered a warning, a hint of what was to come.
BWB
January, 2016
PROGRAMMED FOR TERROR
ONE
Suddenly Jessica was afraid. Certain that someone was following her, she turned around and scanned the sidewalk, seeing no one familiar, no one who quickly stopped to look into a store window, no one who ducked into a doorway. Despite the oppressive heat, she shivered.
She had no explanation for the chilly feeling that had come over her, the sudden certainty that someone was behind her, watching her. Well, there’s no one there now, she thought, beginning to feel foolish. So get a grip on yourself.
As she resumed walking, the uneasy feeling returned, and she pushed it away. This had happened to her three or four times in the past few weeks. It worried her a little. Unjustified fear was a sickness.
A middle-aged man in a business suit emerged from a drugstore and began walking toward her. As he neared her, his eyes explored her body, lingering on her breasts, then dropping lower. When he realized that she was aware of his staring, his eyes instantly shifted to the traffic in the street, and he hurried past her.
Tall and slender with red hair and a lightly freckled complexion, Jessica Marie Russell was accustomed to the stares of men. Although she found their interest flattering, it also made her uncomfortable. A quiet person, Jessica liked her privacy; she avoided social gatherings, except for the company Christmas party, at which she usually stayed in the background, hoping to go largely unnoticed.
Ahead was her destination, the First National Bank of Mayfield, Missouri. A suburb of Kansas City, the community had a small but still functioning downtown, with stores and offices and a white building that served as a combination firehouse, police station, and city hall. The street along which she was walking was Missouri Avenue, the main drag. Although it had been blacktopped a few years ago, during most of Jessica’s life it had been brick. The street was smoother now, but as far as Jessica was concerned, the paving crew had covered over a lot of Mayfield’s character along with the bumps.
Entering the bank, she stepped from the muggy heat of a Missouri summer into the cool air within the building. How did people survive before air conditioning? she wondered. At a desk with a sign that said “INSTALLMENT LOANS,” Jessica told a blonde woman that Mr. Thornton was expecting her. The woman confirmed this over the phone, then showed her to the appropriate office.
“Miss Russell, please sit down,” Thornton said, half rising from behind his modern desk. A heavyset man with dark curly hair, the loan officer was in his thirties. For a moment, he stared at her, a peculiar expression on his face; then he said: “Uh, let’s see, you’re here about your request for an auto loan.”
“Yes,” Jessica replied.
Putting on a transparently insincere smile, Thornton again studied her appraisingly for a moment, then said: “I’m afraid your application’s been turned down.”
“But … why?” Jessica asked, dumbfounded. She’d borrowed money from the bank twice before, paying back both loans right on schedule. In addition to her flawless credit rating, she had a good job, money in her savings account, and she had never overdrawn her checking account. Approval of her loan should have been a mere formality.
“It was the decision of the loan committee,” he said.
“Were you given a reason?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “The committee never gives reasons on small consumer loans like this. It just says yes or no.”
Uncertain what to say, Jessica just stared at the man, feeling that something was wrong, something she didn’t know about.
“Well,” the loan officer said, rising, “I, uh, I guess that concludes our business. I’m sorry we can’t help you.”
A moment later Jessica was back in the midday heat, walking along Missouri Avenue, wondering what had gone wrong. Instead of going to Anderson Ford tomorrow to pick up her first-ever brand-new car, she would have the embarrassment of calling the salesman and telling him the bank had refused to give her a loan. Would someone else buy the tan Mustang she had had her heart set on?
Come on, she told herself, there are more important things in life than a new car. Although deep down inside she knew that that was true, it did little to ease her disappointment.
She realized that there was nothing personal in the bank’s decision. It didn’t know her personally; it only knew her as an account number and some information on a loan application. And yet Jessica felt hurt, as if she’d been judged unworthy somehow. And then there was the attitude of the loan officer, who’d hustled her out of his office as if she were something unclean.
I can take my business elsewhere, she thought. First National’s not the only bank in town. She resolved to transfer her savings and checking accounts to whichever bank approved her loan. One of them would, she was sure.
The thought cheered her up a little. And by the time she’d walked the three blocks to the building in which she worked, Jessica had decided that First National’s turning her down had been a fluke, that it was unlikely to happen at another bank.
Relieved to be out of the heat, she stepped into the modern one-story building in which the advertising agency of Swanson and Uttley was located. One of the firm’s two commercial artists, Jessica had worked there for three years, creating newspaper and magazine ads, billboards, posters, even bumper stickers for political candidates. Although she supposed that there were some who didn’t consider what she did art, Jessica thought it was; she found her work both rewarding and creative.
As she moved along the carpeted hallway, she saw her boss, Edward Uttley, coming toward her. A bald man in his fifties, Uttley ran the office, w hile Swanson, the other partner in the firm, hustled business. Jessica smiled at him.
“Did I tell you that the Hawkins presentation is ready?” she asked.
His eyes met hers, then quickly darted away. “No,” he replied, quickly stepping past her.
Surprised by his brusque manner, Jessica watched him as he walked down the hallway and stepped into his office. Was he unhappy with her for some reason? Although it was about 1:15, she wasn’t late getting back from lunch. She’d told him yesterday that she planned to take her lunch break today from 12:30 to 1:30 so she could go to the bank, and he’d said that that would be fine. Had he forgotten? Feeling a little uneasy, she continued along the corridor to her own office.
Although that’s how the room was usually referred to—as her office—it was really a studio. Crowded into it were easels, a long table, cabinets for her supplies. Here and there were pencils and pads and brushes; portfolios containing her work leaned against the walls. The place smelled of paint thinner and glue.
Sitting down at the long worktable, she opened a folder containing her sketches for a billboard advertising a Kansas City restaurant. She looked up to see Brian Mackey standing in the doorway.
“Uttley wants me to bring him the Hawkins presentation,” he said. The firm’s other commercial artist, he had a studio like hers across the hall. He was in his thirties, tall and thin, with thick brown hair. Brian had befriended her when she first came to work there, helped her through the difficulties a beginner has on any job. She liked him a lot.
“That’s it there,” she said, indicating a portfolio leaning against the wall by the door. The uneasiness she’d experienced a few moments ago returned. Uttley always came to her office to go over her work and get her comments. He’d never before simply asked someone to bring it to him.
“Brian, is anything wrong?”
“Wrong?” He looked confused.
“I mean, have you heard anything I should know about?”
“Jessica, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, just now in the hall Uttley acted like he might be mad at me about something. And now he’s asked you to bring him the Hawkins presentation without going over it with me.”
“If he’s unhappy with you, Jessica, he certainly hasn’t mentioned it to me. Besides, why would he be upset with you? You do good work, you’re always pleasant, and you never play office politics. Hell, you’re the ideal employee. I’ll bet you’ve never even asked him for a raise.”
Jessica said she hadn’t.
“It’s a wonder he isn’t having you cloned. Trust me, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Uttley’s probably just in a bad mood.”
Jessica nodded, feeling less apprehensive than she had a few moments ago. Brian had always been able to cheer her up when she was worried about things.
He smiled reassuringly. “It’s this damn business, Jessica. In advertising, paranoia’s an occupational hazard. If we ever make up a logo for the industry, it should show an account executive cowering in fear.”
Jessica laughed. “You may find yourself cowering in fear if you don’t get that portfolio to the boss—especially if he’s in a bad mood.”
“Good point,” Brian said, picking up the portfolio and hurrying out the door.
Staring at the spot where he’d stood, Jessica considered his words. In advertising, paranoia’s an occupational hazard. Was that why she thought someone was following her, and that the boss was displeased with her? Was it all in her mind? Was she on the verge of … of what? A breakdown?
Oh, come on, she told herself sternly. This is ridiculous. Occasionally she had to rush to get something done on time, but generally the job didn’t subject her to that much pressure. It was the account executives who went around devouring antacid tablets, not the artists.
Then why do you think you’re being followed? she asked herself. You’ve never let your imagination run wild before. And some part of her seemed to reply: Because you’re not imagining it; you really are being followed. Nonsense, she thought, and pushed the matter from her mind.
The billboard she was creating showed a smiling Italian woman serving up a steaming plate of spaghetti. Below the woman were the words: AT MARIO’S MAMMA COOKS WITH OREGANO AND LOVE. Sensing someone’s presence, Jessica looked toward the door and found Jerry Pushman standing a few feet inside the room, watching her.
Jessica looked at him expectantly. An account executive, he was a tall man, about forty-five, with graying hair. She disliked Pushman. He had a way of looking at you that let you know he was surveying you, rating you, noting your good points and bad points. She’d been working there about a week when he’d stepped into her office, introduced himself, and implied that if she went to bed with him, it would greatly further her career.
“I wanted to see how the Mario’s billboard was coming,” he said.
“I’m working on it now.” She indicated the sketches in front of her.
Pushman came over and stood beside her, then spread out three of her drawings, brushing her with his arm as he did so. It was not quite suggestive. Pushman was never blatant; you could never really accuse him of anything. She pointedly moved her chair away from him.
“The woman with the spaghetti is good,” he said. “But could you put a man in there somewhere—say a waiter in the background, someone who looks like Mario?”
“It would clutter it up,” Jessica said, not liking the idea at all.
“Ummm, you’re probably right. It’s just that Mario’s very vain, and having himself in the picture might help convince him to buy more billboard space.”
“Which he’d fill with cluttered-looking pictures.” As soon as she’d said it she wished she hadn’t. Arguing with him was the wrong way to handle Pushman.
He gave her a look that seemed to say: Silly woman, you know nothing about business. “Give me some preliminaries both ways, with and without the man. We’ll let Mario decide.”
“When do you want them?”
“Ummm, could you get them to me before ten tomorrow morning?”
Jessica nodded.
“Great,” he said, lightly touching her shoulder and smiling broadly. It was another of his seemingly innocent yet vaguely suggestive moves. Staring at his back as he left her office, Jessica searched for a term that adequately described the man, finally settling on slimy. Jerry Pushman was probably the slimiest son of a bitch she’d ever met.
Sighing inwardly, Jessica returned to her work. She had never had a social relationship with any of the men in the office, although many of them had asked her out. In part she had declined because she thought it best to avoid having relationships with her male co-workers, but the main reason was that all of them were simply wrong for her. Even Brian Mackey, whom she liked very much, was not her type romantically. Missing was that certain spark, that tingle needed to turn a friendly working relationship into something more intimate.
At least Brian, unlike many of the others who’d asked her out, was single.
In a way, she wished he hadn’t asked. Although her saying no didn’t seem to have hurt their working relationship, when you refused to go out with someone you were implying that there was something undesirable about that person. It certainly wasn’t true in Brian’s case, but how could she explain that to him? She could only hope that he understood, that she hadn’t hurt him.
Pushing these thoughts aside, Jessica phoned the salesman at Anderson Ford to tell him her loan hadn’t been approved; then she began working up some drawings that included a man in the Mario’s advertisement. As Pushman suggested, she made the man a waiter. She’d met Mario, who was tall, thin, and dark haired, and she gave the man in the drawings these characteristics. It was five o’clock when she finished, so she grabbed her purse as she headed for Pushman’s office, which was down the hall from hers.
His door was closed. Jessica knocked, and when no one answered she slipped the folder containing the drawings under the door, then continued along the carpeted hallway, heading for the exit. As she passed Mr. Uttley’s office, she heard the familiar voice of his secretary, Margaret Smith.
