Dying For LA by Ian Jones (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

through all the photos again, not a single face to be seen clearly at any point.

‘Yeah, they are savvy to the cameras,’ Warner said. ‘I can’t see definition helping any.’

‘You said they spoke to one another in another language as well as English, you really can’t think what it might be?’ Keane asked.

John shook his head.

‘No, and I know I should do. I’ve heard it before. It’s frustrating. But they definitely said “Nothing there” and “It’s not here” in English, plain as day. They were going through bags, maybe every one there for all I know.’

‘Every bag?’ Keane asked, looking at Truman.

‘We don’t know for sure, but we think it’s likely,’ Truman answered earnestly, keen to be involved.

‘That’s not good enough. These are the things we have to be definite about.’

Truman coloured and looked down.

‘And we need to discuss the 1-Too that was carved on the guns, right?’ Brady asked.

Warner sat back and tapped his fingers on the desk.

‘I’ve seen it before,’ John told them.

‘Yeah, and me,’ Warner said flatly. ‘You go first Mr Smith.’

‘It’s just John. I worked for the government for a while, a case came in. I wasn’t assigned to it, but other people were working on it. 1-Too was at the heart of it. It was a big deal, at least for a while.’

Keane looked around and produced a tatty notebook and a chewed pen. He looked all around the room.

‘OK. Start again. We need to make an action list.’

***

Samantha King walked into the newsroom, aware that Frank Moran was glowering at her from his office but she ignored it. Nothing new there.

She dropped into her seat and threw her bag onto the desk with a loud sigh.

Opposite her Simon Gray gave her a shy smile.

‘Want to see?’ he asked.

‘Definitely.’

They stood up and eagerly she followed him across to the editing suite. He sat down and pushed out a chair for her next to him, then started manipulating the controls along the desktop. The large monitor fizzed and blurred then replayed the scenes outside the Metro station the previous night. There was a lot of footage, neatly put together by Simon into a three-minute segment, Sammy would record an audio over the top of it for transmission.

‘Perfect,’ she said with a wide smile.

The previous night’s events were big news. Huge. Exactly what the channel needed. Sammy King had only been working for LA Plus for four months, she had been approached by the CEO following her very public second divorce. She had been living in Indianapolis and been the anchor there for twelve years, so it was a fresh start for her at a time when she needed it. Sammy King was a petite and attractive forty-three-year-old woman, although her bio had her age at thirty-four. She had been a broadcaster since her late teens and married twice, first to a movie producer which lasted for six years, and then a second time to an ex-NFL running back, this time it ended after seven. But she wasn’t unhappy, and so far was enjoying living and working in LA.

The problem was the viewing figures, which were dropping alarmingly. LA Plus was a box standard cable channel with news, current affairs, documentaries and in the evening the usual mix of comedy shows and a movie. Nothing ground-breaking. But the internet was killing cable, to be fair the problems had been there a long time before Sammy was on board, but recently had got a lot worse. There was a lot of finger pointing internally. Moran, who was head of news, was blaming her, she had not been his choice. Angelina Ball, the previous anchor had been doing a good job as far as he was concerned. Of course, the fact that Moran had been sleeping with Angelina was not lost on Sammy, hey if he had been nicer she would have even considered doing the same. He was not a bad looking guy. Angelina had been arrested for a DUI, and had a bag of coke in the glovebox in her car. No going back from that, however hard Moran fought her corner.

Simon set everything up and they carried on working, she drafted an audio and then recorded it. The clip would be part of her mid-morning show, the attack at the Metro station would be the prime focus of course. She would be interviewing Chief Brady, plus some other ‘experts’ the channel had lined up. They had wanted to speak to some of the survivors that had actually been there but been warned off by the police, they needed time to process all the statements, inform next of kin and so on. This was routine but frustrating.

The work done, they played it through one more time and she gave Simon a kiss on the cheek as a thank you, which produced a deep blush. He was nearly twenty years younger but she always noticed him checking her out, something she was well used to men doing. Today she was wearing a shorter dress than normal and he was clearly very pleased about it. He was good at his job and always helpful and just maybe he might get lucky. She could do a lot worse, she decided. Mr Right may as well live on the moon as far as she was concerned.

The recording ended with a scary British man staring at the camera, blood all over his face and shirt and calmly delivering the threat. He was serious, it was obvious, his eyes were like ice. Sammy tapped the screen with a long bright red fingernail.

‘I won’t forget him, he is interesting. I’d like to sit down with this guy,’ she said.

‘That’s a good idea,’ Moran was standing behind her scowling into the room. ‘You should find him, before someone else snaps him up and we lose out. It’s called journalism, in case you hadn’t realised that’s what we do here.’

She turned and smiled at him.

Asshole, she thought.

‘OK, well, I’ll ask Chief Brady when he comes in.’

Moran