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

‘Army helping?’ Warner and Judy asked together, quizzically.

‘Yeah. Sure this shit never happens but don’t knock it, we need all we can get.’

***

Sammy and Simon sat together at the meeting table, Moran on the other side along with a couple of other people from the technical side of the news team. But at the top was Costas Blanic, the charismatic president of the channel, and rarely seen in the office. Blanic was an Albanian migrant who ended up in the US toward the middle of the sixties, an orphan who had been smuggled out when his entire family were murdered after speaking out against the ruling party at the time, at the height of the Marxist state. His mother, father, grandparents, two brothers and a sister all slain in one night. Costas had been staying the night with his cousin. The gunmen came for them too, but his aunt; his mother’s youngest sister had some spirit and was able to get them away. She got to Greece, and then on a ship bound for New York. Once there she did everything she had to and made a home for Costas and her own daughter in Brooklyn, with just the vaguest knowledge of the English language and no understanding at all of life in the west. After a year that would have destroyed even the hardiest person the seven-year-old Costas did what he had to, and got on with it. He did well at school, and university, working all the time to put food on the table, as did his cousin, and his aunt.

When he was twenty-two he bade an emotional farewell to his aunt and his cousin and took an apartment close to Chelsea Village and went to work on Wall Street. He was a natural, numbers were his thing. He made his first million within three years, and grew from there. Happily he bought a beautiful house for his aunt in New Jersey and when he was twenty-eight started up his own trading fund, which took off immediately. By the time he was forty-five he was married with three children and was in the top hundred richest people in the USA.

He never, ever discussed his past. But he never forgot where he came from. He continued to strive, investing, manipulating, all the time. It took him nearly twenty years of trying, but finally, got a US passport.

They moved out to LA when his wife decided she wanted out of the rat race, find some sun and a beach and he agreed, so bought a big house across the other side of the country right on the ocean in Malibu. He didn’t need to work, but he couldn’t just do nothing, so bought into a cable network TV station called LA Plus, that was short of finances and a future. He moved them into new offices, brought in some people and built it up, brick by brick.

He became president simply because his fellow shareholders believed it would be easier for everyone if he had something to do. He accepted the position, having never done anything remotely similar in the past, but he had the Midas touch, suddenly the channel was profitable and even winning awards. Everybody at the station, in fact everyone in the industry knew he didn’t have to work, that he could probably afford to practically buy the city if he wanted, but they listened to him, and if he got involved, then you took it seriously.

Sammy was nervous of him, like most people. She didn’t know him at all and had spent very little time in his company, but had listened to all the stories from the team; rags to riches, who cared if they were true or false at least they all had jobs. He was short and plump, and sat there in tatty jeans wearing an old Billabong t-shirt, his hairy fingers playing with a stack of sheets of paper in front of him.

Behind them the footage from the previous night had finished playing on the wall-mounted TV screens, and was frozen with Sammy standing outside the bar where the major had been murdered; the location of the second terrorist action.

The big news was getting bigger, and so far, they were out in front.

‘It’s great work Sammy, you got to be very happy Frank,’ Blanic said, knowing full well Moran had a big problem with her appointment at the station, nothing escaped him.

Moran pursed his lips and nodded.

‘The thing is, nobody likes news like this. Nobody wants these animals on their doorstep, it’s the worst news for the city and everyone in it. But we are handling it real well, we’re on the ground, we’re not sensationalising anything, it’s great reporting, and that’s down to you Sammy,’ Blanic continued, and clapped his hands loudly.

Sammy blushed.

‘Thank you, Costas.’

‘Now, I got the numbers before we sat down. Incredible. From where we were, it’s night and day. So we need to keep it moving, we’ve got to make sure that we are moving this along all the time. I’m listening to ideas.’

Sammy looked at Simon, who wielded a laptop and started clicking buttons. The picture of John Smith appeared.

‘I caught hold of this guy after the Metro attack. He was down on the platform when it happened, a British guy,’ explained Sammy.

Simon pressed another key.

‘Yeah. I got something to say. I’m going to find the arseholes that were responsible for this. And I’m going to make them pay, whoever and wherever they are. That’s a promise.’

Blanic watched the British man talking and staring into the camera, eyes ice cold, and couldn’t help shivering inside, he believed what he was hearing.

‘Ok,’ he said slowly.

Sammy gave him a winning smile, but she was feeling the pressure.

‘Please, bear with me. Now the LAPD sent us some CCTV footage they got from last night at Steel’s, they are appealing for witnesses to come forward, they already found the car. And