“Of course,” Lakin replied.“Anything I can do to help.”
Jenna stepped closer to the phone.“Mr.Lakin, thank you for taking our call.I understand you were speaking with the victim at the time of the incident that apparently cut off your conversation.Could you walk us through what happened?”
A heavy sigh came through the speaker.“Well, I didn’t know his actual name at the time.We ham operators often use call signs.His was Charlie Tango 4 Caesar Alpha.”
“Did you communicate with him regularly?”Jenna asked.
“Pretty regularly, yeah.We’d talk a few times a week, usually late evenings.He was...interesting to talk to.Knew a lot about radio technology, though he had some, uh, unconventional views.”
Jenna exchanged glances with Jake.“Can you tell us about your conversation on the night of the incident?”
“We’d just started talking.Then there was a knock at his door—I could hear it clearly through the connection.”
The room fell silent as everyone listened intently to Lakin’s account.
“He excused himself.I heard him walk away from the mic.Then I heard him yell something like ‘I’ll shoot’ or ‘I’m armed.’After a minute or so, he came back and said there was nobody there.”
Jenna leaned forward.“Did he sound frightened?”
“Not frightened exactly.More...agitated.Like this had happened before.”
“Then what happened?”Jenna prompted when Lakin paused.
“We tried to get back to our conversation, but a couple of minutes later, there was another knock.He sounded really annoyed this time, muttered something about ‘them’ not leaving him alone.”
Lakin’s voice became more somber.“He went to answer it, and this time...he didn’t come back to the radio.”
The tension in the room thickened.Jake had taken out a small notebook and was jotting down notes.
“What did you hear?”Jenna asked.
“Him yelling again.There was a gunshot.Clear as day.Then nothing.I kept calling his call sign, but there was no response.That’s when I contacted the Highway Patrol.”
Jenna remembered the image of the handgun Morgan had just shown them.Her guess was that Derrick had fired a warning shot before he was ambushed by his killer.
Colonel Spelling nodded.“You did the right thing, Mr.Lakin.”
Jenna pressed on.“Was there anything unusual about your conversation that night, before the interruptions?Anything different from your usual talks?”
Lakin paused, considering.“Now that you mention it, yes.The signal wasn’t coming through as clearly as usual.When I commented on it, he told me he’d recently gotten rid of his previous radio setup.Said he’d trashed it completely and bought an old vacuum tube model instead.”
Chief Morgan’s eyebrows shot up, and he looked at the radio on the table with renewed interest.
“Did he explain why he made that change?”Jenna asked, her pulse quickening.
“Oh, he explained, all right.”There was a hint of discomfort in Lakin’s voice.“He went on a rant about integrated circuits and transistors.Said they were all compromised.That ‘they’ were using microchips to monitor and influence people.”
“They?”Colonel Spelling interjected.
“He never specified who ‘they’ were.Government, corporations, aliens, I guess—take your pick.He kept telling me I should trash my own radio and go back to vacuum tubes.Said it was the only safe technology.”
Jenna caught Jake’s eye, seeing her own thoughts reflected there.This aligned perfectly with what she’d seen in her dream.
“How did you respond to that?”she asked.
“I told him he sounded crazy, to be honest.”Lakin’s voice carried a note of regret.“That’s when he got defensive, accused me of being a puppet of the ‘powers-that-be.’His words, not mine.”
“Mr.Lakin,” Jenna said, “did he ever tell you where he lived or give you any identifying information?”
