Addicted In Cold Blood (12 page)

Almost there...

He jerked his vehicle haphazardly to the side of an abandoned building, causing his back wheels to screech, and idly parked. Jumping out, he raced to the passenger’s side and grabbed her by her arm, leading her further away down an alleyway blanketed in darkness, but teeming with nearby unsavory activities. The sound of melting icicles plip-plopped in a puddle made a befitting soundtrack to the woman’s trance like state. When he jammed her up against the brick wall, the young woman looked at him listlessly, as if she were high out of her mind, barely able to stand on her own two feet. He opened her eyes wider with his fingers, forcing their connection.

“In two minutes, exactly one hundred and twenty seconds from the moment I drive away in my car, you will become fully aware again and in control over your own body and mind. You will not recall me, your previous whereabouts, my voice, my car,
nothing
associated with me or your life at all today. It will all be blank.”

And that was exactly what happened...Xzion left knowing she was safe and all trace of what had occurred gone, with the exception of an aching back—only this time it wasn’t from lying, legs open, on a lumpy mattress...

*
***

“We already spoke to her,” Agent Peterson stated as he looked casually out the window.

“She said she has one lead. I let her know that if she can’t find the woman in the next few days, we will intervene. Regardless, she’s done more than that whole damn department. The entire unit is out of whack. Frankly, we’re lucky they had anyone with a brain at all.”

Agent Bryant nodded. “They are running scared. No one will talk to anyone, and she’s our best hope.”

“I pulled up the files from 1962 and 1963. There were a few incidents in 1969 as well, with a similar outcome.” Agent Peterson then leaned over his desk and passed a packet of paper to each man.

“Did you show these to Officer Knight?” Agent Brown’s eyebrow rose in suspicion.

“Of course not.” Agent Peterson locked eyes with the lanky man over his thin rimmed black glasses. “You are the only people alive and in your right minds that know about this case. We are called a private division of the bureau for a reason. In any case, there were similar murders but they were central in
South America. There was only one I.D. at that time—of a man and woman, tall, believed to be Hispanic. They were seen leaving the area of a double murder in Venezuela.”

“It couldn’t possibly be the same people. Whoever is doing this, I put my money on it, is fresh, youthful—strong. But it could very well be the same organization.”

“Look at these.” Agent Bryant grabbed a magnifying glass on the table as he studied a printed black and white grainy photo of one of the murder scenes from 1963. “If you look real close, you can see two ‘X’s on this victim’s neck. I’m assuming the third one is out of our eye range, but I bet it’s there.” Both men hovered over his shoulder, looking closely.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Peterson stood erect, crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “That’s not written in the medical reports.” He walked back behind his desk and had a seat, then proceeded to pull up the old records.

“It may not be for whatever reason, could have been sloppy work, could’ve been an oversight, or maybe even on purpose. You just never know. These murders weren’t nearly as gruesome as now and things were different then. It was harder to get the forensics to back up the evidence. It’s like whoever this guy is, he is the new improved version. They’ve kept up with the times. Our man,
now
...is far more dangerous.”

“He was in another area,” Brown stated, then cleared his throat as he leaned back in his seat. “And the cameras…” he shrugged, “you won’t believe this...”

“Yeah, let me guess.” Bryant smirked. “Blank.”

“Yes. From a few minutes before the crime to a few minutes afterward, wiped clean as a whistle. Why isn’t the whole damn tape clear? Why just the murder’s appearance? It’s like he’s got a good bone in him, like he wants there to be record of anything else just in case it’s needed, but no one saw anyone tampering with the video cameras.”

Peterson slammed his fist on his desk and pivoted in his chair, back toward his vast window. “The pressure is coming down hard on us, guys. No more pussy footin’ around. Too much money lost.  People are running scared, just like you said, Bryant. I never thought I’d see a day like this, not in my lifetime. I got the CIA on my back again...I’ve been threatened...told to stop this shit—get this guy or else. The damn wound is hemorrhaging. We’re losing a lot of damn clout, on top of everything else. We let Morales and his boys get their product over the border, and now five of them have been killed. They think we set them up. Now they are refusing to do business.”

“I received several calls from Norris.”

“Norris from Delta?”

“Yes. The parcels are barely coming in and if you hadn’t noticed, violence has escalated in some areas where the dealers are scarce. This guy is knocking out all the high post players and leaving the little guys behind with no inventory. The little they have has to satisfy triple the demand.”

Agent Peterson sighed, his eyes narrowed as darkness creased his face. “If these are in fact the same people from the old cases, then we’re fucked. They
knew
who we were then, and they know who we are
now
. I was up all damn night, reading play by play. Agent Reed, from 1961, even had a meeting with them via the phone. Their voices were disguised and the call was untraceable...and they knew our organizations’ every damn move!”

“That’s why we haven’t made any progress...” Bryant hung his head.

“And that is why I needed Knight, Bryant. You kept questioning my train of thought—my logic. They won’t expect anything like her...”

“But that makes her a sitting duck. If these are the same people, and have all of this planned out, this sort of control, then there is no way someone like her can find out who is behind these murders. They’d always be one step ahead.”

Peterson shook his head, grinning as he briefly turned away from Brown and Bryant. “Bryant, you’re new with us, so...I’ll let that slide.”

“Let what slide? It’s true. I was under the impression that we needed her inside track, to get close to the people. I had no idea that this guy could be affiliated with a large militia group. Let’s be real—she can’t handle that. He is a cop killer. She knows that, too, but this is different. He’s already had his dealings with our organization. He knows who we are, what we’re doing. He’s no idiot. She’ll be killed as soon as he spots her. I think we need to pull her off the case—she just isn’t equipped for this—or at least put her with a few other officers. For her, this is suicide, only she doesn’t know it.”

Agent Brown grinned. “A few other officers? What? Like the ones she works with? Those idiots?! What a bang up job they did.” He laughed. “No, she needs to be alone. Travelling in packs is a dead giveaway.”

“You really don’t care at all about her, do you?”

“You just don’t get it, do you?” Peterson asked.

“What do you mean,
get
it?”

“We don’t expect Knight to be successful...we just need her to
find
him. Captain Jasper picked a winner. When and if she does find our man,” he shrugged, “I highly doubt she’ll get away alive. But by then, she’d led us right to him, and we can take care of the rest. We wouldn’t have been trailing him; he’d never know until it was too late and then we’ll finally have him!”

“You can’t be serious!” Bryant looked at Peterson in disbelief. “You know these things about the agency this guy works for, you know how risky it is, and you just send her in for slaughter?”

“Bryant, save your choir boy antics for someone who cares! You knew damn well that woman wasn’t prepared for such a case, but she’ll leave a breadcrumb trail, that’s all we need! Do you know what the hell has been going on before we briefed you two months ago?! Did you read the damn reports?! Three of our guys are dead after chasing him. No one saw him, just followed leads and if someone was getting warm, they vanished without a trace! No bodies found, nothing! He only did that to
our
guys, and one of the CIA agents...everyone else was a corpse. It’s because he knows who we are! It’s like he can smell us from miles away. It’s time for a new strategy, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” Bryant sighed, grimacing as he wrung his hands. “I knew we were using her for bait, so to speak, but not set her up to fail...to get murdered! I thought we’d be with her every step of the way. I even told her that!”

“Well, we can’t! It would ruin the entire operation. As soon as he’d get a whiff of us, he’d be gone and then what?” Peterson threw up his hands. “Onto the next country and then back again to take out five or six more key guys?  He’s done it before, he’ll do it again! We’ve got people in high places breathing down our damn backs! If we don’t find out who he is, where he is located and stop him, we could all be dead! Too much rides on this!” Peterson’s voice boomed.

Bryant looked away.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Agent Bryant, but I’d hate to see you ruin a promising career over this. Look, that’s life! I’m not happy we have to do this, but we do, so accept it. It’s like war...sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.”

“But...how do you even know it’s worth the risk?” Bryant asked, obviously exasperated. He was now a troubled man and there was no hiding it.

“She is just naïve enough to be able to pull this off...because she believes she
can
do it.”

****

We are called Zarkstormians. We are from the planet Zarkstorm.

Is it similar to Earth?

In some ways, yes, and in many ways, no...

Xzion woke abruptly from his dream and rubbed his head in confusion. He rarely dreamed, and now that he had, he wondered who he was speaking to...

He reached over into his nightstand drawer and pulled out a slither of ice, placing it into his mouth. His eyes still closed, he sighed in exhaustion. He’d been up almost three days straight, trying to find out what had gone wrong with the formula. He discovered that AB positive blood, though ideal, was more temperamental than the other types while in an Earthly environment. At Zarkstorm, the experiments always went well, but on Earth, once his blood was mixed with the donor’s, the atmosphere changed the structure. Therefore, all samples had to be placed in a quarantined chamber.

After two more days of back to back experiments, he finally had it stabilized. He’d try it again, but for now, he was behind schedule...

A Mr. Owen Brewer was in deep need of his visitation. Finally, he forced himself up, pressed his shoulder against the headrest and let his head lull downward. It took everything in him to move one more inch, but he had to. He crawled out of bed, the sheets exposing his nakedness...and he was hot. Hotter than he’d like, that was for sure. Wiping a thin layer of sweat off his face, he marched into his kitchen, setting off the motion detector light that now encircled him in a soft blue glow. He filled a large glass to the brim with shards of ice. He enjoyed the taste of Vodka, though it did nothing in the way of inebriation—he was incapable of being drunk and high. Regardless, he’d debated covering the frigid cubes with the smooth, clear liquor, then changed his mind. He just wanted the cooling to begin.

All I want to do is go back to sleep, but I can’t...too much work to do.

He chugged the glass and noisily chewed the ice.

****

Jayme treaded lightly. The snow and ice had been particularly brutal over the holidays, and here she stood on New Year’s Eve in the midst of a wind storm that knocked her every which way but loose. She stomped in two feet of snow, surprised to see the downtown streets were not a wasteland. People moved about, huddled under their coats and pressed against closed storefronts. This wasn’t a big retail district, and minus the occasional liquor store, everything was closed for the holiday evening. The intermittent barrel of fire lit the darkened sky with fiery sparks and drunkard rhetoric broke the silence every now and again, while cars slowly glided on ice, the drivers more than likely fearful of losing traction as they passed through, on their way to parties with loved ones to bring in the New Year.

Two more local drug dealers had been murdered and Agent Peterson had been particularly hard on her the past several weeks. She grated her teeth as she recalled the nasty tongue lashing—but felt it well-deserved. The man was only trying to do his job, and she’d been entrusted with great responsibility.

In the time being, she’d interviewed countless people. Some even stepped forward, but the leads were all dead ends. Still looking for MeMe, she stopped by her familiar stomping grounds—Vermont Avenue. She’d previously been working 14th street, but due to police raids and repeated crack downs, she’d wandered back to Vermont, where there was less high-paying clientele, but safer for business. Eastern Avenue, MeMe’s original stomping grounds, had warranted her repeated physical attacks, overzealous competition, and recurring robberies at gun point by her own account. Yes, MeMe had returned to Vermont Avenue, but then once she bared her soul, confessed to something so horrific that it sent her into a tailspin, she’d disappeared—all but vanished without a trace.