I step out of the shower, slipping on some blue jeans and a plain olive T-shirt. Back when I first got out of the war, the flashbacks I had was sheer hell on earth. I would hear screams of civilians, the rattle of machine guns, cries of the wounded, and the deafening sound of bombs pounding Fallujah off in the distance. I still struggle with war flashbacks, but not so much anymore. My work in the DEA gave me a whole new theme park of flashbacks.
Walking into my living room, I head to the liquor cabinet, grabbing a bottle of Johnny Walker and pour me a glass, and I slip a joint between my lips. I pour a box of rice into a bowl and place my cellphone in it. The rice will pull the water from the phone. I open an ammo can and pull out a bud and roll a joint. I take a big hit from it and exhale a cloud of smoke from my nose. Raising the glass to my lips, it scorches my throat on the way down and singes the gap in my teeth, causing me to cringe in pain. I step out on to my balcony and take another heavy drag from the joint. I’m beginning to feel pretty mellow as I watch the lit-up freighter ship gliding across the water. I glance at the clock and notice its 6pm. It felt weird being at home in the evening. I’m usually out on a crime scene standing over some poor dead son of a bitch who went down the wrong alley, took a wrong turn on the wrong street, or forgot to check the locks in her home.
My whole face still throbs in pain, and Drake kneeing me in the ribs got them pulsating with pain again, but the weed and my friend Mr. Walker is going to help remedy the aches and pains.
I veg out in my recliner, feeling all Zen and shit. My eyes narrow at my coat as I remember the thumb drive. I get out of my chair and pick up my jacket off the couch, pulling out the thumb drive Drake gave me. Let’s hope this damn thing is waterproof. I plop down at my computer and slip in the thumb drive.
I don’t know why I’m humoring this freak.
Documents appear on my screen that has the MI6 logo in the background behind the letters. Great, 007 has done turned serial killer. I double click the folder, and it opens up a file on Cala Sadir. They have photos of her in Iraq selling weapons to Islamic militants and another photo of her with a blonde between her legs. I really feel bad for Jason now. He believed his wife was this great person, but in reality, she is a piece of shit and a cheating whore to boot. Jason doesn’t need to know about this, I want him to remember Cala as the loving wife and mother she was, not this evil whore in the photographs. If Jason ever finds out his wife was involved in this, it will destroy him. I go to my drawer in the kitchen and take out my hammer and place the drive on the counter. I raise the hammer. Part of me knows this is wrong to keep this from him, but the other part of me is telling me it will send him over the edge. I slam the hammer down on the drive several times, shattering it into several pieces. I gather up the pieces into a pile and dump the remains into the trash. My cell lets out a ding. I grab it off my coffee table and see it’s a text from Amber.
Devi, the knife you brought is, in fact, the murder weapon used on Cala Sadir. Also, Larsen in ballistics wants me to tell you to contact him ASAP. Speak with you soon, Devi.
-Amber-
It looks like my assumption was correct, the blood belonged to Jason’s wife. I take one last drag from the joint before I sit it in the ashtray. I pull my cell and call Larsen. “Good evening, Detective.”
“Amber, said you found something with the guns?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t leave me in suspense.”
“His prints didn’t show up in our database, so I called the FBI, and they had nothing, so they direct me to Interpol, and Interpol told me his prints came back as restricted.”
“So it all adds up now his ramblings about his mission, his phony passports and him implying that all his religious rhetoric was all just a façade to hide his real motivation,” I say, finishing off a glass of scotch and pouring me another.
“It certainly looks that way. Relay this new information to your Lieutenant, Detective.”
“What’s the second thing?”
“The bullets dug out of the children were 9mm rounds, and the bullets taken from Drake’s Glock 21 were 45ACP. Your boy didn’t kill those kids someone else did, or he swapped guns. Either way, we can’t tie his gun to the kids.”
“So we can only tie to the wife because his blade matches the stab wounds and the fact he admitted it.”
“Yes. However, I did pull a hair fiber off of one of the kids… a brown strand of hair that neither matches the victims or Drake’s.”
“Did you run it through the DNA database?”
“Yes, and like the prints, it came up as nothing, so I did the same thing, and Interpol told me the records are restricted access. You really got a doozy of a case, Lobos.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. Thanks for getting back to me, Larsen.” I hang up the cell.
My gut was telling me Drake didn’t kill those kids, now it’s more than just a gut feeling.
I dial up my boss. “Lobos?”
“Ballistics came back. Drake didn’t kill the kids.
