The Innocents

by Nathan Senthil

  “But why?”

  “How else would you get the wisdom to be great? You go to the gym, you put your muscles through pain, and in the end, they become stronger. Likewise, being a loser puts your mind in extreme pain but it gives you the strength to handle the eventual success,” Gabriel said. “Pain is good. It means you’re blessed and gonna live a fulfilling life.”

  LC was at the loss of words.

  Gabriel asked, “You don’t lie, do you, LC? Only punk ass snitches lie, right?”

  LC nodded. “Word.”

  “Then promise me something.”

  LC laughed. “You a fool? You believe in promises?”

  Gabriel shrugged.

  “Okay.” LC wiped his nose and giggled. “First tell me what it is.”

  “You go to a candy store called Goodwill. It’s in Rosa Parks Blvd. Tell the nice old lady there that you’d like to become a pilot.”

  LC stared at Gabriel. “What? You crazy? Why will I go tell a stranger something personal like that?”

  “Just do it.”

  “If I do, I get to fly planes?” LC asked, his eyes wide, voice animated.

  “Yes.”

  “She like a genie or something?”

  “Just. Do. It.”

  “B-but how?” LC lifted and showed his tied-up hands.

  Gabriel smiled. “Promise.”

  LC frowned, but said, “Alright, promise.”

  “Good.” Gabriel let go of the cable, which dropped to the floor.

  LC looked at it and then at Gabriel, his face slowly registering what was happening. Opening the door, he quickly got down.

  As he made his way to the other side, he stopped mid-road and jogged back to the car.

  He leaned into the window. “It’s Benjamin.”

  Then he crouched and ran towards the alley mouth across the road. When he was there, he got out of the makeshift cuffs. He looked at Gabriel and smiled, before putting his arms out and running into it.

  A few minutes later, Gabriel ambled to the shop and pulled the shutter up.

  “Fuck! You scared the bejesus out of me,” the woman behind the billing counter said. She was watching something on a PC.

  Gabriel showed her his ID. “You found out what happened here?”

  “Yes.” She turned the monitor in Gabriel’s direction and rewound the video back to a specific point.

  A lone man was sitting at the counter, scrolling through his phone. He was tall and beefy, like a retired bodybuilder. He must be the Black Hulk Hogan that LC had mentioned, Thomas. A few seconds later, his focus shifted from the phone to the shop’s entrance. Lifting his hands, he got up from the chair. Two guys in balaclava came through the door, pointing shotguns at Thomas. They had ponytails; the twins Gabriel had seen outside Calabria.

  One of the guys lifted the stock and hit Thomas on the nose, whose hands tended to the hurt instinctively.

  Grabbing Thomas’s arms, they dragged him out over the table. When he was down, they stomped and beat him some more, turning his face into a bloody pulp. Then they pulled Thomas to his feet and shoved him out of the shop.

  Gabriel scratched his nose, smirking behind his hand. Now to the next part of the plan.

  And he needed the FBI for it.

  Chapter 40

  May 12, 2019. 09:48 A.M.

  The Camaro headed northeast, and the Google lady told Gabriel to take the Trumbull Ave. After a few minutes, she advised to turn onto Detroit Ave. He crossed M-10 and, half a mile later, arrived at his destination: Patrick V. McNamara Federal Building.

  He cleared security, parked the car, and entered the edifice. A colossal direction board on the front wall listed what offices occupied which floors. IRS, HUD, VA, and other assortment of abbreviations. He shuffled to a series of elevators, got into one, and pressed 26.

  Another security station checked his ID and let him through a wide hallway, which opened into a spacious office. He asked a random passerby as to the whereabouts of the SSA and was pointed to a room at the far-right corner.

  Gabriel thanked her and made his way there.

  SSA Morgan slouched on his chair, watching his laptop and nursing a strawberry smoothie. Looking as miserable as Gabriel felt, his bloodshot eyes were partially closed and lips chapped. Neither had got more than one hour of sleep.

  “Good morning,” Gabriel said.

  “Good?” Morgan scoffed and motioned Gabriel to a chair across his desk. “Conor said that Thomas was abducted. He’s asked me to monitor the CCTV cameras surrounding Bugsy’s mansion.”

  “Can’t we storm his place?” Gabriel asked, hoping they couldn’t.

  “Not enough grounds for a warrant…”

  Thank God.

  “It’s too late for Thomas anyway. They’ve had him for what? Two hours now? I think he broke. You can do a lot in that time, believe me.”

  Gabriel believed him. “Why do you say he broke?”

  “Because I’ve got this,” Morgan turned the laptop towards Gabriel, “from one of the cameras.”

  The video showed the street where Bugsy’s mansion was situated. Its front gates parted and a number of GMCs drove out. Four in total. Morgan paused at the third SUV and pointed to a man behind the windshield. “This guy is Anastasia, a known hitman. In total, we counted twenty men in all four cars. Could be more.”

  “Must be Bugsy’s entire squad,” Gabriel said, thinking how to use this new development to his advantage. Ryatt never committed a robbery in Detroit, except the first two. Chances were, he was out of state and it might take a while for Bugsy’s army to reach him. “You’re tracking them?”

  “Yes, they’re about to leave Michigan.”

  “Ryatt should be out of state, most likely doing homework for his next job.”

  Morgan sucked the straw before saying, “Anyway, there’s nothing happening here. Go have a coffee. You look tired. I’ll call for you if something’s up.”

  Gabriel nodded and pushed himself up. The lack of sleep was catching up with him. He needed some shut eye, at least a power nap, to even concentrate. As he followed directions and trotted to the cafeteria, he felt agents looking at him with interest. No one had facial hair, not even a stubble, and they were all groomed neatly.

  Once in the cafeteria, he located a vacant table at the far end and walked over to it. The wooden chair was uncomfortable, but his brain needed no comfort to rest. Folding his forearms on the table, he dropped his head above it and his eyes drooped automatically.

  Gabriel was then struck with an idea. It was pure genius. Maybe when the brain traversed the slim layer between extreme exhaustion and oblivious sleep, some magic happened.

  The idea was simple. Let Ryatt know that Bugsy had Thomas, and probably his location was compromised. It would smoke him out of whatever hole he’d burrowed himself in. And if Bugsy killed Thomas, which Gabriel thought was most likely, Ryatt would scream revenge and come running to Detroit.

  But how would Gabriel let Ryatt know anything? Maybe he should build an enormous satellite loudspeaker and shout it to the world. Nah. There was a more practical way to do the shouting: media.

  * * *

  “Gabriel Chase…”

  The Google lady called, waking him up. As his eyes opened, he found several trays of food around him and people chattering.

  He sat straight, wiping the drool off of his beard. The speakers crackled and the robotic voice of a woman said, “Gabriel Chase, report to the SSA’s office.”

  He stood up and waded through the bustling cafeteria. In under a minute, he was inside Morgan’s office.

  “I’m really sorry,” Gabriel said. “I nodded off.”

  “It’s alright. Come, take a look.” Morgan patted the seat of an office chair next to him and Gabriel obliged.

  Morgan’s laptop displayed an aerial view of Bugsy’s mansion. The Land Rover was parked at the pebbled path that connected the back door to a swimming pool. The imagery was too clean to be from satellite.

  “Drone?”


  “Drone,” the SSA confirmed.

  “Excellent—” Gabriel held the side of his stomach. “Damn. That chipotle isn’t exactly breakfast food, is it?”

  “Why would you even?” Morgan said. “Last left down the aisle.”

  Gabriel nodded and followed Morgan’s directions. He went inside the bathroom and took a seat on the commode.

  Listening for footsteps for a few seconds and finding none, he pulled the burner out from inside his jacket and called Roman. “So I see you’ve squeezed Lolly’s location out of Thomas.”

  “We did, thanks to you.”

  “Thanks again to me, I’m helping your sorry ass for the second time. You left a witness when you took Thomas. The cops are going to storm Bugsy’s house. You got 20 minutes, max.”

  Gabriel hung up and exited the cubicle. After splashing water over his face, he looked in the mirror. He felt Joshua standing over his shoulder, shaking his head in disapproval.

  Back in Morgan’s office, they resumed watching Bugsy’s mansion with the drone.

  Twelve minutes later, four guys came out the back, carrying two sacks. It was the twins, the barkeeper from Calabria, and one other guy Gabriel hadn’t seen before. They tossed the sacks into the Land Rover’s trunk space and began driving.

  And the drone followed, controlled by Morgan’s laptop.

  When they climbed onto John C Lodge Freeway, nearing Southfield, Gabriel spotted a landfill and a lot of birds scavenging. He prayed that the drone did not get attacked by a rowdy bird. It didn’t.

  The SUV took an exit down on West Eleven Mile Road and, a minute later, turned onto a nameless, dead-end street that was flanked by rundown buildings. They halted near a swamp at the edge and opened the trunk.

  All four got down. Two of them lifted the first sack and carried it to the marshland, while the other two kept watch.

  Placing the sack down, they grabbed its bottom corners and upended it.

  “Can we lower the drone?” Gabriel asked.

  “If we do, it’s possible for them to hear the rotors.”

  The two guys repeated the exercise for the other sack too, before getting into the car and driving back the way where they came from.

  When the car left the vicinity, Morgan flew the drone down and zoomed in on the contents spilled at the swamp. They were like parts of a mannequin. Legs, arms, torso, and a head.

  But mannequins weren’t supposed to be bloody red, were they?

  Chapter 41

  May 12, 2019. 12:13 P.M.

  A cup of coffee warmed Gabriel’s cold fingers. He needed something to wash the bad taste clinging at the back of his throat. Morgan seemed equally flummoxed, resorting to milk instead.

  Prying the attention from his nerves and conscience, Gabriel said, “Let’s move to the next part of the plan.”

  “Which is?”

  “Let Ryatt know that Thomas has been chopped into pieces by the Detroit Alliance, and that his location could be compromised.”

  “How do you communicate with him?”

  “The news.”

  Morgan frowned as he took a sip of his milk. “Good idea. Let me handle it.”

  “I don’t think the FBI should be involved. Might tip off Ryatt.”

  “No worries.” Morgan emptied his cup. “We’ll pass it as an anonymous tip.”

  “Excellent. Also, we must work on stopping that hitman whatshisname.”

  “What? Anastasia is leading us to Ryatt. Why would we want to stop him?”

  “He’s most probably been ordered to either capture or kill Ryatt, who himself is not a novice when it comes to guns. A massacre will ensue. And in this age of Facebook and Instagram Live, the gunfight will escalate into a national sensation. The FBI will be chastised if we did nothing when we knew it was going to happen. We may both lose our jobs.”

  “But… but if we intercept them, a shootout will ensue nonetheless.”

  “It’s not the same as inaction,” Gabriel said.

  “Let me see what I can do.” Morgan took out his phone. “But getting the SWAT ready will take some time.”

  “That’s alright. But keep it under wraps. The news doesn’t leak to the media,” Gabriel said. Bugsy should not know that his men were arrested. Gabriel needed the Detroit Alliance to be down on their guard, because their old friend was coming to them.

  * * *

  At 10:47 p.m., they received a live feed from the strike team on I-80. Gabriel was told that either a body or helmet camera was worn by each SWAT agent.

  They were positioned on Fred Schwengel Memorial Bridge, a mile-long bridge crossing the Mississippi River, connecting Iowa and Illinois.

  Civilians were denied access to the bridge. The road was barricaded on Iowa, and when the four GMCs entered the bridge from Illinois, the local PD would cut the traffic behind them, boxing those SUVs on the bridge.

  Morgan’s laptop screen was divided into four neat squares, which displayed four agents waiting to ambush.

  The first camera showed the interior of a truck the agent was sitting in. Well, it was not a truck truck. It was a ramming vehicle, waiting on the shoulder lane.

  The first GMC appeared in the distance, cruising at a normal speed, and three other GMCs followed.

  “Target on sight,” the agent said and revved the accelerator.

  The GMC was around two hundred yards when the agent’s truck moved. He drove on the side road, gaining speed, until the target was close. Then he swerved and collided head on into the GMC.

  One down.

  Thirty seconds earlier, the second camera showed the inside of another truck, but not of the ramming variety. It was a Ford Interceptor, one of the fastest pursuit vehicles ever made. It was going after the fourth GMC, the last in the formation.

  The agent pressed a button. From underneath the Interceptor, two metal claws unfolded. Between them were lines of yellow ribbons. The Grappler. Gabriel had never seen one in action, but he knew that no prey escaped its claws.

  The agent accelerated, and when the claws were close to the GMC, the yellow ribbons tangled with its rear wheels, forcing them to stop their rotation. And the GMC skidded to a halt. It happened precisely at the same time as the first GMC was crushed.

  Two of Bugsy’s hit squads were taken down simultaneously.

  Only two left.

  The second and third GMC raced away, apparently understanding what was happening.

  The third camera was worn by a lone agent lying in wait in the dark night, behind a switched-off streetlamp. When the GMC was within his reach, he deployed a spike strip. All four tires burst with satisfying pops.

  The agent moved away from the streetlamp and laughed. “Is he for real?” he said and turned the camera towards the second GMC which was swaying along the road. The dumb asshole kept on driving, until he broke through the bridge and the car fell into the river below. The water splashed and the car floated upside down, carried by the stream.

  “Holy shit!” Morgan said.

  The third and final GMC drove across the median, to avoid the spike strip.

  “Time to bring in the big gun.” Morgan pressed a key and the feed from the fourth camera maximized, filling the screen.

  It was a chopper.

  The helmet-mounted camera moved at incredible speed and caught up with Anastasia’s GMC.

  “We got visual.” The agent slid the door open and brought up a rifle. It was hefty, like a grenade launcher, but when the agent squeezed the trigger, it shot a pellet that attached itself to the car. It was called StarChase, a thin GPS device. Anastasia could now run all he wanted, but he could never hide, not unless he dumped the car and ran on foot. Which he couldn’t do as they were on a tall bridge. Gabriel appreciated the tactfulness of the SWAT.

  Then the agent lifted another rifle fit with a scope. A sniper. He took aim and shouted, “Pop goes the weasel.”

  The shot went off and the back tire of the GMC exploded.

  It swerved, the trunk of the SUV lower
ed and grated against the tarmac before coming to a grinding halt.

  Three men came bursting out with machine guns and shot at the helicopter.

  “Sons of bitches,” the agent said and closed the door. Gabriel could hear tinkles as the bullets struck the metal. The agent rummaged through his bag and selected a weapon. An M4 carbine this time. Sliding the door open, he returned fire and all three fell down in under five seconds.

  Stupid gangsters. Why did they even try? SWAT agents were heavily trained pros and almost all of them served in the Army.

  The agent did say he was shot, but since he was wearing full-body armor, he was alright except fat bruises.

  However, the helicopter got hit pretty badly. It couldn’t maintain flight and the pilot had to maneuver it down.

  Morgan switched the camera to the spike-strip agent who showed them the helicopter. No fire, no smoke, no explosion like in the movies. Instead, a huge ass combat helicopter was parked in the middle of the road.

  The SSA looked at Gabriel with a frown on his face.

  “What?” Gabriel asked.

  “Y-you are smiling at this carnage?”

  Gabriel, who hadn’t known he was smiling, said, “Sorry.”

  However, he couldn’t stop smiling. Because nothing was more satisfying to watch than strong bad men stopped by stronger good men.

  Chapter 42

  May 12, 2019. 11:58 P.M.

  The white Hummer passed through a town called Davenport in Iowa and got stuck behind a long line of vehicles. Leo, sitting in the passenger seat, turned the volume up on the dashboard TV.

  “… emerging reports suggest that this atrocity is nothing like our city has ever witnessed,” the pretty black girl said into a mike. “It begs the question, is Detroit exporting its crime?”

  The camera cut to the newsroom where an anchor grimly said, “For those who haven’t heard, Southfield PD has found body parts at a marshland near Holy Sepulchre, a historic cemetery in Oakland county. An anonymous tipster who has pointed us to this macabre obscenity also told us that the remains belong to a man named Thomas Brown. The involvement of a prominent Italian Mafia family is suspected. Brown was apparently burned to death by blowtorches and—”