“One down, four to go,” Yasiv said under his breath.
An arm tugged on his sleeve and Yasiv quickly folded the paper and slid into his pocket.
“What’s up?”
Detective Dunbar stared back, a frightened expression on his round face.
“Come with me,” he said quickly. “I need to show you something”
Yasiv, his concern growing, followed Dunbar out of the room. The detective led him to his office and then indicated his computer screen.
Yasiv swallowed hard as he took a seat behind the desk.
Onscreen was a photocopy of a newspaper article written in Spanish. In the center, surrounded by text, was a full-color image of a burning boat. Even though the stern was partly obscured by flames, Yasiv saw enough to recognize the name: B-Yacht’ch.
“It gets worse,” Dunbar whispered. He leaned over and clicked a few buttons and another image popped up.
Yasiv felt his chest implode.
It was another image of the boat from a different angle, but inlaid on this one was a black and white headshot of a person who looked nearly identical to Damien Drake.
Suddenly feeling dizzy, Yasiv reached into his pocket and pulled out a cheap flip phone.
“Should we tell him?” Dunbar asked, his eyes locked on the screen.
Yasiv nodded; he had already started to dial the number.
***
“Congratulations, you two are the proud parents of a beautiful baby boy. Have you thought of a name?” the nurse said as she handed the bundle of screaming child over to Jasmine.
Drake stared at the baby, his eyes brimming with tears. Then he looked at Jasmine and saw that she was crying, too.
They hadn’t discussed the name, but when their eyes met, something unspoken passed between them.
“Clay,” Jasmine said softly, and Drake found himself nodding. “I think we’re going to call him Clay.”
The nurse rested a hand on Jasmine’s shoulder and offered her a smile.
“I think that’s a great name,” she said. “I’ll leave you two alone. If you need anything, just press the red button by your head.”
“Can you tell Suzan to come in here, please?” Drake asked, and the nurse nodded.
“You know, I wish you’d shave that beard off your face. Can you imagine that being the first thing you see of your dad? A ratty, salt-and-pepper beard?” Jasmine said as she pressed the child against her bare chest.
Drake chuckled and wiped more tears from his eyes.
Jasmine’s expression softened.
“You want to hold him?”
Drake couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a baby.
“Where’s Suzan? She should be in here.”
“Don’t worry about her, she’ll be back—probably just went for a coffee. Here, hold your son, Drake.”
He reached for Clay, but as he did, something in his pocket vibrated.
Jasmine’s brow furrowed.
“What is it?”
Drake pulled the burner phone out of his pocket and stared at it before answering. There were only a handful people who had the number, and since he’d gotten it about two months ago it had never rung.
Swallowing hard, Drake stepped away from the hospital bed and answered the phone.
“Drake, it’s Yasiv. I’m afraid… I’m afraid something happened to your brother.”
Drake listened carefully to what the man had to say, but even before Yasiv was done speaking, the phone slipped from his hand and crashed to the floor.
“What’s wrong? Drake, what’s wrong?” Jasmine asked, concern in her voice.
Drake could barely speak his throat was so constricted.
“It’s my brother… I think I have to go… I think I have to go to Colombia.”
Jasmine’s eyes went wide.
“Now? What—”
There was a commotion outside the door a second before it burst open.
“You can’t go in there!” Suzan Cuthbert exclaimed.
“I can do whatever I want,” a familiar voice said.
Drake turned and looked at DI Palmer as the man approached, a beaming smile plastered on his face.
There was nothing Drake could do. He had nowhere left to hide, nowhere to run.
“I knew that if I followed Suzan for long enough, she’d lead me to you,” he said.
Suzan swore and reached for Palmer, but one of the uniformed officers that followed the DI into the room grabbed her.
“I wouldn’t make any vacation plans just yet,” Palmer continued as he hooked a handcuff around one of Drake’s wrists, and the other to the chair. “You have a pending date with a 4 x 6 first.”
“Leave him alone!” Jasmine shouted. Clay started to cry and the nurse suddenly appeared out of nowhere. She scooped up the child and held it protectively against her bosom. “Why can’t you just leave us alone?”
DI Palmer raised an eyebrow and stared at Jasmine.
“Leave you alone? No, I’m sorry, not when you and I are just becoming acquainted. I’m thinking that you might want to start looking for a babysitter, though. If you want some recommendations, I’d be happy to help.”
“Get out of here!” Jasmine screamed. “Get the hell out of here!”
Drake finally realized what was happening and he felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach.
“No!”
DI Palmer nodded.
“Yes, Drake, yes,” then, as he slapped a new set of handcuffs on Jasmine, Palmer leaned in close and whispered in Drake’s ear. “Ken told you not to fuck with him, so did Raul. This is your fault, Drake. Everyone would’ve been better off if you just stayed dead at the Reynolds’s farm.”
End
Drug Lord: Part I
Detective Damien Drake Book 6
Patrick Logan
In this country, you gotta make the money first.
Then when you get the money, you get the power.
– Tony Montana, Scarface
Drug Lord: Part I
Prologue
The man carefully moved the scoopula filled with white powder over top of the beaker of simmering liquid. He’d already weighed it three times to ensure that he had the exact amount necessary to complete the reaction.
Not a fraction of an ounce too little, not a fraction of an ounce too much.
After taking a deep breath, he tapped the scoopula on the side of the glass beaker and the powder slid silently into the liquid. It dissolved instantly, which put a smile on the man’s face behind the light blue mask he wore.
When the timer on the bench chimed, indicating that thirty seconds had passed, the man used a pair of tongs to remove the beaker from the Bunsen burner. Almost immediately, the rolling simmer slowed and then stopped entirely.
What was once a clear liquid started to condense into an opaque paste.
The man moved quickly now, using a flat metal spatula to first remove the paste from the beaker and then spread it onto a baking sheet.
This was the least precise step in the entire process, but the man was pleased to see that he’d created an eighth of an inch-thick layer that was nearly perfectly uniform.
The smile still on his face, he walked the tray to the other side of the room and slid it inside the pre-heated oven. As soon as he closed the door, he reset the stopwatch for twenty minutes.
Only then did he dare pull the mask down to his chin and wipe the sweat from his brow.
The smell of vinegar in the air was pungent enough to make a normal man’s eyes water, but not the lab tech’s.
Over the past six months, he’d spent so much time in the lab that his olfactory senses had long since become insensitive to the smell.
And yet, his own body odor was strong enough to crinkle his nose.
I need a shower, he thought. I need a shower and a drink.
As he contemplated the appropriate order of these events, a man in a neatly-pressed white dress shirt walked by the bay of windows flanking the lab. A moment
later, the door opened.
“How’s it coming along?” the man with the shaved head and deep tan asked.
“Twenty minutes and we’ll have enough for all the packages we received last week.”
“Good. Let me know as soon as it’s ready and I’ll have the guys start mixing.”
The lab tech nodded and was about to leave it at that, but just before the door closed completely, he spoke up again.
“Horatio?”
The man in the doorway turned to look at him, his lips pressed together tightly in a stern expression.
“What is it?”
“I just want to make sure you know what you’re adding here. Ohmefentanyl is even more powerful than carfentanyl. Less than—”
Horatio silenced him with a wave of his hand.
“Your job is to make the product, something you get paid quite well to do so—just let me know when it’s done. Like I said, our mixers are ready to go, and our distribution network is in place.”
With that, Horatio closed the door and left the man alone in the lab.
Less than a microgram is enough to kill a person, the lab tech thought, finishing the sentence that Horatio had cut off. And we’re about to flood the heroin market with enough ohmefentanyl to kill the entire city of New York.
The man’s brow furrowed as he did some quick mental math.
No, that’s not right, he thought, his smile vanishing. Not just all of New York; half of the entire United States. I’ve just made one ounce of pure ohmefentanyl—enough to kill more than 150 million people.
PART I – No Way Out
Chapter 1
“Damien Donald Drake, you've been charged with second-degree assault, assaulting a federal officer, and aggravated kidnapping. Has your lawyer explained these charges to you?”
Drake glanced over at his counsel who gave him an encouraging nod.
“He has, Your Honor.”
The judge, Hon. Kevin Robinson, pulled his spectacles down to the end of his nose before speaking.
“And how do you plead?”
Drake chewed the inside of his lip and cast another glance at his lawyer. This time, the man refused to meet his gaze.
“Mr. Drake? How do you plead?” the judge repeated.
“I would first like to take a moment to—”
The judge shook his head.
“This is not the time for commentary, Mr. Drake. You need to respond in the form of a plea.”
“I get that, but I need to—”
The judge rapped his gavel once, effectively silencing Drake.
“Mr. Drake, do you need a moment to confer with your lawyer? You have been charged with several very serious offences and in order to continue, you must enter a plea.”
There was some grumbling from the audience behind him, but Drake ignored it.
“My lawyer has explained the charges to me.”
“Very good. Then I'll ask you one more time to enter a plea. If the following words out of your mouth are not either guilty or not guilty, I will hold you in contempt of court.”
Drake took a deep breath.
“Just answer the question,” his lawyer said out of the corner of his mouth.
Drake closed his eyes and as he did, images of Veronica and Mandy came flooding back. Images of the two of them standing naked in black boxes, cattle prods extending from holes in the one-way glass.
And then he thought of Jasmine and the way she’d smiled in the photograph—the photograph of her holding a brick of heroin.
The judge banged his gavel once more, bringing Drake out of his own head.
“Mr. Drake, how do you plead to the charges that I've read to you?”
It was clear that he wasn’t amused by this charade.
But a charade it was, and Drake wasn’t amused either. He wasn't amused about being shot in the leg nor was he amused about being arrested by that prick DI Palmer moments after his son Clay was born. He wasn’t amused that his brother had been murdered, and he certainly wasn’t amused by the fact that there was more heroin on the streets now than there had ever been.
And the worst of it? The worst part was that the mayor of New York City was behind the entire charade.
Drake cleared his throat and then finally replied.
“I plead that Mayor Ken Smith will pay for what he's done. I plead that when I get through with him and all of ANGUIS—”
Judge Robinson slammed his gavel down three times in an attempt to silence both Drake and the audience who had erupted behind him.
“That’s enough!”
It didn’t work.
“—holdings—Raul, Horatio, Steffani, and Ken Smith—they’re gonna wish they never fucked with Damien Drake. They’re gonna—”
“Damien Drake, you are in contempt of court. Bailiff, please remand him into custody.”
Drake's eyes shifted to the large man in the khaki-colored shirt who stepped forward at the judge’s request. Drake knew that he only had a few minutes before the bailiff cuffed and led him out of there.
“—wish they never met me. When I'm done with that asshole—”
Again, more gavel banging and shouts from the audience.
“Mr. Drake, that's enough!”
The bailiff was on him now and Drake didn't resist. In fact, he didn't do much of anything. He allowed the man to force him onto the table, sending his lawyer’s notes spilling to the floor. He even put his hands behind his back to make cuffing him easier.
“—he’ll either be behind bars or beneath dirt. Mark my words.”
The bailiff hoisted Drake upright by his wrists and then spun him around. For the first time since entering the court, he got a good look at the audience who had filed in behind him.
There were maybe two-dozen people present, and perhaps a quarter of that number standing at the back with camera equipment, but Drake only saw one of them.
Drake scowled, and his anger finally got the best of him. He tried to lunge at the Deputy Inspector, but the bailiff anticipated this and held fast.
“You’re going down, Palmer. You all are. You wait and see, you wait—”
The judge banged his gavel once more, but this time, the echo that sounded after wood met wood seemed to continue on forever.
It was a terribly confusing sound, one that didn't make sense to Drake. He tried to turn and look at the judge, to see how he was making that impossible noise, but his vision suddenly swirled. It was as if he was on a carnival teacup ride, going round and round and round.
The feeling was so strange and nauseating that Drake felt bile rise in his throat. He heard someone ask if he was all right, but when he tried to speak, the only thing that came out of his mouth was a thin stream of vomit.
What the fuck is going on? He thought moments before he collapsed to the floor and his entire body started to seize.
Chapter 2
“Give me a hit of that,” Leroy said, reaching for the joint in his brother's hand.
Declan Walker pulled away, bringing the joint to his lips at the same time. He inhaled deeply, held the smoke in his lungs for several seconds, then expelled a massive cloud. Again, Leroy tried to grab the joint, but Declan held it just out of his reach.
“Come on, man, gimme me a hit of that,” Leroy pleaded. “Don’t be a dick.”
His brother smirked.
“You shouldn't be smoking this shit. Fucks up your mind.”
Leroy sucked his teeth.
“What are you talking about? You started smokin’ when you were eleven.”
“Yeah, and look at me now—I’m a dumbass,” Declan said, sucking in another huge toke. This time he exhaled the smoke in Leroy's direction.
Leroy swatted at the air.
“Just give me the—”
Declan chuckled and finally handed the joint over, which Leroy was disappointed to see was already half gone. He quickly took several short tokes in a row without exhaling in between, and then he kicked at a stone as they continued along the sidewalk.
“You should be studying,” Declan said. “Not gettin’ high.”
Leroy followed his brother's gaze as he turned to look up at the housing projects that they were walking through.
“Otherwise you’ll stay in this shithole for the rest of your life.”
It was in an unexpectedly poignant comment from Declan, who generally only liked to talk about one of three things: his weed, his women, or the gold chain that he wore around his neck.
Leroy took another toke.
“What's wrong with that?”
Declan stopped so suddenly that Leroy almost bowled him over.
“What the fuck, Declan?”
His brother reached out and gripped him tightly by the shoulders.
“Don't say that shit. Don't ever say that shit.”
Leroy tried to shake Declan off, but the man’s grip was too strong.
“What's your problem, man?”
Declan glanced over his shoulder at the high-rise and then lowered his gaze to the three hood rats sitting in the park in front, brown bags of liquor in their hands.
“That’s what you want? You want to be like them? Huh? You really want to live here for the rest of your life?”
Leroy shrugged, and his brother tightened his grip.
“Man, you’re fucking hurting my arms,” Leroy protested, but Declan didn’t ease up.
“That's what they want you to do, that’s what they want you to think. They just want to keep a nigga in the hood. They don’t want you to break out, get a real job, a nice house. All that shit. They just want us to stay right here, in one place, where they can monitor and control us.”
Declan finally let go of his arms and Leroy shook them out. He had no idea what his brother was talking about or what had brought about this wholly unexpected diatribe.
“Shit, you just high. I don't—”
Declan reached for him again, but this time Leroy was ready and avoided his brother’s grasp.
“Yeah, I'm high, and that's what they want, too; they want you to get high and keep on gettin’ high. Anything to keep you here, in this shithole. Speaking of which, gimme that shit back.”
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 2 Page 37