Prisoners of Paradise

by Brandon Lars Erikson

  “What do you mean they are dead?!” Makula bellowed.

  Bronson backed up as he said, “They were late in coming back from the Sacred House Reservation, we went there this morning to look for them…and the truck they had been driving was completely riddled with laser blasts…there was blood everywhere…we couldn’t find any bodies…and all the Makani plants that they would have transported to our downtown Cutz making facilities, were gone.”

  Makula shook his fists and shouted, “someone stole another load of Makani from me and killed my own son while they did it!? This is the last straw! Who did this?”

  Bronson took a deep breath and put a serious expression on his face, “I think we both know the answer to that, sir.”

  Bronson put on his best poker face as his mind raced with nervous thoughts. His memory was suddenly flooded with voices from a conversation he had with a handsome stranger just a few months ago. “You’re perfect for my plan, Bronson. You are a handsome, charming guy…and that’s why you’re going in as the point man…you’re gonna butter the old man up real good and make him believe that you’re on his side. You’re gonna set him up with some money and some goods…gain his trust…he can’t find out who gave those boys in the jungle the guns that killed his friends and family. He won’t know what hit him until long after we’re gone. We can’t lose with this plan, just don’t go talking to the wrong people about it too soon. If this plan of mine is going to work, we have to make Makula think that someone else gave the order to betray him…and then, we can steal from him…and reap the rewards of what he sowed.”

  Bronson closed his eyes as he remembered how he had said to the handsome man, “But your plan…means I have to betray a guy who has been real good to me.”

  “Betrayal? Bronson, don’t think of what you’re doing as betraying anyone…you’re just joining the winning team…and isn’t that the point to any game? Winning? In this case, when this game is over, the only outcome is going to be the end of a world. Think about it, Bronson…why would anyone want to be on the losing side in a situation like that?”

  Makula began to roar and howl. He turned and began to bang his fists on the wall as he screamed out grief- filled obscenities, “Goddamnit! Some is gonna pay for this!”

  Bronson’s eyes flew open and he turned his back on the bodyguard, who was breathing a little bit heavier than he normally would like to. The big man’s mind also began racing with nervous thoughts as he remembered a conversation he had a long time ago.

  “You’re perfect for this assignment, Agent Charlie…you were born in Makula’s neighborhood…he knows you have a criminal record from when you was in high school. Why would he suspect that you’ve reformed yourself? We can erase all your Academy files…his gang won’t be able to recognize you as one of us…and best of all, this new spy equipment, which we can surgically implant in your skull, is so top of the line that the scanners and detection equipment, which are commercially available on this planet, will never be able to give you away as a spy for the CIA. There is only one downside though…this assignment might take a while…we might have to wait for something really big in that crime family to happen before we can move in and make arrests…you stand the chance of your wife and kid not recognizing you when you’re finally through taking the Pilikoa’s down.”

  Agent Charlie held his breath and tried to keep his stoic, bodyguard composure as he as he thought, “Aw shit…the waiting game is about to be over…”

  Unknown to Makula and Bronson, the bodyguard was not who they thought he was.

  Makula knew the tall, strong man he had hired as a bodyguard as Charlie Kali. Makula knew his bodyguard as a young, Kupano man, who had been born and raised in the urban jungles of Polynea. Makula knew Charlie was the product of living in a poverty stricken neighborhood, which was dominated by gangsters and their ruthless business practices.

  “And look how this all turned out…” The big man with the sunglasses tried to contain his nervous thoughts, he remained stoic as Makula continued to shout and kick the wall.

  What Makula didn’t know about his new bodyguard, was that two years ago, after completing a rigorous training course, CIA Agent Charlie Kau’kali had given the consent necessary to have a tiny computer system surgically implanted into his skull. And right now, that computer system was recording every word being spoken here, and getting ready to transmit it to someone who was now desperate for information.

  “Bronson!” Makula shouted at the top of his lungs.

  The skinny human stood at attention as the angry gangster stomped his foot and said, “this is what we’re gonna do!”

  No one noticed how the bodyguard suddenly seemed to become very interested in what was happening.

  “Keep talkin’ guys, keep talkin’…I know some people, who want to figure out what’s exactly on your mind, so they can uncover a few of your dirty, little secrets…and make sure you both get exactly what’s coming to ya,”

  Agent Charlie became like a statue as he tried to control his emotions and stay calm. This was the most crucial point in a cat and mouse game he had been playing for a long time now. The game was just about to end, and the winner would soon take all.

  Location: Moke’s Office in Hana Paloi

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1600 Hours.

  “Who is Fats Manawilli? I’ve got to make sure that no one speaks that name again,” Moke thought as he bit his lower lip and narrowed his eyes as he read the medical file that spelled out many top secret details about one Captain Ronald James Harris.

  He felt the blood rushing to his head as he thought, “no one can know about this…no can find out what I am about to do…”

  He gasped as he realized that there were rapid footfalls outside his office door.

  Moke’s heart began to race as he realized the silence he had been enjoying had been interrupted by a hailing beep. Someone wanted to gain access to his office. He quickly sat up straight, and pushed the button on his desk that allowed the office door to open.

  Jack Bauman rushed in with a dark look on his face. “Sir, I have to talk to you, right now!”

  “Jack? What the hell is going on?” Moke said as he closed out the medical file and reached for his gun.

  “Sir, this is absolutely urgent!” Jack said as he sat in a chair in front of Moke’s desk and allowed himself to calm down just enough to open his laptop computer without his hands shaking. “I just got this transmission from Agent Charlie, sir! He’s one of my undercover agents. He was assigned to penetrate the Pilikoa crime family.”

  Moke felt his lungs filling with the welcome relief of oxygen. “Tell me more,” Moke said as his own hands began to shake.

  Jack’s eyes became wide with excitement as he said, “Somehow, Agent Charlie got into Makula Pilikoa’s good graces…Makula gave Charlie the opportunity to be one of his personal bodyguards.”

  Moke pulled his hand away from his weapon as he realized how face betrayed his disbelief. “One of our agents, got close to Makula?”

  “Better yet,” Jack said, as he cued up his program. “Listen to this.”

  Jack only had the audio data that Agent Charlie was able to collect and send to him, but the angry voice was definitely Makula’s. “To hell with that! My son is dead because of him! I’m telling him this deal is off! Loko Kalaheva ain’t getting any more of my Cutz to sell to no off-world entertainers because he ain’t got no respect for the people living on this world! We’re gonna go there tonight, and we’re gonna put a few thousand bolts of laser fire into his skull…and then, I’m gonna spit on his corpse!”

  Moke’s eyes opened wide. He felt as if ice crystals had formed in his veins. He stopped breathing for a few seconds. Makula’s words seemed so riveting and so familiar. He felt as if a strong fist was crushing his heart while a sudden flood of memories, triggered by Makula’s words of war, took over his conscious mind.

 
From the memories, came a voice, “I need you boys to do a favor for me…I need you to do something real important…something that has to be done right.”

  Moke’s eyes widened as he remembered how his friend, Ronald James Harris, had looked as a sixteen year old kid with long, platinum blonde hair. Moke’s breathing became labored as he recalled the black, leather jacket Harris wore and the gun he had been carrying with him. His teeth began to grind as he remembered sound the gun made when Harris loaded it with a clip full of ammunition. Moke closed his eyes as his mind dredged up memories of a dark night. He recalled how he had been sitting next to Harris inside a hovercar. The engine and the lights were off. His skin crawled as he remembered the darkness and the feel of a gun in his own hands.

  Moke remembered how his mind had been burning with anxiety as he said, “Iki, do we have to do this?”

  “Yes…we do…”

  Jack’s voice broke through the mental fog that Moke found himself in, “Sir, I suggest we act now!”

  “What the hell is this about, Jack?!” Moke exclaimed, almost in disbelief.

  “We really don’t know yet, sir.” Jack was trembling as he said, “But if we don’t act soon, there could be a chance that Makula is going to cause Loko Kalaheva some serious harm.”

  Moke couldn’t shake his disbelief as he said, “Loko Kalaheva? He’s the guy that owns Mele Entertainment. How could he possibly fit into this situation Makula was talking about?”

  Jack sighed, his eyes blinked rapidly as he said, “Captain, this is all speculative, but I started thinking about all those murders that were happening in the city recently…I had some agents investigate a bit deeper for me, and they found something.”

  Moke felt the adrenaline surging through his veins as he said, “We were investigating Loko for tax evasion and bribery…how could he be tied into those murders?”

  Jack cued up another sound bite on his computer as he said, “One of our agents was on a stake-out at the Kitzy Kat night club, when they intercepted this message.”

  The voice, on Jack’s sound bite, was that of an angry, frustrated man. “Let me tell you something, Ward and McDonald better have some damned good excuses for not showing up tonight. I’ve been on my feet for twelve hours now and I ain’t pickin’ up another double shift! Where the hell are they? We’re supposed to be a team here! Where’s the teamwork in this? Loko Kalaheva is a man with bucks to burn on security and they don’t bother to show up for work!”

  “What’s that all about, Jack?” Moke felt his palms beginning to sweat.

  Jack waved his hands wildly in the air as he said, “I know what you’re thinking, sir…it’s pretty shaky evidence…but the man, who you just heard speaking, his name is Taylor Innomi…and his body was found this morning. Someone slit his throat from ear to ear.”

  “You’re serious? I knew investigating those murders was the right thing to do!”

  Jack’s face became flushed as he said, “And get this, those two men named Ward and McDonald, it turns out that they are two of the murder victims my agents were investigating. We know a lot about these men, sir… we’ve seen them when they were alive. As it turns out, a few of my agents ran across them on more than one occasion while they were on stakeouts. My agents took pictures and video of Ward, McDonald and Innomi…we believe those men were also observing the Pilikoa gang while we were observing the Pilikoa gang.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I thought that looked suspicious sir, so I had some of my other agents trail them. After some serious computer searching I found receipts, travel records, and some prior criminal records on Earth that were somehow hidden from the customs officials who granted them travel visas. Sir, I apologize it took us so long to piece all the evidence together, but I believe that Ward, McDonald and Innomi were hit men.”

  Moke felt confused, but began to add it all up as he said, “They must have been stalking Makula’s gang.”

  “Apparently so…but that’s the thing I can’t understand…all three of these guys are dead, but we have no evidence to suggest that anyone in the Pilikoa organization stumbled onto them, or even knew they were being spied upon by these men.”

  Moke’s hands began to shake with excitement. His mind trembled with possibilities as he said, “But none of that should matter, we’ve got evidence of probably cause…we have enough to get a warrant…we could at least make a few arrests.”

  “Sir, the only problem is we have no proof that it was any member of the Pilikoa family who killed those three hit men.”

  Moke felt even more pressure in his chest. “So can you tell me who killed those guys? And more importantly, can you tell me why Loko hired them in the first place?”

  “I can’t prove it yet,” Jack said glumly. “But I’ve got enough pieces of the puzzle to suggest that Loko Kalaheva and Makula Pilikoa made some sort of deal.”

  “Ya gotta do better than that, Jack. I need to get a judge to sign a warrant.”

  “I’m just making a guess here, but I believe that Loko planned on not honoring his end of the bargain…he might even be planning to double-cross Makula. I think those four men, who got their throats slit last week, were hired by Loko to keep an eye on Makula…and maybe even kill him if necessary.”

  “Again, Jack, we need more…”

  “The only solid evidence I have is intelligence that Agent Charlie just supplied us…and after listening to what Makula said on this audio file…I believe Makula knows Loko was going to double-cross him.”

  Moke felt his breathing become shallow as he said, “Does Loko know the guys he hired…are dead?”

  “I have no idea, sir.” Jack fumbled with his laptop and began to sound worried as he said, “But if those four guys were acting as his security guards, then that means that Loko is sitting somewhere, nearly unprotected, and does not know that Makula wants him dead.”

  Moke felt his brain being crushed under the weight of his desires and proper protocol, “what the hell do we do? We can’t just let this opportunity slip away…WE HAVE TO TAKE A CHANCE!”

  Jack’s eyes became wide in near terror as he saw how Moke jumped out of his chair as he shouted, “Agent Bauman, we don’t need a warrant to act on your hunch!”

  “Sir?”

  “Get a SWAT team ready, the best people you can assemble! A man’s life is at stake and we have an obligation to stop Makula from murdering him!” Moke shouted excitedly as he stood up, “Tell Agent Charlie to keep us in constant surveillance, tell him he is not to shoot anybody for Makula! Tell him that he needs to find out as much information about Makula’s Cutz making facilities as quickly as he can! Even if it is just one processing facility! If we are going to pull off a huge arrest we need to be able have some evidence to make all the charges stick!”

  Location: Mele Entertainment Corporate Headquarters.

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1700 Hours.

  “Congratulations, Jordan.” Loko Kalaheva puffed on a cigar as he said, “Despite all the bad press you’ve gotten lately…you are selling albums and concert tickets quite well…you should be proud.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The handsome Hokupi singer played with a strand of his long, silky hair as he said, “I can’t begin to explain how this is such an honor for me.”

  Loko eyed Jordan with a bit of pride and envy as he said. “So, you’ll be leaving Ailana, to embark on a tour of Earth soon. How does that make you feel?”

  Jordan seemed enthusiastic, in a naive way, “it is an honor sir, and I am very excited. But I wish we could have pulled together a deal so I could have played a few concerts with Chief Tipsy before I left. So many people on Ailana didn’t get to see my last performance, because they just don’t have money to afford a ticket…and in a way, I feel bad about that.”

  Grant sat in the chair opposite Jordan. His body language betrayed the distain he had for a certain person in the room.


  Loko smiled and said, “Jordan, why in the world would you want that? Chief Tipsy’s fans and your fans don’t exactly mix well together. Chief Tipsy’s fans are usually so poor, that he lets them into his concerts for free. That might make our, target audience, all those fashion conscious teenage girls, not want to see you perform. Chief Tipsy’s weird music and stinky fans might be a huge turnoff to them. Our target demographic asks their wealthy parents for more money when they realize that ticket prices will keep certain people out of the venue.”

  Grant rolled his eyes.

  Jordan’s smile became a sad pout as he said, “But I just want to ask him how he does it…right now, I’m searching for a deeper meaning to my life.” Jordan rolled his head used his hands to flip his hair around before he said, “Chief Tipsy is so amazing. It’s like, he has this vision in his head, and he somehow conveys it musically. He just shows up and plays, without a hundred people working on the song for him. It’s all his own original material, he can make it up on the spot, and it makes people so happy…I wanna learn how to do that.”

  Loko grinned and shook his head, “Jordan, my boy, the way WE make your music is much better. The fact that you have outsold an individual like Chief Tipsy, by five million albums is proof of the superior way we do things here at Mele Entertainment.”

  Grant noticed how Jordan seemed a bit dazed and confused. Grant narrowed his eyes as he thought, “yes, you poor, little teen idol, this whole organization is designed to extol the virtues of collectivism. The idea of the individual being important is constantly vilified here…with a certain twist, of course…they want us to do as they say, and not act as they do. With all their Moralist teachings, what they fail to tell you is how certain, selfish individuals, have figured out a way to hold onto their undeserved fortunes, because they have convinced the rest of us to put our own selfish dreams on hold, and make a collective sacrifice, so that they can secretly profit from our misery…wrap your shallow mind around that idea, if you can, you twerp.”