Earthbound : A gripping crime thriller full of twists and supernatural suspense

by Fynn Perry

  Hamilton paused for a moment. “But the majority of people taking Spider’s Bite are not getting these symptoms, right?”

  Jennifer nodded. “I only found a handful of brain-death cases online.”

  “So, in theory, Tiroflen or something like it, in the right dosage to trigger symptoms of brain-death could have been introduced into some of the pills destined for El Gordito’s clubs. That would explain why only people who had been to one of his clubs got symptoms of brain-death.”

  “And why, if his ingredient works exactly the same as Tiroflen, those people who were kept on life support eventually recovered like the woman in Turkey.”

  “That would mean that the donors taken for organ harvesting were, technically, still alive when the doctors started cutting them open,” Hamilton concluded.

  The thought made them all shudder.

  “And the violent behavior . . . could this drug Tiroflen cause that?”

  “No, but El Gordito could have additionally added a hallucinogenic drug to cause that sort of behavior.”

  Jennifer now had the perfect opportunity to inform Hamilton of the existence of the rogue pills John had heard about from the conversation between his host at the time, the guard, and the bioscientist at the secret laboratory in New Jersey. She told the journalist that her source had supposedly heard about an early batch of brewed heroin not making the grade and being cut with some other drugs to shift it.

  Hamilton’s eyes lit up. “This story will blow the entire city apart!” he enthused. “But not without proof or actual witness accounts,” he cautioned, looking at Jennifer.

  “We can’t give you either, Paul. You’ll have to get your own,” David responded.

  “OK. Leave it with me to do my own research. Go home for now. I will be in touch,” Hamilton said reassuringly, unable to fully conceal his delight.

  His subsequent farewell was just as brief as his greeting when they had arrived an hour and half earlier. A few minutes later Jennifer and David were outside in the warm evening air trying to hail a cab from the busy street that ran in front of Hamilton’s apartment building.

  John joined them just as a cab pulled up to take Jennifer and her father home. He had hung back in the journalist’s apartment to see if Hamilton would call and warn someone of Jennifer’s and her father’s interest in El Gordito’s business. But Hamilton had behaved perfectly naturally, hadn’t called anyone and had busied himself with going through his notes, laying to rest any suspicion John might have had about the man.

  Paul Hamilton received a text at 8:32 a.m. the next morning as he passed through the subway exit and joined the flowing, turbulent masses of white collars, blue collars and early-riser tourists hemmed in by the skyscrapers and slow-moving traffic on Broad Street.

  The text was from his editor, Charles Lawrence. It read:

  My office when you get in.

  Passing his favorite coffee shop, the journalist figured he couldn’t afford the time to queue for his regular latte to go. He would already be late getting into the office, which he could see looming up ahead of him on the fifth and sixth floors of the stout, twenty-story, brown-brick-clad building on New York Plaza. As he approached, the reflection of the sun traced a path across one of the bands of glazing, which varied in architectural style every five floors, giving the building a layer-cake appearance.

  Once inside the building, to save time, Hamilton didn’t take the usual route to his desk but entered his place of work by a staff entrance next to the News Hub––the nerve center where the paper was put together. It sat beneath a cut-out in the floor above, the edges of which were lined with downward-facing screens showing national and international television news broadcasts. He weaved his way through vacated desks, each laden with large two- or three-screen computer displays and messy stacks of papers. Most of the staff were at morning briefings. Those who remained nodded to him as he passed them. It was obvious he was heading toward the glass aquarium which overlooked the hub and from where Lawrence presided.

  The editor wore his default expression of distrust as he beckoned to come in and sit down in front of him at his desk. The look, derived from years of cynicism born of documenting crime and the manipulations of politicians, seemed to be etched into his face amongst the furrows in his skin. The distrust was a two-way street as far as Hamilton was concerned. He understood the pressures: traditional newspaper readership was dwindling and the paper’s foray into digital––attempting to reduce serious journalism into bite-size chunks and trying to hitch a ride on the social media bandwagon––had not gone well. And, of course, there were investors to report to. Somewhere along the way, Lawrence had lost his passion for exposing the truth.

  Lawrence flipped his upside-down smile for a brief gesture of welcome. “You’ve been accessing our press database last night with a lot of searches linked to the Supreme group of companies. You know those companies belong to Miguel Vargas, Paul,” he said accusingly.

  “Sure,” Hamilton said, failing to completely hide his surprise. He had always suspected access to the database was logged, but had never imagined that all his research of the previous night would have been reviewed in the space of several hours and flagged to the editor. Obviously, some kind of alarm must be in place, monitoring searches on Vargas or El Gordito, he thought to himself. “Since when is a reporter doing some research an issue for the editor?” he fired back.

  “It isn’t, but anything to do with El Gordito is highly sensitive for us.” Lawrence gave a taut smile.

  “Sensitive? Why?”

  Lawrence’s mouth tightened. “Look, you’re a good journalist, Paul, and maybe you’ve got something on Vargas. God knows he’s guilty as sin. But we’re on a knife-edge as it is, and his lawyer can bury us in court—even if we find good evidence against him. We wouldn’t be able to pay the legal fees, yet alone any damages, if it all goes wrong. It would take the paper down.” He then changed his tone to a slightly warmer one. “Hand over what you have to me, Paul. I will take a look at it and assess the risk. What’s your angle?”

  Hamilton felt increasingly uneasy. Was this pure damage control, or had El Gordito’s tentacles of corruption gotten to Lawrence? He had to choose his words carefully now. He most definitely couldn’t state he was working a source. “People are overdosing on a new drug that’s hitting the streets, and in some cases dying. It’s in the papers and online. El Gordito was an obvious candidate. So, I was doing some fresh research on his businesses and crime history. I had nothing specific to link him to the new drug. I was just fishing.”

  The editor frowned, a harshness returning to his voice. “Leave it, Paul, or you’re fired, understand? Don’t go after him. It’s not just about the paper; you could get yourself killed.”

  Hamilton nodded. He found Lawrence’s sudden concern for his safety incredulous and he was now more determined than ever to investigate the drug deaths and, if what Jennifer had told him was true, link them to Vargas. He would get to the bottom of her story, if not for this paper then for one with an editor who still had the balls to tackle dangerous criminals.

  That evening he would make a trip to New Jersey and scope out the fulfillment center.

  When Jennifer woke up, John was lying on the floor beside her bed with his eyes shut. His glowing form was sunk slightly into the floor. She figured it was normal, whatever that meant now, and decided not to wake him over it. The last few days had been exhausting for both of them.

  On the way to the bathroom, she stopped by her father’s bedroom to check up on him after suddenly feeling breathless at the thought that somehow Santiago’s spirit might have possessed someone and got to him during the night. It wasn’t until she peered through the slightly open door into his room and found him safely asleep that her breathing returned to normal.

  She found her laptop in the kitchen and fired it up. In her previous life, she would have checked her Facebook account to see what her friends in Miami were up to. Now she didn’t bother. Nobody could
possibly have a more dramatic life than she had. Instead, she went straight to her email account. She wanted to see if Paul Hamilton had come up with anything. At the top of the list in her inbox there was a new message, all of it in bold lettering. It was from Hamilton: no subject line, no date, just the time, 4:01 a.m. that morning. She paused before opening it, concerned that he may have backed out of the story.

  She double-clicked on the message. The list of emails in her inbox was immediately replaced by a message consisting of two paragraphs of text. She read it intently. There was no greeting, no other pleasantries. Hamilton’s usual style. At the start of the message was a link: Paul Hamilton shared “Photos” with you - Download Album.

  She immediately pressed the link so the file transfer could take place. Meanwhile, she read his message. Not only had he found the fulfillment center and seen one of the armed guards in black combat gear that John had told her about, but he had also witnessed a change of shift at the center at around midnight. As the daytime shift went off-duty, he had followed two busloads of what looked like illegal immigrant workers to a gated housing village in a remote location about fifteen miles from the center.

  He had targeted one of the workers and noted in which house she lived, hoping to interview her at home later that morning, figuring she would start work again early afternoon based on the shift change he had seen last night.

  He also wrote that he didn’t have any contacts at Hargreave Merciful Hospital where the organ harvesting was allegedly taking place, but he had a friend who was an ER nurse at another large hospital in Manhattan, St. Stephens. Thanks to her, he was able to get access to patient records at St. Stephens and to find drug-related cases.

  The files had shown an increasing trend over the last month in the number of patients being admitted with signs of brain-death. A large number were linked to the taking of the Spider’s Bite pill. Tox screens had shown the presence of pure heroin combined with a drug similar to PCP and a pharmaceutical drug known as Tiroflen. There was also a rapidly increasing number of non-fatal cases attributable to taking of the Spider’s Bite pills. The symptoms were consistent with those of overdosing on a mixture of heroin and cocaine. There were no traces of any other drugs present in the tox screens of those patients.

  Jennifer was impressed. Hamilton did excellent research.

  With the downloading of the album still incomplete, she went back to her room to get her portable hard drive. By habit, she kept all her photos on a portable hard drive so as not to use up valuable memory on her laptop.

  John was awake now, and she filled him in on Hamilton’s email, whispering so as not to wake her father, before beckoning for him to follow her down the stairs to the kitchen. The file transfer had finished and the tab of the minimized download window was flashing. She opened the folder and saw a screen full of JPEG file icons. One by one, they gradually turned into thumbnails of photos: the fulfillment center in fading daylight; night-vision images of the center showing the arrival of two buses and the change in shift; images of the workers disembarking at the housing village; headshots of the workers; and photos of documents which she guessed were medical records.

  The pictures were large files, each one around ten megabytes. She used her mouse to draw a box around the thumbnails, highlighting them, and then dragged them to her portable drive. A progress bar appeared on her screen, which she minimized, so they could enlarge and view each of the photos one by one.

  “This is fantastic!” John exclaimed. “He’s even got night-vision photos! So, what are his next steps?”

  “Let’s go outside. Dad’s asleep, and I don’t want to wake him. He’s going in late to work today. He has had a lot to deal with after last night!” Jennifer whispered.

  Out in the yard, the morning sun was bright and slowly drying the morning dew.

  “Hamilton needs a source in order to run the story,” Jennifer said. “Nobody will print a story without one. Spirit witnesses don’t count, John,” she said, smiling.

  “What other witnesses could there be? Someone from the Mexican workforce? They’ll never talk.”

  “He wrote that he’s planning to talk to one of them this morning.”

  John shook his head. “Why can’t he publish with an undisclosed source?”

  “He can, in theory. There is a shield law protecting journalists, and it applies in New York and New Jersey. I already checked. But clearly, he doesn’t want to put his career at risk without his own, named source.”

  Jennifer took out her mobile phone and called Hamilton. He answered after a few rings. Slightly breathless, he explained he had approached one of the Mexican workers, but she had been too scared to talk and he had been escorted out of the housing village at gunpoint. He said he would try again but warned that until he had a source of his own or from Jennifer, he didn’t have enough yet for a story. That wasn’t to say he was giving up. He had made contact with a colleague who had spent twenty years tracing organ-harvesting operations across the world. Retired now, and back home in New York, she’d said she would use her old contacts to confirm the suspected source of any new ‘product’ entering the black market. At that point, he said he had to get to a meeting and hung up, promising to call back later.

  “This is hopeless,” Jennifer said to John, exasperated.

  David appeared at the door with a look of concern. “What’s going on?” He paused and added, “Is John here?” He had a manner of slightly lowering and cocking his head to one side when asking an awkward question.

  “He is, Dad, and we have a problem. Hamilton won’t run any story without meeting the source or getting his own witness. He obviously can’t meet John.” She went to fetch her laptop and placed it on the kitchen island. David started reading Hamilton’s email.

  “He tried to get information from one of the workers at the fulfillment center but failed.”

  David paused as he reached the end of the message. “Paul told me several times about a big crime story in the city that he worked on with help from a police detective. I can’t remember his name right now, but Paul will definitely have his details. Let me call him. I’ll ask if he’s spoken to the guy and if he thinks he can help.”

  David took out his phone. He tried to call Hamilton, but there was no response. He left a message for him to call back.

  “That’s strange, I just spoke to him,” Jennifer said.

  David tried to call Hamilton again, but there was still no answer. Jennifer got back to her laptop and opened up the internet page with her search engine. “Do you remember anything about the story or what precinct the detective was from?”

  “The story was about a Ukrainian gang working out of Brooklyn. I remember it because I was dealing at the time with a huge turf war involving Ukrainian mobsters in Miami when I was the D.A. there. He had to be a detective from a Brooklyn precinct but I can’t recall which one. He arrested the gang’s ringleader––there must be something on the internet about it …. Wait…his first name was Daniel I think…like Detective Williams …the guy who arrested Hardwell.”

  As David wracked his brain for the surname, Jennifer had already typed in the keywords ‘Ukrainian gang leader arrest’, ‘Brooklyn’ and ‘Detective Daniel.’

  Several news stories came up relating to arrests of gang members. Jennifer scanned the first one and then read out a sentence beginning: “Daniel Lazlo of the 73rd Precinct stated––”

  “Lazlo! That’s it! Daniel Lazlo!” David interrupted triumphantly. “We have to take a chance on catching him at the precinct, then. Let’s hope he’s not out on a case or on vacation.”

  Eighteen

  The 73rd Precinct was located in Brownsville, Brooklyn, at the corner of East New York Avenue and Bristol Street. It was a strange example of Seventies architecture with a design featuring an overhanging floor, a facade filled with corners and a line of bright-blue columns.

  In the privacy of David’s car, father and daughter had agreed that this time David would do all the talkin
g. He would give Lazlo details of what Hamilton was working on and how he, not Jennifer, had given the journalist the story. Speaking with the police was a whole different ballgame to talking to a journalist, after all. David would add credibility as a lawyer and could state, unchallenged, that the source of the information was a walk-in client at the legal aid clinic––an immigrant worker at the fulfillment center who was too scared to come forward himself and whose identity had to be kept confidential under attorney-client privilege. It was somewhat believable and far more acceptable than the truth. Their knowledge of the organ harvesting would be more difficult to explain. It was unlikely that any member of a highly paid transplant team would walk in and spill a story of illegal organ trade at a legal clinic. They would just have to cross that bridge when they got to it.

  Jennifer had tried Hamilton’s number again three times since leaving the house, each time with increasing concern. An automated message was stating now that the number was out of service. “We need to report him as missing to Lazlo,” she said fearfully.

  David reluctantly agreed.

  As they walked into the building, John and Jennifer noticed less spirit activity at this precinct. The spirits seemed less aggressive and kept to themselves, leaving John alone, much to his relief.