5 Twisted Vine

by Toby Neal

  Peace to you in your final days. Thanks for reaching out through the forums, and I hope DyingFriends will help many more people in your situation.

  Sincerely, Lightbody the Gatekeeper.”

  So, who was KevorkianFan? Was Lightbody even the real site admin, or was this a final deflection? KevorkianFan was the one whose beliefs were driving the agenda of the site. His position had been clear through his “right to death” editorials.

  Once the IP tracker had something to trace, it was remarkably fast. She pinpointed a location and using satellite mapping, was able to view the large house where Lightbody lived. Sophie reached for her phone and speed-dialed Waxman’s cell.

  “Chief, I have the DyingFriends administrator’s address. It’s off island, but at least it’s in Hawaii.”

  Chapter 26

  Lei and Ken climbed out of the Bureau’s helicopter in well-marked black body armor. A mercifully smooth flight from Oahu to the Big Island had brought them into the parking lot of Lei’s first station as a police officer. Well-worn South Hilo Station, where she’d started her career in law enforcement, looked just about the same. Captain Ohale, burly with a few more threads of gray in his buzz cut, had come out to greet them. Several officers and the SWAT team were already gathered around the vehicles they’d use for the raid.

  “Captain!” Lei gave her former commanding officer a hug, the Kevlar vest making it awkward. “Great to see you again, even if the circumstances could be better.”

  “Hated to lose you to the Feds,” Ohale said, brown cheeks lifting ever-present Oakleys up with their wide grin. “But fun to see you flying in on a helicopter, girl. Hear you been tearing it up over there.”

  “‘Wherever I go, there I am.’ As Dr. Wilson would say.”

  “Speaking of, I know she’d love to see you if there’s time.” He whacked her shoulder in a friendly fashion. “So, we pulled together a team for a takedown, like you guys called for. Who’s the perp you’re after?”

  Ken had come to stand beside her, and she introduced them. Ken gestured for the other officers and SWAT to come in, and they formed a circle around Lei and Ken. Everyone looked unfamiliar and intimidating in their black body armor and weaponry, just as they should.

  “Hopefully we can catch this guy off guard. He’s the administrator of a website that promotes assisted suicide, and we suspect, may have been an ‘angel of mercy’ in murdering several people himself. We have no idea what weapons he may have, but we can expect an unknown subject or subjects who are prepared to die,” Ken said.

  The drivers of four vehicles plugged the address Ken distributed into their vehicles’ on-board GPS, and radio silence was enforced in case the unsub was monitoring the police band. The team’s order was established: SWAT would break down the door, the FBI agents would follow, and additional local police officers would guard the perimeter to make sure the unsub didn’t escape out the back.

  Lei and Ken jumped into an unmarked Land Cruiser with two SWAT in front. Lei glanced back to see Captain Ohale watching them pull out, hands on his hips.

  She hadn’t realized how good it would feel to see him again, and even with preraid adrenaline up, she was a little nostalgic as they roared through downtown Hilo, thinking of the things she’d enjoyed about working with local law enforcement. The new job offer, compartmentalized into a niche, felt like it was pressing on the back of her brain.

  All the downtown Hilo buildings seemed to have a tinge of mildew from the damp. Towering tree ferns and orchids decorated almost every house. For once it wasn’t raining, though everything was lush as she remembered.

  Lei frowned as she realized they were traveling through her old neighborhood at the back of town, a quiet area of tin-roofed cottages built in the 1960s connected by a necklace of exterior electrical poles. And for some reason she couldn’t put into words, she wasn’t even surprised when the house they pulled up to and surrounded was the sprawling compound of the Chang family, crime lords of the Big Island.

  They had history, she and the Changs—and it seemed today they’d be making more.

  She felt her heart rate spike as she turned to Ken. “I know this house. This is the Chang crime family compound. There will be a lot of people in the house, and they’ll be well armed. We’ve got to move fast and surprise them, or this could turn into a siege.”

  Ken’s dark eyes widened as he absorbed the ramifications. He lifted the radio to his lips and passed that on to the squad leader. Somewhere deep in the house, a large dog had begun an aggressive barking that raised the hair on the back of Lei’s neck.

  “Let’s move fast,” she repeated, squashing her helmet with its built-in comm unit down over her rebellious hair. She checked her Glock, patted the flash bangs in her pants pockets and her backup weapon on her hip as she followed Ken. The SWAT unit, six officers strong, was already at the front door with their door cannon while the backup police took up positions behind the parked vehicles. She and Ken split up to crouch behind the SWAT officers, weapons out in low ready position.

  “Police!” the team leader yelled, and swung the door cannon. The door, splintery and old, held. Lei heard running feet and the report of a pistol from the window beside the door. Someone was already up and shooting.

  The officer swung the cannon again, and the wood blew apart, revealing the reason for the door’s resistance: a steel core. Another officer took hold with the team leader, and they aimed the cannon right at the handle area. This time it blew inward, but now rifle fire, peppering their vehicles, had joined the chaos.

  Lei, jittery with adrenaline, made herself as small as possible crouched behind the SWAT officer in front of her, and ran in behind him. The SWAT members peeled off, taking down the shooter behind the window and spreading out through the house. Lei and Ken headed toward the center of the house—the source of the menacing barking.

  Lei felt her world telescope down to what she could see and hear through the helmet: the burr of static, voices reporting in, the thunder of her heart in her ears, eyes scanning for targets, breathing constricted by the body armor. There was no room in this world for doubt, hesitancy, or compassion—there was only shoot or be shot.

  The interior of the house was dimly lit, a maze of rooms punctuated by dark unidentifiable humps of furniture. The barking of the dog led them toward one final door. She crouched on one side, Ken on the other, and they heard the menacing snarl of what was on the other side.

  Lei knew the day had finally come that she might have to shoot a dog. She was very clear that she’d rather shoot a human any day, but there wouldn’t be a choice if she were being attacked.

  Ken made eye contact, gave a head nod. She reciprocated, and he stood and kicked in the door with one well-aimed blow just below the handle. It flew inward and he stepped through, aiming his weapon inside. She sprang in behind him, ready for the leap of the dog and braced for gunfire.

  Chapter 27

  A slim young man dressed in fatigue pants and an undershirt held one hand up in the air. The other restrained a great brindled pit bull by its collar. He stood in front of a desk with a bank of computer monitors on it and appeared unarmed. In the other corner was a hospital bed, dimly lit by the green and blue light of monitors. A shrouded form lay there unmoving.

  “On your knees!” Ken bellowed, and the man dropped to his knees, now using both hands to hold back the dog. It was frantic to attack them, jaws gnashing and spraying spittle, eyes slitted. He appeared to be barely hanging on.

  Lei hit the light on the wall. The fierce white of the overhead fluorescents broke the aggressive spell, and the dog sat back on its haunches, still barking.

  “I have to put him in the back,” the man said, and Lei and Ken moved in to cover him as he wrestled the dog to the back door. As soon as the animal was secured on its cable tie out in the backyard, he knelt, and Lei moved in to cuff him as the SWAT leader called the all clear.

  There was something familiar about this young man. She thought he might be Healani
Chang’s grandson, a boy with an attitude and a red do-rag she’d busted for tagging back in the day.

  “Glad you held your dog,” she said in his ear. “I didn’t want to have to shoot him. Are you Lightbody?” He turned his head so quickly toward her she knew the answer was yes. She hefted him up. “Let’s go.”

  “We can’t leave my grandma here without care,” he protested as they went back into the house, the dog barking hysterically behind them.

  “We’ll call it in.” Ken got on the comm to Dispatch to send someone from Animal Control. “Who is someone we can call for your grandma?”

  “My sister. She lives in Hilo.”

  Lei handed the young man off to Ken as they moved toward the front of the house. She approached the bed.

  Healani Chang, Big Island crime boss, looked back at her. Chocolate-brown eyes, always her best feature, were sunken in grayish fleshy pouches. Someone had done her thick silver hair in braids. She wore a scarlet muumuu, stark as blood against the white sheets. An IV and urine catchment bags hung from beside the bed, and the sheets were tucked up under stumps where her knees and feet should have been.

  Lei took her helmet off, tucked it under her arm. “Mrs. Chang. It’s been a long time.”

  “Not long enough.” Healani’s husky smoker’s voice was the same. “I knew it would be you, in the end. Somehow I always knew. Wish I’d killed you years ago.”

  Lei stood for a long moment, staring at her enemy. The hate in the woman’s hard brown eyes hadn’t changed in the years since they’d last stared each other down, but she was surprised to feel nothing but a wary sorrow, looking at the wreck the woman had become. “What happened to you?”

  “Lung cancer. Diabetes took my legs. I’ve got only a few weeks to live, they say, and I’m not spending it in jail.”

  Lei looked toward the door, but Ken and the young man had gone to the front of the house with the rest of the gangsters the team had rounded up. They were alone.

  “That your grandson? The kid I picked up for tagging?” Lei distinctly remembered running the boy down as a teen, tackling him four years ago.

  “Yes. He’s a good boy. Went to college. Not in the game.”

  “He’s not in the drug game; he’s in a different game. Do you know what he does on those computers?”

  “He has an online business. Brings in plenty of money that way. Legit.” Healani’s ragged voice had gotten stronger. “You leave him out of this.”

  “Mrs. Chang. We aren’t here for you. We’re here for him.” Lei measured each word and bit it off. The fight drained out of Healani Chang’s eyes, and the life with it.

  “Can’t believe none of them got you,” Healani said. “I should have killed you myself.” Her voice was so low Lei had to lean in to hear it. Lei could tell the news about her grandson was a crushing blow by the leeching of color from her puffy face. Lei frowned, but before she could say another word, she found herself looking into the black bore of a weapon the woman had brought up out of the bedding.

  Lei dove, banging her head on the steel bed and her chin on the stand of the IV rack. She was stunned, flat on the floor and seeing stars. She heard the boom of a pistol report in the enclosed space, then a second one.

  She was too dazed to get up and was unsure where Healani was aiming next. She stayed down, waiting for the spinning stars in her vision to subside. She cursed herself for not searching Healani’s bed. The woman was deadly no matter her age or disability.

  She heard the rushing thunder of boots, heard them stop in the doorway, heard her partner yell, “Lei! You okay?”

  “Gun!” Lei yelled back. “She’s armed!”

  “Not anymore.” Ken came forward to stand in front of her. “What happened?” Lei could see him looking around, his brows drawn down in concern.

  One of the squad appeared in the door. “Oh shit.”

  Ken reached down and helped Lei up. Her head spun, and she clung to him, turning to look at the bed—and wished she hadn’t. Most of Healani’s head was gone, and gore covered the wall behind her body.

  “Oh God,” Lei said. “Oh. God.”

  She felt visceral horror rise up and squeeze the breath out of her lungs. There was a hole in the side of the mattress where Healani had taken a shot at Lei.

  “Where’s your weapon?” Ken’s voice was sharp.

  “Holstered. I never saw it coming.”

  “Give your weapons to me.” She was barely aware of handing him her Glock and her backup weapon, she was so dizzy. She needed Ken’s help to walk back out of the house. Her legs had gone rubbery, vision doubling in and out. He supported her outside, and she dropped to the ground. “Are you injured?” he asked.

  “I hit my head. I don’t feel well.” She rolled to the side and vomited, narrowly missing his boot. He cursed.

  “Medic! First aid over here!”

  Lei closed her eyes, feeling the roughness of the uneven grass of the Chang front yard against her cheek and utterly lacking the wherewithal to do anything more than lie there. She must have a concussion. She felt something damp wiping her hands.

  “Just rest. You’re going to be okay.” Ken’s reassuring voice. An ambulance pulled up, and Lei opened her eyes. Lying facedown on the grass, cuffed a few feet away with the other suspects, the Chang grandson stared at her, and she recognized the implacable hatred in his narrowed eyes.

  She closed hers to shut it out.

  Hours later, they descended off the helicopter, and Lei and Ken accompanied Terence Chang III, aka Lightbody, off the helicopter and into the Prince Kuhio Federal Building. He’d been formally charged with multiple counts of third-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Through all the proceedings, he had never asked for a lawyer.

  Lei’s head hurt, thumping with pain along with every breath. The EMTs had diagnosed her with a minor concussion, but once she told them about her head injury on Maui, they wanted to put her in the hospital for observation.

  She’d declined and followed Ken and the prisoner toward Conference Room B, where they conducted hostile interrogations. Waxman walked up to her, accompanied by Sophie. The tech agent looked tense.

  Ang frowned as Ken guided Chang into the interview room. “I thought he’d be older,” she said.

  “Texeira.” Waxman stopped Lei with a hand. “I heard you were supposed to be in the hospital. You have a head injury on an old head injury.”

  “I’m okay, Chief. I want to be in on the interview.”

  “I want you to go home. Call for someone to keep you company and put compresses on it.”

  “No, sir.” Lei pulled herself fully upright, looked him in the eye. “I need to see this through.”

  He stared back for a moment, then sighed. “Okay. You can join me in the observation room. But I want Sophie in the interview with Ken. She’ll know what kinds of questions to ask Chang related to the website.”

  “Okay.” Lei exchanged a glance with Ang. She trusted the tech agent—Sophie’d know what to ask Chang even more than Lei did, and that old history wouldn’t distract from the interview. “It might be good to sit down for a while.”

  Lei followed Waxman into the dim cave of the observation room as Sophie followed Ken into Conference Room B.

  Chapter 28

  Sophie felt all her senses sharpen as she stepped into the bare room behind Ken, who had attached the prisoner’s handcuffs to a ring on the steel table. The room smelled musty and closed up, and she realized how seldom she’d been in it—her job was usually behind the reflective mirror on the other side.

  Overly bright fluorescent lighting bleached out Lightbody’s black undershirt and bent head. He was midtwenties, medium-height, slender-built, with the olive-tan skin of mixed Asian and Hawaiian heritage.

  Sophie’d brought her handheld tablet to make notes, and she had an Internet connection open to her computers so she could ask him site-related questions. She sat down beside Ken, who’d turned on the recording equipment at the door. They were both piped in
to monitors and clearly visible to Lei and Waxman on the other side of the mirror.

  Ken stated the date, time, and names of all present and started in. “Tell us about the philosophy behind DyingFriends and how it got started.”

  The young man, Terence Chang III, rubbed the skin of one wrist. Sophie could see it was red and abraded from the cuffs.

  “Agent Yamada, I wonder if Mr. Chang needs to be cuffed. He doesn’t seem like an ordinary criminal,” Sophie said.

  Ken glanced at her, one brow raised, but went with it. He reached over with his key and undid the cuffs. They dropped free with a metallic clang.

  “All right, Mr. Chang.” Sophie placed the tablet on the table, touching it with her long fingers as she gazed at the young man. “I am an admirer of your work. The DyingFriends site is an extraordinary accomplishment.”

  Terence Chang looked up, eyes widening slightly. She flattered him some more.

  “I’m a technology specialist for the FBI, and I routinely crack into databases and track their source within hours. It took me an extraordinarily long time to penetrate your site and track you down, and in the course of the investigation, I came to admire both your skills and your passion for your cause. This is your moment to share your vision with us. Help us understand what you were trying to accomplish.”

  “I did accomplish it.” Terence sat back with a return of what looked like a natural arrogance in his demeanor. “I wanted to help people who were mentally or physically dying adjust to their circumstances, make it easier. Help them by having some control and say over the process.”