Deadly Phine

by Darrell King

  “Keisha, I’ve got to start your injections ASAP. Without it you will surely die,” her brother informed her. “These shots will allow you to live a fully normal life just as long as you continue to take your Biomax-O injections twice each month … at the beginning and near the end of the month for the rest of your life. I know it sounds tough, but hey, you’ll live. Now your sex life will be truly challenging because within your body, the HIV5X antibodies will react like full blown AIDS, only more aggressive and fast acting. Any person coming into contact with your vaginal secretions or blood will put themselves at a ninety percent risk of contracting HIV5X. After which time, if they are not immediately treated with the serum of Biomax-O, the virus will quickly take hold within a week or so after transmission. The highly aggressive microbes will then fully annihilate the host’s immune system, and at this point the victim would have full blown AIDS. He or she would then sicken, waste away and die within a very short span of time ...usually three months or less.”

  TaKeisha and her mother embraced while fighting to absorb everything in which they were hearing. It was almost surreal to the mother and daughter that this was actually happening. Yet TaKeisha had little choice but to receive the injection of Biomax-O which her brother had pleaded with her to accept.

  As Eddie removed his medical kit, TaKeisha braced herself in order to take the shot of Biomax-O that Eddie warned her would be unpleasant at first. Eddie drew a hollow tube from his black leather bound medic kit. He then attached a narrow, long hypodermic needle onto the end of the plastic tube. A few drops of silver, mercury-like fluid squirted from the tip of the needle as Eddie quickly tapped the container before kneeling down beside his sister and taking her outstretched arm into his hand.

  “TaKeisha, I love you so much. I am so sorry that this had to happen to you … I really am. But I will be damned if I ever let you die on me!”

  Olivia Goddard held her daughter tight as her son slid the shiny metallic needle into his sister’s vein. TaKeisha winced momentarily as the initial prick of the needle pierced her flesh. She then shrieked out in agony as the serum made contact with her blood stream. Hysterical with burning pain throughout her lithe, young body, TaKeisha had to be held down by both her mother and brother as she kicked, thrashed and twisted about wildly. Though her discomfort lasted for no longer than a minute or two, it seemed more like an eternity in hell for the young woman who afterwards drifted off to sleep following a long, hot bath. She was now also a participant, albeit unwillingly, of the illicit “Operation: Inner City Virus.”

  Chapter 11

  There are several scientists and other members of the medical community worldwide who truly believe in the persistent theory that AIDS is a man-made disease created for the sole purposes of population control and bio-warfare research. These esteemed international doctors are in a minority who claim that the U.S. government, via the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and MKULTRA, has in the past demonstrated a willingness to experiment on unsuspecting citizens without their knowledge or consent.

  On May 13, 1998, District police officers recovered the bodies of Valentino’s three hostages near the 14th Street Bridge. All three corpses were removed charred and blackened beyond possible recognition from the smoking smoldering Dodge van that sat near the bottom of the bridge itself. The victims had all been shot execution-style in the back of the head, presumably by Valentino before he in turn torched the gasoline-covered vehicle.

  After two days of intensive research, it was determined that the suspect, Lucien Valentino had taken a late night flight by private plane back to Puerto Rico. This was determined upon interviewing the air traffic controllers and staff at the small Virginia-based airstrip dubbed “McGee’s Airport,” located just outside the much larger Dulles.

  “That bastard Valentino has beaten us to the punch! He’s left the mainland, but with all the murders and a rape here in the DC area we’ve got linked to him, there is absolutely no way I’m gonna let that animal get away scot-free. I’ll do everything I can to get into the ear of the FBI and the proper U.S. Military Police to hunt him down and bring him to justice,” Detective Goehring announced to Lt. Williams as they sat in Williams’ brightly lit office.

  Lt. Williams nodded in agreement to the words of his good friend, and then took a stack of paperwork on Don Lucien Valentino from off his work-cluttered desk. The lieutenant sipped the last of the black coffee he’d been slowly drinking and placed the mug down as he arose to walk over to the window at the far end of the room. He stared out of it, looking across the street in solemn thought before speaking.

  “Yeah, you’re right, detective … but we better hurry up with whatever we do, ‘cause this cat is a living, breathing weapon. And it’s no telling how many more folks are gonna die if we or somebody, anybody don’t get this fool off the fuckin’ streets.”

  Both men sat afterward in silence, each acknowledging the seriousness of the task that stood before them. It took less than a week for Detective Goehring and Lt. Williams to acquire the proper arrest warrants necessary in order to travel with both the FBI and a contingent of military police to Puerto Rico in a concentrated attempt to apprehend Valentino. The U.S. Army’s passenger plane carrying P.G. County police Detective Goehring, Lt. Williams, Dr. Edward Goddard and company, landed at the base in Old San Juan at approximately 6:45 p.m. on May 17, 1998.

  Once the crew of law enforcement officers exited the plane with their equipment, they met with the local San Juan authorities for thirty-five minutes, detailing a map of La Perla’s slum neighborhood and the surrounding jungle terrain in which Valentino’s property would be located from the La Perla gate boundaries.

  “I know exactly where Valentino lives and I know by now how to get here,” Edward stated. “We don’t need these local, yokel cops playin’ tour guide for us, because hell, they’re every bit as crooked and criminal as the drug runners themselves. Valentino practically runs the whole fuckin’ department here in Old San Juan. No—hell no! There ain’t no way I’m lettin’ these fake ass cops lead us anywhere.” Dr. Goddard exploded angrily as he pointed over towards the small group of Puerto Rican policemen whose previously calm demeanor was now replaced by sullen, hostile looks that followed him as he walked around the base venting.

  Detective Goehring quickly made his way over to the fuming young physician, taking him over to the far end of the yard near a row of Army jeeps.

  “Look, doc, you gotta keep it together, alright?” Goehring warned him. “I know that you’re goin’ through a tough time right now. We all are. Yeah, these few months have been one helluva roller coaster ride, kid. But we need you of all people to stay calm, okay? If you know how to get out to that scumbag Valentino’s place, then hey, let’s get up the road, my friend. I agree with you about these shady cops out here; the fuzz down here in Puerto Rico has always been notorious for corruption and illegal activities. So, don’t worry, they’re not involved in this case of ours. They’ll only provide questions to our answers, got it? Now, c’mon, let’s go bag this creep before it’s too late.”

  Reluctantly, the young doctor silently shook his head in agreement and followed the detective back over towards the awaiting military cops. By 8:00 a.m. a convoy of Army jeeps loaded with armed military police set of toward the distant palm tree shrouded valley which lay the turbulent projects of La Perla, where scores of savage drug-dealing gunmen patrolled every single nook and cranny throughout the dirt poor housing area.

  As the eight jeep military convoy reached the rusted, front gates at the neighborhood entrance, local lookouts—mostly young children no older than ten or eleven—raced back through the streets whistling loudly and yelling out the grim warning of Policía! to their armed employers, who quickly tossed the bulk of their neatly packaged narcotics behind bushes, garbage cans and down storm drains while the dealers themselves raced to take cover within the run-down tenement buildings and behind dense foliage nearby.

  The roaring jeeps commandeered by solemnly staring MPs bea
ring camouflaged M16 rifles thundered pass the residents of La Perla, who looked on in silence as the camouflaged vehicles rolled along in route to the exit and rainforest beyond their hood.

  The normally confrontational La Perla’s drug dealers realized quickly that to fire upon such a heavily-armed force would spell certain death for them, so they calmly remained in their hiding spaces, holed up watching as the U.S. military proceeded down the street and through the exit untouched. The journey through the jungle proved to be more scenic for the soldier cops more than anything else. After no more than thirty minutes, the convoy came out of the rainforest and into the clearing where the golden rods of prairie grass waved and leaned in the late evening breeze giving rise to the huge mobile home unit in the foreground.

  Chapter 12

  Although modern science has discovered an understanding of the disease at its core, HIV continues to wreak havoc on minority communities in America’s inner cities and rural areas largely due to poverty, a lack of education and little or no medical care. Risky behavior such as intravenous drug use, secretive bi-sexual activity widely known as “the down low” and inconsistent condom usage all work to hasten the spread of the virus throughout black America’s poorest communities.

  At long last the officers arrived on Lucien Valentino’s property. The armed MPs followed by Detective Goehring, Lt. Williams, and Dr. Goddard charged through the gates encircling Valentino’s unit of trailers swarming through the drug lord’s flawlessly manicured Japanese rock garden in route to his double wide. The front door gave way before the violent entry of the Army police officers as they burst into Valentino’s home yelling out orders in both English and Spanish. However, even they were unprepared for what they would discover within as well as throughout the premier mobile home. Dozens of dead bodies, primarily those of Hispanic women, many barely out of their teens, lay bloated and stinking in the trailers and out on the pristine lawn. The unfortunate women, who had served as Valentino’s prostitutes and maids had suddenly become expendable in the wake of their employer’s impending arrest.

  Of the thirty-four corpses, most were found to have been shot to death. However, others had been poisoned with a lethal heavy metal known as thallium that was identified during the following autopsies. Valentino, it seemed, had once again foiled his pursuers, thus escaping arrest and causing Goehring, Williams and Goddard to react with animated profanity as the realization of yet another get away by the infected dope peddler brought their frustration to the forefront. After the U.S. Army secured the crime scene and removed the bodies for identification, the cops assembled outside the abandoned compound.

  “Well, there’s nothing more for us to see or do here any longer, men. Let’s move ‘em out,” barked a husky voiced Army Sergeant as he leaned out of the passenger’s side window of the lead jeep while the engine loudly hummed in unison with the other dark green vehicles. With frustration, anger and heavy hearts the trio from Landover, Maryland joined the crew of Army officers within the jeep convoy that trailed away one after the other back through the rugged, jungle pathway again toward the mean streets of La Perla.

  ***

  When the jeeps motored out of the wild tangled undergrowth of the jungle trail, the head driver noticed two ragged looking peasants standing on top of a beat up hooptie waving their spindly arms frantically in an effort to bring the jeeps to a stop. Signaling the other drivers to stop, the sergeant stepped outside of his vehicle with weapon drawn as he commanded the Puerto Rican men to step down from the hood of the car. As the men hopped down onto the rocky, dirt road with their hands raised high above their heads in compliance to the orders of the policeman, they continuously jabbered away in broken Spanish, obviously attempting to explain something of great importance to the military cops who, because of their ignorance of Spanish, were totally oblivious, hearing nothing more than senseless rambling.

  “Dr. Goddard, we need your help up here so we can figure out what in the hell these two are freakin’ out about,” stated a loud-mouthed M.P. as he watched two of his officers pat the men down thoroughly.

  Within minutes after introducing himself to the Puerto Ricans in Spanish, Dr. Goddard was in awe upon hearing the men’s story.

  “Valentino … he’s no good. He has made many of our daughters, sisters and nieces drug addicts and whores. He has brought nothing but evil, addiction and death to La Perla. His money keeps the drug dealers and other bandits rich while La Perla’s poor starve in the streets. Don Valentino is despised by all except the criminals who prey upon our people. Please, we beg of you, sir, please help us … we beg of you. I cannot bear to watch my people suffer at the hands of that animal any longer.”

  Dr. Goddard first assured both men that their nightmare would soon be over and then he interpreted the men’s tale to the awaiting soldiers who stood around listening with interest to what the men had to say. The peasants told a tale of almost nonstop violence and intimidation since Valentino entered the barrio with his rugged band of desperadoes. After twenty minutes of dime-dropping, the military police had more than enough proof of their suspect’s whereabouts to move in for the capture. The convoy of jeeps sped along the dusty, shrub-covered prairie as the rusted jalopy before them raced toward La Perla.

  Upon their approach, as usual roof-top lookouts whistled and yelled out frantic warnings down to the various groups of drug dealers who responded accordingly by scattering, seeking shelter behind and inside the surrounding tenement buildings. Once inside the vicinity of the slums, the military lawmen brought their vehicles to an abrupt halt upon the command of the lead officer. The two resident snitches leaped out of their rickety whip and raced over toward the first jeep.

  “Señor, Señor … he is there! There, in that gray building,” the first man cried, excitedly pointing as his companion nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

  The building, an aged, ugly, broken-down monstrosity of a structure in which a dozen or so harsh looking street thugs crowded about the steps of the front door staring toward the soldier cops with unmoving insolence, was in the heart of La Perla.

  “Listen up, you kids, get off of the stoop and go home now!” the beefy Army sergeant bellowed through his bullhorn as he stood in the middle of the street between the drug dealers and his soldiers.

  “Amigo, we cannot do that because it is you gringo bastard who is the fuckin’ enemy, know what I mean?” a tank top wearing muscle bound youth snapped amidst the vocal agreements and hand slapping of his tattooed comrades.

  Somewhat taken aback by the brazen defiance of the Puerto Rican youngsters, the soldiers tightened up on the grips of their rifles as their leader who appeared to be flushed red with anger again rose the bullhorn to his mouth.

  “This is your final warning! You will cease and desist with your insubordination or face consequences of a most dire nature. Now get up off of the stoop and take your spick asses home … NOW!”

  The Puerto Rican gangstas stood their ground looking on with rebellious courage, daring the military police to make the first move.

  “Fuck this shit! I’m goin’ up in that muhfuckas!” Lt. Williams announced bluntly as he charged ahead without warning.

  Lt. Williams raced towards the group of assorted thugs as they began rattling off round after round of white-hot lead. As he ran up on the blockade of human shields, seven gangstas immediately fell from the stoop as they were peppered by dozens of metal encased rounds, Lt. Williams could not see amidst the spray. The onrushing Prince George’s County police lieutenant was savagely mowed down by gunfire raining down upon him from the upper windows and rooftop of the apartment building. That was all it took to send the slum unit into an uproar of chaotic turmoil.

  The deafening clatter of semi-automatic gunfire echoed throughout the surrounding complex, frightening the hell out of the terrified residents who huddled together, praying tearfully as the gun battle raged outside their doors. Men fell wounded and dead on both sides as the acrid smell of gun smoke filled the late evening a
ir. The criminals of La Perla proved to be more formidable than the U.S. Army expected, prompting one overzealous young M.P. to aim a rocket launcher at the building in which the rebellious drug dealers were holed up.

  With perspiration beading his heavy brow, the tender-aged soldier drew a bead on the building that held the hated Lucien Valentino and tried hard to ignore the drumbeat-like thumping of his heart. Sweat had now trickled down his chiseled face and into his eyes which stung causing him to blink erratically, he felt the cold rubber stock against his strong jaw and tightened his grip on the bulky weapon in his grasp. The bull’s eyes came within view and the twenty-two-year old gunner breathed in deeply held it … then exhaled as he squeezed the trigger sending a projectile with the explosive power of two hundred and fifty pounds of TNT speeding into the old decrepit tenement building at sixty-seven miles per hour. As the rocket penetrated the building, it went up in a fiery, red orange mushroom cloud of flame and smoke accompanied by a resounding boom that literally shook the earth beneath the target building for over a mile and a half. The soldiers dropped instinctively to the ground as the building exploded.