Last Thuggie Book III: You Will Pay (3)

by Jamal Shakur

We reached the compound in the mountains in the twilight hour; we came in full force, SWAT, DEA and six patrol cars. The appearance was that of an army squadron. Not only did we attack here but also every known thuggie camp in the US. We thought this would shock them but they were ready for us, as if they knew we were coming. A SWAT point man reported in “Squad leader to command central we’ve spotted approximately a dozen men on the perimeter of the roof with would appears to be sniper rifles.” I responded to the call, “Look take it easy, from our Intel they are heavily armed with an arsenal but don’t let this be another Waco, maybe if we talk to them they will cooperate.”

  I contacted the sheriff, but he was not responsive. Who had the authority to answer, we didn’t know at this time. But a lone figure, walked slowly up the street carrying a white flag of peace. But we weren’t taking any chances we’ve been fooled before and lost a good number of men. “All right hold it right there, drop the flag, knees on the ground and hands up.” One of the officers frisked him and he was clean. “I am the representative of the Spirit Nation, why are you attempting to attack us in this manner?” I was amused by the strange name that he affiliated himself with, all this time we thought we were dealing with the thuggies but they quickly disavowed themselves from that moniker. “We have traced a man by the name of Karl Ranger to your group; he is wanted for multiple murders of law enforcement officers in Philadelphia.” The representative gave us an innocent smirk and said, “I also am attorney for this group, and as far as I can tell you are looking for one individual, may I please see your warrant.” I showed him the warrant. After perusing the document, he continued to speak, “As I can see you mention one individual, what is that you would like to do.”

  “First tell those bastards on the top of the roofs to lay down their weapons immediately and finally we want to search every building in the town.”

  You give a persuasive argument detective however it’s a very crude one at that.” He ended his soliloquy with a wave of the hand and the men on the roof did as they were ordered. I personally directed each squad in the examination of every building there. There weren’t any weapons there which corresponded with the data of weapons on the hard drive, the only weapons found were the sniper weapons held by the so-called snipers. Where could hundreds of weapons disappear to and how did they know we were coming there to search and investigate them, obviously we had another mole or multiple moles in the department. To make matters worse we were contacted by the brass on the scene to wrap it up and give them back the weapons that they possessed since they were all obtained legally. There wasn’t a trace of Karl but just like the weapons that suddenly didn’t exist; they both went up in what seem like a vapor. But my studies of thuggies had instilled in me the discoveries of subterfuge, for they are arch deceivers and everything that they do is thought out before hand like a science of subterfuge. It is no wonder that historically they were known to have killed millions and people like these are not to be trifled with.

  We had a number of setbacks but surprises were always around the corner. Crenshaw was at a murder scene and contacted me. “Guess who we found just outside the precinct door and this time you won’t have to travel that far just outside your building.” I ran down the steps, I don’t why he was playing these childish games and not just tell me who it was. But this was real surprise, it was Karl Ranger, he had become a liability for the group and I presume they thought they were giving us our man that we were pursuing but it didn’t work out that way all were at least accomplices. The thought at thuggie central is that the police and their cohorts would be relaxed after they gave them their man that they were pursuing, this would be a good time to go ahead slowly with the attacks they had planned.

  It was the ides of March and coincidentally the blossoming of the cherry blossom trees in Washington DC, it was an appropriate time to give the message of a new day and a new order. The sniper planned, profiled and waited for his mark to exit out of the senatorial office. Senator Jordan Blair was a thorn in the side of the thuggie / Spirit Nation, he was into the blackmail business and the cult wasn’t into the paying commerce, he would be a silent example for now, no one need know who it is that catapult his life line. The sniper was fortified at his window with a 308-caliber sniper rifle and a British made rifle the L115A3. He waited patiently for the Senator to show his face, it was unusual for a Senator to have two body guards but because of his shady dealing he worried about his safety. The sniper aimed at the two guards with the L115A3 which was used to hit two targets with one bullet, hitting his bodyguards behind him and killing both simultaneously, next with his shot now clear, he proceeded quickly to shoot the Senator with a head shot, and the deed was done.

  Crenshaw was in my office cubicle early in the morning sipping on a forty year scotch that he had only opened on special occasions and I guess the killing of Karl Ranger was the momentous event that required this luscious libation. “Join me Lomax, you only get a few of these you might as well enjoy it.” I reached my hand for the glass in the affirmative, but happened to bring up something to give him pause, “Did you hear about the assassination in DC?”

  “Well it’s not our boy; he’s cooling his heels off on a slab in the morgue and being fitted for a toe tag.”

  I thought to myself, I hope he’s right but my mind has a habit of not believing what is in full view in front of me. I went into the adjacent building which was the morgue and donned my scrubs and began to dissect Karl’s body, I started at the chest area , nothing unusual there , next I use a saw to open up his skull , the brain seemed healthy. However, I noticed what appeared to be a long scar on each side of face that traveled the length of his chin. I took some forceps and tugged at the skin, I was amazed the skin on his face was completely removed. The answer to this problem is that he was a double. My next step would be to check his DNA with the FBI data base and see what we have here.

  Ch 47

  I came back to my cubicle and was surprise that the FBI agent Crenshaw was still there sipping on his glass of scotch. I didn’t want to crush his solitude but I must, “I don’t want to kill your mood but this might make you either stop drinking or increase your intake. The body in the morgue is not Karl but a double.” He nearly choked on his liquor after hearing that. To add insult to injury a shattering sound of glass reverberated into the office space and a hole the size of pea was sprouting blood from Crenshaw’s skull, I guess officially Karl was back from the dead. I grabbed the automatic shot gun under my desk and ran to the direction of the shot which was the front window. I looked across the street and only saw a small flare. After the delivery of the head shot the sniper placed the rifle in a case for disposal, he sat the timer and the case exploded, I and the rest of the officers across the street seen the flash from the explosion. Three of the officers headed up by me ran across the street with our guns in hand. The flash came from the third floor; they took the steps instead of the elevator being cautious but the only thing on the floor was shattered pieces of a brief case and a scope that did not disappear away with the bomb explosion.

  We were out gunned and outmatched; the perp was picking us off one by one at his own pace. His plan to leave a double only lasted for minutes as he began another attack against us. But to my way of thinking the so-called Spirit Nation was devoid of any unity, the killing of the double probably came from those in authority to disavow themselves from the tick for tack murders, but the murders from Karl was his alone as a maverick that kept on continuously . To make matters worse my desk phone was now ringing and that was only the phone used when there happened to be a murder to look at. “Homicide, this is Officer Randolph, I’ve just discovered a body, Caucasian female about two blocks from the precinct.”

  I arrive there in about ten minutes; there was no caution tape visible, just the lone officer there who called in the murder was on the scene. “ All right , I don’t know if your accustomed to a murder scene , but look in the back of my trunk and bring out the caution tape and began to rope out
this whole area , this a murder scene.” The body was a young white female, her throat was slit and her stomach was cut opened, she was positioned like the earlier killings in a missionary position.

  Omar arrived on the scene just five minutes after me and started to question the officer who was first on the scene, he wanted to know first did he violate any evidence anywhere in the murder scene. Officer Randolph was a young rookie who was definitely out of his element, it was his first week on the beat, he was frightened and it was visible by the bright beet red tone of his face but answered in a professional tone that nothing in the crime scene was violated. He stated that he kept away any civilian spectators from the scene cutting down on any contamination. I could confirm his statements everything looked pretty clean. It was déjà vu all over again the body was found in the alley way of a coffee house and was positioned the same way as the last murder.

  I waited to get the female on the table at the morgue to make my assessments of the whole dismal affair. What struck me with a somewhat of a surprise was that her kidneys and liver were intact unlike before, the internal parts were the only one taken. “It is said that the tail is the tastiest’ part of the turkey, I presume that is the same for a human body,” the voice whispered. The voice came from the shadows of the corner in the back of the room; it was Omar, who very rarely set foot in this room. But he was right, and if you coupled what happened today with this murder, the perp is letting us know that he will be attacking on two fronts, individual and groups.

  I was exhausted and the captain suggested that I take on more help at the morgue and homicide.

  “This is a new officer that I am introducing you to; she has been in homicide for ten years in the Germantown area.” Detective Lorie Anderson this is your department head detective Lucky Lomax, Lomax this is Lorie Anderson.

  Lorie Anderson was a tall athletic woman, with a golden brown complexion she’s very businesslike with a matching pants suit but you could still see the beauty that she tried to hide. She smiles at me without any sexual innuendos and said simply, “Glad to meet you sir, I hope that we will get along and catch a lot of bad guys.” If I didn’t know, it would seem like she memorized everything she said to me but sometimes reaching higher positions in the police force is political.

  I required two extra hands at the morgue and it seems like she would be some help but the way I work is erratic but we shall see, I guess that’s the method to my madness. The bodies were piling up at the morgue, domestic abuse, drug gang related crimes and others, and hence we weren’t the only show in town, thank god for the help, because I could now give all my attention to the thuggie murders.

  Ch 48

  When things seem dismal there always seems like a break falls my way. I have always been lucky in that way, no pun intended. The thuggie cult is comprised of mostly former petty criminals and dope fiends with this type of behavior a lot of them make major mistakes. We had the compound under heavy surveillance , we noticed that one car at about three in the morning was creeping out of town at a very low speed , as if that would make him unnoticeable. The Feds picked him up and followed him to Philly. He was down in the area of the city in North Philly known as the jungle and like the jungle it was wild. He wasn’t there for sightseeing; the house he entered was a known crack den. The DEA boys were helping us out.

  He came out the building in about a half an hour. There was a small package in his hand and he was walking briskly and nervously down the street towards his car as if someone was after him. I was sitting in a dark colored car and thought I was unnoticed by him but he spotted me and I deduce he recognized me , because his eyes became big and bugged out, then he started to run towards his vehicle which was about twenty feet away. Omar was out of the vehicle making a coffee run and the fool ran right by him, not noticing a 6ft something burly Black man right alongside him, Omar simply swatted him with one hand and held the coffee still in his other huge hand without spilling a drip. I and the rest of the stake out crew ran up to him, “I got you a sticky bun with that coffee, is that alright, Lucky?”

  We all laughed with the exception of the perp, he was in shock. I don’t think his superiors would be ok with him being arrested and then questioned by the police. We got him at the precinct but he wasn’t mumbling any religious dogma but he was creepily quite, he didn’t say a word as if he frightened out of wits. He sat lethargically for almost an hour of questioning and would not say anything, finally I broke the ice, “I don’t know what you’re trying to do but if you don’t want to talk to us, I guess I’ll get word to your group that you are arrested and cooperating with us, how do you think that will go over with your people, “I smirked and snickered at the whole thing.

  He was more frightened than before and took a bite at the bait. He started to speak, he stammered for about twenty seconds before some actual words came out his mouth, I don’t know if it was the drugs are fright but he was really terrified, “ I ,I , I am a nobody , a foot soldier for the Spirit Nation and only do as am commanded.” I look at him very intently and said, “You know what type of people your superiors are, so all I want is certain info from you and then we will let you go without charging you and telling them anything about our little discussion here.”

  “What do you want to know,” he said stuttering.

  “First off, where are the guns and where is Karl Ranger.”

  “I don’t know about General Ranger but the guns are under the ground.”

  “And what the hell you mean, underground.”

  “Just like I said underground, there are electrified powered doors in the floors and the switch is thrown, the door slides open and underneath are all the weapons we need.”

  “So could you tell me the type of guns is underground?”

  “I don’t know, I think I saw some grenades, rifles and the like, there were hundreds of them but they only let me saw briefly what was down there.”

  “Omar call the DA and get a subpoena, we’re on our way to the compound.”

  Our entourage was heavy with men and artillery, we had the best snipers that SWAT could give us, and the Feds were available along with about ten uniform officers. Two tanks and with five armored vehicles, we look like we were ready for D day and that’s exactly what you had to do when dealing with this cult of madness. We were moving slowly up the road at about 10 miles per hour, there wasn’t anything extraordinary happening as of yet, we were about twenty miles from the compound. And then it happened there was a sound similar to tiny whiffs; the SWAT team recognized it as sniper rifle fire. Whatever it was it hit the armored cars destroying them and the passengers with them. I learned that the perps were obviously armed with anti- material sniper rifles , that kind of weapon and artillery could take out armored vehicles instantly , this type of weaponry was utilized by the CIA and US army snipers, obviously Karl Ranger was doing his job and trained his men well. “Take cover, take cover,” that was all you could hear from our side. We were scrambling on both side of the road and dived on the side of the road because we couldn’t tell with assuredly where the bullets were coming from. As instantly as it had happened it suddenly stop, we proceeded down the road with caution. There weren’t any attacks for the last ten miles of what seems like a long trek. We finally reached the compound.

  To our amazement the town was deserted, the attack was a façade to keep us busy as they evacuated, we found only two anti material 50 caliber rifles that shoots 470 times and reloads 59 times. They must have been well stocked to just leave weapons like these but I presume two out of hundreds didn’t matter to them. We searched all the buildings in the compound, and like our snitch said there were underground rooms under floors of each building. However, all the weaponry was removed but there were hundreds of empty racks which could only mean that they had enough weapons to fight a small war and a war of sophisticated weaponry at that. We sat foot into their computer room but the hard drives were destroyed and the hardcopies were shredded. The church was interesting , not only did
the giant crucifix slide aside after pushing a button but the whole wall slid back revealing a room, Omar set foot first and took quick paces to the back room. “I think you all better get back here quickly,” he shouted.

  It was astonishing there was at least ten bodies hanging from the rafters, each one was decapitated with their stomachs opened with the kidneys and liver removed. I decided to make an autopsy on the spot, fortunately I had a couple of my assistants with me; if we waited we would have to evac by helicopter all of the bodies that were on display here. We made makeshift tables with clean table clothes that we had found. I attached a tape recorder over my head then attaching it to my laptop. I had all the surgical equipment that I would have normally had with me at the morgue. The only abnormality was the organs of the stomach and this time the heads of each body missing or taken. I checked the lower region and discovered that they were all virgins and was at least in their teens or early twenties. I was sorry I started this whole thing instead of waiting for the evac helicopter because it was a daunting task. The area where the bodies were hung in grime and filth, there was also piles of blood and human parts in the corner; they were obviously doing this type of ceremony for some time. I separated the body parts and it would seem that they were from at least ten different bodies; hence I wouldn’t be surprised if more bodies weren’t found.

  Ch 49

  Tuesday 8:00

  We were evacuating everything back to Quantico including the bodies, I wasn’t apprehensive about using their facilities instead of our own but I had to acknowledge that they had more state of the art machinery than we did. The FBI’s morgue facilities were pristine and mostly immaculate which was interesting for areas that had the spillage of blood and body parts. I partnered up with Dr Will Jackson who was the head ME. We both changed into our scrubs and spoke into the microphone connected to separate tape recorders. He stared very intently at the bodies and stated in amazement, “You know Lomax this is exceptional work especially dissection done in the field, amazing.”