Last Thuggie Book III: You Will Pay (3)

by Jamal Shakur

  There wasn’t anything different from the bodies that I had recently dissected other than the missing heads. Dr. Jackson gave me a ironic look as if to say he’s seen this before, “ You know these parts remove especially the head reminds me of a perp we had arrested about thirty years ago , we later found out he was using the body parts as a soup that he and he guest would dine on the delicious morsel .”

  I was amazed and responded, “Well I would be curious to find out his involvement with these killings, because they seem to be following his script.” I left it like that and went on to lunch , as I was sitting down to dine my phone rang , it was Jackson “ I don’t mean to disturb you but I left a file on the perp, his name is Ivan Derski , check out the info it might be of some help. “ One thing I quickly learned in our short relationship was that the FBI was all business. The file was really disturbing, this guy went on to report the killing of young pubescent girls, and sighting the flavor that emanated from their bodies was like a young calf’s tenderloin. I wasn’t familiar with this guy, I think at this time I was probably a senior in junior high school. But that’s another story, there wasn’t any mention of the thuggie cult or anything about assassinations, he was a loner and commits most of the deadly deeds on his own. The people that had partaken in his gruesome morsel were unaware as to what they were ingesting. I have never been a proponent of super max prisons but that’s where Derski has been held for the last forty years in Red Onion State Prison, Wise County, Virginia’s Super Max prison with a triple life sentence.

  I took a train to the prison which wasn’t that far from Quantico, they were on lock down because of a hunger strike by the prisoners. I popped opened my laptop and did a little research on the prison while I was on the train. It seems that the article was citing some of the human rights violations, some of these guys have committed some of the most horrendous crimes and I guess the officials treat them as such, but the major problem is that over the last couple of years they have been putting normally minimum security prisoners right along with the madmen but no one should be treated inhumanely.

  I arrived at the building at 10:00am; the place was scary and gave the impression that you were insignificant. I entered the administration building and gave the officer at the desk my credentials. He checked them thoroughly and ran them though the computer that checked FBI and Pennsylvania files. It was highly unusual, at other prisons they just check your credentials and let you right in but not here, I gave him my weapons, which was a Glock and my small 22 caliber that I had in my ankle holster with the addition of a switch blade that I carried for special emergencies. “Thank you officer, you know of all the cops that have come through that door I think you are the first to walk in here with a switch blade.”

  I checked in with the warden, my first question I asked him was some background questions about Derski. The office was massive and immaculate, the warden himself didn’t match the digs he was working in, he was a short squat man but he seems to exhume confidence and authority contrary to his diminutive characteristics. “Sit down Mr. Lomax I see you’re interested in one of our detainees, inmate 23444/ Ivan Derski.”

  I don’t know what he was setting me up for, but I noticed he addressed me as Mr. instead of my appropriate title as detective. “Well warden what type of inmate is Derski.”

  “I have to answer that question by saying, that basically you have to realize when you’re in a prison nothing is as what it seems.” In other words the con only lets you see what is expected of him.”

  I have been here at this prison for most of his stay with us and find him to be the most cunning man I have ever met , if he can manipulate you and play his little head games , than he will be most obliged to do it. That was a mouthful, as the warden caught his breath; I quickly went further, “Has he any acquaintances while he has been here from the inside or the outside?”

  “As you know, we are a maximum secured prison and the prisoners don’t socialize with each other, Derski has been lock up for at least 23 hours a day for the last thirty eight years and only till recently has his accommodations changed which has earned him the privilege to have contact with others, but I see by my intake books he had received only one guest one time only in the last twenty years and that was a Doctor, I think a Doctor Sinclair.”

  That was interesting, maybe that’s when he was indoctrinated or introduced to the thuggie cult.

  “I know this is a very serious place and you don’t get many request to question these types of inmates, but I am heading up a murder investigation and wonder if I might question him?” I plead.

  “Your request is granted but under one stipulation, I must be there when you question him.” I didn’t like that stipulation but he controls the game, it’s his prison and he holds all the cards in the card game which includes the keys to the prison gates .

  We were both waiting for him, the warden and I, the officer swung open the door and escorts Derski into the room, his chains attached to his feet and to his wrist. He was a tall muscular man; no doubt he utilized the prison weights frequently while here. His prison uniform was pressed and was he topped off his look with very long dreadlocks, one thing that didn’t go unnoticed; this was a frightening looking guy. He spoke first and fast before I could get settled to begin my interview, “Who the fuck is you?” “You watch your damn mouth, are this interview will end quickly and you will lose some of the little privileges you have,” chirped in the warden very sternly. That quieted him down very quickly, I think he was trying to test the boundaries of what he could or couldn’t do. “ My name is Dr detective Lomax , I only have a few questions for you , first about a decade ago you had a visit with a Dr. Sinclair could you tell me what you two talk about , take your time answering I know it’s been a long time since you spoke with him.” He began to answer and created a wide grin and smirk on his face at the same time, which was some sort of devilish oxymoron that he was creating right on the spot, “ Wow , I feel sort of schizophrenic , you’re a doctor and a cop which one should I speak to .” He stated with a loud howl. “I’m both and you consider the response to be one answer.”

  “Well to answer your question, Sinclair said he was writing a book and directed his questions to me about the methods I used in murdering my beloved little virgin flowers.”

  “And that’s it, nothing about a group called the thuggies?” I said sharply.

  “No I think I would have remembered that because I’ve read something about that group in my leisure reading.” He ended his statement with sort of sneaky grin. That was a curious and unnecessary answer, he seems to inject that he was familiar to the thuggie idea just to fool with my head; this was obviously a ploy for me to have further contact with him. Hence, he wasn’t going anywhere and to have a visitor even a cop was something for him to look forward to, anything to get out of that cell was worth it. “Out of curiosity, is there any way of knowing what Derski is reading in his leisure time, his library books etc?” The warden gave me a nervous look, he didn’t normally give outsiders the privilege of searching an inmate’s cell but to my surprise he relented, “Right now the men are going to chow in the cafeteria, you can search his cell now.”

  Two officers and the warden escorted me to Derski’s cell, his cell was immaculate and obviously this man was a clean freak, his shoes were all set up in a roll , the blanket spread and sheet were spread out military style and everything was spotless, not a speck of dust anywhere. He had a small portable TV and a typewriter placed beside it. And there it was his reading material, there were five books on his shelf, three of the books were on theology and the last two were on the thuggie cult, The Stranglers: The Cult of Thuggee & its Overthrow in British India and ‘A book of India’. Both books were very scholarly done which was suspicious because Derski stated that he didn’t know a lot about the sect. He left a sheet of paper in the typewriter, and the title heading was, Thuggism a new world vision; for a man who didn’t know a lot about this cult he’s sure researching a lot about it.


  “This is very interesting, is there any mail correspondence that I could look through, “I ask the warden very timidly. “You are asking a lot that I normally don’t give permission for but the Attorney General requested that we give you all the cooperation that you desired.”

  I knew it had to be something like that, it didn’t seem like he would let anyone investigate his little fiefdom. “These five sacks of mail is all the correspondence that we have confiscated from Inmate 23444 .”

  It looks like most of the mail had never been opened but I took it with me to have the other detectives and FBI men at Quantico help me read them , surprising enough I didn’t get any flak from the warden about taking the mail with me.

  Ch 50

  I arrived back at Quantico late in the afternoon, I stopped by the morgue and things were pretty much statuesque, no new findings but Dr Jackson was diligently still looking. I bought the five mail sacks to the office that they set up for me and emptied one sack on my desk. Omar looks at me with his mouth opened and said, “What the hell is all this?”

  “I guess you could call it fan mail, are you up to helping me.” He took one of the sacks and emptied it in his area. “When in Rome……..”

  I had jokingly made the wisecrack fan mail but so far that’s exactly what it was , there were a great number of women writing him proposing marriage and announcing sexual innuendos to a man who could never have any physical contact with them. One would postulate he was a safe bet because he was as they say a captured audience.

  I almost felt filthy reading these letters; they were burdening on pornographic literature but finally we came across about twelve letters referencing the thuggie cult. Very curious the letters consisted of the history of the so-called Thug / Spirit nation. Even some type of computer coded messages in two of the letters. I found when letters or communiqués are written in this manner than it’s very important because they want to keep what they’re doing from prying eyes.

  We came across coded letters before; which were utilized by the Aryan Nation. But this wasn’t code but a different language entirely; hence the letters was written in a strange hieroglyphic for which later it was found out that this was an ancient Aztec language called Nahuatl.

  I found an expert in the ancient language and what we found out was unbelievable, as far as could be figured out, it seemed that Derski was directing most of the murder mayhem outside right from inside his cell. Hence, the familiar way the females were killed wasn’t coincidental, they were eliminated almost the same way that the perp had done over forty years ago. But how did he communicate with the cult for the last umpteen years, we only counted ten letters between us. I went back and visited our snitch and he confirmed the membership and authority that Derski had in the so-called Spirit Nation. “As far as I know that guy is a big time mukety muck in the movement and when others in the group speak of him they converse in whispers , and that’s what the hell I’m gonna to do also, and that’s all I got to say,” he spoke in a stuttered whisper. He was obviously more frightened of the thought of speaking about Derski as opposed to anything we had on him.

  My patience was waning thin and I was sick of this whole entire case. We were settled into just chasing the perp all over the city and fighting mini wars against a group that seems more better equipped and trained than we were.

  My group was still deciphering some of the language into English and even the English had some coded words in it that would have to extrapolate for its meaning and fill in the lines of the sentence to get its meanings. One of those sentences had mentioned at least a couple of times about recruitment at the prisons, armed forces and even law enforcement. Hence, they were slowly becoming a third column in our society. They have according to the pages in the letter , have been recruiting for the last ten years and Karl Ranger was the instructor who trained them in hand to hand combat , sniper skills and computer technology. After training them for a number of years they were ready to do harm. It was surprising but they had a chronological order of the way they were doing things almost always up to the present. They had an apocalyptical flavor to their writing which is apparent in most dangerous cult groups; a kind of the last day’s attitude where they are the only ones who have the correct direction. The killing of the females were religious in nature a sort sacrificial paradox but also instrumental in training for the soldiers to become accustomed to killing. The next step was to attack with massive militarily skill which they are doing now. The thing that made them more dangerous than any home grown criminal that I ever faced was the weaponry and the do or die attitude that they espoused. But whatever way they approached the destruction of our society, they had a purpose and that intention is to deceive; which is why they picked the name Spirit Nation instead of coming out as Thuggies.

  At this time we had one snitch, we needed more. It would be good to have an inside man or men to inform us about every big or minute goings on in the organization. Whenever I’ve been thinking this way Agent Crenshaw would pull a rabbit out his hat. He was waiting for me again in my cubicle in the wee hours of the morning once again. “Are you going to make this behavior a habit?” I questioned sarcastically. “Well if anything you will continuously receive some primo coffee and pastry, but all jokes aside, we may have access to a snitch.”

  “And how’s that I said?” I asked skeptically.

  “Before a lot of the fireworks went down, I had some of my men place GPS devices on about six of their vehicles which resulted in the capture of three of their men.” We have them at Quantico cooling their heels. We had them in separate rooms and let them sweat and worry about what was coming next, I was watching some of them through the window they seemed to be cool and calm and not a worry in the world , this might be because some of them were ex con’s and they probably have seen some of these tactics before. However, one thing about ex cons they don’t like doing time and that might be our way in. I’m surprised that they let themselves be captured some would rather die than have to be locked up for some period of time. I finally went into room 101 first, the guy in there seem more pliable, he was moving around nervously and didn’t seem to like his surroundings. I opened the door and entered the room cheerfully with a big smile on my face and said , “ How you doing , I know you’re famished , here’s some coffee , tea or soda with a Danish , you make your choice.”

  He looked at me suspiciously, he’s evidently has seen these tactics before. His physique and demeanor was adversarial and militaristic, the perp stood about 6 foot 5 and didn’t say anything that could be used against him. He just kept repeating over and over again “My name is Josh Gordon and I am a member of the Spirit Nation, cell number 554499.” And that was it, it was like dealing with a prisoner of war and to his way of thinking we were the enemy and being arrested didn’t interplay in his way of thinking. Someone like him who is apparently brainwashed, I might have to take a different tack. “I see you keep mentioning your cell number what is that? “I said. For a moment I stumped him and he didn’t know how to respond. “Because what I seemed to be hearing is that you are a part of some type of military movement, is that correct.”

  Ch 51

  It was day 2 and the interrogations went on for hours, they wouldn’t budge on any concessions and didn’t seem to be worried about being incarcerated. Finally we received a break and this was under the interrogation of agent Crenshaw, “So, what have you got to say to me, “Crenshaw announced with a commanding voice. “Where’s the other guy at, “he said nervously. He was referring to me.

  “He’s not here; dammit you have to deal with me.”

  “I’d liked to speak to an attorney.”

  Crenshaw howled with laughter, “You guys are looney, no lawyer for you, you’re being held under the anti terrorism act of Home Land Security, I could hold your ass here damn near forever.”

  The fellow started to shake at the mention of Home Security. This was something that no one in his position wanted to hear. As an ex con, no matter what h
is beliefs were they usually would revert back to anything that would benefit themselves. “Look my man we’re in a race and I’m offering the same deal to your partners in the next room, whoever gives me the answers first will come in first at the finish line.” Crenshaw said with a smirk on his face. It was funny they all wanted to talk now , after all that time , they waffled and were silent but the aspect of doing some real time and that assuredly they will not be able to get out of this situation scared the hell out of them. What we did next was to compare and contrast their statements and tried to take the best info from the six statements available, no rehashing or useless info something we wanted something we could use that would bring their group down right now. I spoke to the first guy we had interrogated; he seemed to want to tell it all. This time I entered the room with nothing in my hand, no coffee buns, donuts, nothing. It was his turn to tell it all and I wasn’t bribing him with tea and crumpets. “So since you haven’t come with gifts of salivation, I guess it’s my term to tell want I know.” He said looking at me firmly and sad at the same time.

  He began his story “As I told you before my name is Josh Gordon aka Murder Master, I became acquainted with the so-called spirit nation which is a cover for which you probably know as the thuggies; when I was in seminary to be a priest. I haven’t had an atypical career life, l was a longshoreman, marine and ex con but I looked for something new spiritually which led me to become a priest. I met a man who seemed to know all the answers and eventually this led me to the thuggie cult.”