by Matt Lincoln
“Hey!” Linden suddenly yelled from the center of the room, where he’d managed to back onto his feet. The suspect turned to look at him, and I pounced the moment he was distracted, lunging toward him with the full force of my weight.
He pulled the trigger as I crashed into him, the bullet crashing into the wall somewhere behind me. The two of us went down hard, and I quickly reached up to pin his arm to the ground before he could fire again.
“Everyone freeze!” someone yelled from the doorway. I looked up to find someone I didn’t recognize, wearing a police uniform that was different from Linden’s. He stormed into the small cabin with his gun drawn, looking around in confusion as he entered. His eyes landed first on the bodies littered over the ground before drifting over to Linden, who was barely managing to stay on his feet, and then finally over to me and the suspect, who was bucking and kicking in an attempt to get free.
He rushed over to help me as soon as he realized what was going on.
“Settle down,” he warned the suspect as two other officers came to assist. I ducked gratefully out of the way as the three of them went to work wrangling the man into a set of handcuffs.
Once I was a few feet away, I allowed myself to collapse backward, so that I was lying flat on the ground. My head was killing me. It had continued to hurt this entire time, but the adrenaline that had rushed through me as I fought for my life had somewhat dulled the pain. Or maybe I’d just been too distracted to think about it. Either way, it was returning in full force now, and a heavy weariness settled over my entire body now that the threat had been eliminated.
“We need medical in here, now!” one of the officers hollered through the door.
“Marston!” I heard Holm shout as he rushed through the open doorway and into the cabin. I turned to look at him, too tired to even raise my head. There were so many people in here now, between the cops and the paramedics, that it was getting really crowded. He spotted me a second later and rushed over before dropping to his knees. “Are you okay? Can you stand? Don’t move. I’ll call one of the paramedics over.”
“I’m fine,” I replied as I reluctantly forced myself to sit up in order to prove it. “Just sore.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Holm sighed as his shoulders slumped in relief. “Well, why are you lying there like that then? I thought you were dying!”
“I feel like I’m dying,” I argued as I gingerly touched the back of my head with my hand. “Ugh, everything hurts.”
“What happened in here?” Holm asked as he took a moment to look around for the first time. He’d come straight to me as soon as he’d entered, so it seemed like he hadn’t actually taken stock of the situation at first.
“Two of the suspects are down,” I replied as I examined my wrists. They were red and raw from the ropes and bleeding in a few places where I’d accidentally cut myself while slicing through the rope. “How's Jansen?”
I looked around for him and spotted him a second later, being loaded onto a stretcher by two of the paramedics. I couldn’t see his face, but Linden was stooped over at his eye level, saying something quietly to him. That must mean that he was at least alive.
As cowardly as it had been for the suspect to shoot him in the back while he was down, it was actually lucky that he had, in a way, because it meant that his vest had likely saved his life. A shot to the head would have been fatal.
“Come on,” Holm encouraged me as he hooked my arm around his shoulders to help me up. “Let's get you out of here. You should probably get checked out.”
“What about you?” I grinned at him. “You look like an extra in a horror movie right now.”
“Eh, it’s just a cut,” he insisted as we slowly made our way out of the boat cabin.
At first, I thought he was dramatic in helping me out, but I quickly realized that my vision and balance were both a little impaired, and if he hadn’t been propping me up, I might have fallen over.
Must have a concussion, I thought to myself. It wasn’t surprising, considering the blow to the head I’d taken. Any hit that was hard enough to render a person unconscious was almost certain to induce a concussion.
As we stepped out into the harsh sunlight, I spotted the suspect with the ponytail again, the one who’d clearly been calling the shots. He was still struggling against the cops, spitting and flailing even as they loaded him into the back of a police car.
I could tell from his wild behavior that it wasn’t going to be easy to talk to him. Nevertheless, we were going to have to find some way to break him. He was the only one of the suspects still left standing, after all, and I had a lot of questions for him.
“We need to go speak with Ruiz,” I remarked as Holm and I stepped off the boat and back onto solid land.
“What about?” He asked as we made our way over to one of the ambulances.
“Maduro,” I spat bitterly as I recalled the comment the suspect had made back on the boat right when he was about to shoot me. “He knew we would be here, somehow. Ruiz was the one who made that call, right? He must have let him know somehow.”
“How?” Holm asked as one of the paramedics spotted me and came rushing over. “We were listening to the call on speaker the entire time. Neither Ruiz nor the man he was talking to said anything suspicious.”
“I don’t know,” I replied, “but I’m going to find out.”
26
Ethan
“I swear, I didn’t do anything!” Ruiz practically whimpered as he shrank down beneath my stare. “You were there! I said exactly what you wanted me to say. I have no idea how they knew you would be there!”
“You’re lying, Ruiz,” I snapped back at him, though I wasn’t all that certain myself if he was or not. He certainly didn’t seem like he was lying. He was literally shaking, his face ashen and his eyes bloodshot as he claimed over and over again that he wasn’t the leak and had no idea how Maduro found out about the plan. Then again, it was always possible that he was just a really good liar.
We’d been sitting in the interrogation room for nearly half an hour now, but no matter how many questions I asked or which angle I came at him from, his answer remained the same. He continued to maintain that he was innocent.
“I’m not lying!” Ruiz insisted. “Why would I even do that? The whole reason I helped you find him was to get myself a deal. Why would I set a bunch of cops up to be killed and ruin that?”
“I don’t know, Ruiz.” I shrugged as I leaned my elbows against the table to stare him down. “You tell me. All I know is that you were the only person other than the police who knew about the plan, and somehow word got back to Maduro about it.”
“Well, maybe one of the cops squealed!” He suggested.
“You really expect us to buy that?” Linden scoffed as he stared back at Ruiz with contempt. “You honestly think a police officer would be in league with a drug trafficker like Maduro?”
Linden seemed astounded by the very idea that a law enforcement officer could be corrupt. On the other hand, it wasn’t all that hard for me to believe. Holm and I had dealt with our share of crooked cops before, so Ruiz’s suggestion wasn’t all that difficult for me to buy. I supposed Linden was still too green to really know about that, though.
“Look,” Ruiz muttered desperately as he looked back and forth between the three of us. “I know you don’t have any reason to believe me, but I swear on my life, on my mama’s life, I did not rat you out to Maduro.”
I stayed silent for several moments, just watching Ruiz as he looked back at us with wide, pleading eyes.
“Okay,” I finally sighed with defeat. “I believe you.”
Linden snapped his head around to look at him in surprise. I just nodded at him to confirm that I really was certain about what I was saying. He didn’t seem too happy about it but still accepted it as he turned to look at Ruiz.
“Really?” Ruiz asked skeptically, watching me warily, as though he worried I might suddenly change my mind.
“Yes,”
I confirmed reluctantly. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, it really seemed like Ruiz was telling the truth about not being involved. “I believe you didn’t tip him off about us, not intentionally at least. I have some more questions for you, though.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you want,” Ruiz replied hastily, some of the tension easing out of his shoulders as he relaxed now that the heat was off him.
“Do you have a picture of the suspect?” I turned to Linden.
“Yeah, just a second,” he replied as he stood up from his chair and briefly left the interrogation room.
While I waited, I continued to observe Ruiz. He looked a lot calmer now, though still a bit on edge. That was understandable, considering I’d just spent half an hour trying to get him to admit to something he hadn’t done. His genuinely relieved reaction only made me feel more certain that he wasn’t lying.
Linden returned just a few moments later with a tablet in his hands. He handed it to me before taking his seat again.
“Thanks,” I told him before turning the tablet to face Ruiz. It had a picture of our last surviving suspect from the boat, snarling even as his mugshot was taken earlier that day. “Do you know who this man is?”
“Yeah,” Ruiz replied as he looked at the image. “That’s Gek.”
“Gek?” I repeated, my eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “That’s his name?”
“Not his real name.” Ruiz shook his head. “His real name’s Irvin, I think, but everyone calls him ‘Gek’ because that’s what he is. ‘Gek’ means ‘psycho’ in Dutch, and that guy’s about as crazy as they come.”
“What do you mean?” I asked warily. I’d gotten a taste of the guy myself earlier on the boat, but I hadn’t interacted with him enough to have seen anything that would be worthy of being labeled a psychopath.
“I mean the guy’s nuts,” Ruiz replied as he shook his head at the picture. “Goes crazy over the smallest things, gets into fights with everyone, tries to mess with the girls too, when no one’s watching. The craziest thing is the way he is around the boss, though.”
“What do you mean by that?” Linden asked.
“Gek worships the ground Marudo walks on,” Ruiz snorted. “I guess Marudo once helped Gek out of a bad situation. Some guys were after him, and Marudo stepped in and saved Gek from getting killed. Ever since then, Gek follows the boss around like a puppy, doing whatever dirty work he wants.
“Is that so?” I muttered as I recalled how relentless Gek had been even as the police were attempting to wrangle him into one of the cars.
“Yeah,” Ruiz replied with a shrug. “Actually, now that I think about it, it’s not all that surprising that Gek was the one the boss sent to attack you. He’s always Maduro’s go-to man anytime there’s some messy work to be done that no one else wants to deal with.”
“And you said his real name is Irvin?” I asked as I looked back down at the man on the tablet.
Even his mugshot was slightly blurry, as though they had a hard time getting him to behave and stand still. This was really bad. It seemed like this so-called Gek person was the kind of guy who was blindly loyal. That meant that it would be hard for us to break him and get him to talk. Considering he was the only surviving suspect, that put us in a bit of a predicament.
“Yeah, something like that,” Ruiz replied. “I don’t really remember, to be honest. We all just call him ‘Gek’ or ‘that crazy brown-noser’ since he’s always kissing up to Maduro. He’s a snitch, too. Goes around seeing what everyone’s up to and reporting back to the boss, little weasel.”
“He’s a snitch?” I repeated curiously, even a bit hopefully.
“Yeah, but don’t count on him telling you anything if that’s what you’re thinking,” Ruiz snorted, dashing my hopes in an instant. “He’d sell out any of the other men in a heartbeat if he thought it would get him in good with the boss, but there’s no way he’s going to rat out Maduro himself.”
“I see,” I replied, pursing my lips together in frustration. We wouldn’t be sure until we tried speaking to him for ourselves, but if Ruiz was right about the suspect not talking to us, then it would mean we’d hit another dead end. “Thank you, Ruiz.” I moved to stand up.
“That’s it?” Ruiz balked, his jaw hanging slack. “I’m not in trouble? I can go back to my cell now?” He looked nervous like he wanted to bolt.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “Someone will be here in a minute to lead you back there.”
His shoulders slumped in relief at my response, and I turned on my heel to leave. Holm and Linden followed me out through the door and into the adjoining viewing room on the other side of the one-way mirror. I turned to watch Ruiz through the glass as the door closed behind us, carefully observing his body language for any signs that he might have been lying to us. However, all I could read from his posture and movements was relief that we had finally left.
“So, what do we do now?” Linden asked Holm and me. “Do you think he was telling us the truth about Irvin, or whatever his name is?”
“About being Maduro’s lapdog?” I asked as I turned to look at him. “Yeah, I believe him. The guy said something back on the boat right when he was about to shoot me. He yelled something about how he was going to make us pay for trying to trick Maduro. Even in that situation, he was a lot more concerned about his boss than about himself. That sure sounds like someone who’s blindly and fanatically faithful to me.”
“He said that?” Linden frowned with confusion. “I don’t remember that at all.”
“You were in pretty rough shape,” I replied.
“That’s true,” he muttered. “I was barely managing to stay on my feet by that point.”
“How’s Jansen, by the way?” I asked as I recalled everything that had happened back on the boat.
Jansen had bravely attempted to distract the suspects so Linden and I could flee. Unfortunately, his selfless actions had only resulted in him getting shot at nearly point-blank range. His vest had managed to save his life, but that didn’t mean the bullet hadn’t done any damage at all.
“He’s alright,” Linden replied, to my relief. “The shot shattered a few of his ribs, and he needed surgery to remove the pieces that were left inside since they were too close to his liver and lungs to just leave inside. He’ll have some scars, but he’ll be okay.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” I replied. “He helped us out, ultimately. Things might not have gone the same way if he hadn’t attacked the guard.”
“I’m happy too,” Linden replied. “It’ll probably be pretty boring around here without my partner, though. Anyway, regarding Irvin, I guess we won’t know what he will or won’t say until we speak to him, right? I’ll go see what we have on him. I’m sure his prints have come back by now.”
He led us out of the room, and Holm and I followed him down the hall and back into one of the empty meeting rooms.
“You can wait in here,” he said as he opened the door. “I’ll go and see about getting his file. We can discuss our next steps once I’m back.”
“Alright,” I replied as I stepped into the room.
It was simple, with plain white walls and a somewhat dingy gray carpet. The only furniture in the room was a long meeting table, a white board, and about a dozen chairs.
I sighed as I fell into the closest chair. It had been a harrowing day. I closed my eyes as I rubbed my temples with my fingers. There was still a dull throb in my head that the pain meds I’d been given at the hospital hadn’t quite managed to eliminate.
“How are you feeling?” Holm asked as he sat down next to me.
“I’ve been worse,” I replied.
“Haven’t we both?” He snorted as he leaned back in his chair. “Can’t believe the sun’s starting to go down already. It hadn’t even come up yet when we headed out this morning. Between everything that happened, getting you to the hospital, and then coming back here to talk to Ruiz, the whole day went by. I’m starving.”
“We can go grab somethi
ng to eat after we leave,” I replied. “We should probably wait until tomorrow to interrogate Gek, or Irvin, or whatever his name is, anyway. If he’s going to be a hard one to crack, we should give ourselves plenty of time to work.”
“That’s a good point,” Holm replied as the door suddenly creaked back open.
I turned around in my seat to watch as Linden stepped through the door. He had a frown on his face, which instantly put me on guard.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as he walked back into the room and fell into one of the other chairs.
“We’ve got nothing,” he replied bitterly as he massaged his temple much in the same way I had earlier. I wondered if he had a headache, too. It wouldn’t be surprising, considering the clobbering he’d gotten during the fight.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean that we have nothing on file for this guy,” he replied. “His fingerprints didn’t pull up anything. He has no criminal record, so we still don’t know what his real identity is.”
“Nothing came back at all?” I asked, a little perplexed. Even people who had never committed a crime in their lives often had their fingerprints scanned. Certain jobs required it, but I supposed if he’d lived his entire life as a career criminal, that wouldn’t be the case for him.
“What about a driver’s license?” Holm suggested. “Passport, maybe? Or any kind of identifying document?”
“He didn’t have anything like that on him,” Linden replied. “Apparently, one of the officers tried asking him, but you can imagine how well that went.”
“If I believe Ruiz’s testimony, I’m guessing he wasn’t very forthcoming,” I grumbled.
“He tried to bite the officer,” Linden replied flatly. “The guy’s like a mad dog, off its leash now that he can report back to Maduro.”
“Great,” Holm groaned. “So all we know is that this guy’s nickname is ‘Psycho’ in Dutch and that his given name might be Irvin.”
