On the Prowl

by Matt Lincoln

  I could work with that. I leaned back in my chair and propped my feet up onto the table. I had a feeling making him feel insignificant would be the best way to rattle him, so I decided to do my best to seem uninterested in the interrogation. I flipped slowly through the folder, pretending to look for something.

  “Uh… Ezekiel, correct?” I asked, looking up at him with a bored expression. “Your brother is Alexander, right?”

  His reaction was exactly what I expected, as he blinked in surprise for a moment before looking downright insulted.

  “I am not Ezekiel,” Lucas said, sounding equal parts confused and annoyed.

  “Oh, of course,” I said after a moment, flipping through the pages again. “You’re all just so similar, you know, being family and everything. It’s hard to keep track of who is who.”

  “I find that difficult to believe,” Lucas said slowly. “Considering you physically attacked me and stole my wallet just to see my identification.”

  “That did happen, didn’t it?” I asked distractedly, still looking down at the folder on my lap. I could feel his gaze boring holes into me, and I knew he was getting angry at being brushed off like this. “Well, I knew the ringleader of this little circus went by Lucas, but, as I said, you’re all so interchangeable that it’s easy to mix you up.”

  I put the folder down and finally looked up at him, pleased to see that his stoic exterior was rapidly crumbling.

  “So, Lucas, this was a pretty complicated setup you had going here. It’s kind of impressive,” I said, and noticed that he seemed to perk up at the compliment in spite of himself. “It is impressive, especially considering you weren’t making that much of a profit. So much work for so little payoff. Most people wouldn’t bother.”

  His face darkened, and it seemed as though he was about to say something, but he restrained himself and kept his mouth shut.

  I took that as a promising sign and continued. “Illias told me that a chunk of your profits flows straight back to the real guy in charge. The one who provides you with the animals, I mean.” I noted how his eyes narrowed at my implication that he wasn’t really the one in charge. I latched onto that and pushed it further. “To be frank with you, that’s the guy I’d like to talk to. I really don’t have time to waste with pawns who only push merchandise around for the boss.”

  “Screw you!” Lucas shouted, his eyes wide and his face turning several shades of red and purple. “I am the leader of this organization! I am the one who came up with the system we have! The camouflaged trucks, the trade route, even deciding what animals we sell! I am the one who takes the risk of meeting with the poachers to retrieve the animals! I am not just a pawn!”

  “Thank you, Mr. Galanis, that was all I wanted to know,” I said calmly with a smirk. Lucas went white as he realized what had just happened, then suddenly he released an animalistic scream and leaped over the table at me. He crashed into me and knocked both of us to the ground in the process. As his head made contact with my collarbone, I felt an intense pain shoot across my right shoulder. I punched him once, then twisted him around and pressed him face-first against a wall. I yelled for help, and a second later, two police officers burst through the door and got him under control, pulling him out of the room and down the hall toward his cell.

  I massaged my collarbone, where he’d managed to headbutt me when he’d lunged at me over the table. It would probably bruise, but it was a small price to pay for the information I’d gotten, and completely worth seeing the look on Lucas’s face when he’d realized he’d been played. I sat back down as the two officers secured Loukas to the table with an additional set of handcuffs, then waited for him to calm down before speaking again.

  “Well, now that you’ve gotten your little tantrum out of the way,” I began. “How about you cut the crap and tell me who your supplier is? I already got a confession out of you, along with the added charge of assaulting a federal agent. You still want to keep playing games?” Loukas stared at me incredulously before sighing in resignation.

  “I can’t tell you that,” he said.

  “Whoever you’re trying to protect, it won’t work,” I said. “If you don’t talk, another member of your family will.”

  “I can’t tell you because I don’t know who he is,” Lucas said, cutting me off. “He isn’t one of us, so no one in the family will be able to tell you his identity either.”

  “If you don’t know who he is, how were you working with him?” I asked.

  “We met on an online forum,” Lucas said. “On the deep web, there are sites where people can buy and sell on the black market. Drugs, guns, women, you name it. I was looking for a new cocaine supplier. Guess there’s no harm in admitting that now, right? Anyway, that’s what I was doing, and I came across this ad in search of a dealer. It didn’t say what it was for, but the pay was high. There weren’t any comments on it yet, probably because the ad was in Greek, and the poster was specifically looking for someone located in Greece. I replied, and we got to talking.”

  “Do you have records of those conversations?” I asked.

  “A few of them, sure,” he said with a shrug. “But I can tell you right now you won’t get anything out of them. This guy was paranoid. He would contact me from a different account every time we spoke. The program we used to communicate is designed to delete and format all conversations after about a day, so most of it is long gone. He only contacted me by email a few times, but always from different email addresses that were just a bunch of random numbers and letters. There’s no way you’ll be able to find him.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I said. I’d only been working here for a few weeks, but in that time, I’d seen Agent Gardner find information with little more than a blurry photo or pseudonym. If anyone could find this guy, she could. “Is there anything else you can tell me about him?”

  “Not really,” Lucas said after finishing off the juice. “Except that he must be someone with a lot of connections, or money, or both. Anytime a customer requested some specific, rare animal, he’d have it ready in just a few days. There was always a hunter or poacher waiting for us to make the exchange, never in the same place, of course. But I always thought this must be a man with a lot of power if he was able to locate an animal, have it caught, and then have both the animal and the poacher in Greece in just a matter of days.”

  The thought made my blood run cold. If what he was saying was true, then we were dealing with someone incredibly dangerous. I pushed the thought aside for now and focused back on the interrogation.

  “Do you have the records of everyone you sold animals to in the United States?” I asked. Lucas looked at me incredulously.

  “You don’t really think I’m going to rat out all of my customers, do you?” Lucas asked. “Just because you’ve caught me doesn’t mean I’m going to bring everyone down with me.”

  “A few weeks ago, a man was found dead in his apartment,” I said, pulling the crime scene photos from the original case out of my bag. I set them down gently in front of Lucas, whose eyes went wide at the sight. “He had been mauled by a puma, a. A wild animal that he purchased from your group. I’m not asking because I want to go out and arrest all of your customers. I want to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

  Lucas looked away uncomfortably, and it was clear that something was going through his mind.

  “Okay. Okay, I’ll give you my notes,” Lucas conceded as he pushed the papers away. “They’re on my computer back in Greece, same as all of my conversations with the supplier.” Lucas pushed the papers away. “Look, I never wanted anything like that to happen, okay? I was just trying to run a business. I wasn’t trying to get people killed or anything.”

  “Yeah,” I said solemnly. “People rarely intend for others to get hurt, but that’s usually what ends up happening when you make a career out of being a criminal. Thank you for your time, Mr. Galanis.” I gathered the photos back up and placed them into my bag before leaving the interrogation room. />
  38

  Junior

  The flight back home was a lot more enjoyable than the flight to Greece. Instead of trying to sleep like I had last time, the three of us stayed awake the entire time, exchanging stories about each of our missions and playing games with a deck of cards that Agent Castillo had brought with her.

  Because of the time difference, it was only ten in the morning by the time we got back to Las Vegas, so we headed straight for the office after landing. Upon arriving at the office, I was surprised to find an assortment of brownies and cookies laid out in the break room.

  “It’s a tradition,” Castillo said, no doubt noticing the confused expression on my face. “Fiona, Agent Gardner, I mean, she always bakes stuff to celebrate the conclusion of a mission. She first did it after Naomi and I spent a month in Turkey, when Naomi started whining about how much she missed home-cooked meals. Fi said that she didn’t know how to cook, but that she could bake us something.” Castillo smiled warmly at the memory.

  “Anyway, that’s what that’s all about,” she said, picking a brownie off one of the trays and biting into it. “Feel free to take some. She always puts them out, so they’ll be here as soon as we get back.”

  That was incredibly thoughtful of her, and I needed to make sure I stopped by her office at some point to thank her personally, but I wasn’t really in the mood to eat. Being awake for so long had me feeling wired, so while Castillo and Hills gorged themselves on pastries, I decided to head straight for Wallace’s office to give my report over the mission and to inquire about the final interrogations.

  As I approached his office, I could see through the open shutters that he and Agent Nelson were deep in conversation. I knocked on the door, and a moment later, Nelson answered.

  “Agent Chapman, I didn’t realize the three of you were back already,” Nelson said, smiling warmly.

  “Oh, well, Agents Hills and Castillo went straight for the sweets in the break room,” I said as I entered the office.

  “Of course, I should have guessed,” Nelson said with a small laugh.

  “Good to see you again, Agent Chapman,” Director Wallace said as I took a seat across from his desk.

  “Thank you, sir. It’s good to be back,” I nodded. “Actually, I wanted to go over the outcome of the mission, if that’s alright.”

  “Go right ahead,” Wallace said, leaning back in his chair. Nelson took the seat next to me.

  “We believe we managed to locate and apprehend all the people involved in the smuggling route that was operating out of Greece,” I informed them. “There’s another person we haven’t located, though, which is the one who was providing the group with the animals in the first place. That being said, as it currently stands, no more exotic animals will be entering the United States through that route. The animals that were recovered in the course of the mission were turned over to Greek authorities, who are ensuring that they are either returned to their natural habitats or placed in appropriate sanctuaries for the remainder of their lives.” I paused to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.

  “The leader of the group is a man who goes by Lucas. Back in Greece, he admitted to being the orchestrator of the group’s activities. Agent Hills managed to get a full confession out of him regarding the group’s activities. However, we were unable to ascertain the identity of the original supplier who was in charge of transporting the animals to Greece in the first place.”

  “Well, Agent Chapman, thank you for that report. Loukas and the rest of the smugglers being extradited from Greece should arrive tomorrow, but Nelson will handle the transfer of custody from here on out.”

  “Of course, sir,” I said.

  I left the office soon after that and headed back to the break room, where Hills and Castillo were now regaling Gardner and Patel with stories about the mission. Even Agent Howard was here, although he stood a little apart from the rest of the group, lurking in the corner and sipping from a steaming cup.

  “I didn’t really have a choice at that point! It was either jump into the water or be eaten by a panther,” Castillo said with a laugh.

  “I don’t envy you field agents,” Gardner said quietly in response.

  “Nah, it was fine in the end. And it makes for a great story,” Castillo said, eating her way through another brownie. “Oh, hey, Junior, come sit next to me. There’s plenty of room.” She scooted to the side, shoving Naomi into the other end of the couch to free up a tiny bit of space. I considered politely refusing, but the atmosphere in the room was so jovial that I couldn’t bring myself to turn her down. I dropped down into the small space and leaned forward to pluck one of the cookies off the table.

  “Thanks for these, by the way, Agent Gardner,” I said, taking a small bite.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, even more quietly than before.

  “So what did Wallace say?” Castillo asked.

  “Lucas and the rest of the smugglers will probably be here tomorrow,” I said. “Nelson has to sort out all the paperwork involved with the extradition, but other than that, though, the mission is just about wrapped up.”

  “How does it feel to have completed your first mission, Charlie?” Castillo asked, looking up at Hills.

  “I still don’t feel satisfied,” Hills said. “We never did find out who the main supplier was. Sure, we cut off this trade route, but what if they start up another?”

  “Again with this?” Castillo said. “You’re already finished with your part of the mission. You stopped a massive crime syndicate from importing dangerous, illegal cargo into the United States. How many more people might have died like the guy in Huntridge if you hadn’t raided that garage and caught Lucas? You can’t keep beating yourself up over the ‘what-ifs’ all the time. You’ll go nuts.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Hills said dismissively, although it was clear from the small smile on his face that he was pleased by Castillo’s assessment of his accomplishments.

  “Hey, Castillo, how did your date go?” I asked suddenly in an attempt to change the subject.

  “What’s this about a date?” Agent Patel perked up at the prospect of a new bit of gossip. Castillo blushed, but she was smirking as she did.

  “Shut up, Junior,” she said. “It wasn’t a date. Not exactly. I was just with the police officer who was partnered with me for the mission. He offered to show me around Greece after we’d concluded everything.”

  “She had dinner with him, too,” I said. “And she didn’t get back to the hotel until, like, three in the morning.” Castillo’s eyes went wide as I spoke.

  “Wha-” she started, stuttering as she tried to find her words. “How do you even know that? Were you waiting up or something?” She launched one of the cookies at me, and I barely managed to dodge it in time.

  “Hey, don’t do that,” Gardner protested quietly. “I worked hard to make those!”

  The rest of the day passed by without incident, and it was mostly spent doing paperwork and writing formal reports of everything that had happened during the mission. Because we’d just finished up the most recent mission and didn’t have another one lined up yet, there wasn’t much left to do besides wait for the suspects to arrive from Greece. As a result, we were able to head home early.

  Despite having been awake for over twenty-four hours at that point, I couldn’t fall asleep. Hills must have been rubbing off on me because I felt anxious about the outcome of the case. It didn’t help that my arm was throbbing where the tiger had scratched me. I’d gotten a more thorough check-up earlier that day after leaving the office, and thankfully it seemed to be healing well. It still stung, though, even with the aid of painkillers.

  After an hour of lying in bed with no luck falling asleep, I decided to move to the couch and watch television instead. Maybe focusing on something mindless would help me relax enough to fall asleep. That ultimately did the trick, and I ended up falling asleep after about an hour into a cheesy horror flick.

  39

  Charlie
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  The rain made the drive up to Harry’s house take longer than usual. Normally, I liked rainy days. The dark and the chill made it easier for me to think. Probably the one time I didn’t enjoy rain was when I was driving up the side of a mountain, trying to avoid being hit by other drivers who were clearly driving too fast for the conditions.

  I felt a wave of relief wash over me as Harry’s home came into view, and I drove up the last steep incline before parking my car just a few feet from the front door. A glance at the clock on the dashboard told me it was only a little past four, which meant that we had a few hours of sunlight left in the day despite the longer than usual drive.

  “Uncle Charlie!” I heard a tiny voice squeal as soon as I opened the driver’s side door.

  “Whoa there, Amberbug, you’re gonna get all wet running out into the rain like that,” I said as a thin pair of arms wrapped themselves around my legs. I reached down to pick up the little girl, tossing her up in the air once before catching her again. She screeched in delight.

  “Junie! Your mother is going to kill me if you catch a cold,” Harry called from the open door.

  “Who’s that?” Amber said, pointing over my shoulder toward the figure climbing out of the passenger side of the car.

  “That’s my partner, Agent Chapman,” I said as Junior rushed around the front of the car toward us. “He helped me solve that big case in Greece. Grandpa told you about that, right?”

  “Uh-huh,” Amber said with a nod, her tight little curls bouncing as she bobbed her head. “Did you bring me a present? Grandpa said you would.”

  “Yes, I did, but how about we get inside first before we all get soaking wet out here?” I asked, carrying Amber inside and setting her down in the foyer. I quickly took off my coat and hung it up on the wooden coat rack by the door, gesturing for Junior to do the same. I could smell the scent of cedar drifting out from the den, and I knew Harry had lit a fire there. The thought of sitting by a warm fire after walking through that rain sounded amazing, and I turned and walked in that direction immediately.