by Matt Lincoln
“Yeah, we’ve been briefed on it,” I replied.
“Excellent!” The man beamed. “Well, just keep in mind that while you’re authorized to carry your weapons with you, we will require that you be accompanied by a member of the Garda at all times.”
“Of course.” I nodded.
He finished explaining the local policies and protocols to us, which mainly consisted of not shooting unless we absolutely had to and remaining with our assigned Garda officers any time we were on the job.
“Well, that’s about it,” he concluded. “I’ll let you go and get settled then. It’s pretty late. Come by the station tomorrow, and we’ll get you set up with your liaison.”
We went our separate ways then, and Charlie and I headed out of the airport.
“Should we head straight to the hotel?” I asked as we made our way toward the transportation area where buses and taxis were stationed and waiting to transport people from the airport and into the city. Part of me wanted to explore and maybe get something to eat, but it was late, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tired.
“Yeah,” Charlie nodded. “We’re meeting with the police tomorrow morning, so we should try to get as much sleep as we can. Don’t want to deal with jetlag while we’re investigating.”
“Good point,” I replied. It was a little disappointing, but I’d probably have time to have a look around Dublin later.
We boarded a shuttle destined for downtown Dublin. Since we knew we’d be arriving quite late at night, Wallace had opted to book us a hotel room in Dublin, at least for the first night. That way, we’d be able to set out early and head to the location in the countryside first thing in the morning.
The shuttle was crammed full of people, and as I watched other passengers struggle to hoist their luggage onto the shuttle, I was glad that I only had my work bag and a travel backpack to contend with. A family was sitting at the back of the shuttle with two fussy children. One was a baby who was openly crying, and the other was a small boy who seemed irritated by the noise his sister was making. I felt a pang of sympathy as I watched them. If I was cranky and sore after sitting in a plane seat for thirteen hours, I couldn’t imagine how a kid must feel.
The baby continued to cry the entire time the shuttle was in motion, and I could tell from the faces of a few other passengers that they were annoyed. It didn’t really bother me. Compared to the sound of gunshots, a baby’s crying was a lot easier to tune out. She stopped sobbing right as we pulled into the bus terminal in Dublin, and I could tell that one passenger seemed particularly aggravated by this.
“Seriously?” The man muttered lowly. “Now she shuts up?”
I frowned at the man but didn’t say anything. It didn’t seem like the mother had heard him, and it probably wouldn’t do any good to argue with someone like him.
I looked around as I got off the shuttle. Dublin was beautiful, with tall, brick buildings sandwiched closely together and bisected by wide, cobblestone streets. I was just about to suggest we walk to our hotel so we’d have an opportunity to take in the sights when I spied a large blue double-decker bus.
“Let’s ride that,” I requested immediately. I felt a little childish for getting so excited over something so trivial, but I brushed the feeling aside. Double-decker buses didn’t really exist in the United States, primarily because our city architecture generally didn’t allow for it. They were almost entirely exclusive to Northern Europe, and I didn’t want to miss my chance to ride in one.
“Okay,” Charlie shrugged, sounding totally indifferent. “Does that even go in the direction of our hotel, though?”
“I’m sure it does,” I lied as I headed for the tram. Even if it didn’t, it probably wouldn’t go very far in the opposite direction. Double-deckers were more often used for short, usually scenic routes. I paid our fare and then pulled my phone out of my pocket to check the bus routes.
“The fourth stop is near our hotel,” I informed Charlie as I climbed the stairs to the upper level, secretly glad that this tram actually was heading in the right direction. I would have felt like an idiot if I’d caused us to end up in the middle of nowhere.
“Great,” he replied as he took a seat near the front of the bus. I noticed as I sat down next to him that the family with the crying baby was on the tram as well. The little boy seemed less grumpy than before and was excitedly pointing out the window.
The bus took off a few minutes later. There was a large, wide window at the front that gave us a beautiful view of the city as we passed by. Just a few minutes after setting off, the bus rolled to the next stop.
“Do you see that?” Charlie asked seriously.
I glanced down to where he was pointing. From this vantage point, I could see a man standing behind a few others waiting in line at the bus stop. He had his hand shoved into his coat and kept glancing around nervously.
“Crap,” I hissed. I moved to stand up, and just as I did, the man pulled a gun from his coat and rushed onto the bus. I heard screaming from the lower deck and what sounded like a man’s voice commanding the bus driver to drive. “What do we do?”
We weren’t cops, and this definitely wasn’t our jurisdiction, but we couldn’t just stand aside while an armed man took a bus full of people hostage.
“I have a plan,” Charlie whispered. “I’m going to need you to distract the gunman.”
15
Miranda
I gulped my soda down with relish. It had been a long and tiring day, and it was still barely noon. Naomi and I had been rushing all over Las Vegas dealing with attacks that the police suspected might be involved with our current case. Most of them had turned out to be unrelated acts of violence, but a few had turned out to be connected to the mysterious new drug found in the fake bottles of cough syrup. We’d finally stopped to take a break for lunch, and I hadn’t realized just how ravenous I was until my food was in front of me. Now we were sitting in the parking lot of a fast-food chain while we waited for a new call.
“I can’t believe how many assaults happen in this city every day!” I exclaimed as I took a bite of my burger. “Most of them aren’t even related to the drug. People are just out here attacking one another! What’s happening to the world?”
“I think it’s always been like this,” Naomi sighed as she ate a forkful of salad. “Las Vegas is known as ‘Sin City,’ after all. We’ve just been lucky that we’ve never had to deal with all the petty, violent crimes before.”
“I would hate to be a cop in this city,” I grumbled. “Can you imagine doing this every day?”
“I’d rather not,” Naomi grimaced. “Though I do have to commend them. It must take a lot of nerve to be one of the ones that do.”
“Junior and Charlie both used to be cops,” I mused. “I wonder if they ever had to deal with this stuff.”
“I’m certain that Junior did,” Naomi replied. “He worked in Phoenix. That city has one of the highest homicide rates in the country, nearly double the national average.”
“Dang,” I muttered. It wasn’t like I wasn’t familiar with death and violence. I’d been a Marine before I joined MBLIS, and I’d seen combat firsthand. It was different when it was just ordinary, innocent people who were being hurt, though.
“I’m getting another call,” Naomi said as she picked her phone up off the center console. I sighed and wolfed down the rest of my food in preparation to set out again. Even though Naomi’s side of the conversation was brief, I knew it meant our break was over.
“Another case,” Naomi said as she finished the call. “Just a few blocks from here. It’s definitely related. The police have the attacker in custody, and she’s clearly under the influence of something.”
“Let’s go, then,” I replied as I balled up my trash and tossed it back into the bag from the fast food place. Our break had been cut short way too soon, but it wouldn’t do me any good to sulk about it.
We got to the scene just a few minutes later. Two police cars were parked at the
mouth of an alley, and a cop waved us over as soon as he spotted us.
“Hello, agents,” he greeted us as we got out of the car.
“Hey, Officer Chance,” I replied as Naomi and I made it to the mouth of the alley. We’d bumped into him more than once today as we flitted from one crime scene to the next. He was a patrol officer stationed in this area, so naturally, he was often one of the first ones on the scene after a call. “What’s going on?”
“We got a call from a guy saying his girlfriend was trying to kill him,” he explained. “Robbie Murlone, twenty-one years old. Apparently, he and his girlfriend were down in the alley, and she suddenly went crazy and attacked him.”
“What were they doing down there?” I asked.
“The kid says they were just messing around,” Chance replied skeptically. “I think they were back there doing drugs, but regardless of what was going on, it’s clear that the kid isn’t lying. He’s all bruised and cut up, and the girl was going wild when we got here. She came at us as soon as we arrived. The kid’s at the hospital right now.”
“I see,” Naomi muttered. “Is she still here now?”
“Oh, she’s here,” Chance huffed. “I didn’t want to send her off to the station until you had a chance to speak with her, but I’ll warn you. She’s out of control.”
“Is she still hallucinating?” I asked, alarmed that she might need medical attention. “She should go to the hospital. The majority of the assailants died of overdoses after their assaults.”
“No,” Chance shook his head. “I’m sorry, I should have been more clear. The girl’s fine. She’s completely lucid, just angry and resisting arrest.”
“Wait,” Naomi interjected. “So she’s alright? That doesn’t match the pattern we’ve observed in the other attacks. Are you even sure this case is related?”
“The behavioral pattern completely matches the other cases,” Chance shrugged. “A disoriented state, followed by hallucinations and paranoia, and finally an unprovoked, violent attack. It seemed too similar to just be a coincidence.”
I exchanged a look with Naomi. Officer Chance was right that this couldn’t just be a coincidence, but the fact that the attacker in this case was alive and apparently lucid didn’t correlate to what we’d observed so far.
“We should speak with her,” Naomi declared. “What’s the girl’s name?”
“Penny Fritz,” Chance answered. “She’s nineteen years old and has a couple of priors for possession and public intoxication.”
“So she’s a party girl,” I remarked. “Maybe she saw the press conference and decided to take the drug deliberately. If she already has a high tolerance for drugs, it could explain why she didn’t OD.”
“That’s a good point,” Naomi replied. “Most of the other victims were normal, unsuspecting people who had no idea they were taking such intense drugs. Someone with more experience would know their own limits.”
“I’ll leave it to you, then,” Chance nodded as he directed us toward the alley.
As we approached, I could hear the sounds of scuffling and a high-pitched voice.
“Let go!” Penny whined as we entered the narrow alley. “I didn’t do anything!”
“You assaulted your boyfriend,” the cop holding her handcuffed arms deadpanned.
“He deserved it,” Penny sneered. “Jerk thinks he’s better than me, always looking down on me. He needed to be taken down a couple of pegs.”
The female officer holding her looked up at us as we approached with our badges displayed.
“Thank goodness,” she scoffed as she roughly shoved Penny toward me. “I’ve had just about enough of this little crackhead as I can handle.”
“I’m not a crackhead, lady!” Penny snapped.
“Yeah, whatever,” the officer rolled her eyes. “As if I didn’t find you high out of your mind in this very alley. She’s your problem now, agents.”
I watched as she stormed out of the alley and toward Chance. I remembered what Fiona had told me about the first wave of attacks happening among drug addicts. Maybe the reason they went largely unnoticed was because of cops like her.
“What kind of drugs do you take then?” I asked Penny as I wordlessly gestured for her to stand against one of the alley walls. There were two other cops in the alley as well as me and Naomi, so I wasn’t worried about her running away.
“What?” she glared at me.
“You said that you’re not a crackhead,” I reiterated. “So what kind of drugs do you take? Because you definitely took something the way you attacked your boyfriend.”
“I already said that he deserved it,” Penny scoffed. “And I’m not stupid enough to take that stuff. Weed only. Maybe a little E or something when I want to party, but I’m not going to take any of that hard stuff.”
“Why did your boyfriend deserve it?” I asked curiously.
“He thinks he’s better than me,” she shrugged. “I offered him some of my fun stuff so we could have a good time, but he was all snobby about it. I told him it wasn’t a big deal. It’s not like meth or anything. It’s just a little something to give you energy and make you feel good.”
“Is that what you took today?” Naomi asked.
“Yeah,” Penny rolled her eyes.
“Do you have it on you?” I asked.
“There’s some in my purse,” Penny responded, looking around the alley as if searching for it. “I don’t know what happened to it. I must have dropped it when I hit Robbie.”
“You did more than hit him,” Naomi replied curtly. “You put him in the hospital, Penny.”
“What?” She asked incredulously. “Geez, he’s such a baby. He didn’t have to go to the hospital over one little punch.”
“Hold on a minute,” I turned to Naomi. “I’m going to go speak to Chance for a second.”
I walked briskly over to where Officer Chance was still waiting by the car.
“Finished already?” he asked.
“Not quite,” I responded. “Did you happen to find her purse? There’s something in it I need to see. Also, I know this is a weird request, but do you have any photos of Robbie’s injuries?”
“Yes, we have the purse,” Chance nodded as he reached into his car to retrieve the evidence bag he’d placed the purse into. “And I’m fairly certain we took photos of the injuries as evidence, but why?”
“I have a hunch,” I replied. “I think Penny might need a little push so she can realize the scope of what she’s done.”
“Alright,” Chance shrugged. “I’ll have them forwarded to your phone.”
I waited anxiously as Chance made a call. A moment later, my phone buzzed as the photos arrived.
“Thank you,” I smiled at him.
“No problem,” he replied. “Just let me know if there’s anything else you need.”
“I will.” I nodded hastily as I marched back to where Naomi was keeping watch over Penny.
“I thought you were never coming back,” Penny smirked sarcastically.
“This is what you did to Robbie.” I ignored her snarky comment and held my phone up so she could see it. The smile slipped off her face as soon as she realized what she was looking at.
“What is this?” she demanded shakily.
“This,” I replied, “is the state you left your boyfriend in.” I scrolled slowly through the photos, each one depicting a different bruise, scratch, cut, or bite mark.
“I did not do that.” She shook her head. “I just hit him one time!”
“No!” I barked. “You beat him half to death and put him in a hospital bed. Whatever you took had you so out of your mind that you viciously attacked him and then blocked out your entire memory of it.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Penny whimpered as her eyes welled up with tears.
I tucked my phone back into my pocket and dug through the purse Chance had given me. The inside was filled with cosmetics, old receipts, and other typical things I would have expected to find in a teenage gi
rl’s purse. However, one zippered pocket on the side of the bag contained several small plastic baggies filled with various kinds of pills and one filled with marijuana.
“Which one of these was it?” I asked as I showed her the drugs in my open palm.
“The ones on the right,” she responded quietly. “The white tablets with the pink smiley faces on them.”
I opened the bag she was looking at and pulled out one of the tiny tablets. It was small enough to fit on the tip of my finger, and there was a bright pink smiley face printed on it, just like she said.
“So you haven’t taken any cough medicine?” Naomi asked.
“What?” Penny asked incredulously. “You mean that stuff that was on the news? Of course not. I’m not trying to die. I just wanted to have a little fun.”
“Penny,” I looked at her seriously. “What is this stuff?”
“It’s called Rush,” she responded. “Like ‘sugar rush.’ The pills are really sweet like candy, and it gives you a burst of energy, making you feel really happy. Or at least it used to. The first time I took it, I felt like I was invincible. I even tripped and stubbed my toe so hard that I broke my toenail off, and I barely felt a thing. It was awesome.”
“So it numbs pain?” Naomi asked. Penny nodded in response.
I felt my blood run cold. There was no doubt in my mind that whatever this stuff was, it was essentially the same drug we’d found in the cough syrup. The fact that it numbed pain would explain how so many of the assailants could keep going even after being shot by the cops.
“Anyway,” Penny continued, “it stopped working after the first couple of times. I ended up having to take a double dose just to get the same results, and a little while after that, I had to up it to three pills.”
“Which meant that the side effects got worse, too,” I concluded.
“Yeah,” Penny frowned. “Robbie told me that I got really irritable when I took it. I started having hallucinations, too, but they were kinda fun, so I didn’t think it was a big deal. I never thought I would go crazy and attack him like that. I thought he was exaggerating to get me to stop.”
