Chapter 16

27 September

Agent Garland was working with Agent O’Donald to piece together the head pile left at the police station. To the agents, this pile was the most important case to solve since all the officers were dirty. Suddenly, Samantha’s phone vibrated. At first, she ignored it, but decided to peek when it vibrated again.

When she saw the ID, she gasped. Peter looked at her over his glasses to see what caused her to gasp. Samantha turned her phone so he could see, but he looked confused. He wondered why The Seventh Seal would be sending the link to a Dropbox to Samantha.

“Well, open it,” he said. Samantha looked at Peter, but did what he said. When she opened it, there was a message with coordinates for her. Peter entered those coordinates into his computer to determine their location. They pointed to a nearby compound, but there were no property records on file for it. ‘Hummm, the plot thickens,’ thought Peter.

In the meantime, Samantha opened the video file and quickly wished she hadn’t. The message told her to watch the whole thing before doing anything. Peter sat beside her and watched. He quickly realized that if the judge’s confession was true, it would clear up three-quarters of their cold cases from the past twenty years.

Soon, Peter took notes on every criminal act the judge confessed to, and Samantha cross-checked them in the computer system. There were so many cases mentioned that it would take the entire field office over a year to clear everything. Finally, they reached the end of the confession, and both wondered how the judge would get out of this. It didn’t take long to show they didn’t need to worry about the judge.

Samantha vomited while watching the judge’s execution, while Peter was so pale it was possible to see his veins beneath his skin. When the judge finally died, it was Peter’s turn to race to the bathroom. In the bathroom, several other agents asked if he was okay. Instead of telling them, he brought them back and had them watch the video. To an agent, they ran to the bathroom after watching the video; even the hardened combat veterans couldn’t hold their stomachs.

Everyone headed to the garage to suit up as soon as the agents recovered. Every agent in the building was pulled from their duties and ordered to join in. The SAC knew they would need every agent they could get to handle this. Before they rolled, headquarters was warned of what was coming.

Thankfully, there was a nearby military base, and the bomb squad was activated. As the FBI convoy passed the base, the bomb squad, a medical unit, and several trucks of troops joined them. The bosses in the FBI were not taking any chances with this and requested all the help they could find.

When the convoy arrived at the compound, the troops were used to secure the perimeter while the bomb squad worked to clear the buildings. It didn’t take them long to find the C4 charges, and they ordered everyone away from the scene. Samantha knew there were slaves at the site and saw a young woman walk out from the main building.

When the woman exited the building, everyone pointed their guns at the unfortunate woman. However, the woman waved to the agents, signaling them to enter. Samantha got out and walked toward the woman. While everyone yelled for Samantha to get back, she kept walking until she reached the bottom of the steps.

“Hello, I’m Agent Samantha Garland of the FBI.”

“Well, come on in. There are several lawyers here taking down people’s information.”

Samantha was surprised but decided the woman seemed honest. When Sam entered the door, she quickly ran out and vomited from the top of the steps. After she finished, she yelled for the medics.

When Samantha yelled for the medics, the FBI agents knew what she had found and ran with them. Several agents, including the SAC, ran back out to vomit after seeing the condition of some of the former slaves. After the agent in charge cleaned his mouth out, he made a call and requested every available ambulance and medic, as well as the coroner and every drop of coffee in the city. They were going to be here for a long time.

After seeing what he was up against, the SAC set up a command post to track everyone and everything. The bomb squad was finding so many explosives that if they detonated simultaneously, it would be equivalent to several tons of TNT. When the FBI heard that, several agents turned white, and the SAC ordered a complete electronic communication blackout until they could figure out how the explosives were triggered.

Since Samantha had met Erin, she was assigned to work with her to gather the stories of the former slaves. Erin was glad for the work as she didn’t want to think about what she witnessed. Eventually, she began to open up to Samantha regarding Amy’s execution, including telling Samantha where to look.

Samantha gave the directions to another agent, and they went up with the coroner. When the coroner saw how the former judge was executed, he had to find a trash can. The coroner thought he had seen every way a person could be killed, but had never seen anything like this before.

Back downstairs, Erin was talking a mile a minute, and Samantha had to resort to recording Erin to remember everything. Samantha could hardly believe what Erin was saying, as it seemed Erin was describing the perpetrator as something other than human. While Samantha’s training told her Erin was deflecting, her woman’s intuition was screaming that the tall lawyer was telling the truth, and whatever had done this wasn’t human.

While the FBI and everyone else were working to sort out what had happened, Alex was back home, cleaning out hidden offshore accounts worth seven billion dollars. He had enough money stolen from the criminals to live comfortably for the rest of his life. The interest would accumulate faster than he could spend it.

After signing off, Alex sat back and sighed. He wondered what he was turning into as he reviewed everything he had done and everyone he had killed. Alex concluded he was slowly turning into a bloodthirsty monster, and if he didn’t fight it, the urge to kill would become too strong. Alex also wondered at his reaction to his mother. It was almost as if he had become a terrible monster. Worse, Alex hadn’t controlled it; it controlled him.

That was what frightened Alex the most. The monster had controlled him, and he could imagine that if the monster had arisen at a more opportune time, Alex might not have been able to stop killing. It was time for Alex to think seriously about what he wanted from life. He had more than enough money that he would never need to worry about working, but what of the rest of his life?

What about all those other milestones people talk about in life, such as graduating from high school, attending college, finding someone special, and starting a family? After everything Alex had done over the past week, all that sounded dull and ordinary. If Alex knew one thing, it was that he was not ordinary or dull. While he still didn’t understand what had happened or why, he did realize he had been given an extraordinary gift; it would be best if he didn’t waste it.