Chapter 32: Lunch Among Friends

Tim had just visited the same mom-and-pop pawn shop where he bought his pair of Karambit knives and accompanying sheaths. He wanted to get rid of the extra weapons; no need to ride around San Antonio with six AR-15s and enough ammunition to take over a small country. The only real problem Tim thought might have caused some trouble was the lack of serial numbers on any of the rifles or handguns.

Luckily, the owner made it a point that Tim disclose he had made these rifles for himself. The old man pointed out that, according to the Firearms Industry Programs Branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), there was no federal law or regulation requiring someone to mark his own personally manufactured firearm with a serial number or other information. Thus, he could decide to sell them at his discretion. The old man even gave Tim a really good price, but that was insignificant compared to the cash in the briefcase sitting between his legs as he stood at the counter.

Soon after, Tim was knee-deep in his fourth plate of scrambled eggs and fifth towering pile of bacon. Engorging himself at the all-you-can-eat breakfast chain restaurant a few blocks away from the North Star Mall was a perfect way for Tim to spend some time before meeting up with the guys he first met when he returned from his meeting with himself in the past.

He decided, since he still had a couple of hours until the meet with George and the two doctors, he should go ahead and get himself some new clothes. Walking around in a pair of baggy blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt was inconspicuous, but Tim felt like he wanted to stand out now since he had never not been overly obese before.

Tim was also telling himself, however, to keep calm and not go overboard – if a group of guys robs a bank, the quickest way to get caught was to buy a shiny new sports car with your cut of the cash.

Tim was carrying several bags full of new clothes, and the bags were emblazoned with the brand name of some of the higher-end retailers available in the mall. He still had the briefcase filled with cash in his dominant hand and the clothing in his other.

A quick look at his watch told him lunch time was near, and he decided to get his purchases out to the car. While walking by the food court of the mall, he noticed George Johnson with the two other men he recognized from his arrival sitting at a table nervously looking around at the people seated around them. He watched as they all got up from one table and sat at another a little farther from the throngs of people enjoying the selection of the food court.

They were a good forty-five minutes early. He thought to himself, “Well, at least they won’t be late.”

Tim turned and walked toward the escalators to reach the food court. While riding up, he looked around and saw someone working a little too much at looking inconspicuous. The Latina in the Texas Longhorns t-shirt and tight blue jeans was trying a little too hard to blend in with her surroundings. Apparently, she had spent the last ten minutes re-reading the same article in her newspaper while nonchalantly scanning the people in the food court. He decided to keep an eye on her – not a difficult job since she was easily one of the more attractive women he had seen in the mall that morning.

The escalator dropped him off at the entrance to the food court appropriately named the Star Court. It kept to the overall theme of the mall with white walls and ceiling and black and brown trim. Despite the nation’s overall trend to shuttering malls, the North Star Mall in San Antonio was bucking the trend by offering higher-end retail shops with more common, less-expensive fare. It was also a real estate gem, proving the ideal of location, location, and location as sound real estate principles. The North Star Mall was situated in the middle of the north side of the city. In its early years, the mall served as a border of the city and eventually served as a bull’s eye for the center of commerce in the Alamo city as the people grew around her.

Tim looked at the choices of food but was not all that hungry after his two-hour-long breakfast. However, the smell of the chicken coming from the Chick-fil-A franchise in the corner pulled him in like a fisherman hauling in the catch-of-the-day.

Tim reached the front of the line at the Chick-fil-a and ordered a chicken sandwich combo meal with a large coke as well as a couple of extra chicken sandwiches and a couple more orders of waffle fries – enough food for at least two, but how could he resist the extra energy?

The people sitting nearest the three men finished their meal and left to continue their shopping, leaving a large area of empty tables surrounding the men anxiously waiting for someone. Tim smiled to himself at the prank going through his head as he made his way to another table near the men. They each saw him and quickly looked away since he was obviously not the person they were expecting to see.

“Don’t you three just love this food court,” he asked from his table.

“Uh, what, are you talking to us,” the younger scientist and closest seat to the questioning man Mike Jensen asked.

“I asked if you three love this food court,” he repeated, “or do you like Mexican food, more?”

George Johnson was the first to realize he was indeed the man. “Tim, is that you?”

“Yes, but I wonder which of you brought the extra eyes from south of the border?” George and the two Mikes were confused but frightened by what that meant. “There is a hot looking Latina over by the entrance. She’s so enamored with her newspaper that she has read the same page several times by now.

“We didn’t bring anybody with us. We came in the same car,” George said as he twisted around to see the entrance to the Star Court. He immediately recognized both Yolanda with the newspaper and her sister Margarita who was returning to the table. “Hang on; I’ll take care of it. Don’t go anywhere.”

A moment later Dr. Mike Thompson, the older of the two scientists, rose to get their pizza orders when their names were called.

George walked up to the table with the two women. “What the fuck are you two doing here?”

“Georgie! Hola, baby!” The woman he knew as Yolanda dropped her newspaper on the table and jumped up to hug him and kissed him on his cheeks like a long lost friend she had not seen in years. While finishing their hug and then sitting down, she whispered, “You were followed, but they had an accident along the way.”

Fear flashed across George’s face, and the two ladies noticed.

Yolanda playfully hit him on the shoulder with the folded up newspaper. “What are you guys doing here? What, is my restaurant not good enough for you now.” She leaned out into the aisle and waved at the two scientists both back at their table with their food.

While leaning back, she whispered again under her breath, “Go ahead and have your meeting. We don’t think anyone else followed you ... at least none we can see.” George turned to look at Margarita who was working on a Frosty from the Wendy’s franchise.

“Anyways, I was just giving you a hard time, Georgie. Go ahead and play with your friends. Since you are eating Italian, I can let this slide. Lord knows I need a break from Tex-Mex every once in a while.” The two got up, and George stood a second later and hugged the two as a goodbye.

Yolanda whispered again, “I’ll call you later and tell you what happened.”

George nodded, smiled and walked back to the table. “Anything I need to be worried about?” Tim asked.

“No, just some friends of the life who helped us get you setup once you were out.”

“Count me as intrigued, Georgie.”

None of the four men could stop from laughing at that tension breaker.

“The shorter of the two is the one responsible for your beloved tacos.” It was Tim’s turn to have fear flash across his face. George countered, “No, don’t worry. They can be trusted.”

Tim visibly relaxed, which drew a curious return from George, “That’s something that I’m gonna need an explanation from you all about.”

“What?”

“I told you two Latinas were helping us with setting things up for your escape, and you take it as gospel.”

Tim shifted in his seat to look George right in his face. “Of course I would, George. You were my mentor and my reason for being here.” Tim kicked out the seat in front of him for George to sit down. George dropped into the seat like a marionette with its strings cut.

“So,” Tim said as he looked at the perplexed faces of the three men sitting before him, “anybody got any questions?”

The unassuming black Suburban drove up to the parking lot between two barely-working motels on an isolated street, half a mile off IH-35 North, a few minutes away from JBSA - Fort Sam Houston. The Suburban was following a police car, and both were traveling normally – no sirens or lights.

“Colonel,” Sgt. Thomas asked from the front passenger seat, “do you think that our boy could have been in the middle of all this?”

“To tell you the truth, JT, I don’t really know. I doubt it. I mean, would you do something like kill a whole drug gang while you were hiding from us? But, if this cop thinks something fishy was going on at this place – something so fishy that he remembered to call me even though he treated us like scum until the general called to get their cooperation...”

The Suburban followed the police cruiser as it turned into a parking lot that still showed the remnants of the previous night trashed all over the parking lot. Both cars parked near the manager’s office but the occupants did not go inside.

Chief Martz shook hands first with the colonel then the sergeant. With the societal pleasantries out of the way, the chief went over what the investigators believe truly happened and not the story released to the press. Reading notes off a small reporter’s notepad, Chief Martz took the two men on a tour of what the investigators believed happened last night. He pointed between the two men to the motel next door. They turned around both searching up a few floors off the ground, in the corner, were the remains of police tape was struggling to hang onto the railing.

“The detectives think that that is probably where they had a lookout with a radio to keep an overall watch over anyone coming up the parking lot or from any of the other rooms toward the drug dealers’ base of operations.” Chief Martz pointed the notebook at the corner vantage point. “He was also the last body they found because, at first glance from down here in the parking lot, he just looked like a guy sitting on a porch watching the parking lot.”

He flipped a couple of pages in the notebook and continued. “The killer used plastic ties to prop the body up in the corner with some binoculars in his hand and staged the body as if it was just sitting there. Like I said, no one noticed until the blood started dropping on some cruisers parked under the overhang.”

“How was he killed, Chief? Was he shot or stabbed?” Sgt. Thomas asked.

“Actually the blood was from the man’s neck being sliced but, when they looked closer, the forensics noticed his neck was snapped as well. The detectives think whoever killed him broke his neck trying to get control and maybe accidentally did it before slicing his neck. Their timeline of the night says this was probably the first man killed.”

Chief Martz waved his guests forward, toward the other end of the wing in the motel, but the two military men waved the chief to lead the way. When they moved to follow their tour guide, the colonel and the sergeant shared a glance with each other that spoke volumes without saying a word. The sergeant took out his cell phone and started taking pictures of the scene.

“This is where they found the next body.” Chief Martz pointed toward a collection of garbage cans in a small alcove at the end of the wing. It was obviously a makeshift garbage dump. “He didn’t bother with the knife this time – just snapped his neck.” The chief mimed a headlock and twist motion.

Colonel Price nodded his understanding. He pointed to Sgt. Thomas to get pictures of the collection of knocked-over garbage cans and pools of feces, urine and blood staining the floor and partially up against the wall. The remaining garbage luckily covered up what indeed would have been a foul smell.

From there, they visited several other motel rooms where more bodies were found with their necks slashed in a very professional manner. Chief Martz pointed out their investigators believed the killings were committed by someone with military experience because the men killed never got a shot off in defense, and each room had no evidence of a struggle. In each, there was just a body on the floor with the neck slashed and bleeding out on the cheap carpeting. Sgt. Thomas was busily taking pictures along the way.

The group walked down the wing hallway and, before reaching the final room on the right, met up with a rotund man in a strikingly white and starched Guayabera shirt. He was anxiously waiting with several cleaners and repairmen, wanting to get into the room and clean up the leftover mess from the incident the night before.

“Hey there, mister police officer! When am I going to get the okay to start cleaning up this mess? I finally am rid of that puto madre and have full control of my motel once again.”

Chief Martz looked down at his notes, trying to remember the motel owner’s name. “Mr. Martinez, the main investigation is just underway, but we do understand your need to try to get back to business as normal, and I sympathize with you, but we need to find out what happened here,” the chief explained.

“Well, si si, that’s all well and good, but I need to get these rooms cleaned and repaired before I lose any business. With all the police here last night and this morning, I might not have a motel left to open,” Mr. Martinez was pleading with the chief and even looked to the two military men touring the crime scene for help.

“Well, Mr. Martinez, I believe you could go ahead and clean the other rooms and get those ready since we have already been through those but we are still gathering evidence in here. But, with the amount of ... well ... evidence to go through in this last room, I doubt you would be able to use this room for a few more days at least.”

“Carajo!“ Mr. Martinez yelled with outstretched arms as if asking for divine intervention with his problem. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and swiped at the sweat on his brow.

“I’ll see what I can do to get the room back to you as soon as possible but, for right now, no one is to go inside. If they do, they can and will be arrested for tampering with a crime scene.”

“Si. Si. I understand. And I thank you for your help. I apologize for yelling, but this is all...”

“No apology necessary, Mr. Martinez.” A quick handshake and Chief Martz and his guests moved closer to the wall so Mr. Martinez and his cleaning crew could make their way back toward the other rooms where dead bodies were found.

The three men stood in front of the door of the final room and were getting ready to see what had happened. “Okay, be careful not to touch anything. I know our people, as well as the FBI crime scene people, have already been through here, but we don’t know if any of the other alphabet groups want to do their own inspections,” Chief Martz warned the nodding soldiers.

To the left was blood spatter along the wall and coagulation of blood on three distinct spots where the bodies had fallen. “Over here, we have three men who were actually playing cards and were taken out by three well-placed headshots. One guy fell on the rickety card table, and it broke but, as you can tell, his blood flowed off the table and pooled up on the carpet right here. This guy fell backwards after being shot, and this one slumped to the side, and you can also see some splatter on the wall back behind him.” Sgt. Thomas continued taking pictures and trying to get shots from different angles.

“Now, over here, the detectives think this guy was the only moving target. Probably pacing in front of the desk, he was hit in the shoulder which forced him to the ground, but then the next shot his head exploded across the wall and baseboards.” Col. Price mimed how he thought the shooter might have reacted to the shooting.

“Do they think this guy down here was killed before or after the guy in the chair?” Col. Price asked after mimicking the likely scenario.

“They think he was last.”

“Nope. Look over at that brick wall. I would guess...” Sgt. Thomas and the chief stepped back outside and saw a hole near the corner of the brick wall. Looking inside, you could see the bullet was still there. “I think you need to get your guys over here again and get that slug out of the wall. I figure it was the only slug shot in defense and probably by the guy in the chair.”

“He shot first at the pacer and, even though he only winged him, the guy fell to the ground, so he probably thought he got him. So, after that shot, he turned his attention back to the boss behind the desk.” The colonel turned to look at the chief and asked, “He got his sidearm out, right?”

The chief nodded and looked at his notes. “ Yes. It was a Magnum Research Desert Eagle XIX semi-auto three-fifty-seven. Fuckin’ cannon. He had a quick draw holster on his belly.”

“Yeah,” the colonel continued. “He winged the guy,” pointing to the floor. He then pointed to the desk. “then noticed this one draw and, rather than using a fancy headshot, put a couple shots center-mass to make sure he killed him. Yeah, this guy probably dropped his pistol, and now the shooter could get in a crouch and finish off the pacer with a final head shot.”

“Yeah, I would have put a shot in his head just to make sure. But maybe he saw him actually go, so he figured the center mass hits were enough,” Sgt. Thomas added, receiving an agreeing grunt from his superior.

“How in the hell could you see all that without seeing the bodies?” the chief asked once the three men stood outside of the room. The chief closed the door, and all three men helped put overlapping ribbons of police tape and a sealed decal across the door, on the door and the door frame as well as below the doorknob so anyone opening the door would break the seals.