A/N: I had this chapter rewritten; some minor dialogues edits, some whole scene changes. Enjoy!
Disclaimers from previous chapters will be applied here.
Chapter 4
First Suspect
Interpol HQ, Malaysian Branch, Kuala Lumpur
Saturday, August 14 2013
1.09 p.m.
Back at HQ, interrogation was just about to start. While Geronimo got to interrogate, Thea and I got to watch from the observation room, behind the one-way glass.
"I noticed that Geronimo isn't the mouse he is before," I stated as I stood with my hands behind my back.
"How would you describe him before you met him in person?" Thea asked, turning to me.
"He use to be a lot like how he describes himself in his books," I said.
"Hah, yeah... he used to be a fraidy mouse," she said. "How would you describe him now?"
"Tough, strict, short-tempered, brave," I replied. "I even sense that he has something to avenge."
After a short pause and a deep breath, she broke the silence. "He's not the same Geronimo anymore. After he found out someone killed his childhood friend, he changed. He became an agent of Interpol, then then rest of us requested to be recruited just so we could help him. The next three years were tough, because we were adjusting to the new him. I missed the old Geronimo... the times when we went on adventures, stopping villains, getting a scoop..."
"When you became agents, who did he put in charge of The Rodent's Gazette?"
"Usually Grandpa Shortpaws."
We ended our conversation when Geronimo stepped in the the interrogation room. It looked dull with beige painted on the walls, mildly lit with a light hanging and shining over the table. It smelt of sweat and body odor from Martinez not taking a shower. He shut the door behind him and took a seat opposite of Martinez.
Staring at him blankly, he started, "Where were you at 2.05 am last night?" asked Geronimo.
"My house, fell asleep to a movie," claimed Martinez straightforwardly in his Spanish accent.
"Someone said he saw your car outside his house since 5 in the afternoon. Your neighbors also said you weren't at your house since yesterday morning."
"Alright, alright, Fernando was drunk, slept there to avoid DUI," he admitted.
"I'm not a drinker, but I know you don't drink in the day and sleep through the whole afternoon." said Geronimo.
Martinez grunted in frustration. "Believe me, I was drinking."
"Okay... One of the owners of the nearby properties claimed that he saw your car driving off in his courtyard."
"Let me explain. When I woke up, a car, maybe an Audi drove past me. He stopped near me and stuck something out of his window and towards the house. After that, he went in. I felt suspicious, so I followed. When I entered the gates, he was already in the house. I went in, saw him and grabbed him by the neck. I got in the kitchen to find a weapon. I reached for a knife, but the intruder pulled me by the back of my shirt and slammed me against a rack of glasses. One of the glasses fell and broke. When I wanted to fight back, he got a knife from the counter and slashed my right arm as I parried it. He did a finishing move by doing a spinning back kick. I slid across the counter, making everything on it fall to the ground. I blacked out but I got back on my feet a second later. He escaped through the kitchen window and got to his car. I started mine and chased after him. We got to a highway and then suddenly when we got to an off-ramp, he disappeared. That's the end of my story."
"Disappeared?" Geronimo cleared his throat. "Who were you meeting at the Twin Towers?" Geronimo asked strictly.
"That was Fernando's business partner," he stated.
"A business partner who pulls a gun in front of me and my team's face? I don't think so," Geronimo disbelieved.
"He's an ex-con, he gets nervous when any form of law enforcement or anyone else that carries a gun show up," said Martinez. "Hmph...Idiota..."
"Pensaste que yo no entendía eso, cabrón?" replied Geronimo.
"Never knew he spoke Spanish," I stated.
"We all do. One of the compulsory languages Interpol agents have to master," Thea said.
He thought he had enough, so he decided to leave. But before he did, Martinez asked some rather suspicious questions.
"Wait! Before 'chu leave, was that chica who shot my car one of 'chu?" Martinez asked.
Geronimo froze for a moment. Then he answered: "That 'chica' was my sister. And yes, she was one of us."
"Ah, me gusta eso chica, no offense."
"You have no chance against her."
"She sounds feisty," said Martinez. "What about the boy?"
"He's my adopted nephew." I liked the way he kept my identity.
"Those guys will totally pay for the damages they made to my car!" Those were the last words of Martinez before Geronimo shut the door behind him. Then he joined me and Thea in the observation room.
"I don't believe him," Geronimo said.
"Neither do I," I replied.
"He asked those last two questions like he knew that you were the ones that were shooting at him," he theorized.
"We've never met him before in our lives. Have you, Thea?" I asked.
"Nope," she answered. "What now big bruv?"
After another short pause, he decided to: "Get Agent Damien to take him to the holding cell." He and Thea stepped out of the room after that.
I stayed for a while to look at Martinez's face full of lies, then I left to check on Pandora at the garage, downstairs.
As the elevator doors opened, I spotted Benjamin giving her a helping paw. "Are you guys done pulling slugs out of those two cars yet?" I asked as I walked out of the elevator.
"We're done with the ones from Geronimo's car, we're still stuck with Fernando's," Pandora said.
"Do you mind lending us a paw? Or a hand perhaps?" Benjamin requested.
"Sure, why not," I said as I took a pair of gloves and a specimen jar on the nearby desk. "Any of you got a spare pair of tweezers?"
Pandora reached into her lab coat's pocket and gave me the tweezers. "Here you go," she said. "You start with the boot, Benjamin and I got the bumper."
"How long have guys you been doing this?" I asked as I pulled out my first slug.
"Half an hour ago," Benjamin answered.
"No, not that. I meant, how long have you been working at Interpol? Excluding yourself, Benjamin," I asked again.
"Oh. Well, Geronimo joined Interpol about a month before we did. Then, me and the others tagged along to help him."
"With what?" I said as I kept pulling out more slugs and putting them in the specimen jar.
"Remember the 2011 LA Weapons Expo?" she reminded.
"That's the time Benjamin and I first met each other," I mentioned.
"And the time when the team stopped The Technologist," said Pandora.
"So those guys were you? No wonder you looked familiar," I said.
"When did you start working with Apple?" Pandora asked curiously.
"A few months before the Expo. I was 11 by then," I replied.
"How did you managed to work with them?" Pandora asked.
"My chip enhances my intelligence, sense of logic and knowledge. When I showed my talent to Apple, they took me in to work with them," I explained.
"What if the chip wasn't there right now? What will happen to your knowledge?"
"Some of it will still be there, in my brain," I answered.
"What about school?" Pandora said.
"I don't go to school anymore. I only go sometimes to pickup and meet my friends there," I answered (this was why I didn't attend school yesterday when the team landed). "Speaking of school and intelligence, shouldn't you and Benjamin be at one right now and how did you know so much about forensic science?"
"We do go to school, but since it's the middle of summer, we don't," Benjamin said.
"My forensics science came from whole lot of cop shows," she said.
"So you and Benjamin just work part time here?" I asked.
"Yup, but not just us both. The whole team does. Benjamin and I work at Interpol as a summer job," she answered as I pulled my final slug.
"Here's the final slug," I informed Pandora.
"Here's mine," Benjamin said.
"There's gotta be more inside the bumper." she said.
"Then let's take it apart from the car," I proposed.
We grabbed hold of three points; Benjamin went for left, I went for right, and Pandora at the center.
"One, two, three, pull!" I counted down,
We pried the bumper apart carefully and as hard as we can. After a few 'snaps', we finally took the bumper off.
"Just put it down here," Pandora ordered. I examined that the slugs almost penetrated the chassis. Behind it was the fuel tank.
"These are powerful rounds... good thing these never made through the chassis," said Pandora.
"Otherwise, the car goes boom and Martinez will cease to exist," Benjamin punned as I started to pull the slugs out.
"Good one," she chuckled. "Gee, how many rounds did you and Thea put into this car, Danny?"
"Let me see, 30 from my PS90, 30 from Thea's ACR," I replied.
"60 slugs it is then," she stated.
To kill some time, I asked Pandora if she'd like to listen to music.
"Are you into music, Pandora?"
"Who doesn't" she answered.
"Life without music is a lie," Benjamin gave an opinion.
"Do you like Creed?" I asked her again.
"Sure," she stated.
And with the power of my chip, I turned on one of my favorite songs from Creed, One Last Breath, on my iPhone. If any of you readers haven't heard of it, look it up on YouTube.
*Guitar solo*
Please come now, I think I'm falling,
I'm holding on to all I think is safe,
It seems I found a road to nowhere,
And I'm tryin' to escape...
I yelled back when I heard thunder!
But I'm down to one last breath,
And with it let me say, let me say...
Us: Hold me now, I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinkin',
Maybe six feet, ain't so far down...
After all that, we pulled out the last of the slugs.
"That's the last of 'em," I said.
"We're not done yet," she told me.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"There's still some bulletholes in the front of the of the Evo," she informed.
"The front? Thea and I never fired from the front," I wondered as I walked to the front.
"Really?" said Pandora as she and Benjamin got to my side.
"These holes are bigger than the ones just now," I stated. I crouched and got my tweezers. I pulled one of the slugs and examined it. These were bigger caliber slugs than the other ones we pulled out.
"These aren't the same caliber like just now," I said to myself. Then I finally recognize what caliber the slug was. "My God! We've got a we've got a .50 cal slug in our hands and paws. One shot of this out of a Barrett M107, it could blow up your head like a watermelon."
"Are you sure you never owned a gun that uses this type cartridge?" Pandora asked.
"Yes, I'm sure. I know my father had some back in the day, but they're all back in the States. I couldn't get them back here because guns that uses such big ammunition are illegal in Malaysia. Besides, they couldn't even get past the customs," I explained.
"Hmm... Pull 'em all out. I'll analyze these at the lab," she told. So I got my tweezers and pulled out all 16 slugs.
"Now that's done, it's time to go back to the lab," she said as I gave her tweezers back. She was struggling to carry those four medium-sized specimen jars.
"Let me get that for ya," Benjamin said. She thanked him and walked straight to the elevator together. Before I left the garage, I wanted to check the mirrors of Fernando's car. The right side-mirror was dangling on its socket, the left one went missing and the rear view mirror was split into half. Both pieces were lying on the car floor.
Hmm... Suspicious, I thought. Then Pandora shouted my name from the elevator. She was already inside with Benjamin.
"Hey Danny! Are you comin' or what?" Benjamin shouted.
"Hold the door, I'm coming," I shouted back. I joined her and pressed a button. The door closed and we went back down.
"Well, what could I do to help now?" I asked.
"No help needed here, I just need to work my magic. You can stay if you want to," she said.
"Nah, it's okay. I need to go back up to see if the team needs my help," I rejected softly.
"If you need company, don't be afraid to come down here!" Benjamin offered.
"Okay!" I shouted back on my way out.
Back at the bullpen, neither Geronimo nor Trap was there. The only one left was Thea, playing a video game I developed called Fields of Battle 2: Modern Combat.
"Any idea where Trap and Geronimo might be?" I asked.
"They went out to buy lunch," answered Thea.
"Wait a minute, I know those sounds anywhere, are you playing Field Of Battle 2?" I asked.
"Yup," she answered. "And our team is about to win the the deathmatch in three, two, one..."
"Blue team wins!" said the game's announcer.
"They're all scrubs," she said.
Then I wanted to show Thea how good I am at my own game. Literally.
"Alright, step aside. Let me show you how a true pro snipes," I said.
"Be my guest," Thea allowed.
After the deathmatch with an ending kill count of 110, Trap and Geronimo showed up from the elevator with food.
"The pizzas are here!" said Trap as he walked out of the elevator.
"You guys better eat well because I'm not going back out there for anything, okay?" said Geronimo as he sat down on his chair. It was cold and raining outside.
"So, any leads when I was downstairs helping out Pandora?" I asked as I stood up.
"No, not yet. Our only hope of finding clues now is the 9mm slugs Pandora and Benjamin pulled out," Geronimo answered, as he sat down.
"Meanwhile, should I get them up here or do you want me to send them down some lunch?" I asked.
"Good idea, send them this whole pizza. It's their favorite," answered Geronimo with a smile.
"Alright, I'll see you guys in a bit!" I said while carrying the pizza box.
At five in the afternoon, I felt tired. "I'm beat. You wanna go home Thea? J-Son told me you needed to clean your SIG."
She blew out a long sigh and said; "I'm feeling a bit exhausted myself... okay."
"So, I'll guess we'll be seeing you guys later then," I bid farewell.
"Bye Danny!" said Trap.
We arrived at home about an hour later (still raining by the way). Straight away, we went to my underground armory to get Thea's SIG cleaned. I brought along an A3 drawing paper, pencils, an eraser and a sharpener, just in case I get bored while Thea cleans her weapon.
"How am I going to find the kit in all this?" Thea said. The armory was huge, about 2400 sq ft.
"Hold on," I said. I went to the wall beside the door. Thea's eyes followed me as a piece of glass appeared with a virtual keyboard on it. I typed in the search bar above the keyboard:
"Cleaning kit for SIG Sauer P226"
Then, a bunch of arrows appeared on the floor, leading to the cleaning kits section.
"Ladies first," I said as I let her walk first.
We went further I into the armory and finally found the cleaning kits section. The matter now is to find the right kit. With a little help from technology, the arrows continued pointing upwards on the wall, and showed Thea the right one, hanging by a hook.
"That was convenient," she as as she sat down on a tall stool behind her, putting her gun and the kit on the work desk, taking out the magazine.
"Don't thank me - thank technology," I said as I took a seat opposite of her.
"So, 2400 sq ft of guns?" said Thea while separating the slide from the receiver.
"Not all of them are, some sections are for attachments. They're separated into different sections," I explained.
"Does your family hunt?" she asked.
"Well, we would sometime go to our ranch when we were living at America and hunt there. I still kept their favorite weapons for memories," I explained as I started to draw a Remington M870 shotgun.
"How big was it?" she asked again as she took off the barrel from the slide and shoving a little brush into it.
"The ranch? About a hectare," I said. "Wanna see our favorite moments?"
"I'd love to," she agreed. So I reached for a photo album labeled: 'hunting moments' that I coincidentally left at the far side of the table.
"Here's my dad, holding his M40A5," I said as I flipped the cover, showing my dad's photo.
"Huh... You look exactly like him," she said.
"Yeah, thanks. I get that a lot. He taught me lots of stuff, told me what to do and what not to do," I described.
"He sounds like a great man," she complemented.
"Thanks. He was. Here's him scoring a kill with his rifle," I said as I turned the page.
"Here's my mom, barbecuing burgers while we're busy shooting," I said as I flipped another page; "and here's my sister, Sarah. She's holding her first pistol, the Beretta 92."
"She looks kinda cute," she commented as she finished cleaning the barrel.
"A little chubby if you ask me," I said as Thea reassembled the slide with the receiver.
"Did she ever got a chance to shoot?" she asked again while she took a few trigger pulls.
"She did," I answered as I flipped the page. It showed a picture of Sarah, shooting. Below it was her, holding the score sheet. A bullet hole at the outermost part of the circle was on it. A text below that says: Sarah's first hit (Target at 10 feet, 50 shots took).
"Seriously?" she chuckled.
"Yeah," I muttered. I stared deeply in to the picture. I started sobbing. My face turned bright red, tears shed and streamed down my face, dripping on the picture. The sound of thunder added a little more feeling to my sadness.
"What's wrong Danny?" she asked.
"I just miss 'em so much," I answered as tears started to build up in my eyes.
She laid her gun on the work desk. "Hey, don't cry! Don't worry, I got you," she said as she held my hand to cheer me up. But I didn't answer.
"It's okay to be sad. But the problem is that you're still living in the past. It's time to forget and its about time you start making the future," said Thea while wiping away my tears.
I closed my eyes and let tears roll down. "You're right, it's time I let go..." I agreed; "And when I told you this morning that I've moved on... Hah... boy, was that a lie."
"Good, because I know how it feels like to not have a family like yours," she stated. "Now c'mon, let's go back upstairs."
We went back to the elevator by reversing the direction of the arrows. I calmed myself down by playing a few rounds of Field of Battle with Thea as soon as we got back upstairs. I still couldn't get my mind of something though. Remember earlier in the chapter when Geronimo interrogated Martinez? How did he know it was me and Thea who were shooting his car? From the moment I heard him ask those questions, I knew that I smelled a rat.
A/N: I did this edit to improve my cringe-worthy writing style. Enjoy!