Floxham Island ~ Sinclair V-Log AZ267/M (11 page)

“Right,” Baz
grinned. “I’ll bet you a clean fifty, the guy we’re after is
Agrillian, or at least that’s where Nembier knows him from.”

“The guy we’re
after?” I asked.

“Well, I’m
happy to help,” he blushed. “You’ve got me interested now Sam; you
can’t leave me out of it. I wanna play too.”

It was fully
dark as Baz and I traded ideas and since we all now knew the
building was pretty secure, we felt it wasn’t really necessary to
have armed guards on watch while we slept. After arranging a change
of teams to make sure Nembier was watched throughout the night I
decided to get some sleep. Dex, Luggs, Baz and I decided to share
one of the ground floor offices for the night and after a quick
rearranging of desks to partition the room into sections, we tried
to get comfortable. It was as I was trying to go to sleep that
something occurred to me.

“Dex, Luggs are
you awake guys?” I whispered.

“What’s up
Sam?” Dex replied.

“Can you
remember how many passengers boarded the Sally B when you stopped
at Agrillia?”

“Umm, I know
quite a number disembarked there. I’d got talking to a couple of
guys on the trip and they both got off there. One of them left the
vidicom game he’d lent me, so I caught up with him at the
disembarkation gate to give it back and there was a good hundred or
so waiting to get off. I’ve no idea who got on there though, sorry
buddy.”

“Okay no
worries.”

“Sorry, I don’t
know either, “Luggs hissed, “but Morry might do. That’s the sort of
shit he deals with all the time. Ask him in the morning.”

“Morry?” I
frowned.

“Yeah, Morry
Laymon. Our esteemed leader,” he sniggered.

“Oh you mean
Flark,” I said without thinking.

“Flark?” Luggs
asked. “Why do you call him that?”

“Oh he just
looks like a Flark to me I guess.”

“What’s a
Flark?” Baz asked.

“Back home on
Sigma Prime, those who are wealthy enough can employ an android
servant to help them around the home. They keep the house, cook and
clean and stuff like that and they’re all programmed to have this
real simpering manner. It’s all yes sir, no madam, have a wonderful
day and would you like me to kiss your ass? Anyway, they’re called
Flarks and he reminded me of them when I first came aboard the
Sally B.” All three guys laughed till tears streamed down their
faces and I knew that within twenty four hours of being back aboard
the liner, the guy would be Flark to the whole crew. I hoped it
didn’t get back to him, at least not until I left on my next
job.

It seemed as
though I’d just got to sleep when I was woken up by someone shaking
my shoulder and shouting my name. Dawn was just breaking as I
opened my eyes to see Dex, stripped to the waist and eyes wide with
shock shaking me awake.

“Sam, wake up
buddy for fucks’ sake wake up.”

“What the
fuck?” I groaned as I tried to come to my senses. The naked, leggy
blonde faded into the mists as reality overtook me. “What’s the
problem?”

“One of the
prisoners is dead.”

“What?” I was
awake at once and sat up and stared at him. “Who, how, what
happened?”

“One of the
prisoners from cell wing four we let out yesterday. He’s dead,
throat cut just like Jena Marks. He’s in the bathroom.”

“Oh shit,” I
cursed and got to my feet and dressed hurriedly.

“That’s not all
Sam,” Dex said as I fumbled with the buttons on my shirt.

“Oh fuck, what
else?”

“It was Nembier
who found his body. The guys watching him took him to the bathroom
to take a piss. They waited outside for him and he went in alone.
They heard him yelling and went in to find the body, with Nembier
standing over him.”

It seemed that
whenever I thought this crazy situation couldn’t get any worse, it
suddenly did and I found myself considering the wisdom of doing the
job I do. Luckily I don’t get this type of situation that often;
most of the time it’s a straight forward chase, catch and deliver
but every so often a job comes up that makes me feel old and tired
and this was one of those. It was one of those jobs when I wondered
whether the money was really worth the hassle. I know I’m law
enforcement and everyone thinks of us as low life’s, Mercs, but
some of us do have some kind of code we operate by and although I
like a certain standard of living, I’m not a gold digger without
principles. I do this job because it’s what I know how to do and I
do it well. I like the freedom it gives me and anyway, I’m too old
to retrain but there are one or two of my jobs I would turn down
flat if I could know in advance what was to transpire. This was
already just such a job.

Dex led the way
to the bathroom and I went in. A pair of feet stuck out from the
stall at the far end. The body lay on its front with the head over
the toilet, making it look like he was interrupted while taking a
quiet puke after a heavy night of booze. I jotted down the number
written on the collar of the prisoner’s overalls he wore, before
turning him over and lying him down. He had obviously been killed
while taking a piss as his dick was still hanging out of his
overalls. It’s not my job to protect a victim’s modesty but hey,
I’m a guy too and I’d hate to think my corpse was laid out, dick
exposed for all to see so I shoved it back inside and zipped him
up. His throat had been sliced clean through to the spine and his
head canted back far too far as I laid him down. Over the years
I’ve been doing this job I’ve learned to have a strong stomach and
I swallowed hard as I looked at the gaping slash and the mess it
had made in the stall. Examining the wound, I could see his spine
clearly, which told me both his carotid artery and jugular vein had
been sliced through. Jeez no wonder there was so much mess in
here!

I stood and
looked at the wall above the toilet. His carotid artery had spurted
blood with such a force that it hit the end wall and splashed in
all directions. The walls and ceiling were covered and the floor
was awash. Five or six spurts, a pint at a time hitting the end
wall and splashing back in all directions would have ensured the
killer was drenched in blood himself. A quick look around
discovered no helpfully discarded weapon, so I went outside to ask
questions. Nembier had found him, according to what Dex told me, so
he was my obvious first port of call. He was in the canteen, still
watched over by the same team who had escorted him to the bathroom.
His face was grey and I noticed his hand shook as he lifted his
drink to his lips. Sighing, I sat down and looked at him.

“So who wants
to start?” I asked and looked at each face in turn. As the guys in
his watch team went over what happened, I realised pretty quickly
that Nembier couldn’t have done it. They’d taken him to the
bathroom and waited outside for him. They all agreed that it was
less than thirty seconds before they heard him yell and went in to
see what the fuss was about, to find him standing over the body
with his hand over his mouth. He’d run into the adjoining stall to
vomit and they all reckoned he didn’t have the time to do it and I
agreed; it would take longer than thirty seconds to slit someone’s
throat, wash and dry yourself and put clean overalls on, before
screaming your lungs out and vomiting on cue. He couldn’t have done
it and I now had two options. Either the killer wanted to frame
Nembier and was shit at it, or it was just pure coincidence that he
was the next to want a piss after the guy met his end. Whoever did
it would have been covered in blood and would need to wash and
change his clothes and as I could see no one around who was in such
a mess, I realised that somewhere in the building was a pair of
bloody overalls. If I could find them I might get a DNA sample from
them and maybe catch another killer and get a bonus on my pay
check.

Nembier was
worried that everyone would think he did it and worried for his
safety and I have to admit that the same thought occurred to me
too. My job was to deliver him, alive preferably and although I
have the authority to use deadly force if absolutely necessary, my
payout goes down if I deliver a dead cargo when my job was for a
live one. I felt it pertinent to make an announcement; not just to
protect Nembier and my pay check, but to prevent anyone else from
committing a crime they’d have to pay for.

“Hey guys,” I
called and the room felt silent. “I just want you all to be aware
that my prisoner here did not commit this crime. It was just
coincidence that he found the body and maybe whoever did it wants
us to believe he’s guilty but I can assure you that he’s innocent,
of this crime at least. I hope everyone is clear about that okay?”
I gave everyone as serious a glare as I could muster and heard a
few sighs and saw a couple of nods in response. “Now, do we know
who the victim is?”

“He was my cell
buddy,” a voice from my left called. A guy to my left, red eyed
from crying was holding his hand up. “His name is Jallon Tyle and
he’s from Agrillia 3.” This news stunned me and I shot a look at
Nembier, who looked back at me with raised eyebrows. Agrillia 3
centre stage again. What is the significance of this? Nembier is
from there and is connected to nine murders there. He was freed
from his restraints by someone he said he met there; thereby
implying they are Agrillian too. Now this latest victim is also
Agrillian. I could see the pattern but couldn’t explain it and it
irritated the heck out of me. Something else then occurred to me
and I looked for Flark.

“Captain?” I
called, just managing to stop myself from calling him by his
nickname out loud. “Do you know where Jena Marks was from?”

“Agrillia 3
Sam,” he replied.

Now more than
ever, I knew it was important that I find those discarded overalls
so I asked for some volunteers to do a search. Around a hundred or
so of the newly released prisoners from cell wing four stood up, so
I split them up into groups of half a dozen and gave them each a
territory to search.

“If you find
them, don’t touch them,” I reminded them all. “Leave at least three
guys watching them, the rest come and find me okay?”

CHAPTER
SIX

Having so many
volunteers to search for the discarded overalls meant I was able to
give each group a fairly small territory. It also meant they could
search that territory with great care. I told them to rip the place
apart if necessary; those overalls must be found. They’d be found
eventually, I knew that but I expected it to take at least a couple
of hours before I got the call and I was more than a little
surprised therefore, when one of the inmates came puffing into the
canteen within thirty minutes and announced they’d found them
stuffed inside an air conditioning vent. Whoever put them there was
in a hurry and hadn’t taken enough care to ensure the grating was
put back properly and the loose screw and freshly scratched
paintwork caught their attention.

“Well done
guys,” I grinned, inspecting the vent and its contents. “Great
job.” I sent one of them to fetch a bucket of water, some of the
cleaning fluid we’d used the day before and a bin liner. When he
returned I thoroughly washed the floor around the base of the vent.
Then I squirted my hands with sterifilm and reached in to retrieve
the overalls. They were a mess and the smell of blood filled our
nostrils as I laid them on the newly cleaned floor to examine them.
Blood soaked them from mid chest to the knees so I took several
blood samples from different areas, confident that they would all
be from the victim. Now I just needed to get a DNA sample of
whoever had worn them and I’d have my killer. Experience told me my
best hope was a hair or blood, but either of those could be from
the victim. No, with so much blood and quite a few hairs already on
them, I opted for sweat. Whoever wore them would naturally have
sweated, so I took several samples from both armpits, the back of
the neck and the crotch. I took some vidicom footage of them and
put them into the bin liner. Once they were bagged and tagged, we
all returned to the canteen for a drink.

As I sat and
had a drink, I realised two things. The most important being that I
needed to get the killer’s DNA sample worked up. Ideally this would
identify him immediately if he was in the law enforcement record
system already but if not, at least it would identify his race,
which would give me a place to start. Then I realised that my own
equipment would not be able to do the job. I’m not a detective; I’m
given a specific target to pursue and restrain and my equipment
enables me to ensure I have the correct target; it doesn’t enable
me to work out who the target might be. For that I needed a lab; a
lab with a sample processor. A voice brought me out of my musings
and I looked up to find Clavan looking at me.

“What’s up
Sam?” he asked. “I’d have thought you’d be delighted now you’ve
found the overalls and got your samples. Doesn’t this mean you now
know who our mystery slasher is?”

“Well no I’m
afraid it doesn’t,” I admitted sadly. “I don’t have the necessary
equipment to run the DNA sample. All I can do is record it; I can’t
process it. I’d need access to a proper forensic lab with a sample
processor.”

“So why the
long face?” he grinned. My frown made him snigger. “This is Floxham
Island remember? Y’know, hub of the law enforcement universe?”

“Shit, of
course it is.” I almost yelled at my own stupidity. “Jeez how can I
be so dense? There’s bound to be a lab here. All I have to do is
find it and hope it has power enough to work the sample processor.
Thanks buddy.”

“No problem,”
he grinned.

This knowledge
brightened my spirits quite a bit and I leapt up and went over to
where Flark was sitting, deep in conversation with a couple of the
inmates. “Captain?” I asked. “Sorry to crash your rec time but
where is that plan of the Island you had?”