The Innocents Nathan Senthil (i wanna iguana read aloud TXT) 📖

like a quarterback with a football in his hands. In just four seconds, even before the blue demon locked the entrance, Lolly killed a man, made a sharp turn, and jumped over a tall table.

Lolly pulled one of the dumbstruck cashiers up as if he were a ragdoll, and held the gun to his temple. The hostage repeated a set of instructions whispered into his ear. Linda, the second cashier, put her hands up. Another dumbstruck but unharmed security guard and every one of the bank’s five morning customers lay on their stomachs and placed their interlaced fingers at the back of their heads.

A red demon, which dashed in a different direction when the front door closed, went out of the camera’s focus, to the right. A few seconds later, he reemerged with a black pistol in his hand.

From the victims’ accounts, the red demon had barged into the bank manager’s office and buried two bullets between his ribs. The cops said it was a brutal but effective tactic. The manager was the only one who wasn’t in the lobby, and he could have called for help when the robbers were busy.

The red demon jogged toward the sleeping security guy and took the machine gun he’d kept over his head. Then he headed toward Lolly. When he reached the counter, he unstrapped the bags from his body and threw them at Linda. The bags hit her chest and fell at her feet.

Linda put her hands down, doubled over, and brought up the bags. She started filling them, wiping her cheeks at irregular intervals.

When Linda finished filling the bags and handed them over, Lolly kicked his hostage’s right buttock hard. Linda’s frenzied attempt to catch her colleague from hitting the floor would have been comical if it weren’t for the blood spreading under the head of the dead security guard.

Then they beelined towards the entrance, all three disappeared, and the video mercifully came to an end.

Chapter 20

April 6, 2019. 8:01 A.M.

 

The swelling river snaked between a series of hills, before flowing right and disappearing along the woods. The road they were on looked feeble and thin, running through majestic mountains and forests. Like a floating noodle on a green ocean.

Joshua opened the glovebox and took out the Skoal tin. Just as he finished burying two in his mouth, an impatient douche honked behind, forcing him to drive onwards. The congestion moved at a snail’s pace and the toll booth was a good three minutes away. What’s the rush then? Why not look outside at the scenery nature had been chiseling for millions of years? The fortitude of a river that eroded its way through titanic rock was inspiring.

Having no choice but to watch the arid I-80, his mind disassociated.

“Boring,” Peter voiced Joshua’s thought.

He grunted in return.

“Now would be an optimal time to say why Detroit.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Joshua replied and started filling his partner in.

After Nigel told him about the Desert Eagle, Joshua talked with Magnum and eventually with the Detroit PD. He gathered a trove of knowledge, the chief among it was that Lolly could be using one of the first models of Desert Eagle Magnum had experimented with. That explained the abnormal 1:21” twist rate. It was a functioning piece, but not the perfect handgun they released in 1983.

“Where did Lolly get a gun like that?” Peter asked, his wrinkled eyelids barely containing the same puppy-like curiosity they did eighteen years ago.

Joshua whistled. “You might wanna strap yourself. It’s one hell of a story.”

He proceeded to explain: in 1981, the then new company, Magnum Research Inc., filed a lawsuit against MacSharp, its competition. A prototype Magnum had been developing in their Michigan facility, apparently the most powerful pistol in the world at that time, had gone missing.

“The Desert Eagle?”

“Yes,” Joshua confirmed. “Their corporate security conducted an investigation. Turned out one of the employees in their research team was a double agent working for MacSharp. But Magnum couldn’t prove anything.”

“How did Lolly get the Eagle from MacSharp?” Peter said.

“A few months after the theft at Magnum, two of MacSharp’s employees were found dead on a seedy road on Livernois Avenue. A driver and a security guard who delivered trucks. But the company said that no truck left their Detroit facility that night.”

“Maybe they didn’t.”

“But the witnesses on Livernois Avenue reported they saw a truck, resembling the same models MacSharp employed for transportation. It was driving dangerously, and get this: someone was clinging to its passenger side door.”

“A hijack,” Peter said.

Joshua affirmed with a nod. “The arms on a level crossing nearby had some paint scraped. Same type of paint used on MacSharp’s trucks. But they denied everything, and the case went nowhere.”

“What will a burglar do if a scorpion stings him at a house he’s broken into?”

“Keep his goddamn mouth shut.” Joshua chuckled. “Another important detail is, like how MacSharp had a snitch in Magnum, someone had a snitch in MacSharp.”

“Who?” Peter frowned.

“A crime family named Detroit Alliance. The homicide detectives investigating the double murder on Livernois Avenue looked into the history of all the employees in the MacSharp facility where the driver and the security guard had worked.”

“Go on.” Peter’s frown relaxed a bit.

“A guy in the logistics department was a relative of a known repeat offender, who’d been a soldier for the Detroit Alliance.”

“Seems like the DPD gave a lot of time to you. He’s a retiree, too?”

“No, he’s a captain. Who hates Lolly as much as I do.”

“Hm.”

They paid the toll and continued driving. Peter was looking outside but his thoughts weren’t with nature. He was thinking about something else.

“What’s up?” Joshua asked.

“It doesn’t fit.” Peter turned towards Joshua. “You can’t just assume that the hijacked truck transported the prototype Desert Eagle. It could be anything.”