🪖Chapter 34 🪖

                    Mavuto's pov

  Clean-shaven, and with a fade haircut, I insert the dark brown contact lenses into my eyes and put on my military uniform. Tyriq was outside my office door, ready and waiting for me, and we walked out to the vehicle in the covered parking lot. Luie got around the steering while we got into the back, and we drove to the base where Isaachar was being brought in for questioning. We simply merged with the other officers who were there for the questioning, and a few officers looked at me with my hat drawn down over my face. They did not know me, and the chief commander asked for my identification and did a double-take after Tyriq produced it for his eyes to behold.

  Isaachar argued that he was being framed and swore he didn't know any of the guards shown to him, both dead and alive. All I wanted to do was squeeze his life out of him as I sat there beside Tyriq with my head held at an angle where the other officials couldn't get a good look at it. I was aware of my unique features, but I was straight, and they were only men in here, so they should really look elsewhere. I turned and fixed the white lieutenant on my opposite side with a terrifying glare until he stopped looking at me.

"I just thought your eyes were green." He says under his breath.

"They are." I murmured, and he glanced at me with renewed interest.

The questioning went on for hours until the major called for recess. They still had nothing to pin on Isaachar, and I was getting impatient for them to act. After recess, they questioned him about his friendship with the chief, and it was another set of lame answers again. He was buying time. He knew they could only hold him for thirty-six hours at most if they couldn't charge him for anything. It was my turn to question him, and I asked for Isaac's murder weapon to be brought forth, which surprised everyone. Quba had left it taped up in the ceiling of the tent, and if it wasn't for this evil man sitting in front of me, she wouldn't have gotten the chance to escape from me again.

  "Your face looks familiar," Isaachar says, and I told him bluntly with a hint of sarcasm.

"I'm straight, but I've heard from a certain source that you and the CIA chief have something intimate going on and that's why you can bring so much artillery through the wharves without being caught."

  The room was so quiet that I could hear myself breathing while he stared at me. "You have heard wrong, my friend." He says with a nervous laugh.

  Crisply I tell him. "I'm not your friend, and I'll never be. I don't make friendships with scums of the earth."

  His face morphed into disgust, and he swallowed before shaking his head and saying. "You're just doing your job and acting on what The-Stepper Mafia has led you, the army, and the law enforcers to believe."

  "Is that so?" I asked in my very well-practiced intimidating voice.

"Yes. I'm being set up, and I just know it is the The-Stepper organization. All their premises should be searched, and the CIA should stop working with them. They feel as if they have too much power and are above the law because of it." He spoke confidently.

  I look directly into his eyes and ask. "Do they work with the CIA?"

  His upper lip twitched, and then he answered. "So I've heard from persons who thought the organization caters to those in danger."

  "CIA business is very confidential. You need to be more specific." I told him, and he stared at me while I stared back at him for what must have been more than a minute.

  He knows exactly what I was saying, just like everyone else in the room, and he regrets his response. "Blake has been caught and arrested by detectives carrying out special investigations down at the wharf last week Thursday afternoon. He's still being interrogated and pleading to make a deal if they could get his family away from you without being harmed. Are you and your mafia holding his family to harm them because of his crime?" I lied, telling and asking him.

The effects of my questioning were making him sweat, and he was clearly feeling the heat. "Are you saying that it is Blake who unalived Isaac?" He asked with deep despair, lacing his voice.

  I motioned to Tyriq, who stood up and went to the large flat screen in the room. He turned it on and inserted a thumb drive we had prepared. The well-known expert gave a detailed account of the bullets taken from the dead men and the gun, which was registered to Keeble Dacosta, which was found in Blake's possession. Isaachar's face bore an agonized expression, and he wiped his eyes discreetly as the video ended. So Isaac was important to him, and Keeble wasn't to his family. I wasn't just going to pour salt into his wound, I will be adding chili peppers as well.

"From observation, it seems Blake has already found the money Keeble had gotten from the lottery winnings. Do you have any idea where he may have hidden it? Or if he has anyone working with him that you suspect?"

  In a matter-of-fact way, he replies. "No, all this is new to me, and I wasn't aware Blake had been searching for the deceased man's money."

"Why do you think he murdered Isaac?" I asked, and he rubbed his forehead in a depressed way.

  He shook his head and responded. "I have absolutely no idea. Maybe they found the money, and Blake wanted it, but Isaac wanted to turn it over to the police. Isaac always strives to do what's right."

  I hissed my teeth nastily and told Tyriq. "Play the recording as I'm sure this serpent knows what a scoundrel and menace to society his son was."

  He looked baffled by my latter statement and seemed to want to start an argument, but the recorder came on keeping him from uttering whatever he was about to. Blake's voice came over, the speaker telling Isaac to look for the money like Isaachar told them to, and stop looking for the woman. Then Isaac blatantly spoke of how he murdered Keeble with a happy laugh and wanted to find Quba to abuse her before turning her over to his brother Dré. When the recording finished playing, I got right back to the questioning, asking him.

"What do you have to say about that?"

  "That recording must very well be something you come up with to try and prove a point that doesn't exist. Let me ask you one question. Why have you been questioning me for such a length of time when no other officer has done so over the duration that you have?" He says, then asks me in an aristocratic way as if he's untouchable.

"It's specifically what I'm trained to do. Now start telling me why you haven't brought in your son Dré, who is wanted for questioning by the police?" I told him, then asked in a clipped firm tone.

  The room was silent and charged at the same time. Officers looked at each other, while some kept their gaze firmly on Isaachar, who had said on many occasions that he did not know Dré or had any connection with him. He had also disowned any involvement in illegal lottery operations. Isaachar was looking at me with an evil scowl. What he didn't know is that I'm hoping that whilst I'm here, Leon and the others have managed to get into his main holdings and get to search and confiscate all that they can before they're suspected. The blame would fall on the Biker Burners Mafia whom we have learned that he had sided with over the past three years or rather he was using them and supplying them with weapons at what they think is a cheaper cost because there wasn't any shipment fees.

  Isaachar cleared his throat and drank some water from the bottle in front of him. In an aggressive tone that annoyed the hell out of me, he spoke. "I've got to give you credit. Whosoever did that recording is plainly trying to set me up, and I didn't even notice until you mentioned that man called Dré again. I've reached out several times to this man, and no one seems able to find him. I think he might be some friend of Isaac or even Blake, but I've never met the man."

  "Time for the second recess and a meeting to discuss further." The major stated, and I looked at him for two long minutes before telling Tyriq in front of everyone.

  "I need every piece of information you can get on Major Alman McCrae."

  He got vexed and asked. "What's the problem, sir?"

  "As a captain of majors, I demand that this man go to interrogation or else -" I was saying, but he spoke over me, asking.

"Or else what?!"

  I walked up to him in my six feet seven height glory and told him. "Or else you'll be facing criminal offense charges."

He huffed and hissed, walking out of the room. I walked off behind him and demanded that he be put on strict watch for the next twenty-four hours. "You're crazy!" He shouted.

"Maybe I am, but if I see your face on any of those CCTV footage taken from down by the wharf, I'm going to make an historical example out of you. And I'm leaving my own guards to watch you along with the army ones because I'm not letting all my hard work and dedication go to nothing because of neglect." I told him loudly in a deep, angry voice and saw him shake.

To be continued...