Massive Attack (A Guy Niava Thriller Book 1) by Dana Arama (e reader for manga .txt) 📗

“So why then did you go to her?”

“To give her details on her father. She had been looking for him for a long time.”

“And why did you come to the casino?”

He didn’t answer.

I said, “Alex, start warming the crystal meth. After the kid tastes a dose he will understand.”

“What will I understand?”

“What the taste of life is all about…” The kid’s Adam’s apple moved nervously. I smiled and continued, “In the beginning you will feel high. Your heart will start racing quickly, your blood pressure will go up. It’s a bit frightening, but that’s from the drug. And it’s an excellent drug, crystal meth. It will run through your veins and when the blood reaches the brain, you will feel an immediate euphoria. The high from crystal meth lasts a long time. Especially the first time. Then comes the feeling you are king of the world. You will know you are the fastest, most righteous man, smarter than anyone around you. Much more so than you feel today. And then the binging… you will want more and more of the drug. Your body will want it. You will become the drug and the drug will become you. And then the downers and the depression and the unbearable thirst compared to the wonderful high you had when you were on the crystal meth. You will feel upside-down, as if you are sick with a bad flu. You will have hallucinations that bugs are trying to crawl into your skin, and you will try and scratch them out, until your whole body is full of pot-holes. The walls will start closing in and people will hunt you down. Do you know that ninety nine percent of the people who used crystal meth become addicted after using it the first time?”

We both looked at Alex, who took out an elastic band, the syringe and the tools to warm up the drug. In practice, one could administer the drug in any way, but from experience, the injection causes the feeling of helplessness. To someone who understands all this, the preparations also become part of the nightmare. The boy understood and started to shake.

Aldo said, “Tell me when I have to pin him down, boss.”

“I have a suggestion for you,” The boy suddenly remarked. I looked at him and realized he was on the verge of tears. His eyes looked like Bambi’s had when he lost his fucking mother and his lower lip began to quiver. “What do you want to offer me? What can you offer me besides the truth?”

“I can offer you the information I found out about Ashley’s father. But I will do it only if you promise me not to inject me with the drug.”

“Let’s decide that if the information is worth something, I won’t inject you, and if it isn’t worth anything, I will inject you with a double dose.”

“A double dose?”

“The kind that will kill brain cells.”

***

“I totally don’t understand anything about the drug world,” he whispered, his eyes never left the syringe that was on the table. “But I think that if someone is fighting the smugglers from Mexico and he has an action plan, then people like you would want to know about it, right?”

“Explain yourself,” I ordered him.

“Ashley asked me to find her father and I succeeded in doing that.” He glanced at me and asked, “Can we turn that thing off in the meantime?” And he pointed at the smoking device.

I allowed Aldo to do it with a nod of my head and he turned it off.

“I managed to find Ashley’s father and even managed to get into his personal computer. Apparently after he caught her smoking marijuana, they had a fight and she ran away from home. He looked for her for over half a year and then he left Texas and moved to Arizona. Apparently, there is some civilian force who is fighting the smugglers and he is the leader of this force. So, I found all his action plans and which tunnels he has found and things like that. Would that be of any interest to you?”

I didn’t answer him. I crossed my hands behind my neck and stretched. I started thinking about the meaning of this information. As I got to thinking I realized the implications of it, the power it might grant me. I hated superlatives, but information really was powerful… Depending, of course, on how it was used. I jumped up from where I was sitting and walked around the room a bit. I didn’t want him to see my excitement, so I stood by the window and moved the curtain aside.

“Where is this information?

“In Ashley’s father’s computer.”

“Okay… I have a computer here,” I pointed towards where the computer terminal was.

“Go into his computer and download all this information.” The terminal wasn’t even connected to the internet. The girls only played solitaire on it. I wanted to check to see if he was just trying to stall for time and fool me.

“I need my computer for that.” He looked around for his black bag, “I have all kinds of software to help me do it,” he explained to me, as if I was a child and it annoyed me. I said, “Before I return your computer to you, I want an answer about what I asked you earlier. Why did you and your friends come to the casino?” I nodded to Aldo to start the fire again.

The kid was frightened. He started talking a mile a minute. “Promise you won’t hurt them! They only wanted to see if they could count the cards.”

I smiled. So that was his big secret. “So? Did they manage?”

“Sure,” He smiled, a bit nervously, and then became serious again. “But they lost all the money. Almost all of it… except for the gas money. It was just for the thrill.”

“The first time it is for the thrill. The second time they will want to