Earthbound : A gripping crime thriller full of twists and supernatural suspense by Fynn Perry (popular romance novels TXT) 📗

genetically engineering such a yeast. Look at the second article.” David motioned with his hand. “It’s about a kidnapped scientist named Yilmaz who was making great strides in making a low-yielding, morphine-making strain of yeast. “Suppose Yilmaz has perfected the process and is working for El Gordito? That could explain the purity of the heroin and cocaine, couldn’t it?”

Lazlo cursed, swelling with anger. “If this is true, El Gordito is about to take over the drug market with a limitless supply! That would cut out everyone else, including the Mexican cartel he buys from.” He took a few breaths and calmed down. “You’re going to think I’m paranoid, but with El Gordito, you can’t be paranoid enough. Follow me, if you would.” Lazlo led them back to the hallway of his home. Standing in front of a full-length mirror, he pressed the surface and it opened like a door, the frame remaining on the wall. “I just have to keep wiping away the handprints,” he joked. “It’s one-way glass so I can see out from the room, but nobody can see in, just like the interview rooms at the station.”

Lazlo walked in, but Jennifer and David hesitated. John went in regardless

“It’s OK, come in!” John announced.

The room was around eight by eight feet and had no window. Two filing cabinets stood in the corner, and there was a chair and a small desk with a lamp, but what stood out were the large bulletin boards fixed to the walls. Originally, perhaps, the room had meant to be a closet or a second bathroom but it now seemed to be some kind of mini war room. And inside it held the stereotypical ‘Detective’s Crazy Wall’: a map of New York and neighboring states punctured with yellow and red pins. Most pins were connected by red string to articles, photographs or scribbled notes attached around the map’s edges. A second bulletin board showed an organization chart with a headshot photograph of El Gordito at the top of the pyramid. Beneath him were about ten more headshots of grim-faced, Hispanic-looking men in decreasing order of importance.

“I know what you’re thinking—that you’ve walked into a TV series, but these things really help to get a full picture,” he said with a grin. “The red pins are the locations of murders which, we suspect, were sanctioned by El Gordito, but couldn’t be proved as such.” He pointed to the yellow pins. “These are the locations of drug busts where the drugs seized must have belonged to El Gordito but could not legally be connected to him. He uses a wide net of contractors, all of them too scared to say anything.”

Visible only to Jennifer, John was pointing to a pin marking the location of the hospital. “Hargreave Merciful! That’s the name of the hospital with the harvesting going on in the basement,” he advised.

Jennifer looked more closely. The pin marking the location of the hospital was connected by threads to several documents. One of them was a printout of a news report from the web regarding the suspension of corruption charges brought against a senator and a construction permit official. The charges were in relation to a permit allowing for the conversion of underground storage space at the private hospital. It was to be turned into a medical research facility to be operated by an undisclosed investor. The investor had allegedly made a substantial monetary contribution to the senator’s campaign.

Jennifer pointed to the article. “This article about the permit for the medical center has nothing to do with a drug bust or any murders, does it?”

“No, but we were sure that as many as fourteen doctors working at the hospital were involved in a ‘pill mill’-type operation. That’s where a doctor is paid to give out prescriptions for addictive pain medication like opioids to fake patients who then buy the drugs and sell them on the black market for profit. We believed El Gordito was behind it and we would have exposed his operation had the fake patients suddenly not stopped appearing just prior to when the scandal of the permit for the medical center occurred. The pill-mill never resumed after that. I pinned the article because of the coincidental timing and because it was rumored that the senator in question had links to organized crime. Naturally, I thought of El Gordito.”

“And the name of the investor in the medical research center is still unknown?”

Lazlo nodded instead. “As far as I am aware,” he confirmed.

She and John exchanged another longer glance while they waited for Lazlo to catch up.

“Missing bodies with brain-dead symptoms . . .” Lazlo remarked slowly, his eyes growing larger as the magnitude of the connection dawned on him.

“Looks like the penny has finally dropped for our friend,” John exclaimed to Jennifer.

Lazlo focused back on the map and the location of the medical center, like a man who had finally seen the light. “By targeting only his clubs with the tainted pills, El Gordito gets a supply of young donors, almost guaranteed to have healthy organs and unlikely to have permanent, drug-induced damage like regular junkies.”

“And the side-effect of violent behavior is the perfect smokescreen for the club staff to take victims out of the public area and out of sight of any witnesses,” David offered, to get Lazlo fully over the line.

“Exactly!” said Lazlo. “The brain-death symptoms incapacitate the victim. Then the club staff does some kind of background check to see if the family is going to cause a shit-storm when the victim goes missing. If they decide YES, then the victim is dumped a distance from the club so it looks like they were simply thrown out of the club still alive. If they decide NO, the victim is hooked up to some type of portable life support and taken to the so-called research facility. All high-value organs are then extracted and sold on the black market to the highest bidder.” Lazlo continued his train of thought. “And they