Four Wolves

I was enjoying my retirement days with my son, Romero and Hana, my old schoolteacher, busy with her laundry as usual. It was a lovely morning and I was packing my age-old items and documents when my bosom buddy or you can say my pal James come over to me hurriedly as if Tsunami has strike the coast of Japan. He asked me to come over to the United States Penitentiary, Hazelton located in West Virginia where his best friend, Eric is accused of killing three women, wives of three army ranger personnel on 24th June. James had been in Army rangers for over 25 years and in those 25 glorious years, he has been overboard many times. For him, the best part was to serve in the Iraq war for which he was conferred the Medal Of Honor as well as the Iraq Campaign Medal by The President.

James said, “I don’t know how the good guy like him ended up being convicted for murdering three women. I knew for ages and I still can’t believe a hero like him can be convicted of murder”. I supported him and told him tomorrow morning we will go and see his friend. The next morning we went to the jail where his dearest friend was jailed. We met him and I saw the tears in my friend’s eyes. James asked,” Eric, I don’t understand what is going on??? How can you?? “He replied in an astonishing tone with a deep voice, “It’s good to see you in my last days. At least I have a friend whom I can rely on. “

James,” meet, my friend Shanky, a detective by profession who has worked for FBI as well as for Federal Police. He is here to help you out.” Eric looked at me with pleading eyes, “I will be in debt for your effort. It was a Monday morning and I was washing my car when Military Police came to interrogate me about the cold killing of three army personnel women on Saturday. I told them I was at the bar and my car broke down so I went walking myself. They asked me where was my Beretta 9 mm gun to which I replied it was in my cupboard. When we went to check it out, it was not there and then they showed and told me it was taken in custody from the murder scene. As such there was the absence of evidence to prove my statement true and all the evidence was against me, I was convicted guilty and will be hanged tomorrow.”

Eric and I listened carefully and consoled him before leaving. We went straightly to his house to check for some clue if someone might have entered the house as this is the most obvious answer to his disappearance of the pistol. Long far away, somewhere in California, three persons standing in Army ranger cargo pants with M4A1 rifle in hand practising in the shooting range and laughing with a beer can in hand. They were discussing the next target on their long list of spree killings. Col Thomas Starkey, Sgt Brownley Harris and Sgt Warren Griffin served as US army rangers under the unit of Special Ops of the unit under the command of General Mark Hutchinson who was the Commandant of West Point for the Army Rangers. They had been the best military assassins for the Army Rangers who had carried out many high profile killings of Iraq army Generals. It’s been more than 10 years since they came out from the war zone and worked as a private unit for assassination. They have been assigned a list for which they are getting paid $100,000 per head and the amount is increasing by $100,000 for the next target. The next target is Retd Captain of Army Ranger, Capt Hosemund who is based in Florida and will be going for a trek in the mountains.

As soon as we searched Eric’s house, we were clueless and decided to search the murder scene in order to get the vast scene of the whole murder. James gave me a clue to involve Samia, working for the FBI for the previous 15 years, as she might be a useful source to give us the whole description of the murder from the offices of the FBI who along with Army Rangers and Military Police conducted the whole investigation. I and Samia met during an investigation of the Yo Chin Li murder, who was a big businessman in New York and killed by Abdul Khalid, an Iraqi who entered the USA after the Iraq War and got protection from US Forces for sharing vital information. I called Samia, after being confronted by James and shared the whole story, and asked for help. She agreed to help out of courtesy. Was it courtesy??? I guess not, something more than friendship, no need to write on the paper actually, we both knew what is between us and chose to keep it between us.

After reaching the murder house, we went through the house. It was scattered like hell as such it’s been 4 months since the murder and no one was there to arrange it. It was two twenty-three in the afternoon. I don't remember why I noticed the time, but I had an eerie feeling in my gut. But then, I was just a prisoner to my destiny, or so I do comfort myself, uttering these words in my head over and over again. And then it happened. I got that notification on my phone, and there was a WhatsApp message from Samia. In the message, a whole investigation report of the murder conducted by the agency was written. The thing which caught my attention was after the murder of those ladies, they were painted Red, blue and white. Does it signify something?? Or just for a fun?? Was Eric some psycho?? As soon as I was going through the report, I heard the Police siren wailing around the house and soon three officers of Military Police approached us and started interrogating.

In absence of any authority for conducting the investigation, we were put in jail without asking us the reason. For the first time, such was the case for me but it took me 4 hours to come out of jail because of my sources at the FBI. It had been a hectic day for me and now I realized why I had that eerie feeling in the gut. The next morning we got the news from the Jail authorities that Eric was hanged at 0400 hrs in the morning. We felt pity for him and returned to Florida. It’s been 1 month since Eric’s hanging and I was watering in the garden when James came to me with a lot of newspaper articles.

I was amazed after seeing this hidden talent of James and thought it was just coz of he lost his friend so I invited him to my private investigation room and went through those newspaper clippings. We found that around 30 Army personnel were convicted for killing countless civilians. Some of them were – An army colonel convicted of murdering 3 teenage girls, a staff sergeant murdered a couple with his rifle in the park and the list goes on. The recent one was An Army Captain murdered a group of trekkers consisting of two women and three teenagers in Florida. The pattern which we noticed was that all army men served for the US in Iraq War and after the murder, the body was painted Red, White, and Blue. I was sure that it was a common man or might be a group of two or three who is going on a spree killing.

We decided to go to meet Capt Hosemund whose house was based in West Virginia and meet his wife as well as Gen Mark Hutchinson, Commandant of West Point. As we reached Hosemund house, we were greeted by his widow wife Sarah. Sarah told us Hosemund used to go on the trek alone after retiring from Army. It was Friday morning he left for Florida for his trek and she left for her work early morning. When she returned she found his husband’s pistol is missing and ruled out the chance of missing that he might have taken for his safeguarding. Soon we realized that we are not going to get any clue from her statement we headed for Gen Mark’s office. We waited for around 1 hour to see him and finally when we got to see him, we asked him about the investigation of Eric and Hosemund and 5 other army personnel who were convicted for the same and hanged. He reacted like anything and shouted at us blaming it’s within the army and no one is answerable and kicked out from the headquarters. James was furious and started abusing him. Suddenly my phone vibrated and I checked my SMS. Someone unknown to me messaged me to check for Col Sanders who is a professor of war ethics in Miami Social College. As soon as we reached Miami College we went straight to Col Sanders and got an appointment. We told him about the situation and asked him about the relevance of colours being painted on dead bodies. He told us about the belief of the Iraqi people and they believe painting with Red signifies fire, Blue signifies water, and white signifies Light and helps the dead soul to reach Heaven. He also told us about the secret warfare which US army rangers used during various wars from WWII to Afghanistan. He told us he will go through our case and to meet in the evening for a better description.

The three wolves, hiding in the dark bushes waiting for the right time to ambush, hired an old Honda car, checked the cartridges of their M4A1 rifle and waited for the Sanders. As Sander came out of the car and started moving towards us in a coffee shop, he was hit by the flying bullets coming from the other direction. We took cover under the tables and I fired from my 9 mm Glock 17 but the wolves already got their objective. Later that day, I got a notification on my Whatsapp from Samia which got to me that Sanders was also part of the Army Ranger served in the Iraq War. To me, it was pretty sure the man behind all this is a somewhere part of the Iraq War. Again my phone beeped the message from the same old number “time to see a good age-old friend in Texas”. Before proceeding for Texas, I went through Col Sanders house. In my mind I was just wondering who is this who is continuously messaging me with the hint and why am I believing him. As we reached Sanders house, we went through his cupboard, his study table, and his medals. Finally, my eyes caught attention over a book on Military Assassins and their role in warfare. There was a case study of the massacre in Vietnam in Ma Ly which was conducted by Army Rangers and two cases of similar incidents in the Iraq war. It was pinned over his clipboard so it took me no time to realize he is involved in it somehow. After going through the file, I got three names. Col Thomas Starkey, Sgt Brownley Harris and Sgt Warren Griffin were assigned for the killing of Iraqi high-value targets. I found the pic of Col Sanders and Gen Hutchinson together and thought to give him a call instead. After talking to him, when I asked about those three names, he changed like anything and immediately cut the call. While going out of the house, I found a vintage watch lying down there at the table at a very unobvious place.

While going to Texas, I was wondering who my age-old friend is and how come this unknown man knows me so well. I decided to meet Mr Howards, who was Jail superintendent for Texas Jail. While meeting him, I shared my story and thought he was the one but it didn’t seem so. He listened and asked me one thing “remember Abdul Khalid?” I was “yea but how did this topic come out?” I accompanied him while gazing through my old memories of Abdul Khalid. He was a good man but a positive character and an editor in New York Times. We reached Abdul Khalid’s cell where he was trying to fix his drying stand. He greeted me with “Hi” to which I replied Hello. He told me “you are at the wrong place dude. The fruit-bearing trees are at the garden of mine in Texas and I am sure you will get something juicy. If you need a juicier one then you need to find it at West Point.” I and Sampson immediately left for Khalid’s garden. It was around 9 in the evening. As we approached his garden and got out of the car, a bullet went through Sampson’s arm just missing it. We took cover in the bushes and were sure it was those three wolves. In the cross-firing, all the three wolves were killed. As the garden was out of town and no one else was there, it was not reported to the police so it was me who reported.

As the police team and SWAT came, I was going through their bodies of them and glanced at their face. I remember the same old face somewhere but where? While driving through the hospital with injured James, I was wondering when Sampson broke the silence” this doc is reminding me of Gen Mark, how rude!” yes this was it. I immediately went through my pocket where Gen Mark, Col Sanders and these three wolves were standing in a picture. I noticed the same vintage watch which I took from Sanders house, which is worn by Gen Mark in the pic and those words of Abdul Khalid relating to West Point. The picture was clear. I immediately left for West point in order to arrest Gen Mark but in between I was ambushed by 10 masked armed men and their leader, GEN MARK HUTCHINSON.

Mark” are you in hurry, my son?”

“Yea Lord, need to get someone behind the bars”

“Feeling pity for you, the road ahead is under diversion and the only way through which you can go is Heaven. I can make necessary arrangements for you”

That’s it. After that, I don’t know what happened but when I opened my eyes I was in the hospital and Gen Mark was killed in action. He was charged for framing around 30 Army Rangers Personnel for killing civilians. I asked Samia what happened there? She replied a group of Iraqi illegal immigrants attacked while you were with him and you became unconscious. I went through the family history of Gen Mark and got to know his son was convicted by the Court of Justice for the atrocities committed during the war. Mark has pleaded his son is not guilty till the very end.

 Now some sense is coming- Sanders word of atrocities and those case studies of US Army Rangers atrocities committed during the war and Gen Mark’s involvement. But now the main question was “how Abdul Khalid is related to all this case and that very unknown man?”