Motive
“Who can do such a terrible thing?!” Sam asked himself.
Dr. Wyle Miles, a physicist, had been killed in cold blood right in his one-storey apartment in the East Side of Washington D.C. As a scientist who was half-way discovering a way of harnessing free plasma energy, it was a blow to the world’s future.
Most of his facebook fans believed that aliens killed the doctor, to stop man from reaching their home planets through portals created by plasma energy. Some even went further to claim that the government knew about it, and made a cover up. An attempt by the government to hide aliens’ existence was the main reason his fans gave to the press.
Sam was an FBI agent who had been assigned the duty of solving the case of the murder. It was evident that the deceased was shot right in the head by the assailant. The only problem was that there were no fingerprints on the body or anywhere around the house. Footprints too were absent.
One of his assistants suggested assassination as a possible answer to the style of murder, but it was quickly ruled out for all the windows in the deceased’s apartment were all closed, and none was damaged.
In his entire two-decade experience in his career, Sam had never handled a complicated case as that, which did not lead to any single shred of evidence. Sniffing dogs too reached a dead end, even with their keen sense of smell.
“Something is wrong. I can feel it in the core of my guts,” Sam thought.
Outside the crime scene, police tapes surrounded Dr. Wyle’s house. A crowd of people were furiously chanting and swearing close to the deceased’s compound, lifting their placards in the air. Anger and frustration could be read on their faces. Some of them also wept as they shouted.
As a philanthropist and three-time nominee in the Nobel Prize for Science, Dr. Wyle was no ordinary citizen. He was a man who easily got a gate pass to the White House, to share his futuristic innovative ideas and solutions with the president.
Sam was lost in thoughts. Pressure from the FBI director of Washington D.C. was weighing him down. The Sun was almost setting, yet his reports still beat around the bush. An answer had to come very fast from somewhere. A miracle is all he wanted that moment.
A case without clues made his mind to direct him to Buccaneers Joint. Two or three glasses of whisky would do the trick. Maybe an answer would suddenly pop up from his tipsy blurriness. “Sometimes answers come from places you wouldn’t ever imagine,” he thought.
Shock made him choke, the moment he heard something from a man next to him. “I wish I killed him myself, that good- for- nothing Miles!” the man shouted. An Italian designed Giorgio Armani suit, and a two hundred dollar shirt he was wearing convinced Sam that he wasn’t really mad. He was a rational man who knew what he was saying.
Sam was torn between taking him for interrogation or letting him be. A state of tipsiness wasn’t doing him a favor either. No one would believe him if he said he was carrying a murder suspect out a drinking joint in the night, even with the help of a badge. In accordance to the FBI security work policy, he would be suspended for a year or so due to conducting investigations under an unstable condition.
There was only one way of finding out whether the man was innocent or not. He had to start a conversation, using it like some kind of a Trojan horse. Sam stood, moved his seat closer to the man, and sat again.
“I’m a drunk, but not gay!” the man reacted.
Sam almost chocked from his whisky when he heard those words. It was his first time in his life to be confused for a gay.
“Maybe the man was raised by a father who didn’t show any warm affection; a kind of a relationship like that of a soldier and his general. Tough love, as they call it,” Sam mused.
Time was moving fast. The Sun was setting. He had to get the answers in one or the other, before the suspect left or escaped. A random question had to be invented somehow.
“I’m as straight as a flagpole,” Sam said.
“I just couldn’t help hearing you saying that you wished you killed someone. I have a record of people who I wish I could stick their necks between my palms….”
The man was quiet for a while, staring straight at his half-filled bottle of beer. After a few moments, he suddenly turned and stretched his right hand to greet Sam.
“Sorry about my bad attitude. My name is Carlos.”
Sam stretched his right hand too.
“I’m called Sam.”
It seemed like everything was falling in the right place. As the conversation went deeper, Sam got the information he wanted. Carlos was Dr. Wyle’s assistant, who helped him in the free energy research. He also told Sam he was upset that his mentor passed away too soon, leaving him stranded. That was most likely the reason for shouting out of frustration.
The research facility was located almost thirty miles from where the deceased hailed. Electric fences and surveillance cameras made it difficult for any stranger to break in.
Sam was also astonished to realize that he was seated next to a Masters holder in Quantum Physics. The smell of alcohol in the breath, and shaggy hair didn’t match well with the intellect in Carlos’ brain.
“Do you think aliens might have anything to do with Dr. Wyle’s murder?” Sam asked.
“No! I think it’s people who are afraid of the future. The Vatican is one example!”
It was evident that Dr. Wyle had many enemies, most of whom were competitors in the science community and fundamentalists in the religious community. Some clergy and priests called him a twenty-first century sorcerer. Carlos too was a suspect. Almost an hour back he was shouting, saying that he wished that he would kill Dr. Miles.
The government was out of the picture because it had spent millions of dollars funding the free plasma energy project. It would be bonkers to kill one whom it had invested lots of time and money.
The only way to find out who the killer or killers were was by visiting Dr. Wyle’s research facility. Sam had a feeling that a clue would surface somehow. He planned to spend the whole of the next day at the facility.
“I’m afraid we have to meet another time. Please give me your contacts,” Sam said.
“Ok. No problem,”
It is after exchanging contacts that Sam left home, to retire for the night.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Traffic was making it hectic for business people to report to their work on time, and kids to reach school. Old couples were seated on benches in a park, as they watched doves play around a fountain. It was morning again.
Sam had already reached Dr. Wyle’s facility. He had reported at his assignment at six in the in the morning. Something strange had caught his attention. According to his forensic analysis, one of the boot prints he had found in a research lab had some crude oil molecules.
The mystery was that the molecules were located in an odd place. It would be normal if the prints were found in any oil refinery around the world.The nearest oil refinery was twenty miles away from the research facility. It belonged to BP. Thanks to chemical dating with the help of his forensic kit; he could tell that the intruder got into the facility the same day Dr. Wyle was killed.
“What would a man from an oil refinery want from a free energy research facility?” Sam wondered.
It was evident that the killers were not interested in Dr. Wyle’s money; they were interested in his research. Computer connections in the main server were dismantled, while some computers had missing hard drives.
Sam was glad he had managed to join some of the puzzles in his mind together. He was certain without any shadow of doubt that the killers came from an oil refinery, most likely the BP refinery.
The whole free energy research facility had turned into a crime scene. Sam called his FBI colleagues to web around the facility using yellow tapes. No sooner had he completed his call, than when the main entrance door’s hinges started to creak. There was someone getting inside!
Crawling like a marine, Sam managed to secure a secret spot near a fire extinguisher. Sweat was flowing on his face like a stream. He could hear foot step sounds drawing closer and closer to him. The intruder was almost two meters away from where he was, facing away from his hiding spot. He wore a mask, and had a gun on his right hand.
Life was the most important thing that Sam valued at that moment. Observing caution, Sam gently removed the extinguisher from its storage, swiftly and silently ramming it against the intruder’s head.
He fell down on the cold floor, and lay motionless. Sam quickly called an ambulance on his phone. There was no need to call for back up; his friends were on the way. As a safety precaution, he handcuffed the intruder against a water pipe.
“Let’s see what we have here,” Sam whispered.
His hands searched every pocket he could find in the intruder’s trousers and jacket, only to find a cell phone in the right pocket of the trousers. Without hesitation, he went through the phone book. After several seconds, his face froze when a name appeared in the phone book. It was none other than Haze Griffins, the president of BP oil in the United States!
To confirm whether the distinguished man was linked to the murder, he dialed the number. Suddenly the call was answered! “Have you completed burning the damn place? I don’t want any other Miles to appear out of nowhere from a wandering research document!” Haze shouted.
All the pieces in Sam’s mind came together, forming an image of a murderer he least expected! The intruder had started to regain consciousness. Miraculously, the FBI team arrived on time.
Threatened with life imprisonment, the intruder confessed to the team that Haze had hired him to kill Dr. Wyle. A remote-controlled drone connected with an automatic gun was used to carry out the cold act. It managed to get an open window in one of the rooms upstairs in the deceased’s house.
Rapid deduction of oil sales, because of free plasma energy, was the only reason that Haze wanted the physicist dead. His greed for money had cut short a technology that would have taken man to deeper frontiers in space.
Another FBI team was dispatched to capture Haze at his residence, West of Washington D.C. The intruder’s phone came in handy tracking him down.
They were all relieved that the murder mystery was closed. A strange aura of divine presence was beginning to hover over them.Each one of them felt a presence of someone watching them from above…
(This story is published in my book, "Eve and Other Sci-Fi Stories". Available in Amazon)
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