1108 Chapter 93- Trinity – Interrogations Part 1 (VOLUME 6)
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Trinity
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Vincent, Reece, and I went with Rawlynne and Devon to the FBI office. I knew why we were all going there. We were going to be interrogating the suspect and finding out what it was that he had done and why. And with Vincent along with us, we would have one of the living lie detectors with us. He wouldn’t be able to lie to us.
Thinking about lies made me remember this morning and the things that Zaley had said to us. She had said that she knew Reece and I were lying. And technically, we hadn’t lied. Nothing had happened, nothing that was real anyway. Reece and I had just visited a God in the celestial realm, that was all. It wasn’t really a lie, but she claimed that it was. How had she known that we were hiding something from her and the others? We would have to talk about that all later, when Reece and I were done here.
The suspect was taken to be booked by Jackson and Melita. The husband and wife duo was going to make sure that the asshole didn’t get away with anything while Rawlynne and I talked with the others in her office. There had already been a lot that had happened today, and the day wasn’t over yet. I just knew that, by the time that I got home later, I was going to be exhausted. That was the benefit of being pregnant and busy.
“Trinity, did you or anyone else know that another attack was coming? There was no word at all about this?” She asked me about this in a tone that was disbelieving, and I knew why. For the last three bombings, no matter how small it was, we had gotten a tip from someone that called on a secure line. The number was blocked on the IDs for the phone, and it was untraceable. He never stayed on the line more than ten seconds, and that was not enough time to track a call. Still, he had called in and warned us before, but not this time.
“No.” I told her honestly as I thought about the warnings before. Maybe those had been a way to distract us and make us feel complacent. Maybe they wanted us to rely on those warnings so that we wouldn’t actively search for more bombs and bombers. That wasn’t the case though, we were still trying to find the people responsible for all of this. We were hunting the DOE.
“So, no one called about this one. Do you think that they are part of the DOE, or are they another group entirely? Do we have another enemy to be worried about?”
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“If I may?” Vincent spoke up, leaning forward in his chair as he faced Rawlynne.
“Go ahead, Vincent.” Rawlynne respected Vincent and appreciated his insights.
“The way the suspect has thus far behaved, and the initial impressions that the others had in his dorm room, and taking into account the increasingly incoherent ways the man labeled the detonator, that all leads me to think that this man was acting alone. He is a man that feels like an outsider. Now, if he is a part of a larger group, he likely feels alone and isolated in that group. It seems to me that he was targeting people that he felt wronged him as well as the super naturals. He didn’t seem to have a purpose here, other than being seen. Other than that, he was very sloppy and incoherent.”
“I agree.” Devon said as he stepped forward and planted a hip on Rawlynne’s desk. “Whoever this guy is, he is seeking attention. Maybe not ours, but someone’s.”
“The Colonel’s.” I said as I remembered some of his ramblings.
“Who?” More than one voice asked me in confusion.
“When he was being questioned earlier,” Reece took up the conversation. “He mentioned someone that he referred to as the Colonel. It was someone that he seemed to have a lot of respect and regard for. If he is trying to impress someone, then it would be the Colonel.”
“So, is he in the military? Was this Colonel in the military? Are we looking for a connection to one or more of the armed forces?” There was a level of unease on Rawlynne’s face at that. If these people were military, or even ex-military, then they would be very dangerous. And they might have access to some weapons that would hurt a lot of people.
“I don’t know, but we can find out.” Devon rose to his feet. “Come on, let’s not delay. Let’s give our little attention seeker something that he so desperately wants.” His eyes were hard and narrowed, little slits of anger that would scare most normal people. Good thing none of us here were normal people.
We made our way to the holding cell that the suspect was in. He hadn’t yet told us his name, but we had recovered his identification from him when he was taken into custody. And while we were talking in Rawlynne’s office, Jackson and Melita had prepared a small but thorough file on the man. Jackson’s information gathering skills were second to none because of his added ability.
The man that had attempted to bomb the school was named Gerald Ramie. He was twenty years old. His height was listed as six feet one inch, but that was definitely wrong. He was no taller than five foot ten. He had dark brown hair, normal looking brown eyes, an ordinary face. There was nothing at all that was extraordinary about him, other than his capacity for evil and anger. He was exceptionally filled with both of those.
There was also something that said the man had returned a week late for the new semester’s classes, and that he hadn’t stayed in his dorm over the break like he had initially intended to. The man was an only child whose mother passed away when he was seventeen. He didn’t get along well with his father, and therefore didn’t like going home. He was usually a background type of person. The kind that would fade into the background and go unnoticed if he didn’t draw attention to himself.
Well, Gerald Ramie had drawn attention to himself. Not just today, but on several other occasions. He had several complaints about him from girls at the campus. He was said to be creepy and stalkerish to the girls that he liked. They had to file complaints to make him leave them alone. And I am guessing that these girls were at least a few of the delusional man’s targets today. Remembering what Rika had said to Devon about the girls that were near the one bomb. They always frequented that location and were as regular in their schedule as it was possible to be.
There was also a report from Gerald’s English professor from last semester. Apparently, Gerald had turned in an assignment that was more akin to the psychobabble of a sycophant on the verge of true cultist assimilation, that or the beginnings of a manifesto from a serial killer that wanted to change the world for the better. And this came before the reveal. He was unstable, and the professor suggested that he seek professional help.
As it turns out, Gerald didn’t take well to the words from the good professor, and he ended up putting his fist through the professor’s office window. No one was hurt, not even Gerald, but the event had sufficiently scared the professor. Enough so that he refused to ever have him in his class again.
Now, with all the info on the bomber taken in, it was time for us to begin our questioning. He would answer our questions, and hopefully soon. The five of us entered the interrogation room, seeking to ask the questions that we needed the answers to the most.
“Good afternoon, Gerald.” I addressed him calmly and saw him flinch. It was either because I wasn’t human, or because I used his name. He didn’t speak though, he just looked at the table in front of him. “I’d like to talk to you, if you don’t mind, Gerald.” I used his name again, and it was only there that he flinched, not just when I spoke to him. Yes, he was scared because we knew his name.
“You know something that I can deduce from the information that we have on you, Gerald?” I told him as I leaned forward. I don’t know how I knew this fact about him, but I was going to use it anyway.
“What?” He practically spat the word at me.
“You are a member of that terrorist group, the PAWs. Isn’t that right?” The other four looked at me like I was growing an extra head, but at the same time, Gerald looked a little more toward my eyes.
“Yeah, so what? They were all arrested. There were hardly any of us left.” He confirmed what I suspected.
“And after the PAWs, did you join the DOE?”
“Fuck you!” He spat at me, this time with actual phlegm. I didn’t let it get close to me before I flung it away with magic.
“I take that as a yes. So, is this Colonel that you mentioned earlier the leader of the DOE?”
“Go to hell!” He spat once more, but without the loogie that had been in the last one. Thankfully.
“Another yes.” I nodded. “You are being so helpful, Gerald.” He flinched once more. He hated me using his name, that was easy to see. “You see Gerald, we want to talk to your Colonel. We want to know why he is attacking all of these places.”
“WHY!?” He screamed at me. “BECAUSE YOU MONSTERS ALL DESERVE TO DIE!” He was trying to stand, but he was cuffed to the chair and that didn’t allow him to stand up.
“We are not monsters, Gerald. We are just people.”
“LIES!” He bellowed and attempted to cover his ears.
“Gerald?” Reece called out to him. “Were there only forty-five bombs? Or were there fifty? Are there still some that are hidden somewhere?”
“Oh, you will never find them all.” Gerald grinned as he taunted Reece.
“He’s lying.” Vincent said matter-of-factly.
“I AM NOT! I HAD FIFTY BOMBS!”
“Another lie. There are only those forty-five, I am sure of it.” Vincent sounded relieved.
“Do not call me a liar.” The man said. “I will put you all in your place when the other bombs explode tonight. They are on timers.”
“Lie.” Vincent said. “You cannot get anything past me. I can see when you are lying.” The look that fell onto Gerald’s face at that was one of pure fear.
“Impossible.”
“Quite possible. I was blessed by the Gods and granted certain abilities. You cannot lie to me. Now, I suggest you tell the truth, Gerald Ramie. We do not have all night.”
“I REFUSE TO SPEAK TO ANY OF YOU ANYMORE!” Gerald screamed and shut his mouth.
“You need to talk to us, Gerald. How else are we going to know why you did what you did? You don’t want to know what the news will say about you if you don’t talk. If you don’t give your side of the story, then you will be dragged through the mud so much. I am sure that not even you want that to happen.” The man just looked at me, tight lipped. He was refusing to speak to me.
I wasn’t going to give up though. I knew that, one way or another, this man would talk to us. If we had to bring Juniper in here to make him talk or not, he was going to speak to us. He was going to tell us what he knew. And, hopefully, that information would lead us to the people that he was working with. There had to be someone, even if he was acting alone today, he hadn’t gotten all those materials on his own. He had help somewhere, from someone.