Free Deadly Journey by Declan Conner

avoiding transferring any evidence. I
couldn’t help but curl my lips at the thought I already had his prints on the
photograph of Mary and the kids.
    He opened the file in front of him and
teased a typed letter out of an envelope. He slid it across the table to me. ‘Read
it. I’m sure you need to know what we think your freedom is worth.’
    He took a handkerchief from his pocket,
wiped the ring, and slipped it inside the envelope. When he snapped his
fingers, the maid passed him the sample bottle and it followed the ring inside
the envelope. The letter was addressed to the head of my department and dated.
I cringed. The only thing that was missing was the sender’s name and address
and a signature.
    My eyes honed in on a figure in words and
writing. Twenty-five-million dollars . I couldn’t contain my silence any
longer. That sum of money was beyond my family’s means if the government failed
to pay the ransom. I was looking at a death warrant. When did negotiations with
bank robbers holding hostages ever end in them being given a getaway airplane?
    Never.
    The government would rather spend twenty-five
million sending in Black Hawks and teams of Special Forces operatives. I
decided to act dumb, with the intention of finding out why they had chosen to
kidnap me.
    ‘Why twenty-five million? My family can’t
raise that!’
    ‘I’m not asking your family. You and your
government stole an equal sum from me and my country when you confiscated our
shipment of cocaine. It’s simple: I want my money back... one way or another.’
    The last part of the sentence, he’d almost
spat out through gritted teeth.
    ‘But why me? I only work for them for a
paycheque to support my family.’
    ‘Now, that’s not really true, is it? You
work for drug enforcement because of your ideology concerning drugs. To me you
are a terrorist. I hope the orange overalls will not be lost in their meaning to
your government when they see your film.’
    ‘A terrorist?’
    ‘What’s so strange about that? We are war
with the United States in the same way that you are at war with the Taliban or
Al Qaeda.’
    ‘But Mexico isn’t at war with the United
States. You have the same laws against drug trafficking.’
    ‘For now, maybe, but laws that are against
the public interest are meant to be broken. Otherwise, your laws on prohibition
would still be in place. Just think about all that wasted beer the FBI poured
down the drain. I may be your Al Capone today, but in years to come I will be
the darling of Wall Street. At least some of your states have seen sense on
cannabis.’
    In my mind, the guy was more than two cents
short of a dollar. He was getting agitated, so I thought it better to zip my
lip.
    He called over the maid and whispered to
her. She left the room and returned with two security guards carrying a model
of a hospital which they placed on the table. A guard took hold of my sweaty
hand and pressed it firmly palm down on the letter. Perez took the letter and
added it to the envelope.
    ‘You know they’ll have to legalize cocaine
again at some time in the future?’
    ‘Again?’
    ‘Come on, you work for the DEA. Surely,
they teach you the history of the drug? But then I guess not.’ He rolled his
eyes and continued without waiting for a reply. ‘Cocaine was used in the United
States for many medicinal purposes, from alleviating toothache, to weaning
people from heroin. In its original recipe, even Coca Cola, your famous
American soft drink, used extracts from the coca leaf, including cocaine. Hell,
your industrialists used to hand out free pills to workers as a pick-me-up.’
    ‘Well, yes, but that was before scientists
discovered the side effects and the harm it caused to mental health.’
    ‘Scientists? Bah. You mean those same
scientists who learned how to extract cocaine from the coca leaf to turn it
into a narcotic. Still, I guess I owe them a debt of gratitude. Your government
and its agencies are hypocrites. They