City of Pigs: Thriller

By Neal Chadwick

City of Pigs: Thriller

Thriller by Neal Chadwick

 

The size of this book is equivalent to 200 paperback pages.

My name is Murray Abdul.

And this is my story.

I hunt crazy killers.

But it happens quite often that I think I am crazy myself.

I leave the final assessment to you. I myself see myself unable to do so in the meantime.

 

Neal Chadwick is a pseudonym of Alfred Bekker.

Alfred Bekker is the author of numerous fantasy novels and books for young people. His books about THE REALM OF THE ELVES, the DRAGON EARTH SAGA and the GORIAN trilogy made him known to a large audience. In the field of crime fiction, he co-authored such novel series as Commissioner X and Jerry Cotton. 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: BEKKERpublishing
• Release date: Dec 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215568460

Book preview

1

I see the images of the collapsing towers. The images of September 11, 2001, when two planes were crashed into the World Trade Center by crazed terrorists. Again and again I see these images. On television and in my mind. How many times have they been repeated? It's like the mind loop of an obsessive-compulsive. The compulsion to repeat, the compulsion to look at this inconceivable event and to go through the pain over and over again.

The lunatics who did this were unfortunately Muslims.

Unfortunately, because I am also a Muslim.

I was still in high school when the World Trade Center towers collapsed. And I had no idea then that that moment would change everything for all of us.

There is a before and an after.

And the after is unfortunately the worse side.

In the meantime, a few years have passed.

My job is to catch lunatics like the ones who did this back then. Better yet, to prevent them from doing something similar. But you have to remain realistic. The latter happens only very rarely and with a lot of luck.

My name is Murray Abdul.

And this is my story.

I hunt crazy killers.

But it happens quite often that I think I am crazy myself.

I leave the final assessment to you. I myself see myself unable to do so in the meantime.

2

Those damn bastards!, I thought. Sometimes everything goes wrong. There are days when everything seems to conspire against you. And that's exactly the kind of day I had just had. I guess that's what you call fate. In any case, it seems to be inevitable. So I was in a pretty bad fix. More badly than I have been in a long time. But complaining doesn't make it any better.

I was just up to my neck in shit again. Suddenly in the cesspool - that seems to be the title of a very personal life novel for someone like me.

I blinked.

And heard what I was told.

Stay calm. Hands up and don't make a wrong move!

Listen!

No, you listen! Spread your legs and get against the wall!

It was cops who frisked me.

They patted me down. They took out my pistol.

Well, well, one of the guys said. Haven't you heard that carrying guns in public is illegal in New York?

Not if you have a reason for it.

Are you a cop? Are you licensed as a private investigator? Do you work for a security company?

Am I the office for questions and answers?

Better we hear a reasonable answer now, or...

Or what?

Shit, we don't like getting fucked with, you hear me?

Yeah, but I have to put up with the same from you jerks, or what?

Now the other cop interfered. A dark curly-haired man. He doesn't look like the guy we're after, he said.

Thank Allah! There is such a thing as a rational cop after all, I thought.

But there's no one else here, the first cop said.

Shit, anyway! That's the wrong one!

Oh, all of a sudden now, huh?

Yes.

Man, what's going on all of a sudden? Did you suddenly remember that the motherfucker let you smell his cocaine at some point or what? You gotta be kidding me.

Maybe you'll get excited.

But I don't want to calm down! Right now, I don't know who to punch in the face first - you, or that one! And with that he pointed at me.

Just finish searching him and shut up.

In the meantime, the first cop had reached my inside jacket pocket. He pulled out my ID. My service ID. Unfortunately, I couldn't see his stupid face.

You're a cop, too?

Agent Murray Abdul, Special Cases Field Office.

This is Muhammad Abdul.

Nobody calls me that, though.

That's not the name of a cop, the other said. I'm sure it's a fake.

Looks like it to me, too! the other said.

What idiots, I thought, while they were still staring at my ID and just couldn't imagine that someone with the name Muhammad could be a cop. They got used to basketball players and boxers with names like that. Even to a president whose middle name is Hussein. But a cop named Muhammad? No, that's just going too far.

I turned around. This moment of astonishment in my counterpart allowed me to do so.

Hey, did I say anything about us being done? asked the first cop, who took that as some kind of majesty insult.

I'll say this, I replied. My gun!

Excuse me?

Now!

I stretched out my hand.

That has to be verified first, the first cop said.

Because you think people named Muhammad Abdul are more likely to be terrorists than cops?

That's why. But someone with red hair isn't usually called that either.

There's a photo...

That doesn't prove anything.

My mother was Irish who married a Syrian immigrant!

Nice story. Who are going to call your field office to see if you even exist, Mister Abdul.

The cop reached for his cell phone.

I grabbed with both hands, gave him a push that we both instantly fell to the ground.

The second cop tried to reach for his gun, yanked it out. Then his body jerked. A red laser dot danced. A sound like being hit with a newspaper was heard. Twice, three times, four times.

The second cop had several holes in his head and torso. He slumped lifelessly. There was a clean hit to the head. Not even a Kevlar vest could have saved him.

I took my gun back from the cop I had fallen to the ground with. I grabbed it and fired in the direction of the shadow I had seen.

A shadow at the end of the narrow passageway between two Brownstone houses on the Lower East Side. That's where the two cops had stopped me.

I shot.

The shadow was gone.

And I noticed that the cop I had pulled to the ground had gotten some, too.

A shot had entered his heart from the side.

His eyes were fixed.

Damn!, I thought.

What a fucking bummer!

I squatted there - with two dead colleagues on the pavement. Their blood was now mixed with the dirt of the street. You don't forget a sight like that. That remains. Forever.

This day deserved a better start, I thought.

But - how many times have I said that?

And how often nothing has come of it.

Bloody hell!, I thought.

3

Director Jay Chang Lee was the chief of the Special Cases Field Office New York, a special unit of the FBI, for which I have been working for quite some time. A man so pore-deep pure and respectable that it was almost unbearable.

Virtue personified, that's what he could have been called.

Absolutely correct.

Absolute integrity.

Absolutely balanced.

And absolutely prudent.

And, of course, he was absolutely the best in everything in the whole department and was always absolutely right.

You guessed it.

This type of supervisor also has significant disadvantages, as you can easily imagine.

My partner Lew once summed it up by saying, You always feel kind of dirty and imperfect next to him.

But that's just the difference.

The difference that makes is that people like Lew and I are on duty on the street and someone like Director Lee is just the boss.

However, I don't think Director Lee will go much higher.

Why not?

Quite simple. From a certain hierarchical level onward, the more unsavory, greasy types are in demand again. And an ultra-clean guy who makes Master Propper's bald head look like an oily puddle of grease doesn't stand a chance.

Lee fixed me with his gaze.

His unmoving face scrutinized me as I sat in his office giving him a verbal report of events. His dark eyes examined me in the usual way. Actually, Asians are said not to stare at you so directly. But Director Lee only looked Asian. He was born in the U.S. and was as American as one could be. Maybe even more American than someone with a long nose and round eyes had to be. I often had the impression that Director Lee felt he had to compensate for something in terms of patriotism.

But you better not say anything like that.

On this point, Director Lee was certainly not ready for the truth, however unflinchingly he was wont to look facts in the face.

As far as the darker side of his own person was concerned, that did not apply.

But he probably had that in common with many of us. So he could count on my desire on this point.

Up to a point, at least.

But more about that later.

Just so you know, he crossed that famous point at one point in a way I never thought possible.

But one after the other.

You think it's the same one again? he finally asked after listening to me in silence for a while.

I shrugged my shoulders.

We'll see.

Sure.

To be honest, I'm pretty stumped. How many times do you think I've racked my brain about who this lunatic could be?

Obviously not often enough, Director Lee said matter-of-factly.

Well, that may be.

Keep thinking about who might have such hatred for you...

I raised my eyebrows and completed his sentence, which I actually knew Director Lee didn't like. ...that he makes several assassination attempts on me?

Lee was excellent at hiding his annoyance at this. It was impossible to know what was going on behind his smooth forehead, which never wrinkled, and what that uniform facial expression meant, which always left one in doubt as to whether it was really a smile or something else entirely.

Who have you stepped on lately? asked Director Lee.

I shrugged my shoulders.

Too many.

Somebody from there is now presenting you with the bill.

It had been only one of several attempts on my life that I had survived. Sometimes the perpetrator took his time before striking again. Sometimes for years. So long, in fact, that you would have thought he had given up on his goal of putting a bullet in my head. But he hadn't. And he never would. I had a feeling that he would.

Sir, may I speak frankly?, I said.

Director Jay Chang Lee raised his eyebrows, which were as straight on him as if someone had drawn them with a Kayal pencil and a ruler. But with him, it was just a freak of nature.

Please, do that, Murray. What's on your mind?

Our eyes met. I then often had the feeling that he could read my thoughts, but I could not read his. Of course, it was all just imagination, but the feeling was still real.

I finally said, What I'm about to tell you may sound crazy.

Director Lee did not seem to be deterred by this. He looked at me with his usual motionless face.

Spit it out anyway, he demanded.

I rubbed my chin. An embarrassing gesture. And I was annoyed that I had made it, because I knew that my boss knew how to interpret it correctly. But it was too late to stop this movement in the middle of it. That would have looked even more ridiculous.

Quite as you think.

So? This So had the tone you'd expect in an interrogation. Seemed to be an occupational disease of our director's that he just couldn't shake. But then, maybe that's the same with me. So. He said it with the sharpness of a razor blade and a subliminal sub-message that said nothing more, but nothing less, than that there would be some dire consequences if one dared to withhold any relevant information. Director Lee had it down pat. The intimidation, I mean. Envy had to hand it to him. And it didn't just work on suspects. It worked at least as well on subordinates. And I was unfortunately no exception.

The really good tricks work even if the opponent sees through them.

If you are the one who falls for it, you get even more annoyed - and yet you can't do anything about it.

Unfortunately.

Is Kismet.

Destiny.

I'm not sure this lunatic really WANTS me, if you know what I mean, I explained.

Director Lee shook his head vigorously.

Honestly, no.

"What I meant to say is, it could also be that he's just