The Mayflower Saints

The Mayflower Saints

It is a cold, windy night. The rain falls steadily yet forcibly upon the car’s slightly cracked windshield. The four men had been parked for nearly two hours. Its windows are slightly open to allow the cigarette smoke to vent out. A small sedan can fill with smoke rather quickly with four men all taking drags from their cigarettes.
“That’s him,” said the man in the driver’s seat. He is not especially tall, but he seems bigger than the rest. It must be his muscles that reveal the illusion that he is fairly strong. He carries himself like a leader as he tells the other three what to do: “I’m taking the front. Johnson and Alex, enter through the back door. Keith cover our backs. Remember the rules of engagement; only shoot if you are in danger. Wait for my go on the walkie (as he motioned to the Walkie Talkie on his vest).” His vest is fully loaded with five magazines for a fully automatic AR-15, as well as two concussion grenades. The bullets in the magazines are drilled out, allowing them to rupture on contact. This serves two purposes; one so that it will not pass through walls or a body and injure and innocent bystander, and the second is to make the bullet harder to get out, causing more pain. The concussion grenades serve yet another purpose. Made mostly of magnesium, they explode in a bright quick flash. This causes temporary blindness to those in the room, allowing captures to quickly subdue their victims. Underneath the utility vest is a bulletproof vest, modified with arms and extensions on the bottom (looking like a skirt). The other three men in the car all have similar equipment. They are ready for war.
He whispered into the walkie, “…three…” their hearts are all beating faster “…two…” Alex wipes his sweaty left palm off before grasping his gun and doing the same with the other hand. “…one…” A smirk appears on Keith’s face. “…Go! Go! Go!” Johnson unleashes the power of his 10 gauge semi-auto shotgun into the poorly constructed wooden door of the rundown bungalow in the middle of Detroit. The back door did not open. It is shredded to pieces as Alex bursts through with his CAR-15 pointing straight ahead. Simultaneously, the leader knocks the front door wide open with one well placed kick above the doorknob. Before the door even hits the wall Keith has already swept the room for any sign of danger. The group knows that their target is the only one home; they had done their research to ensure that no additional people would get in the way. Their hours of planning paid of.
---------
“They knew what they were doing Sir, two taps in the back of the head. This was not a murder, it was an execution,” said Sgt. Jerald. After two years on the Detroit city police force, he knew how the gangs operated. It does not take long to become a murder expert in Detroit. This was nothing he had ever seen before. Two quarters were placed by the killers over the victims eyes (which doubled as the exit wounds). The two shots were made with two separate firearms, the left eye had a much larger exit wound showing that it was inflicted with a much more powerful weapon that the right eye. The right eye had a small hole - probably 9 mm - which would match up with the 9mm shell that was found in the kitchen with the body; but no other larger shells were found except for many shot gun shells by the back door, which couldn’t have been used on the body. Had the victim been shot in the left eye with the shot gun, there would no longer be a head for the police to investigate.
“This is the weirdest part sir, they left a tape. I think it’s a video but I’m not sure, they are dusting it for prints now.” As the detective looked at the body again he thought about the everyday horror and violence that takes place in the city. “I joined the force to clean up my home’s streets,” he thought to himself. “People like this make me sick, and I feel like no matter how hard I try I will never make a difference.” He had to go outside to get a breath of fresh air to clear not only his mind but his emotions.
As he brought his pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket he noticed something. Walking over to the ally across the street, he saw the faint shine of clear plastic. A sticker on the plastic nearly made him throw up after he read the label on the top. He felt it coming… not a wave of vomit…but a wave of emotion. At that moment he lost control, tears began rolling down is cheeks. The label revealed that the packaging contained video tapes for Sony’s portable video cameras, the same type of tapes as the one inside at the murder scene; however, the frightening part was the sticker which read “BUY ONE, GET ONE FREE!” This sick, twisted murderer was planning to kill again. Following protocol, he began blocking off the ally with yellow police tape when he noticed cigarette butts. Cigarette butts are a common sight outside, especially in an ally, but what made these butt stick out was the high concentration in such a small area. This high concentration meant one of two things: either someone went there regularly to smoke, or there was someone waiting there for a long time. After seeing the precision of the killing, he assumed there must have been someone staking out the bungalow, clearly this is the position.
Sgt. Jerald’s superior officer approached with a casual pace. “This guy can figure out anything,” Jerald thought. “His passion for fighting crime is twice as strong as mine. He won’t rest until this case is solved.” Lt. Herriman had been working with and training Sgt. Jerald for the past six months and was proud to see his crime scene skills improving; but he was even more proud to point out what he missed. The officers at the station enjoyed seeing who could find the most important clues at a crime scene, often bragging that they could solve a case single handedly. Sgt. Jerald and Lt. Herriman were no different. “You missed the front door,” said Lt. Herriman with a snicker in his voice. “There had to have been more than one shooter”
At the station the crime team was beginning to get frustrated. Not only had the rain from the night before ruined all traces of DNA from the cigarette butts, but only one print was found. Not a single print was found anywhere on the tape, bullet shells, or the two quarters. The only print was from the plastic wrapper found in the ally, but that had to wait. Lt. Herriman walked into Sgt. Jerald’s cubical, “The tape is ready for viewing.” This excited the Sgt. because he was curious why these shooters where so careful as to not even leave a partial print on anything except the plastic; and by this time he concluded that it must have fallen out of a car when the shooters were finished staking out the area.
The two officers walked into Lt. Herriman’s office, providing a quiets viewing area into to study the tape for more clues. The tape was labeled “The Mayflower Saints, crime’s last view.” As the Sgt. pushed play he thought about what this meant, “Crime’s last view?” The static on the TV ended and a news clip began to play. “Hello, this is Frank Turner, live on channel 7 action news. We are reporting live in Detroit. If you’ll look over my shoulder you will see many police investigators at this gas station…”
Jerald didn’t need to listen anymore, he knew the report. It only happened last week. It was a drug deal that went bad. Two high school males tried to buy drugs from a local dealer. The dealer got scared when one of the students dropped a plastic police badge from his backpack. The dealer flipped out, killing the two students. The media covered the incident like there was no tomorrow; it made headlines cross the country.
After the news clip ended a man with a black ski mask appeared sitting at a desk. “It is your corrupt we claim, it is your evil that will be sought by us,” the man said. “With every breath we shall hunt them down. Each day, we will spill their blood till it rains down from the skies. Do not kill. Do not rape. Do not steal. These are principles which every man of every faith can embrace. These are not polite suggestions. These are codes of behavior, and those of you that have ignored them will pay the dearest cost.” Vigilantes - Jerald was surprised - they are people who feel the law is not effective and take it into their own hands. Superheroes are common examples; this is probably how they saw themselves. Nevertheless, it is illegal; they are murders, and they will be caught. They clearly were moved by the murders of the young students at the gas station, but that dealer had already been caught and was in prison. By the end of the vigilante’s speech, Jerald felt like vomiting all over again. Growing up in Detroit, Jerald considered himself a man with a strong stomach, but not today. This was the second time today that he thought he would lose it - never mind, he did lose it. Vomit purged all over the table in front of him, luckily most of it was caught in the box of donuts in front of him (after all he was at a police station). The tape continued with a dark green screen, but the volume was clear; “Three…two….one… Go! Go! Go!” the camera bounced around a little then came into focus. There was a small room, and the camera was sweeping back and forth. The room was clearly the bungalow of this morning’s victim; this was for sure the live footage of the murder.
A strange dark line stretched vertically across the top of the camera’s view. “What is that?” Jerald asked. “I don’t know…shut up and watch, we may get more clues,” replied Lt. Herriman in a briskly passed slur.
As the man with the camera entered the kitchen, two more men entered the room from the opposite side. There was one lone man sliding under the table as the three converged around it. One of the other men, sliding his shot gun around to his back, threw a chair out of the way. He pulled the victim out from under the table and pushed him on his knees. By this time the victim was clearly in shock at the speed of the assault upon his house, supported by urine puddle forming around his knees. “We are giving you this time to confess your sins. Admit your mistakes, your selfishness and greed,” said the other man that came through the back door. Although he was smaller than the other two men, his 100 round drum magazine in his CAR-15 emphasized that he was not to be messed with, however, the victim replied stubbornly, spitting one on his assailant’s shoes. Suddenly the camera swung around, at an upwards angle facing the ceiling and then swung back down to its original position looking back at the victim, now face on the floor with a bloody gash across his cheek. Sgt. Jerald concluded that the camera must be somehow attached to weapon, explaining both the strange dark line across the top as the barrel of the gun, as well as the motion of the swing, hitting the victim with the butt of the gun. After a few seconds of begging, the camera man pulled out a series of photographs, throwing them in front of the victim. As the victim looked at the photos, his attitude seemed to change. “So what, you guys aren’t cops. What are you going to do, arrest me?” he laughed.
“No, were going to find more evidence,” replied the camera man. Now talking to the other two gunmen he said, “Go check the other rooms.” As the two turned to leave, the camera picked up the sound of a cock from a gun. Suddenly the victim jumped up, pushing the camera man to the ground and making a bolt for the front door. Within a split second, a single shot brought the panicked man straight to the ground directly on top of the pictures. It was clear from the tape that the camera man had not taken the shot, his gun was not even pointing towards the victim. The other two had their backs turned away from the victim. There was a fourth gunman involved. As the camera man got up he put his gun to the victim saying, In nomine Patris et fillii et Spiritus Sancti as he discharged one 9 mm bullet. Then the tape ended as abruptly as it had started.
Lt. Herriman was the first to talk saying, “It was a sniper; I recognized the sound. We will have to go back but I am willing to bet that there was already a broken out window, that is why we never saw or heard glass shatter.” Lt. Herriman had learned a lot about sharp shooting from his time on SWAT as a sniper. He often was able to point out necessary information concerning weapons not ordinarily taught at any police academy. “The foreign language is Latin,” he said “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost,” he added. Sgt. Jerald was not surprised by this either, as he knew the Lt. was a strong Christian, asking for God’s grace in nearly everything that he does. “But that doesn’t make sense,” Jerald thought out loud. “Christians don’t go around killing people, especially in the name of God. Don’t they see taking the law into your own hands as bad?”
“A common misconception,” replied Lt. Herriman. “In the old testament, Moses was asked by God to lead his people to the Promised Land after Moses killed an Egyptian for beating a fellow Hebrew. Sampson killed 2,000 Philistines in one day after they disgraced God and his family. Ezekiel witnessed God order the murders of 70 temple elders who were not offended by the sin going on around them. Sgt. Jerald congratulated the Lt. as a secretary entered the room. She entered the room handed Sgt. Jerald the report from the lad regarding the findings at this mornings crime scene. She then quickly turned around and left the room; she knew she was not welcome. She had been working with both the Sgt. and Lt. for a year and a half and knew how they both operated: when they were working on a case, they didn’t want to be interrupted. She made the mistake once of interrupting Sgt. Jerald when he was poring over evidence of a local crack house. All she did was say that his wife had left a message for him, he flipped after having lost his train of thought. She knew that the Sgt. could read the file himself and carry out the necessary steps. Even though the finger prints found on a piece of clear plastic matched that of his superior officer, Lt. Keith Herriman.