Birth of a Monster Read Online Free

follow him home.”
     
    A konulan spoke up: “The chief sounded
like he meant business when he said he was going to refer the case
to the prosecutor’s office tomorrow. He also sounded serious when
he mentioned the federal police might be showing up at any time to
try to take the case from the city police.”
     
    Righty looked at the konulan. “Are you
absolutely sure?”
     
    The konulan nodded.
     
    Righty felt a wave of self-hatred crash
upon him as he realized his stupidity for not having previously
given the konulans the task of surveilling the city’s police and
familiarizing themselves with the names, faces, and home addresses
of all the top ranks. And as for the federal police, the
self-hatred was even more intense. He didn’t even know what agency
was being referred to, much less where they were headquartered,
what their numbers were, etc.
     
    Now, he had to risk exposing himself in
a police station today. If not, by tomorrow, the entire matter
could be even more complicated, with formal charges having been
filed against Tats and the others and with the federal police
potentially involved. While his heart had been in the right place
keeping dozens of konulans watching his home, Ringsetter, and his
ranch separately, his mind had not been.
     
    “Friends,” Righty began, looking at
Harold first and then at the numerous konulans in the cabin, “I
might be enjoying one of my last moments as a free man. I want to
ask of you—not order you—that, if this is a trap of some kind, you
do whatever it takes to free me and keep my family safe. In my
absence, you answer to Harold. He will tell you what you need to
do.”
     
    A somber mood filled the room. Righty
then directed his discourse directly towards Harold, whose eyes
appeared somewhat moist. “We’ve been through a lot, friend. I want
you to know that if I am arrested today, a war begins.”
     
    Harold’s eyes went from moist to
boiling to bone dry in seconds, like a frying pan sizzling and
evaporating the moisture that dared tread its surface.
     
    “I have sought, and will continue to
seek, a peaceful existence with my fellow man while I pursue what I
know in my heart to be a great destiny, but to those who seek to
harm my friends, my business, my family, my person, or my liberty,
they will learn the consequences of my wrath and feel their frailty
against a roaring lion.”
     
    Harold’s eyes now gleamed with a
pleasure that under any prior circumstances would have unnerved
Righty. But Righty knew that, even by his mental decision to
proceed forward with this plan, he was no longer the same person. A
threshold had been passed. The game was now all or nothing. He
thought of the rock climbing coach in his dreams.
     
    You’ve got to reach the
top.
     
    You sure as hell won’t make
it down.
     
    You already long since
entered the death zone.
     
    With a knowing gaze between him and
Harold, Righty’s final statement merely accentuated what was
already known: “No rules, Harold.”
     

Chapter 9
     
    Benjamin and Willis were two of only a
dozen or so National Drug Police Agents in Sivingdel. Senator
Hutherton, viewing the capital city as his backyard and therefore
more worthy of vigorous police efforts, had instructed figurehead
Chief Rulgers, of the NDP, to concentrate policing there. Had it
not been for the massacre in Sivingdel, even these agents might not
have been here.
     
    They were currently in high spirits,
having just received a tip that—in spite of the nonchalant attitude
of the Sivingdel Police, whom they hated and distrusted
vehemently—one of the biggest drug seizures to date had just
happened, leaving the former record so far behind it wasn’t visible
with man’s most powerful telescope.
     
    They knew the chief was a corrupt old
dog and had been on the payroll of Heavy Sam. They also knew that a
new kingpin, far more subtle than the freakish giant, had slowly
but surely established near-total dominance of the city’s