THE FALCON FORCE

GIANT WAVES ARE lapping over the sea wall in front of Franco Medina’s Lake Pontchartrain home, and the rain is falling at the whim of the wind gusts that are whipping through the air. Three weeks ago Medina was released from prison, and Detective Lieutenant John Kelly is following up on a hunch that Medina, also known as “ Firearms Franky,” is responsible for the disappearance of his partner, Brandon Thompson. John leaps onto the front porch and peers into the darkness through the window on the porch just as the wind topples a rocking chair beside him. John is getting soaked from head to toe with the wind threatening to rip his parka off and his umbrella is teetering on turning wrong side out any second. It’s obvious that the house is empty. He contemplates breaking in, but decides it’s best to wait and get a warrant. As he circles the house to check for any sign of life, he knows that he‘s barking up the wrong tree. Standing in the rain looking at the back of the empty house that is threatened by flood waters from Lake Pontchartrain, John comes to the realization that he may be at a dead end. He doesn’t have a clue where Brandon is or who is involved in his disappearance. A small limb from an old oak tree comes crashing down beside him, and finally his umbrella flips wrong side out, and a couple of its spokes pop out threatening to stab him. As he sloshes across the muddy yard, a deafening crack of lightening and thunder strikes close by and John sprints to his car and quickly jumps in throwing the umbrella in the back seat and just sits there for a few minutes trying to plot a new course. His rain soaked body drenches the car seat, and he’s aware that his muddy shoes are sliding around uncomfortably on the floor mat. All this reminds him of basic training when he was in the Marines. It seems it rained a lot at Paris Island, and the wet clothes gives him that same feeling that he had back then, the feeling of, what am I doing here? Deep down inside, John knows that Medina is behind the kidnapping, but he doesn’t know how to prove it. Medina had been in prison for eight years, serving a ten year sentence for the murder of John’s friend, DEA agent, Daniel Jansen. It was a circumstantial case, the body was never found but all the evidence led to Medina, and his men. Just a few days ago he was released on good behavior, and now the world is not as safe as it was. Medina has made millions selling arms to the narcoterrorists in Mexico and South America, thus his nickname “ Firearms Franky.” He’s also known to be the largest narcotics dealer in five states, all crimes that they’ve never been able to prove, but Jansen was getting close to nailing Medina when he disappeared. Now the same has happened to Brandon, and John has made up his mind that he will find out what happened to him. He’s afraid that time may be running out for Brandon. Brandon Thompson has been John’s partner for nine years. When Medina was found guilty he looked right at John and Brandon and said, “ Pay backs are hell.” Later he was quoted as saying, “ If you try to find trouble, it will find you.” Medina likes to spout off when the media is paying attention. While he was in prison, he sent threatening letters to the New Orleans police officers that were involved in his conviction. John has a file on the letters at his office. The message was always the same, about how he would get even with them when he got out, of course he never identified himself and they were not post marked at the Prison, but John knew they were coming from some of Medina’s scumbags. Brandon was the lead detective on the case, so it’s not surprising that he would be the first to suffer the revenge. This was John’s third trip to Medina’s lake home, and except for the weather it was another dry run. Breakers from the lake begin to leap over the sea wall spraying across the lake side road, magnifying the torrential downpour that’s crashing on the windshield of John’s SUV. John looks at his watch and it’s 11:14 p.m.. As the windshield wipers beat in rhythm to some strange monotonous tune, John thinks back to when Brandon disappeared.... It was a routine mission that he and Brandon were on night before last. An informant had text a message to John, that a wanted man, Rocco Richard, had been spotted on Bourbon Street near the intersection of Conti. It was 9:00 p.m., so John and Thompson met up on Canal Street and made their way over to Bourbon Street. Richard is a repeat offender of larceny that John had been looking for, since last year. He’s also wanted for questioning about a murder in the Garden District. As usual Bourbon is covered up with tourists and partiers. It’s only been a few minutes since John received the message, so they made their way towards the Conti and Bourbon intersection. John texts the informant to try to get an update on the guys location. He received no answer, so they continued towards Conti dodging beads that are being tossed off the balconies on both sides of Bourbon and elbowing their way through the crowd, visually checking as many faces as they could along the way. John was leading and Brandon was close on his heels. When they get to Conti, John turns to speak to Brandon, and he’s nowhere to be seen. John was thinking he’ll catch up in a minute, but then he realized that Brandon wasn’t coming. He had vanished. John’s first thought was Medina’s threats. He gets on his radio and within minutes he has dozens of New Orleans police officers on Bourbon searching every nook and cranny, back alleys, bars and restaurants. Then he leads a contingency of officers over to Medina’s town home, his primary residence. It’s a multi-million dollar home in the Garden District. Of course Medina wasn’t there and none of his neighbors knew his whereabouts. Two weeks earlier John had ordered a surveillance of the home and still after several days there’s no sign of Medina. John heads home to his apartment in the New Orleans suburb of Tangiers, and the rain begins to subside a little. It’s a gritty rundown neighborhood, but John doesn’t believe in wasting a lot of money on a place to stay, since he’s never there. He passes a row of old tract houses and pulls to the curb in front of the four unit apartment house that he calls home. He exits his car and unsnaps his shoulder holster and places his hand on his Remington. He knows that Medina probably knows where he lives. Surveying his surroundings, he tramps over to the apartment and enters the entrance lobby and unlocks his mailbox. Just a couple of bills. Then he makes it up the steps to his apartment. He opens the door that use to be white, but most of the paint has flaked off revealing a brown door with a tarnished brass letter D dangling precariously. Just inside the door, he sheds his muddy shoes and wet clothes and dumps them on the floor and they blend in with the already cluttered decor. The warm shower is the best thing that’s happened to him all day, and as he showers all he can think about is how he hasn’t been able to find Medina since he was released from Angola the Louisiana State Penitentiary. But he will, and some how he’ll find out what happened to his partner.... The next day John arrives early to his office and starts to work on a new plan to find out what happened to Brandon. John always finds a way to overcome obstacles. When he was in high school he tried out for football and was told he was not big enough to play, so he worked out with weights every day, and by the next year he was welcomed on the team and was the strongest and best built athlete on the team. He made first team halfback and led the team in rushing his junior and senior year.