Imprisoned By Mr Red |Short Story| 🔞

II

Putting on my uniform, I stared into the mirror. Looking at my reflection always made me proud of what I had achieved in past three years. I locked my apartment and headed to my workplace. For me work was worship.

As soon as I reached my office, my juniors greeted me with respect and I couldn't me more thankful to God. After all, He helped me achieve my goal. My parents were proud of me. My brothers looked upto me. And more than anything my self esteem had highten.

"Good morning, mam." Jenna greeted me as soon as I walked into my cabin.

Jenna was my junior in the academy where we were under training and then after a year of my joining she joined services too. She was a great decoder. She had ablities to decide multiple code languages, atom bombs, time bombs and various lockers. She was also a professional hacker and together we had worked on many missions.

"Good morning !" I greeted her back.

"Conference will start in next ten minutes. The new commissioner is also coming to address the staff." She informed me.

"Do you have any idea what this conference is all about ?" I asked.

"I don't know. But we'll come to know soon.  They haven't invited everyone. Only selected officers are invited." She said standing straight.

I saw her badge was a little tilted. For us, our uniform was our pride. We wore it with pride.

"Fix your badge and I'll see you in the conference hall." I said and she stepped back. She turned around and left my cabin.

I closed my eyes and rested my head on the table. I thought of going through some case files but I didn't pick up one because I had to leave in some minutes and focus on what new commissioner had to say. The last commissioner was easy to handle and was quite friendly. I didn't know what this new man was like.

After five minutes, I marched toward the conference hall. I stepped inside to see around ten officers sitting around an oval shaped conference table. The projector was on and the junior was trying to fix some bugs.

I walked to an empty chair and sat down. As soon as I sat down everyone stood up. I looked up to see what had happened, I saw a new face marching toward us in a commissioner uniform. The male would have been around in his mid thirties. He looked quite hot for being a commissioner.

"Good Morning, Sir." We all greeted together and he just nodded at us.

He indicated us to take our places and we all did.

"Good morning, officers. I'm Commissioner Edmund Valdez. I'm really running out of time so I'll leave all the introduction and come straight to the point." He said looking at each of our faces.

"May I come in, Sir ?" All of our heads turned around to see Jenna. Oh ! She was late.

"Who's she ?" The commissioner Valdez asked one of the officer next to him.

"She's our best decoder, Sir." He replied.

"Sir, I'm Jenna Dixon. I've been posted in this station for two years now." She introduced herself.

"Miss Jenna Dixon, this is the last time I'm entertaining such indiscipline. Next time, I won't tolerate such recklessness, understood everyone ?" He yelled sternly. He didn't seemed to be hot at all now. He just seemed like a very hot tempered senior.

"Yes, sir." We all replied.

Jenna took her place next to me. We two were the only females in the whole conference hall.

"You all are here because my deputy thinks you all are the best cops of this city. I'm here because NYC is under threat these days. The most wanted criminal of the era is said to be spotted in the city within last two days." Commissioner Valdez said creating a tension in the room.

"We need to make a team to find out these criminal minds and unmask them. Who all are interested ?" He asked.

This was definitely a golden chance to get a promotion. I raised my hand. Few other hands rose up too. Three men who hadn't raised there hands were told to leave the room and they did so.

"Interesting !" Commissioner Valdez smirked looking at Jenna who had held her hand highest.

"My deputy is going to tell you guys more about it." He said.

Deputy Walker stood up and smiled at all of us, "Good Morning, my officers. Since, Commissioner Valdez is running out of time I'll keep it brief."

He turned around to look at the screen. There was an image projected. He was a man. His face was covered with a red handkerchief tied at the back of his head. He had shades on. There was a beanie cap on his head which covered his forehead too. Nothing was visible. He had worn a leather jacket which covered his arms too.

"Death... that's what they call him."

He wasn't even visible.

"Death ? That's a unique name." I blurted out randomly staring at the picture on screen and then I realized all the pair of eyes came crashing down on me.

I cleared my throat and concentrated on the pictures again.

There was another picture of him in which he was undoing his handkerchief which he had tied on his face. The handkerchief was loose on his cheeks and there was some back spot near his right cheek. I tried to concentrate on it but there was nothing I could find. I tried to look for more clues but there were none.

"His name is Mr Red." Deputy Walker said.

Mr Red ? Why was he calling him Mr Red instead of Red. Criminals like him were not given the respect of mister tag before there names. And Red was very strange name. Who has a name of color as his name.

"That's a very absurd name." One of the officer pointed out what I had in mind but everyone ignored him.

"Nobody has ever seen him. He appears whenever he wants to and disappear within fraction of seconds. He can't be imprisoned. Nobody knows where he belongs to or where he comes from. His name is unknown. His people call him Red."

"How do you know that ? If nobody has seen him then how are we seeing these pictures ?" I asked. I was suddenly so interested in this puzzle named Red.

"Once an officer of Russian police department disguised himself as a local drug dealer and he managed to reach him. He even made it into his army. He somehow managed to capture his pictures and send them to his colleagues, but he was caught soon and Red guillotined his head." Deputy Walker explained.

"Oh ! Didn't he provide them any other information ?"

"He was caught within a day of meeting Red. He had posted a letter to his fellow officers stating that even Red's men haven't seen his face. Just few of his close men know him otherwise he's very discreet with his identity."

"How do you want us to team up and catch him when we hardly know anything about him. We haven't seen him too." One of the officer said.

"Who made you a cop ?" Commissioner Valdez shouted at him. "Get out." He yelled.

"Sir, he's one most capable officer of ours. We can't complete this mission without him." Deputy pleaded and hot tempered Valdez let it go.

"Fine, tomorrow at four in the evening, in the conference hall." Commissioner stood up and walked out leaving a strange curiosity inside me. Who was this Red ? What was his real name ? How had he managed to run a criminal empire without showing his identity ?

"It's your night duty tomorrow." I heard deputy inform me.

"Yes, sir." I said and returned to my cabin.

This was a great opportunity where I could prove myself again. I couldn't focus on my work. If anything I could think was how we could reach this unknown man, death.

****To Be Continued****

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