Dockingboys

Chapter Fifteen

Roy Tarson, head of police in Oakton, frowned at the reports his messenger had sent him. They claimed that the three currently most wanted men were spotted driving a truck with the plate number OKT-4731 containing a black Titan container from the ship Saint Morales. The report had assumed that the three men were stealing the container, but it was obviously reported by someone who wasn't informed that these three men were hired to transfer the container to the South Docks next week, and that the police has already seen signs of connection between the container and the three men, as they were also seen when the container was extracted from one of the outbound trains around two weeks ago, or at the North Docks, where multiple dockingboys remember seeing a strange pickup truck towing a black Titan container along.

The whole reason Roy was dubious of the entire situation was because he knew Xavier Tiago. A few years back, when Roy was still a junior officer, he was in on a close encounter with Xavier, resulting in Xavier getting a bullet through his shoulder. After that incident, Xavier had gone into hiding. Until now.

As security cameras and systems were only proposals by inventors, the Oakton security system involved having several men and women stationed at different locations in the city, mostly in the Vulture's Nest, that reported back whenever possible. And one of Roy's units had just seen the three men.

But Roy himself was still a little doubtful.

He turned to his retreating messenger and called. The messenger turned back expectantly.

"Who wrote this?" Roy asked him, tapping on the piece of paper.

"Clara, sir," the messenger replied, indicating one of the most skilled typists there were in the entire country of Swixom, as she could type about seventy words a minute on a typewriter.

"And who reported it?"

The messenger thought for a moment. "Caruso and Pike, sir."

"Thank you. Go on now," Roy said, waving him off.

As the messenger left, Roy looked outside his window. The city's police department headquarters was located near the Crisscross, the city's central hub for trains, and, as one of the tallest buildings in the city, it allowed a good view of everything. "Somewhere out there, those three men are causing trouble," Roy muttered to himself. He turned and headed out of his office.

The main room of the police department headquarters, the control room, was a very lively place. Messengers were rushing around, carrying papers and helping everyone. Typists were tapping furiously away at their typewriters, at a fast pace but not so that they would type mistakes. Phones rang throughout the room, every few seconds or so. Some of them saw Roy enter the room and they saluted, but most were so busy that they didn't even look up. At the center of it all was the lead typist: Clara Rykell.

She was very noticeable, as her seat was slightly up off the normal height of the ground via a large, thick layer of flooring above it. Also, she was quite young. Even though someone her age would handle things differently, Clara was certainly very professional. She was currently directing a team of typists to the right, saying something along the lines of: "Those damn robbers will be off to Estavo by the time you lazy butts get your fingers moving!"

Roy approached her and tapped his fingers on her shoulder. Clara jumped, then turned to see who it was. "Oh, hello there, sir. Didn't see ya comin'. Top of the mornin' to ya," she said in a very thick Swixom accent. "Can I help ya, or are ya just here to see how I'm doin'?"

Roy nodded hello to her as well, but he didn't have much time if his suspicions turned out to be incorrect. "Clara, come into my office. I've got urgent matters that need discussing."

Clara shrugged and followed the head of police as he went back inside his office. She closed the door behind her as they entered and sat down on the plush sofa to the side of the room, looking at Roy expectantly. "What is it, sir?"

Roy waved the report in the air. "Is this exactly what Caruso and Pike said?"

Clara squinted at the report she wrote. As many of the typists in the police department had an almost never-ending torrent of papers to write, almost nobody could remember a single file they'd written.

Almost.

"Well, I'd like to say I copied Pike's sentence word for word, but even I couldn't have done that, ya know? But yes, it was almost exactly what he said. Why?" Clara said, slouching comfortably against the couch.

Roy frowned. "Well, someone capable of extracting a container from a moving train would obviously try to hide themselves when moving it, right? So again, are you sure that's what Pike said? Or did you sense any uncertainty in his voice when he called back?"

Clara thought back to the phone call Pike and his partner, Caruso, had made that morning. "Yes, I'm sure that's what Pike said. But I also have another reason, sir. Would you care to hear it?"

Roy nodded for her to go ahead, and Clara stated her reasoning. "Well, sir, remember the murder of Jaxon Moorings and Rake Moorings the day after someone told us about the whole business of this container stuff? Would you think it was possible that Xavier killed him? I mean, I know I'm not an intelligence agent or even an officer, but I feel like Jaxon himself tipped us off about Xavier and his buddies. After all, the identity of our mysterious informer was unknown, right? And so the next day, Xavier got revenge and killed Jaxon and his son, Rake. A perfect crime story, ain't it?"

Roy shook his head. "That can't be right. Witnesses said that the man that killed Jaxon had a tattoo along his right forearm. Xavier is Estavian, and you know Estavians don't do tattoos. It's a part of their religion."

Clara nodded thoughtfully. "Another question. Pike never bothered to explain it to me, but I gotta ask, what's the deal with the container? All I know is that it's black and has bullet holes in the outer shell."

"The way I see it, I think it might be a government container. You know they're thinking about making everything color-coded? Black is the color of the Swixom government. Anyway, I think it might have something government-related inside, and from the reports two weeks ago, the container was originally heading for the South Docks, and would've been transported to Kumla as a part of a peace treaty with their king." Roy knew he was talking about some serious things, as just a few years ago, a disagreement had broken out between the President Heming of Swixom and the Kumlari King Awehi, resulting in open naval warfare in the Thinline Sea. But when President Heming was impeached for classified purposes, a new president by the name of Cade was elected, and he had immediately arranged for a treaty. The start of the treaty involved a series of containers bearing weapons and money that would've been delivered to the Kumlari king in a set of ten. Many government officials were still trying to settle things down, as King Awehi was enraged to see that there were only nine.

Clara tilted her head. "Wait a minute, sir, did ya just say a government container? Why the hell would a few criminals like Xavier want with a government container?"
"Because there's money. Tons of it. They'll obviously keep it for themselves, and considering how fast our industry is increasing, there'll probably be a few blueprints in there for the Kumlari to build their own guns. But do you know how much money one blueprint would be worth on the black market? You know how many auction houses are in the Vulture's Nest? A man like Xavier would take defnitely take that chance."

Clara nodded understandingly. "So you're sure that this container is a government one?"

Roy shrugged. "I don't know. But chances are, it is." He stood up. "Whatever's happening, we have to stop them. Sometimes, I feel like we should use security cameras. People can be so unreliable sometimes."

Knowing that Roy was only talking about Pike and Caruso, Clara nodded again. "Yeah, that's definitely-"

Suddenly, Clara was cut off by the door opening wide open. A young man with wide eyes was panting fast and he started blabbering off right in front of Clara. Roy held up a hand, then the young man caught his breath and started again.

"Sir! I'm Agent Osman, sir! My unit just spotted the three men making the turn on Highway 3 to turn into Highway 9! I think they're heading for Tunnel 6, sir!"

And that was all Roy needed to hear.