Captives

Before she followed Rahim and Zara in pursuit of Angela Morgenstern and her kidnapper, Tanja decided to see how those of her helpers were doing, who had captured the other four kidnappers earlier this night. She walked down the dark spaces between the ruins which were once supposed to be streets. There was a light coming from the ground floor windows of a large hall, so this was where they probably were. Tanja walked up the wide staircase, which was half covered by sand on one side, up to a wide archway. For a minute, she was blinded by the light as she stepped inside from the dark street.

Tanja found herself in a large, high hall, in which a few lights had been put up. The floor was tiled in an intricate, colourful pattern, which was visible in places where the dust was kicked away. A number of high stone columns were positioned around a large round dark hole in the center of the ceiling. At the base of every second column a man in an environmental suit was sitting, bound to said column with a long piece of rope. Next to each of these another person in a suit was standing, guarding their captives. One last person was sitting at the wall to one side, they were obviously injured. Next to them - neatly laid out on the floor – was a collection of weapons. All of them new state-of-the-art FluxTec models, Tanja noted.

She first checked on the injured helper. He had gotten a shot to his knee and the others had to patch his suit with an emergency patching kit. They had also put a dose of painkillers into his suit, but he was still in pain and would need medical attention. Two of the kidnappers had also gotten hurt in the struggle which emerged when they were constrained with the rope. They didn't look like they were in very good shape. Two others were still stunned from a shot and rather limp.

Tanja approached the only remaining kidnapper who seemed to be of any use. Just like the others, he was wearing a completely new environmental suit that didn't look cheap. In contrast to this, Rahim's and Zara's people all had older models which were patched up in places and had some mis-matched parts.

She crouched down to him and said, 'Congratulations, seems like you are the winner here. The only person who is still able to talk. This means you are the first to get a chance to tell me what you know. I am the police, by the way, nice of you to meet me here.'

The man looked up at her, then started to pull on the ropes which bound him to the column. He looked over to where the weapons were lying on the floor.

Tanja noticed this and laughed,'Forget it, you won't get any of these back. Nice collection by the way. Where did they come from?'

The man shrugged and answered, 'How should I know? The boss brought them. Really, I don't care. Doesn't seem like we'll get any money now anyway.'

Tanja nodded, 'That's right. So, your boss... that's the man who calls himself Mr Spencer, right?'

He laughed,' Mr Spencer... yeah... right... did you get the smeghead?'

Tanja looked around and asked, 'He isn't here?'

The man shook his head. 'I had the feeling he'd abandon us out here and take all the money for himself. Forsaken place. I shouldn't have signed up for this. But the money seemed too good and I thought, how bad can it be? Ha! That's what you get for not listening to your gut. I really hope you find him.'

'Who was it,' Tanja wanted to know,'Who paid you for this?'

Again, the man shrugged, 'The boss was the only one who had any contact with them. I saw him making calls sometimes, giving status reports and such. Listened in on him a couple of times. He called him... Vincent? No... no, that's not it...'

Tanja frowned and said,'Maybe it was Valentine?'

The man nodded,'That's it! How did you know?!'

Tanja snorted,'Just lucky, I guess.'

Then, Tanja made a call to the night shift at the central police station in Katastropolis. She managed to convince them to send a special shuttle transport in the morning, which would pick up all suspects and safely deliver them to a cell. Furthermore, they would take with them her injured ally and take care that he would get medical attention. Until then, Mr 'Spencer's' associates would have to be guarded.

After making sure that everything had been taken care of, Tanja went back outside into the darkness. She collected her bike from a random street corner and checked on Rahim's last location, which he had sent to her. Then, she sped off to the main road and further to the west. Meanwhile, behind her the moon was rising again, casting its light on the desert and making the shadows even deeper.

Tavaron

26.06.23 Front Page

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