Crime fiction Friday (The Promised Land Part 2)

That’s  right–on Fridays I’ll feature crime FICTION written by Yours Truly or  by other guests, but inspired by true events. In this case… pleased to  introduce Kaspars the Latvian official/detective–a somewhat jaded ex-cop  just two days on the job who stumbles, literally, into a human  trafficking case against the background never ending spy games on the  border with Russia.

As if it were that simple.

[Note:  This was first published under the title “Corruption Verite” in the  Fractus Europa European crime anthology published by Dunn Books,  although this version has the author’s (as in Yours Truly’s) preferred  ending. For more stories, check out the full anthology, available on  Amazon through Kindle.]

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The Promised Land (Part 2)

Other title: Corruption V

“The detective,” she’d said when they had first met. “I must say I admire your work.”

“My work?”

For what would she know about Operation Taiga? About the follow-up heroin bust and the mafia feelers back in—

“Your decisions under stress.”

Ah.

Those decisions.

Smart decisions, or so she called them.

But getting less smart by the day. Kaspars leaned forward on the wheel, strained his eyes against a mid-morning fog. Forty-minutes out of Riga and he was still running through the incident in his head—how he’d almost come to blows with Captain Nauris and the rest of the Valsts Robežsardze over evidence he’d claimed but didn’t want. British passports. Pistols. Estonian stock certificates. In a human trafficking case.

Why the hell would you smuggle Estonian stocks into Latvia?

Then the fight over the evidence. Berzins rightly claiming the evidence for the border guard, and Kaspars rightly threatening to call in the secret service. Then Olzos, shoving the old newspaper in his face, reading the name of the bank out loud and mocking Kaspars that he’d gotten a promotion out of it.

Kid stuff. Bullshit jurisdiction squabble that he could handle.

Then the last passport, which is when things got weird.

“Take it,” they’d said.

“Take it? What do you mean take it?”

“Just look at it? Is that a Vietnamese or what?”

Which is when his jaw had dropped at the likeness.

His likeness.

His exact likeness.

Which is when—back in the car now—Kaspars had eased on the brakes, careful not to slide.

Kuces dcis. Kaspars glanced forward and back, ignoring the rear view mirror and jerking back over his shoulder to tap the brakes on and off and warn the driver behind. All he needed now was to wreck a government vehicle.

The SUV ahead slowed to a crawl before Kaspars saw the markers and the police. Dead moose on the highway, and a three-car pileup that said he’d gotten his own.

Kaspars saw a wrecked Mercedes, then another SUV and a completely destroyed Skoda off in the ditch. The police waved him past but he saw the body, the carnage, how the driver had come through the windshield and then the moose itself, huge, legs broken and splayed but otherwise seemingly asleep. Some great prehistoric thing that had wandered blind into the modern world.

Nearsighted. Prehistoric. Blindsided.

And down goes everyone.

Kaspars could relate.

And he might as well have been the moose, stumbling exhausted and confused into Krista’s office at exactly eleven twenty-three. Which was no less than fifty-three minutes late.

“A good morning to you,” said Krista.

She was sitting at her desk, which was itself angled just enough to reveal a long, black pencil skirt, heels and a white blouse complete with long sleeves and an all-frills neck up under her chin.. A modern girl dressing in the fashion of yesteryear’s commies. Kaspars turned to the hat rack, attempted to doff his overcoat, thought better of it (how to explain the muddied knees?) and turned back to a perked brow and blazing green eyes. The air rushed out of his gut. Kaspars wiped his unshaven chin and again considered the moose, but before he could speak or even begin to explain himself, Krista quite prettily lay her chin to rest on criss-crossed fingers.

“He was expecting you earlier,” she said,

“I was delayed.”

“The border is like that.”

“I don’t know why I was even out there.”

Krista sniffed. For some decimal point of a second she clearly did not like what she’d heard. Then the wide smile, teeth as blinding as her eyes.

Kaspars melted despite himself, grinning back and hating himself for it.

And Krista handed him a manila envelope and said: “I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough.”

“What’s this?”

“Your tasks for the day, my friend.”

“Tasks? I’ve been up since two.”

“That’s when I like to go out.”

[...]