Tamara - The Case Of The (corrupted) Suits (2)

(Damn! Where Is The Zipper? - Movimento 3)

Part 2

Now night hovered over the city, and with it the cold began to creep in. Tamara saw the dock workers standing next to old oil barrels, which served as makeshift stoves, while they were drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette, while heartily cursing the new smoking restrictions inside the facility.

Carefully she drove her car through the cobbled streets of the warehouse area. Averting heavy machinery, workers and trucks, apart from boxes and containers left on either side of the road. She remembered where the place, she was looking for, was, but the night confused her a little. It took her a few of laps to find the exact spot.

From her car, with the engine running and the headlights illuminating the old facade, she looked at an old building that once had been the headquarters of an international logistics company. Tamara grabbed the steering wheel tightly, her right leg bubbled up and down due to nerves. “What the hell am I doing here all alone?“ she asked herself every three minutes. The idea of going into that place sealed by her own agency had seemed better then, than it did now. She didn’t know what she expected to find, physical evidence didn’t figure, the forensic and clean-up teams had searched the premises, so there shouldn’t be a speck of dust left to be analyzed.

"What the hell!" she said suddenly ,"I need to know what happened."

She opened the door of her vehicle and noticed the cold air, coming in mercilessly. It made her feel her age and made her back stiff, a leftover from the past. Her feet, as if she were an aristocratic woman, came out first. She then got up from the seat, helped herself with one hand resting on the side frame of the window to stand up. Her gaze first went round, eyeing everything around her, docks, warehouses, containers, parked trucks and finally she stopped on the patrol car that was coming. From there came a port agent, who, with one hand clung to the hilt of his gun and the other raised, held a flashlight that emitted a strong beam of light.

"STOP!" shouted the agent, "It is forbidden to approach the building!!"

With a reflex, she raised an arm and slowly put a hand into her blazer, so that the agent could see that her intention was to identify herself. She took out a wallet, which she held up and in the same move let the wallet fall open, showing her badge and ID card for identification. The officer initially only focused her on her face, ignoring her badge.

"I’m an agent of the FMT, of the Ministry of the Purge!" Tamara said.

The spotlight just moved from her face to the plate she was showing and returned to her face. The officer took a few seconds to analyze the situation. . .

"Excuse me Madam, I recognize you now! It’s the. . . that paranormal behavior analyst, isn’t it?" the officer stammered

After the classic exchange of professional comments, three apologies and several questions that Tamara could only answer with the classic manual phrase “Sorry, that’s confidential”, the officer retired back to his vehicle. Tamara followed him with her eyes, waiting for him to leave, and thanked the fates that the officer had not taken much time. Tamara was beginning to feel the cold dampness of the harbour on her bones.

She then remembered the taser that she kept in the glovebox of her car. Reaching back into the vehicle, she grabbed it together with a heavy duty flashlight. It always paid to be careful, especially in a place like this. Being prepared was everything. She desperately wished for a real gun.

With the flashlight in one hand and the taser in the other, she nervously entered the old building. To the naked eye, it was an old and abandoned building like any other, the walls cracked from the humidity of the air, stains of moisture here and there. A dark grey, damp layer of dust on the floor that showed the traces of the footprints from before. The broken windows let the air through, the howling of the wind made the building look and feel even more sinister. . .

"Cursed be Sam!" she cursed again, blaming her partner for her own bad idea, "Why couldn’t it be more. . . ?"

When she found the door she was looking for, it stood before her defiantly. Unlike the rest of the building’s construction, which used simple doors, made of thin panels, this Gothic-shaped door was made of real wood, solid oak. Decorated with engravings that seemed to be of Germanic origin and symbols that resembled runes, the door rose seemingly defiant of the deterioration of the rest of the building.

Tamara broke the seals and warning signs that said, this place was being investigated by the FMT, so KEEP OUT! Then she tried to open the door, but it resisted her. She needed all her strength to move the door. Not only because it was old and thick, but because the dampness had also caused the wood to widen and get stuck in the frame. But her perseverance and experience defeated it on the fourth attempt, although she had to keep shoving with all her weight until she could open the door wide enough to get in.

to be continued. . .