Fourth Vector Ch. 33

"This is hopeless," said Santino after the last rejection. "No one remembers seeing them leave nor did they see any signs of them being moved out by someone else. I can see why." He pointed up toward the second floor. "All of their things are still up there! It's like they've vanished!"

While Jack would never admit it to Santino, the trail was becoming increasingly harder to follow. The strangest part of the whole ordeal was that they left most of their things inside the apartment. Who would have left so quickly as to not pack up? To Jack, it suggested foul play.

"Come on, show me this apartment," said Jack. "I assume you have the key, right?"

Santino nodded and led him to the narrow first floor entrance to the building. They walked up a flight of stairs and stopped on the second floor, where there was only one residence. Jack looked over the door to see if there were any signs of violent entry but found nothing to be out of order. Together, both men entered the apartment.

It was like walking into someone else's apartment without their permission. The living quarters were full of Santino's family's belongings. Jack spotted a jacket that had been hanging over one of the chairs like it had just been set there moments before. More alarmingly, he saw a box of noodles opened on the kitchen counter like it was about to be dumped into a pot. The kitchen was full of many similar sights.

One thing became certain after viewing the apartment--Santino's family either left in a hurry due to a threat or they were taken away.

Unfortunately, Santino could read the alarm on Jack's face before he had a chance to disguise it.

"What are you thinking, Jack?"

Jack let out a deep breath. "Nothing good. This doesn't look good at all." He hesitated on saying what he felt, which was that it looked just awful. He didn't want Santino to panic any more than he was already panicking.

It was too late. Santino was already at that point.

Jack looked over and saw tears in the man's eyes. Santino put his head against the wall, looking like a defeated man.

"Who could have done this?" he muttered under his breath. "Why? Is this the price I have to pay for power? Have I finally wronged someone who could take revenge against me in this most cruel way?"

"Those thoughts won't do you any good," said Jack in a quiet tone. "Don't dwell on those thoughts that will only give you pain. We can't afford to give up hope just yet."

"Hope is the last thing I have at this point, Jack."

With those words, Santino turned for the main door. His shoulders were slumped and his gait was slow. He was entirely beaten in spirit.

"Where are you going?" called Jack.

"Back to the lodging," he answered. "I can't be here any longer."

With those words, the Director of Apulia was gone. Jack watched from the window as he set foot on the streets below, walking in the direction of their shared accommodations. With each passing step, he looked more defeated.

Jack didn't blame him. Where was Santino's family? Who took them and why?

Jack didn't stay too long in the apartment by himself. He had a tense feeling being there, like he was intruding on someone's private space. He made for the exit and locked the door behind him, soon emerging on the street not much more than five minutes after Santino.

By this time at night, the sun was gone. The city's streets were dark but still teeming with the after hours crowd. It was a more unsavory crowd than during the day. No more than a block from the apartment, Jack spotted a row of three prostitutes plying their wares to prospective customers. He kept walking, soon passing a watering hole with a lively crowd that was boisterous and full of life.

That's when Jack noticed something that he shouldn't have noticed. Just outside the building, a flash of color got his attention. It was a flash he'd seen before and it made him do a double-take.

A man was walking by in a full coat but the coat was too short for his body. Underneath, a distinct gray cloak was visible.

A distinct gray Swabian cloak.

It was unusual to see for two reasons. There weren't many Swabians in Dobele for one but for two, it was still autumn. The nights were cooler than the day but not cool enough to require two pieces of external clothing to ward off the cold. The man stuck out more than he should have and he caught Jack's attention.

Despite his outlandish appearance, he moved quickly in such a manner that suggested he didn't want to be seen. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his coat. His head was down looking at the street as he moved. Something about his presence made Jack suspicious.

Without any more than a hunch, Jack began to follow the man.

It wasn't hard to keep up with him. Wherever he was going, he wasn't taking too many turns to get there. That or he wasn't concerned with having a tail to make the turns in the first place. His movements were awkward despite the apparent ease of his journey. Frequently, Jack would notice that he stopped at street corners to discern his way before continuing on. More than once, Jack had to press himself against a shadowy corner or doorway to avoid being seen.

The curious part about tailing the Swabian man was that he seemed to be going toward the center of the city. Jack walked up the hills that led closer to the prominent high spot where the People's Palace was located. He almost suspected the Swabian would stop at the palace but he was disappointed when he continued to walk beyond it to a destination that was in a commercial district on the other side.

Jack hadn't been to this part of the city yet. Everywhere he looked, sleek and modern buildings were present, many designed as high-end retailers or set aside as office space. That's when the Swabian finally stopped and entered a six-story office building. Jack halted in his tracks for a moment to let him get inside before carefully approaching the entrance.

His heart was beating rapidly. Something beckoned him closer to the building, making him take careful steps until he read the plaque outside that listed the occupants.

Many of them looked like law firms or other similar work. Nothing stood out until Jack reached the end when a familiar name popped out at him.

OFFICES OF ANTON ROOSA, TRIBUNE OF SAMARA

Jack's eyes narrowed as he read and then reread the title of the combative Tribune. It made sense that the Tribune would have an office outside the People's Palace, especially after his conversation with Hendrick that morning about his own office. But why would a Swabian be going into the offices of Anton Roosa? Jack looked past the plaque to see the door. It was heavy and made of metal, preventing him from seeing inside.

It was at this point that Jack had to figure out what to do. Should he continue inside and see where the Swabian had gone? Or should he just take the information back to Bill and Santino and see what the best course of action was?

The second option was ruled out nearly immediately. His curiosity stoked, Jack made for the door and pulled it open.

Even at this late hour, the lights in the lobby were still on. The door shut behind him with a distinctive clang, drawing a pair of eyes to settle on Jack. Thankfully, they weren't the eyes of the Swabian but rather those of a diminutive office secretary on the other side of the room. She was wearing a pair of oversized glasses and the way her lips were pursed made her look like the very face of incontinence.

"Can I help you?" she asked in an annoyed voice.

Jack walked toward her in a carefree fashion, stopping just beside her desk. He noticed she was tapping a pen against her desk. Jack's lack of an immediate response didn't seem to be helping the situation.

"Yes, I'm here to see the Tribune," said Jack, throwing out the most obvious excuse he could.

Her eyes narrowed. "Name?"

"Jack Easterbrook. I met Tribune Roosa yesterday so he should remember me."

The look of distrust in her eyes never wavered. "Stay here."

She promptly rose from her desk and approached a stairwell not too far away. As she ascended the steps to the second floor, the same floor that Anton's office was noted as being on, she suddenly turned and looked at Jack, almost as if she suspected he would be up to no good. He gave her a friendly smile and a head nod which was enough to persuade her to keep going. On the second floor, he heard the creak of a door but no whispering or sounds of talking whatsoever.

It didn't take long for the secretary to reappear down the stairs. The look on her face was triumphant satisfaction, one that Jack knew would do him no good.

"The Tribune is occupied at the current time," she said in a nasally voice. "You'll have to come back tomorrow."

"I can do that," said Jack. "When is a good time?"

She gave him another annoyed look. "Any time but this one."

Despite his own annoyance, he forced another smile. "I'll keep that in mind. You have a pleasant evening!"

She didn't extend him the same courtesy but Jack was already moving back to the door. He already had a secondary plan in place and it would only work if he could put a little distance between himself and the entrance to the building.

The cool night air greeted his face as he let the door close behind him. Jack jogged to the other side of the street and walked down another half-block until he was able to find a closed business that had a very dark entryway. It was here that he parked himself and looked back at the Tribune's office.

If his suspicions were correct and the Swabian man was inside with the Tribune, then he would have to leave sometime. It was late enough in the evening that he couldn't stay there all night. Jack suspected that at any time, he would reappear at the front entrance and lead him back to where he came from.

His hunch about the Tribune's involvement was only further confirmed by a simple glance at the office building. Despite the lobby, the rest of the floors were all dark, indicating no occupants. The Tribune's floor was the only one with lights on.

If the Swabian was talking to anyone, it was Anton Roosa.

All he would have to do was wait him out.

As it turned out, Jack didn't have to wait long. The sound of the large metal door closing triggered his attention to the front entrance. It was there that he saw his Swabian nemesis emerging no more than a half hour after his arrival. Jack pressed in tight against the doorframe when the Swabian began to come his way.

He almost panicked a moment later when the Swabian crossed the street, on a near collision course with Jack's current spot! Jack sucked in his breath and pressed himself as flat against the door as he could. Even still, one wrong step by the Swabian would send him barreling into Jack. He could only wait as the man stepped closer and then closer still.

Without any fanfare or any acknowledgment of Jack's spot, the Swabian kept walking, passing only a foot from him and continuing on his way. Jack waited several seconds for him to get further away before letting out a sigh of relief.

That was almost too close.

With a tentative glance around the corner, Jack stepped out of the shadows and resumed his tail of the Swabian. This time, it was harder to keep from being seen. There were a lot less people out now, so little that any new person passing by drew attention. Jack did his best to step lightly and keep quiet but he had to dive against another doorframe when the Swabian thought to look behind him as he waited at an intersection.

Again, Jack's luck held. He wasn't spotted and the Swabian soon continued on further into the city. He left the commercial neighborhood and marched past the People's Palace again, coming down the hill on the other side. At least this section of the city was somewhat known to Jack, being the same route they'd taken to the palace yesterday.

The Swabian man kept going until he reached a part of the city that could only be described as an embassy row. On both sides of the street, grand old houses marked the homes of the various delegations of the countries of the West. Jack walked by the Embassy of Carinthia on one side while he saw the Embassy of Kish on the other. He kept walking, following the Swabian until he very predictably stopped in front of the Swabian Embassy.

An uglier house it couldn't have been. The entire building was painted in a gray tone that seemed to perfectly match the man's hidden cloak. There was black trim around the windows and the doorframe, and the windows were closed off, preventing outside observation. A garish-looking plaque outside announced the occupying power, as if one was needed with a house so ugly.

Jack pressed against the fence as he watched the Swabian enter the building and close the door quickly behind him. At that point, any chance of continuing the chase was over. He quite imagined that trying to gain entry into their embassy was quite literally a death sentence. At the very least, he'd find himself right back in Avila's dungeon once more and this time without any prospect of an escape route.

Jack turned around slowly and began the walk back to his accommodations. Along the way, he kept his eyes open for any other suspicious characters but by this point in the night, there weren't many to be seen.

The entire time he walked, one central question kept playing in his mind. What had he witnessed tonight? A Swabian envoy had walked into the offices of Tribune Anton Roosa, stayed for thirty minutes, and then left in the dead of night.

Why?

What possible reason could the two have for meeting in private? Shouldn't all official meetings between foreign delegations be had at the palace? Why was Roosa meeting with him on his own terms?

At that moment, words that Hendrick had told him earlier rang through his head. That Roosa had been taking it upon himself to do things on his own when they were rightly for all three of them. Had the Tribune's power finally reached levels that were too dangerous?

And how were the Swabians involved? Could it be the source of Roosa's hostility to their delegation?

There were too many questions without answers but as Jack arrived back at the lodging and put his head on his pillow, it was all he could do to stop them from drifting through his mind. There was something going on in Dobele and that didn't smell right.

The only question was could he figure it out before the meeting with the Elders?

*****

The morning after Jack's stealthy pursuit of the Swabian envoy, he gathered Bill as well as Ben in the kitchenette of their lodging to discuss what he saw. Despite the early hour, Santino was already out for the day, no doubt still trying to track down the whereabouts of his family. Jack saw him when he left, and it was obvious from the bags under his eyes that sleep remained entirely elusive.

For now though, Jack wanted to get the two other Galicians up to speed about what he saw. He told them the entire story, from seeing the Swabian walking down the street shortly after Santino left to following him home to the Swabian Embassy.

"Well, this is certainly an interesting development," said Bill once Jack was finished speaking. "And it certainly looks like the Swabians are in cahoots with Anton Roosa. But to what degree or what end?"

"That's what I'm still trying to figure out," said Jack. "What could have prompted such a late night meeting so far away from the palace? It only proves Hendrick's words from yesterday correct. Anton has been taking on more tasks on his own. And doing so in the dead of night only makes it that much more suspicious."

"And you know with the Swabians involved, this has to be something nefarious," added Ben, who was up until now the more quiet partner in the conversation. "This most likely isn't something as simple as a trade agreement or something like that. No, my money is that this is connected to the wider war."

"I agree fully with you, Ben," said Jack. "But we have two problems to solve first. We need to know exactly what happened in that room, and if our suspicions are correct, we need to know what to do about it."

Bill leaned forward. "What's the most likely answer here? There is some agreement between Roosa and the Swabians to sabotage the Samaran government. Hendrick said how combative Roosa has been lately. Maybe the Swabians are paying him off. Chaos and disorder in Samara would fit well if they are planning to invade. It would make the whole enterprise easier if they're already fighting each other."

Jack nodded. "That's certainly plausible and I won't put the Swabians beyond spending some gold to get what they want. It's what they did in Andalucia and Sorella, and I agree it could soften Samara up before an invasion. But how do we prove it?"

"What if we just took the whole thing to Hendrick?" asked Bill. "He already suspects Anton and this would give him all the fodder he needs to start digging. He could figure out what the Swabians are doing and we could unravel the whole plot that way?"

Jack mulled the idea over for a few moments before ultimately shaking his head. "I don't think that would work. Don't get me wrong, I think Hendrick would accept what we have to say but we would be on the ship back to Apulia before he even got close to proving our theory. We don't have that much time to waste and it would mean sacrificing tomorrow's meeting with the Elders. We need to move quicker than that."

Bill tilted his head. "It's going to be hard to come up with that kind of evidence in only twenty-four hours though, Jack."

"True," conceded Jack. "But we can work faster than Hendrick can politically. We can work outside the lines of politics. Plus, I would bet that the second Hendrick starts poking around, it would spook Anton or Bram. We might scare away our quarry before we have a chance to start the hunt."

Bill leaned back while looking obstinate. "Do you have another way, Jack? We don't have a lot of options here."

Jack shook his head. "Still thinking."

"Why don't we just do a midnight raid on the Tribune's office?" suggested Ben. "He probably has all the files we need that detail his dealings with the Swabians. We just need access to his office and we can come up with all the evidence we need."

Ultimately, Jack started to shake his head on that idea too. "Too risky. We would be the obvious suspects anyway. We just got into Dobele and someone raids the Tribune's office? They'd be at our door before the sun even rose. And we'd have all the evidence of the raid here. It would destroy any goodwill we've earned by being here and likely sabotage our meeting with the Elders."

Ben strummed his fingers against his jaw. "We could be stealthy along the way. He may not know he's been broken into before it's too late."

"Not with the security that's there," said Jack. "That office building is most likely guarded and watched at all times. They would know someone was there and that would defeat the whole purpose."

"What else can we do then?" asked Bill out loud. "We're already running thin on options and the Elders are never going to believe our theory unless we can offer concrete proof."

That's when Ben came up with an idea that was finally workable.

"Okay, say we don't raid the office," the young officer conceded. "But what if we ambush the courier?"

Both Jack and Bill turned to look at him. "You want to ambush the Swabian?"

Ben grinned and nodded. "I do. Let's think about this. If he makes another trip to Roosa's office, more than likely he's going to be bringing something to him. If Roosa is doing the Swabian's bidding, he's going to want something. Payment if you will. So this Swabian probably is carrying something on him when he goes to see Roosa. If we can ambush him and capture what he's carrying, we may get all the proof that we need."