Stalked – Part 3

As the breeze passed the roaring waters the comfort that it gave to those relaxing out here was good, but this wasn’t the time for comfort as I walk over to the man I could easily spot the cold suffering look on his face. He was huddled in a towel and shivering, and that meant if I wanted information, I would have to really relax him and get him into a better sense of security.

“Who A-re yo-u?” he stuttered a bit while trying to talk.

“Im a detective and I’m here to help, how did this happen?” I asked.
“Its a long stor-y” he said.

“That’s what I’m here for, so what happened here?” I asked.

After a few minutes he started to gather himself “I was at the far right side of the deck when it happened and it was almost empty except for a few people, and I didn’t get the order from the captain that all passengers must evacuate” he said.

“What? There was no order from the captain, and did you ask anyone else that got the order?” I asked.

“No” he replied with a strange bluntness to his tone.

After rounding up some people I did get most answers of “yes” “there was an order?” or “the captain doesn’t give out orders or even warnings unless its dire,” After a few more minutes, I knew that this ‘Order’ was to get the passengers off the deck for whatever reason. Later I found out that the man was pushed off the deck when he fell off but the gender, face or clothing was unidentified but now I do know that there’s something going on but still too strange, we would be in Finland by tomorrow morning and they took the time to send out a fake order to the passenger’s and throw someone overboard? It didn’t add up, but I knew if I were to be attacked by just one person I could take them. A few years before my detective career, I studied and trained in many things programming, an array of martial arts, writing and even chess, I still didn’t know what i wanted to do with my life, until one day i walked past a crime scene, it was a murder by a group of gang members, the police said that they knew the gang but have no idea who the leader was, but I was willing to help. In all my years, I had always seen numerous and despicable crimes occur throughout my life, no matter where I was. But I had never been one to get involved. I decided that I might as well try helping out with the case. And surprisingly, I did good. People have mentioned me for having an eye for detail. That has never helped me more. Not to mention that I can usually deduct the right place to look. It took me weeks to figure out the case completely, discovering not just there was a mole in the police system but there were multiple moles. After I identified them, they were interrogated and it was extremely easy to get the truth. We had to use the lie detector and a few methods to mess with them psychologically.

After that, it became easy but hard work. Just find clues and it would always lead you to the problem. Through my efforts, I didn’t just solve the case, I didn’t completely tore apart an entire gang, full of chaos. No body knew what to do, now that their leader was captured. Not to mention a good amount of sabotage to their plans. And all of my experience in different interests I had pursued. I was even ambushed and my martial arts training like Taekwando, Karate, and kickboxing helped me. All I had to do was to keep up and tire them out. After the case was finished, I was asked to do more because I solved that case with flying colors. I was getting paid well to do it too. I could make a living off it. And day after day passed, it just turned into my life. After a few cases, I was put on this case. In a mission extremely strange and extremely unnatural with the disappearance of an entire family.

And now, here I am. Its been quite a strange day. I had done some research but nothing really added up. Although I couldn’t find out why exactly everybody was cleared out, I knew that I had seen strange occurrences, signs I hadn’t seen before in completely different languages. I could have sworn there was a missing life saver. And I knew that there were more clue to discover, but I was exhausted and jet-lagged. I needed to close my eyes for a bit. But got out to the deck and searched around for clues. And clues I did find. I found a marker that someone could have dropped. And a note right next to it. I checked it and it had a few strings of code. It wasn’t too difficult to decode. It was obvious that someone made a legitimate effort to keep a secret.

J5JEIRKSKM5FIRKMJQ5FAQKTKNCU4R2FKJJTUVCPHJGEKQKWIU5EIRKDJMUCSU2FKQ5FKUB2IJKUOUZIFFKVGRJ2KBJE6USUIFLECTBIFE

It seemed to be in BASE 32. After decoding, I ended up with

ORDERS:TELL:PASSENGERS:TO:LEAVE:DECK()SET:UP:BUGS()USE:PRORTAVAL()

The sun was coming out. And we were pulling into Helsinki Harbor. It was only a matter of time before my next area of investigation, the Snake Eaters.