NaNoWriMo 2012

Sargent Ronald Unger had faced many spine tingling events in his twenty-five years of police duty. He had faced robbers who been determined to have their last bullet keep them from jail. He had talked people off bridges. He had taken a crying baby out of a kidnapper’s arms. He had also rescued a child from a swollen river that would have drowned that child for sure.
He was an officer who always read the updates for information for the day. His supervisor loved the fact that this officer had his reports done and handed in as soon as possible. The only problem with this man was that he expected a kind of perfection out of others that he demanded of himself. He would not yell at others, but his hints bordered on preaching. The younger policemen saw this as overkill while the older policemen who knew him well, saw this as words of wisdom.
The younger policeman Wally Haig had seen that the traffic was moving nicely. He saw Mr. Costo’s car leave. Since Sargent Unger had control of the rest of the situation, Officer Haig told Sargent Unger that he would go to the hospital of the younger driver to get more information and follow the young man’s condition.
Sargent Unger thanked his sixth sense for some of the decisions he made. He often told his friends that something “just didn’t feel right.” When he went to the delivery truck to check its list of address and packages, he wanted to make sure that any super flammable or explosive container had been delivered. He had checked these trucks before because sometimes people tried to get illegal contents to slip through the mail system’s checking system. As one crook said to him “The best way to get something past the law was to mail it right under their noses.” Not many crooks succeeded but even one package was one too many.
The list of addresses for the deliveries was on a clip board that was not burned. It was a long one. Sargent Unger read the names fairly quickly. His eyes stopped at the name of a company that did research on CBW or chemical or biological weapons. His mind returned back to the old days when he was in Vietnam as a military policeman. The United States was helped by scientists who came to this country to live. The term Agent Orange was justified as a chemical that was a defoliant used to kill plants. Further research seemed to conclude that there was a harmful side effect that contaminated many young American men.
Sargent Unger saw that the day and time of the delivery to the Clark R and D Company was before the time of the accident. Usually the driver of the vehicle delivered any item and scanned a bar code in a hand held device to keep a record of that delivery. For very special items, a signature was required.
The item here was used for riot control. Anything that had the capacity to render a person unable to protect himself would be handy for law enforcement. But if that item, was used by the wrong person, then the victims were important for some other reason.
The best thing to do in Sargent Unger’s mind was to find the hand held device and check the delivered list. Just as he was tracing the highway area the second tow truck began to hook up the delivery truck. The driver of this truck was a young man that had both arms covered with many tattoos. He had thin blond hair and a sunburned looking face.
“Hey, wait a minute!” Sargent Unger yelled.
The tow truck driver stopped the delivery truck from rising.
“Yea, wadda ya want?”

“I’m trying to find something. You have to wait.” He answered back.
“Officer, I just called the place and they want their truck now.” He began to raise the delivery truck again.
“Well let me check the cab part of the truck. I need the scanner to check something.” Unger started walking quickly towards the tow truck man.
“Just hurry. I hear that there is another accident and in that area and if I can make it there, I can get another job.” The man stepped aside to let the policeman look inside the delivery truck.
“Hey man, can you put the truck down. I might have to crawl inside it.”
The tow truck man slowly lowered the delivery truck and put his hands on his hips. “I hope you find it fast.”
Officer Unger looked all around the front area of the delivery truck. He glanced towards the back of the truck. His eyes lighted on the hand held scanner. He carefully walked to the back. Many of the other undelivered boxes were thrown around. A few looked like the contents had leaked through the box. He saw where it was thrown and picked it up. The glass part was cracked. He tried to find an on and off switch. The scanner seemed broken. He would have to take the scanner to the headquarters to let an expert check it out. Maybe there was a chip inside with the information saved on it.
He jumped out and gave the tow truck driver the okay to continue his work. As he headed towards his patrol car, he noticed that the third car was already lifted and on its way to its destination.
After about an hour, the area was cleared and Officer Unger prepared to leave. He put the scanner in an evidence plastic bag and placed it on the seat of his car. The police station was a short distance and he knew that his report would take some time to fill out. Paper work was not the favorite part of his job, but then reports were helpful to others. He just wished that he could find someone who could get the information he needed from the scanner.