Cop Craft – Dragnet Mirage Reloaded

"Translator: ClefRunner"

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The crash site of the smugglers was right in the middle of the wetlands, so they were not able to simply rush in by car, and getting a helicopter would take several hours.

And on top of that, the stupid county officers had not prepared any boats or hovercraft, so their only choice was walking about two kilometers to the spot.

It was a two kilometer walk with water and mud up to their thighs, while pushing through a thick jungle of seaweed that would get tangled in their legs, without ever knowing where they would step next.

Back when Matoba was in the army, they would have them walk through tens of kilometers of wetlands for their training. However, they would be wearing military uniforms and jungle boots. But this time, the clothes getting dirty and drenched in mud were his Versace suit and his Ferragamo shoes. And everytime he took a step, an unpleasant and slippery feeling would strike his ankles.

The entire team of officers started cursing after no more than ten feet since stepping off shore. Even Matoba ended up blurting out insults left and right. And after he ran out of curse words, he started throwing out foul language in Japanese. The others were similarly insulting and speaking ill of each other in their own native languages.

Tilarna remained silent as she stood near the very end of the group. Her beautiful white Farbanian dress was also in a lamentable state, and since her body was not particularly tall, she was covered in mud up to her waist. But she did not feel like she had any right to complain. She could imagine that if she mustered up the courage to do it, then she would undoubtedly be showered by insults.

Just as she was being taught the term “чёрт возьми”¹ by Russian born officer Godonov, they arrived at the crash site after almost forty minutes had passed.

「Back us up from there. Tilarna and I will go around it from the right.」

It would be better if I shut up.

Matoba pulled out his gun, and got closer to the crashed aircraft.

Unexpectedly, the plane’s body was much less wrecked than he imagined. Its wing was broken, and the body itself was leaning to its side, but that was the extent of the visible damage, and there was no fire or smoke coming out of it. The engine was already dead, and if anything, there was an ominous silence upon the entire scene.

「Are they dead yet?」

Tilarna whispered right from his back

「Don’t say it like it’s none of your business. You’re the one who took it down.」 「…」

Matoba readied his beloved automatic, and started surrounding the wreck from its right side. He was not able to see clearly with the sun as a backlight. It was unlikely that he would be able to go unnoticed, as he had to make his way through the swamp.

「It’s the police! Is there anybody inside the aircraft?!」

There was no answer. Matoba tried calling out to them, but there was no reaction whatsoever. There was nothing they could do if going all the way there had been a waste. He made up his mind and got closer to the plane. Tilarna was following him closely from his right back side. She positioned herself so that if anything happened, like Matoba being shot by somebody still inside the aircraft, she could cut them up instantly.

It was not something they had discussed at any point in time, but lately they had just been doing it naturally. Sometimes depending on the situation, she would position herself on his left. Talking about even their breaths being in sync wasn’t out of the question, but she wouldn’t compliment him on it, since it was a bother.

He signaled her to “let’s go” with his gaze. Tilarna nodded subtly.

He peeked inside the plane through the open door. His finger on the trigger ready to shoot at any time.

「…Shit」

There was nobody inside the plane. A headset was hanging from its cable inside the toppled aircraft, probably removed and thrown away by somebody.

「It’s because it took us so long to get here. They ran away…」

Said Tilarna almost sighing

「Don’t lower your guard. We don’t know if they’re hiding somewhere around here. And even if they ran away, they can’t be too far. We can still catch them if we block all the roads in the area.」

Matoba pulled out the radio. He informed his allies waiting back on the runway about the situation, and requested support from the county officers. He instructed Gonodov and Tony, who always worked together as a set, to search for the suspects.

「A search? That’s fine, but do we have to keep walking in this swamp?」 「We can’t do anything once it gets dark. Hurry.」 「Understood, understood…」

He didn’t waste any time waiting for Godonov to leave, and instead headed straight to investigate the plane’s cargo hold.

There were three square wooden crates of about a meter in size. They weren’t particularly heavy, but they were way too bulky to carry around while running away in a swamp. Perhaps the smugglers decided to ditch the boxes and run away instead.

He opened the boxes.

They were filled with nothing but trash. Semanian fabrics and porcelain, carpenter tools and cooking utensils. They were certainly unusual items, but it all seemed like nothing more than souvenirs aimed at tourists who visited San Teresa.

「These are the smuggled goods?」

Said Tilarna looking disappointed

「In that case they really are absolute idiots. The sum of all this junk is probably cheaper than my Versace shoes.」

Complained Matoba while wiping the mud off his ruined suit.

「No, wait.」

Tilarna started sniffing the boxes

「What?」 「It Braniis².」

Fortunately fellow detective Tony McBee had made the preparations to get a hover, so they managed to get back without walking all the way there. But even then there was nothing to do about Matoba’s muddy suit.

Goldonov’s search ended up yielding no results, and the crew that had been piloting that aircraft was not found. The blockade put in place by the country officers did not manage to catch anything either. The search carried out by the CBP (Customs and Border Protection) and their helicopters, which arrived late, found nothing.

Thinking about it logically, the suspects from inside the plane managing to avoid all of the searches and blockades in such an underpopulated area was a highly unlikely scenario, yet they didn’t find them.

~o~O~o~

「This helicopter is equipped with infrared sensors, so if you weren’t able to find them, it’s probably because you killed them.」

Said a CBP officer that had been dispatched to the scene.

Matoba and the others finally returned to the Lancelos landing strip, not to take a shower or change clothes, but to thoroughly discuss their plans while sipping on a cup of coffee with a face straight out of an economic crisis.

「And you are…?」

Said Matoba in an extremely annoyed tone

「Forgive me, I’m officer Hernandez from the CBP. A pleasure.」

That Hernandez officer offered his refined hand to Matoba, seeking a handshake. He was a little over forty years old, and he seemed to be the bureaucratic type. He was a Caribbean Hispanic sporting a fitting hairstyle for his well maintained three piece suit, and he was wearing some extremely plain and uninteresting glasses. He looked like the kind of guy that wasn’t popular with girls, but at least had the ability to do a fine job with numbers.

Matoba acknowledged his existence by shaking his outstretched hand.

「I’m Kei Matoba from the STPD (San Teresa Police Department) and I would’ve liked it if you had come here a little sooner.」

Officer Hernandez didn’t even flinch despite the mean tone of Matoba’s voice.

「We’re short on personnel as well.」

The Police Department wasn’t the only entity in charge of public order matters in Caliena Island. The United States government also had considerable control over the situation, crowding the island with law enforcement institutions. The FBI, the DEA, the ATF and so on. The CBA Hernandez belonged to was also one of them.

Matoba, who was born in Japan, found the circumstances bizarre. Looking at it, Japan’s Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, etc, all had their own investigation departments, and they could target criminals however they pleased. On top of that, each had the power to carry undercover and secret investigations however they pleased. The big shots were supposed to support each other’s respective institutions, but in reality it wasn’t always so smooth.

Territorial disputes were pretty terrible, and all of the annoying work was ten times worse.

Matoba remembered the time he became a San Teresa police officer. He was currently working as a detective, but there was a time when he had to wear a uniform and go around the city in a patrol car.

One winter night, while patrolling around, he saw a dead homeless man at an intersection. He had been drinking from a bottle of Bourbon he had gotten his hands on non stop, and fell on the floor, freezing to death after a while. Matoba felt sorry for him, but carrying out all of the paperwork related to the body’s transport, the report accounting for his time of death, and all other sorts of documents, was tedious.

Ultimately he conspired with his partner to move the body only five yards to the west. It seemed like only five yards, but in reality by doing so, the body would be in another district’s territory according to the map.

Then two hours after reporting “nothing unusual” through the radio, they came back to the spot and saw that the body they had certainly moved five yards to the west, was now back on its original place. No matter what, it was obvious that the guys from the other district had done exactly the same thing.

His partner back then strongly supported the idea of moving it back, but ultimately Matoba felt ashamed and reported the body to HQ. Thanks to that he arrived home five hours later, and ended up souring the relationship with his partner to the point of cutting all ties.

Anyways, back to Officer Hernandez.

Hernandez wanted to have this specific case turned over to the CBP. The location of the incident was out of the STPD’s jurisdiction, so normally they would do it like that. However, this time, the crew that had walked through an entire swamp and gotten involved in the case were not simply going to quietly accept that.

「We can’t just hand it over right away. The suspects that fled are still on the run.」 「We will continue with that search. Hand over the confiscated items, and please send over a report by tomorrow.」 「So you’re saying we’re being dismissed?」 「That’s right.」

He didn’t like Hernandez’s attitude. It wasn’t particularly overbearing or overly polite, but his matter-of-factly way of speaking implied that he thought it all was obvious. It wasn’t as if he was looking to receive words of gratitude, but everything that concerned his requests was extremely annoying to Matoba.

「I can’t allow that. Only until we catch the fugitive suspects and write a report on it. We still haven’t even made the list of confiscated items.」 「So you’re refusing to carry out the CBP’s demands?」 「No. That’s not what I said.」

Said Matoba, standing up wearily. With his slow paced gesture, he gazed up and took a peek of Hernandez’s eyes.

「I never said anything like that.」

He repeated, and then saw only the very slightest display of anger show up on Hernandez’s face. On the other hand, Matoba displayed a fake, wide smile, and in an overly familiar gesture, placed his hand on Hernandez’s shoulder. His hand was drenched in mud.

「Well, this kind of thing does take a while. We want to do the hand over properly, so just wait a little, okay?」 「That will officially be considered a refusal.」 「Oh really? Then go ahead.」

Hernandez left while wiping the mud off his shoulder.

Even though they still had some spare cars available, they actually got on one of the CBP’s helicopters. The roar of the Turboshaft Engine enveloped them and raised a cloud of dust around them. Even when leaving they could not escape the feeling of dirt in that place.

「Ahem… Kei, do you have a moment?」

Said Tilarna, who had just been quietly watching the previous exchange.

「Sure. What’s up?」 「That man’s CBP is an institution above San Teresa’s Police Department, right? Turning against them is going to eventually become a problem.」 「It’s not like they’re our bosses. We can always refuse as long as we have a valid reason.」 「Oh, I see.」 「Well… Normally we would obediently carry out the hand over. But this time, for some reason… I don’t know…」

Said Matoba, hesitantly

「Did he bother you?」 「Well, yeah, that too, but that’s not all. In any case, I held it over.」

Of course, he had no intention to mess up the relations between the two institutions just based on that. However, a voice inside his head kept telling him to “just wait a little longer”. It was his intuition as always. But saying that to other people would be embarrassing, and it didn’t suit him in the first place.

In any case, he needed to take a closer look at the situation and find out what exactly made him do it, at least in case he got yelled at by his boss. Saying that he got annoyed after walking through the entire swamp was not a real reason.

「Besides, even our trusty K9 noticed it as well.」

Tilarna fixed her face up and pouted

「Are you talking about the Branii I noticed?」 「Yeah.」 「You—」

Matoba extended the palm of his hand in front of her and stopped Tilarna from protesting

「Anyways, I at least managed to get us one more night, and I want to have the confiscated items inspected. Can you do that?」 「…」

Tilarna Exedilika nodded reluctantly.

~o~O~o~

Several different nations can be found on the Semani world that lies beyond Mirage Gate, the interdimensional portal. Tilarna herself was a Valsch³ from the Great Farbani Kingdom. In terms of Dorini police officials, a Valsch would be of equal status to a sergeant, so she was far from a novice. Her rank was of equal legal status as Kei Matoba’s.

The term “Knight” in that context leads to misunderstandings regularly. It is a word that demonstrates certain social status within Semani society, so not all “knights” are necessarily fighting swordsmen. In Tilarna’s case, not only was she a sword wielding knight, but also a Mildite.

Mildite are also a part of the Semani world. They were completely inconceivable in Earth’s native human population, as a group of people whose powers were completely different from that of civilized science. And Tilarna had the ability to sense that magical energy. On top of that she was also capable of using different kinds of magic.

Tilarna also had a particularly useful skill. She excelled at smelling and detecting magical items that came from the Semani world. Tilarna and all other Semanians called that Branii.

It was a feeling incomprehensible to most, if not all, Dorinis. However Tilarna, the only Semanian working with the San Teresa Police Department, knew how it felt. Matoba had started calling her “the K9 of the department” as small and irrelevant banter.

1. Pronounced “chert voz’mi”, it means something close to “What the fuck” or “Holy shit” in Russian.
2. Branii means to smell; in this context, "It stinks."
3. Vice-Knight.