Chapter 2
The cops showed up fast.
Three police cars rolled in from the rest stop entrance, their lights flashing bright.
Two traffic cops got out first, followed by a black SUV with no markings.
The guys who stepped out of the SUV were definitely not your average cops.
They wore black jackets, had an intense, focused gaze, and their waists were bulging—no doubt packing heat.
The leader was a man in his mid-thirties.
He wasn't tall, but he stood ramrod straight.
His face was expressionless, but his eyes were sharp as knives.
He walked up to me and sized me up.
"Fernando?" he said.
"Yeah, that's me," I answered.
"You the one who called?" he asked.
"Yeah, I did," I replied.
He didn't say anything, just jerked his chin toward the trailer.
I led them to the trailer and swung open the door.
A blast of cold air rushed out again.
He signaled to his team to start the inspection.
Two people in protective suits climbed into the trailer and began inspecting the boxes one by one.
I stood outside the trailer, keeping an eye on what they were doing.
They spent about twenty minutes checking the boxes.
The leader walked up to me, and the expression on his face made my stomach drop.
"Fernando," he said, his voice cold as ice, "do you realize how much we've had to mobilize because of your call?"
I kept quiet.
"The Viremont–Lysara Expressway is now on level-three lockdown," he went on. "Every vehicle coming in or out of this rest stop is getting recorded.
"We brought in thirty-seven cops and two expert inspection teams."
He paused, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "And the result? The frozen fish in your truck? It's just fish.
"No drugs, no contraband, not even a single box over the limit. Can you tell me exactly why you called the police?"
My heart sank.
But I was sure I hadn't gotten it wrong.
"A few of the boxes had the wrong temperature," I said.
"Wrong temperature?" He frowned. "Our instruments checked every box. Everything was exactly the same."
"The instruments didn't pick up anything," I said. "But I can feel it."
He gave me a look that said it all. 'You're just a truck driver—what do you know?'
"Fernando," he said, his tone easing up a bit but still talking down to me, "I get that you've got experience in this line of work, but..."
"It's not just a feeling," I cut him off. "It's experience。
"I've been running cold chain trucks for ten years. I've hauled every kind of cargo there is. Something's wrong with this batch of fish."
He stared at me for a few seconds and then turned to his crew.
"Take some samples back for testing. And make sure he stays put until the results come back," the leader said.
They took me to a small office at the rest area.
Two armed officers stood guard at the door.
I sat on one of those rock-hard plastic chairs, staring out the window as the sky slowly brightened.
I didn't regret a thing.
Turner always told me that if the cargo was wrong, it was wrong.
Even if the whole world said I was wrong, I had to trust my own eyes.
Besides, the lighter was still warm.
It never cooled down.
I gripped it tight, thinking about what Turner really wanted me to know.
*****
Two hours later, the office door was suddenly thrown open.
The leader stormed in.
His face looked nothing like it did two hours ago.
Earlier, he was full of arrogance and contempt.
Now, his face was somber and full of shock.
He looked at me, his voice sounding dry and strained. "Fernando, the test results are in. Inside those frozen fish..."
He paused, like he was struggling to process what he was about to say.
"We found some kind of bioactive agent inside those fish—something none of us have ever seen before. It's extremely dangerous," he said.
My heart skipped a beat.
I knew I wasn't wrong.'
That guy's name was Daniel Carr.
Later, I found out he was the leader of a special ops unit under the National Security Bureau.
His codename was "Razor."
He was the one who took on high-risk cases—biological threats, chemical weapons, and international crime.
The fact that he showed up here himself meant this cargo was way more serious than I ever thought possible.
Once the test results came back, the entire Viremont–Lysara Expressway—30 kilometers in both directions from my rest stop—was completely shut down.
Every vehicle and every person stuck there was quarantined on the spot.
I'd only ever seen something like this on the news.
The quarantine zone was set up in a temporary tent at the rest stop.
Police tape cordoned off the area, and people in full biohazard suits were constantly moving in and out.