The Cuentos Conspiracy

“Hey Jim, I got an interesting case for you.”

Jim peeked his head from behind the newspaper, as if trying to shield his eyes from a bright light. “What is it this time?” he said with a distorted tone, trying to suppress a yawn. His eyes squinted in the sunlight that was streaming through the window. After a few seconds, he placed the newspaper on top of another pile of papers and leaned back on his chair. “You sure you want me to handle this one? It doesn’t sound like your typical fishy case.”

Jack took a sip from his coffee cup and looked at Jim with a grin. “I just told you it’s an unusual case, and that’s why I want you to work on this one. And besides, you owe me one, remember? You said that I can pick whatever case that I want when we finally finish the last contract with Mr. Morgan. This one’s a treasure hunt for all I know, but it pays well, so I thought of you first,” Jack said with an excited tone in his voice.

Jim put both hands on his forehead and stared at Jack for a long moment before speaking again. “You know what Jack? You are my best friend, but sometimes I wonder what goes on your mind. You always do things the hard way and end up getting yourself into trouble because of it. You know that right?”

Jack smiled again and replied casually. “Yeah right man! That’s why we make such a great team! You worry about the legal stuff while I worry about the illegal ones. It worked pretty good so far, don’t you think? At least we never had any problems with our clients because of our unorthodox methods. Whatever happened to those idiots anyway? They ended up getting arrested or something? Anyway, let’s get back to business please…”

Jim stood up from his chair and walked over to their desk filled with random papers and empty coffee cups strewn about carelessly across its surface. He took out some sheets of paper from one of the piles and handed them over to Jack. “It occurred off the coast of Cebu Island in the Philippines yesterday at around 3:00 PM local time according to the police report submitted by a nearby fishing boat captain who witnessed the whole incident while he was doing some fishing near their coastal waters. They reported seeing an armed group holding hostage several people onboard one of their commercial ships that sailed into its territorial waters without their permission or knowledge… As far as I know though, this is not an isolated incident; they have been spotted doing this kind of thing in several other instances all around Asia and South America lately… Now here is where it gets interesting…”

Jack looked at him curiously as he continued reading through the report further. “The entire crew onboard was dead by apparent gunshot wounds inflicted by these thugs after they successfully captured their vessel and brought it ashore later that day… The ship went missing for more than two weeks before anyone noticed its disappearance… The captain has no idea how they were able to pull off such an operation without being caught by any of their security forces… He only reported it when someone from the shipping company contacted him after noticing its absence during an inventory check this morning… According to him though, most of these cargo ships are always empty because they are only used for transporting goods from port to port without stopping along their journey... So he figured that there was nothing valuable onboard at that time... Now what do you think about this case so far? Got anything interesting yet?”

Jack took another sip from his coffee cup before continuing reading through the rest of the report silently while Jim waited patiently for him to finish reading through it thoroughly before speaking again. When he finished reading through everything in front of him, he gave a short sigh and began talking again after putting down all of his papers carefully back on their desk once again. “This sounds like something that happened in some underworld in China or Russia or something like that… They usually shoot people just like this whenever they try stealing or smuggling stuff illegally out of their country or whatever... But what makes this case so different from those usual dirt bags then? Why would they kill off everyone onboard when there wasn't even anything valuable aboard their ship anyway? That doesn't make any sense at all! Why would they risk their lives just for nothing?! Anyways, let's go check out where exactly did these pirates take over this ship from... Maybe we will find some clues there... Although if we go there now, we might miss our flight out tonight... We were supposed to leave early today morning so we can arrive there before this weekend... We can't afford missing any more flights if we want to catch them anytime soon! So let's hurry up; we need to get going now! Grab your stuff man; we need a cab fast! There is no time left now! Customs office closes at 4:00 pm today!"

The two investigators quickly packed up all their things into suitcases and rushed out into the city streets in order to catch a taxi before heading straight towards Cebu City which was approximately three hours away by flight where they would be flying out tonight for Manila afterwards on board Philippine Airlines Flight 429 departing from Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1 Gate 16 at 5:25 PM local time tomorrow afternoon…