Quota 0/270 - On hold : 12 days left to start the quota

‘And now there's a traffic jam, just what we needed,’ Victor thought to himself as he looked at the traffic ahead. If he thought traffic jams in Lille were bad, the ones in New York were like facing the final boss. But unlike in Lille, he could at least enjoy the view here. Victor had to admit, riding in a monster truck had its perks for that. At four meters off the ground, it was hard to find any vehicle in the heart of New York tall enough to block their view of the endless line of cars ahead.

‘Should I be happy that I can see we're in for hours more of this? Or would I have preferred to live in hope that it would all be over soon?’

Victor would never find out, as the monster truck didn't care about his opinions or philosophical questions. He turned his gaze away from the traffic, which threatened to sink him into a deep depression, to look at Shirley. She, a speed and adrenaline junkie, seemed unfazed by the endless wait ahead.

"**Look Victor, we can see the Statue of Liberty!**" she said while pointing a finger to their right.

Victor couldn’t understand a word she said, but he followed her gaze. Far behind the traffic stood a green statue about a hundred meters tall—a representation of a woman with a crown on her head, a book in one hand, and some sort of torch in the other. Most importantly, Victor had no idea who or what it was.

"Must be like with the Romans: an American empress from before Christ who wanted a statue at her effigy," Victor thought.

He only knew of one American building and hoped they'd get to see it today. After more than three hours of being stuck in traffic, Victor had to accept that he wouldn't get to see it that day. They'd seen skyscrapers touching the sky, drivers expressing their anger through their windows, and white marble buildings that filled him with so much hope. But he hadn't seen the White House after more than three hours on the road.

Victor didn't know where it was hiding, but he would find it.

‘And when I find it, well... I'll have found it.’ It's not like he could go inside, so he'd content himself with observing and taunting it from outside the fence.

‘Sounds good to me,’ he thought, picturing the scene.

Even if he hadn't seen THE American building, he still enjoyed their little city tour. He turned to Shirley to thank her in English.

"Hello."

She replied with a charming smile, and kept driving. They were heading back to the hotel at a leisurely pace when a siren sounded behind them. Shirley didn't react, as if the police car following them wasn't there for them. But she had to face reality when one of the officers rolled down his window and ordered them to stop using a megaphone.

The monster truck pulled over with two of its wheels on the sidewalk. The police car stopped behind them, and a young man in his twenties got out. Shirley had already prepared her vehicle's documents and her own for the check. The young officer approached their vehicle. He would have liked to come up to their window like in the movies, but the size of the monster truck shattered that dream. He settled for staying at the bottom of the steps.

"**Routine check, please step out of the vehicle,**" he asked them with a strong Texan accent. Shirley turned to Victor. "**You can stay inside, I'll handle this,**" she told him before opening her door and getting out. But Shirley seemed to have forgotten in the moment that Victor wouldn't understand a word she said.

'To get out or not to get out.'

Honestly, he had no idea. He took a coin out of his coat pocket. 'Heads I get out, tails I stay in.' He tossed the coin, which landed on his palm with a dull thud.

Heads.

Victor sighed and pushed open his door to step outside. From atop his monster truck, he had already been able to smell the gasoline, but now he could also smell the cold tobacco scent. Circling the vehicle, he noticed Shirley cheerfully answering a young police officer's inquiries about her monster truck, while the officer looked at her with an unmistakable glint of lust in his eyes.

His smile was unsettling as he said, “**You know, miss, driving such vehicles is dangerous for others. The slightest crash could mean certain death.**

- **Don't worry, officer, I drive carefully and regularly change my brakes. If this check is over, may we leave?**”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The officer didn't want to let his target slip away so easily, but he didn't have much of a choice. The vehicle was perfectly legal, and everything was in order. Searching for any excuse to make her stay, he, unfortunately for him, noticed Victor.

Victor, who was giving him a strange look because he reeked of tobacco—a scent Victor loathed.

Victor, with his torn clothes, that still somehow managed to captivate with his model-like face and mysterious aura. Victor, in essence, became the perfect distraction for the young officer.

“**You there, show me your papers.**”

Victor ignored him since he couldn't understand a word, but Shirley didn't. Her face remained smiling, but her eyes had hardened. She had tolerated the officer's control and attitude because she simply didn't care, but she wouldn't let her guest be harassed.

“**I'd like to know the reason for your request.**

- **Every American citizen must have their papers in proper order. It shouldn’t bother you if I have to detain what appears to be an illegal immigrant, am I wrong? If he's your friend, you can, of course, come to the station so we can sort this out before he's sent back to his country.**”

With those words, he pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Victor, who until now had been peacefully enjoying the sun on his back, felt the atmosphere cool down. He looked up to the sky. ‘Not a cloud or a breeze. It’s always magical how the temperature can change at any moment. Someone should give that poor sun some sugar. Working all year round, it must be hypoglycemic.’

Victor snapped back to the dire scene unfolding before him. Shirley was assaulting the young officer. In truth, the assault on him was over since he was already lying unconscious on the ground, but she was now dealing with his colleague who had emerged from the car to assist him. Her face bore the same demonic expression as inside the pickup, but without the sadism. Instead, she looked like the grim reaper, cold and calculated, executing her task.

Victor wasn't sure how to react since he had several options. He could try to separate them, but he wasn't too keen on stepping between the devil and her prey. He could cheer on Shirley as if watching a wrestling match, though the more he thought about it, the more counterproductive it seemed. Or, he could flee the crime scene.

And that's exactly what he did, running through the streets of New York as far away as possible, unaware of the chaos he left behind.

Next to the monster truck after a few minutes laid the unconscious bodies of about a dozen police officers. The streets had been closed off around the scene, and a SWAT vehicle had arrived. The woman at the center of this outburst of violence stood immobile, her characteristic smile replaced by a disgusted grimace, her brows furrowed as she surveyed her surroundings.

She had been so focused on the fight that someone had managed to snatch Victor right from behind her. She turned to face about twenty officers advancing on her, guns drawn. Their colleagues on the ground hadn't taken such precautions, and they wouldn't make the same mistake.

“Hands behind your head and face to the ground!” The command was authoritative, tinged with apprehension. Contrary to the officers’ expectations, Shirley simply smiled at them before lying down on the ground. An officer approached and handcuffed her. The tension was brief and didn’t even require SWAT's intervention. Shirley surrendered, and a police car took her to the nearest station. They placed her in an empty cell, but she wouldn’t be alone for long.

Three people were to be transferred there for a story so unbelievable it might seem like the start of a joke. It’s the tale of a multi-millionaire dealer, one of his henchmen, and a flight attendant who had returned to the crime scene to retrieve a forgotten badge and incredibly, they couldn't even find it.

But to tell this joke, inspired by true events, we must go back a few hours to the middle of nowhere.

5:00 PM

In the middle of nowhere, a few hours from New York.

Commander Anderson had arrived with a significant part of his department deep in the forest. Their mission was to meticulously search the area for any traces of the plane robbers who had passed through hours earlier.

With a bit of luck, they hadn't left the area yet, but Anderson didn't count on luck.

He knew from the evidence that he was dealing with professionals who didn't leave anything to chance in their plans.

That’s why he was all the more surprised when one of his lieutenants came to inform him that two cars were approaching the area.

‘What’s going on ?’ he wondered as he stepped out of the command tent.

There were barely ten cars a day that passed this way.

It was quite the coincidence that two cars were approaching this remote forest.

For now, just a coincidence.

Anderson approached the first car. It was an ordinary compact car, driven by a young woman dressed as a flight attendant.

“What brings you here, miss?

- Oh, I came because I received a tip that I wanted to share with the police about this morning's flight robbery.

- And what is this tip you received?” he asked, skeptically.

- That the loot was at a location someone sent to me in a message.”

Anderson asked two of his men to follow her into the forest before heading to the second car.

It was a gray German sedan with a man driving and two others in the back seat.

“What brings you gentlemen here?”

One of the men in the back answered.

- "We came because we received information about the location of the loot. We wanted to give it to you in person rather than over the phone as it seemed safer.”

This time, Anderson asked them to lead them to the location they had received.

After more than half an hour's walk, they arrived in a clearing.

There were no traces around, but there were already three people on the scene, including a flight attendant and two policemen.

They were in the process of digging up several military bags from under a thin layer of earth.

Anderson approached and opened them.

Inside were some of the stolen goods, but only items of lesser value.

Among other things, Anderson had received a direct order from his superior to recover a necklace worth several hundred thousand dollars that had been stolen during the flight.

He poured out the contents of the bag onto the ground.

No necklace.

He turned to face his informers.

The flight attendant looked disappointed, while the three men turned pale.

No badge.