The following Tuesday, Carl was back on the job, driving supplies out to the ship. He hadn’t been told of any rider to accompany him in the semi and had breathed a sigh of relief about that, since it was not exactly good news the two previous times. He wondered how Donald and crew were faring on their trip on the high seas. Donald would probably call him when he got to the lodge. Carl was sure he had his hands full in the meantime.

Carl wrapped up the paperwork for the trip and his inspections and climbed up in the cab and to his horror, there sat Max, the federal man!

“Hello Carl, you look disturbed. Is anything wrong?” asked the man who would be traveling with him to the ship.

Carl, taken aback, only answered, “No.”

“I am not tired this time so I thought we could have a chat while we drive. Go ahead and get comfortable and I will save the questions for our drive,” Max said.

Carl outwardly managed to look composed, but he was sweating and hoped Max didn’t notice. He turned on the AC and took a sip of his large hot coffee.

Max said, “Do you usually run the AC at the end of October? Is something the matter?”

Carl simply explained, “No sir, nothing is wrong. I just enjoy hot coffee more than cold coffee, but it makes me hot so I need some air-conditioning. Is it too cold for you sir? I can turn it down some, if you would like.”

Max said, “No, it's ok. Carry on.”

Carl heaved an invisible sigh, feeling relieved that he had carried off this first confrontation alright.

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Max and Carl made small talk for a while and then Max said, “Now let’s get down to business. I don’t know whether you heard or not but somehow we have misplaced seventy-eight old people from the cruise ship. I am going there to investigate and see if we can’t find them. The purser, Arnold, seemed to think they all jumped into the ocean and drowned. That’s a convenient assumption. I, for one, don’t think that is what happened, and I am going to find out. Now, what do you know about the situation?”

Carl said, “I really don’t know what could have happened to them.”

Max said, “We invested a lot into getting those people off of the streets and ready for the clinic. We can’t let them just slip through our fingers. As long as they are in the United States, they are ours!”

Max said, “I heard you gave the rider you had last week some time off when you got to the ship. Is that true?”

Carl said, “Yes, it is.”

Max said, “Why would you do such a thing? Doesn’t that sound suspicious to you?”

“No, I don’t think so but I can see how from your perspective you might think so. Several of the older men asked if they could do the unloading because they wanted to impress some girls with their muscles and I didn’t see any harm in letting them do that. Also, my rider was recovering from the flu and he seemed pretty grateful for the downtime. I’m sorry if I overstepped my boundaries,” Carl said.

“Well, you should be. I think that somehow they made their escape during that time. Do you want to be responsible for the loss of all of those people, Carl?”

“Why no, of course not. I don’t want to be blamed for something I didn’t do!” Carl objected.

Max said, “Good, then you will cooperate and help me find out the missing parts to the puzzle. We will spend the night again on the ship and interrogate every last passenger on the ship, if we have to to get to the bottom of this. Right?”

“Of course I will help you, sir,” Carl said. His heart was racing. He had to appear calm. How was he going to make it out of this alive, with the killer sniffing around so close?