49 |

Polish-Czech Republic Border

 

Officer Jelen stood uselessly on the side of the road, watching truck after truck get waved through, those with anything that remotely appeared to be a beer company logo, including soft drinks or alcohol, pulled over and searched.

Nothing had turned up so far, and he had a feeling nothing would.

These guys were too good to be caught at a roadblock. They would have planned for this eventuality, and figured out a strategy against it. Most likely they had already left the road, traveling west toward Germany, though if they had, it had to have been recently, as they had been caught on camera north of here a couple of hours ago, though they had been lost after that.

And that had him concerned. Could they have offloaded the cargo to different vehicles? It was a possibility, but he doubted it. It would take too long, and they could be discovered, unless they did it inside, away from prying eyes. And if they had a facility to do the switch, wouldn’t it be wiser to just sit pat and wait until things cooled down?

He wouldn’t.

Europe wasn’t like most other parts of the world. It was fairly small, especially when you discounted Scandinavia. The United States was almost three times the geographic area, and there were no longer any guarded interior borders. Their suspects could travel from Poland to the Baltic Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, or the Mediterranean if they wanted, unimpeded.

Or simply to another country within the union, if that was their final destination.

And they could do it all in less than a day.

They were already almost six hours into their journey, so if they were leaving Poland, they probably had already done so, and they were too late.

He watched a truck pass advertising soup, and his stomach grumbled, downright gurgling as another advertising a grocery store followed, delicious baked goods displayed on its side that had his mouth watering, then his jaw dropping.

“Stop those two trucks!”