Broken↩️🪭 ✔

Chapter 5

As the train pulled into the station of Resembool, Roy, Riza, and Maes all got off and headed into town. They got the directions to the barn from Roger and headed there to see if they could find some more clues. It took them a while but they finally got to the barn and looked inside. Maes found the place where Edward had carved into the wall and Roy touched it, tracing over the numbers. They all looked around to see if Edward left anymore clues but it seemed that they were out of luck. Roy decided that they should go down the path going East and see if anyone remembered a hay truck heading in that direction.

They met up with a couple of ditch diggers and they mentioned that there was an unusual amount of hay trucks heading East some time ago. They kept going down the way, hearing of sightings of the hay trucks but nothing unusual about them except for the amount of them. They finally got to an inn and Roy went inside to ask the owner about the hay trucks and he seemed to have a little more information.

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"Yeah, I remember them hay trucks. Awful lot of them too, about three or four. Usually that wouldn't be unusual but the thing of it was that they were all together. There may be three or four of them that come by in a day but they're all separate, not in a line like that. It was none of my business so I didn't ask but it was awful suspicious."

"We have reason to believe that they were actually human trafficking with the hay trucks." Maes said, adjusting his glasses. "They were putting the people under the hay and transporting them. Do you know what direction they were going in?"

"Human trafficking?! I can't believe it..."

"Did they mention where they were going or what they were doing?" Roy asked, getting a little irritated.

"I wasn't really paying attention but the bartender may know something or other. He was serving them lots of beer that night. Maybe one of them talked about where he was going."

Maes thanked him and they all went over to the barkeep.

"What'll you have, Officers?" the man asked, looking at them expectantly.

"Nothing except a chat." Maes said with a smile. "We were wondering if you remember some men a couple of weeks back that were driving a line of hay trucks."

"Hmm... Hay trucks... I don't recall. Why would the military be looking for some hay truck deliverers?"

"Because one of my subordinates has been kidnapped-" Roy started angrily but Riza put her hand on his shoulder.

The barkeep looked at the three of them and made a face.

"Wait, what do you mean?"

"We have reason to believe that these men were not delivering hay but hiding people under it to do human trafficking. We thought you might be able to tell us where these people were headed. They have one of our men."

The man seemed to think for a second and then hit the counter.

"I remember those guys. They were really sleazy but they seemed pretty smart. They said that they were delivering a pretty good batch to some guys at the border."

"The border?!" Roy yelled, getting out of Riza's hand and leaning on to the bar. "What do you mean, the border? To Amestris?"

"Yeah. They said they had some nice coin waiting for them there. If what you say is true, then it looks like they were doing some trades. There's a town that is the visa checkpoint for anyone coming in or out of Amestris and on over to cross the desert into Xing. If I were you, I'd start there."