Hello. I am Secret Agent 502, but my real name is Brutus Beanpole. I work for the CIA, and I am here to recount a story to you. It is about one of the most significant crimes I have ever busted. Please, sit back and listen.

                                   . . . . . . . . . . . .

   It was June 28, 2068, and I was in Hazardville, Connecticut. I had received a call over my radio about a caucasian male with a heavy mustache. A woman had seen him sprint by, followed closely by another man yelling at him to stop. I turned on the flashing lights on my police car and sped away. I soon got another radio transmission that the man had escaped. I was being ordered to track him down, no matter where on the globe he might go.

   I drove to the scene of the crime and the man that had tried to stop the criminal was waiting for my arrival by a railing on the riverbank. He described to me what the offender looked like: he had a massive, brown mustache, heavy, light brown eyebrows, was about six feet three inches tall, and had swirling tattoos entirely enveloping his arms. I wrote down everything, and then combed the area looking for clues. I found some footprints in a pile of mud on the bank, and they looked like a size twelve sneaker.

   I headed back to my cruiser to think about my next move. My phone buzzed, and I answered. It was Bradley International Airport, only 20 minutes away from the crime scene. They reported they had seen a caucasian male that fit the description perfectly, and the name on the ticket was Gus Gunslinger. Unfortunately, they hadn’t seen the memo about him until after the plane had taken off. The person on the phone said that the plane was going to London and should arrive in nine hours. I asked them not to tell the airport in London to be on the lookout. I didn’t want Gus to get suspicious.

   I headed to Bradley Airport to catch the next plane to London. When I arrived, there was a plane waiting that had an extra seat. I got aboard and settled in my chair to think.

   Upon touchdown, I got off the plane and spoke with the airport security staff to see if they had seen a person fitting the description. We reviewed the security camera footage together, and I saw Gus leaving in a car with the license plate IH8L4W. I took it kind of personally, but I solely used it as more motivation to track him down. I was given a spare police cruiser to use, and I hopped in to enter the plate number into the database. Headquarters reported that the last time the plate appeared on a camera was by the entrance to the Chunnel.

I flipped on the lights and sped away, heading for the Chunnel. I was making up time, and over the radio, I heard headquarters say the car just entered the Chunnel. I was getting more and more motivated, and I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I was getting closer to my first ever significant arrest!

   Roughly ten minutes later, headquarters told me over my radio that Gus had boarded a train. The train had already left when I arrived, so I got aboard the next train and anxiously waited for the 35-minute ride to end. As I stepped out into the daylight of France, I saw a bakery down the street and realized that I was pretty hungry. I headed down the road to buy some fresh, soft, golden brown bread. I saw a dog walking down the sidewalk, and I went over to see if it had a collar with a name on it. When I approached it, it bared its teeth and foamed at the mouth. I quickly ran in a wide arc around it and dashed into the bakery.

   As I entered, I closed my eyes and took a huge sniff. The smell of freshly baked bread that I had expected wasn’t there. I opened my eyes and looked around and saw that it was abandoned, only full of dust and cobwebs. I was about to turn around and leave, when a man came out from a back room wearing a kelly green beret that clashed in epic proportion with his fluorescent orange shirt. The last thing I saw before being knocked out was that the man was a six foot three caucasian male.

   When I came to, my hands and feet were tied together, and I was suspended from a pole that was designed to hang clothes on. I knew for a fact that I was not clothing, so I struggled and wiggled, and only succeeded in knocking a potted plant off a shelf, making it shatter. It made enough noise that the man who knocked me out, Gus Gunslinger, came into the room.

   “Ha! Silly agent. Nobody, not even the best of the best, has ever been able to catch me before!” He laughed in between sentences. “You will never catch me now!” He slapped a piece of duct tape over my mouth, tied a blindfold over my eyes, and knocked me out again as he left.

   When I came to my senses for the second time, I had a major headache, and it was very dark out. Then, I realized it was simply the blindfold over my eyes. I licked the duct tape over and over again, trying to get the stickiness off it. After several minutes, I managed to get it off. Next, I pulled myself up and started to chew on the ropes that bound my hands. I found the knot that held it together, and after some pulling, I freed my hands. Finally, I pulled off the blindfold and untied my feet.

I ran to the door to the front part of the shop and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. It was locked from the other side, and I didn’t have a key. I looked around frantically, but there were no windows. I sat down in a chair to think, and I saw the broken pot lying on the ground. Something was poking out of the dirt. I walked over, curious. As I dug through the soil, a sharp piece of the broken clay pot pierced through my finger like a needle, and it started to bleed. I knew I had to power through if I was going to free myself from my temporary prison. I plunged my hand back into the soil, and this time, came out with a key! I ran to the door and the key fit. Once again, I had my freedom.    

   I ran into the front part of the shop, and the man was no longer there. I ran to the door, yanked it open, and ran out. As I left, I crashed into a man named Harmone Throttlefist. As I helped him up, I asked him if he had seen any suspicious activity in the area. He replied that he had seen a man run out of this shop about twenty minutes earlier when he had been going into the bakery across the street. He had wondered why someone had been in the deserted, old bakery. He held up a bag of bread, which smelled so good that my mouth watered. I had completely forgotten about being hungry. I quickly thanked him and left, heading straight into the real bakery. This time, the aroma of freshly baked bread and pastries filled the air, making my nostrils tingle. I paid for two soft, golden brown loaves of bread, three cherry chocolate cupcakes, four blueberry muffins, a cherry pie, and two cannolis and sat down to eat. I stuffed two of the cupcakes into my mouth before I realized that I looked like a fat, stereotypical police officer. I couldn’t help myself. I shoved the third cupcake into my mouth before standing up and leaving the table.

I found a police station, and upon hearing my story, the officers let me borrow a cruiser. I set the bag of remaining pastries in the seat beside me and drove off, looking for any clues. I had been so close to the arrest, but now I was so far off his trail. I was just about to stop for the day when I got a call from a nearby airport reporting that someone named Gus Gunslinger had boarded a plane, heading to Timbuktu, Mali. I raced to the airport and boarded a commercial jet with the same destination. As I lowered myself into the luxurious, plush, first-class seat, I started to think about what would be the best strategy to arrest this horrible criminal, Gus. I decided that I had to find him, tail him, and wait for the time he would be least suspecting arrest. I didn’t get any farther with the plan before falling into a deep, deep sleep.

I woke up when the pilot announced it was ten minutes to touchdown. I stretched in my seat, re-energized, and ready to hunt down an atrocious criminal. I exited the airport and saw a man, most likely Gus,  getting into a cab. I wrote down the license plate and jogged to the nearest police station. I borrowed a cruiser and searched the license plate number on the computer. The last time it had been seen was at yet another airport. I dialed the airport and asked what plane Gus was boarding. I told them to delay the plane at all cost, and to tell the passengers it was due to “mechanical issues.” This would buy me time to get there. I hung up, flicked on the sirens, and drove off as fast as the cruiser would let me go. As soon as I arrived, I ran to the plane and jumped into an available seat. I gave the pilot a thumbs up and settled down for the flight back to Logan Airport in Boston. I called ahead to Logan to request that a cruiser be waiting for me, unless they wanted the world's most dangerous criminal roaming the streets of Boston.

Once I got off the plane, I saw Gus walking towards a cab. I jumped into the cruiser that was waiting for me and followed him. While I was driving, I looked around the cruiser. It was a state-of-the-art, undercover police cruiser, equipped with anything and everything: computers, phones, charging stations, handcuffs, clubs, weapons, and even a dog to help track people down! I made myself focus on the task at hand, and tore my eyes away from the awesomeness of the car. I kept tailing Gus, keeping a safe distance back where he wouldn’t see me.

The cab pulled over at a library, and a man, definitely Gus, got out. I had no idea why he would stop at a library, but it would be a secure place to make an arrest. I waited for Gus to enter the building and for the cab to pull away. I got out of my car and casually walked into the library to not draw attention to myself. I quickly located all the exits and had the librarians lock all but one. I moved into position. I told a librarian to move a bunch of carts in front of the aisle at precisely three o’ clock, and she did. I counted down in my brain, pulled out my pistol, and jumped into the aisle.

“You, Gus Gunslinger, are under arrest for taking a piece of gum off a railing, then running from the police! Put your hands up and don’t move!” I bellowed.

                                 . . . . . . . . . . . .

   Well, there you have it. The story of the most significant crime I have ever busted. Thank you for listening to my account of this crime. A buzzing sound fills the air and Brutus reaches into his pocket and looks at his phone, then looks up in distress.