Chapter 14: Chapter 14: Chaos Stirrer

It’s a rental apartment with a barely furnished room.

A woman enters a room carrying around a long briefcase. She looks around the apartment. Sliding her hands between the sofa and objects in the room. 

She confirms something and takes the briefcase she carried with her and places it on the table of the living. She takes the latch of the briefcase and reveals parts inside.

She starts assembling the weapon inside her briefcase. By the time she is done there is an anti-material rifle she is holding with one hand.

She searches inside her bag. Taking out a pistol and two knives.  Then she reaches out again inside and takes two suppressors out. Her hand reaches inside again and a lever-action shotgun wrapped in leather.

She takes her phone out and starts dialing a number. The phone rings for a minute.

“I am here.”

“How was the trip”

“I got here unchecked. The route that you have selected was very effective.”

“I told you that it will be worth the price. You can walk in with your guns.”

She walks to the window and takes a peek outside.

“I expected worse from this city.”

“Hmm, it is a shithole with a beautiful exterior. It’s not so bad considering.”

She is now back in her seat. Inspecting the barrel of her rifle. Examining it for any problems.

“I assume that I don’t have to meet with the client?”

“No. The bastard’s hiding after knowing that CASE is after him. Wouldn’t leave his location until it is clear. Doubt it’d be clear even after we’re done with the target.”

She is frowning. There is clear doubt in her face. This is not an ordinary assignment. If anything it is a limited contract. A way to buy time for the client to find a way out of the mess.

“Main objective is to make sure that the target is safe. Other than that there are key targets that need killing. Maes it easy for him to love.”

Her gaze suddenly becomes sharp.

“Is that bastard really here?”

“Who knows?”

The voice behind the phone answers blankly. She is clenching her off-hand digging her palm. Her beautiful face is twisted in anger. An unbelievable anger that makes the spine shiver.

She takes a picture out of her bag. The picture shows a man in his twenties. Brown hair slicked backwards, a sharp well-shaved face with confident green eyes. The man is wearing a suit.

“The bastard wasn’t using his real name after all. It’s not uncommon in the business to do so, but being that careful must have meant something. If he is here then can you recognize him?”

“I can.”

“Good. Well, he is a secondary objective. Right now you have to worry about making sure that your target is alive and his enemies are dead. It won’t be easy with how many he has pissed off. That’s why I had you bring that beauty with you.”

She looks at the face on her folder. Her blank face frowned at the information gathered from her client. The client that they have him is detestable.  He seems to be trafficking young men and women to have their organs harvested.

The price of their goods is high and even then they aren’t content enough and have somehow pissed off an ancient organization. She is not here to truly protect them.  She knows when not to step into the tails of dragons, but she isn’t unafraid of them either.

“I’m guessing that you’re moving now?”

“I am.”

She opens her duffel. One by one she takes the items inside. Gloves with reinforced knuckles. A tactical vest and pockets full of magazines and ammunition. She takes her leisure coat off and wears the vest under. She sheathes a dagger on her waist. Holsters her pistol and checks her rifle again. Concluding that it is fine. She takes a cloth and wraps it around her anti-material rifle. She carries the rifle on her back and walks out of her apartment and back to the car she bought cheaply from one of the thieves in this city.

She drives to the center of the city. The Garrison is the only place in this city where the tallest buildings are. She has noticed that most of the houses here are terraced. The roads are either cobble or paved with belgian blocks.

The main roads are made of asphalt and concrete. She has heard rumors of the city and its bright appearance fooling people thinking that it’s just another  peaceful European City.

But underneath the bright appearance of the city.

What is underneath the city is a melting pot of people all over the world trying to do business in secret.

The Paradise for Criminal Syndicates.

The homeland of contraband smuggling.

And a place where the strangest things can happen. She isn’t afraid of the rumored organization lurking the city’s shadows. But she herself wonders how hard it would be to face monsters like them.

She arrives at the tower that she contacted. She finds the emergency exit of the building and starts climbing to the highest floor where the vantage point is set up for her. It is a nest with a direct sight to the restaurant that the enemies of her client are attending. They are doing a meeting regarding the actions of the organization that has recently interfered with their business.

She sets up her rifle in the nest. Installs the suppressor on the muzzle of her rifle.

“I’m here.’

She calls her handler. Her handler is silent behind the phone for a moment before replying tonelessly.

“They are currently inside. The guy we hired said that he marked the spot where to shoot. It should be a yellow splatter under a blue line marking.

She scans the wall she is seeing and spots the yellow splatter under a blue line marking.

She takes a breath, adjusts her scope, and calculates the shot.

She waits for the wind to still.

Then she pulls the trigger with empty lungs.

Hitting the center of the yellow splatter.

“Don Castelo is dead.”

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Her handler says.

She wraps her rifle with a cloth again and leaves the nest.

 

***

The scene of the crime is in the center of the city. He is walking to the crime scene when an officer stops him. He takes out his ghost badge and shows his credentials to the officer.

“Ah, Detective, I thought there was already?”

“This is a big case.”

“The Witnesses are on the first floor, sir.”

He continues walking to the scene. He finds the carnage. The restaurant is said to be the usual place where the Bosses come here to pay respect to an old timer. Don Ronaldo Castelo. A retired crime lord who has settled in the City of Saint Lucius to live the rest of his life supposedly in peace.

The Don’s wish to die in his bed isn’t going to happen.

He approaches one of the Witnesses. He takes out his tape recorder and approaches him.

“Can I ask what happened here?”

The man looks at the tape recorder. He opens his mouth and is trying to form the words for tell him to go away when he holds himself back after seeing his Ghost Badge. Cupping his chin, leaning his elbow on his lap. The man nods slowly  is answering.

“They have a meeting, like they usually do. But it was around twelve when a shot came from the east. Something went through the Don and his brain got splattered. Thinking it was some trap. It became a large fight. They started accessing and blaming and then the guys on the Don's side started shooting.”

There are cars in the parking lot that are full of bullet holes. About five are dead on the lot while there are blood trails left indicating that the rest escaped after the police started rushing to the scene

“You think there was a problem? Someone ambushed them to make a message?”

“Who knows?”

The Witness eyes the pack of cigarettes in Robert’s pocket. Robert takes one and hands it to him.

“Anything else? I see CCTV are installed here.  Did they already secure it?”

“There's no video tape for today. The owner doesn’t roll it when these guys are around. It’s a secret meeting and they don’t want anyone looking at what they do.”

It makes sense. Robert asks for more information. Any detail that the Witness can remember. The rest of the information that Witness has is something he is hiding. Robert understand that guy is reluctant to tell anything because of who the people involve here. He is about to persuade the Witness when Agent Wilson saunters in the crime scene looking at the place with a stressed demeanor.

He gestures to Robert to follow. Robert strides next to him to the scene of the crime and finds the forensic team clearing the room for any evidence. Using his senses all at once. He notices all the important things leaving an aura of gold. The red markings he can see leaving a trail in the form of shapes. His line of sight follows the entry point and then finds the bullet lodged on the drawer. It has been marked by the officers in the scene.

Then he focuses on the seats. Don Castelo left his trace in the room.

Agent Wilson takes an initial report from one of the officers. He skims the report and groans loudly.

Robert takes the report from him.

“So he was shot with an armor piercing round from a .50 caliber rifle.”

“Bullet checks out. Forensics team traced the probable path of the bullet and after asking around. They did notice an open window in one of the buildings that has a clear view of the restaurant.”

“They work fast.”

“They do. No, it’s more like they are used to this. But this is one hell of a shit storm we have here, Oswald. If Rubio Ferric is making this noise then there is a probability that he is trying to sow chaos to throw us off or it could be another power hungry bastard.”

“It’s going to be a problem then?”

“More than that. I doubt many of them are going to be willing to talk now. Don Castelo is one of the reasons that these gangsters are being well-behaved. He’s the wise man who advises them to play ball and with him dead the ones left are the mobsters from Italy, Russia, and the rest are folks who are coming here to fuel their turf wars.”

“You think Ferric ordered the Don killed?”

“I don’t know. He might have. I can get why he would since he just made a big fire and everyone is getting heat up. But everyone’s going to be on their toes now.”

Robert folds his arms. He checks the scene again and pockets his recorder after stopping it.

“Guess we’re assuming that Ferric is part of this.”

“He is part of this. This makes me wonder if he is in the city actually. Then again, if he leaves or tries anything. We’d catch him. There’s going to be one hell of a seat that needs to be filled up and with how things are. I doubt they’d be so keen on being friendly right now, shit.”

He looks stressed. Then again this man is balancing the situation between all these crime syndicates and the supernatural world as well. He’s feet stepping on each side. Robert’s job is to find the bastard connected to the folks smuggling humans and harvesting them for their innards.

Honestly, all these scheming and plotting is troublesome. Nonetheless, he already has a job to find the bastard. Where should he start this time? There isn’t much clue and he can’t exactly pinpoint anything. What Agent Wilson knows is what he knows.

Robert tries to search his memories. And yet there is nothing other than the blur of memories that he cannot remember.

He visibly groans.

“What now?”

“I don’t know. Hmm, I’ll dig up some information. Go through the list of associates and people he had made contact with. And if there is no choice then I’ll have you go to the Rosaritas. Those women know a lot of things.”

“Oh, them. You don’t want to go there?”

“They aren’t fond of people like me, Oswald. And they are much more amiable to the Commission. But if you do come for them. It’ll be hard as well since they’d be asking favors personally.”

The Rosaritas are not easy to deal with.

The modern witches of the 20th century.

And Witches like them are very hard to reason with.

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