Chapter 71: Friends in Need III
Elise opened her eyes for the first time when the sun was already high in the sky and a lot of the carnage outside the villa had been taken care off. Marcus watched her and Pierre for a moment before he let them have their privacy. They had moved Elise to one of the guest rooms but Candis was still resting on the couch in the foyer. Marcus had put a blanket over her and thanked the gods that she was part of the clan.
Behind the villa in a large pit burned the bodies of the attackers. They had removed all the valuables and equipment and anything they needed to identify them. As far as they could tell, the attackers were all LCPS members, low ranking and from different areas. Kou had talked with the local police chief and they quickly agreed that the whole situation should be kept out of the media. A friendly clan was a nice thing to have in the neighborhood, in case of a sudden portal or a criminal class holder showed up.
Marcus joined the combined teams in the kitchen were the fridge was raided for an extended breakfast. He managed to get some left over salad from last night and enjoyed some warmed up sausages (don’t judge!) as Cullen walked into the kitchen too. “How did it go.” Elena asked chewing on chicken sticks in the morning. Cullen had taken on the responsibility of interrogating the survivors and Marcus had a hunch that some of his potions could make people talk, if they want or not. “Actually better than expected. I promised them to leave them alive and I expect you keep that promise too.” He said. “This and some Alchemist’s encouragement made them talk and it was a good thing we captured their leader. He knew far more about the operation than I expected.” Cullen said and explained what he had learned.
The overall operation was fairly simple. The crooks had people in all parts of the LCPS and just diverted some of the corpses to a fake fish packaging firm. From there they transported the corpses to their contacts and took the pay. They had people who ensured the documents got doctored and people we drove the trucks and people who were in charge of security. Marcus had hoped for some kind of elaborate scheme but it was just money. The corrupt LCPS personal did not care what happened with the corpses or where they would end up in the end. “A bit disappointing if you ask me.” Janette said but Marcus did not agree with that. “If you only look at this part of the picture that is true. Those bastards just made money from the work of others but if you look at the big picture you must ask yourself where the corpses are going and who made this possible.”
Cullen nodded “I think Marcus is right. We just stumbled on a simple scheme here, but the connections to sell this material off are not trivial. We are talking about dozens of high grade, often large, monster corpses per month. Who ever is on the other side of this operation is most likely far more dangerous and influential than the lot here.” The Alchemist explained and it made sense to the people in the room. “I think we can take apart this operation but we should stay the hell away from who ever is buying. That feels way out of our league.” Marcus said.
“The fake fish packaging facility is in Germany, Hamburg to be precise. From there they can send it all around the world if need be.” Cullen said and ate a party sized cucumber. “So, are we going in and smash that place? I doubt they have anything that can stop our combined forces.” Elena said and Marcus agreed. The attackers from this morning had been many but they had low level and skills. If team Cullen and the Colors of the Wild made an assault they would most likely not be able to stand up to them. Of course, somebody was in charge of the whole operation and that somebody was no pushover, Marcus was sure.
“And what if we just let the authorities handle it?” Kou said. Janette shook her head “For one this is personal now. And it would take forever before the authorities would make a move. By that time the culprits would be long gone, together with the money, and we would always have a target on our back.”,Marcus had to admit she was right. In theory the police or the LCPS should solve this, but in reality nothing would happen before it was too late. “Then it is decided, we go to Hamburg and bring the whole operation down.” Marcus said with a firm voice. Of course it was not that easy, he knew that and the rest knew that too. Their enemies were class holders, they would expect that they were coming and they had no idea who and how many enemies were waiting for them.
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As they finished their little team meeting Pierre and Elise walked in, Pierre was supporting Elise who already looked a lot better. Still, Elena was quickly moving next to her and offered one of the few chairs. “You should still be resting.” she said but Elise just smiled. She thanked Cullen and Marcus for saving her life and so did Pierre. “Who and where can I find the bastards responsible for ruining one of my favorite dresses?” She said and her expression made it clear that she would under no circumstances stay behind. She was a class holder like all of them. Getting wounded was part of the job, Marcus thought. “We are going to Germany.” he said and Elise nodded with a grim expression.
A week later in Hamburg, Germany. They were in the giant harbor area of the city and large floodlights illuminated the night. Even so it was well after midnight the area was busy with loading and emptying large ships. It was a cloudy night, without a moon and Marcus watched a specific industrial compound “Henker Packaging” from the roof of a nearby building. He used binoculars but the women next to him did not need tools like that. “On the first look it does seem mundane but those guards on the roof are heavily armed and have proper armor under their civilian cloths. There are also a lot of cameras and motion detectors for such a trivial building.” after a pause she continued “I think they are waiting for us, most of the activity down there feels fake and acted. They are expecting us.” Janette reported over com so that the whole team could hear it. “Are we still going with a covert approach?” Kou asked and Marcus confirmed it. “We try covert first, we can still go loud later.”
They were well prepared for their covert attack. Between Achara, Pierre and Janette who had brought an excellent suppressed sniper rifle, they should be able to infiltrate the enemy compound. Marcus had no illusion that eventually a lot of noise would be made anyway. He himself had brought a few grenades and Janette had her heavy machine gun as back up.
A few minutes later everything was in position. Marcus watched how one guard near the large fence suddenly went down when Achara appeared behind him. In the same moment Janette removed a guard on the roof. A deadly wind moved over the open ground and up a ladder. They had scouted out dead angles of the cameras and one by one they cleaned up this side of the compound. They had to act fast, eventually the guards would be missed.
Everything went as planed and they entered a side door of the large building using a key card of a guard. The inside was made up off various offices and work areas where “fish” was processed, packaged for oversee travel and eventually stored in cold storage. All of this felt familiar to Marcus, but if you breach one villain base you have seen them all, most likely.
They had to move fast and had to cover a lot of ground, too. Three teams were formed, Marcus, Janette and Ben were team one. Achara, Kou and Elena team two, and Pierre, the recovered, very angry Elise, Cullen and Grace team three. They had tried to get the floor plans for the large building but the German bureaucracy had said 3 to 6 weeks waiting time and so they had to move in blind. “Stay sharp! If you encounter too strong resistance, fall back and wait for the other teams. Everybody make sure your locators are active so we can find each other.” Marcus said and was infinitely thankful to Kou who had pushed hard to buy these things. They looked like smart watches and where all connected, allowing you to see in what direction and distance other members of the network were.
They split up, team one would go up the office area while the other teams would sweep the production floors from two sides. They wished each other luck and set out. Marcus lead his small team with Ben behind him and Janette guarding their back with her heavy machine gun. Once she fires that beast the whole building will be on high alert, Marcus thought. But on the other hand he had the gut feeling that their enemies were already aware of their presence. And he was right about that.
