"Let me ask you a question, Don Smith: What's the value of a human life to you?"
/
The air smelled like salt. Thankfully, it was humid enough not to notice the actual temperature, which was somewhere around 'it's not even that hot in hell'. People were shouting in various languages, kids shrieking while running around and that one annoying man was running up and down the beach side, shouting 'Watermelons!'.
In short, Levi was on vacation - and he hated it.
He was lying on a sun-lounger under the biggest sun-shade the hotel had to lend, and he tried checking his e-mails. The damn Wi-Fi, however, had almost no signal at the beach - even though the hotel was literally just 30 meters away. Levi cursed and put his phone back in his pocket. As far as he could see, he was the only person wearing shorts and a t-shirt, but he didn't care about it. He hated the sun and the heat; he hated how he had sunburned, even though he put on sun cream every 20 minutes. What's more, he hated it, that only three days had passed, and he had four more to go.
Suddenly, he felt water drops dripping on him, and he jerked awake. Somewhere along him cursing the whole island, he must have fallen asleep. A face, that was covered with huge diving goggles - the kind you get for 10 $ at every shop along the seaside - starred at him.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he hissed, moving to the top edge of the sun-lounger, to avoid his clothes getting wet.
"Aw, come on, Levi. It's just a few drops," Hanji laughed, putting the goggles away. Then she shook her head, water drops flying in every direction.
"Stop this shit," Levi groaned in annoyance and Hanji laughed even more.
"You know, you're no fun at all," she teased and grabbed her beach-towel, to wipe herself dry. Compared to Levi, she had already got a remarkable tan. And she most likely had developed gills - Levi assumed, given the time she had spent in the water.
"That's because I'm not here for fun," he reminded her. Considering the conversation finished, he took the newspapers from the little wooden table between the two sun-loungers.
Hanji stretched out on her lounger. "Yeah, yeah. You're here for business, we know," she said and rolled her eyes, which Levi luckily couldn't see due to the dark sunglasses she had put on. "Correct me if I'm wrong; but haven't you met that guy yesterday?"
"And your point is?" the raven asked, looking up from the paper.
"That you've finished the task Erwin assigned to you and that you could at least pretend that you're having fun with me?" Hanji said in a bittersweet tone.
"Maybe I would have fun," Levi answered with a lower voice; "if it wasn't for the guys that are stalking us."
"What, where?" The woman sat up and looked around them. There were a lot of people around them, but they all seemed to be normal vacationers, minding their own business.
Levi got up from his lounger and sat down next to Hanji. He stroked her wet hairstrands out of her face and held it together like a pony-tail with his right hand. Before she could ask him if he had been sun-struck to act like that, he gave her a quick kiss on the lips.
She tasted horribly salty, but he traced a line with his lips to her right ear nevertheless. "Close your eyes. Don't look," he breathed against it and planted another kiss just under her earlobe. "There are two guys watching from the balcony of the hotel." - Another kiss - "The woman in pink down there," - kiss - "has a gun in her beach-bag." – kiss – "and two more guys just came in, hiding behind the palms."
He traced his kissing line back to her lips and Hanji opened her eyes.
"We should probably get the hell out of here, until I can confirm what they want."
In the past, Hanji might have started to panic at the thought that some assassins may be surrounding her. However, during her months in the Mafia, she had learned that there was no need to do so, when Levi was next to her. Then, she realised that he wasn't armed. "Won't it be suspicious if we run away now?"
The raven winked. "They'll just think we're hurrying to get in our room."
"And here I was wondering why you were kissing me even though I had no shower," Hanji laughed as she understood what he meant.
"But you gotta admit," Levi said and pressed another kiss against her lips; "that it is a good plan." Then he stood up and grabbed the towel from his lounger and went back to the hotel with Hanji.
/
In Trost, it had been raining for the last five days. Erwin was standing at the glass-wall in his suite. The sight of the city in front of him was grim. The pouring rain and the fog softened the outlines of the buildings; it seemed just as if the world was blurred. Erwin noticed a car stopping on the other side of the street, across from the hotel. It was just a blurry yellow dot – probably a cab - and the Don couldn't see whether someone was getting out of the car, or just in. He hated such days, for the sole reason of not feeling like he could control everything. The yellow dot started moving again and seconds later, Erwin heard the hotel-phone ringing behind him.
So, someone was coming - he thought and went to answer it.
"Sir," the voice of the receptionist greeted him. "A certain Mr. Zackly asks if you could meet him."
Erwin furrowed his brow. He couldn't think of a reason why Zackly would visit him. Much less, why he would come here with a cab, instead with one of his private cars.
"Send him up," he said and hung up. Then, he sat down in his black armchair and crossed his arms, waiting for that unexpected guest to arrive.
"Don Smith, I'm glad you could spare some time for me," Zackly announced instead of a greeting and entered the room, two guys in black suits were following him a few steps behind.
"Darius Zackly," Erwin said as he stood up to shake Zackly's hand. He pointed for the man to take a seat on the black leather couch. The two men in black looked questioning at Erwin and left the room immediately after the Don nodded shortly. "What brings the Chief of Staff of the Military Police in my office?" He asked when they closed the door.
Zackly chuckled. "You call this an office? It's almost bigger than my house."
Erwin forced a smile at the lame comment. "I'm pretty sure you didn't come here to discuss architecture, Chief."
The guest nodded in approval and leaned a little more forward, "Don Smith," he started. "I am here to ask you kindly, to stay out of our business."
"I'm not sure what you're talking about, Chief." Erwin said with an innocent air.
Zackly cleared his throat, obviously trying to suppress his anger. He knew that he shouldn't do or say anything to anger the Don at his 'office', or else he wouldn't get out of this room alive. "We had a deal that you'll keep out of the politics of this town," he reminded Smith.
"As long as I remember," Erwin said with a soft smile; "your part of the deal was to keep the police out of my business."
"If you're referring to the incident with Agent Dawk's department," Zackly said, "than I can assure you that he acted on his own will, which no one from us approved of."
"I see," Erwin commented. He knew that with 'us', Zackly meant the Wall-Cult; a secret organisation whose members were very well-esteemed and powerful men, like Zackly, some ministers as well as the town's mayor. Pretty much as Erwin knew that the Wall-Cult would do anything to see him dead.
"Chief, I'm afraid your time here is up; I have another meeting."
The Don stood up and watched Zackly do the same. "It was nice to see you," Erwin said and held his hand in his guest's direction, before the man could have said anything.
Understanding that he missed his chance to offer another deal, Zackly shook the Don's hand and took his leave.
After Zackly left the room, Erwin sat back in his chair. He knew that Zackly was speaking to him as a member of the Wall-Cult, and not as the CSA of the Military Police. The question however was, why did the Cult decided to contact him now? What did they want from him?
Erwin needed answers before he could decide how to act. Zackly's visit meant another thing: it was warning for the Recon Corps, most of all for Erwin, to stick to their drug-dealing and keep out of other things. Surely, the Cult must have noticed how the Corps had slowly started to take over the town.
And they want to get rid of us - Erwin concluded and glanced at his cellphone, that was lying on the coffee-table. Should he call Levi and order him to come back even though he had sent him there just three days ago?
Incertain, he reached out for it. The clock on the display indicated that it was 15:23, which meant that it was 23:23 in Turkey, where Levi currently was.
His job was to meet up with their supervisor in Turkey, where the Recon Corps possessed illegal plantations of opium poppy, which were used for producing the opium, as well as the heroin, they dealt with.
Normally, three days would have been enough for such a task, but then Erwin had suggested for Hanji to accompany Levi, and that they should stay there for a week. He thought that he wouldn't need them in Trost, since the lab at the 'Titan' was being renovated that week.
Erwin flipped his phone over a few times in his hand, before he decided to make a call.
"Yes?"
"Nanaba, where are you right now?"
"I'm at the club," she responded. "Is something wrong?"
"You could say so," Erwin answered. "Can you come over now?"
"Sure," she said with no hesitation. "I'll send the workers home for today then."
"Good," he said and hung up.
/
AN: for all of you that asked for a sequel, here you go ^-^/
(the cliche beginning is my ahead of time-excuse for the stuff that may follow. or not.
as always, i'm not 100 % sure if i'll use all the ideas i have for the story)
but one thing's for sure: you can expect insight in erwin's & nanaba's past, as well as more appearances of the shiganshina trio