This story uses characters and locations based on the Gunslinger Girl manga written by Yu Aida and published in monthly shōnen magazine Dengeki Daioh. The characters of Kara and Michele are original to myself.
Author's Note – This story takes place immediately after Under the Radar.
"Public Relations"
A Gunslinger Girl Original Fiction by Chris Wallace
Chapter 01 - "Hunting High and Low"
"And I want to thank the fine work of our special operations unit in striking this blow against those who seek to sunder the unity of this great Republic and wage a campaign of terror against it's good citizens," the Prime Minister's image intoned as he stood before a rostrum at the Palazzo Chigi in Rome.
All across Italy, the heads of the various counter-terrorist and special forces units each wondered whom amongst their peers had struck this particular blow, for they knew it was not themselves.
And they were generally not happy about that fact.
The SWA was not the only agency with moles inside the Five Republics and an event as important as the meeting of the five most senior surviving PRF members in Lombardy was leaked to a number of agencies. These agencies then leaked it amongst each other and eventually everyone knew that it was slated to happen, even if most didn't know where and when. And they all knew that being a part of a successful prosecution would raise their stature both amongst their peers and within the Cabinet of Ministers, gaining them a greater share of funding and personnel.
As such, when the Prime Minister went on national television to announce the raid, all of the agencies began to contact each other to find out who had pulled it off, partly out of interest, but mostly out of a sense of annoyance at being denied a "piece of the action".
The hunt was on for who had robbed them of a shot at glory.
Within about a week, everyone knew that this mission had not been carried out by any of "the usual suspects". That left three options: an external agency, a specially compartmented unit in one of "the usual suspects" who were keeping their mouths shut or a new player that none of them had known about.
The external agencies – including France's DGSE, Germany's GSG 9 and Spain's GEO – were quickly eliminated and a check of NATO flight logs showed that no military movements from outside of Italy relating to special forces (Britain's SAS, for example) had occurred within a few days prior or after the mission.
SISDE came under special scrutiny because Special Operations Section 2 often masqueraded as being from that unit when doing inter-agency operations. As such, many within the Italian counter-terrorist community felt that they were hiding a new and secret unit that had undertaken the mission, though the SISDE denied it.
An Aeronautica Militare Sottotenente at Air Force Headquarters discovered a flight of a C-130-30 Super Hercules of the 504th Gruppo of the 4° Stormo from Roma-Pratica di Mare Air Base to Piacenza-San Damiano Air Base and then back. The 504th was the Logistic Operative Services group for the 4th wing, which meant that something was flown from Pratica di Mare to Piacenza-San Damiano and then back. Also, Piacenza-San Damiano normally didn't handle the Hercules. Their LSO group - 550° Gruppo – was equipped with Alenia G.222 transports so whatever went to the base was larger then would fit in a G.222. This meant it was likely vehicles of some type.
What really piqued the interest of the Sottotenente, however, was that is was classified as a "Special Assignment Airlift Mission" which meant that that flight and plane were chosen to satisfy a requirement needing special consideration because of the number of passengers, weight or size of the cargo, urgency, sensitivity of movement, or other special factors. This flight was designated STALLONE ORO / BRAVO Standby which meant the mission was supporting the Office of the Minister of Defense directly and the aircraft and aircrew were capable of departing within three hours after notification.
The Sottotenente knew this was "above his pay grade" and as such he informed his Capitano. The Capitano was intrigued, as well, because, normally, such missions were handled by the 531° Gruppo SLO attached to 31° Stormo at Rome Ciampino airport. Before his current assignment at Air Force HQ, the Capitano has been part of the 531°, whom maintained the aircraft used by the Government and the Holy See and they also had the Hercules in their inventory. So why did the flight originate out of Pratica di Mare, which was a smaller air base without VIP facilities? He researched some more and saw that the flight had been requested by, and had been under the command of, a Tenente Colonnello Michele Pagani. He inspected Colonnello Pagani's dossier and found that he was a reserve officer who had left active duty some four years prior. This really piqued his interest, but a Capitano did not just call up a Tenente Colonnello – even in the Reserves – and start asking him questions. He brought it to the attention of his Maggiore who took it directly to the Colonnello who had ordered the search in the first place.
Colonnello Guglielmo Basile did not get to his position by being rash in either thought or action. He therefore first contacted the Base Operations Officer of Piacenza-San Damiano. The BOO was in charge of handling aircraft movement and storage at an air base. The BOO reported that a C-130-30J from the 550° Gruppo out of Pratica di Mare filed a SAAM flight-plan four hours prior to arrival with instructions that the plane be stored in a hangar for a period of a few hours at which point it would then depart back to Pratica di Mare. The base only had two hangars large enough to handle a plane the size of the Hercules, so he ordered the smaller one cleared out and made it available. When the Colonnello asked why he had agreed to such a disruption of his operations, the CO replied that the orders included a copy of a letter from the Ministry of Defense stating that any and all assistance was to be rendered to the aircraft commander, who the Colonnello knew was this Tenente Colonnello Pagani.
The BOO continued, informing Basile that three civilian vehicles then exited the plane and left the air base. He identified the vehicles as a Toyota Land Cruiser and two vans, one belonging to a telecommunications company and another to an energy company. While the Land Cruiser's windows were blacked-out, the Sergente Maggiore overseeing the unloading swore he saw two girls in the third row. The Primo Aviere Capo manning the gatehouse confirmed that Colonnello Pagani was driving the Land Cruiser when it both exited and returned, which was a few hours later that evening.
Colonnello Basile thanked him and then called the BOO at Pratica di Mare. The BOO there said much the same – that a Colonnello Pagani had arrived leading three civilian automobiles that had boarded the Super Hercules and flown to Piacenza-San Damiano and then back.
The next logical course of action would be to contact the Ministry of Defense and find out what mission they had Pagani performing, however what was logical and what was practical – even sensible – were not always the same. Instead, he contacted the Commanding Officer of Milano-Linate Air Base, which was where Colonnello Pagani performed his reserve service, to find out where the good Colonnello currently worked.
Colonnello Basile wasn't the only person looking into the past and present of a former "brother in arms" who was no longer part of their "family".
At the Direzione Centrale della Polizia di Prevenzione, a few of Marco Togni's former comrades remembered that he had supposedly gone to work for some social agency, which didn't fit his character at all. Not to mention his girlfriend had left him, which made even less sense to them now that he was out of harm's way.
The GIS also remembered that two of their former members, Jean Croce and his superior, Captain Raballo, had both gone to work for some strange group. They also remembered that Croce's brother, Giuseppe, had left the Carabinieri for the same group.
And all these agencies started to do their own internal investigations. And word of them started to drift back to Director Petris.
