MEET THE TEAM
A month later, Hans had - in secret, of course - assembled himself quite an impressive outfit that he had to admit exceeded even his expectations.
Karl, as promised, was put in the sweet second-in-command spot, and therefore was second only to Hans. Call it favouritism all you want, Hans preferred to call it not taking unnecessary risks by sticking with what he was familiar with.
Tony Vreski, Karl's kid brother, also got himself a position in the new terrorist movement. He was quite good at following orders, and although Hans was reluctant to entrust him with too much all at once, given his not-too-impressive fighting skills, he was quite good with the electronic aspect of things. This made him the ideal person to be in charge of disabling any building's phone and security systems.
Heinrich - who didn't take much convincing to leave the Volksfrei altogether - was put in charge of handling the detonators and bombs, owing to his level of expertise in the field.
Fritz was also back in the fold, having found out his friends were starting a mini-terrorism team and had neglected to tell him about it (much to his displeasure). Once he had finished ranting about how much he hated being 'ditched' by those closest to him, he eagerly loaded his machine gun and was ready.
Along with these guys, Hans also hired Alexander and James, two members of a three-person outfit involved with drug dealing and smuggling. The temptation of a greater paycheck than what their gang leader gave them was enough to encourage them to pick up a machine gun and show up to the Volksfrei hideout. While at first Karl and Fritz were sceptical about having two gangsters in their midst, it turned out there was no need to worry. Alexander and James were fierce combat pragmatists, but at the same time extremely loyal to their new leader.
At first, they operated fine within their seven-man unit. They decided to start off small, targeting mainly small businesses with an unfortunate political alliance, or news outlets that tended to favour the wrong side of politics.
However, soon they realised if they intended to attack bigger businesses, they would need more than seven people - especially if they were taking on a particularly large group of hostages. So, Hans began keeping an eye out for the illegal immigrants that inhabited the darker sides of town. This part of the job was relatively easy, as he had good contacts that brought him plenty of , he needed more than someone seduced by the possibility of getting permanent citizenship. He needed cold ruthlessness and efficiency. He found this in the shape of Franco and Kristoff, a pair of French thieves, Marco, a sadistic Italian hooligan, and Uli, a Chinese-American crack dealer. Through Tony, Karl and Hans were also able to track down an extremely talented American hacker by the name of Theo - after all, with businesses relying more and more on online security, having someone on-hand who could crack codes and passwords was very handy.
While the team felt ready to instantly strike, Hans thought it better to continue with the small businesses for some time, while training themselves for what he promised was going to be "the big stuff".
Some time later, Hans' baby boy was born. He missed the birth, but went to the hospital nevertheless and watched on as his wife suckled him and named him Friedrich. He smiled, but inwardly he felt a moment of panic. How was he going to explain his sudden absences now? He certainly had no desire to repeat what had happened the last time Monica discovered who he truly was.