Chapter 6 Plans
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Marvel, except for my original characters, of course. But if Marvel wants to use them, they can. Feel free to post this, or any other Glaivester fic, anywhere, but please notify me so I can brag about it.
[A/N I know very little about what Swiss Banks are actually like, so just pretend that they are like I am portraying them].
Sunday afternoon in Switzerland.
"Hello," said a blond man to Logan, who was sitting at a small cafe near the Okenschaff Inn. The man had two black streaks in his hair.
"5X-7143-872-XXCCFV."
"DC-567-8H2-GJKLDZS."
"Zmoloka."
"Logan."
Wolverine put down the newspaper he had been reading. "So, what do you have for me?"
"We should talk in a more... private place."
"Okey-doke. Listen, Blondie, your room or ours?"
"Yours is less likely to be bugged."
"232."
"See you in ten minutes."
Ten minutes later, Agent Zmoloka was talking with Magneto and Logan in their room.
"I believe that the Red Skull has an account at the Geneva Philharmonic Bank [A/N I named the bank after an Austrian gold bullion coin]. It's a secret account, accessible only by its number, and so it is virtually untraceable. However, we have intercepted some of his communications and managed to get the bank and the account number by hacking his phone records. The bank uses automated banking, and so we were able to get a listing of all of the numbers he punched in while talking to them and so we know the account numbers."
"And this helps us, how?" asked Logan.
"Previously the Red Skull was transferring money to American banks. Now he is in Switzerland, or at least we think he is, he can take the money out of the bank itself. So we need to spy on the bank and see if someone takes money out from that account. If they do, we follow them."
Magneto nodded. "So we put Logan in the bank or near the bank and he can listen for the proper account number. When he does, he can follow that person."
"Exactly."
"How long will it take, Bub?"
"He was transferring money every day. My guess is that he will be making withdrawals every day. So we get there, and we listen."
"And how do I stand in a bank for hours waiting for someone without attracting suspicion? And how do I know that someone will mention the account number orally?"
"On Mondays, there is only one clerk there to do transactions. And he is known for muttering things under his breath. As for not being noticed, all you need to do is sit down on the chairs in the lobby and read the financial information they have there. No one will bother you."
"And if no one gets money from the account on Monday?"
"Well, we'll do it again the next day, although there are more clerks on Tuesdays and less chance you'll hear the number. We can just keep listening until we find it, that's all we can do."
"That's a long shot, I would think," commented Magneto.
"We also have reports of special glassware being mailed to a post office box here in Geneva. The same brand used by Dr. Chamberlain in his genetic marker testing device. There is another shipment coming in on Wednesday. We can follow the person who picks it up."
"Latveria has excellent intelligence for such a small country."
"Von Doom is very attentive towards such things."
"I see that," commented Dr. Doom. "But why not reveal this information to the world?"
"If the Red Skull knows we are on to him, he and Zemo will hide. Besides, we have managed to get information on secure Swiss bank accounts. We have infiltrated the most private country in the world. It would hardly do to telegraph that fact. It could set the world economy into a tailspin, and destroy our contacts that enable us to get such intelligence. Best to find Herr Schmidt secretly and to dispose of him that way as well."
Meanwhile, in his castle hideout, Wulfcraft, Baron Helmut Zemo was putting the finishing touches on his virus alteration device. He was dreaming of once again being able to live in Castle Zemo on the German/Austrian border, where he had grown up. Having been born in 1930, he was seventy-three years old now, although he had managed to maintain the physique of a thirty-year-old through his scientific discoveries.
"{Is it ready, my friend?}" asked the Red Skull, in German, as he walked in.
"{Ah, so you are speaking the mother tongue again.}"
"{Yes, I have been so used to speaking English while in captivity that I almost forgot it, but it is coming back to me now.}"
"{I have an inert sample of the virus. This instrument I am creating will activate the virulence factor, and add the protein groups that will recognize the correct signals. I am setting it on 'positive detection.'}"
"{That means?}" asked the Red Skull.
"{It will only affect the groups we program it to; as opposed to 'negative detection,' where it affects everyone whom we do not tell it not to affect. 'Negative detection' is more dangerous, but if we need to purify the world of ALL non-Aryans, it is faster.}"
"{I think we should just concentrate on removing the Jewish problem right now.}" The Red Skull looked up thoughtfully.
"{Agreed. I suggest that we start with Israel. They are the nation most likely to react strongly against our plans. And then we attack Latveria with a Gypsy-specified virus. Its population is 25% Gypsy, including its dictator, and it too will try and stop us. Plus, if we kill all of its Gypsies, then we will also be killing Von Doom. He could be a thorn in our side. Once they are out of the way, achieving our vision will be easier. The US will be a tough enemy, but they will be easier to manage. Israel and Von Doom's Latveria are the real concerns, because they would be much more desperate to stop us. Both countires have so many survivors from our death camps and their descendants, that they would be more likely to pull out all of the stops in order to defeat us. Especially Latveria. Von Doom would be willing to sacrifice its entire population to carry out a vendetta. Come to think of it, most of the Gypsies in Latveria would be willing to sacrifice their lives and those of their families in order to stop us. Von Doom has them take national pride very seriously. The rest of the Latverians, however, can be turned easily once they realize that the Gypsies are all dying. The country's relative racial tolerance would quickly dissolve without Von Doom's enforcement. So once we rid the country of him and his kind, it will be ripe for the plucking.}"
Monday morning, in Switzerland.
Logan had been very fortunate in tracking the money from the account. A tall blond man had taken some money out of a safe account in the bank first thing that morning, and the clerk had muttered the account number to himself almost loud enough for a normal person to hear it. For Logan, it was instant recognition. He managed to follow the man out of town, and to a car that dorve off toward the Matterhorn. Logan had managed to get a tracking device planted on the car's bumper, and then went back to discuss the situation with the others, including Raven, Cain, and Kris, who had gotten to the Inn just after dawn.
Up in the mountains, a figure followed the car. A snow-white wolf, with some sort of device on her right foreleg.
Suddenly static and then a voice broke the silence. "See? I told you that this machinery would enable you to leave Canada without losing your powers."
The wolf merely growled.
"Listen, Agent Thompson. We have been contacted by our American counterpart, Fury. He thinks that an old friend of yours may be on his way to do the same thing you are doing. So watch out for him."
The wolf morphed into a snow-white wolverine. The device on her foreleg transmitted the image back to the man on the other end of the line.
"Yes, that's the one."
The wolverine morphed back into a wolf and continued her pursuit.
[A/N Anyone care to guess who the wolf is? I should point out that, as canonical XME did with Juggernaut, I am going to make this character a mutant in my fic, even though the comic version is a demigoddess. I am generally going to avoid having characters in my fics be supernatural. Oh, yeah, I'm also going to pull an Amanda Sefton and take away her more mystical name.]