They heard a door slam as the side entry on the green van was closed with rather more force than was probably intended…
Kai peered out of the front window into the gathering darkness. The angle was steep, and the light came in from the side of the house, casting weird shadows that made it difficult to see what was going on in the garden. After a second or two for his eyes to adjust, though, he saw the group of men striding purposefully towards the house, wearing heavy jackets or coats that could easily conceal a variety of weaponry underneath them. He turned as they approached the archway at the front of the property, dropping out of sight, and spoke quietly to the rest of the team.
"Looks like we have half a dozen men inbound, could be armed with anything up to assault rifles or auto-shotguns from the clothing. Looked all human, probably male from the bulk and body language."
As he spoke he saw Aswon grab his rifle and pistol and then slowly pad over to the door. The tall African held one hand up to his face, pointing fingers at his eyes, and the rest of them nodded at him. As quietly as he could, he eased open the door and ghosted out onto the landing, keeping low. As he approached the railings outside their door, he dropped to the floor and eased sideways, peering with just one eye over the lip of the flooring and down into the atrium below.
The house was a huge edifice, and must have been a gratuitous show of status and wealth when originally built. Nearly thirty metres across and slightly deeper, and split over five floors there were dozens of rooms, from small pantries and servants' single bedrooms in the attic to the grander living, dining and ballrooms to the front of the house. The house was built around an atrium, a hollow core that stretched from the ground floor all the way to the roof, with ancient glass forming a huge light well down the centre. The front of the house featured a large archway, leading into the atrium, sealed with a pair of large wrought iron gates. At some point in the last few years, the security had been upgraded to include maglocks and a CCTV system, but the gates were probably still the original design. Once into the atrium, guests walked to the far end, where a pair of lifts waited, and beyond them a double set of stairs, winding back and forth as they climbed the inside of the structure. At each level, the lifts opened up, as did the stairs, onto the balcony that wrapped around the open space. The balcony too was decorated with wrought iron grillwork, gently arcing strands of metal that had been hammered and forged into the shapes of leaves and fronds, spreading out to form a barrier between those on the balcony and the fall below them.
It was through this grillwork that Aswon peered, watching down into the atrium for the intruders. The strange design and conversion of the house meant that they'd have to travel the length of the house to reach either the lift or the stairs – climb the five floors, and then travel down the balcony back towards him to reach the front door – the only entrance into the apartment that had been created to span the entire level of the building. Of course, Aswon thought wryly, that was only if they chose to use the front door at all. The walls were made of plasterboard and ancient wooden slatboard. It had hardened with age – and probably the number of coats of paint by this point added a noticeable amount of structural strength – but a shotgun or combat axe would carve through it quickly, giving them access to the rear of the house.
Back inside the apartment, there was feverish activity as the rest of the team strapped on their armour as quickly as they could and grabbed weapons. Even through it chewed up potentially precious seconds, they all knew that the advanced composites and reinforced clothing could be the difference between being forced to take a step back from the impact of a 12mm shot, and having that same shot inflict grievous injuries upon them. Whilst they had reasonable confidence in not only the surgical prowess of some of their number, but also in the effectiveness of the healing magic they had access to – it still remained of course that being shot hurt considerably, and lucky – or unlucky, depending on your point of view – shots could still be instantly fatal. As a result, they packed on their armour, trusting to Aswon to keep a lid on things while they scrambled to get ready.
Tads sat on the floor cross-legged and concentrated, then called upon the spirits to aid her. She only tried to coalesce a moderate amount of power into the spirit, but her haste drove her to some shortcuts, and she grunted in pain as the backlash of power whipsawed through her head. It wasn't much of a headache, though, and with a few cleansing breaths she put the pain to one side and strove to ignore it. The spirit appeared before her in the astral plane, waiting for her to command it. At first she was a little surprised – it took the form of a dustbin body, with rakes for arms and a traffic cone as the head – clearly drawing its likeness from things in the city street – but then she realised that with the transient nature of the house, it never really qualified as "home" to anyone – and thus never formed a hearth spirit. Swiftly she told the spirit to guard her body and the room, using its powers to prevent harm to any of her team within the area. It nodded in understanding and then floated up into the centre of the room, watching each of the doors into the room intently.
With that done, Tads vaulted from her body, her astral form passing through the walls of the house with no effort at all, and descended down to the ground level. She looked at the van, checking for the presence of any magical effects or guardians bound to it. Seeing none, she started to slowly press through the skin of the vehicle, millimetre by millimetre, just in case there was a ward present – or some astral defender lying in wait for her. There was none though, just an empty space, as rusty and decrepit on the inside as it was on the outside. In astral space though, there was a taint, a legacy of emotion that made her feel slightly sick. Bad things had happened in here – not terrible – but bad. The trauma of the events had left an astral fingerprint of emotion that left a residue of fear and despair the seeped into the very fabric of the vehicle. Whatever had caused this, was deliberate and pre-meditated, that was for sure – and she felt any sympathy for what was about to happen to them drain away as she sampled the air around her. With that she headed back to her body again.
Back in the house Aswon watched as the six men climbed the staircase, three on each side. They moved with caution, obviously trying to cut down on the noise they made, though they were not creeping and making stealth their priority. As they moved up, he saw that they had drawn weapons – holding a variety of small pistols, and keeping them held up to cover their advance up the stairs. They were no experts, but neither were they street punks either. As the point man took the stair case, the middle man stopped and covered him while he advanced up the half flight of stairs, then bounded up himself when the first man stopped and covered him in turn. The last of the group covered their rear and kept a general eye on the other team. There were mistakes, and it was not the smooth practiced manoeuvre of a professional team – more that of some amateurs that knew the dance moves.
Aswon felt the door open behind him, the subtle movement still sending a draft of air over his lower legs. He remained in place, trusting that whoever it was would avoid his prone form and move around him, and a moment later he saw Shimazu moving in his peripheral vision, crouching low to keep as much of him out of sight as possible while still being able to move quickly. Having the height advantage over the intruders, the width of the floor gave him good concealment from below, and the ironwork of the landing meant that any flashes of movement they could see were still not great shots. Shimazu flattened himself against the wall and scooted down the landing, heading for the lifts as quietly as he could. As he reached the lift, an idea struck him, and he reached out carefully and pressed the call button. The ancient machinery lurched into life, and the lift started to rise ponderously from its resting place at the ground floor. Aswon watched as the intruders froze at the noise, looking around with their pistols for targets. The surprise faded though, and what appeared to be their leader whispered some harsh command and they resumed their movement, continuing to bound up the stairs. Two more sets of feet moved past Aswon's prone position, one each way – moments later he saw Marius settle into the corner to his right and Hunter to his left – each crouching to maximise their cover and raising pistols to cover their individual approaches.
As Marius settled into his position and sighted down his pistol to cover the landing on the right side of the building, he called up his router commands with a mental flick, and activated his internal cellular link, placing a call to his friend Andre. It rang twice, then he heard the call connect, the background noise indicating that his friend was probably at home watching the trid. Marius spoke swiftly, before Andre had a chance to even say hello…
"Andre – Marius, we have a small problem here. Half a dozen armed intruders moving into the house in tactical formation, advancing on our position. We're deploying to defend now."
"Christ Marius, I thought you said no biz, no bother."
"We haven't – we've kept our heads down, not caused any fuss or gotten involved in anything." A brief frown crossed his face as he thought of Hunter pulling the gun in the intersection and the trouble that had caused – but hey, it wasn't HIM that had done that. It was all a matter of perspective…
"Ok, right. Do I need to call the fire-brigade?" Andre asked. Marius considered for a moment – wondering if he meant the actual literal fire service, considering the wooden construction of the house, or if he was referring to a team of 'cleanup' specialists or problem solvers.
"No, no, we should be fine. I think we can deal with them internally and contain the situation. I just wanted to let you know. We're not even sure these jokers are here for us or someone else…" he paused as one of the people moving up the stairs paused too long on a landing and he had a partial line of sight for a moment. The pistol moved over and aimed through the ironwork at him and his finger squeezed gently, only just below the trigger force needed to send a 12mm round rumbling down range and to the target. The target moved, and he relaxed on the trigger, and continued speaking. "Or what they're after. But we'll try to contain things as much as we can."
"You sound like things are getting interesting. I'll leave it with you, call me if things go south." With a click he disconnected, and Marius returned his attention to the tactical situation. He realised that Kai had just inched out of the apartment and was kneeling next to Aswon, also surveying the situation. He returned his full attention back to his designated area, sighting down the pistol barrel at the wooden wall at the far end of the building, just waiting for someone to stray into his sightline.
The lift shuddered and rattled its way up to the top floor and then stopped, the door sliding open with a groan. Shimazu swiftly crossed the distance into the lift, and hit the button for the ground floor – hearing the shouts as he did so. It appeared that several of the intruders had spotted him, and he moved to the corner of the lift, crouching and wondering if rounds were about to come punching through the lift body. Nothing did though, and the lift started to descend, sliding past the fourth floor without incident and rattling down towards the ground.
Kai took a deep breath, then loudly called out to the intruders in English, "Hey, you down there! What are you doing in our house?"
There was a moment of silence, and the team watching saw the intruders drop into cover, hiding behind the lift shafts and the stairwells at the far end of the building. Then one voice shouted back in heavily accented English.
"Who the frack you are?" The words were thick and difficult to make out, and it was clear that his English was not at a fluent level.
"We're friends of the owners of this house, now who the frack are you?"
A rapid fire string of Turkish could be made out at the far end of the hall, as the intruders discussed what to do. Hunter and Marius listened carefully, but couldn't quite make out what they were saying at first. A few moments later though, one voice was raised again, calling out in Turkish. Hunter translated for Kai, repeating back in English what was being shouted the length of the building.
"Go back inside the apartment, this is nothing to do with us, get out of the way or they will kill us." The last statement was accompanied by a little snigger that clearly identified what Hunter rated their chances as.
During the exchange they saw the lift reach the bottom, and heard the door open – but they didn't see Shimazu, due to the sharp angle they would have had to peer over the railings at. It appeared that the intruders didn't want to do that either – well aware that such a move would horribly expose them to fire from above.
Kai looked between Hunter and Marius, then decided to make use of the German for his translation. Both seemed to be equally fluent in Turkish, as far as he was aware anyway – but it seemed that Marius had the edge in diplomacy and phrasing.
He spoke quietly, pausing after each phrase to let Marius call out the translation to the intruders.
"Get out of the house now, and we'll let you live... We have been watching you for some time… We have seen you watching the house… We followed you before – down to the newsagent on the waterfront… You bought the Chronicle, but turned straight to the sports page... You got two bottles of N R Gee, the green flavour, and drank them in your van... We followed you back to your market stall, and watched you selling your plastic bridges and tourist goods… The main question now is – do you want to die?"
As Marius called out to them, he, Aswon and Hunter all saw various of the men peering around the lift shaft or banisters, trying to get a bead on them. They looked out for a few moments, peering up and through the grillwork, trying to get a lock on their locations. Each of the team members saw the edges of their heads, shoulders, or hands as they appeared through the gaps in the grills, and drew their own bead on them, watching as they ducked back into cover. A shootout would be a chancy thing – but they had faith they could take down the intruders in short order if they needed to. The seconds ticked by, as their leader pondered on the information, and his men kept ducking in and out of cover as they tried to line up shots, without leaving themselves exposed.
Taking advantage of the noise that Marius was making, Hunter crawled forward like a snake, heading along the balcony and towards the lift and the stairs. He kept low and to the wall, concentrating on stealth rather than speed, and managed to get to the far end of the building undetected. Anyone who came up the stairs from the fourth to the fifth floor was going to get a very painful surprise now, but it also gave him options to quickly take the fight to them as well.
Shimazu meanwhile had headed out to their vehicle, and had checked it over – confirming that there were no more of the men waiting outside, and nothing of value or threat in the truck. Satisfied that there were no external threats, he headed back inside, and started to creep along the atrium towards the stairs, ready to climb up and attack from the rear.
Kai via Marius called out again.
"You should leave – now. My demolition expert has placed a C4 charge on your vehicle – but if you leave now you have enough time to get far enough away to be out of range of the detonation signal."
Aswon and Marius both glanced at Kai and raised eyebrows at him. In turn Kai shrugged and raised his hands – clearly showing them that he was just making shit up, and hoping that something worked. There was some more muttering in Turkish from the far end of the room – but Hunter was in easy earshot now, and heard them scoffing and calling the bluff. He tapped the transmit button on his commlink a few times to get their attention, and then showed them a downward thumb, indicating that they hadn't bought the deception.
Kai looked at Marius and smiled.
"Time for a different tack. Tell them they've got thirty seconds to get the hell out of here, or I'm going to attack them with my ghost, which will pluck their soul out and eat it."
Marius turned back to the far end of the balcony and raised his voice.
"Bir kerede git ya da hayalet ruhunu yiyecek!"
It went quiet for a moment at the far end of the balcony. Hunter listened and heard a couple of the voices quietly say "Hayalet?" sounding worried. He reached back with a hand and showed a firm thumbs up position, and then got ready to spring into action. Kai saw the thumbs up and then leaned back towards the front door of the apartment, and called in to Tads.
"Time to show them the ghost moose!"
"We're going to have a discussion about this later, you know. What's the Turkish word for 'leave'?" came her voice. There was a second's pause as Marius relayed the word to her via the comlink she'd taken the time to equip, and then a soft thud as her body collapsed to the floor when her astral form left it. She flew through the door and to the far end of the atrium in a heartbeat, dropping down through the floor and surveying the intruders. All six of them were on the fourth floor stairwell, three on each side. From their positions, they were mostly concealed from the team by the lift shaft and stairwells – each side would have to move onto the stairs and either ascend or descend to make any kind of shot, and it would come down to whoever shot first. She floated up through the ceiling back to the top floor for a moment and then manifested, in front of Hunter, and held up her hand, showing five fingers, then pointed down the stairs. He nodded, and started to crawl over towards the stairs quietly, as she faded from view again and then descended back through the floor and hovered on the 4th floor landing.
In her head she counted down…2…1… go. She manifested again, and hissed "Ayrılmak!" at them. As she appeared, the men noticed her, causing gasps of fear that bordered on shrieks for two of them. One of them panicked and reflexively pulled the trigger, sending a shot her way. The slug flew through her astral form harmlessly, unable to hurt her in any way whatsoever. Of course, they were not to know that as a purely astral observer, she was also not able to hurt them in any form – in fact she was not able to interact with them, negatively or positively. They could see her as a translucent figure, but she wasn't really there –if any of them had pointed a camera or other device at her, it would have shown nothing at all.
Once the first shot was fired though, in the heat of the moment, the rest of the intruders panicked, also firing. Within half a second multiple shots whizzed through her body, flying back and forth across the landing. She lowered herself slightly, descending until her body was floating only an inch above the landing and was rewarded with a scream as one of the men on the left shot through her, and hit his companion on the right hand side. Moments later there was another scream as another bullet found its mark and punched through clothing and into flesh.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shadow move slightly and then the edge of Hunter's gun appear as he lay on the floor above and inched just his head and arm around the corner. She raised her arm dramatically and pointed at the man closest to her, then opened her mouth and screamed at him, a long piercing animalistic cry. Hunter keyed up his Smartlink, laid the sight over the unfortunate man's head and then double tapped him.
The rest of the intruders screamed in terror as the ghost raised a hand and screamed at one of their number and his head exploded over the wall, and redoubled their firing. Round after round punched through the ghostly body, and smashed into the walls, staircase and occasionally each other – but fear drove them now and none of them were thinking clearly, apart from one soul who threw down his weapon, collapsed to the floor and appeared to be praying to something to save him.
The rest of the team had risen into firing positions when the gunfire started, and were rapidly scanning the landings, trying to get a clear shot and make sure their friends weren't being cut down – so they saw the hail of gunfire sliding through Tads' ethereal form. They sighted carefully and waited, realising what was going on, and were soon rewarded.
Tads turned sideways on, and raised an arm to each side, pointing at different intruders in each stairwell. One backed off, sliding into view of Marius who also double tapped his target, the pair of bullets entering through the exposed shoulder and devastating his chest and throat as the round fragmented and ripped his body apart. Another threw himself down and forwards, his finger spasmodically twitched on the trigger despite the gun having locked back on an empty breach and looking like he was about to try and club the ghost with his flailing fists. A heavyweight round from Aswon's rifle punctured his neck, tumbled through the body and exited the other side of his chest in a pineapple-sized hole, dropping his lifeless corpse to the landing at her feet.
Marius translated another line for Kai, having to bellow to be heard over the gunshots translating "The spirit demands blood! Run, run for your life," to keep up the pressure on the terrified Turks.
Hunter swung further down the stairs and grunted in pain as he took two stray rounds in the body armour. They didn't appear to even be aimed at him, just the effects of random fire from the terrified local as he cowered in abject fear before the ghost, pumping round after useless round through it while eyes as big as saucers stared at the horrifying image before him. The Kevlar and ceramic plates did their job through, slowing the rounds and spreading the impact force out over his chest, and he steadied himself and put another two rounds into the forehead of the man who'd just shot him. Moments later the last combat-capable intruder had also been dealt with, shot dead with a minimum of fuss and excitement. The ringing sound of gunfire faded away, and a haze of plaster dust and propellant hung over the far end of the atrium, the fine dust slowly settling and revealing sprays of blood and brain all over the walls, and deep bullet gouges in the walls. Seconds later the smell hit, the horrific smell of faecal matter from some of the corpses that had voided upon death, mixed in with the ammonia smell of urine and wafts of gunsmoke and cheap propellant.
As Tads floated back towards her body, she noticed the door the 4th floor apartment slide open an inch, and an eye appeared at the doorway, gazing out at the scene of carnage.
"Hello there. I think these visitors were for you – they don't seem to be anything to do with us, anyway."
A muffled voice responded to her statement.
"No, we're just minding our own business in here. We thought we heard a bang out here, but looking out now, I can't see anything at all. We didn't see anything, or hear anything, ok?" Tads shrugged, and then floated back up to the top floor to report in to Kai.
Aswon and Marius moved down the balcony to meet with Hunter, who was busily securing the single remaining intruder, who was still praying for forgiveness, deliverance and mercy in a jumble of Turkish. Once his hands were restrained with some zipties, they started to collect the weapons and ammunition strewn around the place, and policed their brass. They heard someone coming up the stairs, and weapons were levelled – then quickly dropped as Shimazu sauntered around the turn in the staircase. Once they had the live ammo collected and the weapons made safe, they realised that a major clean-up operation was needed, and headed back to the apartment to get mops, buckets, hot soapy water, and other supplies. They took their prisoner with them, who had his eyes screwed shut and was still babbling prayers to anyone that would listen.
In the apartment, they carried him through to one of the bathrooms and laid him face down in the bath – at least that way the filth leaking from his soiled trousers wouldn't make more of a mess. Nadia was asked to keep an eye on him, while they got on with the unpleasant task of cleaning up the blood, brains and waste matter that littered the 4th floor landing. They also collected some tools, using those to scrape away at the slatboard and paint, retrieving the odd half-buried slug or round of pistol ammo, trying to remove as much forensic evidence as possible. To take his mind off of what he was doing, Marius fired up the internal phone and called Andre. The call was picked up immediately, and Andre sounded concerned
"Hello? Is everything ok?"
"Yes, yes, everything is fine. We have five dead and one in custod..
"Whoa whoa whoa! Dude, open comms line." Marius paused for a moment then thought – sure, he had encryption software on his phone, but it wasn't engaged – because Andre didn't have the decryption key, or possibly even the capability on this phone. He tried a fresh tack.
"Um… we had a delivery of fruit arrive. It was nasty though – we have five rotten apples that need to go in the bin, and one apple that looks ok at the moment, but may turn soon. The basket looks a little worn, but is structurally intact, and maybe just needs a dab of paint to freshen it up. None of the neighbours seem interested in any fruit though. We thought the people on the 4th floor might have ordered the fruit basket, but they didn't want to answer the door." Marius heard a sigh as he said the last part.
"Right, tell your boss, that if the fruit basket was for the 4th floor, then whoever is on the 4th should be dealing with it, will you? And I'll talk to them when I see them and sort this out with them. But for now, everyone is ok, and you've not eaten anything that's gonna make you sick?" Andre listened as Marius confirmed that no, everyone was ok. "Right. I'll arrange to speak to the guys on Fourth then, knowing them they're probably laying low and won't answer their phones at the moment. Yeah – get your friend to tell 'em to sort their shit out, will you, and I'll pick up from there." Marius agreed, and heard Andre muttering as he disconnected the call at the other end.
Aswon entered the bathroom, and paused on his journey to the toilet, where he'd been about to pour away the effluent and blood mix that had been mopped up. He turned to look at Nadia, double-checking that he had in fact seen what he thought he had seen.
"Nadia. Is that a Molotov cocktail you've got there?"
"Yes. I found out how to make them from the matrix. If our prisoner tries to escape, I will burn him." She spoke flatly, in a very matter-of-fact voice, and Aswon looked at her intently, searching her features. He guessed that she hadn't really ever visited pain or violence on someone else, and her lack of compassion worried him slightly. He reached over and plucked the bottle from her hands.
"We're going to have to have a good talk later, young lady. I don't think this is the right tool for the job, either." Nadia frowned at him, then shrugged, and left the room, and Aswon returned to his task, emptying the bucket down the toilet carefully, and then running some water into it to try and get more of the foul-smelling mixture out of the bottom. Just as he finished, Nadia returned to her stool, holding a thirty-centimetre-long carving knife from the kitchen, and resumed her observation of the prisoner.
They worked for half an hour cleaning up the landing and stairwell, and between them they managed to get the site looking pretty respectable. It stank of bleach and other cleaning fluids, wood filler used to cover some of the bullet holes and gouges in the walls, and paint which had been inexpertly slapped over the top of the still drying putty. When they were done though, Tads came and cast her spell on the area, sterilising the scene and giving them some reassurance that even if they'd missed a spot, it would not be of use in proving a case against them.
They returned to the apartment and grabbed cold drinks, relaxing after the hard work done to try and clean up after the gunfight, and discussed what to do with the bodies. The initial thought was to wrap the bodies up in plastic, and load them into the green van in the early hours of the morning, and just drive to some remote part of the city and abandon it. Otherwise, their options were a little limited – they could torch the van, but that was likely to attract the authorities sooner rather than later, or they could try and borrow or steal a boat, and drop the bodies into the ocean. At a pinch they could reach out to Andre or someone else in the city to see how much a disposal service would cost. That didn't include what to do with their prisoner, of course…
Marius passed on the message from Andre to Kai, making it clear that he considered this to be firmly in his purview. With a sigh, Kai pushed himself to his feet, and beckoned to Shimazu to come with him. Shimazu grabbed his sword and rose silently to follow Kai, pausing as Kai stopped in the doorway.
"Tads? Can you do your out of body thing and keep any eye on us when we're talking to them – be good to see what's really going on?" Seeing her nod, he continued out of the door, around the balcony and down the flight of stairs to the 4th floor, then knocked sharply on the entrance door. Above him, Tads made herself comfortable in a chair and then let her astral form slide out of her body and down through the floor, dropping down into the room below, so she could see the front door from the inside. As she dropped into the room though, she saw a watcher spirit staring at her. It looked at her for a moment longer, then darted over to a figure sitting in a chair studying a book, and started to chitter and bounce in front of him to get his attention. He glanced up and round at her, clearly seeing her astral form. A moment later Tads heard Kai knock on the door, and another man entered the room, heading towards the door.
The mage looked at her for a moment longer, then made a shooing motion with his hands, ushering her back through the ceiling. He didn't look particularly hostile, or even unhappy – in fact Tads thought it was more like a request than a demand. She nodded at him though, and rose back through the ceiling and returned to her body. Downstairs, the door was opened, to reveal Kai standing with a broad grin on his face, and Shimazu standing just behind and to one side of him.
"Yes?" The man looked quite swarthy, his dark complexion and heavy bushy eyebrows made his green eyes seem almost luminous. Kai wondered for a moment if they were implants or enhanced – not that it really mattered. The man stared at him, with hawk-like intensity, waiting for Kai to respond.
"There was a disturbance earlier, some people in the house. It was most….unfortunate for them, that we saw them enter. We've got reason to believe they were coming to see you?"
"I wouldn't know anything about that – we don't know anyone around here. We're just stopping by for a few days, then moving on. We didn't hear anything, I'm afraid." Kai raised an eyebrow in disbelief at him. Whilst all of their team had used silencers or suppressors, the intruders most definitely had not. As Kai waited for him to speak again, he saw another dark-skinned individual move out of the side room and into the main room, through the gap in the door. Shimazu saw that it was the man that had come for toilet paper the other day – looking a lot more relaxed now than he had then.
"Ahh, no. We had the trid on quite loudly. I hope we didn't disturb you. We were watching a police show – there was a gunfight, you see. We did think it sounded very lifelike, but thought it was just the show. We didn't see or hear anything at all. Is there anything else I can help you with?"
Kai shook his head – it was clear that they were going to stick to their story.
"In that case, please excuse me. We must pack soon, as we are leaving. I'm sure it would have been nice to get to know you, but I think we probably won't meet again." With that, he eased the door closed, leaving Shimazu and Kai staring at the closed door. They turned and wandered back towards the stairs. When they were about halfway along, far enough to avoid casual eavesdropping, Shimazu spoke up.
"He seemed quite happy, I think – at least that's what his body language said to me. I think happy because they'd avoided a problem. What he said though about leaving, that seemed right. I don't think they're any threat to us, or mean us any harm. At least that's my opinion on them – but I'm still studying, of course."
They reported in to the others when they returned upstairs, and listened as Tads explained that she'd been spotted when she entered. There didn't seem to be much else to do with the people from the floor below, so they decided to let them be – unlike their captive who'd had long enough to stew. Kai and Hunter went to the bathroom to interrogate their captive, whilst the rest of the team unwound and relaxed for a while.
Kai pulled the hood from his head, and watched as the man screwed his eyes shut against the sudden glare. Speaking slowly and calmly, and with Hunter to handle the translations, he told the man that he was in a pretty poor situation, and that he needed to tell them the truth. Because if he lied, they'd know. Well, actually, their ghost would know and would tell them – and then it would get very unpleasant indeed.
The man stumbled through a rambling explanation – his name was Emete, and he worked for Mazhar, who had organised the assault. He, and all the other men did odd jobs for Mazhar, or worked on his stall selling cheap tourist crap. Occasionally they carried packages – drugs, or guns mostly, from pickup points to safe houses or down to the docks. Mazhar was involved with some kind of smugglers, but at a very low level and was very much in the position of doing others' bidding it seemed. Kai queried which was Mazhar, and what he looked like, and Emete described him – stumbling through the description as he recounted how the ghost had pointed at his head and made it explode.
Next Kai asked him to recount why they were here, why they were attacking the house. It turned out that the group downstairs were suspected to be smugglers – or at the very least connected with smugglers. They'd been at a café having a meeting, and after their business was concluded and the person they'd spoken with had left, they'd relaxed into their seats and had some coffee. However, the hush field built into their booth had been faulty, and their conversation had leaked into the next booth over – where Mazhar was having his dinner. With amazement he'd listened in as they described how they were going to take the bearer bonds they'd been paid with, and split it amongst the three of them, and what their plans were once they'd cashed out. Realising that not only were they not particularly security conscious, but also not that heavily armed, Mazhar had assembled a team of bully boys and thugs, and had planned to kick in their front door and rob them at gunpoint – stealing whatever negotiable bonds they had and making off.
Kai and Hunter quizzed him back and forth, asking for more details and sometimes for inconsequential facts, but his story remained constant – even after Hunter told him that the ghost had come into the room, and looked unhappy with him. From the smell and squirming, Emete certainly believed them and it took a convincing actor to deliberately lose control like that. After a while they were convinced they had everything that he knew, though there were still blank spots in the story. Kai then told Emete that he was going to be let go – in fact, he was going to be rewarded for his wise decision to give up when he was so clearly outmatched. He was to take the green van, and the possessions they had rounded up, and use his knowledge of Mazhar's business to take over – his shop, his lockup, his van – and if he got access to his house, that as well. He was being given a chance to start over, to make something of himself and show some sense. And in the future, when they came back to town – well, they'd have to see, now wouldn't they?
Emete quickly cottoned on that he was being given an opportunity, and agreed to do whatever Kai suggested, quite happy that there was a possibility of him living through the night. The chance to take over his ex-boss' business was icing on the cake compared to walking and talking. Sure, he'd have to work hard to retain the contacts he knew about – but it was better than starting with nothing. After agreeing to anything and everything they demanded of him, Kai told him that their trained computer expert had already hacked his accounts and had put tracers into all of his IDs – and that by the morning their expert search routines would know everything about them.
"The porn wasn't mine!" Emete blurted out. "The others, they used my account and bought their trid shows using my ID!" Hunter sniggered at him and cut him free telling him to have a shower and clean himself up, and pointing at a pile of generic clothes for him to wear. Certainly his original clothes would have to be destroyed…
In the kitchen, Aswon had some cooking supplies out and was busy making some food, when he smelt something… off. Carefully he inspected his batter mix, sniffing at it with caution and quickly discovering that the mix was bad. Strange… he wasn't a great cook, but he'd made this dish before without issue, and he couldn't work out what was going on. He followed the smell around the kitchen, and discovered that it came from the oil bottle he'd been using. After examining the bottle, he quickly realised that the oil was bad – which seemed very strange. How did oil go bad?
A few minutes of investigation revealed that not only the bottle of oil, but a number of other foodstuffs had all been tampered with or compromised. They weren't just bad though – as in gone off, or spoiled – no, they'd been chemically altered. The oil had been mixed with some other material and had emulsified. Suddenly Aswon realised what had happened, as he cast his mind back to Nadia sitting on the stool holding her Molotov cocktail. She'd been in the kitchen earlier, and had worked out what she needed to mix together to make some very primitive naptha. The thick and gloopy paste would burn hot, and would stick to flesh or clothes, seeping into armour and equipment and would cause horrific burns. He shuddered, and made a firmer mental note to have a discussion with her. Or maybe with Kai and Marius, and leave it up to them. In the meantime, his batch of cookies went straight into the bin – there was no way he was eating anything that had been cooked on a tray greased with that evil concoction…
He walked back into the main room, into the continuing discussion about what to do with the bodies, and how best to get rid of them with the minimum risk to themselves. After nearly thirty minutes of back and forth, it was finally decided that they'd bring the bodies back inside and up to the top floor, early in the morning. With the lights out, they'd open the front window, and then Tads would use her levitate spell on them, and quickly fly them out of the window and over the water. Being on the fifth floor, they were above the street lights, and the unlit bodies would be quite hard to see – and at 3am, there would be limited people around anyway. She could float them up, as far as she could see – and then just drop the spell. If the bodies were up high enough, when they hit the water, it would be like hitting concrete, and would mangle the bodies further, helping to disguise their injuries and circumstances of their deaths. The impact force would also potentially rip their bodies open, allowing them to take on water and sink, and lessen the chances of them being found soon. Even if they didn't sink – the busy shipping lane and strong currents would carry the bodies far away from them, and by the time they were found the team would be long away.
The disposal of the bodies went as planned, and the team relaxed, napping for a few more hours before rising again at 06:00. First of all, they sent Emete on his way, with dire warnings ringing in his ears about what would happen if he was to cause any trouble. Once he was gone and they had snacked, they got in their loaner van and headed off to go for the final session with their ID manufacturing. The session went well, tying up loose ends and getting the final bits of corroborating evidence and footage needed to shore up their new personas, and they were all done by 11:00.
They cut through the pre-lunch traffic and dropped Tads off at the garage to get a few more hours work done in her lodge – but making sure she summoned a spirit first to protect her whilst they were all away. Once she was settled, Marius called Ohmar, to check on the weapons delivery.
Ohmar sounded flustered when Marius checked with him, but confirmed that the special delivery was in fact in stock. When Marius asked if he was available for a lunchtime reservation, he agreed – but then added a response that set alarm bells ringing with them.
"If you're coming for lunch today, then dress appropriately. To the area, I mean. It will be much better for you, if you fit in."
Marius agreed and ended the call, and the team looked at each other with curiosity. They'd had dirty looks from the locals before, but not any actual trouble – what was the issue? Still, they decided to heed his warning, and stopped off at a stall on their way towards the bridge, purchasing a Niqab for Nadia, and some thobes for the rest of them. Nadia looked like she was about to complain for being made to cover up, until she saw that all of the rest of the team were also putting on traditional Muslim attire as well.
They resumed their journey, fighting their way through the traffic and over the bridge. The congestion was bad – easily the worst they had encountered so far, and progress was agonisingly slow. Eventually though they cleared the bridge, and started to work their way down from the main road through the side streets and towards the restaurant. As they did so, they saw a number of Lionheart APCs scattered around the area, all with the turrets manned and active. There was also a much larger than normal crowd on the streets, and throngs of people stood on street corners or near buildings, staring angrily at the security troops. There was a palpable air of hostility and tension in the air, and the tension started to rise amongst the team again, as they wound their way deeper into the side streets and the buildings and crowd started to hem them in. Already Hunter and Marius were in conversations, planning exit and evasion routes out of the area, getting ready in case the situation turned dire.
