by Ryan McCall
Reese had no doubt that there would be crowds of students everywhere on the day. Michael had a telescope, so if they could get to the right position they would be able to see the delegation fine. They only needed to get high enough. They would have to figure out where, once more of the details about the visit had been released.
Chapter 23
Brenna stared at the medal she had received at the ceremony yesterday. Right now she did not feel like she deserved it. She and Snar had apprehended a war criminal, but that was not the assignment.
Both of Mikono’s employees had escaped with at least half of the tarcaine shipment. Seizing one hundred kilograms of tarcaine was nothing to sneeze at, but a hundred more kilograms would go to into Mikono’s pocket.
The kitsune drug lord was clever, and more annoyingly she was careful. Fortunately Brenna had an ace up her sleeve. Selim had managed to get one of his men undercover in Asulius’ operation. If it paid off, it could be the break they needed. Mikono’s people weren’t going to talk, they had been intimidated into silence or bound by loyalty.
Captain Tolov walked up to her desk and she looked up at him. He gave her look that she had seen several times. It was the expression he used when he knew something she didn’t and was pleased as punch about it.
“Brenna, Selim has something,” he said.
She crossed her arms and asked “What?”
“Where the rest of that tarcaine shipment ended up. He wants you to meet him on the roof of this building.” The captain handed her a piece of paper with an address in Galmouth district.
“Why didn’t he tell me himself?” she asked. “I am his superior after all.”
“And I’m his captain. Look can you go and meet him? He’ll explain. He said it was information received from one of his sources.”
At the mention of that Brenna perked up. Selim’s undercover man had something for them. She wanted to hear what it could be. She stood up, pulled her coat off the chair and said, “I’m on my way.”
“Good,” said Niko. “You have to stop taking this so damn personally, Brenna. You lost the suspects, but you saved a lot of civilians and caught a high profile target. Considering how it could have gone, I’d say it was a good outcome. So cheer the hells up.”
“Uh-huh,” she replied, barely paying attention to his little lecture. She put her coat on and picked up her gun and badge off her desk. “I’ll give you a full report when I’m done with Selim.”
Upon arriving at the address, Brenna found herself standing in front of a rundown, apartment building. This was one of the old sectors of Galmouth still to be restored or renovated. She pushed open the door and climbed the wooden stairs.
She exited onto the roof and saw Selim at the edge. He was crouched and observing the other side of the street. He noticed her and waved her over.
When she reached him, he spoke in a low voice, “Stay down.”
She crouched next to him. She waited for him to say something but he continued observing. Following his eyes, she could see he was carefully watching the church across the road. “Are you planning to explain why I’m out here crouching on the roof of this shitty building?” she asked.
“It’s Eric. He gave us the mother lode,” he replied, still watching the church. “Barus and another lieutenant, her name was…uh, hold on.” He pulled out his pocket book and opened it up. Selim was one of her most detail oriented officers and had a habit of writing everything down.
“Inissa Renoch. Anyway, the two of them are using this church as a distribution hub to their smaller suppliers,” he said. “Both of them are going to be there tomorrow morning at nine o’clock to oversee the distribution.”
“Are you fucking serious?” said Brenna, excited now.
“Yes, this is real,” he replied. “Eric’s never steered me wrong before. If he says it, then I believe him.”
She could barely contain her excitement. They would be able to catch Barus right in the act. “I need to get back and tell the captain. We’re going to have to prep for a raid. We’ll need to pull in other branches for help on this,” she said.
“Is that wise?” asked Selim. He was right to be suspicious. Someone as powerful as Mikono could have eyes and ears on the watch.
“Relax,” she said. “Captain Tolov will keep it strictly need to know. He’s done this enough times. Are you good with keeping watch here while I go and organize the operation?”
Selim nodded, “There goes my night, I guess.”
He was only joking, Selim enjoyed long stake-outs. “I’ll send you back-up, so you can take shifts over the night,” she said. “And so you can send someone back to the station if anything changes.”
“Let me guess. The agorid?” he asked.
“He’s not that bad. He was raised in the city you know, and I want him to get more experience at surveillance. He has better eyesight than any other officer. Plus, he’s the best one to have at your side if anything goes wrong.”
“I can’t argue with that. I’m more worried about what will happen if he gets impatient or hungry,” replied Selim.
“I don’t care what crazy stories you’ve heard, Snar is an Alkon, not a savage and he’ll follow your orders,” said Brenna. She left the building and hurried to return to the station and plan the raid on the church.
***
The silence in the martial arts school was odd to Mikono. She was not usually here this late at night. The school served two important purposes for her. It gave her a legitimate business to operate from and secondly whenever she identified the right candidate amongst her students she would recruit them into her larger organization.
The ones that showed remarkable ability in physical combat, extra aggressiveness, but did not come from a well-off family. Those were the factors that were most important in identifying someone as a good fit for her illegal operations.
She was here tonight was in an effort to lay low after Inissa and Liam’s close call the other night. In addition to that, the Stoneskins, an orc and human gang operating out of the Delkirk district, had started a war with her people.
There had been three firefights, with two of her dealers being killed. The Stoneskins took their name after their leader, Lorek Stoneskin. A vicious and nasty orc, they all wore stone-styled armor to identify themselves. One rumor had it that Lorek even employed his own blacksmith to make armor for the gang.
They didn’t know about her at the moment. They assumed Barus Asulius was the power and right now he was holed up in his warehouse, his soldiers well-armed with shotguns and flameguns.
Once he had sorted out the distribution tomorrow, the both of them would plan how to hit back at the Stoneskins. They couldn’t be allowed to attack her business. She controlled the drug trade in the southern half of Alkos City and a lesson needed to be hammered into the Stoneskins hard enough to break them.
She heard the sound of someone running towards her office and looked out, it was Inissa.
“Mikono!” said the woman; she was panting from her exertions.
“What is it?” asked Mikono. “Why are you here? After the trouble we’ve been having with Lorek’s gang and the watch, I said to stay away for a few days. It had better be fucking important.”
Inissa nodded, “It is, trust me. When I returned to the meeting house there was a message in your drawer.”
The kitsune felt the blood drain from her face. “My watch informant has something for me. Hand it over.” If her mole was contacting her at this hour, it was especially urgent.
Inissa handed her a blank piece of paper and Mikono picked up the reading glass from her desk. It looked like a regular magnifying glass, except for the light red color of the glass. The paper had words encoded on it with magic. Her watch informant had another set of paper that was linked to a drawer in her school. Whenever the mole had anything to report, the words appeared on the linked paper. The words could only be read using the correct decoding glass. She and her informant were the only ones with a glass.
As Mikono read the words her face took on a look of concern. She placed the paper down on her desk and said in full seriousness. “The church is compromised.”
“But how?” asked Inissa.
She could be dense at times, the how didn’t matter right now. “I don’t know, what is important is salvaging what we can. I cannot afford to lose that tarcaine and we cannot move it right now. The watch will have someone keeping an eye on the church if they know the drugs are there.”
“So what do we do?”
Mikono tapped her fingers on her desk. “Can you get in touch with the priest at this hour?” she asked.
“It’s possible,” replied Inissa.
“Then this is what we will do,” she said and explained her plan to Inissa. Once she had finished, she said, “After you arrange everything with the priest, go and wake Liam up and gather everyone you can. I’ll see to the matter of the Kartecs.”
Chapter 24
“All of you know what the goal is, we hit hard and fast so they don’t have a chance to react,” said Niko. He was talking to the large group of detectives and officers in the briefing room. They all wore armor and had weapons ready in preparation for the raid they were about to carry out. Brenna stood next to the captain, ready to explain the target to everyone once he had finished.
“Follow the orders of your team leaders. I want this to go as smooth as possible. We jump in, cuff them and separate them all. I don’t want to see any frontier heroics. This is Alkos City not Fort Naikos. You do your jobs right and everyone comes back in one piece. Brenna if you will.” He stepped back to let Brenna address the assembled officers.
“Thank you, captain,” she said. “Our target is the First Light Church of Varos on Silver Avenue in Galmouth.” Several officers looked disturbed at this, while others looked gleeful. The church of Varos was both loved and hated in Alkos. They started to murmur, but Brenna cut them off.
“Calm down. I don’t like it much either, but that’s where the drugs are,” she said, speaking louder and with more authority. “As far as we know, neither the priest nor the church patrons are aware of the drugs. We are only going there to arrest these two, and anyone that is working for them.” She pointed at the pictures of Barus and Inissa pinned to the board behind her.
Brenna pulled out her pocket watch and checked the time. “The targets are due to meet in twenty minutes, so we all need to get into our carriages and into position now.” The officers all moved. Brenna walked outside and stepped inside the back of a carriage.
The carriage made its way through the streets and stopped only when they were one street away from their destination. The officers alighted and Brenna gave direction to them to set up. They moved off to get into position. Brenna and the remaining two team leaders were about to get into position themselves, when Snar appeared and walked over to Brenna.
“Snar? What is it?” she asked. He scratched the fur on his jaw, one of his nervous habits she had picked up on since working with him.
“There appears to a problem that may affect our ability to carry out a raid, sergeant.”
Brenna rubbed a hand through her hair in frustration and remembered the old military saying. No plan survives contact with the enemy.
“A large group of individuals have assembled outside the church. Kartecs from the looks of it. The Varonites have also come out to the front of the church and they are engaged in a heated debate.”
Brenna groaned. She did not need a religious confrontation in the middle of the raid. “Ok here’s what we’ll do. Snar, you come with me. The two of us will see if we can resolve this. As far as they’ll know we’re a pair of watch officers on patrol. The rest of you stay back until they disperse and we can carry out the raid safely.” The other team leaders nodded and ran off to join their teams.
“Let’s go,” she said to Snar. She looked at his back. He was still carrying his massive battle-axe. “Whatever happens, don’t use lethal force. We don’t want this going out of control.” She glanced at him again and noticed the axe was still his only weapon. “You’re good a fighter Snar and you have incredible battle instincts. But you may want to consider getting a firearm,” she said.
Snar held his large clawed hands up. “While I am able to use the larger shotguns, I fear that to rely on a gun would be more of a hindrance. Most of them are not designed with agorid hands in mind.”
He has a point thought Brenna. I could see about getting a custom gun made for him.
“Point taken. For today stick to using those strong paws of yours.”
As Brenna turned the corner she saw the confrontation in front of the church. The situation was worse than she had anticipated. There were around forty Kartecs gathered in the street, with their green headwear and gaudy, white clothing that left plenty of skin bare. The outfits were modeled after the elven prophet who founded the religion.
Two of them were shouting at the brown-robed Varonites, a few of whom had come out onto the street. The rest were dispersed on the front steps of the church. She could see that several of the Kartecs were also brandishing handheld weapons. Planks of wood and metal poles, nothing the watch couldn’t deal with, but if it turned chaotic there could be nasty injuries.
As they both neared the two groups, the Varonite cleric who had been trying to calm down his congregation saw them. He waved them over.
“Officers, please you must help me,” he said. He was too worried to even look twice at Snar. “These Kartecs refuse to leave. We have done nothing to them, I have asked them to leave peacefully, but they refuse to go. Can you please talk to them?” he asked.
Brenna nodded and turned to the crowd. “All of you listen to me. As a watch officer of the Justice Branch of Alkos City, I am ordering you to disperse and leave immediately.”
The two Kartecs that had been shouting and egging on the others, both of them elves, looked at her. One of them sneered. “Why should we? We have every right to be on this street. Is it not public property?”
“That doesn’t give you the right to interfere with other organizations. You will stand down or I’ll have all of you arrested for disturbing the peace.” She shouted over the crowd so they could all hear her. “Is that clear?”
The elf that had sneered at her turned back to his fellow Kartecs. “Did you hear the watch officer? She wants us to leave. To let these stuck-up heathens continue with their pathetic rituals to their false Creator God. What do you say to that?”
A lot of them chanted, “No!”
A single lone voice said, “Fuck that!”
A stone flew through the air and hit the cleric in the head, knocking him down. Then all hell broke loose. The Varonites, seeing their cleric fall, charged at the Kartecs, who responded in kind. They let loose with more thrown stones and started swinging the crude weapons they had.
Brenna ducked as a stone went flailing past her head. She grabbed the downed cleric and pulled him away from the brawl. Snar shoved several of the Kartecs aside to make a path for them. She pulled the cleric up the stairs and set him down gently.
She looked over at the building opposite. Selim was in position, observing. She nodded her head at him, signaling for him to go ahead with the plan. He put his hands together and cast his spell, aiming at the clashing mob in the street. There was a flash of intense white light and Brenna was blinded for a few seconds.
Watch officers swarmed into the street and upon seeing the fight between the Kartecs and the Varonites, they waded in to break it up. It didn’t last long; the watch was far more skilled at fighting than a rabble of religious fanatics.
They soon had most of them in chains, while the few pragmatic ones managed to escape. Brenna checked to see if the cleric was still alive and then ran towards the church. She shouted at the few unoccupied watch officers to follow her. She ran up the steps and slammed open the doors.
There was no one inside, but Selim’s undercover man had told them where the tarcaine was stashed. She saw the door at the back of
the church on the right. It was locked, so she lifted her leg and kicked it open. It was as she had been told, a storeroom with several barrels.
She grabbed at the top of one and lifted it. Empty. The remaining two were also empty. On the last one she saw a trace of powder at the bottom. Bending in, she scooped it into her hand and sniffed. The residue of raw tarcaine was unmistakable.
“Creator be fucking damned!” she shouted and kicked one the empty barrels in anger, knocking it over.
One of the watch officers who had joined her started to say, “Uh…sergeant, you should watch what you say in here, after all we’re in a-,”
“Fuck the Creator and fuck Varos! I don’t give a damn about them. We were meant to be getting our hands on Barus Asulius and a hundred kilos of tarcaine. Instead we have a bunch of religious fuckwits who will spend an hour or two in the cells before they get bailed out.”
She knocked the officer aside and stormed out of the storeroom. Back outside, Snar was helping round up the Kartecs and keep them in line. None of them were interested in creating trouble lest they incur the wrath of the agorid. Brenna walked over to one of the team leaders.
“Did you get all of them?” she asked.
“Most,” he replied “A few made a break for it as soon as they saw us, but the rest were too busy trying to bash each other’s heads in.”
“I want all of them searched thoroughly,” she said, but she wasn’t hopeful. She went over to the cleric who had recovered and was back on his feet. The watch medic was bandaging his head wound. “Cleric Gall, did you have any new members in your congregation this morning?” she asked.
“I have a large flock, they bring family and friends. There were first time faces. Normally it’s only one or two but now that you mention it, there were more than usual today,” said the cleric. Brenna then described both Barus Asulius and the Inissa Renoch to the cleric. “I’ve never seen an Estaran at my church but the woman sounds like Inissa. She’s a member of the High Cleric’s church.”
