The Cold War (2024 rewrite, replaced +55K words and first 8 chapters) (2024)

AN: Credits to Vasilisa, perfect_shade, Readhead and BrettFires for feedback and revisions.

Videos that inspired the writing of this chapter and the previous one:

1953 May 16th, Parisee:

Millie's head throbbed and she could feel blood trickle down her face; both the result of an assailant's blow that had left her ears ringing and her eyes struggling to focus. She had known that Parisee remained unsafe even after the mass deportations of the chaotic Granadian and Brasilian fans by thoroughly fed-up Frankish law enforcement. It had also not escaped her notice that she was treading on dangerous ground when she began following up on her hunch that some unknown entity had bribed the referees to harass the Formosan football team with blatantly unfair rulings.

Despite everything she had known, Milly had not expected to be targeted in this way, so directly and all out in the open.

Staggering to her feet and cursing her swimming vision, Milly looked frantically around for her beloved fiance and saw him struggling against four assailants, who despite his struggles were rapidly dragging him towards the van they had emerged from, erupting into the seating area outside of the cafe she and Antonio had chosen for lunch. Even as she watched, one of the men cursed, a harsh, guttural explosion of unprintable Frankish, and cuffed Antonio roughly behind the ear, causing him to fall horribly limp for a moment.

'No,' she denied, her internal monologue slow and woozy as she staggered after the kidnappers, 'I will not lose him.'

Groping around, her hand chanced upon smooth plastic, heat radiating nearby. Fingers curling down, Millie snatched the still steaming pot of hot coffee from the nearby table and hurled it at the backs of the assailants, groaning in despair as it fell feet short and to the left of her targets, her blurred vision betraying her. One of the kidnappers, hearing the clanging of the pot against the decorative fence bordering the outdoor seating area, turned around, tracking down the source of the noise. When he spotted the steaming coffee spilling across the tiles, and behind it Millie, bracing herself against a table as the motion of the throw sent a bout of head-trauma induced nausea through her gut, he growled in rage and raised his pistol.

The flat crack sounded almost anti-climatic, especially against the panicked screams of the waiters and other diners. Millie blinked, wondering what they were screaming about, where the wild shot had gone. Wondering what had tugged against her cardigan. Numbly, she raised a hand to scratch at the sudden itch in her belly, and looked down dumbly at the unexpected wetness. As she saw red streaking her palm, the world swam again.

'Wait, something isn't right.' The thought came absurdly slowly. Surely someone had made some mistake?

Looking back up, Millie dimly registered the smoking eye of the pistol still pointed at her. It looked so bland, so small, almost innocuous. Despite that, the eye bore an almost unfathomable weight, distorting everything behind it into nonsense. Only that space in reality, still leaking smoke, mattered. In a world of swimming color, only that black hole stayed still, the only true reference point. Certainly more than the man behind that eye, whose arm had tracked up so the eye of the pistol stared straight into Millie's eyes.

I wonder if this is what the mouse feels, looking into the viper's eyes?

Then, one of the other men slapped the pistol down, and suddenly Millie was freed from its basilisk stare. Suddenly, burning pain, like a hot coal melting its way through her skin and towards her spine forced its way past the strange detachment that had overwhelmed Millie.

As shock gave way to agonizing pain, Millie's knees clenched together and she groped for the table, desperate for any support she could find as she watched the assailants finally pull Antonio into the van before piling in after him. The van was already in motion before the door slammed, the crack of noise sending a sudden flinch through Millie. Her world swam again, almost falling as the table's meager support proved wholly inadequate.

Strong hands caught her before she could tumble, supporting her and balancing her as Millie's entire world faded to black.

Just before she passed out, Millie thought she heard a female voice say, "Hang in there, kameradin; we will find those schweine and bring António back. This will be the last mistake of their lives!"

A few days later, on the outskirts of a Frankish town near the border with Ispagna:

Teyanen checked his weapon, E-2 Block 2 orb and Absorbieren Type 1 Orbs again and again as he waited in his concealed position. Many of the mages involved in this operation had been hastily transferred into the BND's service, including several C-Class mages equipped with the electronic H-10 orbs. One of those mages, a profoundly unlucky fellow, had ended up stationed in the sewers as a precaution. Tenyanen was still somewhat skeptical about their presence; he wasn't a fan of involving half-trained mage cadets in an active field operation. Already, he'd heard one of the more seasoned operatives joking about how seeing the BND scrape the bottom of the barrel of available mage-power reminded him of the final days of the former Empire.

An ominous connection, that.

It was obvious to Teyanen that the recent events in Parisee were guaranteed to draw the personal attention of President Degurechaff, and where her attention lingered, the BND followed. He couldn't fathom the kind of foolishness that would inspire anybody to attempt the kidnapping of a reporter known to be favored by the Rusted Silver, but perhaps that kind of mind was just far too special for him to comprehend, especially considering how the idiots had ended up shooting their intended victim and kidnapped the husband instead.

The Argent's vengeance would be both swift and sure, Teyanen was certain. How anybody could have missed her territorial streak for decades, he couldn't imagine.

But, clearly someone had. That someone had also hit upon the creative idea of hiring an organized crime group to act as deniable muscle for the initial kidnapping. That gang was now on the top of the BND's sh*t list, and would be dealt with promptly just as soon as the sham of the sports season was done. Elya's agents had easily tracked the criminals transporting António to Frankish agents that were trying their best to pass for Algerian radicals and rogue Aegyptians. Their flimsy disguises had lasted only until one of them slipped up and inadvertently revealed their connections to outspoken factions of the Frankish military in front of an undercover agent. Which also confirmed that the SCE was borrowing personnel from the Frankish military like what the BND was doing.

The BND had immediately started peeling back the layers.

This task had been complicated somewhat when agents from Ispagna showed up to meet with the rogue Frankish agents in order to pick up António. Apparently, the journalist was a wanted figure in Ispagna for some time, due to previously publicizing atrocities of Ispagna's own wars against insurgents in their colonies and running afoul of Ispagna's strict censorship laws, and continuing to publish anti-colonial writings.

What didn't make sense to him was how much risk the Ispagnish agents were taking to illegally extradite a journalist that was bothering their government. Maybe they didn't realize the Frankish agents had no sense of subtleness and drew unwanted attention.

In the face of this sudden evolution, Teyanen had anticipated a delay in the operation to re-establish an understanding of the factors at play and to account for the abrupt emergence of a new player at the board. What he hadn't expected was for Anna to not only cut her hospital stay back in Germania short, but to also personally infiltrate the safehouse where the handoff was scheduled to occur ahead of time to plant passive listening bugs before assigning herself to overwatch duty.

"Standby for action," a stealth voice spell from Anna announced, breaking the silence in Teyanen's head. "Ispagnish agents are preparing to leave the house in two vehicles. António is with them, but which vehicle he will be in is uncertain. The six Frankish agents appear to be staying put in the house."

"Are we still sticking with the capture plan?" Teyanen asked, gears grinding in his head as he finished his final checks. Nothing was wrong with his rifle, nor his orb. Not that the knowledge soothed his anxious mind particularly. They couldn't act immediately; that would alert the Frankish agents, who would presumably bunker up immediately and call for help, introducing even more complications.

'But if the Ispagnish agents cross the border,' a plaintive voice in Teyanen's mind wailed, 'things will get even more complicated!'

"I want them all captured. I want to know how deep this rabbit hole goes," came the prompt response, the voice spell easily carrying the message's cold snap.

"Wasn't our priority to rescue António?"

"Of course; I don't see why we can't do both."

An idea hit Teyanen as he watched the garage door laboriously crank itself open, a car and van emerging and turning to drive away down the quiet lane.

'The sewer. I could have the poor bastard stuck in the sewer shoot out a tire and force the vehicles to stop. If the Frankish agents don't come out of their safehouse to investigate, we can apprehend the Ispagnish agents and rescue António. We'll leave a detachment to keep watch on the safehouse until the Frankish try to come out, and we'll get them then.'

Speaking quickly but distinctly through his orb, Teyanen relayed his instructions to his team, sewer mage included, ordering them to spring the ambush, while keeping a few back to watch over the safehouse.

Keeping his own eyes glued on the safehouse, Teyanen heard Anna's voice spell again. "This is unusual. A Frankish agent in the safehouse called someone and gave an order to intercept the two vehicles."

"Are we going to have to expand our rescue operations to the Ispagnish agents as well?" Teyanen asked, while the thoughts of what Anna said churned in his head.

'What is going on here? Are the Frankish backstabbing their allies, or…?'

"Dammit," Anna cursed quietly between his ears, "we don't have much time. Just… stop the vehicles for now; we'll sort out the mess afterward."

Teyanen rolled his eyes, then gave the confirmation to the sewer mage, who promptly blew out the front left tires of each vehicle with two silenced shots.

One of the doors of the suddenly immobile vehicle in the lead sprang open and someone stepped out to take a quick look at their punctured tire before shouting something in Ispagnish. The occupants of both the car and the van quickly bailed out and all ran towards the row of parked cars that were next to them, presumably to hotwire them. None of the figures, Teyanen noted, appeared to be bound.

'Where did Antonio get to? Is he still in the van, maybe?'

And then a truck smashed through a nearby closed garage door of the warehouse at the end of the lane. As it emerged onto the street, its tires squealed as the bulky vehicle made a sharp turn and barreled towards the panicked throng of Ispagnish agents, who scattered as they opened fire on the truck. Despite their last second evasion, the truck still managed to run over a few of them while also wrecking the row of cars to deny a getaway vehicle to the Ispagnish agents. Back up the road at the suddenly torn-open warehouse, still more armed men poured out onto the street and immediately opened fire on the surviving Ispagnish agents.

Pausing a moment as he watched the entire operation spin out of control impossibly quickly before slapping his cheeks to force himself back into the present, Teyanen quickly spun up his voice spell to broadcast his next order to the rest of the BND agents. "Capture them! Capture them both!"

"Belay that order! The Frankish agents in the safehouses are also panicking; whoever the new arrivals are, they aren't with them. The Franks are preparing to exit their safehouse." Anna's voice came in. "The confusing part is, why would one of them give the order to intercept the Ispagnish agents and the rest are now trying to rescue them?"

"They are blocks away and don't have a vehicle! We can take down the people currently shooting one another and check the two vehicles for António before they arrive!" Teyanen shot back, nerves jangling with adrenaline.

Then Teyanen felt powerful magic emissions coming from the safehouse's direction. He looked over and stared in complete disbelief as the group of apparent disguised Frankish mages burst out of their safehouse's roof and charged headlong towards the battle.

'Well… Good thing we didn't attack them, I guess. Unexpectedly encountering a squad of mages with only a few veterans mixed in with all the rookies…' Teyanen shuddered. 'Yeah, pass on that. But… Wait…'

Something was still off. There were five mages rocketing into the air… but Anna had said there were six Franks in the safehouse when one of them had made the phone call that'd potentially tipped off the ambushers. So… what was the last one doing now?

"Safehouse overwatch team, move in to capture the remaining mage in the house! I think we found the Frankish mole. Rest of the team, remain on standby!" Teyanen barked, the voice spell carrying his order to all of his mages.

"What about António?" Anna replied. "He's still in one of the two vehicles that we stopped, right next to the ongoing battle. If he stays there for long, he could end up as collateral damage."

"If there was a mole among the Frankish mage agents, then the ambushers of the Ispagnish agents would know about António. I won't make a move until I see one more surprise in this goddamn clown show!" Teyanen shot back.

He didn't have to wait long for the next shoe to drop. When the flying Frankish mage agents made their presence known by blowing up the truck before it could run over more Ispagnish agents, some of the ambushers suddenly powered up their own spells and promptly returned fire back up at the flying agents.

'Called it.

"Those mages on both sides," Anna mused, thoughtful over the stealth voice spell, "it seems like their magic signatures are similar from what we saw from the colonial North African mages back in the last European war, over on the Trieste front… We know that some of the survivors went on to join the Algerian insurgency… but they don't quite match."

Teyanen waited for about a minute for the casualties on both sides to rack up and the surrounding area to be devastated from the exchange of magic enhanced gunfire before giving the order for his mages to join the fighting and rescue António from the battered vehicles below.

As his mages descended like stooping hawks on the scrum, Teyanen was left to wonder, 'Just how deep is this rabbit hole?'

1953 June 1st, somewhere in Germania:

"He's a tough one, I'll give him that," Elya murmured, her breath hot against my ear. "We tried everything but he still hasn't said a word, his demand to speak with you in person aside. He must feel like he's got plenty of cards to play, and I'll grant you, he's piqued my curiosity. We caught him pretending to be an Algerian agent using the same falsified documents his now dead colleagues relied upon; he was also the one who ratted out those colleagues to the ambush party. We were able to find some actual personal details of him to confirm that the identification documents he had with him were fake. Oh, and we compared observations of his behaviors in captivity to the post-traumatic stress disorder studies on Bharatian war veterans; multiple doctors agree that there is something very wrong upstairs with him."

I looked up from the video recording of the most recent interrogations of the Ispagnish agent and the Frankish agent, and gestured for my spy chief to continue her briefing.

"Those other two were quick to spill their guts and make a deal. First one said their order was to meet the SCE to pick up António and drive back to Ispagna to hand him to their local law enforcement, while the second said they were ordered to transfer a VIP from the Frankish criminals and hand him over to Ispagnish agents. Both were shocked that "Algerians" and "Aegyptians" showed up out of nowhere to attack them."

"What happened to the rest of the captured agents?"

Elya let out a deep sigh. "We screwed up. When we were transporting the captured agents, the ones that were identified as fake Algerian and Aegyptian agents blew themselves up with magic explosions and killed several of the agents captured from the other factions in the process. The only way I could think of them pulling that off was by swallowing a second magic orb before their capture while turning over their first orbs, and then casting self-destruction spells with the swallowed orbs. That little gambit left only three captured agents alive and intact, and also caused a few casualties among the BND agents who had their shields up the whole time. Anna had to go back to the hospital, again."

"And the rest of the SCE is probably like that, at least for the radical factions of it…" I trailed off as Elya nodded. "Are we sure it's not an asylum that the patients have taken over?"

"I would have gone with 'suicidally fanatical', but I suppose that description would also suffice," said Elya with an ambivalent shrug of her shoulders.

"He doesn't have an orb jammed up his butt, right?" I asked Elya, half-joking and half-serious.

"We did a full cavity body search and x-rayed all three men before interrogating them. And again for Calvar right before you arrived," Elya replied, rolling her eyes.

"Any advice on how I should handle this?"

"Establish a rapport and convince him to trust you, while making it clear that you already have all the cards." Elya handled a summary sheet of Calvar's details to look through and a thick folder. "You'll need to memorize that sheet. The first several pages of the folder have additional details about him. The rest are just decoy pages to make him think that we have more information on him that we actually do, so that he has less incentive to hide things from us."

As I walked in, I spun up a quick shield spell as well as the recording spell, just as a precaution. Calvar's head was resting on the table, as if he'd already grown so inured to his captivity that he could sleep comfortably on the hard-angled interrogation room chair. Of course, he wasn't sleeping; as soon as the door creaked closed behind me, his head bobbed up.

"Ah, the Devil of the Rhine," he said in lieu of a greeting, speaking in accented Germanian and smiling softly as I took my seat.

"The Devil of the Rhine..." I let the pause linger as I arranged the folder on the table, artfully careless as if the security of its contents was beneath consideration. I saw the eyes of the man across from me dart momentarily away from my face towards that folder, an involuntary show of nerves that proved Elya's gambit had introduced that first small seed of discomfort. "Now that is a name I haven't heard for some time… At least, not said directly to my face."

I leaned forward on the metal seat, holding firm eye contact with the prisoner. "So, tell me, Monsieur Calvar… What does the Devil of the Rhine mean to you?"

"Just an old name for the perennial headache afflicting several Frankish governments across the decades and the Army's own private bugbear," Calvar replied with a bland smile and affected shrug. "You truly have a talent for riling them up, you know. Both on the battlefields and in the stuffy conference rooms where matters of policy and diplomacy are decided! Quite the talent indeed."

"I would like to learn a bit about you, to hear your perspective," I replied, angling my head slightly to convey patient interest as I motioned with my hands for the interrogatee to speak.

Speak he did. "What do you know about me?" Calvar asked, raising an eyebrow. "After all, I have used that 'giant folder' technique when I was the interrogator even when I knew almost nothing about the suspect."

Ah, he wanted to see what cards I had.

I opened the folder and set out a few sheets of paper in front of him.

"Fought in the Bharatian War, and at the cessation of hostilities was immediately deployed to Francois Indochina. Attached to a deep infiltration operation in 1952 that resulted in heavy losses for your mage company and was dishonorably discharged after a hasty court martial stemming from the failure of that mission."

"And do you know what that operation was about?" Calvar asked with a blatantly rehearsed expression of eager interest smeared across his face, a small demonstration of his familiarity of the push and pull of interrogations.

I kept my cool in the face of his attempt to direct the conversation and flip the power dynamic. I had no need to play his little game. "Major disruption of the Vietnamese rebels' operations right before your military launched their own offensive. Any further questions?" I smirked. That was a bit of a bluff because all we knew from the Albish sources was that the Vietnamese rebels put large bounties on his mage company's surviving members and was in a state of disarray shortly after their attack, and it was oddly coincidental that the Frankish military started their offensive at about the same time, which had proven so successful that the vengeful Franks had chased the rebels all the way back into the CSR even though the mountainous jungle terrain.

He chuckled, and then sighed. "Over half a decade of loyal combat service, and that and three sous will buy you a cigarette. Half a decade in South Asia and the last handful of survivors of my mage company were thrown under the bus by the brass in a futile bid to cover their own folly. Just another day of service to the glorious Republic."

This was certainly a seasoned mage. Especially with how the fighting in Indochina still raged on to this day, the intensity barely slacking for all that the Vietnamese rebels were beginning to show signs of weakening.

"Dealing with idiot superiors for years only to be discharged with nothing to show for your trouble…" I grimaced. "I know that feeling. That was my situation, more or less, after the Great War. Armistice came and I had no choice but to return to the orphanage that I had come from. That or starving in the streets, I suppose, since the new government refused to honor our pensions and my backpay all got appropriated along with the rest of the bank's assets to pay down the war debt. I didn't have enough to buy so much as a loaf when I left the Kaiser's service."

"If you were given a cushy retirement, would you still have gone into politics?" Calvar's tone made it clear that he felt the question was rhetorical, but I still gave it the consideration it was due.

"I am sure that we both know that retirement was never really an option available for me; as I am sure you can attest, aerial mages do not transition easily into civilian life. Besides, finding a job where I could make enough to buy my bread was far from an easy task, back in the old days under the Treaty. Again, I am sure you can relate. We were both backed into corners and resorted to desperate, risky measures. That much we hold in common." I shrugged, the rise and fall of my shoulders indicating that what was past, was past, before building my next question from those old stones. "So, Monsieur, how did you find your feet after the military booted you out?"

"My company commander reached out to his contacts in the SCE. The Service in turn found places in its ranks for all the survivors of our old company, myself included."

"And everything was happily ever after from thereon out?"

"For a short time," Calvar replied with a faint smile. "Of course, it wasn't long before we were all sucked whole into the byzantine pit brimming with vipers otherwise known as SCE's internal politics. Push truly came to shove when our old commander was wounded in an assassination attempt conducted by an Ildoan mafioso, but we never quite figured out exactly who ordered it. The official inquiry into the attack on him was coincidentally stonewalled.

"From that point on," Calvar sighed, "I knew no SCE agent could be fully trusted, not even my old comrades. One of my former brothers-in-arms was almost kidnapped by a gang of criminals, whom he managed to capture in turn with the aid of his section. When the would-be kidnappers refused to talk, my former comrade promptly took their family members into custody and began to put them to the question in place of the criminals themselves. This same comrade once threatened to shoot me back in Indochina when I was going to liquidate a civilian family who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and observed our mission."

Allowing silence to linger for a moment, I quickly surveyed Calvar. His eyes were fixed on the middle distance, hooded and heavy, and his fingers had curled as if he were cradling a cigarette. Potentially indicative of psychological distress, but equally likely part of an act to feign psychological distress. The man has already demonstrated familiarity with interrogation scenarios and could be attempting to build a sympathetic character.

A moment later, Calvar sighed again and continued. "They talked, of course, and presumably at least some of what the gang said was useful. As a justification, if nothing else. On the strength of their confessions, my comrade bombed the wedding of a leader of a rival faction of the SCE, whom the criminals claimed were the allies of their 'society'. Of course, whether that was true or not was irrelevant, as the bombing escalated matters into an all-out war with that rival faction as well as their criminal partners, in turn forcing my commander to align with still another faction for protection. As part of that deal, I was sent to act as a mole within yet another rival faction on behalf of our new comrades."

"A bomb in the cake?" I asked, morbidly curious about the wedding incident and willing to give Calvar something else to discuss before circling back around to the factionalism of the SCE.

"No, he went big. Way too big." Calvar shook his head contemptuously. "The whole church came crashing down, and it was one of those medieval ones made of stones. Something must have snapped inside of his mind to go all out like that. The associates of the crushed faction members and mob bosses that weren't at the wedding didn't appreciate it too much. Hence the war."

And I thought the office politics I had dealt with in the past was bad! At least I never had to worry about being gunned down or blown up if seen as a threat by an overly ambitious manager or coworker!

I tried my best to keep a straight face at the reckless scale of collateral damage as I asked my next question. "Could you tell me more about these factions within the SCE? I have some information about them, but obviously not as complete as yours."

Calvar went stone silent for several seconds, then reached out and grabbed my hand to inscribe letters onto my palm using his finger. It spelled out 'privacy'.

I held up a hand to Elya who I knew was standing behind the one-way mirror, and spun up a privacy spell that he requested. "Okay, now no one can hear us. So unless you think I'm a mole for the SCE, I'm keeping the information confidential only to my personal circle, including Miss Müller."

"Well, if you were a mole, the SCE would have an internal civil war on its hands because many would be paranoid that you would be seeking to seize control." Calvar chuckled before his momentary amusem*nt lapsed back into the thousand meters stare.

"I will be hunted down by the Agence Armée Secrète for telling you what is going on. Or gutted by La Main Bleue for being a mole and killing their members in that ambush. Or apprehended by the ignorant SCE agents or Frankish law enforcement that were unaware of just how much those two major factions penetrated the Frankish government, and then executed for killing fellow SCE agents. Or 'commit suicide' in prison while to keep me from saying anything to those that didn't have a 'need to know'. Or just die from a random drive-by shooting because of someone that wanted revenge for that wedding bombing, of which there are many, with some cheesy movie one-liner "our boss sends his regards" being said to my corpse. Or I could have remained silent and rotted away in your secret prison."

"But you didn't blow up like your fellow agents to avoid being here."

"My second orb didn't work. Couldn't cast a working spell."

"So…" I began, jotting down a note to ask Elya if Calvar had been induced to vomit up his second, dysfunctional, orb yet, "how did the mafia and other criminal groups come into play?"

"Many years ago, the SCE was having extreme difficulty establishing a long-term presence on Germanian soil. They couldn't find any feasible way of infiltrating the BND or at least avoid detection. The new strategy they settled upon was to work with organized crime groups already operating in OZEV to sidestep the BND, most notably the organizations based in Ildoan Kingdom, such as the Sicilians and the Calabrians. After all, there are only a few border restrictions between OZEV members, making it easy for Ildoan mafiosi to operate in Germania and elsewhere."

"You said infiltrate?" I pressed, hunting for clarification. "There were attempts to infiltrate the BND?"

"Ah yes," Calvar nodded, a smile flickering on his lips, "I heard rumors that someone managed to get an indirect informant into the BND, an informant who has ties to one of the Ildoan mafia clans, just as the mafia has ties to the SCE. If I'm killed while in BND custody, I assume they'll either be the triggerman or the one holding the doors open for those who come to close my lips. Ratted out by a mole just like what I did to LMB. Ah, the irony!"

Looks like Elya's workload just increased yet again, I thought, pitying her.

"And I'm assuming as part of that deal, the SCE helped its underworld allies by smuggling goods, money laundering, derailing law enforcement, acting as 'professional' muscle or assassins, and so forth? In return, the crime groups provide intelligence, deniable proxies and other support to the SCE?"

Calvar nodded. "Both sides benefited financially. The SCE agents involved with the mafia clans became quite wealthy and well connected, allowing them to gain influence over military officers, National Police, local police, politicians and foreign government contacts, and even other SCE agents. If the money didn't work and they wouldn't take the bribe… maybe blackmail, using information sourced from the 'Men of Honor'? You won't believe how many people are into some exotic sexual fantasies stuff, including the closeted ones in countries who aren't quite as liberal as Germania when it comes to relationships. Speaking of foreign government contacts, it turns out the ones who were receptive to bribes from the Chinese agents are also receptive to even larger bribes from the SCE's affiliates, with a side dish of blackmail that the communists don't have. False once will prove false again, who could have guessed?"

"And those organized crime groups also have blackmail material on SCE agents who work with them by now," I mused, tapping my chin. "If only because of their willing collaboration with the criminals themselves, besides any other crimes they might have committed."

"Indeed. A mutually assured destruction if their partnerships are threatened. The SCE wanted to use criminals as a tool but the criminals also ended up also using the SCE as their own tool."

"I'd imagine the work environment in the SCE is… quite exciting," I said, utterly deadpan as I raised an eyebrow. "I assume there's a distinct lack of whistleblower protections, for one."

"Whistleblowers?"

"People that report wrongdoings within an organization."

"You mean the folks that report on corruption?" Calvar laughed and wiped a tear from his face. "Report the corruption to whom when the politicians of all parties are too stuck in arguments and voting gridlocks, or forcing each other out of office to care? The socialists who are pretending that they aren't actually communists, unionists that keep finding reasons to go on strike, anti-colonialists that are helping the Algerians and Vietnamese, and pro-Germanian nutcases, all who have done their job of grinding the government to a halt. The ones who know about the corruption don't care anymore, and the ones who care don't know. And that's if they aren't on the take themselves! All of this started after Pierre-Michel de Lugo led us into a war that ended so quickly that it took a while for the Frankish people to come to terms of what happened, with wildly different ideas of what to do next. The ongoing insurgencies that were bleeding the republic dry with no light at the end of the tunnel certainly didn't help with the SCE's and the military's organization culture trajectories."

Once I'm done with this interview, I need to start drafting anti-corruption, government transparency, and whistleblower protection laws. I can't allow Germania to have even a fraction of the corruption that is within the SCE. The idea of working with organized crime just disgusts me and is something I would never accept.

As tempting as it would be to allow Elya to directly go after criminals within Germania, that could lead to the same problem where the radical SCE factions have been able to exploit their dual domestic and foreign authorities to operate with impunity. So I would need to find a legal, ethical way for the BND and domestic law enforcement to quickly share information to prosecute state-sponsored criminals. Or criminals sponsoring state actors, I have no idea at this point.

I put my hands on the table and flipped them palm up as if to offer two choices to him. "Well, you laid out your conundrums. If you help us, I will personally ensure that the BND will protect you and give you a second life with new identities and you'll live in obscurity, after we deal with the moles of course. Or you can be a long term advisor for the BND, which means anyone who wants a shot at you has to go through me or Miss Müller. Or you can pick the gruesome options that you listed earlier."

Calvar paused for a moment as if he was processing the offer. "You intend for me to betray my country?"

"I could care less about what the Francois Republic is doing as long as they aren't threatening OZEV or helping the communists." I leaned back and stretched. "But is there any way for you to serve your country without being murdered by your SCE coworkers or leaving you to your own fate with the BND? After all, I don't like to micromanage my subordinates so I don't know what Elya would do to you over the coming months if you refused my offers."

I could see his hands clench and his knuckles turn white. I then leaned forward.

"If you ever decide to return back to the Francois Republic to do your own thing after you help us instead of just fading into obscurity for protection, I might have the BND help you in return. Maybe fix your country in your image, or at least deal with those that want you dead. It's your decision."

"LMB will try to kill both of us," Calvar pointed out, less of a prediction than a statement of fact. "Elya and Anna are also high priority targets. Probably use a car bomb to take both of us out with a single attack, like what they tried before. They really hate you and see you as just as much of a threat as the communists."

I'm definitely going to need to ensure that Elya gets a proper vacation after all of this. And if she hangs out with her NKVD boyfriend, something tells me that the fanatical SCE faction would be willing to take a shot at the NKVD in the process and start a direct war against both the BND and NKVD.

"What about the AAS or the rest of the SCE? And what do you mean 'like what they tried before'?"

"The factions competing against LMB generally have the policy of 'Leave the Devil alone', but they all consider you responsible for igniting the insurgencies in the colonies by giving Malagasy independence. Meanwhile LMB wanted to take a step further by attacking Germania, which everyone else is extremely opposed to. As for the car bomb, last year they had the genius idea of car bombing you while you were riding in a police van to your court trial. The AAS intercepted it while it was still in Lothiern."

"I just gave Malagasy a referendum," I deeply sighed. "And thank you for clarifying the details behind that car bomb incident."

"Perception is reality, all they saw was the 'effect' after the immediate 'cause'. Algeria and Indochina were both powder kegs, but they perceived you as the one who ignited them." Calvar pointed his finger at me.

"So, who actually controls the SCE right now?"

There was a long pause from him before he finally spoke while he wiped the sweat away from his brow. "I have no idea. I'm not sure if anybody does, or if there truly is anybody in control. Perhaps the Ildoans? If anything, the mafia seems to be the clear winner in all of this. Regardless… There's a storm coming, and you should batten down your hatches."

I nodded, suppressing any facial expressions of my discomfort at his warning of what was to come. "Regarding the deal, have you made up your mind, or do you need more time?"

"I'll take a lunch break and we'll reconvene later today. And this time, I get to choose what my food options are."

I looked around the room. "That's oddly specific, there's no clock in here."

"I don't need a clock to estimate what time of the day it is," he smiled, but I could tell his eyes indicated something very different. "I have sat in the interrogator chair plenty of times before. Your she-wolves' interrogation methods were very polite compared to what I've done to others. Perhaps it was unfair to call you the Devil of the Rhine."

1953 June 5th, Parisee, at the luxury box:

I already knew the Formosan aerial lacrosse team's first match was going to be rigged, and of all of the teams they're going up against first, it's the Albish. Elya confirmed Millie's gathered evidence of the corruption in the sports officialdom, and discovered that the CSR was the biggest contributor to that. They had bribed the referees to keep smacking the Formosan football team with unfair rulings, and bribed other officials to press on with scheduling matches for the football team even after many of the team's belongings were wiped out in the bombing attack. And the bribery seems to have continued for the aerial lacrosse match. It seems that the illegitimate CSR government is trying everything to frustrate Formosa short of actual war.

Oh well, at least that'll give more ammunition for Shu's propaganda machine, even if the aerial lacrosse team ends up sharing the football team's outcome of being repeatedly crushed back to back. And the BND had helpfully provided 'anonymous' information and contact information for potential sources to Millie through letters "from concerned friends and whistleblowers," so that she could still continue her investigation into the corruption while recovering from her bullet wound.

I leaned back in my chair and checked my watch. The South Bharatian Prime Minister Rajendra Prasad should be here any minute. After the game, I'll then have to meet with President Nasser after he requested a discussion a few days ago.

I browsed today's newspaper to read while waiting for Prasad to arrive and the match to start, the front page was all about the Ispagnian government blaming Algerians and Aegyptians for the slaughter of their "innocent" citizens in the Francois Republic and their state-controlled media was more than happy to denounce Algeria and Aegyptus. It was only a matter of time before Ispagna would start sending military forces to the Middle East to support the Francois Republic. Back in the Francois Republic, law enforcement were conducting mass arrests of Algerians that were living in the Francois Republic. Protests from Algerians ensued, which was met with further crackdowns and curfews set specifically for Algerians, and that was met with riots.

It seems that the pro-colonial faction is getting the war they wanted. Thankfully António and Millie are safe in Germania now, but it's becoming clear that António was used as a pawn by whoever is operating in the shadows to influence Ispagna's foreign policy, root out rival SCE factions and potentially push Francois Republic to take ever more extreme actions against their Algerian residents.

"The prime minister will be here in a moment." Visha walked up from behind me to put down a tray of coffee and chai. "Also I made these drinks with ingredients shipped from Germania."

I quickly kissed Visha's cheek. "I didn't know you were also into making fancy tea."

"It's been a while since I've seriously cooked." Visha sighed as she sat down.

"Dear, you're not the deputy chancellor anymore. You shouldn't be taking on so much work as an 'advisor'."

"I wanted to take some of the work off your plate."

"I still can't believe it's been this long since Germania has gone without a Diet." I sighed, shaking my head. "That I'm still ruling with emergency government powers should be a scandal! All of these matters should be the work of the Diet, but here I am. It's absurd…"

"It's a good thing the political parties have started their campaigns for the Diet elections." Visha smiled, which then dropped off when she saw my face.

"And it's already clear that the GDU is probably going to win the elections by picking candidates whose platform could be summarized as 'do what Degurechaff says'. The exact same problem that the GWP had. How am I supposed to retire at this rate?"

One of our secretaries walked up to us. "Prime Minister Prasad is here."

I looked over and saw Prasad approach us, and stood up to greet him.

"I believe this is the first time I met with you in person. Please, take a seat." I smiled while performing a namaste with him following suit.

"I wanted to visit you in person back when you were in South Bharat as a private citizen. At the time, President Paul asked me to keep my distance. So I had a military officer talk to you instead. Now that's out of the way, I would like to discuss South Bharat's own energy concerns."

"I guess I wasn't the only one worried about the tensions in the Middle East while having no feasible way to provide a positive influence." I raised my cup of coffee to take a sip, and motioned Prasad to the tea on the tray.

"We have been trying diplomacy with the Qajar Empire." Prasad picked up the tea and sipped it. "But it feels as if they have a gun to the back of their head when negotiating with us. Almost everything was non-commitment, which brings serious doubt of if they would continue selling oil to us should North Bharat decide to resume hostilities. Especially with the Chinese and North Bharatian construction crews continuing to build their railroads through the Qajar Empire."

"And I'm assuming the Albish was equally non-commitment?"

"Of course." Prasad set down his cup of tea.

"Hmm, and the oil around the Albish Malaya and Lothiern East Indies is at risk of their insurgencies potentially re-igniting. I would expect Akitsushima Dominion, Allied Kingdom, Francois Republic and Lothiern to heavily rely on oil from there should the Middle East go up in flames."

"Which is why I am interested in Germania's nuclear technology so that we have some means of energy independence."

I blinked for a moment and then set down my coffee cup. "I'm not sure about that."

"We don't have the checkbook that the Americans have, but we're right next to North Bharat, Afghanistan, CSR, and CSR's puppet state of North Burma. We can't fight a war if our energy sources are choked off, and while we have plenty of coal, it's a bit difficult to run automobiles and aircraft off of that fuel source."

Selling nuclear material, technology and reactor plant construction assistance to the Unified States was one thing, other than their big payments. They were only a few years away from eventually having their own nuclear bomb.

South Bharat on the other hand would need well over a decade if they are starting from scratch. And I want to keep nuclear weapons from proliferating. The new reactor technologies that Germania is developing don't generate plutonium like what the graphite moderated reactors do, and the molten salt reactor offers even less opportunities for users to try to weaponize the technology for a nuclear bomb. However, both the molten salt and pressurized water reactors are still very much in the prototype stage with the two nuclear submarines not being ready to even start their trials until months from now.

Which means South Bharat needs a stop-gap solution, and that's assuming I decide to allow sharing the molten salt reactor technology with others.

Wait, he did say they had plenty of coal.

"We could assist with building coal liquefaction plants in South Bharat, which will convert coal into liquid fuels such as kerosene, gasoline and diesel." I smiled, waiting to see Prasad's reaction.

His face twisted for a second before he replied, "That is… acceptable."

Hmm, could he have been fishing for nuclear weapons development assistance for a decisive advantage over North Bharat? It would make sense for him to ask for help with electricity generation via nuclear power as a lower bar.

"I do have one request." I took another sip of my coffee. "Have you considered any trade agreements, investments or joint ventures with Formosa?"

"No, I hadn't given much thought about that island." Prasad frowned.

"Formosa needs a strong economy to keep the CSR in check, which would also ensure that North Bharat can't risk war against South Bharat if the CSR is unwilling to support North Bharat to avoid a conflict with Formosa and Akitsushima Dominion."

I took a short pause. It seems he wasn't bought in.

"If you and Formosa can work out a trade agreement that benefits both parties, or set up a trilateral trade agreement that includes Akitsushima Dominion, then I will subsidize the coal liquefaction plant constructions in your country."

There was a long, awkward pause from Prasad, then stared at me. "How likely do you believe the Suez Canal will be shut down?"

"Everything I've been hearing from my intelligence sources and my foreign minister points to the Albish and Frankish acting on what they threatened to do, while Aegyptus is adamantly believing that it is all a bluff." I shrugged my shoulders. "As for the canal itself, it would certainly be the first thing the Aegyptians would sabotage when war breaks out."

"I've been thinking," Prasad began, running a finger around the rim of his teacup, "that as containerized shipping becomes an increasingly realized fact, at least between our countries and Unified States, it is more economical to use larger ships to haul cargo rather than smaller ones. The Suez Canal could potentially become a limiting factor, and there would be no opportunity for any upgrades to the canal as long as tensions remain high even if there was no war. With large enough ships, it could outweigh the cost of having to add significant sailing distance to bypass the canal. But containerized shipping requires standards for ships and ports so that the cargo can be loaded and unloaded at any port with any container ship."

"And you are proposing... What, exactly?" I leaned forward, curious how my opposite number would respond..

"We need an international shipping standards consortium," Prasad stated firmly, with the air of a gambler pushing all of his chips into the center of the table. "One country pushing for it won't be enough, we need OZEV, Unified States, Akitsushima Dominion, Formosa and other partners to join the consortium. Obviously the Allied Kingdom, Francois Republic and Aegyptus won't like that idea, but they will have bigger problems to worry about if they are at war. The Unified States might also feel that way with their control of the Panama Canal, so it's essential that we have them onboard."

"I'll talk to the American ambassador, I already struck some deals with him so what's one more?" I chuckled, then cleared my throat. "As for OZEV, the rest of the members are likely to ask Germania to offer subsidies for overhauling their ports to the new standards, but I'll handle that. In return, I ask that you work with the Akinese and Formosans on economic agreements, and to also come up with plans for ensuring the freedom and security of Malaya and East Indies when the Francois Republic, Allied Kingdom and Lothiern start losing their grip on their colonies again. CSR will make a move to try to severe the sea lanes between your country and the Formosa and Akitsushima Dominion."

He nodded his head and offered a handshake. "That seems reasonable."

When I took his offer and shook hands, he then asked, "Who made the tea?"

Visha blushed, and he turned to her. "Your tea, the flavor was slightly off but it was still good. I'll have one of my assistants mail you drink and food recipes."

As Visha shook hands with him, I looked back at the field and saw that the aerial lacrosse match was getting ready to start.

On the field, during the final quarter of the game:

'We were warned ahead of time, but this is absolutely insulting.' Kazama stared at the referee invalidating a Chinese teammate's goal. The teammate's face was twisting between varying emotions, but he could tell violence was one of the first thoughts.

"Not fair!" Kazama spat out in rough Germanian, which was immediately met with the referee putting his hand on a yellow card.

"Talk back one more time and I'll give you a card!" The referee screeched over the roars of boos from even the Albish fans.

"Time out for a few minutes! Just need to talk to my team!" Green shouted to the referee, who nodded and waved at Green to proceed.

After the entire Formosan team huddled around Green and his translators, Green looked at all of the Formosan players briefly before clearing his throat.

"I know the referees are being brutally biased against us. Nothing we can do about that. But I will not tolerate unprofessional conduct from us, that includes backtalks!" Green pointed at Kazama for a moment. "If you are feeling angry, take a deep breath and get your focus back into the game. If you are still angry, then I expect you to call a timeout to be swapped out so you can cool off on the bench and have all of the time to listen to war stories from me about all of the moments where the deck was stacked against me, both on the battlefield and in a military court hearing. We may lose this game, but I'm not going to give the referees the satisfaction of throwing yellow and red cards at us. Remember, your families, your country and the entire world are watching. Any questions?!"

"We're going to just keep taking it from the referees?" Kazama pouted, only for Gao to nudge him to stop while Green intensely glared at him. Kazama uncomfortably shuffled away to avoid Green's stare.

Upon seeing silent nods from the rest of the players, Green looked over at the Albish team.

"They're exhausted but are probably hoping to coast to victory. We're going to make themselves doubt that and psych themselves out. No more iron walling them, this time you will harass them, get into their faces on their half of the field, and make them run in panic. If the referees keep harassing us, so be it. Let them try to justify their ruling and the Albish team justify their questionable win in the years down the road. Now get back into the game and show them who's the better island nation!"

A few players gave odd looks at Green, which he retorted, "Yes, I am aware of the irony. But I'm not the coach of the Albish team so it doesn't count."

Upon the match restarting, the Albish players started making their move with the ball, and soon the player with the ball was being intensely chased and guarded by a Formosan player. Another Formosan player moved in to further wall off the Albish ball holder from his teammates. What the Formosan team lacked in fancy strategies and tactics, made up with the intensive cardio workouts that allowed them to consistently mob Albish players that had the ball and chase after whoever received the ball. And it was in the final quarter when the Albish players were noticeably exhausted.

Kazama saw an opening that allowed the Albish player with the ball to pass it to one of their teammates. He was a little too far away to intercept the ball, but that's okay.

He sent a voice spell to Gao to move to a position, and then charged downward at the Albish player that was about to receive the ball. There was a loud crack of an impact as the shields flickered and the Albish player was sent tumbling towards the ground from the tactical air strike of Kazama's body landing on top of the player at high speed. The ball that was intended for the targeted player instead kept flying until Gao caught it.

Gao then charged ahead, dodging the Albish players that tried intercepting him and tossed the ball to another player who had no Albish players between him and the goalkeeper.

And then the same referee blew the whistle before a goal could be scored. "Halt the game, injured player!"

Albish player that Kazama had earlier tackled who was now rolling around on the ground and howling, supposedly in pain. Kazama was about to yell while pointing at the player, only to back down when he got a death stare and a knife hand from Green.

"Oh!" The Albish player whined as he held onto his ankle. "I think I twisted something!"

Kazama stared at the Albish player with an intense annoyed look as the referee nonchalantly whipped out a yellow card at Kazama, prompting more boos from the spectators and a few objects being thrown. A well aimed croissant bounced off of the referee's shield.

A few minutes after the match was restarted again, Kazama pushed his already warm orb to the max and sideswiped an Albish player, yoinking the ball out of the surprised opponent, and then accelerated downward to avoid another Albish player who tried tackling Kazama.

Then Kazama's sports orb suddenly seized up as it overheated to a burning temperature and his spells shut off. Which left him with an odd situation where he was now rapidly falling out the sky while the momentum from his earlier acceleration would leave him cratering into the ground.

Out of nowhere Gao caught him and slowed the descent so that both of them gently landed on the ground.

"Are you okay? What happened to your orb?" Gao asked with a look of deep concern on his face.

"I'm not sure." Kazama thumbed his orb. "It worked until it didn't. I probably pushed it at its max limit for too long."

The referee's voice boomed. "Faking an orb malfunction to disrupt the game!"

Green flew over to take a look at Kazama's orb, and handed him a replacement orb.

"You can't do that," the referee pointed at Green.

"Show me the rule book where it says a player can't replace their orb with another authorized sports orb." Green pulled out the rulebook and started flipping through it, then found the section that backed up his statement and showed it to the referee.

"Yes, but that only applies in…" The referee was then cut off by Green's retort of, "There are no listed exemptions in that section, I am perfectly in my right to replace orbs during time outs. Do not cite the rules to me, I was there when it was being revised."

Gao took the melted orb from Kazama and tossed it at the referee while shouting in broken Albish. "Try use it."

The referee stared as the melted orb impacted his shield and the weakened orb structure spontaneously burst into a shower of pieces. Then pulled out the yellow card again, "player harassing the referee."

Green sighed and pulled both Kazama and Gao away from the referee by their ears.

AN:

Listening devices that Anna used:

An example of intelligence operations from the same side blundering into each other and getting into shootouts:

On 16 October 1906, Voigt was ready for his next caper. He had purchased parts of used captain's uniforms from different shops and tested their effect on soldiers. He had resigned from the shoe factory ten days previously. He took the uniform out of baggage storage, put it on and went to the local army barracks, stopped four

grenadiers

and a

sergeant

on their way back to barracks and told them to come with him and they followed. He dismissed the commanding sergeant to report to his superiors and later commandeered six more soldiers from a shooting range. Then he took a train to

Köpenick

, east of Berlin, occupied the local city hall with his soldiers and told them to cover all exits. He told the local police to "care for law and order" and to "prevent calls to Berlin for one hour" at the local post office.

He had the

treasurer

von Wiltberg and

mayor

Georg Langerhans arrested, citing suspicion of crooked

bookkeeping

, and confiscated 4002

marks

and 37

pfennigs

, issuing a receipt for the money signed with his former jail director's name. Then he commandeered two carriages and told the grenadiers to take the arrested men to the

Neue Wache

in Berlin for interrogation. He told the remaining guards to stand in their places for half an hour and then left for the train station. He later changed into

civilian

clothes and disappeared.

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In October 1965, the SDECE was involved in another scandal when two SDECE agents kidnapped

Mehdi Ben Barka

, a left-wing Moroccan émigré on the streets of Paris and handed him over to the agents of the Moroccan government to be tortured and killed.

[36]

King

Hassan II of Morocco

, an close ally of France, had long been annoyed at Ben Barka's criticism of his regime and had asked General de Gaulle to extradite him back to Morocco, but as Ben Barka had been granted asylum in France and was breaking no laws, it was not legally possible to return Ben Barka to Morocco, leading to alternative means to be deployed. Ben Barka's body was never found, but as he was last seen alive in Paris being handed over by the two SDECE agents to Moroccan agents on 29 October 1965, he is generally believed to have been murdered by the Moroccans.

[37]

The revelation that the gangsters from le milieu (literally "the middle"; i.e French organized crime) had also involved in kidnapping Ben Barka further added to the scandal as many French people were shocked to discover that the SDECE often co-operated with le milieu. The Ben Barka affair briefly caused much public excitement as the SDECE had no powers of arrest, let alone to hand over a man who was legally living in France to be killed by the Moroccan state, but as the victim was a Moroccan Muslim, the public outrage soon subsided over L'affaire Ben Barka, and the scandal ended when the two SDECE agents who helped kidnap Ben Barka were convicted in 1967.

[38]

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…

From 1963 onward, a major concern for the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

(RCMP) was monitoring the SDECE agents who were supporting Quebec separatism by handing over bags of cash to separatists, and the RCMP viewed the French embassy in Ottawa much like the Soviet embassy; namely as a den of spies working for a hostile foreign power.

[46]

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…

Marenches described SDECE in 1970 as being more alike to an organized crime racket than an intelligence agency, writing: "Some agents were running drugs and guns; others were engaged in kidnapping, murder and the settling of the most bloody scores".

[53]

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This is a list of

gangs

whose members are associated with the

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department

(LASD) (typically

deputies

). Press reports indicate the LASD has had a problem with gangs since at least the 1970s and now has around eighteen gangs.

[1]

The department has used the term "cliques" when discussing these groups.

[2]

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