The Recoil Of The Mind

Prologue

The lady hurried through the corridors, dodging people in her path, as she moved through the floor. She held a briefcase in one hand, heavy with newly signed files as she suddenly turned left and almost bumped into an office worker. She mumbled quick apologies and continued on her way.

She passed through a doorway, a plaque beside the door read out the words, 'Anti-terrorism unit'. She wiped the sweat from her forehead as she finally reached her destination, a long table with men and women in suits on either side of it. A tall, bald man in a sharp suit was briskly pacing along the length of the table. A TV screen showing the recent news, muted, was at the end of the room. She closed the door behind her as she entered and placed the briefcase on the table.

The bald man stopped and everybody turned to look at her. All eyes has been on the TV screen, atleast before she has walked in. The atmosphere was heavy and suffocating as she walked towards the table with all eyes on her.

"Here", the woman said as she opened the briefcase and slid the files along the table. "This was some last moment bullshit I did not expect. It's that bad?"

The bald man chuckled. "Don't ask. The regional director was pretty neutral towards it, but you don't have to be a genius to see that DeWall was pretty fucking pissed." He unmuted the news channel. "Here", he said as reached out towards the pile of files, "Check for yourself."

The woman sat in an empty chair at the end. "Where's Bradley?", she asked.

A man to her right answered. "DeWall might be eating his guts out by now." Everybody gave out a light chuckle. "He fucked us up pretty good. Orders for us are to conduct some raids, bust some heads."

"What was he even thinking by the way", she replied. "I had told him that it was a bad idea. He assured me that it wasn't. And now I had to stay up all night doing this paperwork."

"Shhh, let me listen", a man whispered.

The TV screen showed a grim spectacle. Dozens of people had died in over half a dozen places, around the same time, on the same day.

"- Reports have yet so far been proven to be inconclusive, but we've identified most of the bodies to be from the Chinese Blood-dragon triads, an unidentified Russian mob, a gang known as the Hounds, and numerous street drug dealers, in order of decreasing casualties. Most of them have been killed in broad daylight with almost no traces, except for one case."

"I was talking about this one, Margo", the bald man said as he nodded towards the screen.

The camera panned to an aerial view of a hangar at the end of a long runway. The dust and grass looked to be covered with dried bloodstains, even from a height. The bodies had been moved, but crude chalk outlines and damaged cars still lied in the vicinity of the hangar.

"Most of the bodies found here belonged to the gang known as the Hounds, which specialised in drugs and illegal arms. The FBI and local police departments seized around 30 kgs of raw heroin and a large create full of explosives and light assault weapons. But the data of interest here are the other bodies - around 18 - that were littered throughout the complex."

The camera panned to a view of the guns they had collected. A big pile of guns were spread onto the floor of the warehouse, the drugs were on the left, with photographers taking shots of the seized goods in between.

"The bodies have no ties to any organized crime outfit. Almost all of them were dressed in civilian clothing, and they have been ID'd as such. However, all of them had worn gas masks during the skirmish and all of them had the same model of assault rifles on them. We believe-"

The bald man muted the news. "All of it was very weird. But the most peculiar thing about it was that almost all of them were carrying a single brass coin on them."

"Like a casino chip", Margo answered.

"Yes. We believe that it was some form of a payment to the hitmen. The thing is", he paused, closing the file he was browsing. "None of the other instances had these bodies. Looks like the dopes at the hangar were really smart. Really, really smart. Reports show that there was an ambush, but the fact that they escaped shows that even the hitmen didn't expect them to be that smart."

"There are no civilian casualties? No crossfire?", A man asked as he skimmed through a file.

"No", Margo replied. "Very strange, but only gang members were killed. This was very calculated. I'm almost sure that this cannot be classified into a terrorist attack-"

"But it is", the bald man interjected. "Even I don't agree with the assessment, but it is one. A different kind, but yes."

"So what now?", Margo asked.

"We process all this paper before us. And then, we can hunt them down at our leisure."

"And the special agents? The ones who are undercover?", asked a woman at the back.

"No concern to us. But I think that they will be the ones to be blamed."

"The lamb", Margo muttered under her breath.

Something told her that the real work was just beginning.