The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Chapter 12: A Fire in the Mountains

"That was much easier than I thought it would be," Narcist confessed from her spot in the cargo area.

"Thanks to Truk," Lash said with a nod to the Ventru nestari. "He didn't volunteer extra information and said exactly the right thing with the right tone to reach common ground with the officer."

"A flawless check on the ID didn't hurt," Narcist pointed out, earning herself a nod of her own.

"No, it did not," Lash added before looking through the windshield. Along the length of the winding highway into the city, he could see several more checkpoints installed at every onramp bringing traffic onto the highway from the city itself.

"Which is good, since it'll be checked another half dozen times before we manage to get through the city!"

As it turned out, Lash was wrong. It was a full dozen times they were forced to pass a checkpoint before they left Strasbourg. Following that, a short distance on the A4 then they were at the German border and another series of checkpoints, these ones manned by not only the French National Police and the National Gendarmerie on the French side, but the German Federal Police, or Bundespolizei, and the Bavarian Landespolizei, or State Police, on the German side.

"The humans seem intent on capturing these terrorists," Fiadh observed as they passed through the last of the French side of the border checkpoint.

"The humans have been dealing with terrorist attacks for the last decade. Paris was attacked several times a few years ago, and Germany has been dealing with terrorist attacks since the Isreali contingent was attacked at the Olympic Games in 1972," Bronwyn noted as she looked the German side of the checkpoint over with a critical eye. "Both countries are fairly sensitive to the situation."

Then she was falling silent as Truk was rolling his window down for a blue uniformed German Federal Police officer.

"Guten Tag," the officer said in the distinct Bavarian dialect of German.

"Hello," Truk responded in much the same way he had with the French police officer.

"May I see your travel papers, please?" she then asked. Already prepared to show them, Narcist handed Truk a portfolio with all of their passport booklets in it. Which the nestari then handed to the officer.

Nodding her thanks, she opened up the portfolio and went one by one with the booklets, opening each, looking in to find the matching face, then using a hand scanner to verify the document's authenticity.

"A multinational group," she observed as she slipped the last one back into the portfolio and handed it back to Truk. "What is your reason for visiting Germany?"

Truk handed her his Interpol ID, which she promptly opened, examined and scanned.

"Our team is following up on a lead in Salzburg concerning the cult behind the recent terror attacks in Ireland and the UK," he said as she handed it back to him. She immediately nodded.

"Our investigative services have found evidence in several locations across the country of the same," she indicated, her English clipped and precise. "We were advised that Interpol was dispatching taskforce units throughout Western Europe to track these down."

The officer paused to pull something out of a pocket. She then handed it, a card with a name and local number on it, to a curious Truk.

"I was instructed to give that to any Interpol team that came through our checkpoint. It's your investigative contact in the Munich state police headquarters," she indicated as he took it and gave it a quick read. "He'll be able to connect you to his counterpart in Salzburg, should you need assistance."