Ariz Rama was furious, and that never bode well for those below him. Someone had dared to kill a member of his family, and that was a challenge he could not leave unpunished. In all honesty, he did not care that much for the young man, his nephew was all muscles, no brains. What is more, several times he had to intervene because the idiot made some kind of a mess. Since that was tarnishing his reputation, Ariz had been planning to arrange an accident for his nephew, something random and inconspicuous. Nevertheless, this kind of blatant attack needed to be answered; he looked at it as a personal assault on his image that he strove hard to uphold.

If Basim had not already captured the perpetrators, he would have taken his rage out on that fat fool, but it would seem he was actually good for something. Ariz was already looking forward to inflicting pain onto those responsible, to make them an example for any others.

His car was nearing the mansion, a convenient place that Basim’s part of the organization had managed to acquire, when four explosions, in quick succession, shook the car.

***

Albanian Gang Headquarters

The light of the rising sun projected spooky shadows through the misty dawn, making the woods look unwelcoming and ominous. The four-legged animals and birds were suspiciously silent, knowing on a primal level that alpha predators were in their territory.

Michael glanced toward the place where Alice had set up her sniper’s nest. She made it in time and without needing much explanation asked what he needed her to do, and from which direction the target was coming. It was exactly what Michael had expected. While on a mission, Alice tended to be extremely task-oriented, and a woman of very few words.

Tyron and he were on opposite sides of the road, with Pete and Al mirroring them twenty feet away, strategically positioned so they would not be in each other’s fields of fire. Michael looked at a particular place on the road and could not detect any difference from the rest of the surface. They camouflaged a makeshift spike strip near their position, covering it with a layer of fallen leaves, and were now all waiting in an ambush.

Basim received a call from his boss, a few hours ago, and confirmed that he had captured the ones guilty for the death of his boss’s nephew and that everything was in order. Of course, Michael did have a knife pressed against his throat at the time, with a clear understanding of the consequences if he double-crossed them.

Right on schedule, the sound of the approaching vehicle disturbed the silence of the woods. A luxurious E-Class Mercedes with tinted windows appeared from the bend in the road, one hundred feet from their position.

Michael took a deep breath, his thumb switching the safety off his weapon. A certain sense of calm went through him, it was a feeling he felt many times before. Waiting was never his thing, and he considered it the hardest part. Now, when the action was about to start, he felt more focused, with increased adrenaline levels his body was producing, making everything look sharper.

The Mercedes driver was going at acceptable speeds for a well-maintained private road, but that didn’t help much when four explosions signified that the spike strip had done its job.

The car did not even stop yet when two men jumped out of the back doors, rolling on the ground. They both had machine guns in their hands, exposing them as highly trained professionals; orders of magnitude above the gang members Michael and his team dealt with last night. As soon as their tumble ended, they started firing.

It didn’t look like they were aiming at anyone specific, just sending loud bursts of fire into the surrounding woods. Michael and the team were well hidden and their locations were still unnoticed by the firing men. The intention of the shooters was to suppress the team’s fire, hoping for a lucky shot.

Michael took a careful aim and gently squeezed the trigger. One of them fell down, never to rise again, his forehead decorated with a brand-new round hole.

On the other side, Pete, or Al took out the other. The front glass on the car blossomed with the spider web of cracks, originating from a neat hole at its center. Alice had managed to place a perfect shot, the heavy bullet of her sniper rifle obliterating the driver.

Those few seconds of intense action were followed by partial silence, spoiled by the sound of their discharged weapons, still echoing in the distance.

They needed the boss inside for questioning, so peppering the car with bullets was not an option. Michael aimed high at the backseat window, and it disintegrated into thousands of pieces.

That brought a response, immediately multiple shots from a handgun were fired from inside the car. Most of those rounds’ trajectories did not come even close to the members of the team; the shots were fired blindly, and in panic. Except one, which somehow found its way toward the place where Michael was hidden. It did not hit him, but it was a close call. The bullet lodged itself in tree bark, six inches away from him. He always hated those wild shots, they were the personification of chaos theory, and nobody was safe from them.

Michael looked at this tricky situation; the predicament was how to get the snake out of its nest, without suffering from a snakebite. He looked at a stun grenade hanging from his tactical vest and smiled, it worked once.

The flashbang flew through the air and entered the opening made by the broken window. It activated a second later with a distinctively loud sound and the cloud of smoke that vented outside.

He approached the car and looked inside. The scene was the one he expected; a flashbang in a small and contained space is a very persuasive argument.

Ariz Rama was a sorry sight, lying unconscious on the leather backseat with trails of blood oozing from his ears and into his hair. A big gold-plated Magnum was still gripped in his hand. Tyron quickly remedied that by taking the gun, in case the man was faking it. He looked disapprovingly at the powerful gun, made into a fashionable accessory, which was no way to treat a weapon.

“Well, I guess the fat lady has sung, and she was loud.” Al snickered, approaching from the other side, with Pete on his heels.

They gathered around the car, and Alice quickly joined them and looked at the unconscious Ariz Rama. She shook her head and told Michael, “Mike, I know I’m supposed to interrogate this one, but my sign language is a little rusty, and right now he is deaf as a post. Couldn’t you have been a little gentler with him?”

“Don’t worry, by the time you start questioning him, he will be able to hear just fine.”

“Max, can you fix this dirt-bag?” Michael asked through his CEI.

“Piece of cake; put your hands over his ears and I’ll transfer the nanites,” the AI replied.

Michael did as instructed, and by the increased heat on his palms, he could feel the nanites transferring to the man. Alice was looking at him strangely. Her raised eyebrows were conveying that she was wondering what he was doing.

“Don’t tell me your found religion and turned into one of those touch healers.”

“Nothing like that, I will explain later.”

The fact she was satisfied with that answer just confirmed how much trust she had in Michael. They carried Ariz to the mansion and secured him in one of the rooms.

“Michael, there may be some information I can use from Mr. Rama, can you give Alice your phone so I can listen in, and ask some of my own questions?” Max asked.

“You know she generally likes to be alone with the subject, but there is no harm in asking her.”

Alice squinted her eyes suspiciously when Michael asked her, but she agreed. Then she shooed everyone out of the room, leaving her alone with still unconscious Ariz Rama.

“Max… Elizabeth and Anna?”

“They have arrived at the cabin safely, and I made a few dedicated surveillance drones; they are monitoring the surrounding perimeter.”

“Tell me if anything changes.”

Michael turned to the rest of his team, while the first sounds of moaning could be heard through the closed-door.

“Okay, while Alice is in there let’s do some work. Pete, you and Al prepare this house for torching, and Tyron and I will look for any intel.”

They didn’t find much, a few account books and miscellaneous notes, all written in a foreign language. They took all they could; one of the rules of intelligence gathering was that you never knew when a diamond in the rough was hidden. Michael was willing to bet that most useful stuff would be found in Ariz Rama’s aluminum suitcase that they took from his car.

Alice was taking her time. The loud screaming and swearing from the beginning of the interrogation stopped almost an hour ago, and she has been straight at it for at least three hours. Michael and the team had finished a while ago, going through the house with trained eyes. That is why they even found a secret compartment in one of the unused rooms. In it were a few large stacks of hundred dollar bills and a ledger documenting the gang sales for the past few years. It was Basim’s personal stash, the money he managed the skim off the top. He probably still nurtured some hope that he could survive this ordeal and wanted to keep something for a rainy day.

One of the things he did say was that this entire mansion once belonged to some rich man, who had the misfortune to involve himself with these criminals. In the end, it cost him his house, his wealth, and consequently his life too. It goes to show that if you invite sharks to dinner, don’t be surprised if they eat you.

Alice exited the room and closed the door behind her. “I’m finished boys, unfortunately so is the perp. It seems he had a bad heart, and our conversation was a bit too strenuous for it. Not that I feel sorry for that poor excuse for a human being, after learning some of the things he confessed.”

“All right, you can give us a full report when we reach a safe location,” Michael said as he took his phone back.

“We stayed here for far too long. Pete, go and set the detonator for fifteen minutes. That will give us enough of a head start; the destination is my cabin, so if anyone gets separated that’s where you need to go.”

It was a shame that they needed to burn down such a nice building, but unknowingly leaving evidence behind was what got him into this mess. While there were cleaning up, they dragged the four guards from the forest and placed them in the same room where their card-playing associates perished. Michael even searched the whole perimeter and found four surveillance cameras hidden in the trees. But even if they didn’t, it wouldn’t matter since all hard drives from the computers in the house were now packed in one of the bags they were taking with them.

While there were walking down the access road, Pete and Al were in front of the others, and Michael could hear them chatting.

“Pete, I feel like we forgot something…,” said Al while squinting his eyes.

“What?” Asked Pete, turning around to look at the mansion.

“Oh, I remember, we forgot Basim.”

“No, we didn’t. I saw him before we left,” Pete answered.

“And…”

“And… what?”

“Did he say something to you?”

“Well, he demanded to be released, and then he threatened me and spit at me. Oh, and he said he was hungry.”

“So… did you feed him?”

Pete looked at Al with one raised eyebrow. “Do I look like a chef to you…?”

Al looked from the bottom of Pete’s feet to the top of his head. “Not really, but the last meal and all that.”

“I did throw him a few packets of heroin; they may have some nutritional value.”

“That was kind of you, I’m sure he appreciated it,” Al said, patting him on his back.

Pete looked at the sky, “I’m trying to get in touch with my more altruistic, feminine side. Caring for the welfare of your fellow man, being generous.”

“Buddy, you have nothing to worry about, you’re doing great.” Al nodded sagely.

Tyron looked at Michael and murmured, “Idiots.”

As they were driving away in their cars, Michael could see telltale signs of smoke from the direction of the mansion. As a result of its out of the way location, it would be a long time before someone noticed the fire. There was little chance of that fire spreading to the woods, seeing that the team soaked the surrounding grounds and the trees with water. Leaving the sprinklers turned on, just in case.

He hoped that their troubles involving organized crime would be finished with this, but his gut told him that their troubles were just beginning.