Spy Classroom - Volume 3 - Chapter 3.5

Interlude

Missing  

It was right around noon when the train reached their stop.

The moment they stepped off the platform, Lily let out a coo of amazement.

“Wh-whoa, this place is nicer than the capital!”

Even a single glance was enough to spot over a dozen of the massive, ritzy hotels that stood towering around the station. Lily felt like she was standing in the middle of the massive citadel. It was said that most of the tourists who visited there were so awed they had trouble so much as putting one foot in front of the other, and Lily was no exception.

She was born in the sticks and had grown up living in a spy academy dorm, and by the look of it, she wasn’t quite used to big cities. Her reaction was a bit odd, given that she’d recently been to the Imperial capital, which was miles more advanced, but it was what it was.

“Just in the areas around the hotels.” After replying, Klaus lowered his voice. “More importantly, how many do you see?”

The station building had two stories, and throngs of people were milling about both of them. Just past the ticket gates, there were a variety of stalls selling everything from maps to soft drinks, and out front, people waiting for rides to their hotels were lined up at the pickup-drop-off area.

However, not everyone present was there for happy reasons. One group in particular practically radiated tension.

“I count…twelve soldiers?”

There was a group clad in full military uniforms shooting pointed looks at people as they passed through the ticket gates.

Lily blinked. “No, there’s another seven mixed in with the crowd and wearing plain clothes. I think they’re trying to be covert, but between their physiques and how menacing they look, they stick out like sore thumbs.”

“That’s the armed forces for you.”

When it came to espionage work, they were worse than useless. Such was the difference between the hand-selected, hand-trained members of the Foreign Intelligence Office and the army, that would take any young adult with a pulse.

“Still, remember that the army’s power lies in its numbers. They may be weak individually, but they have enough manpower to allot nineteen soldiers just to cover the station.”

Being able to throw that many bodies at an enemy spy was a strength in and of itself.

With his voice still low, Klaus posed a question to Lily.

“If it was up to you, how would you break through their siege? Assume that they know what you look like.”

“Wait, a pop quiz?”

Lily rubbed her chin and hmmed thoughtfully.

“W-well, I’d start by using poison to knock out whoever looked like they were the most important person—”

“If you did that, you would die like a balloon fluttering through the air.”

“I don’t quite follow, but…you’re saying I lost?”

Upon seeing how the soldiers had been stationed, Klaus could tell that they had a skilled commanding officer calling the shots. Furthermore, he had a pretty good idea who that might be.

Klaus headed toward the hotel he’d been told about in advance. The army had rented out a large room in a first-class hotel to use as their command-and-control center.

En route, he stopped in an alley and instructed Lily to hide her face under a hood.

“What, I can’t let them see my face?”

“The army is a leaky ship. If our soldiers get a good look at your face, you should assume that it won’t be long before that intel makes its way into enemy hands. All my information’s already been leaked, but you need to be careful about who sees you.”

“…Teach, you seem tense.”

“There’s a man in the army I don’t get along with.”

When the two of them reached the sixth floor, they ran into a soldier blocking the hallway. Klaus’s declaration that they were with the Foreign Intelligence Office earned them a glower, but the soldier stood aside all the same.

Inside the command-and-control center, seven men were sitting around a large table with a map spread out atop it. They all had their arms crossed, and when they realized Klaus had rudely come in without so much as knocking, they collectively gasped.

The young man sitting in the middle stood up and walked over to Klaus with wide strides.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing here?! If I went asking the Foreign Intelligence Office for help, I think I’d remember it.”

It was obvious from his outfit that he was a military man, and between his short, evenly trimmed blond hair and his muscular physique, he cut an imposing form. He looked to be about twenty-four, but his face did not convey the inexperience you would expect for a man that young.

He was the aforementioned man Klaus didn’t get along with—Captain Welter Barth.

“I’m under no obligation to answer that question. We have a right to operational secrecy.” Klaus exhaled, then went on. “Now, tell me everything the military knows about the situation.”

“Is that any way to ask someone for a favor?” Welter scowled at him. “The local police and my men worked their asses off gathering this intel, and you—”

“Enough with the posturing. You know the rules.”

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

“Also, you don’t have to get right up in my face. It’s hot in here.”

Welter glared at Klaus like it was taking everything he had not to grab him by the collar right then and there.

Klaus, who appeared to have no interest in playing nice, merely ignored him.

Lily could tell how tense the situation was. She decided to step in. “Um, do you two know each other?”

That was when Welter noticed her for the first time. His expression softened. “Well, that’s new. It’s not every day you show up with a subordinate in tow.”

Lily gave him a nervous bow. “Flower Garden, Foreign Intelligence Office.”

Welter seemed to like that. “Welter Barth, Military Intelligence Department captain. It’s a pleasure.”

He shook hands with Lily, then turned back to Klaus and scowled again. “To answer your question, Bonfire and I have an interesting relationship. We’ve crossed paths a couple times.”

“Much as I try to avoid it,” Klaus shot back.

Apparently, he and Welter had known each other since Klaus’s time on Inferno.

Whenever Klaus was tasked with getting intel from the military for domestic missions, he would find himself dealing with Welter surprisingly often. The man had an odd knack for sniffing out trouble. Welter was a mere warrant officer when they first met, but he rose through the ranks at a blistering clip, eventually getting promoted to captain at a rare young age.

Klaus respected the man’s skills, but perhaps due to the organizations they worked for, the two of them never really saw eye to eye.

“Your superiors dragged their feet getting us the intel again. Next time, I want you to report any new developments yourself.”

“Here in the army, we have something called a chain of command. You think I’m going to act without orders, just because you told me to?” Welter scoffed contemptuously at Klaus’s complaint. “Plus, I’m no big fan of taking the information we put our lives on the line to assemble and handing it over so you can take all the credit.”

“If that’s what you’re worried about, you need to get your priorities straight.”

“If it was just my feelings at stake, I could put up with it. But this kind of stuff affects morale on the ground. People don’t operate on logic alone, Bonfire. And besides, you came storming in here begging for a sitrep, but when’s the last time your side ever threw us so much as a breadcrumb of intel?”

“The matters we deal with at the Foreign Intelligence Office are top secret. We can’t just go handing out classified information whenever it suits your fancy.”

Klaus and Welter glared at each other.

Lily started getting worried again, but this level of bickering was pretty standard for the two of them.

The fact of the matter was that the Foreign Intelligence Office did have the right to look over the military’s intel.

With visible displeasure, Welter handed over a dossier.

Inside, there were pictures of the battle between the Lylat Kingdom and Galgad Empire spies, a photo of the Lylat spy’s corpse, and finally, a copy of the passport belonging to the woman they suspected of being the Imperial spy.

“That woman’s our spy at-large. We’ve got the highway, the trains, and the port locked down so tight not even a rat could get through. We’ve frozen her bank account, too, so it’s only a matter of time before she cracks and we find her.”

“That all sounds excessive. I could find her within a day.”

“And how exactly would you do that? She was good enough to take out one spy already.”

“I would gently scoop her up like a waterweed floating on the—”

“I don’t have time for your empty bravado. Just leave her to us, okay? The brass has already—”

“It’s not empty,” Klaus murmured, but Welter paid him no heed.

“I’m telling you this for your own good.” Suddenly, Welter lowered his voice. He didn’t want any of his army colleagues to hear what he was going to say next. “I don’t have to tell you how much the army hates the Foreign Intelligence Office. The brass would do anything to turn up some sort of scandal on you guys, and that goes double for these past few months.”

That was no wonder—not after the egg they put on the military’s face by unveiling the way they’d let their bioweapon fall into enemy hands.

Now the army was after petty revenge.

“If you go out there and end up letting the spy get away right when we have her where we want her, the brass’ll be all too happy to go to Parliament and demand the Foreign Intelligence Office get disbanded.”

“………”

“Look, just stand down. I might not be your biggest fan, but not even I want to see the Foreign Intelligence Office get torn down.”

Welter was well aware of who Inferno was.

After hearing of their valor and skill, there were few if any who could hold any real animosity toward the Foreign Intelligence Office.

“You know what? You’re right. I will head back. Thank you for the warning,” Klaus said.

“See, that wasn’t so hard.”

“One piece of advice, though. You need more people watching the port.”

Welter looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“There’s no guarantee this spy is working alone. The way I see it, you haven’t been watching the people coming in closely enough. If the situation drags on, we run the risk of having villains from the Empire come over to back them up.”

“Spy reinforcements, huh?” Welter nodded. “That’s a fair point. What makes you think it’s the port we should be worried about, though?”

“I just do.”

Klaus’s reply earned him a frown of deep displeasure.

When they left the hotel, Lily let out a big sigh. “Well, I totally get why we and the army don’t get along now.”

She hid out in the back alley as she took off her cloak. Her expression was half exasperation, half resignation. She stared up at the building they’d just come out of.

“Everyone in that room up there was staring daggers at us the whole time. I mean, they hate our guts.”

“It’s been like that for a long, long time.”

“I mean, yeesh. That was like the way Monika glares at me when I screw up during missions.”

That second one probably wasn’t hatred, but it was at least disdain.

“Still, Welter seemed like an all right guy.”

“I don’t care for him personally, but that isn’t to say he’s a bad leader. The soldiers back at the station looked like they’d been well trained,” Klaus said, nodding. “Personally, though, I don’t care for him.”

“You really needed to say that twice?”

“He thinks everything between the two of us is a competition. It’s obnoxious.”

“Still, you didn’t have to be that mean to him. I mean, what, do you hate him just ’cause he’s in the army?”

“I hate him because he’s a pompous ass.”

“………………………”

“Sorry, what was that? Did you say something?”

“Who, little old me?”

Klaus wasn’t sure, but he felt like he’d just heard someone murmur, “You sounded pretty pompous yourself back there, Teach.”

There was more he would have liked to explain, but now was hardly the time to do it.

They needed to get back to the topic at hand—the shocking truth that Welter had revealed to them.

“Anyways, about the spy the military is tracking—”

“Oh, yeah,” Lily replied. “Did you figure something out?”

“That passport photo bore something of a resemblance to Annette. There might be some sort of connection there.”

The forged passport had had a black-and-white photo attached to it. The name and date of birth were doubtless fake, but the spy would have had to pass through customs, so the photo was probably of her actual face.

It was a face that resembled someone they both knew well.

“Wh—?” Lily gulped. “Wait, hold on a minute! But he just said—”

Klaus nodded. He thought back to the declaration Welter had so proudly made.

“The brass has already…authorized that she be shot on sight.”

If their teammates’ disappearance had anything to do with that woman, then things were in danger of getting ugly.