Spy Classroom - Volume 7 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Scarlet Leviathan 2

Queen Clette Station was downright packed.

The station was a brickwork building that had been built a half century prior, and voices carried well there. There was a line of people with suitcases at the ticket window, and upon being told that all the seats had been filled, they began shouting with rage. The long waits were weighing on everyone, and once the clamor of children started up, it didn’t stop. There were countless sets of tracks extending out from the station, yet no trains seemed to be coming, and platforms were overflowing with people.

Out in front of the station, there were a number of activists denouncing politicians and the police. The protesters were furious that the authorities had failed to protect Prince Darryn, and the majority of the people who passed by gave them supportive rounds of applause. However, they didn’t have a permit for the demonstration, so the cops came charging in midway through, and a fight broke out between them and the citizenry.

The ground in the area was littered with flyers, and Klaus picked up a few of them and looked them over.

“Defund the police!” “Keep foreigners out!” “Encourage people to report spies!” “The royal assassination was a left-wing plot!”

There were myriad different ideologies at play, but the common thread behind the flyers plastered across every surface in sight was rage. There were even some up on the station walls and the nearby telephone poles.

Ten days had passed since news broke about Darryn’s death. By Klaus’s side, Amelie let out a quiet sigh. “This is a madhouse. I never could have imagined my nation would sink this far into chaos.”

“You can say that again.”

Information about the crown prince’s assassination had spread across the entire world.

The people of Fend had cried out in sorrow, but they’d accepted the facts of the matter, at least at first. As time dragged on with no arrests, though, voices of anger at the government’s failure started rising up instead. Just like Queen Ribault, Prince Darryn had been loved and adored by the entire nation.

As soon as those voices started coming out, the unrest spread like wildfire. People held protests against the authorities, and for a time, public order went on a sharp decline. Word was that the CIM had been absolutely flooded with tips about foreign nationals who people suspected of being spies. Hurough had become a powder keg, and the citizens stormed the train station in hopes of fleeing to the countryside.

There was one crying girl at the station who’d been separated from her parents. She clutched her pink teddy bear, shouting, “Mommy, where are you?” as the currents of the crowd pushed her this way and that. She looked to be about eight. More than once, she very nearly got clocked by one of the adults’ suitcases.

“…Nobody spares a second glance for the crying child, I see,” Klaus remarked.

Unwilling to let the situation stand, Amelie took the girl and guided her over to the police box in front of the station. After dropping her off with the officer and returning, she awkwardly offered up an excuse. “One can hardly blame them, I should think. The crown prince was simply that great a man. Small wonder, then, that righteous indignation should rob people of their ability to think rationally.” She handed Klaus a newspaper she had bought inside. “Especially with articles like these floating about.”

It was the morning edition of the fourth-largest paper in the country, and its headline was emblazoned in fierce letters.

“WAS PRINCE DARRYN’S KILLER A DIN OPERATIVE? This is absurd. Are they trying to start a war?”

He’d heard about the article earlier, but that didn’t make it any less appalling to see it for himself. The mass media had been publishing huge amounts of speculation about who the assassin might be. Their recklessness was the main culprit behind the unrest engulfing the nation, but it was also a testament to how deeply the issue had captured the people’s interest.

Amelie shook her head. “Naturally, they’ll be receiving sanctions for this. We have no interest in going to war with Din, either.” Allowing the Great War to repeat itself wasn’t an option. The entire world was united in that stance. “More importantly,” she went on in a hushed voice, “the only people who know that the killer was a Din spy are CIM agents.”

“…That intel isn’t even true.”

“Be that as it may, this means that the CIM has a leak.”

Klaus nodded. The groundless report had been intentionally spread before the truth had time to come out. This was no mere false alarm. “The Neo-Imperialists. Whoever’s doing this is in bed with Galgad spies.”

“I concur. The unrest has spread too far, too fast. Someone is pulling strings behind the scenes.”

Klaus agreed with Amelie’s assessment.

Having reaffirmed their understanding of the situation, the two of them hailed a taxi and returned to the apartment.

The two of them had been operating as a pair over the past few days. For Klaus, Amelie’s local knowledge and ability to wield the CIM’s authority made her a valuable asset, and on top of that, they shared the same objective—tracking down information about Serpent’s infiltration of the Commonwealth.

For the moment, their motives were aligned.

They had “Bonfire” Klaus, the Din Republic’s strongest spy who could find answers on intuition alone. And they had “Puppeteer” Amelie, the leader of an unassailable intelligence unit that ruled over the Fend Commonwealth. With the two of them working together, there were few cases they couldn’t crack. And yet…

When they got back to the apartment, they noticed that the radio was blinking. More accurately, it was a wireless transceiver disguised to look like a radio. The CIM had designed it specifically for spy work. By turning the tuning dial, you could input the password to play back the recordings.

There were five messages saved on the machine.

The first voice to come through was Lily’s. “There was a big fire at the funeral home on Coen Street, Teach. I’m hearing that the owner was from Din, so it was likely a targeted hate crime—”

The second was Sybilla’s. “The Domin family is meetin’ up with other mafia groups, boss. They say they’re just talkin’ about keepin’ the peace while the government’s fucking everything up, but people are gettin’ jittery.”

Klaus listened through the recordings, and they were all about the same. Each of them detailed some sort of conflict or uprising that had happened in Hurough.

Amelie sighed. “With how chaotic things are—”

“Yeah, we have no idea which incidents Serpent had a hand in.”

That about summed it up—the search was going poorly. Even with Klaus and Amelie working together, they had completely failed to locate Monika or track down Serpent. Suspicious deaths and bizarre events were happening with a frequency that normally would have been unthinkable. It was taking everything they had just to stay on top of the rapidly changing situation, so the search had ground to a halt.

The city of Hurough had become an impenetrable morass.

On day one, they’d been optimistic that they would be able to find Monika in no time. The team’s motivation was high, and after getting some rest, Lily, Sybilla, and Erna started getting ready to head out into the city.

However, the most gung ho of them all was the girl who’d sneaked out of the hospital—Thea.

“Teach!” she cried as she rushed into the room. Her right arm was swaddled in layer upon layer of bandages. She’d come over the moment they finished stitching her up. “Please, let me head up the investigation! I’ll track down Monika, even if I have to haul her back by the scruff of her—”

“Calm down, Thea. Are you okay to be working with your arm like that?”

“How am I supposed to be calm?!” she cried hysterically as she sat herself down on the sofa. She shook her head back and forth, messing up her hair as she did. Beads of sweat trickled down her forehead. “I can’t believe it. How could she do something like that to Annette?”

She’d clearly suffered quite a shock. Erna gave her a consoling pat on the back.

Klaus started out by ordering her to take some deep breaths. “How’s Annette doing?”

“…The surgery went well. They patched up her injuries, and she’s sleeping now.”

“Good,” Klaus replied with a nod.

“However, her wounds were pretty bad. The doctor said that it’ll be a month or two before she’s able to walk right.”

If anything, they were lucky she’d gotten off that lightly.

After calming down a bit, Thea repeated herself. “Please, Teach. I—”

“Magnificent. All right, you’re in charge of the search efforts. Just make sure you don’t push yourself.”

The fact of the matter was, they were short on people. Thea was excellent at coordinating with the others and giving them practical orders, so having her back in the field was a welcome bit of news.

Klaus raised three fingers. “We’re going to split into three groups. On Search Team One, me and Erna are going to gather intel on Serpent. On Search Team Two, Thea’s going to lead Sybilla and Lily in trying to find Monika’s location. And finally…”

The image of their absent team member—“Meadow” Sara—flitted through his mind. He hadn’t talked with her except via radio, but it was clear that her mental state was suffering. The string of emotionally harrowing events they’d been through recently was hitting her hard.

Perhaps she wasn’t ready to join in on the search teams just yet.

“…Sara is going to continue keeping an eye on the Belias hostages alongside Lan.”

That job demanded just as much vigilance. If one of the hostages escaped and got in touch with the secret Neo-Imperialists, things could get ugly in a hurry. Plus, even without her, they could still borrow her pet dog, Johnny. He was sure to be invaluable in their search efforts.

“Roger that,” the girls replied with their lips firmly set, then hurried out into the streets of Hurough.

Given how determined they were, Klaus was sure they’d be able to track down Monika’s location in no time, and yet…

The two of them sank into the sofa and made a quick lunch of the sandwiches they’d picked up on their way back. They hadn’t had time to do any cooking these days.

“I must say, I was expecting more from you.” Amelie carried herself with an unmistakable elegance, holding her sandwich with both hands and leisurely finishing her meal. “So even the mighty Bonfire is powerless in the face of such chaos. And here I was, assuming you would just solve the whole thing and not even be able to explain how you did it.”

Klaus coolly deflected the verbal jab. “I’m not some omniscient deity, you know.”

His hunches weren’t a superpower. It was merely the inferences his accumulated experience allowed him to make. If he was really that all-knowing, he wouldn’t have let Avian get annihilated right under his nose.

Considering how Hurough was the biggest quagmire he’d seen in the past decade, his intuition wasn’t going to help him much.

Klaus shot Amelie a glare. “Besides, you’re in no position to be acting all high-and-mighty. Not after the way we mopped the floor with you.”

“………” Amelie’s expression twitched with irritation. She’d been feeling down for a bit, but now she was back to firing on all cylinders. “Someone’s certainly feeling full of himself. That victory was a fluke, nothing more.”

“What, you’re suggesting that you weren’t operating at full capacity?”

“We absolutely were not. The only reason we lost was because of Hide’s misinformation. They had us chasing down false leads, and you took advantage of the opening that provided. If it wasn’t for that, you people never would have been able to—”

Her remarks, initially so eloquent, came to sudden halt. She’d realized that she was saying too much.

“Isn’t it high time you gave up on Hide?” Klaus said. “It’s become abundantly clear that they’ve allowed a traitor to infiltrate their ranks. Give me their names. I’ll do a clean sweep.”

“I have my pride as an intelligence operative. I’m not about to sell out the highest ranks of my agency.”

“Isn’t the whole reason you’re working with me because you don’t trust Hide anymore?”

“Even so, there are lines I’m unwilling to cross.”

In order to demonstrate the depth of her conviction, Amelie pressed her fingertips to her own throat. That was her way of saying that if he wanted to press the issue, then he might as well kill her and her agents off now.

Klaus knew that there was no point arguing further. Belias was an elite intelligence unit. They were prepared to kill themselves if that was the only way to protect their state secrets.

He quietly shook his head and offered her a few words of warning. “You should make sure to question everything you know. About Hide—and about Prince Darryn, too.”

“……………”

Amelie bit down on her lip and sank into silence. A moment later, though, her expression lightened, and she let out a hollow laugh. “You’re the last person I want telling me that right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“One of your own subordinates just turned traitor.”

“…………………………………………”

This time, it was Klaus’s turn to go silent. Getting betrayed by one of their own teammates was about as unambiguous a failure as a spy could have. He bit down on his tongue to keep Amelie from seeing how upset he was.

I left too much of their training to Avian lately.

He knew he was just making excuses, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less.

Lamplight had lost to Avian over in the Far East nation of Longchon, and after witnessing the consequences of his poor pedagogy firsthand, Klaus had invited Avian to Heat Haze Palace and created an environment for the two teams to train together. The idea was that Klaus would help Avian hone their skills, and Avian would do the same for the girls.

Klaus stood by that decision, but it had also left him with less time working directly with the girls. Now, just weeks later, one of them had betrayed the team.

I’m a failure as an instructor.

He squeezed his fists tight as he wrestled with his feelings of regret. Could all this have been avoided if he’d just spent more time with her?

And Monika is an especially acute case…

While he was mentally replaying their conversations, he heard someone call his name.

“Teach!”

He looked over in the direction of the voice and saw Erna. At present, she was handling odd jobs like helping out Sara and Lan and sorting through all the intelligence the team was gathering.

“I have news from Big Sis Thea. There’s an eyewitness account of Big Sis Monika being spotted in a mixed-use building downtown, on the west side.”

“Got it. Tell her to keep up the good work.”

At long last, they had a lead.

Klaus was grateful for what Thea had accomplished. She had been attacking the problem with an uncommon fervor, and now her efforts had paid off.

He headed to the scene of the sighting without a moment’s delay.

Out of all the girls on Lamplight, Monika was the one Klaus interacted with the least.

Monika could perhaps be described best as self-sufficient, and Klaus had relied on her a lot since Lamplight’s inception. Not only was her talent as a spy head and shoulders above the others, but it also took a lot to throw her off her game.

The fact of the matter was, Klaus spent a huge amount of time cleaning up after his other subordinates’ messes. Between Lily’s clumsiness, Sybilla’s screwups, Erna’s misfortune, Annette’s eccentricity, and having to comfort the easily demoralized Thea and Sara, he generally had his hands full. Even Grete, who worked hard to avoid adding to his burden, needed him to dote on her from time to time. Klaus wasn’t trying to pick favorites or anything, but he ended up spending less time with Monika merely as a matter of course. Failing to give enough attention to one’s best students was an issue every teacher in the world grappled with, and it was something he felt very guilty about.

“Hey, Monika.”

There was one time, and one time alone, that he tried to get her to open up to him.

It was just after they returned from their mission in Mouzaia, and one afternoon during their time off, Klaus called over to Monika as she walked down the hallway. The two of them were the only ones around, so he figured it was the perfect opportunity.

“What do you want, Klaus? You need something?” she asked, stopping and giving him a quizzical look.

“I just got my hands on some nice tea. What do you say?”

“What do you mean, what do I say?”

“We’ve never had a chance to have a real heart-to-heart. Why don’t we have a nice chat over some tea?”

For a brief moment, Monika’s eyes went wide with surprise, and she froze, unsure of how to react. However, it didn’t take long for her to reassume her usual cool demeanor. “I appreciate the invite to your little date, but I’m good. I want to get some shut-eye.” She gave him a small wave and turned to head to her room.

“Monika,” Klaus called after her, “I know about the burden you’re carrying—about your secret love.”

Monika whirled around on the spot, and Klaus could see panic written all across her face. All at once, her face froze and went as pale as a sheet.

It had never been his goal to scare her. He did his best to make his voice as gentle as possible. “Don’t worry; I’m the only one who’s noticed. You’ve done an impressive job of hiding it.”

The rest of the girls probably had no idea. The change was subtle, but whenever Monika looked at one specific member of the team, there was a faint tremor deep in her eyes. She put up a confident front, but there was an underpinning of awkwardness and delicate sentiment behind everything she did and said.

Klaus shook his head. “I won’t press the issue any further. Just know that if you ever need advice, I’m here for you. Feelings like yours can be a dangerous vulnerability for a spy.”

Few things had the power to make people act irrationally like love and lust did. Even men who normally operated on pure logic would completely let their guard down around women they had the hots for, and loads of spies, men and women alike, had been brought low by honey traps.

That was why he was so concerned for her.

“Would you mind looking me in the eye every now and then, Monika?”

The girl had been avoiding him for some time now. It was like she was terrified of having her feelings exposed.

It took Monika a good long while to reply. Instead, she shot him a rude look, as though she was sizing him up. Her lip trembled ever so slightly.

Eventually, she let out a small sigh. “Yeah, no. Sorry, Klaus, but this isn’t something I want to talk to you about.”

She gave him a forlorn grin and turned away.

“I’ve gone my whole life without telling anyone my secret, and I’m gonna keep it that way till I go to my grave.”

There was a fierce determination in her voice, and it cut Klaus’s next question off at the pass.

You’re never planning on telling her how you feel?

He wanted to ask it, but she’d made it clear what her answer would be. Her love was going to end in secret. The rejection in her tone was so unambiguous it would have been tactless of him to ask her to elaborate.

With a quiet “Thanks for looking out for me, though,” she walked away.

There were definitely traces of Monika in the building Thea had found. Klaus took Erna with him to search the scene.

The building sat in an alley just one road off Hurough’s main street in the heart of the city. It was home to a restaurant and a law office.

The aforementioned traces were up on the unoccupied third floor. According to Thea, there were people who’d seen a cerulean-haired girl coming and going from there. At the moment, Thea was scouring the surrounding area.

Originally, this was some sort of office space, and there were marks on the wood floor from where the desks had been. Over in the corner, there was a basket full of food waste. Based on how full it was, Monika had been staying there for at least five days. The building was just a mile from the workshop, so that must have been where she’d gone to lay low.

“This place is a bust,” Klaus concluded. “Monika’s gone.”

At that point, Erna stopped walking loops around the floor and called over to him. “Teach, come look at this.” When he did, he found a scrap of what looked like human skin lying on the ground over in the corner. It had holes in just the right places to leave openings for someone’s eyes and nose.

“I recognize these materials…,” Erna said. Her voice sounded hoarse.

“They’re the ones Grete uses for her masks.”

Nearby, there was a chain thick enough to tie down a person. It was stained with blood.

Klaus had been worried about Grete’s condition. More than ten days had passed since she was taken, and he had no idea if she’d received the treatment she needed. Now that he saw where she’d been held, there was no doubt in his mind that her body was breaking down. The realization caused an ugly feeling to rise up within him. He could feel it start to ever so slightly affect his judgment.

However, there was no sense assuming the worst. He switched gears and started thinking through it rationally.

That’s odd… It’s not like Monika to leave so much evidence behind.

It was just a single mask, but still. It felt as though she’d left it there specifically so Klaus and the others would find it.

…She’s up to something.

The question was, what was she going to do next? She hadn’t just attacked the Kashard Doll Workshop. She’d also kidnapped Grete and assaulted Annette and Thea. At some point, she was going to make another move, and Klaus needed to figure out her plan so he could preempt it.

“This is my comeuppance for never truly facing Monika.”

He steeled his resolve again.

Then, the next day, the incident and the investigation both progressed in a rather unexpected fashion.

On the eleventh day of the investigation, there was yet another development that shocked the Fend Commonwealth to its core: a second assassination.

The victim was a thirty-four-year-old scientist who worked for the Kevin National Research Institute named Mia Godolphin. She specialized in theoretical physics, and she was the director of the nation’s rapidly progressing aviation development program.

One day, after exiting the institute just as she always did, she went missing. Her car had been left untouched in the parking lot. When she didn’t come home that night, her husband called the police.

Eventually, her body was found in the river running through Hurough. There was a bullet wound in the side of her head.

The news had been playing constantly on the TV since morning.

As he continued watching from their base to see if there was any new information being reported, Klaus let out a long breath. “What are your bosses at the CIM saying about the case?”

Amelie shook her head in disappointment. Klaus had given her orders to stop by CIM headquarters every now and again so she could lie to them about the Lamplight situation. “Hide’s stance is consistent—that Lan is likely behind this assassination, as well. They want me to capture her as quickly as I can. That’s all they’re saying.”

“Incompetents, the lot of them. At the rate they’re going, the body count’s going to keep rising.”

“…I’m afraid it’s really not my place to comment,” Amelie replied. She sounded frustrated, but she knew that chewing out Hide wasn’t going to get them anywhere.

“What can you tell me about Mia Godolphin?”

“She was a scientist working for the state. She was an associate professor at Winston University up until three years ago, when the National Research Institute headhunted her.”

“Go back through every document you have on her. There might be some connection between her and the crown prince. If we find something they have in common, that’ll tell us what Serpent is after.”

“I’m way ahead of you.”

The room was piled high with files on every person related to the case. By threatening Amelie, Klaus had been able to get his hands on every piece of information the CIM had, aside from the ones that involved state secrets. They read back through them as quickly as they could.

As they started to get into the thick of it, Erna came running back from the shopping trip they’d sent her on. They’d also told her to buy a copy of every paper for sale at the newsstand in front of the station.

Erna’s voice sounded panicked. “Teach!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Th-there’s a newspaper with a weird article in it.”

Time was a scarce resource, so Klaus didn’t look up from the document he was reading. “They’ve all been filled with odd reports these last few days. What does it say?”

“This is way more serious than that!”

Erna raised her voice. The shock in it was plain to hear.

“It has a photo of Prince Darryn and Director Mia’s killer!”

Klaus’s and Amelie’s hands froze. They exchanged a glance.

They reached their verdicts in unison.

“That’s impossible.” “That simply isn’t possible.”

It was getting to be a real pain, having to refute misinformation that blatant. Of the two, Amelie seemed particularly indignant. “That’s preposterous. Ludicrous. Not even the CIM has a photograph of whoever it was that killed the crown prince. There’s no way some little local newspaper could have gotten their hands on anything of the sort.” She massaged her temples in annoyance and took the paper from Erna. “We’ll have to issue swift sanctions against this kind of slapdash—”

She trailed off midway through her sentence. Her lips gave the faintest of trembles.

“Bonfire.” Amelie handed him the paper. “I’m afraid the situation may have just taken quite the turn.”

After taking a look at Erna’s worried expression, Klaus read the article. The paper was called the Conmerid Times. As he recalled, it was a fairly major publication. Inside, there was a pair of photos so large they covered just about an entire spread, styled almost like wanted posters. The quality wasn’t great, and it looked like they’d been shot at night, as the images were dark. However, there was definitely a humanoid figure in the middle of each of them.

BREAKING: CROWN PRINCE’S ASSASSIN THE MOST HATED PERSON OF THE CENTURY

The two pictures sitting alongside the inflammatory headline were captioned AT THE SITE OF THE CROWN PRINCE’S ASSASSINATION and AT THE SITE OF THE MIA GODOLPHIN ASSASSINATION. The first was a photo of someone, presumably the killer, fleeing the scene of the crime. However, the second was a much more definitive photo of the killer dragging a corpse that looked an awful lot like Director Mia’s. Despite how grainy the image was, it wasn’t hard to make out Director Mia’s face or the loathing in the killer’s eyes.

Klaus gasped.

“Teach,” Erna stammered, “the photos are of Big Sis Monika.”

That much was unmistakable.

The person in the photos depicting the assassin of the century was none other than their own missing ally.