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From Carentania With Love

Socialist Commonwealth

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"I double checked the blueprints and Pavel says the tickets back home are waiting for us in the hotel room. Provided you have cleaned up behind us, we are as good as done."

Seemingly relaxed, Ivana leaned back and put her feet up on the dashboard. Behind the window the vast countryside of Międzymorze hurried past and the two Carentanians in their light-blue Sedan were the only ones on the road within sight. A sign nearby read Balanjar, but neither Ivana nor her driver gave much attention to the distance the sign specified. Right now, they couldn't care less for anything in this country - its roads, its cities, its grey, boring and unspectacular weather. After weeks of hard work, they could finally rest a bit and head home, that was all that mattered. Nearly.

"You DID clean up, am I right?"

Ivana gave her partner a worried look. She had just remembered that it was the first time for him and, to be frank, he didn't behave the most professional in the recent days. The pitch black eye she gave him could tell its very own story about that. Miroslav meanwhile didn't do too much to relieve Ivana of her worries and instead just grinned meaningful and gave her a wink, causing her to sink her head into her hands, shake it and ask:

"What in the name of all that is good and just have y-"

She couldn't even finish the sentence as a bright light erupted on the horizon, exactly where they had just come from. The deep red of the fireball casted its light across the fields of rural Międzymorze. Granted it was a majestic sight, bearing a striking resemblance to a giant rose blooming in the middle of north-eastern Europe, unfolding its leaves over a land more than twice the size of their homeland. It was still not beautiful enough to calm Ivana down.

"You... you..." she trembled, trying to control the rising urge to kill. "Let us go over this very slowly," she then said with a distinct tone of aggression in her voice. "We - are - not - the - fucking - Revolutionary - Army - Intelligence." Raising her right hand to a threatening fist she continued. "I don't know what they told you when you were recruited. I don't know what they told you in acadamy. But we in the IIS don't, I repeat, we don't blow things up. Under no circumstances. Never. It has nothing to do with our profession you little godforsaken pyromanic."

"Aww, calm down," Miroslav had this unique way of enraging his partner even more with his coolness he displayed like a fashion statement. "Nothing wrong with a bit of boom to erase our traces. It does the job -and- it hurts this LFS nation. I don't see your problem. They'll never find out about us anyways and we still accomplished our mission. The only difference is at least I had a bit more fun with it than I would have had if I had done it by the books..."

Meanwhile the large fireball on the horizon had shrinked again to a glow that seemed comparatively small from Ivanas and Miroslavs location. A thin column of smoke crowned the dancing flames, nevermind that it was actually an inferno of considerable size and the smoke that looked just like thin lines on the sky from the light-blue sedan on the way to Balanjar, were actually giant black walls of fume the size of a skyscraper. Burning on the horizon was, after all, nothing less than an industrial plant designed to extract enough oil from tar-sands to fuel entire countries.

"Just pray you are right and hope they never find out," Ivana just said in disbelief, meanwhile making a note to herself to ask for never being assigned to a mission with Miroslav Golob ever again.
 

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The wall of flame of flame that encompassed the remains of the processed crude dump loomed above the steppe like a gigantic, burning palace column, illuminating the midnight world for miles upon miles around. The sound of the blaze- mingled with the hundreds of sirens and manifold mechanical humming and crashing of machinery was a deafening cacophony, that like the fire was heard and felt far beyond the reach of the overwhelming heat.

Thousands of tiny hazardous waste and fire-suited figures seemed to dance beneath the enormous bulk of the inferno, pouring hundreds of streams of specialized flame retardant chemicals into the trunk of blaze, mostly to no avail. This desperate struggle had been on for the past five hours, and showed no signs whatsoever of slowing- and likely wouldn't for a few days yet- unless luck and perfectly timed maneuvers on the part of the veritable army of firemen and specialized disaster response personnel paid off in a most unexpected manner.

Łowczy ("Master of the Hunt," an archaic noble term that has come to mean something closer to Inspector-General in the modern era) Adam Tarlowsky couldn't help but dab his handkerchief at his brow, despite the fact that he was more than far enough away from the carnage to avoid the worst of the heat- and thus was not perspiring. He had arrived on the scene three hours ago, summoned directly from Hrodino by order of the King himself...which should have been an honor of the highest order- were it only due to something other than the worst industrial "accident" that had occurred in the Kingdom in many a decade.

Whatever the case, Tarlowsky was simply the best there was at what he did- which in truth were a great many dark, nasty, meticulous things. It was plainly obvious to anyone with a brainpan slightly larger than the average "liberal" that the events that had unfolded at here tonight were most assuredly not of the accidental sort- which meant that Tarlowsky had known this in the depths of his bones even before he'd stepped onto the helicopter that brought him here. Though it was more than likely that the government would be able to obscure, or altogether bury this fact, there was still no doubt that at least hundreds of lives would be lost, and that some accounting would have to be made for that- even in the heavily controlled society of Międzymorze.

As such, even as the thousands of response personnel, both federal and provincial raged against the undying flames, dozens of shadowy and unfamiliar individuals under the command of the Łowczy were picking their way through what bits of remains and rubble that had been rendered accessible through the efforts of their less secretive fellows.

Through these harrowing adventures into the smoking wreckage, Tarlowsky had already learned that offices of the presumably dead manager of this BenzynaKról plant- one Pol Horwik- were mostly intact structurally. Nearly all of the furniture had been scorched, some of it to cinders, but his safe, and at least a portion of the hard-drive from his "hardened" laptop had been retrieved. It didn't speak well for Mr. Horwik's chances of survival that the horribly charred remains of a human body had been discovered under the remains of what could only have been his desk.

It was absolutely imperative to Tarlowsky's mission here that the hard-drive in question reach his hands, and "opened up" by his people as quickly as possible. The broken bits of security camera footage from the plant that had been downloaded by the company's central database indicated that at least two "unauthorized" persons had been noted entering- and leaving Mr. Horwik's office just before the explosion. Horwik himself had been in his offices when one of them- an as of yet unidentified female had entered, and most certainly had not left with her. Though the figure in question was most assuredly female, by virtue of her amply visible curves- but her face had been and would likely remain obscured, no matter how much doctoring the techies back at Central did.

The other "unauthorized" person that had been filmed entering the area was almost impossibly suspicious, and at this point his likeness was being circulated amongst law enforcement and intelligence agencies throughout the Kingdom, and Serbovia. It was this man that Tarlowsky would be focusing on his initial investigations, and all efforts were being made to ascertain just what level of access this as of yet unidentified individual might have possessed.

Though Tarlowsky hadn't viewed the footage for himself, but his men were pretty clear that the man on the tapes had been "up to something", and had been in possession of a device that closely resembled a minor detonator/explosive device in use by revolutionary and terrorist elements around the world.

With this bit firmly in mind, Tarlowsky was already fairly certain that this individual was directly responsible for the events that had unfolded here tonight, and would do everything within his power to see that he was "held responsible."
 

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Café Szpilka was a little family business back in one of the less important parts of Balanjar. Ivana and Miroslav had settled down in the small and cozy place at the end of a dark alley, stretching their feet within the rustic interior and enjoying a cup of good coffee with some traditional Międzymorzan pie. It was a good way to relax after a dangerous and troublesome job while both waited for the last hours to pass before their plane would start. Once back home they could then depart on a well-deserved holiday.

At least Ivana always kept a raised awareness until she was really back home and in safety. While attempting to seem calm and unsuspicious, her eyes kept wandering to check the people around her, the entrances to the café and the darker corners of the medieval building. Miroslav meanwhile was as careless as ever, ordering a second piece of pie while drowning his partners ears in senseless chit-chat. His left arm swung around the backrest of his chair, his body slightly leaned forward he was making his repeated advances towards Ivana, who just nodded every now and then while completely ignoring his numerous digressions about his person.

While Mr. Miroslav Golob was left to belief he had caught the sole attention of his partner, this held true for someone else completely who Ivana kept monitoring from the corner of her dark green eyes with unbroken attention. It was a man in a Międzymorzan police uniform who gave Ivanas accomplice just a little bit too much of his valuable attention before departing with a visible sense of urgency. His reaction when spotting Miroslav was remarkable, first throwing him some questioning looks, then displaying surprise before heading out of the café again considerably faster than he walked in.

"We should leave," Ivana said without further explanation, dropping some money onto the table and dragging her partner along by pulling him off the chair and through the café.

"What the fuck is wrong with you," Miroslav said, causing his acquintance to reply considerably harsher.

"You fucked up, that is wrong. Now we better get out here before the royal police busts your sorry ass." Ivana whispered, even though she could expect no one around them to understand a word of Carentanian.

Miroslav followed her without further protests, except maybe for his facial expression that was remniscent of a child that insisted on not having done any wrong when it was more than obvious. But even he had learned better than to pick an argument with Ivana when she was that worked up. His nose was still a bit crooked from last time. And so he followed her to the front entrance, just to be pushed back inside as she became aware of the numerous policemen that were preparing their equipment outside of the small building.

"You better hope they have a backdoor," Ivana shoved her partner back through the room again and into the kitchen, where a surprised chef erupted into a seemingly endless stream of curses, protesting against the two strangers trespassing onto his dominion. The two Carentanians ignored him, leaving through the back of the café just as the police could be heard storming into the building through the main entrance.

"Consider yourself lucky," Ivana glared at Miroslav. "If we are to be caught the police is not the ones you have to worry about."
 

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*beep*

*beep*

*beep*

"Hey, here Kastelic, shouldn't you be in a plane by now?"

"What took you so long, damn it Pavel. Well, actually I can guess what took you so long..."

"... Get to the point," Agent Kastelic, the operator for this mission, threw the paper towel into the nearby trashbin. Safely at home in Carentania, he was a computer expert tasked with providing all necessary information to the two agents abroad. This job confined him to a small office in the main building of the Industrial Intelligence Service in Rijeka, but not that Pavel had a big problem with that kind of work. He had his computer, unlimited internet access, he had his beautiful and flawless computer and he could ask one of the service workers at any time to fetch him something, as the giant stash of boxes with pizza crust or leftovers of Jizhoese food proved. And was his computer already mentioned?

Miroslav meanwhile was in a less comfortable situation right now. Standing in a telephone booth in Międzymorze, hiding from the police while Ivana was on guard outside, his flight back home could no longer be expected safe and the whole country knew his face and was looking for him. His only hope was to get out of this country as soon as possible and only Pavel could provide him with the necessary information for this undertaking. Meanwhile, Ivana could just stab him in the face and be an unsuspicious stranger once again, as she told Miroslav right away when they had chased out of the café.

"We have been uncovered and need an alternative route out, precise enough for you mr. Geek?"

"I'll take that as an acknowledgement of my technological skills and not as an insult." Pavel heard something along the lines of "you'd wish" from the other end of the line, but chose to ignore it. No use picking a fight with someone on the other end of the world. Of course, he could get his revenge by giving false information, but aside from the fact that this would be completely blown out of proportions - even such a jackass didn't deserve this kind of punishment - it would also mean that he would send Ivana to misery. And not only had she always been a respectful colleague towards him, but she would most probably also find a way to escape the arrest, get back to Carentania and kick him in the ass so hard that in future his colons would have an exit on the front of his body.

So instead he did what he had been hired to do. He took the mouse of his computer - which he lovingly named "Linda". The smooth curves of this perfectly balances masterpiece of modern product design was a sensation to his senses. Hurrying across satellite maps of the region he always gained this feeling that the glowing of the screen was Lindas smile. A nice, a charming smile he could see whenever he wanted to. His fingers jumped across the keyboard, entering additional search-topics, the click-clack of the keys were Lindas sounds of delight, enjoying his touch. In return, she rewarded Pavel with all the information he needed to get the two agents out of danger. Calmly he whispered "thank you," but restraining himself to get this work finished before once again giving Linda his undivided attention.

"I have booked you a flight back home from Derjiste, Kryobaijan. You have four days to get there. Just head north on the street, but cross the border somewhere in the wilderness, before returning to the street on the other side of the border. There you will find a small Kryobaijani Motel, called 'Fluffy Yak Inn". A room is reserved for you two, the tickets will arrive the next morning by mail. Now get going, the connection isn't going to be secure for much longer."

Miroslav hung up without even saying "thanks". But Pavel didn't mind, he lied about the connection security after all. He just wanted the whole thing to be over and done with so he could be with Linda again. She was the best computer he ever had, just perfect. Slowly he stroked her casing, touching her USB-ports and kissing her monitor. Linda responded with her cooling rotor moving faster, her temperature rising in excitement...
 

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The fires were now long contained, and the wreckage left in the wake of the catastrophe was being cleared away as quickly- and carefully as was humanly possible. It was for this task that an entirely different sort of Quick-Response Personnel had been called to the scene at the once impressive, still quite hulking oil-sand refinery, just more than twenty miles outside of the Khazar city of Balanjar.

Despite this, Adam Tarlowsky, Łowczy of His Most Catholic Majesty, was finding- as was often the case- that his work was only just now beginning.

The spy-master had been more or less enshrined behind a rather austere and general steel clerical desk for the past two days, pouring over clips from the security camera footage from the plant, picking through personnel files, combing through any and all financial dealings of the management of the plant- and BenzynaKról as a whole, and now poorly written reports of even more poorly executed police actions.

The fact that the best and brightest that the Balanjar Constabulary had quite literally allowed the "unsubs" to slip out the back door- of the Café Szpilka. This whole damnable affair could have been over had those worthless city-cops simply taken the time to go over the building specs before throwing the cordon up...but no, "Murphy" would never allow for something of this import to be resolved so easily.

Heaving up a resigned sigh that would have brought Cassandra herself to a pause, Tarlowsky lit another rum-spiced Coronadic cigarillo and rolled it between his knuckles absent-mindedly as he flashed through his "findings" once more.

Thus far, it had been rather firmly established that there were only two "Unknown Subjects," though it was more than possible that there were more, and that only the two that had been confirmed as having been both at the refinery, and at Café Szpilka.

Of those two, only the male had been clearly "captured," and his face was still- and would remain- in heavy circulation amongst all of the Kingdom's law enforcement agencies- and now most LFS counter-terrorist and intelligence agencies. His features had been thoroughly analyzed, and no matches had been found in the Kingdom's extensive databases, and likewise, no matches had been forwarded from Serbovia. It was clear enough that he was Caucasian, and young...and almost painfully inexperienced, as least to Tarlowsky's practiced mind.

The male "unsub" had been almost comical in his last few moments at the refinery. The joy he had taken in setting up the explosive device had been clear, even on the grainy and poorly lit footage retrieved from the BenzynaKról plant. In this, he had been solidified as the less interesting of the duo. Obviously, he had mucked his operation up by destroying the plant. It was likely that no real attention would have been paid to him, or his random comings and goings until much too late, were it not for this fact. As such, Tarlowsky had labeled him as a "rookie" in the Greatest of all Games.

The female unsub on the other hand...now there was an intriguing figure. The only real sketch that they had of her had been based around the rather hurried observations of the street-cop that had spotted them in the Cafe, and even then, it was a rather sparsely detailed thing. She was obviously the perpetrator of the actual theft of the information from the plant manager's hard drive. Hundreds of files had been copied from that hard drive, but nearly all of them had been related to the actual refinement process for the "oil-sands" that the Balanjar plant had been built around.

That was the key. Any number of nations had spies, and industrial saboteurs of all shades operating in Międzymorze at any given time. Far too many, but that was a fact of life that Tarlowsky had long ago learned to live with. Only two, or three nations in the entire world had an active interest in that technology though.

Kyiv would have been the first, and most obvious choice- were in not for the fact that the Allied States already had a similar, and nearly as efficient oil-sand extraction and refinement process of their own in place. The other two- Kryobaijan and Carentania were far more difficult, and alarming options- at least to the twisted mind of the Łowczy.

"Goddam Communards, may the entire lot of them burn in a proletarian hell." The leather swivel chair creaked under him as his shifted his weight and took another long drag from the cigarillo.

It was now obvious that regular law enforcement, and likely even the basic sort of counter-intelligence agents wouldn't do for tracking down these two, and retrieving the stolen data, if in fact such a thing was possible. It was also becoming obvious that whoever Tarlowsky chose for this task would of a necessity have to have more than a passing acquaintance with working against IRB, or Carentanian intelligence. One name sprang to mind at once, negating the need to thing further into the matter.

Tarlowsky stubbed the cigarillo out amongst its countless other brothers and sisters, and methodically dialed his secretary's number in. With a few simple words, he solved the problem of how to catch up with, and hopefully apprehend these elusive unsubs.

"Get me Więź."
 

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It was night, as dark and cold how only the Międzymorzan countryside could be. Ivana and Miroslav had succesfully left Balanjar earlier that day and ever since then their light-blue sedan had been headed non-stop northwards, luckily evading detection thusfar. Miroslav was wearing a hat, sunglasses and a scarf to prevent his identification, which however made him almost comically suspicious. Refusing to comment any more on the issue, Ivana just sat idly while Miroslav drove the car towards the Kryobaijani border.

The area was covered in conifers, a thick forest spreading across this middle of nowhere. Sounds of wild animals echoed through the woods, while the sky, so far away from any artificial source of light, was covered completely with stars. Clear, fresh air was blowing around their vehicle as the two Carentanian agents hurried through the romantic nature without paying the slightest attention to what had inspired countless poets. While Miroslav concentrated on the street, Ivana watched out for any police or border patrols. Not that a romantic environment would have been of any use to the rather hostile relation between those two.

In Ivanas eyes, Miroslav was more than a mere unprofessional. He was dangerously naive and childish, a man more concerned with his ego than with the success of their mission. Right now he was taking a drag from his "Yuka" cigarette, a Carentanian brand filled with a mild breed of marihuana instead of tobacco. Initially a Carentanian invention to pay credit to the fact that tobacco does grow less than well in most parts of the country, it had turned into a famous Carentanian speciality - which however changed nothing about the fact that it was still illegal in almost all other countries. Miroslav insisted on bringin some packs along with him, in fact he did it behind the back of the IIS. If he were to be caught with them, it would endanger their mission, not to mention that he was driving a car right now while being slightly high. But Ivana didn't bother with getting angered about such things anymore. Right now, Miroslav had a bit bigger problems with the Międzymorzan justice system than just possession of illegal narcotics.

Suddenly lights flashed up in front of the car, causing Miroslav to slow down. Blinded by the bright lamps just ahead of them he couldn't distinct who or what was the cause of the shine until a Międzymorzan police officer stepped up to the car and both Ivana and Miroslav could see his face. A road block and a rather surprising one. More of a raid, actually. The officer requested Miroslav to pull down his scarf, take off his glasses and show him his papers and Miroslav looked at Ivana, unsure about how to proceed in this situation. Ivana meanwhile had moved her left feet atop of the gas pedal, suddenly pushing down Miroslavs foot together with the pedal.

The car squeezed, then chased off into the darkness, followed by the police. The Kryobaijani border was close now and Ivana and Miroslav would disappear into the forest at the next possibile place.
 

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To the enigmatic figure known to all save his mother as Więź the nearly inaudible thumping and humming of the Mały light transport helicopter had become as familiar a sound as the steady, measured breaths he'd long ago learned to take under all save the most extreme circumstances. Legs dangling over the side of the cab of the tiny craft, night-vision goggled eyes scanning the winding roadway and the thick forests surrounding it on either side with a sort of practiced ease that a true raptor would have envied, the calculatingly cold butcher allowed his gloved hand to drift over the length of antique gunmetal and cured wood (a Great War era karabin samopowtarzalny Simonova- ksS) that was absently propped in his lap.
They were down there, somewhere. Running for their lives- terrified out of their wits by the most basic, and entirely non-threatening vanguard of the Crown's Retribution made flesh. It had been mere chance that his quarry had been spotted at that road block- though Więź had never been a man to dismiss even the smallest favors as opportunities to seize upon. As such, he'd been airborne, and en route as soon as the identity of the male "terrorist" had been confirmed by the lone camera at the Graniszą Brony (Border Guard) road-block.

Hellish thoughts of encircling that terrified and slack-jawed face filled the Sarmatian "Cold-Warriors" mind- drifting onwards to rather poetic musings about the nature of his female companion. As was the case with his master, the Łowczy, Więź had become unbearably intrigued with that subject, honing his indomitable will to near molecular sharpness.

Racing through the frigid, and slightly cloudy night at just under a hundred miles an hour, both Więź and the technician hanging from the other side were straining the limits of their already finely tuned perception to find any trace of the vehicle that had blown through the road-block- and both of them knew that it was only a matter of time before they were discovered. Though the Kryobaijani border was within reach, and regrettably rather porous in this region, there was little chance that the two supposedly Communist saboteur-terrorists (still of an undetermined nationality) would make it through unnoticed. It was simply a matter of personal honor that Więź be the man to notice them first.

And sure enough, there it was- the car identified by the Graniszą Brony was parked on the side of the road, a cloud thin vapor rising high above what could only be a damaged radiator. Perhaps the inept Brony had been able to get off a shot after all, and the vehicle had finally- and literally- given out of steam? Whatever the case, it was now time to begin some real work.

Tapping the pilot on the back of his flight-helmet, Więź motioned towards the road a half-mile or so away from the car. Clicking the com-link hugging his jaw on quickly, his rasping voice ghosted over the channel- almost a whisper, but dripping with a malice and menace that no sane human should have been capable of...but again, both Więź and his Master knew that he was as far from that as any man could be, and still remain effective as a hunter, and butcher of men.

The zip-cord plummeted down from the cab of the helo, and Więź tugged at all his gear once more before taking the long plunge down. Satisfied, he hooked himself off, and nodded his gratitude to the talented, and indispensable crew that had gotten him here- and dropped down into the darkness of the frozen night.

Touching down the grace of a man for whom such actions were as natural as merely taking a step, the Sarmatian "huntsman" scanned the tree line around the abandoned car with meticulous care. Never overconfident, he assumed that these two- like himself, would have prepared at least something of an ambush, or a booby-trap. Such was the not the case this time...which was all the better.

Stalking up to the car in a ready-crouch, he carefully leaned up to peak into the interior of the domestic-made sedan. Nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly nothing that would provide any valuable insight into his prey...except the butt of what appeared to be a marijuana cigarette. The acrid, burnt vegetable smell of the drug still hung in the car somewhat, despite the sickening smell of leaking anti-freeze that permeated the air around him.

There were tracks leading away from the car, and back into the trees, all the Saints be praised for their kindness. Tracks like these were as obvious and easy to follow for Więź as a trail of arterial blood for hounds. Taking one last moment to stash the butt of the joint away for future analysis- whenever the opportunity to send it back to the lab presented itself- the Sarmatian "Cold-Warrior" began the long hike into the woods- and apparently towards the ever closer Kryobaijani border.

It would be far from the first time that Więź had made this exact same journey, but it was the first time he'd made it since the recent regime change in the Kingdom's western neighbor and ancient rival. If nothing else, it would be entertaining, of that he was sure.
 

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"Damn mud," Ivana cursed, feeling the dirty water seeping into her shoes. She was wearing only a rather light footwear and it was by no means intended for outdoor-use. At least, she thought, she had thought about bringing a coat so it wouldn't be as cold. Still, her feet were iceblocks and she was hoping they would reach their destination soon. Miroslav had none of her problems, wearing army-boots that held out both the wetness and the cold, he could march the dark, forestated border region without complaints.

The suffocating silence between the two continued all the way through the woods. Ever since the police had found out about the two, Ivana had held a deep grudge against her partner whom she felt was responsible for the mess she was in. Miroslav didn't exactly feel that way, obviously unable to see what fault he could have made. To him it was just bad luck they had been uncovered, but at least he realized it was better to not question Ivana on that matter. He didn't want to fight with her. She looked to good for that... though she was also hot when angry. In a different way...

"Fuck it," Ivana screamed and a nearby swarm of birds reacted by leaving their tree, headed for the open sky. "Oh crap, damn it. I stepped on a fucking nail." A stream of curses followed, as Ivana pulled out the metal object from within her left foot. Her footprint in the wet underground had a distinct red paint, indicating that this was the place the small piece of metal had been place, for whatever reason. Ivana couldn't even tell what exactly it once was, either way her ability to walk was seriously impaired. From the feeling of pain, there still seemed to be a splinter left in the flesh, but she had no means clean and take a closer look at the wound, not to mention pulling it out.

Miroslav looked at her, hesitation in his eyes. Then he shook it off and with openly displayed confidence he offered: "I could carry you."
Disbelief greeted him on Ivanas part.

-

They had seen the lights of the Motel from far away, at last they were there. Ivana looked uncomfortable and ashamed to say the least on her partners back, but she was glad they had finally made it to safety. The building was a cheap, industrial construction in the middle of the rural nowhere of southern Kryobaijan, located at a lonely countrystreet. Hardly anyone ever came here, but state subsidies had kept it alive for years, though its only guests usually were government officials keeping the rurals in line or checking on whether or not the villages in the proximity were honest about their production records.

Pavel had booked a room for them and once inside the spartanic, yet comfortable place, Ivana started cleaning her wound. It was as she had expected, a small piece of metal had broken off from the scrap when she pulled it out and now sat driven deep in her flesh. It took her a bit of time, but she managed to plug it out, using scissors as crude tool to grab it. Relieved she fetched the obligatory bottle of Kryobaijani vodka that was found within the room upon their arrival, used it as desinfectant and wrapped a bandage around her left foot.

"You know Miroslav," she then said, walking back from the bathing into the main room. "The whole time I thought of you as a naive child that had mistaken the IIS for a spy agency from an action movie. But you just prove to me that you can actually take responsibility and, well, it may not sound much, but I want to thank you for what you did. It sure wasn't easy to carry me all the way." Ivana couldn't help but blush a little. It was rare for her to have to thank for someone helping her.

"Don't mention it," Miroslav smiled, again with his distincte openly displayed confidence. Only now, Ivana noticed his perfectly white teeth and how they perfectly fit his bright blonde hair. "But something completely else just came to my mind. This room has only one bed. Pavel must have made a mistake. Seems we must share tonight," he smiled just a little more at that notion and raised an eyebrow.

"No, it's no fault. Pavel knows only one of us has to sleep at each time, given the present situation. The other has to keep watch in case we are tracked down."

Within seconds, Ivana had shattered all of Miroslavs hopes for tonight. Disappointed he headed downstairs, fetching a refreshment from the machine in the Motel entrance while another shadowy figure appeared from amidst the dark forest.
 

Beautancus

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Beau
There had been promises that this wouldn't happen.

Więź cursed this rotten turn of events once more, yanking the last tooth free from the mostly faceless corpse zip-tied to a towering fir tree. Dropping the tooth into the bag that contained all the others- from both corpses, he wiped the mixture of greasy blood and sweat from his forehead with a hand that wasn't any less soiled, and sighed, sending a great gust of steamy breath up into the pitch black night.

Taking a step back from his handy-work, he couldn't quite suppress the sadistic grin that split the otherwise stony mask of professionalism that he'd worn throughout most of the ordeal. Though it was surely a bit of massive overkill, the eyes, fingertips, and now the teeth had been removed from both of the Kryobaijani border-guards, and soon a gallon of diesel and most of a bottle of the piss-poor excuse for vodka that the Communards-cum-Intersectionalists manufactured on this side of the border leavened with a bit of cutting-torch would see all of the immediately distressing evidence of his passing from play. For long enough to give him a chance to pick the trail of his quarry up again, at least.

They- the Kryobaijanis- might do a DNA test. Maybe. By the time they got that in order, he would have the "booted pyromaniac," and his now apparently wounded female companion in hand, and this whole mess would be over.

Refocusing on the task at hand, it was hard for Więź not to crack a tooth, grinding his jaws at the assurances he'd been given that he wouldn't have to worry with border guards, on either side of the frontier. "Given the nature of their normal patrol routines, and the intensity of the reason high pressure front...etc etc."

"Bullshit." The words came out as more of a growl than anything else.
Bounding along, close on the heels of his pray, he'd quite literally run into the two-man patrol some few miles into Kryobaijan. Neither of them had been fast enough to react to the situation, whether in the form of making radio contact with wherever their superior was huddled against the cold, or to raise their arms to fire a shot. No, both had died as quickly and quietly as dense lambs, led to slaughter. He hadn't even been forced to discharge his rifle once- just a simple matter of a little knife work.

It was the massive inconvenience of the thing that bothered Więź the most. He'd lost a good thirty-five minutes carrying out this grisly task. Though, all things considered, this was much the same fashion in which he'd entered Kryobaijan the last time. A note would have to be made of this, to avoid such future debacles. Enjoyably cathartic though they might be.

Turning back to his rucksack, he removed a fresh overcoat, facemask, and gloves- and one of his three precious incendiaries, and clicked the timer over five clicks. That would give him more than enough time to be well away from the site before the first flash went off. More than long enough. Carefully placing the incendiary between the two carcasses, he offered the larger of the two former men a pat on the head, and an almost shy wink. "Been fun boys, but I really must be going."
_

Some few miles later, the trail had grown scintillatingly warm again. The weather had nearly doomed this whole trek- with the heavy footfalls of the "booted man" obscured by drifts blown in by the night, but the general direction of "the quarries" movements was leading towards a cluster of impoverished peasant villages that Więź- and most Międzymorzan intelligence officers with any slight history with Kryobaijan- knew rather well. There was a motel nearby, one that would likely prove to be an irresistible layover for the pair...assuming they weren't in fact agents of the Kryobaijani government.
His gut feeling told Więź- and his Master, Tarlowsky, that they weren't though.

So, the motel was easily the best bet for a first stop. He should be reaching the main thoroughfare of the region in the next few minutes, though it hardly deserved that title. To be fair though, the roads directly on the other side of the border- on the "Royal" side, were intentionally kept in a similar state, partly to deny any Kryobaijani invasion force ease of movement.
Sure enough, the woods opened up just ahead of him, revealing a snow and windswept strip of packed gravel that ran for mile upon mile- or kilometer upon kilometer, rather, now that he was on this side of the border- in either direction.

The tracks led directly to the road...an oddity in the logic of "the quarry," unless they were rendezvousing with someone that knew they would be coming...but no, the tracks continued along beside the road for some distance. That much at least, was of comfort. As was the presence of a set of wagon tracks- fresh wagon tracks that were even less obscured by the wind, sleet and snow than the footprints.

Taking up a slightly more vigorous jog, Więź began to run over his Kryobaijani mentally. It had been some years since he'd spoken the language to a native speaker, and though it was closely related to his own native tongue, there were subtle nuances to its various dialects that were uncommon even to its cousins: Sarmatian, Kyivan, Serbovian, and Živ. Though he considered himself far more proficient in the non-Slavic languages of his trade, such as the myriad of languages of the Levant, he was comfortable enough with the West-Slavic language to pass himself off as some rustic "bumpkin" from "the border."

Slowly, he was overtaking the wagon, apparently rather heavily weighted. Rounding a particularly deep bend in the road, he was upon the thing, drawn by a pair of rather run-down draft horses, and guided a rather obligatorily ancient old peasant, great white beard hanging most of the way down his chest, and pointed skullcap slanted jauntily to the side on his otherwise bare head.

"товарищ! Comrade! Care to give a weary trapper a lift into the village!?" Więź congratulated himself mentally at remembering the nasal clipping that was characteristic to the region.

The old peasant was obviously startled by his sudden appearance, but made no signs to reach for a weapon of any kind- likely alluding to the complete absence of one. "Mrmm? Whozzat? Where'd you come from so fast like 'at?"
Więź approached the wagon with his hands spread, and held up, his thermal mask pulled down slightly to reveal his stubbled features. Despite his horrific inner nature, he was a common enough looking fellow, especially for this neck of the woods.

"I hate to say it, but I've found meself at a loss here in the woods. I've a set of minx furs that need to be making their way into town, but find that I've not got the gumption to make the walk there on my own two hooves. I see that you've eight of your own there...I'd even be willing to offer up one of these fine coats in exchange..."

Greed flashed in the weary old man's eyes, and he leaned forward, off the rough bench that served as his perch. As fast as that, his life was finished, his neck snapped in three places even as Więź slammed him into the hard packed gravel road.

This time, there was no point in bother with covering up the evidence. The old peasant's neck was broken in a way that would be consistent with a drunken fall off his wagon, especially if it was found in ditch some few miles down the way- perhaps his horses had been spooked by a lynx, or wolf-pack? Who could tell these things. He should have known better than to make the journey in weather like this.

Either way, he was in the ditch, and Więź on the wagon-bench, and moving along again in less than a minute. Down the road he went now, pushing the old horses as fast as they- and the heavy wagonload of...eggs...would allow for. The first stop would be the motel that formed the most likely chance for a quick encounter and resolution of this business...but there were other locations beyond that. If it was absolutely necessary to continue on.
 

Beautancus

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Beau
With the coldest of northern winds, a stranger- the third in a single night- strode into the quiet, nigh forgotten Kryobaijani border town. More had transpired in the general vicinity on this night than had occurred for many a decade, and the night's events were yet far from over. Three men lay dead already, blood and warmth spilt upon, and now buried by the drifting snows of the Slavic Winter.

Stalking out of the forest, his appetite for adventure nearly sated for this evening, body aching from the cold...Więź allowed himself a slight bit of self-satisfaction with finally arriving at the town's only motel, or stop over site of any kind. There were a few cars, mostly beat-up old 80's models littering the parking lot, some of them looking as if they hadn't been operated since then.
A single shaft of hazy light cut out of the motel's lobby, penetrating the gloom just far enough to reach the Sarmatian spy's obscured features.

There were a few other lights on in the rooms along the outer rim of the building, though none of the warmth or illumination of these lights was allowed to escape into the frost-bitten hell of night. Were he a man of more philosophical leanings, Więź might have recognized this as a recurring theme in his tattered and twisted husk of a life. As it was, it was merely another gaping maw, yawning enormously at him, unknowing and uncaring.

Stepping up to the simple wooden facade of the aged structure, and noting with some interest that were apparently a few people actively moving about the lobby, also serving as a "common-area," with a television set, and a few vending machines- and most interestingly, a coffee maker. Shaking as much of the snow as possible from his shoulders, and his pack, Więź stepped through the door, which chimed off with some two-bit imitation of a real door-bell.

"Ah, another stranger!" An obviously drunken, and entirely whimsical voice cracked from behind the rough-hewn bar that separated the "office" of the motel from the main portion of the lobby. The old crone that leaned forward from the dimness of the office was an impossibly accurate stand-in for Baba Jaga, one eye cocked and the other a bare slit- likewise, one good tooth jutting below lips thinned by the decades, and one black sliver of a tooth hugging close beside it.

"Apparently so...apparently so." Więź nodded, forcing himself not to offer the bat a truly predatory grin. "Though I must admit, I am no true stranger. I've been this way once or twice before...though never at this time of year. And by Koschei's cock, it is cold here this time of year, is it not?"

The old woman was taking him in fully now, her bulging eye roaming him over, up and down- seeking something familiar in him, that would tease some shred of memory, some small remembrance of the leonine man standing before her out of the darkened coils of her mind. Perhaps she did remember a man like him, or more likely she simply decided to play the part of the gracious hostel hostess, whatever the case, her wrinkled face bloomed into a truly delighted smile. "Of course, of course. You are a trapper, from the Živ-dog border. That is where you are from, is it not? Your accent is unmistakable."

Nodding his agreement, and throwing off his backpack- and broken down rifle- onto the floor, Więź offered her a wink, and nodded towards the keys on the wall behind her. "So, I take it that there are rooms to be had, even at this late hour?"

"I have more than a room, if you're wanting more than that."
For the first time genuinely amused by the ancient's boldness, Więź let a true, wall rattling laugh escape from his chapped lips. "I'm afraid the journey has left me a little worse for wear, my lady. I shall have to pass over the opportunity tonight."

Not at all disappointed, and perhaps just as satisfied with having carried out her bit of cleverness, the grandmother passed Więź a key, and pointed him to the partition in the lobby where the vending machines and coffee maker were. "You'll want some of that, to shake the cold out of your bones before you're off to bed then."

And there he was. The face that had been etched in the mind of every "Huntsman" of the Sarmatian Crown, both in the Kingdom and scattered throughout the whole of the world. Absentmindedly sipping at a cup of steaming coffee, and leaning against the machine, his eyes locked on the window. Had Więź not known better, he would have sworn that "the man" was doing his best to pretend that he was alone in the room...which he most certainly now was not.

"Mind if I have a bit of that...Comrade?" Więź nodded towards the coffee pot that Miroslav seemed to be jealously guarding. Surely enough, he was doing his best to ignore Więź, as was evidenced by the long seconds that it took him to acknowledge that he'd actually been spoken to.

"Mmmm...no, not at all. Have as much as you will." There was an old lilt to the way he spoke the language, familiar, and at the same time elusive. "He" surely wasn't a native Kryobaijani, that much was certain. And the accent wasn't one that Więź could place exactly...it was lurking just behind his eyes, teasing at him.

Stepping past "the man," and taking up the coffee pot, the Sarmatian Huntsman toyed with the idea of continuing the verbal cat and mouse a bit more, but the brutally honed instincts that had served him so well for so long forced him into action- and the coffee pot was upturned, over "the man's" head.

The scream was long, and satisfying, even if the lunging back-kick that caught Więź in almost squarely upon the solar plexus, and sent him rolling back across the room. Despite the initial shock of both attacks, neither of the men were willing to give an inch, or a second to the other, and both rushed forward, meeting in a flurry of jabs, knees, and flashing blocks.
It took only ten seconds of this exchange for Więź to gauge that his prey was far less of a fighter than he was, and working on this principle, he levered himself over the saboteur, working to grasp at the man's neck and jaw. It was the coffee that negated that quick grapple, Więź found his hands slipping off Miroslav's scalded, oily skin.

Scrambling for the next grapple, Więź missed the flash of gunmetal as the pistol slipped free of the holster under Miroslav's arm, but full well caught the blinding muzzle flash...
__

Some minutes later, the searing, pounding pain in his chest and abdomen woke Więź to the world, with the old woman standing over him, clenching a double-barrel shotgun in one hand, and a warm, wet rag in the other. The rag was expertly applied to his forehead, and a barely audible shush emanated from her almost toothless mouth.

"How long have I been out?" Więź croaked- first in Sarmatian, then in Kryobaijani.

"Just a minute or two. You're made from stern stuff, to pop your eyes open like this, even with...I'd love to know where you get this armor from. I don't even think the border guards have gear like this..." Her words were choked off with a gasp as the nearly dead man before her sat straight up, holding a finger to her lips.

"Go back to your office, and wait there. These people are dangerous criminals. Derjiste has sent me to see to it that they are apprehended. Please, for your own safety, remain out of sight." Even as he spoke, he took the shotgun from her hands, gently, calmly.

She nodded once, a clean and clear jerk of her head, and turned to scurry back off to her perch. Thoughts warred in the Sarmatian's head for a moment- but he found himself entirely unwilling to pull the trigger this time. For want of a border only a few dozen miles different, this woman might have been his mother.

Carefully pushing himself up from the floor, Więź avoided the gut-wrenching realization that a pure amateur had nearly ended his stellar career, here, on the floor of some random Kryobaijani motel- and he soldiered on, taking only time enough to check that there were in fact two rounds chambered.
__

Upstairs, Miroslav and Ivana were engaged in their normal rigorous discussion- likely making all haste to secure some means of travel and escape, in case there were more of the Imperialist-Pigs here, hunting them. Surely, the one that Miroslav had shot was dead, but there was never one. Never.

And with those thoughts and words- they couldn't note the soft foot-pads outside their door, and were in fact quite helpless when the shotgun blasted a three-foot hole into the wall of their room- followed shortly by a flash-bang grenade.
 

Socialist Commonwealth

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The sudden burst of the drywall of their hotel room startled Miroslav, who had just been explaining what happened to him downstairs. All muscles in his bodies suddenly tense and stiff, he couldn't move an inch and stared directly into the blinding flash of the grenade the Cassiopeian had thrown into the center of the small room. As it turned into a glowing white stream of light, a scream of sheer shock burst forth from within the deepest parts of his lungs and he grasped his face in agony, fearing for his life as he mistook the flash-bang for a fragmentation grenade, firmly believing his days were counted.

This may have been true, if Ivana had not been quicker to react. Just by seeing her colleague, covered in burns and bruises, she had been prepared for an attack from that second on. Though she had to admit that the enemy entry was quite dynamic, she had at least barely managed to take cover in the small bathroom with a fast leap, the adrenalin rushing through her body letting her forget the pain in her foot completely. As the sound of the grenade filled the room, she throw herself back through the door, pulling a pistol in the move and making a few inaccurate shots at the hole in the wall, which was met with a few strong Sarmatian curses. Unable to make out where exactly the enemy agent was hiding, but convinced he had not been hit, Ivana took another leap forward, hiding behind the bed.

With a quick kick to his knees, she sent Miroslav to the floor just the fragment of a moment before more bullets were sent flying through the hotel room, shot from a Cassiopeian pump action rifle clearly in the hope to root out the resistance within it by sheer firepower. Ivana reacted with more shots from her pistol, fired at the source of the enemy bullets. Within seconds, the amount of lead in the small room had risen above the air humidity, turning the furniture into shreds and fine dust that spread evenly across the stained carpet. It was no less than a miracle that both sides escaped the exchange of ammunition without the slightest scratch.

Then the loud "click" of magazines that had run out of ammunition could be heard from both sides. One thought seemed to have taken ahold of both Ivana and her enemy and they both ran forward in the same moment, meeting in the middle of the room with a volley of punches. Ivana countered a straight punch at her jaw by quickly seizing the forearm, leading it away from her face and twisting it violently, but the Cassiopeian was obviously a skilled figther as he foresaw the move, ducked below his own arm so as to allow it to follow the direction Ivana was forcing it into and moving himself behind her. The he applied a kick into her knees.

Ivana fell forward, her legs bending under the impact. But unwilling to let go of her enemies arm, she took him down with her, throwing his whole body over her shoulder in the very same move. He, just as quick-witted as her, used his free hand for a quick jab against her nose, which would've broken it and perhaps even pushed the bone into her head had she not turned it just in time to get away with a mere blooding nose. In retaliation for here nose, she jammed her elbow into her enemies face, the fight quickly devolving into a ground match in which neither side seemed to have and advantage as violent punches left either side seemingly unaffected and neither managed to get ahold of the weak spots of the other. Both Ivana and her Cassiopeian counterpart seemed well aware which parts of their bodies to protect.

The match took a few minutes, but Ivana couldn't tell for sure how long. They had rolled along the carpet a few times when suddenly a blunt object hit the Cassiopeian on the back of his head with a cracking noise and he blacked out. Ivana pushed him off her, wiped the blood of her face and got back to her feet, breathing heavily and feeling exhausted as the fierce, animalistic grin she had carried all through the battle vanished. Miroslav was standing next to her, a fire-extinguisher with a few blood stains in his hands. He still seemed slightly shocked and even moreso confused.

"You're not always quite as useless as I thought," Ivana said in a cheap imitation of a compliment. "Let's get away as soon as possible. I've got no interest in having to answer the Kryobaijani police."

-

In a stolen car they were heading towards Derjiste. Ivanas nosebleed had stopped and she had cleaned up her face with a wet towel which she had also stolen from the hotel room. Not that the concept of property really mattered that much to a Carentanian. Miroslav was driving and a new, determined look graced his face as he peeked into the darkness of the night. His short encounter with death had shook him deeply, but left him with new confidence it seemed. Ivana meanwhile, was trying hard to look unaffected and calm, her facial expression cold and motionless.

But unnoticed by Miroslav, her hands were shaking and a lonely tear was shed in the corner of her eye.
 

Socialist Commonwealth

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With a loud rattling noise, the engine of the stolen car died just as they pulled up in front of the Derjiste International Airports main gate. It was an almost comical scene, a cloud of thick black smoke erupting from within the front of the vehicle as the overheated twin-stroke engines cooling system failed and the car protested against its treatment by the Carentanians in a sudden incineration of all plastic parts that had been added to the flawed design. However, that proud little tincan had endured the long trip to the very last second, not bringing about any unforeseen stops to its passengers, who wished to leave the country and head for security as quick as possible.

Unfortunately, this cinematic entry had caused quite a bit of attention for the two Carentanian agents who had wished to stay rather invisible. While Miroslav was busy explaining to a local police officer that he had done no wrong in "parking" his car in front of the airport - he used the internationally understood language of colored paper for this purpose - Ivana had slipped out of sight and reached for one of the phone booths in the entrance hall. While she had been sure all the time that their short battle with the Cassiopeian agent in the Motel had not stopped their persecutors at all, she was mildly optimistic that the considerable presence of Kryobaijani police in the airport would thwart any attempt to start a gunfight in this location, which in return meant that Ivana had even less of a desire to watch out for her partner than usually.

"Kastelic here?" Pavel sounded a bit tired from the other end of the line. "Is that you, Ivana?"

"Yes, it's me. Can you give us our booking details?"

He released a relieved sigh, mentioning a "thanks goodness I don't have to talk to your idiot of a partner again," before giving Ivana two names and the number of their ticket order. "I've arranged for you to board the next plane to Carentania. Inside you've got a man from the Commissariate for Inner Security watching your back, so you should be out of the danger zone once you've boarded. That's all I've got for you, good luck."

"Thank you," Ivana said, her voice sounding awfully vulnerable before being interrupted by the sound of the phone being hung up. Pavel blushed shortly, but erased the thought that had sneaked into his mind for a short second and focused instead on the things at hand. Gently he placed the whipped cream on the monitor of his computer, topping it with a small cherry. Then he caressed the keyboard of his sweet, sweet Linda with a few delicate strokes of his fingers, proceeding to gently lick off the cream from his computer.

Meanwhile, Ivana gathered her partner and both of them headed, without any further words, to check in and board their plane at the first possible moment. Miroslav had already started to drop a few rather unfunny jokes at Ivana, who only grunted in disapproval at every line from her partners mouth, preferring not to dignify any of his unfitting flirts with any response at all.
 
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