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The Fix


Markus Wilding

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Remove all subversive elements from Baden-Württemberg and Bayern. We must secure the southern German states for the future of Alvonia.

 

Elements of the Schwarze Korps that had completed their training were soon sent on their first assignment - keep the peace in Germany. First on the list of things to do for the Alvonian soldiers was to eliminate the criminal elements that had arisen since the central government collapsed. Local officials were paid daily to look the other way and allow some "unsavory" elements to work their way in. Any idea of anarchism were quickly stamped out - there was no need for that in this new world. Other political movements, provided they remained peaceful, were unmolested. Anything that was left that didn't fall into the categories of "peaceful" or "anarchist" were watched carefully by both the Wehrmacht's intelligence arm and the boots on the ground. Those that fell into the category of "anarchist" or worse, "terrorist", were quickly paid a visit by the Militärpolizei of the Wehrmacht deployments in Germany. If that failed, then those individuals or groups would start to see shops and businesses refuse their services to them.

 

Hauptmann Johannes Kahler was part of a specialized group within the Schwarze Korps that dealt with those the Wehrmacht had deemed "impossible to reconcile", meaning they would not listen to the demands of the Wehrmacht and continually defied local ordinances to cease the disruption of law and order. When citizens of the protectorates were uncooperative enough to be given this titles, Kahler and a select number of Schwarze Korps operatives were sent to that person's home and given one chance to either listen to the new authority or face the consequences. Upon being visited by this show of force,most of the newly-denounced terrorists gave up and started being good citizens again. If they showed no improvement, a hit order was called on them and they would soon be hunted down and "removed" by the Schwarze Korps. The removals were never public, in fear of causing a scene, but they were overt enough that people knew what went on.

 

Any such deaths were, of course, reported to the Internal Ministry as "enemy combatants" and publicized as such during raids on known anti-government groups and hideouts. The Internal Ministry almost rarely bothered to actually check if those killed in the raids were even in the area at the time. Thankfully, this was all above board - Director Wilding himself had cleared the deployment that began this operation. Just another day in the office for the Hauptmann.

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I am interested to see what sways your mind so heavily.

 

One certain citizen had been quite a problem for the Heer since their arrival in Munich. Her name was Andrea Portner, a fairly short young woman who had what the BfV called "jet-black hair; short". The Heer had reported problems with her failing to accept the fact that Alvonia now had control over the land, and still demanded Alvonian soldiers remove themselves from German land. At first, the Alvonians ignored her as simply an overzealous nationalist, but once she hit an MP giving traffic directions, that was over the line. One visit had already been paid to her, and she simply repeated her demands for the Alvonian soldiers to kindly "get the *&%^ off her porch" and leave Germany.

 

Now, however, she threatened to take action against the Alvonian soldiers stationed in Munich. The Wehrmacht had now declared her a terrorist, and one that needed to be dealt with. Thus, Hauptmann Kahler's unit was dispatched to pay her one last visit before she was ordered to be removed. "Alright," Kahler said as he checked the safety on his K40, "Remember what we're here to do. No killing unless she gets hostile and picks up a gun. I know the girl's pretty, but don't get distracted." He and three other soldiers flipped on their safeties and walked to Ms. Portner's home, a small cottage trapped in the middle of suburban Munich. "Bader," Kahler called as they neared the house, "your turn to talk to this one." Bader nodded and walked up to the woman's porch, knocking on the door. Andrea Portner appeared, dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, which had been badly ripped up, if by design or through wear Kahler couldn't tell. Upon seeing who it was, she almost began to launch into another of her nationalistic tirades when Bader held up a hand. "Shut it," he commanded, which worked, surprisingly enough.

 

"Now, allow me to explain to you what is going to happen next. Either you stop talking about us leaving - because we won't until a strong government emerges - or we will force you to stop talking about such silly notions. Consider this your last and only warning, a warning that will not be extended again should you decide to start opposing us once more." Andrea seemed to be rather bored, so Bader slammed the butt of his rifle up against her doorframe, cracking a portion of it. "I'll make this clear in case you weren't listening," Bader said, very close to the woman's face now, "Make any talk of Alvonians leaving or strike one of our soldiers again, and we will hunt you down and kill you. We've done this hundreds of times in other cities, it won't be any different because you're in Munich." Satisfied that he had made his point, Bader leaned back and walked away as the rest of his fellows followed. Once they were out of sight, Kahler patted Bader on the shoulder. "Good work, Sergeant."

 

Two days later, Andrea Portner was ordered to be removed.

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I'm so sick of waiting.

 

Kahler was tasked with removing the troublesome Andrea Portner from Munich after being declared a terrorist, and while it was a job that Johannes wasn't against, for such a young girl (her dossier put her age at 25) though, he felt it was a waste of life. Even though her dossier stated she had no education outside of high school, Johannes still thought if she weren't so blindly nationalistic she could have achieved something great. Johannes soon pushed these thoughts out of his head as he loaded up his SSG90. Thinking about the target makes it harder to pull the trigger. He had to stop seeing her as a person and simply a thing to hit, to kill.

 

Five rounds now. Put the magazine in. Make sure it clicks. Take off the safety. Lens cap off. Adjust for range...198 meters, wind to the....right. Approximately 2 kilometers an hour. Bullet drop compensation, too. Where is she? Ah, there we go...right at the desk like we predicted. Adjust the scope...let's go with 3x magnification. Line it up...

 

Squeeze, don't pull.

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Me? I see a city and I hear a million voices.

 

Preparations were almost complete to annex Baden-Württemberg and Bayern into Alvonia, but there was still the problem of a particularly troublesome criminal organization. They had planned and carried out several heists that cost those targeted millions of marks, if not more. Their leader was a Florentin Josué Delacroix, someone who BfV identified as hailing from Versailles, France. Kahler had seen his dossier, the man had deep-set eyes set in a permanent frown and an angular face that only added to his intimidating persona. According to the BfV dossier, Florentin had immigrated from France into Germany well before the world collapsed into anarchy and had wasted no time in taking advantage of both the anarchy that followed in the coming years and again when the German state dissolved. It was estimated by the BfV that he and his group of six had stolen over 5.7 million Reichmarks from various public and private stores in both hard currency and valuable items. Therefore, both the Wehrmacht and the Reichstag demanded that this Frenchman and his little group of thieves be stopped.

 

The problem with that, however, lay with the fact that there was no confirmed location for anyone affiliated with this group. Mr. Delacroix was very careful in hiding himself and evading surveillance, a situation that greatly frustrated the Wehrmacht. Kahler believed that perhaps the rather public announcement of Schwarze Korps operatives in the German protectorate only served to force him even more into hiding, but that was beside the point. Every Schwarze Korps soldier now had one single assignment, above any other they may receive - find and kill the seven that ran this theft ring. Ordinary rules for "removing" troublemakers were damned. If there was a clear shot on a confirmed target, it would be taken.

 

Kahler organized the dossiers on each of the seven in front of him. Delacroix was the ringleader, and so far the only one that could be pinned down for only four or five seconds at a time. Oswald Ingersleben was the second-in-command, and was last reported in Stuttgart. His dossier reported him to be very intelligent and prone to making rash decisions. Carla Mandel served as the ring's technical specialist according to her dossier, no known last location. Marvin Sommer served as muscle, and last reported three days ago as being in Regensburg. The last two, Klaus and Josef Jollenbeck, referred to as "the twins" unofficially, served as hired guns and were both last reported in Ulm.

 

Kahler and his men had a lot of work to do indeed.

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They're good, real good. But they won't beat the best.

 

The twins had screwed up badly. One of them accidentally used his private credit card in Ansbach, It appeared the two were making a run for the border, to try and get into the Northlands protectorate. Not going to happen. The Wehrmacht, now that they had the full legal authority of Alvonia behind them, began to set up a roadblock that denied all exits to the Northlands protectorate, who had been notified of the operation well in advance. The reason given by the foreign ministry was to prevent domestic terrorists from Innsbruck from escaping. Partially true, as the twins hailed from Innsbruck. Kahler and two of his best, Walter Dunkel and Johann Hochberg, were sent to the one road block the BfV believed to be the most likely escape route for Klaus and Josef Jollenbeck.

 

Kahler didn't think much of either of the twins. Klaus was good with a gun, yes, but his preferred firearm, an M1014 shotgun, was unwieldy in a car at best. His brother, Josef, was much better at precision sharpshooting but nothing in his dossier suggested he had prior military or law enforcement experience. This led the BfV to believe that the two, who spent their childhoods growing up on the outskirts of Innsbruck, were from a hunting family. Such a shame they had to turn to a life of crime, Kahler thought. He turned his attention back to the road. It was empty, and it had just started to rain heavily. He was starting to think that the Wehrmacht's intelligence arm had picked the wrong road. Unless...wait...

 

That's a car. Was that the same one they were spotted in? Dunkel gripped his rifle tighter. "That's them, right?" he asked nervously, "right?!" Kahler strained to confirm this. The report from the Wehrmacht named them as being in a black SUV. This was a black SUV, and it was speeding right for them, well over the speed limit. "It's them!" With that call from Kahler, both the Heer soldiers and Schwarze Korps operatives moved in front of the roadblock, guns aimed high. The SUV screeched to a halt, stopping sideways in the road. Two Wehrmacht soldiers moved in on it, throwing the door open, revealing the younger of the twins Klaus. "Get the &^%$ out of the car!!" the Heer corporal shouted as he "helped" the young man out of the car. His long brown hair scattered all over his face and shoulders obscuring his face, but his muscles were clearly defined being exposed by a black muscle shirt. The older of the two, Josef, opened his door and started to sprint. "Take him down!" Kahler yelled, and before he could even finish the sentence Hochberg had taken the shot with his K40. Josef fell down as a splurt of blood exploded out of his body which now had a new hole in it. After the gunshot, Kahler could hear Klaus screaming in agony.

 

"Shut him up and put him in the truck," Kahler said, lowering his weapon. "And somebody call a tow truck, get this thing out of here," he said, motioning to the SUV. Kahler nodded to Hochberg, who was putting another scratch into the receiver of his rifle. This would be his eight "removal".

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They say nationalism is dead, being replaced by pluralism. I say the nationalists are just quieter now.

 

The interrogation room was very cold, and the only light that was on in it sent a blue tone throughout the concrete walls. Klaus Jollenbeck was sitting handcuffed to the single lone chair that sat in the middle of the room, very uncomfortable. Kahler entered, his bald shaved head now visible after taking off his helmet. Klaus started shouting at the man in German, which Kahler ignored as he walked in and sighed. "You've run into some trouble, haven't you, Klaus?" Klaus shouted a particularly nasty curse at the soldier and yanked at his handcuffs. "That won't do you any good," Kahler said, smiling a little. He loved watching people who had no choice but to fight try and fail. "Now, how about we talk about your friend Florentin Josué Delacroix?" Klaus froze at the mention of the name. His arms, which were visibly bulging trying to get himself free, relaxed. "You won't find him." Kahler laughed loudly. "I doubt that very much, Mr. Jollenbeck. We find everyone. The only reason you and your late brother were found was because you were stupid. But you and I both know that Mr. Delacroix isn't stupid, is he?"

 

Kluas looked up at Kahler at the mention of his brother. "You mean my murdered brother." Kahler nodded his head, "Ah, yes, that little bit. Well, he did resist arrest, and he has been declared a terrorist. It was necessary to put him down before he caused more havoc. We could have shot you right then and there, too, you know." Klaus's face hardened. Kahler knew he almost had him. "But, we were generous. You know things we don't, and that's valuable to us." Kahler bent down and looked Klaus directly in the eyes. "Now tell me where I can find Delacroix, or I'll have to do things I rather wouldn't." Klaus took this opportunity to call Kahler a rather rude slur and spit on his face. Kahler stood up, disappointed, and wiped the disgusting man's spit off. "Very well, then," He took out his Glock 19 out, switched the safety off, and pulled the slide back, making a satisfying click as it chambered a round. Making sure Klaus saw all this, Kahler held Klaus's arm up, and though he resisted Kahler was stronger and held it. He put the barrel directly on Klaus's hand, wrapping his finger around the trigger.

 

"I'm going to count to five," Kahler said, noting that Klaus's eyes were huge as they could be. "If you tell me where I can find Florentin Delacroix, I won't shoot. If I hit five, you get a bullet through your hand. Got it?" Klaus started to shout and scream in protest, while Kahler counted down. One. Two. He kept screaming. Three. Four. Five. Bang. More screaming. Kahler lowered the Glock and put his now free hand over Klaus's mouth. "I'm going to do this again with your other hand. Same deal, ready?" Klaus didn't even allow him to take his arm before saying "Alright! Alright! I know where you can find him!" Kahler looked at the prisoner and smiled. "Good."

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The birds are the keepers of our secrets.

 

"So he's French?" asked Johann Hochberg, looking over Delacroix's dossier. "Yeah," Kahler said, putting out a cigarette. "Damn sneaky too." Johann nodded and continued looking over the man's history and life story. The only thing it didn't tell was what his favorite color was. "And you say we're singing some kind of security agreement with the French? Heh. If this guy's anything to go off of, we can't trust any of them." Johann grinned widely, obviously pleased with his joke, causing Kahler to break into a short chuckle. "Yeah, well, the Director seems to think kindly of them. Or maybe he just wants to make a friend out of a potential enemy." It was well-known in the Schwarze Korps and general population that the French were not one of Director Wilding's favorite people. In his words, they were "imperialistic opportunists" who didn't deserve a slice of land they claimed outside Europe. "Where'd the kid say he was going again?" Walter asked, cleaning his rifle. "Stuttgart," Kahler replied, looking at a map now. "And you believe him?" Walter responded, incredulous. "Of course not," Kahler said, grinning. "He was lying to save his life. It's what all cornered animals do." The other two soldiers rose up and looked at the same map as Kahler had. "Where do we start looking, then?" Kahler scanned the map. "We find the muscle," Kahler said, pointing to Regensburg. "Johann, take a team to here. Walter, you and I will go to Stuttgart. We'll see if we can't draw his second-in-command out."

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Heading into a battle without intelligence and expecting to win is like walking off a cliff, expecting a pillow to be at the bottom.

 

In Stuttgart, Kahler and Walter had watched the second in command.

 

Oswald Ingersleben. He got into the major heist business dreaming of fast cars, exciting women, and world admiration and envy. What he got, however, was the watchful eye of the Wehrmacht and more than a few attempts on his life. His dossier named him as being prone to rash decisions, and thus the Wehrmacht tested this before the ring had broken up by sending mercenaries to try and kill him or anyone in the group. It almost worked, if the tech girl hadn't discovered the transactions and made it known something fishy was up. After the failed attempts, Oswald became paranoid, afraid of his own shadow if it looked at him wrong. Some people said he pulled a gun on anyone who came to his door that he didn't recognize, and the Wehrmacht wanted this confirmed. One evening Kahler and Walter ordered a pizza delivered to Oswald's house, and watched closely as the delivery boy walked up cheerfully to the house and knocked on it. Kahler chuckled as he saw the teen's reaction to having a Glock put in his face.

 

"What's so funny?" Walter asked after a few moments. Kahler handed the binoculars to him. "He's pissed off as hell. My lip-reading's a little rusty, but I think he's asking the kid why the hell he'd order a pizza at 7 pm." Walter too laughed as he saw the argument. "Poor kid. He's gonna have to take that pizza back. Boss is gonna be pissed." Kahler watched the teen walk back to his car, confused out of his mind. "Don't worry. We have what we need. We assault the house at midnight."

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The night has darkness on its side, and will always win.

 

True to their word, at midnight the two soldiers assaulted the small house that belonged to Oswald Ingersleben. Walter was first inside, opting to let Kahler kick the door down. The two made their way through the house, checking corners as per operating procedure, calling clear to each other as soon as they found Oswald wasn't sitting in a chair waiting for them in a dark corner. Kahler kicked open the door to Oswald's room, to which he finally reacted. Somehow, he had been completely asleep as the two Schwarze Korps soldiers walked through his house. "Heh", Kahler said as he saw Oswald wake up. "Walter! I found him. Come with me." he said to the understandably confused Oswald, who began to shout and ask who they were and why they were in his house.

 

Several hours later, Oswald had fully woken up and taken control of all his faculties, and wasn't too happy about being locked in an interrogation room. Kahler watched through the glass window as Walter interrogated the man, hoping to find out where the man who became known in the Schwarze Korps as "the Frenchie" was hiding. "Look," Walter said after a few unsuccessful minutes, "if you tell us exactly where to find him, we'll guarantee you a lighter sentence." Oswald remained unconvinced, so Walter tried a new approach. "You remember your boys Klaus and Josef Jollenbeck? We found them. Guess what happened." All the color drained from Oswald's face, but he said nothing and continued to look down. "I'll tell you. Josef we killed when he tried to run. Klaus...well, he gave up. Sure, my friend Johannes had to shoot his hand once or twice to make him tell us, but that's beside the point." Oswald shouted at him to stop, he didn't want to hear it. Walter looked at the window and laughed. "You hear that, Johannes?" Even though he knew Walter couldn't see, he nodded and smiled back at him. Turning his attention back to Oswald, Walter said "I thought you were supposed to be some hardened criminal. You can't handle a little death?" "Not when those who died were people I worked with! Besides, I just robbed people. Murder's not my game." Walter couldn't help but grin. "How about the Frenchie, huh? What's his game? Where is he?"

 

Oswald hung his head low. "Last I heard, he's trying to get to Vienna. Said he had a surprise for your government or something."

Edited by Markus Wilding
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Do you talk like I've died?

 

"What the &%@$ does 'a surprise' mean?" asked Johann as he read over the transcripts from Oswald's interview. "Don't know," Kahler responded as he looked out the back of the truck they were in. Once the report had been handed in to OKW, they ordered all Schwarze Korps operatives to head directly to Vienna to conduct search and destroy missions to find this "surprise". Everyone, Director Wilding included, thought the Frenchie's surprise was a bomb of some sort. The only problem was finding where it was. Vienna was a huge city with many important targets - the rail lines, the Reichstag, the Schönbrunn Palace, where the Alvonian Government itself lay in it's hallowed halls. All of these were just the first government targets that came to mind. Kahler hadn't even started thinking about the civilian or cultural targets - the Natural History Museum, the Vienna Succession building, St. Stephen's Cathedral, Albertina... it could be a number of places and buildings all important to Alvonia not just culturally, but also morally. If the Reichstag, or worse, the Schönbrunn Palace were bombed and higher elements of the government were killed, it would destroy Alvonian morale and could lead to a rise in ultranationalists in Germany, Czech states, and Poland.

 

Where had the time gone? The truck Kahler and his men were in had stopped, right outside Schönbrunn Palace. Nowhere was safe in this city, not with the Frenchie running around. This had never been part of Kahler's assessment of the man, nor the Wehrmacht's. All his actions previously pointed to extremely and methodically planned attacks on unsuspecting bankers and old rich men, practically down to choosing the drill to penetrate the safe himself. What would cause him to take what he called "a surprise" directly to the heart of the Alvonian government? Did he have that much hate in him to want to destroy a nation and its people? Unless...no, he couldn't have been an ultranationalist. His records indicated nothing but contempt for the French state. Was he bribed? Did he break? Or did he simply want to cause a distraction? These questions were pushed out of Kahler's mind as he began to head to the doors of the palace, noting a glimpse of Director Wilding being escorted by four other Schwarze Korps soldiers into an armored convoy, taking his to safety somewhere in the mountains.

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There's no crime if you do not get caught.

 

The Wehrmacht, in conjunction with the Schwarze Korps, had searched the capital's important buildings and cultural icons for several hours and turned up nothing. They had started at 8:00 AM sharp, very soon after the bomb threat had been reported and Director Wilding evacuated, and now it was nearly 3 PM now, and still nothing. It seemed hopeless at this point - the Frenchie's "surprise" hadn't shown up, he was in the wind by now, and other members of his crew had to have heard the news, meaning they were now gone too.

 

Then Kahler heard his radio go off. The person on the other side said something about Carla Mandel being found. It didn't register with Kahler until at least a minute later. "Say again," he called into the radio, "what was that about a Carla Mandel?" The voice on the other end was the Vienna garrison's communications officer, relaying messages from OKW. "A Carla Mandel has been captured attempting to escape into Italy at Innsbruck. She was stopped at a Wehrmacht checkpoint." Alright, now only Marvin Sommer and the Frenchie were still loose. Kahler thanked the communications officer and repeated the news to his men, who seemed relieved but still focused on finding this suspected bomb.

 

Three more hours later, the search had been called off after interviews with Carla Mandel suggested the Frenchie never had a bomb, or the capacity to make one. According to her, he and Oswald had only talked of it, but the Frenchie never seriously thought of it, considering it immoral. She also mentioned that he was making a run to Italy, one of the few places reachable by car that Alvonia held no security treaty with. "Of course the *#@!$^&% goes to the one place we can't legally ask them to send back," Johann said once he heard the report. Kahler had been somewhat right - it was a distraction. But the Wehrmacht had been led wrong by others in this ring before. It was time to find the muscle, and fast.

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