Big Chicago

Big Chicago Part 35...by Samayel


Mrs. Zabini walked calmly through the halls of the apartment building, ignoring the crudity of the surroundings while she stalked toward her goal. The Strega would know what to do. She would confirm or deny suspicions for a price that was small when one considered what was at stake.

No one was certain of the Strega’s age, only that she had been old as long as anyone could remember, and no one questioned her ability to know what seemed hidden from the eyes of others. The Strega seemed to care very little for wealth or power. She had never married, had no children that anyone had ever heard from, and lived in a squalid little apartment in a rough neighborhood, but even here she prospered comfortably. People here knew her reputation and left her alone out of respect, save for those few callers who came when they needed her wisdom.

She knocked at the door and waited while the sound of shuffling footsteps could be heard, and then the latch clicked and the door creaked, as old and tired in its complaint as the bones of the elderly woman that beckoned for her to enter. Mrs. Zabini stepped inside and waited while the Strega closed the door, a tiny ancient wisp cloaked in black, wrinkled and toothless, silent as the grave, with snowy hair that strayed in places from its iron tight bun.

The offering was placed into the vase on the armoire. A few crumpled twenties, just enough to prove seriousness, but not so much that a person couldn’t afford her aid in a time of trouble. It was merely a show of respect, less a matter of profit and more a matter of showing intent. The Strega only spoke a modest amount of English, but she never seemed to fail in her understanding of others. She was placing tea at the kitchen table while Mrs. Zabini waited in polite silence.

Mrs. Zabini knew the rituals well. The deck of cards upon the table were covered by old lace. The tea was poured and sipped before the business of divination was started. The faintest nod of the old woman’s head and a glance from dark and quiet eyes and Mrs. Zabini knew to speak her intentions.

“My son. I believe he has been betrayed. He suffers greatly, but he might also be guilty of crimes for which he stands accused. I turn to you for guidance. Make it clearer for me. Has someone done this to my son, or has he made a mistake for which he should rightly pay? This I ask of you, so that I can act in good conscience. Help me, Strega.”

The old woman’s eyes closed and her thin chest rose and sank with the sigh of a deep breath. Her trembling hand plucked the lace from the cards. Tarot cards so old that the edges were dark and tattered, a thousand thousand touches plain and visible in their wear. The cards were lifted one by one with a practiced and comfortable air, and Mrs. Zabini inhaled softly as she looked upon them. She knew their meaning well, but it was safer to consult another when matters close to one’s own heart were concerned. The Strega croaked her reply in halting English.

“Betrayed. One he hurt has paid him in kind. A young man. A terrible hurt was done to him. For this he bided his time…and has struck like a viper years after…for vengeance. Your son is not innocent, but he did not do that for which he suffers now. You may help him…and know that you are right to do so, but know that he IS paying for a mistake he made…but it was made long ago. He will not be moved against again. The slate is clean. Go in peace.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Strega. I must go. I need to help my son before he comes to further harm, but you have my gratitude as always. Thank you.”

The weathered face nodded serenely, and the old woman rose and led Mrs. Zabini to the door. There were calls to be made, favors to be asked or the return of past favors to be demanded. Blaise was worthy of help, and that was all that mattered now. Her influence would be bent to one task…to see her son free again.

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Surreal. That word comes up so often in my life these days. Will the past ever really die? You wake up from a dream of pain and terror and loneliness, and you’re lying on silk sheets, clean and healthy and alive and surrounded by luxury and comfort. The arms of your lover are close at hand and you can snuggle back into the warm musk of blankets that are faintly scented with the sweat of sex and skin that feels familiar and close and right…but the whisper of memory isn’t gone.

The pills worked when I needed them, but I don‘t need them anymore. This isn’t a panic attack. I’m not stressed out or shaking. Just wide awake after dreaming of grey cells and empty eyes and endless days and nights of tension and fear. They aren’t gone or forgotten. They let me know that they happened every day. I can’t shop or drink them away, but I guess I’m alright. When morning comes I’ll be busy again, routine taking over and guiding me free of this spell that comes over me in the middle of the night.

It all went smoothly this week. Harry slipped through the throngs of security guards that surrounded the worksite. Bulldozers and wrecking balls and backhoes. A maze of machines at rest, steel giants sleeping the night away in peace before rumbling to morning life. He poisoned them all, one by one, a little inappropriate fluid in the gas tanks and they spluttered and died the next day. It made quite the show on the news that day. The press was speculating about it being an act of eco-terrorism. Each of the engines was ruined beyond repair. New machines had to be ordered for delivery, the old ones were shipped off to have new engines installed. The price tag was astronomical…the kind of number that would have made even my father flinch, but he didn’t have a personal ownership stake in them. I’m sure he’s gnashing his teeth in his office over the delay, and that’s a small satisfaction, but the real satisfaction came in no one being harmed in the whole affair.

Sure, maybe a few dozen security guards got fired, and some contractors are screaming lawsuit and frothing at the mouth in outrage, but in the end they’ll all go home alive. They don’t know that they were just pawns on a chessboard bigger than they can imagine, and if they did they’d be thanking the heavens that they got out alive and safe.

Harry is sleeping the sleep of the just. We talked before we slept tonight, hazy and comfortable in the aftermath of sex. It was the slow, languorous kind of love-making that lingered into hours and was really more about comfort and closeness and expression than it was about lust or need. Talking seemed natural afterwards, not hasty or rushed oaths of love before exhaustion sets in, but real talk.

I asked something that needed an answer, and I got one. He detests killing. It wounds him to do what is necessary. It didn’t at first, but he was very young and full of purpose and certainty. It’s probably why wars are fought by the young. When you’re certain you can act with no compunction, no hesitation. It’s a useful thing, that certainty, but it doesn’t last for ever. Especially with someone who has Harry’s conscience and intellect.

That stage of rosy innocence and righteous wrath has been fading for years. He can’t count the number of people he’s killed…and that alone bothers him. His comfort is that they were carefully chosen, murderers, dealers and pimps and men whose power had been abused to the detriment of thousands of other lives. Maybe he has helped someone, somewhere, by taking the lives of people who abuse innocence wherever they find it and can exploit it, but that doesn’t make him any less guilty. There comes a time when you realize that even faceless, nameless opponents were once children who laughed and played. They were someone’s son or brother. Maybe they had children of their own, who loved them without condition, blissfully ignorant of their parent’s choices. And then that parent was gone…a bullet or a knife or a wire took their life…and they were just as gone as Harry’s own parents.

What’s left is a man who is good at one thing…and aches to be free of that skill forever. To be done with fighting and killing forever, to have a life of peace and comfort, somewhere far from conflict…and he wants that life with me. Just by finding me, I made it worse. He savored this last job because death was no part of it, because in the moment he found me, he started to change. It’s harder to accept his task and do the things he does when the words of poetry that were abstractions to him have become alive and real. Love. He is changing…like me…because of love.

Brian’s words come back to me. He knew when he let me become a part of Harry’s life that this would happen slow but sure. Like some prescient deity, he knew that the change in the equation would not serve his interests, but he let it happen anyway. It was more important to him that Harry be happy someday than that he continue to be a useful pawn in this game we’re all playing. It’s a generosity I can admire…especially since I benefit from it.

I want this game to be over. Soon. I know what I’ve done. When it came to the world of attraction and seduction, the world of lust and need, I had the Edge. I knew the game perfectly, and I played it like a master…until Harry. I lost the Edge. When it came to assassination, to the world of covert movement and action, Harry had the Edge. The others all said there was no one better…and then I came. Harry knows it, our employer knows it, and now I know it too. Harry is losing the Edge.

I don’t have to play the games I played before. They’re meaningless to me now that I have him, but Harry’s case is different. There’s one more thing he has to do, and he has to play it to the finish. But the risks are greater now, because hesitation is a death sentence in his line of work. Harry is in more danger than ever…not because of what he’s doing, but because of what he’s thinking and feeling. I could be his death sentence.

And you wonder why I sometimes wake with a start in the night?

There’s nothing that can be done just yet. His pride won’t let him quit, and I won’t ask him to, and I won’t do anything but offer my total support. I lie because I love him. There won’t be any shows of excessive concern or worry. I won’t make him feel more conflict when he needs to act without compunction or pause. I can’t add more risk to this enormous gamble.

So I drift to sleep beside him, thoughts whirling in the middle of the night. Even in love we all have secrets, all live in our own skulls. It’s what we do…because of what we are…because we must. That’s life. It’ll have to do.


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The old man was in full roar, cane waving and eyes and veins bulging in unison. The cane smashed the glass that held his brandy, then swept the laptop and papers from his desk and sent them crashing to the floor. He was past words, trembling with rage and spitting half formed curses between clenched teeth. Pettigrew weathered the storm like so many others before it, waiting until coherency came back to his master.

“You…you despicable worm! Useless! USELESS! I’m done with this farce! I’ll give you a task you can manage…you…you impotent little virus! Contact the professionals. You know the ones. I want them here…as soon as they can arrange it. I want help I can count on! I’m done entrusting these tasks to a mewling little infant like you! Get out of my sight…and don’t come back until you bring them to see me! OUT!”

Peter fled as quickly as he could, panting and puffing as he ran down the hallways of the mansion. To have left sooner would have been a pleasure, but running then would have only infuriated the old man further, as Peter well knew from long experience. What mattered now was producing a result that would placate the old man for now. He knew who to contact and how. These were people they had used before, for very specific jobs that required people who both utterly unscrupulous, and yet highly capable. They weren’t easy people to find. They weren’t called directly, but contacted through the most arcane and obscure of means, by codeword and contact, and when they came they would turn their attention to eliminating any problem that stood in Mr. Riddle’s path. There were calls to make…and when they came, Mr. Riddle would be pleased…even if only for a moment. Peter paused only to order a new laptop and equipment for his employer. They’d gone through three this month already, but if another wasn’t promptly in place there would be hell to pay. There was always hell to pay…but who would risk more than that?


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Hermione clacked at keys and flicked her eyes from one screen to another. Some nights were good nights for working overtime. Not that it made a difference in her pay, since her pay scale was slightly higher than the average Wall Street CEO’s, but it was more a matter of state of mind. Some nights just weren’t for sleeping, they were for action. Her mind was fully active and it would have been impossible to sleep in a state of mind like that. Listening to monitored conversations, tapped from Lucius Malfoy’s office, revealed the frustration that their last mission had caused, but it hadn’t drawn Riddle out of his secrecy or generated a traceable communication.

No one outside of a handful of specialists would know what some of the transmissions she scanned might mean. There were endless communications between offices and intelligence gathering posts around the world, and the truth was that there was so much that very little could be interpreted as having serious value. It was easier to draw conclusions from the material that passed between the people at the top, and many of her interceptions focused on communications like these. Even then, portions were often obscured by codes that made it seem like nothing of consequence was being mentioned.

Hermione had spent the last few years learning by memory the most common codewords known for certain individuals and places, as well as those for events or tasks that could be assigned through simple comments. It helped that she had been trained at the behest of Mr. White, and possessed unprecedented access to files that were classified in more than two dozen countries. It was this training that served her now, paying its dividend when she read a handful of words, then confirmed them through multiple sources.

It was the kind of news you hoped you never heard. A message you hoped you wouldn’t find relevance in, but there was relevance here. They were coming here, to Chicago. Riddle had almost certainly been the one to make this happen. There was nothing else of enough importance going on in this city to make people like these show up. It was almost certain plans would have to change. Everything had just gotten more dangerous, or would as soon as these people arrived.

The first call was to an office in England that she had only seen once a couple of years ago. The calm, crisp Scottish brogue of the Mr. White’s secretary was a perfect counterpoint to Hermione’s nervous East Coast accent. The line was secure, but only a few choice words needed to be said and understood. They had their own codes as well, short sentences that spoke volumes.

“The Wolf is in the field. The Siren can be heard.”

There was a slight pause and then the answer came, as calm and as unflappable as ever.

“Understood. Take whatever measures you feel are appropriate. Support will be provided as it becomes necessary. Well done.”

And that was that. It was 4:30 in the morning and Hermione was suddenly aware that her pulse was pounding. This couldn’t wait until the others were awake. It would have to be dealt with now, while there was still time to plan. It was a safe bet that reaching Chicago would take time, since the people that concerned them needed to arrange false identities and travel discretely, but letting a minute be wasted with information like this could hold hidden penalties. She pressed a single button on her phone and a simple message passed to every phone on her list. In less than an hour the entire team would be assembled here, and there would be a lot of ground to cover.

The entire nature of the game had just shifted. Hermione took a single deep breath.

“Shit.”

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In Berlin, a slim, non-descript man with graying hair sat in a beer garden, smiling genially while he sipped from a large tankard of beer. There were many customers, and yet no one noticed the envelope passed to the quiet man next to him. The quiet man had only returned to Europe days ago, well paid for his most recent job, and had originally intended to rest, but the pay he was offered was well above the norm even in a profession that could be very profitable by most folks standards. The envelope held false identification, money for travel and a cell phone number to be dialed upon arrival in Chicago. His passage had already been booked and he would be leaving in a matter of days. He was neither excited nor disappointed. It was just another job, and for a past client who had always paid very well indeed. The operative called Fenrir finished his beer in placid silence and slipped away, and the man that had passed him his envelope lingered only a little longer and then he too was gone into the night, lost in the bustling crowds of early evening.

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Bellatrix Lestrange congratulated herself on a job well done. It wasn’t the sort of thing she enjoyed…except for the irony…but a job well done was satisfying in it’s own way. More often than simple executions, which she greatly enjoyed, she was called on for acts of blackmail and extortion, and acting as a honey trap came easily to her. This most recent task had taken her to Tokyo, where the bottle blond hair she sported now made heads turn and caused sensible men to suddenly dispose of discretion.

One Yakuza lord had wished a rival compromised, and since the poor man’s marked preference for European blondes was well established, it only made good sense that one would be his downfall. If it hadn’t been for pride and arrogance he would have seen his weakness as exploitable instead of imagining himself as unassailable. As it was, he’d wound up with his banking secrets revealed to his enemies and ruthlessly used against him shortly after that. His own people had deposed him before the week was out, and he was likely already dead by his hand or someone else’s…all without anyone outside of his clan bloodying their hands over the matter.

But the pretty woman that had been at his side for almost a week had already disappeared, dark haired now instead of light, seductress’s clothes exchanged for those of a woman of wealth and substance. The only tragedy, to her way of thinking, was that her services were required again so soon. Her tickets had already been provided, her flight would be leaving in twelve hours and her point of contact was prearranged and had been given to her by word of mouth. It would be a pleasure to visit America again, but she favored New York and Los Angeles, not drafty old Chicago. Just the same, someone else had paid the price for her time, and Chicago was where she would go. Mostly…she just hoped that someone would need to die. Preferably painfully. She was always restless when she left a job behind without leaving a body as well.

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Dora was wide awake, even in the middle of the night. Her head was spinning. She and Kingsley had barely spoken since yesterday, but they would have to talk eventually. It was just too much to take in at first. Too much information to absorb in one sitting. It couldn’t be possible…but all the evidence said otherwise. The same pattern. In New York…one year ago. A series of incidents that seemed visibly like a war between organized crime factions, but with faint hints that didn’t seem entirely plausible.

Computer system crashes, power failures, missing data reports that all plagued the investigation into an eerily similar spate of killings. She’d even had to request the files be shipped to her when the New York office had difficulty finding any digital records of the events of last year. Whole sections of their computer records regarding those investigations had been wiped out, but the hard copies remained. The entire lot had been copied and shipped to her by courier.

Agents Dawlish and Scrimgeour were unaware that she had pursued this line of investigation without prompting, and without something more concrete there was no way she could even speak this theory of hers aloud without putting her career in extreme jeopardy.

But the implications were staggering. There was something much, much larger going on. More than anyone local would know about. Luna’s idle comments haunted her now, teasing her with the possibility that fiction could become fact. Proxy warfare?

The similarity between the events of the summer so far and the events in New York a year ago had pushed her to research potential common threads that wouldn’t have been standard reasons for gang warfare. She’d found just a few. It was property. You couldn’t tie the individuals killed to any of it…but several of the organizations they belonged to were involved in the sale or control of property that was central to the Urban Revitalization program. It couldn’t be coincidence. Three major crime syndicates had had stakes in the property there, all three sold their interests in that area within a couple of weeks of each other, all in the last month. The killings had also subsided that same week. There were minor street battles between thugs still blaming one another for their losses, but no mysterious executions or clean hits since the property had changed hands.

That had to be the reason. Someone…or some group of someones…had deliberately pushed the local crime syndicates out of the deal. Some leads were dead ends, but others only opened new questions. She wasn’t part of the investigation into it, but this week’s alleged eco-terrorist attack on the Urban Revitalization project suddenly seemed to make a lot more sense. A chill ran down her spine when she let her imagination take hold. Dora looked over at Luna’s sleepy smile and mussed hair. From that crazy head of Luna’s something that had seemed ridiculous had fluttered out, but it was seeming less and less crazy all the time.

Extra-national entities? Corporate warfare? World domination? If any of that could be true, what was left that couldn’t be true? Were the computers and phones even safe to use anymore? Were her movements being tracked? Could there be consequences beyond just career damage if she brought these kinds of theories to her boss? Aside from the fact that she’d sound as crazy as Luna sometimes did, would the people involved in this weird high stakes game of poker suddenly notice her? This was why she hadn’t talked to Kingsley. They’d seen the same records, looked at each other across the table, closed up the folders and taken off early without more than a couple words between them. He was probably up too late, thinking the same thoughts, looking at his wife and wondering if he’d just lit the fuse on a powder keg that could destroy both their lives.

Tomorrow would be starting all too soon. She would have to go to work. Tonight she could hide just a little longer, but tomorrow some of this would have to be sorted through, and she’d have to make a decision with Kingsley. How far could this be taken? Would anything they did at this point make any real difference? Was telling the truth worth risking a life and a career over? Too many questions, too many thoughts for one head, spinning like wheels on ice, wide awake in the middle of the night, with no easy answers anywhere in sight.


TBC!!!