Chapter Text

Lin

She had a headache. It was par for the course lately, if she was being honest. Lin thought things couldn’t get any worse than dealing with Zolt, but boy, was she wrong. These new bozos, whoever the fuck they were, were making life hell for her people. They were aggressively muscling into all three triads’ territories, and they didn’t seem to care who got caught in the crossfire. Being the chief could be a real bitch sometimes.

Still, it wasn’t like they weren’t making any progress. Zhang picked up the package Wildfire had very kindly left for her, so now they were up three mooks and about three millions yuans’ worth of cocaine and amphetamines in the evidence locker. Now there was only the problem of how useful those things were going to be.

The lost drugs would definitely hurt Terra, although that didn’t seem to be very hard these days. This new gang knew Terra was the weakest of the three triads, and had faced the brunt of most of their attacks. They were pretty much scrambling, trying to hold on to whatever territory they could.

The three masked morons were a different story. These guys had hit hard and disappear tactics down to a science. The fact that they had those three in custody right now was a miracle. She’d let Zhang have a first crack at them (it was only fair) and was now on her way to see what she had gotten out of them.

“Chief,” Zhang greeted as she approached her desk.

“Zhang,” Lin replied with a nod. “Where’s your partner?”

“Getting lunch. Did you want him here for the debrief?”

“Not necessary. Just tell me what you got.”

“Well… we got nothing.” Zhang looked away, ashamed. “I tried every trick in the book. Interviewed them together, separately, I tried to cut deals, I tried to convince them one of the others had already cracked, and nothing. They haven’t even asked for a fucking lawyer!”

Great. Not only were these people a pain in her ass, apparently they had enough discipline to not crack under interrogation. These weren’t your typical street thugs. “And none of them have said a single word?”

Zhang sighed. “They’ve said exactly one word. All three of them, the same word. ‘Amon.’”

“Any idea what it means?”

“They weren’t exactly forthcoming with context, Chief. It could be a person, the name of their gang or just gibberish. So far though, it’s all we’ve got.”

Lin nodded. “Don’t give up yet, Zhang. We’ve got enough evidence to keep those three here for a good, long while. You keep pressing until they crack, alright?”

“You got it, Chief.”

With that, Lin moved on to the next order of business, the armory. Along with the drugs, the police were also able to confiscate several weapons that the masked men had been using. They were now in Kato’s hands, and that man was a firearm savant. If anyone could track down where those weapons came from, it was him.

Lin made her way to the elevator, impatiently tapping her foot while the world’s slowest machine made its way up to her. When it finally arrived, she got it and mashed the button for the building’s basement. An eternity later, the elevator arrived at its destination, and the doors opened to reveal Kato sitting with his feet on his desk.

“Hey Beifong, I was just coming up to see you.” Kato technically wasn’t a cop, which was why he could get away with so many breaches of protocol. Still, that normally wouldn’t stop Lin from tearing into him, but the simple fact was that he was way too valuable. She couldn’t risk him deciding working with her was too much of a hassle and quitting.

“I assume this means you have something for me.”

“You know I do. Step into my office.” He swung his legs off the desk and stood, leading Lin into the armory. In there, he showed Lin a workbench with several of the rifles they confiscated in various states of assembly.

“So what can you tell me about these?” Lin asked.

Kato was practically vibrating with excitement. “What can’t I tell you? These are the coolest fucking things I’ve ever seen! Seriously, whoever designed these bad boys has a serious hard-on for assault weaponry.”

Lin groaned. “Get to the point.”

“Right, right. To start, these weigh practically nothing. The metal content is minimal, it’s mostly some sort of carbon fiber, but I’ve honestly never seen it before. And the things you can do with it! It’s got an automatic, burst and semi-automatic mode, it fires upwards of one thousand rounds per minute on full-auto and you can even use it underwater!” Kato paused to take a deep breath. “I mean, your accuracy ain’t gonna be worth shit if you do, but you can.”

“So what does all this mean?”

“It means these suckers aren’t a street gang, they’re closer to a goddamn military operation. You remember those guns Hiroshi Sato was selling to the triads?”

“Vaguely,” Lin replied. In truth, Kato had been essential to cracking that case, but anything other than an indirect mention to that fact caused him to start retelling his “war stories” and Lin wasn’t exactly in the mood.

“Well, those might as well have been fuckin’ slingshots compared to these.”

Okay, so far, Kato had just given Lin information that would’ve scared a lesser person shitless, but it still hadn’t given her anything she could use. Time for the million yuan question. “So who made these?”

For the first time since she met him, Kato looked at a loss for words. “I dunno,” he said eventually. “These guns are one hundred percent custom jobs, so there are no serial numbers or manufacturing logos to track and the ballistics don’t match anything in the database.” He scratched his chin, thoughtfully. “On the bright side, they don’t seem to be mass-produced, so their numbers must be pretty limited.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Lin said, sarcasm dripping from every word. “I have to get back up there, let me know if you come up with anything else.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. Her headache was getting worse.

One excruciatingly slow elevator ride later, Lin was back in her office. As she was digging through her desk drawers for a bottle of aspirin, one of the stations phone operators came barging in.

“Chief, sorry to disturb you, but I thought you’d want to hear about this one.” The woman--Lin couldn’t quite place her name at the moment--looked like she’d seen a ghost.

“It’s alright. Go on,” Lin said, her search for aspirin momentarily forgotten. Apparently, they had gotten a call from a pedestrian who noticed that the door to a house was left open. He called to see if anyone was inside, which was when he noticed the blood splattered on the walls. He opened the door all the way to reveal three men dead on the ground bleeding from well… everywhere.

“Do we have any traffic cameras near that location?” Lin asked.

“We do. One has a clear shot of the door in question.”

Five minutes later, Lin was in front of the monitor with the footage from the cam pulled up. “The call came in at 2:43 PM,” the operator said. The footage was rewinded until at around 14:41, according to the time stamp, they saw their witness appear. Just like he said in his call, he peeked into the house, opened the door, and then proceeded to run outside and retch on the sidewalk. A minute later, after he composed himself, he pulled out his cellphone and made the call.

“Go back to last night, midnight,” Lin said. On the requested time there was still plenty of traffic, and the crime scene’s door seemed fully shut. “Fast forward.” The hours flew by, the traffic slowing, then disappearing altogether until 04:18, when a lone car stopped outside the crime scene. “There.”

Two men emerged from the car. It was hard to tell from the video’s quality, but one of them seemed to be wearing an outfit very similar to the three who were in lock-up. The other’s was less skin-tight and he seemed to be wearing a hood.

The first man kicked the door to the crime scene, causing it to swing open. Rather than brandish a weapon or any sort of offensive stance, he just stepped aside and allowed the hooded man to enter. He was inside for less than two minutes.

After he emerged, the hooded man exchanged some words with the other, who then got into the car. The man in the hood then pulled the door closed and turned to look straight at the camera. It was then that Lin could see that the man also wore some sort of ceramic mask that covered his entire face.

“Tell Zhang to get her ass down there immediately!” Lin barked. The bastard in the mask was trying to send a message. He knew the camera was there. He left the door open for any person to stumble upon his handiwork. He was mocking them, daring them to come after him. Well, Lin Beifong was never one to back down from a challenge.