Dead Reckoning by Dalzelle Joshua

Author:Dalzelle, Joshua
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

17

“This doesn’t make sense. This Ancula isn’t usually the type of criminal who uses merc armies. This is a money guy who knows how to raise, move, and hide cash. Now, all of the sudden, he wants to play gangster?”

“Keep digging,” Crusher grunted.

“This sucks without Kage,” Twingo said, going back to browsing through the entries on the Zadra Network pertaining to Ancula. The first problem had been that they only had one name to go by, and Vissalo had five names that fully identified them. The next problem was that the Vissalo crime organizations were damn near airtight with very little intel making its way out.

They caught a break when Doc found a profile on the Vaiccr Syndicate that operated in the same region they suspected Ancula was from. It was a Vissalo organization that seemed to be controlled by two dominant families. Ancula was one of the main money men, pulling in all of the illicit cash from the families, filtering it through his operation, and making it available on the other side as clean. He had some small security force to protect major assets as well as himself, but nothing that would indicate why he would need to be on Enzola-2 hiring such a large group of specialized contractors.

“Listen to this,” Mazer said, spinning his seat around. “Apparently there was an attempted coup within the Vaiccr Syndicate not all that long ago. One of the families decided to try and take over the entire operation by force. They lost, and the other family took steps to make sure they couldn’t try something like that again, but they had to do it in a way that would ensure their operation didn’t take any hits.”

“Makes sense. Internal conflicts like that attract predators. Large syndicates are always under threat of outsiders wanting to move in on what they have,” Twingo said. “Saditava Mok was the only person I’ve ever heard of who managed to keep an operation the size of Blazing Sun from imploding or fracturing.”

“That he made it out alive is even more impressive,” Crusher said. “Anything else, Mazer?”

“Oh, wow. It looks like the losing family in that little civil war were mostly killed off, but others were imprisoned,” Mazer said. “I guess that was an insurance policy to keep the others in line.”

“What others? You said they killed most of them,” Doc pointed out.

“Only the ringleaders of the coup attempt,” Mazer said. “And their underlings.”

“You know something else.” Crusher narrowed his eyes. “You’re usually not this much of a storyteller.”

“Want to know the name of one of the survivors of the losing side?” Mazer smiled.

“That’s it,” Morakar said, the first time he’d spoken in hours. Actually, Twingo had just assumed he was asleep at the bridge station. “That’s what Ancula is after.”

“Revenge?” Crusher snorted. “Not with a handful of mercs he’s not.”

“Of course not,” Morakar said. “He doesn’t have enough people to take out any of the higher ups…but maybe he has enough to break his family out of wherever they’re being held.

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