He was well over six feet tall with close-cropped blond hair and glacier-blue eyes. He wore a well-tailored suit and his face looked like a grand master had chiseled it. He was the epitome of Aryan attractiveness and he radiated a cool detachment that was simultaneously enticing and off-putting.
Schmidt stopped outside a small one-story building nestled between two much larger structures. If you weren’t looking for it, you could have missed it, as it blended in almost perfectly to the background. Curtains covered all the windows but the front door had the words OMEGA SOLUTIONS stenciled on its surface.
Schmidt glanced both ways to make sure that he wasn’t being watched. He pulled out a small brass key and inserted it into the lock. The door swung open with a squeak and the German stepped inside and closed it tightly behind him. A receptionist’s desk greeted him and a perky young blonde behind it offered him a smile. She was on the phone but she hurriedly ended the call when Schmidt stepped up to lean on the desk.
“Herr Schmidt,” she said in a slightly wistful voice. Like most women, she was quite taken with the handsome and distant German. “Your appointment is waiting for you in your office.”
Schmidt removed his jacket and hung it up in a nearby closet. “Thank you, Inga. I heard about a raid on the Playpen last night. Anything of note?”
Inga’s smile faltered somewhat. She hated being the bearer of bad news. “It was Assistance Unlimited. They caught Fraulein Crumb and she gave them the address where Herr McIness was staying.”
Schmidt frowned, his smooth features transforming into something fearsome to behold. Inga clenched her tiny hands into fists, not realizing that her nails were digging into the sensitive skin of her palms. “Thank you.” His eyes flitted towards the closed door of his office. “Why don’t you go to the shops?” He removed his wallet and tossed a wad of cash onto her desk.
Snatching it up, Inga gave a brisk nod and hurried to the door. She definitely didn’t want to be here for whatever came next.
Schmidt adjusted his tie and stepped into his office, where McIness sat, an open newspaper in his hands. The Titan was a dark-haired man with heavy brows and a boxer’s nose. His skin was darkened by the sun and his overall bearing made him seem dangerous and unpolished. He wore a rumpled suit, though a dark shirt could be seen poking through the collar of his white button-down.
“How did you manage to escape from Assistance Unlimited?” Schmidt asked without preamble. “If you led them here….”
“I didn’t,” McIness answered, setting aside the paper and shrugging his shoulders. “I wasn’t at the hotel when they came by to visit. I was with a lady friend. She charged by the hour and I was getting my money’s worth.”
“So they don’t know anything about us?”
McIness rose from his chair and looked up at Schmidt. The Titan was several inches below six feet in height but he was twice as broad as the German. “Greta was there. Who knows what she might have told them. But she doesn’t know your name or anything about this place.”
Schmidt stroked his chin thoughtfully. The witch was a wild card in the entire affair: a needed resource but one that he had foreseen as a potential liability. “No doubt they’ve taken her back to Assistance Unlimited’s headquarters.”
“Like I said, there’s not much she could tell them.”
“We can’t risk it,” the German said. He sat down heavily in a leather-backed chair behind his desk. He picked up a telephone and dialed a number without hesitation. McIness lit a cigarette while watching him, admiring what a cool customer Schmidt was. Nothing seemed to ruffle him, not even the possibility that they might be tussling with Lazarus Gray.
Recently, Schmidt’s activities had brought him to the attention of the city’s criminal kingpins: two mysterious gentlemen who operated under the identities of The Monster and Leviathan. Despite the fact that both were known for enslaving or killing their rivals, Schmidt had continued without any obvious fear.
“Jake,” Schmidt said into the phone. “I have a job for you. Demolition. I want a building to explode.”
McIness felt his eyes widen as Schmidt gave the address. It was one that every crook in Sovereign knew by heart. Schmidt was calmly ordering one of his men to blow up the headquarters of Assistance Unlimited!
Chapter III
Explosions, Great and Small
The headquarters of Assistance Unlimited was located at 6196 Robeson Avenue. Lazarus Gray had purchased all three of the buildings that lay on this city block, transforming what had once been an unassuming neighborhood into the beating heart of his enterprise. The centerpiece of his holdings was a three-story structure that had once been a hotel. Gray’s three associates used the first floor, while the second had been gutted and converted into one large room that was used for meetings, briefings and research. The third floor was off-limits to everyone but Gray himself and was his private domicile.
Across the street were several storefronts owned by Lazarus, all of which had closed down at the dawn of the Great Depression.
Samantha Grace was leaning against one of the windows facing those storefronts, trying to remember what this area was like before the Great Crash of ’29. The city had recovered in some ways but she bet it wouldn’t be back to its old boom days for quite some time to come — and that was with the consideration that the mass corruption that filled Sovereign was dealt with.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
Samantha turned to see Abby watching her, a cup of coffee held in her hands. An outsider would have thought the two women were polar opposites: Samantha was an All-American blonde who favored classy attire that emphasized her athletic build. Abby was dark-haired and curvaceous, tending to wear items that accentuated her natural charms. Likewise, their backgrounds couldn’t have been more different: Samantha was the daughter of wealthy socialites, while Abby had been born in the rural South, wearing hand-me-down clothes and scraping for every thing she got.
Despite all that, they had become fast friends. “That woman that Lazarus is questioning,” Samantha said, “She bothers me.”
“She should. She’s as crazy as a coon dog in heat.”
Samantha blurted out in laughter and then covered her mouth with a hand. “You’re awful.” Composing herself, she asked, “So is she really a witch?”
Abby nodded. “A pretty powerful one but limited in what she can do. She mostly does scrying spells — foretelling the future and things like that.”
“Morgan told me about that prophecy she gave last night. Do you think it’s going to come true?”
Abby sipped her coffee and shrugged. “The future’s not set in stone. Best you can do is hope to pick out the most likely path. But honestly, what did she say that everybody here didn’t already know? Being with Assistance Unlimited is pretty much a guarantee that you’re going to die violently… and as for being alone and unloved, well that part does seem unlikely. If nothing else, everybody here loves each other.”
Samantha smiled and took her friend by the hand. “I’m glad you’re one of us.”
Abby let out a long sigh. “So am I. It wasn’t that long ago that I’d decided to go out with a bang. Find something big to do, try and make a difference… and just let it all come to an end. But now that I’m here and I see all the good that Assistance Unlimited does, I want to keep going. You’re good people. I haven’t been able to say that about many people since mama died.”
“We’re lucky to have you,” Samantha said, giving Abby’s hand a squeeze.