The warehouse floor crunched under Aurelio's handmade Italian shoes. Glass. Bone fragments. Shell casings still warm from the muzzle flash. He stepped carefully around the spreading pools of crimson, the metallic stench mixing with gunpowder smoke that clung to his expensive wool coat like a guilty confession.
"Forty-seven seconds," he announced to his team, checking the gold pocket watch his father had given him for his thirtieth birthday. The Longines mechanism ticked with Swiss precision. "Disappointing."
Twelve bodies. Twelve weapons. Twelve opportunities for information that had evaporated along with their owners' final breaths. The mathematics troubled him more than the carnage. Dead men provided no intelligence yields, and intelligence was the only currency that mattered in this business.
His men moved through the warehouse like funeral directors after a service, photographing angles, collecting evidence, preparing the narrative. Gang war. Turf dispute. Another bloody Thursday in paradise. The local press would file it under 'urban violence' and move on to carnival preparations and cricket scores.
Aurelio knelt beside the sole survivor, a kid whose eyes darted between his dead friends and the barrel of Aurelio's Luger. Blood seeped from a shoulder wound placed with surgical precision. The boy couldn't be older than seventeen. His hands shook like autumn leaves. Pity. But conscious subjects provided better intelligence yields than corpses.
"Your ammunition," Aurelio said in perfect Spanish, his Buenos Aires accent crisp as fresh pesos. "Where did you acquire it?"
The kid's mouth worked soundlessly. Fear paralyzed the vocal cords. Shock had a way of shutting down non-essential bodily functions. Aurelio had learned patience in boardrooms where fortunes shifted with a signature, where careers died with a misplaced decimal. Violence was simply another business transaction requiring proper negotiation techniques.
"I don't know what you mean, señor..."
Aurelio pressed the Luger against the kid's kneecap. The metal still radiated heat from previous use, hot enough to burn skin. Not enough pressure to fire. Just enough to communicate mathematical inevitability.
"These shells contain cybernetic compounds. Military grade." He held up a recovered casing, examining it in the warehouse's harsh fluorescent lighting. The brass gleamed like fool's gold in a prospector's pan. "Your street operation shouldn't possess such resources. Someone upgraded your capabilities. I require their contact information."
The gunshot echoed off concrete walls like thunder in a cathedral. The kid's scream followed, bouncing around the empty space in diminishing waves that seemed to mock the very concept of mercy. Aurelio studied the destroyed kneecap with the same attention he'd once given to quarterly profit reports. Bone fragments painted abstract expressionist patterns on the cement. Effective leverage through applied economics.
Truth spilled faster than arterial spray. Mysterious suppliers who paid in American dollars. Unmarked shipments that arrived on moonless nights like ghost ships. Digital dead drops using encryption that street thugs shouldn't understand, shouldn't even know existed. Aurelio memorized every detail, filing them in the organized cabinets of his mind like a librarian cataloguing forbidden books. When the information flow ceased, he placed a single round through the kid's forehead.
Clean. Efficient. Profitable.
"Sanitize the scene," he told his lieutenant, a former military man whose hands never shook and whose conscience had died somewhere in the trenches of the Great War. "Standard protocols. Local police should arrive in exactly twenty-three minutes."
The lieutenant nodded and began orchestrating the cover-up with the precision of a symphony conductor. Aurelio walked toward the exit, stepping over bodies with the same care other men showed expensive carpets. His mother had raised him to respect quality craftsmanship, even in destruction.
Aurelio's modified Packard Twelve served as his mobile command center, all polished chrome and hidden electronics disguised behind wood paneling that would make a Buenos Aires banker weep with envy. The vehicle purred with American engineering married to German precision. He studied intercepted communications on screens concealed within what appeared to be a luxury liquor cabinet, tracking data flows with the same intensity he'd once applied to stock portfolios during the market crash of '29.
His secure Telefunken telegraph chimed, the German engineering purring with mechanical precision. Director Harrison's voice crackled through encrypted channels like static electricity during a thunderstorm.
"Report."
"Local operation eliminated. Enhanced weapons confirmed. Connection to supersoldado technology probable."
"And the Void Killer?"
Aurelio rewound surveillance footage from the cantina massacre on his hidden Zenith television screens. Kasper moved like barely controlled chaos, his exoskeleton gleaming under bar lights as it carved through Enzo's men with artistic precision. Beautiful violence married to psychological trauma. The man stood over corpses afterward, staring at his handiwork as if seeing it for the first time. Or perhaps seeing it too clearly, like a painter suddenly aware of every brushstroke's weight.
"I've reviewed the Costa del Sol files," Aurelio said carefully, lighting a Turkish cigarette with his gold Ronson lighter. The flame danced like a tiny soul seeking escape. "Impressive capabilities. Concerning methodology."
"He's a weapon without proper guidance. Your assessment?"
On screen, Kasper transformed from bartender to killing machine in under four seconds. Military efficiency powered by emotional instability. A fascinating contradiction that defied proper categorization, like trying to file a hurricane under 'weather phenomena.'
"Effective but unpredictable. His methods generate unwanted publicity. Publicity creates political complications. Complicaciones innecesarias, as we say in Buenos Aires."
"Fix it."
The line went dead with a sharp click that seemed to echo in the Packard's confined space like a coffin lid closing. Aurelio drew deeply on his cigarette and studied the footage again, watching Kasper's micro-expressions frame by frame. Kasper's psychological profile made for interesting reading. Trauma responses. Survivor guilt. Persistent belief in redemption despite mounting evidence suggesting otherwise.
Useful leverage for future negotiations.
His private telephone buzzed against the mahogany dashboard like an angry wasp. Different number. Higher encryption. The kind of call that meant either exceptional opportunity or exceptional danger. In his experience, the two were often synonymous, like lovers dancing on the edge of a cliff.
"Torrealba."
"Aurelio, we have convergent interests in San Isidro." The voice carried Buenos Aires inflections and the quiet authority of old money. Real power. The kind that operated through handshakes rather than contracts, through favors rather than force.
Aurelio's cigarette paused halfway to his lips, tobacco smoke curling around his fingers like accusatory spirits. Unauthorized contact violated every protocol he'd established since taking this assignment. Yet the caller knew his location, his current mission, his direct number. Someone possessed military-grade intelligence capabilities.
"Elaborate."
"Certain individuals require guidance. Protection from their own destructive impulses. My organization can provide local resources for your operation."
The caller knew too much. Government-level intelligence gathering. Political connections that reached into Washington itself like tentacles. Financial resources that dwarfed most national budgets. Someone was playing a deeper game than street-level crime suppression.
"Who is this?"
"A businessman with investments in regional stability. Your reputation for elegant problem resolution precedes you, che."
The casual use of che suggested someone familiar with Argentine culture. Not just any businessman. Someone who understood how power operated in Buenos Aires circles, who knew which families mattered and which could be safely ignored. Someone who knew that true power whispered rather than shouted.
"And if I decline your assistance?"
Soft laughter, like champagne bubbles breaking against crystal. "You won't. The situation requires resources beyond government capabilities. Political leverage. Financial influence. Local knowledge accumulated over decades of careful cultivation. All available through appropriate channels."
The line died before Aurelio could respond. He stared at the telephone, his analytical mind racing through implications like an accountant reviewing suspicious ledgers. Someone was orchestrating events beyond his operational parameters. Someone with enough capability to monitor high-level government communications in real time.
Muy interesante.
His secure telegraph chimed again with an incoming encrypted file. No sender identification. No digital fingerprints. Just a comprehensive dossier that materialized like morning mist over the Rio de la Plata.
Onofre Salazar, businessman and philanthropist. Aurelio's eyes widened as he recognized details that made his government salary seem like pocket change scattered on a wealthy man's nightstand. He knew that building. His own office was located three floors below Salazar's penthouse suite. The shipping company that had transported his team to San Isidro? Salazar owned it. The bank that held his mother's mortgage in Buenos Aires? Salazar sat on the board of directors like a spider in the center of a golden web.
Dios mío. He'd been swimming in this man's pool without realizing who owned the water, who controlled the temperature, who decided when the pool would be drained.
The photograph matched the voice perfectly. Distinguished features carved by time and power. Expensive clothing that whispered rather than proclaimed wealth. Eyes that suggested intelligence married to ruthlessness, like a chess master who played with human pieces. A businessman who understood that violence was simply another market commodity requiring proper management.
Aurelio crushed his cigarette in the Packard's crystal ashtray, his mind processing the implications like a computer calculating orbital trajectories. Salazar wanted Kasper functional but controlled. Aurelio wanted the same thing, but for different reasons. Convergent objectives with divergent motivations. The foundation for either profitable partnership or mutually assured destruction.
"Surveillance perimeter established around PAD headquarters," his lieutenant reported through secure radio, his voice crackling with static from San Isidro's humid atmosphere. "Full spectrum monitoring operational."
"Rules of engagement?"
Aurelio considered the question while adjusting his gold cufflinks, each one engraved with his family crest by a jeweler on Calle Florida. Kasper represented significant value. Combat capabilities that bordered on superhuman. Psychological vulnerabilities that could be exploited like pressure points on the human soul. Potential for control or elimination depending on market conditions. But value had to be balanced against risk. A man who'd destroyed an entire criminal organization in under ten minutes could pose serious threats to unprepared operators.
"Observe and report only. No direct contact without authorization. If compromised, withdraw immediately and establish new positions." He paused, watching pedestrians through the Packard's bulletproof windows. "Priority is intelligence gathering, not confrontation. ¿Entendido?"
"Sí, jefe."
His team dispersed through San Isidro with professional efficiency, melting into the tropical heat like sugar in café cortado. Within thirty minutes, they'd created an invisible net around Kasper's known locations. Electronic surveillance. Human intelligence. Financial monitoring. The complete spectrum of modern espionage delivered with Argentine precision and European sophistication.
Aurelio remained in his mobile command center, studying real-time intelligence feeds while classical tango played softly from hidden speakers. Astor Piazzolla's bandoneón wept through the Packard's interior like a soul in purgatory. Kasper and Douglas were meeting with local police. The body language analysis suggested heated discussion, territorial disputes, bureaucratic frustration. Political pressure building like storm clouds over the Caribbean. Perfect conditions for strategic intervention.
His private telephone buzzed again. Salazar.
"Your target is currently engaged with Captain Rodriguez. Discussion involves jurisdictional disputes over recent supernatural incidents." The voice carried amusement, as if watching children argue over toys in a sandbox. "Recommendation: allow political pressure to escalate naturally. Intervention may prove more effective when target feels properly isolated."
Aurelio's hand tightened on the telephone receiver until his knuckles turned white. "You're monitoring PAD communications?"
"I monitor everything that affects my investments. Your government pays you to solve problems. I'm offering to simplify your problem-solving process through local expertise."
The mathematics became clearer with each passing second, like fog lifting from Buenos Aires harbor at dawn. Salazar possessed resources that made government bureaucracy seem quaint. Information networks. Political connections. Financial leverage. Everything Aurelio needed to succeed wrapped in an offer that might cost more than he could afford to pay.
But here was the crisis. Accept unauthorized assistance from an unknown entity with unclear motivations, or proceed according to official protocols that might fail spectacularly when political pressure reached critical mass. Either choice carried significant risks. Either choice could destroy his career or advance it beyond current limitations.
The moment stretched like a violin string under tension. In the distance, thunder rumbled over San Isidro's rooftops.
Aurelio made his decision.
"The Belmont Hotel. Presidential suite. Nine o'clock tonight."
"Excelente. Come alone. And Aurelio?" The voice softened with what might have been genuine warmth. "Bring your appetite. I've arranged for proper Argentine beef. Bife de chorizo prepared by a chef who learned his trade in Puerto Madero."
The line went dead, leaving Aurelio staring at his reflection in the Packard's polished chrome dashboard. When had he become the kind of man who made deals with shadows? When had efficiency replaced ethics in his personal calculations? When had survival become more important than salvation?
Through his bulletproof windows, Aurelio watched Kasper emerge from police headquarters like a man carrying invisible weight. Frustrated. Angry. Isolated from the very institutions meant to support his mission. Perfect emotional states for manipulation by someone who understood psychological economics.
He opened a new file on his encrypted Underwood typewriter and began composing his operational plan, the keys clicking with mechanical precision like morse code tapping out a death sentence. Title: Project Golden Leash. Objective: Gain operational control over Kasper de la Fuente through strategic psychological pressure and tactical alliance with local assets of questionable legitimacy.
Timeline: Seventy-two hours maximum.
But as he typed, doubt crept through his certainty like water through concrete during a Buenos Aires winter. What if Kasper proved impossible to control? What if Salazar's assistance came with unacceptable costs hidden in contractual fine print? What if his elegant solution created more problems than it solved, like a cure that proved worse than the disease?
When had he started questioning his own methods? When had certainty become a luxury he could no longer afford?
Aurelio reached for his Luger, checking the ammunition with practiced movements that belonged more to muscle memory than conscious thought. In his experience, doubt was simply another problem requiring efficient resolution through applied force. The weapon's weight provided familiar comfort, like a rosary for someone whose prayers involved mathematics rather than mercy.
The game was beginning. And Aurelio Vespucci Torrealba had never lost a game that truly mattered to his survival.
But perhaps that was about to change.
Later that evening, surveillance transcript recorded from PAD safe house:
"He's coming for us, isn't he?"
"Who?"
"El Dorado. I've heard the stories from Buenos Aires. What he does to people who don't fit into neat little categories."
"Let him come. I'm tired of pretending to be someone I'm not."
"That's exactly what terrifies me."