POV Rio
I was correct that it would take me only a week of work to assimilate Steiner. Which brought me my next Template, Victor Sage, The Question. I'll be honest, I wasn't really sure what he gave me beyond his gear. Though that gear was really useful. The most notable was a special mask with a unique chemical compound that would make a featureless face, and it would even make my ears non-descript. And it was impossible to remove without a special spray canister that I was relieved to learn would never run out, but even if it did, I could replenish it as the template came with the knowledge on how to produce it. Besides that, I got some hacking tools and the usual detective tools. As well as Trench Coat, a Fedora, and a snazzy suit.
'I do like Blue, it really brings out my eyes. Unfortunately, no one would ever see my eyes.'
The great thing about Victor Sage is that he is a brilliant detective; some say he is on par with Batman. And this has made me connect some other dots I didn't before. And more importantly, reveal some opportunities I could take advantage of. Which is exactly what I intended on doing as we speak. My target was the Church, which was the vault for Viggo Tarasov. Finding which church it was took a little digging through some old phone books and some browsing of Google Maps.
Sneaking into the city is easy; both Victor Sage and James Bond are masters of getting into places they're not supposed to. I mean, not just anyone can sneak into Lex Luthor's office undetected. It also helped that I had an invisibility suit from James Bond. It had a limited charge, but it would be just enough to pull this off. Especially since I wouldn't need it for much time. James Bond had several submersible items that I could use. From the Wet Nellie, to the Crocodile Submersible, to an ordinary scuba suit with rebreather. I chose to use the scuba suit with a rebreather as it would also train my body and would be the least likely to be noticed or detected. And tracing my movements is basically impossible since I would be swimming from the forest to NYC.
A Few Hours Later...
I arrive near the coast, in Little Russia, at a little past 10 pm. I surface in an area where there are no cameras already in my Question disguise. Then I activate the invisibility suit for a few seconds to get to nearby cover before deactivating it. The suit's abilities were great, but they had limited battery life that drained fast if I moved quickly. But I used it as a supplement, not as a replacement for being stealthy.
It took about 8 minutes to arrive at the church and another 30 minutes to scope out the place. I counted 24 guards with only 6 on shift at any one time, two-hour shifts a piece; it wasn't much, but this place was a highly guarded secret, and admittedly, the gate that protects the vault was very difficult to breach, and then, as soon as a fight started, reinforcements would come soon after. I even found several silent alarm systems set up in and around the church. Regardless, none of them would be able to stop me.
I waited for the shift to change and then made my move. I snuck up behind one guy at a time and killed them with a garrote, or I used knives, and then cleaned up any mess that might have been made. Each kill went into my inventory. As I got deeper into the church, I found there were another 4 people. But these ones were sound asleep. My guess was that they were the staff that took care of the church. They were all put down silently as well. By the time I killed the last guards, I could silently see there were only two left. The reason I couldn't kill these so easily was that they were standing in front of the Vault door. But I had a plan for that.
I activated the stealth suit and then slowly crawled my way down the stairs. Right before I turned the corner, I waited for them to look away, and I tossed something over their heads and had it land behind them. It wasn't enough to make them turn around, but it did distract them long enough that I could make the last move around the corner and sneak towards them. I did this to avoid them becoming suspicious, as while the stealth suit was good if you were staring at a particular place for a while, and I walked through there, you could see something was wrong, like a heat haze on a hot summer day. But that could also just be me being paranoid. In either case, as soon as I closed the distance, I took out two knives and jammed them into both of their eye sockets at the same time. They died before they even hit the ground.
I let out a breath of relief and stored the corpses. I had done great so far, but I wanted to complete the mission, and such long-term, intense sneaking was exhausting. And while physically I was still doing fine, it was still quite the mental tax. That and I hadn't ever killed this many people. But I had to finish what I started. I looked at the keypad and noticed the most worn-down numbers, which would give me an idea of which numbers it could be. Next, I took out a hacking tool and connected it to the keypad. To speed up progress, I entered the likely numbers, and the tool did the rest.
Clink
The door unlocked, and I was almost free to go in. I still had to deal with the other defenses set up past the door. For instance, I blew some dust into the air and watched as numerous lasers were revealed. I got to work on disabling each device, and after about 20 minutes of this, I was done. Then I was finally free to loot to my heart's content. The money, jewels, and artwork made up around 7 million dollars worth if I had to guess. The cash alone made up 3 million of that. Then came all the blackmail and incriminating evidence. That was theoretically priceless if you could find a buyer. But I wouldn't sell it, no, I would use some of it and destroy the rest. I wanted to turn it over to the police, but I wasn't a fool. The likelihood of this ending up back in the hands of Viggo was extremely high.
Regardless, I had gotten what I came here for, and it was time to leave. As for all the bodies I was carrying around? Well, that was no issue when I had a forest full of animals that wouldn't turn away free food. And if that didn't work, the manor had devices meant to recycle organic material into compost. As for leaving them behind as a threat or message? I would be a fool to do that. If I clean up any traces of a struggle, then Viggo will think he was betrayed, not that some super stealthy agent not only knew about the vault but was skilled enough to kill everyone without being detected and then transport and dispose of 28 corpses without a trace. Even Shield would struggle to do that since Viggo will sense something wrong within an hour at most.
As such, I left the same way I entered and vanished into the night as if I was never there in the first place.
POV Viggo Tarasov
My hand shakes as I look at the empty vault.
"Find them. I don't care if you have to tear apart New York, find them," I order.
"What if the other gangs see this as a sign of weakness?" Avi asks.
"Make sure the boys are ready for an attack. We can't say this wasn't a ploy by our rivals. Reach out to the Continental, tell them I want any info they have on who was responsible for this attack. And put out an open bounty on the men who were stationed here!" I order.
"How much?" Avi asks.
"200 grand a head, half a million for Father Mikhail," I order.
"And what about the contents of the vault?" Avi asks.
"Don't tip our hand. Make it seem like they only stole money. And recover my things at all costs. Those items are priceless, and I cannot let this disrespect stand," I reply.
After giving one last look at the church, I get in my car, and my driver takes me home. Despite the bounty orders, I felt something was off. I knew the men I entrusted with defending the vault. They weren't fools and had been loyal for years, some even decades. And Father Mikhail knew I wouldn't let him live if he failed to protect the vault, let alone steal from it. And yet, I couldn't think of many other explanations.
'That Secret Agency? The Strategic Homeland something or other?'
While that was possible, it wouldn't make any sense. I have never heard of them attacking gangs or crime families in the past. And I highly doubted the FBI or CIA could pull this off. But a rival gang made little sense either. None of them were known for stealth operations. If they wanted to make a move, they would do it openly. No matter how I thought about it, I couldn't make sense of this situation and chose to leave it be for now. My men would handle the matter, and I had faith the Continental would deliver some results. I just had to be patient.