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Red Moon: Revolution Chapter 15

Officially, an old sewage pipe from the Cold War, cut off from the rest of the line had burst, releasing a large amount of methane that ignited. The blast damaged several city blocks, killing three and sending over two dozen to the hospital. The mayor of the city vowed to set up a committee and delegate funds to prevent another accident from occurring. It was a tragic accident, but the response was professional and quick, the civilian population went on with their lives.

What really happened was another story. A small two kilogram parcel wrapped in a plain brown paper and sealed with twine was delivered to the New Inquisition bunker, hidden in a shipment of supplies that on the books, was a raw materials to be stored and used later for construction projects. The parcel was brought down into bunker after it had been looked over by the guards. Twenty two seconds after the main entrance to the bunker was closed, the parcel detonated. Forty-three people died instantly as the pressure waved blew threw the airtight bunker. Eighteen died of their injuries later. Twenty-one New Inquisition agents were in the hospital along with the few unlucky civilians that were nearby. Another eight were still missing, burieded under tons of rubble that came crashing into the bunker from above.

No one claimed responsibility, no one would, Brennan knew that it was the Inquisition that was responsible. She had grown soft in the recent years. She never thought that they would find her, but they did and now they struck at those that she cared about.

Brennan looked over the list of names that had been given to her. She sat in her old office building. It had been rented out after she had moved her operations underground, but now she was using it again. It was empty. It had only been one day since the bombing and the survivors were allowed time off to recover, she wasn't the only one in shock. Everyone needed a bit of time to recover. They would all be back the next day though and then her operations would be up and running once again. When that happened, she would find exactly who was responsible and bring them to justice, if not for her, then for those who they had killed.

She squeezed the paper between her fingers, crumpling it before she quickly tossed it into the top drawer of her desk. She slammed the drawer shut.

She couldn't bear to look at the names anymore. She didn't even recognize most of them. There were always people moving in and out of the bunker that she no longer could personally keep track of them all. Did that make her a bad person, that she didn't even know the people she had lost. No, she told herself. It was impossible for he to juggle her job and the names of every person who worked under her at the same time and yet she couldn't shake that feeling of guilt.

What had she done wrong? Her bunker was her secret, passed down from her father to her. It was their secret. No one else knew. It had been built by the West German under an official contract from the US government. There were so many like it, all built through legitimate means for legitimate reasons in a world that was afraid of atomic destruction. Those documents had been destroyed in a fire caused by a carelessly discarded cigarette and the bunker was forgotten by all but her father and herself. No one should have known, yet someone did. There was only one possible explanation, a leak.

At first, it seemed preposterous that someone would do such a thing. That quickly faded. It was absolutely plausible. This war was more than shooting the enemy, it was also a war of information. She had spies out across the world, looking for the last remnants of the Inquisition leadership. It made sense that the Inquisition was doing the same and with their deep pockets and resources, it was only a matter of time before they did find her and find her they did.

This created new problems. Now that her base had been successfully attacked, new policies had to be put in place. She would need to restrict on who was allowed to join. The past two years had a relatively open door policy to Inquisition turncoats who wanted to join them. They only got a slight background check and a two week probation period until they were full fledged members of her organization. That had to change. It was too easy for someone to slip through the cracks. She would need to call a meeting soon. That meant bringing in all of the high ranking members from around the world which made them even more vulnerable for a time. It was maddening.

Speaking of meetings.

"Director Brennan." An older man in a dark blue, almost black business suit pushed his way through the door. He had a well trimmed beard with only hints of gray around the fringes and a smile of sympathy on his face.

"Henrik!? Brennan stood up, glad to have a distraction. She stepped around the desk to go meet one of her oldest friends.

Henrik stuck out his hand to shake, but was surprised with a hug instead.

"When do we ever shake hands?" Brennan said and stepped back from the hug, a slight blush on her face. "I wasn't expecting to see you for some time. I heard that you were out of the country on vacation with your family."

"I was." He stuck his hands into his pockets. "But when word reached me of what happened, I had to cut it short." The two moved to the side of the room where there were a few chairs for when Brennan had less formal meetings. "I very sorry." He took her hand in his.

"Don't be." She sighed and let him hold her hand, it was comforting, a reminder of the past when things weren't so complicated. "You didn't cause this." He voice grew sharp. "The Inquisition did this. My carelessness did this. So many things allowed that bomb to get in, but you're not one of them."

Henrik didn't say anything. He did feel that he could have done something due to his position as a city counselor. He owed that to Brennan's father who had needed someone her could trust in the city government to help smooth things down the line. He had served on the counsel for nearly three decades now and had actually managed to get himself re-elected without any outside help. The people elected him because he cared, some would say he cared too much and that made him vulnerable at times, but he didn't care about what others said. Those that he wanted to protect had been hurt and he was going to do what he could to help them.

"Look at me." Brennan chuckled. "You're here for not even a minute and I'm ranting about work."

"Work is why I'm here." Henrik tightened his tie. "Whatever you need, I will do my best to provide." He turned a switch in his friend, turning into the city counselor that had pushed more reforms than all of the other counselors combined. "I have a lot of friends not only here in Berlin, but across the country."

"Thank you." Brennan bowed her head. "The next few months are going to be tough and I'll need all the help I can get."

With that, Henrik left. He had many more meetings to attend to. He had managed to put himself as head of the team that was doing the inquiry into the "gas explosion" and needed to set everything up so that he could do his own digging. That meant a trip down to the city's traffic control center where all of the street camera's fed their recordings to. He wanted to get a video of the site as the explosion happened.

Brennan stayed where she was for some time. It had been years since she had last seen Henrik. The last time was at the mayor's manor when the mayor threw a party to celebrate his election. It was awkward then because before that, they had almost avoided each other because they had once been lovers.

It did make things awkward between them. They had known each other since childhood, growing up under the shadow of the Iron Curtain. They had played beneath the Berlin Wall, laughing and skipping, throwing rocks over the wall all the while they were watched by the guards that were armed with machine guns in the towers overhead.

They went to school together and were often partners in class. Henrik helped her with history, a subject that she had abhorred, not because history wasn't interesting, but because their teachers had no personality, the Cold War had a way of making everything gray. She helped him understand math concepts such as derivatives and integrals, something that she knew he still struggled with today.

They were inseparable through their early life, always seen together and everyone predicted that it was only a matter of time before Henrik popped the magical question and he had planned to, right after high school, but then tragedy struck.

Both of their parents were heavily involved in politics. Both of Henrik's parents worked at the Embassy, handling sensitive information and dealing with Soviet and East German's alike. It turned out that both of Henrik's parents had been feeding information to the Soviets. They sold military secrets and even travel plans and they were caught.

There was no trial, no public hearing, both of his parents vanished from the face of the Earth. Some theorized that they fled to the other side of the wall and lived in asylum, but it was more likely that they were executed since they left their only child behind.

Brennan's father, fearful for his daughter's closest friend, whisked him out of the city, a day before graduation, a day before he was going to propose to her. They didn't see each other again for over a decade and by then, it was too late. Henrik had it in his head that he was never going to see his love again and ended up getting married and having children.

His wife had died some time ago due to cancer which had opened up the potential of reigniting the spark between them, but it never happened and neither of them brought it up. It was a long time ago and in both of their opinions, better buried in the past.

The rest of the day was spent handling the logistical issues of moving her operations back into the building. She was hoping that a more public and open locations, the office building being in downtown Berlin, would stop any more bold attacks. The Inquisition wasn't a terrorist organization and would refrain from attacking anything that put too many civilians at risk. The bunker had been remote enough that the few civilians who had been killed were considered acceptable losses for the amount of damage that had been dealt to her people.

Before she went home after locking up the office, Brennan decided to pay the hospital a visit. She walked to the hospital where all of her people who had been hurt were. It would be good to see them, to let them know that she was doing what she could.

The Alpha had his own people who had been hurt moved all the way to Russia since werewolves couldn't make use of normal hospitals, the tests would reveal that they weren't completely human so he had them put in hospitals that were friendly to his kind. He had lost two in the blast, two older males whose regenerative abilities weren't as good as the younger pack members who suffered horrendous wounds, though were making a full recovery. It made Brennan jealous of them, to be able to survive when so many of her own people didn't. It also made her glad that they were on her side as well.

Brennan was surprised when she got to the recovery ward where many of her people were. They were lively, ready to get back into action, some were even apologetic for letting such a thing happen. None of them were down in their spirits and vowed to get back to work as soon as they were released. It brought a tear to her eye to see how devoted they were to the cause.

She stayed there well past visiting hours, talking with them.