The Bounty Hunter

Chapter 85: Investigation

August 18th, 2089

Vivian Pendragon’s POV

I stood in the throne room of Buckingham Palace, gazing upon my father King William as I awaited his command.  “My dear daughter, I wish to entrust the task of investigating this terror group known as Pandemonium to you.”  I nodded in acknowledgement, but couldn’t resist asking a question.  “Father, I am honored that you would choose me, but shouldn’t the Council already have a task force regarding Pandemonium?”  At my mention of the Council, I noticed my father resist releasing a sigh.  He has often regaled me with stories about the Council meetings and their shenanigans.  I daresay that as soon as I officially become the Crown Princess he’ll make me go to these meetings in his stead to save himself great heartache. 

“I attempted to get the Council to approve such a force, but for some reason the Chinese greatly opposed.  I feel it was a retaliation due to my refusal to budge regarding our trade agreements last month.  As such, we will do this on our own.”  I could tell that Father was tired, so instead of pursuing the matter I curtsied and left.  Hopefully my efforts regarding this newly minted task force will be more fruitful than my attempts at finding my mystery man.  Months of searching have all been for naught, but I refuse to give up so easily.  His face came unbidden to my mind, and I could feel myself blushing.  Damn hormones, I just want him as a retainer!  I don’t care about his incredible looks or his chiseled body as he gently carried me…  AHHH!!! Never mind!  I need to focus right now.

After a silent freak out I managed to collect myself and started to go over what I know of Pandemonium.  I am due to meet with the team leaders in an hour so I should do my best to prepare.  The first public appearance of Pandemonium was on July 1st, 2089 in Sao Pauolo, Brazil.  They exterminated the nearby military base before launching a brutal assault on the city resulting in a total death count of over 100,000, making it the deadliest terror attack in history.  They were originally believed to be some sort of rebel group that was limited to Brazil, but after a month where they went quiet we realized that was most certainly not the case. 

Pandemonium has not done any attacks on the scale of Sao Pauolo since then, but instead they have done numerous small-scale assaults.  Each of these attacks was recorded and posted on their site on the internet.  A chemical attack targeting a simple janitor in Nairobi, the bombing of a concession stand at Mount Rushmore, a stabbing spree at a gymnastics academy in Moscow, a shooting rampage at a hospice care center in France, the list goes on and on.

Pandemonium has claimed responsibility for 32 separate terrorist actions over the span of 29 days for a total death toll of 108.  It has been completely baffling trying to figure out their motives.  The bombing of the concession stand is a good example.  The amount of explosives they had used was enough to blow up the monument itself, yet they chose to instead destroy the nearby hot dog stand because it “overpriced their bratwurst”.

Such low-level incidents should be completely unremarkable, yet Pandemonium has successfully been causing wide-scale unrest throughout the world as citizens are pressuring their leaders to take action.  Pandemonium has been so effectively terrifying the populace psychologically even though they have not been causing that much damage due to two reasons.  First off, every one of their attacks have been completely unrelated.  A superficial analysis shows absolutely no pattern or reason with their targets.  They have attacked major government buildings and they have attacked the local bingo night in a rural small town.  This has made people realize that anyone and anything could become a target. 

Secondly, the members who have conducted these attacks are abnormal and inconsistent.  An 84-year old French grandmother of 3, a 10-year old Kenyan orphan, a 42-year old American paraplegic, the assailants in the attacks are many and varied.  This has made people paranoid, since anyone could be a Pandemonium member.  This has raised an outcry demanding that they be stopped.  Naturally, in the face of such a major security concern the world will turn to the Council of Nine since they are the international peacekeepers.  But if what father said was true and the Council of Nine was unable to even agree on starting a task force, it would be a major blow to their credibility when public opinion in many countries is already unfavorable.josei

Pandemonium does not make any demands and as of now they have no known purpose other than to actively cause terror.  Their motto of “Unleash your inner demons” and their numerous web videos have inspired many sociopaths and serial killers, and major crimes have already started rising.  The only thing we have managed to learn of them is the name of their leader:  Dante.  We wouldn’t even know this normally, but for some reason he has started broadcasting an online cooking show that airs weekly.  Strangely enough, he’s rather talented at cooking and the show has become quite popular. 

However, Dante enjoys stocking his audience with the corpses of freshly murdered individuals who he kidnaps weekly from across the globe.  Young, old, men, women he does not distinguish between his victims.  He has also released quite a few videos detailing the finer points of torture, which he then demonstrates on some unfortunate “volunteer”.  These volunteers have included children.  His heartlessness and his status as the leader of the psychotic terror group Pandemonium has quickly earned him a new moniker:  Demon Lord.  It is one that he has embraced with great enthusiasm, going so far as to now actively introduce himself as Demon Lord Dante.

I look at the clock and realize that it is time to meet the team leaders.  This task force will have about 40 people total, although I will be mostly working with the 4 supervisors.  I gather up the documents I have been surveying and quickly hurried to the designated meeting room in the east wing of the palace.  4 high ranking agents from the intelligence agency were already situated inside, 3 men and 1 women, who all stood up and bowed as I entered the room.  No other formalities were shown, thankfully, as we went straight to business. 

I already knew their names from my previous work revamping security protocols in the wake of the rebel attack and they were already aware that I was competent so there was nothing else to do but start.  “Mr. Harris, would you please begin with the general briefing?  I know everyone here is already well-informed about Pandemonium, but I would like us to synchronize what we know and make sure no one is missing any important points.”  Mr. Harris, a non-descript man with coal-black hair and brown eyes, stood up and succinctly summarized everything we knew about the terror group, which was not any different from what I had just reviewed prior to coming here.

I nodded to Mr. Harris after he finished and then stood up to address the room.  “Obviously, it has become clear that right now we cannot predict the actions of Pandemonium.  However, that does not mean we can’t track them down.  Any suggestions?”  There was a brief silence before one of the supervisors, Mr. Smith, spoke up.  He has blond hair and blue eyes on a handsome face that is unfortunately marred with some fearsome scars on his jaw. “Yeah, we just need to track the money.  Terror groups always need money, so we should follow the paper trail.”  Miss O’Reilly, a red headed Irishwoman, nodded in agreement “That’s a good start, but I believe we should also investigate our contacts in the underworld.  There’s no way that Pandemonium hasn’t gotten involved, they must have either friends or enemies down there.”

The discussion quickly took off after that and soon we had a plan of action in place.  We can’t predict their movements, so we’ll go after their foundation instead.  Their recruitment, fundraising, and networking in the underworld all are weak points we can target.  However, everyone has forgotten something.  “I believe that while we are cutting off Pandemonium’s legs, we should also go after its head.  I propose that we put out a bounty on Dante.  Pandemonium seems to be held together by his leadership and charisma alone, so if he dies so does Pandemonium.” 

My declaration set off another round of discussions as we debated what the bounty amount should be and if we should just passively post the bounty or actively shop it around to various private agencies.  I personally don’t care as long as we implement it immediately.  The sooner we cut this organization off the better, I shudder to think what they would start doing after they expand.