HA2 21.3 – After Action Cleaning
Ping!
The elevator’s door smoothly opened and with calm steps Shizuka stepped out. The rooftop was empty, but a CCTV from a building next to Chikara Tower had vantage point to the elevator’s door and some part of the rooftop, so Shizuka had to act carefully.
To escape the CCTV’s field of view, she went to one of giant air ducks at the edge of the rooftop and disappeared behind it. Then, she crawled along the guard rail until reaching the air duck to enter the workshop, and entered it.
Crawling while dragging two big and heavy sport bags required a load of hard work, but thanks to her physical fitness Shizuka could do it with ease. Once she put the loot exactly above the workshop’s living room, she returned to the elevator at the rooftop with the exact way how she came.
‘That’s lot of hard work,’ Shizuka muttered as she waited for the elevator to arrive, and let the CCTV from nearby building freely recorded her back.
Being recorded when going back and forth to the rooftop was not a big deal. Chikara Tower was a sophisticated building that required regular maintenance, so a technician went back and forth to the rooftop was pretty common. It just that Shizuka had to make sure she didn’t give away her gender, or being recorded walking to the direction of air duct that had secret access to the workshop.
A moment later the elevator arrived and Shizuka immediately went in. Moving the loot to the temporary stashing point only by herself did indeed required load of hard work. But currently, Hide had his own share that not lighter than hers, so Shizuka had no complaint.
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In underworld, a raid or a kill usually would be followed by the work to erase body trail and forensic trace. This after action cleaning was no less important than the raid itself, and it had to be done by a crew of professionals with specialty from various field.
Unfortunately, Hide couldn’t hire cleaning crew even if he knew some of the good ones. Letting some people to clean the trail and trace from his job was equivalent to tell them some part of his MO, and he wanted to avoid that at all cost.
Hide also couldn’t burn Kamui’s office to erase the trail and trace from tonight job. In summary, he had to carry the cleaning on his own and he couldn’t take shortcut. Fortunately, Kamui’s office had everything he need.
In swift manner, Hide moved all dead bodies to the sauna quarter, and lined it up on the black floor in the middle of the room. Then, he striped it one by one. He put money and gold jewelry to his backpack. After that he put ID card, credit card, and other card into a thick metal bucket, poured in some alcohol, and set it on fire.
As for cellphones, he stripped it down into some pieces, mixed it with wristwatches and non-gold jewelry, and then put it into a few paper bags before throwing them totrash shaft for non-organic material. Last but not the least, through control panel planted to the wall next to the sauna quarter’s door, he set the sauna temperature at 1500 degrees Fahrenheit for five hours.
When he studied its blueprint, Hide found that sauna quarter in Kamui’s office was connected to torture chamber by a secret door. He then studied the sauna quarter deeper and discovered that it was actually a camouflage for huge furnace to erase body trail. And now, he happily used it on its owner.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
‘Thank you for providing everything I need,’ Hide happily muttered as the first part of the cleaning went smoothly.
Then, with casual steps he went to kitchen. He wanted to enjoy some rest before carrying out the cleaning to erase forensic trail on each room, and he was about to take first sip of his coffee when a radio call from Takeo came in.
[Orange to Apple, do you copy?]
After taking a sip of his coffee Hide pressed PTT button. “Loud and clear, go ahead.”
[In the equipment room next to the office quarter, I spot a couple of long-range digital cameras and handycams we want to buy. Can we take it, along with hard drives from server room?
We need a lot of space to store reconnaissance footage and picture. It will be nice if we can have two more mini-servers in the base, 6-8 hard drives each, without spending operational fund.]
“To be safe, we can only have two additional trips to temporary stashing point, or four sport bags in total. It’s enough to pack everything you want, but the final call is up to Pear who will transport it.”
“I don’t mind,” Shizuka who just came back from moving the last pair of sport bag said as she entered the kitchen.
After nodding his head to Shizuka, Hide pressed PTT button one more time. “Apple to Orange, Pear agrees. We will have two additional trips.”
[Copy, Orange over and out.]
“Let’s also take some food from this kitchen,” Shizuka casually suggested.
“Can’t do that. We can only have two more trips.” Hide calmly said before taking another sip of his coffee.
“I can put it in my backpack,” Shizuka insisted.
“We are already too greedy tonight.”
“I can see that, very clearly” Shizuka calmly replied. “But as you said, we can have two more trips, and my backpack is free.”
After contemplating for a moment Hide said, “Select only the lighter one. No canned food or canned drink.”
After a small smile Shizuka said, “Roger.”
“As for now, while I pack Takeo’s request take your time to drink some coffee and eat snack bar. Conserve your energy and keep vigilant for unexpected till the last second.”
“Got it,” Shizuka replied, still in cheerful tone.
Wasting no time Hide then went to pack Takeo’s request. Other than the long-range digital camera, he also found a few boxes of new memory card. Without second thought he packed it too.
While from the server rooms, other than the hard drives Hide also took some cable connectors, PSU, and internal cooling devices. As for the rack and casing, he could build it from scratch using material and equipment in the workshop.
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Other than air duct network, emergency stairs, and elevator shaft as ventilation, Chikara Tower also had chimney network that specifically being design to vent hot air and smoke from restaurant or café in the building.
Sauna quarter in Kamui’s office was also connected to the chimney network, and for almost five hours straight a huge amount of hot air and vapor flowed through it. No one would think that this hot air and vapor were the result from 22 dead bodies that were being exposed to extreme heat.
Normally, a piece of human body, a dead one of course, would turn into 1.4 - 4.1 kilograms of ash after being expose to extreme heat at 1700 degrees Fahrenheit for 2-3 hours. However, Hide had to drain moisture content from 22 adult bodies, so he set the timer for five hours. It was a long wait, but finally it came to an end.
Beeeeb!
A light ‘Beeb!’ was heard as soon as the timer hit zero. At the same time the heating elements went off automatically. Wasting no time Hide and Shizuka checked the huge pile of ash in the middle of sauna quarter through a small window on the door.
“So,” Shizuka curiously said. “Human body, and their clothes and shoes will become ash if it gets exposed to extreme heat for certain duration.”
“Yeah,” Hide calmly replied. “If we keep taking its moisture content until it goes below 0%, most materials will become ash or dust.”
As a big question mark popped up on her forehead Shizuka asked, “Doesn’t a piece of paper have moister content below 0%?”
“A piece of paper has moisture content around 4.0-6.0%,” Hide casually replied while inwardly he muttered, ‘Damn girl, you should listen to your chem teacher more.’
“I see,” Shizuka who was oblivious to Hide’s inner thought casually nodded, and then she asked, “What’s next?”
Hide casually replied, “Cooling the sauna quarter until it’s safe for us to enter, flush clean the ash using water, put bone remains we find into paper bags, and then throw it to trash shaft for organic material.”
“Okay,” Shizuka firmly replied.
It took around twenty minutes before Hide and Shizuka could enter the sauna quarter, and another fifty minutes to clean the ash and bone remains. After that the two mixed a big batch of antiseptic, floor detergent, and some compound with water, and sprayed it to the ceiling, wall, floor, chair, table, and other furniture on every room, until everything looked like as if it was just being hit by heavy rain.
In a glance the last cleaning seemed like an excessive measure, but it was important step to ensure the forensic team couldn’t identify the blood, sweat, hair, or other body remains they may found and collected.
A moment later, after changing the password for steel door, Hide and Shizuka left Kamui’s office wearing rain boots that completely being wrapped by dry and clean towel. They went straight to the rest room, and used the air duct network to return to the workshop totally unrecorded by CCTV.
*****