Gamma waited for the cleanup team to arrive while his partner left. They have completed their mission and departed to pick up their payment. The cleanup team arrived at the cabin in an ambulance, one with a suitcase and one with a wheelchair. The woman pushing the wheelchair was dressed like an EMT with a face mask. The man next to her was dressed in a similar manner.
“You’re Gamma?” Asked the woman. “Is the body ready?”
“Sparrow? Yeah, I gave him four stabs in the chest, one to the heart,” Gamma responded. “The cut isn't clean, so it will be easy for you to disguise it as a robbery from a homeless person.”
Sparrow glanced at the body draped on the chair with knife wounds. Such a shame that someone so young had to die. He looked like some politician’s son or someone who messed with the wrong person. She checked the body’s pulse. It had no pulse nor body heat.
”You could have poisoned him and we could have disguise it as an overdose,” Sparrow said in a tone of annoyance. “Coming up with an homeless person scenario is trickier to set up.”
”No can’t do, already did that for the past two times. It would be too suspicious.”
Sparrow suspiciously looked at Gamma. It was the nature of her job to be suspicious of everyone. She signaled the male EMT next to her to give Gamma the suitcase. “Head to this address and do not ask where you are going.”
Gamma grabbed the suitcase. He looked at Sparrow. Her sharp look made him took off before asking her about what was in the suitcase. After he left, Sparrow pushed the body toward the ambulance and hooked it up to the vital monitor. The man got into the driver’s seat and headed toward Imperial Hospital.
The vital monitor was flat line. After ten minutes, she tampered with the machine to show it running with a stable heartbeat. Within fifteen minutes of arrival at the hospital, she made a report of a person who was found stabbed in the alleyway. The ambulance siren turned on and they made their way to the hospital. They turned the body over to the hospital staff who rushed out after hearing the report of an unknown male suffering from multiple stab wounds.
The doctors and nurses pushed the body inside. The EMT made a quick report and departed. They needed to leave before the doctors realized that the body was already dead.
At the corner street on the 2nd ring, off Sparrow walked into the funeral home where she worked as the director. Cleanup was a family business and she had been trained at a young age to perform the task. Her only usual contact was the distribution team in charge of burner phones and gathering intelligence. From what she heard from her family, the distribution team knew the most about the operation but was the most secretive. They rarely made appearances on the scene.
She turned on the news while returning to her paperwork. From her experience, the male targets had always been high-profile politicians or mob bosses. The female targets, usually prostitutes, were never revealed on the news, they were simply a short blurb at the bottom of the obituary.
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By late evening, there were no reports of the robbery, murder, or public request to search for any perpetrator. It wasn't unusual for the local police to issue a gag notice on certain cases. Most of the time, it was to make it appear that the city was safe.
Her burner phone rang. "Sparrow here.”
"What happened while you picked up the body?" Esther asked.
"I inspected the body. No pulse. I’ve even collected blood samples to verify. Is there anything wrong with the mission?”
"The mission is a success, but I need you to send over the CCTV from the ambulance and wipe it out completely. The files from the hospital was taken by Song Taiji. He pulled some strings to keep this quiet on the news and investigating this on his own. We need to wipe out all of our traces.”
Sparrow tensed. She wasn’t aware that the person was related to Song Taiji. She wondered why the higher ups sent them to kill one of the Songs, but she was not her place to ask. The Blue Moon was nothing more than one of the chess pieces the elite clans used to pit against each other. Her life was never in her own control. She was born into the role, a servitude clan from the old days. Even if she wanted to leave, the only way out was death. She had been resigned to such thinking for too long.
“Did Gamma say anything to you before he left?” Esther asked.
"I've only dealt with him a few times in the past five years, so I don't know if I am a reliable source. But everything seems normal."
"He didn't ask you about anything?"
"Nothing."
"All right then. Your payment will come soon, but there is something I need you to do. The operative in the hospital is caught up by Song Taiji for questioning. I need you to help me wipe out the hospital CCTV.”
“If what you’re saying is true, then Song Taiji’s people are there. It’s going to be risky.”
“It will be riskier if Song Taiji were able to track your ambulance location.”
Sparrow clicked her tongue. There were CCTV everywhere on the streets of Imperial City. It wouldn’t be difficult for Song Taiji to track down the ambulance to her.
Sparrow took a cab back to the hospital, but this time as the funeral director. She was unaware that Esther had also assigned Gamma to perform the same task. It was rare for Esther to reach out directly to the field team, but she had to figure out if Sparrow or Gamma had gone rogue. The operation had gone smoothly, but somewhere along the line, they were still missing video evidence that Li Yun was dead.
Esther decided she had to confirm it with her own eyes.
****
Gamma arrived at the location directed by the female agent. To his surprise, there was a small plane waiting for him.
“Mr. Cheng, I was instructed to take you to your vacation spot by your wife,” said the pilot. “Please hop on board. She left you a package in the back.”
Gamma shook hands with the pilot who seemed to be unaware of Gamma’s profession. Gamma headed inside the private plane and opened his package with a new identification card and passport to a neighboring country. The passport had his picture and his new identity as someone named Cheng. Gamma raised his eyebrow, he wondered if someone tampered with the plane.
He dialed a different burner number. "Hey boss, another dead end. The pilot is completely unaware that he is abetting a crime.”
“The plane is likely tampered,” said a male voice. “Get the pilot to check the engine again.”
“Sure…” Gamma said, but the phone issued by the Blue Moon rang. “One moment boss.” Gamma picked up the other burner phone. “Hey, I thought this phone wouldn’t be used anymore.”
”Mission still needs to be verified,” said the scrambled voice.
”He’s not dead after five stabs?” Gamma asked in a surprised tone. “I was sure it’s through the heart.”
”I only need you to take photos and send a video confirmation.”
”What, don’t you have an agent in the hospital to verify?”
”They are being held up by security. I need someone else to verify that the target is dead. Be careful on your way and disguise yourself as a driver.”
”Sure thing.” Gamma closed the burner phone.