The Hitman and His Consort

XXVII - Relief

Third Person P.O.V: - - -

Denis came as soon as he could and, being someone who can read and assess situations well, he made the mental decision to not ask about what happened, not because of his brother’s somewhat cheery vibe but from Madeline’s sour one. He knew he didn’t present a good first impression of himself to Arthur’s brother, but he knows better than to test a professional killer’s temper.

They drove a long route in silence before they finally reached the clinic. The moment all three of them walked through the door everyone gave them an expectant look. Their gazes then traveled to Madeline’s bitter expression, and the room tensed.

“We found out a few things,” Valentin began, since his companion didn’t particularly appear eager to share the information they gathered. Taxingly so.

“Mike and along with many other nameless staff were killed off by the lab itself, August indeed has guards freshly instated and Pierre may or may not be sticking to her constantly,” He explained. Inka and Arthur exchanged glances.

“They’re really going for it, huh?” Denis noted.

“This is going to be trickier than I thought,” Inka said as she took a seat beside Arthur. Rodrigo, on the other hand, couldn’t help but notice the change in Madeline’s demeanor. It was obvious that something happened to set him off, and that's what she thought even before seeing the said man’s knuckles compared to Valentin's. The man himself seems to be in a good mood.

Just knowing that Valentin was in a cheery disposition is already enough evidence that something bad happened, Rodrigo knew something was up.

“Is that all?” Arthur asked, also becoming aware of Madeline’s mood change. She would know first because the first this that she noticed was her brother’s knuckles, bloodied and red, in contrast to Valentin's, which is pristine in comparison.

Valentin took a seat on the chair, “How are we in terms of progress? Do we have any actual intricate plans to execute?” he asked Inka.

With one brow raised, she shook her head, “No, not yet, we are just getting info now so…” she answered with a shrug.

Valentin pulled out another cig, since he finished the last one during the car ride, and lit it huffing a cloud of smoke up before talking, “We just got rid of two staff members today and it seems we’re already at risk because there’s tension within the laboratory staff now,” he began, looking through the piles of folders on the desk and lays out the blueprint,

“They saw us kidnap one of the targets so they’ll probably report that, we can play it safe and not use Madeline’s disguise, rather Madeline altogether or we can risk it and make it work to our favor and have him create a diversion,” he followed,

Inka raised her head from looking at the blueprint and looked at him, “How?” she asked,

Taking another huff, and to Arthur’s mental disdain, battling over her focus between the narrative and the narrator, Valentin exhaled smoke with every word, “Well, once he enters work looking 'okay', we have to sell the idea that it was a prank between friends,”

“That’s not going to work,” Denis quipped,

“I know, but it’ll buy us some time, meanwhile everyone’s eyes are on Madeline, undercover as Carter, now that the tension is all on him, Inka could worm her way around the facility,” Valentin rebutted,

“Again, how?” Inka inquired,

Putting the blueprint into good use, Valentin leaned closer to the desk circling over an area labeled ‘Area C, “From what we learned, this is the only place both targets work, this is also August’s area, they’re starting the changes today and I doubt they have a good grip on the situation in the lab, Inka and I will go around until she reaches August,” he explained,

“But we only have two identities stolen, Inka can’t just walk around,” Arthur argued,

Clicking his tongue, Valentin tapped the ash from his cigarette on the ashtray on the desk, since both he and Rodrigo are both smokers, and Inka too but she doesn’t smoke as frequently, that ashtray was bound to be there, “The technical parts… I didn’t think too deeply,” he confessed, puffing another cloud of smoke,

“You got to be f*cking kidding me,” Denis sighed as he groaned, as he takes a few frustrated steps away from his brother who’d already foreseen and expected this behavior from him.

Inka raised her hand at Denis thinking his ranting would go on, “No… no, at least he’s got a foundation of the plan, I wonder just how similar we can work this plan close to Arthur’s execution,” she trailed off,

“Well, we obviously can’t use the ‘trolley’ part because they’ll probably check in on the contents of those too,” Arthur explained and Valentin frowned.

“Why not?” he asked, “What if it was something they can’t see? Like something that they’d die if they were in contact with, it's a lab after all,” he suggested, Valentin’s brain was hard-wired to scheme for things like this, then again, it’s no surprise that he’ll spontaneously think of ways to make the situation work in his favor,

Inka snapped her fingers at Valentin, “That! Let’s say…” she trailed off, thinking of an exact example of Valentin’s idea,

“You can say radon, it’s known for being used in medicine and it could be dangerous, it is radiation,” Rodrigo announced, and everyone’s eyes darted to him, one with amusement and the rest with a doubting look.

“How do you know that?” Denis asked,

“I study,” Rodrigo replied,

And with that response the others resumed the discussion, “Okay so we’re delivering radon, I’m going to try and reach August again but she’s not responding, I just hope she sees this otherwise we’ll just have to barrel through that guard,” Inka clarified and at least one phase of the plan was somewhat thought through,

“Alright, so far the plan goes along with Madeline and Valya entering the lab under the disguise Art made, but how is Inka gonna get in the building in the first place, we know how she’ll get in contact with the guard with being transported around right, but how does she even get inside in the first place?” Denis asked, once again making it obvious that matters about Inka’s safety seem to be his main priority.

“Simp,” Valentin mumbled under his breath,

“Thank you for the comment, Valya, that answered my question,” Denis ranted with wide arm gestures that just proved the younger brother right, and everybody seemed to think so too.

Arthur thought of ways to help but her head was being occupied by something else. She’s made peace with the fact that she’ll not be joining and just help from the outside of the lab but the recent memory of seeing her brother walking in the clinic with bloodied hands made her waver and question her decision. The silence of the room just made her think about it more than she should.

‘I’m… a f*****g coward’ she thought as she reminisced her reason for not coming along and sharing the same enthusiasm, she’s being reviewing Valentin’s words when he said it was better for her to stay outside but thinking about it now her sole reasoning is just that ‘she’s scared’.

Denis started slowly pacing around the room while mumbling under his breath, “…transport… Transport! Like she can be transported there! We saw transport trucks entering the labs before!” he announced with a bright beaming smile and Valentin had the fleeting urge of clapping at his brother, but that would only piss him off.

Nowadays, any praise Valentin throws at Denis, whether genuine or not, the latter just considers as a condescending insult.

Inka nodded at the idea, but it seems that they were facing more questions than solutions, “Then how am I going to get in those?” she asked and at that moment, everything in Valentin’s head clicked into place, like piecing puzzles together. Valentin now knows which parts were missing to complete the plan.

He couldn’t help but smile and lean closer with reignited excitement, circling his index finger to gesture for everyone to gather close, “So the plan starts here,” he began pointing at Arthur,

Frowning, Arthur felt a surge of confusion and panic at Valentin’s words, “Huh? What…” She wanted to remind him that she’s not coming along, but her previous doubts weighed on her and made her waver,

Valentin nodded, “Yes, you’re really better out here than in there, here’s your part…” he narrated,

Trailing off to explain the plan, despite being regarded as sporadic, and prompt rather than prepared, Valentin is somewhat the meticulous type with an inherent talent to solve problems, unfortunately, it only does come out when the amount of obstacles is equal to the amount of enthusiasm he has in that same duration.

With that, the plan is at play. They only have a few more hours to prepare what was needed and in those hours they were working in haywire, even Denis and Rodrigo got involved in the actual execution.

And the plan is at play. It starts when Side A, consisting of Arthur, Denis, and Rodrigo, with Inka at first, survey Mariella’s vicinity, it was something without certainty so they need to be more alert than ever, but the main plan was to intercept one of the transport trucks and have Inka latch onto one to get in the facility.

At exactly 6:00 AM Side B consisting of Madeline, Valentin, and, later on, Inka, enters the facility under the guises of the staff, latex masks and uniforms are in order and the former didn’t fail them in the facial recognition system the building has for the staff. As expected, the tension was on Madeline. Even in the locker room as they changed, he’s already gotten suspicious stares. However, both of them couldn't help but noticed how the lab's multiple hallways and hospital-like demeanor could affect their execution.

Something that everyone expected, but other than the obvious distance that the other staff created with Madeline’s disguise, Valentin faced no such problems and they put their plan into play. One of those is taking preparing a trolley for Inka, and from the blueprint, it seems like the lab fell short on surveillance cameras when it comes to the storage room.

However, it's a gamble whether they recently got them after Madeline’s escape.

At 8:32 AM, Side A successfully intercepted a truck when Denis purposely blocked the truck's route and created a big mess out of it, something he’s naturally good at as well, that ruckus was more than enough time to have Inka latch on under the truck having all that she needs to be protected during so.

The truck arrived at 8:53 AM, as announced by the staff manager of some sorts, Madeline and Valentin were on the move to get their trolleys, once they exited through the staff door and come in contact with the truck, Valentin left his trolley directly on the side of the truck as he pretended to help with unloading the materials onto the other staff’s carts.

Madeline and Valentin did their part to stall the process of unloading the materials off the truck to give Inka time to crawl onto the trolley left on the side for her, and by the end when everything was gotten off the truck and the driver revved the engine, Valentin returned to the trolley, moving the back wheels slightly side to side pretending to see if the wheels were working fine.

But in truth he was already checking the change in weight, confirming that Inka did manage to crawl onto it, and as they made their way to the storage room as a group Valentin took the liberty to subtly look around the room, the smell of hand sanitizer and something else similar to muriatic acid faintly reached his nose while looking around but it seems it still has none, they shouldn’t be too worried about the interior of storage room but they do have cameras right outside the room.

Madeline glanced at Valentin, who scratched his nape, a signal that phase 1 of the plan was successful, with that Madeline headed into phase 2. Valentin waited for the rest of the staff to leave the storage room, including Madeline.

He looked onto the other trolleys, he’s somewhat in uniform so the overalls and other protective equipment are included so he just grabbed another emptied trolley with the signs for ‘Toxic’, and ‘Caution’ indicated in bold black fonts over red paint.

‘Is this serious? I did think it could work, but not this easy,’

Valentin thought as he tapped Inka’s trolley and told her to switch with the one for the toxic materials, he was not surprised to see her also clad in protective equipment, but it was quite a sight.

“Denis?” he asked, referring if it was his brother that forced her to go through all of the trouble,

“Your brother is a pain in the ass,” she replied, confirming that it is,

After the switch, Valentin was on his route to August’s lab with Inka. On the other hand, Madeline was already working out his way of gathering quite the attention, since he is trying to work the same tasks as the others, his constant failure to do so only made the others warier of him, unbeknownst to Valentin’s team, but the facility has a strict rule of limiting non-professional interactions between the staff.

However, they can absolutely report any unusual behavior to the guards. So far, Madeline’s actions didn’t seem to warrant that behavior from the others.

Back to Valentin and Inka, they finally reached August’s labs, as expected the guard stood at the end of the hallway in front of her door, and onto the right side of the said hallways clad in a neat white paint and cream trimmings, was August’s toilet another gamble for them to see if Montreal and Pierre are that much of assholes to invade August's only privacy.

“What’s this,” the guard asked,

“…Transport,” Valentin replied,

The guard nodded and approached to reach and open the trolley but Valentin caught his hand, “I wouldn’t dare sir, see this is Radon, yeah? Being exposed to it in this amount is... oh... wait—ehem-excuse me—“ Valentin trailed off, pretending to groan as he clutched his stomach,

Frowning with concern for both himself and Valentin, under the guise still, the guard backed up, “What’re you doing? What’s happening?” he asked,

Valentin frantically looked around and dashed to August’s toilet, pulling out a stink bomb, as he entered the cubicle,

“Hey! You can’t go in there!” the guard yelled.

“Sorry sir, explosive diarrhea is one of the side effects of that chemical,” Valentin yelled from inside the bathroom. “Actually, sir, can you push the trolley in here? I’ll need to see if there are any leaks I can fix in a not-so-open area,” he yelled again, still feigning pain.

Groaning, the guards did as he told, grumbling as he pressed a handkerchief against his nose to fight the foul stench of the stink bomb Valentin used as he pushed the cart inside the bathroom. The moment he did, Inka burst out of the trolley, opting to cover the guard’s mouth first, and while the guard got to fight her off, once Valentin helped, he was powerless. Two against one in that malicious situation was never going to work.

Inka grabbed the earpiece and placed it on her ears and as expected, people who were watching from the surveillance cameras are already reacting, pulling out a knife, Inka made a warning slice on the guard’s ear, an idea she got after Valentin told her about Madeline’s ear nicking last night, and placed the knife on the guard’s neck as he groaned in pain,

“You’re going to say that everything is fine… alright?” she whispered,

The guard, understanding his position, nodded and spoke to the earpiece that Inka brought to his lips, “There’s no problem here, we just got a staff with stomach issues,” he said.

And when Inka brought the earpiece to her ear again, it confirmed that he’s clarified it enough to get the surveillance team off their backs.

After being put in a sleeper hold, they placed the unconscious guard inside the cubicle and stripped him off his clothing all in haste, luckily he was someone with rather generic features and since the rest of his body was covered in clothing, even gloves for his hands, the only challenge was to mimic his face, and Inka stayed long enough with Arthur to learn a few tricks and used make-up and a wig to match the guard’s hair.

Or a close match, somewhat.

With the first switch done, Valentin bound the guard, hands, feet, and mouth and even went as far as taping him down on the toilet seat with the duct tape that he carried with him. They made some final retouches and exited the bathroom. Inka, now disguised as the guard, took the trolley from Valentin’s hands, and as he left, she knocked on August’s door.

A package this big won’t fit in her little package box, so using the door would be normal in this case,

“Yes?” August called to form the other side of the door.

Inka subtlety covered the receiver part of the earpiece. “Radon, it has diarrhea as a side effect, so you’ll need to go to the toilet in about seven to ten minutes,” she whispered.

They wouldn’t be able to see it. None of the people involved in both Side A and Side B would even come as close to understanding the amount of relief that flooded August’s veins at that moment.

They simply had no clue. They basically saved her life.