Day 164 - Declan's Mortal Enemy

 Declan’s Mortal Enemy

 Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

Sonny almost felt sorry for Declan. Almost. He had lost fights to the same man twice. And now he was being forced to work with him. Declan was a man of massive pride. The losses were a slap in the face. Sonny couldn’t imagine how this felt. But Sonny had lost many fights along the way and he wasn’t moping about it. Part of the job was picking yourself up and moving on to fight the next fight.

Things hadn’t gone the way they wanted at Club B. That was a massive understatement. His tattooed man turned out to be two tattooed men, and both had gotten away in the chaos at Club B. The man with the forty-seven on his arm was a mystery, but the sixty-six had been caught on CCTV in Bandung. Sonny had alerted the Bandung police and they were sending a team to assist. But they wouldn’t get there for a day or two. Right now, the interesting development was the appearance of Rama, the man who had defeated Declan twice.

Sonny and Declan had been called in to talk to Declan’s supervisor. They were told that no one blamed them and they couldn’t have known. It was confusing for a moment, for they thought they were going to be praised for uncovering all the counterfeit currency hitting the streets. Instead, it sounded like they were the ones in trouble. It was explained that another department had an officer undercover and that their efforts had nearly exposed him. Sonny found that hard to believe, but he appreciated the danger and efforts undertaken by an undercover officer.

Sonny was happy to leave it at that, and go back to tracking down his tattooed suspects. But Declan couldn’t let it go and demanded to meet the officer. It might put him in danger, but Declan was adamant. He had informants all over town and was certain he could provide information the undercover office might need. The higher-ups here hesitant, but after many private conversations and secret phone calls, it was agreed that Sonny and Declan could meet the man.

Sonny was fairly certain Declan had hoped it wouldn’t be the same man he fought twice, despite that making sense, as their fights would certainly draw attention to whatever he was working on. Whatever he thought or expected, Sonny could see the pain on his face when they first met Rama.

Some officers would argue. Some would blame. Rama was fairly understanding, but demanded they stay out of his way from now on. Declan demand an exchange of information and it turned out they were working on the same case but from different directions. Rama explained what he knew about Naxis and The Foreigner and Yaz and Junko. Junko had meet with The Agents and sold them a story about wanting to spread international business and support each other, but Rama was fairly certain that was all a lie. He didn’t know their goals, but it seemed they intended to cross paths with The Dragon’s Claw and the major crime families in the city. It sounded like Naxis was preparing for a fight, but it was unclear if the Dragons understood what was happening.

Declan thanked him for the information and was suddenly quite respectful of the man. Maybe seeing a dangerous problem for the city at large helped put his petty grudge in perspective. Declan shared a list of informants and how they could get a message to Declan if Rama needed help. The low-level cash businesses around town were already being disrupted as people were losing faith in money. Fights were going to get worse as more and more people had trouble paying their debts and duties. It wouldn’t just be a war between two gangs, but battles on every level from street all the way up to the boardroom.

Sonny was to inform Interpol and try to pressure them to contact all the countries in the region. Jakarta was first, but it was likely just a testing ground and the problems here would soon flood everywhere. If the governments couldn’t contain their cash problems, then it would take an international alliance to find and stop Naxis.

They left in different directions and Rama disappeared back into the shadows of the night.

“This is going to get bad,” Declan finally said. “We don’t have the resources to handle this.”

Sonny agreed but didn’t know what to do. It was so much simpler to track a gunman with a tattoo. Sonny longed to go back to simpler days and simpler problems. This seemed so far beyond him, but it was apparently the cards he was dealt.