The Bounty Hunter Chapter 85: Investigation

August 18th, 2089

Vivian Pendragons 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 acknowledgent, but couldnt resist asking a question. Father, I am honored that you would choose , but shouldnt the Council already have a task force regarding Pandemonium? At my ntion of the Council, I noticed my father resist releasing a sigh. He has often regaled with stories about the Council etings and their shenanigans. I daresay that as soon as I officially beco the Crown Princess hell make go to these etings in his stead to save himself great heartache.

I attempted to get the Council to approve such a force, but for so reason the Chinese greatly opposed. I feel it was a retaliation due to my refusal to budge regarding our trade agreents 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 ca unbidden to my mind, and I could feel myself blushing. Damn hormones, I just want him as a retainer! I dont care about his incredible looks or his chiseled body as he gently carried 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 et 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 so 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 nurous 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 claid 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 monunt 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 governnt buildings and they have attacked the local bingo night in a rural small town. This has made people realize that anyone and anything could beco a target.

Secondly, the mbers 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 Arican paraplegic, the assailants in the attacks are many and varied. This has made people paranoid, since anyone could be a Pandemonium mber. 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.

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 nurous web videos have inspired many sociopaths and serial killers, and major cris have already started rising. The only thing we have managed to learn of them is the na of their leader: Dante. We wouldnt even know this normally, but for so reason he has started broadcasting an online cooking show that airs weekly. Strangely enough, hes rather talented at cooking and the show has beco 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, n, won 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 so 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 ti to et 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 docunts I have been surveying and quickly hurried to the designated eting room in the east wing of the palace. 4 high ranking agents from the intelligence agency were already situated inside, 3 n and 1 won, 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 nas 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-inford 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 beco clear that right now we cannot predict the actions of Pandemonium. However, that does not an we cant 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 handso face that is unfortunately marred with so fearso 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 OReilly, a red headed Irishwoman, nodded in agreent Thats a good start, but I believe we should also investigate our contacts in the underworld. Theres no way that Pandemonium hasnt 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 cant predict their movents, so well go after their foundation instead. Their recruitnt, fundraising, and networking in the underworld all are weak points we can target. However, everyone has forgotten sothing. I believe that while we are cutting off Pandemoniums 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 dont care as long as we implent it imdiately. The sooner we cut this organization off the better, I shudder to think what they would start doing after they expand.