Published at 21st of March 2026 6:03 am

Chapter 910: Deadzone

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The interrogator left the facility without even realizing that his key witness had met this end moments later. He and the federal agents by his side tasked with his own protection entered the car and drove off to the headquarters of the Swiss National Police.

Along the way the Interrogator gazed at the sketch of Conferencière with a satisfied smile on his face.

"I think we may be one step closer to closing this loop. Don’t you think?"

The guards said nothing. They continued to drive the car and focus on the road. But the Interrogator seemed neither to care nor notice as he continued to think about what Jacque had said.

The structure of Reveil de France was far more intricate than he had ever suspected. Even Jacque, who had been a member for over a year, had limited contact or coordination with anyone outside his own cell.

From his words, Philippe, the leader of the cell, did most of the communication outside their own internal network. But he was dead now, along with everyone else in the cell.

His death was still a matter of curiosity, as the investigator pulled out his briefcase and flipped through the files. The photographs were taken earlier in the night. The suspects lay dead, gathered together.

He wouldn’t have an autopsy report until the morning after at the earliest. Which meant that until then he had no way of knowing how they had died.

Initial investigations of the corpses suggested they died quickly and without resistance. But the problem was that there were no entry or exit wounds. Nor was there any sign of strangulation.

Poison was highly unlikely as they had been killed instantly while walking through an alleyway mid escape.

Whatever the Germans had used was efficient enough to kill their targets quickly, and yet volatile enough to leave no immediate trace.

There were no signs of lesions, rashes, bruising, or burns. As he sat there contemplating what weapon could possibly be used in such a method, with such a high rate of lethality. A thought suddenly struck him.

He quickly scrambled over his papers, frantically, the sweat now dripping from his brow onto the files in front of them. A thought had occurred. He hadn’t believed the stories were true at the time.

After all, he was just a young man with grandeurs of delusion, walking into a foreign battlefield as part of the French Foreign Legion.

In Spain, during its civil war and France’s brief intervention, little credence was given to whispers of Catalonian Anarchists being silently wiped out with chemical weapons utilized by hidden German agents embedded with the Royal Spanish Army.

There was enough horror to witness with the terrifying and destructive power that the Germans revealed to the world during the infamous Operation Balmung. Where Germany used thermobaric cluster munitions to obliterate an entrenched and fortified French position.

But... If it were true... if the Germans had developed sophisticated chemical agents far greater than the ones they utilized at Belgrade and Ypres during the Great War. Could they have used such a weapon to silently remove this thorn in their side?

The interrogator was quick to reach for the radio receiver from his passenger seat, frantically screaming into it as he did so.

"This is Agent Louis Dubois, I have reason to suspect a potential chemical attack has been conducted on Swiss soil!, I need to speak with the agent in command stat! Over!"

Only static emerged on the other side of the line. Prompting Louis to press the receiver and repeat his message again.

"This is Agent Louis Dubois, I have reason to suspect a potential chemical attack has been conducted on Swiss soil! Is anyone listening?"

Once more, static was the only thing that could be heard over the radio. Prompting Louis to fall back into his chair in utter disbelief.

"God dammit, what the hell is going on!"

The driver adjusted his posture to peer outside the windshield, the headlights flickering through the road and the trees beyond it.

"Honestly, we might be in a dead zone. You know how it gets once we exit the city limits. The radio towers are few and far between here and Geneva. This is why I suggested we travel by rail."

Louis simply scoffed and rolled his eyes in response to this.

"And risk a random search and seizure by the German Railway Forces whom those cowards in Parliament have allowed to operate security at our rail stations? No, thank you. Still... this is a great inconvenience. Especially now that I think I’ve discovered how those terrorists were eliminated."

The driver didn’t take off the road but continued to entertain Louis, nonetheless.

"You said something about a chemical attack just now... Do you really believe that the Germans used chemical weapons to eliminate a small group of terrorists? Isn’t there a million other, safer ways to do so?"

Louis however was completely convinced of his theory and was desperate to prove his case.

"There were rumors in France that the Germans had agents embedded with the Spanish Royal Army who used such underhanded tactics to remove Catalonian partisans. It was completely ignored because of the operational realities of the time. But we know the Germans have a history of favoring chemical weapons. Just look at what they did to Belgrade. There is no doubt in my mind that if we perform a proper investigation under the assumption that the Germans are using chemical weapons we will find some evidence to support it."

Louis had been so ardent in his defense that he didn’t realize that the car was slowing down and getting off the main road. Taking a detour down a dirt path into the country side. They were so deep in the forest by the time he stopped talking that he only then began to question their whereabouts.

"Where the hell are we? Why aren’t we on the main road?"

The driver stopped the car completely and looked over to Louis, the crack in his facade finally lifting beneath the veil of the moonlight.

"You and Jacque really were two birds of a feather... Both of you should have kept your mouths shut."

Louis’s eyes dilated to the size of needles as he reached for his hip where his sidearm was located.

But his arm was already restrained by the driver. And when he tried to look behind to the man behind him, a seal was pressed to his mouth, attached to a cannister, the man in the back seat pressed a seal over Louis’s mouth and nose, releasing a burst of gas from the canister.

His eyes rolled to the back of his head as his vision faded completely. The agent stopped only after the chemical gas faded into Louis’s body, breaking the seal not a second before it was deemed safe.

After which he sighed and shook his head in relief.

"That was a close one. That bastard almost got a shot off. How are we supposed to return to headquarters in Geneva and deliver the news with a bullet through the fucking windshield?"

The driver opened the car door and stepped outside, pulling out a cigarette as his companion did the same. They sat there with Louis’ body lying lifeless in the passenger seat of the car smoking beneath the moonlight in silence.

Afterward, the driver flicked out his cigarette and stomped it into the dirt. Walking over to the trunk of his car where he retrieved two shovels, and handed one off to his fellow conspirator.

"Get digging. If they find him, the story falls apart. We want the Swiss to think that he was a member of Reveil de France and was trying to silence the traitor who killed Philippe and the others. The boys in Zurich’s precinct have already disposed of the bodies and any other evidence to the contrary."

The two men worked in silence for several minutes, the rhythmic scrape of their shovels the only sound breaking the quiet of the forest.

When the hole was finally deep enough, they dragged Louis from the car and lowered him into the grave.

The driver wiped the sweat from his brow and glanced down at the corpse.

"Pity," he muttered. "He was sharper than the rest."

His companion shrugged as he knelt beside the body and opened Louis’s briefcase.

Inside were the interrogation files, the photographs of the dead terrorists, and the sketch of the woman they called conferencière.

He flipped through them briefly before pulling a lighter from his pocket.

The flame caught quickly and the papers curled and blackened as the fire consumed them, the sketch disappearing into ash within seconds.

"Berlin said none of this could survive the night," he said calmly, watching the last of the pages burn.

When the fire died out, he kicked the smoldering remains into the grave beside Louis.

"Shame," the driver said, beginning to shovel dirt back into the hole. "He was getting close."

"Close doesn’t matter," the other man replied.

They finished filling the grave and stamped the earth flat before scattering leaves and branches across the disturbed soil.

Within minutes, the clearing looked untouched.

The driver tossed the shovels back into the trunk and lit another cigarette.

"Let’s go," he said, climbing behind the wheel. "Geneva is still expecting a report."

The engine started, and the car rolled back onto the forest road.

Behind them, the forest swallowed the grave; and with it, the last trace of Louis Dubois’s investigation.

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