Baccano! - Volume 2 - Chapter 3

PROLOGUE III

TERRORIST GROUP

December 29, 1931Noon

In a wasteland a few dozen miles south of Chicago, an abandoned factory stood quietly.

Inside, in one of its larger halls, a group of more than fifty people stood in well-ordered rows. Each of them had an appearance that was completely different from ordinary people, and their bold, cunning eyes produced a tone halfway between the military and the mafia. Surrounded by the ash gray of the floor and the dull gray of the walls, their ranks were enveloped in abnormal silence.

Breaking that silence, one man spoke. He stood in front of the assembled, his sharp gaze holding a dark, quiet flame.

The man—Goose Perkins—delivered a line that was truly popular in that era, the golden age of the mafia—or at least, that would seem so, given the portrayals that would arrive from the movie industry in later years:

“Gentlemen, I regret to inform you that there is a traitor in our midst.”

The silence of the ranks was unbroken. Paying no particular heed to this, Goose loudly continued his speech.

“A short while ago, our great leader, Master Huey Laforet, was apprehended by the government’s swine. Our great master is about to be judged by the benighted masses’ chaotic law!”

His tone was gradually growing stronger, but there was no change in the dark light in his eyes.

“However, that is an issue of no consequence! Through the maneuver which will be executed tomorrow evening, we will retake Master Huey without fail! The problem lies in the existence of the traitor who has made our master crawl through the land of humiliation!”

Even after he’d said that much, there was no change. Not in the light in Goose’s eyes, nor in the expressions of the fifty men who listened attentively.

“I investigated the existence of the traitor personally. However, even so, Master Huey is merciful. It is my intent to emulate him.”

Clasping his hands behind him and turning his back on the ranks, Goose asked a question. A quiet, simple question.

“Let me ask the traitor. If he has realized his error, let him take one step forward, without saying a word. If he does not have that courage, know that neither sophistry nor lament will reach me any longer.”

At that, for the first time, expressions appeared on the faces of the ranks of men.

The face of one man who had been standing at the head of a line twisted into a smirk, and he took a step forward.

Then, the instant they saw that gesture, every remaining member of the ranks smirked, and all fifty men stepped forward together.

“Well, Goose? How does it feel to be betrayed by everybody?”

With an ironic smirk, the young man who’d taken the first step drew his gun.

“After you tried to trick us with that painfully obvious bluff, too. My apologies. Still, you couldn’t have anticipated this outcome, could you?”

However, Goose was unruffled. The dark glint in his eyes merely writhed, understated.

“Let me ask you one final question, foolish Nader.”

Possibly, he’d taken those words as surrender. Nader’s face twisted into happiness.

“What might that be, Goose? Just so you know, if it’s about how you can be saved, I’ll tell you—there’s no way.”

“So you dislike Master Huey and myself. Very well. However, on what sort of ideals do you intend to base your revolution? How will you bring it about?”

As he posed his question, Goose’s expression was solemn. The traitors sneered at him with truly relaxed attitudes. Not even bothering to speak politely anymore, they answered him in tones mixed of pity and scorn.

“Ha-ha, revolution? You’re well aware of the answer to that… It’s not even possible! Listen, we’re not gonna follow either you or Huey. We’re going to go sign on with Chicago’s Russo Family. With this many of us, all skilled fighters, we just might be able to take over the whole outfit one of these days. Actually, now that the feds have pinched Scarface, we could grab all of Chicago! From now on, the times belong to power, Goose, not ideals! At the very least, I’m more fit to use this group’s strength than you, who got booted out of the army, or Huey, who’s a total enigma.”

Giving a faint sigh at that reply, Goose shook his head and told Nader:

“Your answer is one I’d anticipated, but to think you’d try to join the mafia’s movement at this late date… What utter foolishness. Capone’s fall is an opportunity, you say? On the contrary. It’s robbed the Chicago mafia of any opportunities for the time being. Besides, without instructions from Master Huey or myself, do you imagine that greenhorns such as yourselves could last a single day in the shadows of Chicago?”

“…Thanks for the warning. Is that all you had to say?”

“No, there’s more. You called my words a bluff, but I wasn’t lying.”

As he spoke, Goose lightly raised a hand.

“Hmm?”

“I told you, I’d investigated all the traitors. …As well as the friendly members who’d had enough of you.”

As he brought his hand down, a ferocious roar rang out. It was the sound of several dozen guns firing at once, and after the roar had repeated several times, silence returned to the factory.

“Wha…?”

When Nader turned around, fearfully, the ash-gray floor had been stained a murky red.

The men at the front of the ranks had acquired ventilation holes here and there on their bodies and lost their lives and were lying in the sea of red.

The thirty or so men who were still standing had smoke-wreathed gun muzzles trained on the stunned Nader.

“Y-you!”

“What did I tell you, Nader? I said, ‘There is a traitor in our midst.’ However, I meant that you had been betrayed.”

As Goose spoke, he was expressionless. In contrast, possibly because he hadn’t been able to process the sudden turn of events, Nader said nothing, but he was visibly bathed in cold sweat.

“Each of these thirty men brought me reports that you intended to betray us. It seems they were unable to follow you. What a pity.”

Maybe because he’d finally managed to get a handle on his situation, with his jaw chattering, Nader suddenly reached into his jacket and pulled out a glossy black handgun.

A sharp, hot pain ran through his right hand.

Thunk.

The piece he’d just pulled fell quietly to the floor. It wasn’t until he saw the woman who’d appeared in front of him, unnoticed, that he realized his hand had gone with it, from the wrist down.

“Cha…Chané…”

Chané the Fanatic. The woman, who wore a military uniform, always followed Huey’s orders to the letter and was the best assassin in the organization. They said the assassins of Asia paralyzed their senses with drugs; she had paralyzed her entire body with ideas, to the extent that one wondered if she’d forgotten she was a woman, or even a human being.

As Nader fought the pain in his arm, he desperately scanned the woman in front of him.

“I-I thought you were dead. Didn’t you die when they caught Huey?!”

Even at Nader’s scream, Chané stayed silent from beginning to end. Goose answered the question in her place.

“She lived. She regrets it more than anything. I expect that’s precisely why she feels she must remove anything that threatens to obstruct the operation tomorrow evening.”

Still silent, without even nodding in agreement, Chané quietly raised her weapon, which was dripping with blood. It was a thick, sharp military knife. The one that had just severed Nader’s hand.

“Wait, Chané.”

At Goose’s voice, they turned; Chané’s face looked questioning, while Nader seemed to be clinging to hope.

And then Nader learned: Hope was something he should never have expected in the first place.

“It would be boring to kill him easily.”

“You sure about this, Goose? If you settle him like that, he might come back alive.”

From the covered bed of a military truck, a subordinate spoke to Goose, who was in the driver’s seat.

After the failed coup, Goose had tied Nader up, welded shut all the doors that led to the outside, and left the factory behind him. They’d stopped the bleeding from his wrist, but they’d destroyed all the vehicles except the ones they were using. This meant that, in order for Nader to be saved, he’d have to get out of the factory, then reach a town that lay several dozen miles away.

“That isn’t an impossible distance to travel on foot, and it’s not as if he doesn’t have food.”

“That’s true. You’re right. Right about now, he’s probably worn through his ropes by scraping them against a post and is trying to break down an exterior door.”

“In that case…”

“By the way, Spike. I trust your sniping skills haven’t deteriorated?”

Stopping the truck when they were about three hundred yards from the factory, he interrupted his subordinate with a question.

“Uh…”

“Shoot the white box beside the building entrance.”

“…Ah. Roger that, Goose.”

Responding with understanding, the man named Spike unfolded a bundle that had been in the back of the truck.

Inside was a jet-black sniper rifle. It had been specially manufactured, and its barrel was longer than normal. Cheerfully, the man set it up in the back of the truck, took careful aim, and—

“Annnd kaboom.”

With those anticlimactic words, Spike pulled the trigger.

A few seconds after the shot rang out, they saw the white box beside the entrance burst into flames. After Goose gained visual confirmation, he wordlessly set the truck in motion again.

After another minute had passed, the factory exploded from the inside, shooting ferocious flames and pitch-black smoke into the sky. Seen from a distance, it looked almost like a miniature, but the delayed roar that followed echoed in their stomachs, eloquently telling of the scale of the explosion.

“‘I might be saved.’ Dying in an instant while harboring that hope is a truly happy thing, wouldn’t you say?”

“That’s just like you, Goose. How benevolent.”

At Spike’s ironic comment, Goose smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. Joining in, the terrorists riding in the truck bed burst out laughing.

All except one: Chané, who was in the passenger seat.

“All right: Tomorrow evening’s plan must not fail. Once you’ve finished your preparations, make for Chicago Union Station.”

Goose went over the next day’s plan with his group of more than thirty elites.

“This country needs a rest. In order for that to happen, Master Huey is indispensible.”

With the dark light in his eyes at maximum brightness, Goose made a quiet declaration:

“To that end, let us make the passengers on the Flying Pussyfoot the valuable foundation…under our grave marker, the headstone of the Lemures.”