The incident that prompted the international arrest warrant for
At the time, the world was abuzz with talk of nothing else.
The world would come to learn just how terrifying Potimas Harifenas truly was.
However, the information conveyed through the news was nothing but the surface of things.
To those who knew the full truth, they were simply grateful the damage had been limited to what it was. They rejoiced at how few the casualties were, considering.
Such was the enormity of the calamity Potimas had stockpiled.
No matter how cunning and cautious Potimas might be, he could no longer keep something that massive hidden forever. And so it burst.
That was the truth of the incident.
The one in which three hundred and seventy-six people died.
"Human trafficking, of all things. How archaic can you get."
Foduei sighed as he looked over the documents handed to him.
Human trafficking — the so-called slave trade — was a practice that had supposedly been abolished long ago. Yet the ugly reality was that it had never truly been eradicated beneath the surface.
The Saliera Church devoted considerable effort to cracking down on these underground slave smuggling networks.
Their goal was to rescue the people being illegally sold into slavery.
Foduei himself, however, had no intention of condemning the act of trafficking as evil in and of itself.
After all, human trafficking had sometimes been a necessary element in keeping economies afloat.
Desperate parents might sell their children to rebuild their livelihood. And the children who were sold did not necessarily end up unhappy.
If one were willing to stretch the interpretation, human trafficking was merely a form of labor brokerage.
If both the buyer and the seller emerged happier from the transaction, then it was simply another business model.
That said, "decent" human trafficking was, by its very nature, never referred to as such.
In different words, it happened everywhere in the world.
The kind of trafficking Foduei considered evil was the criminal variety that ordinary citizens imagined when they heard the term — the genuinely repugnant kind.
Abducting children and selling them off.
Using trafficked people to commit crimes.
The sort of thing that, once exposed, would be prosecuted without mercy.
The documents before Foduei detailed precisely such sordid dealings happening behind closed doors, with no room for defense.
"So? You managed to secure both the source and the distribution network, I trust?"
"Yes. We shut them down in coordination with local law enforcement."
The man answering Foduei's question was built like a tank — a sinewy, powerful fellow who looked utterly out of place in a suit.
He served on the board of a private security firm that Foduei personally operated.
That was the polished way of putting it. In truth, he was the captain of Foduei's rough-work field unit.
Foduei was a heavyweight in the financial world, and at times he had to carry out dealings that were less than clean.
Things that could never see the light of day, things that required force.
This particular operation was no exception. They had dismantled an illegal human trafficking network, but the method — violent military-style suppression — was nothing to be proud of.
Normally, one would gather evidence and let the law take its course. But Foduei knew that doing so would only give them time to flee.
Hence the heavy-handed approach.
It was, of course, illegal.
"You ran into some trouble, I see."
Foduei let his gaze settle on the captain's neck as he spoke.
Bandages were wrapped around it.
This captain was one of Foduei's most trusted enforcers — a fighter through and through.
Given the nature of their underground work, Foduei held him in as much or even greater trust than his regular bodyguards, and valued his ability above all else.
That was precisely why he was here reporting in person.
If the captain had come back wounded, the job must have put up quite a fight — or so Foduei concluded.
"Oh, no. The suppression itself wasn't a problem at all. This is a wound I picked up afterward, during a minor incident."
The captain dismissed Foduei's concern with a casual wave of his hand.
"It was inflicted by one of the people we rescued. They'd been drugged or something — completely deranged. It was terrible."
The captain spoke with sympathy toward the very person who had wounded him.
Just how badly had that individual been treated for him to react that way?
"Bad as all that?"
"Yes. I believe they'd been subjected to illegal drug experiments. From what I could see, they had lost their sanity entirely. And that was true of every single victim in that facility."
"Well, that's..."
For a man who made a living in the underworld to show such revulsion — that alone spoke volumes about how ghastly the scene had been.
It was a testament to just how brutally those trafficked victims had been treated.
"You look pale. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. Just a bit queasy. Let me continue the report."
The captain's complexion had gone noticeably wan.
Foduei attributed it to the man recalling the horrors he had witnessed and feeling ill at the memory.
But as the captain pressed on with his report, his face grew paler by the minute.
When it reached that point, Foduei realized the man's condition was deteriorating for real.
"You don't look well at all. We'll continue the report another day. Sit down and rest for a moment."
"I... th... you..."
The captain's words had become slurred beyond recognition. His massive frame sank into the sofa nearby.
Foduei watched him and immediately picked up the phone, ordering that a physician be arranged.
That decision would end up saving Foduei's life.
A scream erupted.
When people came rushing in, they found Foduei unconscious on the ground, with the captain's teeth sunk into the side of his neck.