Chapter 174: The Death of Apis
Things had been going poorly for the Black Hand ever since they first began targeting Bruno and his family. At least twenty-five percent of their leadership had either vanished or met a grisly and mysterious end.
No doubt somebody was targeting them all. In a way, it was their karma coming back to them for all the evil they had done both in this life and the one Bruno had come from. Currently, Dragutin Dimitrijevi?, better known by the name of Apis, was at a port in what would one day become the independent nation of Croatia.
He was looking at his ticket and passport carefully, as well as any other information he had, all of which was a false identity. He had taken rather extreme lengths to conceal his identity, going so far as to grow a full beard, permanently scar his face, and even wear an eyepatch over one eye.
Like the rest of his fellow conspirators, Apis was on the run. It was clear to him now that he was being hunted. Three attempts had been made on his life over the course of the past week, which, though they appeared to be mere coincidences, he was not convinced of such a lie.
No, one was a coincidence, two was suspicious, and three was a pattern. Someone was trying to kill him, though he did not know who. After failing repeatedly to harm Bruno and his family, and losing many talented agents in the process, the mysterious Balkans-based organization known by the name of the "Black Hand," or "Unification or Death" depending on who you asked, had ultimately taken Bruno off their hit list.
It took some time for German Intelligence to properly discover the identities of the Black Hand and their agents. But after some, shall we say, extensive interrogation sessions between the various operatives that German authorities had captured from the shadowy syndicate, the Reich had more or less discovered the entire network and their political machinations.
Naturally, considering the extensive ties that Heidi had to German Intelligence via the distant half of her family's exceptional bloodline, it was only a matter of time before she learned about those targeting her husband.
She had whispered a few words, and a few members of the organization went missing or found themselves the victims of an unfortunate and tragic accident. But it didn't end there. No... Heidi was very angry, beyond displeased with the Black Hand for trying to harm her loved ones.
And while she didn't have the ability to take her vengeance against the von Wittelsbachs for their role in her mother's untimely death, she did have the means to strike against these damned Balkan fanatics.
Because of this, what remained of their leadership was now on the run, trying to hide in distant countries outside of Europe's immediate sphere of influence. After all, they didn't know whether it was the Habsburgs, the Romanovs, or the Hohenzollerns who were targeting them, but Europe was the domain of the United Imperial Powers. At least central Europe was, and these three mighty Empires were more than capable of striking far beyond their own borders.