Chapter 25: The Wildwalker
— Morning - IHB Local Branch —
Strauss sat in his office, eyes darting between multiple monitors as his fingers flew across the keyboard. One screen played security footage of Maximilian's bar brawl with the bikers, the evidence Oldcowboy had provided during yesterday's meeting when suggesting someone might have tracked and incapacitated Necrotox before his arrest.
As a Level 9 IHB officer, Strauss recognized the combat skills on display. The man in the video demonstrated close-quarters combat abilities rivaling Blood Mongoose himself, though only CQC techniques were visible in the recording.
"Maximilian Sterling Graham..." Strauss typed the name under 'Surveillance Target' in his report, recalling yesterday's discussion with Oldcowboy and Thomas.
Oldcowboy had proposed Maximilian might be Blood Mongoose's protégé - an idea Strauss initially dismissed. UEC psychological profiles deemed the legendary operative Blood Mongoose was a "lone wolf" type with near-zero likelihood of taking an apprentice or starting a family. Yet their analysts had been wrong before. They'd failed to predict Blood Mongoose's family life, after all.
The man had taken a wife and a daughter, though his dangerous profession eventually drove them away. Tragedy followed: first, his wife's accidental death when their daughter was fourteen, then Blood Mongoose's died during a highly classified UEC mission the following year. The information on that mission was so sensitive that Strauss, with his level 9 officer authority, couldn't access the files. This left their fifteen-year-old daughter to enter the UEC's protection program for fallen operatives' families.
If the analysts were wrong once, they could be wrong again.
Perhaps Maximilian was indeed Blood Mongoose's secret student, trained in the Wildlands, maybe even raised among Wildwalkers.
That would explain his advanced camouflage skills that fooled Necrotox, despite supposedly only possessing enhanced strength.
Strauss resumed typing while uttering.
"Warning: Suspect possesses elite black ops training with confirmed strength enhancement EF. Exercise extreme caution during surveillance."