The Return of The Phantom General

The Collapse of a Dynasty

Meanwhile, in Lisa Thorne's shabby apartment.

Lisa was sitting on the floor, surrounded by old suitcases filled with clothes. She was crying while folding her mother's sweater. She was ready to run. She was sure her brother would fail or even be arrested by the police.

"We have to go to the train station, Mom," Lisa sobbed. "We'll go to Auntie's village in the South of France. It's safe there."

"But Caleb hasn't come home," Martha groped the air anxiously. "We can't leave Caleb."

"Brother has gone crazy, Mom! He went to the mafia headquarters! He won't come b—"

TING!

A loud SMS notification sound from Lisa's phone cut her off. The cracked-screen phone vibrated on the wooden table.

Lisa wiped her tears roughly. Maybe it was a threat from Julian? or a warning from the police?

With trembling hands, Lisa picked up the phone. The screen lit up brightly in the dim room.

SMS FROM: BANK OF ZURICH

MESSAGE: Transfer received from Account XXX-STERLING.

AMOUNT: CHF 500,000,000.00

ENDING BALANCE: CHF 500,000,035.50

Lisa's eyes widened. She squinted, then widened them again. She brought the phone close to her face until her nose touched the screen.

"One, two, three... six... eight zeros?" Lisa counted the digits in a whisper.

"What is it, Lisa? Who texted?" asked Martha.

Lisa laughed. A dry and hollow laugh. "This junk phone, Mom. Looks like it got a virus again. Or maybe hacked by an online gambling scammer."

"Virus?"

"Yes," Lisa threw the phone onto the mattress. "There's an incoming SMS saying our balance is now five hundred million Francs. Crazy, right? The scammer doesn't even make sense if they want to lie. Who has that much money? Stupid phone."

Lisa went back to folding clothes in frustration.

"But... what if it's true?" asked Martha quietly.

"Impossible, Mom! That's half a billion! Even if Brother Caleb robbed a bank, he wouldn't be able to carry that much money in his pants pocket!" Lisa shook her head. "Just ignore it. Let's go before Julian comes."

Lisa didn't know that out there, the "virus" she referred to had just bought half of the city of Zurich.

***

Two hours later. Early morning in the back alley of a fancy restaurant.

Snow was falling heavier, burying the rows of smelly garbage bins. Sewer rats scurried around looking for warm food scraps.

Among the piles of black plastic trash bags, something moved.

The figure wore an Armani suit that was now tattered and covered in black mud. One of his Italian leather shoes was missing. His hair, usually slicked back with expensive pomade, was now messy like a bird's nest, full of food scraps.

It was Julian Sterling. The Young Master who three hours ago was still the prince of this city.

Julian crawled on the snow. His trembling hands rummaged through the contents of a torn trash bag. He found a piece of stale burger that had been half-eaten.

Without hesitation, Julian stuffed the rotten burger into his mouth. He chewed it voraciously, saliva dripping from his chin. His eyes were wild, darting around staring at the darkness surrounding him.

"Don't look at me... don't look at me..." muttered Julian with a mouth full of stale food.

A police patrol car passed slowly, its rotating lights sweeping the dark alley. Two police officers got out, holding flashlights.

"Hey! You there!" shouted one of the policemen. "Sleeping here is prohibited! This is private property!"

The policeman approached, shining his flashlight on the vagrant's face.

The flashlight beam illuminated Julian's face, smeared with burger sauce and mud.

"Wait a minute..." The policeman frowned, bringing his face closer. "Sergeant, look at this! Isn't this... Julian Sterling? The person wanted for the bank leak scandal earlier?"

"Julian Sterling?" The police sergeant approached. "Impossible. Young Master Sterling wouldn't eat garbage."

Julian, hearing his name mentioned, suddenly stopped chewing. He looked up, staring at the flashlight beam.

His pupils shrank.

"NO! TURN IT OFF!" Julian screamed. He jumped back, covering his face with both hands.

"Mr. Sterling? Calm down, we are police," said the Sergeant trying to move forward.

"Those eyes! Don't open those eyes!" Julian crawled backward, his back hitting a brick wall. He pointed at the empty space behind the policemen. "There! Behind you! Thousands of eyes! They see me! They want to eat my soul!"

"There's no one here, Sir," said the confused policeman, looking back. The alley was empty.

"LIAR!" Julian pulled his own hair until a handful came out. "He is the ghost king! He sits on a throne of bones! He said one more... he needs one more!"

Julian suddenly laughed hysterically, then cried, then laughed again. Saliva foamed at the corners of his mouth. He picked up a used chicken bone from the trash and brandished it like a knife.

"Keep those eyes away from me! Caleb Thorne is the Devil! The Devil!"

The policemen looked at each other. They saw a man whose soul had been completely destroyed. Not by bankruptcy, not by prison, but by a terror that human logic could not explain.

"Call a mental ambulance," said the Sergeant quietly, looking at Julian with pity and horror. "And bring a straitjacket. This guy has lost his mind."

In the distance, on the roof of a tall building overlooking the alley, Caleb stood tall. He looked down, watching Julian being dragged into the police car while struggling madly.

Caleb lit his last cigarette of the night.

"One problem solved," whispered Caleb. The smoke from his cigarette formed a thin skull before disappearing in the wind. "Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine more."

He turned, disappearing into the shadows of the night, leaving the city he had just shaken to its core.

***

"For God's sake, Doctor, could you stop humming? There are five mutilated bodies here."

Inspector Muller, a veteran police officer with a protruding belly and a pale face holding back nausea, stared at the tall figure squatting in the middle of a pool of dried blood on the floor of Cafe Odette.

The figure was Dr. Hans Gruber. The notoriously genius Head of Forensics for the Zurich Police, who nevertheless had a reputation that made his colleagues shudder. Hans wore a spotless white suit, latex gloves, and round-rimmed glasses that reflected the glint of forensic lights.

"Art knows no context of place, Inspector," replied Dr. Hans without turning. He was busy examining the neck of Dimitri's corpse, which was separated from his head. "And please don't call this mutilation. That's a crude and uncivilized term. This is... anatomical deconstruction."

Hans lifted Dimitri's severed arm carefully, as if holding a fragile Ming artifact. He brought the cut bone close to his eyes, examining it with a magnifying glass.

"Look at this, Inspector," Hans muttered, his tone trembling. "This humerus bone wasn't cut with a saw. There is no bone dust. No trace of iron teeth."

"So? Maybe cut with an axe?" asked Muller impatiently, covering his nose with a handkerchief.

"Not an axe," Hans shook his head, a wide smile blooming on his gaunt face. "The fracture is microscopic and spiral. This bone was pulled. Pulled apart with a tensile force equivalent to two tons of pressure per square inch. Imagine, Inspector... someone, or something, held this person's hand and plucked it off like you pluck the wings off a fly."

"That's impossible. No human is that strong," argued Muller.

Hans put the arm back down. He stood up, stepping toward the corpse of the woman in red nailed to the table. Natasha, her beautiful face frozen in eternal terror.

Hans touched the nail piercing the woman's palm.

"This nail..." Hans rubbed his chin. "Wasn't hit with a hammer. The nail head is smooth without impact scratches. This nail was pushed through flesh and table wood with just a thumb."

Hans took a long breath, inhaling the scent of death in the room deeply as if it were perfume. His eyes glinted behind his glasses. He wasn't disgusted. He felt... intellectually aroused. For twenty years dissecting corpses, he had only seen boring murders: pistol shots, kitchen knife stabs, rat poison.

But this? This was a masterpiece.

"Whoever did this," whispered Hans, "has an understanding of anatomy surpassing the best surgeons in Switzerland. He knew exactly where the nerve nodes were to maximize pain before death. This is not a brutal murder, Inspector. This is an orchestra of pain."

"Enough, Doctor," Muller turned around, unable to take it anymore. "Just write the report. Cause of death: blunt and sharp force trauma. Perpetrator: likely a rival gang. I'm going out for some fresh air."