Britain's Counterattack

Detective Emilien and his partner Daniel entered the Ministry of Police's lobby, showed their identification to the approaching guards, and said, "Detectives Emilien and Daniel are here to report for duty."

The guard glanced at their identification, then at their faces, and said, "Wait here for a moment," before taking their documents and leaving.

Emilien and Daniel waited there. They saw the guard go over, exchange a few words with the other guards, then walk to a counter and speak to a clerk sitting behind it. The clerk then stood up and took a large folder from the filing cabinet behind him.

The clerical staff member searched inside, checked the identification against the guard's certificate, nodded to the guard, said something, and then returned the certificate to the guard.

The guard walked up to the two men, returned their identification, and then pointed to a table nearby, saying, "Are you carrying a weapon? If so, please leave it here."

Emilien nodded and went over first. He took a revolver from his coat and placed it on the table. Daniel followed, took two ordinary handguns from his waist and placed them on the table, then took a butterfly folding knife from each of his jacket pockets. He then opened his coat—inside, there were countless small pockets, each containing a knife of different shapes and sizes.

However, the custodian sitting behind the table seemed unfazed by this situation. He simply took out a piece of paper, handed it to the two of them, and said, "Please write the names and quantities of these items in this column..."

Emilien quickly finished filling it out and then stood aside waiting for Daniel.

"I told you before, you don't need to bring so much stuff to the Ministry of Police." Emilien couldn't help but complain as she watched Daniel still hunched over, writing furiously.

It took Daniel quite a while to register his huge pile of stuff. A guard even checked him over again before letting the two of them go to the back office area.

Accompanied by two guards, the two men passed through the front hall, then through a door, and then through a garden, arriving at the high-ranking officials' office area at the back.

The guards escorted them to the entrance of a small building, where two other guards checked their identification before leading them inside and up to an office on the second floor.

A guard knocked softly on the door. "Minister, Detective Emilien and the others have arrived."

"Please let them in," came the minister's voice from inside.

The guard then pushed open the door, and Emilien and Daniel went inside.

"Please have a seat, both of you." Fouché looked up from his documents, glanced at them, gestured for them to sit, and then said, "I've noticed your report. You found..."

"This newspaper reports that at approximately 10:00 AM this morning, an assassination attempt targeting Member of Parliament Lucien Bonaparte occurred in Paris. The assassin threw several bombs at a carriage believed to be carrying MP Lucien in a busy area of the city, before fleeing before police arrived. The attack resulted in dozens of civilian casualties. It is understood that MP Lucien was not in the carriage that day..."

Lucien put down his newspaper and said to Fouché, "Mr. Fouché, may we close the net now?"

"Not yet," Fouché said. "Without creating a climate of fear among everyone, we will still face many obstacles in expanding our power."

"But aren't you worried that others will criticize you for not doing your job well?"

"Hehe..." Fouché chuckled, "Under normal circumstances, if everyone were staring at the chair I'm sitting in, that would be a problem. But right now, the chair I'm sitting in is incredibly hot. They'll still curse me, of course, but who would want to sit in a chair like this right now? Besides, even if someone didn't know their own limitations and wanted to sit in my seat, would anyone really dare let them sit there at a time like this?"

A week later, a fierce battle broke out near the residence of Director Jean- François Lebel, where a group of unidentified armed men attempted to attack the residence. They clashed with François police who arrived quickly after Paris intelligence.

"Our police arrived in time to protect the Lebel Governor's family and killed at least three thugs." Fouché was recounting the events of the previous day at a hearing in the National Assembly.

"Minister Fouché, according to what you just said, these criminals had already attracted the attention of the police department before the operation. Why didn't you arrest them before the incident occurred? Why did you let them launch the attack?" a member of parliament asked.

"If you allow us to arrest and interrogate suspects based on suspicion alone, without any evidence, like the old Committee of General Security did, then of course I can arrest them all beforehand. Is that what you need?" Fouché countered.

"Of course that's not what I meant... but... I mean, as the Minister of Police, can't you improve the efficiency of the police department, find evidence, and bring them all to justice?"

Fouché burst into laughter, as if he'd heard the funniest joke, "Mr. Besson, do you know how much the entire Paris police system costs these days? Only two-thirds of the budget the Committee of General Security used to have! Do you know how many frontline detectives there are in the Paris police system today? Only half of what the Committee of General Security did. To be honest, I'm already very satisfied that my team was able to detect these thugs' suspicions in advance."

Of course, if Mr. Besson is not satisfied and would like to take my place, I can relinquish it."

Besson knew perfectly well that the thugs hadn't been caught and might even launch new attacks. Moreover, their decisiveness and experience seemed far beyond what those Royalist Party scum had shown. Worse still, they seemed to have no intention of stopping. At this point, taking Fouché's position would be nothing short of being a scapegoat.

"Minister Fouché, that's not what I meant," Besson quickly said. "I just hope the police department can find a way to improve security. Of course, you're the expert..."

Seeing that Besson had backed down, another member of parliament stood up and asked, "Minister Fouché, you mentioned earlier that the police department was dispatched urgently after receiving intelligence, fought with the rioters, and protected the family of the Governor of Lebel. So why did the thugs ultimately break into the Governor of Lebel's residence and cause considerable damage? And I heard that the police also suffered heavy losses, even more than the rioters. Is that true?"

"That's true," Fouché replied. "During last night's battle, after sensing the rioters' potential actions, we immediately deployed all available police forces. However, due to insufficient police resources in Paris, the number of officers we could deploy wasn't much more than the number of rioters. Moreover, the rioters' training and equipment far surpassed ours. In our police force, due to budget constraints, only sergeants and above are equipped with revolvers capable of automatic fire; ordinary officers are only equipped with ordinary single-shot pistols, batons, and knives. But the rioters who launched the attack yesterday were almost all equipped with two Britain -made replica revolvers, and they also carried Britain- made replicas of the 'Bonaparte's Little Melon.' I've seen the bodies of the three thugs who were killed yesterday, and they all had one thing in common—Congressman Bresson, do you know what that common characteristic is?"

"I... how would I know?"

"They have thick calluses on the second joint of their right index fingers," Fouché said. "Everyone can touch their own fingers and see if they have calluses in this spot. If so, please raise your hand so everyone can see what these people with calluses in this spot have in common."

Everyone couldn't resist touching it, and then Carnot took the lead and raised his hand.

Besides Carnot, several other people also raised their hands, and everyone could see that these people were all former soldiers.

"Only those who frequently fire guns develop calluses in this position. Gentlemen, those thugs are not the petty thugs you imagine, robbing a young girl with a knife in a dark alley. They are a group of well-organized and highly trained soldiers!"

Yesterday, our police officers risked their lives to stop them and cover the evacuation of the Governor's family. If they weren't worried about the nearby National Guard arriving, they could have wiped out all our officers who came last night!

Yesterday's firefight lasted less than ten minutes, and before the firefight, we surrounded them. But in those few minutes, we lost more than twenty young men—gentlemen, we are now facing not thugs, but an army that has infiltrated Paris!

The entire parliament hall erupted in chaos. Everyone was whispering and shouting. Some were yelling at Fouché, some were yelling at the people next to him, and others were yelling at everyone else.

The meeting's chair, Congressman Odom, pounded the table with his gavel. "Silence! Silence! If anyone has a question for Minister Fouché, please ask it in an orderly fashion! Keep quiet!"

But this didn't do much good; none of the councilors took the reminder seriously. It was quite a while, until Odom's arm ached, before the group finally quieted down.

"Alright," Odom said, "Now it's the gentlemen in District 3's turn to ask questions. Well, Congressman Griezmann, do you have any questions?"

Griezmann stood up. "Minister Fouché, what I want to know now is, what kind of support do you need to capture or eliminate these guys?"