Dangerous Territory

The British Gun

The night passed with Levi sitting in the pouring rain with the chimney bricks supporting his back. He tried to take his mind off his burning ankle and the agony of the gash to his leg, while still keeping an ear out for either the return of the intruder or a swarm of police.

He gazed at the gun he had picked up. Despite the dark night and pouring rain, he made out what it was.

"Enfield? A British gun?" he whispered.

Was this a hit job by the SIS? But then why target Eren?

He thumbed a switch on the side that opened the top-break. He inspected the cylinder and saw that all the chambers were loaded except for the one he had shot. He pulled out a bullet and turned it around between his fingers.

.38 S&W rounds.

How did a British gun with Allied bullets get into the middle of a German fortress?

He returned the bullet, locked the cylinder back into place, and tucked the gun away so it would not get soaked in the rain. He had no idea what this attack was about. Based on his training as a former assassin, everything about this was non-standard. Either this was an immensely sloppy hit job, or the goal had never been to actually kill Eren.

If Eren was meant to die by poison, the Allies would have used cyanide to make it quick with no chance of reviving him. If the intent was to kill him, they would not have merely drugged him and then sent an assassin into a hotel filled with Germans. If they sent the intruder to sneak into his room under the cover of night, it meant they knew he had not died from the drug, and it was only designed to knock him out for a few hours.

To have prepared a well-trained agent like that, they must have known the poison would not actually kill Eren.

But then, why only drug him? Was the goal to capture him alive? For what purpose?

He still wondered, was the target never meant to be Eren, but himself? After all, what reason would the Allies have to target Eren, of all people? He was not very high ranked or influential. Had the Allies planned to kidnap Eren and use him to force Levi to work for them? Then why not drug him as well?

Or did they not know the person in a wig and dress with Eren with Levi Ackerman?

Wouldn't Yelena have clued them into his disguise? Or was she even involved? She had sent Levi away, after all. If the Allies wanted to capture Eren to force Levi to work for them, Yelena would never have sent him back to Eren.

Yet, Yelena had hinted that something big was about to happen, something she either wanted Levi to assist in, or get him out of the way for his own safety. He was not about to risk his life for a group of wannabe soldiers, so she suggested he stay with Eren for a few days.

Was this at all tied to what she was talking about? Was there another organization involved in Metz?

Could this even be the Germans? Was the gun a red herring, meant to make it look like a job by the Allies? After all, it was not that hard for a German soldier to pick up a British gun off a dead enemy. Even Captain Kitz Woermann toted around a Webley from the last war. Eren said he was questioned by a Gestapo agent about the tea he had bought. Had they dug a little too deep?

But the intruder spoke at least one word in French. Unless the Gestapo hired a local, perhaps one of those pro-Fascist Milice, and gave the man a gun used by the Allies to make it look authentic.

That did not sound like how the Gestapo worked. The Germans were notoriously bad at feinting. Besides, if it was the Gestapo, why the theatrics, using slow-action poison in a restaurant, letting Eren leave the scene, allowing him to go back to the hotel, all to send an intruder. None of that sounded like how the Gestapo operated. They were too organized, too clinical, for all that.