| From: | Paul J. Adam ShadowTK@********.demon.co.uk |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Botched Raid |
| Date: | Sun, 14 May 2000 00:54:57 +0100 |
>>>>>[And the pooch wore a big smile all day.
+++++begin video
Early morning, in one of Tacoma's less salubrious areas. A cold drizzle
falls from the grey sky, blown along by the same breeze that bounces
stuffer-wrappers along the sidewalk and flutters the tarpaulins covering
several of the tenement buildings.
The tenements are ancient 1960s housing projects, mostly abandoned,
demolition teams working along the street to clear them for new
construction. Determinedly cheerful banners hang from a few empty-but-
not-yet-destroyed, announcing that the Metroplex (in association with
the United Corporate Council) are Building A Better Tacoma Here For All
Our Futures. Some ad-man's idea of a "balanced family unit" - a happy
family of improbable racial mixture - smile garishly around the text,
their background cleverly suggesting a blue-collar paradise home.
The garbage truck grinds along the road, its transmission complaining
and the drive motors moaning with the characteristic sound of worn-out
brushgear. Not much to collect in this road: the tenements are mostly
abandoned, just a few squatters and other low-lifes occupying the vacant
slums, and only the last building in the row still occupied. The garbage
crew have mostly just a couple of new, safety-orange dumpsters to empty:
refuse left by the construction crews who are moving into and clearing
the sites.
Perhaps, *this* time, the new housing units soon to rise here will be a
happy, thriving community, bringing new economic life to this down-at-
heel corner of the Metroplex... but none of the garbage crew seem to be
holding their breath waiting, as they load the first dumpster onto the
back of their truck.
As the truck lifts its load up, gulping down the tide of waste, the
camerawoman swings herself up into the cab and hooks a very un-
trashwomanlike radio headset over her ear. "Black Widow to Beatles,
we're moving into position on schedule. Sitrep?"
'Beatles' replies, slightly scratchy over the encrypted radio link, "Our
boy's on the move and heading in. Stand by."
"You're late, Beatles... okay, we'll wing it. Keep us informed."
"Want us to patch you in on his feed?"
"Yeah, that'll help." Hart nods, then realises the radio can't see.
"We'll stage a delay."
The truck driver looks enquiringly at Hart, says "You want us to break
down for a few minutes?" He's a Troll, and might actually be a real
garbageman: certainly nursing this old and underfunded truck around
Seattle's poorer neighbourhoods must take some skill.
"Yeah, if you can do that easily...?"
"Null problemo, Officer. You mind noisy?"
"We been quiet in this heap so far?" Hart chuckles.
"Okay... so I do _this_-" the Troll throws two levers, and an agonised
mechanical grinding noise comes from the back of the truck - "and it
sounds like we got a real problem. Now I do _this_ -" he holds down a
switch and revs the motor hard - "and smoke comes out the back. Pretty
cool, huh?"
"Yeah, not bad." Hart looks out, sees blue-white clouds billowing from
under the truck. "Not too serious?"
"Hey, I just stirred a broken driveshaft around some, won't break it any
more, and vented the fuel cell's waste trap. We're no more busted up
than we were."
"Looks pretty bad, though. Nice work." Hart admits, getting out of the
cab. "Beatles, this is Widow, we're stopped for a few minutes now. Made
some noise, but looks natural."
"Okay. Spider Mike's on the way in. Patching him in on channel five...
now."
As Hart joins the three or four others clustered around the side of the
truck, apparently arguing about whether to call for a recovery vehicle
or try to fix the problem in place, her radio comes live with another
set of voices: a nervous male talking to himself.
"Hey hey hey, this is Spider Mike, coming atcha loud'n'clear on Radio
KCOP! Walking 'cross the street, gonna help put some nasty mo'fraggers
away, going up to the door, got to shut up else that _bad_ piece'a'drek
there's gonna hear me! My man, how you hangin'?"
"Down in the dirt. I hate this fragging rain, pal, an'I don't like you
neither. 'Gainst the wall." A deeper voice, also male, pronounced
Barrens accent.
"Hey, no need to get personal- Hey! You get your hand off my ass!"
"Gotta search you, same as everyone."
"Yeah? You wanna feel me up, you buy me dinner first, buttwipe! You guys
_always_ got to grope my dick?"
"Yeah, I gotta, and I don't like it. You think I _wanna_ get near that
sad little weenie? Go on, yer clean, get in there. Boss man's waiting
for you."
Hart cuts in on the other frequency. "Beatles, he in? We clean?"
"Yeah, all clear. Louie Cardelli and his entourage arrived thirty
minutes ago, went to their secured apartment. Three guys with him, looks
like one tech and one muscle. Two in the pad keeping it clean for him."
Beatles reports, as if reciting what he'd already told Hart several
times before. "All on the green."
Spider Mike sounds like he's fairly fit, from the pace of his footsteps
up the stairs, until - "WHOA! Man, put that thing away! Jee-zus!"
"You don't run up stairs at us, friend. Makes us nervous."
"Well, you shoulda said!" Mike sounds properly outraged. "Pretty Boy
downstairs was too busy squeezing my buns to tell me that drek. You
gonna have someone touch my dick, why can't you have her be a she and
cute?"
"Okay, okay, shut the frag up, come on in." The sound of a security
grill sliding, then again, and locking behind Mike. "Patrone, this is
our customer Spider Mike. Mike, this is Mr Cardelli, and this is Jim,
our tech. Jim will demonstrate the product, then you and Mr Cardelli can
negotiate your deal."
As 'Jim' and Spider Mike get into a discussion of BTL chip technicalia,
Hart keys her radio again. "Still clear, Beatles? We should be getting
ready to move."
"Soon as they close the deal, roll in. We'll take the bozo on the front
door, you seal off the back."
"We still clear? No backup, no other players?" Hart presses.
"Look, no non-residents have been in or out of that building all day,
and there's only the painting crew next door-"
"Next door?" The Troll garbageman says incredulously. "You're drekking
me? They're _demolishing_ that place next week!"
Hart swears foully, not caring that the radio's hot-miked. "Beatles,
we're compromised, move in now!"
"What?"
"Third party! We're gonna get hit!" Hart is already running from the
truck.
Too late, as automatic weapons fire booms and echoes between the
buildings. A grenade explodes with a dull thump, and Spider Mike's radio
feed dies in a squeal of feedback... almost certainly at the same time
as Mike himself.
By the time Hart reaches the alleyway between the two buildings, looking
up over the high-profile tritium-inlaid sights of her Richard Wilson
racegun, a walkway has been pushed out between facing windows: Hart
covers it for a few seconds, but there's no movement. The raiders must
have crossed it already.
"Cragie! Milton! Back stairs!" Hart shouts at the two other 'garbagemen'
following her: Milton a young, scared Ork, Cragie a burly, paunched
human. Like her, both have their sidearms drawn: unlike her, both have
issue Thunderbolts. Milton hits the fire door with his shoulder and the
lockwork gives way: he and Cragie disappear inside.
"Beatles, I got a Mob war in progress, what's happening out front?" Hart
asks her radio as she starts up the fire escape, still covering the
improvised walkway and the windows.
"I don't fragging know! Mike's dead and we got gunfire but that's all!"
Beatles sounds scared, angry and helpless: participation in violent
incidents like this is rare in the Narcotics scheme of things, and
'Beatles' has almost no information except for the undisputed fact that
his carefully-planned chip-bust is ruined and his informant is dead.
Hart presses on, up the stairs, suddenly darting for a doorway's poor
cover as a coverall-clad figure runs across the walkway: out of one
window, along the planking, into the building opposite. She's raising
her pistol when bullets smack into the concrete above her head and she
dives sideways, as a second 'painter' crosses the walkway with a heavy
bundle as more bullets ricochet off the wall and the fire escape: none
reach Hart, but she's too busy dodging to return fire.
A third 'painter' runs across the planking, and this time Hart has her
pistol raised and aimed in time, and fires twice: blood sprays from the
man's shoulder and he wails in pain, but still throws his bundle through
the window ahead of him. Hart's third shot blows splinters out of the
walkway, as the wounded 'painter' sprays automatic gunfire at her -
wild, one-handed, but still deadly - and she yet again has to scramble
out of the way of his fire. The walkway falls past her as she's getting
back to her feet: they're all out, why bother retrieving some 2x4 and a
few nails?
Hart reaches some internal decision, and vaults over the edge of the
fire escape: falling two floors to land, hard, on the alley's
ferroconcrete surface. She lands, rolls, comes up running with a
limping, painful gait but with the Wilson automatic still clutched in
her hand.
Across the back of the to-be-demolished building, past scaffolding and
flapping tarpaulins, under the smugly smiling family promising a golden
future, Hart rounds the corner to the _next_ alley in time to catch the
gunmen as they're fleeing. Down the fire escape and out, it seems.
Three of them. Two already in the back of the van, the third handing a
black plastic sack up into the van with one hand, and Hart doesn't stop
to evaluate risks but just aims, flicks on the SureShot light and shouts
"POLICE! DROP THE WEAPON!"
Of course, he doesn't. Of course, he turns to fire at Hart.
Lieutenant Julianne Hart squeezes off two shots, very fast, a perfect
double-tap, and the man in the white overalls and the painter's fume
mask is tossed backwards: dropping the black plastic sack and his
submachinegun at the same time.
The van's doors are closing before the alleged painter hits the alley
floor, the van accelerating. Hart aims... then lowers the weapon. Lone
Star regulations strongly discourage random pistol fire at moving
vehicles... too hard to disable them, too easy to cause collateral
damage. She settles for calling in an APB on the vehicle, reciting its
description and tags... though odds are it'll be ditched within ten
blocks and the gunmen switched to a different, clean way out.
"Beatles, I got one of our unwanted guests." The Lieutenant walks
towards her victim, keeping her pistol trained on him. "Don't think he's
going to make it." Two .408 Magnums in the chest, and the man lies in a
spreading pool of dark blood where the bullets pierced body armour,
skin, flesh and bone. Though he's breathing, it's with a horrible,
gurgling note that is weaker on each inhalation, bright red bubbles
seething out of his chest with every exhale. "Two more in a van, called
in, we'll find it burning a klick away."
"Roger that." Beatles sounds sick, tired, helplessly angry. Hundreds of
man-hours of patient work and careful planning have just been squandered
in a short ugly orgy of gunfire. "Mike's dead. So are two of Cardelli's
guards. No sign of Louie and Hotbox, we're searching for'em... ah, drek.
We got another shooting. Someone came at your guy Cragie with a gun."
"Oh, great. This gets better and better." Hart remembers to kill the
radio before swearing this time. "Okay. Okay. Backup?"
"Coming. In force. No word on the van yet. No sign of Cardelli."
"Probably already in the wiring ducts or the sewer. Keep people on the
exits and try to find'em all." Hart clicks the safety on her pistol, as
the man at her feet makes an awful choking noise, jerks convulsively and
dies. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, I hate this fucking job sometimes."
+++++end video
This is not good. Spider Mike and three of Cardelli's bozos down,
Cardelli wounded but alive (_bad_ news from those Latino SOBs, they'll
want payback) and no word on the shooters except that, guess what, they
were loading APEX ammo.
The word or phrase you're looking for, contestants, is "Aw,
SHIT!"]<<<<<
-- Lt. Julianne Hart
Lone Star (Tacoma)
