| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <shadowtk@********.demon.co.uk> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Bedtime for Bonzo |
| Date: | Tue, 20 Aug 1996 17:48:41 +0100 |
>>>>>[A friend in the Ancients came up with a lead. A low-rent fixer
wannabee got himself a big break recently. Guess what? The guy's turf is
right where Squatter got used as bait. Seems this guy - who rejoices in
the nickname of 'Bonzo' - made some decent money and got a couple of
gangers promoted to shadowrunner status, on account of they "won a
firefight with some hard-core runners" with some "real hot irons" he
provided. Now, he's the man, and he's been shifting a lot of guns
recently, since his stuff is so miraculous. Explains why those guys had
APDS, anyway.
Nadja ran into a few Grease Monkeys, who decided to show her a good
time. She won. But guess what? One had a nearly-new HK227A9, which she
remembered I'd been asking about. The serial number is right on the
money, in sequence with the ones Imp and company pulled off the corpses.
Nadja and I persuaded the survivor to be a little more talkative, at
least to say where he got the weapon, and then I paid Bonzo a visit. See
for yourself.
+++++begin video download
A poor-quality black-and-white video feed, a shop's security camera. A
very cheap shop, a Barrens pawnbroker with heavy grilles over the
windows, gloomy inside.
It's filled with the paraphernalia of desperate lives, and you wonder
which is sadder: that someone would pawn some of the junk on offer, or
that someone else would want to buy it.
There is a fat Ork behind the counter, sorting currency by type, when
you hear the grating over the door rattled.
"Fuck off!! I'm closed!!!" bellows the Ork. The grating rattles again:
you see an indistinct shadow through the wired-glass door and steel
framework.
"Goddamn chipheads..." He reaches beneath the counter and brings out a
stainless-steel Super Warhawk "Ultimate Hunter", a massive revolver with
scope, extended barrel, target grips, muzzle compensator, underbarrel
laser, and enough other mods that it looks like a Christmas tree. On a
shooting range it would look reasonable. In the sweating Ork's hand it
looks ludicrous.
As he steps forward towards the door, you hear a tearing, wrenching
squeal, and Bonzo steps back, raising the weapon nervously. The door
swings open, and Easy steps inside. Behind her the steel grating over
the door has been peeled back like the lid of a sardine can.
"What the fuck..." Bonzo gapes.
Easy - wearing a beautiful black leather trenchcoat, you notice,
something you hadn't seen her in before - simply smiles. "Mr Bonzo, I
presume."
"You owe me a fucking door!"
"Such language in front of a lady. I'm interested in weapons."
Bonzo points the pistol at her face. "Take a look at this one. Then take
a hike, slitch."
The Elf barely seems to move, yet suddenly she is holding the revolver
and Bonzo is clutching his hand, gasping witrh pain. "Mr Bonzo," Easy
says sardonically as she smoothly and easily bends the gun barrel into a
horseshoe, "you are _not_ paying attention."
"Fuck _me_!" gasps the Ork as Easy pulls his hand out and forces his
fingers to grip the ruined gun again.
"Thank you, but you are not my type. As I said. Weapons." She raises a
hand and the razors glitter coldly at her fingertips.
"Sure. Sure. Whatever you want. Through here." The Ork stumbles behind
the counter, unlocks a heavy door and opens it. Easy follows him inside,
and you hear only their conversation.
"Nice. Very nice." The sound of a weapon being cocked. "Army-issue.
Brand new. Where did you get them?"
"I can't remember-" The sound of a blow and a choked gasp.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I said I don't remember, I-" Another sharp blow and a clatter, and
Bonzo seems to he having trouble breathing. "oh, Jesus..." Retching
noises.
"Guess again." A crash and a yell of pain. "Did that jog your memory?"
Another crash and a heavy thump. "You have about two hundred bones in
your body. We've only broken two or three so far."
"All right! All right. This woman. Told me where an Army vehicle was
going by. Said there'd be lots of good weapons, good ammo, in there."
Bonzo seems to have trouble talking, probably where he's lost teeth.
"She look like this?"
"No. She was whiter. And blonde, not redhead."
"This?"
"Yeah. That's her. Said there'd be an armoury transfer, said where it
would be, said how many guards - not many, it was low-profile. I got
some guys together and we heisted it easy. Then she took eight of them
off me and said the rest were mine..." Bonzo - bruised, one eye swollen
shut, blood around his mouth and nose - backs out of the strongroom,
Easy following him.
Two figures wander through the doorway, teenagers in Grease Monkey
colours. Bonzo sighs with relief.
"Hey, Bonze-man, you got a problem? Need some help?"
"YES!" bellows the Ork. "Kill that fucking Elf bitch!"
A fusillade of automatic gunfire answers his words, muzzle flash
overloading the camera. Easy lowers the smoking Ingram as the two
corpses hit the ground, weapons still undrawn.
"Mr Bonzo, that was rude." Bonzo is backpedalling rapidly away from
Easy: almost offhandedly she points the Ingram at him and fires a short
burst, the Ork collapsing bonelessly.
The Elf changes magazines and replaces the weapon inside her coat, then
wanders around the pawn shop until she finds a fair-size holdall which
she takes into the back room. She emerges a few minutes later, and even
she appears to find the bag heavy. She pauses by the counter, reaches
under it and suddenly the view goes black.
+++++end video
I took the more interesting weapons: he had quite a collection. The rest
of the stuff I left for the people it belongs to. Or whoever else gets
there first. I always hated the Bonzos of this world.
There was some nice stuff, though. Seven of those new HK227s left, two
Ingrams in fair condition, and a few ex-police Predators was most of the
modern stuff worth having. There were some interesting antiques. Some in
good shape, too, but I guess most people don't go for old guns. I never
used to, but some of these are nice. We have the following available,
for anyone who wants them...
+++++include list: the_stuff_I_stole
There was also a couple of items I'm keeping. Anyone able to advise on
how hard it would be to fit a smart adaptor to a CAR-15?
All of the above, in good condition with three or four magazines each,
free to good homes. There was assorted other crap (about a dozen
snubnose .38 revolvers, most with rust in the barrel, for instance) and
some nice stuff in awful shape, but I only took the good stuff.. Not
much ammo, but if you want one of these you'd be loading your own
anyway.
It seems to me that our mystery woman might have authorised that
shipment. Or at least been involved with it. A real short-notice
launder-the-guns exercise, the paper trail might still be there if
anyone knows how to follow it.
*****NOT TO: Lynch, Lilith
On other army matters, are any of our decker able to spare some time? I
need a check done on a UCAS Army officer. Low-profile, not too
intrusive, pay's >>encrypted<<. This is a job for a friend, and I'm not
sure the SIGA agents would be that sympathetic. Or maybe they might, but
I don't want to put them in a tight spot.]<<<<<
Easy <23:43:47/08-19-57>
*****PRIVATE: Plough Breakers
>>>>>[Stylish. Love the coat, by the way.
I'll take the MP-5 for Quinn and the Winchester for Lynch, and he can
rig you an internal smartlink on that carbine in a couple of hours.
Won't spoil the lines, that way, and you'll get more control over the
weapon.
There was a fair bit of sound and light over at Fort Lewis. Nobody was
quite sure who ordered twenty-four SMGs to be shipped up to a Guard
armoury in Snohomish, until I started leaning hard. Turns out it was
signed by a captain with severe sinus trouble. He ID'd the picture, and
gave me a name: Sergeant Sarah Ginelli, UCAS Army, currently attached to
the National Security Agency. She was blackmailing him, caught him
snorting coke with an underage hooker and leveraged the guy. Neat work
for such a rush job.
And with that, everything started falling into place. Her address is
listed as >>encrypted<<. She's a Chrome Beret attached to the NSA,
currently in Seattle on some political assignment: stinks of cover-up,
like all the "agricultural surveys" that the Green Beanies used to do in
Vietnam.
Here's the address: we flagged up her part of the building.
+++++include drone_flyby
The building is a six-storey apartment block in Renton, unexceptional
and unexciting. A slice of it - half of the fourth floor - is
highlighted.
+++++end video
The entryphone lists eleven other occupants, all of whom check out as
legit cits. It appears she's overconfident, or else it's an ambush.
Thoughts, comments, ideas?]<<<<<
-- Lilith <17:50:53/08-20-57>
