![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Company
Time: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 (pre-dawn hours).
Place: Tokyo, Japan.
Last Event: Still infiltrating Toru's tower!
Having entered Toru's penthouse via the stairs and noisily neutralized his sentries, the Agents realize that it's time to pick up the pace. They've lost the element of surprise, but even alerted gangsters need time to strap on and group up. Pausing briefly to listen, Wen hears sounds coming from both ends of the long entry hall, and Anabel can just make out shouted Japanese behind the door at one end. After a brief huddle, the decision is to head to the other end. The team moves out, pausing only to grab submachine guns off fallen thugs.
Zhang spots a camera above the doorway at the end of the hall, and moves to bash it to bits with his tonfa. Before he gets there, though, the door is perforated by a burst from an automatic weapon! It's likely that the shooter is firing wild – that and blind luck would explain why nobody is hit. Even so, the entire squad hits the deck. While the door is substantial enough not to be shot to bits, it doesn't stop bullets from punching through and shredding walls, fixtures, and furniture.
On the theory that the gunman may be able to see the hallway via CCTV, Wen shoots out the camera from the floor. However, the gunfire doesn't stop. Judging by the volume of fire and the sound of the weapon, Wen concludes that the group is being pinned down by a machine gun, and that even with the gunner shooting blind, it's just a matter of time before someone gets hit. She crawls over to her associates and shouts this to them.
This galvanizes Vinnie to action. When the cone of fire sweeps to the far side of the corridor, he springs to his feet and lunges for the common wall between the great room and the hallway. From the team's earlier visit to the penthouse, he knows that the interior and exterior glass walls of that chamber are made of armored glass, which might afford some protection. On reaching the nearest sliding door, he finds it locked – but inspired by the fact that he's about to get his butt shot off, he picks the lock in record time, shoves the panel aside, and dives through the opening.
For Vinnie, the good news is that he didn't jump into a big room packed with alerted gunmen. The bad news is that the three goons there – whether because they left their firearms somewhere inconvenient or because they're nuts – have snatched up katanas from Toru's antiques collection and are coming for him! He soon finds himself rolling on the floor to evade sword blows. While the thugs are hardly masters of kenjutsu, they seem to have some skill at this kind of thing, and Vinnie is forced onto the defensive to avoid a lethal cut.
Fortunately for Vinnie, his allies are close at hand and happy to put armored glass between them and a machine gun. Anabel and Qoqa dive into the room; on seeing the situation, they spray poorly aimed submachine gun fire all over the place. Zhang leaps into the fray with his tonfa in hand, warding off sword blows and giving back a little hand-to-hand aggression. However, it's Wen who puts an end to the absurd situation, calmly executing two of the swordsmen with single headshots from the floor, buying Vinnie an opening to ready his MP7 and do the same to the final goon.
When the fracas is over, everybody stands, reloads, and assesses the tactical situation. There are no further hostiles in the big room, but behind the squad, the machine gun is still chopping away at the door – Wen doubts the shooter would have heard the fight over the racket of his weapon. Everybody's attention turns to a door to the right that may enable the group to flank the machine gunner. As Vinnie goes over to check it out, he can't help but notice that the bullets he, Anabel, and Qoqa sprayed around trashed a multimillion-dollar antiques collection.
Vinnie gestures for his associates to grab a few of the surviving valuables – at least the swords – while he examines the door. Even if Toru isn't here, it might be possible to hit him where it hurts: his ego and his bank account. However, there's little time for real looting, because the door proves to be unlocked. Vinnie signals for the others to join him, figuring they had better move in before the machine gunner stops shooting and starts looking for them.
Given that they have body armor, Vinnie and Zhang take the lead, submachine guns in hand. The passage beyond the door is L-shaped, turning right and heading directly toward the machine gunner's position. Along the way are several doors, which the Agents kick open to reveal bedrooms. Most are unoccupied, but a bawling woman emerges from one; Vinnie waves her back inside. The doorway at the end of the corridor clearly leads to the room where the machine gunner is holed up – the unmistakable flicker of a muzzle flash is visible from beneath it. Vinnie moves up to check the door.
As Vinnie passes a pile of luggage sitting in the passage, Wen sees a thin wire with a metallic ring at the end suddenly spring free of the bags. Realizing that Vinnie tripped a booby trap, she lunges forward, shoves Vinnie aside, and spots an armed hand grenade! Fortunately, it's a Russian model with which she's familiar – and more fortunately, it lacks a variable fuze. Unfortunately, it's sitting in a bag of similar grenades. Scooping it up, she turns and dashes back to the great room . . . where she comes face-to-face with three more of Toru's hoods, these ones carrying guns. With perhaps a second left on the fuze, she heaves the grenade and dives back around the corner.
Wen is mid-dive when the grenade explodes, and not fully behind the cover that the reinforced concrete walls. She catches a fragment in her right-hand side and gets her bell rung. As the saying goes, though, "You should see the other guy!" When Qoqa arrives to help Wen, all she sees of the three heavies in the other room is red jelly. It seems that Wen put the grenade right at their feet.
Qoqa digs out her medical gear and tends to Wen, covered by Anabel. Meanwhile, Zhang and Vinnie advance on the door to the machine gunner's room. After checking it for further surprises, Vinnie determines that it's locked and deftly picks the lock. Then he kicks open the door and steps aside to let Zhang charge in.
Zhang immediately recognizes Georgi from his sketchy FSB mug shots and the much clearer captured video conference. He's alone behind a heavy upturned table upon which he has braced some kind of GPMG. An extended ammo belt dangles down into a large kitbag at his feet. Georgi is wearing visible body armor, gloves, shooting glasses, and heavy hearing protection. Propped up next to his machine gun is what looks like an iPod displaying a video image, which Zhang suspects is a feed from the security cameras.
Before Georgi can swing the machine gun around, Zhang runs at him, aiming to tackle him to the floor. Unfortunately, Zhang slips on the dozens of brass casings rolling around on the floor, and ends up on his back. Georgi doesn't miss a beat – the machine gun clatters to the floor, an MP-443 appears in his hand, and he tries to blast Zhang. Zhang is already rolling and evading, so he isn't hit, but certainly not for want of trying on Georgi's part.
Vinnie moves to support Zhang and buy him time to regain his feet, but Georgi is fast. Even as Vinnie steps into the doorway, Georgi turns, jumps, and kicks the door shut in his face! Having just dealt with the lock, Vinnie knows exactly what to expect – the door will have relocked itself. Cursing loudly, he starts pounding on the door, as there's little point to stealth at this juncture, and he knows that he could batter his way in faster than he could open the lock again.
In the other room, Zhang is faced with a puzzle: V wants Georgi alive, and preferably not shot or stabbed, although beaten up is fine. However, Georgi wants Zhang quite dead, and aims to use his pistol to make that happen. Realizing that the only way to resolve this quandary is to remove the gun from the equation, Zhang tries once again to take the fight to the floor. He shoots in and grabs Georgi, knocking the Russian's gun arm aside as he does. An instant later, the two are grappling on the floor.
Out in the hall, Qoqa finishes examining Wen – whose injuries prove superficial – and both women take out their submachine guns and cover the rear. This frees up Anabel to move forward and assist Vinnie. Along the way, she spots a large, heavy fire extinguisher on the wall, which she unlatches and brings along. Vinnie takes this and starts using it as an improvised ram, which proves a lot more effective than his shoulder.
As his allies assail the locked door, Zhang grapples with Georgi on the floor. Before long, the reality that Georgi isn't a decadent gangster but a fairly scary ex-Spetsnaz type becomes evident: He's getting the upper hand in the scuffle. While Zhang is an awesome standup fighter, Georgi is fiendishly skilled at Sambo and has the better ground game. As a result, Zhang soon finds himself in a nigh-unbreakable choke hold, with Georgi cursing at him in Russian as he tightens it up.
Luckily for Zhang, Vinnie is fiendishly good at breaking and entering. Vinnie manages to bash a hole in the door before Georgi crushes Zhang's throat or breaks his neck. The jagged gap is too narrow for Vinnie, but Wen manages to squeeze in. She immediately kicks Georgi in the crotch as hard as she can, clearly hurting him. When Zhang senses Georgi flinch, he exploits the opportunity to break free, rolling clear and getting into a crouch.
The fight isn't over, however. With Zhang out of his face, Georgi sees Wen standing over him, her guard down after her committed, all-in kick. The Russian capitalizes on Wen being off-balance by snatching up his dropped pistol and blazing away at her. She catches a few slugs and staggers back, severely wounded. Georgi is about to say something nasty and turn the gun on Zhang when Vinnie's hand reaches through the hole in the door and rams the steel butt of a combat knife into his skull, knocking him out cold.
As soon as Georgi is down, Anabel, Qoqa, and Vinnie rush into the room. Anabel and Vinnie verify that Georgi is well and truly out of the fight, while Qoqa sees to Wen and Zhang. By the time Georgi is tied up and Vinnie has rounded up the hand grenades, machine gun, pistol, and ammo, Qoqa has her verdict: She can get Zhang back in the fight easily enough, but with the equipment she has, about all she can do for Wen is slow the bleeding. While Wen's injuries are survivable, they call for more than field medicine. It's time to settle things and get out.
Anabel, Vinnie, and Zhang confer for a moment. Realizing that they've downed 12 of Toru's men, or about as many as were on duty during their previous social call, they decide to take a final stab at finding Toru. Arming up – Vinnie taking the machine gun – they leave Qoqa to treat Wen and head to the door at the far end of the long hallway. There, Vinnie hands the MG to Zhang and picks the lock. When the door opens, Zhang is ready to hose down a room full of gangsters . . . but all he sees is Toru, who's using a half-naked teenage girl as a human shield and holding a huge handgun to her head.
Toru immediately attempts to negotiate. It's clear that he has read the Company files on the team and knows that they won't endanger the girl. However, he also knows that if he shoots his hostage, they will kill him. Moreover, he's outnumbered, which puts him in a tricky situation.
Anabel initially tries to parley with Toru, attempting to learn what he's willing to offer to defuse the situation. Among the things he claims he can do is give the Company $25 million and fly the team out on his private jet. Anabel is quite aware that however well-connected Toru is, getting Wen through a Japanese airport and onto a plane won't work – the authorities will catch on. When she proposes the alternative of using a helicopter landed on the pad on the roof, Toru claims that he can't arrange that quickly. And so on.
It's quite evident that Toru is stalling, and Anabel thinks that's because he has men coming up from downstairs. As the group's last swing through involved being dragged up here from the basement garage, where there were about a dozen more thugs and several lockers full of guns, that's probably a good guess. Anabel quietly informs Vinnie and Zhang of her suspicions: Toru is trying to buy time, and somebody had better watch the elevator.
Vinnie asks Anabel to hold her submachine gun on Toru, and then gets the machine gun back from Zhang, handing him a pistol exchange. He hisses to Zhang, "I'm gonna go set up a welcome for the guys from downstairs. It'll involve explosives and a machine gun. My advice to you is to take the shot!" Before Zhang can reply, Vinnie is running down the hall and shouting for Qoqa to fetch him Georgi's bag of grenades.
Toru doesn't seem perturbed by this commotion. In fact, he starts gloating: "With two of you down, my men will pick you to pieces! Your American friend there doesn't stand a chance, with or without that crazy Russian's machine gun. This is your last chance to put the guns down."
Anabel gets the sense that Toru believes every word he's saying. She also knows that if his reinforcements arrive, he's the sort who would shoot the girl just because he can. She taps Zhang's foot with her own.
Zhang doesn't need further encouragement. With Wen bleeding out down the hall and both Anabel and Vinnie urging him to shoot, he figures there has been enough talk. He aims for one of those places that his police academy instructors claimed would drop a man without a twitch, hopes that they were right, and pulls the trigger. A single shot rings out and Toru catches a bullet in the brain. With a surprised look on his face, he crumples to the ground, dead. The girl doesn't scream – she just runs to Anabel and starts crying.
To be continued . . .
Новогодняя викторина
новогоднем конкурсе "Что такое Новый Год?" :) Придумайте
рассказ, сделайте фото-снимок, снимите видео с Вами или с Вашими домашними на тему "Что такое Новый Год" и получите полезные
призы от компании по производству фильтров для воды "Барьер". Подробней о конкурсе -http://goo.gl/EoDfP