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The Company
Time: Monday, April 25, 2011 (wee hours).
Place: London, U.K.
Last Event: Attacked outside Stephanie's by thugs in a Range Rover.
Positive that the police are on the way, Vinnie wastes no time preparing to flee the scene. He unhooks the Range Rover's bumper from that of the rental car with practiced ease; from what he can see, only the former is in drivable condition. Meanwhile, Zhang gets Stephanie's Mini started. Once the vehicles are running, the two Agents get their injured associates aboard, strapping Paul into the Mini and Anabel and Qoqa into the seats of the Range Rover. They stack the four beaten thugs like cordwood in the back of the Range Rover. Then they take off, Vinnie at the wheel of the Range Rover and Zhang driving the Mini.
From the road, Zhang telephones Hamid and asks him to report the rental car stolen, while Vinnie calls Wen and warns her that he and Zhang are coming in with hot vehicles, injured Agents, and prisoners. Back at the condos, Hamid handles reporting the "stolen" rental with geeky aplomb, doing his best to disguise his phone number, voice, and intentions. Wen calls up Ben and asks him to get to the condos at once – the team needs a medic, and Qoqa is down. Then she gets to work in the building's car park, bringing a load of plastic sheets down to the elevator entrance.
The drive across town goes well. An ex-gangster and an ex-detective, respectively, Vinnie and Zhang know how to avoid the police when driving suspicious vehicles. They pull into the car park unfollowed, where they find the rest of the crew waiting. Ben, Hamid, Jili, Klas, Lev, Wen, and Zhang start carrying people upstairs – Anabel, Paul, and Qoqa first, and then prisoners – using the plastic to keep blood off the architecture. Vinnie starts searching the Range Rover for clues.
Upstairs, the Agents take the prisoners to one of the empty condos, which Wen has already lined with plastic. The more soldierly types with first-aid training – Klas, Lev, and Wen – guard the captives and make sure they don't die before being interrogated. The injured Agents get actual beds in their homes, and Ben sees to their injuries in detail. Anabel and Qoqa respond quickly, and are soon awake and mobile. Paul needs closer watching, however.
While this is going on, Hamid checks the laptop from Stephanie's flat; Jili runs a scan of Stephanie's cell phone and those of the four attackers; and Vinnie tears the thugs' Range Rover apart. Hamid's search is the least interesting – the computer was last powered up before Roger sent Stephanie to Libya, implying that it didn't make the trip and wasn't used to stash a copy of anything afterward. Jili learns that all five phones are associated with London-based accounts, and extracts lists of recently called numbers. Zhang compares these lists and deduces that the goons called each other often but never called Stephanie (making it unlikely that the men are her associates), and all spoke with someone at another number (which defies lookup) on a regular basis. In the Range Rover, Vinnie finds a gym bag full of cash and evidence of auto theft: someone tampered with the ignition, vandalized the glove box, ripped out the GPS, and found and disabled a LoJack unit. In Vinnie's opinion, this suggests petty criminals, probably car thieves with gang ties, paid to act as heavies.
The Agents reconvene to compare notes. Even Anabel and Qoqa stagger in to join the meeting; both plan to interrogate their attackers, so they want any advantage that the physical evidence can provide. After everybody has reported in, Zhang plays detective some more and analyzes the intelligence. His theory is that Vinnie is right about the prisoners – only low-end hired muscle would be armed with knives and tire irons, drive a stolen car, and get paid in bags of cash. The four men are between 18 and 23 years of age and appear to be of Maghrebi heritage, and Qoqa heard them speaking Arabic. To Zhang, this implies an ethnic gang of some sort.
With that established, Anabel and Qoqa each go off in the company of a couple of the team's more menacing members, intent on interrogating prisoners. Vinnie decides that he'll go back down to the car park and search the Mini. While he doesn't think he'll find anything of note, he sees no reason not to look. Qoqa asks Vinnie to fetch her up one of tire irons before he starts.
After Vinnie returns with the tire iron, Qoqa gets to work. Systematically breaking fingers with the weapon used to strike her on the head, and looking a whole lot like a bloodied psycho with nothing to lose, Qoqa grills one of the prisoners. She's careful to make the injuries she inflicts look as if they could've been sustained in an auto wreck. Being an expert medic and an exemplary torturer, this isn't difficult for her.
Q. Who hired you?
A. Kamal! That guy Kamal!
Q. Where do we find Kamal?
A. Here's the address of the restaurant where he hangs out! Dictates address.
Q. When is he there?
A. Afternoons and evenings.
Q. How did you know that we'd be where you found us?
A. Kamal called up and said that somebody was there.
Q. Where were you going to take use?
A. To the lot where we said we'd meet Kamal's guys. Dictates address.
Q. When were you supposed to meet them?
A. They were going to meet us after we called in.
Q. Do you have a routine or a password?
A. We just show up, flash the headlights three times, and then three more times.
Q. Do you have anything to do with the person in the flat where you found us?
A. All I know is that some girl who's involved lives there.
At the other end of the empty condo, Anabel prefers menace to actual beatings. With Klas standing next to her looking intimidating, she pulls out a big knife and threatens her prisoner with the loss of important body parts – starting between his legs.
Q. Who sent you?
A. Kamal – he paid us a big bag of money to do this.
Q. Where can we reach Kamal?
A. He hangs around a kebab place. Dictates address.
Q. Where were you taking me?
A. To meet Kamal's guys.
Q. Where at?
A. An empty lot. I only know the neighborhood.
Q. How many guys are you expecting there?
A. Two cars . . . big ones. I only ever see two guys.
Q. When were you expected to make the delivery?
A. After we called in.
Q. Do you have the number you were supposed to call?
A. It's under "Kamal" on my cell.
Q. Do you know who Kamal's boss is?
A. Word on the street is that he's a badass, works for secret police in Libya.
When they're done, Anabel and Qoqa compare notes and then brief their teammates. It's clear that the common number that Zhang found on the thugs' phones is Kamal's, and that based on the prisoners' stories, the goons were supposed to grab whoever was at Stephanie's flat, call Kamal, drive to a prearranged meeting place, and signal Kamal's men. The Agents decide that since their prisoners are merely hired gang members, the only way to get to the bottom of things is to grab Kamal – especially if he really does have ties to Libyan spies. They plan to send a posse to ambush Kamal; Klas, Lev, Vinnie, Wen, and Zhang are chosen for the job. The others will remain behind to watch the captives . . . whom Zhang ties up thoroughly, and who aren't in any condition to resist or escape.
The strike team gears up for the task ahead, which may prove challenging given that the Agents are currently "off duty" and lack firearms. All five don balaclavas, stomping boots, and leather jackets. Lev and Vinnie, being good with knives, take several blades apiece – big, croc-skinning ones, suited as much to intimidation as to combat. Wen sticks a hammer in her belt, for reasons best left to the imagination. Qoqa makes sure that the squad has first-aid gear, too.
Wen, wishing she had grenades, looks around for something dangerous to throw. All that comes to hand are eggs, but this gives Vinnie an idea. He goes to his kitchen and gets out all the hottest peppers the Agents have on hand – which in Jili's case means some horrific cobra chilies from back home in Sri Lanka. Then he boils them with salt and vinegar, producing a sticky, noxious paste. After that, he blows out a dozen eggs and carefully injects the peppery goo into the shells using a cooking syringe. He packs these "bombs" carefully and presents them to Wen.
It's going on 06:00 when everybody is ready. The five Agents going to visit Kamal pile into the two remaining rental cars, Vinnie driving Klas and Lev, Zhang chauffeuring Wen. They head across London to the "lot" revealed by the interrogations. This proves to be more of a rarely used service road, crowded in by Buddleja and sickly trees, under some rail trestles in a rough area of the city. Zhang drives his car past the site and off the road into the tangle, where Wen camouflages it with tufts of vegetation. Vinnie drops off Lev and Klas, and then pulls back some distance on the other side of the target.
Wen and Zhang carefully climb over the wire fence hidden in the overgrowth beside the road, and then scale the rail trestle to get a higher vantage point. There, they hide among the support beams. Klas and Lev simply make their way into the scrub beside the street, cover their trail, and camouflage themselves with weeds. Vinnie stops his car out in the open and flattens himself out of sight on the car seat. Once everybody is concealed, Vinnie calls Qoqa and asks her to get Kamal out here.
Qoqa hands her torture victim his cell phone and intimidates him into calling Kamal. The man reports that he and his pals have grabbed some people at the flat, and negotiates a meeting with Kamal – at the agreed-upon location – in 20 minutes. Then Qoqa calls Vinnie and tells him to expect company shortly. Vinnie telephones the other four members of his squad and fills them in on the situation. Then everybody sets phones to "vibrate" and waits.
Toward 07:00, Wen spots two cars coming up the road toward the rail overpass; she buzzes Vinnie, who in turn buzzes Klas. Both cars come to a stop under the trestle. The front car disgorges two men armed with rifles outfitted with scopes and suppressors. These snipers promptly dash into the bushes to either side of the road – both of them fairly obvious from Zhang and Wen's position, one of them hiding near Lev and Klas! The rear car also lets two men out. One, wielding an MP5SD, crouches behind his car on the passenger side; the other, dressed expensively but not tastefully, and smoking a cigar, stands in plain sight.
Despite the cars' tinted windows, Wen and Klas can see at least four more men inside. Several things seem evident from the situation: First, these guys are crooks, not pros, because pros don't look like pimps with over-armed bodyguards from a Counter-Strike game, or let their goons know where to find them ahead of time. Next, they're criminals high enough up the ladder to have serious firepower in London, which means they're connected. Finally, whoever they are, they don't trust their hirelings – this looks more like a trap than a meeting.
Wen opens the hostilities by lobbing a pepper-filled egg at the sniper furthest from Klas and Lev. It bursts on his face, causing him to scream in pain and claw at his eyes; Vinnie is either a truly gifted chef or a profoundly terrible one. The gunman's associates all turn to look in his direction, and Lev capitalizes on this distraction to cut the throat of the man hiding near him. Klas catches the guy's rifle before it hits the ground. An instant later, Zhang drops from above onto the gangster with the submachine gun, landing feet-first on his victim's head and knocking him out.
The cigar-smoking man doesn't exactly respond quickly; mostly, he looks around in confusion as people struggle out of sight in the bushes and Zhang rolls to his feet nearby. The people in the vehicles seem to be more alert: Four doors fly open – one right next to Zhang. Down the street, Vinnie takes this as his signal to act, and starts his car.
Seeing a bruiser emerging from the car right next to him, brandishing some hand cannon of a pistol, Zhang kicks the door shut, trapping the man's leg – and almost certainly breaking it in the process. Following Zhang's lead, Wen drops from above on the other side of the same car, landing feet-first on the knee of the goon climbing out of the vehicle. There's a sickening crunch and a pained scream as her victim's leg gives way. Lev and Klas move up on the cars from behind and to one side, Klas prepping his borrowed rifle as he advances.
The goons in the rear car, being unengaged, leap out and shoot wildly instead of bothering to aim or even hold their weapons properly. They, too, have massive handguns, which Lev and Wen identify as Desert Eagles – definitely not the weapons of choice of professionals. The thug on the driver's side of the vehicle fires at Wen, but as she's already largely out of sight behind a car, he misses badly. The heavy on the passenger side wheels around and shoots back at Klas and Lev, but his marksmanship isn't up to his aggression, and he doesn't hit anyone.
After that, things go even worse for the thugs.
Wen dives into the front car and onto the two men with broken legs, kicking and punching with the intent to maim. The gunmen can't bring their bulky pistols to bear effectively in the cramped cabin, and clearly aren't at Wen's level in unarmed combat (then again, who is?). Zhang rolls under the vehicle to avoid stray bullets, coming up on the other side to help Wen. This doesn't prove necessary – by the time he's upright and ready to dive in, all there is to see is Wen kicking the teeth out of a pile of knocked-out bully boys.
In the back, Lev moves up at a run while Klas covers him with the rifle. When one of the gunmen comes for Lev, Lev cuts him for his trouble and then Klas blows the man away. The goon's companion on the other side of the car seems to be confused, and doesn't know whether to run forward and deal with Wen or turn around and test his pistol against a sniper rifle. In the end it doesn't matter, because Vinnie accelerates up the street and runs him over. It's rather dramatic, and Zhang has to dodge the bouncing body.
At some point, the man with the cigar finally collects his wits and pulls out a small, concealable pistol. Klas responds to this by shooting him in the gun arm, which causes him to collapse. Lev scoops up a dropped hand cannon, points it at the cigar-smoker's head, and demands his surrender. Unsurprisingly, he gets it.
Throughout the fight, the sniper with pepper in his face thrashes around worthlessly in the scrub beside the road. Shortly after his boss surrenders, he emerges from the weeds, still blind and yelling. Klas calmly walks over and cracks him in the face with a rifle butt. With that, the engagement is over. It's perhaps 10 seconds of violence all told, resulting in the shooting and surrender of the probable leader, and the defeat of seven thugs: three beaten senseless by Wen and Zhang, one butt-stroked and another shot dead by Klas, one fatally knifed by Lev, and one run down (most likely fatally) by Vinnie.
Vinnie brings the car back and gets positioned to leave. The other four, meanwhile, start picking up casings and dropped weapons. The plan is to collect all the bodies and firearms, pile everything into the team's cars and those of their victims, and drive all four vehicles away as soon as possible. Nobody has any doubts that London's finest are on the way to respond to rifle fire – however suppressed – and the booming of giant handguns right next to a train line.