Chapter 18

Chapter 18: One Last Trip

Shin Lao had gone directly to Skeet’s shop after her sparring match with Elias. The BMW handled the interstate much better than she had supposed it would and she found herself actually enjoying the drive. It gave her time to think about her future. All she had known from the moment that Tanaka’s men had gotten her off of the ratty cargo ship from China was death. After he had gone back on the deal with her parents he quickly tried to indoctrinate her into his own mindset. She was smart for her age and she quickly let him have the impression that he had broken her will.

The Boss wasn’t entirely an unkind ‘father’ but was concerned with nothing beyond gaining control of his areas and the money he was raking in, in ‘protection’ money. He had many of his elevated thugs teach her how to fight and shoot. Some of them were honest teachers, but there were some of the more lewd variety and she grew to hate her mentors. But Boss Tanaka turned a blind eye to the improprieties of some of his employees and only concerned himself with the final product. But she had withdrawn herself from everybody and so kept to remaining silent for weeks at a time. She would only leave her room when she was forced to and grew up becoming more and more brooding and calculating. She would never know whether this was intentional or merely an accidental boon for Tanaka. Then along came the Viper. He was the only person in her ‘fathers’ organization that didn’t see her as a piece of meat, just another nice ass to leer at to wile the time away. He had been kind to her and patient despite her persistent insecurities. She had grown to love him despite her best efforts to keep things professional.

And now he was determined to get himself killed by going after Tanaka personally. She didn’t want this to happen but knew also that it would despite her pleas and cries to the contrary. And what happens if he walks out of that house alive? He swore that it was his last job and she was worried that she wouldn’t fit into the picture after it was all said and done. She had already had to live a brief period of her adult life without him and she had found that it was a very lonely and empty experience. She hoped that he felt the same way that she did, but all she had ever done was throw hints and flirt. There had been several dates a couple of years ago but they had all ended tragically ruined by some sort of fight with some unhappy gangers.

She tried to empty her mind for the rest of the trip and pulled into the wiry black man’s auto garage. Skeet had been one of the happy side benefits of the way that Elias did business. Elias somehow managed to be in the right place at the right time on many occasions and happened to be on his way to a job when he saw Skeet waving his arms wildly. Skeet’s wife had been hit by a car escaping the police, but no help had arrived and his wife was lying on the sidewalk dying. The Viper then did something unheard of in his line of work. He stopped and brought them both to the hospital where he handed the man a wad of cash and said for him to help his wife. He then pulled away to kill a man. Karma had a way of playing with people.

Since then Skeet had been all too happy to do whatever mods the Viper needed to his new vehicles. He had used what was left of the sizable amount of money to buy a dilapidated old warehouse by the waterfront and fixed and rebuilt all sorts of vehicles. But he reserved the military grade outfits for the Viper alone. So as Shin Lao pulled the black BMW SUV into the rear doors at Skeet’s place he smiled and shook his head. “another new toy for our friend, eh?” “Yup, this one needs the works. Got a big one going down tomorrow and we need to fit all the guns and ammunition we can get into this thing. Also need the glass replaced. You know what to do with everything else.” “Sure do sweetie. I’ll have it for you tonight.” “Excellent Skeet. Always a pleasure doing business with you.” Skeet nodded and whistled for one of his guys to pull the BMW around. He had a lot of work to do to it before tonight and he didn’t like to keep one of his most frequent customers waiting.

She took a cab to one of her safehouses and tipped the man an adequate amount of money. She’d learned long ago from Elias two very important rules to taking cabs to your safehouses. One was to never tip the driver handsomely, especially to forget where he took you. That would only ensure that he would remember you. The other rule was to never give the driver simply a dollar or two as that would make you stand out in his mind just as easily as if you’d given him a sizeable tip. So she took this rule to heart and found out that it seemed to ring pretty true.

She unlocked the numerous locks on her front door and walked in without turning on any lights. She had spent weeks walking around the house in complete darkness to get her bearings so that she could find anything that she needed whenever she needed it. She sat down in front of the laptop computer in her bedroom and hit the power button. The bright flare of the screen as the computer booted up left her with spots on her eyes momentarily. She entered her complicated password and she was up and running. She liquidated the assets in several of her bank accounts and compiled them quickly into one that she kept nearly empty for times like this. The amount came to nearly 1.8 million dollars, which would be enough for her to purchase some equipment that she was going to need. She then called Edgar who seemed to be incredibly chipper for some reason. “Good afternoon dear. What can I do for you today?” “I need some big stuff Edgar, and a large amount of ammunition.” Now when you say big stuff, what are you wanting?”

Shin Lao went through the list that she had made which included several hand held grenade launchers, a couple of MP5’s, several automatic pistols and about two dozen grenades. “Damn, it sounds like you’re going to war. You’re not going after, well, you know.” Shin Lao’s silence only cemented Edgar’s theory and he sighed heavily on the other end of the line. “Well, don’t go getting yourself killed now.” “I don’t plan to Edgar. How long before we can get this stuff?” “When do you need it?” “As soon as possible Edgar.” “Well I can have it for you tomorrow night, but the price will be a bit steeper for the rush. Is that all right?” “That would be perfect Edgar. Also I need a few bits of electronics. You wouldn’t happen to be able to get some gear as well would you?” “That all depends on what you want to pick up.” “I need a couple of pairs of low light goggles, some motion detectors, so low light scopes and some maglock scramblers.” “I can get all of those for you by tomorrow as well. Normal account and all for payment?” “Yes sir, the money will be available tomorrow after noon.” “You’re always a professional Ghost. You and that detective be careful now. He’s not going to take lightly to having the fight brought to his doorstep.” “We know and we’re going to be ready to handle what comes up.”

She hung the phone up and stared at her computer screen. The weight of what they were planning suddenly fell on her as he completed the deal for the weapons. They were going to take down Boss Tanaka. He had a veritable army behind those high terracotta walls. She silently made a decision and walked to the locked and reinforced closet door behind her. She walked in and turned on the light revealing several shelves of clothes, wigs, and at the very rear, a small arsenal containing various weapons and gadgets. She picked out her normal stealth outfit, which much to her chagrin, made her look like the stereotypical ninja that they portrayed in all of the video games they liked to make recently. She picked out her set of night vision goggles and her climbing gear and walked out to the garage where her non-descript Honda sat in its half of the garage. While the car itself may have been non-descript, what was under the hood was anything but. The engine had been bored out, modified, various chips replaced, upgraded or bypassed altogether. The result was a powerful and nearly whisper quiet engine. She had the nitrous system put in for those emergencies when the horsepower of the little foreign car just wasn’t enough. She hit the garage door opener and backed out quickly as it rose. Another push sent it lowering back down to it’s closed and alarmed state. She then stomped on the gas and was speeding through the neighborhood towards her normal stomping grounds.

She wanted to do some reconnaissance before the big job. The Viper had his blueprints that was true, but nothing beat good old fashioned recon to give you a decent idea of where you stood. Unfortunately she had to get quite a distance away as the paranoid Boss had the building across the street torn down to keep people from doing exactly what she was here to do. So from a building down the block her zoomed in with her high powered binoculars and surveyed the Syndicate Boss’s compound. From her vantage point she spotted no less than twelve people patrolling the grounds with several more walking the upper balcony that extended around the house. It was incredibly hard to tell exactly how many because the image became so grainy at the distance that she was at. But they were good enough for what she wanted to know. If the man had roughly twenty people on the outside, there were at least twice that many wandering the hallways and various rooms of the interior. Boss Tanaka had become quite paranoid over the years and had beefed up his security to match his declining feeling of safety. Apparently it wasn’t good enough that he had the police and city government on his pay roll but he had gone so far as to try to take out one of his best killers just to feel a bit safer. But just like in the movies, when the villain decides to feel contrary and take out one of his own, the plan simply backfires and he creates his own worst nemesis. Elias was no one to muck around with on a good day, but almost being killed tends to send a person into that other place that people should be afraid of.

She cursed silently under her breath when she heard the crunching of the gravel behind her. While she was lost in thought someone had snuck up onto the roof. She rolled over quickly and grabbed the pistol she had tucked into her waist and brought it to bear on whoever was behind her. She breathed a quick sigh of relief when she recognized the face of detective Skinner and un-cocked the pistol. “What are you doing up here?” She said in a stage whisper. “I thought you might be doing something like this when I called your cell and there was no answer.” “Where’s Elias?” “Oh, he’s off doing something with Officer Jackson. He didn’t say what or where, but he just said he’d be back and took off. So I decided that I was going to grab a little equipment from the lock up at the station and do what you’re doing at the moment.” She sighed and sat up from her perch. “Won’t you get fired for something like that?” “I very well might, but for the next couple of days we’re in the clear at least. As long as I have it back before someone starts to question where it went we should be all right.” He set down the bag beside her. It made the rustling sound of plastic and metal parts rubbing together. “There’s a set of Binocs in there that should be much better than those old things you’re using. As well as a couple of nice little tapping gadgets. If we can plant those on his security cameras we can see what he sees.” “You never cease to amaze me detective.” “I do my best” Skinner replied casually and produced the aforementioned binoculars.

They were indeed much better than the ones she had been using for years. They were apparently military grade and she could almost count the hairs on the guard patrolling the gate. She revised her previous count to include the six people that she couldn’t make out along the balcony and another three lurking on the darkened sides of the house. “We’ve got to get back to the house. We’re not going to be able to plant these bugs tonight, but more than likely while we’re going through tomorrow night.” “So that’s when it’s going down eh?” “Yeah, we’ll have the weapons tomorrow and the van will be ready later tonight.” They walked silently from the roof and down the access stairs to the street level. “Follow me to the safe house and we’ll dump my car there. I’ll have to pick up the BMW in a couple of hours so it’s something of a good thing that you showed up.”

The two black Honda Preludes drove quietly through the neighborhoods and main roads of uptown New York City. Shin Lao parked her car in her garage and rolled under the door before it closed. Skinner slid over into the passenger seat and she shifted the small car into reverse and left towards Skeet’s shop.

The streets around the shop were nearly empty as they circled the block around the warehouses. Skeet ran a reputable shop during daylight hours and made his real money doing these modifications and paperless patch up jobs on many of the less desirable clients after dark. Shin Lao felt a little uneasy as she wove between the warehouses. She always had the feeling that she was driving into an ambush when she had to drive through this area. This was why the explosion didn’t come as so much of a shock to her as something slammed into the rear end of the Honda and brutally tore it to shreds. The car cart-wheeled into several of the old warehouses, sending up sparks and small motes of fire when it made contact. Everything went black as the smoking husk of the car came to settle upside down near the edge of the sea wall that dropped forty feet to the harbor below.