Chapter 15

Chapter 15: The Plan Forms

Sitting in his office the Viper relaxed a bit and leaned in his chair. Skinner sat in the corner reading a book on the history of firearms that he had found on the bookshelf. “So here’s the plan everybody.” The Viper’s sudden exclamation brought everybody to attention. “You don’t need to be involved in this Skinner if you don’t want to. I’m going to tell you up front that we’re likely going to torture and or kill a cop. Jackson was indeed the one who pulled the trigger. He’s as twisted as they come. He’s deep in Tanaka’s payroll. He’s something of a hired gun, a replacement killer, for when something goes wrong with Tanaka’s normal hitters. We need to do this before someone realizes that I’m alive and they send out the advance guards.”

“I’m in this until the end. I told Shin Lao that before we got here and I intend to keep my word.” All right but you’ve been warned. It could very well be your career if not your life if someone sees you running around with professionals.” “It doesn’t matter much, it seems that half of the policemen in my precinct are dirty anyway so what’s the difference.” Skinner leaned back in the chair he was occupying by the bookshelves. This was by far the most hectic week he’d ever had. Shin Lao piped up from the other room where she had been changing out of her funeral dress and into some “work clothes”. “So where do we start?” “We start with Jackson. I’ve had some bugs planted in his apartment over the last couple of days. It’s funny how much you can accomplish when you have a technical genius at your employ. I had the Iceman go in as a cable man and plant several cameras and listening devices around his apartment. We’ll know who he’s talking to, where he is, and where he’ll be next thanks for him. First we study him while I do the work on the new guns.”

Shin Lao left the room for a minute and returned with her duffle bag. She pulled out the twin Desert Eagles that had belonged to the Viper and set them on the desk in front of him. “No need for that Elias.” He smiled at her and picked up the familiar hand cannons and studied them. “Well no need for that step at least. We’re going to need to pick up a new car though. I need something that can haul an arsenal and your Escalade seems to be the worse for wear. After that you’ll have to visit Edgar and pick up some large munitions. This isn’t going to be a job to be subtle for too long. Skinner, while we’re doing all of this I’m going to need you to work the surveillance. You know what to look and listen for just as well, if not better than the rest of us. I’ll make up a grocery list and we’ll get started in the morning. In the meantime however I’ve got to get used to being alive again. Care for a beer detective?” “Is it that German sludge like you brought over that night?” “Of course it is. Wouldn’t have anything else in my place.” “Then I say yes and bring a tall glass.”

The trio spent the majority of the night telling old tales. Skinner’s stories didn’t quite stack up to the exploits of the two professionals but despite the fact that he was currently hanging out with two criminals he enjoyed himself and perhaps loosened up for the first time in a while. It’s twisted moments like these that cause a person to question themselves. The stomach of potent German beer doesn’t do anything to dissuade the mind much either. It was at this point that detective Leonard Skinner started to question his life. He had put nearly twenty years into the police force. Until a few days ago he was certain that they were all just as dedicated and law abiding as he was. He found out quite the opposite and now seemed to question himself.
He also noticed that as the night progressed that the two killers seemed to move closer and closer to each other until at one point Shin Lao was nestled against the Viper’s side with his arm around her shoulder. Skinner suddenly felt like a third wheel and snuck off to a couch in the other room to sleep the alcohol off.

He was awakened at about six in the morning by the thundering of large caliber pistol fire. He sprang up suddenly awake with the .45 ACP in his hand, frantically scanning the dark room. When he was satisfied that there was no attacker present he started going through the house. He came to a door that he hadn’t quite noticed the night before and opened it slowly. The white room on the other side made him squint his newly awakened eyes and didn’t help the slight hangover he was nursing. He didn’t know why he was surprised that the Viper had a small shooting range hidden in here somewhere but he was. And there stood the Viper firing round after round into targets at the other end of the range. The large caliber bullets were tearing up the thin targets. He was truly amazed at the accuracy the man had with those two hand cannons as he loaded round after round into nearly the same spots. “Good morning detective” The Viper said without even turning around. Even with the protective ear guards and the staccato thunder of the twin .50’s.

Skinner just grunted and walked up to the stall. “Care to give it a shot? They’re a little big for some people, but you’ve been shooting for a while now. You should be able to handle it.” Skinner didn’t know quite what to say as he’d been so roughly awakened and the brief adrenaline boost had worn off, leaving him in that “just woke up” state of mind. “Sure. Anything I should know about these pieces? Everybody’s ranted about how much you’ve modified these things.” “Nope, they’re just a lot lighter, but they’re nose-heavy to cut down on the recoil. Gas vent may surprise you a bit at first if you’re not used to them. The vents cut down on the report so you may still hear it, but you wouldn’t know I’m packing something that could crack an engine block.” Skinner nodded. The man certainly knew his firearms.

The detective was certainly surprised by the low weight of the guns, but found the end heavy factor a little odd at first. He settled a pair of hearing protectors over his ears and tried to aim the two pistols at the fresh target. The two blasts that came out of the gun did certainly surprise him. He wasn’t used to firing two pistols at once and his left arm shot down unexpectedly. The Viper chuckled behind him and nudged him to get his attention. “Try it with just the one. It’s a world of difference.” Skinner put down one of the pistols and assumed a firm stance. He emptied the clip into the target amazed at how accurate the pistol was. “That’s a nice piece of work. Not what I expected from a .50.” The Viper took the pistol back from Skinner and holstered them both. “It’s time to start watching our target. I’ll make some breakfast and then we’ve got to get our heads in the game. I’d recommend firing a couple of rounds in here before we hit the street. In our game you either hit your target the first time or you’re dead. There’s no ‘Freeze’ in our world. Shoot first or be killed.” Skinner nodded and picked his .45 up off of the table. “You’ll find ammunition on the table by the third stall. Try out a few types and find out what works best for you. I like the standard ammunition but there are a few different types there. I hear the AET’s are nice, but I didn’t like the way they fired.” He left the range and Skinner standing there alone in the stark white room to fire into several targets.

When Skinner left the range close to an hour later the Viper had made some semblance of breakfast. Eggs, bacon, hash browns and wheat toast. He had made some coffee but Skinner couldn’t place the scent. It must be some serious gourmet stuff just like the rest of the Viper’s life. Skinner ate everything up quickly as his stomach was complaining both that it was empty and that he had drank too much the night before on a nearly empty stomach. Shin Lao joined them a couple of minutes later fresh out of the shower and the sight of her damp from just drying off both excited and saddened Skinner. They ate breakfast while all three of them discussed the day’s events. The plan for the first day was simple. Skinner was to watch Jackson at his home while Shin Lao went out and bought a new ‘battle wagon’. The Viper would go to the Iceman and do whatever it was that they did.

The Viper called the Iceman shortly after breakfast. “Hey get your Cuban ass outta bed. I know you’re rich but damn, you’re burning daylight.” Skinner could hear a raised voice coming from the other end of the phone. He looked at the Viper with a questioning look and he mouthed the words “He’s not Cuban” to Skinner which produced a little bit of a chuckle. He supposed that even hit men could joke around just like anybody else. “Yeah I know you’re not Cuban, but damn it’s almost nine. I thought siesta wasn’t until after lunch.” Skinner heard the raised voice from the other end of the phone again and smiled now that he knew that he was just ribbing the man on the other end of the phone. The conversation after that was just business talk and he hung up after a couple of minutes. “I’m gonna head over to Ice’s place for a bit to dig up some dirt and make a couple of lives hard to live. Just watch what Jackson does and we’ll figure out where to step after that.”

Skinner felt a little sidelined at this point. Everybody else would be out there physically doing something while he simply sat here and basically watched television. The sights that he saw on the screen simply sickened him. Here was essentially a decorated beat officer talking of things like contracts and making drug deals. Skinner would never have guess by the brief interactions he’d had with the policeman. Shin Lao leaned over his shoulder and watched the screen for a couple of minutes with a grim face. “Kind of a wake up call isn’t it.” “For sure.” Skinner simply replied as he continued watching the screen. His faith in humanity was dwindling quickly as he watched the former officer act just like any common ganger. “I’m going out to pick up the vehicle. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Watch the fort. Just hit this button to switch to the house cameras if you hear anything.” She hit the button and cycled through the various cameras positioned through the house.

Skinner was left to himself as both of the professionals left to go about their tasks. Skinner sipped at his expensive coffee and simply watched for hours as the man just seemed to get sleazier and sleazier.

The Viper quickly made the trip to the Iceman’s estate. He pushed the button by the high iron gate that sealed the large mansion off from the rest of the world. A voice came through the speaker box shortly and informed him that the gate would be opening shortly. He drove the Aston Martin into the driveway and parked it around the side of the huge house. He waved to the usual man by the front door. Money bought security, however a lot of money bought loyal security and the Viper had known this man for years. “Morning Raoul. How’s the family?” “Eh, they’re fine. Wife’s in a fine mood the last couple a days.” The Viper chuckled. It seemed that Raoul was always having issues with his wife. It was good to see that some things never changed.

The front doors opened into a phenomenally large antechamber that was something out of Scarface. It was filled with urns and paintings and in face the high domed ceiling had been painted with a replica of the Sistine Chapel. Julio met him at the top of one of the twin sweeping stairways. “Cuban eh? I was wondering how long it would take you to get to Cuban.” “Don’t worry, there’s many more Hispanic races I can go through Julio, and we’ve still got plenty of time to go through them.” The tall, skinny Hispanic smiled at the top of the stairs. “Well, let’s get to work my friend. As you so politely reminded me earlier, we’re burning daylight.” They both walked through several rooms each of them lavishly decorated. But the Viper knew the truth. These rooms were all fronts, decorated simply for the sake of filling space. The Iceman rarely left his work room except to use the bathroom and to make something to eat.

The work room was truly a sight to behold however. Everything top of the line, resembling something out of a sci-fi movie. His main work center consisted of 14 monitors all mounted on semi-circular racks. He had three keyboards also in a semi-circle around an incredibly padded high backed rolling chair. To the left were six Alpha mainframes in tall ventilated racks. On the wall behind the computer workstation was a series of televisions all dedicated to security of the premises. On the far wall was all of the machinery he needed to make nearly any kind of documents that was needed. The Viper had once asked him why he didn’t print his own money. The Iceman had simply replied “What do I look like, a common criminal? Printing money is so low tech.” And he had left it at that.

“So who are we screwing over today my light skinned friend?” “We’re going big time today Ice. I need all of the information you can get me on Boss Tanaka. And if that weren’t bad enough I need you to do a little ‘life modification’ for an officer Luke Jackson. Recently retired due to a large amount of money he just seemed to stumble into.” “So what are we doing? Deleting his bank accounts? Changing his passwords?” “Nothing like that actually, quite the opposite. We’re going to give him quite a bit more money than he already has.” The Iceman looked perplexed for a moment and then caught on to what he was doing. “Ahh, very clever my friend. Shall I be accompanying that with an anonymous call?” “No, but you will need to add a little something so to steer the police of their own accord to look into things. Perhaps just a little ‘misdirected’ email to someone in a position to be a little suspicious.” The Iceman had always liked the way this man thought. “OK we’ll handle that little bit first.” “Break it up into two hundred and fifty grand increments spaced out at exactly one week periods starting three months ago.” “No problem.” The Iceman typed furiously on all of his keyboards. Elias had always been amazed at the man’s ability to pay attention to every one of his monitors at once, especially while typing as he did on three keyboards. It was undoubtedly his ability to multi-task that kept Julio ahead of the authorities and anybody else that may be snooping for him. One of the Alphas purred to life and Julio started dumping pages of information into the print queue. Within minutes they had well over two hundred pages of information all pertaining to Officer Jackson. Every bit of information that anyone could ever want. His juvenile record, his now edited bank records, bills for the last five years, purchases. “Hell you’ve even got where he gets his hair cut. That’s amazing Ice.” “Naw, pretty easy to do in this age of credit cards and online purchasing.” Put that EBay listing at the top of the stack. This is going to find it’s way into the hands of someone that counts. Print off two more copies. I need a copy for the job and I want to have a back up in case the first gets mysteriously lost.”

“Tanaka’s gonna be a little harder to find. Someone like that tends to have a board man to keep his business secret.” “I know, but that’s not entirely what I want either. I want to know who he’s got on payroll, where his money’s going and where it’s coming from. I want to know his habits as much as we can find.” “As I said that’s going to be a little more difficult. I can piece together what I can and we’ll go from there. But a lot of the information that you want is going to take old fashioned legwork.” The Viper figured that would be the answer and simply nodded. “Find what you can and we’ll find out what we need after all of that.”

The Iceman pounded furiously on his keyboards again, images flashing and changing on the monitors as the Iceman flipped from server to server to government database to state records. All of the information seemed to only stay on a monitor for a brief second before it changed to something different. The Viper couldn’t keep up with it all and it made his head spin after a couple of minutes. However the Iceman could keep up with all of it and tagged several interesting bits for monitors as he kept scrounging for the desired information. He pointed to one of the screens as everything started printing out. “That’s the blueprint for his house from public records. Says that he put in for a permit several weeks ago so this may not be up to date, but that’s all that I could find. The permit doesn’t say exactly what it’s for. Money can buy about anything you want, and his apparently paid for an inspector not to worry about what he was doing.” The Viper nodded again and looked to another screen. “Is that all of them? That’s gotta be half the force.” The screen that the Viper pointed to was the payable screen for Matsuo Tanaka’s accountant. There were nearly three hundred withdrawals by police officers and other local government officials. The whole plot seemed to go deeper than even he thought it did. “I know. Anyone you know on the list?” “Nope, never met any of these people in my life, but I have a feeling that I soon will.”

Shin Lao had a much easier time of things. The dealership that she visited just outside of Cooperstown was called ‘Jolly Johnny’s’ and the owner certainly was jovial. A chubby man with a horrible comb over and an ill fitting suit greeted her with far too much enthusiasm. The man reeked of sleazy car dealer but he sold quality vehicles so she would endure the cat and mouse game of buying an expensive vehicle. “Good Morning my dear! Welcome to Jolly Johnny’s. We’ve got the best prices on the vehicles that you want. Can I interest you in this new Mercedes? A woman of your clearly refined tastes would look fabulous in a car like this.” The man launched into his sales pitch before she even had the chance to look around. “I’m here for one thing and I see it right over there. I want the 4.8L V8 BMW X5. I want it in black and I want the six speed manual.” Johnny seemed taken aback for a second by the way the beautiful woman seemed to spout the specs of his vehicles. He hadn’t taken her for someone who knew much about cars but apparently she knew what she wanted, and thankfully it was pricey. “Well that’s a fine choice my dear. Let me just work up the price and we’ll get the paperwork together.” “Fine. I’ll wait right here.”

It didn’t take Johnny long to draw up paperwork and he was almost drooling over the pricey sale. “A vehicle like that would normally go for about sixty five thousand, but I shaved off three thousand just for you and threw in the six disk changer.” Even after making the sale Johnny was still trying to sell her. “Gift wrap it if it’ll make you happy, but I just want to drive out with it today.” “Not a problem dear. Do you have a loan partner lined up already or would you like to make the call from here?” Shin Lao produced the needed money from the briefcase that she was carrying with her and Jolly Johnny’s jaw dropped. He’d seen people pay cash for cars before but this customer pulled out the exact amount for the luxury vehicle without even batting an eye. “It’s all there, and a little extra to get me out of here in the next thirty minutes.” Avarice was a common trait amongst most car dealers and Jolly Johnny was particularly susceptible. “Of course my dear. Just need you to sign this paperwork and we’ll be good to go.” Shin Lao of course signed the paperwork with an identity that she’d had created for her a few years ago by the Iceman and as her paperwork went through everything came up as legitimate and Jolly Johnny breathed a sigh of relief. From the moment he saw that amount of cash that this customer was carrying he was afraid he was dealing with some mob business but the checks that he was required to perform read that Nicole Yuen was simply a successful broker. He then handed over the keys to the customer’s vehicle and smiled. “Don’t forget to tell your friends about my dealership. Word of mouth is the best form of advertisement.” “I sure will” she replied, trying hard to hide her impatience with the man. She pulled out of the lot and pointed the new BMW back towards New York City. It would take a few days to outfit the vehicle the way it needed to be.