Operation: The Third Day

Disclaimer: Fedora Kid doesn't own Sly Cooper or any of its characters; those rights belong to Sucker Punch and Sony Computer Entertainment America.

Rating: T, for violence, mild language from time to time, and character death.

Setting: In the year 2005, 8 years after the events of Sly 3. Everything else is the same: Sly (now 39) and Carmelita (now 45) still work in law enforcement together (now married), Bentley and Penelope still work in crime together, and Murray and the other former members of the gang have gone their separate ways.

Characters: 10 characters seen before in the series return. Sly Cooper, Bentley, Murray, Penelope, Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox, the Panda King, Dimitri Lousteau, the Guru, Inspector John Winthorp, and Chief Inspector Henry Barkley. The rest are all OC's.

Target: Fox

Paris, France; Monday, June 6, 2005, 10:06 P.M.…

"…thus leaving approximately 40 to 50 people dead and over 300 injured. The governor declined to comment. Next, how the U.S. government recently caught a dangerous, would-be assassin …"

Sly shut off the TV.

"Man, there's absolutely nothing good on TV tonight. What else am I supposed to do while I feel like I'm gonna die?" After saying this, he groaned a little as, for the eighteenth time that night, he felt like he was going to throw up.

His wife, Inspector Carmelita Fox, brought him the newspaper.

"Maybe there's something good in today's paper? Heck, you may even settle for the comics."

At this, Sly chuckled lightly. "Hopefully."

She smiled back at him, then slowly turned around and headed back into the kitchen to resume her cooking. Sly watched her as she walked away, the light fragrance of her strawberry perfume still hanging in the air. He sighed. As long as she was here, he had all that he needed to make him feel better.

And the scent of her cooking didn't hurt, either.

"How much longer?"

"The pie will be done in about six minutes. The soup might take a little longer."

Yep. He definitely didn't want to go back on duty tomorrow.

The phone rang loudly.

Carmelita strode over and picked it up before the second ring.

"Yes?"

Sly could just barely hear the faint voice on the other end of the phone.

"Yeah. Uh-huh. Hm. I see. Alright, I'll be right there."

She hung up the phone.

"What is it?"

"Something's come up. Barkley wants to see me right away. I'll be back in a few." She put on her jacket and walked out the door.

She didn't bother to take her shock pistol.

She walked down the long corridor of the apartment building, stepping into the nearest elevator and pressing the button marked "G." She stood against the back wall as the elevator started down with a soft humming sound. It stopped at the fifth floor to allow a toad into the elevator. He nodded at her as he stepped in, and she returned the nod. He pressed the button for the second floor with a webbed finger, and the elevator started down again. When it arrived at his destination, he stepped out. The doors closed again, and Carmelita was alone in the elevator once more. Finally, it reached the ground. With a ding, the doors opened once more and she walked through the elegant lobby.

As she walked along the soft, carpeted floor, she nodded at the desk attendant, James.

"New shift treating you well?"

"Eh, I'll get by. Only an hour more. Where you heading?"

"Chief wants me."

"Well, it was nice knowing you." James said with a grin.

"Prepare to eat those words when I'm back in less than thirty minutes."

And with that, she stepped through the revolving glass doors of the lobby, noticing the final wave goodbye from James behind her.

Carmelita walked out into the clear night, pulling the jacket up closer to her face when she realized how strangely cold it was. She got into her police car and drove to HQ. She was dreading every second of it.

Chief Inspector Barkley always seemed to dislike Carmelita for three reasons: The first was The Ferrari Incident. She never even liked to think about that one anymore. Oh, how she wished she could rewind her life and delete that moment. It felt like centuries since it had happened, but it actually wasn't too long ago; the last job she had done, actually. It was a total disaster. The worst screw-up of her life by far.

The second, the one she hated the most, was the fact that she was a woman. Oh, that Barkley was old-schooled. He always generally favored the men, and never provided a good reason for it. As a matter of fact, he even tried to hide his obvious sexism. Carmelita shook her head at the thought.

The last, and probably foremost, was her many failed attempts to catch the Cooper Gang. Of course, she had made up for that with the "capture" of Sly, although Barkley wasn't too pleased with her tactics. He had said that he'd be keeping a much closer eye on both of them for quite a while.

Just yesterday, eight years later, Barkley had given her the evil eye in the hall.

But, despite the suspicion from her superior, Carmelita didn't care. She never did. Because now, she and Sly were both high-ranking police officers, and happily married.

Before she knew it, she was parked outside the HQ building. She paused for a moment after putting the car in Park and turning the ignition off. Then she unbuckled her seatbelt, opened the door, and got out of her car. Pressing the button on her keys, she could hear the single honk behind her.

She walked up the massive concrete steps and through the massive double doors. At the front desk, a familiar toad, who had been arrested for the umpteenth time, was handcuffed to his arresting officer. The officer was too busy filling out the paperwork to notice that the toad was stealthily picking his pocket. Carmelita slapped the toad's hand, and he dropped the officer's wallet. The officer turned around.

"Nice try, Joe."

"I can't help it! These fingers are-a itching to pick a pocket! I tells ya, I can't help it; it's in ma nature!"

"Not when it's the officer that you're chained to. That's what got you here in the first place." Then she turned to the young dog. "You really should pay more attention, Jacobs."

The officer blushed. Jacobs was new. A rookie that just joined about a week ago. The officer at the desk grinned as Jacobs bent down to pick up his wallet, obvious embarrassment on his face.

Carmelita walked past the three and towards Barkley's "lair". The place where many officers went in and never came out. She stopped at the large, brown door. The large, black words on the stained glass read CHIEF INSPECTOR HENRY BARKLEY. Every officer in Interpol waited for the day that those last two words would come off and someone else would come in.

Carmelita and many of her co-workers loved to point out the irony about how the two "teacher's pets" to Barkley now had ruined lives: The Contessa, now no longer with Interpol after she was finally released from prison, and one Captain Neyla, now deceased.

She slowly pushed open the door and instantly found herself gagging on a huge cloud of smoke that filled the office, as it usually did: Barkley's big, fat stogie. It reeked of tobacco.

"Quit whining, Fox!" said the voice from the depths of the smoke cloud. Carmelita waved her hand around in an attempt to swipe the smoke away from herself.

"Could you please turn on a fan, sir?" Carmelita begged in between coughs, gags, and wheezes.

"Crybaby." Barkley reached over and flipped the wall switch, instantly turning on the ceiling fan. The long, dusty, wooden blades slowly started rotating, helping to scatter some of the smoke. The smoke mostly cleared up, but a few remnants still lingered around. The cigar, with a glowing orange end, hung from his mouth.

"So," she cleared her throat again and sat down in one of the wooden chairs. "what's this all about?"

"Recent reports have confirmed some sort of unknown obstruction on the pinnacle of the Eiffel Tower, supposedly wrapped around the flagpole."

"'Unknown obstruction'?" She repeated. You've got to be kidding.

"A large, unknown object of some kind. Several people have looked up there with binoculars, and claim that it's a…" Barkley swallowed, knowing that the following words were shocking. "…a body bag."

Just as he expected, Carmelita froze. There was a slight twitch in her right index finger, and she stuttered on the next sentence.

"E-excuse me?"

"You heard. It appeared there out of nowhere sometime this evening."

"How?"

"No one knows. Anyway, the people are concerned about this, Fox. They don't know for sure, but they say that it's large, bulky, and black. About the same size as a body bag. Even if it isn't what we think it is, it's still an insult to have some large piece of trash on top of the nation's proudest monument. We've been trying to keep quiet about it, but we have to do something now. Come daybreak, and the whole city sees it, we'll be in hot water for not acting sooner."

"So…you basically want me to go get it?"

"Bingo."

"What about Winthorp? Can't you get him to do it?"

"I tried calling him, but he didn't answer. God knows where that boy is."

"So why me? Why not Jacobs or anyone else?"

"I think you need some work. You haven't done a single job in almost two months. Ever since the Ferrari Incident…"

Carmelita winced.

"So, I want you to do a simple job that can't possibly go wrong, unlike…"

"The Ferrari Incident." Carmelita finished.

"Exactly." His face grew the more usual shade of purple. "And don't finish my sentences for me!"

"Sorry, sir. But, I'm just wondering: why send a police officer to clear it up? This hardly falls under the category of police work. This is more a job for average sanitation workers. Like, what if it is just a grocery bag blown up there by the wind?"

"Look. Whatever it is, it's way too large to be any of those things. Listen, I've been on the force for forty years. I've seen a lot of strange things. Including the strange places murderers hide the bodies of their victims."

"So you're telling me that you think…"

"Look, we're not taking any chances here. You know how easily people get scared when they see or think of something that reminds them of a terrible tragedy? Ever since the Ferrari Incident, people in that neighborhood nearly piss their paints when they see a Ferrari drive by."

"What does this have to do with the current situation?"

"All I'm saying is that if people see it and begin to think that it's a body or something, and another brutal murder has happened, they're gonna freak! And we'll get the blame for not dealing with it sooner and trying to prevent the panic! So, you're gonna get up in that helicopter of yours, and you're gonna go get that thing off the Eiffel Tower, NOW."

"Yes, Henry."

Barkley almost exploded.

"YOU… DO…NOT…CALL…ME…BY…MY…FIRST…NAME…GOT IT!"

Carmelita almost flipped backwards in her chair. She had seen other officers even lower than Inspector call him Henry, and he wouldn't get mad. Why did he always single her out?

She already knew.

"Go."

"Yes, Chief Inspector."

She was only too quick to leave. Jumping from her chair, she bolted for the door.

"And close that door behind you!"

Carmelita slammed the wooden door behind her. She climbed up to the roof and to the helicopter-landing pad, where her chopper was waiting. The very same chopper that had seen so much action in the past; from engaging in an intense and deadly dogfight with Clock-La, to flying over Paris and landing among the ruins of Arpeggio's blimp, to shooting down at two gondolas racing through the canals of Venice at high speed. The small blue chopper had some bruises, but still had it where it counted. She climbed in and started it up. It was choppy for a moment, like a stubborn car. But, soon enough, the blades started spinning, the rotors producing the chopping noise as they sliced through the night air. It slowly lifted off, and within a minute, she was soaring over the sleeping city of Paris. As she flew towards the famous landmark, she reflected on her life working with Interpol.

Carmelita had worked with Interpol for nearly eighteen years. She was forty-five years old, and still working as if she was the enthusiastic 27-year old who had joined back in 1987. That was because she loved her job. She had wanted to join the force mainly since her father was also an Inspector for Interpol back when he was alive. He died when she was only seven. Car crash. High-speed pursuit. He was chasing a bank robber and spun out on a turn because the road was wet from a heavy rainstorm at the time. He spun out…right into a gas station. All in the immediate area died. The criminal got away. Ever since then, she swore that she would be like her father, and dedicate her life to stopping all criminals and making the world a better place to live.

Then she met Sly Cooper.

It was a calm night. She was a young private, only a year into the business. It was a huge opera, and the star, a whiny elephant, had a valuable diamond that she did not want stolen. Chief Inspector Barkley wanted to see Carmelita guard this diamond with her life. This was her chance to become Inspector, like her father. She then found out about a thief prowling the area, and had tied him up in the janitor's closet. When she looked back at that, she felt ashamed. The janitor's closet? Seriously! Sly had easily broken out, and the diamond was gone, however, Sly had actually not stolen it, but the stage manager, Pierre. Sly had tripped Pierre so that Carmelita would capture him and get rewarded. He had felt sorry for her after her boss screamed at her for letting him get away. Barkley, of course, was amazed that she had captured him, and promoted her. She never forgot that night.

Her career had improved greatly since then. She had busted over fifty criminals in a year and a half. She became one of the finest officers in Interpol. Captain David Reilly had once said, "You're our golden officer." She was only living proof that you could still gain respect despite being the youngest officer on the force, not to mention one of the only women. The only other officer in Interpol history to come even close to her accomplishments was…Neyla. Carmelita dared not even think of that name. The eternal, undying hatred she felt for that witch, with her manipulative ways and such calm complexity…Whenever this horrible memory returned, Carmelita just kept reminding herself that at least Neyla was dead. Killed nearly eleven years ago in what officials had classified as "The Clockwerk Incident." Dead. Out of the way.

Returning to the present, she continued to think about her career. Yes, there were many highs, but there were the lows, too. Constable John Winthorp had a crush on her. She pretended to ignore it, as she certainly did not return the feelings. Winthorp was a wimp. He had never really succeeded in a real serious mission. That was why she thought this was more Winthorp's job, as a lackey. But Barkley said that he wasn't answering the calls.

Strange. She thought. John's usually more eager to do a job. And he always responds to a call.

Most of her career had been spent trying to track down and capture Sly Cooper and his gang. She had tried and failed so many times. Then the Kaine Island Incident happened. She had eventually tracked down Sly and his cohorts to that virtually unknown island in the South Pacific, and when she arrived, Sly was about to be eaten by a massive monster controlled by a mad scientist. She had defeated the creature and saved Sly, at the cost of every single one of her mercenaries. Later that same night, she had blasted her way into a secret cave in the island and found Sly confronting the same mad scientist that tried to kill him. After he blasted Sly with a rocket that was meant for her, she had attacked the man and defeated him. But when she checked on Sly, he had amnesia from the blast. That was the most perfect and easiest opportunity in her life, and she took it.

She told Sly that he was her partner, Constable Cooper. And he fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.

The aftermath was disastrous, though. Communications had been severed, and thus, upon leaving the island to return to Paris, they had left the island completely unguarded in the darkness for approximately three weeks. When they finally returned, most of the island was in total ruin. Most of the buildings and equipment had been trashed, either by the storm or by the chain reaction of collapses, explosions, and subsequent fires caused when the vault caved in. They dug out much of the rubble in an attempt to reach the amazing vault, and upon finally re-entering it, they had found that quite a bit of the treasure, rather than being crushed or destroyed, was gone. Undoubtedly the work of Cooper's partners, who had also escaped. But that wasn't the worst of it. Among the ruins and wreckage, the recovery teams found very strange and unusual technology on that island, well beyond the current standard of technology. And the army of mutants that had attacked them numerous times; they had once been innocent creatures, but had been blended together and mutated horrifically…it was apparently very fascinating, scientifically and biologically. One of the lead scientists studying the finds had said that it was something out of Star Trek.

But, ultimately, Interpol had no say in the matter. That was left up to Chile, whose jurisdiction the previously uncharted island had fallen under. They decided that the technology was too dangerous and unheard of. They had the few intact pieces of equipment, as well as some of the mutants' remains, immediately carted away to an unknown facility to be kept secret from the public "indefinitely." And their "disposal" of the island…Carmelita could never forget those images and brief, scratchy video clips from when the island was bombed repeatedly, all taken from one helicopter that was allowed to videotape the process from a distance. All of the remaining rubble, any trace or hint of what had once been there…completely annihilated. So, even though many questions were still left unanswered, Interpol closed the book on the case.

So eight years later, she and Sly were happily married, and he was now a great cop.

Maybe even better than she could have ever been.

Her thoughts were broken when she realized that she was finally right next to the Eiffel Tower. She put the helicopter on autopilot so that it could hover in place.

She unbuckled her seat strap and went to the side of the chopper. She grabbed the doorframe with one hand, and stretched the other hand towards the dark object that was wrapped around the flagpole. She grabbed it and started to lift it up.

Geez, it's heavy!

When she lifted it up, she carefully held it up with one hand, and reached for her flashlight with the other. She turned on the beam and pointed it at the object to get a better view of the thing. Sure enough, it was a large, black, plastic bag, nearly twice as large as the average body bag. It appeared to have been impaled on the flagpole. The bag itself was nearly ten feet long, drooping down over the edges. There were two large lumps in the bag. And there was a zipper on the one end.

"Oh, boy." She muttered.

She had to get the bag into the chopper without dropping it. But the way it was impaled on the flagpole would make it very difficult to get it off in the first place.

Her eyes returned to the zipper. She figured that she might as well remove whatever was in there, and then simply yank the bag off. She took a deep breath, tucked the flashlight under her arm, then reached out with her spare hand and took the zipper between her index finger and her thumb. She slowly pulled the zipper back, the zipping sound slow and labored as the rusty handle moved over the ridges. She opened the hole about a foot and a half. Grabbing the flashlight again, she aimed the beam directly inside.

She let out a blood-curling scream.

It was Winthorp. His face was covered in blood, one of his eyes was missing, and the top of his head had been ripped open. She could barely see the white of his skull beneath the blood-stained fur. His remaining eye and his mouth were wide open, his lifeless face a frozen mask of shock and horror.

She was so stunned that she lost her grip on the flashlight. The metal appliance plummeted straight towards the earth, plunging her surroundings into darkness. Carmelita immediately stumbled backwards, away from the hideous sight. Before she knew it, she was lying down in shock on the metal floor of the helicopter. She couldn't believe what she just saw. She was stuttering wildly, unable to move or think straight.

Just then, she saw the second, unknown lump in the bag start to rustle around. Her mind raced when the first thought was that it was a second body. But no; it was moving around too much. It moved from the one end of the bag to the end she had just opened. Suddenly, Winthorp's mangled face was pushed right through the open hole in the bag, leaping out at her. She saw a blade slice up from inside the bag and extend the hole without the help of the zipper. When it was large enough, the rest of the weasel's body was shoved out, and Carmelita watched in horror as it followed the flashlight down to the ground, landing among the shrubbery below.

She looked up and saw it, half hidden in the darkness of the bag. A face; perfectly normal and untouched, unlike Winthorp's. It was firm and tough, its features sharp and unmoving at first. The pale yellow light coming from the Eiffel Tower below cast a half-glow over the face from underneath, creating a fiendish ghoul effect. The cavernous eyes remained in blackness.

Before she could react, the face leapt out at her, tackling her and driving her against the metal wall opposite the open door of the helicopter. She slammed against the cold metal, wincing hard in pain. She tried to look up at her attacker, but the only thing she saw was the flash of a stainless steel blade slicing through the chilly night air, arcing down towards her. The hot stab of pain in her chest immediately rendered her motionless; frozen in terror and shock. It was almost as if her mind was on a two-second shutdown mode before she recovered. After the first few seconds of numbness, the pain blasted back, harder than ever. It was a mix of a great heaviness, pressure thrown against her chest, and a sharp stinging sensation. She found herself unable to scream, unable to gasp, unable to make any sound. She was barely able to breathe, taking sharp intakes of breath that died before they came out of her throat, over and over again. She could feel a warm liquid oozing from her chest, soaking her shirt, spreading along her torso. She knew that it was her own blood.

In her last moments, Carmelita forced her eyes to return to her attacker. She got one final, clear view of his face, before everything turned into eternal darkness.

…

He looked down at the woman whose life he had just ended. The steak knife was protruding from her chest, blood soaking the blade. The black handle was the only part that had not been colored red. The blood was now dripping down off of her body, onto the metal floor where it trickled along in thin streaks. A stream of blood was also pouring from her mouth as well, which hung half-closed. Her lifeless eyes were still looking up at him, wide in shock and disbelief. No doubt the attack was so sudden that she didn't even know what had happened until it was too late.

He could feel the sudden surge, the strange feeling in the air, whenever a life was ended abruptly and suddenly. It gave him pleasure, satisfaction in knowing that he had succeeded, and that the victim was truly dead. He had fulfilled his job.

Wordlessly, soundlessly, he looked back at the crude body bag impaled on the flagpole. The slightest hint of disgust was expressed on his face as he thought about the crudeness and lowness of hiding in a body bag, of all places. But nonetheless, it had made his attack more unpredictable than ever. It was perfect. He casually leaned out over the edge and could barely see the body of the first officer on the ground. He saw several pedestrians nearby, casually strolling along, unknowingly approaching it.

Time was running out.

Without any emotion or change of expression, he grabbed the woman's lifeless form with his gloved hands and carried it over to the edge. After a brief moment, he released his grip and watched it fall, almost like a missile, towards the unsuspecting civilians. He then turned and approached the helicopter's controls, casually slipping into the pilot's seat. He studied the dashboard for a few moments before he switched the autopilot off. He then grabbed the steering mechanism and slowly moved the helicopter away from the Eiffel Tower, off into the dark Paris night.

He could faintly hear the piercing scream behind and below him as he fled.

To be continued…

Author's Note: So there you have it, readers. The first chapter. There are 23 chapters in total, and a new one will be uploaded every three days. So, when you're done unwrapping Christmas presents, eating Christmas breakfast/lunch/dinner, visiting relatives, going to Church, or whatever you do on Sunday and Christmas, tune in Sunday, December 25, 2011, for the next chapter.