Unknown Warehouse, Los Angeles; 00h51 – 1 August
Swiftly, sweepingly, the grimy warehouse-door was flung open. As the grey-flecked pine tapped gently against the parallel, rundown wall, Higure stepped in.
He looked ahead as he entered, locking gazes with the muscle-bound door guard through his streamlined glasses. Apparently, the dexterity with which Higure handled the door gave the hoodie-attired figure a moment's pause… or perhaps it was his general appearance. He'd decided, with the intent to straddle comfort and sensibility, to dress in a beige casual-suit, foregoing a tie (he hated the things, really) and leaving the top button of his stark-white shirt undone. His hair, as usual outside of an AS, was drawn back in a clasped, sleek chestnut-brown ponytail, leaving his graceful features unobscured, save for a lock or two at his temples. He hardly looked as if he should be walking into an allegedly-abandoned warehouse in the dead of night and conversing with thugs. He looked more like the kind one might find dining in a fine hotel restaurant…
…Or making soul-pacts with hapless victims. Yet, Higure strode in at a leisurely pace, barely glancing about as he moved into the warehouse's main chamber. The ceiling sat at least three floors up. The guarded door, only five paces away, most likely led at least three floors down.
"Hey! Who the hell are you?" The guard challenged, speaking in the tiresome bass-whine of a wannabe White-Gangsta. Higure stopped for a moment, reaching up idly and scratching his clean-shaven chin. His finely-slanted eyes followed the shadowy slash of a strap across the punk's shoulder, making out the glint of the submachine-gun that was attached to it, and gripped in the man's rough hands. In the half-light, it seemed that the barrel was still down, the gun angled to the floor for some reason. Safety, maybe, if the gun went off by some ridiculous fumbling? Higure could never understand how such a thing was even possible.
During that moment in which Higure stood still, surveying the guard, Hinaki stepped out beside him. His willing, loyal shadow. She moved forward, pace quickening, a faultless grace in her step and the soft sweep of her raven-black, shoulder-length hair. Superficially, she seemed fairly harmless; young, slender, attired in casual streetwear. Her body-language was completely nontransmissive, her expression as innocent as the next eighteen year-old girl's. Shrugging, Higure followed after the girl, resuming his relaxed lope, artistic hands sliding into tailored pockets. Without a word, he listened to the ensuing exchange.
"Put the gun away. We have a meeting with your boss." Hinaki's voice, soft and clear in British-accented English. Higure closed his eyes, smiling slightly as he kept walking.
"Yeah, like f--- you do. Any closer and-"
The second sentence was punctuated by the muffled click of the gun being primed, catch sliding back between the punk's fingers. Then, a ruffle of cloth underlined both the pull of the trigger and the simultaneous tunk of Hinaki's hand sweeping into the gun, knocking it off-center. The fairly unpleasant staccato of a badly-maintained SMG diring filled the stale air, the last of the five or six missed shots punctuated by a loud, sinewy crack. Probably an elbow-joint, by the sounds of it.
Higure opened his eyes in time to see Hinaki's knife leave its sheath, concealed on the back of her dark jeans under her jacket. The blade, a refurbished Fairbairn-Sykes combat knife, glinted along its double-edges in the pale moonlight that shone through the warehouse skylight, the silver sheen trailing behind its motion. Gripping it blade downward, Hinaki held the faltering, stunned thug by his jacket with her free hand as she brought the SAS knife up and then down at a shallow angle. Before the man could even begin to scream at the agony that erupted up his arm, carbon-steel found its way sidelong into his throat, just below the jawline; with a subtle twist, the knife tore through his larynx, silencing him permanently.
Hinaki gave a short tug at the man's jacket to dislodge most of her weapon and then let go, the punk's skewered throat sliding away from the unmoving blade as he slumped to the dust-smeared concrete. No spray, no immense mess. Just a neat coating of crimson across the gleaming steel, and a tiny well of blood that had accumulated between the handguard and Hinaki's little finger.
As she crouched down, lifting the dying, weakly-gasping guard's one sleeve up to clean the blood off, Higure approached the door. Fingers around the handle, he half-turned back to his apprentice, shoes scuffing the floor slightly as he did so. There was always something fascinating in the girl's movements.
"You're alright, Hinaki-chan?" He asked, also in English. The same smoothness carried in his tone as it did in any other language he spoke.
"Yes, Higure-sama," Her blue-violet eyes followed the curve of the knife as she held it up for inspection, before sheathing it with one motion. She stood, her soft, measured footsteps drowning out the thug's dying breath.
"Good," The forty year-old mercenary nodded curtly, twisting the door-handle. Beyond the worn doorway, a kind of sickly darkness engulfed the corridors within. Metal rail-steps, beside the door, led down to at least one basement level. Approaching footfalls clanged on the steps of a lower floor. "Let's go."
The first encounter set the pace for the next two minutes, as the two submerged themselves in the shadows and headed down the stairs. The rest of the watchmen, similar in outfit and equipment to the one at the door, had most likely heard the gunfire outside. The moment he and she stepped from the stairway and onto the first basement level, three guns at different positions and from various directions, opened fire around them.
The users of the guns did not last long, nor did the cluster of ruffians that charged out of a side-room, spraying automatic fire as they spilled into the corridor. Although one could barely see in cross-wired flicker of the ceiling lighting, the glint of Hinaki's Fairbairn-Sykes and the shine on the blood-spatters were fairly clear between the disjointed, yellow bursts of light from the barrels of the thugs' firearms and the flickering muzzle-flash of Higure's silenced handgun, stashed informally in his inner jacket pocket until now.
As the gun-smoke swirled and rose, revealing the dozen-odd dark, crumpled forms in the corridor, Higure paced over to one, where he'd let one of his pistol's magazines drop. Kneeling fluidly, carefully picking the cartridge up, the side of his hand brushed against what seemed like one of the thugs' guns. Without squinting, the mercenary examined the weapon's form closer.
"…That's not an SMG," He mused in Japanese, a soft mutter in the dark. Hinaki's silhouette, several meters further on, straightened to a stand. He glanced up to her. "I know I'm stating the obvious here, but these things have the AK look about them."
They did look like AK-type assault rifles, but to say they were actually Kalashnikovs would be a bit misinformed. He reached out, index-finger tracing a line across the chamber-catch and the rivets in its main housing. Then he stood with a dismissive shrug, eyes on the only unopened door in the passageway.
"Custom-blueprint Type 81's, maybe," He mused, checking the clip of his pistol without hurry. Four rounds remaining. Hinaki nodded, picking her way amongst the bodies and still-warm 5.56 shells to the closed door. Higure followed, kicking an obstructing corpse aside as he went. "Well, Type 81 bodywork at least. Their rates-of-fire were a little high for knockoffs of a fifty year-old Russian gun."
The handle of the worse-for-wear door, as he'd expected, refused to turn. Locked. Higure glanced to Hinaki, who was already retrieving a set of lockpicks from her pocket. He nodded slightly, and took a step back for her to reach the lock.
"This wonderful old friend of mine had better be down here."
Inside that particular room, Alexei Karkarov crossed his arms and smiled.
The man that sat across the table wasn't very difficult to read. Sitting there, dressed in some tiresomely cheap business suit amongst his three-man entourage of tank-topped bodyguards, the man thought he was giving off an air of hybrid corporate/street gang calm. He probably also thought he was intimidating. Karkarov would have laughed, but the barrel of the .45 that was pressing an interesting new skin-pattern against his bald head was curbing his enthusiasm somewhat.
Still, Karkarov smiled. The gang-boss took this seriously, somehow, and bolted up out of his seat. The next moment, he leaned forward across the lamplit stretch of table, his own pistol now wavering a few inches in front of Karkarov's face. The man's eyes were wide with fury, but a kind of fury spawned from fear that ran down to the core of one's soul.
"You're gonna tell me just what the f--- is going on out there," The gang-boss rasped. Karkarov looked from the .38 he held to the man's scarred features, and back to the undersized revolver.
"It's not particularly intimidating to have a second gun thrust in my face," The Russian leaned back in his seat, ignoring the increasing pressure of the SOCOM on the back of his head. He squinted, for a moment, as a soft rattle emanated from the door. "You don't clean out the trigger-mechanism on this one, do you?"
The hammer of the .38 clicked back. Karkarov saw the man's thumb tremble slightly. He was fairly good at reading emotions; he had to be, to be an arms-dealer. "Karkarov, I'm about two second from putting a cap through your goddamn-"
"Okay, alright, fine," Karkarov sighed, raising his hands slightly. "Truth is, I haven't got a clue who's out there."
"Bullshit!"
"Think for a second. I'm a fixer. I don't have bodyguards," Karkarov glanced back, at the fourth heavy, who was holding the .45 to his head. "You mind pressing a little softer with that? Anyway, like I said, I came alone, and I'm sure as hell not behind whatever's happening out there…"
Stagnant silence. The gang-boss seemed to be seriously considering whether or not to shoot him. Karkarov cleared his throat. "But by the sounds of it, these people are not everyday Los Angeles street-punks. The rifle-fire stopped two minutes ago, which means that all your boys went down within a minute."
He checked his watch, a battered old Rolex imitation. "Yeah, about a minute. Whoever's out there is looking for me, probably."
"How does this stop me from blowing your damn head off?" Karkarov could now hear creeping desperation in his voice.
"If they want me, and I'm dead, those people aren't going to be very happy with you," Karkarov shrugged. "They'll probably let you all go, if you try to look as unthreatening as you can, and put your guns-"
Clickclickclick-CLACK.
The door swung open. Gun still in Karkarov's face, leaning across the table, the gang-boss was the first to go down. Karkarov watched the muzzle-flash without watching the shooter, recognizing the handgun as a customized CZ75. One he'd built for someone a long time ago. Forehead exploding with the force of the shot, the gang-boss toppled over, knocking against the table before he hit the floor. The one behind him went down next, .45 barrel scraping along the back of Karkarov's head as the broad-shouldered thug crumpled from the force of the rounds.
A second figure blurred into the room. Karkarov, still seated casually, caught glimpses of onyx-black hair, a female form, the glint of a military-grade knife. Before the remaining three bodyguards could even draw their guns, they fell, red trailing from several areas on their bodies as the girl darted around them, knife-hand too fast to keep track of.
The jacketed figure, still standing in the doorway, seemed to inspect his silenced handgun, sliding the clip out. When he spoke, old memories stirred n Karkarov's mind. "I hope you still stock twelve-mil rounds, friend… I think I've just run out."
"Higure, you old bastard!" Karkarov laughed, turning in his seat to fully face the ponytailed man. When he finally replaced his gun inside his jacket and stepped into the room, Karkarov stood and approached, clasping hands with him. "Glad to see you're still alive!"
Higure's face was purposefully blank, as Karkarov had always known him, but his eyes spoke friendliness. "Barely, at least. How's your retirement in the Land of the Free been, Alexei?"
"Tedious, I have to admit. Just fledgling gangs wanting the cheapest guns I can find. I just dealt a shipment of factory-fresh Korean rifles, for these ones…" Karkarov raised a hand to indicate the dead (or nearly so) men bleeding out around them. As he glanced to the side, he took notice of the girl who now stood unassumingly on the other side of the room, eyes respectfully downcast. "…This your little girl, Higure? Geeze, she's become a fine young lady…"
The girl looked up for a second, their eyes meeting. Karkarov had last seen that vibrant indigo in the eyes of a girl half his size, in Serbia. She hadn't said a word, then. When she now spoke, he could hear the preserved innocence in her tranquil tone. The hallmark of a cultivated killer. "…Thank you, Mr. Karkarov."
"Slow down, old man," Higure warned, and Karkarov was only half-sure that he was joking. Back in the day, he'd been quite defensive of his 'children'. Which reminded him…
"But where's the boy?" Curiosity overcame the possibility of angering them, in case the subject-of-interest had died since. "Your other one… flame-red hair, you know."
"It's interesting that you mention Gatsu-kun, Alexei," Higure said levelly, adjusting his glasses. "How deep are your contacts within the Los Angeles Police Department?"
Karkarov cocked his head to one side, thick brow creasing. "I… have some cops who look the other way, some who I can call when I need some help. Why?"
"Come, let's talk as we leave," Higure gestured to the door, turning towards it. As they left the room, he spoke over his shoulder. "To start, I need some manpower. How many of your gang clients are looking to do something a bit… anarchistic?"
Karkarov laughed, a rough, throaty sound. "Depends on what they're getting out of this. Besides enjoying themselves, they want a little incentive."
"How about decommissioned ZY-98's? Combat OS and weaponry included."
Karkarov stopped, coming to a dead halt between two corpses. "You've got to be joking. Shadow? How'd you manage that?"
Higure turned, hands in his pockets again. He stood there for a moment, a glimmer of light from the room behind casting an eerie shine against the lenses of his glasses. "Let's just call them hand-me-down Arm Slaves from an elder brother, for now. A more powerful, globally-spread elder brother. Oh, there's also a dozen German Geist-II models after we finish pitching the Shadows."
"Ah. What do you have planned, though?"
"First off, I'd like to find someone I last saw a long time ago. This is where your police friends come in… do you think you can retrieve some vital statistics about the LAPD's lovely new Arm Slave Response Unit?"
For a moment, Karkarov was taken back a week-and-a-half. Something on the news he'd watched, about those fellows… some failed hostage-situation at an embassy or a bank or something. "I'll sure as hell try."
"Wonderful. That brings me to the second objective…" The mercenary's ponytail swung slightly as he began to walk again. Karkarov could sense the girl behind him, and began to walk as well.
"…I'd like to bring a little mayhem to the shores of America."