After the non-stop action of the his first few days, Tommy found himself with a slight break in his activity. Neither the Colonel nor Diaz had any work for him, so he visited Ken a couple of times just in case there was something worth hearing (there wasn't), and scouted a little for some property he could buy as his cash pool increased, since his hotel stay was apparently one week. His mood improved even further as he received the radio announcement that the hurricane warning was over: the bridges to the western side of the city were once again open. After taking his time to explore that particular side of the city (using several stolen vehicles), Tommy eventually decided to go back and see Diaz.
This time around, he arrived at the back of the mansion and after searching the inside of the mansion and Diaz's office, he found the coke baron outside, holding a regular chrome-plated shotgun and firing into the air. As he turned around, he nearly poked out Tommy's eyes with the barrel, cackling madly as he spoke.
"Not so pleased with you NOW, huh? Ahahaha, ahahaha."
"Whoa! Watch where you're waving that thing!" Tommy exclaimed, as Diaz continued to wave the shotgun barrel around.
"No more pigeon shit on my car, eh Tommy!" Diaz asked in a calmer tone, still looking pleased with himself.
"I guess not." Tommy replied, stifling a laugh.
"You're damn right. Now listen, you know who owns the fastest boat on the east coast?"
"Not off-hand, no."
"ME. And I want it to stay that way. Every smuggler from here to Caracas has one dream, a faster boat. Rumour has it the boatyard has just completed a vessel for some Costa Rican dickhead. And Tommy…I WANT THAT BOAT!
As Tommy prepared to walk off, Diaz started shouting again.
"Ah! I thought I got you. Where'd you come from? PIGEONS! Boom! Aah!"
"I think your pigeons are back." Tommy called out as he walked off, leaving the drug baron to rid himself of his scourge.
Tommy had discovered the boatyard early on in his Vice City travels (Ken had pointed it out on the way to the fateful drug deal), so finding the place wouldn't be a problem. But he was pretty sure that there would be men guarding the boat (as Diaz had said, every smuggler wanted a faster boat), so he wasn't going to take any chances with storming in.
When he arrived at the boatyard, he was unsurprised when he discovered that he was right. There were several leather-jacket-wearing gangsters patrolling the entrance, equipped with Ruger assault rifles. Tommy cursed. It was going to be a difficult task to get in there, steal the boat and avoid being shredded in the process. He parked his Admiral next to a van near the boatyard, and then from the open window of his Admiral, took out his own Ruger. If he aimed well and aimed quickly, Tommy guessed that he could gun down the three men standing around at the entrance. But the distance was a bit of a stretch, and doubtless, there would be others lurking who would come and investigate after the initial shots were fired.
Taking a deep breath, he aimed down the sights of his Ruger and fired at the first gangster: hit, as the man held his stomach and collapsed to the ground. Tommy switched to the second man before he could react to his fallen buddy, and got him in the chest twice. The third man started yelling, drawing attention before Tommy silenced him as well with a headshot. As he waited for more hostiles to show up, Tommy inserted a new clip into his assault rifle. Men started to stream out of the building: they were all clutching Rugers and were tightly-bunched together. This was a good thing for Tommy: all he had to do was point and hold onto the trigger, trying to keep the recoil honest. Men fell quickly.
By now, the remaining few gangsters had figured where the hidden assassin was coming from, and they rushed the Admiral. Tommy picked them off one by one, but had to duck a couple of times to avoid bullets that he assumed were in direction of the one open window and his one vulnerable spot. He ended up polishing off the men without injury.
Reloading his Ruger, he slowly moved towards the boatyard building, pocketing Ruger ammo as he did so. Turning around the corner, he found no more assault-rifle-wielding gangsters, but there were a group of mechanics standing next to a screen and a keypad. They put their hands up as Tommy approached them pointing the rifle at them.
"W-what do you want?" called out one nervously.
"How 'bout you fuck off and let me use that keypad?" Tommy shot back.
The men nodded and at gunpoint, ran off. Tommy walked up to the keypad and took a couple of jabs at the keys, trying to figure out what they did. He quickly discovered that one key lifted the boat down, another one lifted it back up, and a couple of others attached and detached the boat. Now that he understood how the keypad worked, he hit a couple of keys, dropping the boat down into the water.
Tommy wasn't having it easy yet: now there were several fresh backup gangsters running into the shed. Thankfully, none of them had Rugers but they still had Tec-9s. Tommy ducked behind one of the boats in the shed, and decked them with his Ruger in a prolonged spray of gunfire. Hearing police sirens wailing in the distance, he made a run for the Squallo II speedboat, and set off.
As the stolen speedboat ripped through the water, three Predator police boats showed up, heading in his direction. But once Tommy had familiarised himself with the controls of the boat, it was easy for him to outrun the law enforcement with the superior speed of his Squallo and reach Diaz's mansion safely, getting out and going to meet Diaz to receive his payment.
However, his mission was not quite over yet. He found Diaz in the TV room, screaming as usual, but this time, it wasn't at any pigeons or any of his men.
"Eject! PLASTIC CRAP! You doing this to me?" shouted the drug baron at the rectangular metal object that lay motionless in front of him.
"Who do you think you are, you piece of plastic SHIT! Argh! SCREW YOU!" he bellowed hoarsely and before Tommy could calm him down, he seized a nearby Colt 45 and fired. The VCR continued to ignore him; instead it ejected a puff of smoke, and immediately afterwards, began exuding the smell of burnt metal. Turning around to Tommy, he explained himself, a stubborn look on his face:
"It eat my favourite El Burro movie, it die! What else could I do?"
"It's probably not plugged in." Tommy replied, keeping a straight face.
"What?" Diaz stammered. He bent down to check the power cords: Tommy was right.
"Damn-no matter," he said with a shrug, standing back up. "I can buy a hundred more. Now Tommy, each month a freelancer sails into Vice City and moors his yacht. He sells his cargo to the first boat. I want you to take the speedboat and beat all other shitheads to it, and then you bring the cargo here, okay?"
No wonder he wanted that boat, thought Tommy as he walked back out to the Squallo he had just stolen. He was surprised to see that during the short time he had been away, Lance had clambered onto the boat and was now stretched lazily on the front seat, smirking at him. As Tommy joined him on the boat, annoyed about how Lance had shown out of nowhere for the third time, they started talking.
"Let me guess, you thought I could use a guardian angel." Tommy said, as he crouched down and prepared to man the driver's seat..
"I'm just saying you need to let me in there, my man. Now you can feed me all this 'lonely tough guy' crap, but I know one day I'm gonna save your ass, and you're probably gonna kiss me!" Lance replied.
"Wacko." Tommy grunted
"Hahaha!" Lance grinned, as they drove the boat off.
"We got some competition!" Lance yelled, pointing at four speedboats which had just sped past their position. Appropriately, he had brought his own Ruger along for the ride.
So Diaz's cargo was hot property. Tommy knew that the Squallo could outrun all the Speeders they were to race, but he'd have to be careful: the occupants' on the other boats would almost certainly be busting out heat as well.
"So Tommy, we know it was Diaz who busted our deal…so why the hell are we running errands for him?" Lance yelled.
"The more we learn now, the less we have to learn when we take this town over!" Tommy replied, raising his voice to overcome the sound of the waves.
"I like your style, man. Real fresh."
They kicked out west alongside a section of the Leaf Links golf course, before turning back inland, only to be given an unfriendly greeting by two of the boats. They had set up, one next to the other, leaving little space for the larger Squallo to go through.
"It's time for the Lance Vance Dance!" Lance yelled, firing his assault rifle at the passengers on both boats.
Tommy thought quickly. He could either wait for Lance to pick off all the gangsters aboard the boats and risk losing the race to the other two boats present elsewhere, or he could barge through the middle and take his chances with being shot. Although he wasn't intentionally disrespecting Lance's markmanship, he took the second option. Gunning the accelerator, he took a deep breath and lined the boat up to go in between the two Speeders.
As the Squallo neared, the drivers on the two rival boats now had their own dilemmas. They could either block the plate and try to stop the runner from scoring, risking the possibility of being upended or capsized, or they could scatter and give chase from behind. As the Squallo neared, Tommy got what he was looking for. One Speeder took the safe option and squared away, while the other stayed put.
"Hang on! This could be a wild one!" Tommy shouted to Lance, and both of them ducked, with Tommy keeping his foot hard on the accelerator.
As they passed through, they heard the massive roar of the three boats' engines, and water sprayed all over their backs, kicked up by the gunfire.
"Fuck! I can't believe that worked!" Lance yelled triumphantly.
His joy was cut off though, when a stray bullet flew and plugged him direct in the elbow. Dropping the Ruger, he started swearing loudly in pain.
"Shit! Argh! Fuck! I can't hold the fucking gun!" he screamed, as he dropped the assault rifle, letting it clank onto the seat.
"I'll shoot!" Tommy cut in, trying to keep his composure. "Can you drive?"
"I think so. But we either gotta be quick in the switch or we balls it out to the finish. I think we should take the second option!"
"All right. Hold on!"
Luckily for them, that seemed to be it. For the rest of the journey, the two were unhindered on their way to the destination.
"You all right Lance?" Tommy asked as they climbed out of the boat to meet the freelancer.
"Yeah, I'm fine." grunted the man, still clutching his elbow. "I think I should still drive though - those guys aren't going to give up that easily."
"Who are they?"
"Cuban gangs. Trusting them, they'll bring back even more men."
They quickly exchanged Diaz's money for several large briefcases worth of cargo. As they prepared to drive off again, Lance alerted Tommy: he had been right; the Cubans had been sitting back and waiting for an ambush.
Now, the two Speeders who they hadn't tangled with were approaching them from behind as they left the freelancer yacht.
"Watch yourself; they're coming from all over!"
Picking up the Ruger, Tommy began firing at the first gunner, trying to hit him. But hitting a moving target while contending with the constant rocking of the boat from the waves was extremely difficult: luckily, the same applied to their pursuers.
"Was it that hard to hit them when you were shooting?" he called to Lance.
"Course it was, otherwise I would've cleared out both boats and you wouldn't have needed to try that crazy-ass stunt." Lance replied.
"A'right. Get back to Diaz's as fast as you can."
Tommy spent a full clip and was burning through his second when he finally made contact. A couple of bullets hit one of the gunners in the chest, sending him tumbling over the edge of his boat.
"Sleep with the fish!" Tommy yelled, before ducking to reload the Ruger.
Another speedboat came from the right, trying to ram them, but Tommy was spraying wildly in the boat's direction, pinning the gunner down. The Cuban tried to sneak his head up: bad mistake, as Tommy's bullets smashed into it, blowing it up in a mass of blood.
"There's more where that came from!" Tommy yelled again while wincing at the man's violent death.
Afterwards, the boat had little trouble to deal with, until they reached waters near the Malibu Club.
"There are gunmen on that jetty!" Lance advised.
Tommy saw them too: a line of about eight men waiting for the boat to get in range. As the Squallo neared, Tommy took a few pot-shots: he got lucky, wounding a couple. The rest readied their weapons for fire, and once again, Lance and Tommy were forced to duck and blindly pray for their lives. Fortunately, they got through only with more bullet holes in the speedboat's smooth paint job.
As they raced on, continuing to look for danger in water or on land ahead, a couple of bullets suddenly struck the leather seating surrounding Tommy. Swearing, he looked around, finding nothing hostile in the area. Then, he looked up in the air and saw a Sparrow helicopter flying towards them, two Cubans hanging on the sides trying to get a peg shot.
"Holy shit, these guys mean business. A whirlybird?"
"Oh shit…seriously? They sent a whirlybird?" Lance uttered disbelievingly.
Tommy couldn't steady for a good aim to get either one of the gunners (who were using their cover whenever he fired), and he didn't have much time either, so he took a shot at the front window, hoping to get rid of the pilot. Bullets continued to sag around him as he fired controlled bursts.
And then the clip went empty. As Tommy ducked down again to shove another clip into his rifle, hoping that the gunners wouldn't get him as he reloaded, he watched in slow-motion as a man fell out of the chopper…from the pilot's seat. As he hit the water with a splash, the Sparrow started to arch downwards. Its remaining occupants, realising that their cause was doomed, dived out and hit the water. The helicopter smashed into one of the bridges in Vice Point which went over water and began the long sink down to the floor.
Tommy had little time to bask in his success: Lance was already shouting another warning to him.
"More trouble up ahead!"
Tommy prayed that this one would be the last. He waited till the boat got closer, and fired a burst of rounds: most of which entered the gunner's chest, while a couple of bullets struck the driver, bringing the enemy boat to a halt.
Finally they pulled up at Diaz's mansion. As Tommy jumped out of the boat, he and Lance gave each other their usual high-five and had an exchange of words.
"Good shooting, my friend. You're a real, proper, grade-A lunatic." Lance said.
"Well, thank you." Tommy replied politely.
"See you around, Tommy."
"Okay, Mr. Lance Vance Dance."
And with that, Lance drove off in the Squallo. Tommy went off to retrieve his payment, which turned out to be a hefty sum of $18000; or more money than he had ever touched in his life. It would certainly be enough to allow him to acquire some property - and hopefully, it would be an asset which Sonny wouldn't be able to get his hands on.
