Chapter 10
And so it went on, day after day, the relentless search for Deadshot, his client, and his target. The more time that passed, the more urgent the search became. Slade took a fill-in job for an unfortunately – or fortunately depending on one's perspective – ill security guard at Roshev's current company, Stellmoor International and placed bugs in the security room.
Yao Fei posed as a Chinese Investor interested in Merlyn Consolidated and discreetly bugged Malcolm's offices at both his home and in the Merlyn Consolidated building. Shado spent many hours listening into all sorts of conversations on the numerous listening devices.
Felicity used the bugs to hack into the various computer mainframes to find any evidence of a potential hire of an assassin in the finances or a possible enemy that they may need eradicated.
But after five days of frantic searching, it was concluded that none of their possible clients were logical. Malcolm Merlyn was an assassin himself with a network of acolytes, and his own, if low level, assassin of a son. Isabel Roshev had nothing short of an army of mercenaries working for her every need, all of which would be more than pleased to kill anyone, no questions asked.
Frank Bertinelli had close connections with the Triad, so if he needed an assassin he would just pay China White. The only option they had now was to hope that Felicity would find some technological footprint between Deadshot and his employer, although Deadshot was strictly professional, his client was not necessarily so inconspicuous.
It was on the fifth day that Felicity finally gathered them all together, her skills with technology proving once again invaluable. By cross-referencing Deadshot's face with all the security cameras in Starling City, there was a partial match. It appeared that Deadshot was smart enough to stick to areas of the city with little photographic or filming occurring and have a hood on whenever he was under scrutiny.
And as suspected it was not Deadshot that made the mistake, rather his client. It was obviously an arranged meeting, the parking lot cameras were all blacked out but the restaurant across the street had a surprisingly good view of the lot despite the darkness and distance.
In the back corner of the screen a flicker of movement is seen. A black limousine sleekly slid into the center of the empty lot where a lone man, decked in a leather jacket and grey cotton hoodie waited patiently.
After some avid conversation that was not able to be picked up by the cheap camera, the hooded man reveled himself to be Floyd Lawton, known better by his Interpol coined name, Deadshot.
A neatly suited man from inside the luxury vehicle stepped outside and, unfortunately for the avid watchers, faced away from the camera and continued the exchange before handing a thick folder of documents to the sniper.
The suited man quickly reentered the extravagant car, Lawton covered his face once more with his dark hood and the two men exited without another word or glance, one slowly walking, one swiftly driving.
"Can you follow a camera trail?" Yao Fei never really understood technological jargon, and thus often resorted to interesting phrases to state his meaning.
"I tried but it's a dead end, he avoided all cameras near the area going to and from the meeting. That's the only footage I managed to find." Felicity said unhappily, unimpressed that Deadshot had gotten a step in front of her.
"Wait, it might be enough. Zoom into the suited man's face when he gets back into the car." Shado asked.
Felicity complied, and the assembly watched as half of the man's face was shown in very bad quality for a split second.
"I can't get a better quality. The cameras pretty cheap, and it's meant for just outside the restaurant, not across the street." Felicity sighed.
Oliver leant over and play the face over again, frowning he zoomed out, running a list of the men whom might want to hire Deadshot, a memory from the past came to mind and suddenly everything made sense.
"Of course, Frank Chen. He's a businessman whom worked on the Undertaking with my father and was one of the few whom knew about the bomb aboard The Gambit, his daughter Amanda was raped in the Glades. But he left the country and cut off all his ties in Starling City. However he still sends money for the Undertaking. I think he wants nothing to do with the Undertaking anymore. And there's only one surefire way of doing that." Oliver realized.
"Kill Malcolm Merlyn." Diggle stated.
"But that'd bring the league onto our doorsteps. That's the reason we agreed in the first place to not kill him, we do not need the league in Starling, especially with Sara Lance already running around." Shado said.
"If we don't stop it…" Felicity half asked concerned.
"We get a very angry league in Starling City. The very last thing we want." Slade swiftly said.
"Guess we're stopping it then." Oliver sighed, "Felicity pull up the cameras' of the Jade Dragon."
"Isn't that Triad territory?" Diggle asked.
"That's the point, Chen has links with the Triad, and that's the only ties he has left with Starling aside from the Undertaking. If Chen was to have an assassin in Starling, the men at the Jade Dragon would almost certainly know something." Oliver explained.
"But's that's why we ruled out Bertinelli, having connections to the Triad. Why wouldn't Chen use China White as the assassin?" Felicity asked as her hands skidded across the keyboard, hacking into the cameras with relative ease.
"Because Chen is known to have links with the Triad, if China White failed, Malcolm would have a very short list of suspects that would have that sort of power within the Triad while if Deadshot fails the blame is less likely to be pinned onto him." Slade, quickly catching on, clarified.
"Here" Felicity said, and they all watched as a set of twelve cameras' moved in fast motion from six days ago from all angles and most of the rooms in the Jade Dragon.
"There. In the left corner." Yao Fei said.
The screen stopped. A man stood by the grimy back window of the restaurant. One of the thugs that was seen regularly in the back alleyway walked out and despite the bad sound quality snatches of a quiet conversation was caught.
"Are you the sniper?"
"…me. Mr. Chen wants…"
"…work for him. What do you want?"
"Do you know…? It vital… time…"
"…Triad does not take demands."
"You will for me." A gun leapt into the man's hands, "Where can I get it?"
"I don't know. I don't know." For a Triad member, the man was surprisingly easily intimidated.
"Where?"
"China White… at least a week… that's all I know."
Deadshot twirled the gun, and used the handle to knock out the pathetic man.
Shado reached over and stopped the screen, "It appears that Deadshot is indeed working with Frank Chen and we have less than two days to work out who his target is."
"Wonderful. What now?" Felicity asked.
"The Jade Dragon."
…/|\...
It was eventually decided that it would be Slade and Oliver whom would go to the Jade Dragon. Diggle had his job with the Merlyns, Lyla had some A.R.G.U.S. mission to oversee, Shado and Yao Fei would be immediately suspected if they went near the restaurant and began threatening the Triad men in Mandarin, and of course Felicity was out of the question.
Oliver wanted to go alone but Shado insisted that Slade go with him, asserting that it would be safer if they went together. Oliver knew that Shado just wanted Slade to keep an eye on him so he wouldn't do anything that she classed as 'stupid' and he couldn't blame her, most of the time if he wanted to be alone, he was about to something that none of them approve of.
To be fair, Oliver knew that he was not exactly the most reliable teammate, often going off and doing his own thing if he felt it was necessary. But Oliver would never abandon his friends in a time of need.
The Jade Dragon restaurant was located on 1257 Merle Street, it was a known front for the local Chinese Mafia and according to A.R.G.U.S files was a minor station for money laundering. Nightfall was close and the restaurant had a steady flow of lower middle class traffic.
Slade and Oliver walked in through the main door, the little brass bell ringing to signify the arrival of new customers and chose a table close to the kitchen door but far enough away to not arouse immediate suspicion.
The table was a simple wooden affair covered in a plain white cloth that had frankly seen better days and the chairs were unsubtlety worn. It was clear that the Triad was not bothering to spend any more money than necessary on the restaurant front.
Slade and Oliver turned up to the reservation precisely on time, after spending the past hour analyzing the building from every angle using the plan's that Felicity had drawn up, and their own physical study of the building from outside, using windows to determine the layout of furniture and security cameras to monitor the amount of hostiles in the backroom.
They had also spent some time discussing possible plans of attack and what to do if all hell broke loose. As the old saying goes: It never hurts to be prepared; and in this case with Slade's inherent mistrust of everything, and Oliver's recent paranoia about being Starling City, they had the plan down to the very letter.
As they sat down, Slade subtly scanned the room for unknown danger while Oliver ordered the 'Chef's Best' from the bored waiter whom shrugged and after marking the order sluggishly on his frayed notebook with a small stub of pencil.
The waiter wondered off in no hurry at all to serve a group of older teenagers whom had decided for no particular reason that they were obliged to harass this specific restaurant tonight. For the next half an hour the duo watched amused as the teens did every annoying compliant provoking behaviors, short of actually doing something that may be considered illegal or would warrant them to be thrown out.
A massive fish was served with unordered complimentary alcoholic beverages which both men chose to ignore, neither willing to degrade their abilities, no matter how good, with liquor before an anticipated interrogation.
A musical tinkle of the brass doorbell alerted them to a thickset Chinese man with a mass of tattoos on each arm, whom immediately bypassed the front room and kitchens with expected ease, the waiter deliberately looking almost fearfully away from the Asian man. Slade and Oliver glanced discreetly at each other, the man was a few minutes earlier than anticipated but it did not matter, it was time for the plan to begin.
The next move of the vigilantes was so well choreographed that even the best actors directed by the greatest directors would be unable to recreate the smooth actions that occurred.
As the slow waiter passed their table Slade awkwardly but discreetly stuck out his combat boot covered foot tripping the unfortunate man whom was carefully carrying a platter of champagne in cheap glass flutes.
A crashing wave of alcohol and glass smashed over the teenagers much to the horror of the waiter, the disgust of the teens and satisfaction to the other customers all of whom was considering making an official complaint against them due to their immature conduct.
In the utter chaos and destruction that had now engulfed the front room of the Jade Dragon restaurant, Slade and Oliver slipped out into the kitchen, all eyes on the dripping boys and the embarrassed waiter. The kitchen was, if anything, more of a hurricane of confusion and dangerous movement than in the other room.
The two men quietly and unobtrusively entered the dark messy overcrowded backroom unnoticed. Inside a thin Asian man lounged in an old office chair while the stocky man stood over him arms crossed speaking in quick Mandarin. Oliver clicked off the dirty switch that controlled the lights as a distraction. The standing man drew his gun and glanced around ineffectually, missing the two partners in the sudden darkness.
Using this to his advantage, Slade smashed the standing man's head onto the crowded wooden table efficiently knocking the man out while Oliver, seizing initiative, sprayed the other man's face with hot sauce that was conveniently on the table, blinding and burning him at the same time. Oliver pulled the man out of the chair by his shirt and slammed him up against the grubby plaster wall, Slade pinned him there while Oliver began to bombard the man with fluent, correctly-accented Mandarin.
"The Triad has put a hit on someone. I want to know who.'
The man was a pathetic blubbering mess, "I don't know, I don't know what you're talking about."
Oliver threatened him again, still in perfect Mandarin, "The sniper hired by Frank Chen via the Triad, who is he being paid to kill?"
"I don't have anything to do with the Triad."
"You're not making Dim Sim back here."
"I… I don't know who it is."
"But you do know something. Tell me."
"Tomorrow, at City hall. Whatever's it is, it's supposed to happen tomorrow."
With that Slade punched him in the face, depriving the man of any consciousness. They then left the backroom, slipping through the kitchens and reseating themselves at their table, and started their meal, watching with bored interest as the waiter was publicly fired and another poor kitchen worker forced to clean up the massive mess.
As they paid for their rather second rate meal, the thickset man stormed out angrily, scanning the faces of the customers, dismissing Slade and Oliver. He began muttering to the fill in waiter asking of any clearly Asian customers had recently left.
With that the two men left satisfied that the Triad man had been suitably tricked into believing that two native Chinese men whom belonged to another triad sect had attacked them and the information they had was adequate.
…/|\...