Choices Made, Roads Taken
Chapter 14: Crisis Management
What has happened before: Ranma went to New York City with Jeff Anderson to get his life together. The Kuno siblings and Shampoo eventually followed. While Ranma has been trying to ignore the problems they represent, Kodachi has already removed her brother and Shampoo from the field. Ready or not, choices will be made.
-----
Kodachi had thought long and hard about what sort of revenge to take on the man who had ruined, if only temporarily, her beauty. A direct assault was out. Unlike Ranma, this Jeffery Anderson had no qualms about fighting women. The man's martial skills, while nowhere near her beloved's, were considerable. Despite her own mastery of Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics, Anderson had forcibly removed her from the Tendo compound twice. He'd fought that arrogant serving wench, Shampoo, to a draw. Less importantly, he had also defeated her brother in a purportedly fair duel.
Hiring her revenge out wasn't an option. Kodachi knew she could pay Hawksmoor's gang of criminals to beat or even kill Anderson. But that wasn't... personal enough. Choosing the right revenge had given Kodachi pause until she discovered that Anderson had a wife and son. Then her choice of target became all too easy. The child was out of the question, but disfiguring the man's wife would be exquisitely appropriate.
Finding her target would be no problem. While her brother and Shampoo settled for staking out Ranma's post office box, Kodachi's advanced planning included hiring a private investigator. She had known Ranma's location before arriving in New York. Only the delays to obtain proper equipment and prevent familial interference had stayed her hand until this point.
That Ranma might not be happy with her for attacking his hosts never crossed Kodachi's mind. This was revenge. It was more important than love. Kodachi prepared for battle.
-----
Ranma sat at his desk, pencil in hand, making a quick graph. He hated taking tests at Furinkan. He still wasn't fond of them, but at least Jeff's tests made him think and not just regurgitate data. Suddenly, he wrote down the minimum y value of y = x^2 - 5x + 4. Turning the page he discovered his next task was to add all even integers from 2 to 200 inclusive. There was a trick to it, Ranma was certain. After a moment's thought, he found it.
Ten minutes later, Ranma said, "Done," and handed the math test to Jeff.
Jeff mumbled quietly as he graded, his red pen occasionally flashing, "... negative two point two five, ten thousand one hundred..." Suddenly, Jeff flipped back to the first page and boldly wrote a number Ranma wasn't used to seeing on his tests.
"Ninety two?" Ranma asked as the phone rang in the background.
"You messed up two of the base conversion problems, the time and distance problem was a trick question and you forgot to carry the six on the last one," Jeff explained.
"Ninety two?"
Before Jeff could clarify further, Anne stuck her head into Ranma's room. "Hate to interrupt, but the hospital wants its CPR dummy back."
Jeff turned to look at Ranma, who shrugged. He'd already passed the First Aid tests. "I think the Natural and Unnatural Science test can wait."
Ranma, who really wanted a chance to stretch his legs, agreed. Minutes later, the two men exited the building. As they headed for 8th Avenue Subway entrance, they were watched by multiple sets of eyes and not only because of what Jeff carried.
-----
"Sir, I think you should take a look at this," the medical technician said to Benny. She handed over a clipboard containing charts, treatment notes and other undecipherable medical documentation.
"What?" Since he had shown an interest in Shampoo, his employer had placed both prisoners in his charge. Benny didn't like being in charge of anything. He was a bodyguard and enforcer, not an administrator. But as long as he took Hawksmoor's money, he'd follow Hawksmoor's orders.
"We did a routine tox screen on that Japanese guy and we got some weird results, so then we did a full workup and..." the tech trailed off.
"And what?" Benny asked sharply.
The tech pointed at a graph. "I've never seen results like these. Even without the electro-stim, his arm would be fully healed in another week." Flipping over two pages, she pointed at another chart. "Plus, I don't think we can keep him under sedation much longer."
"So up the dosage."
"He's past the lethal dose now. The guy is shrugging it off as fast as we can pump it in."
"You think he's a meta?" Benny asked. Because of his background, it was the first answer he came up with.
"Sir, it's either that or someone's been routinely drugging him for years."
Benny thought about the situation briefly. "Let him wake up. I may need to interrogate him." He handed back the clipboard and strode toward Shampoo's holding cell. As he went, he pulled his cell phone from his belt and dialed.
Moments later, a bored sounding male voice answered, "Ops."
"Who have we got watching Miss Kuno?" Benny asked.
There was a brief pause before Ops answered, "Cadre Squad Six under Agent Echo."
"Patch me through."
"Yes sir."
-----
Kodachi's plan nearly unraveled before it was properly underway. Upon seeing Ranma leave the apartment building, Kodachi's first instinct was to run to him and profess her undying love. The paralysis powder concealed in her bouquet of black roses would ensure Ranma stood still long enough to listen.
Fantasies of Ranma returning her feelings were displaced by anger when she noticed the man who'd dared strike her walking alongside Ranma. Her desire for vengeance reasserted itself. To ensure success, she forced herself to wait until Ranma and his cursed American friend entered the subway. Only then did she approach the apartment building where Ranma had been living.
Kodachi's somewhat truthful claim of a flower delivery sufficed to get her into the building. Within seconds of entering the elevator, she'd cast off her disguise and stood ready for battle. Her trademark black roses were held in her left hand while she lazily twirled a ribbon with her right. Other weapons, mostly made from memory plastics to save space, were hidden in the numerous concealed pockets of her gymnastics leotard.
Kodachi had never lived in an apartment building. She was therefore quite surprised when the elevator stopped on the fifth floor to admit an elderly woman wearing a jogging outfit and tennis shoes. Her ribbon stopped its idle spiral to droop on the elevator floor.
"That's a lovely costume dearie," the old woman commented in knowing tones. "But you'll catch your death of cold dressed like that this time of year."
Kodachi said not a word as the woman punched the button for the ninth floor. She remained silent as the elevator rose. It wasn't until the woman left the elevator with a cheery 'have fun' that Kodachi nodded and quietly answered, "I shall." She managed to not laugh maniacally.
As she knocked on the door, Kodachi realized that the narrow hallway was unsuitable for most of her ribbon techniques. She quickly switched to a club with retractable spikes. It would function better in close quarters. After she forced her way into the apartment, she could return to her weapon of choice.
"Be there in a minute," came a woman's voice.
'Undoubtedly my target,' Kodachi thought. Hopefully the woman would put up a decent struggle. Her revenge would be much sweeter that way.
Fortunately, after the Robert the Cat incident, Anne demanded and received a briefing on Ranma's threat list. The apartment door's peephole camera clearly showed a dark-haired young woman dressed in a gymnast's outfit with a bouquet of black roses in one hand and a small club in the other. This was obviously Kodachi Kuno, grade A loon.
If Lil' Bill had been in the apartment, instead of safely at his grandfather's (because of Ranma's testing), Anne would have called the police. But without her son at risk, she felt she could take the martial arts gymnast in a unfair fight. Anne grabbed a mini-flare and donned a pair of dark sunglasses. Her husband would never forgive her if she used real weapons in the house.
Anne knew Kodachi relied exclusively on weaponry and never fought hand to hand. The body to body fight she planned after using the flare to level the playing field would force Kodachi out of her rhythm.
Both combatants severely underestimated the other.
-----
Agent Echo blew into his hands to warm them. Surveillance was always a chore, even more so in cold weather. But that chore had ended with the orders he'd received. Miss Kuno was to be captured immediately, along with any 'guilty' bystanders.
Access to the target building was no problem. He picked the lock on the front door faster than most people used keys. Bolt cutters took care of the chains illegally blocking the fire exit, allowing Cadres One through Seven to enter from the alley. Cadre Eight was bringing a unmarked panel van for transport. Hopefully, the Manhattan traffic wouldn't hold her up too long. Cadre Nine was lookout.
The elevator wasn't large enough, so Agent Echo led his men up the stairs. When he stepped out on the eleventh floor a minute later, the slowest of his squad was only two floors behind. There were clear-cut benefits to the aerobic conditioning required of Hawksmoor's henchmen.
The scene that greeted him wasn't what he was expecting. A bouquet of black roses lay in the hall. The door to apartment 1104 hung open with a spiked club stuck in the door frame. The sounds of combat from within were clear to his ears. Agent Echo cautiously walked to the open doorway and stopped.
As the rest of his team took up positions, Cadre One walked up to his supervisor to ask, "Sir, shouldn't we go in?"
"Heck no, I love a good cat fight," Agent Echo replied as Anne threw the couch, cushions and all, at a wildly dodging Kodachi.
-----
Jeff and a female Ranma chatted about Ranma's upcoming science test as they left the elevator. The number of accidental gender changes had gone up since Shampoo and the Kunos arrival in America. Jeff didn't believe it was a coincidence. Then again, neither did Ranma.
Even before the elevator door closed, both knew something was drastically wrong. Black roses, many of them crushed, lay scattered along the narrow hallway. Traces of white powder could be seen next to a scrap of colorful paper, the kind florists use to wrap bouquets. More evidence was available, but neither Jeff nor Ranma needed it. Kodachi had come to call.
Jeff unlocked the apartment door, throwing up a repeller field as he crossed the threshold. Ranma followed cautiously, taking silent cues from her friend and mentor. The apartment was a mess. Most of the couch stood on end in the corner of the living room. The floor was covered with toys from Lil' Bill's overturned playpen liberally mixed with slashed open cushions and pieces of broken furniture.
Ranma closed the apartment door, revealing a letter taped to the other side.
Dear Misters Saotome and Anderson.
If you wish to ever see Miss Kuno or Mrs. Anderson again, don't even think of calling the police. They, along with Mr. Kuno and Miss Shampoo, are perfectly safe. If you wish them to remain this way, be at the payphone on the southwest corner of East 7th and Avenue A at 6:00 PM sharp. You will receive further instructions there.
PS. We didn't make this mess. Honest.
"What do we do?" Ranma asked quietly.
"We've got three and a half hours. We get to work."
Ranma swept for bugs while Jeff checked his phones and computers for tampering. Ranma found nothing, but Jeff discovered something he sounded happy about. "Good news, the phone's being tapped," Jeff informed Ranma.
"Why is that good?"
"If the bad guys are tapping my phone, they probably aren't engaging in other forms of surveillance. Which means you can change back to normal now."
Ranma was male and drying off his hands seconds later. "About time," he grumbled.
"Well, I didn't want you doing it if anyone was watching."
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I know it did not take you fifteen minutes just to find that. What else?
Jeff played the peephole camera's security recording. The picture was clear enough, but there was no sound. It showed Kodachi's approach from the elevator, the door swinging open thirty seconds later and then the screen blanked for a split second. "Mini-flare" Jeff explained. Anne did well at first, taking out Kodachi's flower bomb while ducking a spiked club. The fight moved into the apartment drifting in and out of camera range. After a minute or so, Anne stumbled across the field of view, knocking over Lil' Bill's playpen. She was bleeding from a bump on her noggin.
Kodachi stalked into frame, using her spiraling ribbon as a whip to open small cuts on Anne's arms. Anne lowered her head and charged, knocking both of them off camera. Soon after, a man in paramilitary clothing appeared in the doorway.
After a few seconds, Anne was knocked over the couch by an unseen attack. Straining, she picked up the entire couch and threw it off camera. Kodachi bounded into frame, only to have Anne whack her square in the nose. "Nice punch," Jeff said quietly. It was at this point the combatants noticed their audience. It was hard to tell who was more surprised, Anne or Kodachi. But their surprise cost them as they were cut down by taser fire.
The rest of the tape showed half a dozen identically clad men binding and carrying the unconscious women out of the apartment and down the stairwell. The man who arrived first wrote the letter Ranma had found and was last to leave.
"Did you recognize anyone besides Kodachi?" Jeff asked.
"No."
"We may have a problem then," Jeff said as he began typing on his keyboard. "The only people I know who routinely use tasers are a gang of criminals for hire called the Irish Wolfhounds. According to police reports, they were the triggermen for the Javits Center robbery. Nobody knows who they were working for yet. They're currently led by this man." A picture of a sharply dressed red bearded man appeared on the screen.
"Colin Hawksmoor," Jeff continued. "Criminal and financial genius. Fluent in six languages, reads lips in all six. World class muscle reader and probably the best raw fighter I've ever seen."
"Until you met me you mean," Ranma added confidently.
"Not really," Jeff flatly stated.
"Huh!?"
"You don't qualify as 'raw'. Which I'll explain later. But I've fought Hawksmoor before as Tach. If I fight him again, he'll know it's me at which point my secret identity is blown."
"So when we find them, then Tach and Wild Dragon go to rescue."
"No," Jeff said. "No costumes. We can't have any connection between you and Wild Dragon. Bad enough that a male and a female Wild Dragon have been seen publicly. Shampoo could put two and two together, even if the Kunos don't. The bad guys want Ranma Saotome and Jeff Anderson. That's who'll they get."
"Oh, that does make sense. They connect me to Wild Dragon and that leads them to you and MATRIX."
"Uh huh. But don't worry, we won't be going alone."
"Wouldn't having anyone from MATRIX be giveaway?"
"Ranma, Ranma, Ranma. This is why we pay taxes." Although Jeff refused to elaborate on that comment, he did explain the difference between overt and covert operations. By the time he finished, Ranma was smiling. At no time did Jeff's fingers pause in their rapid typing.
-----
As he watched Jeff work, Ranma made up his mind. Running halfway around the planet had only bought him a few months peace. There was no point in continuing to inflict his problems on others, even if Jeff and his friends didn't seem to mind that much. It was time to go home. Now if he could only figure out where home was, he'd be all set.
-----
"Any sign of the targets?" Benny asked the surveillance tech.
"Nothing yet sir. But they're not due for another ten minutes or so," the bored man replied.
"If I were a happily married man, I'd have been there already," Benny reflected. "What kind of information do we have on Anderson?"
"Not much. We didn't have time to build a real dossier. Jeffery Lewis Anderson. Usually goes by 'Jeff'. Twenty years old. Married. One son."
"Where's the kid?" Benny asked sharply. Despite working for a criminal organization, Benny did have some scruples about potentially harming children.
"No idea sir. There was evidence of a child at the target's apartment, but no child."
"Hmm. Go on."
"OK... OK... One son. Self employed as a machinist and a computer programmer. Weird combo. Hey, according to this, he was lead designer-programmer on 'Boojum Hunt' when he was fourteen.
"Really? I loved that game."
"Me too," the tech admitted. Pausing briefly, he spun his swivel chair to face his superior. "Sir, maybe I'm missing something, but what's the connection between this guy and Ranma Saotome? They've got nothing in common."
"You figure it out, tell me so I can tell the big boss," Benny replied. Glancing at his watch, he added, "Gotta go. His majesty wants to 'observe' when I make the run around calls. Contact me when they show up."
"Sure thing." As Benny walked off, the tech turned back in time to see a flash of static blip across his consoles. He dismissed it as just another in a long line of power surges caused by electrifying the detention cells. 'Chinese girl must _like_ getting zapped,' he thought.
At a nearby cyber cafe, Jeff stared at his PDA waiting for a flashing yellow light to turn green or red. Ranma sat next to him and sipped hot chocolate to ward off the December chill. It was either that or admit he liked the stuff.
"It's in," Jeff said quietly when the light finally flashed green. "Time to go."
"You sure program will work?" Ranma asked.
If the program Jeff assembled in under two hours worked, he could lock up his enemy's phone and computer systems. "If it doesn't, we'll improvise."
Five minutes later and three blocks away, Benny noted it was 5:59 PM. He was reaching for the phone when it rang.
"Benny."
"They're here!" the no longer bored tech stated, agitation clearly evident in his voice.
"They just now made the rendezvous point?"
"I mean _here_ here, in the front lobby!"
Benny hung up the phone, turned to his employer and calmly stated, "Sir, we have a problem," just as the intruder alarms went off.
Hawksmoor turned on his internal security monitor and began cycling through the available cameras. He stopped on an image of two men. One was relatively tall, brown haired, wearing a brown trench coat and carrying an aluminum baseball bat. A large green duffel bag was slung across his back. The other was shorter, dressed in a red sleeveless shirt, black sweatpants and slippers. Both men wore gloves.
Hawksmoor smiled at the intruders' resourcefulness. "Bravo, Misters Anderson and Saotome." Finding out how they'd located his headquarters so quickly was a task he would eventually turn over to his interrogators. But at that moment, wishing only for some popcorn, Hawksmoor settled in to watch the show.
Ranma knocked out the two 'security guards' before they could draw their weapons. The agent acting as the receptionist did better, but Jeff disarmed her before she could fire her taser. After shooting her with her own weapon, Jeff pulled a handful of plastic ties from his pocket and roughly trussed the three unconscious operatives. Jeff flipped over the receptionist's desk scattering papers and office equipment. After helping Ranma drag Hawksmoor's men behind the rough shield, Jeff pulled a bowl full of gray powder covered with plastic wrap and a tape gun from his duffel bag. With two quick motions, the bowl was attached to the door leading to the rest of Hawksmoor's complex. Diving behind his makeshift barricade, Jeff pulled a detonator from his trench coat. "Fire in the hole!" he shouted.
A brilliant flash lit the room for several seconds. When the light faded, there was a large glowing hole where the door's locking mechanism used to be. It flew open at Ranma's kick. Total time from start to finish was under a minute.
"Brilliant. Wonderful," Hawksmoor mused enthusiastically.
Benny demanded, "Where in the hell did they get thermite?"
Hawksmoor waved away his bodyguard's question. "Mister Anderson is a machinist. How hard can it be for him to get magnesium and iron filings?"
"Fine, he can make a bomb. But where'd he get the detonator?" Benny asked pointedly.
Hawksmoor ignored the question. There were too many possibilities to bother explaining them. As he watched, Ranma plowed into a group of cadre and left the only one standing ten seconds later. "I could topple governments with a dozen men like him," Hawksmoor noted with a laugh.
"Sir, as much as you're enjoying this, those are your men getting the snot kicked out of them," Benny stated forcefully. He wanted Hawksmoor to take control of the situation, to lead, but his employer seemed content to let the two intruders run amok.
"Oh, but I'm learning so much," Hawksmoor observed. "All the better to defeat them later."
-----
Meanwhile, in a another part of the facility, Shampoo heard a loud buzzing noise come from multiple ceiling mounted speakers. The cell block guards scrambled out of the detention area in response to its call.
'Now that was convenient,' Shampoo thought. Peeling off her clothes, she splashed herself with cold water from the sink. Her much smaller feline body walked between the bars with room to spare. Searching the cell block, she found an unconscious dark-haired woman with a bandaged forehead. Shampoo ignored her, having other problems to worry about.
As she searched for either Kuno or the way out, a very large brown and black tabby leapt down from the shadows. He, Shampoo was certain, wore a complex harness with a couple of miniature saddlebags. The strange feline peered at her interestedly. She prepared to fight, despite being outweighed at least ten to one.
"Excuse me, where do they keep the prisoners?" Robert the Cat asked.
Shampoo's command of English was limited at best, her shock at meeting a talking cat was great, but she still managed to bat a paw in the right direction.
"Thanks cutie," the oversized cat said before bounding away.
After pulling herself together, Shampoo continued her search. Moments later, she found Kuno in a room that looked more like a hotel than a detention cell. Kuno lay sleeping on a comfortable looking bed. His left arm was encased in a cast with wires leading out from it. Shampoo managed to turn on the washstand's hot water faucet and returned to her normal body.
"Bokken boy! Wake up!" Shampoo shouted in Japanese as she roughly shook Kuno. Ally or not, if the kendoist didn't start moving, he'd be left behind.
Kuno's eyes slowly wandered open. He incoherently slurred, "Oh... ramen haired purple girl, it is I... you... those..." Suddenly he bolted upright long enough to ask "Where are your clothes?" before blood fountained out his nose and he fell unconscious once more.
Shampoo smacked her forehead with an open palm. 'Oy Vey. Great-grandmother was right. I should have waited for airen to come home on his own.' She quickly fashioned a toga out of bed linen and swung up Kuno in a fireman's carry. It was long past time to leave.
-----
The incessant clanging of alarms finally woke Anne. With a headache left over from her encounter with Kodachi, she examined herself and her surroundings. The bars of her spartan cell proved electrified when she tested them. The alarms continued ringing and Anne felt she knew why. Even as she sat down to await rescue, help arrived.
"About time you got here," Anne muttered once Robert the Cat approached her cell.
Not knowing if they were being watched, the talking feline didn't answer. He crawled close to the electrified bars and waited. Unsteady from her zap-nap, Anne stretched out on the floor. Carefully reaching past the bars, she unbuckled Robert's saddlebags. Anne recognized the workmanship. After all, it was hers.
Robert fled as Anne pulled the bags into her cell. The first bag contained earplugs and dark-tinted polycarbonate goggles, which she donned. Her cell phone, which she stuffed into a back pocket. Last but not least, a chocolate bar, which she promptly ate. In the other saddlebag were a package marked 'thermite', a detonator and a roll of duct tape.
"What am I supposed to..." Anne trailed off as she looked over the available tools. "Oh! Duh." She quickly wrapped the thermite with sticky side out duct tape and carefully dropped it on her cell's locking mechanism. Draping the thin mattress from the army surplus cot over herself for protection, Anne crouched as far from the lock as possible and hit the switch.
Thirty seconds later, Anne moved warily down the hall looking for any way out of the building. As soon as she cell phone registered a signal, she had a call to make.
-----
As Hawksmoor watched Ranma dodge taser fire, Benny attempted to rally the troops. The surveillance squad detailed to watch Saotome and Anderson was en route, ETA ten minutes. The four squads detailed to actually capture the targets, which included his best men, had been ordered to scatter. There was no way they'd make it back from Brooklyn in time to affect the outcome.
This left four squads of cadre, a dozen or so agents and nearly twenty non-combatants to deal with the intruders. Numbers that had been steadily decreasing since the attack began. Hawksmoor refused to authorize lethal force. He wanted Saotome and Anderson alive.
Benny was left with the task of implementing orders he didn't agree with. Looking over his situation board, he came up with a plan. A half squad of techs was sent to slip in behind the intruders. They would free and awaken as many of the captured men as possible. That would cut off, or at least slow, any retreat back the way they had come. Once he had enough men for the job, picking off Anderson would come next. The final maneuver would be to pile enough bodies on Saotome that he'd fall to sheer weight of numbers no matter how good a martial artist he was.
As Benny watched his techs warily approach the front lobby where the attack began, an emergency signal came through his command headset. "Sir, we have prisoners loose," Benny reported urgently.
Hawksmoor glared at his monitor. A few keystrokes divided his screen into four sections. Upper left, Ranma Saotome was finishing off the group of cadre that had fired upon him. Upper right, Jeffery Anderson was interrogating a captured tech two rooms away from his friend. Lower left, Shampoo's clothing was the only thing remaining in her cell. Lower right, Anne Anderson's cell door hung open, the locking mechanism destroyed.
Stroking his beard, Hawksmoor ordered, "Lock down the building. Engage internal defenses." In a more conversational tone, he added, "I believe Mister Anderson has more help than we've seen." He began running the security recordings backward to find out how the escapes had been made.
Benny rapidly typed Hawksmoor's commands into his console. Status lights flashed red, and refused to fade after Benny reentered the commands. Shaking his head, he reported, "Lockdown sequence initiated. Unsealable gaps between Zones 1 and 2, and Zones 8, 11 and 12. Internal defenses..." The words 'coming online' were preempted by his computer screen going blank.
As the picture on his security monitor dissolved in a swirl of static, a glimmer of annoyance crossed Colin Hawksmoor's face but was quickly banished. "Undoubtedly Anderson's doing. Ah well, playtime is over. Time to deal with them myself."
-----
Shampoo felt the presence of someone behind her. Instincts sharpened through endless drill and practice were as reliable as sight and hearing. Carrying Kuno limited her options, but she could still fight this unseen foe.
When she spun around, Shampoo faced two men with submachine guns. She was a mighty warrior, an Amazon champion, but she wasn't a fool. She raised her arms in surrender, knowing that if her captors slipped up for even a split second, she could take them.
Even as Shampoo considered her options, the same oversized cat she'd met earlier blurred into existence above her captor's heads. Robert's fangs and claws flashed as he buried them in his chosen target's neck. As a distraction, Shampoo couldn't have asked for more. The subsequent fight didn't last six seconds.
"Wow, you're even cute as a human," Robert observed afterwards. He quickly licked the back of his paw and began grooming the fur on his head.
Knowing her poor English would make her sound stupid, Shampoo still asked "What kind cat you?"
"The very best kind," said a female voice from behind her. Shampoo whirled to see the woman she'd left back at the cell block. Apparently, she'd managed her own escape, with or without help from the purring feline rubbing against her ankles.
"Hello, I'm Anne," the dark haired woman said. With a gesture, she added, "You've already met Robert. You must be Shampoo."
According to the information she had purchased from Nabiki, Anne was the name of Jeffery Anderson's wife. This women could lead her straight to her husband. "Where is airen?" Shampoo demanded.
"Who's Airen?" Anne asked in return.
Shampoo grimaced internally and tried again. "Ranma. Where is Ranma?"
"Last I heard, two floors up and over thataway," Robert answered with a motion of his paw.
"Well if they're here to rescue us, we might as well make it easy for them," Anne responded as she grabbed one of the submachine guns dropped earlier. "Help yourself."
The Amazon didn't understand most of what Robert of Anne had said, but the last part was clear enough. "Shampoo no use gun." She meant she didn't need a gun, but saying so was beyond her language skills.
"In that case, let's see if I remember how to use one of these," Anne said. With sure movements, she set the Mini-Uzi's safety, verified there was a round in chamber, removed the clip and quickly counted twenty-four 9 millimeter rounds. Reattaching the clip, she prepared the weapon for use in semi-automatic mode. Just another of the many things she'd learned in the hero biz. "I'm ready. Lead on Robert."
'Americans and their stupid guns,' Shampoo thought as she followed the woman and cat towards her chance to convince Ranma that she was one he should marry.
-----
With the loss of communications, a few of Hawksmoor's men had abandoned his Greenwich Village headquarters. A few others merely abandoned the 'no lethal force' orders they'd been given. The pop of small arms fire was soaked up by the building's extensive soundproofing. But inside the building, enough people heard the gunplay to bring all the players to the same stage.
The net result was that the main training room suddenly became crowded. Ranma was searching the cavernous space for anyone to fight. Jeff dashed in with five armed men behind him. His armored trench coat had stopped three bullets already. Robert, Anne and Shampoo (still carrying an unconscious Kuno Tatewaki) entered from the stairwell.
On spotting Ranma, Robert spun around and scrambled out of sight. The Neko-Ken wasn't anything he wanted to see, cause or otherwise be involved with. He'd just managed to leave the training area when reinforced steel doors slammed down over the exits.
"ENOUGH!" shouted Hawksmoor in a command voice. He and Benny stood on a catwalk high above where the rest of the room's occupants were noting who else had arrived.
"Anne!" "Jeff!" "Shampoo?" "Airen!" Kuno was dropped unceremoniously to the concrete floor.
'Husband?' Hawksmoor translated internally as armed agents took up station along the narrow pathways strung throughout the training room. "Get the girl," he quietly ordered his enforcer.
Benny vaulted the catwalk rail, taking the eight meter drop without effort to land between Anne and Shampoo. Anne hesitated to pull the trigger of her Mini-Uzi because once bullets started flying it was nearly impossible to get them to stop. Shampoo didn't hesitate at all, throwing herself into desperate combat against her much larger and superhumanly strong opponent.
Ranma moved to interfere, but was waved down by Jeff. They weren't supposed to know that Benny was a meta-human and that Shampoo needed help. Besides, in Jeff's opinion, there was a chance the Amazon could win.
As cadre disarmed Anne and waved her over to join her husband, Shampoo landed blow after blow on her antagonist. To someone without Benny's durability, they might have been enough. As it was, Benny shrugged off her efforts long enough to grab Shampoo's arm. Using his superior strength, he quickly placed her in a hold from which there was no escape. With surprising gentleness, Benny requested, "Miss Shampoo, please stop before I have to hurt you."
Shampoo stopped struggling. She suddenly realized why her great-grandmother had ordered her to follow the laws of America and not the laws of the Joketzu on her search. She wasn't there as an Amazon warrior. She wasn't there to enforce three thousand years of Amazon tradition. She wasn't there to trick Ranma into marriage or even a mere declaration of affection. She was there to show Ranma that she loved him. She was there to show Ranma that Shampoo the woman, not Shampoo the Amazon, would be his best choice as wife. Winning or losing a battle against some other male wasn't the point. It was... disturbing... that Cologne had been so far sighted and she had been so blind.
Shampoo was brought back to reality by the sound of Hawksmoor's voice. "A valiant attempt gentlemen. One that was far too successful for amateurs."
"This is not my first kidnapping," Ranma stated levelly.
Hawksmoor's trained senses indicated that Ranma told the truth. "Mrs. Anderson and Miss Kuno were taken without my orders. I apologize for that." The fact that no one had freed Kodachi did not escape his notice. "It was my intention to release them to you."
He sounded sincere enough to Ranma's ear, but Jeff asked, "What about Shampoo and Lumpy?" Kuno still laid where Shampoo had dropped him. No one had seen fit to check on his condition.
"Those were at Miss Kuno's request and expense," the man explained from his perch. "As such, I'm afraid I can't allow them to leave unchallenged. But it's nothing that a little one on one battle wouldn't cure."
Ranma jerked his thumb toward Benny and asked, "So I have to fight him before you let them go?"
"No Mister Saotome. You'll be fighting me," Hawksmoor stated calmly.
"Sir, I must protest," Benny nearly shouted.
"Protest noted and filed for future reference," Hawksmoor replied in clipped tones before climbing down from the catwalk.
At multiple gunpoints, Jeff and Anne were marched over the prone body of Kuno Tatewaki. Shampoo soon joined them. Ranma walked to the middle of the room as his adversary did likewise.
"I am Colin Hawksmoor, leader of the Irish Wolfhounds and my terms are simple: Win, and you may leave with your friends. Lose, and you will join them."
Ranma formally bowed and stated "I am Saotome Ranma of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts and I accept your terms."
Ranma was surprised when his first kick missed. When the follow up punches also failed to connect, he was moderately impressed. Hawksmoor was avoiding the blows by a fair distance, reacting even to feints. Ranma's bare arms and skin tight silk shirt told Hawksmoor everything he needed to know.
The spectators watch impassively until one uniformed man shouted "Kick his ass boss!" This let loose the floodgates and soon most of Hawksmoor's men were cheering their leader.
Ranma ignored the crowd and focused on his opponent. Jeff had warned him that the man was a muscle reader. The next kick he launched, Hawksmoor intercepted with both hands. Ranma brought his other leg up in a kick directed at the back of his enemy's head.
Hawksmoor threw Ranma's captive leg up while ducking just enough to spoil Ranma's effort. Ferociously torquing his body around, Ranma managed to land on his feet, but facing away from his opponent. Hawksmoor kicked him squarely in the tailbone forcing Ranma to sprawl onto the concrete floor.
Rolling away from a follow up stomp, Ranma attempted a leg sweep which was neatly hopped over. But the attack and its whirling successors allowed Ranma to regain his feet.
"Very nice Mister Saotome," Hawksmoor taunted, "but I can read your every move."
"Read this," Ranma replied before exploding into motion. Hawksmoor was unconscious before he realized the difference between being able to tell what an opponent is doing and being fast enough to do anything about it.
The men and women of the Irish Wolfhounds looked to Benny for instructions. They were more than ready to ignore the deal their leader had made. As Benny prepared to speak, he was preempted by an amplified voice stating, "This Is The Police. We Have You Surrounded. Drop Your Weapons And Place Your Hands On Your Heads."
Again the Irish Wolfhounds turned to their second in command. Benny scooped up his fallen employer and kicked open the reinforced steel door that had sealed off the stairwell. Motioning his troops through, he paused at the threshold. Turning to Shampoo, he said, "In another time and place..." before trailing off. Shaking his head sadly, Benny ducked into the stairwell and was soon lost to sight.
"We go after them?" Ranma asked.
"No. We got who we came for," Jeff replied with one arm draped protectively around his wife.
-----
"So, is Benny your new 'airen'?" Ranma inquired hopefully.
"No. Great-grandmother say Shampoo obey laws of America when Shampoo in America, not laws of Joketzu."
This was a happy surprise for Ranma. "Really? Then that means..."
Jeff caught the line of reasoning and told Ranma in English, "I'll call in a favor and get us an early court date."
"What foreign man say?" Shampoo demanded.
Changing mental gears back to Japanese, Jeff said, "Don't worry Shampoo, we'll get everything straightened out. But in the meantime, the police have some questions for you."
Shampoo nodded and allowed herself to be led away by Detective Tomoeh Mochizuki-Sanderson. Who just happened to be one of people Ranma had met at Anne's 21st birthday party and who also happened to be one of Robert the Cat's 'owners'. That happy non-coincidence had played a large part in Jeff's plans.
Watching the two women leave, Ranma asked, "What do we do now?"
"Shampoo and Kuno will probably be held as material witnesses. But Kodachi's been charged with a whole laundry list of stuff. We leave her in jail and screw up her bail. Without being caught at it of course."
"That is _so_ not nice. I like it."
END CHAPTER 14
Chapter 14: Crisis Management
What has happened before: Ranma went to New York City with Jeff Anderson to get his life together. The Kuno siblings and Shampoo eventually followed. While Ranma has been trying to ignore the problems they represent, Kodachi has already removed her brother and Shampoo from the field. Ready or not, choices will be made.
-----
Kodachi had thought long and hard about what sort of revenge to take on the man who had ruined, if only temporarily, her beauty. A direct assault was out. Unlike Ranma, this Jeffery Anderson had no qualms about fighting women. The man's martial skills, while nowhere near her beloved's, were considerable. Despite her own mastery of Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics, Anderson had forcibly removed her from the Tendo compound twice. He'd fought that arrogant serving wench, Shampoo, to a draw. Less importantly, he had also defeated her brother in a purportedly fair duel.
Hiring her revenge out wasn't an option. Kodachi knew she could pay Hawksmoor's gang of criminals to beat or even kill Anderson. But that wasn't... personal enough. Choosing the right revenge had given Kodachi pause until she discovered that Anderson had a wife and son. Then her choice of target became all too easy. The child was out of the question, but disfiguring the man's wife would be exquisitely appropriate.
Finding her target would be no problem. While her brother and Shampoo settled for staking out Ranma's post office box, Kodachi's advanced planning included hiring a private investigator. She had known Ranma's location before arriving in New York. Only the delays to obtain proper equipment and prevent familial interference had stayed her hand until this point.
That Ranma might not be happy with her for attacking his hosts never crossed Kodachi's mind. This was revenge. It was more important than love. Kodachi prepared for battle.
-----
Ranma sat at his desk, pencil in hand, making a quick graph. He hated taking tests at Furinkan. He still wasn't fond of them, but at least Jeff's tests made him think and not just regurgitate data. Suddenly, he wrote down the minimum y value of y = x^2 - 5x + 4. Turning the page he discovered his next task was to add all even integers from 2 to 200 inclusive. There was a trick to it, Ranma was certain. After a moment's thought, he found it.
Ten minutes later, Ranma said, "Done," and handed the math test to Jeff.
Jeff mumbled quietly as he graded, his red pen occasionally flashing, "... negative two point two five, ten thousand one hundred..." Suddenly, Jeff flipped back to the first page and boldly wrote a number Ranma wasn't used to seeing on his tests.
"Ninety two?" Ranma asked as the phone rang in the background.
"You messed up two of the base conversion problems, the time and distance problem was a trick question and you forgot to carry the six on the last one," Jeff explained.
"Ninety two?"
Before Jeff could clarify further, Anne stuck her head into Ranma's room. "Hate to interrupt, but the hospital wants its CPR dummy back."
Jeff turned to look at Ranma, who shrugged. He'd already passed the First Aid tests. "I think the Natural and Unnatural Science test can wait."
Ranma, who really wanted a chance to stretch his legs, agreed. Minutes later, the two men exited the building. As they headed for 8th Avenue Subway entrance, they were watched by multiple sets of eyes and not only because of what Jeff carried.
-----
"Sir, I think you should take a look at this," the medical technician said to Benny. She handed over a clipboard containing charts, treatment notes and other undecipherable medical documentation.
"What?" Since he had shown an interest in Shampoo, his employer had placed both prisoners in his charge. Benny didn't like being in charge of anything. He was a bodyguard and enforcer, not an administrator. But as long as he took Hawksmoor's money, he'd follow Hawksmoor's orders.
"We did a routine tox screen on that Japanese guy and we got some weird results, so then we did a full workup and..." the tech trailed off.
"And what?" Benny asked sharply.
The tech pointed at a graph. "I've never seen results like these. Even without the electro-stim, his arm would be fully healed in another week." Flipping over two pages, she pointed at another chart. "Plus, I don't think we can keep him under sedation much longer."
"So up the dosage."
"He's past the lethal dose now. The guy is shrugging it off as fast as we can pump it in."
"You think he's a meta?" Benny asked. Because of his background, it was the first answer he came up with.
"Sir, it's either that or someone's been routinely drugging him for years."
Benny thought about the situation briefly. "Let him wake up. I may need to interrogate him." He handed back the clipboard and strode toward Shampoo's holding cell. As he went, he pulled his cell phone from his belt and dialed.
Moments later, a bored sounding male voice answered, "Ops."
"Who have we got watching Miss Kuno?" Benny asked.
There was a brief pause before Ops answered, "Cadre Squad Six under Agent Echo."
"Patch me through."
"Yes sir."
-----
Kodachi's plan nearly unraveled before it was properly underway. Upon seeing Ranma leave the apartment building, Kodachi's first instinct was to run to him and profess her undying love. The paralysis powder concealed in her bouquet of black roses would ensure Ranma stood still long enough to listen.
Fantasies of Ranma returning her feelings were displaced by anger when she noticed the man who'd dared strike her walking alongside Ranma. Her desire for vengeance reasserted itself. To ensure success, she forced herself to wait until Ranma and his cursed American friend entered the subway. Only then did she approach the apartment building where Ranma had been living.
Kodachi's somewhat truthful claim of a flower delivery sufficed to get her into the building. Within seconds of entering the elevator, she'd cast off her disguise and stood ready for battle. Her trademark black roses were held in her left hand while she lazily twirled a ribbon with her right. Other weapons, mostly made from memory plastics to save space, were hidden in the numerous concealed pockets of her gymnastics leotard.
Kodachi had never lived in an apartment building. She was therefore quite surprised when the elevator stopped on the fifth floor to admit an elderly woman wearing a jogging outfit and tennis shoes. Her ribbon stopped its idle spiral to droop on the elevator floor.
"That's a lovely costume dearie," the old woman commented in knowing tones. "But you'll catch your death of cold dressed like that this time of year."
Kodachi said not a word as the woman punched the button for the ninth floor. She remained silent as the elevator rose. It wasn't until the woman left the elevator with a cheery 'have fun' that Kodachi nodded and quietly answered, "I shall." She managed to not laugh maniacally.
As she knocked on the door, Kodachi realized that the narrow hallway was unsuitable for most of her ribbon techniques. She quickly switched to a club with retractable spikes. It would function better in close quarters. After she forced her way into the apartment, she could return to her weapon of choice.
"Be there in a minute," came a woman's voice.
'Undoubtedly my target,' Kodachi thought. Hopefully the woman would put up a decent struggle. Her revenge would be much sweeter that way.
Fortunately, after the Robert the Cat incident, Anne demanded and received a briefing on Ranma's threat list. The apartment door's peephole camera clearly showed a dark-haired young woman dressed in a gymnast's outfit with a bouquet of black roses in one hand and a small club in the other. This was obviously Kodachi Kuno, grade A loon.
If Lil' Bill had been in the apartment, instead of safely at his grandfather's (because of Ranma's testing), Anne would have called the police. But without her son at risk, she felt she could take the martial arts gymnast in a unfair fight. Anne grabbed a mini-flare and donned a pair of dark sunglasses. Her husband would never forgive her if she used real weapons in the house.
Anne knew Kodachi relied exclusively on weaponry and never fought hand to hand. The body to body fight she planned after using the flare to level the playing field would force Kodachi out of her rhythm.
Both combatants severely underestimated the other.
-----
Agent Echo blew into his hands to warm them. Surveillance was always a chore, even more so in cold weather. But that chore had ended with the orders he'd received. Miss Kuno was to be captured immediately, along with any 'guilty' bystanders.
Access to the target building was no problem. He picked the lock on the front door faster than most people used keys. Bolt cutters took care of the chains illegally blocking the fire exit, allowing Cadres One through Seven to enter from the alley. Cadre Eight was bringing a unmarked panel van for transport. Hopefully, the Manhattan traffic wouldn't hold her up too long. Cadre Nine was lookout.
The elevator wasn't large enough, so Agent Echo led his men up the stairs. When he stepped out on the eleventh floor a minute later, the slowest of his squad was only two floors behind. There were clear-cut benefits to the aerobic conditioning required of Hawksmoor's henchmen.
The scene that greeted him wasn't what he was expecting. A bouquet of black roses lay in the hall. The door to apartment 1104 hung open with a spiked club stuck in the door frame. The sounds of combat from within were clear to his ears. Agent Echo cautiously walked to the open doorway and stopped.
As the rest of his team took up positions, Cadre One walked up to his supervisor to ask, "Sir, shouldn't we go in?"
"Heck no, I love a good cat fight," Agent Echo replied as Anne threw the couch, cushions and all, at a wildly dodging Kodachi.
-----
Jeff and a female Ranma chatted about Ranma's upcoming science test as they left the elevator. The number of accidental gender changes had gone up since Shampoo and the Kunos arrival in America. Jeff didn't believe it was a coincidence. Then again, neither did Ranma.
Even before the elevator door closed, both knew something was drastically wrong. Black roses, many of them crushed, lay scattered along the narrow hallway. Traces of white powder could be seen next to a scrap of colorful paper, the kind florists use to wrap bouquets. More evidence was available, but neither Jeff nor Ranma needed it. Kodachi had come to call.
Jeff unlocked the apartment door, throwing up a repeller field as he crossed the threshold. Ranma followed cautiously, taking silent cues from her friend and mentor. The apartment was a mess. Most of the couch stood on end in the corner of the living room. The floor was covered with toys from Lil' Bill's overturned playpen liberally mixed with slashed open cushions and pieces of broken furniture.
Ranma closed the apartment door, revealing a letter taped to the other side.
Dear Misters Saotome and Anderson.
If you wish to ever see Miss Kuno or Mrs. Anderson again, don't even think of calling the police. They, along with Mr. Kuno and Miss Shampoo, are perfectly safe. If you wish them to remain this way, be at the payphone on the southwest corner of East 7th and Avenue A at 6:00 PM sharp. You will receive further instructions there.
PS. We didn't make this mess. Honest.
"What do we do?" Ranma asked quietly.
"We've got three and a half hours. We get to work."
Ranma swept for bugs while Jeff checked his phones and computers for tampering. Ranma found nothing, but Jeff discovered something he sounded happy about. "Good news, the phone's being tapped," Jeff informed Ranma.
"Why is that good?"
"If the bad guys are tapping my phone, they probably aren't engaging in other forms of surveillance. Which means you can change back to normal now."
Ranma was male and drying off his hands seconds later. "About time," he grumbled.
"Well, I didn't want you doing it if anyone was watching."
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I know it did not take you fifteen minutes just to find that. What else?
Jeff played the peephole camera's security recording. The picture was clear enough, but there was no sound. It showed Kodachi's approach from the elevator, the door swinging open thirty seconds later and then the screen blanked for a split second. "Mini-flare" Jeff explained. Anne did well at first, taking out Kodachi's flower bomb while ducking a spiked club. The fight moved into the apartment drifting in and out of camera range. After a minute or so, Anne stumbled across the field of view, knocking over Lil' Bill's playpen. She was bleeding from a bump on her noggin.
Kodachi stalked into frame, using her spiraling ribbon as a whip to open small cuts on Anne's arms. Anne lowered her head and charged, knocking both of them off camera. Soon after, a man in paramilitary clothing appeared in the doorway.
After a few seconds, Anne was knocked over the couch by an unseen attack. Straining, she picked up the entire couch and threw it off camera. Kodachi bounded into frame, only to have Anne whack her square in the nose. "Nice punch," Jeff said quietly. It was at this point the combatants noticed their audience. It was hard to tell who was more surprised, Anne or Kodachi. But their surprise cost them as they were cut down by taser fire.
The rest of the tape showed half a dozen identically clad men binding and carrying the unconscious women out of the apartment and down the stairwell. The man who arrived first wrote the letter Ranma had found and was last to leave.
"Did you recognize anyone besides Kodachi?" Jeff asked.
"No."
"We may have a problem then," Jeff said as he began typing on his keyboard. "The only people I know who routinely use tasers are a gang of criminals for hire called the Irish Wolfhounds. According to police reports, they were the triggermen for the Javits Center robbery. Nobody knows who they were working for yet. They're currently led by this man." A picture of a sharply dressed red bearded man appeared on the screen.
"Colin Hawksmoor," Jeff continued. "Criminal and financial genius. Fluent in six languages, reads lips in all six. World class muscle reader and probably the best raw fighter I've ever seen."
"Until you met me you mean," Ranma added confidently.
"Not really," Jeff flatly stated.
"Huh!?"
"You don't qualify as 'raw'. Which I'll explain later. But I've fought Hawksmoor before as Tach. If I fight him again, he'll know it's me at which point my secret identity is blown."
"So when we find them, then Tach and Wild Dragon go to rescue."
"No," Jeff said. "No costumes. We can't have any connection between you and Wild Dragon. Bad enough that a male and a female Wild Dragon have been seen publicly. Shampoo could put two and two together, even if the Kunos don't. The bad guys want Ranma Saotome and Jeff Anderson. That's who'll they get."
"Oh, that does make sense. They connect me to Wild Dragon and that leads them to you and MATRIX."
"Uh huh. But don't worry, we won't be going alone."
"Wouldn't having anyone from MATRIX be giveaway?"
"Ranma, Ranma, Ranma. This is why we pay taxes." Although Jeff refused to elaborate on that comment, he did explain the difference between overt and covert operations. By the time he finished, Ranma was smiling. At no time did Jeff's fingers pause in their rapid typing.
-----
As he watched Jeff work, Ranma made up his mind. Running halfway around the planet had only bought him a few months peace. There was no point in continuing to inflict his problems on others, even if Jeff and his friends didn't seem to mind that much. It was time to go home. Now if he could only figure out where home was, he'd be all set.
-----
"Any sign of the targets?" Benny asked the surveillance tech.
"Nothing yet sir. But they're not due for another ten minutes or so," the bored man replied.
"If I were a happily married man, I'd have been there already," Benny reflected. "What kind of information do we have on Anderson?"
"Not much. We didn't have time to build a real dossier. Jeffery Lewis Anderson. Usually goes by 'Jeff'. Twenty years old. Married. One son."
"Where's the kid?" Benny asked sharply. Despite working for a criminal organization, Benny did have some scruples about potentially harming children.
"No idea sir. There was evidence of a child at the target's apartment, but no child."
"Hmm. Go on."
"OK... OK... One son. Self employed as a machinist and a computer programmer. Weird combo. Hey, according to this, he was lead designer-programmer on 'Boojum Hunt' when he was fourteen.
"Really? I loved that game."
"Me too," the tech admitted. Pausing briefly, he spun his swivel chair to face his superior. "Sir, maybe I'm missing something, but what's the connection between this guy and Ranma Saotome? They've got nothing in common."
"You figure it out, tell me so I can tell the big boss," Benny replied. Glancing at his watch, he added, "Gotta go. His majesty wants to 'observe' when I make the run around calls. Contact me when they show up."
"Sure thing." As Benny walked off, the tech turned back in time to see a flash of static blip across his consoles. He dismissed it as just another in a long line of power surges caused by electrifying the detention cells. 'Chinese girl must _like_ getting zapped,' he thought.
At a nearby cyber cafe, Jeff stared at his PDA waiting for a flashing yellow light to turn green or red. Ranma sat next to him and sipped hot chocolate to ward off the December chill. It was either that or admit he liked the stuff.
"It's in," Jeff said quietly when the light finally flashed green. "Time to go."
"You sure program will work?" Ranma asked.
If the program Jeff assembled in under two hours worked, he could lock up his enemy's phone and computer systems. "If it doesn't, we'll improvise."
Five minutes later and three blocks away, Benny noted it was 5:59 PM. He was reaching for the phone when it rang.
"Benny."
"They're here!" the no longer bored tech stated, agitation clearly evident in his voice.
"They just now made the rendezvous point?"
"I mean _here_ here, in the front lobby!"
Benny hung up the phone, turned to his employer and calmly stated, "Sir, we have a problem," just as the intruder alarms went off.
Hawksmoor turned on his internal security monitor and began cycling through the available cameras. He stopped on an image of two men. One was relatively tall, brown haired, wearing a brown trench coat and carrying an aluminum baseball bat. A large green duffel bag was slung across his back. The other was shorter, dressed in a red sleeveless shirt, black sweatpants and slippers. Both men wore gloves.
Hawksmoor smiled at the intruders' resourcefulness. "Bravo, Misters Anderson and Saotome." Finding out how they'd located his headquarters so quickly was a task he would eventually turn over to his interrogators. But at that moment, wishing only for some popcorn, Hawksmoor settled in to watch the show.
Ranma knocked out the two 'security guards' before they could draw their weapons. The agent acting as the receptionist did better, but Jeff disarmed her before she could fire her taser. After shooting her with her own weapon, Jeff pulled a handful of plastic ties from his pocket and roughly trussed the three unconscious operatives. Jeff flipped over the receptionist's desk scattering papers and office equipment. After helping Ranma drag Hawksmoor's men behind the rough shield, Jeff pulled a bowl full of gray powder covered with plastic wrap and a tape gun from his duffel bag. With two quick motions, the bowl was attached to the door leading to the rest of Hawksmoor's complex. Diving behind his makeshift barricade, Jeff pulled a detonator from his trench coat. "Fire in the hole!" he shouted.
A brilliant flash lit the room for several seconds. When the light faded, there was a large glowing hole where the door's locking mechanism used to be. It flew open at Ranma's kick. Total time from start to finish was under a minute.
"Brilliant. Wonderful," Hawksmoor mused enthusiastically.
Benny demanded, "Where in the hell did they get thermite?"
Hawksmoor waved away his bodyguard's question. "Mister Anderson is a machinist. How hard can it be for him to get magnesium and iron filings?"
"Fine, he can make a bomb. But where'd he get the detonator?" Benny asked pointedly.
Hawksmoor ignored the question. There were too many possibilities to bother explaining them. As he watched, Ranma plowed into a group of cadre and left the only one standing ten seconds later. "I could topple governments with a dozen men like him," Hawksmoor noted with a laugh.
"Sir, as much as you're enjoying this, those are your men getting the snot kicked out of them," Benny stated forcefully. He wanted Hawksmoor to take control of the situation, to lead, but his employer seemed content to let the two intruders run amok.
"Oh, but I'm learning so much," Hawksmoor observed. "All the better to defeat them later."
-----
Meanwhile, in a another part of the facility, Shampoo heard a loud buzzing noise come from multiple ceiling mounted speakers. The cell block guards scrambled out of the detention area in response to its call.
'Now that was convenient,' Shampoo thought. Peeling off her clothes, she splashed herself with cold water from the sink. Her much smaller feline body walked between the bars with room to spare. Searching the cell block, she found an unconscious dark-haired woman with a bandaged forehead. Shampoo ignored her, having other problems to worry about.
As she searched for either Kuno or the way out, a very large brown and black tabby leapt down from the shadows. He, Shampoo was certain, wore a complex harness with a couple of miniature saddlebags. The strange feline peered at her interestedly. She prepared to fight, despite being outweighed at least ten to one.
"Excuse me, where do they keep the prisoners?" Robert the Cat asked.
Shampoo's command of English was limited at best, her shock at meeting a talking cat was great, but she still managed to bat a paw in the right direction.
"Thanks cutie," the oversized cat said before bounding away.
After pulling herself together, Shampoo continued her search. Moments later, she found Kuno in a room that looked more like a hotel than a detention cell. Kuno lay sleeping on a comfortable looking bed. His left arm was encased in a cast with wires leading out from it. Shampoo managed to turn on the washstand's hot water faucet and returned to her normal body.
"Bokken boy! Wake up!" Shampoo shouted in Japanese as she roughly shook Kuno. Ally or not, if the kendoist didn't start moving, he'd be left behind.
Kuno's eyes slowly wandered open. He incoherently slurred, "Oh... ramen haired purple girl, it is I... you... those..." Suddenly he bolted upright long enough to ask "Where are your clothes?" before blood fountained out his nose and he fell unconscious once more.
Shampoo smacked her forehead with an open palm. 'Oy Vey. Great-grandmother was right. I should have waited for airen to come home on his own.' She quickly fashioned a toga out of bed linen and swung up Kuno in a fireman's carry. It was long past time to leave.
-----
The incessant clanging of alarms finally woke Anne. With a headache left over from her encounter with Kodachi, she examined herself and her surroundings. The bars of her spartan cell proved electrified when she tested them. The alarms continued ringing and Anne felt she knew why. Even as she sat down to await rescue, help arrived.
"About time you got here," Anne muttered once Robert the Cat approached her cell.
Not knowing if they were being watched, the talking feline didn't answer. He crawled close to the electrified bars and waited. Unsteady from her zap-nap, Anne stretched out on the floor. Carefully reaching past the bars, she unbuckled Robert's saddlebags. Anne recognized the workmanship. After all, it was hers.
Robert fled as Anne pulled the bags into her cell. The first bag contained earplugs and dark-tinted polycarbonate goggles, which she donned. Her cell phone, which she stuffed into a back pocket. Last but not least, a chocolate bar, which she promptly ate. In the other saddlebag were a package marked 'thermite', a detonator and a roll of duct tape.
"What am I supposed to..." Anne trailed off as she looked over the available tools. "Oh! Duh." She quickly wrapped the thermite with sticky side out duct tape and carefully dropped it on her cell's locking mechanism. Draping the thin mattress from the army surplus cot over herself for protection, Anne crouched as far from the lock as possible and hit the switch.
Thirty seconds later, Anne moved warily down the hall looking for any way out of the building. As soon as she cell phone registered a signal, she had a call to make.
-----
As Hawksmoor watched Ranma dodge taser fire, Benny attempted to rally the troops. The surveillance squad detailed to watch Saotome and Anderson was en route, ETA ten minutes. The four squads detailed to actually capture the targets, which included his best men, had been ordered to scatter. There was no way they'd make it back from Brooklyn in time to affect the outcome.
This left four squads of cadre, a dozen or so agents and nearly twenty non-combatants to deal with the intruders. Numbers that had been steadily decreasing since the attack began. Hawksmoor refused to authorize lethal force. He wanted Saotome and Anderson alive.
Benny was left with the task of implementing orders he didn't agree with. Looking over his situation board, he came up with a plan. A half squad of techs was sent to slip in behind the intruders. They would free and awaken as many of the captured men as possible. That would cut off, or at least slow, any retreat back the way they had come. Once he had enough men for the job, picking off Anderson would come next. The final maneuver would be to pile enough bodies on Saotome that he'd fall to sheer weight of numbers no matter how good a martial artist he was.
As Benny watched his techs warily approach the front lobby where the attack began, an emergency signal came through his command headset. "Sir, we have prisoners loose," Benny reported urgently.
Hawksmoor glared at his monitor. A few keystrokes divided his screen into four sections. Upper left, Ranma Saotome was finishing off the group of cadre that had fired upon him. Upper right, Jeffery Anderson was interrogating a captured tech two rooms away from his friend. Lower left, Shampoo's clothing was the only thing remaining in her cell. Lower right, Anne Anderson's cell door hung open, the locking mechanism destroyed.
Stroking his beard, Hawksmoor ordered, "Lock down the building. Engage internal defenses." In a more conversational tone, he added, "I believe Mister Anderson has more help than we've seen." He began running the security recordings backward to find out how the escapes had been made.
Benny rapidly typed Hawksmoor's commands into his console. Status lights flashed red, and refused to fade after Benny reentered the commands. Shaking his head, he reported, "Lockdown sequence initiated. Unsealable gaps between Zones 1 and 2, and Zones 8, 11 and 12. Internal defenses..." The words 'coming online' were preempted by his computer screen going blank.
As the picture on his security monitor dissolved in a swirl of static, a glimmer of annoyance crossed Colin Hawksmoor's face but was quickly banished. "Undoubtedly Anderson's doing. Ah well, playtime is over. Time to deal with them myself."
-----
Shampoo felt the presence of someone behind her. Instincts sharpened through endless drill and practice were as reliable as sight and hearing. Carrying Kuno limited her options, but she could still fight this unseen foe.
When she spun around, Shampoo faced two men with submachine guns. She was a mighty warrior, an Amazon champion, but she wasn't a fool. She raised her arms in surrender, knowing that if her captors slipped up for even a split second, she could take them.
Even as Shampoo considered her options, the same oversized cat she'd met earlier blurred into existence above her captor's heads. Robert's fangs and claws flashed as he buried them in his chosen target's neck. As a distraction, Shampoo couldn't have asked for more. The subsequent fight didn't last six seconds.
"Wow, you're even cute as a human," Robert observed afterwards. He quickly licked the back of his paw and began grooming the fur on his head.
Knowing her poor English would make her sound stupid, Shampoo still asked "What kind cat you?"
"The very best kind," said a female voice from behind her. Shampoo whirled to see the woman she'd left back at the cell block. Apparently, she'd managed her own escape, with or without help from the purring feline rubbing against her ankles.
"Hello, I'm Anne," the dark haired woman said. With a gesture, she added, "You've already met Robert. You must be Shampoo."
According to the information she had purchased from Nabiki, Anne was the name of Jeffery Anderson's wife. This women could lead her straight to her husband. "Where is airen?" Shampoo demanded.
"Who's Airen?" Anne asked in return.
Shampoo grimaced internally and tried again. "Ranma. Where is Ranma?"
"Last I heard, two floors up and over thataway," Robert answered with a motion of his paw.
"Well if they're here to rescue us, we might as well make it easy for them," Anne responded as she grabbed one of the submachine guns dropped earlier. "Help yourself."
The Amazon didn't understand most of what Robert of Anne had said, but the last part was clear enough. "Shampoo no use gun." She meant she didn't need a gun, but saying so was beyond her language skills.
"In that case, let's see if I remember how to use one of these," Anne said. With sure movements, she set the Mini-Uzi's safety, verified there was a round in chamber, removed the clip and quickly counted twenty-four 9 millimeter rounds. Reattaching the clip, she prepared the weapon for use in semi-automatic mode. Just another of the many things she'd learned in the hero biz. "I'm ready. Lead on Robert."
'Americans and their stupid guns,' Shampoo thought as she followed the woman and cat towards her chance to convince Ranma that she was one he should marry.
-----
With the loss of communications, a few of Hawksmoor's men had abandoned his Greenwich Village headquarters. A few others merely abandoned the 'no lethal force' orders they'd been given. The pop of small arms fire was soaked up by the building's extensive soundproofing. But inside the building, enough people heard the gunplay to bring all the players to the same stage.
The net result was that the main training room suddenly became crowded. Ranma was searching the cavernous space for anyone to fight. Jeff dashed in with five armed men behind him. His armored trench coat had stopped three bullets already. Robert, Anne and Shampoo (still carrying an unconscious Kuno Tatewaki) entered from the stairwell.
On spotting Ranma, Robert spun around and scrambled out of sight. The Neko-Ken wasn't anything he wanted to see, cause or otherwise be involved with. He'd just managed to leave the training area when reinforced steel doors slammed down over the exits.
"ENOUGH!" shouted Hawksmoor in a command voice. He and Benny stood on a catwalk high above where the rest of the room's occupants were noting who else had arrived.
"Anne!" "Jeff!" "Shampoo?" "Airen!" Kuno was dropped unceremoniously to the concrete floor.
'Husband?' Hawksmoor translated internally as armed agents took up station along the narrow pathways strung throughout the training room. "Get the girl," he quietly ordered his enforcer.
Benny vaulted the catwalk rail, taking the eight meter drop without effort to land between Anne and Shampoo. Anne hesitated to pull the trigger of her Mini-Uzi because once bullets started flying it was nearly impossible to get them to stop. Shampoo didn't hesitate at all, throwing herself into desperate combat against her much larger and superhumanly strong opponent.
Ranma moved to interfere, but was waved down by Jeff. They weren't supposed to know that Benny was a meta-human and that Shampoo needed help. Besides, in Jeff's opinion, there was a chance the Amazon could win.
As cadre disarmed Anne and waved her over to join her husband, Shampoo landed blow after blow on her antagonist. To someone without Benny's durability, they might have been enough. As it was, Benny shrugged off her efforts long enough to grab Shampoo's arm. Using his superior strength, he quickly placed her in a hold from which there was no escape. With surprising gentleness, Benny requested, "Miss Shampoo, please stop before I have to hurt you."
Shampoo stopped struggling. She suddenly realized why her great-grandmother had ordered her to follow the laws of America and not the laws of the Joketzu on her search. She wasn't there as an Amazon warrior. She wasn't there to enforce three thousand years of Amazon tradition. She wasn't there to trick Ranma into marriage or even a mere declaration of affection. She was there to show Ranma that she loved him. She was there to show Ranma that Shampoo the woman, not Shampoo the Amazon, would be his best choice as wife. Winning or losing a battle against some other male wasn't the point. It was... disturbing... that Cologne had been so far sighted and she had been so blind.
Shampoo was brought back to reality by the sound of Hawksmoor's voice. "A valiant attempt gentlemen. One that was far too successful for amateurs."
"This is not my first kidnapping," Ranma stated levelly.
Hawksmoor's trained senses indicated that Ranma told the truth. "Mrs. Anderson and Miss Kuno were taken without my orders. I apologize for that." The fact that no one had freed Kodachi did not escape his notice. "It was my intention to release them to you."
He sounded sincere enough to Ranma's ear, but Jeff asked, "What about Shampoo and Lumpy?" Kuno still laid where Shampoo had dropped him. No one had seen fit to check on his condition.
"Those were at Miss Kuno's request and expense," the man explained from his perch. "As such, I'm afraid I can't allow them to leave unchallenged. But it's nothing that a little one on one battle wouldn't cure."
Ranma jerked his thumb toward Benny and asked, "So I have to fight him before you let them go?"
"No Mister Saotome. You'll be fighting me," Hawksmoor stated calmly.
"Sir, I must protest," Benny nearly shouted.
"Protest noted and filed for future reference," Hawksmoor replied in clipped tones before climbing down from the catwalk.
At multiple gunpoints, Jeff and Anne were marched over the prone body of Kuno Tatewaki. Shampoo soon joined them. Ranma walked to the middle of the room as his adversary did likewise.
"I am Colin Hawksmoor, leader of the Irish Wolfhounds and my terms are simple: Win, and you may leave with your friends. Lose, and you will join them."
Ranma formally bowed and stated "I am Saotome Ranma of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts and I accept your terms."
Ranma was surprised when his first kick missed. When the follow up punches also failed to connect, he was moderately impressed. Hawksmoor was avoiding the blows by a fair distance, reacting even to feints. Ranma's bare arms and skin tight silk shirt told Hawksmoor everything he needed to know.
The spectators watch impassively until one uniformed man shouted "Kick his ass boss!" This let loose the floodgates and soon most of Hawksmoor's men were cheering their leader.
Ranma ignored the crowd and focused on his opponent. Jeff had warned him that the man was a muscle reader. The next kick he launched, Hawksmoor intercepted with both hands. Ranma brought his other leg up in a kick directed at the back of his enemy's head.
Hawksmoor threw Ranma's captive leg up while ducking just enough to spoil Ranma's effort. Ferociously torquing his body around, Ranma managed to land on his feet, but facing away from his opponent. Hawksmoor kicked him squarely in the tailbone forcing Ranma to sprawl onto the concrete floor.
Rolling away from a follow up stomp, Ranma attempted a leg sweep which was neatly hopped over. But the attack and its whirling successors allowed Ranma to regain his feet.
"Very nice Mister Saotome," Hawksmoor taunted, "but I can read your every move."
"Read this," Ranma replied before exploding into motion. Hawksmoor was unconscious before he realized the difference between being able to tell what an opponent is doing and being fast enough to do anything about it.
The men and women of the Irish Wolfhounds looked to Benny for instructions. They were more than ready to ignore the deal their leader had made. As Benny prepared to speak, he was preempted by an amplified voice stating, "This Is The Police. We Have You Surrounded. Drop Your Weapons And Place Your Hands On Your Heads."
Again the Irish Wolfhounds turned to their second in command. Benny scooped up his fallen employer and kicked open the reinforced steel door that had sealed off the stairwell. Motioning his troops through, he paused at the threshold. Turning to Shampoo, he said, "In another time and place..." before trailing off. Shaking his head sadly, Benny ducked into the stairwell and was soon lost to sight.
"We go after them?" Ranma asked.
"No. We got who we came for," Jeff replied with one arm draped protectively around his wife.
-----
"So, is Benny your new 'airen'?" Ranma inquired hopefully.
"No. Great-grandmother say Shampoo obey laws of America when Shampoo in America, not laws of Joketzu."
This was a happy surprise for Ranma. "Really? Then that means..."
Jeff caught the line of reasoning and told Ranma in English, "I'll call in a favor and get us an early court date."
"What foreign man say?" Shampoo demanded.
Changing mental gears back to Japanese, Jeff said, "Don't worry Shampoo, we'll get everything straightened out. But in the meantime, the police have some questions for you."
Shampoo nodded and allowed herself to be led away by Detective Tomoeh Mochizuki-Sanderson. Who just happened to be one of people Ranma had met at Anne's 21st birthday party and who also happened to be one of Robert the Cat's 'owners'. That happy non-coincidence had played a large part in Jeff's plans.
Watching the two women leave, Ranma asked, "What do we do now?"
"Shampoo and Kuno will probably be held as material witnesses. But Kodachi's been charged with a whole laundry list of stuff. We leave her in jail and screw up her bail. Without being caught at it of course."
"That is _so_ not nice. I like it."
END CHAPTER 14