The car had been parked and X was definitely right; the police force flooded the area before midnight. It was hard to sneak around with the car but once they had parked it, the new moon didn't provide any light for them to be seen by and the mission started going smoother.
It was 10:45 when Asazi saw movement. Before then, they had successfully done everything right, including being in their spots when they were supposed to. Warren hadn't opened a window but he had given Asazi an indication as to where he was. Her hand brought the little microphone to her mouth, which was attached to a small communications-headset in her ear, "Warren, I think I saw someone approaching the office building beside yours and closer to me."
"Gotcha," came his reply and she saw through her night-vision scope that he had opened his window, along with several others on the same floor. Asazi then moved the sniper rifle toward the movement, using the scope to find what she saw. She switched the scope's vision to infrared and a figure of bright red suddenly appeared. "I have confirmation," she quietly said into the headset.
The figure looked her way but she knew she wasn't visible; she was in a tree behind the softball lozenge, next to a small set of bleachers to bestow shade for those watching any games that might've been held. She could barely see herself, let alone her equipment. The rifle couldn't be seen either, she was sure of that too. The character started moving again, constantly looking over his shoulder.
"It appears to a young male," started to report, "and he's obviously up to something he shouldn't be; let's hope a cop car comes and sees what he's up to." But one didn't come down that street in particular and the boy eventually found what he was looking for because he stopped moving and… "He's looking up into the sky," Asazi said with surprise. What does the sky have anything to do with whatever he's up to? Then the figure bent down and from the angle Asazi was at, she could see the butt of a handgun sticking out of the boy's waist. "Okay, Warren, he's armed and he's…uh…" The figure was crawling on the ground, moving away from her.
"Talk to me Asazi," came Warren's voice.
She switched to night vision and then saw what he was up to, and said, "He's going into the drain, the sewer system." Why is he doing that? Asazi tried to put the pieces together and, slowly, it hit her. "Warren, are there any drains at the intersection?"
In a moment, Warren replied, "Yeah, at the corner of each sidewalk."
"Oh man," Asazi said. "We're not going to be able to eradicate them all from these angles…but what if…" She tried to think about how they could solve this. "Hey," Warren's voice said inter her ear, "I switched to infrared and there's the guy at the drain and he's just looking out…okay, he gave a thumbs-up signal?!" Warren sounded confused.
"Look at the other drains in the intersection," Asazi said.
A few seconds later, Warren said, "That's really clever. They have people in each corner of the intersection, underground and invisible to the naked eye. If you said one of them was armed, chances are that they all are."
Asazi shook her head. This wasn't going right. They couldn't kill the whole gang without assaulting them on foot and making themselves vulnerable. "Warren, does it look like they have any kind of communication with each other?"
"Not if they were giving the others a thumbs-up sign. The guy I'm looking at now is sitting back in the gutter on a chair and listening to headphones, and constantly glancing at his watch. His leg is bouncing up and down; he's jumpy as hell."
"Headphones?"
"Yeah, he's got a CD player. Nice one too." Asazi rolled her eyes and smiled but that mood was quickly changed when she got back to the mission… We've got to take them out. The plan was to let the gangs kill each other off and then we nail the leftovers but now there'll be nearly a whole gang of leftovers. Asazi fought to find a way other than the one conclusion she'd already reached but couldn't see any other way. Damn! "Warren, do you think they could get to each other?"
"If they did, they wouldn't have given each other signals. The ones I can see are just sitting around and doing nothing."
Asazi sighed and pulled out her backup weapon, a silenced PP7. She loaded it and said to herself, "He'll drop like a fly."
Warren must've heard the gun because he immediately reacted by saying, "No, do NOT go down there Asazi. Don't do it, you'll give us away." She rolled her eyes and looked around for any squad cars. There was one, approaching the intersection at that moment. It turned right and went out of her sight.
"Okay, Warren, when I tell you, you take out the three you can see. I'm going under the building your in so you have to take the one that I saw go in and the other two, okay?" She wasn't sure if his voice was panicky or just against what she was going to do. There was always a difference. Perhaps it wasn't either of them, and it was counterfeit; it had a tint of…no, of course not. It's Warren we're talking about here.
Asazi fell from tree and, still in the pitch-black darkness, looked around to be sure she wouldn't be seen. There were two cop cars on the opposite side of the area she was approaching but she doubted they could see her. She progressed with her steps, silent and swift. She stayed in all the shadows, rarely in the light to prevent being seen from a distance. Warren's exasperated sigh came through the headset; he must've seen her. "This is stupid," his voice said.
"Too late now," she replied, and then she reached the gutter that along his building. The guy she'd seen had went under the building to the left of Warren. Quite easily, with her extremely skinny body, Asazi slipped into the sewer system and could immediately see where the boy before her had stepped. She inaudibly took the same steps, hoping that no one would be able to tell a second individual had entered the gutter. Rather suddenly, she heard the faint echo of muffled music through the tunnel and she knew she was close. A fool, to turn them up so loud that you can't hear your surroundings; he wouldn't make it much longer if I hadn't decided to kill him here. Asazi reached a corner, which, according to her sense of direction, turned to face the intersection. The music wasn't an echo and she could tell it was right there.
She took a quick glance around the corner and saw a Mexican teenager, his back at facing her at a 45-degree angle. She pulled the gun from her back and started to take aim when the Mexican suddenly shot up and ran over to the opening in the system, the drain. She realized that he could see all the other corners of the gutter and thought, Damn Warren if he fired before I told him to. Asazi stepped around the corner; gun aimed straight at the hoodlum and fired three quiet shots. Two pounded his chest and the other went in and through his neck.
"Kill the rest of them Warren, now and fast," she spoke softly into the headset.
Almost immediately she heard two little pufts through the headset but there wasn't a third and she paused. "Warren, what's happening?" His voice came back, a mix of shock and vexation, "The one that you saw go in took off before I could take the shot. You have to get him fast, or the whole thing's gonna be called off.
"Shit," Asazi muttered and started running back. She took the same steps but was a lot clumsier than when she had gone the opposite direction. But that didn't matter because things were going to get real nasty if she could take this guy out.
She reached the drain when she heard Warren say, "Dammit Asazi, he's already out and running, you have to get him now." Asazi jumped through the drainer, scraping her feet on the concrete when she pulled them through. Then she looked up and saw the boy sprinting away from her, extremely fast. She muttered a few curses and set off after him, not realizing that she was glowing in headlights. SHIT, a cop car, she knew without looking; it was her typical luck.
The sirens came on and tires shrieked as the rubber burned. Asazi passed the street and was on the sidewalk, the pistol down her pants so the cops wouldn't see it when they tore after her. "Asazi, what the hell are you gonna do," Warren yelled.
"What I always—do," she replied, out of breath, "—adlib." It was no doubt that the cops had already called for backup and she was tempted to shoot them out of pure anger but that would be against her cause; it'd be like betraying her own self. So she flew down the sidewalk with an unpredicted velocity; she was gaining on the boy.
The cop car swerved onto the road she was on and she glanced back to see it regaining its composure and chasing after her. Her target turned at the next street and she followed only to—where the hell did he go? The sirens told her she better hide so she thought fast and climbed one of the somewhat-large mimosa trees that were throughout the sidewalk along the street. Just as she reached a safe spot in the tree the police vehicle curved onto the road. It kept going at the same speed, tearing down the road and then turning somewhere else; obviously she had lost it.
"Bitch," said a young voice and she heard the sound of a gun being loaded. She twisted her head to look around her, seeing a young boy on a branch below and behind her, starting to pull a gun up to her. She wrapped her legs around a large branch of the tree and let her body fall back; she used her arms to grab the gun, throw it away and she then swiftly broke his wrist and a finger. He cried out and fell out of the mimosa tree; his body had spasmed when the pain she had caused rippled through it.
His landed flat on his back, lying on the pavement in pain. Asazi quickly climbed down the tree and spat on him. He winced and said, "Who the hell are you?"
She bent down close to him and said, "It was clever of you all the fill the sewers; very strategic." She was tempted to kill him then and there but the body on the streets would've been a sign that something had happened and police would swarm the area for the rest of the night and everything would be cancelled; she couldn't afford that.
Asazi pulled him to her feet and said, "Walk with me, you little shit." He back-fisted her across the face with his good hand and took off in a run. She had been caught off-guard and was surprised by the little shit's sudden retaliation; she wouldn't let that happen again. As her nose bled, she swiftly pulled out the PP7 and shot the bastard in the leg, behind the left knee.
He screamed as he fell on the pavement, smacking his head hard the concrete. She walked over to his body, only to discover he had busted his head open on the sidewalk, getting blood all over the place. "Ugh," she uttered, then pull the body up and—KSH, KSH, KSH, KSH, KSH, KSH, KSH, KSH…
Asazi grimaced as water sprinklers turned on, soaking her and the mimosa trees that were along the side of the building and sidewalk. Then she smiled and dragged the body toward the closest drain; once there, she shoved the body into it. She looked up to find the blood already washed away by the water sprinklers.
The sound of sirens echoing through the streets told her that the cop car was returned. She scrambled back up a tree and waited silently for it to come and pass. "Asazi, what happened," Warren's voice came to her with surprise. He had been quiet for at least a minute; probably just trying not to distract me…
"I got him," she said, and then added as she watched the cop car turn onto 28th Street, "You've got incoming bogies…"
Author's Note
Hey everyone that's still reading the A-Man section! Lol. Hope you enjoyed this chappy and I promise the next one will have even more action and even more suspense, not to mention even more twists and turns. Hope you enjoyed. ;)