"Keep on him, Marks," Sulvanni commanded in a low, firm voice, "you're
lagging behind."
I said nothing. My eyes were glued to the mess of cars that were making their way through the Monday morning rush traffic. I was getting quite annoyed, but there was nothing I could do. Lips Sulvanni, at least, according to Dark One, had been sent to evaluate me on this little mission. The bald, pompous-ass, pasta-face stuffing load of shit who acted as the syndicate's contact to Eden's judicial department as well as the chief's right-hand lackey had been pestering me the entire ride up town, much to my displeasure. I was new, of course, but not new to the business. Anyway, Dark One had all the reason in the world to distrust me, so I suppose appointing Lips to act as my 'road mentor' was a way to get around that. So I was not surprised when the large man slid into the passenger seat.I probably wouldn't have been surprised if the big man decided to tag along as well.
I brushed my left hand along the seat of my cargo pants to dry the sticky beads of sweat that had formed there and adjusted my small spectacles. Ahead of us was one of the millions of Eden City Cabbie cars, with, most likely, another Asian immigrant seeking a few dollars to move his family off the street at the wheel. Then there was a Trans Am in poor condition, a pick-up, and finally the Eden City Police security van that was used to transport a great amount of cash between the two Siftwood International banks within the city. It was much taller than any of regular Ford vans I was accustomed to seeing on these roads, and wider at that. The secured vehicle was protected by four inches of heavy bulletproof armor, bulletproof windows, and a protected undercarriage. There was only one way to gain entry into a vehicle of this nature, and this was the way the syndicate had instructed me to use.
"He's turning.are you blind?"
I ignored him. Lips began to breathe a little harder, his stupid blue eyes blinking once or twice as he focused on the mass of cars before us. His hands rested on his expansive belly. The fact that the big oaf had not been brief pissed me off, but it was too late to do anything now. I glanced in the review mirror at the two identically dressed Ezran hitmen in the backseat. They were calm as statues, their faces tight with determination and resolve. On each man's lap rested an M16-A2 service rifle. The chief's armsman had supplied us with the equipment needed.
I let the Mazda slide to a stop behind the cab in front of us and looked to the left amidst the crowds of people who walked the streets day in and day out. The van had taken a left turn and was making its way slowly up Church street. Cars poured after it as traffic allowed like water rushes through the hole in a boat. As the cab moved, I followed, but gave the accelerator a small goose and missed the chance at following the van left. Instead I headed straight, cutting onto the left shoulder of the uphill highway for a moment to give me a chance to pass the next five cars and get the to next gap.
"What the hell are you doing?" Lips demanded, his fist slamming on the door panel. "He went the other way. We're going to miss him, you fool!"
My patience had run out on me.
"You'll be the only one to miss him."
Lips scowled at me, but I could see a smile hidden. This was what he had wanted. Now that I new his game plan, I could invent my own.
"Is that a threat?"
"A warning."
"One from an employee who has already met with a number of fault!"
"I intend to cut him off.you were obviously not briefed. The fault is not mine in the least."
Lips just laughed. With his hands just barely clasped over his sack- like belly, and his head leaned backward in a huge, hearty laugh, he looked just like Santa Claus. I barely resisted a smirk. That would not be in my best interests.
"Look lively, gentlemen."
The men in the backseat did nothing but glance out either rear window. I sped up a little bit and turned, pulling into the parking lot of the 7-11 across from the Mobil gas station. I parked the Mazda in the shadows the right side of the convenient store and a large office building at the cross section of highway 89 and Bennington street. I quickly rolled down my window and stuck my head out. The car was parked just close enough to the edge of the lot so I could see all the way down Bennington for several blocks. To my right, Bennington crossed '89 and continued south another six blocked. The uptown Eden Siftwood International was down that way.
As my eyes followed the road in the opposite direction, I saw a second Mazda identical to my own, painted in the same color, which was the blackest of blacks on earth. It was also parked at the edge of a smaller lot a block down, in front of an office building at the Bennington/Dredge cross-section. A wave of relief swept over my body, and I felt the confidence building. I knew that this would be extremely difficult, no matter how easy the initial planning and waiting seemed to be. All of my body muscles seemed to tighten at once, and I reached for my seat belt, clicking it in place. The men dressed entirely in black jumpsuits behind me did not, and neither did Lips Sulvanni, who was too big for it. I still do not know why Sulvanni had been put on a mission as risky as this one. Dark One had to recognize the significance of a possible backfire, and would be sure not to let anyone important be in harm's way. I knew I was expendable, as were the men in back. The thought that Dark One's top Eden City surface world contact had become useless did, however, cross my mind.
Lips, beside me, had fallen silent. He may have been fat, but he was not slow. He knew what was going to happen. He took to drumming his fingers on his boulder-like stomach. Outside the silence of the nearly soundproof car, faint voices yelled and laughed, car horns honked, and engines whined.
I removed my eyes from the other Mazda for a split second to glance at my watch. Eight thirty-two. When my eyes rested on the other car down the street, which also had been parked in a shadowed area of the lot it was in, I caught a brief flash of headlights.
Lips, had he been looking, might have asked why the others flashed their lights. The two men in the back had been watching, though, and straightened, checking over their ammunition clips. The headlights flashed again and this time Lips caught on.
"Why---
I turned the key in the ignition and started the Mazda up. It purred quietly and I gently began to nose out on the street. I couldn't see whether or not the other car had started up, because of the distance, but their driver was no amateur. The incredible punctuality he had delivered the signal with was unmistakable. And anyone employed by Dark One personally (as his drivers always were) was no joke.
It was at that moment I saw the van come into view across Dredger and on the other side of the other Mazda's lot. It turned onto Bennington and headed towards us. After a moment the other Mazda lurched out behind it, slowly at first, but then gaining speed. I did not need to warn the men. They knew the stakes. And I could care less about Lips. I had not been told to watch out for his safety. I actually hoped that if there were any problems that he would be first in line to take an ECPD bullet. I reached under my black button shirt and removed my Desert Eagle, pinning it against the steering wheel with my left hand.
I gunned the engine, and the Mazda flew forward. The Bennington street block between Dredge and '89 was not a whole lot of distance, but enough for me to take the car to its limit of speed and swerve crisply, stopping sharply at a perpendicular angle in front of the van. A security guard jumped out of the passenger door on the van, clutching a pistol, and I saw the driver of the van stare out ahead at us with panicked eyes, bringing a rounded radio to his lips and speaking rapidly.
At that moment, the two men clutched at either back door handles and threw them open, exiting and turning their machine guns on the transfer vehicle, yelling for the driver to get out immediately. Simultaneously, the security guard had raised his own weapon to my car and fire three times in succession. The first two shots droned off the sides, but the third struck the glass to my right and entered the forehead of Lips Sulvanni. The big man, who had never seen it coming, threw his arms out to either side, his eyes as wide as pears. I had been looking at him after the last shot had been fired since it had entered the glass. I thought of an Italian opera singer, when, like an idiot, I should have been reforming my composure. I could hear sirens in the distance, and I saw the driver drop his radio. Then came the spats of a machine gun, like a thousand steel bolts being dropped on a suspended metal plate right next to your ear. The two men who had climbed out of my Mazda, who had their black winter wraps over their faces now, were firing on the security guard, who exploded to the side curb in a death dance ridden with blood.
At that moment, the driver gunned the van's engine and smashed into me, pushing me sideways. There was no distance between us and the doors were not dented inward, but I felt like I was being crushed anyways. There was still thirty yards left between the highway and Bennington cross- section. A cab had turned onto our street but had not proceeded any further, idling stupidly as its driver watched on. The other Mazda, which had previously broken into a roar moments ago, rear-ended the van. The sleek nose of the car pushed the back of the van up on top of the Mazda's front end. Because the car had been going fast, the van's own front end scraped along my car and smashed into the brick wall of the back of an office building, at a downward trajectory, throwing its driver into the windshield. His head left a brilliant spider web on the glass.
Men in black poured out of the other Mazda, and I exited my own vehicle, hurrying over with my Eagle at hand.
"Is your driver alright?" I yelled as I ran over.
"He was killed when we hit the van," one of the men with the M16-A2 rifles stated nonchalantly.
"Very well."
I looked sharply to the left as the sound of sirens became louder and closer. I ran a hand through my damp hair and looked back at the van, holding my weapon in both hands. "Two minutes under. Let's move."
The Ezran operatives worked quickly and efficiently. Three men immediately mad a semi-circle around me, standing near my own Mazda, whose left side was almost totaled. One of them popped the trunk while the other four who had climbed up on top of the hood of the other car went to work. They placed an explosive on the handles and set the detonation. All of them jumped off, and then one of the men raised his rifle, aimed, and fired a single bullet at the device on the handles. An explosion rocked the back of the van, sending the left door flying off of its hinges to land on the street while severely crippling the other. Saiman, who was the leader of this particular Ezran assault brigade, jumped up onto the hood of the Mazda and was the first inside the van. The others followed quickly.
"Four minutes under. Let's wrap this up, gentlemen."
As if on queue, each Ezran operative leaped out shouldering his weapon and carrying a heavy, steel, secured box, each containing six thousand hundred dollar bills. Saiman brought up the rear carrying two boxers, for he had left his weapon behind, and leaped off the car. They all dumped their boxes into the back of my Mazda. At this moment, two police cruisers turned onto the street from Dredge. They raced at the wreckage, and in front of us I had the feeling that the police were going to attempt to pull the same trap we just pulled. Saiman barked an order and immediately three Ezran operatives knelt behind the side of the trunk of the other, wrecked Mazda, and began firing rapidly at the oncoming cruisers. The one on the left had its radio punctured and was almost immediately on fire. It wheeled off to the right and exploded against the far wall, but the other one scraped along the left-hand brick wall before stopped. Two officers leaped out, and six more cars and cruisers screeched onto the street behind it, sirens wailing. The Ezran in the middle of the firing trio was shot in the neck and fell backwards, clutching at his adam's apple as blood exploded into the air. The other two came off their knees and jumped around the car, firing at the cruisers.
Myself, Saiman, and the three remaining Ezran operatives, meanwhile, scrambled to get into the working Mazda. I went for the driver's side but Saiman beat me to it and gunned the engine almost before I could close my door. One of the three was shot in the back and fell away with a cry, his gun falling to the pavement and firing rapidly, the force pushing it around in a half-circle. My head slammed into the headrest of the driver's seat, and Lips Sulvanni's elephant-like body did a little jiggle before thundering off the dashboard. Saiman rolled down the windows and the remaining two operatives fired out behind us.
We narrowly missed braining a school bus head on as we rushed out onto highway '89 to a chorus of car horns. We were soon lost amidst the traffic and the police, who had been intent on catching the culprits who stayed behind at the scene of the heist, forgot about our other car. It a lucky coincidence---moments after we pulled out onto the highway, a handful of cop cars turned off the highway and stormed onto Bennington.
Saiman gunned the engine for another few minutes and then let it glide. I let my breath out slowly. I hadn't realized that I had been holding it. I opened my eyes. We were in east Eden, in a residential apartment area I had not been to often. Saiman pulled down an alleyway and killed the engine, leaning back. He breathed also. I was thankful that he had gotten me through another veteran mission, as I was still somewhat new to the major league, but I couldn't imagine why he had stopped. I almost didn't care.
"What's wrong."
Saiman lowered his head, and I saw the tops of his elbows moving , followed by the loading of a clip into what I figured was probably a pistol. He said nothing.
I glanced at the two to my right, but their eyes were trained to the side window, faces expressionless. I looked back at the back of Saiman's head, which was still lowered. Now came the noise of what sounded like the lid being screwed forcefully onto a jar. I knew what was coming but had no time to react at all.
Saiman turned around and, without a word or even glint within his beady eyes, pulled the trigger on his silenced pistol. My eyes bulged and my hands moved slowly to my stomach. Then came the feeling of a fiery knife that had pierced my stomach. It burned, stung, and it became hard to breathe. I looked down slowly, did not look up. My hands began to redden.
Then everything went dark.
I said nothing. My eyes were glued to the mess of cars that were making their way through the Monday morning rush traffic. I was getting quite annoyed, but there was nothing I could do. Lips Sulvanni, at least, according to Dark One, had been sent to evaluate me on this little mission. The bald, pompous-ass, pasta-face stuffing load of shit who acted as the syndicate's contact to Eden's judicial department as well as the chief's right-hand lackey had been pestering me the entire ride up town, much to my displeasure. I was new, of course, but not new to the business. Anyway, Dark One had all the reason in the world to distrust me, so I suppose appointing Lips to act as my 'road mentor' was a way to get around that. So I was not surprised when the large man slid into the passenger seat.I probably wouldn't have been surprised if the big man decided to tag along as well.
I brushed my left hand along the seat of my cargo pants to dry the sticky beads of sweat that had formed there and adjusted my small spectacles. Ahead of us was one of the millions of Eden City Cabbie cars, with, most likely, another Asian immigrant seeking a few dollars to move his family off the street at the wheel. Then there was a Trans Am in poor condition, a pick-up, and finally the Eden City Police security van that was used to transport a great amount of cash between the two Siftwood International banks within the city. It was much taller than any of regular Ford vans I was accustomed to seeing on these roads, and wider at that. The secured vehicle was protected by four inches of heavy bulletproof armor, bulletproof windows, and a protected undercarriage. There was only one way to gain entry into a vehicle of this nature, and this was the way the syndicate had instructed me to use.
"He's turning.are you blind?"
I ignored him. Lips began to breathe a little harder, his stupid blue eyes blinking once or twice as he focused on the mass of cars before us. His hands rested on his expansive belly. The fact that the big oaf had not been brief pissed me off, but it was too late to do anything now. I glanced in the review mirror at the two identically dressed Ezran hitmen in the backseat. They were calm as statues, their faces tight with determination and resolve. On each man's lap rested an M16-A2 service rifle. The chief's armsman had supplied us with the equipment needed.
I let the Mazda slide to a stop behind the cab in front of us and looked to the left amidst the crowds of people who walked the streets day in and day out. The van had taken a left turn and was making its way slowly up Church street. Cars poured after it as traffic allowed like water rushes through the hole in a boat. As the cab moved, I followed, but gave the accelerator a small goose and missed the chance at following the van left. Instead I headed straight, cutting onto the left shoulder of the uphill highway for a moment to give me a chance to pass the next five cars and get the to next gap.
"What the hell are you doing?" Lips demanded, his fist slamming on the door panel. "He went the other way. We're going to miss him, you fool!"
My patience had run out on me.
"You'll be the only one to miss him."
Lips scowled at me, but I could see a smile hidden. This was what he had wanted. Now that I new his game plan, I could invent my own.
"Is that a threat?"
"A warning."
"One from an employee who has already met with a number of fault!"
"I intend to cut him off.you were obviously not briefed. The fault is not mine in the least."
Lips just laughed. With his hands just barely clasped over his sack- like belly, and his head leaned backward in a huge, hearty laugh, he looked just like Santa Claus. I barely resisted a smirk. That would not be in my best interests.
"Look lively, gentlemen."
The men in the backseat did nothing but glance out either rear window. I sped up a little bit and turned, pulling into the parking lot of the 7-11 across from the Mobil gas station. I parked the Mazda in the shadows the right side of the convenient store and a large office building at the cross section of highway 89 and Bennington street. I quickly rolled down my window and stuck my head out. The car was parked just close enough to the edge of the lot so I could see all the way down Bennington for several blocks. To my right, Bennington crossed '89 and continued south another six blocked. The uptown Eden Siftwood International was down that way.
As my eyes followed the road in the opposite direction, I saw a second Mazda identical to my own, painted in the same color, which was the blackest of blacks on earth. It was also parked at the edge of a smaller lot a block down, in front of an office building at the Bennington/Dredge cross-section. A wave of relief swept over my body, and I felt the confidence building. I knew that this would be extremely difficult, no matter how easy the initial planning and waiting seemed to be. All of my body muscles seemed to tighten at once, and I reached for my seat belt, clicking it in place. The men dressed entirely in black jumpsuits behind me did not, and neither did Lips Sulvanni, who was too big for it. I still do not know why Sulvanni had been put on a mission as risky as this one. Dark One had to recognize the significance of a possible backfire, and would be sure not to let anyone important be in harm's way. I knew I was expendable, as were the men in back. The thought that Dark One's top Eden City surface world contact had become useless did, however, cross my mind.
Lips, beside me, had fallen silent. He may have been fat, but he was not slow. He knew what was going to happen. He took to drumming his fingers on his boulder-like stomach. Outside the silence of the nearly soundproof car, faint voices yelled and laughed, car horns honked, and engines whined.
I removed my eyes from the other Mazda for a split second to glance at my watch. Eight thirty-two. When my eyes rested on the other car down the street, which also had been parked in a shadowed area of the lot it was in, I caught a brief flash of headlights.
Lips, had he been looking, might have asked why the others flashed their lights. The two men in the back had been watching, though, and straightened, checking over their ammunition clips. The headlights flashed again and this time Lips caught on.
"Why---
I turned the key in the ignition and started the Mazda up. It purred quietly and I gently began to nose out on the street. I couldn't see whether or not the other car had started up, because of the distance, but their driver was no amateur. The incredible punctuality he had delivered the signal with was unmistakable. And anyone employed by Dark One personally (as his drivers always were) was no joke.
It was at that moment I saw the van come into view across Dredger and on the other side of the other Mazda's lot. It turned onto Bennington and headed towards us. After a moment the other Mazda lurched out behind it, slowly at first, but then gaining speed. I did not need to warn the men. They knew the stakes. And I could care less about Lips. I had not been told to watch out for his safety. I actually hoped that if there were any problems that he would be first in line to take an ECPD bullet. I reached under my black button shirt and removed my Desert Eagle, pinning it against the steering wheel with my left hand.
I gunned the engine, and the Mazda flew forward. The Bennington street block between Dredge and '89 was not a whole lot of distance, but enough for me to take the car to its limit of speed and swerve crisply, stopping sharply at a perpendicular angle in front of the van. A security guard jumped out of the passenger door on the van, clutching a pistol, and I saw the driver of the van stare out ahead at us with panicked eyes, bringing a rounded radio to his lips and speaking rapidly.
At that moment, the two men clutched at either back door handles and threw them open, exiting and turning their machine guns on the transfer vehicle, yelling for the driver to get out immediately. Simultaneously, the security guard had raised his own weapon to my car and fire three times in succession. The first two shots droned off the sides, but the third struck the glass to my right and entered the forehead of Lips Sulvanni. The big man, who had never seen it coming, threw his arms out to either side, his eyes as wide as pears. I had been looking at him after the last shot had been fired since it had entered the glass. I thought of an Italian opera singer, when, like an idiot, I should have been reforming my composure. I could hear sirens in the distance, and I saw the driver drop his radio. Then came the spats of a machine gun, like a thousand steel bolts being dropped on a suspended metal plate right next to your ear. The two men who had climbed out of my Mazda, who had their black winter wraps over their faces now, were firing on the security guard, who exploded to the side curb in a death dance ridden with blood.
At that moment, the driver gunned the van's engine and smashed into me, pushing me sideways. There was no distance between us and the doors were not dented inward, but I felt like I was being crushed anyways. There was still thirty yards left between the highway and Bennington cross- section. A cab had turned onto our street but had not proceeded any further, idling stupidly as its driver watched on. The other Mazda, which had previously broken into a roar moments ago, rear-ended the van. The sleek nose of the car pushed the back of the van up on top of the Mazda's front end. Because the car had been going fast, the van's own front end scraped along my car and smashed into the brick wall of the back of an office building, at a downward trajectory, throwing its driver into the windshield. His head left a brilliant spider web on the glass.
Men in black poured out of the other Mazda, and I exited my own vehicle, hurrying over with my Eagle at hand.
"Is your driver alright?" I yelled as I ran over.
"He was killed when we hit the van," one of the men with the M16-A2 rifles stated nonchalantly.
"Very well."
I looked sharply to the left as the sound of sirens became louder and closer. I ran a hand through my damp hair and looked back at the van, holding my weapon in both hands. "Two minutes under. Let's move."
The Ezran operatives worked quickly and efficiently. Three men immediately mad a semi-circle around me, standing near my own Mazda, whose left side was almost totaled. One of them popped the trunk while the other four who had climbed up on top of the hood of the other car went to work. They placed an explosive on the handles and set the detonation. All of them jumped off, and then one of the men raised his rifle, aimed, and fired a single bullet at the device on the handles. An explosion rocked the back of the van, sending the left door flying off of its hinges to land on the street while severely crippling the other. Saiman, who was the leader of this particular Ezran assault brigade, jumped up onto the hood of the Mazda and was the first inside the van. The others followed quickly.
"Four minutes under. Let's wrap this up, gentlemen."
As if on queue, each Ezran operative leaped out shouldering his weapon and carrying a heavy, steel, secured box, each containing six thousand hundred dollar bills. Saiman brought up the rear carrying two boxers, for he had left his weapon behind, and leaped off the car. They all dumped their boxes into the back of my Mazda. At this moment, two police cruisers turned onto the street from Dredge. They raced at the wreckage, and in front of us I had the feeling that the police were going to attempt to pull the same trap we just pulled. Saiman barked an order and immediately three Ezran operatives knelt behind the side of the trunk of the other, wrecked Mazda, and began firing rapidly at the oncoming cruisers. The one on the left had its radio punctured and was almost immediately on fire. It wheeled off to the right and exploded against the far wall, but the other one scraped along the left-hand brick wall before stopped. Two officers leaped out, and six more cars and cruisers screeched onto the street behind it, sirens wailing. The Ezran in the middle of the firing trio was shot in the neck and fell backwards, clutching at his adam's apple as blood exploded into the air. The other two came off their knees and jumped around the car, firing at the cruisers.
Myself, Saiman, and the three remaining Ezran operatives, meanwhile, scrambled to get into the working Mazda. I went for the driver's side but Saiman beat me to it and gunned the engine almost before I could close my door. One of the three was shot in the back and fell away with a cry, his gun falling to the pavement and firing rapidly, the force pushing it around in a half-circle. My head slammed into the headrest of the driver's seat, and Lips Sulvanni's elephant-like body did a little jiggle before thundering off the dashboard. Saiman rolled down the windows and the remaining two operatives fired out behind us.
We narrowly missed braining a school bus head on as we rushed out onto highway '89 to a chorus of car horns. We were soon lost amidst the traffic and the police, who had been intent on catching the culprits who stayed behind at the scene of the heist, forgot about our other car. It a lucky coincidence---moments after we pulled out onto the highway, a handful of cop cars turned off the highway and stormed onto Bennington.
Saiman gunned the engine for another few minutes and then let it glide. I let my breath out slowly. I hadn't realized that I had been holding it. I opened my eyes. We were in east Eden, in a residential apartment area I had not been to often. Saiman pulled down an alleyway and killed the engine, leaning back. He breathed also. I was thankful that he had gotten me through another veteran mission, as I was still somewhat new to the major league, but I couldn't imagine why he had stopped. I almost didn't care.
"What's wrong."
Saiman lowered his head, and I saw the tops of his elbows moving , followed by the loading of a clip into what I figured was probably a pistol. He said nothing.
I glanced at the two to my right, but their eyes were trained to the side window, faces expressionless. I looked back at the back of Saiman's head, which was still lowered. Now came the noise of what sounded like the lid being screwed forcefully onto a jar. I knew what was coming but had no time to react at all.
Saiman turned around and, without a word or even glint within his beady eyes, pulled the trigger on his silenced pistol. My eyes bulged and my hands moved slowly to my stomach. Then came the feeling of a fiery knife that had pierced my stomach. It burned, stung, and it became hard to breathe. I looked down slowly, did not look up. My hands began to redden.
Then everything went dark.