Preston stared hard at his watch as the hands ticked round. Two minutes to go. He looked back out at the ring of terrorists in the room below him. No change in the situation there. The hostages were obviously too petrified to stage any kind of resistance. Presumably they'd discovered first hand what happened to anyone who tried. He personally had seen at least ten bodies of former workers that the attackers had deemed it suitable to waste. Their orders were specific - recover as many hostages as possible alive, and remove the terrorists. All the Turks had noticed the omission of "dead or alive" on the end of that sentence. They had been authorised to use whatever means they thought necessary to achieve the objective. Vincent had added to this brief though. Considering the difficulties they had been encountering recently, he thought it was an ideal opportunity to try and squeeze some information out of anyone who happened to cross their paths. This opportunity should be seized wherever possible, although the subjects didn't have to be alive after they'd been questioned.

One minute thirty.

He tore his gaze off the scene below and fixed it on the metallic device in his hand, consciously working to calm his rising adrenalin.

Out of all the Turks, Preston was the one least used to this particular kind of operation, specialising as he did more in espionage and enemy infiltration. When there had been the need to place a spy inside the rank and file of Wutai, Preston was the Turk assigned to the job. He was less comfortable with this type of mission, not that he was in any way a liability. He simply felt that his talents were better directed elsewhere. This arena was more Linden's natural habitat, and Vincent's. Although the leader of the Turks proclaimed that he preferred outdoor missions on the streets, he was equally at home in close range situations.

Fifty seconds.

oOo

Linden was also keeping a close eye on the terrorists in the room, although from a different vantage point. He had come through via an alternate route, and reached a position on the opposite site of the area, on the same level.

"Forty three hippopotamus, forty two hippopotamus…"

He checked his gun as he counted down. A silencer had been fitted to the end, in preparation for the task ahead.

He peered out at the unsuspecting men. This was the moment that Turks lived for.

oOo

Vincent had managed to placate Lucrecia with the promise that she could call over to his apartment later that evening. For a brief moment he wondered what on earth had possessed him to give her that particular number. He made a mental note to request a second PHS for when he was on assignment.

Since Linden and Preston were dealing with the hostages on the fifth floor, Vincent had taken it upon himself to tackle the remaining ones in the floor above. He tracked his way through a particularly nasty corridor and up an access ladder to negate the emergency door locks. Although all the main doors were shut down, anyone who knew about these access shafts could still move around relatively unhindered. Now he thought about it, it was a major design flaw in the reactors, but for the time being, one which was to be exploited. He'd report the failings after the fact.

A small fizzing noise from the direction of his PHS indicated that Preston had activated the field generator. Indeed, glancing down he noticed that one of the lights was flashing red repeatedly, indicating the lack of a signal. By his calculations, Linden and Preston wouldn't give the terrorists much breathing space so as not to alarm anyone else in the vicinity.

Finally he arrived at his destination. The seventh floor of the Reactor was the one that housed the main core. Vincent was a little concerned that the terrorists had managed to make it this far inside without being stopped. Each Reactor had a handful of Shinra guards assigned to it, not to mention the numerous layers of security codes and systems. Somehow they had been able to get past all of them with little or no resistance. This nagged at his mind. Could it be an inside job?

That thought was worrying too, and not just because it was looking like a bigger possibility with each passing minute. The main issue was that if there had been a man on the inside, he would have had to be a fairly high ranking employee, to know how to get through the security checks. He didn't like that idea at all. He decided that should he discover an employee selling out, he would have to take fairly direct action.

Putting those thoughts to the back of his mind for the time being, he concentrated on the job in hand. There would be time for questions later.

Having reached the seventh floor, he now had to emerge from the secrecy of the vents and go out into the open. Far more dangerous, especially with so many enemies around him. He slid out of the grate and dropped lightly to the ground, having checked that the coast was clear. Quickly he looked up and down the corridor. Still empty. Most of the terrorists would be engaged in securing the core itself. From what they had seen so far, only a few guards had been posted round the perimeters.

Padding down the corridor he swiftly arrived at a new door. Creeping through, taking extra care not to let the metal make a noise, he immediately flattened himself against the wall. He was in one of the many control rooms scattered throughout the Reactor, and each one had a huge window on one side, overlooking the reactor itself. This particular window gave him an excellent view of a terrorist patrolling on the other side, but it would also give the attacker an unobstructed view of him if they happened to look in his direction.

Noticing that the main door out towards the terrorist was open, he ducked down and loped over to the window, as the man walked past. A quick check revealed that he was quite heavily armed. Vincent waited patiently for him to complete his circuit, to see if he was alone or in a group. In all, the man walked past three times before Vincent decided it was safe to act. Stalking up to the door, he positioned himself behind the opening and out of sight as the attacker went by.

The fourth time round, he was surprised to find an arm swiftly wrapped round him and over his mouth, pulling him into the side room with a cold metal object pointed at his head. Vincent flicked off the safety catch of his gun, which made the man cringe.

"Make a move for your weapon and I'll kill you where you stand" he advised the man softly, seeing the terrorist's fingers edging towards his hip. The roving hand stopped instantly, dropping to the man's side.

"Better. Now, are you going to co-operate or do I have to persuade you?" The man shook his head. He'd co-operate. "Good." Vincent slowly removed his hand from over the terrorist's mouth, while keeping the gun against his temple. "Who hired you?"

"I don't… don't know…" The revolver dug in slightly harder.

"Ack! Mister… Look, it was just another job, you know?"

"Alright, how about telling me how many of you there are round here?"

"Not many!" replied the terrorist hurriedly. "Just ten or twelve!" Vincent sighed wearily, and pulled the trigger, the silencer muffling any potential sound except a slight squelch as hot metal passed through the man's brain.

"Liar."

He didn't even bother to watch as the terrorist collapsed on the floor in front of him. He stepped over the body, and shut the door behind him, sealing the corpse inside and out of view. Whoever this guy was he obviously didn't know anything. Years of training had helped him learn to distinguish between people who were hiding something and those who genuinely had no idea. Just a couple of minutes had been enough to convince him that this terrorist was simply fodder. That was most likely the reason he'd been placed on simple guard duty.

Vincent set off in the direction the guard had come from, the direction of the core.

Five ex-guards later, he found himself deep inside enemy controlled territory. The terrorists were becoming more frequent and better trained. Not that any of them had posed a problem so far, certainly not for a skilled gunman like Vincent. He'd been able to get some information out of a few of them but nothing that was of particular help. It seemed that these people were mostly mercenaries, hired through third parties to do a job for a staggering amount of money.

He came across three more guards, stationed outside a large door. This large hallway lead to the entrance to the main core area, where the terrorists had set up their centre of operations. Vincent narrowed his eyes in contemplation. Hunching down behind a large metal pipe he strained to hear any snippets of conversation.

What he heard wasn't overly helpful. The men seemed tense, having lost radio contact with their colleagues, and were on a heightened alert. Oh well. He'd just have to dispose of them quickly.

Making sure the gun in his hand was fully loaded after his earlier encounters, he waited until one of the three guards wandered a little way off from the other two. The hallway was reasonably big, so he had some room to manoeuvre. Keeping one eye on the target and one on the rest of the guards, Vincent popped his arm round the side of the pipe and squeezed the trigger. Almost before the silenced shot had been fired, he was stealthily moving away.

The guard gave a brief gurgling noise, before crumpling to the floor in a heap, a gunshot wound straight through his forehead, bang between the eyes. A thin trail of blood trickled from the hole. His companions immediately swung round, guns trained on where the shot had originated from, but Vincent was long gone. He hid behind a computer panel as the two remaining men slowly advanced on his old position. One of them attempted to radio for help, but all he got over the airwaves was static. Cursing loudly, they began to investigate.

"Come out! We got you covered, Shinra scum!"

"Damn bastard must've escaped from downstairs… Hands in the air where we can see 'em!"

Evidently they thought they were looking for one of the hostages. Vincent smirked, they'd soon learn. Not that they'd live to remember of course. He took no real pleasure in the fact. Unlike some Turks, he did not enjoy killing. It was simply the job he did, and he was good at it.

Time for lesson number two. Moving himself into a position where the guards both had their backs to him (amateurs, he thought with derision), he used the equipment and tubing as camouflage to take his second shot. The nearest soldier dropped to the ground, felled by a bullet in exactly the same place as the first man, only from the back of the head. By now the last remaining terrorist was nervous - his eyes darted around the room and he kept shifting the aim of his gun, twisting and turning at every single noise.

Vincent crept round the edge of the room preparing to put this last man out of his misery. He had just lined up the shot when a side door banged open. The target jumped again, out of the line. He was lucky that the Turk hadn't been able to get the shot off. Doubly lucky in fact, since the new arrivals had a clear view of Vincent, thanks to a lack of obstacles on that side of the room. He suddenly found himself on the end of at least three shotgun barrels as men ran through the doorway.

"We've got him! Come out from there. Hands up, slowly!"

He paused a moment, thinking, before rising up from his position hands held just above his shoulders, his gun still firmly gripped. The men watched him warily, guns trained. There were five of them now, moving into better positions spread out round the room. They took in his blue suit and their hold on their weapons tightened. Even though the Turk was supremely outnumbered, they still feared him.

"You lot, surround him." One of the men gave directions to the rest. Evidently he had some kind of seniority amongst the group for everyone deferred to his orders. He gestured at Vincent with his weapon to the centre of the room. "And you! Out from behind that, now. Don't try anything!"

Vincent calmly stepped out from his shelter, into full view. It was all he could do not to shake his head at their ineptitude. If he'd been in the other mans' shoes, he'd have shot Vincent straight away.

"Drop the gun!"

He made no move to do so, instead just stood there.

"I said drop it!" There was the unmistakable sound of shotguns being readied. Vincent looked round at the men, fixing them with a cold hard stare before shrugging and dropping the revolver to the ground. It made a loud clanking sound as it connected, which startled the man he'd been aiming at earlier. The Turk gave an arrogant smirk as he saw the terrorist jump.

Satisfied for the moment, the leader of the small group looked at the man next to him. "Check out the rooms nearby" he demanded. "I want to know if there's any more of these buggers around." The attacker scurried off to do his bidding and Vincent inwardly cheered. That evened the odds out a bit in his favour. Admittedly this was not a situation he enjoyed being in, but four on one was better than five on one any day.

"What're you looking at?" he said back to Vincent, who was still wearing that derisive smile. "I know you didn't come here alone. Now we're just going to take this nice and easy, right boys? One of you, tie him up." There was much shuffling of feet. No-one seemed overly keen on the idea. "I said tie him up! I don't want no damn Turks running round! Markowitz, you do it!" The man singled out looked slightly green. "He's in no position to hurt ya! Get on with it!"

The man nervously shuffled over to the Turk, who didn't even bother to look at him. Vincent's gaze was firmly locked on the man making the commands, silently evaluating. Gaining some measure of confidence from the surrounding arsenal, the man Markowitz advanced more purposefully, sticking his gun in his belt and hauling out some tape. Still Vincent made no move. The man circled round behind him, ready to bind his hands out of reach. The terrorist in charge nodded. "Go on, do it."

Just as Markowitz freed both his hands to use the tape, the Turk exploded into action. Starting to move as if he were offering his wrists, he swiftly reversed the movement and applied a punch to the man's gut causing him to stagger. Anticipating the barrage of fire that this action was inevitably going to draw, he dropped down to the ground and into a roll to one side. As he did so his hands reached inside his jacket to the twin holsters he kept strapped to his chest, coming to rest with practiced ease on the two pistols within. Pulling them out in one fluid motion, he set the firing at the surrounding men. He felled one instantly (coincidentally, the man who had survived the first encounter) with a bullet through the heart. A second was taken out as the strafing fire continued. Coming up from his roll as the man in charge unleashed his shotgun he grabbed at the man he had punched who was still flailing around trying to get his gun and pulled him across.

A wail behind him as he moved for cover told him that the terrorist had been effectively used as a human shield. Dropping him once his usefulness had expired, Vincent ducked down out of sight. The sound of the shotgun ceased as the terrorist tried to work out whether any of his shots had hit home. Foolish move. A bullet shot straight through his eye before he could move two paces.

Standing up from his hiding place, Vincent surveyed the scene. All the men dealt with in a matter of minutes. He reloaded his pistols and brushed a speck of dust from his suit. They really shouldn't have fallen for that trick, it was one of the oldest in the book. There were too many discrepancies here for his liking. On one hand, the terrorists had shown resourcefulness and clever use of tactics, but on the other, the men he had encountered had been surprisingly easy to outfox.

He turned to head for the Reactor Core entrance, puzzled, mulling the conundrum over in his head. It could just be nothing, he knew, but gut instinct counted for a lot in this game, and right now it was telling him that something wasn't right. He just couldn't make the connection.

Suddenly his left hand snaked out, and the gun in it fired. There was a scream as a man plummeted from a stairway across the top of the room, landing on the ground with a sickening crash. The fall alone would have killed him, even had there not been a neat hole in his chest. Vincent eyed his handiwork with satisfaction. He thought he'd heard movement up there and his caution had been rewarded. Deciding that his work in this area was complete, he gripped the handle of the door, turning it to leave.

A clap sounded, ringing out against the silence of the room. Vincent spun round again, his sharp sense of hearing locating the source of the noise, and aiming his guns in that direction instantly. The noise continued, applauding. Mocking. Still, he could see no-one. His eyes narrowed as he tried to distinguish what was going on. He disliked being made a fool out of.

His gaze fixed on a point near the middle of the room, hidden by shadows. The fluorescent lights didn't quite reach into that corner. He trained his pistols on the point.

"Well, well… I must say that was quite impressive."

A voice floated out from the shadow, a voice that almost made the Turk drop his weapons in shock. Common sense and good training kept him from doing so, but even they couldn't stop the look of incomprehension from crossing his porcelain features.

Impossible. He gripped the pistols tighter, fingers twitching on the triggers, itching to squeeze, as he watched the figure of a tall man emerge from concealment.

He was wearing similar attire to the other mercenaries - heavy jackets, khaki trousers and assorted weaponry - so much so that nothing distinguished him from the others Vincent had killed. Except that he knew this man. And that this explained a lot.

"Grisham."