A/N: Story like this could open a lot of possibilities, lol, but I can't answer the questions yet that were asked in the reviews. It would spoil a trifle too much. I'm glad, however, that my fic made the readers think beyond the parameters of what was written. ^^ You don't always get responses like that.
Mala
Mireille had suggested infiltrating the fortress by means of stealth and deception, but Schwarz had shaken his head, saying that he had already thought of that but had found it unfeasible. The Ramsey chateau was shut as tight as an oyster and their radars prevented anyone from getting too close to it, making it impossible even to take a glimpse of the gate passcodes, of which there were four, one for each side. Schwarz, however, had managed to acquire old floor plans of the castle before it had been sold to Ramsey. Although it would not help them as much as the blueprints of Ramsey's re-furnished fortress, Schwarz was sure that Ramsey could not have torn down the old castle's inner walls and rooms. It still was a resting-house. He merely might had installed his security systems and placed guards, but that was all. Ramsey was well-known for his love of ancient humanities, and that played to their advantage. They would just have to figure out the most logical places that Ramsey would occupy.
Schwarz suggested that an open and frontal assault would have to suffice, despite its huge odds against success. A force of entry failed most of the time, but it was their only alternative. Besides, it was not entirely unpractical; Dreamscape Inc., upon appointing to Schwarz the responsibility of getting rid of Ramsey, had given him and his company a large budget to achieve the assignment. From the money, he had hired well-trained snipers, strongboxes of arms, poison, and explosives, a small home-base crew who had turned the Ramsey floor plans into an interactive, three-dimensional computer environment that could be navigated, hidden cameras attached on the assassin's clothes, and other odds and ends, such as the plane tickets and "information money."
He had already formulated his plan long before they arrived on Switzerland; the two assassins were actually the last part of the preparation before the siege itself. As Schwarz stayed behind with the crew to monitor their progress, they would need two people for one to act as a distraction as the other blasts the south gate with explosives. The south gate was the nearest entrance to what they theorized as Ramsey's bunker; they assumed that once the security systems were in full alarm, Ramsey's men would lead him to the shelter in case of assassination.
Once an entrance was opened, one assassin would be sent to disable all the security systems to weaken the bunker and in preparation for their escape while the other be sent to deal with Ramsey. Ramsey's security would have to divide their forces into three: one to give chase to the enemy snipers to keep them from entering the fortress, another to eliminate the one in charge of wrecking the security systems, and yet another one to provide Ramsey with the best human-shield defense while on their way to the bunker. And Schwarz knew that the less united an army force was, the easier it would be to destroy it.
Mireille was still facing the east wall, currently tapping her mouthpiece. "Home, this is N1. Did N2 manage to destroy the surveillance cameras and sensors directed on the south gate?"
"That's the first thing she did when she arrived in the open," replied Schwarz, sounding awed. "She shot them down without wasting a bullet. And with such speed! Mein Gott, she has the best aim I've ever seen. She's not human at all."
"That's Kirika all right," said Mireille unconsciously, flinching as a bullet scraped into the bark of a tree, flinging splinters towards Mireille's face. Then she launched herself into a full run, leaving her sniper cover behind for the next step. As she cut through the foliage towards the south wall to join Kirika, she could already see in her mind's eye how her partner would break past the armed squad that would have been sent as reinforcements of the south gate.
Mireille flipped into the air and landed down perfectly, jumping over a tangle of twisted roots and shirking bullets on her tail. It would be an old tactic that Kirika would be using, one that Mireille herself was familiar with. People usually made use of only four sides of a cube when monitoring their surroundings; they always kept their senses trained on their front, back, right, and left. They took for granted the other remaining sides of the cube: the top and the bottom. Mireille and Kirika frequently took advantage of this overlooking during assignments.
Kirika would clamber up the small extended roof that had been undamaged by the explosion and would lie in wait for the dust to clear and for the reinforcements to show themselves just behind the wrecked gate, the young assassin unnoticed because of the destroyed surveillance cameras. Once the reinforcements let down their guard because they could not detect her, she would instantly let the upper half of her body down, with only her legs to support her on the small roof. With her uncanny aim, she could shoot each of them on the head perfectly without breaking a sweat, staring at their pale faces upside-down.
Mireille panted, breaking out of the forest and into the open south wall, with Kirika's cover behind her. She had tried that tactic many times and could do it herself, but not with Kirika's perfection in targeting. And she knew that she would always be second to Kirika in the assassination business, and Kirika second to none.
Mireille danced away from the bullets of the south snipers, heading towards the blown gate. There was a litter of inert bodies surrounding it and leading into the inner chambers of the fortress, empty magazines lying on the floor, which Mireille recognized to be Kirika's. No one alive was guarding the south gate. She could hear Kirika's Beretta still firing deeper into the castle; she must be on her way to the bunker already. Mireille, however, had her own part to play.
"Schwarz, I'm in," she said. The radio crackled noisily. "I'm going for the security systems."
"N1, you're breaking up," she heard Schwarz reply. Then came a few buzzes as Schwarz was nearly cut off, but she heard the phrases "jamming our transmission" and "on your own." Then there was an impertinent break and then she could hear nothing but static.
Mireille turned the comlink off. She would have to hunt for the main center of the coordinated security systems on her own, although she did remember Schwarz telling her that the security center was most likely located in the heart of the castle, the second-floor hall, that was large enough to contain it. She stepped into the castle.
Although Ramsey truly did not tear down any of the original curtain walls, he had added roofs and additional walls to integrate the different towers and stronghold keeps into one, united building. It made the European castle look smaller to Mireille as she surveyed her possible routes. She was currently standing on the outer bailey, the first courtyard between the outer and inner walls. There had been a roof added. She would have to find a way to get through the inner walls, then around the inner bailey to finally reach the shell keep where the main halls of the castle were, and where she could finally get down to business. Kirika was nowhere to be seen, and the gunshots were echoing less and less audibly.
Mireille chanced upon a broken shard of glass and saw a three guns aimed at her, and she sprang into action, pulling her own pistol. Her would-be assailants fired each a shot before they fell down, the skulls smashed by the bullets that entered their heads. Giving Mireille no chance to rest, more bullet-proofed men came streaming from all directions, apparently having lain wait for her all the time to catch her alive.
Mireille bit her lip as she ran around the spacious bailey in a wandering direction, firing and reloading, furious that she had not studied in more detail the floor plans that had been shown to her. And she was still in the outer bailey, with inner walls, an inner bailey, and spiral staircases to deal with later.
Two men jumped on her and she hit one squarely on the groin with her boot before he landed, forcing him to drop his gun from pain before hitting the ground and squirming in agony. A well-aimed kicked on his head ended his misery as Mireille stepped back to shoot his companion.
Kirika must be waiting for me now, wondering why the bunker's still holding, thought Mireille in exasperation as she leaped in an arc and brought down three bodies with her. And here I am, stuck outside, because I didn't read directions properly.
Kirika.
Mireille's eyes suddenly flashed at the thought as her trigger finger pumped lead. Of course. Kirika had gotten farther into the castle earlier, killing all that came close to her, leaving a trail.
The piles of dead bodies.
Mireille looked at the corpses at her feet as she ran as hard as her legs could carry her. They all led to a certain direction and all she had to do was follow them. She remembered that the bunker was located down the basement, what used to be the dungeons, led by a staircase downwards from the ground-floor keep that was enclosed by the inner bailey. Kirika should have made all the way from the outer bailey to the ground-floor keep and into the basement, leaving her trademark, and from the ground-floor keep, Mireille could just look for the staircase leading to the second floor where the security hall was and do what had to be done.
She evaded a fist aiming for her jugular and grabbed the arm that had been reaching for her, pulling the man down and shooting him at the back of his head. She panted, her eyes following the trail and her other senses alerting her of incoming bullets or attacks that she skillfully warded off or confronted with the muzzle of her gun. But as much as she neutralized her assailants, there seemed more pouring out from every hole from the wall, the sight of bullet-proof vests almost suffocating her. Apparently, there were more security guards in the building than what Schwarz had calculated. There seemed to be an endless supply of them.
Her breath almost gave out before she saw Kirika's trail lead into a smashed door, the lock blasted by a bullet and the door kicked down. She gave a strangled but triumphant cry as she ducked in the embrasure and into the inner bailey.
The inner bailey was a courtyard even more vast and wider than the outer one, but even without the help of Kirika's litter, she could make out the door into the keep and the halls just a few meters away from her. Summoning whatever that was left of her strength, Mireille tore past her attackers, the sight of the door growing nearer and nearer before her eyes. A red-faced guard appeared in front of her, pulling the trigger, but she grabbed his shoulder almost unconsciously before catapulting herself into the air, firing rounds, and alighting on her feet as smoothly as a cat would. She had to get to the main security hub in time.
Without warning, a bullet suddenly grazed her upper left arm, tearing her shirt and leaving a gash on her skin. She winced as the blood began to seep out and drip on the floor.
She crashed into the door leading to the keep with a puff, her shirt steeped in perspiration and her legs throbbing. She longed to slow down into a jog, her heart pumping as if her entire body would burst and the rims of her eyesight turning red from the exertion, but there was no time. Her hand was already trembling from exhaustion and her throat screaming for breath, but the glimpse of the spiral stairway built upon the spiral vault that went round the central newel gave her a fresh pump of adrenaline.
Five men blocked the entrance to the staircase and she broke into a run, planning how to take all five of them at once, but before she reached them, she saw with her peripheral vision Kirika coming up from another stairway that came from the basement. She was harrassed by attackers of her own, the nearest one just a mere arm's distance away from her, with a rain of bullets solidly behind her, pinging and poinging into the castle wall.
"Mireille!" she shouted and Mireille recovered from her surprise. This was certainly not part of the plan.
"What are you doing here?!" the Corsican roared, forcing herself to stop before she crashed into the five men of the stairway, their guns aimed on different parts of her body. Kirika's sudden appearance had made her lose her momentum and there was no way she could get past them now.
Mireille looked around, her chest heaving. She had stopped running. Kirika had sped towards her and was now standing back-to-back against her, their guns pointed at opposite directions. They were in the middle of a large crowd formed by Ramsey's men, made of Mireille and Kirika's pursuers combined, all dressed in vests and automatics in their hands. Kirika was unhurt, but they were both trapped.
"You're hurt?" asked Kirika, with something of a hint of concern in her voice, having seen the blood on Mireille's arm as they faced the men together.
"It's nothing. What are you doing here?" Mireille repeated, if not a little heatedly.
"Ramsey's not there," explained Kirika, her breath ragged but her eyes staring steely at their opponents. "No one's in the bunker."
"Are you sure it was the bunker?" demanded Mireille, half-wondering why the men dared not shoot at them, though their weapons were clearly trained at their vital parts.
"Yes," replied Kirika, her voice certain. "I'm sure."
"It was the bunker," one of the black-garbed man said, leering and showing his yellow teeth. "I can tell you that."
"Well, we're in a pretty fix now." Mireille switched her gun from the right to her left hand, her eyes not leaving the layers and layers of men who blocked their way from any means of escape. They were two against a full regiment. "Looks like Ramsey's entire security force is here."
"It explains it," agreed Kirika.
"What does?"
"A third of them should be out chasing our own snipers from the trees," Kirika calmly elaborated, her shooting arm straight and her left hand firmly under the butt of her pistol. "But I don't hear any shooting."
Mireille suddenly realized how quiet it had become in the castle. It was a ghastly silence, a silence of comprehension that their plan had unexpectedly turned awry and they had been outsmarted. The entire regiment was here.
"Give you a little hint," said the leering, yellow-teethed man despite some frowns from his colleagues to shut up, "we just set the forest perimeter on fire."
"You what?!" Mireille almost dropped her gun.
"Oh, you can't see it or sniff it from here," said the same man, savoring their victory after a long and arduous chase, "but we flamed it all right." He shrugged apathetically. "Certainly a lot of easier than having to take 'em one at a time. Sure, it's gonna ruin the landscape, but what the heck, you know the sandy pavilion that separates the castle and the forest? There's actually a pretty wide, hidden moat underneath, and we just had to make the pavilion collapse, so we're pretty safe in here from the flames." His eyes crinkled maliciously. "Flames that no one's putting out. It's an inferno out there. No one can get here, except if want to fly by helicopter and bomb us."
"The authorities will see it," said Kirika icily, the cold in her voice enough to douse a thousand forest fires.
"The authorities?" The man laughed. "You obviously have no idea about Ramsey's sphere of influence in these parts. We'll just chuck it out as a forest fire that we unfortunately didn't detect." He laughed again, with even more enjoyment. "If you want to look for Ramsey, he's in his office, third-floor of this building. Too bad we'll be taking you there anyway, in cuffs."
"That's enough, Holden," someone else barked immediately. "We have our orders."
"Mireille, you go for the target," Mireille heard Kirika suddenly say from her back. "I'll cover your back from here."
"Leave you alone here? That's crazy."
Kirika's eyes slitted, almost Noir-like. "I'll open you an entrance on three."
Mireille almost could not bring her mind to register what sort of obvious suicide Kirika was suggesting. "What-"
"One..."
"There is no-"
"Two..."
"Mon Dieu!"
"Three."
In mutual understanding, the duo whirled around towards their left, their backs still against each other, with Kirika letting loose a volley of rapid and accurate fire, hitting all the first layer of men with supernatural precision. Mireille dashed ahead towards the stairway, making use of the panic that erupted, shooting all against her path. When the men regained their wits, Mireille was already pounding up the steel stairs and Kirika hurtling from floor, ceiling, to wall, deadly Beretta in one hand and cartridges on the other from the belt bag she wore.
Mireille had almost reached the landing when she heard a group of men surging behind her, guns ringing. The stairway was cramped and the men came nearer and nearer. Regardless of her best efforts, Mireille slowed down, almost overwhelmed by her fatigue, that she could only turn around and pray that her shots would be true, despite her trembling and sweaty palms.
There were four in front of her, but before she could take down even one of them, a shot rang out and Mireille felt something hot sear into her right thigh and dig deep into the muscle. Biting her lip that it almost bled to keep her mind off from her wound, she fiercely drove her bullets into their heads, making them plummet lifelessly into the others behind them before she turned around and resumed her course.
When she reached the final landing on the third floor, Mireille could not help collapsing on the last step wearily, catching her breath in large gulps. The gunshots two floors below her had not stopped, which meant Kirika was still miraculously alive. Mireille closed her eyes, giving a small prayer of thanks. Then she rolled on her back, her eyes twitching involuntarily. She had never been this harried before and she was spent from dodging bullets and shooting back; she would hardly be able to take Ramsey in this condition, with two injuries, one serious, and a complete drainage of energy.
Slowly, she pulled herself up painfully into a sitting position, half-expecting a squad of black gunmen to fall upon her. But oddly none came. She checked her bullet wounds, ripping a sward of her jacket to bandage her bloody arm and taking off the whole jacket to tie around her right leg, trying to stop the gaping wound which was already messy with blood and pus.
With effort, she stood up, her eyes scanning the place. Her surroundings were made of dusty red brick and fluorescent lights were fixed on the ceiling, lighting a way towards the cavernous hallway that waited for her. At the end was a medium-sized wooden door, ornately carved. There was no other way nor staircase.
The door beckoned at her and she moved towards it, knowing her prey was inside. She limped, feeling pain shoot across her leg everytime she put weight on her right foot. Her steps were slow and deliberate, echoing, and her gun was steady in her hand. Her blood was pulsing all over her and she could feel it coming from every pore of her skin. The thundering of her heart against her rib cage was the only thing she could hear.
She reached out and twisted the doorknob, opening the door.
A man was standing behind a desk, looking out the window, his back facing Mireille. He was dressed in a black suit and his edges of his hair was graying. He was tall and well-built, and he was holding a wine glass half-filled with red wine.
Mireille was a little surprised as she silently watched her step to get the perfect aim. She had been expecting a jowly, fat millionaire with an odious cigar and a wall of guards surrounding him, but there was no one in the room except for the man and herself.
"I have been expecting you," said the man in a refined manner, fingering the stem of his glass, but otherwise not moving. "But I must say I'm still pretty surprised that you made it here in one piece."
Mireille frowned. He didn't sound American to her. Nevertheless, she pulled the trigger, the bullet speeding like a rocket for the back of the man's head, but the man merely bent his neck and the missile flew harmlessly past him and smashed into the window, shards of glass bursting into the air. Mireille suddenly got a whiff of the burning forest mingling with the night air.
"I suggest you not to waste any more bullets," said the other, turning around. He wore a tie and his face was well-featured and his brown hair neatly combed towards the back. "I'm not the one you're looking for."
Mireille's eyes narrowed warily.
The man jerked a thumb towards the wall on Mireille's right. "He's right there."
The fake wall slowly rose up to the ceiling by some mechanism, revealing a large pane of glass separating the assassin and the strange man from a dark room. There didn't seem to be anything inside at first, but Mireille suddenly saw a cigar being struck and the flame illuminated a double-chin.
"Oh, Mr. Ramsey's there, all right," the man said, setting down his glass of wine on the table. "But you'll have to get through me first."
Mireille paid no attention to him as she pointed her gun at the glass and fired bullet after bullet. The bullets ran into the glass but merely wedged into it, creating small separate cracks over the pane. The glass held.
"As I have said, you will have to get through me first." The man unbuttoned his suit and placed it over the desk beside the wine glass. He loosened his tie comfortably as he walked around the table to face her.
"Allow me, then," returned Mireille coldly, aiming the gun at his head and firing. But there was only a clicking sound as gun could find no bullet to propel. It was empty. Mireille quickly ran her left hand into her belt bag, but there were no magazines left.
"Certainly you didn't think that I'd have a go with an unarmed lady, did you?" There was a stand containing two fencing rapiers beside the man and he picked one up and tossed it to Mireille. "I'm assuming that you would know something about this, else this would be a very short duel indeed."
"Indeed." Mireille caught the sword deftly by the hilt and swung it below her hip twice, readying herself. She had been born into the aristocratic family of the Corsican Bouquets, and fencing was nothing new to her. She pulled the blade just inches from her face and said, "En garde," moving into stance of a broad ward.
The man stood facing her, his sword held down in a low ward, not moving, and she suddenly realized the great disadvantage she was in. He was in no hurry, but she was. She wanted to get this done with before her throbbing exhaustion and her wounds would force her to collapse on her feet. She had to fight while she still had the strength. She had no choice; she would have to make the first move.
Driven only by this thought, she instantly moved her right foot and swung her sword into an overcut, but the man did not even move his sword to parry the blow. Instead, his hand shot up like lightning and caught the end of the blade between his index and middle finger.
"Really, you do me a grave injustice, my dear," he said, unperturbed as he swung the sword point away and released it. "Do give me more credit for my fencing abilities; I assure you, you won't be disappointed."
Mireille closed her eyes and focused, breathing deeply, sorting her thoughts one at a time. One, the wound on her leg had opened freshly when she stepped forward to strike. She could feel blood running from the wound in rivulets down to her feet and she could already imagine how much of a red pool was already drowning her right foot. Two, this man was no ordinary opponent; his reflexes were sharp and she could see from the way he held his sword by an economy of movement that fencing was already second nature to him. Furthermore, by fighting in his terms, by fencing, Mireille had made the mistake of giving him control over the situation. Three, came the pressing urgency of time that had been bothering her since she entered the room. Four, her strike must be quick and to the heart, with minimum sword swings to conserve energy and a final thrust.
Mireille opened her eyes and stanced herself again and the man brightened and readied himself as well. Almost imperceptibly, Mireille lunged a fake undercut from the ground up. The man brought his sword down to parry the blow.
She smiled. I got him.
But before she could whisk her sword away to aim the lethal thrust, her opponent suddenly jumped up and flipped in the air. He had read the fake all along and he had brought his rapier down not to parry it but to give him momentum as leaped over Mireille and landed behind her, sword poised.
Mireille spun around with her sword on the defensive, but it was too late. As she turned around in reaction, her opponent drew a wide cut horizontally from the left to the right.
Mireille felt the point of cold steel breezing on her abdomen before she felt the burning pain of the sweeping blow bite her. She dropped her sword and her legs gave way and she sank down on her knees involuntarily, holding her abdomen, her face twitching as she suddenly broke into abnormal sweat. The lower part of her shirt had been ripped off and there was a wide laceration on the flesh behind it, driven by the solid arc of the man's sword. Her arm could not stop the hemorrhage, the blood spilling over it. She was bleeding very badly and she felt dizzy, feeling all three wounds at once. She gritted her teeth.
"That was a good move you had there," she heard the other say as he tossed his sword across the room, clearly the victor, "but not good enough."
Mireille stared at him despite the dark that was threatening to possess her, livid with rage. She could not move and she was trembling all over as her body tried to cope with the extreme loss of blood. He, on the other hand, was calmly punching some numbers on a cellphone he had pulled from his pocket.
"Bring the other one here," he said with a tone of authority beforing pocketing the phone back. "Well, my dear," he continued, facing Mireille as he picked up his coat and put an arm into the sleeve, "I'm supposed to be here to interrogate you. Standard procedure, of course."
Mireille watched him in cold anger as he buttoned his coat and picked up his wine glass. "You'll get no such satisfaction from me," she spat between breaths, crumpling even lower on the ground from her weariness. Her head was swimming and she felt cold. "And what did you mean by the other one?"
"Surely you haven't forgotten your friend," obliged the man, sipping his glass and frowning at the taste.
"Kirika!" gasped Mireille, more to herself in apprehension.
"Oh, so that's her name, is it?" The man approvingly sat on the desk, looking at the dark room where his employer was seated. Then he nodded at something behind her after she heard the wooden door creak open. "That would be your friend, correct?"
Mireille did not want to turn around. For one, she did not have strength to do so, and more importantly, she knew she would not like what she would see. She should have known that Kirika would not be able to hold out for so long. But she willed herself to move, praying for a miracle.
The girl was hanging on a man's shoulder, battered and bruised, blood dripping from a mottled gash on her forehead. Her hair was tangled and askew, covering her face from view. Her limp arms held red, angry welts and her jacket was shredded. Her body was inert.
No.
Mireille struggled helplessly, feeling arms roughly lifting her up from the ground, her sight darknening even more.
It was impossible. There cannot be such a thing.
The dark called louder, and sapped of strength, Mireille finally succumbed bitterly to it. Her sight disappeared and she felt enveloped by the silent blackness.
Black...Noir.
Kirika...
mala, end