"You have got to be kidding me." Graydon Creed sat next to his partner in
the rented Ford Taurus, gawking. They had stepped off the airplane at
roughly three o'clock and then waited in a horrific line at the Avis
counter for nearly two more hours. When they finally received their
vehicle, they had climbed inside, and Ford revealed his secret plan to
Creed. "That kid is still alive? He's out there, free? I thought they
booked him, and put him away forever sometime last year!"
Ford scoffed, his hands tightening around the steering wheel. "Yeah, some federal prison system we have here, right? The guy broke out during transport and disappeared into the night so fast that it had Uncle Sam's head spinning for weeks on end," he said, his growing disgust weighing his voice down. "He turned up working for the Mafia down in Portland, the Yakuza in Staunton, and few faceless street gangs all over the place. He's been wrecking havoc up here."
"Kid really likes to dance on the edge of the switchblade knife, doesn't he?" Creed took a moment to think about that. It was well known that the Yakuza and the Mafia rarely got along. Old Salvatore Leone had allegedly been killed by a Yakuza hit man, and the Mafia was not happy about it. Someone had taken out the Yakuza lords Asuka and Kenji, supposedly the cartel, but everyone was pointing fingers. The Yakusa chose to pick a fight with the Mafia. War between them was beginning to become quite heated. Creed had to wonder how the kid managed to stay alive while working for the both of them. Was it possible that he had found a way to play both sides without being caught?
"So, he's really the guy you think he is, then?" Creed turned at looked at Ford, who was becoming increasingly irritated with the gridlock traffic around them.
"Well, according the Bureau files he is," Ford said. "Apparently, he lives down in Belville Park on Staunton Island, but the records weren't exactly sure about that, because he jumps around a lot."
Creed nodded and watched the scenery of Shoreside Vale creep past his window. He had always enjoyed this part of Liberty City because it was so peaceful. No, that was wrong. It wasn't peaceful at all, not anymore. The place was completely overrun by the Columbian Cartel, as well as numerous street gangs, the Purple Nines, the Southside Hoods, and the Redjacks. But, even so, it at least looked peaceful. Of course, it hadn't been so a few months ago when there had been a holocaust on the Cochrane Dam. That had shredded the entire island apart. Since then, though, everything was beginning to settle back into the ashes. Creed shook his head. What was the world coming to?
Ford drummed on the steering wheel impatiently while waiting for the lift bridge to finish allowing a large cargo ship passage under it. He watched the section of the road lower back into place at an alarmingly slow speed, his patience starting to wear extremely thin. "What a waste of time," he mused. "Did you know that this stupid bridge goes up and down even if there are no ships to pass under?"
"Really? Why?" Creed was jarred out of his thoughts. He turned to Ford, his eyes refocusing on reality.
"I have no idea. The goddamned thing goes up every fifteen freakin' minutes," Ford growled. "Damn the man who decided it would be a good idea to invent time regulations." The bridge finally finished it aggravatingly long decent and locked into place, completing the road. Ford pressed the accelerator and began to move with the mass of traffic that had also been trapped at the bridge. The car passed the sign that welcomed people to Staunton Island, and Ford nodded. "Here it is," he said. He took a left after the underground passage tunnel and entered Belville Park. Passing the actual park part of the region, Creed noticed that the area, although swarming with less-than-inconspicuous gang members, actually looked like a good, somewhat normal place. It seemed like the average New York central park.
"It's been about ten years since I was last here in Belville," Creed said.
"Don't reminisce over there. Stay in the here and now," Ford replied, pulling into an alley between two buildings that would have been nearly impossible to see had the driver not known exactly where it was. "This is it," he announced, parking the car and pressing the emergency brake. He looked at Creed, then unbuckled his seat belt and climbed out of the car.
The two agents approached a large, metal utility elevator near the far wall of the alley, around the corner from a two car garage on the alley's left side. The lift opened almost immediately as soon as then drew near, and they exchanged glanced. Something suddenly reminded Creed of a cheesy horror movie, the ominous elevator. He quickly shrugged it off. He and Ford entered the lift and the doors closed. After a short, jerky decent into the lower bowels of the alleyway, the doors opened to reveal a tiny compartment. On the broad wall across from the lift, stood a huge, steel vault door.
Creed blinked. "Are you sure this is the right place, Pat?"
Ford looked around, slightly confused himself. "I'm as sure as the Bureau files, Gray. And that's pretty damn sure. I guess." He eyed the vault as he stepped off the elevator. He made his way across the mere closet space of a compartment and pressed a rectangular red light on the left of the door. A loud buzzer echoed harshly through the small area, bouncing off the walls a few times before fading. Creed, who had been just exiting the lift fall back against the wall in terror, hand over his heart, eyes wide. Ford stared at him.
"Are you okay?"
Creed scrambled to stand erect, straightened his tie, and cleared his throat rather needlessly. He did not meet Ford's amused countenance. "I'm fine," he said softly.
Ford nodded and turned back to the door as the huge dial on the front clicked twice to the right and swung open. A woman stood there, hands on her hips, looking rather annoyed.
"You boys want something?" She didn't look like she really cared why they were there, and it was quite obvious that she just wanted them to leave as soon as possible.
Ford fought to remain organized in the face of her irritation. "Er, yes. Oh, um, actually, we're looking for a man by the name of Vincent Vercetti. We were told he lived here."
"What do you want him for?" The woman asked suspiciously. She continued to glare at them, and the agents couldn't help but feel slightly awkward. "Oh, never mind," she stated. She turned back in the apartment. "Hey Vince! Some men are here to see you!"
There was a long moment of silence, and Creed and Ford exchanged glances once more. The woman, however, grew more irritated. "I don't know," she said, seemingly to no one. "Why don't you get your lazy ass up and see for yourself?"
Ford frowned. Had they stumbled upon some crazy lazy in the middle of New York? God knew there were plenty of those. Suddenly, the woman moved out of the doorway, looming off to one side as a man appeared. He bore some resemblance to Thomas Vercetti, but not a lot, and he was much younger. He wore an expressionless visage, if not slightly angry. He held a well-used Uzi in one hand as he sized the two agents up, his cold brown eyes flickering across each of their faces. His eyes narrowed.
Ford quickly cleared his throat. "Vincent Vercetti, I am agent Patrick Ford, and this is agent Graydon Creed," he gestured to Creed, "and we're working out of Washington on a case in Vice City, Florida involving ---"
Vince was shaking his head gravely. He raised his gun up and tapped himself in the temple, looking a little annoyed. Then he shook his head again. He spoke not a word.
"What?" Creed was curious about this. What an interesting development.
The woman, standing nearby with her arms folded across her chest rolled her eyes and articulated. "He knows what you are working on down in Florida, and he knows you want him to go with you and help you catch that good-for- nothing brother of his. He says he'd rather die first. In short, he refuses."
"Well, uh, excuse me Ms -- erm ---" Ford stopped and waited for her to complete his sentence with her name. She sighed.
"My name is Maria, and I don't give out my last name to strangers, so that's all you'll get from me," she said, her expression darkening. Vince looked at her, somewhat surprised. She shrugged at him.
Creed opened his mouth to say something, but For cut him off. "Right, Maria it is. Forgive me, but can't Mr. Vercetti speak for himself?"
Maria laughed softly. " 'Mr. Vercetti' don't like to talk much," she said.
Creed took the time to examine the man known as Vincent Vercetti for a moment. He found it rather alarming that the guy could look at him withy bilious contempt, and the fact that he didn't speak made it all the more disquieting. At least Thomas Vercetti could defend himself with sarcastic remarks. Vince could just stare intensely. Ford too shifted uncomfortably under the cold gaze.
"Um, well, well came to offer you a bit of a business proposal, Mr. Vercetti."
**************************
"Oh my, this is such a convivial occasion!" Vercetti dove for cover behind a nearby crate as a SWAT helicopter overhead fired rounds of submachine gun bullets at him. The slugs buried themselves deep into the wood as he reloaded his weapon. Fortunately, this particular helicopter pilot was inexperienced in close quarter maneuvering, and he had to pull up for more open sky before his blades came in contact with the looming building to the sides.
Lance, who was standing on the lip of the roof, managed to give him a very odd look whilst avoiding being shot in the back. "What in the hell did you just say?!"
Vercetti chuckled a little and shouted over the gunfire. "Convivial! It means lively, festive, sociable. I was being sarcastic, of course." He couched down and took a Ruger assault rifle from a recently deceased SWAT team member who had landed on the roof in the wrong place at the wrong time and had met with the barrel of Vercetti's Colt Python. Vercetti aimed the gun up and started to fire at the rotating cylinder of the helicopter's blades. A moment later, the copter exploded with a deafening roar.
Lance made a disgusted noise and dodged falling pieces from the destroyed craft as they fell to earth. "Tommy man, did you swallow a dictionary while I wasn't looking or something?" He slung the AK-47 over his shoulder by its leather strap and pulled out an Uzi to start picking off people directly below him. The police had come for them first, and as the gang annihilated them, they eventually decided it would be best to call in some reinforcements. Their backup turned out to be numerous SWAT teams that seemed to flood out of nowhere.
"Could be," Vercetti called casually, taking down another helicopter with his new rifle from his protected position behind the roof's access door. "Bang, bang," he muttered, looking through the scope.
Lance jumped up from his spot on the ledge of the roof. "Yes! Scratch two police cars!" He released the magazine from his gun and let it clatter to the ground as he replaced it. He turned around, grinning about his success, and then stopped short, eyes wide.
Somehow, a SWAT team member had managed to repel from a helicopter and land on the roof without Vercetti noticing. It wasn't really that hard. Vercetti was caught up in spraying the entire area with bullets. It's hard to hear over noise like that. The SWAT man had gotten behind Vercetti and grabbed him, pinning him against the wall next to the roof door in such a way that Vercetti had no way to reach his weapons.
"Tommy!" Lance aimed his Uzi at the SWAT man, preparing to take his life to save that of his friend's. Then he halted, realizing that Vercetti as shaking his head wildly, trying unsuccessfully to gesture with his hands, which, Lance noticed, were covered in blood. He was trying to tell Lance not to shoot. Odd.
Lance slowly lowered the gun, and the SWAT man gave him a long, hard look. He then pulled Vercetti away from the wall and through the roof's access door. Lance followed them in the stairwell, completely bewildered. Once they were in the safety of the building, the SWAT man leaned Vercetti against the wall near the railing. Lance looked around him and saw that Vercetti's shirt was saturated in blood, and the stain was growing. It was the result of a long knife gash across his chest. The SWAT man was busy putting away a bloodied bowie knife.
Lance looked completely appalled. He took a swift step forward and poked the SWAT man in the chest. "What in the hell did you do to him?!"
"Take it easy, Lance," Vercetti managed to say between staggered breaths. "It's just a surface wound, nothing permanent. It's just a lot of blood. It looks a lot worse than it really is." Vercetti turned at looked at the SWAT stranger, his eyes narrowing in silent observation.
"Would you please explain to me what the hell is going on?" Lance was very confused. The events didn't add up. First of all, Vercetti didn't seem to think that this mysterious man in SWAT garb was any threat, but then again, this guy had sliced Vercetti up for no reason -- other than the fact that he was a wanted felon. So, what was it that Lance had missed? He was usually pretty good about seeing things, and he didn't normally let things slip past him, but this had him at a loss.
Vercetti winced and then coughed lightly, moving his hands up weakly in a way of introduction. "All right, Lance. I'd like you to meet my brother; Vincent. He's the one that's been tearing Liberty City to pieces and feeding it to the dogs. I can't guarantee you'll really want to know him though, or vice versa."
Lance's jaw dropped. "Excuse me?! Did you just say this guy is your brother?! I didn't even know you had a brother! Hell, I never had you pegged as a man to have any kind of family left at all!"
Vercetti shrugged. "Well, that just goes to show you that you should never make hasty judgments about people. They are almost always wrong."
The SWAT man removed his helmet, running a gloved hand through his damp brown hair. His gaze was fixed on Lance. They stared at each other up until the point that Lance was starting to feel slightly disturbed. He cleared his throat.
"Well, okay, fine, but what's up with the whole slicing and dicing of my man Tommy?" He recaptured his composure, looking Vince in the face, challenging him. Vercetti watched them, suddenly reminded of two wolves fighting over leadership of the pack. He frowned. What an odd image.
Vince simply shrugged.
"What the fuck kind of answer is that?!" This man was beginning to piss Lance off in the worst of ways. Lance was not a very friendly person when he was pissed off either. He was known to act extremely irrationally.
"He had to make sure that I wouldn't shoot him on sight. He needed to get the drop on me so he could assure me that he was not actually part of the police force," Vercetti answered, voicing out on behalf of his silent brother. Lanced looked like he was about to go mad with anger and frustration, and Vercetti didn't quite understand that. What was wrong with him? What was making him so angry?
"By slicing you open? What if you had moved forward or something, or struggled? What if he had plunged that big hunting knife of his so deep into you that your intestines sprayed out all over the roof?" Lance was talking a little too loudly and Vercetti motioned for him to keep his voice down.
Vince was making a face, disgusted by what Lance had said, and he visualized it in his head. He shuddered a little. Sure, he had seen people die before, but he was pretty sure he had never seen someone's intestines fall out. That was something he was going to have to avoid.
"No better way. I would have shot him before he could do any explaining. Not that Vincent talks much anyway. For that matter, he probably would have been dead before he even had a chance to have my full attention," Vercetti mused. "I don't blame him for what he did. It was a real attention getter. Like a good movie trailer."
"How do we know he's not really part of the police force, and this is all a trap?" Lance wanted to know.
"He is part of the police force," Vecetti answered solemnly.
"What?" That caught Lance's attention, and he wasn't sure if he had heard correctly.
"That prick FBI guy from last night hired him to come here and kill me, or something similar."
"But then---"
"Listen, Lance," Vercetti said, cutting him off before he could speak anymore. "Let's just get out of here. I'll explain everything later. Vince can take us out through the front door, past all the SWAT teams out there. We just have to play the defeated warriors for now, understand?"
**************************
"Here they come," Graydon Creed announced, nodding to the gaping entrance of Kaufman Cabs. The gunfire with the criminals on the roof had ceased a good five minutes ago, and everyone had come to the conclusion that their newly acquired weapon was doing his job. On the street, everything had fallen relatively quiet. Patrick Ford glanced up at the doorway as Lance Vance exited, his hands up in the air in the classic posture of surrender.
Vercetti walked out next to him, looking a little worse for wear. Behind them came Vince, the visor on his black protective helmet pushed up so that it was easier for him to see. Ford noticed that Vercetti's hands were cuffed securely in front of him. The agent took great pleasure in seeing that the strange New Yorker had opted to be better safe than sorry. Vince pushed the hand gun he had to keep Lance moving harder into the ailing criminal's back. Lance growled his protest lowly.
Ford moved forward to meet the trio just as they stepped off the sidewalk and into the street where dozens of parked police enforcement vehicles stood idly waiting, their engines running. "I don't know how you did it, kid, but you took down the criminal threat. You have certainly held up your end of the deal. This country thanks you, boy," he proclaimed merrily. He held out a hand for a handshake as Vercetti and Lance were led away. Vince slid his gun back into his side holster.
Vince looked at Ford's offered hand, and then back at Ford himself. He then shook hands with the overjoyed federal agent, albeit a little hesitantly. The handshake was brief, as Vince quick drew away, not wanting to be companions with his man for very much longer. This man made him very uncomfortable. He turned and began to walk away. As he did so, he lowered the visor on his helmet.
"Of course," came a voice from behind him as the SWAT director appeared behind Ford, "we can't allow you to keep the equipment you used."
Vince stopped short, in mid-stride. He stood straight and crossed his arms across his chest, shaking his head slowly. The barrel of the gun he had somehow gotten back into his hand without anyone seeing, stuck out from just under his arm, pointing backwards. Not even bothering to aim properly, not wanting to risk turning around, he pulled the trigger and shot the SWAT director squarely in the chest. It didn't kill the man, for he wore a rather expensive and effective bulletproof vest, but Vince had only been counting on the moment of stunned panic that he knew had to be coming as the director fell stumbled backwards due to the force of the impact.
Without further delay, he tossed the hand gun aside and pulled the M4 that had been strapped to his back out and dropped to one knee. He checked the scope and began to fire at the car behind Ford and the fallen director. The kickback on the gun was strong, and he had to struggled to keep it steady. Shortly, after a few rounds, the running engine of the police cruiser exploded, knocking everyone unfortunate enough to be standing nearby clear off their feet. Vince quickly repeated the process and in no time, two more cars had blown, taking with them the lives of people standing by or running to escape. Vince shouldered his gun and took off into the mass of SWAT members who were scrambling around unsure of what was going on. It was impossible to tell the difference between the criminal and the rest of the SWAT men.
Vince made his way to the armored securi-van that Vercetti and Lance had been loaded into and climbed hastily into the driver's seat. He hotwired the engine in record time and floored the car. It sped away before anyone could organize themselves long enough to stop it.
Once on the bridge heading towards Leaf Links Golf Course, Vince removed his SWAT helmet and heaved a sigh of relief. He then dug into his pocket, keeping on hand on the wheel and his eyes trained forward, and retrieved a small generic key. He tossed it behind him over the back of his seat and through the wire grating that separated the front from the back. Maria caught the handcuff key effortlessly and passed it over to Lance, who undid the cuffs one of the SWAT men had put on him, and then he passed it on. It had to go around the entire van. Maria had relocated herself from the front seat of a police car to the securi-van as soon as she heard Vince's gunfire. Already inside were four people, Ken Rosenberg, Mercedes Cortez, Lance Vance, and Tommy Vercetti. After a quick introduction, she had climbed in and pulled the door shut.
"You okay, babe?" Maria now asked through the wired window. She watched Vince shrug and then nod. He pulled up the back door of the Malibu Club, one of the many other places of interest Vercetti had seized, and dropped his five passengers off. Then he went to destroy the securi-van. He returned twenty minutes later a bit bloodied and wearing a black leather jacket and cargo pants, having dropped his SWAT uniform off a bridge somewhere along with the van. He climbed the stairs to the back door and followed the stairs inside up to the main office and through the hidden door to the concealed room behind the desk. Lance looked up as he entered.
"You had that all planned out, didn't you."
Vince nodded.
"So you're on our side now, right?"
Vince shrugged.
Ford scoffed, his hands tightening around the steering wheel. "Yeah, some federal prison system we have here, right? The guy broke out during transport and disappeared into the night so fast that it had Uncle Sam's head spinning for weeks on end," he said, his growing disgust weighing his voice down. "He turned up working for the Mafia down in Portland, the Yakuza in Staunton, and few faceless street gangs all over the place. He's been wrecking havoc up here."
"Kid really likes to dance on the edge of the switchblade knife, doesn't he?" Creed took a moment to think about that. It was well known that the Yakuza and the Mafia rarely got along. Old Salvatore Leone had allegedly been killed by a Yakuza hit man, and the Mafia was not happy about it. Someone had taken out the Yakuza lords Asuka and Kenji, supposedly the cartel, but everyone was pointing fingers. The Yakusa chose to pick a fight with the Mafia. War between them was beginning to become quite heated. Creed had to wonder how the kid managed to stay alive while working for the both of them. Was it possible that he had found a way to play both sides without being caught?
"So, he's really the guy you think he is, then?" Creed turned at looked at Ford, who was becoming increasingly irritated with the gridlock traffic around them.
"Well, according the Bureau files he is," Ford said. "Apparently, he lives down in Belville Park on Staunton Island, but the records weren't exactly sure about that, because he jumps around a lot."
Creed nodded and watched the scenery of Shoreside Vale creep past his window. He had always enjoyed this part of Liberty City because it was so peaceful. No, that was wrong. It wasn't peaceful at all, not anymore. The place was completely overrun by the Columbian Cartel, as well as numerous street gangs, the Purple Nines, the Southside Hoods, and the Redjacks. But, even so, it at least looked peaceful. Of course, it hadn't been so a few months ago when there had been a holocaust on the Cochrane Dam. That had shredded the entire island apart. Since then, though, everything was beginning to settle back into the ashes. Creed shook his head. What was the world coming to?
Ford drummed on the steering wheel impatiently while waiting for the lift bridge to finish allowing a large cargo ship passage under it. He watched the section of the road lower back into place at an alarmingly slow speed, his patience starting to wear extremely thin. "What a waste of time," he mused. "Did you know that this stupid bridge goes up and down even if there are no ships to pass under?"
"Really? Why?" Creed was jarred out of his thoughts. He turned to Ford, his eyes refocusing on reality.
"I have no idea. The goddamned thing goes up every fifteen freakin' minutes," Ford growled. "Damn the man who decided it would be a good idea to invent time regulations." The bridge finally finished it aggravatingly long decent and locked into place, completing the road. Ford pressed the accelerator and began to move with the mass of traffic that had also been trapped at the bridge. The car passed the sign that welcomed people to Staunton Island, and Ford nodded. "Here it is," he said. He took a left after the underground passage tunnel and entered Belville Park. Passing the actual park part of the region, Creed noticed that the area, although swarming with less-than-inconspicuous gang members, actually looked like a good, somewhat normal place. It seemed like the average New York central park.
"It's been about ten years since I was last here in Belville," Creed said.
"Don't reminisce over there. Stay in the here and now," Ford replied, pulling into an alley between two buildings that would have been nearly impossible to see had the driver not known exactly where it was. "This is it," he announced, parking the car and pressing the emergency brake. He looked at Creed, then unbuckled his seat belt and climbed out of the car.
The two agents approached a large, metal utility elevator near the far wall of the alley, around the corner from a two car garage on the alley's left side. The lift opened almost immediately as soon as then drew near, and they exchanged glanced. Something suddenly reminded Creed of a cheesy horror movie, the ominous elevator. He quickly shrugged it off. He and Ford entered the lift and the doors closed. After a short, jerky decent into the lower bowels of the alleyway, the doors opened to reveal a tiny compartment. On the broad wall across from the lift, stood a huge, steel vault door.
Creed blinked. "Are you sure this is the right place, Pat?"
Ford looked around, slightly confused himself. "I'm as sure as the Bureau files, Gray. And that's pretty damn sure. I guess." He eyed the vault as he stepped off the elevator. He made his way across the mere closet space of a compartment and pressed a rectangular red light on the left of the door. A loud buzzer echoed harshly through the small area, bouncing off the walls a few times before fading. Creed, who had been just exiting the lift fall back against the wall in terror, hand over his heart, eyes wide. Ford stared at him.
"Are you okay?"
Creed scrambled to stand erect, straightened his tie, and cleared his throat rather needlessly. He did not meet Ford's amused countenance. "I'm fine," he said softly.
Ford nodded and turned back to the door as the huge dial on the front clicked twice to the right and swung open. A woman stood there, hands on her hips, looking rather annoyed.
"You boys want something?" She didn't look like she really cared why they were there, and it was quite obvious that she just wanted them to leave as soon as possible.
Ford fought to remain organized in the face of her irritation. "Er, yes. Oh, um, actually, we're looking for a man by the name of Vincent Vercetti. We were told he lived here."
"What do you want him for?" The woman asked suspiciously. She continued to glare at them, and the agents couldn't help but feel slightly awkward. "Oh, never mind," she stated. She turned back in the apartment. "Hey Vince! Some men are here to see you!"
There was a long moment of silence, and Creed and Ford exchanged glances once more. The woman, however, grew more irritated. "I don't know," she said, seemingly to no one. "Why don't you get your lazy ass up and see for yourself?"
Ford frowned. Had they stumbled upon some crazy lazy in the middle of New York? God knew there were plenty of those. Suddenly, the woman moved out of the doorway, looming off to one side as a man appeared. He bore some resemblance to Thomas Vercetti, but not a lot, and he was much younger. He wore an expressionless visage, if not slightly angry. He held a well-used Uzi in one hand as he sized the two agents up, his cold brown eyes flickering across each of their faces. His eyes narrowed.
Ford quickly cleared his throat. "Vincent Vercetti, I am agent Patrick Ford, and this is agent Graydon Creed," he gestured to Creed, "and we're working out of Washington on a case in Vice City, Florida involving ---"
Vince was shaking his head gravely. He raised his gun up and tapped himself in the temple, looking a little annoyed. Then he shook his head again. He spoke not a word.
"What?" Creed was curious about this. What an interesting development.
The woman, standing nearby with her arms folded across her chest rolled her eyes and articulated. "He knows what you are working on down in Florida, and he knows you want him to go with you and help you catch that good-for- nothing brother of his. He says he'd rather die first. In short, he refuses."
"Well, uh, excuse me Ms -- erm ---" Ford stopped and waited for her to complete his sentence with her name. She sighed.
"My name is Maria, and I don't give out my last name to strangers, so that's all you'll get from me," she said, her expression darkening. Vince looked at her, somewhat surprised. She shrugged at him.
Creed opened his mouth to say something, but For cut him off. "Right, Maria it is. Forgive me, but can't Mr. Vercetti speak for himself?"
Maria laughed softly. " 'Mr. Vercetti' don't like to talk much," she said.
Creed took the time to examine the man known as Vincent Vercetti for a moment. He found it rather alarming that the guy could look at him withy bilious contempt, and the fact that he didn't speak made it all the more disquieting. At least Thomas Vercetti could defend himself with sarcastic remarks. Vince could just stare intensely. Ford too shifted uncomfortably under the cold gaze.
"Um, well, well came to offer you a bit of a business proposal, Mr. Vercetti."
**************************
"Oh my, this is such a convivial occasion!" Vercetti dove for cover behind a nearby crate as a SWAT helicopter overhead fired rounds of submachine gun bullets at him. The slugs buried themselves deep into the wood as he reloaded his weapon. Fortunately, this particular helicopter pilot was inexperienced in close quarter maneuvering, and he had to pull up for more open sky before his blades came in contact with the looming building to the sides.
Lance, who was standing on the lip of the roof, managed to give him a very odd look whilst avoiding being shot in the back. "What in the hell did you just say?!"
Vercetti chuckled a little and shouted over the gunfire. "Convivial! It means lively, festive, sociable. I was being sarcastic, of course." He couched down and took a Ruger assault rifle from a recently deceased SWAT team member who had landed on the roof in the wrong place at the wrong time and had met with the barrel of Vercetti's Colt Python. Vercetti aimed the gun up and started to fire at the rotating cylinder of the helicopter's blades. A moment later, the copter exploded with a deafening roar.
Lance made a disgusted noise and dodged falling pieces from the destroyed craft as they fell to earth. "Tommy man, did you swallow a dictionary while I wasn't looking or something?" He slung the AK-47 over his shoulder by its leather strap and pulled out an Uzi to start picking off people directly below him. The police had come for them first, and as the gang annihilated them, they eventually decided it would be best to call in some reinforcements. Their backup turned out to be numerous SWAT teams that seemed to flood out of nowhere.
"Could be," Vercetti called casually, taking down another helicopter with his new rifle from his protected position behind the roof's access door. "Bang, bang," he muttered, looking through the scope.
Lance jumped up from his spot on the ledge of the roof. "Yes! Scratch two police cars!" He released the magazine from his gun and let it clatter to the ground as he replaced it. He turned around, grinning about his success, and then stopped short, eyes wide.
Somehow, a SWAT team member had managed to repel from a helicopter and land on the roof without Vercetti noticing. It wasn't really that hard. Vercetti was caught up in spraying the entire area with bullets. It's hard to hear over noise like that. The SWAT man had gotten behind Vercetti and grabbed him, pinning him against the wall next to the roof door in such a way that Vercetti had no way to reach his weapons.
"Tommy!" Lance aimed his Uzi at the SWAT man, preparing to take his life to save that of his friend's. Then he halted, realizing that Vercetti as shaking his head wildly, trying unsuccessfully to gesture with his hands, which, Lance noticed, were covered in blood. He was trying to tell Lance not to shoot. Odd.
Lance slowly lowered the gun, and the SWAT man gave him a long, hard look. He then pulled Vercetti away from the wall and through the roof's access door. Lance followed them in the stairwell, completely bewildered. Once they were in the safety of the building, the SWAT man leaned Vercetti against the wall near the railing. Lance looked around him and saw that Vercetti's shirt was saturated in blood, and the stain was growing. It was the result of a long knife gash across his chest. The SWAT man was busy putting away a bloodied bowie knife.
Lance looked completely appalled. He took a swift step forward and poked the SWAT man in the chest. "What in the hell did you do to him?!"
"Take it easy, Lance," Vercetti managed to say between staggered breaths. "It's just a surface wound, nothing permanent. It's just a lot of blood. It looks a lot worse than it really is." Vercetti turned at looked at the SWAT stranger, his eyes narrowing in silent observation.
"Would you please explain to me what the hell is going on?" Lance was very confused. The events didn't add up. First of all, Vercetti didn't seem to think that this mysterious man in SWAT garb was any threat, but then again, this guy had sliced Vercetti up for no reason -- other than the fact that he was a wanted felon. So, what was it that Lance had missed? He was usually pretty good about seeing things, and he didn't normally let things slip past him, but this had him at a loss.
Vercetti winced and then coughed lightly, moving his hands up weakly in a way of introduction. "All right, Lance. I'd like you to meet my brother; Vincent. He's the one that's been tearing Liberty City to pieces and feeding it to the dogs. I can't guarantee you'll really want to know him though, or vice versa."
Lance's jaw dropped. "Excuse me?! Did you just say this guy is your brother?! I didn't even know you had a brother! Hell, I never had you pegged as a man to have any kind of family left at all!"
Vercetti shrugged. "Well, that just goes to show you that you should never make hasty judgments about people. They are almost always wrong."
The SWAT man removed his helmet, running a gloved hand through his damp brown hair. His gaze was fixed on Lance. They stared at each other up until the point that Lance was starting to feel slightly disturbed. He cleared his throat.
"Well, okay, fine, but what's up with the whole slicing and dicing of my man Tommy?" He recaptured his composure, looking Vince in the face, challenging him. Vercetti watched them, suddenly reminded of two wolves fighting over leadership of the pack. He frowned. What an odd image.
Vince simply shrugged.
"What the fuck kind of answer is that?!" This man was beginning to piss Lance off in the worst of ways. Lance was not a very friendly person when he was pissed off either. He was known to act extremely irrationally.
"He had to make sure that I wouldn't shoot him on sight. He needed to get the drop on me so he could assure me that he was not actually part of the police force," Vercetti answered, voicing out on behalf of his silent brother. Lanced looked like he was about to go mad with anger and frustration, and Vercetti didn't quite understand that. What was wrong with him? What was making him so angry?
"By slicing you open? What if you had moved forward or something, or struggled? What if he had plunged that big hunting knife of his so deep into you that your intestines sprayed out all over the roof?" Lance was talking a little too loudly and Vercetti motioned for him to keep his voice down.
Vince was making a face, disgusted by what Lance had said, and he visualized it in his head. He shuddered a little. Sure, he had seen people die before, but he was pretty sure he had never seen someone's intestines fall out. That was something he was going to have to avoid.
"No better way. I would have shot him before he could do any explaining. Not that Vincent talks much anyway. For that matter, he probably would have been dead before he even had a chance to have my full attention," Vercetti mused. "I don't blame him for what he did. It was a real attention getter. Like a good movie trailer."
"How do we know he's not really part of the police force, and this is all a trap?" Lance wanted to know.
"He is part of the police force," Vecetti answered solemnly.
"What?" That caught Lance's attention, and he wasn't sure if he had heard correctly.
"That prick FBI guy from last night hired him to come here and kill me, or something similar."
"But then---"
"Listen, Lance," Vercetti said, cutting him off before he could speak anymore. "Let's just get out of here. I'll explain everything later. Vince can take us out through the front door, past all the SWAT teams out there. We just have to play the defeated warriors for now, understand?"
**************************
"Here they come," Graydon Creed announced, nodding to the gaping entrance of Kaufman Cabs. The gunfire with the criminals on the roof had ceased a good five minutes ago, and everyone had come to the conclusion that their newly acquired weapon was doing his job. On the street, everything had fallen relatively quiet. Patrick Ford glanced up at the doorway as Lance Vance exited, his hands up in the air in the classic posture of surrender.
Vercetti walked out next to him, looking a little worse for wear. Behind them came Vince, the visor on his black protective helmet pushed up so that it was easier for him to see. Ford noticed that Vercetti's hands were cuffed securely in front of him. The agent took great pleasure in seeing that the strange New Yorker had opted to be better safe than sorry. Vince pushed the hand gun he had to keep Lance moving harder into the ailing criminal's back. Lance growled his protest lowly.
Ford moved forward to meet the trio just as they stepped off the sidewalk and into the street where dozens of parked police enforcement vehicles stood idly waiting, their engines running. "I don't know how you did it, kid, but you took down the criminal threat. You have certainly held up your end of the deal. This country thanks you, boy," he proclaimed merrily. He held out a hand for a handshake as Vercetti and Lance were led away. Vince slid his gun back into his side holster.
Vince looked at Ford's offered hand, and then back at Ford himself. He then shook hands with the overjoyed federal agent, albeit a little hesitantly. The handshake was brief, as Vince quick drew away, not wanting to be companions with his man for very much longer. This man made him very uncomfortable. He turned and began to walk away. As he did so, he lowered the visor on his helmet.
"Of course," came a voice from behind him as the SWAT director appeared behind Ford, "we can't allow you to keep the equipment you used."
Vince stopped short, in mid-stride. He stood straight and crossed his arms across his chest, shaking his head slowly. The barrel of the gun he had somehow gotten back into his hand without anyone seeing, stuck out from just under his arm, pointing backwards. Not even bothering to aim properly, not wanting to risk turning around, he pulled the trigger and shot the SWAT director squarely in the chest. It didn't kill the man, for he wore a rather expensive and effective bulletproof vest, but Vince had only been counting on the moment of stunned panic that he knew had to be coming as the director fell stumbled backwards due to the force of the impact.
Without further delay, he tossed the hand gun aside and pulled the M4 that had been strapped to his back out and dropped to one knee. He checked the scope and began to fire at the car behind Ford and the fallen director. The kickback on the gun was strong, and he had to struggled to keep it steady. Shortly, after a few rounds, the running engine of the police cruiser exploded, knocking everyone unfortunate enough to be standing nearby clear off their feet. Vince quickly repeated the process and in no time, two more cars had blown, taking with them the lives of people standing by or running to escape. Vince shouldered his gun and took off into the mass of SWAT members who were scrambling around unsure of what was going on. It was impossible to tell the difference between the criminal and the rest of the SWAT men.
Vince made his way to the armored securi-van that Vercetti and Lance had been loaded into and climbed hastily into the driver's seat. He hotwired the engine in record time and floored the car. It sped away before anyone could organize themselves long enough to stop it.
Once on the bridge heading towards Leaf Links Golf Course, Vince removed his SWAT helmet and heaved a sigh of relief. He then dug into his pocket, keeping on hand on the wheel and his eyes trained forward, and retrieved a small generic key. He tossed it behind him over the back of his seat and through the wire grating that separated the front from the back. Maria caught the handcuff key effortlessly and passed it over to Lance, who undid the cuffs one of the SWAT men had put on him, and then he passed it on. It had to go around the entire van. Maria had relocated herself from the front seat of a police car to the securi-van as soon as she heard Vince's gunfire. Already inside were four people, Ken Rosenberg, Mercedes Cortez, Lance Vance, and Tommy Vercetti. After a quick introduction, she had climbed in and pulled the door shut.
"You okay, babe?" Maria now asked through the wired window. She watched Vince shrug and then nod. He pulled up the back door of the Malibu Club, one of the many other places of interest Vercetti had seized, and dropped his five passengers off. Then he went to destroy the securi-van. He returned twenty minutes later a bit bloodied and wearing a black leather jacket and cargo pants, having dropped his SWAT uniform off a bridge somewhere along with the van. He climbed the stairs to the back door and followed the stairs inside up to the main office and through the hidden door to the concealed room behind the desk. Lance looked up as he entered.
"You had that all planned out, didn't you."
Vince nodded.
"So you're on our side now, right?"
Vince shrugged.