For a long time, there was nothing but the steady drip, drip, dripping of
water somewhere in the deep recesses of the holding block, gently keeping a
steadfast cadence to the beating of his heart. He was sitting on his
creaking, lopsided bed, parallel to the wall of bars, cross-legged with his
back against the wall. Resting a little uncomfortably, arms folded across
his chest, he slept in broken spurts, dreaming shallowly about nothing in
particular. All he could catch were odd glimpses of his life, some things
that he remembered, and some that he'd rather forget. Mercedes didn't
speak, too caught up in her own world of contemplation for proper
conversation. Vince wasn't in the mood anyway.
He snapped out of a particularly vivid daydream, for a very brief second convinced that what he had imagined was at the peak of reality. His eyes focused, their dark irises seeming to take on a even bleaker hue. He shook his head, listening to the unrelenting dripping of the broken water pipe. He had heard somewhere that time in prison wasn't the same as time on the outside, that somehow it went fast. Vince didn't think he could believe that. He had never been behind bars for the time required to find that new standard for seconds ticking by. What he did know about the prison cell was that it was incredibly boring.
"Are you okay?"
Vince raised an eyebrow, not expecting Mercedes to speak with such suddenness. He forgot about the dripping water, turning his attention to her, his eyes asking the question he would have said he had the will to speak. She was sitting directed across from him, slightly reclined against the stone wall that rose angrily behind her. She had wiped away the dripping mascara and smeared lipstick, and Vince had to admit, although a little plain, she looked good.
"It's just that you were staring off into space with such intensity," she laughed. "I thought something might be wrong. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you." She pushed her short brown hair out of her face and secured it safely behind her ears, looking away from him in a movement that could have been interpreted as shyness. Vince blinked and shook his head in a way of showing her that she hadn't disturbed him at all.
"So, you're going back to Liberty," Mercedes pointed out. "I've never been up there. Daddy would never let me. He said there was too much crime up there or something." She shrugged. "I don't know he was always a little overprotective if you know what I mean."
Vince nodded, having no other response at his disposal. He'd always known Liberty City was a dangerous place to live. That was the whole reason he led the life that he did, but he had never thought of what he was doing as a real crime. It felt more to him like a race for survival. It was kill or be killed, get money where it could be gotten, take what was on the floor, and get where there was to go. Sure, his job happened to take lives, but he'd much rather be known for being a murderer than be famous for being murdered. To some people, he supposed that sounded brutal and outrageous, but he was long past caring what other people thought.
"Vice City is full of it too," Mercedes went on. "Crime is a way of life all over this country. Truth be told, I'm attracted to it. That's why I hang around Tommy so often. Living like he does, and you do, forces people to be untouchable. I have to admit. It turns me on." She slipped off her bed and was suddenly face to face with Vince, leaning toward him in a kneeling position. He frowned and leaned away, unsure of her intentions. He was afraid she was going to jump on top of him at any moment, which he had come to the conclusion would be very awkward.
"Is it scary living in Liberty City?"
He shook his head slowly, gently pushing her back out of his lap. His eyes darted to one side. This was not the time, nor the place for that sort of thing. He was self conscious with the guard so near by, and he didn't really know why. Any other place and he would have been more that happy to comply with her advances, but still he resisted.
"Well," she said, sitting back on her haunches, clearly annoyed by Vince's unreceptive response, "at least there you'll have a bigger cell. The prison system is bigger, better funded. I'm sure the walls won't crash in on you so often."
Vince shrugged. He had always been a more than a little claustrophobic. It was a fear that he had come to blame on an incident involving Big Brother Tommy locking him a closet until Dad got home. Glancing at the gray walls of the prison block, he decided Mercedes was right. Now, he couldn't wait to get out of there, whether it was with guns blazing or in the back of a truck. Or both. His eyes rested uncomfortably on the bars, darkening with the remembrance of Lance's betrayal.
The stone wall to the right shuddered. Mercedes gave it a rather odd look as gunshots sounded on the opposite side. Immediately Vince shot into a standing position, his companion rising as well, albeit a little more slowly. Suspicion was evident in both pairs of eyes. Something was definitely about to happen. It was only a matter of figuring out which side it was going to come from so that proper cover could be taken.
Vince moved to the center of the cell, his head cocked to one side as if he was listening for something. His face clouded with a look of concentration for a long moment. Sudden realization fell upon him and took hold of Mercedes's wrist, pulling her toward the corner at the head of her cot. He pushed her down in a sitting position and moved to kneel in front of her, his arms braced against the wall behind her. He was acting as a shield.
"Goddamn it!"
Vercetti flinched instinctively as bullets ricocheted off the bullet-proof back doors of the police car. Slamming the steering wheel rather violently to the right, the vehicle fishtailed around the corner of the holding building and raced toward the back of the compound. Obviously, he had tripped a sense of alarm within the station. The middle-aged guard at the gate had nonchalantly opened the gate for the approaching squad car, scarcely glancing up from the small portable television he had balanced on his knees. A casual look up had put criminal and cop in eye-to-eye contact and all hell had broken loose. Once the guard came to the proper conclusion that Vercetti wasn't a police officer, he had stood up, sending the television crashing to the floor, and fumbled with this transistor radio. Bullets began to fly, and out of nowhere, security vehicles moved to block the rogue police car's path.
Vercetti squinted at the road ahead of him, hands gripping the leather steering wheel with white knuckles. The car's engine roared like an angry lion, trying its hardest to comply with the pedal-to-the-floor request. Its driver let out a stunned yelp as a armored police van pulled out of a storage garage to the left, forming an effective road block. No wanting to plow the bomb-rigged car into such heavy opposition, Vercetti jerked the wheel to one side, sending his vehicle shooting down a narrow passageway in between two buildings. Taking a rapid right turn, he was back on track. He found his way back to the main road and brought the car around so it broad- sided the building on the furthest end of the compound. Vince's building.
He was a little stunned by the impact, and he shook his head, seeing stars. He found himself moving without thinking, drawing his Colt Python from his waistband and climbing out of the car. Stumbling a little, he raised the gun and stared firing upon hapless officers who had been too slow to get into vehicles and were hence forced to protect their workplace on foot. They dove for cover, Vercetti's patience with the weapon outlasting theirs. His aim was far more reputable. Vercetti darted around the corner of a building adjacent to the one he was about to gain access to, praying no one would sneak up on him from behind. He fished the remote from his pocket and flipped up the plastic cover.
The earth shook as the bomb ripped apart the car, the first explosion sending it jumping into the air. The second erupted as the gas tank blew. Everyone in the near vicinity dove for cover, even Vercetti himself. Some were a little less than fast enough, and their screams disintegrated with their bodies. Vercetti grimaced at the sound of it, but no matter, the job was done. There was a large, gaping hole in the wall, smoke rising to obscure its size. He picked his way past the charred remains of the car, tripping over one of the strewn bricks in the process. Catching himself on the ragged edge of the orifice, he peered inside.
"Eh...Vince? Mercedes?"
"Vince, what the hell is going on?"
Mercedes obviously didn't have the keen sense of danger that her cellmate had, so effectively, she was being left in the proverbial darkness. Panicked yells and gunshots reported from all around, adding to the wretched sound of the leaking water pipe. Something was terribly wrong outside of the barred walls, and Mercedes had the distinct feeling that she was about to be right in the middle of it. Vince hovered over her, his head turned to one side, eyes surveying the cell. He remained impossibly still, the only signs of life within him being his always moving gaze and ragged breathing. She was touched at how quickly he had moved to protect her, and she wondered what it meant.
He was a hard man to predict, a long wolf by nature and taciturn beyond a reasonable doubt. This made it nearly impossibly to tell what he was thinking, and the was rather infuriating. She liked him, that was for sure, but it was difficult to extract any mutual feeling from him. She didn't know what his relationship with Maria was, but somewhere in the dark recesses of her consciousness, she hoped it wasn't serious.
The wall at Vince's back rocked again with the impact of some unseen object, and both occupants of the cell tensed visibly. The gray bricks rattled and little clouds of dust rose into the air. More gunshots echoed through the hollow space. Suddenly, there was a brief reprieve from the noise, and Mercedes would have relaxed had Vince's eyes not fallen upon her with such deathly seriousness. Then, completely without warning, the wall came apart with explosive force, pieces of it peeling off and hurtling across the cell. All the air was sucked from the room as it fueled the now raging fire. Another detonation followed not far after, and the flying debris gained velocity. Positioned in front of her, Vince too quite a bit of the punishment being dished out, and after a short moment, he fell slack against her. Mercedes cried out in surprise, the weight of his body suffocating her. Murmuring an incoherent apology to him, she pushed his lifeless frame away and raised her arms to protect herself as the concussive blast's rage rained down.
The dust began to settle, and all had fallen silent. Mercedes squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to open them because she knew that she would see Vince's dead body in front of her. Her ears were still ringing loudly, and she felt as if her skull was going to shatter. Moving her hands to cover her ears, though it didn't really help all that much, she sat still and quiet.
Tommy Vercetti's voice floated to her, strangely muffled, and she risked a glance up. Her vision was bleared, tears escaping her in a vain attempt to clear them. The tall, approaching man was blurred, and she blinked several times to focus it. Vercetti was standing above her, shaking his head.
"You all right?"
She could barely hear him. Removing her hands from the sides of her head, she looked about and then nodded. Then she remembered Vince. With slow horror she turned her sights to him, partly covered with small pieces of rock and plaster. She gently reached over and shook his inert frame. He didn't respond. Vercetti followed her gaze and sighed at the display of his brother. Blood ran form various cuts on Vince's face and hands, and from the sizable gash in the back of his head, but aside from being unconscious, he looked okay from the most part.
"He's fine Mercedes, but we've got to get out of here before the boys outside remember that there's a criminal on the loose," Vercetti said. Stooping down, he managed to sling Vince's body over his shoulder and stand back up. Mercedes got up slowly, wiping blood away from her split lip. Ignoring the little stream of the stuff that was leaking from a cut on her cheek, she followed Vercetti out past the combusted police car.
Vercetti picked up the pace once he was outside and drew his gun again. Dark eyes scanned the horizon for a moment, finding it seemingly deserted. He took a deep breath, repositioning his brother's unconscious body on his shoulder. Stealing a quick glance at Mercedes and beckoned for her to come out and take a look at the surroundings. She did so, skirting around the feebly burning carcass of the patrol car. She nearly stumbled backwards as Vercetti tossed the Colt Python in her direction.
She fumbled around with it before catching it successfully. "What's this?"
"We've got to get from here to the gate. This place may look empty, but those cops are around somewhere," Vercetti answered with a shrug. "It'll be okay. What do you think?" Shaken as the police officers may have been due to the blast, they weren't about to let a known criminal run right out the door. Yes, they were about someplace.
"Seems tricky," Mercedes answered. Vercetti nodded and started walking down the main path, heading in a straight line. From his front pocket, he drew a small automatic pistol. Mercedes knew the deal. All she had to do was cover the two men in front of her and run. The little bastards in blue to pop right out of the woodwork. Everyone wanted to be a hero nowadays.
They hadn't gone two or three meters when the first onslaught of bullets began raining down. Vercetti broke into the swiftest run that he could muster with Vince's dead weight upon him. He raised the pistol and began his retaliation, making from the gate as quickly as possible. Mercedes too brought up the heavy weapon and fired. For a few long moments, there was nothing to hear but the reports from dozens of hot gun barrels. Vercetti grunted as ammunition from the opposition stung him, merely grazing over his flesh in non vital areas. He looked Mercedes, who was fiddling with the gun she had been entrusted with.
"Forget it," he called. "Let's get the fuck out of here!"
They made it to the guard booth, and Vercetti disposed of the man there with one pull of the trigger without a moment's hesitation. He moved through the booth to the other side of the gate, handing Vince off to Rosenberg and Maria, who were waiting. They hauled the younger Vercetti to a waiting van while the older turned around, allowing Mercedes passage past him. He fired off a few shots as half a dozen police officers rushed toward him, their cars forgotten. Out of breath and exhausted, Vercetti canned the whole idea and ran, diving into the van just as Maria pulled it away from the curb, its tires screaming. Mercedes caught a hold of him and hung on while Rosenberg pulled the rear door shut to seal them safely inside.
"Shit," Vercetti grumbled, shooting a glance at Vince as he surveyed his minor wounds. "The things I do for my family..."
"He did what?!"
The young rookie cop, freshly out of the academy and acutely baby faced stood a timid step backward, unsure of how to react to Special Agent Patrick Ford's notorious temper. He, being youngest of the seven cops chosen to accompany Lance Vance, Ford, and Graydon Creed to a secure location across town from the prison block, had drawn the short straw, and he could hear the muffled snickers of the older officers as he had trudged off to deliver the bad news.
"He...uh...well Tommy Vercetti busted the whole place pretty good, and the two prisoners we had been detaining are now long gone. A few people said they drove off in a dark blue utility van with bogus plates," the rookie shrugged. "We got nothing."
"Big Brother came to rescue Junior," Creed observed. He was leaning against the far wall of the tiled observation room, his jacket long forgotten and his tie loosened. He watched Ford silently fume, finding it somewhat comical as his partner's faced welled up with scarlet coloring.
"Well what the fuck did you think it was, you idiot?! Didn't I warn you about this shit! I knew this was going to happen. We can't win with these bastards. Ah, no wonder Vercetti owns this stupid city. The people here are too dumb to deal with him," Ford growled in a carefully even tone, looking as though his eyes were going to pop right out of his skull.
Saying that Vercetti owned Vice City was like saying fish could swim. Everything that was anything in the place proudly waved the Vercetti flag. It was all purchased with what might be called legitimate money, so nothing about this ownership could be used against him. Hell, the guy even paid taxes on most of the public property. Sure, it would be easy to pull some of the illegitimate stuff out from under him, but making a case would be difficult.
Ford's eyes turned to the nervous rookie. "Don't you have something to do? Get the hell out of here," he ordered loudly. The rookie wasted no time and was gone before anyone could take another breath. "Ain't this just some shit."
"Well, what do you want to do now; go back on the hunt," Creed asked a little wearily. All he really wanted to do was to go back to his hotel room and go to sleep. They had been at this for days now, and he was pretty sure that Vercetti had had more sleepless night than he had. Things were starting to catch up to him already, and if the jail break was any indication of Vercetti's failing strength, or his lack thereof, then he supposed he and Ford were in for some trouble. It would be only a matter of time before someone cracked. Ford looked like he was getting to ready even as the thoughts ran through his mind.
"I want to lop someone's head off, right here and now," Ford answered rather seriously, a baleful look overtaking his hard gaze. Creed backed up a step, hands in front of him, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Ford gave him a dirty look. "Not you, you moron."
Creed was about to say some infinitely witty response when a look of genuine enlightenment came over his partner's face. "Hey," Ford said, successfully cutting Creed off before he even had the chance to talk. "I think I've got an idea. It's something I read in one of Vercetti's files."
Creed looked bewildered. "What?"
"Let's head back to the hotel. We'll get cleaned up. Then pack all your shit and I'll make a phone call. We're going back to Liberty City," Ford answered solidly, obviously internally satisfied with some notion that was locked away inside in his mind. Vince and Mercedes breaking out of custody seemed long forgotten.
A/N: Hey guys, sorry this chapter took me so long to post. In case your wondering, my little bout with Jamie Strauss ended with me losing my property, so I'm writing from memory here. There is a fluke in this chapter that I am indeed aware of. If the squad car were to blow up as described, there would be a lot more damage and death first of all, and second of all, it'd remain on fire. If you've read carefully, Tommy just sort of walks past it, like it's not on fire. Sorry. I realized the mistake too late. If it really bothers you, then eh, you'll get over it. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the rest of it. Also, I'm looking to post a new part to Getting to Know the Reaper. If anyone has any ideas, review that story. Thanks.
--Maverick (those who know me well know my real name, Ha!)
He snapped out of a particularly vivid daydream, for a very brief second convinced that what he had imagined was at the peak of reality. His eyes focused, their dark irises seeming to take on a even bleaker hue. He shook his head, listening to the unrelenting dripping of the broken water pipe. He had heard somewhere that time in prison wasn't the same as time on the outside, that somehow it went fast. Vince didn't think he could believe that. He had never been behind bars for the time required to find that new standard for seconds ticking by. What he did know about the prison cell was that it was incredibly boring.
"Are you okay?"
Vince raised an eyebrow, not expecting Mercedes to speak with such suddenness. He forgot about the dripping water, turning his attention to her, his eyes asking the question he would have said he had the will to speak. She was sitting directed across from him, slightly reclined against the stone wall that rose angrily behind her. She had wiped away the dripping mascara and smeared lipstick, and Vince had to admit, although a little plain, she looked good.
"It's just that you were staring off into space with such intensity," she laughed. "I thought something might be wrong. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you." She pushed her short brown hair out of her face and secured it safely behind her ears, looking away from him in a movement that could have been interpreted as shyness. Vince blinked and shook his head in a way of showing her that she hadn't disturbed him at all.
"So, you're going back to Liberty," Mercedes pointed out. "I've never been up there. Daddy would never let me. He said there was too much crime up there or something." She shrugged. "I don't know he was always a little overprotective if you know what I mean."
Vince nodded, having no other response at his disposal. He'd always known Liberty City was a dangerous place to live. That was the whole reason he led the life that he did, but he had never thought of what he was doing as a real crime. It felt more to him like a race for survival. It was kill or be killed, get money where it could be gotten, take what was on the floor, and get where there was to go. Sure, his job happened to take lives, but he'd much rather be known for being a murderer than be famous for being murdered. To some people, he supposed that sounded brutal and outrageous, but he was long past caring what other people thought.
"Vice City is full of it too," Mercedes went on. "Crime is a way of life all over this country. Truth be told, I'm attracted to it. That's why I hang around Tommy so often. Living like he does, and you do, forces people to be untouchable. I have to admit. It turns me on." She slipped off her bed and was suddenly face to face with Vince, leaning toward him in a kneeling position. He frowned and leaned away, unsure of her intentions. He was afraid she was going to jump on top of him at any moment, which he had come to the conclusion would be very awkward.
"Is it scary living in Liberty City?"
He shook his head slowly, gently pushing her back out of his lap. His eyes darted to one side. This was not the time, nor the place for that sort of thing. He was self conscious with the guard so near by, and he didn't really know why. Any other place and he would have been more that happy to comply with her advances, but still he resisted.
"Well," she said, sitting back on her haunches, clearly annoyed by Vince's unreceptive response, "at least there you'll have a bigger cell. The prison system is bigger, better funded. I'm sure the walls won't crash in on you so often."
Vince shrugged. He had always been a more than a little claustrophobic. It was a fear that he had come to blame on an incident involving Big Brother Tommy locking him a closet until Dad got home. Glancing at the gray walls of the prison block, he decided Mercedes was right. Now, he couldn't wait to get out of there, whether it was with guns blazing or in the back of a truck. Or both. His eyes rested uncomfortably on the bars, darkening with the remembrance of Lance's betrayal.
The stone wall to the right shuddered. Mercedes gave it a rather odd look as gunshots sounded on the opposite side. Immediately Vince shot into a standing position, his companion rising as well, albeit a little more slowly. Suspicion was evident in both pairs of eyes. Something was definitely about to happen. It was only a matter of figuring out which side it was going to come from so that proper cover could be taken.
Vince moved to the center of the cell, his head cocked to one side as if he was listening for something. His face clouded with a look of concentration for a long moment. Sudden realization fell upon him and took hold of Mercedes's wrist, pulling her toward the corner at the head of her cot. He pushed her down in a sitting position and moved to kneel in front of her, his arms braced against the wall behind her. He was acting as a shield.
"Goddamn it!"
Vercetti flinched instinctively as bullets ricocheted off the bullet-proof back doors of the police car. Slamming the steering wheel rather violently to the right, the vehicle fishtailed around the corner of the holding building and raced toward the back of the compound. Obviously, he had tripped a sense of alarm within the station. The middle-aged guard at the gate had nonchalantly opened the gate for the approaching squad car, scarcely glancing up from the small portable television he had balanced on his knees. A casual look up had put criminal and cop in eye-to-eye contact and all hell had broken loose. Once the guard came to the proper conclusion that Vercetti wasn't a police officer, he had stood up, sending the television crashing to the floor, and fumbled with this transistor radio. Bullets began to fly, and out of nowhere, security vehicles moved to block the rogue police car's path.
Vercetti squinted at the road ahead of him, hands gripping the leather steering wheel with white knuckles. The car's engine roared like an angry lion, trying its hardest to comply with the pedal-to-the-floor request. Its driver let out a stunned yelp as a armored police van pulled out of a storage garage to the left, forming an effective road block. No wanting to plow the bomb-rigged car into such heavy opposition, Vercetti jerked the wheel to one side, sending his vehicle shooting down a narrow passageway in between two buildings. Taking a rapid right turn, he was back on track. He found his way back to the main road and brought the car around so it broad- sided the building on the furthest end of the compound. Vince's building.
He was a little stunned by the impact, and he shook his head, seeing stars. He found himself moving without thinking, drawing his Colt Python from his waistband and climbing out of the car. Stumbling a little, he raised the gun and stared firing upon hapless officers who had been too slow to get into vehicles and were hence forced to protect their workplace on foot. They dove for cover, Vercetti's patience with the weapon outlasting theirs. His aim was far more reputable. Vercetti darted around the corner of a building adjacent to the one he was about to gain access to, praying no one would sneak up on him from behind. He fished the remote from his pocket and flipped up the plastic cover.
The earth shook as the bomb ripped apart the car, the first explosion sending it jumping into the air. The second erupted as the gas tank blew. Everyone in the near vicinity dove for cover, even Vercetti himself. Some were a little less than fast enough, and their screams disintegrated with their bodies. Vercetti grimaced at the sound of it, but no matter, the job was done. There was a large, gaping hole in the wall, smoke rising to obscure its size. He picked his way past the charred remains of the car, tripping over one of the strewn bricks in the process. Catching himself on the ragged edge of the orifice, he peered inside.
"Eh...Vince? Mercedes?"
"Vince, what the hell is going on?"
Mercedes obviously didn't have the keen sense of danger that her cellmate had, so effectively, she was being left in the proverbial darkness. Panicked yells and gunshots reported from all around, adding to the wretched sound of the leaking water pipe. Something was terribly wrong outside of the barred walls, and Mercedes had the distinct feeling that she was about to be right in the middle of it. Vince hovered over her, his head turned to one side, eyes surveying the cell. He remained impossibly still, the only signs of life within him being his always moving gaze and ragged breathing. She was touched at how quickly he had moved to protect her, and she wondered what it meant.
He was a hard man to predict, a long wolf by nature and taciturn beyond a reasonable doubt. This made it nearly impossibly to tell what he was thinking, and the was rather infuriating. She liked him, that was for sure, but it was difficult to extract any mutual feeling from him. She didn't know what his relationship with Maria was, but somewhere in the dark recesses of her consciousness, she hoped it wasn't serious.
The wall at Vince's back rocked again with the impact of some unseen object, and both occupants of the cell tensed visibly. The gray bricks rattled and little clouds of dust rose into the air. More gunshots echoed through the hollow space. Suddenly, there was a brief reprieve from the noise, and Mercedes would have relaxed had Vince's eyes not fallen upon her with such deathly seriousness. Then, completely without warning, the wall came apart with explosive force, pieces of it peeling off and hurtling across the cell. All the air was sucked from the room as it fueled the now raging fire. Another detonation followed not far after, and the flying debris gained velocity. Positioned in front of her, Vince too quite a bit of the punishment being dished out, and after a short moment, he fell slack against her. Mercedes cried out in surprise, the weight of his body suffocating her. Murmuring an incoherent apology to him, she pushed his lifeless frame away and raised her arms to protect herself as the concussive blast's rage rained down.
The dust began to settle, and all had fallen silent. Mercedes squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to open them because she knew that she would see Vince's dead body in front of her. Her ears were still ringing loudly, and she felt as if her skull was going to shatter. Moving her hands to cover her ears, though it didn't really help all that much, she sat still and quiet.
Tommy Vercetti's voice floated to her, strangely muffled, and she risked a glance up. Her vision was bleared, tears escaping her in a vain attempt to clear them. The tall, approaching man was blurred, and she blinked several times to focus it. Vercetti was standing above her, shaking his head.
"You all right?"
She could barely hear him. Removing her hands from the sides of her head, she looked about and then nodded. Then she remembered Vince. With slow horror she turned her sights to him, partly covered with small pieces of rock and plaster. She gently reached over and shook his inert frame. He didn't respond. Vercetti followed her gaze and sighed at the display of his brother. Blood ran form various cuts on Vince's face and hands, and from the sizable gash in the back of his head, but aside from being unconscious, he looked okay from the most part.
"He's fine Mercedes, but we've got to get out of here before the boys outside remember that there's a criminal on the loose," Vercetti said. Stooping down, he managed to sling Vince's body over his shoulder and stand back up. Mercedes got up slowly, wiping blood away from her split lip. Ignoring the little stream of the stuff that was leaking from a cut on her cheek, she followed Vercetti out past the combusted police car.
Vercetti picked up the pace once he was outside and drew his gun again. Dark eyes scanned the horizon for a moment, finding it seemingly deserted. He took a deep breath, repositioning his brother's unconscious body on his shoulder. Stealing a quick glance at Mercedes and beckoned for her to come out and take a look at the surroundings. She did so, skirting around the feebly burning carcass of the patrol car. She nearly stumbled backwards as Vercetti tossed the Colt Python in her direction.
She fumbled around with it before catching it successfully. "What's this?"
"We've got to get from here to the gate. This place may look empty, but those cops are around somewhere," Vercetti answered with a shrug. "It'll be okay. What do you think?" Shaken as the police officers may have been due to the blast, they weren't about to let a known criminal run right out the door. Yes, they were about someplace.
"Seems tricky," Mercedes answered. Vercetti nodded and started walking down the main path, heading in a straight line. From his front pocket, he drew a small automatic pistol. Mercedes knew the deal. All she had to do was cover the two men in front of her and run. The little bastards in blue to pop right out of the woodwork. Everyone wanted to be a hero nowadays.
They hadn't gone two or three meters when the first onslaught of bullets began raining down. Vercetti broke into the swiftest run that he could muster with Vince's dead weight upon him. He raised the pistol and began his retaliation, making from the gate as quickly as possible. Mercedes too brought up the heavy weapon and fired. For a few long moments, there was nothing to hear but the reports from dozens of hot gun barrels. Vercetti grunted as ammunition from the opposition stung him, merely grazing over his flesh in non vital areas. He looked Mercedes, who was fiddling with the gun she had been entrusted with.
"Forget it," he called. "Let's get the fuck out of here!"
They made it to the guard booth, and Vercetti disposed of the man there with one pull of the trigger without a moment's hesitation. He moved through the booth to the other side of the gate, handing Vince off to Rosenberg and Maria, who were waiting. They hauled the younger Vercetti to a waiting van while the older turned around, allowing Mercedes passage past him. He fired off a few shots as half a dozen police officers rushed toward him, their cars forgotten. Out of breath and exhausted, Vercetti canned the whole idea and ran, diving into the van just as Maria pulled it away from the curb, its tires screaming. Mercedes caught a hold of him and hung on while Rosenberg pulled the rear door shut to seal them safely inside.
"Shit," Vercetti grumbled, shooting a glance at Vince as he surveyed his minor wounds. "The things I do for my family..."
"He did what?!"
The young rookie cop, freshly out of the academy and acutely baby faced stood a timid step backward, unsure of how to react to Special Agent Patrick Ford's notorious temper. He, being youngest of the seven cops chosen to accompany Lance Vance, Ford, and Graydon Creed to a secure location across town from the prison block, had drawn the short straw, and he could hear the muffled snickers of the older officers as he had trudged off to deliver the bad news.
"He...uh...well Tommy Vercetti busted the whole place pretty good, and the two prisoners we had been detaining are now long gone. A few people said they drove off in a dark blue utility van with bogus plates," the rookie shrugged. "We got nothing."
"Big Brother came to rescue Junior," Creed observed. He was leaning against the far wall of the tiled observation room, his jacket long forgotten and his tie loosened. He watched Ford silently fume, finding it somewhat comical as his partner's faced welled up with scarlet coloring.
"Well what the fuck did you think it was, you idiot?! Didn't I warn you about this shit! I knew this was going to happen. We can't win with these bastards. Ah, no wonder Vercetti owns this stupid city. The people here are too dumb to deal with him," Ford growled in a carefully even tone, looking as though his eyes were going to pop right out of his skull.
Saying that Vercetti owned Vice City was like saying fish could swim. Everything that was anything in the place proudly waved the Vercetti flag. It was all purchased with what might be called legitimate money, so nothing about this ownership could be used against him. Hell, the guy even paid taxes on most of the public property. Sure, it would be easy to pull some of the illegitimate stuff out from under him, but making a case would be difficult.
Ford's eyes turned to the nervous rookie. "Don't you have something to do? Get the hell out of here," he ordered loudly. The rookie wasted no time and was gone before anyone could take another breath. "Ain't this just some shit."
"Well, what do you want to do now; go back on the hunt," Creed asked a little wearily. All he really wanted to do was to go back to his hotel room and go to sleep. They had been at this for days now, and he was pretty sure that Vercetti had had more sleepless night than he had. Things were starting to catch up to him already, and if the jail break was any indication of Vercetti's failing strength, or his lack thereof, then he supposed he and Ford were in for some trouble. It would be only a matter of time before someone cracked. Ford looked like he was getting to ready even as the thoughts ran through his mind.
"I want to lop someone's head off, right here and now," Ford answered rather seriously, a baleful look overtaking his hard gaze. Creed backed up a step, hands in front of him, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Ford gave him a dirty look. "Not you, you moron."
Creed was about to say some infinitely witty response when a look of genuine enlightenment came over his partner's face. "Hey," Ford said, successfully cutting Creed off before he even had the chance to talk. "I think I've got an idea. It's something I read in one of Vercetti's files."
Creed looked bewildered. "What?"
"Let's head back to the hotel. We'll get cleaned up. Then pack all your shit and I'll make a phone call. We're going back to Liberty City," Ford answered solidly, obviously internally satisfied with some notion that was locked away inside in his mind. Vince and Mercedes breaking out of custody seemed long forgotten.
A/N: Hey guys, sorry this chapter took me so long to post. In case your wondering, my little bout with Jamie Strauss ended with me losing my property, so I'm writing from memory here. There is a fluke in this chapter that I am indeed aware of. If the squad car were to blow up as described, there would be a lot more damage and death first of all, and second of all, it'd remain on fire. If you've read carefully, Tommy just sort of walks past it, like it's not on fire. Sorry. I realized the mistake too late. If it really bothers you, then eh, you'll get over it. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the rest of it. Also, I'm looking to post a new part to Getting to Know the Reaper. If anyone has any ideas, review that story. Thanks.
--Maverick (those who know me well know my real name, Ha!)