Chapter 8: Dark doings.
Ranma and Nabiki were back at their hotel in a shot. No sooner had they got in the door than she started up a larger, secure phone with its own white noise generator and he was cramming their stuff into their pack.
"We'll stop by Nodoka's on the way out," Ranma said, they had left Kimiko with her grandmother, intending to have a day to themselves for once.
"Hot water" Nabiki said. Then into the phone she repeated a secure access code. It bleeped a recognition and she pressed another few numbers.
"What's happening Jack?" she said into the phone. "We were assured that the deep space scans showed nothing for days yet."
"Still true Nabiki," he replied, "sorta."
"Sort of?" she asked.
"Yeah, seems like the eggheads got their sums wrong again. But that isn't what this is about." Jack replied.
"It's not?" Nabiki asked.
"Nope," Jack replied, "We got another problem." Nabiki groaned. "Someone got hold of a copy of the Cydonia file" he added. "And no I don't have a clue how they did it."
"What aren't you telling me?" Nabiki asked sensing something else.
"Armand is mixed up in this," Jack reported. "It was Marsec's copy."
"I'll kill him" Nabiki said.
"Just remember its him and not me" Jack said. "There's a little bit more." He said quietly, "just a little bit."
"What?" Nabiki asked exasperated.
"He may be under the impression he's going to be arrested."
"May be?" Nabiki said leadingly, "What exactly did you tell him?"
"Uh, something like 'You're a maggot and I'll see you rot in hell'" Jack replied.
"Something like?"
"Something a lot like."
"Where is he?"
"Hong Kong" Jack replied. Nabiki looked over and saw that Ranma was done packing.
"Okay, flight from Tokyo ASAP, and I want Sam or Laura to pick Kimi up" Nabiki ordered. (slightly ignoring the fact that he was the superior officer.)
"Yes Ma'am" Jack replied with more than a hint of sarcasm.
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"Ranma Something just occurred to me," Nabiki said. They were in a taxi going at a well tipped speed towards the airport, bag and baby on their laps. "Ranko could qualify for flight status."
"Huh?" Ranma asked.
"They won't let you fly right?" Nabiki said.
"Yes" Ranma said slowly.
"But nobody said anything about Ranko…"
"That's great" Ranma enthused, "no wait, it'll never wash, Sam and Jack both know and you know Jack's view, 'if I gotta-
"Fly a desk then so do you!" they finished together.
"But it might sneak you through flight school at least" Nabiki said. Ranma nodded. "we can worry about active status afterwards."
"You trying to get rid of me/" he asked confused.
"Don't be silly" she said, biffing his arm "But I do know you're going to go spare if they manage to keep you out of this one." Ranma nodded his thanks, then kissed her.
"Thanks beautiful." He said
"Not just a pretty face" she added with a smile.
"Nah, your breasts are amazing too" he added jokingly, only to get another mock punch.
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The helicopter bancked, turning sharply to the left as it came over the mountain. Below them sat the urban sprawl that was Hong Kong. Tall glass skyscrapers vied with traditional wooden houses for a stretch of the over-populated island. For over a century it had been a meeting place built on trade of all sorts. In the new millennium it was rapidly making itself a world leader in the darker side of the far east. Here eastern values clashed with western capitalist immorality, steadily the fabric of lawful society was slipping deeper into the morass of corruption.
As the helicopter came in over the city it swept low over the skyscrapers. Un-observed four dark figures dropped from its sides, floating inhumanly down to the flat top of a building. The helicopter continued on its way, cover mission ready for deployment.
The four blacked out figures landed lightly on the helipad of the steel and glass building. Three of them immediately took covering positions, weapons sweeping the fire arcs. The fourth just knelt on the ground unmoving.
"Clear," the voices called one by one over their scrambled coms.
"Secure!" Ranma ordered, pulling his hood back and moving to kneel next to Nabiki. "You okay babe?" he asked. She nodded. "Quite a rush eh?" he asked.
"That has to be one of the scariest things I have ever done!" she stated emphatically. "Next time you decide to use me as a human bomb, don't"
"What you didn't like that?" he asked incredulous.
"Is it so very hard to understand that some people think jumping out of a perfectly good helicopter, at terminal velocity, over a city, without a parachute, and with no practice, is more than a little crazy?" she asked, finally looking him in the face.
"I don't remember claiming to be sane" he replied with a smirk, helping her up. "And no I can't understand people who wouldn't want to do that," he finished. She just shook her head and followed him.
In the lift the other two were switching their gear around, rapidly changing to look like some ordinary, heavily built, executives. All of them were carriying a small briefcase and wore a snappy, slightly bulky suit and fake glasses. The briefcases could be dropped away at a touch to reveal their smg's, the suits were armoured and the glasses had optical readouts printing on their inside, but nobody else needed to know that.
Nabiki readjusted her trouser suit, pulling back the lapels to reveal more cleavage and hefted her case. She knew that it was too heavy for her to carry subtly but couldn't see a way around it. She did like the glasses though, they added a certain something and she briefly toyed with wearing some more often.
"Laura you good" Ranma asked the other woman, who was looking a little peaky.
"Piss off" she replied, "You know I hate those whirling death traps." She too adjusted her lapels and hefted her case, but was far more worried about the lack of armour over her chest than the weight of one little case of gear.
"Okay Hiroshi" Ranma asked, just for the sake of completeness. The man nodded and cracked a big smile.
"Peachy boss" he replied.
"Okay from here on out its my wife's show. I don't think I need to tell any of you how carefully I want her protected!"
"No sir" the small commando replied.
"Okay babe, do your stuff." He said to Nabiki.
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Half an hour later they were in Detective Patrick Li's office. Nabiki was laying it on thick while the others tried to look as inconspicuous as they could. Instead they stuck out like sore thumbs, just like the government men Nabiki wanted them to look like.
"Detective all I want is a word with the man, what possible harm could that do?" she asked. He didn't look convinced, but between the heavies and that woman's cleavage he was having a very hard time concentrating anyway.
"Fine, but I want one of my men in the room!" he caved in.
"Acceptable," Nabiki nodded. "Lead on." She said, sliding off the corner of his desk.
The man led them to some holding cells where he got the duty sergeant to move a man to one of the interview rooms.
Ataru was not a happy man, he had got out of the agency just ahead of charges, fortunately he had once again landed on his feet and got a job in Marsec. Unfortunately he proved to be nearly as bad at that as he had been at soldiering. His one real skill, as he well knew, was girls, for some reason all the craziest ones seemed to be attracted to him, and to his chagrin, only the crazy ones. So he had finagled himself into a top position by selling out a psycho blond who had been spying on Armand for the uber-bitch. Armand had recognised his use and kept him close, incidentally stopping the harassment proceedings at the same time. Everything had been fine until this morning. It wasn't his fault, not really, the little minx had been asking for it, with that tight little tush and those-
His train of thought was suddenly cut off as the ape in police clothing threw him into an interview room. He looked up and nearly shat himself. There, dressed in executioner black was the uber-bitch herself and a duo of hard faced killers. He turned and sprang for the door. Only to find the bitches' pet killer blocking his way, and smiling!
"I'm out" he said in Japanese "You haven't got anything on me. I work for Armand not you!"
"And that is what we are here to talk about" the bitch said also in Japanese, taking a seat opposite him. He found himself moved bodily into the other seat. As the door shut behind the last entrant it sounded like a coffin slamming. He gulped and started to sweat.
"What ever you want" he said with only a slight quaver.
"Good answer" replied Nabiki. "First we want to know where your boss is right now!"
"I er don't know" Ataru lied, already knowing this was going to hurt.
"Tut tut" Nabiki said, leaning back and nodding to Ranma. Ataru felt the vise-like grip on his shoulder tighten, but more worryingly he also felt the sharp pains of a mental attack starting to cut into his mind. At that moment he wished he was anywhere but here. He, for once, followed his training, bricking up his mind, blotting out the sensation, working at repelling the intrusion. Only when he felt his collarbone flex did he realise his mistake.
The pain cut through his body like an electric current, his concentration wavered and at that moment he knew that they were going to kill him. Fear gripped his cowardly soul like the tentacles of a vile demon
"Ease up" Nabiki ordered, and suddenly the pain was gone, leaving only a numbness. "Let me make something very clear," Nabiki started, "The Master sergeant behind me wants you dead for something you did some time ago, and I'm inclined to let her. I haven't told Ranma anything yet and he already wants to hurt you. Simply put I am the only one standing between you and a very messy, painful end. Tell me what I want to know, and maybe…." He leapt on the offer like a drowning man onto a liferaft.
"He's in his new office but you won't get in there," he blabbed. Nabiki turned her head just a little to indicate she was listening. "He's meeting a buyer tonight at the Dragon Triangle, he will be less guarded there, maybe you can…"
"Thank you Ataru, you have been most helpful" Nabiki said standing up. She turned to the officer who was regarding them all blankly. "All yours, for the moment." Then she led her group out and Ataru finally relaxed.
As the door closed Hiroshi just heard Ataru's lament "I think I crapped myself." In front of them was the officer from upstairs. Apparently he wasn't very happy with Nabiki holding the 'interview in Japanese, especially since his microphone had been playing up for some reason.
As Hiroshi suspected the man backed down fairly fast under Nabiki's non-plussed silence.
"Detective there will be a disturbance at the Dragon Triangle tonight" she told him. "I suggest you prepare for the worst." Then she led the others off, pausing by the door to the rest of the building. "Oh and if we are expected there I will know who to blame won't I?" Then the four of them left and Hiroshi couldn't help but smile.
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Still say you lot should have let me hit him at least once!" Laura grumbled for the fifth time.
"Didn't you bust his jaw at the time?" Hiroshi argued back.
"Yeah but it obviously got better," she replied.
"and split his pelvic bone?" Hiroshi continued.
"Yeah well he deserved it," the woman responded. "he's lucky that's all he got." Hiroshi had the sense to nod at this and hope she would drop the subject.
They were sat in a rented blacked out Land-rover outside an office where Nabiki and Ranma were setting up some sort of cover to get them into the bar later that night. How Nabiki had managed to rent a car at this hour, let alone one of this quality Hiroshi didn't want to hazard a guess, nor did he want to know how she had known the correct manner of setting up a business deal with the Triads.
What he did know was that tonight was shaping up to be real messy and he already had a bad feeling about it.
"This wasn't the plan" he grumbled. Laura laughed.
"Improvise, Adapt-
"and overcome!" he finished. "But there is definitely something we are missing!"
"When you think of it" Laura said "How about you tell the rest of us?"
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Twenty minutes later the Land rover pulled into the underground car park of the triad bar and four Yakuza gangsters stepped out. All had very hard looks on their face and if one looked carefully you could make out the edges of their tattoos at their necks and cuffs.
For just a moment there seemed to be a fifth figure, dressed in a black cloak of shadows and carrying a scythe of all things. But it was probably just a trick of the light.