The Assignment
Chapter Four
January 18th, 2004
9:42pm
He came around almost immediately after hearing the pitter-patter of feet running on the tiled floors, and tried squinting his eyes to focus them. He felt around the back of his head, where he was hit, only to find a minor bump. He felt his hip to see if his gun had been taken, but it was still there. He drew out his USP, stood up and looked behind him where he saw a man in a bathrobe running with the little girl. Vincent took chase after them, huffing and panting as he was still recovering from the hit he took. He clenched his teeth so hard that it felt like they were going to break in his mouth.
The man, who Vincent presumed was his target; Carmine Carravagio, quickly took the girl into the private elevator. As the doors struggled to close between them and Vincent, who was still at a very bad shooting- distance, it became clear that Vincent was facing his target with the disability of not being able to shoot. Vincent kept his eyes on the little girl as if she were his motivation. She squealed louder as Carmine cocked a Glock 17, that he picked up from a guard, and pointed it to her head, by then the doors had finally closed and Vincent heard a gunshot.
As Vincent continued running towards the elevator he holstered his weapon and grabbed an emergency fire-axe from a glass case. He wedged it into the slit between the two elevator doors and pried them open, he looked into the elevator shaft and grabbed onto one of the support cables for the elevator. As he pushed off of the floor and rode the elevator cable down, he did his best not to slide down the cable otherwise it would slice and cut up his hands. He started to climb down the cable however, hand under hand. If being in the Special Forces were to pay off, now would be it. He thought to himself while grunting down the cable.
As he jumped down and his feet touched the roof of the elevator, Vincent quickly stood to the side as Carraviago shot through the ceiling. Without skipping a beat, Vincent returned fire just as blindly and when the elevator came to a halt, he kicked in the roof and landed on top of a little corpse.
She had no expression on her face and was as cold looking as a porcelain doll. Her eyes kind of frozen open, with the damp tears still trickling down her cheeks as fresh as when they first came out. He exhaled and exited the elevator. He removed his grey tie and unbuttoned the top of his shirt as he moved towards the lobby doors where Carravagio could be seen outside talking to a valet attendant.
"Excuse me, sir? Sir!" said a security officer standing behind a desk, "I'm going to have to ask you to put the gun down."
Vincent didn't realize that he still had his gun in his hand, or that he lost his silencer. Wake up. This is it. You're in the moment. So be in the moment. Let's roll with it. Go. Vincent thought to himself as he continued towards the exit, not stopping for anyone.
"I'm going to have to draw my weapon on you! Sir, put the gun dow - - " Vincent quickly shot two rounds into the security officer's chest and continued through the doors where Carravagio clearly saw him and snatched his car key from the attendant. Vincent ran through the doors and gave chase once again, he ran past the valet attendant who ducked and ran for cover.
Carravagio was way ahead of Vincent and turned into 'Row B' of the parking garage, where there were nothing but Mercedes, BMWs, Lexus, and Hummers. As Vincent had his weapon at the ready and turned the corner, he lost him. Water could be heard dripping from the ceiling and into a large puddle. Vincent looked around but saw no movement, This is the last row on this level, he's in here. He looked around carefully; his eyes were shifting quickly but also steadily. He rubbed the sweat off of his forehead with the sleeve from his grey suit jacket. He exhaled. Slowly and cautiously, Vincent moved in between the cars where he holstered his weapon and got down in a push-up position.
An engine turned over, with heavy and hard acceleration. Vincent stood up and got back into the driveway of the garage with his pistol drawn. Tires squealed and before him Vincent saw a Mercedes turnout of a parking space amidst all of the vehicles and come towards him. In under a second he raised his pistol and shot at the engine block of the vehicle to no avail. He switched over to the driver's side of the windshield and unloaded the remaining rounds of his HK USP. Vincent dove out of the trail of the moving vehicle and quickly reloaded to shoot out both taillights and the left back tire.
Even though it was hopeless, it was not. There's no good reason, there's no bad reason, to live or die. Vincent holstered his weapon and chased the Mercedes out of the garage, and into the street, somewhat hopelessly. To Vincent's amazement, he saw his cabbie from earlier still parked up on the side of the building; he quickly made his way into the cab only to find a married couple just getting in.
"Hey, uh, - - " Vincent said almost out of breath.
"Tom" replied the driver.
"Tom thanks. I need you to follow that car, right there." He exhaled.
"The Merc with the broke taillights? Holy shit, it's shooting out sparks from the tires!"
"Tom! Now, please."
"Excuse me! " said a woman who was about sixty years of age and just getting into the cab with her husband holding the door. "We were here first now, young man. So if you like, you can wait for another cab, I'm sure the driver can call for you."
"Miss" Vincent said, as she took notice of the gun in his hand. "Get the fuck out of the cab."
She flinched back in horror and into her appalled husband's arms. Vincent quickly pulled their door in and shut it, and Tom the driver took to the road like a thunderbolt.
" Um, sir?"
" It's Vincent, Tom. And yeah?"
"Vincent, um, sir, it's not my job to question what you do, but I was wondering if you could put that away." Tom referred to Vincent's pistol.
"Yeah - - no. I need it."
"It's making me nervous."
"Breathe, focus on that car in front of you, you can't afford to lose it."
"And if I do." Said Tom breathing rhythmically.
"I'll kill you, still breathing?"
"Mmm-hmmm…" Tom moaned unevenly.
"I'm with the director's of IAD in the bureau, do you know what that means?"
"No."
"Watch the traffic. That means that I'm FBI and right now I'm tracking down a known suspect terrorist. Can you understand? Keeping breathing."
"So you're FBI?"
"Precisely. You're helping out your country, Tom. Don't forget that. It's a civic duty that you're holding for your fellow man."
"Thank you." Tom said between uneven breaths.
"No one can know of this. No one. Hey, you listening?"
"Yeah, no one." Tom mumbled unconvincingly.
He'll talk.
"Right, don't stop the car too close to him, pull in here."
The Mercedes stopped at a club called 'Luciano's No. 4' and Carravagio ran straight in with security helping him in along the way. Vincent got out of the cab halfway; he took out his fibre-wire and sat back down.
" Tom, there's no reason, good or bad, to live or die. Do you understand?"
"No, not really."
"It's a principle. You'll talk I can see it in you where you sit, I can see it in your eyes"
"I won't, I said I wouldn't!" Tom said as he tried to close the slide-able glass divider between him and Vincent.
"You can't even convince yourself, Tom."
Vincent shoved his hands through the divider to stop it from closing and wrapped the fibre-wire around Tom's fat neck, where Vincent thought that the girth of Tom's neck might break the wire. But it did its job, and so did Vincent. He couldn't afford to leave a breathing witness. He put away the wire, closed the glass divider and got out of the cab where he glanced at the club. There, standing before Vincent was a task that was all the challenge that he had been looking for.