Chapter 27:

"Execute"

Mello sat in Matt's car in the passenger seat with one leg up on the grey leather seat, chin settled on his knee cap, and looked out the front windshield with a blank gaze. The black Corvette was hidden in an alleyway squeezed behind two warehouses just out of sight of any of "A"s exterior surveillance equipment.

In his line of sight, he saw an average looking car whisk by on the street. The alley was filled with trash, which was contrary to the near pristine car that now resided within it, and he detected a fowl odour coming from somewhere, that or urine, and something else. His nose crinkled at the smell. How many times had someone used this alley as a bathroom, he wondered. There was also evidence of recent residence with makeshift box homes, and even gang warfare with bullet holes in one wall.

But none of it mattered, only his own inner thoughts.

Mello's mind thought back to the moment when he and Rue were in Light Yagami's apartment, and the book his friend retrieved from a hidden compartment within Yagami's closest.

A book of death, where any name written in it and that person dies. Sounds far-fetched.

He couldn't believe it. But the more he thought about it, the more Kira's powers became absolute. What if Kira had such a thing? It seemed unfathomable! All those lives Kira had taken, including L and Watari, had been stolen by a supernatural book? The sheer implication was unfathomable.

But in a letter he was sent after L died, Near got one too—only to be delivered upon his death—L described the possibly of "Shinigami". The letters were for their eyes only.

He shirked at the idea that a "god of death" had a role to play in the lives of thousands, was murdering criminals, and had given rise of Kira.

Still, all the pieces fit. And L also said to keep an open mind, for the improbable can one day become probable.

He heard the tap-tap-tap of Matt's fingers as his friend's fingers danced over a laptop computer.

Mello blinked, and gave a sideways glance over to his friend, and saw Matt working on source code. The computations were far beyond his expertise, but Matt was a master at it, self-taught. So, he let him handle this sort of stuff. But the lines of code whizzing and scrolling was enough to make Mello blink again.

He'd have to revisit implications of the Death Note later. He returned to the present.

Mello dropped his leg and retrieved something out of the glove box. It was a bar of chocolate. He unwrapped it, then bit off a sizeable chuck.

"You're gonna lose that beautiful figure if you keep eating all that chocolate, dude," Matt said jokingly. He didn't look up from the computer and merely smirked. His eyes focused on his task.

"Shut-up," Mello replied casually. "At least I don't stink up the place with more then sixty carcinogens."

"Ohhh," Matt answered facetiously, continuing to type. He paused for a moment, as if thinking about the next series of lines he needed to write. Mello wasn't sure what Matt was doing, but he was adamant about it. "That reminds me, I need a smoke," he said with a smile. "But not yet, not yet…Almost there…"

Matt typed furiously with a sudden burst of brilliance, the code he was writing was something only a mathematician or logical analyst would understand.

Then Matt thrust an excited fist into the air. "Got it! You're mine now! All your base are belong to us!"

"What?" Mello said, after taking another bite of his chocolate bar.

"It's a quote from an old video game, badly translated into English. It means, we are victorious!"

"What did you do, Matt?" Mello asked, leaning over, and looked at the screen, and at the message: ACCESS GRANTED. Only then did it hit Mello. "Jesus Christ, Matt! You're a genius!"

Matt smiled big. "I know," he replied proudly. "I'm just that good! Time for a cig—"

Suddenly, something slammed onto the roof of the car, and smashed the driver side and passenger side windows from the impact. Then came a sledge hammer, slamming the front windshield. The pair covered their faces as glass shattered, flying inward.

The attacker landed onto the hood, then jumped to the ground. It was a woman, wearing a full, black bodysuit, with shoulder length, dark hair. She was holding the sledge hammer. She took a heavy swing and slammed it hard into the hood, creating such an impact, the engine sounded like it dislodged.

"What the hell? Is that Raven?" Matt said.

Mello's eyes widened. "No! It's Hawkes, "A"'s right hand woman." Raven and Hawkes were twins, and were Wammy children, but while Raven was loyal to Rue, Hawkes had drifted from her sister, and went elsewhere, eventually siding with "A" on the foolish folly of regaining his position to succeed L.

Hawkes continued her assault, hammering the hood with an intense strength. She eventually came around to the driver door. Matt leaned over, as the door literally imploded. Mello got out, then Matt quickly crawled over the seats and out the passenger side, with computer in hand.

At a safe distance, Matt cried, "My car! You butcher of fine art!" He had stolen it, but the car was a beauty. As in repute, Hawkes smashed the rest of the windows.

Mello reached behind him into his pants and pulled out a Glock, but Hawkes then threw the sledge hammer at him with pinpoint accuracy and knocked it out of his hand. Mello swore, held his hand.

Matt shoved the computer into Mello's arms, and said, "I got this!" And reached back into the car through the smashed rear passenger window, tossing his jacket aside, and pulled out a rifle. The truck had a full arsenal cache of weapons, but this it was always best to have one available on hand.

Matt fired, as Hawkes ran, and took cover. She had tremendous flexibility and managed to leap from wall to wall in the alleyway, and then dived into a glass panel window, three floors up, into a warehouse. Matt surveyed the area with his rifle, then lowered the weapon.

Mello was impressed. His friend's quick thinking won the day.

"Boy, with legs like those, she could take my breath away," Matt said, sighing, almost smitten.

"More like crush the breath out of you," Mello said back.

"Like that chick in that James Bond movie. Oh, she was hot!"

Mello looked down, and saw his chocolate bar he had been eating on the ground, now covered with dirt and grime, and he became angry. He hated to waste good chocolate, any chocolate! It pained him to see such deliciousness go to waste. It caused him mental anguish. He had a need for chocolate, like it was a sedative to calm his nerves. He almost reached down to pick it up, but refuted. There was more in the glovebox, he'd retrieve it all just before they departed. The car was now toast.

"You okay?" Matt asked. "That she-devil almost got us. I thought she was with A?"

Mello flexed his hand that the sledge hammer had hit. It hurt, but it was nothing he couldn't handle. "Hawkes was probably ordered to eliminate all of Rue's allies, he probably knew we'd still be in the area."

"Oh," was all Matt said. Matt then groaned sympathetically, as he looked at the car Hawkes massacred. He put a hand on the hood of the Corvette. "Oh, the humanity! I'm sorry, little lady. But you can't come back from this." He then brought up the rifle, aimed, and fired a single shot into its hood as if killing a lame horse. "Rest in peace, sweet heart."

Mello rolled his eyes, shook his head. "You're mental, Matt," he said.

"I won't dignify that with an answer," Matt replied tartly.

"You just did," Mello answered lowly.

Matt took back the computer and opened it back up on the hood, accessing his previous program, as Mello retrieved his gun. He stood next to his friend, and witnessed Matt's fingers dance across the keyboard again, returning to the previous screen before they were attacked.

"Good, everything's okay," Matt verified. "I now have full access to his operations. He thinks he's so smart, but he hasn't come up against a genius like me. I'm the master of the online domain!" And then in dramatic fashion, Matt pressed down on the ENTER key, and said, "Execute!"


Hawkes took several deep breathes, as she looked out the window she dived through. Glass was all over the floor, and little did the pair below know, that a bullet had penetrated her leg calf. It bled, but not too badly. She needed to get back to "A" and tell him that BB's friends were still in the area.

She'd seen the computer and the source code just before she attacked them, and knew it meant something. She wasn't versed on such things. Her expertise was assassination and protection, hired by "A". But now, she had failed him. He wasn't going to like that.

She found herself, quite fortuitously, in an empty storage room. She took a couple steps forward, from the window. There were box crates, and boxes of papers, piled neatly in corners, and one wooden desk. But it looked like the room hadn't been used, or visited in some time, covered in dust, and animal waste—rats. There was even evidence of human occupation.

She was safe for the moment. She still had a chance to finish off Beyond Birthday's allies. Her plan wasn't finished. She didn't like guns, and avoided them when she could, but explosives were in.

Hawkes had planted an explosive device in the Corvette just before she attacked. It would blow the car, the weapons stored within, and her enemies sky high—in just under a minute. It was the reason when she attacked, she avoided the trunk. And even if they found it, they'd be too late.

She went to leave, when something was thrown through the window that she had burst through. It bounced within feet of herself. Her eyes widened.

And then a voice shouted, "You can take this back, bitch!"

She had little time to escape before the timer ticked down to zero. She bolted towards the door. And just as she heard the explosion moments later, she made it to a flight stairs just adjacent to the room in a common hallway. The blast threw her off balance and she tumbled down the stairs.

The explosion took out most of the third floor.

She rolled to the next landing, then got up, and ran like a jackrabbit, taking the next set of the stairs in leaps and bounds, staying ahead of the structure coming down around her. The warehouse floors were collapsing like a deck of cards.

When she reached the ground floor, she launched herself out a back entrance, shouldering it, hurtling herself out. The blast that followed, gave her an extra push, and she rolled along the ground, finding herself in a back alley. She hissed in a breath as the bullet in her calf coursed with pain.

But she was safe.

Hawkes got to her feet, but stumbled, taking in a series of deep breaths. He heart pounded. That was the closest she had ever come to a near-death experience. How did that pair find the bomb so fast?

The cache of weapons, she surmised. Since the car was totalled, thanks to her, the first thing they thought do was move their arsenal elsewhere. They, then no doubt, found the explosive device—with time to spare. And what a precision throw, three floors up!

She cursed herself for her failure.

The alley was basked in shadow, very little light cast down in the area, due to overhead buildings. No lights were working and she had to feel along the wall to make her way out.

Just then, a figure stood before her, cast in darkness. It had red eyes and bright white teeth.

She gasped, as it reached out and clutched her throat. It brought her close, face-to-face. It had no features, and its form seemed to sway and float, like cloud mist.

Those eyes…devilish looking eyes!

It smiled, abnormally, like a crescent moon. A human mouth had this ability.

"Sweet vixen, you were charged with a task," it said. "Tsk, tsk! But I will give you credit for trying. Sadly, failure is just not an option. So, I'm forced to step in."

The last thing she heard was the sound of her neck breaking. Then utter darkness engulfed her

To be continued...