Chapter 18: A Long Walk Off A Short Pier

Clarissa picked up the glass of gin on the bar and took a drink, letting it go down straight. She preferred it without any tonic water. Emery, on the other hand, was much more accustomed to drinking cheap beer than anything slightly more adventurous. He lifted the stein up in front of him and examined the liquid inside by the light overhead. It was safe to say the quality wasn't to a high standard, but it would quench his thirst well enough.

"We should hear something within the hour, huh?" he asked, swirling the beer around in the stein. Clarissa rolled her eyes while his attention was on the drink.

"That's what he said," she answered. As they spoke, her eyes would occasionally wander behind the bar to the members of the Irish Mob that were watching them suspiciously. The 216 had never visited this 'Pot-O-Gold' before, which was what enticed the two to lay low here while their plan was set in motion, but it seemed like the people who ran the establishment were wise to their true identities. That, or they had one hell of a staring problem. "Soon as they've run that particular errand, they should be ready to come back. By then, Watsup should have made some headway, too. Then we can really get the show on the road."

"You think we should call on Marko's guys?" Marko was the man in charge of the uninventively named 'Marko's Mercs', what was essentially a muscle-for-hire business that rented out individuals and mercenaries as bodyguards to paying customers. When the 216 first arrived in Roanapur, they used some of their allotted spending money provided by Interpol to hire four individuals to assist them. Though they were all trained fighters that came with their own weapons, the 216 primarily used them to transport equipment into the city and scout out potential locations for the Task Force to lay low. After that, they were sent back to Marko.

"The freelancers? No way. They'd just get in the way. Besides, I have a feeling we won't have many friends in this city when the shit hits the fan. We don't want some two-bit soldiers of fortune at our backs if we have to start putting people down."

"True enough."

Neither of them had noticed the door open, but they both froze on the spot when the gun was pointed at the back of Clarissa's head. Her drink had been midway between the bar and her mouth when it came to a stop and Emery, his hand beginning to twitch, suddenly let any ideas of retaliation die when he realised that not one interloper had entered, but three now stood around them.

"Hey, sweetcheeks," the Wolf said gleefully as he held the Desert Eagle so close to the woman's head she could almost feel her skull buckling under the pressure. "I thought that might be you I'd heard about."

"You know her?" asked Ashur, blindsided. He and Andromeda both had their guns pointed at Emery while the men behind the bar became agitated at the sight of what looked to be a conflict brewing.

"Hey, Wolf," Brendan called. "We like having you around, and all, but you're gonna have to take that shit outside. Can't have fighting in here, boss's orders." Something rapped Brendan on the knuckles, something hard and wooden he did not see. It was a shillelagh, and Four-Leaf walked out from the shadows to survey the scene that was unfolding.

"Not to worry, Brendan," he said jovially, as though the possibility of having his bar shot up was as common and unremarkable as the rain falling outside. Although, in southern Thailand, both were quite rare. "You let our good friends, here, get on with their business. I'm sure they won't make a mess." He spotted Andromeda and gave her a wink before turning back to the men he had been talking to.

"You two take that handsome devil somewhere," the Wolf said, ever vague on the details. "Give us a minute."

The other two former members of Wolf Pack were in no mood to argue. They picked Emery up off of the stool and took him to a booth at the back of the bar while Wolf took a seat beside Clarissa. Finally sensing the gun had been taken away from the back of her head, she turned around to face the assassin.

"I guess it's true what they say," she said, placing her elbows on the bar and continuing to drink her gin. "Gotta be careful who you take home to bed with you these days."

"Funny."

"You want something? Or are you just so desperate for round two that you needed two bodyguards to help you work up the courage to ask?"

"Careful, I might break a bone from laughing too hard," Wolf retorted. "Didn't realise you were with the 216. You never can tell with people."

"I thought you might be here about that," she admitted, turning her head to look at him. "You said you were a hitman, right? Who was it put you up to this?"

"I'm not here for that."

"No," Clarissa said thoughtfully. "I suppose you're not. Otherwise, you'd have shot already."

"You and your people are playing with fire, you know that? Roadblocks at every entrance to the city? Not to mention you made shit of the Yellowflag the other night. There's only one way this is going to end for you guys."

"Don't waste my time with the 'mightier-than-thou' speech. I don't care who you might be here, you're still a very small fish in a very big ocean. You don't have us figured out."

"You're right about that," Wolf said honestly. "But you must know the endless tsunami of shit that's coming your way because of this. Doesn't matter how tough you all are, this is crazy what you're doing." It was something of a bluff, a bid to scare Clarissa and make her vulnerable so she would provide more information, but she was no fool.

"Save it," Clarissa told him, taking another drink. "It's nothing personal, so don't let your feelings get hurt, alright? We're here to do a job, plain and simple."

"I just don't see what you're hoping to get out of this. One minute, you're going back to dingy hotel rooms with handsome Irish boys and beating the shit out of drunks in a bar. The next, you're fighting for justice and order." She had to laugh at his self-praise.

"Your point?"

Wolf was becoming impatient. He knew he was getting nowhere, but he was also reluctant to become violent just yet. He wanted to give her a chance to cooperate with him.

"My point," he said through gritted teeth, "is that you've got no business stepping on this city's toes. Even if you do have a chance of surviving the shitstorm that's coming your way for fucking with the big dogs, here. If I was you, I'd have disappeared into the sunset long ago and never looked back."

"I'm not you," Clarissa informed him, unyielding. "And I sure as hell have no desire to be."

"Bullshit," Wolf spat. He had her. "Take a look around, smell the air. You belong here with the rest of us. You don't need all that official shit weighing you down so you can get nothing more than an 'atta girl' when you go home. You need some proper freedom to remove that stick from your ass. There aren't many years left for the line of work you're in. Might as well spend them in control of your own life." Clarissa seemed to ignore him at first, sipping her gin and staring off into space. Then, without warning, she slammed the glass down and clutched the side of her head.

"Ah shit!" she exclaimed. "Why did you have to go putting those fucking thoughts in my head?!" Wolf smirked while her eyes were averted. She was caught in his trap, now, although he knew what he was saying was the truth. It just took some manipulation and cunning to make her see it.

"I didn't do anything," he told her. "Just made you pay attention to the thoughts that were already there." She looked at him with a blank expression on her face.

"You're an asshole."

"I know."

"You get that you're wasting your time, anyway? Watsup already has his orders and there's not a whole lot I can do to change that."

"Then lead me to the bossman," Wolf told her, the joviality and humorous undertones of the previous conversation's mood fading away as they both became serious. "Me and my people can find the others and put a stop to this. We just need somewhere to start."

"I give you that, and I can kiss them all goodbye. I know your type. You'll wipe them out and leave them to rot."

"We can't do that," he said. He was about to explain why, how killing them raised more problems than it solved, but that was their one advantage over the 216. Revealing this to them would give them the upper hand, arming them with the knowledge that they were basically invincible. The assassin held his tongue for the moment. "We won't. You tell us where to find your people, I promise they'll get out of it alive. We just need to convince them they're fighting a losing battle."

Clarissa turned slightly in the chair to look back at Emery and the others. From his expression and attentiveness, it seemed as though he had actually been listening to them from across the room. That was his talent, after all, spying on others and gathering information. She became flustered, embarrassed.

"It won't be easy," she warned. "Jones is…well, he's a hard man to talk down. I think he did believe in justice, once. But he won't listen to someone like you. And I won't watch my friends die if this turns sour."

"I hear you," Wolf assured her. "Like I said, nobody has to die." Once she was sure she was doing the right thing, Clarissa gave in. There would likely be no happy ending to this, but there were few other options that she could see. If she decided to go against her instinct and double down on her assignment in the city, Wolf and his companions would probably go after the others anyway. Then, they were definitely dead.

"They were supposed to be meeting with some smuggling outfit near Ruang pier this evening to enter negotiations, but Jones went on the attack from the outset. I think they're called Lagoon Company. Supposedly, they were acting on behalf of the city's leaders." Wolf's heart fell into his stomach and he audibly groaned. He should have known they would be involved somehow. There was no time to waste.

"We need to move," he said, whistling at the others to come forward as he and Clarissa rose from their stools. "You two better come along, as well. I can trust you not to shoot any of us in the back?" Emery gave Clarissa a look as if to question whether they were really going along with this, but she placed a hand on his shoulder to assure him it would be alright.

"You have our word," she promised them. "As long as none of our people get hurt, none of yours will, either."