When they arrived back at the Safehouse, everyone was there to welcome them back with open arms, though it was partly because of the cargo they had just transported. It was a bright new day to discuss the new schedule to come, so it was the best time to set some things straight. Particularly the future living state with the she-Cloaker.
The gate opened with Wolf at the edge. As the van coasted as before into the garage, Wolf handled the gate with relatively less vigor than before to lock it. His lack of nervousness was confirmed by Hoxton when he stepped out to see the guy. As the rest of the crew disembarked and turned their heads to him, Hoxton watched Wolf lock the gate, his hands noticeably slower and curled as if he were handling one of his tripmines.
"So hey. You alright?"
Wolf shrugged. If he was really disturbed, he wasn't showing it.
"I'm just fine Hox."
Hoxton smiled and walked back inside while the rest of the crew pulled up the cargo. Rust was there with a cart to pick up and move the bandaged girl, and after Dallas and Houston gruffly placed the woman on it, said cart was shuffled into the center of attention given by everyone.
The new arrival struggled against the new leather straps before the stone-faced group, soon giving up. She aced her ROTC Marksmanship score, survived the TUC course with flying colors, and completed her 6th year of service for the GenSec MPD. Now she was assaulted, interrogated, and now held captive by the Payday Gang. Not to mention also "hospitalized".
They all wore their appropriate suits and ties, with the exception of 3 wearing a black jacket, an orange flower shirt, and a dreadfully familiar blazer jacket. One of them took a sour look at her and proceeded to walk out of her vision somewhere else.
Just before the group of international robbers could start their meeting, Wolf had placed the laptop to face everyone and its appropriate cables to connect itself to a speaker. Said speaker was carried by Sokol and set onto the center table of the living room. The heisters exchanged small glances of interest on their new guest before switching to the loading screen of the laptop.
Wolf had sat down on his seat softly when the connected speaker finally crackled with ambient static from Bain's end. As usual, Bain's forwarding was preceded by a shuffling of papers before he cleared his voice. The laptop's monitor screen switched on, revealing the darkly obscured figure of Bain. Only the whirr of the upstairs refrigerator and various tapping feet was heard as Bain shifted his papers to read the events for the month.
"Welcome back guys. Now that…everyone's here, I should say that last night I had a package delivered containing all of what you asked for…which Wolf should have picked up."
"It's on the desk upstairs."
"Okay…good then...In that box should also be your new home addresses until I give you new ones again. Sokol and Jimmy will have to share the same address this time."
"Хорошо."
"Gotchya!"
The two regarded each other genially before Chains spoke.
"Hey Bain? What about my postcards?"
"Right I got only one through US customs. The other three have not apparently arrived."
"…Shit."
"It'll take about 2 or 3 weeks before they get to Sweden. Otherwise, it's best you starting sending postcards with less information connecting to our heists. Nosey bastards can't get enough of your relationship as it is."
"Heh. Yeah."
The She-Cloaker muffled a cough from behind her bandages, unintentionally drawing attention to herself in the room. The group flinched inwardly as they recalled the presence of their captive. On the monitor, Bain's sudden stillness seemed to show that the screen was frozen, but the illusion was broken when he shifted to his left and grabbed another paper.
"Hmm…Yes-This is the file of our guest here. Quite little security with the Captain's younger sister."
The heisters took a long look at their guest with nearly the same expressions they had seeing the Captain for the first time in person, but not as austere and more amused. Bonnie and Jacket exchanged pleasantly surprised looks with each other before staring back. Dallas, unsurprised, could see that out of all of them, Wolf's eyes were the biggest. The guest herself was suspended with disbelief and wordlessness (as far as her bandaged face could speak).
"I finally found it after cracking down on some servers that I…found. But looking at this file, her full name is Sarah Neville Winters. Served in the Marine Corps for 4 years…additional military police credit…This and that award…strengths and weaknesses…applied and accepted…recommended by Captain Winters himself...wow. I didn't expect that…Favoritism from Winters, or you're really that good at what you do."
Bain took something from his left and drank. Dallas smirked a little when he put down the drink and addressed the woman.
"Ms. Sarah Winters. You really are one special cookie to get here. We won't hold you in high regards, but we won't treat you lightly either, so you'll have to get comfy for as long as we need you, and it might not even be long."
Sarah fidgeted her hands in her restraints. Clover quickly looked around as soon as she saw her try to remove herself, but Dallas stopped her from moving further.
"No need to write what you want Ms. Winters. I already know what you want to tell me. So no, you can't ask to go back out to the public because we need you to tell us something useful about your gear. Everything about it."
The She-Cloaker craned her neck in private confusion before defiantly straightening it out, saying nothing. Bain's silence seemed unsatisfied as well. Dallas sat up, taking the initiative and spoke to the woman to suggest his own ideas.
"Miss…Sarah. Didn't I already tell you this...You see, you probably already have a couple dozen ideas on how you plan to arrest us, but at least hear us out on this. You're not under any police supervision. No commander, sergeant, lieutenant, or even Cap'n Winters to watch you. Just us."
Sarah seemed to be unfazed, even by how the rest of the crew seemed to edge on immediate coercion. She was steeling her resolve however, to stand the menacing look of the manic looking guy from the couch. His open eyes and puffed up chest seemed to be meant to intimidate her, like some mobster on his wit's end.
"We already have a reputation that we don't mind having, so whatever happens to you is gonna land on us. It's just us watching over you, so anything you say or do won't be held against you, like what you guys tell us at the pound. If anything's gonna happen, it's not going to be your fault. So…if something, say, that you wanted to have were to end up here in our Safehouse without any explanation, it would be because one of us or even Bain took it, stole it, or bought it, right?"
Dallas leaned in from Sarah's left and took her chin in his hands. She was definitely weak in the neck. He smiled a little for diplomatic negotiation.
"Do you understand us? Or do we have to get Jacket or Bonnie again?"
Bonnie set down her beer and Jacket cracked his head to look at Dallas and the restrained enforcer, supposedly a decision already expected. Before differences were settled, Bain reinserted himself.
"Just work with us Ms. Winters. Even if your responsibilities say that you oppose our activities, we will at least guarantee your health."
Sarah recoiled away from the laptop but her eyes softened, supposedly recalling the most recent events. Bain set down the paper and edged towards her, his hands disappearing into his silhouette. Dallas set himself down on the couch, before noticing Wolf's still wide eyes and strangely upright body. Wolf then suddenly shut his eyes; his burning, burning eyes. The rest of the gang seemed to ignore his continuing attempts to keep staring at Sarah, but Dallas didn't.
"Jesus Wolf, if you keep staring like that you'll just end up red."
Wolf stared at Dallas, before rubbing his eyes and resting back on the couch. He grunted in fading pain as his eyes recovered. Bain's voice soon came up.
"-this is due to your relation and value to the Washington police…so we will treat you with a greater level of respect as a hostage. You are our bargaining chip if this goes to hell, but don't let that get to you."
Sarah blinked for a second, before slowly nodding in affirmation. Bain, satisfied with the response, started to reorganize the papers he had to somewhere else beyond the screen, only stopping to look at another screen. He stopped to read and then looked back at the crew.
"Okay then. I made a schedule to look over…watch over the Safehouse with the guest here. It will be in daily shifts, and today it will be Dragan, Houston, and Sydney. The rest of you are free to do whatever you want. Remember our secrecy, code, and what not. "
"Violence is not our motive but our method?", stated Houston.
"That's close. Behave yourselves for a bit while I reorganize ourfavors for your next hit."
As routine, the rest of the gang started to get up from the monthly meeting while Wolf and Sokol disassemble the whole electronic setup. Wolf disconnected the aux cord and selected the power icon on the screen, before he heard Bain through the monitor speakers.
"Hey Wolf. Can you move out of the way? I'd like to see how the Safehouse looks now."
"Ouh! Sure!"
Wolf obliged and shifted himself out of the laptop camera's view. He watched as Bain's figure seemed to arch forward out of the shadow and observe his monitors very closely. Then there was a flash of white on the screen.
"What?"
Bain's image appeared back.
"Uh. What Wolf?"
Bain's image disappeared again, replaced with a blue screen.
"I can still hear you…? Bad connection?"
Sokol approached and banged the monitor with his hand to make the blue screen disappear.
"Jeez. You should-"
The blue screen appeared again, flashing and fading with greater speed. Sokol glared at the electric blinking and paced himself for a well-thought out solution other than banging on the keyboard.
"Piss också!"
"I think I know what problem is. Wait Wolfie, I will get the tool box for this."
Sokol dashed to Chain's workshop for the miscellaneous while Wolf pulled a small screwdriver from an interior pocket and set out to start to disassemble the monitor.
Sarah paced herself in the chair as they worked. It was going to be a long time before she would break. But she was used to that, having to deal with people who didn't share your view of things and be patient about it. One reason among others as to why she took this line of work. Temporarily, she forgot about the aching in her forearms.
She braced herself against her restraints before falling back into the seat. What would Zee and Barry think? What would dad do? Probably yell and bite and squirm, or anything to get attention outside. Trick one of the guys into releasing her. Anything to get out, but that sounded crazy. She was not in any position to get out, so what she was thinking a few hours before, that she could 'finally bring them what they asked for'?
Even if panicky guy's distraction at his employer's device was usable as a way for the gang to be completely disrupted, she didn't have that much drool or strength to spit on the laptop. Her death wasn't likely to happen, but was it worth it? Just to be brought to such great torture and near starvation? No. It was worth it, because she already dedicated herself to the law and bringing justice when it couldn't be given. She had to wait it out.
The malfunctioning laptop seemed to beep positively in this thought of Sarah's. She oriented her head, taking the imaginary hint that she was thinking in the right direction. She looked at the laptop screen as she raised her head, and she did realize it was a hint that she was thinking in the right direction. A hint from someone else on the other end.
HEY. HEY.
The laptop's blue screen was writing white blocky letters, seemingly commanding her attention. A crude message possibly made in the software's art application, but still effective at delivering the 'assuring' hint. Sarah's vision centered on the monitor, her interest and confidence in escaping magnified tenfold. It was jarring and improbable that someone was being this discreet to speak to her at this time of uncertainty.
YOU ARE SAFE SARAH WORK WITH THE PAYDAY GANG YOU WILL NOT DIE BUT YOU CAN BE HARMED YOU MUST REMAIN HIDDEN AS W
The panicky man snapped off a part from the back of the monitor and the screen turned off the rest of the blue message. The Russian man from earlier came and laid out a blanket of tools and replacement parts for the laptop, giving the disruptive experience Sarah just experienced a small glance before turning away. The men muttered to each other as they exchanged metal pieces to fix the laptop, mocking much to Sarah's inability to do anything else.
Sarah took the hint pretty well that someone was watching for and urging her to stay fucking complacent with this. Still, it didn't make sense at all. Was this from the outside or the inside as a trick? How did anyone get close to her? It pointed to the Payday Gang's employer, but it was highly unlikely their interactions had sympathetic motives. This just had to be convoluted somehow for her to not know. She was surprised that even Baingot her name wrong, so was it really her position in the agency that was purposely keeping her real name from even the police dossiers?
Bain was reportedly able to find/steal information that even the police could not find, so who was the person who kept her real name from being said? Only her father and others of similar clearance could know it was mislabeled in the agency dossier...which pointed to another improbable and jarring reality. Someone from the agency was actually contacting her.
Sarah closed her eyes in exacted exhaustion, not intending to see more plays on her safety, but going forward with a tactical dismissal of one of the senses. She could hear wood and metal slamming on some table above, probably caused by one of the careless criminals upstairs. Apparently she could bide her time for a weakness, a misstep, or a way out from her captors, but maybe she was just listening to a ruckus.
"Sydney!"
Sarah's attention perked up to a distant voice. It sounded like a hollow note from a sousaphone.
"Eh' yeah?"
"You wanted to learn how to cook, right? Now is a good time."
It was a Friday when it happened. Daniel Scarborough donned a white shirt (crumbs from early breakfast toast dotted it) under his coat and a tan set of pants with black boots forced into for possible contact. Begrudgingly, the Payday gang picked a very bad time and place for the MPD to be reach; so much so that they only mobilized 15 men to the site.
The Magellan Facility was the first high-end technology research institute in DC to be raided by an extremely resilient and malicious group, which attracted investigators (the nut teams this time) from all over the country. Even with the evening rain, so much blood and bullet casings stained the concrete and gutters, it was even a wonder if there would be anything worth salvaging as critical evidence from the area. It wouldn't even be wrong to wish that there was another downpour to lighten the load.
Still, without Mother Nature herself deciding to help out, numerous forensic specialists and other crime scene groomers had taken upon themselves to makes sense of what happened here. A dozen or so bodies were found strewn around the stairs, their guns in hand or out of reach at the moment of their death. Others were being lugged outside in labeled body bags from behind the facility's doors, where they would be delivered to the morgue for later autopsy and death warrant confirmation.
A man tapped on his shoulder, forcing Scarborough to rotate his weary self once more to face another mystery of the crime. It was Carlins, one of the newly tasked investigators he saw from briefing, alongside a trio of equally fresh faces; a sun-kissed man with brown spats and overcoat came first, followed on his right a lightly tanned brown woman shaded by her sunglasses and white floppy hat, followed on her right a pale white cop in a cap, packing an antenna on his back that connected to some chest hoisted laptop he was manning.
"Good morning Carlins sir.", the weary lieutenant addressed with a soft salute, which was waved off by an a quickly exasperated Carlins and genially reciprocated by the trio.
"At ease. At Ease. Scarborough, you know you don't have to salute me."
"…oh. Sorry, I was woken up at the wrong time. Must be not enough breakfast."
Daniel cupped a yawn in front of the investigators as a testament. Behind him, he could hear the others yawning as they did their work. Carlins pinched the bridge of his nose at the sight of this.
"Goddamn. The Payday Gang was able to catch us with our pants down. Again. The entire police force is doubling down on crime the wrong way, and now you're just yawning and doing sloppy because of that."
Daniel licked his lips in tiredness. He hadn't drank anything since he was woken at 5, but Carlins certainly had an espresso shot. The other three from the meeting also looked alert. Good for them.
"At least it's cool now. We already finished pre-investigation procedures when you weren't here."
Carlins seemed to release stress from his nose when he heard this. Or it really was that cold this time in the fall.
"Okay. At least you can debrief what you know for the rest of us. We're ready when you're ready."
"Always have been."
A look on the people that followed Carlins showed their equally shared readiness, if not displaying an eagerness to sniff out crime in spite of the condition. Speaking of conditions, the woman in the group looked ready for a sunny day. It was a little misplaced.
"You don't really seem fit for this weather, do you Miss. Mullick?"
"Yeah, I guess it must have shifted faster than I could have dressed."
The woman removed her sunglasses, surveying the scene with growing grimness.
"This was the…Payday Gang? I had never thought I would see this much blood since my time from home."
The woman looked and quickly made her way to a body outline on the stairs, where she instantly got on her knees and deftly traced her eyes around the figure, her analysis ignoring the outstretched hand of the lieutenant. The cop took back his hand and looked in slight bewilderment of the woman to the other gentlemen, Carlins and the pale man offering little reaction, and the overcoat an apology in his eyes.
"Forgive her Lieutenant, she gets like this when she sees chalk lines, but it's how she gets her info in."
"Heh," stated Carlins,"she's like Death's bloodhound for that behavior of hers."
The woman held up her head and a bullet casing in intrigue.
"I heard that, and I don't think that's very flattering. But get over here Buggy. Identify this casing's caliber."
"Coming."
The man with the backpack came from Daniel's left, before squatting himself next to Miss Mullick with his laptop open. Daniel then looked to the man in the overcoat, Shane Weber, approaching with notebook and pencil in hand.
"Alright Scarborough, tell us what you know so far. Oh, and sorry for the late arrival."
"It's fine, you were only 20 minutes at most sir. Follow me up the grass."
Daniel, Carlins and Shane treaded carefully over the scene, avoiding dirtying the excessive evidence on the stairs. Daniel took heavy steps while Carlins and Shane on his right took light steps to not completely disturb the ground.
"So first off…the facility only had a few things stolen. Some hazardous materials from restricted sections, a few hard-drives in a server and possibly some heavy machinery."
Weber looked up from his notebook as he was studiously writing.
"Okay…That seems off from their reported MO. Don't they go for gold or money? Or was it something else?"
"I don't know. The security footage looking over the place didn't show much, so we don't know how they breached. GenSec has provided some audio from the security guards' radios, but they're still working on "corrupted" security video. We have identified a few shoeprints here and there, but that probably won't help since the gang switches shoes every time we find them."
"Did the audio files say something about what they were doing?"
"No. It's a little messy, but they sound like the guys the Gang sent we should know from experience. The GenSec operator said he didn't know that it was them, so he thought everything was fine until an alarm was set off in the IT center."
"Bullshit. GenSec should already have audio profiles of the gang members that operators can identify guards with."
"I know Weber, but GenSec just keeps saying their speaker verification software gets tampered with when the Gang comes in. This happened in the last 15 or so robberies where their security and the Gang are involved."
"Okay then…Bain again."
Daniel and Carlins nodded numbly at the mention.
"Let me guess, it was around 4:30 when it went to hell."
"…Eh' yeah. Around that time. The MPD officer at the time of the Gang's escape, Sergeant Colskin, said he saw the escape vehicle stuck at the facility's entrance over there."
There at the entrance of the facility, Daniel pointed out a 1 by 2 meter hole in the reinforced metal gate at the top of the stairs. They made their way to the hole, where they could see the scratches and tire streaks. Carlins snapped on a blue glove and stepped down to pick up a singed GenSec pass card behind the breached door.
"Then the vehicle drove out and went down to the street and passed the automated road blocks to the next before they could go up. He thought he couldn't pursue until he saw one of the intruders run out from the entrance and kill 5 guys on the stairs."
Carlins put down the pass card and saw the inside of the facility. Two corpsmen were carrying a body bag to another entrance. 2 more body outlines were found on the white floor, not so pristine with the dead men that were supposedly killed at those exact spots. He was to tempted to spit at the fact there was crime scene scrubber work this good in the Gang only dog squads were able to sniff out.
"Looks like they could have used this card to get out and keep the door open, but the alarm must have made them get out loud."
"Probably sir."
"They could left that person back here, but I'm told he still managed to escape."
"That's what they do Weber. Never leave one of their own behind. Usually."
"Yeah, they sure don't. But after the intruder shot down the men and ran with a bag attached to his back, Colskin called another group to shoot at him as he was escaping. There at the public stairs thing that goes to the next street."
Daniel pointed at the gap between the buildings surrounding the Magellan Facility. Carlins and Weber could see this man bounding over the rail and disappearing. But only a madman could run 250 meters with heavy stolen goods and bound over obstacles like it was nothing.
"Colskin says he was only able to see the escape vehicle leave with body armor and weaponry left on the ground. The armor was pretty damn ruined enough that a solid slug could break through."
It really was a madman. Perhaps someone familiar.
"Did the sergeant mention what mask the man was wearing?"
"…uh, yeah. He said he saw a mask with a red mouth and black eyes. Scary as fuck."
"…Wolf. That was Wolf."
Carlins watched Daniel pale over. Never in a morning could you see a man be so awestruck and fearful of another man he only heard of through other fearful men. Wolf, as a name, could only magnify to monstrous heights in the precedence of crime and horror as time passed. As long as he stayed with the Payday Gang of course.
"…shit."
"It's been a while since he got back in the heat of action."
"So he must have been rusty."
"I don't know about that. He still killed 5 men."
"While they were distracted by the vehicle."
"Of course, but he still has this…craziness, that makes him do all of that."
"I'd have to agree. It would be tactically inappropriate to have armor in a quick and quiet robbery."
It was an odd thing to note in a criminal world of efficiency and expertise. But it was about to get odder.
"Hey. Shane. Bloodhound says she's confused about the casing she found on the street."
Daniel, Carlins and Weber turned to face the man with the backpack antenna. His eyes seemed to switch between his screen and the people he was talking to.
"What do you mean Arlington? And don't use that name, she doesn't like it."
"I like it, so it doesn't matter. But she says that casing doesn't look like one you would find fired by any normal civilian or policeman."
Carlins' eyebrow twitched in supposedly expected intrigue. Daniel soon forgot some of his fear and put one of his hands on his hip. Weber however stopped writing.
"What are you talking about? It's probably one of the casings that the Payday Gang uses. They've used weirder rounds ever since they started working with that limp walker Gage and that gun runner from Croatia."
"Ditto."
"I mean, arrows and sharp cards that can pierce our armor? What's next? Pencils?"
"I know, right? But the casing she found matched several different types of rounds guys in the Special Service use. She thinks it's spooky that rounds like that are here in this scene that she doesn't know what to see. Her words: I don't know if this is the perp or this is one of our guys. So maybe you have to come over there."
Mullick waved them over from the gap that was pointed out earlier. The eeriness of the casing was more evident once the group collected over where it was found. Just under the public stairs that Wolf could have bounded over and turned to run to his escape.
"I don't know where the discharged round is, but you can probably guess someone fired a round here. Bloodhound said that maybe a bad guy was here, and that person shot it to put them down."
"Yeah, I've seen enough scenes to know the amateur and professional shooter, and there was probably a sneaky shooter here. Buggy also used his foot spray to mark some footprints on the road, even though you could tell through the mud here."
Mullick pointed to foot-shaped prints outlined by mud that gradually disappeared over a long running distance. Weber and Daniel looked on, but Carlins looked open to debate.
"Yes…I sprayed some of the footprint spray to find plastic or leather residue of all the recent footsteps taken on the road, and I could only find 1 particular set of prints that seemed to lead from the stairs to the road. They were in the mud prints."
Weber seemed to glow when he came to a quick assumption. An assumption that could lead to so much more.
"And you're saying that…because the person who was running the set could have fired that special round."
"But Colskin said nothing about more rounds shot when the intruder bounded over the rail."
"You're right Scarbo, but did Wolf have a weapon at the time that could use rounds like this and not make a sound?"
"We found 6 pieces of armor, a Heather submachine gun, and a M308 with…oh that is off."
"You see? This means other members of the Gang may have access to the Special Service rounds, or…"
Here, Weber squatted down behind the stairs and looked over beyond the corner, seeing where the muddy footprints ran to a speeding escape vehicle.
"….someone from the Special Service actually came at the right moment and right place."
"Oh…holy…SHIT. Maybe one of our guys was able to touch one of the Payday Gang guys! Then it means-"
"Highly unlikely Bloodhound. Even the Special Service fail at capturing or neutralizing the Payday Gang as reports say."
"Come on Buggy! We can actually have hope that we can pin down these bastards, because one guy managed to get this close to their escape vehicle! And…!"
"Woah! What you're saying means a lot, and it can't obviously be the case. The force can't have allowed one special agent or officer to step in this scene in sudden mobilization. I know for a fact that the Special Service are authorized to deploy only after MPD makes contact with the Payday Gang for at least 3 minutes. "
"Hey, never doubt what we can do Carlins."
A moment passed before Carlins pulled back his hair. He took a deep breath and nodded. He started off slowly with some ideas.
"…Maybe I can check the armory for any used ammunition and weaponry accessible to the special service. I'll also look through enlistment papers and garrisons for anybody that participated in this. But I highly doubt that anyone from here is able to get close to those guys without ending up dead."
"I highly doubt that this crime scene was fully investigated, so Bloodhound and I will look around more the street to see if other things were dropped."
"Yea...sure Buggy. Maybe there could be guns that we haven't seen yet over there."
"Will you ever stop calling me Buggy? It's a bad nickname."
"Then when you will stop calling me Bloodhound?"
"Oh, when will I stop? I think you'll find-"
Weber waved Arlington and Mullick off as they bickered off in the direction of the empty road. He looked back to his notebook, noticing much of the empty space that had to be filled later.
"Okay, you'll stick with me Scarbo. There has to be more that I have to see with you to make sense of what was stolen."
Daniel admitted to himself that he should never get used to the blood in crime, but he felt he was committing sacrilege at this moment in time. He would be sure to forget it after a nap later in the day.
"Alright sir," he said before following Weber back into the darkness of the facility with energy in his step.
As Daniel and Weber walked up the steps, Carlins looked at the muddy prints that were left behind. If they came to right conclusion, things would go to bigger shit. Somehow he had to redirect attention from that, and keep his ass safe from them.
"…fuck."
