Author's Note: Jason goes all out for proof of Pedro's status as the real boss behind the arms trafficking. It doesn't go exactly as planned.
Descent 5
"Penny-one, this is Robin. You hearing me okay?"
"This is Penny-one, hearing you loud and clear. I take you're at Pier 33 now?"
"That's affirmative. How long I have I got before the GCPD break up the party?"
"Thirty-nine minutes. Do you have visual contact with Harrison yet?"
I whip out my infrared binoculars and scan the dock from my vantage point on a shipping container just behind the pier's perimeter fence. At near enough forty feet above the ground, I spot about twenty heavies and a slack handful of snipers posted on the warehouse roof, but no sign of Harrison. I sigh.
"Negative on that. He must be inside the warehouse. The big guy mentioned a partitioned office area would be inside the warehouse. He's probably there."
"Are they unloading the merchandise?"
"No. The ship's not due to dock for another three hours. It looks like they're not in danger of running out of product anytime soon though. They look to have at least one hundred thousand weapons judging by the packing crates I can see." I relay back to the old man whilst shifting along the top of the container to get a better view of the situation. The heavies guarding the shop floor are sporting full body armour and face protection as well as carrying semi-automatic rifles, all of which look of soviet origin. The snipers also have a soviet-era weaponry, probably Dragunov by the thin barrel profile and general detailing of the rifle. "The guard force is packing some serious hardware as well, all soviet made and all very solid, and reliable weapon systems. Fortunately the sniper guards are looking in every direction but mine. They seem to be expecting trouble from the docking ship and the surrounding area, but not the shipping yard." I add after a long pause between reports.
"Unsurprising since that particular yard is both condemned and inaccessible from road or sea without being seen miles away. It seems you chose wisely for your reconnaissance work."
"The reconnaissance needs to be done now if I'm to get my hands on Harrison before Jim arrives."
"Then it's done, Sir. Please proceed to the interior of the warehouse."
"On route." I say before slipping over the fence and dropping into the dockyard below. I manage to get past the first wave of goons with some seriously risky openings in their patrol patterns before diving into the cover of a truck's shadow. After crawling under the truck's axle, I can see the front of the warehouse and just about make out the sniper positions above it. If I had back-up, three snipers would be no problem, but I don't so I have to be very quick in taking them down. I leave the underside of the truck, sprint to the dark side of the warehouse and then clamber up the side. I'm now directly underneath one sniper's feet but I can't throw him over the side if I want to end tonight outside of a wooden jacket.
I painstakingly shimmy along the edge of the roof until I'm almost a metre past the sniper's position. I toss a pebble from my belt over his shoulder and hear it clatter behind him. When he turns to check out the noise, I spring up, get behind him and then chloroform the hell out of him with a pre-soaked rag from another pouch. He goes lights-out and I strip down his rifle and remove the firing pin before moving swiftly on. I repeat the same distraction trick on the second sniper before just deciding to lamp the last one with the full width of foot across his face. Once they're all down, I restrain and gag them to prevent raising the alarm on me. All firing pins have been bent under foot and I'm in position for dropping into the warehouse. Because there's no ladders on the side of the building, the snipers had to have got roof access by some kind of hatch or skylight. I turn around and find the hatch I'm looking for.
"How long have I got?" I ask heaving the hatch open.
"Twenty-eight minutes."
"I'm entering the warehouse now. Once I've got Harrison to sing, I'll need a really quick and dirty escape route from the dock. Square me one away and I'll love you forever." I tell Al whilst peering down into the warehouse. The coast is clear.
"How can I resist an offer like that? Leave it me."
With that assurance, I drop through the hatch and land on a mental gantry a couple of feet below. It's being manned from both sides, meaning I'm caught in the middle with some very big and very ugly henchman on some serious gear. Chloroform to the rescue! I creep up behind the one closest to me and dose him with the rag whilst praying he doesn't have the flexibility to turn around and clock me before it can take effect. Thankfully he has a midsection made of breezeblock so turning quickly is impossible without his legs. Once he's out, I repeat the routine on the other guy. Their pistols are still holstered, but I take the firing pins out anyway. I've had too many close calls and enough slugs pulled out of my body not to know I'm better off if they can't just pull the trigger on me. I look down into the warehouse. There's at least ten guys milling around with just as much protection and firepower as outside. I spot the office area and see four have congregated right in front of the door.
"Is there another way into the office on the big man's schematic?" I say, flirting with the idea of picking the muscle off one by one to get to Harrison.
"There is access from underneath, however, you don't have enough time to get the required access point before the GCPD arrive on scene."
"How long do I have?"
"Twenty minutes."
"How many guys have you counted so far?"
"Excluding the five you have disabled, I have a body count of thirty-one, including Harrison if we assume he is in the office."
"There's too big a heat concentration at the door to get a proper check on how many signatures there are. He might be in there, but he might not be too."
"Then you must make a choice before it is too late to act in the interest of either option."
Stealth will take too long. I can't go back out to the roof without wasting more time I don't have. We need the information off Harrison to ensure Pedro's role as boss is outed to the world. I have to go big or go home. I have to roll the dice and fight my way through them. It's the only way I'll take Harrison alive at this point.
"Don't panic." I tell Al whilst taking two CS grenades from my back pouches, "I got this."
"The odds of you managing to incapacitate all of them before one can land a successful hit with a weapon is…"
"Unimportant. You don't play the odds. You always play the dealers. If I snuff it, make sure the big man knows it's all his fault." I say launching the grenades to opposite corners of the room. They blanket the space below in a thick cloud of white fog within seconds. As the gunfire begins to erupt around the warehouse, I take a deep breath and then dive into the mayhem below. Reinforcements will be here in a few moments, meaning I have no time to lose.
My respirator's on and three goons are relieved of their weapons within a minute. It takes less than another two minutes for the floor to fill up with bodies and then less than thirty seconds for them to close down space and box me into a grid that measures less than two square metres. With the CS starting to disperse and their protective headwear also seeming to act a gas filter, I have to get brutal. Grabbing a discarded rifle off the floor and praying that their armour can withstand the round calibre, I start squeezing the trigger. Even though moments like this are rare, I'm a marksman across five different weapon categories and always keep my skills sharp at the range. This means I hit every single one of them with a single round to the chest and because of the lack of distance between us, the force knocks them on their asses. Ten are down in the aftermath, but when I barely dodge a bullet from behind intended for my skull, I know I'm still under the cosh.
I hightail it through the warehouse, dodging and ducking a hailstorm of bullets along the way until I can dive behind a thick stack of crates. By my count, there's still at least ten rounds in my rifle. I need to take their firearms away from them to stand a chance in combat. I make a decision to go for their trigger finger hand, wait for a lull in proceedings and then pop up pick off three of them in quick succession. After an interim of more bullets, I spring up again and take a couple more pot shots. If I've got my maths right, that leaves me with sixteen able-bodied opponents to surmount. I launch two of my smoke grenades and then wade into the cloud. Knowing I need more heft to my shots because of their padding, I use the butt of my rifle and drive it into their stomachs to bring them forward before powering it up to catch their exposed chins. By doing this, I take down another three and make sure the five I clipped in the hand are still unable to continue by a stomp to the affected hand or toe-punt into the underside of the groin where the protection ends.
As the smoke clears, I'm down to thirteen. In the chaos I've created I can't be sure if Harrison has slipped out or not, but am banking on him staying put. I retreat to the dark only to count twenty-three guys instead of thirteen. It looks like their body armour is thicker than I thought. Either that or they're doped up to their eyeballs on adrenaline to numb the pain. No matter how you look at this, things have escalated beyond my control.
"You have to extract. Gordon's men will arrive in less than ten minutes."
"Let me breathe." I tell him whilst watching the thugs begin to sweep for me. "I can do this."
I point my rifle to the ceiling and exhaust my remaining ammo to shoot out the lights and flood the room with darkness. I then lob a strobe light from the pouch where my first-aid kit should be to make the warehouse look like a silent rave is taking place. Since the batteries on the strobe will only last a matter of minutes because of its small size, I charge into the fray with knuckle dusters on both hands and get to work. I find the gaps in the armour soon enough, targeting under the armpits to attack the ribs and the underside of the groin and backs of the knees to bring them down to earth. With the knuckle dusters it only takes two solid hits to make sure they stay down. I take a butt or two to the face, but because I'm still wearing my respirator, the damage is minor. Same detail applies for my ribs and Kevlar tunic. Rounds are sprayed off periodically, but none of them are in my general direction. By the time the strobe dies, the only one I can still hear breathing is me. Everything else is quiet.
I'm breathing really hard, like a lot harder than I thought I would be. It turns out taking down thirty-odd guys like this really is a lung burner. My ribs don't appreciate it much either. No part of my body is happy at the minute. But it's holding together okay and still not an excuse to stop. I need Harrison to talk.
"How…long?" I manage to say between huge breaths. I can hear the faint wail of sirens begin to drown out the background noise. Al sighs over the radio.
"Less than three minutes."
"Okay…I got this." I say whilst heading for the office door. It's already ajar and I'm guessing Harrison is barricaded behind his desk with a pistol pointed at the doorway, ready to blow my head off. I toss a flash bang through the crack in the door and wait. A bang accompanied by a girlish scream of surprise, tells me I'm on the money with my prediction. I barge through the door, knock the gun out of Harrison's fat hand and then crush his left kneecap with a vicious stomp to the side of the bone. He screams as loud as any man I've ever heard, but I shut him right up by grabbing the discarded pistol and pressing it to his temple. I pray he doesn't call my bluff on this.
"Let's have a confession. Frank Halsee isn't your boss, is he? Danny Pedro is your boss. Pedro's always been in charge down here. Isn't that so?" When Harrison doesn't muster a verbal reply, I pull back the hammer to show I'm serious. "Either admit it or I'll splatter your brains all over the wall there. You've got five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One…"
"Yeah, he's my boss. So what?" Harrison finally says. He's suddenly very cool. I don't like it. I'm pissed off, tired and time is still ticking away. So I try to press him with what I bothered to read in the intelligence report. I adopt a dark smile and throw the pistol so I'm not tempted.
"I want to take him down. I want you to help me or else Jim Gordon is going to make sure you go straight back to Blackgate's general population. You remember last time, right? How much fun you had with the sisters?" I know he was raped in Blackgate. Bruce called it 'grievous sexual assault' in the report, but I know he was raped. And because I know what that feels like, I know he doesn't want it to happen again. In his shape, he wouldn't last long. His eyes widen.
"You wouldn't dare…" He begins before I slap him to stop the bullshit. I'm getting desperate now. Just talk, you fat fuck. Just talk…
"Less denials, more evidence. Give me proof Danny Pedro is the real boss right this second or I give Gordon the green light to feed your fat ass to your favourite fairies." When he fails to respond in the single second window I graciously gave him, I dig my heel into his already shattered knee to get a high-pitched scream, but not the evidence I need.
"Sir, the GCPD has arrived at the warehouse, they should be with you momentarily. I suggest you wrap up proceedings." Al hints to basically say I should leave now. I sigh and close my eyes as the inevitability of failure begins to loom large. I step off his knee.
"Got my exit?"
"There's a rear door you can force that should lead back to your bike location by heading forward through the fencing. It is approximately four hundred metres North-West from your current position."
"Got it." I turn to Harrison, who's managed to stop screaming like a girl, and nod. "Fine. Enjoy being fucked every night, you dumbass." I spit on him to make myself feel better and then begin to head for the escape route. Something on the floor catches my attention. I pick up a brown folder and leaf through it. In the bad lighting it's hard to tell what it says, but it's worth a shot at this point. Anything is now. I should stay for Jim, but I'm too mad to talk right now. So I leave.
That was bad…