(A/N; Hey there! Once again, sorry if this chapter isn't as good as the others. I had to rush to get it done, since I've been busy at home)
Sly Cooper: Armed and Dangerous
Paris, France
4:46 pm
Shuker glared, once again, at the beaver standing in front of him, this time sporting a still bleeding bullet wound in his shoulder, a look of disappointment on every inch of the rat's face. He'd just heard of Marty's interference and the failure of Caroline's assassination.
He slowly reached under the desk, then quickly pulled out his modified Uzi, sending a spray of lead in the beaver's direction. The man crumpled, falling backwards against the door. Shuker didn't even care, he just simply threw the gun onto his desk, then sat down and began pondering.
What was the McCoy Gang doing here? Last he'd heard, they'd blown up a warehouse in Germany. The boss wasn't going to be happy about this…
He was about to begin formulating a new plan when his second-in-command, a wide-eyed lemur named Francois,(pronounced Fran-swa, for those of you who don't know) came in slowly, holding a cell phone in one hand. It was obvious that he'd just gotten off the phone, and even more obvious that it was bad news, since the look on his face said he was absolutely dreading telling Shuker.
The rat looked up and, seeing the lemur, sighed and asked "What NOW, Francois?"
The lemur swallowed, then replied "Um, w-well, monsieur, um, it seems that-"
"Spit it OUT ALREADY!" Shuker snarled, making Francois jump a foot in the air, then yelping "All the rackets in Paris have been taken out, sir! Including the weapons dealer and the explosives cache, which were both destroyed!"
Shuker froze, a look of pain frozen on his face. That didn't last long, however, for he knew exactly who had done it, and why.
"McCoy's in town!" he hissed, leaping up, grabbing the Uzi, and running around collecting important things. "He's got to be looking for me! We need to get out of here, before-"
An explosion, plus several shouted voices and cries of pain, followed by gunfire, cut him off, coming from the compound outside the warehouse. Another explosion followed it, and Shuker swore again, grabbing a sawn-off and throwing it to Francois, shouting "I want them held off at all costs! No matter the sacrifice, no matter how much ammo you use, do it! I'm out of here, before McCoy can put a bullet in my skull!"
Francois nodded, turning and running out of the office, into the main room of the warehouse, while Shuker opened a door leading to the loading yard. Closing it, he rushed down the hall, only to hear more gunfire from behind him, in the room Francois had just run into.
McCoy worked fast.
The rat finally made it to the large door leading to the loading yard, taking the small one beside it and closing it behind him, shoving a large crate in front of it. He made it halfway to his car when the large door exploded, the force knocking him down to the ground. He managed to get up again, Uzi at the ready, when a magnum shot tore through the chaos, knocking it out of his hands. He was about to go for the snub-nosed revolver in his belt when he realized that he was already covered and froze.
A figure emerged from the flames that had come up in and outside of the warehouse. As it came into view, Shuker reeled back as if physically slapped. The figure was a tall, muscle bound horse with orange fur, wearing faded, worn out jeans, a wool-lined leather jacket over a muscle shirt, steel toed work boots, and a brown peasant's cap. His mane, which had obviously been cut down to a shorter size, was standing up, stiff, like a Mohawk. In the horse's hand was a Desert Eagle. In the other was a gun he recognized; Don McCoy's Tommy gun, held by the area between the magazine and the front handgrip.
Shuker's eyes were wide, since he was apparently faced with the ghost of Don McCoy himself.
Or so it seemed.
Then, the horse stopped and spoke, and his accent definantly wasn't Scottish.
"Hanz Shuker. It's been a long time. Eight years I believe."
Shuker stammered, spluttering "I d-don't even remember us m-meeting. I b-believe you may have the wrong man. P-perhaps you are looking for my brother?"
This man didn't seem like a cop, and Shuker's confidence was steadily starting to rise again. That is, until he heard the horse's next words. Then, it dropped like a stone.
"Oh, we never met. But you and my parents sure did."
Shuker was right on the verge of panicking, and that only increased as the horse cocked the magnum handgun in his hand, pointing it right at the rat's head.
"Now listen up, bastard; I'm going to give you more of a chance than you gave my parents."
Throwing aside the Tommy gun, McCoy eased the Desert Eagle off-cock, and then holstered the pistol. His next words put more fear into Shuker than he'd ever heard in his life;
"Draw, you goddamn son of a bitch."
3 hour, 45 minutes before
Across Town
Marty stepped into the safe house, covered in sweat and dust from his recent job. The rest of the gang, minus Julio and Bentley were all going about their business. Penelope was typing on a computer, Guru and Murray were in the kitchen, with Murray fixing a sandwich the size of the koala next to him, Dimitri and Mikhail were sitting on the couch, watching Notre Dame play some Irish football team, Mikhail looking extremely bored, as usual, and Sly and Carmelita were…Marty grimaced inwardly as he caught a glimpse of them through a crack in the door to the bedroom. Let's just leave it at that.
Marty quickly shook his head in an attempt to dispel the image, heading for the stairs to the lab and McCoy Gang quarters. As his hand touched the doorknob, however, he received a shock as he heard Caroline's voice, but even more surprised when he heard Bentley and Julio talking to her. He pressed his ear against the door, quietly, to hear what they were saying, and managed to catch a snatch of the conversation.
"And boys, let me tell you, the service on that ship is to die for! The food was fantastic, the crew all polite, and the view was even more beautiful than I had imagined! Barcelona from the sea…Ooooh, it was so breathtaking."
Marty rolled his eyes, standing up. He knew what these two were up to; it was an interrogation gone off track. Silently, he pulled out his key and even more silently, slid it into the lock.
Caroline had to say that Bentley and Julio could both put on the tough act. They had played good cop, bad cop, with Bentley as the good cop, asking her the reasonable questions, and Julio as the bad cop, snarling his suspicions and shaking the gun barrel whenever he didn't like what she said. The questions had started out simple and reasonable enough;
"What's your age?"
"Twenty-one. My birthday will be coming up in about two months or so."
"What kind of car do you drive?"
"A beat up old jeep. It's parked not too far away. Why?"
"We're going to move it out of sight so we can get suspicions off of us, and so you can have a ride outta here."
Eventually, however, one question popped up that was not only confusing, it also scared the hell out of her.
"Where are you going to go after this?"
Caroline looked to Bentley, a curious look on her face. Julio had long ago turned the overhead lights back on, holstered his gun, and put the flashlight away, but he still stood there, glancing at her suspiciously.
"Home, I suppose. Why?" Caroline answered the turtle's question, wondering where he was going with this.
Bentley frowned and said "I'm afraid I can't let you do that. It would be too much for my conscious. Probably give me an ulcer too." He tapped his shell over his stomach area before continuing. "Hanz Shuker wasn't the one who issued the hit on you. He was only following orders. The real person behind the hit is Don Taloreso. We hacked Shuker's e-mail and found the message."
Caroline blinked, surprised. Then, becoming very confused, she said "Well, I should be safe with uncle. I mean, he has command of the Interpol forces in all of Europe."
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, however, she remembered something Marty had said. It played in her mind like a tape recorder doing a playback of an interrogation; He can get anyone in Europe dead like that. She could almost see his fingers snapping. She wouldn't be safe, no matter where she went, no matter who guarded her. The Interpol force was only so many people, and Don Taloreso could hire any mercenary team in the world he wanted.
Bentley, about to respond to her question, noticed that a look of fear and desperation had appeared in her eyes, and realized that she had suddenly understood.
The interrogation broke off from there. Instead, they simply talked about, well, everything.
Adventures, friends, books, music, everything.
She even struck up a conversation with Julio about firearms, which got him into the conversation again. Currently, she was telling them about a police ball she had attended on a cruise liner, just outside of a Spanish city. Or at least, she was, until she saw the door swing open silently on well oiled hinges. Framed in the doorway, a small smile on his face, was Marty. Bentley and Julio hadn't seen him yet, and the horse held a finger to his lips, pointing to the turtle and the wolverine.
Caroline instantly caught on and had to struggle not to smile. She then said, sounding as serious as she could fake, "You know, I'm not so sure about the security about this so-called 'safe house.'"
Bentley looked shocked at this. "Oh really? And just WHY do you think that, hmmm?"
"Cause someone could do this." said the horse from the doorway. Julio and Bentley spun around, the wolverine going for his gun. However, upon seeing his friend standing there, he blinked, then dropped his hand, saying "I never would've expected this of YOU, Marty. The only person I'd less expect than you would be Mikhail."
Marty waved off Julio's words, saying, "C'mon, everyone out. We gotta plan an assault, remember?"
Brushing past the wolverine and turtle to help a slightly surprised Caroline up, saying "Since you'll be staying with us for a while, I think it's only fair that we let you in on what we're doing."
"Says who?" asked Julio and Bentley at the same time.
Marty turned around, a hand on Caroline's shoulder to keep her steady, a look of fury on his face that shut up both objectors. There was silence until Caroline, who was now standing, assumed role of peacekeeper by saying "Why don't we just get moving, alright?"
There was another brief second of silence, and Caroline could tell that sparks would fly between the furry and scaly sacks of brains and dynamite and the hot blooded ("Not to mention altogether hot" said a voice in the back of Caroline's head) stallion over her staying, which still confused the canine herself. Why was Marty so eager to help her to the point that he would let her travel with his gang?
Paris, France
Old Warehouse District
4:39 pm
A shadowy figure dashed across a rooftop, with another not-as-shadowy figure following. Down on the building's fire escape, a third figure that was right in between shadow levels hurried from platform to platform with cat-like agility.
Down on the streets, two other large figures starting shouldering their way through the late crowd, made up of mostly punks coming from a warehouse concert that just got out.
Out in an alley, one more figure in a wheelchair was frantically wheeling himself along, followed by another carrying a long rifle.
About two blocks away, a blue van with a raccoon face and hot rod flames sat in front of a Chinese laundry, whose owner was now opening the back door and jingling some recently acquired, albeit fake, coins he had just received for leaving the back door open.
Inside the van, Penelope was typing away on one of Bentley's computers while Caroline, who had been grudgingly allowed to come, was setting up COMM link radio connections. However, before they'd left, Julio had slipped Penelope a short baseball bat while no one was looking, with the whispered words of "If she tries anything funny, knock her out. If she runs, shoot her in the back."
The mouse was now eyeing the canine with obvious nervousness, her foot connecting with the bat under the desk every time she moved. To take her mind off the metal club, she tasked herself with typing and viewing the blueprints. She could feel the weight of her .45 in its holster on her hip, an ominous sign of things to come.
Finally, she heard in her ear the usual crackle of the COMM link, then Caroline's voice saying "Hello? Testing, this is Home Base, respond." Penelope stole a glance over at the Labrador, who was currently fitting a COMM link earpiece into her own ear, having just used the radio microphone to broadcast the test call. After a few seconds, there came the responses.
"This is Ghost Recon to Home Base, with Shadow, Star, and Grim Reaper present and heading into position, over."
"Yeah, this is Armor Squad to Home Base with Mohawk and Tank here and already in position, over."
"This is Bonzai Squad to Home Base; Wizard and Long Range present and in position, over."
"Christ, why do we have to use these stupid code names anyway? I mean, c'mon, Bonzai Squad? You've gotta be kidding me." Marty's voice filled both the mouse and canine's ears and Penelope heard an audible sigh come from the turtle on one end of the web of connections.
"Well, Mohawk, have you ever considered that this transmission could be intercepted? By either the police or Shuker?"
A brief silence followed this. "No." came the curt, short response.
"Well, now you have our reason. OK, every one in position?"
There came the crackle of transmitted affirmations, then Marty's voice saying "Alright, let's do this, then get outta here."
Currently, Marty was standing across the street from Shuker's compound with Murray. There were three warehouses, and the one at the back was Shuker's main office. Boxes, undoubtedly of guns and ammo, were stacked in the compound, which was surrounded by chain link fencing and guarded at every entrance by gunmen. Pulling off the knee-length overcoats they wore, he and Murray both pulled out their guns and loaded them, preparing for the siege. All they had to do was wait for the signal…
Which came in the form of two gunmen falling over at the entrance right in front of them, one after the other. This did not go unnoticed by the other guards, who immediately began scrambling for cover. Marty was about to dash forward with Murray when something stopped him in his tracks, his hand on the hippo's arm to stop him. What stopped him came in the form of a long, black tube emerging from a crate, held by a duck and being loaded by a frog.
"GET DOWN! BAZOOKA!" he yelled into the COMM link, pulling Murray down a second before, with a loud fwoosh of escaping pressurized air, a rocket zoomed over their heads, streaking down the alley behind them and exploding against a building, making a hole. Marty had swung up the Tommy gun as he went down, and starting peppering the compound with bullets. A few of them hit the bazooka men just as another round was fired straight at the main gate. As you know, chain link is pretty weak, and can only stand so much. A rocket is not one of them. The explosive projectile tore through the metal links and exploded against a car in the street.
"NOW!" Marty yelled, scrambling to his feet and rushing forward, Tommy gun blazing.
Everyone burst from their hiding places, firing into the mass of gunmen that stood in the compound. As they all took cover behind crates, Marty began counting how many they had to face. He finally came up with somewhere over two dozen. Not very good odds. Keeping behind a row of crates, he crept along the wall until he managed to make it to the door. Two ducks were standing there, firing machine guns. Leaping out, Marty pulled the trigger time and time again, knocking them both back.
Looking back at the chaos, he yelled into the COMM link "Clear out the compound and the two warehouses! Shuker's mine!"
Okay, so this wasn't exactly the plan, but it would have to do.
Knocking down the door, Marty rushed down the hallway, throwing open another door to surprisingly find himself faced with an equally surprised lemur, holding a sawn-off. The Frenchman, panicking, swung up the barrel of the gun. Marty never gave him a chance, though. He pulled the trigger, knocking the wide-eyed man aside with a burst of lead, and rushing through another door. He looked around the office briefly, then hurried for a door in the back.
Kicking it open, he found himself in a bloodlust. He was close, so close. He could see the bodies of his parents, both lying in pools of blood, and he could feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins. He was ready to kill without mercy.
That's when he came to the two doors, one large, one small. He tried the small door and, upon finding it blocked, looked around frantically for something else, something that would be his key through. He found it alright, in the form of a bundle of dynamite sitting on a crate. He grabbed it desperately, lighting it with a cigarette lighter Julio had given him for the job, throwing the explosives blindly at the large door. It exploded beautifully, made all the more so by the barrels of gasoline on either side. Marty got up, smiling devilishly, and could just barely see Shuker pulling out his Uzi through the smoke. Marty simply drew his pistol and fired without even aiming, sending the rat's gun reeling. All was deadly quiet, save for the gunfire in the background. Marty could taste blood, but whether real or just his bloodlust working up, he didn't know, didn't care. His eyes narrowed as he stepped through the smoke towards the rat, who took a step or two backwards. Marty knew how much like his father he looked like to make Shuker panic. All the more in his favor.
"Let's have a little fun first," said a voice in the back of his head, and he was only glad to comply.
"Hanz Shuker. It's been a long time. Eight years I believe."
Shuker stammered, spluttering "I d-don't even remember us m-meeting. I b-believe you may have the wrong man. P-perhaps you are looking for my brother?"
Marty grinned inwardly. Yep, this guy was scared as shit. Time to jack it up some.
"Oh, we never met. But you and my parents sure did."
Marty finally came up with a conclusion on how to end this. He was going to make sure that this rat knew that he'd made the mistake of a lifetime when he joined up with Don Taloreso.
"Now listen up, bastard; I'm going to give you more of a chance than you gave my parents."
Throwing aside the Tommy gun, Marty eased the Desert Eagle off-cock, and then holstered the pistol. His eyes narrowed even more as his hand hovered near the pistol grip, his mouth set in a firm line after he issued the challenge;
"Draw, you goddamn son of a bitch."
Shuker shook his head wildly, saying "Nein, no, you're insane!"
"I said draw, dammit!" Marty snarled, his hand hovering closer to his pistol. "Draw, or else I'll gun you down in cold-blood, and that's a promise! One way or another, you're going to die, and it doesn;t really matter to me how."
Shuker, in fear and resignation, jerkily grabbed and drew the revolver from his belt. Marty waited until the gun had slid out of the rat's waistline before he acted. His hand flashed down, his fingers wrapped around the handle, and the gun barrel slid out of the holster and up. Shuker knew he was dead before Marty's hand had touched the gun.
A single shot echoed through the yard, the rat's head jerked backwards in a spray of crimson, and he fell over, his unfired revolver still in his hand.
The Thievius Raccoonus
Entry Number 2,957
Penned by Sly Cooper
After Marty left to go hunt down Shuker, things pretty much went to hell. The resistance we encountered was much heavier than any of us expected, and mercenaries kept pouring out of the warehouses. Eventually, however, Murray got the sense to use our newly acquired rocket launcher, bringing down the roofs of both of the other warehouses. However, there was only one rocket left, and we were still outnumbered. Things looked grim; until Marty came back out that is.
He fired off two blasts from a sawn-off to get the goons attention, then we caught them all in a crossfire as Carmelita picked up a machine gun and moved around to another side. Soon, what was left of Shuker's force that wasn't dead yet gave up, and we just knocked them out, tied them up and left them for the cops.
After that, we left. Just that simple.
The back door to the Chinese laundry was only a precaution in case Interpol showed up, which they did, but we didn't hear the sirens until we were about two blocks away. They really need to work on their timing. When we got back to the van, we dropped off Dimitri at his nightclub so he could recover. No worries, though. Bentley says that by the time we get ready for the Mexico job, he should be ready to rejoin the team.
We're now headed to London, hopefully with a plan this time, instead of doing it, the way Bentley calls it, the 'Redneck Way.' Well, you never know Bent; some rednecks can sometimes be smart.
We're bringing Caroline with us. Why, though, I have no idea. I've heard that Don Taloreso had issued the hit on her, but she'll be safe with Interpol, right? What's going on between her and Marty?