Two Days Later

Gotham City

"Why don't they just fly her to New York?"

"Wha?"

"I said why don't they-"

"I heard what you said. But damn it, Shaun, why would you ask that?"

Sayid looked over his shoulder in the back of the van at Priest and Shaun as they talked, before returning to his own devices.

"Look, I'm just wondering." Said Shaun, "Sayid, what do you think?"

"… Yes, an aerial transport is probably faster and more secure. But it's easy to detect. It's a trade off. It's curious but not suspicious."

"Thank you, that's all I wanted to hear."

There was a knock on the back of the van. Shaun holstered a gun and pushed the door open, exiting to join Mona and O'Brien before closing the door

"Young Shaun is growing up, getting paranoid like a proper spook."

"Do you think its cold feet?"

"Possible. Though he's been raring and ready to let loose same mayhem for months now."

"We should get ready."

"Why are you stopping?"

The river looked to the man sitting next to him in shock and said,

"We just hit somebody, we gotta-"

"We gotta nothing'. We keep going, we're on a priority run; we can't stop for anything. It was probably a vagrant."

"Vagrant? Jesus, man, listen to yourself.." said the driver as he ht the brakes.

"Hey! You stop this car and you're a dead man!"

The truck's velocity decreased dramatically, and a second later the two trucks behind it slowed down as well, and there was a thud on the roof.

"Go! Go!"

The driver hit the gas pedal while the passenger readied a submachine gun.

"Top speed!" barked the passenger, "Convoy Charlie, what did you see?"

"We didn't see anything Convoy Alpha, what's the situation?"

There was a sound of a tap on the window, the passenger looked aside and only glimpsed a small black square near the top before the window imploded.

As the two men were stunned by the hail of spraying shards of glass, something in a copper mask peaked from over the side, grabbing hold of the passenger and pulling him out the window and onto the street outside, before slithering in and driving the driver's head to the side, smashing it into the window three times until it shattered.

The assailant pushed the dead driver aside, then seized the steering wheel and the emergency brakes, then with a swift jerk and a pull sent the truck turning on its side.

That was hell's cue to break loose, the two trucks found themselves blocked by the turned truck and were force to screech to a stop, just as gunfire from the tree line ripped their tired to shreds.

At the front, the man in the mask flicked a switch on the dashboard before exiting and heading to the back, brandishing a pair of knives. The rear door had opened, revealing a group of armed and armored men, turned on their sides and wondering with side was up. The man in the mask went to work with deadly precision, dispensing carnage with the silence of a dream.

Shaun, Mona and Sayid's approach to dealing with the second car was just as effective, but not nearly as gruesome. The two men at the front had died in the hail of gunfire, so Shaun pushed the bodies aside while Mona and Sayid waited and got the drop on the men inside, eliminating all almost before any had a chance to react.

In the third truck, it was Lucy that got behind the switch, but she hesitated to flick it.

"Priest?" she spoke and a response came through her earpiece, saying,

"I'm here. The prisoner isn't."

"Mona?"

"We're alright, mostly."

"What's happened?"

"There was one that managed to squeeze off a few rounds. I caught a slug in my jacket. Sayid got one in the arm. He's okay, though. It didn't even knock him down. Did you find the prisoner? Because she's not here."

"…I haven't started, yet."

"Well go ahead, we don't have all day."

Lucy hung her head, feeling a sense of revulsion as her mind made a sinister beckon, before she flipped the switch.

The doors in the back were opened, the men inside ha recovered from the shock and were ready for a fight they know would be for their lives.

The one man who stood outside was not Priest, it was an entirely other man in a similar mask who also held a pair of long knives.

From where she sat, Lucy could hear the sound of sporadic bursts of gunfire and sound merciless iron cutting through flesh and metal. Lucy waited till Kroenen was over, chanting in a near whimper, "Don't harm the woman, don't harm the woman."

Some way back, behind all the bloodshed and murder, O'Brien lay on the asphalt groaning as Shaun helped him up. He was the vagrant that deliberately put himself in harm's way to enable Priest to take control of the first truck.

"Are you sure you're alright?"

"Having a body that bends took the punch out of it, but I still feel as soar as hell."

The two caught up to the rest quick enough. The other five minutemen were gathered near the third car in wait.

"Well, where is she?" asked Shaun.

"Not here." Said Sayid and winced in pain as Lucy bandaged his arm.

"What do you mean?"

"They were decoys, all three." Said Priest from beneath the mask he wore, which was one of Kroenen's, "The whole convoy was nothing but a decoy. Heh."

"That doesn't make any sense. Where's the prisoner?"

"In a different convoy on another route, or she's in a similar one twenty minutes behind. Who knows, maybe you're right, maybe she is on a helicopter. She could even be in New York already. There's no way of knowing."

"Wait, I got hit by a fucking truck and now I have nothing to show for it?" asked O'Brien.

"Hey, I'm wearing one of Kroenen's masks, you don't even want to know what it smell's like in here, believe you me."

"So what are we going to do?"

"We need to talk to Al-Sheikh." Said Sayid.

"Nothing against Al-Sheikh, but I don't he can shed any light on his matter."

"Then what's your idea, Priest?"

"There's not much we can do, unless you all are up to descending on the Novick building like the collective fist of the angry gods. A convoy like this is bound to have a check-in protocol. We need to get away right now."

"Would it be safe for us to return to Gotham?" asked Lucy.

"Probably, maybe not, but we should be anywhere but here."

"You know what? I'm in favor of us getting out of Gotham." Said O'Brien, "We could hide out in Baltimore, or Metropolis."

"No, we should stay here." Said Shaun.

"We'll decide somewhere away from here." Said Priest, "I'll get the car, who has the keys?"

"Mona has them." Said Sayid as he painfully put his jacket on.

"Mona, honey, keys." Priest said as he walked up to Mona, who was standing by the side of the road looking into the woods as she seemed deep in thought.

"You're right."

"Thanks, for your support. Now fork them over."

Mona turned around to face the group,

"Not about us getting away. I mean you're right about that, but you're right about the other thing."

"What other thing?"

Mona took a pause as if not consider what she was thinking for the last time, before saying with confidence,

"I say we hit the Novick building."

There was a long pause as everybody save for Kroenen and Priest looked among each other.

"I say we hit it, today."

"Mona… Ever since we first met and became a team, I was the impulsive one and you were the one that kept me from getting killed. We're great that way, why do we have to change it now?"

"You must be joking, Mona." Said Sayid, "Have you any idea what you're talking about? The magnitude of what you're suggesting?"

"Yeah," said O'Brien, "I'm not an authority on mental welfare, but that's insane, babe."

"I just saw Kroenen and Priest at their peak taking out a dozen men each with nothing but knives, This is the first time I've witnessed Sayid in action and I was impressed. I've just saw what the British intelligence guys saw when they put together the first League, and what Al-Sheikh saw when he put us together. You're right, Priest, I am the calculating one, and I think we can do it…. They won't see us coming."

There was a distant sound of an eighteen wheeler from a mile or so away, it was then that Mona started running up the road to where their car was parked with the other following her.

The ride had been silent, as each was mulling over what Mona had proposed. Mona had driven back into the city, and they were passing under a bridge at the moment.

"Stop the car." Said Sayid, "We should be facing each other for this."

The car stopped, and everyone save for Kroenen who was tucked in the trunk got out to face each other. Finding himself protected by the bridge's shadow, Priest took the Kroenen mask off.

"I know what I'm asking of you…"

"Do you?" Sayid angrily interrupted, "You're ordering us to do something that's near impossible to be done with weeks of preparation, never mind six hours!"

"I'm not ordering it. I'm saying what I believe we should do."

"And I'm saying the reasons why we should not."

"It's just a building." Said Shaun, "Is it really that impossible?"

"It's a building with security codes, magnetic key cards and modes of security we haven't even heard about before, not to mention that they have what amounts to an army force."

"It's just bricks and glass and metal." Said Shaun, "What if they're not invincible, what if they're as vulnerable as anybody else?"

"Are you ready to put your life on the line to find out?" asked Sayid.

"Yes." Said Shaun, "I'm in."

Sayid sighed, and then spoke softly, "Shaun, I know why you've joined us and-"

"I'm in, too." Said Priest, "That makes it three for, all we need in just one more vote. Eel, come with us and I'll buy you a beer."

"No." said Mona, "We either all agree or it's off."

"Mona," Lucy said, "Even if we manage to do it by some miracle. We'd have to run far and fast, and there's no telling what they could do to stop us, and who could get hurt in the process. This will result in an all-out war."

"War is what the four Captains have been thinking about for some time, now. We've all been dancing towards it for months. There's not going to a peaceful resolution to this. Sooner or later, someone will have to cross the Rubicon."

"Al-Sheikh isn't going to approve of this." Said Sayid.

"Not unless we show up after the fact with the prisoner."

"You're proposing to keep him in the dark?"

"What's a Rubicon?" asked O'Brien.

Lucy walked away, she stood in the sunlight and looked up at the heavens above, as if to invoke something.

"It's a river in Italy." Said Shaun.

"Oh, and what does crossing it mean?" asked O'Brien, "You know what, never mind. Shaun, why…. Are you sure you wanna do this?"

"Yes, Eel, I'm sure."

"Well… Hell, I'll do it. Patrick O'Brien is a crook and a no-good son of a bitch, but he does not keep his friends out in the cold."

"You're all insane." Said Sayid, "Living in this city of men who think they're bats and mass-murdering clowns has gotten to your heads at last."

"I'm also in." said Lucy.

Everybody's eyes turned toward Sayid, who crossed his arms as he fumed with anger.

"Well?" asked Priest.

"The decision is up to you, Sayid." Said Mona, "Is it on or what?"

"Well," said Sayid with a bitter smirk, "I can't be the only one to live on. So I suppose today is the day we die like idiots."

"I guess that's that." Said Priest.

"It certainly is. Now tell me, what our mass suicide going to be like?"

R&R

Next Chapter

Priest dishes the League the mother of all insults.