Here we go into Chapter fifteen. I appreciate each and every one of you who has read and/or reviewed thus far! Anyway, shit's really gonna hit the fan in this chapter so hold onto your seats! If I owned it, I wouldn't need to type this shit! Anyway, R&R! also, text that looks like this is being spoken in a foreign language.
Ch 15: To Russia With Love
It was just after 8 p.m. in the city of Roanapur. As always, the streets were alive with the sights and sounds of criminal activity…or just your basic shady dealings. People were killing, stealing, and hawking stolen shit on the streets just like they always did, but the most questionable activity of the evening was a seemingly harmless one. In the loading docks on the outskirts of town, a team of men all clad in traditional black kimonos had assembled. They were each bearing bladed Japanese weapons of various types as they headed toward an unmarked van near the entrance of the freight yard. They'd been given their marching orders, and now it was time to start a war.
Before entering the vehicle, each man turned and bowed respectfully to some unseen person in the distance. Shinji bore the faintest trace of a smile on his lips and from beside him, Shimi's expression was a more ambivalent one conveying a mix of both pride and deep worry at their decision. Nonetheless, he bowed along with his master to the departing soldiers in a gesture of reciprocated respect and well wishing.
It was several minutes later when the black van pulled up across the street from the side of the Bougainvillea Trading Co. building. Each of the men noted the car belonging to the head of Roanapur's Italian faction situated in front of the building…just the way it was supposed to be.
The sounds of blades scraping against their sayas could be heard as each warrior unsheathed his blade like one piece of a machine. The moonlit glinted off of their blades as they exited the vehicle and silently crept around the corner to dispatch the two unsuspecting Russian guards. They were a wolf pack filled with the bloodlust of the hunt; not to be stopped until their prey was hunted.
Tonight's prey?
All the Russians they could slaughter before being sent to their graves themselves in faithful service to their master.
Less than two minutes later, the faint sound of the chaos inside could be heard from the street. The Russian visotoniki's shouts were mixtures of rage, confusion, and surprise as they began to fire on the squad of swordsmen and scrambled to mount a counter offensive against the intruders on their own turf. There were cries of agony and pained shrieks as limbs were cut off and soldiers were impaled on sharp steel, and occasionally, the sounds of shouted curses in Japanese as high caliber bullets successfully ripped through a target. Still, the battle raged as the remaining yakuza members refused to back down in the face of heavy fire power and the enraged members of Hotel Moscow sought to avenge each and every one of their fallen comrades.
It was finally over after ten minutes of intense combat. The soldiers who hadn't been wounded wasted no time in setting up a triage station to examine and sort out the wounds of those who still lived. The rest all squirmed restlessly in the hallways as some of them clutched at stumps where limbs were cut off and all of them moaned and groaned in concession to various degrees of pain.
On the ground floor, there was a long trail of blood that lead from just out in the corridor back into the main office of Hotel Moscow. The blood smeared all over the office phone on the desk and down the front of the desk where the hand that had reached for the phone lay motionless. The man in the floor knew nothing more of the horror and gore playing out in the hallway like a scene from a Soviet army hospital during the war.
Half the globe away in the big apple, the clock had just recently struck nine a.m. and the Lagoon Company was once again on the move. This time, each of them, plus Balalaika, was seated comfortably in a limo provided begrudgingly by Boss Mikhail Turischeva of the Red Mafia. They were currently on their way to a meeting with Turischeva and the head of the Albanians down in South Beach in the Staten Island Burrough. While Balalaika had chosen to busy herself with some reading, Dutch and Benny enjoyed the sights. Rock, on the other hand, was too concerned for Revy to think about much of anything else.
Since their Impromptu trip to Chinatown the day before, Rock had overall been grateful that Revy had seen fit to share a part of her past with him, but at the same time he felt tortured at the thought of those things. More than that, he was worried about what effect the churned up memories might have on Revy during this meeting if anything should get tense. She was already quick to shoot. It didn't ease his mind much that the gunslinger had been acting even more cold and distant toward him than she had been after the "incident" three weeks earlier.
Soon enough, they had pulled up to a little cabaret theatre on the south end. When the group walked inside, they were met with the sight of a rather unusual performance. The show being performed on stage was a curious mix of burlesque, vaudeville, spaghetti western, and soft core pornography. What had begun with the apparent prostitute offering her thanks to the cowboy by doing a strip tease to the tune of her own off-key rendition of some nineteenth century ditty had quickly progressed into a display of a man in assless chaps dry humping a woman in front of an audience. Dutch and Benny chuckled like immature school boys while Rock looked awkwardly at anything else. Balalaika and Revy both wore the same look of disgust; Balalaika simply turned her nose up at the entire classless display, and Revy was offended by that kind of tarnishing of the cowboy gunslinger image.
The group continued on through to the back of the main room until they reached a doorway next to the stage. They were almost immediately greeted by a tall blonde headed man with blue eyes and a rather large, broad-shouldered build. His demeanor was, if possible, even more stoic than that of Sergeant Borisov's and his face seemed to be permanently fixed into a deep scowl.
The man led them down a short series of twists and turns until they arrived at the office serving as the base of operations for the Red Mafia. Where Balalaika prided herself on maintaining a state of constant order in every aspect of her operations, things seemed to be almost the exact opposite here. Disregarding all other things about it, the peeling paint on the walls and the ratty old furniture were already a stark visual contrast to the pristine condition of the Russian office in Roanapur. On top of all that, Turischeva's reputation as a drug addled hedonist was well evidenced by a scattered assortment of empty liquor bottles, food trays, and traces of cocaine visible on the coffee table. It truly was a disgraceful sight.
In the middle of it all sat the boss of New York's Red Mafia himself. He was a middle aged Russian immigrant with slightly graying dark brown hair and cold grey eyes. His obese condition and unsightly facial appearance served as a testament to the life he lived in constant indulgence of various kinds of pleasure.
He looked up at the group from the plate of borscht he'd been stuffing himself with and gave an incredibly fake smile while he greeted them before taking another large bite, "Well, if it isn't Balalaika! Greetingsto you and your associates."
Again, The Russian mafia queen was disgusted by this appalling display. With an irate look on her scarred features, she took his words to be the closest thing to an offer to sit that she could hope to receive and claimed a spot on the couch immediately across from the fat slob of a man. She motioned for the others to do the same before taking out and lighting a cigar.
With an exhale of smoke, she spoke out about her sheer frustration with the man's apparent lack of self-control and manners.
"Is it really too much to hope for that you might cease your impressive impersonation of a farm animal long enough to conduct this meeting?"
Turischeva gave a low growl as he fixed Balalaika with a hard glare and swallowed a mouth full of beet-root. This woman thought so freakin' highly of herself. Just who was she to come into his office and immediately tell him what to do? "I don't have to do shit for you, fry-face. I'll do what I want on my own damned turf.
"Oh really?" The woman grinned with false amusement, bearing her teeth like the Cheshire cat, "Who do you suppose came half-way around the world to deal with the mess created by the way you do business? Hmm?" Everyone watched the back and forth and took notice of the subtle reddening of the Red Mafia boss' face as Balalaika continued to speak in an innocent tone. "Oh, that's right; I did." She exhaled a cloud of smoke directly into Turischeva's face and he snapped, brushing aside the items on the coffee table with a violent motion. Dutch pulled out a cloth and wiped some stray liquid from the Borscht soup off of his face.
"Don't make me laugh!" He barked in his fit of rage, "I wanted them destroyed, but instead you get to use them as your own fucking pawns! What a joke."
Balalaika scoffed at his comments and was quick to comeback with her own retort, "If that's how you feel about it, I suppose I could just leave and get back to my own problems then. Believe me, it would bring me pleasure to see you and your men slaughtered like the filthy swine you are." While her tone had been deceptively pleasant in contrast to her harsh words, it too, suddenly gained a harsh quality as she made her next statement. "Take a good look around you, Mikhail. You're the joke. There's a reason that your Red Mafia is struggling compared to the rest of the Russian footholds around the globe."
The boss looked severely insulted at that; looked as if he was torn between launching into a tirade or pulling out a gun and shooting the bitch between the eyes. Revy judged that the latter was more likely and cautiously wrapped a hand on the grip of one of her 92s.
"Revy…" Rock addressed her quietly enough so that only she could hear. Overnight, he had seen her disposition deteriorate into something akin to what followed their conversation on the sub and feared that she might act too rashly if things looked as if they would get violent.
In response, she fixed him with a hard glare to silence him that said she wasn't stupid enough to fuck this up. Obnoxious as he was, without this man, there was no meeting with the Albanians. To ruin that would likely mean her own death at the hands of the Kapitan.
The tense stand-off situation was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. Once again, the tall blonde man appeared and stood to the side to reveal another shorter man with dark hair and blue eyes followed by a rather lanky man who looked like he couldn't be out of his teens who also had dark hair and green eyes. It was clear just by the way that they carried themselves that the first man was the boss and the second was his assistant. The Albanian's eyes widened at the sight of Balalaika seated on one of the couches. Even in their homeland, Hotel Moscow was widely revered. But, if she was here, that couldn't bode well for them.
Simultaneously, the shocked expressions on the two men's faces were replaced with expressions of outrage as they looked toward Turischeva.
"What the hell?" The boss muttered under his breath, while the second man let out an obscenity laced question of his own. "Çfarë dreqin është kjo?"
Pleased at their panicked reactions, Turischeva gave a cocky smirk before reassuring his rivals with just a touch of bitter disappointment in his voice, "Relax, they aren't here to kill you." Then he turned his attention to Balalaika as the two men sat to his left on the couch, finding it rather difficult to get comfortable.
"Balalaika, meet the head of the Albanian mafia, Behar Barisha." He gave a wave of his hand to the stockier of the two men with the blue eyes, then indicated the man next to him, "and his second, Luan Hasimi."
"Behar, Luan, meet Balalaika. As I'm sure you're already aware, she's the head of the Hotel Moscow branch of the Russian Mafia.
Boss Barisha gave a slight nod and allowed himself to relax only just. As far as he was concerned, he was still among enemies despite their intentions. He allowed a polite smile to grace his gaunt features as he addressed her in his thickly accented voice. "You're reputation precedes you. Still, what business do you have here if not to kill me?"
The Russian's immediate response was simply to take a deep drag of her cigar, leisurely taking her time before finally answering that question. "It's simple, really. I was enlisted to annihilate you and your forces, but then I learned that you could be of use to me."
The Albanian mafia lieutenant was the first to speak up. He didn't like what she was insinuating...the way that she spoke of them as if they were mere tools to be used and thrown away. "Even if that's true, what makes you think that we would entertain the notion of doing business with filthy Russian pigs after all of this fighting?!"
Under any other circumstance, Balalaika would've been insulted at the outburst, but given that his only experience with Russians was with people as distasteful as Turischeva and his subordinates, she was inclined to be more understanding. So, with a pirate smile on her face, the Kapitan answered him calmly. "I think you'll find that Hotel Moscow conducts business with a good deal more dignity than these fools who claim Russia as their homeland." Mikhail bristled visibly at that but managed to contain his anger, "As for your question, Hotel Moscow is dealing with a problem that I'm given to understand your people are very familiar with: Shinji Matsuzaki."
Both of the Albanians gasped at the name. They remembered all too well the bloodshed that forced them to this foreign city an ocean away from their small homeland. Behar stared intensely down at the coffee table for several long moments; this was no easy decision. On the one hand, he would love an opportunity to get even with the Japanese bastard that drove him out of his own country. On the other hand, that opportunity came at the risk of a repeat of the same bloody war along with the risk of losing his established turf here in New York City to the Russians.
As the silence dragged on, Balalaika's voice broke into his thoughts, "Should you choose to offer your help, you would of course have the full forces of Hotel Moscow's Visotoniki and the Roanapur branch of the 4K Triad fighting at your side." Then she glanced to Revy in the seat to her left with a wry smirk, "Not to mention...the most skilled gun in the Eastern hemisphere."
Of course a Russian would be the one to try and coax him into leaving his new life at the convenience of a fellow Ivan...and it was tempting, oh, so tempting, but there was still the problem of what would become of his territory.
The man chuckled bitterly as he continued to stare down at the table for a brief moment, "Revenge is alluring, but..." He looked up and stared her down with his piercing icy blue eyes and hit straight at the heart of the matter. "I'm afraid I must ask; what more besides revenge is in it for me?"
Boss Turischeva was absolutely livid and appeared as though he might grab his fellow European around the throat and throttle him where he sat. The Kapitan was quick to silence any possible outburst on his part with a deadly gaze despite her similar feelings. Indeed, Barisha had a lot of nerve to ask for more when she could easily come back and kill him at a later date. She sensed, however, that there was more to this and so chose to hold her tongue and listen for the time being. She was not disappointed.
"I'm sure you can see the difficult position that helping you would place us in, afterall. We've spent months battling to make a name for ourselves here in the city. If we withdraw, it would be only too easy for the Red Mafia to reclaim their lost turf overnight."
Indeed, that was a difficult position, not that Balalaika really cared as long as she got to see Shinji rot in hell for his crimes against her. Still, she supposed that something should be said to sway him fully to her side, but what?
"If I may?" Rock asked, clearing his throat from Revy's left side and drawing the attention of the room.
"Huh? Who the fuck is this guy?" Turischeva questioned Balalaika with a dismissive tone, barely even paying attention to Rock.
"This is Rock. He's a former business man with a number of various skills. At the moment, he's acting as our negotiator."
Behar and Luan had immediately taken a keen interest in the Japanese ex-salaryman. It was clear to both of them that he was not one to take lightly, but he also was far closer to pure being a pure spirit than anyone else in the room. It was a curious mix that intrigued the Albanian boss and he addressed Rock with a deceptively kind smile that Rock had found was a common trait in the underworld, "You may speak."
"Choosing to leave this city would actually be to your benefit." Each of the Albanians arched confused eyebrows and Rock continued with his speech. Intriguing indeed. "Roanapur is a city governed by the heads of major factions working together to maintain a necessary order. If you go through with this, you'd be gaining the favor of the Russian mafia and the Hong Kong Triad and you would have the opportunity to make a name for yourself in a city that is literally governed by crime."
Behar looked back and forth between Rock and Balalaika several times before settling on the Russian and asking warily of her, "This is legitimate?"
To the chagrin of her American counterpart, the Kapitan leaned forward and crushed her cigar on his table before offering a smirk and a cryptic answer, "All I care about is Matsuzaki's head on a silver platter; help me with that and you can do what you wish."
"So, then," Behar smirked as he leaned forward to grasp Balalaika's hand, "It would seem we have an accord."
Night time in Roanapur found Dai-Lo Chang sitting by himself in his office enjoying some rarely afforded time to himself. He was lounging on one of his black leather couches and his feet were crossed as they sat propped upon the glass coffee table. The drink he held in his hand was a mixture of finely aged Jim Beam and Coke on the his rockstar image and reputation around town, Chang found himself indulging in booze by himself much more often than he did socially. He found that it help to relax him and clear his mind of the stresses that came with running your average crime syndicate. Looking up at the clock through a slightly bleary eye, he saw that it was nine-thirty in the evening already.
'9:30 and nothing to do.' What he wouldn't give for some action right about now.
A couple moments later, he flipped himself over the back of his chair and drew both guns when Biu barged rather loudly and unexpectedly through the door. Miraculously, the glass landed on the bar behind him without a single drop having been spilled and Chang looked on with bewilderment at his right-hand man.
"Where's the fire, Biu?" He straightened his skewed sunglasses and holstered his guns, but became serious when he noticed the look of urgency on the other Asian's face.
"Dai-Lo! It's Hotel Moscow; they've been hit!"
Chang instantly felt the tension flow into his body at the news. Balalaika was already on pins and needles trying not to wage a premature war against the Yakuza assholes. When she got word of this, they would all be going to war.
"What was it?! Another bomb?" The pair were already heading down the hall and down the emergency stairwell of Chang's building. If Hotel Moscow had been hit again, it meant the very real possibility that the Triad's would be. Better to move in the shadows as best as possible for the time being.
"No. It was a direct assault about an hour and a half ago. They were caught off guard."
"Jesus." Chang muttered to himself as they continued to make their way down the stairwell and to the back door. This wouldn't be pretty.
"Any word on casualties?"
"No." Biu opened the driver's side door of one of the Triad Mercedes while his boss got into the passenger side. "Watsap only just called a moment ago. He just said you needed to get down there."
After being very careful to make sure that they weren't followed, Biu slipped quietly away into the Roanapur night among the citizens who remained completely oblivious to the horrible war threatening to swallow the city at this very moment. They arrived in a matter of about five minutes. The outside of the Bouganvillea Trading Company was a sight in and of itself. The people of roanapur had long held Balalaika and the Visotoniki up on a pedestal as some sort of untouchable figures. Once word of the attack had gotten out, they lined the streets to stare in shock at the building which housed the bloody battle ground.
Chang silently stepped out of the car and his eyes immediately flitted to the Italian model car sitting directly in front of the building. He didn't have time to dwell on it as Chief Watsap spotted him and beckoned him over. The chief himself was knelt over two expertly mutilated Russian bodies; each of them had been dealt a fatal blow to the head, but their attackers had continued to slice and dice at them for good measure.
The triad boss shook his head grimly. It really was an impressively gruesome sight, and this was just the preview.
Neither of them spoke again until they'd entered the building; one would've thought from all the blood, guts, and anguished screams they had walked through a portal straight to hell. It was enough to turn even Chang's stomach as he grimaced at the sight.
"Shit..." He breathed softly, removing his sunglasses and cleaning them as he looked on at the fortunate members of the Visotoniki working feverishly to help their wounded comrades and move the dead one's aside. He replaced the aviators back onto his face and questioned Watsap further as they moved through the carnage toward the office. "What's the count?"
"Thirty-six dead." Watsap removed his cap in a rare display of respect toward the members of the Russian mafia as they began to move through a hallway that was thick with a huge portion of those corpses. What went without saying was that there were several more who had suffered severe injuries who might not survive. It was the same everywhere the eye wandered whether the bodies were dead or injured: missing limbs, gaping wounds, and lots of blood.
"I noticed the car out front..." Chang referenced the Italian mafia vehicle parked outside the front door, wondering what Watsap had to say about it.
"Yeah! Apparently, Boris and a couple of the higher ups were having a little business meeting. That's the best I've been able to gather from anyone around here. The Sergeant's not in condition to say much."
"Is he...?" Chang's eyes widened in shock at the very possibility of Balalaika's right-hand being killed. That single death would anger her ten times more than any of the individual thirty-six men she had lost. Fortunately, the chief was quick to dispel his concern.
"No, just unconscious...lost a lot of blood though. They've got him up in the infirmary. Apparently, he was the only Russian to be shot."
At that moment, they reached the threshold of Balalaika's office and Chang's keen eyes immediately fell upon the deceased Italian laying on his back in the middle of the room with his head pointed toward the door. He was sliced up much like the others, but what aroused Chang's suspicion was the fact that he still clutched his Benelli B76 model pistol in his right hand.
"You don't say..." The triad boss knelt over the man, having a pretty good idea that he'd just found the shooter.
"Hey...Watsap, was Boris found in this room?"
The chief nodded, curious as to where Chang was going with this. To him, the Italian looked just like the other bodies. Someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unless...
"Yeah, over there in front of the desk. Son of a bitch!"
Watsap realized it: The body placement that had him facing toward the desk, the gun in his hand, the bullets that matched that particular model recovered from Boris' body. This guy was the shooter, but why?
"Yep," Chang affirmed, stepping over to the back of the couch that sat opposite the door and finding the other Italian, "and look at this." The other body had been shot and cleaved cleanly in half. This could've been explained by Boris or someone else taking a shot at the man who had sliced through this guy, but it wasn't likely. It appeared to Chang that the Italians had chosen to side with the Yakuza and had attempted to have their involvement covered by having their own men killed.
Watsap let out a low whistle at the sight of the small sub-machine gun in the dead man's hand. "Are your business meetings always this bloody?"
Chang chuckled as he lit himself a cigarette, "No, not always. Although, the Italians have been a pain in the ass for a while now. I guess they just jumped at opportunity."
It was then that the polyphonic sound of Tomoyasu Hotei's Battle Without Honor filled the office and Chang excused himself from the scene, reaching into his coat pocket and flipping the phone open.
"Chang here..."
Well, there's another one down. I hope you liked it! Anyway, please R&R!
Çfarë dreqin është kjo- Albanian for "What the Fuck is this?!"