Leonardo impatiently looked at his watch. He'd been sitting in the back of Marc's Avalanche with his brothers for close to three hours, in anticipation of the raid on the ghostscraper. They'd intentionally left the Battleshell at home, out of concern that their firefight at the docks could have caused the van to become too recognizable. Now they'd been waiting for Takashi's signal to return to the building since sundown, to no avail.
Maybe they're not staying here, he had to admit to himself. Maybe last night was a temporary thing. Leonardo was irritated over the time that they'd wasted, and the hopes that had been dashed. He continued staring blankly out the window. I don't think we should abandon ship without trying to find out if they've taken up residence, but it sure doesn't look like we're having any confrontations tonight.
The blue-masked turtle reached for his phone and hit Donatello's speed-dial. "I know you said you'd call me, Don, but things are deader than a doornail out here. Is there any sign that Takashi may be heading this direction?"
"No, Bro, I'm sorry," Donny answered. "Takashi is still registering out in Newark. His signal hasn't budged. If I had to guess, I'd say he's settled in for the night."
"Shell," Leonardo replied. "What are we supposed to do? Move the entire raid? What could he be doing in New Jersey?"
"Meeting someone?" Don suggested. "I don't know, Leo; your guess is as good as mine."
"Well…I'm not leaving here empty-handed," Leo proclaimed.
"Are you still considering checking around inside?"
"I figured we might be able to tell if they're coming back or not."
"You know what's at stake here," Donny said quietly.
"We'll be careful. I'm not interested in blowing our cover," Leo said pointedly. "I'm going to talk to the guys first, but we're probably getting ready to move."
"Okay. I'm going to check with Greg again," Don told him. "Let me know what's up."
"I will; bye." Leonardo hung up the phone with a sigh, and looked over at Raphael and Michelangelo.
"What's the deal, Fearless? That didn't sound encouraging," Raphael remarked.
"It wasn't. The digital signature that Don's tracking is hanging out in Newark. Donny says it doesn't look like he's moving any time soon. There's a good chance that he's staying there for the night."
Raphael cursed and pounded his fist against the back of the seat. "Can't we just follow him out there, Leo? If we pick up the Battleshell, and we've got plenty of missiles to finish the job."
"In the middle of downtown Newark?" Leonardo didn't even try to sound patient. "You know we can't do that, not with the threat to civilians and property. We have to get the Akiudo when they're together, and alone. There's no other option for dispatching them. We can't do this tonight."
"Dude, that sucks," Mike complained. "I was looking forward to sleeping good after this was done."
"We all were, Mikey," Leonardo said, and turned his gaze back up the block to the building in question. "But this trip doesn't have to be completely wasted. I think we should get a closer look and find out if they use this place as a headquarters, or if they were only here temporarily."
"Do we get to bust any heads if we find some?" Raphael asked hopefully.
"No, no busting," Leo said firmly. "We have to remain invisible. They can't know that we were ever here, because then they'll figure out that we're on to them. We need their false sense of security to remain intact."
"So you wanna roll right up to their place, have a look around, and leave like we were never there?" Raphael clarified.
"Yep." Leonardo nodded. "That's the goal anyway. I'm going to let Doc know that our plans have changed." He dialed Luke, and waited for the man to pick up.
"Anything yet, Leo?" Luke asked.
"No, Doc, that's why I'm calling. Suicide has been canceled for tonight, because the main event doesn't look like he's going to show up."
"Great...we get to come back and do this again tomorrow?"
"We're going to investigate so we can decide on that."
"Investigate the building? Is that necessary? You don't know for certain that it's empty."
"We don't know if this arrangement was short-term or longer. That's why we need to go in," Leo replied. "I don't want to come back here without a good reason. We know what we're doing, Doc."
"What if someone sees you?"
"We'll handle this," the turtle said stubbornly. "Don't forget who we are."
"What I'm recalling at the moment is our tendency to get into trouble where this stupid gang is concerned."
"Doc, we have to find out some things for sure. This could even help us be better prepared for the next time around."
"Obviously you're going to do what you have to do. Be careful, huh? We're already down one 'Shitenno'," Luke said sarcastically.
"I hear you. I'll call you back." Leonardo barely hung up the phone before his red-masked brother spoke up.
"What's the plan, Leo?" Raph asked knowingly.
"We're going to get a quiet look around, and I do mean quiet."
"Meaning, it's not fun time yet, Raphy," Mike translated.
"I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here to tell me." Raphael shot the younger turtle an irritated look. "What about Kat?"
"I didn't say anything to Doc about her," Leonardo answered. "I figured that she could stay put since—"
Before Leo could finish, there was a coded knock on the back door. Michelangelo reached to unlock it.
"Are we going?"
Leonardo heard Katherine's voice, although he couldn't see the woman.
"It's asking too much for you to stay here, isn't it?" Leo asked.
Her head ducked inside the Avalanche. "Yes, it is. I'm on the inside with you guys on this one." Kat's shoulder-length bronze hair was pulled back from her face in a tight ponytail, and her dark clothing helped her to blend in with the surroundings.
Leonardo rolled his eyes as he jerked a ball-cap off the seat and adjusted it on his head. He didn't feel like being burdened with clothing, but it seemed more necessary than ever now that the ambush had turned into espionage.
This was not how he'd planned to spend the evening. Leo was dearly disappointed to be gathering intelligence instead of starting the fight that would end everything, but there was no point in moaning about it.
He fixed his brothers with a look before jumping out of the back. "This is extremely important; like, I'm not even capable of stressing how vital it is. We have to maintain our cover. No unnecessary noise and no fooling around. There's nothing funny about any of this. It's strictly business."
Mike faced him head-on with what had to be the most serious expression he could muster. "We got it, Leo; no messing around."
"Now can we go out to play?" Raphael demanded.
At Leonardo's dark glance, the red-masked turtle shrugged. "We'll keep it together for you, Bro. Satisfied?"
"I'll be satisfied if we can get through this like the professionals that we are."
"We're right behind you, Leo," Raphael replied.
Leonardo hopped out onto the street and scanned his immediate surroundings. There was little sign of life on the city block. It was one of the areas that had seen worse devastation from the earthquake, and it still looked uninhabited. If we were forced to set off missiles here, it might not be so bad.
It was quiet, but the silence gave him no indication of peace. It felt foreboding, like the calm before a mighty storm was about to be unleashed.
The right edge of the road had several street lights out, so Leonardo chose to stay in the semi-darkness on that side of the street until they got closer to the building. He hesitated in the shadows, staring at the ghostscraper as if it could be a giant death trap. They don't know we're around, he reasoned.
Leonardo could make out at least one steady light that communicated someone's presence. Most of the upper windows of the building were so dark, he imagined they'd probably been blackened out intentionally. The single glimmering light in the night was the only warning he needed that they weren't alone.
"It looks like we have company. We go in silent, and remain invisible," he reminded everyone.
The blue-masked turtle didn't approach the front. It felt too obvious. He went around the side instead, searching for a loose window on the damaged facing. Leo scaled over the first floor of the building, using the built-in handgrips that were provided by the architecture of the structure.
He stepped onto a ledge on the second level, and began feeling around the first set of windows in front of him. One of the pair shifted easily under his grip, and he peered into the darkened interior for a moment before venturing inside. Leonardo drew his flashlight from his belt. Don's usually the one who has to be prepared to help all of us. With him removed from the equation, we'd better all be prepared.
Leonardo looked into the hallway while he heard the others entering the room. He listened closely before edging out into the hall. They probably wouldn't hang out very much on the lower levels, he told himself. If they stayed on the higher floors, they'd have a better chance of escaping the building across the rooftops in the case that they were discovered.
He felt his muscles tensing as they worked their way through the middle of the building, looking for stairs that would lead them to another level. Leo wasn't concerned about being caught by any of the insignificant men that Takashi could have left behind, but he was constantly aware of the possibility of destroying the element of surprise.
Darkness prevailed over the entire floor. He sensed Katherine directly behind him, and he glanced back to see her. The woman appeared completely composed, as if she'd done this kind of thing with them hundreds of times.
No one spoke, even when Leonardo located an exit door to a stairwell. He mentally kept track of how many flights they were ascending, only pausing in his stride when he saw a shaft of light in the distance. Leonardo looked back at the others to point it out, and then kept climbing. As he got closer, the illumination turned out to be a single light-bulb standing over a doorway.
"If we're looking for signs of life, I think we just found one," Raphael commented.
Slowly, Leonardo inched the exit door open. The overhead lighting in the connecting hallway was faint, and he could hear the sound of a radio a few doors down. His heart rate quickened, and he took a deep breath to steady himself.
"Kat, come with me," he whispered, then looked at his brothers. "You two stay here; keep watch on those stairs for a minute. We're going to make this quick."
Leonardo was relieved when Raphael didn't complain about being left behind. Kat stayed close to his shell as he set foot onto what he calculated was the 12th floor. If there's anyone around, it won't take much for them to catch us here.
He took deliberately silent steps, inching along the wall as he approached the doorway from which the sound was coming. He crouched close to the ground behind the open door as he peeked carefully around it.
The room was dim, with nothing more than a lamp on the far side that hardly lit the space. Leonardo swiftly counted several bed-rolls, which were mostly occupied with sleeping men. In the lighted corner, he noticed two men sitting up by the window, sharing a cigarette between the two of them.
Seen enough. Leonardo backed away from the door and nodded at Katherine. "Company," he whispered. "Mostly asleep, but there are at least two awake. This one has room for a couple dozen people, and there's no telling how many more spaces like this exist in the building."
"Do you want to keep looking for them?" Kat asked softly.
Leonardo considered the prospect of carrying out a little more research, right as a swift motion behind him drew his attention. Two shadows were hurrying in their direction. He knew it was his brothers, but he couldn't tell anything was wrong until he saw Raphael emphatically motioning for them to move.
"Is someone coming?" Leonardo hissed.
Raphael refrained from a smart response. "Yeah, Fearless, we gotta go!"