Chapter 8

On the other side of the Atlantic, there was an equally complex arrangement being made. Pierce, Shaundi Matt and Oleg sat in the church's office room, poring over a series of maps and blueprints.

"This is totally necessary," said Shaundi. "This is a great base to hide out. Or at least it was. Now, we need something bigger."

Pierce stared out of the office window and onto the balcony. Below, in the main part of the church, a large crowd of True Saints were idling time away. He nodded. The rebels' ranks were beginning to swell. The death of Angel had had a strange knock-on effect on membership. The loyalists hiding themselves in Viola's ranks assumed they would be next, so defected quickly and publicly. Others who did not have an agreement with Shaundi defected nonetheless, shocked by what they saw as the cold blooded murder of a general. Many didn't know Angel had been an informer, and that he had shot first. Viola had told the true version of events for once, but her lieutenants were afraid. The mass-defections had not made a serious impact on Viola's manpower, but it had drastically affected Shaundi's.

"Attacking and occupying a stronghold is an incredibly risky tactic," said Oleg. "Our primary advantage thus far has been secrecy. The second we occupy somewhere, we paint a huge red flag. With the amount of damage we have done to Viola already, she will spare no expense in striking back. With the type of firepower she possesses, the odds of successfully holding anywhere would be hundreds to one."

"Never tell me the odds, Oleg," Shaundi said.

"Oh my God," said Pierce. "I can't believe you got a chance to say that!"

"Now, the Burns Hill reactor is perfect," said Shaundi, running a finger over one of the maps. "It's built like a fortress anyway. Thick, high walls around the perimeter. There are entrances, but we can block those off with cars, barbed wire and shit. Once we've got the reactors locked down, we can protect from all angles. Four guys on the roof at all times. Two guys with McManus rifles for sniping Viola's boys, two with Annihilator launchers in case they try to hit us from the air. Then, if they manage to smash through and storm the place, we can fight them head on."

"That's thinking tactically," said Matt, admiringly. "And we can give ourselves an advantage. Burns hill can be isolated from Saint hotspots if I freeze the bridges up. Kinzie will be able to put them back down after a couple of hours, but before then, land troops won't be able to reach us. Hopefully, all of the Saints stationed in and around Burns Hill and around the reactor when we attack, that way we don't need to worry about attacks when we go for food. We'll need to stock up on food. After the bridges are back up and the island gets swarmed, they'll make getting out of there tricky. Any cars that leave will be pounced on. They'll shoot down any helicopters."

"So we're trapped?" Pierce questioned. "Why do we wanna do that?"

"You ever hear of the rope-a-dope, Pierce?" asked Shaundi. "Viola's gonna freak when word gets out we took the reactor. It supplies their power. Back when we were in charge, the reactors powered the casinos, the headquarters, everything. They'll have to switch back to the mains, costing way more. Viola will want to grab it back as soon as she can, even if it means drawing dudes from everywhere. If we can hold out, we'll be able to push as far as we want. Even to her HQ."

"And if we, uh, can't hold out?" asked Matt nervously.

"Then we're fucked, Matt," said Shaundi, matter-of-factly. "Once we take the reactor, there's no backing out. If you're having second thoughts, now's really the time to back out."

"I'm in all the way," he said, firmly.

Mike Sharpe hated guard duty at night. Burns Hill had turned very cold, and as he breathed, his breath rose like smoke in front of him. He shivered and rolled a cigarette.

"Shoulda worn a goddamn jacket, crazy fool," said Sasha Lucas, his 'watch buddy', grinning. She pulled her lapels. "I could walk in fuckin' Alaska with this."

"You see anything?" he asked her. He had an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach that he didn't think was due to the out of date tacos he had eaten before starting work.

"Nope. Can't see shee-yit with all this fog." She focused her eyes along the road outside the reactor gates. The darkness obscured the Burns Hill skyline completely. What was not totally obscured, however, was the set of headlights just beyond the gate.

"Probably lost," Sasha said, but she felt the gun in her pocket all the same. She moved forward to check, but before she could react, she heard the revving of an engine. The car behind the headlights sped through the arch into the compound. It knocked Mike down with brutal force. Sasha prepared to blast the driver, but she was debilitated by an unbearable pain. The SMG had torn through her, sending her kicking and screaming out of her mortal coil. Pierce, Shaundi, Matt and Jean jumped out of the car, and Jean put a bullet in both Mike and Sasha's heads to ensure they were dead. Three more cars came afterwards with Oleg and the rest of the gang. The invasion force drove the cars in front of the arches to block off a Saint counterattack.

There were several guards nearer the entrance to the main power plant, and they ran towards Shaundi and the others. They were sprayed with pistol shots and shotgun rounds, dead before they could even raise an alarm. There was firepower coming from every angle, and no guard had the opportunity to raise the alarm.

"Pierce, you take charge sealing up the exits," said Shaundi by the main door. "Matt, how close do we need to get you to the mainframe to take complete control of the place's facilities?"

"There's a server room on the ground floor," he replied. Wordlessly, they entered, flanked by Oleg and two dozen True Saints. There were five Saints inside the lobby, and they were caught by surprise. This time, the hail of bullets only came from one direction, and one of the men managed to raise the alarm. A shrieking sound came from all angles. Shaundi gritted her teeth.

"Shit, they know we're here."

"The server room is just up ahead," said Matt. They crossed through the ground floor, scanning for Saints. The alarm had drawn an immediate beacon towards them. The elevator opened, and five thugs spilled out, armed with shotguns.

Oleg sprung into action. He roared so savagely that it positively terrified the reactor's defenders. He sprung forward towards the elevator and piled into the five men before their shotgun hands had finished shaking. He grabbed one man's head and violently smashed it into the wall, a long stream of blood following him down as he sunk. He disabled the next man with an uppercut that knocked him fully unconscious. He then forcefully wrestled the shotgun from the third man's grasp and shot the remaining three men on a quick reload. By the time his uncontrollable rage subsided, Shaundi, Matt and the others had made it to the server room. Matt was already cracking the mainframe.

"They...were Saints," he said, out of breath. "I fought alongside them."

"It was you or them," Shaundi replied, kindly. Oleg stared out of the door and saw that ten more Saints had made their way to the ground floor, this time down the stairs. The attackers took cover in the corners of the room, leaning out of the dour and shooting. They took one man by surprise and shot him in tandem, hearing the pained sob he made as the life left him. The rest of the defenders took cover behind some of the support pillars.

"I'm in," said Matt. "We don't have to face a united front. He tapped a line of code and Shaundi heard a chime. "I've locked down all floors. I'll unlock each one as you cross it. The others will be trapped until we're ready to fight them. Don't worry about the engineers, they just keep the place running. It's just the gangsters you need to worry about."

"Can you get a message out?" asked Shaundi, trying to get a clear shot at the soldiers outside.

"Sure. What do you wanna say?" he said, pulling a microphone over to her side. Shaundi leaned into it.

"This place belongs to the True Saints now. This is Shaundi. If you've got loyalty to me or Pierce remaining, please join us. Otherwise, you'll have a chance to surrender and leave with your life."

"I can see all floors' CCTV here. If you want to join us. Hold a sign up saying so and we'll unlock your floor. If you surrender, same deal. We don't want to rush you, but we can only give you ten minutes."

"That's good, Matty," said Shaundi. Calling out to the men in the main lobby, she said, "You heard him. Fight with us! Or run back to Viola with your tail between your legs?"

"Your boys killed my brother," one man shouted back. "I'm a kill you motherfuckers!"

"Warned you," said one of the True Saints, and shot him in the face. The other men tried to scamper back, and were cut down. Oleg and the others filed out, making sure there were no more Saints waiting for them.

"It's clear out here," Oleg called into the server room. "Matthew, any word from upstairs?"

"The engineers just don't want to be shot," Matt called back. "They say they'll do what we want. Most of the Saints are up in the penthouse."

"Do they surrender?"

"No...they held a sign up as well, but...it wasn't polite."

"They had their chance," said Shaundi. "They'll be watching the elevators. I saw we take it up the last-but-one floor, then go up the stairs."

"Good plan." They filed out, leaving Matt and two bodyguards in the server room. Within twenty minutes, they had assembled just below the top floor. All in all, the invasion force consisted of around twenty True Saints.

The fighting began in earnest as soon as they reached the penthouse area. The massive room was well defended, and the weak shot of pistol fire was replaced with the stronger roar of machine guns. Shaundi and the others filed out into the corner of the room by the stairs and elevator. For several minutes, the room was torn apart by gunfire. Jean Augustine stepped out too far and took a fatal burst of machine gun fire to the face, letting out a guttural groan as he went down. On the other side of the room, several Saints were lying in pools of blood. The defenders were down to around ten.

Shaundi sprinted forward with a surge of energy. She vaulted over one of the sofas near the middle of the room, guns ablaze, and crouched behind the counter. A Saint tried to run forward and she put two rounds into his skull. She bared her teeth and grabbed a clear bottle from the shelf. She tore a strip from her shirt and stuffed it into the bottle. Then, with a quick movement, she grabbed her lighter and lit the cloth, throwing the finished product at the Saints.

The result was instantaneous. The ten men separated in a blind panic, trying to avoid the fiery death that seemed irrelevant. This break from cover proved all Shaundi's boys needed, and they riddled them with gunfire. Their victims tried to crawl for cover, but within ten seconds, they lay in a horrific pool of cartilage.

"You'll burn the fuckin' place down!" said one of the attackers.

"No I won't," Shaundi replied calmly. The bottle had smashed on contact with the ground, and the fuse had reached the liquid inside. And, with a brief gurgle, the flame died out.

"What the...this is water! You need booze for a Molotov!"

"Don't you think I know that?" she replied, arrogantly. "But they dived all over the place like crazy. Thought I'd let you do your jobs. For once."

Oleg turned to the CCTV camera. "Mister Miller, we're done here. Are there any remaining hostiles on the lower floors?"

"No," said the voice over the tannoy. "Everyone's surrendered. They're down here with us now."

"Guess that means we're in control," said Shaundi. "Good work!"

They set about fortifying the place fully in the next few hours. It was the early hours of the morning, and there wouldn't be anyone to carry the message. The first indication the Saints would get would be just before dawn, when the early shift workers in the Three Count casino would realise the power was down. With no one in command answering their cellphones at Burns Hill, they would soon realise what happened.

Matt managed to upgrade the reactor's security in a matter of hours, putting the whole place under a high-level lockdown. The engineers would doubtlessly complain about needing authorisation to go through the elevators, but it was necessary in case a shock attack succeeded. Once he was satisfied, he closed the bridges to the rest of the city.

There was an Eagle helicopter parked on the helipad. Some of the men wanted to bring a carpenter back up to fix the bullet-wrecked penthouse room, but Shaundi refused, saying that a working helicopter was more important than a comfortable living area.

By five AM, the place was locked down more tightly than Fort Knox. Shaundi and the others began to get anxious. Soon, Viola would get a sharp awakening. Each man and woman, from gangsters to engineers, held their breath.

At a quarter past six, a call came through. It disrupted the uneasy silence with a jolt, causing everyone in the penthouse to jump slightly. With a brief hesitation, Shaundi picked it up.

"What?"

"Hello, Shaundi," said an icy cold voice on the other end. Viola was clearly in an advanced state of rage. Shaundi's face contorted slightly with the suppressed fury her enemy was showing.

"Oh, hi there, Vi" she replied, regaining her composure. "You'll have to excuse me, I was just mopping up the remains of your best and brightest. It's real thirsty work, so thanks for leaving the Dom Perignon. Am I saying that right? Oh well, who gives a fuck?"

"Listen to me very carefully, Shaundi," said Viola. "I'm not going to bluff and say that place isn't important to me. It is. That's why I'm giving you an amnesty. If you agree to take your cretins, get out of my reactor and crawl back to the hole you came from, I swear I'll tell my men not to open fire as you come out."

"Naw, I think I like it here," Shaundi replied.

"Alright, then let me explain to you what's going to happen. Kinzie is going to have the bridges open within a couple of hours, if the police don't do it sooner. Then, a whole fucking army is going to come and take my reactor back. Do you understand?"

"Bring it, Viola." She hung up the phone.