Chapter 9

A/N: This chapter, at least the first part, is pretty dry, but it's really hard to write sieges. Also, I realise that Donnie, the minor OC I made, shares a name with the guy from 1 and 2. That's my bad, and they're two different guys. Thanks to CertainUncertainty who convinced me to finish! Couple of chapters left to go.

Viola's forces came to retake the reactor sooner than Shaundi had expected. Shaundi had known that when STAG left Steelport, the Saints had secretly requisitioned some of their technology, but she was still surprised when the first things that came from the Loren Square district were three N-Forcers repainted in dark purple. Each had a Saint in the bird's nest, operating a machine gun. They appeared over the horizon like dark omens, not even pausing before speeding towards the reactor compound. There were several cars that blocked the entrances, and while the N-Forcers lacked the pure power to dislodge them, they peppered through them with machine gun fire. There were only a few True Saints in the primary compound, and they were well in cover. From the top floor, the assembled snipers on the helipad managed to pick off all of the soldiers operating the machine guns. Ibrahim Khan managed to shoot a driver, and had the pleasure of seeing his head pop like a disgusting fruit from the scope. He wasn't the best sniper to ever grace the ranks of the gang, but he was a pretty damn good shot. The others operating the McManus rifles were holding their own also.

Pierce had wanted to open the barricades and bring the N-Forcers inside, but that would have proved fatal. As soon as the guns stopped firing, the next wave of attackers arrived. The Saints had sent two brutes in pickups along with thugs to pin the defenders down. Working in a clumsy, shambling tandem, the brutes managed to smash through the car barricade on the southern side of the compound. The snipers sprung into action, raining down a hail of high power bullets. The brutes brushed them off. Ibrahim was being cleverer than that, though; he diverted his gaze from the behemoths and aimed for the gas tank on a now thoroughly-smashed Infuego. He hit it square on from that incredible height, and it exploded, taking the cars around it and the two brutes with it. Even their solid frame could not withstand such a force.

The defenders swarmed around the now-exposed entrance, trying to trap the remaining Saints in a bottleneck through the gateway. Donnie Strauss threw a Molotov cocktail, and the attackers dispersed as it fell. Those who it hit writhed around on the ground, trying to extinguish themselves and being finished off by a double tap each. Their comerades who had backed off made another push for the entrance, and were fought off with knives and pistols.

"Viola must have bribed the whole SPD to stay away," Shaundi declared. When a break in the fighting came, she directed some of the stronger troops to haul the burned out cars back in front of the opening. It was done so with great difficulty. Pierce had the idea to booby trap the burnouts with satchel charges, and they got on it, with barely any time to spare. Two more brutes arrived outside, as well as an army to back them up. The True Saints backed up, ready to use the satchel charges. Thankfully, the brutes attacked in tandem again, smashing away at the burnouts with brute force. Once all of the defenders had backed away, Pierce pressed the detonator, and the brutes were knocked off their feet. One was clearly dead, but the other managed to make its way to its feet. It shambled towards the wreckage of the now-pulverised burnouts, passing through it and knocking several defenders out of his way.

Oleg sprang into action. He bore down on his clone, grasped its head and, with an almost insane level of physical strength, twisted it. A truly sickening cracking sound was heard, and the scene resembled the Exorcist, with the beast's surprised, pained features drooping over its shoulder blades. Oleg pushed the now lifeless form to the ground.

"Clones," he said with a dry contempt. "They can replicate the strength, but they'll never copy the years of Spetsnaz training."

They didn't have long to reflect on this. With the burnouts now mere rubble, the Saints were scrambling past them and making their way inside the compound. The snipers picked them off as they did, and Ibrahim was proud to bag one who looked like a lieutenant, but there were too many. The True Saints dived into cover behind the fountains and the masonry, trying to mow down their shock troops. The attackers tried to branch out also, but suppressing fire forced them into a single mass again.

That was when Donnie threw the grenade. Marcus Fernandez, a guy he'd known back in Stillwater, had carried it, but Marcus was now lying in a pool of his own blood. Donnie grabbed it, pulled the pin out and sent it rolling into the now-thick crowd of Saint attackers.

It was a hellish scene. The grenade rolled right into the middle of the mob, and the damage it caused was astounding. Limbs were thrown up ten feet in the air like a grotesque, visceral fireworks display, and blood splashed all over the concrete. The pained screams had been drowned out by the audio residue of the blast, and now they were completely silent. Donnie looked on in both shock and disgust.

"Damnit, Strauss," said Pierce, admiringly. "You a cold-ass motherfucker."

"You did what you had to," said Shaundi, seeing the sheer revulsion on his face. "That was too many for us."

"I believe we have a rest period before the next attack," said Oleg, thoughtfully. "Viola is intelligent enough to leave the biggest force until the last stage of a siege. It's the most logical thing to do. We just killed the standing army."

"Then who's left?" asked Shaundi.

"Reserves," he replied. "Viola will go to Safeword and the Three Count looking for those to man the next wave."

"Then let's get ready for them," said Pierce.

They had reached Dover in less than two hours, while the sun was still rising. They had broken into the docks where a cargo ship was being loaded with crates. It was called the Hercule, a medium-sized cargo trawler travelling to Calais. They snuck into a crate carrying smaller boxes, nestling where there was the most space.

The pallet-truck operator had been found, and as the Herculepassed out of sight of the white cliffs, the prison went on high alert for the only two prisoners not on roll call. Within an hour, the alarm would be spread to the rest of the country, and the boss's and Jamal's faces would be plastered on every television, every newspaper and every police bulletin. That didn't matter now, though; once they were in France, everything would work out for them to get back to America.

"I thought 'a something" Jamal whispered when they were far out enough. "Ain't we just gonna get nicked in France when they open these things?"

"No," the boss replied, shortly.

"Why?"

"Did you see the company logo on this crate?" he asked, still whispering in case any of the crew were nearby. "Ajaccio Shipping. Ajaccio is a front organisation for the Corsican mafia."

"The who?" Jamal demanded.

"The Corsican mafia," he repeated. "If you've ever snorted coke or injected smack in Paris, you've put money in this lot's pockets. They're one of the most powerful organisations in Europe, and they deal in absolutely fuckin' everything. We tried to set up a shipping route with them to bring heroin from Turkey right into Stillwater, but they said the Midwest wouldn't be cost effective." He shrugged, as if avoiding regret for a drug deal that never was. "They're probably shipping some shit back to Paris for a bulk sale. Which also means they have one of their people unloading for 'em. We just have a word with them."

"And say what?" Jamal asked.

"You leave that to me, mate. If you're gonna be a Saint, you have to trust your boss."

They did not need to see out of the crate to know when they had hit Calais. Before, the main sounds had been the sea and the noises of the sailors nearby. Now, these were drowned out by port announcements, traffic and the hum of human voices all around. They were breathless for what seemed like an hour, then the doors of the crate swung open.

"Merde!" cursed the man under his breath as he shined the torch over the two stowaways. He was indisputably a thug; he had a crudely-drawn snake tattoo that stretched straight from his neck around his face, its head sprouting just over his right eyebrow. A jet black bomber jacket concealed a truly fearsome torso. A man didn't build muscle like that in a gym; he built it breaking spines and twisting necks until they let go with a sickening crack.

He began to shout in heavily accented French, jabbing his finger in the duo's direction and glaring threateningly. Unusually for the boss, he put his hands out in a calming gesture, trying to placate the gigantic Corsican before he alerted the entire dock to their presence.

"Parlez vous...sprechen ze…English?" he asked, trying to cobble together the French (and German) he'd learned throughout his relatively short, violent existence. The man did not seem to parlez vous, but continued howling French obscenities and gesturing.

"Don't suppose you know any?" the boss asked Jamal, exasperated.

"Not since school," his sidekick replied, stressed. "Uh…bibliotheca? Fromage? Anglais?"

"Anglais?" said the man, suddenly calming down. He faced off against the two convicts, but in a much more relaxed pose. "Non Anglais. Mon ami Jacques parlez Anglais." He called out to another one of the dockworkers. "Jacques!"

Another man, presumably Jacques, arrived in front of the crate. He was, if possible, even bigger than his friend, a mountain of a man with a word in Arabic tattooed all the way across his shoulder and neck. He was also completely bald, making the effect even more intimidating, and wore a dark suit.

"Are you English, gentlemen?" he asked in a remarkably polite tone. "Did my, how you say, colleague hear you right?"

"That's right, mate," said the boss, stepping forward and extending a hand. Jacques shook it. "We've stowed away from Dover. We're convicts. Prisoners. Escaped. Do you understand?"

"But you hitched a ride in the wrong crate, mon ami, you see? You have no idea of the trouble you are in."

"I think I've got a good idea how much," he said, calmly, shooting Jamal a look that told him to keep calm. "Do I get a request? Before justice is done?" Without waiting for the docker to respond, he continued. "I want to see Le Renard."

Jacques seemed genuinely taken aback. He exchanged a glance with the other obelisk next to him, and an understanding seemed to wash over them. Jamal stared at the boss, and the look he returned told him to say nothing. After the two Corsicans conferred in hushed French for a moment, they gestured for the two criminals to get out of the crate.

Their eyes took a moment to adjust to the bright light of the port. The boss had never been to Calais before, and while he was told it was one of the uglier harbour towns in northern France, it still possessed a charm of its own. Tall, attractive stone structures rose over the ugly grey tower blocks, shielding the uglier side of the city from the view of the English Channel. Freighters, hovercrafts and charter ships clustered around the port enclosure. The sun beat down over the busy commercial scene, making the boss long for the hot summers of Steelport. No, fuck that, Stillwater. The winters were as cold as anywhere in the Midwest, but the summers were something else. If he ever got back to America, he was going to enjoy his free time a hell of a lot more.

They were escorted off the ship and to a car park nearby, where a black Volvo C30 awaited them. Jacques began to drive, whereas their first point of contact, who they learned was named Francois, sat next to them. A slightly smaller man got in the passengers' seat.

"Hey, Monsieur," Jacques called back before he took off. "You are sure you want to see Le Renard? Last chance!"

"I'm sure," he called forward, flatly. The car took off along the congested Calais roads, Jacques swearing under his breath (in English, bizarrely) at the amount of traffic. Jamal stared demandingly at the boss, but he kept his voice down as his mentor's gazes had told him he should.

"What's the Renard?" he asked, nervously. Jacques heard him from the front seat, but merely smiled, and gestured for the boss to answer his question.

"The Fox, he replied." It's French." As his protégé's gaze became more inquiring, he continued. "The Fox is Santino Tramont. He leads the Corsican mafia in the north of France. He's a big swinging dick as far as France is concerned. No, scratch, that, where fucking western Europe is concerned.

Jamal seemed content to clam up after that as they drove to Le Renard. The Corsican Mafia was, he didn't explain, one of the most powerful criminal organisations on the continent. Corsica was a small island, French in name but half Italian in culture, but its most powerful (and most wanted) citizens were among the richest in the criminal underworld. Films like A Prophet or the French Connection had tried to describe their illegal activities, but they had fallen short at portraying the ruthlessly efficient and even bureaucratic ways the Corsicans did business. Their heroin importing business started with Mehmet Khan, a Pashtun warlord in Afghanistan whose militia controlled one of the biggest poppy farms in the country. Khan's allies brought the heroin to Egypt, where the Corsicans used their considerable clout to have massive amounts of the stuff shipped, hassle free, to France, England, and the United States. As Stillwater and Steelport were in the Midwest, miles from the coast, the Saints dealt coke from the Cartels that pushed the stuff from Mexico. But they knew the Corsicans well, as any major operation did.

After around an hour's drive, they reached the old town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Le Renard's capital. It was a beautiful medieval walled city, full of classic architecture and deep reaching cobbled streets. The old town's cathedral rose far over the tops of the buildings, overlooking the place. By the time they arrived, it was late afternoon, and the streets were splattered with rain.

They pulled into a street off the main strip, and the three men ushered the boss and Jamal into a chateau near the end of the street. The inside corridor was decorated beautifully, with chandeliers and paintings of French nobles that the boss had never heard of. They were led into a small sitting room, where a man got out of a leather armchair to greet them.

Le Renard matched any human definition of a fox that was possible. He had a wiry, cunning face, with eyes that were affable but seemed to pierce through the soul on first contact. He was a slim, olive-skinned man in his fifties, whose jet black hair was slicked back with plenty of pomade. He wore a dark grey three-piece suit, with a handkerchief in the breast pocket to complete the look. Jamal could see his face in the man's wingtips. Overall, there didn't seem to be a single thing about the man that was out of place. He reminded the boss of a clean shaven Jean Reno, or some impossibly cool Mediterranean shipping magnate.

"Bonjour, gentlemen," he said, extending a hand. Jamal and the boss shook it with an air of worship. "I believe you asked for me personally. Le Renard is at your service."

"It's an honour," said the boss, with more humility than his younger associate (or any of his other associates) had heard him express.

"I recognise you," said the Corsican. "You are the Englishman in America, oui? The Saints of Stillwater…no, Steelport. I must correct myself, I barely keep up with affairs on the other side of, how you call it, the pond, oui? But I must ask. What were you and your young friend here doing hitching a ride on one of my crates?"

He ushered them into chairs facing his own, and the boss told him in detail about the events that had occurred since his exile from Steelport. The Fox listened with wide eyed interest. When the story was finished, he called for three brandies.

"Zut alors," he said softly. "You spin, how do you say, quite the yarn. It seems imperative that you return to your city. But while a respect must exist between fellow…businessmen such as ourselves, with all due respect, we are not a charity. Why should I help you?"

"Because," said the boss, leaning forward, "I oversaw the killing of the Belgian."