Chapter 13
The rebels were lucky.
Luckier, the boss would later think, than any of them would ever know.
Viola was in the habit of training men she would trust with such heavy-duty equipment to a fine point. Part of the training such elites would follow included targeting strategy. Lesson one in this pointedly brief curriculum was, if presented with several targets, always fire at the largest one first. It was a tactic that had started, incredibly, with the Napoleonic war, where the general would wear the most striking (and tall) headgear. If you shot the general first, his troops would be instantly demoralised, and would not fight back while you shot them to pieces.
Luckily for the boss and his friends, innate training had kicked in before common sense for these men. For the larger target they aimed for was the gargantuan Johnny Tag. Tag, as would be expected, did what any man (well, clone) of his size and body mass would do when shot once with a high power rifle; he shrugged the bullets off, the only change to his demeanour being a surge of rage. Before the heavies could direct their fire to the boss and the others, Tag had thrown an army, sending them sprawling against the wall behind. Those inside the lift sprayed them with rifle fire before they could get up, and the Kevlar only withstood so many shots. The three were dead before their bodies even settled.
Tag and the others filed out of the lift into the short corridor imposed by the dividing wall between the main room and the lifts. If the saloon room had been designed the same as the penthouse, with the lift doors exposed to the main room, they would be dead. But because they could see out each side of the dividing wall into the main, he could see the red beam of the sniper rifles before blindly stepping out. There were around five rifles pointed at each side of the divide.
"Shit, we're pinned down," he said to the others. "Anyone know who's in charge up here?"
But he didn't have to wait for an answer. An all-too-familiar voice came from the other side of the room, and if the acoustics weren't betraying him, its source was standing in the middle of the snipers.
"Sorry-boss," sang Zimos. "This-is-just-the-way-it's-gotta-be. Guy-can't-defect-twice-ya-know."
"You're making a mistake, Z," he shouted over the dividing wall in response. But a fear came over him at the same time. He knew there was no way to send in reinforcements with the elevator stuck, and there was no way to beat the snipers without knowing what they were dealing with. Before any of his crew could protest, he stuck a head out just enough to see the set up on the other side of the room. One of the snipers spotted him and fired, but by the time the man's reflexes had adjusted, the boss was safely behind the dividing wall again.
In the nanosecond he had held his head out, he had mentally registered all he needed to. The snipers were in the best vantage point in the room, a raised platform near the far wall that allowed guests, in past times, to look out over the dance floor. Zimos was standing directly in the middle of them.
"Don't let Tag get out there," he whispered to Kinzie. "Those are McManus rifles. Couple of shots from them and even he'll be cut in half."
"We killed your lads waiting to ambush us, Zimos," the boss called out again. "This is stalemate, sunshine!"
"You'd-think-so-but-no," sang the pimp in return. "The-boys-are-rallyin'-down-below. Couple-of-minutes-they'll-be-up-here!"
Shit. The boss had not expected that. With ten snipers, he could wait until they got tired and their reflexes stiffened up enough for him and the others to get a pot shot at them from the edge of the dividing wall. But more shooters? They could never win against a whole army.
"When they come," he said to the others, whispering to avoid Zimos hearing him on the other side, "take out as many as you can. I don' fink we're gonna survive this, but we can die like Saints." He turned to the side of the divide nearest the stairwell, but he couldn't get a clear view. "It's been a pleasure serving with you all."
Within less than a minute, he heard a large number of footsteps. It sounded like the entire reserve of Viola loyalists were here to make their final stand. He saw a brief flash of dark purple as the Saints filed into the middle of the room. He couldn't see them yet, but he knew they would be the last thing he would ever see.
"What-the-hell?" demanded Zimos. "What's-with-all-the-blood? You-guys-been-in-a-fight-already?"
"Yup," came a strangely familiar response. "This makes second."
For the next five seconds, all the boss could hear was the sound of gunfire. But the gunfire wasn't been directed at him or the others behind the divide. One by one, the red beams disappeared as the sniper rifles got cast to the ground.
It was Jamal who came out first, excited. The boss followed him. The large number of men in the room were Saints….but they were the biggest-looking Saints he had ever seen.
"Hey," said the one that spoke before, and the boss immediately recognised him. Weyland. The Saints' uniform barely fit him, and it was splattered with blood.
"We heard the gunfire from the stairwell," he explained. "We thought we'd run straight up. We ran into a bunch of guys looking to help these snipers out, so we jacked their outfits and thought we'd get the jump on them. Clever, huh?"
"Unbelievably," said the boss, grinning with appreciation. "But there's one last thing we need to sort out."
He crossed the room to where Zimos was lying, bloodied. He had fallen from the platform and was barely alive.
"N-nothin' personal, boss," said Zimos, in a horrible rasp. His tracheal microphone had nearly broken, and the boss imagined the sound he was making was halfway between that and his real voice.
"I know, old friend," he replied, before shooting the pimp in the temple. Zimos didn't go violently, or shudder, or do that horrible jerking movement corpses do when he slumped. He just seemed peaceful. The boss dropped his rifle and turned away from the others.
"We, uh, need to move, boss," said Jamal, uneasily.
"Yeah," he said, but his voice came out choked. He composed himself, and picked up his gun. "Okay, you lot…I don't know what's gonna greet us when we climb that last lot of stairs. Keep focus. Okay?"
"Okay," said Jimmy first, but he looked terrified. From when Zimos's thugs had greeted with the business end of their rifles, he had been scared. The boss knew what it was; it was the first time the adrenalin had worn off and he'd started to consider the possibility that he could die here. It was getting past that phase that made someone a Saint.
The next minute played out like the type of Stallone video nasty the boss had seen as a kid. The last remainders of Viola's forces were waiting for them almost as they looked up the stairwell. In what seemed like ultra-slow motion, they fought their way up the stairs, rifles firing insanely. There were about five soldiers at the top of the stairs, on the corridor just before the main penthouse suite. The boss raced forward and brained the first one with the butt of his rifle. Jimmy, of all people, shot the next one, with a bullet that went straight into his eye. It was an amazing shot, seeing as there was only a thin slit on his mask for an eye hole. Jamal, to his credit, was firing his rifle wildly, in a way that reminded the boss of Tony Montana.
When they were finished with this gang, the boss looked around. Kinzie, Jamal, Jimmy and Tag were alive. But some of the Luchadores had fallen in the final push. He hadn't noticed them in the heat of battle, and he felt regret for that. Their comerades were miserably trying to revive them. Weyland was alive, but he had been shot in the elbow, and was dripping blood.
"Okay, everyone," the boss called, fiercely. "This is it."
He charged through the door and reached for his rifle. But instead of an army waiting for him, there were only two figures that caught his attention. On the other side of the room, Pierce, Matt, Oleg and several other Saints were tied to chairs. Oleg's chair was huge.
"Stop right there!" hissed Viola. The figure in front of her was Shaundi, and Viola had a Desert Eagle pointed at her temple. "You move one more step forward, and I blow her brains out."
The boss stayed put. "Hello, Vi. Miss me, sweetheart?"
"It's way too late to talk about this," she replied.
"Hi, Shaundi," the boss said brightly, turning his attention and ignoring Viola. "Hi, everyone."
"Shoot her, boss," said Shaundi. "Don't worry about me. Drill that bitch's head through."
"Why'd you do it, Viola?" said the boss. His voice had turned an icy cold. "You had everything with us. I helped you avenge your sister. I saved your life on that statue."
"Can any of his have anything?" she replied.
"Fair point," he said. While they had been talking, the remainder of the rebels had crossed the threshold. There were now many guns trained on Viola and her captive. "You know there's nothing you can do here. Your arm will get tired soon, Shaundi will escape and we'll shoot you to bits. You have to see there's no way out of this."
"I want a chopper," said Viola, her voice suddenly desperate. "I wanna get out of here. I'm taking Shaundi with me to make sure you don't try anything. I'll drop her off on the roof over there."
"You've seen Dog Day Afternoon, Vi. You know what we'll do."
"Then…then I'll leave Shaundi here, just give me a chopper and take off."
"We'd shoot it down as soon as you got a few feet away," said the boss, this time softly. "You know how this works out. I wouldn't ever want to kill you, but we can't let you live. You'd come back and take your revenge. You know this."
"I-I don't…"
"It's over, Viola," the boss said, a little sadly. "You did well, but it's over."
Viola looked utterly trapped. She scanned around the room and saw that all the odds were against her. She'd sent the last of her men to head the rebels off at the stairs, and that had been a gambit that failed.
"C-can I see you outside?" she asked the boss. "On the helipad? I'll let Shaundi go." There was something utterly resigned in her voice, and she was no longer a strong leader. She was scared.
"Okay," he said, cautiously. "Of course you can. No sudden moves, though, Vi. Understood?"
She nodded, and made the slow motion of releasing Shaundi from her grasp. Shaundi ran forward and, uncharacteristically, hugged the boss. She joined him in facing Viola, who was now alone. She carefully put down her Desert Eagle. "Can we go outside? Just you and me?"
"Of course," said the boss. He gestured for the others to calm down. "It's okay, guys. It's okay."
"D'you want me to come with you?" said Jamal, nervously. "Can I come with you?"
"This is me and Viola at this point," said the boss. The two of them walked out onto the helipad. Shaundi and the Luchadores followed them and stared at the two of them from the window as they crossed the pool bar and stood on the helipad. Jamal and Jimmy went to untie the others.
"I'll talk," said the boss, shivering slightly at the bracing air at the top of the skyscraper. "D'ya know what I would have done if it wasn't for the others If it was just you and me leading this gang and you pulled this?"
"What?"
"Walked away," he said, his words true. "Or agreed to hand the reins over to you while still being in the gang. Oh, I would have escaped from that poxy prison either way, and I'd make sure I didn't end up out of pocket, but if I genuinely came back and saw you'd taken the Saints in better places than I could, I'd be more than happy to step down. You have to understand…I might hate you for what you did, but I respect it."
"Thanks," she said, weakly.
"But if I let you win, you'd get rid of Shaundi, and make the lives of the others miserable. And I care too much about them to let you do that."
"Actually, I was going to make Shaundi my slave," she said, "but that's beside the point. Thank you for sharing that. And if it helps, I've always respected you. This little power struggle was nothing to do with any failure you had as a leader."
"I understand," he said. "People in history used to do it all the time. You like history, don't you? It's all full of plots and the like."
"Your own history, especially," said Viola. "English history, I mean."
"I remember it well from school," said the boss. "Sometimes, a noble would plot against the king."
"And if it failed, they wanted to keep the honour of their family," said Viola. "Make sure they got remembered as a worthy enemy of the king instead of a traitor who took a cheap shot. So, you know what they'd do? They'd climb to the top of their castles. They'd look out over the…what were they called…battlements. Then they'd shout 'God save the king!' and jump to their deaths. It was a good system. Dignified."
"That was a good break," said the boss. "A nice deal."
Viola smiled. "You've seen Godfather 2 as well, huh?"
The boss smiled and nodded. "It's…it's been emotional, Vi."
She nodded. "God save the King."
And she leapt off the edge of the helipad.