Part 8: Workday
The next morning, Sasuke walked into the office, extremely exhausted, and sipping on a cup of coffee he bought from the coffee shop just down the street.
"There he is," Naruto said as he walked over to Sasuke, slapped his friend on the shoulder, and guided him over to his desk, "Did your contact give us anything we can use?"
"Nope," Sasuke said, "He reached into a trashcan, pulled out a file containing a review of the Russians' invasion of Berlin in 1945 during World War Two, and then disappeared into the night."
"So we now have to make a critical decision," Lee said as he sat on the edge of Sasuke's desk, "We have one cop missing, another seriously wounded, a bunch of other cops that might be next on Laceration Larry's hit-list, and only two months before Laceration Larry sets his plans in motion. The way I see it there are only one of two options: we bring every cop that was involved in the arrest of Laceration Larry and protect them, or we sit back, and wait."
"If there's one thing I know about Laceration Larry," Sasuke said, "It's that eventually he can't help but become sloppy: he'll soon make a mistake, and then we pounce."
"How did you get the evidence to get a warrant for his arrest in the first place," Hinata asked as she looked at Sasuke, and crossed her arms on her chest.
"We waited," Sasuke said, "What we did was, we stayed away from arresting people in contact with him, then just sat back, and watched: eventually he got careless, and we caught his right-hand man in the act of selling heroin, with that we connected the dots, got the solid evidence we needed, and got the warrant."
"So we wait," Lee asked, "As you recall Sasuke the last time we waited, we lost one of our fellow detectives, and had to deal with almost a million dollars in damages to the U.S. Economy."
"You think I don't remember that Lee," Sasuke asked as he shot out of his chair, "If I have to remind you those close calls were mostly your fault."
"Boys," Hinata exclaimed, and then pushed them away from each other with her hands, "This yelling at each other isn't getting us anywhere, right now we need to focus on the case, and try to find the rampaging, out of control bastard running loose on the streets of this city."
"Alright," Sasuke said, "You're right Hinata, you're right," he slapped Lee on the shoulder, "Sorry bro."
"It's alright," Lee said, "This case sort of went to my head too."
"Me too," Sasuke said, "Me too."
"By the way," Hinata said as looked at Sasuke, reached into the drawer of her desk, and pulled out Sasuke's Colt M1911, "Picked this off of the floor of Sergeant Paul's apartment."
"Thanks," Sasuke said as he took his pistol from Hinata's hand, then slid it into his holster, and locked it into place.
"So where do we go from here," Naruto asked as he took a seat at his desk, on the right of Sasuke's desk.
The phone on Sasuke's desk started ringing, he picked it up, and placed it against his ear, "Uchiha," he answered, "What is it?"
"Hello there Detective," Laceration Larry's voice said over the other line, "I was getting lonely so I decided to give you a call."
"You listen to me you low-life son-of-a-bitch," Sasuke said as he looked over at Naruto, and pointed at the phone, "I'm giving you this last chance to go down peacefully, and I'm pretty sure that you're not that dumb enough not to take that chance."
"Oh I'm afraid you won't be getting my surrender anytime soon," Laceration Larry said, "I have no intention of stopping when I'm at the top of my game."
"Oh come on now," Sasuke said, "In case you remember it was my taskforce that took your entire operation down."
"Oh I remember," Laceration Larry said, "But I also remember it took your police force eleven years to obtain a warrant for my arrest, they were hunting for my head before you even joined the NYPD."
"Well you sound about as old as you are," Sasuke said, "So right back at you there grease-ball, now what do you want?"
"Just to suggest you send some officers over to the Bank of New York Mellon on Wall Street," Laceration Larry said, "My boys are over there getting me something you need, and I'm pretty sure that the hostages they have won't last long."
As the line went blank, Sasuke looked over at Naruto who had a look of shock and horror, then nodded his head to confirm his fears.
"That son-of-a-bitch," Sasuke said as he stood up from his desk, and walked towards the elevator, followed by Naruto.
"Wait," Hinata said as she and Lee followed behind their partners, "Where are we going?"
"To the Bank of New York Mellon," Sasuke said, "Call for a SWAT team."
An half an hour later, Sasuke, Naruto, Lee, Hinata, and the SWAT team were outside the Bank of New York Mellon where two men in ski masks were in clear-view, standing behind the door with automatic rifles.
The SWAT Team pulled their rolling-armories in front of Sasuke, Naruto, Lee, and Hinata's cars, "Detective Uchiha," one of the SWAT officers said as he walked up to Sasuke, "Good to see you again," Sasuke reached into the right seat of his Ferrari 458, pulled out his Kevlar vest, and strapped it on.
"Yea, yea," Sasuke said, "Great to see you again Commander Blackbird, good to be working with you again, but we both know now's not the time," he walked toward to the mobile SWAT command unit, "Seal off the block, see if we can get surveillance on the inside, get snipers on the roof, and for the love of God get the SWAT team into position."
"To be honest Detective," Commander Blackbird said, "We don't know what we're dealing with in there." "It's Laceration Larry's thugs," Sasuke said as he stepped into the SWAT mobile command unit, "He's sent his boys in to retrieve something inside that bank, and we need to find out what the hell it is."
After fifteen minutes, SWAT had the block cornered off, the snipers were in position, and the SWAT assault officers were in a position to enter the bank in case things went south, "What've we got," Sasuke asked as he leaned over the seat Hinata was sitting in.
"They've got one assailant guarding the hostages," Hinata said as she looked at monitor two, "Two men guarding the door, and another two raiding the deposit boxes."
"Commander," Sasuke said as he spotted a weakness in the thugs hostage situation, Commander Blackbird walked up to Sasuke's side, "I might have a way we can get through this without getting the hostages killed," Sasuke then pointed at monitor two, "This location where this assailant is guarding the hostages is within plain view of the tenth floor of the building where your snipers are positioned."
"What about the other four?" Commander Alec asked.
Sasuke pulled out his Colt M1911, loaded a fresh magazine, and pulled back on the slide, "Leave that to me," Sasuke said as he turned to face the exit, picking up a radio on his way out, "Naruto, Lee," he said as he stepped down from the SWAT mobile command unit, "Come with me," Sasuke took cover behind the edge of the mobile command unit, "I have a plan."
Sprinting as fast as they could across the street, Sasuke, Naruto, and Lee made it to the alley behind the bank, and ran as fast as they could up the fire-escape on the side of the bank.
The three partners made it to a small window that took both Naruto and Lee to open: the three cops were inside the bank.
Sasuke, Naruto, and Lee opened the door to the stairs, and swiftly stepped through the door, Lee aimed his Sig Saucer P226 up the stairs as Naruto pointed his Glock 24 down the stairs, "Clear," they both said as Sasuke stepped through the doorway.
Sasuke, Naruto, and Lee got to the bottom floor just as the SWAT sniper was in position, Sasuke pulled the radio out of his pocket, and contacted Commander Alec, "Alec come in, this is Detective Uchiha," Sasuke whispered into the radio after he turned it on the radio.
"This is him," Alec said as he responded over the radio.
"We're in position," Sasuke whispered, "Send word to the sniper."
The sniper got his focus just in time to take out the man guarding the hostages: the bullet shattered the window that overlooked the thug's position, giving the bullet the perfect angle to get the kill shot.
As the first thug came out of the safety deposit box room, he turned to his left, saw Sasuke with his gun raised, and then saw two bright flashes of light from the end of Sasuke's gun before everything went black.
Thugs two and three came running from out of the door, and saw Naruto and Lee with their pistols raised: Naruto unloaded two bullets into the third thug's chest as Lee put one round into the head of the second.
Sasuke ran into the room where the hostages were being kept, and saw one thug standing over the hostages, the thug turned toward Sasuke who fired three rounds into the thug's chest, then unloaded one round into the thug's head.
After the hostages were gathered up, and escorted outside to the line of paramedics (it's a necessary safety precaution), Sasuke was in the safety deposit box room where he found one box that was battered like someone had bashed it over and over again.
"So this is what Laceration Larry was after," Naruto said as he walked up to the table where the box was located.
Lee then walked into the room with the key, "Here it is," he said, "Now it's just a question of whether we want to or not."
Sasuke took the key from Lee's hand, "If we don't open it we'll never catch that bastard who has our friend," Sasuke said as he inserted the key into the keyhole, "We have no choice," he twisted the key ninety degrees to the left, and lifted the lid.
"This is what Laceration Larry wants," Naruto asked as he reached into the case, and pulled out a small key.
"I don't know," Sasuke said as he took the small key from Naruto's hand, "It might look small and harmless, but remember Troy fell because of Helen, not because of the size of the Army of Sparta."
"True," Lee said as he took the key from Sasuke's hand, "But what's so important about this?"
"I don't know," Sasuke said as he took the key from Lee's hand, "But it's important to Laceration Larry, so it's important to us."
Back at the precinct, Sasuke, Naruto, and Lee showed the key to Inspector Ethan, "This is what Laceration Larry's men held up a bank for," Inspector Ethan asked as rotated the key in his hand, "What's so important about this?"
"I don't know," Sasuke said, "But it's important to Laceration Larry, so it's important to this investigation."
"I couldn't agree more detective," Inspector Ethan said, "I'll keep it safe in here," Ethan turned around to the safe hidden behind his book case, after opening the door, he put the key inside, changed the combination, and then slid the bookcase back over the safe, "You've all been working hard for today," Ethan said as he turned to face Sasuke, Naruto, and Lee, "Go home for tonight."
"Yes sir," Sasuke said as he, Naruto, and Lee turned, and left Inspector Ethan's office.