30
Ianto swung around the banister heading down as his lovely landlady waited on the first landing and sprung half-way down the stairs, then heard the front door begin to open.
Ianto jammed in another clip, and chambered a round. He saw someone beginning to slip in.
Ianto fired into the doorframe as a warning. Someone backs out fast. Ianto hears a sonic report upstairs and moved back toward it, sliding the precious weapon into his pocket as Mrs Martins snarled and dropped the ankle of her load.
An Assassin slammed his body against the bathroom door, splinting it around the blade and he staggered out with a snarl. Ianto flew at him. The Assassin swung on Ianto firing. Ianto pivoted out of the line of fire, still moving forward. He took hold of Assassin's neck and snapped it.
Ianto dropped the corpse.
"It's okay."
The door to the apartment opened revealing Mrs. Martins.
"Sorry Mavis"
She shrugged and looked at the damage, nothing as it was all toast anyway.
She was burnt.
She was his last job, handed to Bob during his trip away and how he was righteously pissed.
Ianto stopped short and cocked his head toward Bob's muffled voice coming from the vent.
"Come on man, you know the price on her. Come on, just hand her over and the young can be spared."
Ianto, incensed, bent down and took the gun from the dead man. He ran out of the room, gun poised for a kamikaze fire fight.
.
.
.
.
Bob and his partner Mac were poised outside the front door, about to enter the mix. Mac peers through the window.
"Did you see Jones in there?" Mac asked and Bob looked away as he lied.
"No..."
"Good. For a second there I thought we were in trouble." Mac sighed with relief and Bob grimaced.
Guess who was NOT taking point.
.
.
.
.
Ianto reached the top of the front stairs to find Mac heading up the stairs at him. They lifted their guns at each other to fire.
Mac dove off of the stairs and rolled out of view.
Bob headed up the back stairs.
Ianto worked his way toward Mac, moving with stealth toward the kitchen.
Bob heard him and started back down.
Ianto dove behind the cooking island just as Mac came out of the stairwell blasting. They unloaded at each other as Mac ran a spray pattern across the kitchen, firing at Ianto, crouched, who blasted back with the sonic he had hooked off one of the bodies. Mac threw himself through the air toward a serving hole from the kitchen to the living room, still firing.
The sonic whined, and the counter on the auto counted back- empty.
Ianto rose and sprung at the vid-com screen on the reception wall, gripping it. Two blasts sailed past his head.
Mac began to rise from his side of the counter, cocking his gun.
Ianto put all his weight and motion behind the cash register his landlady liked, something archaic that tinged when you opened the drawer. Even though Ianto was her only resident these days she still kept it ready for the day she could reopen without fear of the bounty hunters.
Ianto and the register careen off of the counter toward Mac.
Mac got off one round before Ianto flew onto Mac, smashing the seventy-five pound register over his goddamned head. Ianto sailed past the collision, landing on his back in the back room. He rolled over to see Mac's body crumpled, neck is snapped, head flattened under the register.
He is dead.
Ianto ran up the stairs, and to the landlady waiting patiently.
"Sorry Mavis" he said again, "Bob is clearly being elusive, can you wait a wee bit longer? He was the link, why they kept finding you. I cannot trust him. I need to report him to the agency and then check if he is outside somewhere, OK?"
Ianto walked out to find agency vehicles already arriving, the kill shots setting off the beacons. Well, not for the one Mavis was now quietly dragging said body into her den. The younglings will tear that apart in a matter of minutes, flesh being a rarity.
"Agent Jones, a bit of a snafu?" one asked as he swaggered towards Ianto who calmly rabbit punched him in the throat and looked past him at his handler as the man folded to the sidewalk.
"Bob is the leak"
"Fuck" she sighed, "You sure?"
"Yep. Almost took my head off" Ianto shrugged, "Third time someone has come at her, definitely Bob. I asked you not to put me on this one. My final job, I wanted a simple one. Got enough problems with that bloody Ex of Jack's"
"I thought it was a simple one" she answered with a frown.
"Yvonne, you say that every fucking time and every time I ask you assign me a new partner. I've told you I don't like his vibe, well now you know. Mavis is angry, even did that cheek thing." Ianto said as he stepped to one side to let the medics help the gasping man in the ground.
"Sorry Ianto" she replied softly, "Consider yourself retired. I think Bob is going to be as well."
"As long as mine is more polite" Ianto snorted, "I know he will have no idea I placed a tracer in his lucky wallet. You can bet he headed straight for the blowfish he was working for ... follow and get the one you've been after for three years. Nice clean up if I do say so myself."
"Ah" she smiled, "Thank you Agent Jones."
"Oh and Yvonne?" Ianto asked as she went to walk away, making her stop to let him turn to walk away instead "It's Harkness-Jones and I am no longer your agent."
She watched him stalk off and turned to her men with a nod.
By this time tomorrow Ianto's file would be scrubbed clean and he would have the life he and Lisa had signed up for. To to cash him out. Shame she hadn't lived to see it.
Yvonne made a decision and swung away from the retreating figure of one of her top covert agents.
Ianto was allowed his exit.