Oh man, it's hot and humid these days. And I now either have a cold or I've developed a pollen allergy all of a sudden
otahuhu7: I'm sure there are more people writing L/P fanfiction. Granted, I can't make assumptions of the quality, but there must be more ^^
Enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.
"What's the haul last month?" Vega asked his underling.
"A bit over three million." he was told.
"Only three?" Vega was incredulous and turned to another man sitting across from him. "It was five last month. Norm, what's the issue"
"The number of street dealers we lost has increased." Norm showed him a document. "Some were arrested but a lot of them died. As did several suppliers."
"Died how?"
"Killed." Norm shrugged. "At the beginning, we could replace the losses but they are being taken out faster than we can replace them. Not to mention that it has become somewhat known that people selling our product end up dead at some point, so we really get only the most desperate."
"Who is killing them?"
"At first, I thought it was rival gangs but from what I can gather, they're not losing their sellers, at least not the way we do." Norm replied. "So, unless they banded together to take out our people, someone is targeting our organization."
"Could it be the other gangs?" Vega asked.
"Sure, but I haven't seen any of them beginning to sell heroin since our guys were killed." Norm shrugged. "So, unless they just want to cause us losses, they have no reason to do it. Also, they know that messing with us leads to a lot of trouble."
"So, we're looking at some outside force, vigilantes or something." Vega mused.
"Or something." Norm agreed. "Vigilantes sounds a bit far fetched. There never has been a culture of them here and the fact that it's mostly our guys being killed makes vigilantes improbable."
"What's your conclusion?" Vega wanted to know.
"To tell you the truth, I have no idea what's going on." Norm sighed. "Whoever this assailant is, he or she seems to know a lot of our organization and product but those that do know better than to mess with us."
"Gregory, what's the matter?" Vega asked his second underling, who was looking through the office window to the warehouse floor below.
"Something's not right." Gregory said. "Where is everyone?"
"What do you mean?" Vega joined him, seeing the same, stacked palettes full of product but no people walking around, the two electric forklifts standing in weird spots, one even having his forks half inside a pallet, as if the driver had just disappeared. "Where are our people?"
"We should check." Gregory said but before he could put his hand on the door handle, the door opened and someone came in.
"Kenta." Vega said surprised, recognizing the newcomer. "What are you doing here?"
"Who do you think you are just waltzing..." Gregory began but was shut up when Yorinobu punched him in the face, his nose breaking audibly.
"What the hell, Kenta?" Vega was worried, moving backwards.
"Where is your boss?" Yorinobu asked, his voice again like an avalanche rolling downstairs.
"What are you talking about?" Vega was confused. "You're his main enforcer, you should know."
"Where is he?" Yorinobu asked again, drawing his sword.
"Not so fast." Norm interjected, pointing his gun at the intruder.
"Kenta, what's going on?" Vega asked him.
"Isn't it obvious?" Norm smiled. "He betrayed the boss."
"PATRICK BETRAYED ME!" Yorinobu shouted.
"You need to leave." Norm said, talking to Vega. "Gregory, get him out of here. You, walk away from the door, slowly."
His eyes never leaving Norm, Yorinobu moved sideways, away from the door. While he wanted to throttle the life out of Vega, he was aware that he couldn't evade a bullet, so he played for time by following the order, all the while looking for a mistake. A bleeding Gregory got up, interposed himself between Yorinobu and Vega and let his superior slip out of the office before following. As they moved quickly through the warehouse, they saw the bodies of their workers, everyone having their throats slashed or hearts pierced.
"Fuck!" Gregory cursed. "He did that without anyone noticing?"
"Kenta is a strong fighter." Vega nodded. "We need to leave and warn the boss."
"Why not just call him?"
"Because the only phone I can use is still in the office." Vega told him. "And while Kenta doesn't know the number, I can't call from some random phone either."
"Then where do we go?" Gregory asked, unlocking one of the cars.
"Drive to the chop shop on Harbor Street." Vega ordered.
"At this hour?" Gregory wondered.
"It's always manned." Vega waved him off. "But we need to ditch the car and get another one."
"And after that?"
"We need to get to Wells Fargo bank on Phelan Boulevard in Beaumont." Vega told him. "We'll find another phone in one of the safe deposit boxes."
"Jesus." Gregory cursed at the complexity of this.
"They're gone." Norm said, after the car had left.
"I will find them." Yorinobu said, turning his head to where the car had been before looking back.
"Whenever your name came up, it was said that you are a phenomenal fighter." Norm smiled. "I always wanted to match my skills against yours."
"If you want that, I will oblige you." Yoronibu said, waiting for his opening.
"Good." Norm nodded, looking at the same spot that Kenta had looked earlier. "Then we can..." he continued but his words were stopped by a scream brought on by a sharp pain in his wrist, and with horror he realized that the gun was flying away from him, his hand still attached to it.
"That's why you aren't a fighter at all." Yorinobu scoffed, the blood on his sword blade dripping to the floor. "A real fighter never takes his eyes away from his opponent."
With a thrust, Yorinobu silenced Norm by piercing his heart, the lifeless corpse falling to the floor. He went through the various drawers, trying to find an indication where his former boss might be hiding. He knew that there were plenty of locations that Patrick had never shown him and he also knew that the only to contact Patrick was to call from certain phones, otherwise, the call wouldn't even be accepted and he didn't know the number anyway.
With a few more Japanese curse words, he exited the facility with every piece of documentation that showed an address, then used the burner phone from the drawer to call the police and tell them about the operation. In a few minutes, cops would be swarming the place and another segment of his former boss' syndicate would be taken out.
But for Yorinobu, this was still just the beginning.
"How is it going in there?" she heard Leonard ask.
"This is cool, especially when you can actually walk." she told him. "Already found some security issues."
"That's good." he commented and walked behind her. "How many have you found so far?"
"Four." she told him. "And then... Leonard, what are you doing?"
"Creating a distraction." he chuckled. "You might have to deal with those if you ever got to do a job like this for real."
"Sweetie, if any man in a warehouse were to even touch my pants, much less rub me down there, I would cut off his hands." she began to moan. "Ouch!"
"What's wrong?" he quickly pulled his hand away.
"Sorry, but when I bend my head down, the headset presses against my cheekbone." she told him.
"I'm so sorry." he said worried. "If it becomes too much, then take a break."
"No, it's fine." she waved him off. "But as much as I liked it, no touching my lady parts for now."
"How big is this warehouse you're in?"
"What do you mean?" she wondered.
"I mean, is it small enough so you can walk through the aisles or is it so big that you could drive through it?"
"Oh, it's average, I guess. I can walk through the aisles but it would take me five minutes to walk from one end to the other." she described. "It's also very orderly, like a chess board."
"That's normal for warehouses, you don't want your forklifts and people have to drive or walk long distances if they need something from a different aisle."
"Honey, I love you but please shut up now, I'm working." she grinned and blew a kiss to where she thought he was.
"Very well." he accepted with a chuckle and sat back down, letting her work.
She continued what she was doing for another three hours, looking hard for more flaws in the security of the virtual warehouse. It was fun doing it and she hoped that she found either all of most of them since she could envision herself doing the job for real if it ever came to that. After another look through everything, she gave a mental shrug and walked to the virtual managers office where she pressed the big END button.
'You found seven out of nine flaws'. Howard's voice came into her ear.
"Seven of nine flaws." she repeated out loud, causing Leonard to laugh. "What's so funny?"
"Seven of Nine is a character in Star Trek Voyager." Leonard told her. "I wonder if he hid the other two things so well so it would lead to this result."
"What did I miss?" she asked herself.
"You would have to ask him." he shrugged while she took off the headset, feeling the fresh air hit her eyes.
"Wow, I didn't realize how uncomfortable this is after a while." she groaned, gently rubbing her injured cheek.
"How's the injury?"
"Hurting." she winced. "I did have to look down a few times. What about you?"
"Don't feel any pain but I'm not moving my arm." he said and to test, moved his shoulder a tiny bit. "Okay, hurts a tad."
"Then keep it at rest." she smiled and sat down on his lap, leaning against his chest away from his injured shoulder and spreading her legs.
"Now you can do what you planned on doing before." she giggled and he didn't wait long, using the hand from his healthy side to unbutton her shorts before pushing his hand down between her legs.
"That was quick." he commented when Penny shook with an orgasm only two minutes in.
"Yeah well, I'm a little pent up and that talk with Sam today didn't help." she huffed and felt the bulge in his pants when she moved against it. "So are you, apparently."
"What do you expect." he chuckled.
"I'll give you a really nice blowjob tonight, what do you say?"
"I say, let the night begin." he laughed as she got up.
"Hey, by the way, who is Yumi?" Penny wanted to know, remembering him mentioning the name.
"Her full name is Moon Yu-Ri." Leonard told her. "She's an assassin from South Korea and came here for a job a few years ago. Someone misunderstood her name at first as Yumi and it stuck, so she embraced it."
"And what's her history with Sam?"
"Yu-Ri is lesbian and as you have probably realized by now, Sam has no issue doing both genders." Leonard chuckled. "Yu-Ri was pretty passionate in pursuing Sam but according to Sam, when they finally got together, Yu-Ri seemed kind of conservative in bed."
"Or uptight, as Sam put it." she grinned.
"Well, with Sam, you might be uptight when you don't want to get kinky." he shrugged. "Like, when we do it with foreplay, then three or four different positions but without any toys."
"I can see Sam as being someone who enjoys tying up her... victims." she mused. "She sure is something."
"Yeah, and she's another example how this business can hamper your personal life." he sighed. "From what I heard, Sam engages in casual relationships because anything permanent is difficult given her job, even though she's more of a desk jockey than anything else."
"Why though?"
"Well, imagine a boyfriend or husband, or girlfriend or wife wanting to visit her at work. If she was just in an office doing IT, that could work, but someone outside the organization can't go down to where she works."
"True." Penny nodded. "Hey, why does the hotel use an old fashioned switchboard for phone calls?"
"For the same reason that the receptionist has a phone with a wheel." he said. "You can't hack analogue phones or switchboards, nor can you trace calls beyond those switchboards."
"That make sense, I guess." she accepted. "Though given that regular guests use these hotels, wouldn't that be weird for them?"
"The phones that hotel guests use are equipped with regular phones connected to a digital board." Leonard chuckled. "Only the phones in rooms reserved for us aren't."
"This can get really confusing." she huffed. "Come on, we should walk the dogs."
"Alright." he nodded and watched Penny putting the collars on the animals before they walked down the stairs, stopping at Howard's apartment.
"How did it go?" the engineer asked when Penny handed him the headset back.
"Seven of Nine." Penny told him, causing Howard to chuckle. "Are you going to tell me what I missed?"
"I first have to go in to see which ones you found." he told her. "Want me to make some more?"
"If it's not too much trouble." Penny shrugged. "Leonard told me that you are making my weapons."
"Yes, they're almost ready." Howard nodded. "The guns are finished and I'm putting the finishing touches on the knife hilts. You can test them tomorrow morning."
"Great." she smiled. "Thanks Howard. And before I forget, is Bernie here?"
"Bernie?" Howard called behind him. "Can you come here please?"
"Hey guys." Bernadette smiled at them. "What do you need?"
"Nothing, I just wanted to pass on a message." Penny grinned. "If you ever want to meet Lillian, she wants to meet you too."
"Really?" Bernadette gasped. "Cool, when?"
"Just call her brothel to make a date." Leonard shrugged. "Or just go there in the hopes that she's in."
"I'll call ahead." Bernie grinned. "Might look a bit strange when I walk into a brothel."
"They might mistake you for one of the workers there." Penny laughed.
"Are you coming up for dinner later?" Howard asked.
"Sure, but we're going to walk the dogs first." Leonard nodded. "Should we get the food or are you ordering in?"
"If it's not too much trouble, buy it." Howard nodded. "You know what to get."
"I do." Leonard confirmed. "Although I can buy something different for you, and only get Sheldon and Amy's standard food."
"Or that." Howard realized, then put his and Bernadette's orders on a postage note.
"Alright, I'll get that." Leonard nodded.
"I can give you the headset back then." Howard said to Penny. "I'll check what you missed in the first one and upload the other three I made."
"Cool, thanks." Penny smiled and they left.
They stopped by Raj's apartment, getting his food order as well before leaving the building. While they walked, Leonard called the various food places where he had to order, so they were ready when they picked them up. Penny looked around, hoping to not see another former client but most of the looks she got were more about her facial bruise than from recognition.
Of course, they were the usual looks of lust and desire from various men, along with catcalls and whistles, given that she hadn't changed out of the crop top and shorts she had been wearing all day but none dared approach them to hit on her, less due to Leonard's presence but rather more because of the two large dogs walking at their sides without a leash.
After forty minutes of letting the dogs do their business, they made their way to the three restaurants, picking up the various orders for themselves and their friends. Laden with bags, Penny had to wait for Leonard to open the doors and both went to the top floor to directly bring the food to the group, since they had to wait anyway to feed the dogs.
"Can you show us?" Amy asked while they ate.
"Show you what?" Penny wondered.
"The mask, of course." Amy clarified.
"Why?"
"Because we wanna see." Bernadette shrugged.
"It's just a mask." Penny argued. "I don't like wearing it, I only do it for sleep anyway."
"Come on." Amy whined. "If you had a hand growing out of your forehead, we'd want to shake it."
"Ew." Penny commented that remark. "Fine."
"It's not that bad." Amy said when Penny had put it on. "Sure, it makes you stand out, so you might want to avoid jobs, though your beauty would make you stand out anyway."
"Aw, thanks." Penny felt flattered. "Howard, did you check what I missed?"
"Yep." Howard nodded. "One thing you missed was the window in the men's bathroom, its lock was broken, it also doesn't have bars and is big enough for someone to climb through. The other was the paper garbage. The freight documents were just crumpled and thrown away instead of being shredded."
"Good to know." Penny nodded.
"Leonard, how's the shoulder?" Raj asked his friend.
"Still can't move it without pain." Leonard replied. "I guess another week of keeping it like this, then I should be able to begin rehabilitation.
"Can you play video games?" Sheldon threw in.
"Only those playable with one hand, otherwise, no." Leonard shook his head. "Also, I won't stay awake for too long. Sleep helps with healing."
"How long will you stay once your shoulder is healed enough again?" Sheldon wanted to know.
"Not long, I miss my home in Vermont." Leonard told him without sugarcoating it. "Also, I miss seeing my dad."
"If you can't be without Leonard around you, move to Vermont." Penny suggested with a grin.
"Living in a place that has freezing temperatures in winter?" Sheldon looked aghast. "No thanks."
"Raj, can I use your hyperbaric chamber?" Leonard asked. "It supposed to help a lot with recovery."
"Of course." Raj nodded. "How long?"
"No more than an hour a day." Leonard told him.
They finished dinner and spent an hour with idle chatting before Leonard followed Raj to his apartment. Penny followed them, wanting to see this chamber and was greeted with a coffin-shaped box with a transparent window where the head goes. Without hesitation, he took off his shirt with Penny's help and climbed into the box, Raj closing it and pressing a few buttons. She could hear the hissing of air being pumped into the box and watched a bit while Raj went back upstairs.
"Need me to wait to get you out of there?" she asked him hoping that he could even hear her.
"No, I can get out by myself, there are buttons in here to end the program." he told her. "Can you go feed the dogs?"
"Of course." she nodded and headed upstairs.
Greeted by two happy canines, she ruffled their fur and went into the kitchen to fix their dinner. Since it was Saturday, she grabbed the box of dried sprats along with the meat. She cut the patties in half, putting them into two bowls to which she added three sprats each. A few blueberries and a squirt of salmon oil rounded it out and she put both bowls on the floor, the dogs waiting for her signal and as soon as she gave it, rushing and eating as if they hadn't eaten in days.
"There you are." she smiled at the man she loved when Leonard entered the apartment, the two fed dogs greeting him happily. "How was it?"
"Refreshing." he chuckled. "A few more days and I should be able to get through the day without the sling."
"Finally, right?" she smiled.
"Yeah, I miss training." he nodded. "Which, by the way, you have been slacking with too. You don't have the excuse of a non-usable limb."
"I know, I'm sorry." she realized. "I'll do some sparring tomorrow."
"You wanna watch a movie before bed?" he asked.
"Nah." she waved him off. "There's a promise I need to keep."
"Which was?" he wondered when she took his hand.
"I promised to give you something, remember?" she winked and pulled him into the bedroom.
And with a mix of gentle tongue play and vicious deepthroating, she kept him on the hook for almost an hour before she gave him the sweet release he craved for.
"Speak." Patrick said into the phone after the call came from an approved burner number.
"This is Vega." an almost breathless voice came back. "Boss, what's going on with Kenta?"
"What do you mean?" Patrick asked, even though he knew what the reply would be.
"Kenta just took out our Houston operation." Vega told him, making Patrick wince. "Not just the warehouse, he spent several weeks taking out our street dealers and low level distributors before coming to the warehouse itself and killing everyone there. Only me and Gregory got out. What's going on?"
"Kenta has fallen out with the organization." Patrick told his underling.
"He's looking for you." Vega told him. "I take it you're not at HQ?"
"No." Patrick confirmed.
"What do you want me to do?" Vega asked.
"Contact the other branches in the south, see which ones are still operational. Tell them about Kenta and that they are to increase security. When they see him, the order is shoot to kill." Patrick ordered. "And also, further communication will go via drop box. Yours is drop box two. Choose a city to go to and make it your new local HQ."
"Understood." Vega said and hung up the phone.
Patrick rubbed his face in frustration. Of course he had planned for the eventuality of Kenta learning the truth about his sister's death but that had all been predicated on the assumption that he would learn it on his own and that he could be taken out quickly. But he had learned it from the man who had killed his son. Patrick knew almost for a fact that his son had been in fact assassinated by one of the organization, a group of very skilled killers for hire.
Of course, that precluded him from setting his own syndicate loose on a spree to find the one responsible. If he did that, a war would start he could only lose. So he had to be patient, trying to find clues while at the same time now having to evade Kenta, who knew way too much about how the syndicate operated. When he heard a noise, he grabbed the gun on his desk and pointed it at the door.
"Boss, it's me." a voice came from outside and Patrick put the gun away as the door opened and Mark entered. "I got the supplies as well as a satellite uplink."
"Good." Patrick nodded. "Have you contacted the field HQs about the change in communication?"
"Yes, although I couldn't reach Sacramento, Seattle and Toronto." Mark told him.
"Are you sure that Kenta can't find us here?"
"I can't imagine how." Mark shrugged. "This was my parents' cabin and I never told anyone about it, that's why I've used it as a cash deposit for some of our excess funds you had me hide. There are almost a hundred million dollars of your money below our feet. You can access it through the hatch underneath the carpet."
"Good." Patrick nodded and opened up his laptop.
He wrote down orders for all of the sixteen territories he had separated his syndicate into. Once the orders were finished, he logged into the first email account, going into the drafted emails and opening the one there. He copied the orders for that particular territory, then saved the email. He logged out and logged in to the second account, opening an email draft there as well, adding the orders with today's date into that too before saving and logging out again.
He repeated the entire thing a total of sixteen times, logging into accounts, copying the orders into email drafts before logging out. That way, he was never logged into these accounts for more than a few seconds. His lieutenants controlling the territories had the login data for their respective accounts, which they had to check twice a day, and write down the takes of the day.
That way, there was never an email actually sent, since it stayed as a draft inside the account, making interception impossible. He leaned back with a sigh. His western territories were shrinking with Kenta dismantling the Sacramento and Seattle operations and his Canada branch wasn't faring any better with losing Toronto. And now his southern territories already lost Houston and he was pretty sure that Kenta would out take Dallas and San Antonio next, despite his orders to increase security measures.
But he doubted that he could muster enough men quickly enough to stop Kenta. Leaning forward again, he wrote down the names of a few mercenary companies he knew, even though he would have to bring them in without their guns and supply them with his own weapons, given that it would be hard to get their guns past customs. Before he could continue, a car approaching made him shut down the laptop and grab a gun, Mark also returning with one and peeking past the blinds out of the window.
"It's Connor." Mark told his boss, making Patrick relax and go back to his work as the aforementioned Connor entered the cabin.
"Uncle Patrick." Connor smiled. "Good news."
"What do you have?" Patrick asked his nephew.
"I got pictures of the three people that Mark mentioned had worked with Kenta.
"Show me." Patrick held out his hand and looked at the pictures that Connor handed him. "Why are they so blurry?"
"For some reason, the cameras close to the building hadn't filmed those." Connor explained.
"Were they hacked?" Mark asked.
"Likely. These pictures come from Facebook" Connor nodded. "They were taken by someone with their phone from a balcony half a mile away. That's the reason for their blurriness, we had to blow them up but unfortunately, that lost some of the detail."
"You have the originals?" Patrick looked at him.
"Sure, here." Connor said and handed him another picture.
Patrick took a magnifying glass and checked the picture. He could recognize Kenta easily enough so he focused his concentration on the other three. A woman and two men, one of them older. The two young ones had their backs turned so he couldn't see them but the older man was fully facing the camera.
"I know that man." Patrick pointed to the older man. "I can't remember from where though."
"We already ran his face through facial recognition but we didn't get a result." Connor told him.
"Which databases?"
"DMV and FBI." Connor said. "We don't have access to any other ones. Unless you have other ways."
Patrick got up and shooed Connor to the side of the room before pulling the small carpet away to reveal the hatch Mark had mentioned. He opened it and found the bales of money, protected with foil and plastic sheets laced with certain chemicals to keep insects and rats away from it, in case any got into the sealed basement. He pulled one out, opened it and counted out two million and twenty thousand dollars before putting the bale back.
"Take the pictures and the money, then go to Kansas City to get Nancy." Patrick ordered, writing down two addresses and putting a seal on the note to show Nancy that Connor was sent by him. "Then you two need to get to Middletown in Rhode Island."
"What are we supposed to do in that backwater town?" Connor was confused.
"There's someone living there on Bristol Road." Patrick continued. "Give him the pictures and a million of that money, and ask him to find out who that man is. When he does, give him the the second million."
"Uncle..." Connor said.
"What?"
"You're stingy." Connor was disbelieving. "You killed a guy who cheated you out of a hundred bucks. And now you're giving away two million just like that?"
"Yes." Patrick nodded, dead serious. "And one more thing. You are not to raise a hand or even your voice at that man. Let Nancy do the talking. Don't even touch anything in the man's house. Don't even try to look threatening."
"Seriously, who is that guy?"
"Someone I have known for a while." Patrick explained. "A data savant. He can find anything and anyone but he's also a bit peculiar."
"Retarded?" Connor smirked.
"Quite the opposite but as I said, he has his peculiarities." Patrick corrected. "Hence why you need to let Nancy do the talking. He is calm when hearing her voice. And he gets pissed at us, it will take him ten seconds to bring all of us down."
"And how long will the guy take?"
"As long as he needs." Patrick said. "Again, not even a hint of pressure. Let him do his thing the way he needs to do it. That's why I gave you the extra cash, just in case you need to stay in a hotel for a month. Just don't overdo it with the room service. "
"Then what are we supposed to do while we wait for this guy to do his thing?" Connor wanted to know.
"Connor, I don't give a fuck if you just sit there quietly or even if you and Nancy fuck each others brains out for the whole time you're there." Patrick started to lose his patience. "Just do as you're told!"
"Yes, boss." Connor nodded, knowing that he shouldn't push his uncle's buttons further.
He grabbed the money and put it into his car, hiding it under the spare tire in the trunk. He drove for a few hours until he had crossed the state line, then he pulled out his phone to call this Nancy, making her aware that he was coming on Patrick's orders. After hanging up, he leaned back into his seat and kept driving.
He had another eight hours on the road ahead of him. At least they could take a helicopter to Rhode Island.
Chapter ends here. Who wants more of Kenta's crusade?
Review please :)