Alright, this took a while. If you don't remember, in the middle of December of last year, I tore both my biceps and had the surgery to re-attach them. Both arms seemed to heal normally but on December 30th, I woke up with a severe numbness in my left arm. I apparently had rolled onto it during my sleep and it seems that the weight of my head burst a blood vessel at the incision site
My upper arm was a dark blue, almost black. After fighting myself into a sitting position, the circulation came back and that's when the pain began. I had to call an ambulance and they took me back to the hospital where they injected a needle into my arm and began draining the blood and pus from under my skin that had accumulated. Also, they found that the wound had gotten infected, even though I hadn't noticed any symptoms (yet), so that added another complication.
I had to spend New Years in the hospital. And even though I could leave after two days, I spend two weeks with debilitating pain in my left arm. After three days, I gave up on painkillers and just bore it. At least my right arm is healing normally.
I didn't want to leave this story untouched for so long, so since I couldn't really do anything, I typed this down one-handed over the course of the last week.
Still, enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.
"There you go." Penny mumbled after she had sat back down on the passenger seat, handing Leonard one of the two cups.
"Thanks." he smiled at her and took a sip of the hot chocolate she had bought for him while she began drinking her coffee.
"Why have we been sitting here for three hours?" she grumbled, sipping her beverage.
"It's easier to explain a car that went the same route as you than explain a car suddenly appearing behind you." he shrugged.
"What do you mean?" she wondered.
"Imagine you're in one of their cars. You get the message on your radio that the road ahead is closed and you need to take another one." he explained. "For some reason, few cars, if any, follow you on that detour. Then, at some point, there's suddenly a car behind you that wasn't there before. The only time that can be explained is when the road has a lot of turns that block line of sight backwards."
"I get it." she realized. "It would look too much as if we had been waiting."
"Precisely." he nodded.
"You know, it's crazy how much nuance there is in this job." she mentioned.
"Yes, and those you learn as you do this work." he chuckled. "Though you have an advantage here."
"Because I have you as my mentor, so to speak?" she grinned.
"Exactly." he nodded. "Few among us ever had that. The general competition between assassins usually prevents that. Only older assassins would mentor a young one."
"Like your dad?"
"My dad doesn't mentor you, he trained you. That's different." he corrected her. "In essence, I'm mentoring you."
"And you get plenty of sex in return." she giggled.
"True, I have to get something out of it." he nodded.
"Hey!" she moped after a few seconds of comprehending what he had said.
"Kidding." he laughed and emptied his cup.
"How long do you think until they leave?" she wondered.
"If they want to reach their destination today, they should be leaving within the next ninety minutes." he said.
"Then we should use that time to go to the bathroom at least once." she chuckled.
"Don't underestimate how well you can do in a chase if you need to use the restroom." he laughed. "But to be honest, in jobs that go like this, you might have to do your ablutions, at least number one, into a bottle."
"That's a little harder for me than for you." she pointed out.
"True." he nodded. "You might have to think about getting a stadium friend."
"What's that?"
"It's essentially a funnel you press against your genitals, with a hose attached to it and a small bag that you strap around your leg under your pants." he described.
"That sounds dirty." she made a face.
"I guess for women, it's more difficult." he conceded. "For one, you need a bigger funnel."
"Funny." she moped.
They waited for another forty minutes, after which Penny went into the diner she had gotten her beverages from to use the toilet. Once she was back, Leonard did the same before they continued to wait. Twenty more minutes later, the group with their target exited the hotel and got into their cars.
"They're moving." Penny said after pushing the ear bud into her ear.
"Acknowledged." Deidre's voice came into their ears, followed by Ricardo.
Leonard began driving as well, staying behind them with two cars in between their target convoy and themselves. At the correct time, they heard the fake traffic report about the closure of the Interstate through their radio and to Penny's relief, the five cars in the convoy changed the road to get onto the highway that Leonard had planned the ambush for.
"It worked." Leonard smiled at her, staying at a comfortable distance behind them.
"How do you want to do this?" she asked, more for her peace of mind than actual need for information.
"When I tell you, you grab the rocket launcher, open the sunroof and stand up, then you blow the rearguard car." he told her again. "Remember, you only have about ten seconds maximum after getting up before they realize what's going to happen."
"If the road is straight for long enough, that's all I need." she smiled. "I didn't know they made them this small."
"Yeah, it always amazes me how humans can develop so many ways to kill each other." he chuckled.
"Estimated time of arrival in operational area?" they heard Aaron's voice in their ears.
"If the speed stays consistent, about thirty minutes." Leonard replied.
Leonard kept driving behind their targets, sometimes letting them open up a bigger lead and then driving close again but never too close. Penny fiddled with the launcher, opening and closing the targeting array to alleviate her nervousness. This would be the first time she would engage in heavy combat with adversaries known to be heavily armed as well. During her exam, she also experienced gun combat but those people were gang members with guns and not trained bodyguards.
"Why are you always letting them open up a lead?" she wondered.
"When you're driving, you don't always drive at the same speeds." he told her. "And I don't want them to realize that we're sitting in the armored version of this car."
"That makes sense." she conceded.
"Guys, you're about to reach the target area." Deidre said into their ears.
"Get ready." Leonard told her and pressed a button that opened the sunroof before speeding up to catch up to the convoy.
"Say the word." Penny said and turned the targeting array on the launcher on.
Leonard kept driving close enough for them to see the backs of the heads of the two people sitting in the backseats. The road kept winding, much to his chagrin, but after two more minutes, they arrived on a long stretch. And not a moment to soon, since one of the bodyguards was turning around and pointing.
"Now!" Leonard said and Penny pushed herself up, half standing and half kneeling on her seat.
She pulled the launcher out of the car and put it up against her shoulder. While the targeting array honed in on the car, she could see the occupants getting agitated, the one that had turned around now pointing with a lot more urgency. She could see guns being grabbed and loaded but luckily, the targeting array showed her a green symbol before the guards could lean out of their windows to shoot at her.
She pushed the two trigger buttons and rocked backwards when the small rocket exited the barrel. Leaving the smoke behind them, the rocket struck true, hitting the car right underneath the bumper where it exploded. The car's rear was lifted up by the force of the explosion and the vehicle began flipping, the entire thing looking to Penny as if it happened in slow motion.
Leonard veered violently, his eyes flicking between the road and the airborne car to gauge where it would hit the ground. Seeing the curve, he pushed the steering wheel to the left, Penny letting go of the launcher at the sudden movement, the barrel bouncing down into the car and off of the dashboard to end up wedged between the floor and her door.
"Shit!" she cursed and pulled her gun when Leonard got closer to the next car in the convoy, the guards in that already leaning out of their windows, but before she could even lift her gun, Leonard pulled her down hard.
"I did not request an armored car so you could keep your head and upper body out of it!" he shouted over the din of the bullets impacting the hood and the windshield.
"Sorry." she accepted the admonishment and lowered the side window.
"Try hitting the wheels, if possible." he said as he veered left and right to avoid at least some bullets.
"It would be easier if you stop moving left and right." she shot back after popping off a few shots that went wide.
"Bulletproof glass isn't really bulletproof." he told her. "Shoot at it with a large enough caliber and you break it. Shoot at it hundreds of times and some bullets will get through."
"Try to go straight for five seconds, please." she huffed and lined up her gun.
Leonard did as she asked, waiting for the goons to reload before going straight. Penny leaned out the window and popped off a single shot, the guard in the left backseat suddenly pitching backwards, blood gushing out of his left eye. He hang out the window until his partner pushed him out of it, the corpse flopping on the ground until it came to rest in the ditch.
"Good shot." he smiled.
When the remaining two guards began shooting again, Leonard began weaving once more, spending several minutes going left and right to make them miss at least a few shots. Penny popped off a few more, forcing the guards to stop firing for a bit and when he did this for a third time, Penny took the time to aim, leaning out even more and firing a single bullet which impacted in the right rear tire, their target car suddenly beginning to swerve violently at the high speed they were going.
The driver was good, she had to give him that, managing to control the car for longer than she had thought possible but Leonard had other ideas. He accelerated and rammed the car at his back left, causing it to spin rapidly until it crashed into a tree, the vehicle literally folding around it, crushing the occupants. Penny had no idea if they were dead but they certainly weren't fine, given how little empty space was left inside.
"Two down." Penny said, seeing the remaining three cars change positions, one of the two guarding cars in front slowing down to let their target get in between the two.
"Acknowledged." Aaron's voice came back.
"We'll reach your position soon in thirty seconds." Leonard added. "Get ready."
"Oh, we're ready." Ricardo replied with an audible chuckle.
"Guys, what did you do?" Leonard asked with alarm when they came into view of their companions, the car's left rear up on a jack and Ricardo using a wrench to tighten the screws on the tire.
"Did you have a flat?" Penny almost shrieked.
"Guys, what the hell?" Leonard shouted.
"Have a little faith." Aaron chuckled and they could see something appear from in front of their car, the item unrolling across the entire road. "We found something usable in the old highway patrol station down the road and we needed a cover for standing here."
The lead car's driver saw the danger and tried to break but it was way too late at the speed at which they were going. He tried to stop the car by putting it sideways, the tires screeching but it hit the tire spikes anyway, the two right tires popping and the car flipping over. Their target car didn't fare any better, the driver trying to stop but hitting the spikes as well. While he didn't flip, all four tires got destroyed and the car skidded forward on its rims.
The remaining car's driver reacted quickly enough to not hit the spikes and stopping before hitting them but in the confusion, Ricardo got up and hurried to the car, throwing an object through the open window and quickly sprinting away, hiding behind his car. The object turned out to be a grenade, detonating with a loud thump and both Penny and Leonard ducked when the splinters that got out hit their own car.
"Jesus!" Penny cursed and lifted her body back up, gun in hand.
She watched as Ricardo and Aaron moved along the three vehicles, checking the occupants and putting bullets into the survivors. Aaron used a tiny explosive device to destroy the handcuffs that their target had used to tie the case to his wrist. He lifted the case out of the car and gave Leonard a thumbs up before heading back into their car while Ricardo pulled the tire spikes back off the road.
"We got the case." Leonard spoke into the microphone. "Targets eliminated."
"Acknowledged." Deidre's voice came into their ears. "We'll meet back at the base in Crescent City."
"Got it." Ricardo confirmed and began driving.
"Fuck!" Penny cursed again. "I hate to say it but this made it a lot easier."
"True." Leonard agreed and followed the other car.
The drive took two hours, during which they stayed mostly quiet. While they could have taken the ear pieces out and talk in private, they wouldn't want to miss if anything came up. As they drove, they met a convoy of vehicles going the other direction, an empty car transporter that also had a winch attached, along with three vans.
"Those must be the cleaning crew." Penny chuckled.
"I hope they find them all." Leonard nodded. "And brought some heavy duty equipment for the car that folded around the tree."
"I would think these guys know what they're doing." Penny shrugged and leaned back to rest until they reached the base where they exited the car and towards the dark building.
"Damn, that went smooth." Aaron whooped as they walked into the building, nobody to be seen inside.
"It did." Ricardo nodded and placed the case on the table. "Now lets see what we have here."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Leonard hurried forward to stop him. "What are you doing?"
"Don't you want to know what's in it?" Aaron asked.
"Of course I do, but for one, we're not getting paid to see what's in it and two..."
"And two?" Penny wanted him to continue after Leonard examined the case for a few seconds.
"I knew it." Leonard huffed. "These locks are fake."
"If they're fake then it's even easier to get this open, no?" Ricardo looked at him and then the case.
"No, it means that if we open this, either whatever is in there will be destroyed or..."
"Or?" Aaron wondered.
"It will be released." Leonard shrugged. "Lets say there is a biological agent in there, if I had packed this, I'd want to punish whoever steals this from me."
"Uh." Ricardo quickly took his hand away from the case.
"Good work everyone." Deidre said as she walked in. "Is the case okay?"
"Yes." Leonard nodded. "Though you should take care when opening it, it's fake."
"What?" Deidre asked.
"The locks are fake, my guess is this is one of those trick cases that explode or destroy everything inside if you try to force the locks."
"I see." Deidre nodded after taking a closer look. "I recognize this model. We'll have to use an x-ray machine to get this open."
"Will that prevent triggering the trap?" Penny wanted to know.
"No, but it will allow us to see what we're working with and possibly where we can drill into." Deidre said.
"Unless it's lead-lined." Aaron pointed out.
"Aren't you a ray of sunshine." Deidre rolled her eyes and pulled the case from the table before handing out thick envelopes to each of them. "Your payment, as agreed. Nice doing business with you."
"Likewise." Aaron waved at her with the envelope. "Rare that a case like this goes so smoothly."
"Yeah, except for the seventeen corpses being transported in a freezer truck and the five car wrecks on flatbeds going to wherever the NSA disposes of those." Ricardo chuckled.
"What about the cars?" Penny pointed to the vehicles they had used for the job.
"Either you leave them here and we'll pick them up later, or you drive them back to the warehouse in Los Angeles." Deidre told her.
"I'd rather not have to look for alternative transportation when carrying a hundred grand in cash around." Aaron huffed. "Road trip it is."
"Will there be someone to receive them?" Leonard asked her.
"Vincent will be there." Deidre nodded. "Have a nice day."
"You too." Ricardo waved after her as Deidre left. "So, wanna get something to eat first?"
"No, I wanna go home, get some proper sleep." Leonard shook his head.
"I'll drive." Penny offered. "You did the car chase, I can do the drive home."
"I can drive too." Aaron offered to Ricardo.
"Really?" Ricardo looked at his friend with surprise. "You realize this car isn't steered by a controller or a keyboard?"
"Fuck you!" Aaron pretended to be insulted but laughed nonetheless.
"Can we keep the weapons?" Penny asked with a grin, stroking the miniature rocket launcher.
"I doubt it." Leonard chuckled. "My guess is that Vincent will take them back."
"Too bad." Penny shrugged and got behind the wheel.
Halfway through the trip, Penny regretted her offer, not having recognized that the drive would take almost thirteen hours. She passed the time by singing along with the radio, otherwise, she couldn't do much for a lot of the time because Leonard napped for a while, given that they had both gotten up at midnight. After eight hours, her eyes were hurting so Leonard offered to drive the rest of the trip, allowing her to take a nap as well. As they switched, she noticed that Ricardo and Aaron switched as well.
Leonard shook her awake four hours later, turning the last corner and driving into the garage of the building they had met their employer first. Vincent was there as promised, taking back the keys for the cars and thanking them for their work before having one of his men getting into one car, and himself getting into the other, both driving away.
"Well, it was nice working with you." Ricardo said as they stood outside the building.
"Likewise." Leonard nodded and shook their hands. "Much better than you trying to kill me."
"Alright, I don't want to be a downer, but I don't think we should stand around for long in this area, given that each of us is carrying a hundred grand in cash." Penny told them.
"True." Aaron agreed. "I would like to avoid causing another bloodbath to defend ourselves."
"See you around." Leonard waved at them.
"Bye." the other two replied and both pairs left in opposite directions.
Penny and Leonard called a cab and had the driver drive them back to the apartment. Half an hour later, Leonard paid the man and led her inside, unlocking the security door and both getting into the elevator, walking up the stairs and knocking on Raj's door.
"Hey guys, welcome back." Raj smiled at them. "How did the job go?"
"Smoothly." Leonard replied. "But we can't tell you anything about it."
"It's okay." Raj shrugged.
"Did they cause any trouble?" Penny asked.
"No, they were angels." Raj smiled again as the two dogs ran excitedly to their owners.
"Yes, we're back." Penny said in a baby voice, ruffling over Tyson's ears.
"Lets go." Leonard took her hand and walked up the next flight of stairs.
"Not taking the elevator?"
"Nah, we just sat in a car for thirteen hours."
"That's true." she nodded.
"Ah, home sweet home." Leonard chuckled and stretched, Major still at his side while Tyson refused to leave Penny's close vicinity. "I'm going to take a shower and then I need some proper sleep."
"I'll count the money." she chuckled as Leonard put his phone and other small items on the table.
"I doubt the NSA will have cheated us out of even a cent of promised payment." Leonard said. "If they did, we would at some point refuse to work with them and they can't afford that."
"True but..." she began before being interrupted by a signal tone from Leonard's phone that she had never heard before.
"Shit." Leonard cursed and put his shirt back on. "That's an emergency signal."
"It's from your dad." Penny said after picking it up. "Just three numbers. Nine One One?"
"Fuck!" Leonard cursed. "Lets go!"
"What?" she felt steamrolled. "Where to?"
"The airport!" Leonard almost yelled and was already out the door, the two dogs right behind him, picking up on his urgency.
"Hey guys." Bernadette grinned at them. "Raj told us you were back."
"No time, my dad sent an emergency message." Leonard said as he rushed past them. "We need to get home."
"What about your things?" Howard wanted to know.
"We'll pick them up later!" Leonard shouted from the floor below.
"I have no idea." Penny shrugged at their questioning faces and hurried after him.
And after breaking several speed limits, they were in the air an hour later.
"There's the house." the driver said.
"Good." Sie nodded, looking out of the window. "Any sign of movement?"
"House is dark." a voice from one of the two men she had dispatched several hours earlier to scout out the house came from the car's intercom. "Has been for three hours now. Target presumably went to bed."
"Any guard dogs?"
"None that we have seen." the voice came back. "No kennels visible either. Can't ascertain the presence of an alarm system."
"The man used to be a highly skilled intelligence operative." Sie said. "So expect alarms."
"Acknowledged." several voices conceded.
"Execute." Sie said after another minute of just looking at the house.
Sie and her men got out of the three cars, grabbed their weapons and walked towards the main gate, the two men she had dispatched to watch it joining them after another minute. She pointed at the gate and one of her men knelt down by it, using specialized glasses to look at it.
"Laser tripwires." the man said.
"Mannfred." Sie said the name of another one.
Mannfred knelt down next to the other guy and put on glasses himself to see the laser beams. Then he produced an equal amount of laser pointers along with duct tape. He turned them on, fixing the button with a small patch of tape before pointing fixing the pointer to the closest metal bar and pointing it at the receptor at a slight angle, careful not to touch any of the lasers coming from the emitters. Then Mannfred blocked the laser from the emitter with a strip of tape, simply placing it so that the tape would catch the laser.
He repeated the process with all of the ten lasers, The process took a lot of time, and Sie thanked their lucky stars that their target lived so far out of the way with no cars moving along the road. Once all the lasers were blocked, Mannfred got up and made room for the next guy, who knelt down and pushed a fold-out piece of cloth through the bars. A button press later, the fabric opened like a square umbrella, covering a fifteen square feet area from view.
The first man produced a small plasma cutter and went to work, quickly cutting the lock and lock bar of the gate. Since the laser receptors had the pointers shining into them, they could open the gate without problems, but still did it slowly so they wouldn't jostle the tapes blocking the lasers.
"Hurry now!" Sie told them and the group fast-walked forwards in a staggered formation as they had learned during their military day with their boots ringing on the stone tiles but still, no lights went on and no movement could be seen in the dark.
Unfortunately for them, their target was already awake and moving. Alfred had built the alarm sensors himself and in a way that would protect him from exactly what Sie's men had done. He had used special gem stones he had received on a job long ago to create lasers with a distinct color. The receptors were built for exactly that color and shining a laser with a different color into them would cause the silent alarm to go off.
The alarm was only a buzzing and strong vibration of his bed, waking him up. He had checked the monitors, seeing the group of armed men entering his property and he immediately got up and put one some clothes before rushing out of the bedroom to get to his basement. Unfortunately, he couldn't make it before the armed group was opening his front door, so he grabbed his cane and hurried into a small closet to wait.
Realizing that he has left his phone inside the bedroom, he cursed under his breath and watched through the grills of the closet door. The group moved with purpose and skill, making him aware that they weren't thieves or even just amateur syndicate members but most likely mercenaries. He watched as one of them took up position outside the front door and that one was moving towards the backdoor, taking away his choices of egress. The others moved upstairs and into his bedroom.
"Er ist nicht hier!" he heard one of them say when they didn't find him in bed, realizing that at least some of them were German, his language skill still good enough to understand them.
"Durchsucht das Haus!" a female voice ordered and repeated the order in English, making him curse again.
He only knew of one mercenary company that was being led by a woman, especially a German one. No wonder their skill was so great. The Veteran Combat Initiative had always had the greatest reputation among mercenaries, being well trained, loyal to their leadership and always successfully finishing their missions.
He knew that he couldn't stay in this closet since they would search every nook and cranny, even cutting into his gun cellar if they had to. He waited for another minute, watching the group disperse through the house, four of them going outside to either search the outside or simply guarding every side so he couldn't leave through one of the windows.
One of the ones that were searching the ground floor came closer and closer, looking around but always keeping his gun aimed at where he was looking at. Alfred readied his cane and waited until the mercenary opened the door. Before the man could react, Alfred put his cane against the man's chin, firing a lower charge than normal in order to paralyze the man's muscles so he couldn't pull the trigger and giving him time to push his knife into the man's throat. He pulled him into the closet, closed the door and held his hand over the man's mouth until he expired.
Quietly, he exited the closet and closed the door, seeing the dark outlines of the blood leaking from underneath it. He knew he had to hurry before anyone noticed it but he also needed to be careful not to be seen. Glad to wearing only socks, which helped to stay quiet, he moved towards the stairs but noticed one of the men upstairs approaching and quickly hid around the corner, close to the door to the master bathroom.
The man walked down the stairs and as he reached the bottom, Alfred put his hand over the man's mouth and pushed the knife into his throat. The mercenary began twitching and tried to get out of Alfred's grip but Alfred held on and pulled him backwards towards the bathroom, opening the door and going inside, where he gently lowered the now dead man into the tub. Cursing to himself, he noticed the large amount of blood that got onto his night shirt but he couldn't really do anything about it now and returned outside.
Checking for more movement, he quickly but quietly climbed the stairs, pausing and cursing every time the old bones in his knees cracked. Reaching the top, he quickly hurried to the bedroom, where another mercenary was going through his drawers. Alfred slipped inside the room and used the maximum setting on his cane to stun the man before using the knife on the hilt to stab him into the heart.
He quickly grabbed his phone, chose his son's contact and quickly typed three numbers into it before locking the phone with a practically unbreakable security window so the mercenaries wouldn't know who he wrote to or that he did at all. Getting back up, he walked towards the door but just as he stepped outside, he was faced with two mercenaries, one of them towering over him.
"Found him." the shorter man said into his communicator. "We..."
Not letting him finish, Alfred exploded into action. He dropped down, wincing as his knees hit the floor and slashed his knife into the man's legs, cutting the tendons in his knees and making him drop with a scream. Another slash across the throat ended the man's life but before Alfred could come back up, the butt of the larger man's rifle hit him in the face.
He just had enough time to notice his nose breaking before darkness took him.
So, this might have felt a little disjointed but if you spend weeks between writing sessions, this can't be avoided really and I didn't want to completely restart the chapter.
Still, review please :)