Got, it's hot and humid these days. My apartment is almost like a sauna sometimes. I hate that I only have windows in one direction, I can't get a draft going...
Regardless, enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.
"This one." he pointed to the hotel he had spotted while driving the rental car they got after landing.
After several hours of flight, they had landed in Redfield, since Leonard didn't want to risk alarming Patrick by landing in Aberdeen directly. They had rented an SUV and driven the fifty miles to Aberdeen, their various items of weaponry and gear in the back.
"Isn't that an apartment block?" she wondered, looking at the building he was pointing to.
"It was one, they seem to have repurposed it." he nodded.
"Why this one though, we could go to a better one, could we not?" she said.
"Yes, but this one is only two miles from the warehouse and it has balconies." he explained. "The drone and car can scout longer with less distance to cover to the target."
"Got it." Penny nodded and grabbed two of their bags while Leonard took the other two.
"Good afternoon." a bored looking clerk greeted them.
"Hello." Leonard greeted back. "We need a room for the night, preferably the top floor."
"Any reason for that?" the clerk asked confused.
"Habit." Leonard shrugged. "I don't like the idea of people above me."
"Whatever, man." the clerk shrugged and handed him a key and a book to sign for Leonard. "Room four-two."
"Why the top floor?" Penny asked when they entered the elevator.
"I don't want the possibility of anyone above us noticing the drone flying off." Leonard explained.
They rode up the elevator and exited it into the hallway. The floor was silent except for some loud TV sounds coming from a room further down and the two entered the room they had gotten the key for. Penny could see that this truly did use to be a former apartment block. The room had two separate bedrooms, a small bathroom with a toilet and sink and a separate bathroom with a shower stall as well as a kitchenette in the antechamber that led to all the rooms.
Leonard put his bags down and opened them up, revealing the flying drone. Penny did the same thing and took out the remote controlled car, leaving their clothes in the bags. Leonard turned on the drone and began flying it around the room, the device barely making a sound.
"What are you doing?" she wondered.
"Practicing." he told her while not taking his eyes off the small monitor on the remote. "I've never steered a drone before."
"At least I used RC cars when I was a kid." Penny chuckled and put the car down to drive it around, the carpet making it a bit difficult. "We can only use the drone though, there's no way to get the car down there from up here."
"I have an idea about that." he said absentmindedly. "We have to wait for darkness anyway to avoid the drone to be seen, if there is someone waiting for us."
"What if we find, I don't know, a dozen armed men there waiting for us?" Penny wanted to know.
"We deal with it." Leonard shrugged. "Even if we have to throw grenades into the bunch."
"Shit!" Penny cursed when someone knocked on their door.
"YES?" Leonard shouted.
"I got some towels for you." a female voice said from outside.
Leonard went to the door, shutting the door to the larger bedroom where their gear was on the bed and opened the main door. He nodded his thanks to the young woman handing him the towels and gave her a ten dollar bill. He just threw the towels onto a small cabinet in the antechamber and returned to the bedroom with the balcony, using a pair of binoculars to look at the warehouse from afar.
"See anything?" Penny asked.
"No, it's too far away." Leonard shook his head. "I thought maybe I could see movement."
"So, wait for the evening and launch the drone?" she suggested.
"Would be the best, yeah." he agreed. "In the meantime, we could..."
"Have sex?" she grinned.
"I was thinking trying to see if the drone can hold the car." he chuckled.
"Why?" she wondered.
"As you said correctly, we can't get the car down from here." he said. "And it might be a weird look if you leave the building with a remote controlled car and then return a minute later without it."
"True." she accepted. "Though I could do it without being seen."
"I know you could." he agreed. "However, I doubt you would be able to drive the car to the warehouse from here without anyone noticing it or maybe even just picking it up. Not to mention that a simple curb could stop you from continuing on."
"You're right." she nodded.
Leonard used duct tape to see how much would be necessary to attach the car to the drone. At first, he used several layers just to see if the drone could hold it at all and when he learned that it could, he removed it and tried to use less and less duct tape to see what the minimum amount was. The result was four strips for the drone to carry the car and also make it possible for the drone to use a curb or something similar to get the car off of it but Leonard knew that he had to fly carefully, since a sharp turn would make the car fall off.
"So, we have over two hours to kill until it's dark." Penny said. "What should we do until then?"
"Lets do what you suggested." he smiled.
"What was that?" she wondered.
"Well, we are about to do a job, so..." he shrugged and grabbed the hem of her shirt, deftly pulling it off of her.
"I like where this is going." Penny giggled and grabbed for the button of his pants.
"The flight going good?" Penny asked, fidgeting with the deactivated car remote.
"Yeah." he nodded and kept concentrating on steering the drone that was carrying the car towards the target building.
Penny looked over his shoulder to see the camera view of the drone and took a deep breath when she smelled the remainder of their lovemaking session, even though both had showered. Since both were doing the job, both had done their version of the ritual, with Leonard first pummeling her from behind, followed by Penny getting on top and riding him as if it was their last day on Earth.
Now they were standing in the dark room, both wearing their bodygloves with the weapons stashed in their respective pockets and the necklaces with the scramblers around their necks. Penny was also wearing a beret to cover her long hair and to avoid its light color to be visible in case they did face opposition inside the warehouse.
Leonard steered the drone close to the building and lowered it close to the ground where he found a brick lying around. The warehouse itself had a scaffolding on one side and but she could not see any holes in the wall where she could drive the car into. Leonard flew the drone even closer to the ground, the device barely making any noise above the sound of the wind and found an opening in the wall.
Deciding on it, he flew back and found a brick lying on the ground. He flew the drone close above it and gently rammed the car against the brick before increasing the drone's forward speed. The car ripped off of the duct tape, two of the tape pieces clinging to the drone, while the other two stuck against the brick and the car.
Penny turned her remote on and used reverse on the car to detach the tape, but only one stayed stuck to the brick, the other clinging to the car. Not able to do anything about that right now, she drove the car close to the hole in the wall. She looked at the remote, trying to find the button that controlled the lights on the car and after finding it, she cursed when the lights came on brightly, Penny quickly turning down the setting to where she could just see enough. After driving it into the building, she stopped it and checked Leonard's remote video feet to see if there were people.
"Shit." he commented when the first armed man came into view.
"Oh man." Penny agreed when more armed men became visible.
Leonard flew from window to window, mentally counting the amount of people he saw and then trying to find an open window to fly the drone into the building. Unfortunately, he couldn't see a single opening large enough for the drone and for obvious reasons, he couldn't crash the drone through the holes due to the noise it would create.
"Twelve people." Leonard said. "Ten guys in fatigues and two guys not wearing them."
"How can you tell them apart?" Penny wondered. "Have you made sure that you didn't count any of them twice?"
"Count the haircuts." he chuckled.
"Nice idea." she admitted.
None of the men saw the flying drone hovering outside the window, its shape and color making it blend into the dark outside. Leonard flew it around the building again, looking into every window and once more counting the number of people he saw to make sure.
"These two don't seem to be a part of that group." Penny pointed out. "They're not armed like the others."
"I concur." Leonard nodded. "Neither of them is Patrick Brostin though."
"What are they doing?" she wondered, seeing one of them kneeling down, with his hand underneath the floorboards.
"Can you find a way in?" Leonard asked her.
"Let me see." she said and drove the car through the darkness of the building's inside.
She started driving the car through the dark interior. Luckily, the wheels were rough enough to find purchase on the incline she faced with it and she slowly drove up until she was finally on a level surface again. She could barely see anything and even though it was a risk, she turned the lights of the car to a brighter setting but still keeping them on a low level to avoid a glare to be seen.
"Jesus!" she cursed when she almost drove it into an obstruction. "What the hell is that?"
"Let me see." Leonard said and lifted the drone above the window line to hide it and put it into hover mode.
"What is it?" she looked at him as he was staring intently at the object in front of the car.
"That's explosives." Leonard said. "It looks like a mine connected to a pressure sensor. You apparently drove into the crawl space under the floor."
"Why would they mine a building that they are in?" she wondered.
"My guess is to incapacitate us." Leonard postulated. "You step on one of those mines and there's an audible click. If you step off of it, you blow up unless they're deactivating them."
"There are more." she said when she slowly drove the car around the floor space. "It seems they really want to stop us."
"Yeah, though I would argue that placing enough explosives under the floor to blow up the whole building you are in is kind of insane." Leonard chuckled.
"Do you recognize anyone?" she asked.
"No, but I think I've seen this symbol before." he said when the drone captured one of the armed men, who was wearing a sleeveless shirt under his vest and sporting a visible tattoo on his upper arm. "Can't place it though."
"Maybe your dad knows?" Penny suggested. "Or Howard?"
"Maybe." he nodded and took a picture with his phone before sending it to his father, who replied within a minute. "Apparently, they're an offshoot of Defion Internacional, a Peruvian private military company."
"So, mercenaries." she said.
"Yes, but again, not directly for that company, that is legit." Leonard said and kept reading his dad's message. "According to dad, these guys used to be part of that company but branched out to take contracts that this parent company would or could never take."
"Looks to me like they're going with plausible deniability." Penny ventured.
"Likely." Leonard nodded. "Doesn't matter though, they're still trained mercenaries."
"Can you get close enough to listen in?" Penny asked.
"I think so." Leonard nodded and flew the drone back to the window, turning up the microphone to catch the words that they could see were being spoken by the two unarmed men and the apparent leader of the mercenaries.
"Are you done?" the older of the two asked.
"Almost." the man, whose name he never got or asked for, told him.
"Are they placed correctly?" the younger one wanted to know.
"Sir, don't tell me how to do my job." the mercenary gave him a glare and watched his men work.
"As long as you let us leave before you activate them." the younger shook his head. "Being in a building that is laced with floor mines is not something I see as good strategy."
"Sir, you want us to capture two people who were able to defeat a squad of the Veteran Combat Initiative by themselves and without firing a gun." the man told him. "If we were allowed to simply gun them down, there would be no need for the mines. But for capture, the mines are the only way to capture them without having to risk my men."
"We already did it before." the kneeling man who was setting the mines added. "None of us will be close to the mines."
"They could still bring the building down." the older one argued.
"For that to happen, they would have to explode all at once." the leader told him. "That can't happen."
"How can you be sure?" the younger man asked. "You said before that your mines are connected so you can control their activation."
"You see those cables?" the guy who set the mines showed them.
"What of them?" the younger one looked.
"Blue is the connection, pink is the safety." the mercenary explained. "For all the mines to explode together, the blue cable would need to be detached from the primary mine in the network while the pink cable would need to stay in it while the primary mine exploded."
"Doesn't sound safe." came from the younger man. "Where is the primary mine?"
"You're standing on top of it." the leader told him and laughed when younger man did an immediate jump backwards. "Don't worry, they're still off."
"That still doesn't sound safe to me." the older of the two shrugged.
"In order for all the mines to blow at once, someone would have to walk into the middle of the room, lift the floorboards, detach the blue wire and then blow up the mine." the leader explained. "Even without us being here, they would have to get past the other mines and then still sacrifice their own life to make this mine explode."
"As I said, we have done this before." the other guy added as he connected the mine below him.
"The mine can't blow up accidentally?" the older man asked.
"It's a pressure activated mine." the leader sighed. "And no, a stray cat couldn't set it off. It's set for the weight of a human being."
"Next you will be suggesting that someone might throw a brick onto it?" the demolition guy smirked as he fixed the floorboards over the mine he had just set.
"Fine." the older man lifted his arms in surrender. "We'll return to our boss. Call us when you have them."
"Are you even sure that they'll come here?" the leader asked.
"I'm ninety-nine percent sure." the older man nodded.
The two left the building, leaving the mercenaries to do their job. Neither of them noticed that an almost silent drone was following them to their car, flying thirty feet above them and nimbly going past power poles and other obstructions as they drove towards their destination. They took a detour rout but ultimately arrived at the cabin, finding their boss sitting at the table and writing orders into emails.
"Will the battery hold?" Penny wondered, looking at Leonard's screen.
"I doubt we will get it back here." he shrugged. "But if we can find where Patrick is hiding, we don't need it to come back."
It took another thirty minutes, during which Leonard had to weave past trees and poles to follow the car from enough distance to not get noticed but also close enough to not lose them. At some point, they left the city proper, driving south until they ended up and an area full of small cabins that didn't look like they would be comfortable to live in. As the two exited the car, Leonard kept the drone close to a tree to avoid it being seen in the moonlight and only when the two had entered he building did he fly it down to find a window.
"That's him?" Penny asked, looking at the monitor that showed the third man they hadn't seen before after Leonard had found a closed window to look through.
"It must be." Leonard nodded. "The other two's body language speaks of subservience."
"Oh wow!" Penny gasped when the three opened a trap door and revealed a ton of cash, Patrick grabbing a bundle and handing it to the younger of the other two.
"We know now where he's hiding." Leonard said. "Drive the car out of the building and to somewhere hidden where we can pick it up. There's no need for us to go to the warehouse."
"We don't leave it there?" she wondered.
"No, it's too good a piece of equipment to just leave there." he shook his head.
"Okay." she shrugged and attempted to have the car drive backwards. "Leonard, I can't drive it."
"What do you mean?" he asked, putting the drone into hover mode right above the cabin so he could look at her screen.
"Look, it rocks a bit but it won't move." she showed him.
"Seems you're stuck on something." he mused. "Maybe a small hole in the ground. Try rocking the car back and forth to get momentum."
"Hm, doesn't seem to work." she said after pulling the steering stick back and forth a few times.
"Let me try." he said and did the same thing she did, only with a bit more force.
Inside the warehouse, the mercenaries couldn't hear the low sliding sound of the car's wheels trying to get fraction on the ground. What nobody, Penny and Leonard included, could see was that the reason for the car being stuck was the piece of tape that had stayed on the car. The tape had gotten stuck against one of the two cables and when Leonard gave the car a strong push forwards, the tape pulled out the cable and bumped into the mine in front of it.
"Careful." Penny squeaked when she saw and heard the impact, though neither had noticed that the cable had come out of its socket.
"Relax, these mines are a little more stable than..." he began but didn't get to finish the sentence.
A bright flash made them wince and turn their heads but that inconvenience was soon forgotten when the shock wave arrived eight seconds later, a loud blast that sounded like someone was firing a huge cannon in rapid succession. They could see the building fall apart, debris falling in every direction and high up in the air and for some reason, Penny followed the path of a single piece of debris that arched high into the air before coming back down, hitting a car that was standing half a mile away from the warehouse.
"What the fuck happened?" she gasped at the devastation, the warehouse nothing more than a flaming hell.
"I have no idea." he shrugged helplessly. "Maybe the tape that was stuck on the car pulled out the wire and the car hitting the mine caused it to trigger."
"Fuck!" she cursed, the receding blast making way for the sound of dozens of car alarms. "Wait, what about Patrick and his men?"
"Shit!" Leonard cursed as well and grabbed the drone remote, deactivating the hover mode and flying it towards the window again and finding nobody inside the cabin.
"BOSS!" he heard a shout and turned the drone towards the source of the sound, only to find himself looking at Patrick and his two henchmen, the younger of which pointing at the flying vehicle.
"Oh no." Penny winced.
"Dammit!" Leonard shouted in frustration and saw the other guy swing a two-by-four at the drone, a hit he was barely able to evade.
Unfortunately, his sudden evasion caused the drone to fly against the wall of the cabin, the light construction causing one of the fan housings to crack. The drone began to wobble and Leonard fought to keep it flying when suddenly it was hit hard and crashed to the ground. He saw the older henchman closing in on it with the wooden board and after another whack, the feed cut off.
"What now?" Penny asked but Leonard was already moving.
"Hurry!" he ushered her on and pulled the door of the room open.
Since both were already dressed in their bodygloves and armed, there was no need to waste time grabbing any weapons, only the dark vision goggles. They both ran to the elevator, Leonard fidgeting the entire way down and when the doors finally opened on the ground floor, he shot out of it and sprinted towards the exit, Penny hot on his heels.
She looked around but couldn't see the receptionist, the guy probably either hiding due to the explosion or sitting in front of a TV to watch any news footage about it, or standing outside somewhere to look. They ran to their car and got into it, Leonard starting the engine and stepping on the gas.
With screeching tires, the car began moving forward and Leonard almost drifted against the curb as he sped onto the street. Going faster than the speed limit, he turned a corner and stepped on the breaks when he noticed emergency lights coming from the side of the intersection. Cursing, he stood there while police cars and firefighting vehicles went past.
"Damn, no way getting past them." he grunted and turned the car around to take a detour.
Driving through side streets and even some alleys, he had to slow down due to a large number of what looked like homeless people running around and he had to use the horn profusely to get past. It took twenty minutes to leave the area and Leonard broke yet more speed limits as he drove down the street towards the cabins, the drone having given its GPS coordinates before it got taken out. When they got close to the area, he turned off the car's lights and drove as slow as possible to avoid crashing into anything until he found a secluded spot to stop.
Both got out of the car, Leonard locking the doors, and hoping that the two ping sounds didn't alert their prey to their presence. Penny stayed on the left side of the walkway, Leonard on the right and they both made their way rapidly towards the cabin. After they got close, both climbed over the fence of the property two cabins down and ran across the barren area, jumping the fence into the next one and , after Leonard motioned for her to activate the scrambler, finally over the hedge onto the property of their target.
Leonard pulled his gun, Penny doing the same and both crept towards their goal, both far enough apart to not be taken out at the same time if someone took a shot. Penny looked around, the goggles turning the night into a gloomy day but couldn't see any movement or shapes of bodies. She went around the cabin counterclockwise while Leonard took the opposite direction.
After a minute, she reached the downed drone, the vehicle still sparking occasionally and the wooden board that was used on it lying next to it. She still couldn't see anyone until she noticed someone moving, quickly pointing her gun before lifting it equally fast again when she realized that it was Leonard. Her sweetie got close to the cabin and looked into the open door, trying to discern any movement.
Choosing the risk, he pulled out a small flashlight and turned it on, the beam of light illuminating the cabin interior. Leonard, still staying crouched, went into the building but when she noticed that the car that had been on the property was missing, she relaxed slightly, especially when she saw that the gate was still open.
"It's clear." Leonard's whisper broke the silence and she could hear his frustration as he came out of the building.
"They left in a hurry." Penny pointed to the tire tracks, equally whispering just in case there was a microphone somewhere, so they wouldn't give away any clue about their identities by making it possible to recognize their voices.
"No kidding." he chuckled sadly and pointed his flashlight into the cabin again.
"Holy moly." her eyes went wide when she saw the open floorboards and the cash underneath. "How much do you think that is?"
"Help me with this." he said and pointed to one of the still closed bales.
"Jesus!" she cursed when she almost fell into the hole, having underestimated the weight of the bale.
"Yep, that's ten million dollars." he nodded after they had it out.
"How do you know?" she asked.
"The stacks in the open one are all hundred dollar bills." he explained. "The bale weighs approximately two hundred and twenty pounds and if all of the bills are hundred dollar bills, then the weight of this thing makes it ten million."
"What now?" she wanted to know. "We clearly missed them and they seem to be gone. I doubt they would just stay close by and risk us finding them."
"I agree." he nodded and looked thoughtfully at the money. "Help me carry this."
"Where to?" she wondered as they left with the heavy collection of bills between them, both having to squeeze the foil.
"To the car." he said and they threw the bale over the hedge before climbing over. "Turn off the scrambler, save power."
They carried the bale of money to their rental car and put it into the trunk. Leonard led her back to the cabin, both turning the scramblers back on before they walked through the open gate this time and with her help, got a second full bale of the money which they also carried to the car and stored in the trunk.
"More?" she asked.
"No, it would become too heavy." he said.
"So, what do we do with what could be twenty million dollars in cash?" she wondered. "And what do we do now regarding Patrick? Sie clearly warned him."
"She did." he nodded. "I have some ideas for the money but right now, we're going to call the FBI."
"We will?" she looked wide-eyed at him.
"Do you have your FBI ID?"
"Yeah." she nodded and produced it from her bodyglove. "But won't we look strange wearing tight leather suits?"
"You're right." he admitted. "Lets go throw some business clothes over them."
"What clothes, they're at the hotel room." she argued.
"Except the bag I left in the car." he chuckled and pulled it out from the space behind the passenger seat.
"Damn." Penny was flabbergasted at his foresight, making a mental note to always have a disguise ready if she had to pose as her FBI persona.
"Got your badge out of the bodyglove?" he asked after they had finished dressing.
"Crap." she huffed and opened her button-down again, as well as the zipper of the bodyglove so she could fish out the badge while Leonard dialed the number of the local FBI field office.
"Good evening, this is agent Vincent Breslau." Leonard spoke into the phone, giving his badge number to whoever he was talking to. "I know that you guys are probably busy with the explosion that happened an hour ago but I need some agents at my location... Yes, me and my partner are investigating a drug cartel and we found what looks to be one of their stash houses for their money... I haven't counted it but from what I can tell, it's somewhere in the vicinity of seventy-five million dollars, give or take... It's the cabins at the southern edge of town, plot twenty-six A... We'll be waiting at the entrance... Yes, thank you."
"Do we take the scramblers off?" she asked after he ended the call.
"No, we're going to wait at the entrance to this compound and when we return here with the other agents, we're going to turn them back on, even though I haven't seen any electromagnetic signs of an active camera." he told her.
"I'd rather not risk it." Penny said.
"Exactly." he agreed and they walked towards the gate.
With the flashing lights and the fire at the warehouse still visible, they waited for over half an hours before two SUVs arrived. A total of six agents exited the vehicles, and the lead agent, by the looks of it, came over to shake Leonard's hand.
"You are agent Breslau?" the man asked.
"I am." Leonard nodded and showed his badge. "This is my partner, Agent Riley."
"Nice to meet you." the man shook Penny's hand after she showed her badge. "I'm Agent Henderson, these are agents Stevens and Vega as well as analysts Riley and Miller."
"Analysts?" Leonard looked at them.
"As you correctly guessed, we're a bit short on manpower with that thing going on." Henderson pointed at the lit up sky behind them. "So, how did you find this?"
"We're working a case of a drug empire that deals heroin all over the country." Leonard explained as they walked towards the cabin. "The syndicate head had gone into hiding when we wrapped up their Los Angeles branch after someone had taken out the members of it. Our investigation led us here but we seemed to have narrowly missed them."
"How do you figure?" one of the analysts asked and Penny noticed him and the agent called Vega walking in a way that had them almost hold hands.
"Tire tracks on the property tell of a hurried escape and the gate was still open, as was the cabin door." Leonard told them as they entered the plot. "We found it like this."
"Holy crap!" Stevens exclaimed when Penny turned on the lights in the cabin, revealing the hole in the floor and the money bales underneath.
"You said that this is seventy-five million?" Henderson asked.
"Based on my estimation, yes." Leonard nodded. "As you can see with the open bale, it looks to be all hundred dollar bills. Unless the other bales contain smaller denominations, the amount of stacks come to ten million per bale. Seven full bales still down there."
"Holy shit." Riley added as he looked down.
"Stevens, Vega, head back and get our cars in here." Henderson ordered. "Break the locks of the car gates to get here, if necessary."
"Got it, boss." Vega nodded and after a look at one of the analysts, she and Stevens headed out.
"Guys, you shouldn't let your relationship distract you like this." Penny said quietly to Riley after the two agents had left.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Riley stammered.
"Come on, you're basically holding hands and you throw each other looks all the time." Penny chuckled. "I know that fresh relationships like this are exciting but just be a little more professional out in the field, that's all."
Leaving a stunned Riley to his work, she joined Leonard and wondered where they would go from here.
Chapter ends here.
Review please :)