Chapter 15

He eased the dead man's body down easily. Silence was the watch word at the moment. There were four guards, three now, in the catwalks. He team was waiting for his first shot to storm the auction. Typically he wouldn't have considered taking a job like this, but the C.I.A. was paying him a small fortune to rescue one of their operatives. He had a good bit stashed in several banks, but he always seemed to burn through his on hand cash, so he took the job.

He had to do this clean. Broken necks where he could, and poisoned darts where he couldn't. As much as he hated Nazis he had to thank them for documenting several fast acting injected poisons. His personal preference was phenol. When injected into the chest it caused almost immediate unconsciousness and death within a minute. The bonus was that the victim fell slowly meaning no more noise than someone taking a step.

He removed the small spring-powered carbine from its holster and unfolded the stock. Checking the fluorescent sights he crept toward the intersection. He glanced at the arm of his fatigue jacket, eight hypodermic darts lay in their loops, plus the one in the weapon. They differed from the darts used in tranquilizer weapons in that they were spiral fletched for extra velocity and accuracy. They were uncommon outside the world of covert operations. He always smiled when one hit its target, just as he did when his first shot took a large negro armed with an uzi in the carotid. The other two guards quickly joined the first two in death.

Folding the carbine and holstering it he unshouldered his rifle. He had to admit that the tactical gun craze that had started among the superpowers was beneficial. Someone in Russia had come up with the idea to make an SKS stock out of high impact plastic and include a pistol grip. He understood many spetsnaz units had taken to the modified weapons for marksmen carbines, not unlike the one he was readying at the moment. Accurate, light weight, and with as much single shot power as an AKM, what wasn't to love?

Popping both covers on the scope he positioned the crosshair on the center of the auctioneer's head. He waited as he breathed, following every movement of the man slowly and deliberately, waiting for the perfect shot to line up. The reason he hated these jobs was behind the man. Slaves. White, tan, black, oriental, it didn't matter. Man, woman, and child waiting for sleazy old men and women buying sex slaves, and shrewd plantation owners looking to boost the workforce in their opium fields. He had always held a dim view of slavers, and sub-consciously knew that none of those attending would leave this place alive.

The shot lined up and the sharp pop from the SKS alerted everyone to where he was, and incited panic as the hollowpoint collapsed the front of the man's skull on impact. He dropped the rifle and grabbed hold of the MP5 across his front as he clipped a rope to the railing and sent himself over the edge.

Twenty men burst into the room armed with a plethora of mismatched assault weapons. His team, right on time. As he descended he yelled an order: "None of the bidders leave here alive." The order was followed by a deluge of automatic fire that lasted mere seconds, leaving the attendees either dead or bleeding to death. He didn't even blink as he brought his foot down on the head of some old rich hag, crushing her skull. They chose to die the second they decided to trade in their fellow humans.

Walking up to the cages behind the platform he bashed the locks off with the butt of his smg. The people inside looked at him with a mixture of fear, hatred, gratitude, and admiration. He continued along until he reached the last one. It contained a single woman. Twenty one or twenty two, just a couple years younger than him maybe, blonde hair, rather well endowed, and good in the looks department. If it wasn't for the fact she was a spook he might have tried pulling the dashing prince routine on her.

"This here's the duck...," he started the challenge.

The woman finished, "and we're about to go huntin' bear. Its about damn time they sent someone to get me the hell out of here. A couple of more hours and who knows where I might have been headed. I also need to talk to whoever is making challenges now. Boxcar Willie, couldn't they have used Metallica?"

The counter challenge, "It was originally written and sang by C. W. Mcall, not the Hobo. Nice to meet you Agent Steyr. I'm Misfire, and your ride to dust bowl."

"Usually my rides aren't so... pleasant to look at. I like," "Agent Steyr" replied.

Turning to his team he handed each of them a card with a set of geographic coordinates on them. Payment dead drops. In actuality the drops only held suitcases full of semtex and ball bearings. He wasn't born yesterday, men like them who eagerly agreed to kill everyone they were ordered to, from children to saint, had no real place in the world, but they were useful for jobs like this. As he watched them leave he kept a neutral face. He figured they would all be dead within the week, and no concern of his.

Turning to the blonde woman he drew his pistol and flipped it around, "This is a Glock 17L. This is a mile better than anything the company would ever issue you, and it costs more. Don't lose it, I want it back when you dust off."

Ethan had a small smile on his face as he remembered the end of that particular story. When they had arrived at the "Dust Bowl", a dried up oasis large enough to land a UH-1, it got shot down by some idiot who gained possession of an rpg and didn't care who he hurt with it. So him and the busty spook had to hump it fifty miles over the border of Iran into to Turkey, all the while dodging an Iranian military patrol that had taken offense to their very existence. Upon reaching Turkey they had to travel another hundred miles to the nearest safe contact point to set up another rendezvous for her pickup.

When they finally made contact they were told it would take a week before one could be made. They managed to find a small hostel in the town they were told to wait in. At that point they were tired, fairly hungry, stressed, and wanting to bathe. So they did what any rational people would do, they fucked each other completely stupid every night until the pickup. And after all that she stole his pistol, and the sex was not enough to cover the cost of it.

Then the present caught up to him. Wasn't a surprise, he never did hear the chick's real name, so tracking her down for a one night stand, and the theft of his gun back, wasn't an option. In all honesty he had managed to track down a newer one that shot a little better, so it was a moot point. Let her keep it, might have saved her life.

What he needed to be concerned with was the fact that the oncologist told him that the tumor in his head had at somepoint stopped reacting to the drug and had started putting pressure on the area of the brain that controlled the pain receptors for the brain. The only good news was that it was operable, however they only gave him three years with chemo and radiation, and less than a year without treatment. The problem was that there wasn't a surgeon in Thailand qualified to perform the surgery.

Ethan stared at the ceiling of his hospital room blankly as the whole situation wound its way through his head. He really didn't want to die like this. He was a hardened man, he was meant to die in some god forsaken place bleeding out from a bullet wound, not in a hospital bed with a grapefruit in his skull. Sofiya's offer seemed like his only option, the only thing in the way of accepting was his pride.

He had to be proud though. Men didn't follow someone who let others walk all over them, wouldn't meet another man's eyes, or wouldn't fight when pressed. That pride was killing him though, and the only way to live was to humble himself before the Russian mobster that had made his life a living hell for three days in northern Afghanistan. God, women were definitely going to be the death of him.

Was it proud though, to waste away into nothing from this disease without trying to fight it with the biggest motherfucking guns he had available. NO. It wasn't humbling himself either. Sofiya was right, a life for a life. He had just gotten used to relying on himself. Now he needed to rely on someone else, or it might be the last thing he did on earth.

SNAP. SNAP. SNAP.

The three 9mm rounds punched a loose group in the center of the paper. Revy examined it as she took the paper down. Personally the grouping didn't bother her, but she remembered bringing Ethan here once, and he was raging mad that his grouping, half the size of any of hers, wasn't tighter. As long as she killed the person she didn't care how big her groups were. Thinking about it though, Ethan could kill more people with the same basic gun at once than she could. He never used more than two rounds on any single target if he could help it, she sometimes used half of a fifteen round magazine. She had fun with it sure, but it did run up a big ammo bill.

Running out another target she tried again. Target after target, group after group. When a mag would run dry she would replace it and try again. She shot until she started to lose feeling in the palms of her hands. At the end though she knew that she needed more practice. Her groups were two thirds the size of the first one, but it wasn't enough. Even if it took her years she was going to be able to shoot at the same level of accuracy as Ethan. She knew that she was going to need help though, and there was only one person she knew that might be even better than Ethan.

She hadn't come to see Chang by herself in a long time. She hadn't had a reason to to be honest. If he needed a job done he almost always invited them to his office, or put in an appearance at theirs. She was marginally surprised when his secretary just buzzed her up without even announcing her. It may have just been a holdover from when they had started to think of her as Chang's adopted daughter. It was convenient for her at any rate.

"Revy, what a pleasant surprise," the older man said pleasantly, "You never come to just visit me any more."

"This isn't really just a visit either. I want you to teach me to shoot again," Revy said while her mind was still on this course of action.

Chang raised an eyebrow, "Teach you to shoot again? I don't follow you. Granted I am still better than you by miles, but I taught you everything that I could."

"I've watched you shoot, and I've seen Ethan's shooting. Both of you are better than me. You don't waste your shots. When Ethan shoots with an automatic he almost always aims at the upper left side of his targets chest, your the same. You fire fewer rounds than I would. You make smaller groups than I can."

"That isn't something that is taught," Chang's face wrinkled some as he searched for the right words, "It's part of your state of mind. You shoot just to kill. When I shoot, I shoot to eliminate the threat as effectively as possible. A holdover from my days on the other side of the line. When I first joined the Hong Kong police I was issued a .38 S&W and a pouch that held two speed loaders. Thats only eighteen shots. That is the same a fully loaded G17. I had to make my shots count. If not I could have died because I ran out of cartridges. I don't know about your mechanic, but it may be a similar situation, given as how he wears the same model gun I was issued."

Revy took a minute to digest this idea, "Shoot to eliminate the threat, rather than shoot to kill. Isn't it the same thing with different words."

"A more cultured person would have said a rose by any other name, but no. Any one can shoot to kill. Just point the gun and pull the trigger. Eliminating the threat is another thing altogether. There isn't any joy in it, it is … mechanical. Just something you do. It has to be done, rather than it is something fun to do. Take Fry Face for instance, she was a sniper. Put her out in the field with her rifle and you would see a change. She would become unemotional, cold even. Once her target was in the crosshair she would pull the trigger and the only thing she would feel would be the recoil. After that she would start looking for the next target. Soldiers become like that, killing is an everyday thing for them. A cop is somewhat different. We are trained to kill if we need to, but that isn't our primary purpose. We protect the public, any threat to them must be contained, and either disabled, or disposed of. We have to consider the safety of others, so we can't afford to just throw rounds all over the place."

It may have been something she hadn't had to think about before, but it felt right. Then again it may have just been the way the Triad boss phrased everything. She had to admit that his wisdom was just as respectable as his gunplay. It also made her think back to the boats. Ethan's shots were one for one, or two for one, almost never missing even shooting between two boats. She had just sprayed a couple of mags out killing all with the sheer mass of fire and over penetrations rather than accurate shots. Ethan had killed most of the pirates himself, and he had seemed so cold about it until it was over. She hadn't connected the two until that moment.

"I am glad though."

She looked up, "Glad about what exactly? That I still look up to you enough to come to you about things like this."

Chang chuckled, "There is that, but it's the fact that it sounds like you are starting to grow up some."

There was no doubt about it. He needed a new cylinder. Dutch had been convinced that his .44 hadn't been shooting as well as it should have, but he hadn't taken the time out to do more than clean it in a long time. The frame was in fairly good shape, but the inside of the chambers were showing signs of corrosion. The only explanation he could come up with was the inside hadn't taken the nickel plating as well and had worn down to bare steel. Combined with the salt air and it wasn't that big of a surprise that it had happened, but it left him with a problem. As far as he knew the Smith & Wesson Model 29 was fairly rare outside the states, so getting a replacement would be a problem. Maybe it was time to lay the old gun to rest and find something a little more modern. The rifling was starting to wear out anyways. Twenty something years was a long time for a gun that was used almost every day. She had stood by him since Vietnam, so he really didn't feel that bad about it.

Dutch sat back in his chair. Thinking about it, it might be getting close to the time that he himself should be giving up this line of work. He wasn't getting any younger, or sprier as time went by. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but he was starting to wake up to sore joints in the mornings. How old was he now, forty something, fifty something, hell was he getting into his sixties. He couldn't remember. It wasn't like he had to captain the Lagoon himself anymore, hell he could probably get Ethan or Rock to take over. Revy didn't have the temperament, and Benny didn't have enough interest in the responsibilities. Ethan might be the better choice, but Rock might be more agreeable to the idea, and present an easier face during negotiations. He already handled most of them.

Wasn't worth worrying about at the moment. As long as he was capable of doing the work himself he would, They could take over when he couldn't get out of bed in the mornings. Or maybe it was worth planning now. If he drew back from going to sea they would lose an extra gun, no Ethan was worth three of Dutch when it came to a full on gunfight. Revy and Rock could handle any business that popped up, and Benny could deal with the electronic and communications as he already did. In all honestly the only role he played was to drive the boat and give orders. Honestly he could probably retire quite well on the few million he had stashed away. He just didn't know if he was ready to. It was time to start making plans for the future.

"Heidi, could you bring me a pen and a pad of paper, and a beer," He said as he started to go over what scenarios he could think up.

A/N: This has been too long in coming. I didn't intend to leave Ethan in a lurch like I did, though Revy kinda got the small end of the stick last chapter. I promise to try to get the next chapter out in less than a year. In the beginning these chapters flowed out like a good cold beer from a well maintained tap, now it's starting to become like a half clogged soft serve machine. I don't plan to give up though. Writing is something that has given me so much pleasure. Let the bastards leave reviews telling me to give up and kill myself. I don't give a fuck, I write and publish this for the people who will truly enjoy it. Also you have probably figured out who is going to show up soon.