"I can make sure you get paid if your information is valid, are you ready to go yet? I think we have some people to find."
"Sounds good to me." Hank dumps his stuff in a trashcan and heads for the side door. "My bike is parked in the alley, where we headed?"
Garabina throws her head back, catching her assailant in the cheek but doing little more than irritating him . He continued to pin her arms in place, desperately seeking to take the officer's firearm.
Gabriel aims a bit higher, putting a shot directly across the man's jaw. He feels the bone pop beneath his knuckles and knocks his head aside for an instant, but still he clings to the female officer .
The man, now desperate to gain an upper hand, manages to grab ahold of the pistol's grip. He wrestles with it, but cannot manage to free it from the holster. In the chaos, he squeezes off a shot that richochets noisily off the asphault parking lot surface. The woman on the balcony shrieks and instinctively ducks for cover, muttering rapid-fire curse words in Spanish.
The woman Anu is speaking with nods slowly. "I see, well, I hope you find the visit to be worth your time. I understand there will be several interesting items available this evening..." her last sentence seems to trail off and she seems momentarily distracted by some unseen thing, but she quickly snaps back to her senses.
"If you'll excuse me, I have to pay a visit to the ladies room." She smiles (the first such actual smile he'd seen her give) and stands, straightening out her dress and taking her tote bag with her out the same way she had entered.
Anu watches her go, shrugging after she's left the room.
"Oh well, time to go."
Getting up from the seat, Anu heads back into the lobby and into the evening beyond, lighting a cigarette as he goes.
As Anu heads out into the night, he spies a familiar figure dressed in black disappear around the corner ahead of him outside the museum.
Ladies room indeed. He thinks to himself.
"What the fu--...?" Anu says, dropping his smoke.
Making a snap decision, he hurries down the steps after her, trying to keep his boots from making too much noise on the sidewalk. Something is going on here, and Anu is getting more curious by the minute.
"...First that damned tingle..now this lady...what's going on tonight?" he mutter under his breath as he follows.
Hank gives a quick look at Jon and then runs off in the direction of the gunshot.
Hank gives a quick look at Jon and then runs off in the direction of the gunshot.
Follows Hank in the direction of the gunshot. As they get closer to the scene, I pull my pistol and keep it low and close to my side.
The officer twists, but overextends her own shoulder in the process, feeling the joint pop. She immediately seizes up in reaction to the pain.
Anu sees the two men dash out from the side exit of the restaurant across the street. The one he had passed on the sidewalk appears to produce a pistol from his side pocket and continues running down the street, presumably in the direction of the gunshot he just heard. An undercover police officer maybe?
As Anu rounds the corner to pursue the lady in black, he is greeted with a completely empty sidewalk. A cursory glance suggests no doorways or alleys she could have darted into. It was as if she simply vanished into thin air.
With a grunt of applied force, Gabriel delivers a devastating kick to the man's ribs, feeling the bone give beneath the heel of his running shoe . He sputters a gasping cough and releases his hold on the policewoman, putting up a hand while doubled over, clutching his ribs with the other hand.
Aido had been fixing a bowl of cereal and planning to sit down and watch the domestic soap opera play out, but as he steps back to the window the scene has changed entirely.
Is that Gabriel? What the hell is he doing?
About then the gun goes off...
"Oh hell no."
Aido drops the cereal on the table and takes off thundering down the stairs to the street in cut-off camo-shorts and a sleeveless tanktop with no shoes. From street level he stares down the man wrtestling with the cop and his friend, "Drop the gun fcuknuts! Before you regret it." Barefoot with his rough beard and unwashed hair he definitely presents an element of uncertainty, but he has a big frame and is more or less in shape enough to wrestle around with a grown man.
As Aido turns the corner and calls out, he notices that the situation seems to have been diffused as Gabriel recovers from delivering a strong kick to the man who releases the policewoman from his grip. He cringes in pain, seeming to submit.
Meanwhile, Jon and Hank race up the road on the opposite side of the street from the very confused Anu. Seeing the police car in the parking area ahead and a few human shapes, indiscernable in the relative darkness, they continue to close in on where the gunshot must have originated. As they near, they hear Aido's challenge to the assailant, but they are still too far to see much in the way of detail.
Anu, glancing around in bewilderment, spies a black van pulling up alongside the Cacique's Corner restaurant on 1st St. It stops suddenly and he witnesses the driver putting on a red bandana to cover the bottom half of his face. There appear to be other figures in the back of the van as well. This did not bode well...
The officer's boot is right on target, but the man's raised arm prevents him from suffering severe damage. He begins stammering apologies, begging for mercy in blubbering Spanish. A moment later, he is openly weeping.
The man shudders slightly, shaking his head whilst still weeping. He murmurs a few curse words under his breath. The woman on top of the balcony stands again, uttering a litany of invectives at the man with renewed vigor.
"Lo siento," he whimpers. "Lo siento..." Garabina finishes cuffing the perpetrator and ushers him into the back seat of the squad car.
"What the hell Gabe? I never took you for a part-time crime fighter. Just goes to show what I don't know." Adrian glances up at the woman with the child with a hard look, then back to Gabriel asks "You alright man?"
As the man is ushered into the squad car, Jon and Hank hustle up to the scene, slightly short of breath from their sprint.
Arriving at the scene, seeing that the policewoman has captured her prey, slide my pistol back into the shoulder holster. "Hank, I think we have other places to be." Turns and begins to walk back towards his car, scanning the streets for unusual or threatening behavior.
Jon sees the black van next to the restaurant that he and Hank had recently vacated, but is too far away to discern it's occupants. On the opposite side of the street, he sees Anu looking on with interest.
Jon sees the black van next to the restaurant that he and Hank had recently vacated, but is too far away to discern it's occupants. On the opposite side of the street, he sees Anu looking on with interest.
Noticing Anu, begin walking in his direction, scanning back and forth between him and the van. "Hank? Were you followed? or anyone else know about our meeting?"
Jon sees the black van next to the restaurant that he and Hank had recently vacated, but is too far away to discern it's occupants. On the opposite side of the street, he sees Anu looking on with interest.Noticing Anu, begin walking in his direction, scanning back and forth between him and the van. "Hank? Were you followed? or anyone else know about our meeting?"
Hank's following Jon while keeping an eye out behind them. "Not that I noticed, but Cortez as rats everywhere. Why do you ask?"
His eyes widening at the actions of the man(men) in the van, Anu steps back, trying to look nonchalant, moving to the far side of the Museum stairs.
"This definitely does not look good..." Anu begins thinking furiously about the events of the last minute or so, while lighting another smoke.
"Where could she have gone so fast?" he asks the Miami evening.
Anu quickly ducks into the darkness around the corner of the museum building, peeking around the corner to spy the van full of thugs. Sure enough, the sliding side door rolls open and dispenses three more leather-clad Hispanics, each one wearing sunglasses and a red bandana over their mouth. Anu looks back up the street, seeing Hank and Jon approaching on the far side of the street from his hiding spot. The thugs each carried what looked like compact machine guns. Serious hardware for a pack of gangsters.
Hank and Jon, heading back towards the restaurant, pause when they see the van's occupants exit. At this distance, it was difficult to tell what they looked like, but neither of them could possibly mistake the silhouette of an Ingram MAC-10 submachine gun. Each of the thugs carried one, and they were all locking and loading. Something serious was about to go down. In the shadows of the museum, set back against the wall away from the street lights, Jon could see Anu in his hiding place, his location given away by the telltale glow of a lit cigarette.
Meanwhile, back at the apartment complex, Garabina and Gabriel tried in vain to reset the officer's dislocated shoulder. Despite their reasonably trained efforts, the shoulder stubbornly refused to reset itself, pulled firmly out of place by the taut muscles in the officer's upper back. Perhaps it could be coaxed back into place later, when she'd given her muscles a chance to relax after the adrenaline rush of being attacked.
Suddenly, after a moment's pause, the black van peels out from the street corner, racing down 1st Ave. in the direction of Jon and Hank. The three thugs who had left the vehicle rush across the street, opening fire on the museum with full auto. Dozens of bullets rip through the night air and Anu could hear the cacophanous crash of shattered glass. The entire front lobby was completely devastated by gunfire... the security guard was probably as good as dead.
Hank looks around quickly for a good spot to take cover and then takes up a kneeling position behind the corner of a building and draws one of his Makarovs and takes aim. Before firing, he says to Jon, "I'm aiming for the one on the left, and no, I don't have a concealed carry permit." Fires at the thug on the left's torso after seeing Jon has taken up a firing position as well.
Any interest Anu had in seeing what happened disappeared the moment the thugs veered away from the Cafe he'd thought they were about to hit. Seeing the van arcing down the street in his direction and the men opening fire on the museum, he leaps around the corner and ducks low.
"Nanapesa atukkuchai! [spoiler]Nanapesa, (the Great Spirit of the Choctaw) protect us/me. [spoiler]
Glancing about furtively, Anu notes the presence and actions of the two men from the cafe.
Drops to one knee next to a car, and fires twice at the van's front tires. "That should slow him down." Then turns, braces, and aims at a gunman other than Hank's, squeezing off two more rounds in quick succession.
Adrian looks back across the street at the door of his apartment building and then at Gabriel. "Unless you've got a gun and some body armor in there" he nods at the bag, "I think it's time to get the hell out of here. Follow me..."
Aidrian watches for an opportunity and when it presents itself scrambles across the street keeping low and darting between cover if available.
The pair from the cafe quickly take cover behind vehicles parked alongside the road and open fire on the approaching van. Jon's shots kick up off the asphault, missing the intended target, but Hank's shot punches right through the windshield and strikes the driver in the shoulder . He jerks the wheel to the left and the van collides with a dumpster only twenty feet from where Anu is hiding. The airbags within the van deploy and Anu can see the wounded gangster bringing up a firearm of his own.
Anu stays low, peeking around the corner, watching to see wat the driver of the van does, hoping he hasn't been seen. Surreptitiously, he pulls his small knife, palming it out of sight.
He then waits for the right moment.
The driver staggers out of the van, noticing Anu but taking no action against the cowering vagrant. He slaps a long magazine into his submachine gun and glances around the corner of the van in the direction he was attacked from.
Spotting Jon first, he rakes automatic fire all over the beat-up Lincoln he was using for cover. Bullets rip through the air all around him, shredding the car's hood and blasting out the windshield, but none of them land a hit.
Signals to Hank that they need to move forward, dashes across the street to Hank's side and begins to jog quickly up the street towards the van, next to the wall/fence of the construction site. Pistol pointing at the Van, covering between the window and the back of the van for movement.
Anu freezes for a moment in indecision...then he realizes how many people are likely dead within the museum and how close he himself was to being gunned down. Was it sheer chance he'd wandered out...or Nanapesa's urgings? He didn't know for sure. Here there was though, right before him, a chance to balance the scales. Tightening his grip on the knife and keeping it hidden in a backward grip, Anu springs forward, moving low and as quietly as possible.
Anu slides out of his cover and makes his way towards the gangster near the van. However, in his approach, he steps on pieces of a broken bottle that pop and crunch under his heel. In an adrenaline-filled instant, Anu reacts, leaping forward to lunge at the gun-toting gangster before he can bring his lethal weapon to bear. His knife strikes a glancing blow across the gangster's arm and he cries out in pain.
Reactively, the gangster unleashes a burst of fire at his attacker, but the vagrant's reflexes prove fast enough to keep him a step ahead and the shots go wild into the brick wall behind the dumpster.
No longer even thinking, Anu tries to bring his opponent down as quickly as possible. He lunges forward, shifting his grip on the knife, trying for something vital!
Anu's knife slices through the air, but the gangster twists away at the last second and retaliates by kicking at his attacker. He scores a mild hit on Anu's rib, drawing a whuff of escaping air .