**
"This is really something..." Nina said, turning around inside Seth's massive apartment. It was obvious that he'd paid somebody to decorate the place, since Nina didn't think Seth was the decorating type. It was all very modern, with exposed concrete walls, glass fixtures and a few severe-looking red and black paintings of geometric shapes. A huge TV hung from the wall and a computer desk sat against one wall.
"I'm sure you'd love to sit here and talk about how wonderfully designed and chic my apartment is, but I think we might have more important things to do."
Seth approached a tall cabinet and opened it. Nina marveled at the arsenal that opened in front of her. Seth seemed to have at least one of everything. Pistols, compact sub-machine guns, rifles, grenades, body armor, and tons of other gadgets. Seth didn't waste any time taking a couple of his favorites from their hooks before strapping them to his leg and across his back. He checked the slides and clips of all the guns he was pulling from the cabinet.
"Find something you like, and then find something you know you can handle. I've got all the ammo in a closet over there." He pointed over to the other side of the apartment with his pistol.
Nina took an AR-15 and a compact 9mm from the cabinet. She also grabbed a few grenades, though she wasn't really too sure how well they would work in the cramped confines of Parker's building. They'd produce a hell of an explosion, that's for sure.
Seth picked up two Kevlar vests from the rack of six he had at the bottom of the wadrobe. He tapped the ceramic panels on the chest portion of one vest just to make sure they were still in working order. He draped the vest over his head and tightened the velcro straps. He held the other vest out for Nina.
"Take it."
"Not really too form fitting...is it?" Seth just glared at her. The mirth and lightheartedness of the previous couple of days had been spent way beond its limit at this point. "Relax, I was joking."
"I know, it just wasn't funny."
Nina wound up her face at Seth and snatched the vest from him. It was bulky on her small frame, but she was still able to move her arms freely. She caught a glimpse of herself in a full-body length mirror against a wall of the apartment. Seven days ago she'd been a respected and revered con artist, but at this point, she more resembled a mercenary more at home in the depths of a Bolivian jungle. All the scrapes, scuffs, cuts and bruises were piling up on her olive skin, but for some reason she didn't really mind it that much. This trial, this gauntlet had given her some purpose, as potentially lethal as it was. She knew she couldn't run around pulling con games for the rest of her life, and maybe a gun for hire wasn't the worst choice for an encore career. Sure there were plenty of on-the-job hazards, but the thrill of the chase, the smell of cordite floating in a fine mist in the air...nothing beat that.
While Nina was busy admiring herself, Seth went to his closetful of ammo. He loaded his MP5 up with soft point bullets, ones that would expand when they hit something...he didn't want to risk ricochets in whatever he was facing. He loaded his pistol up with armor piercing rounds, just in case. He took a few clips of soft points for Nina, but didn't get her any armor piercers. He didn't have enough of them, and if they ran into enough people to warrant two guns firing off AP rounds, they would already be dead.
Seth slid the clips across his dinner table so that they were beside Nina.
"I'm giving you one more chance..."
"To what?"
"You know what."
"I'm not backing out of this, if that's what you're wanting."
Seth hung his head. Nina's bulldog determination was going to get the best of her some day...Seth just hoped that some day wouldn't be today. "You know there's very littel chance we're coming out of this, right?"
"I'm aware of the risk, Seth...would I have trotted my way up to your apartment if I wasn't committed to this?"
"Fair enough, fair enough." Seth raised his hands, letting his pistol dangle on his finger. "I jsut though I'd give you another out before things got past the point of no return.
"They passed that a hell of a long time ago."
Seth laughed for the first time in what seemed like twelve hours. "Guess you're right."
31
Nina kept watch on the relatively empty street while Seth fished around under the steering column of a black Ford Explorer. The AR-15 was a bad choice, and she was finding that out first hand. Keeping it concealed underneath her jacket was a bitch. Every once in a while, she would lean her head into the cabin of the explorer to see how Seth was doing. To outsiders, it looked like Seth was searching for something he lost under the driver's seat, but if somebody got close enough to see the mess of gutted wires hanging down from the guts of the Explorer, there would be no doubt in anyone's mind what was going on.
Nina was just beginning to get antsy about the situation, worried that someone would offer to lend a helping hand and invariably mess up the entire hotwiring, when she heard a low electrical buzz followed by the sound of the Explorer's engine firing to life. Seth shimmied out of his awkward position underneath the dashboard and stood up.
"Cars these days...they're more like computers than actual vehicles. I feel like a need a fucking programming certification just to hotwire one. Used to be, you unlock the steering column, splice a couple wires and you'd be in business."
"At least you can hotwire...I could never figure it out myself."
"Remind me after this to give you a lesson...on something a little less complicated." Seth said. He was happy that he was actually talking about the future, despite the grim and nearly inescapable task that stood in front of them. But he had to have something to look forward to, something to strive towards, or all of this with Parker wouldn't be worth anything.
Seth walked over to the other side of the SUV and opened the door "Get in" he said to Nina. Nina, still trying to keep the rifle concealed, sat down in the passenger seat while Seth made himself comfortable in the driver's seat. Seth put the car in gear and tore off down the road.
Seth drove aggresively, blowing through a few red lights on the way. It was late enough in the evening that it wasn't much of a problem, but Nina was worried that it would attract cop attention, then they'd have a huge mess to dig out from under before they even got to Parker. Seth continued, though, his fingers gripping the steering wheel so hard they threatened to tear the thing apart.
As they turned onto 78th street, Parker's four-story building came into view. The building itself was a reflection of Parker: stooped, rough-looking and from an era far passed by modern society. Seth eyed the front of the building and saw a steel gate followed by a ramp that lead to an aluminum garage door. The Explorer wouldn't come out of the collisions in good shape, but it would survive, and more importantly, they would. At least for now.
With Parker's building about a hundred feet away and no obstructions between them, Seth jammed the accellerator and watched the spedometer hit 85 the moment before they hit the gate. The gate blew open easily, and the garage door wasn't all that difficult either. Seth pulled the e-brake as the car flew into the massive underground garage that Parker kept. The SUV stopped within feet of slamming into a concrete wall.
"Holy shit!" Nina screamed, half exhilirated and half terrified
Seth saw Parker's guards come through the door that lead into the rest of the building. The guys were quick, but anyone would respond pretty quickly to the sounds of a two ton SUV crashing through a garage door
"Stay down and start shooting." Seth said opening the door and ducking behind it for cover.
Nina took similar cover and whipped the body of her AR-15 around the frame of the door to fire off a few rounds. The report of the rifle echoed through the concrete box of the garage. The gun fired in three round bursts to reduce recoil and Nina was grateful for it. Despite the size of the gun she was able to keep her shots in a tight cluster. Lucky for her, one of those clusters was right in the middle of one of the guards' chests. The bullets took h
im down and he slumped against a Mercedes parked on the far side of the garage
Seth was having similar success, though with fewer bullets than Nina. He focused on the guards' heads, and he was deadly efficent. Three, four, five guards laid in a heap in front of his barrel.
Only a few seconds after the shooting started the garage was once again silent other than the sounds of seth and Nina slapping in fresh clips. Seth stood up and surveyed the carnage. "We have to keep moving and I'll tell you right now this was probably the lightest resistance we'll meet tonight."
"We're already neck deep in this shit, Seth. Saying stuff just to scare me out of doing this is just wasting your breath at this point." Nina said
"Just wanted to give you a heads up, that's all"
"Well thanks but I can handle myself...you do your own thing, I'll do mine and we'll both get out of this."
"Fair enough." Seth tightened the straps on his Kevlar. "Let's go then."
32
Parker's headquarters was a repurposed four story office building that had been turned into the home and workplace of one of New York's worst. When Seth and Nina came into the building through the garage, the room they entered looked like just about any lobby in any one of the thousands of offices that peppered the city. The place was wide open other than a few couches, and this scared Seth shitless. He could deal with close quarters stuff, but with this situation in an open area, it would be so easy for someone to come out of nowhere and put a premature end to their little quest. He held his mp5 out just waiting for that someone to pop up.
Their footsteps echoed in the wide expanse of the lobby. An alarm was buzzing ceaselessly to alert Parker and his men of their unexpected visitors. Standing nearly back to back they walked across the lobby toward the elevators to get to Parker's floor
"Shit!" Seth said. Nina looked back at him.
"What?"
"They locked the elevators down." Seth stared at a flashing 'no' symbol against a white background.
Nina shoved Seth toward a door labeled stairs on the other side of the room. "Little exercise never killed anyone right?" She said
"It's not the exercise I'm worried about."
They walked to the stairs and opened the door. The stairs were fashioned in the same raw concrete as the garage. Seth lead the way, his finger tapping the trigger every couple of steps. With the equipment and the body armor, combined with the hell they had been through, these flights of stairs were laborious and painful for the both of them. When three of Parker's men came out of the door at the landing of the third floor, it certainly didn't help anything.
Seth saw them before they noticed him, so he was able to send a few rounds their way. The bullets pitted the concrete above their heads, but none of them hit. The guards retaliated by firing at Seth and Nina, but they didn't hit either.Seth and Nina ducked down behind the concrete guardrail that lined the stairs. The guards had the height advfantage, but it woudl give them a few seconds at least.
"Just give up! Parker said he'd take you two alive!" One of the guards screamed.
"You really expect me to believe that?" Seth said.
"Listen, the three of us have clean shots on your heads. You either come with us, or you die, those are your choices."
Seth slid down so his head wasn't as exposed. He pulled Nina down with him.
"What do you want to do?" Nina whispered.
"I didn't come here to get escorted up to Parker's office...if that's what they were even going to do."
"You did hear the thing about the guns being pointed at our heads, right?"
"What the fuck are you guys doing down there?" The guard screamed.
"Convincing her to go along with you guys! Just gimme a goddamned second!"
"What?" Nina said
"Shut up. Here's what we're going to do. We're gonna stand up, you first, then me. Thing is, when I get up, I'm going to throw a grenade and we'll need to run like hell after the thing explodes."
"That's a terrible idea."
"Absolutely. But that's all we have right now. You game?"
"Yeah, yeah."
Seth shifted against the railing and pulled one of the grenades off of his belt. He yelled up at the guards. "Alright, she's going to come first, then me. Deal?"
The guards sat silent for a few seconds, but then one of them spoke up "Yeah, come on, Parker wants to see you guys now"
"Dont' fuck this up." Nina whispered as she stood up from behind the partition.. Seth waited to hear the guards start firing, but it didn't happen. Nina got a few steps up the stairs, and Seth began to follow her.
"Come on, come on, you too Seth, let's get moving." Seth stood up all the way and tossed the grenade toward the guards. They didn't even have a second to react before it sent off in the middle of the three of them. A plume of blood and concrete filled the stairwell. All three guards went down in an instant.
"Run, now!" Seth said. They both scrambled up the stairs, over the dead or wounded guards, and flew up to the fourth floor. Seth kicked the door open
The lobby of the fourth floor was completely empty. Seth and Nina were gradeful that it seemed like they had done away with all of Parker's guards. Still, they kept their guns drawn as they walked toward Parker's office.
"Stay on your toes...who knows what Parker has waiting for us when we open that door." Seth said. Nina looked down at her gun and switched the firing mode from burst to full auto.
Seth put his hand on the doorknob and turned it slowly. He pulled the door open and shoved his gun inside. When he wasn't hit with bullets immediatly, he was surprised. He opened the door all the way and looked at the office. It was empty as well.
"Fuck." Nina said.
"He's gone..."
"Thanks for pointing it out."
Seth and Nina entered the office, their guns now down as they had no threat of being shot at...at least they were pretty sure there was no threat. Parker's desk had been cleaned out, all the drawers were sitting open, empty.
"I don't think he's just gone for the night." Seth said
"You think he's heading out of the country?"
"He had to have known I'd be coming back for his scalp, so, yeah, he's probably putting as much distance between me and him as he possibly can. The only question is where he went..."
"I'm pretty sure I have a good idea." Seth looked up at Nina, who was standing by a wooden wall panel that was slightly ajar. She pulled the panel towards herself and it continued to open. A set of stairs was revealed.
"A helipad." Seth said. "Let's just hope he's still up there."
33
Parker was still on the helipad when Seth and Nina came up the stairs. He was waiting for them, though, with a huge revolver pointing at the door as they opened it.
"I had a good feeling you two would come back." He said
"Then why'd you let us go?"
"Let's just say I have a flair for..." he flung his arm around toward the city. "big finishes."
"What if that finish ends up with you dead?"
Nina saw a helicopter coming toward the building on a low approach, its searchlight fixing on the helipad. The wind on the helipad whipped around, causing Nina to tumble and lose her rifle. Parker scrambled to grab the gun. He holstered his revolver and took the AR15 in both hands, flicking it back and forth between Seth and Nina
"Guess your little advantage just slipped away, Seth. It's over."
"I can still shoot you, Parker."
"And I can shoot your little geisha girl, too."
"You think I care?"
"I know you do...if you didn't you would have shot me by now."
Seth began to talk, but his voice was overpowered by the whir of the helicopter's rotor. Parker kept his gun traind on Nina and Seth didn't take a shot because of it. The copter touched its skids down on the helipad behind Parker
"I think this is my exit, then. Nice try, you two, but this is how it ends." Parker laug
hed and opened the door of the helicopter. "By the way, I left about two hundred pounds of C4 on the third floor, ready to blow...it'll land me a hell of a lot of insurance cash, and it'll take care of you two. Win win, right?" Parker stepped into the helicopter and slammed the door shut. The helicopter started to power bck up for its flight.
"Well?"
"Well, we're gonna jump for it, aren't we?" Nina said.
"I already jumped at one departing vehicle today, I don't know how much mor eluck I have left."
"It's this or the C4."
"Good point."
The helicoper was about four feet of the ground when Seth and Nina made their break for it. They screamed across the tarmac, the wind from the helicopter doing their best to blow them back, but it wasn't enough to deter them. Wtih the helicopter about seven feet off the ground, Seth and Nina made their jump toward the skids of the helicopter. Their hands clanged on the aluminum as the helicopter continued to rise. Seth and Nina slid around with every movement of the chopper. Seth swung around and got one leg up on the skid.
"Seth, do something!" Nina screamed as the helicopter cleared the building, leaving only a lot of air between the two of them and the pavement below.
"I thought we'd just chill out here, see how things went!"
Seth pulled himself up onto the skid some more and reached for the door latch. He missed on the first attempt, his fingers brushing the metal but unable to grasp. He reached again, still nothing. On the third try, Seth felt his hand wrap around the latch. He jerked the handle down ahd felt the helicopter tilt, but the door slid open. Seth lifted himself into the cabin of the helicopter and Nina followed.
Parker was surprised to see them come in so quickly, so he didn't have time to draw his gun, which gave Seth and Nina the upper hand. They jumped into the cabin and drew their guns.
"Hey Parker, long time no see." Seth said, breathless.
"You two motherfuckers just don't give up, do you?" Nina looked down to see that Parker still had his gun ready in his left hand. She nudged Seth so he noticed, too..
"Give up the case, Parker. We got it for you, and now that you're not paying us, we're taking it back."
"Why didn't you make a move for it earlier?"
"You're the last man standing, Parker, you don't have any thugs to back you up now. You'rea lone, and you're outgunned."
Nina glanced out the open door. The city screamed by at a nauseating clip. Lights flickered and flashed, thousands of lives below continued without disturbance. Just like in Berlin, Nina sort of wished she could be one of those people.
"This is it, Parker." Seth clicked the safety on his MP5 off. "Give it up."
"No." Nina heard Parker click his hammer back.
What happened next took place over an instant, but time stopped as it took place. Shots rang out inside the cabin of the helicopter, blood and cordite filled the air. Bodies shifted, groans were emitted, metal hit metal, and three people fell to the floor of the helicopter.
34
Nina woke up.
She looked around and saw the chaos of the shootout. Parker was dead for sure, a pattern of three bullets to the face guaranteed that. She looked over at Seth. He was moving, still breathing, if just barely. The helicopter was still in the air, and the constant thud of the rotors pounded Nina's head. She couldn't have been out for more than a few seconds, but what had changed over those seconds was profound. She felt a warm trickle running down her arm, and when she looked at her left shoulder, she saw it blow to pieces. The pain began to rush and she did her best not to throw up in the cramped confines of the helicopter. She used her good arm to lift herself onto a bench seat near Seth.
"You...OK?"
"Not really..." he trailed off. She could tell it was sapping all his energy just to speak.
"Parker's..."
"Yeah."
"I'll get us to help."
"OK..." Seth was fading fast, and Nina wasn't doing too well herself. Nina popped open the door between the cabin and the cockpit. She put her gun to the pilot's head.
"Where are we going?"
"Who the fuck are you?"
"New passengers, we're the ones that brought the gunshots."
"Gunshots?" So the rotors weren't just deafeningly loud for Nina
"Whatever, fuck it, Parker's dead, and you're gonna take us to a hospital."
"I'm not taking you--"
Nina pulled back the slide on her pistol. "Think long and hard before you say anything else."
"Alright, fine, fine, Parker paid me up front for the flight, so I don't fucking care where this bird ends up."
"That's what I like to hear." Nina pulled her gun away from the pilot's head. The pain in her shoulder was blinding her, she gritted her teeth just to stay upright, and soon she couldn't even do that. Everything went dark and she felt her head smack against the cockpit door.
35
The incessant throb of the rotors were replaced by the rythmic beep of a heart monitor, but both were still grating to Nina's shocked ears. She tried to move her arm but nothing happened. She was fighting back the darkness that threatened to claim her conciousness once again. Everything hurt, everything pounded, everything throbbed. Her head was swimming, and she felt like her limbs were ten feet long. Her senses were slowly awakening, and for the most part it was a bad thing. Her nostrils filled with the sharp, acidic stench of disinfectant and her skin was covered in a thin film of dirty sweat.
"You're awake."
A deep voice probed at her from the depths of the room. The voice was male, comforting, familiar. It caused Nina's senses to brighten up a bit, enough for her to open her eyes and see the cracked plaster cieling of her hospital room. She moved her neck and fought stiffness, but was able to turn it to observe the room. When she didn't see Seth in the room, her heart sank. When she saw the man in the long tan coat, her heart sank more. She didn't know what operation he was with, but only people on the right side of the law dressed like that.
"Where..." Nina said, her mouth getting reacquainted with talking
"Mount Sinai, and be thankful you are. If that chopper pilot had landed you anywhere else, you'd probably be dead. Turns out one of the best surgeons for gun shot wounds in the country just happened to be around when you coasted in. Your shoulder's torn all to hell but it'll heal, they said you'd be up and at it in about six weeks."
"Who the fuck are you?" Nina said to him. Her vision was sharpening, she began to pick out his features. Sandy brown hair, a rough jawline, former offensive lineman frame. He was too cocksure to be an NYPD detective, so he had to be a spook of some sort.
"Matt Sheppard, FBI. And nice to see you too, Miss Kokuri."
"So you're here to arrest me?"
"We'll get to all that later, first things first, how are you feeling?"
"Like I got shot."
"Yeah, it'll take the wind out of you."
Nina let herself smile at Sheppard's understatement. She knew it would be the last time he would make her smile. "How's Seth?" She said.
Sheppard paused, and that was all Nina needed to know. She felt tears starting to well up in her eyes, but the cocktail of drugs in her system had her so chemically mellowed that she couldn't muster the strength to cry. "I hate to be the one to tell you this, but he didn't make it. Parker's bullets hit his liver and his spinal cord...even if he'd survived, he would have been a parapalegic for the rest of his life."
"Oh..." Nina said, not letting everything sit completely on her concious just yet. She knew it would be a few months before she would be able to completely wrap her brain around what had happened.
"But you're alive, and considering how much blood you lost, that's something to be proud of, a badge of honor."
"I'm alive to give you the opportunity to take me into federal custody, right?"
Sheppard pushed himself out of the hospital chair that was obviously way too small for him. "About that...well, that's sort of w
hat I'm here to talk to you about."
"Don't worry, I'm not in any kind of shape to put up a fight. Go ahead, cuff me now."
"I didn't necessarily come here to arrest you, Nina, I came here to give you a choice."
"Shit..."
"You don't wanna hear it? Fine by me, I can have a couple of US Marshalls take you to the nearest prison medical facility ASAP if you want to release yourself to due process."
"No, no, go on. I just don't know if I want to hear what you're going to offer me."
"Well, give me a minute to make my case. In a sort of fucked-up way, Nina, you did a major service to this country. Not only did you kill a score of European crime bosses, a brazen underworld terrorist and a mid-level NYC mob kingpin, but you also aided in the recovery of millions of dollars in art that was thought to be missing forever. You might not have known it as you were doing it, but you really scored one for the feds, made our work a lot easier. Made us look good, too."
"Glad I could have been of service."
"If you're so glad, then why let the service stop?"
"No...you're not--"
"--now let me finish, please. The way the US government sees it, this can break two ways. One, you go to prison for the rest of your natural life, plus a couple hundred years, for all the nasty and diabolical shit you just pulled over the past few days. Or, you can come work for us and maybe cause some more havoc in the underworld. You'll be our own little undercover agent provocateur."
"I"m not that little."
"Pardon the expression, then. Listen, Nina, if you come work with us, you'll still get to con, you'll still get to kill, you'll still get to do all those things that made you come to our attention. Thing is, from now on when you do it, you'll be fully state sponsored, completely immune to any further run-ins with the law."
"As long as I do exactly what I'm told, right?"
"You'll have perameters to work in, that's for sure, but you'll be allowed to have some freedom here and there to cause some trouble...maybe get some revenge." Sheppard raised an eyebrow at Nina.
"And if I say no?"
"If you say no, then I can't be responsible for what happens next. But if you come with me, Nina, I think you could be a valuable asset to this country's intelligence community."
Everything still seemed to distant, so foreign to Nina. This whole scene unfolding in front of her could have very well just been a morphine hallucination. She shifted in her bed and tried to get comfortable to no avail. "I'll think about it..." she said. Sheppard smiled at her.
"How 'bout I let you get some sleep, and I'll be back tomorrow for your answer?"
"It's a deal."
Sheppard nodded at Nina and winked. "'Til next time, Miss Kokuri." He turned and walked out of the room.
Nina laid her head back down on the flat pillow. She looked at the cracks on the ceiling, and she fell asleep.
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