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xp_logsOn the day of the auction, X-Force splits up to engage their targets on multiple fronts.
Emma had to admit that it was entirely possible she could not play golf to save her life. Her handicap was whatever they gave to people who had never played the game and she was still managing to be so far over par that Illyana had run out of room on the little paper card they gave you.
Having Mark as a caddy did not assist matters. The young man's eye for a poorly dressed golfer was exceptional. The fact that Emma was able to drill a ball straight to the back of the neck of a man wearing a plaid plus-fours, a lemon argyle jumper and a flat cap had made her decide that her issue with golf was probably psychological. It didn't help that Illyana carefully noted each "mis-hit" against her stroke count. For the current hole she was already up to 14, and that included two small stick figures for gentlemen who were nursing sudden bruises and, in one case, possibly a slight concussion.
Emma let her mind quest out into the auction room as she addressed the ball and let fly, her movements as graceful as a cat's and probably equally well suited to the game of golf, as she catalogued the reactions of various players. "Everything's going well," she said softly as her ball disappeared, once again, into the water hazard. "Everyone's persona is standing up to scrutiny." She sighed as Mark handed her a new ball and placed it carefully back on the turf.
***
"You know, I was going to say I looked silly but then I got a look at some of these other bodyguards," Wanda commented under her breath to to Sofia as they lingered near the doors to the auction room. The auction house had a clever set up - the room was just small enough to make the crowd of about thirty people seem fairly large but not small enough that it felt overcrowded. Wanda had been to lower keyed auctions and knew that if someone felt there were more potential buyers in a room, the biding would skyrocket.
For her part, she was sticking close to Sofia and playing the part of the bodyguard to the hilt. It had taken her over an hour but she'd managed to slick back her hair and it added to the severity of her black suit with the short skirt and sunglasses. A slight bulge under her jacket hinted at a weapon; she'd had reservations at first about taking the empty gun but she'd quickly found out she wasn't alone and mentally thanked North and Bishop.
As if perpetually on a Vogue cover, a breeze fluttered around Sofia's shoulders, both fanning her hair attractively around her face and keeping their words to themselves. "All I have to say is that I'm debuting my cutout peeptoe pumps at this... event. It had better be worth it," she muttered back, covering the movement of her lips with a sip of the red wine in her hand.
She'd dressed the part, D&G for the dress, Louboutins, of course, her nails painted a deep purple as to be almost black. There was no purse in her hand, nor one being carried by Wanda; her bodyguard was there for real protection, not holding silly girlish purchases or fending off pens. "Without sleeping with him this time."
Shaking hands with the man representing an American multi-national conglomerate, Bashur excused himself to mingle with other, less offensive, guests. Running a hand over his smooth scalp he scanned the room, recognizing many familiar faces and a few new ones. Everyone in the room was a high roller, which meant whatever he was selling was either very valuable or very dangerous. Over the years he'd learned a lot of secrets, though he tried to make it a policy to know as little of what went through his 'office' as possible, which would one day make it easier to deny everything when the police- or interpol- inevitably caught up to him. Bashur was, if nothing else, a realist.
But that day was not this day, or at least, he hoped. Across the room he spotted two new comers- at least he'd never seen them at one of his auctions. Slowly he started to approach them, making his way past more familiar guests, taking time to appraise them. The buyer's clothes screamed money and tastes- from the look of her, she was probably South American... probably Brazillian. The guard was the no nonsense type, he could make out the buldge of a high calibur gun- probably a Dessert Eagle since she looked like your typical ex-Mossad bitch, albeit a frail one. With a charming smile he approached the buyer, hand extended, "Olá! minha flor enchanting, o que trá-lo a esta casa humilde do negócio hoje?" His Portugese was broken and had an Egyptian accent, but understandable, at least to someone who spoke it.
Instantly and smoothly, Wanda slipped in between Bashur and Sofia. She kept her hands loose against her body, as if she were prepared to go for her weapon at any given moment. This was their mark, she recognized him from the debriefing, but she had to act out the part and they could not be too eager to talk to him.
"Ma'am?" she asked, not even looking back at Sofia.
Frowning, she raised a hand, and even without Sofia in her direct line of sight, Wanda cautiously stepped back; still between the newcomer and her boss, but now forming a triangle. "I believe he is comparing me to flowers and asking what I'm doing in his home. Portuguese to Spanish is always so crude," she said, placing her hand in his outstretched one for nothing other than a kiss.
Bashur grinned and took her hand, planting a respectful kiss just below her wrist. "I should have known that such a beauty would not be from somewhere low brow enough to speak Portuguese." He straightened back up, "Though that does not limit where you are from, my dear. Tell me, who is it that you are representing today?" With a fleeting glance back at the muscle, Bashur gave her a smile and began to run her image through the records of various agencies stored in the vast expanses of his mind. His power to mentally store and transmit electronic data had been invaluable in his work as an Infonet courier, and even more so on the black market. While he couldn't access it directly, he'd managed to enlist the services of a disreputable telepath to assist in downloading some purloined data and hard-coding it directly into his memory. If she was known, he'd find her, and if these two were lying...
"Only myself," she replied haughtily, taking back her hand to brush her hair off her shoulder. "Paloma Flores. You should have heard of me, perhaps in a story where it ended with a bang, yes? If you really feel the need to, how do they say, check me out, go ahead, but I have work to do. While I find it is necessary to associate directly from time to time, I do not enjoy it."
At that, Wanda smiled just a little. It wasn't a pleasant one and it was aimed directly at Bashur. She really didn't have much of a speaking role in this but she could play up the scary Amazon bodyguard like no one's business. It wasn't just Bashur she was keeping an eye on, she was also subtly checking out the rest of the rather unsavory room.
While both of them popped up in the CIA databases he carried in his head, there was some sort of strange encryption on the data he could only stare blankly at, but at least both of them seemed on the level. "Checking you out would turn me into an ungracious host, though I am afraid I have not heard of you before, Misses Flores." Bashur gestured for the pair to walk with him through the crowded room. "But regardless, you would not have made it inside if you were not," he gave a nod to the body guard, "Kosher- if you catch my meaning."
"You do me a disservice?" Sofia asked, coldly. "You call me a-a-parasite and then toss aside one of the most powerful arms dealers south of the equator? Tell me," she continued, eyes dark and flint sharp, "Why I should not declare insult on you right now?"
"Forgive me, perhaps I misused the term, but I was using kosher as a pejorative rather than indicating you're allegiance to the puppet nation." An apologetic smile was plastered across his face for a few fleeting moments, "What I meant to say is that you would not have been able to get into this room if you were not who you say you are. This is one of the most secure and," he winked, "most private business meetings on the planet."
At the wink, a soft warning noise came from Wanda as she refocused all of her attention on him.
She seemed to at least not be completely offended anymore, not that it mattered, she needed him more than he needed her. It wasn't as if there weren't forty other 'investors' here who all wanted the bits of data stored in his head. "I apologize, so rude of me to not have introduced myself. My name is Gareb Bashur, and while this might not be the man running this auction, I am the one who will be handling any transfers, if you catch my-" His boasting was cut short by a guard scrambling into the room. Security protocol had clearly stated that each guest was only allowed one armed guard in the room at a time, so who did he belong to? "What in the-"
***
Vanessa surveyed the room carefully. She looked over at Jubilee by her side and then her eyes swept back out to the gathered crowd. "I know some of these people," she said, speaking in a a softly toned Mandarin accent. She nodded to an African man off to their left by a wall. "He's one of the most reliable and cut-throat people I've found in western Africa to buy from." Her spine straightened up just a little bit more and she strode into the room. Vanessa's body she was wearing was no more than five-foot-two, but it was the tight pencil skirt that made walking with any sort of efficiency a problem. Surely short women had found a more effective means of dressing, but then when one was dressed for business who needed to cover ground quickly? This was, after all, about making friends of a sort. Professional contacts were always good for Mei-Lien Zhào to have otherwise how would she ever play nice with the other arms dealers?
Jubilee didn't respond, instead she moved slightly behind 'Zhao', hand pressed briefly to the small ear plug that looked remarkably like those that secret service personnel wore. She'd figured a prop or two would lend credence to her cover as a body guard to Vanessa, that and the Armani suit she wore gave her a look of both elegance, and function. Mei-Lien Zhao paid her staff well, and their loyalty was absolute, at least, that was the story Jubilee had made up in her head as they were getting ready.
Her eyes scanned the room, looking at body language as well as faces. Who looked nervous, or excited, was there anyone who seemed particularly anxious in any way? She wished Doug was here, or that they'd had time to bug the room in some way.
Vanessa's eyes slid to the side to surveil Jubilee momentarily. She was doing her job of looking suspicious and potentially intimidating which made Vanessa nod once to herself as if satisfied with her employee. She picked her way about the room nodding and smiling politely to people. That is, until she found a very tall, twitchy, sweaty fellow. Perhaps he was habitually nervous, or perhaps he was the sort of man she needed to be talking to. Either way there was only one way to find out.
Due to his enormous, and quite unnecessary, height Vanessa was forced to stop more than a mere polite distance from the man. "I do not believe we have met as of yet," she said in the precise sort of English indicative of one who had learnt it academically. "I am Mei-Lien Zhào," she held out a dainty hand, "and you are?"
Turning to look at Vanessa's borrowed form, the tall man held a wide-brimmed hat in one hand, brushing stringy blond hair away from his pale face with the other. He glanced at the proffered hand and shook his head. "We have not," he said in a deep Russian-accented voice. "And I do not believe I have time to be speaking to you. I have business-"
"We have business, Arkady," came another voice, American this time. Its owner became visible as he stepped away from a huddle of Nigerian smugglers. "Ms. Zhao, is it? I must apologize for my comrade, his... condition... has made him rather irritable."
The American looked to be in his mid-fifties, heavyset, with a round face that showed the signs of a life lived in suspicious paranoia accompanied by high blood pressure. By the subtly uneven tan and the day's sign of light red stubble on his cheeks, Vanessa could guess that he'd probably shaved a heavy beard in the last few days in order to change his appearance.
"Abraham Cornelius," the American continued, taking the still-hanging handshake. "My friend here is Arkady Russovich. Forgive me, but your accent intrigues me, are you here representing the Triads, or freelance?"
"Mister Cornelius," she gave him a nod and a polite smile as Vanessa took in every detail of his appearance along with Arkady's. "I am freelance. I represent a number of associates who provide a service to those such as the Triads. Certainly, Mister Cornelius, you don't expect them to understand how to procure their own weapons of questionable legality? People have specialties, that certainly is not the area of expertise for many of my business contacts. And what is your specialty, Mister Cornelius?"
"Biological assets," Cornelius replied with a smug smile. "Both research and implementation. Arkady here is one of my finest-"
"You speak too much," Arkady interrupted gruffly. "We are here for a purpose."
Cornelius turned to his taller comrade, narrowing his eyes. "~Understand this,~" he hissed in Russian, "~if you ever wish to be free of the medications and the surgeries, you will act like a good little Spetznaz and allow me to do my job. Once we have the synthesizer, all will be well.~"
Arkady bristled, but seemed to comply with Cornelius's order, gripping the brim of his hat in his hands and taking a step to the side. The scientist shook his head apologetically, shrugging to "Zhao".
"I apologize. Arkady is something of a worrywart. The climate disagrees with him, you see."
"You might do well to control your monkey then," Jubilee noted, eyeing the Russian with a disdainful air. She'd deliberately dropped the American accent she habitually sported and now spoke with the careful English of someone not used to speaking it as a first language. "We would not want any mistakes being made."
Arkady started forward, but Cornelius planted a hand in the larger man's chest and hissed a command in Russian. "~Go to the safe, retrieve the valise. The sooner we can conclude this, the sooner we leave.~"
The large albino stalked off, pausing to turn and give Jubilee the evil eye before stomping out of the resort's lavish ballroom.
Cornelius turned back to the two women and shrugged. "You just can't build good help these days," he deadpanned. "Again, I apologize. You know how these mutants can get."
Vanessa arched a borrowed eyebrow in a graceful motion. "Mmm," she nodded, "I hear mutants are quite temperamental. A bit of a wild card, yes? He is part of your business, then?" She gestured to the door Arkady had stalked out of. "I have a client interested in the implemention of mutants in their," her voice trailed off, "freedom acquisition efforts." She smiled and Mei-Lien had the smile of a woman planning to take you into the back room and do horribly dirty things to you. Or at least she did when Vanessa drove. Her euphemism had clearly been in reference to terrorism, but who used such words these days? "Would you, then, be a man with whom one should speak on such a matter, Mister Cornelius?"
"Doctor Cornelius, actually," the American replied, but with a sly smile. "Perhaps arrangements of a sort could be made. After the acquisition of... certain items today, I believe that my expertise could be made more widely available."
Jubilee had moved back slightly, giving the appearance of leaving her employer room to have a semi-private chat with the good doctor. She was still within hearing distance to catch any pertinent information however, and was spending her time looking at the rest of the room, and particularly the door the angry Russian had left by.
It was somewhat of a shock however when the semi-truck burst through the wall just to the left of her and showered her with bricks. Luckily for Jubilee, brick exploded into brick dust quite well and she stood in a shower of it, giving Doctor Cornelius and her co-worker a somewhat crazy grin. It was that or freak out, and curl into a ball at the near death experience and Jubilee had had way too many of those in her life to do that.
"Looks like someone started the party without us," she noted to Morgan.
***
Thirty-four miles from Sun City West Resort. A seasonable 75 degrees Fahrenheit, without a cloud in the sky. The veldt stretching to the horizon in every direction, dry grassland and slow rolling hills, broken only by the packed-dirt highway. A cloud of dust in the distance revealed the presence of an oncoming "land train", the sole visible source of motion in this picturesque tableau.
One heavy-duty Freightliner tractor trailer, towing two open-bed trailers laden with crates and military-spec shipping containers restrained by yellow-and-black cargo netting, plodded along at a brisk speed, the armed men perched on the trailers stoically ignoring the dust and wind. Around them sped a number of smaller vehicles, pickup trucks, modified SUVs, and all-terrain motorcycles, each bearing at least one heavily-armed occupant.
The land train had every intention of making it to the destination unharried.
"Big convoy." Remy muttered, staring through his binoculars at the group. "Mixed bag, but dey not de local muscle guarding it. Disciplined. Guessing North African merc, maybe Libyans or Egyptian. Couple of fifty cals on de vehicles, one big stupid looking American monster truck." LeBeau passed over his glasses, considering the combat weight against them.
"De odds are not in our favour."
"Picking them off one at a time would be too noticeable, yes?" Marie-Ange only gave the convoy a short look before handing the glasses to Bishop. "Even with the dust, if they lost contact with more than one or two, it would be too suspicious. I wish Sofia was here. A duststorm would be very helpful right now. How much can the trucks go off the road? We could damage the road and slow them down?"
"Wouldn't have to damage the road, just the lead vehicle. It looks like it's time for military ambush tactics." Bishop didn't bother looking any further, he knew what it would look like by the line of dust and the fact they were heavily armed. "Front vehicle, then rear, then clear out the kill zone."
"Most of de vehicles are offroad ready. Dis is Africa, after all." Remy observed. "We won't trap dem dat way, but we can slow dem down." His eyes tracked the road down towards the town, looking at the landscape, and making a strategic map in his mind. He'd done hundreds of ambushes, and it was just a matter of finding the absolute worst place for the enemy to panic.
"Dere." Remy motioned towards a raised section of the road, moving over a marshy section of ground, covered in low trees. "We hit de lead vehicle dere, and dey only have one way to try and flank us." He sat back down in the jeep, as Marie-Ange turned the wheel. There was some clanking behind him as Bishop held on to the rollbar with one hand, and worked at the top case at his feet. A little backup bartered from a man who had made a fine living for forty years selling American weapons.
The wiry, weasel-faced man behind the wheel of the American monster-truck that caught Remy's eye only a few moments ago reached into his vest pocket and produced a pair of purple pills. His name was Stanislav Mengochauzcraus and at the moment he was entertaining serious doubts as to the wisdom of his decision to leave the employ of the Wild Pack.
The money was better as an independent, but the stress was killing him. The pills cracked under the pressure of the white teeth supported by the understated array of the dental work composed primarily of precious metals and Stan shuddered, his tongue flicking out to a rapid beat of the CD. "What a rush....!"
His brother ignored the entire episode, still addressing the gunner whose not-inconsiderable bulk was completely dwarfed by Grigori's massive figure and whose eyes have long assumed trapped and despairing expression.
Not that it fazed Greg much. Few things did.
"... So I rolled up in this motherfucker and stuck my foh-five up in his grill, you dig? And he's all like don't, please, no I am a little fucking bitch. So me and Stanik, took his blow, and his bread and wasted that fool for real. Good party..."
Stan let his brother's voice wash over him without registering with the ease of long practice. His eyes continued to scan the terrain in front of him as an ingrained reflex.
He fucking hated this continent, but they've been fighting their way up and down Africa for more than a decade now. Savannah, desert, jungle, mountains, the bush was always the same underneath. It hid the enemy and tried to kill you. The gomers were as retarded as a bunch of brain-fucked baboons but they usually knew how to hide. The moment you blinked, you died. And then the fuckers would probably eat your liver.
The veldt was still extra clear and sharp around him, his synapses firing extra fast. Good pills. Another side-benefit of giving that Sablinova bitch the finger. So he popped now and again, he was still the best platoon leader that dried up chicken head ever had. Fucking bitch.
One day they'd settle with her for good. And he had his own outfit now.
Stan glanced quickly at the GPS monitor checking on the convoy's spacing. They were doing well. Experienced troops were pricey, but worth the money. Even these sand-niggers.
He wasn't planning to end up on the wrong end of an RPG because some shitdick wasn't covering his back properly.
He licked his lips, the mouth dry - the only thing that sucked about the purples. He fucking hated not being able to spit.
This job would put them on the map. Then he could start building real cadre. Maybe even Gurkhas, the fucking Russians were putting a lot of good gun-bunnies on the beach. Pity the South Africans were getting out of the game, the trained men leftover from their war dying off.
He rather enjoyed working with the old Koevot veterans. What was the name of that old fucker that first taught him about the bush... Johannes SomethingorWhatevertheFuck.
The things that man could do with the pliers...
There was a glint in the distance and Stan's reflexes pulled on his hands before the conscious mind even registered the danger, sending the truck careening off the road in a zig-zagging evasive spiral.
The rocket came screaming in a second later.
"Merde." Remy said quietly as the rocket exploded against one of the pickup trucks, blasting a hole through the cab and sending a gout of flame and black smoke into the air. The truck flipped over twice, but landed parallel to the road, instead of blocking it. How the monster truck had dodged it was beyond him, although they didn't have time for reflection. Marie-Ange had yanked the wheel, pulling them closer to the convoy with the flaming truck at cover, while Bishop struggled to open the next case.
The Cajun pulled himself up on the seat, and then to the rollbar. He said nothing as he flung himself out into the air, tumbling as he glanced off the hood of the truck they had crossed and coming to a stop in the rear. The two men in the back tried to get their weapons around, only to fall to two brutal staff strikes before they could move, pitching out on to the hard baked dirt from the impact.
LeBeau reversed the staff's spin, the air around it glowing as static draw the fine dust in the air to the staff itself. He slammed the staff through the back window, and in the cab, the dust ignited in a kinetic blast, blowing both driver and passenger out through their respective doors. Remy leapt for another vehicle as the unguided truck spun out of control.
"This would be easier if there was less fire." Not that she couldn't handle the fire, but Marie-Ange felt like she should make it known. She was -very- glad that they'd acquired an automatic, because as it was, she was driving with both feet, one on the gas, one on the brakes, and both hands gripping the wheel to keep the Jeep steady through the occasional explosion, or flying truck door, or flying body. Not that she couldn't drive around, or in this case, over, one of the bodies.
Attached to the visor of the Jeep were a series of cheap postcards, things Marie-Ange had picked up in the airport because they seemed funny to her. Now, they were more useful than funny. The imaged ibex that appeared to cross the road were not entirely realistic, and if anyone had been paying close attention, they would have noticed that the groups seemed oddly uniform, as though they had been copied and repeated as a group. Which they had been. The postcard showed a small family group. The road ahead had several dozen.
With traffic blocked, Bishop moved on to his next planned weapon, an automatic. Kalashnikovs were the weapon of choice for the area and that's what he was easily able to get his hands on. Once the drum was set in and the rifle was charged, he opened fire. Bullets ripped into the kill zone as Marie-Ange blocked the front and Remy blocked the rear. They left no choice for the mercenaries, they had to stay right where they were and that meant staying in the line of fire.
***
The man in the tartan had proven particularly resilient. He hadn't stormed off in his golf cart until Emma had peppered him three times, carefully bending his thoughts so he couldn't see who was hitting the ball. She watched him leaving, her mind following the battle on the road, carefully separating the minds of their opponents from those of her colleagues.
"Now that will never do," she murmured, as she felt the soldier's gaze on Bishop, the sudden sharpening of his thoughts as he aimed. Just as his finger drew back on the trigger, Emma slipped her thoughts into his mind and tugged, just once. His aim destroyed, the soldier's bullets flew wide and Emma withdrew just as LeBeau loomed into view, certain that Bishop would be safe. The touch of her mind whispered across the convoy, twisting here, tilting there, disturbing there. Not enough to take out any particular opponent, but enough to decrease the risk factor to those who mattered to her. And LeBeau, as well, she supposed.
"They're on their way," she said to Mark and Illyana as she drew backwards, measured the distance the convoy still had to come before it made the resort. She looked down at her nails, switching to diamond form for a moment to buff them back to their usual brilliant shine. "I do hope this doesn't take much longer," she said. "I've got a man tied to a chair in my suite. He's perfectly happy right now, but he's going to get very cross and try and escape if I'm gone for too long. And then I'll have to punish him even more and, quite frankly, he's barely worth the imagination that requires. Ball?" She held out her hand to Mark.
***
The familiar distinctive staccato of the AKs painted the background of the fight in audio that concentrated Stan's mind past even the crystal-hard sharpness of the drugs. The events seemed almost slowed down, flowing smoothly into a pattern that his situational hyper-awareness categorized and decoded even as he struggled with the steering.
"Amateurs..." He whispered slowly, his lips distending into an expression that should have had something that lived in the darkness of cold deep behind it. Whoever was trying to jack them wasn't used to working in Africa or wasn't used to dealing with this scale of combat. Or both.
The surprise worked for the attackers and they closed in quickly to exploit it, but it was a wasting asset. What was that saying that Sable always droned on about.... "Surprise is the event that takes place in the mind of the commander."
Competing the evading turn, Stan's truck almost flew back onto the road, taking the position directly in front of the truck.
The jeep that just ran that insane gauntlet lengthwise throughout the entire convoy had disappeared into the dust and cattle just in front of him, miraculously weaving between the goats. The herd closed up behind them blocking the road and the view.
Stan's grin widened, the sun glinting off the gold teeth and his knuckles whitened on the wheel.
"Attack into the ambush, space out and protect the cargo. The first ass-munch that even thinks about slowing down, I'll kill myself!"
The rest of the convoy had already been repositioning, the veteran soldiers dealing with surprise and adjusting. Hearing the commander's voice added some certainty to the chaos and their maneuvers took on more focus and purpose.
The lighter craft fanned out, pushing off the road and forward and Stan could almost feel them as if they were his own fingers splayed out, scouting for trouble.
The heavier vehicles circled the primary, like the pack surrounding a wounded mate.
Stan snapped his fingers without turning around. "Gimme a nice grouping about two hundred yards inward, straight trajectory."
The gunner blinked at him blankly. "But if I splatter the goats they'll block the road, we'll crash!"
"Bro."
Greg's R4 barked, punching the luckless gunner out of the seat and on the floorbed of the truck. The massive Mengo brother was already moving with fluid speed belied by his size.
Sliding behind the twin-barreled Browning he jerked the bolt handle and sighted with with a glance, before letting off a flood of ammunition toward the ibex.
He absently kicked the corpse of the old gunner of the way. "Fucko. What the shit would mountain goats be doing in the middle of savannah, you retard."
Stan wet his lips again and pressed the gas even further toward the floor, the machine under him shuddering and leaping forward.
He glanced in the mirror. Back in the distance the lone remnant of the first assault was grappling with the crew of the rearguard Nissan, three other vehicles burning or veering aimlessly behind.
"Ahmed, say good-bye to Chavez for me."
The man in the secured nest on top of the truck paused for a second, half turning toward the the monster truck, then shrugged and aimed the RPG.
The first rocket impacted short, and the driver of the Nissan swerved, screaming something, still not comprehending.
The second was only moments behind, however.
"WHOSE HOUSE?!" Greg was screaming as he depressed the trigger, the curtain of fire and lead tearing through the mirage just ahead of the convoy. "WHOSE HOUSE, MOTHERFUCKERS?!"
"One jeep! We got one jeep straight ahead!" The head scout's voice was tightly controlled but clearly excited, made scratchy by the commo. "You got a piece of them with that last--."
The transmission cut off with sudden finality, but Stan didn't mind. He could see the vehicle now and the Nissan was burning nicely in his rearview mirror with a clutch of bodies around it, getting smaller by the second.
"WHOSE HOUSE? MENGOS' HOUSE!"
With the ibexes gone, Marie-Ange now had one fewer very complicated thing to contend with, namely trying to drive while controlling a very complex image. And one more simple thing to contend with. Trying to drive with a headache that's throbbing matched the beat of the godawful music they'd been picking up from the monster truck. No one ever said that listening in on communications was an easy task.
At a grunted signal from Bishop, she cut the wheel hard so that the Jeep spun around, kicking up more dust, and kept driving in the direction of the oncoming convoy. With Bishop continuing to fire, she calmly pulled the pins from the two grenades that he'd handed her, tossed them out of the Jeep, and then cut the wheel again, pulling away as the smoke spilled from the two grenades.
Remy sighed as the convoy continued to roll. There were telltales of smoke in front, so obviously Bishop and Tarot weren't dead. Yet. The opposition had been better trained than he was expecting, holding on to their defensive positions despite the gunfire and the Cajun bouncing between trucks at eighty miles an hour. Still, LeBeau had not run out of tricks yet. There was a reason they'd called him Gambit, and he grinned wolfishly as a gunman on a motorcycle completed a wide flanking turn and bore down on his seemingly isolated positions.
Remy twirled the staff and slammed it down into the dirt in front of him. The kinetic energy he channeled through it cascaded through the earth in a radial pattern, and the man was lost in the sudden, billowing cloud of dust that erupted around him. It was too thick for the biker to see through, or avoid, and he plunged in with his gun firing, hoping for a lucky shot. For Remy's spatial sense, he no longer needed to see the bike, his powers already having tracked every possible variation, and at the last second, flicked out with the staff, catching him in the throat and sending the motorcycle and now dying rider into the dirt.
Remy ignored the horrible gurgling noise of the man on the ground, righting the bike and climbing on. Unlike the convoy, he did not have to follow a set route, and he took off at an angle to get some height over the mob he was pursuing. It took a moment to clear his handset, and he swerved to avoid several arroyos of scrub as he contacted the jeep.
"Seems dat plan A didn't work."
"We noticed." Marie-Ange was still driving with both feet, using the quick change from gas to brake to give Bishop the chance to aim and fire on individual vehicles. The change in tactics hadn't been discussed aside from the large man changing weapons, but his intent had been obvious. But picking them off one at a time wouldn't accomplish their goal. "Perhaps we need to go to Plan B? Do you want to catch up with us, or herd the convoy from behind?"
"Stay out in front. I don't think we going to stop dis convoy, but Remy see if I can't knock dat damn truck offline, and see if we can winnow dem down a bit." Remy leaned into the bike, ramming the throttle wide open and gathering speed. The ground was rising, and he was looking down on the convoy from the side. The monster truck was weaving back and forth, trying to herd Marie-Ange and Bishop's jeep away from the main body of vehicles.
Remy twisted the handle bars, gunning the engine as the bike flew over the dirt hill. He narrowed his eyes against the dust, and his hands began to glow. The edge of the hill was rapidly approaching, and now the purplish glow began to spread down the handle bars to the rest of the bike. Now the dust was crackling and popping in a cloud around him.
Remy hit the edge of the hill and the bike flew in the air, now glowing fully purple, a nimbus of energy suffusing it. Now he dropped through the air directly at the truck, and Remy tossed himself off the bike and into the air. He flipped forward, bringing himself out over the truck as the kinetically charged bike slammed directly in the back of the truck with an explosion that tore both back tires off the vehicle. Remy landed easily a few feet from the burning truck, staff out and ready for the Mengo brothers to emerge.
Bishop looked down from his perch to Marie-Ange, "Looks like it's us while he plays." He kicked the tail gate of the jeep out flat, lying down in back. Facing the vehicles trailing them, the former officer produced a tool of precision, not just destruction. He chambered one of the fat shells into the Barrett .50 caliber rifle he had stashed away in back. He knew exactly how to play this game, sighting in the driver of the last vehicle, waiting until he knew the shot would look like a near hit on one of the lead vehicles. He wanted them to think he was firing on them and he wanted them to think he was inept as he worked his way forward, always shooting the driver of the rear most vehicle.
Stan spent a full and eventful year of his life as a cab driver in New York. He came away from that experience with a number of assets - an American warrant for attempted homicide, ability to deal with any number of surprises without endangering his heart rate, an extremely discerning drug habit and a monomaniacal veneration of the seatbelts.
Most of these skills came together in a focused moment of absolute convergence when it started raining motorcycles and Frenchmen on a lonely African highway.
When a truck weighing, conservatively, 9000 pounds suddenly loses half of its means of propulsion while traveling at 82 miles an hour physics seamlessly take over from even the most accomplished of drivers and, cooperating amicably with the gravity. give the crew of that automobile a certain grace period - to stop, reflect and come to terms with their life choices.
Each member of the truck's complement reacted differently to this opportunity.
Grigori Mengochauzcraus, recently engaged in the process of responding to his brother's half-muttered suggestion that perhaps it was time to phone in ahead both to the destination and to the local police (the garrison having been honestly bought and paid for) was rudely interrupted by the crash. Alas Greg did not have the opportunity to complete his musings on the matter and cut short his elaborations to the tune of Fuck the PoPo!
Thus about the time that LeBeau rose to his feet, Greg's left the car and followed the rest of him in a perfect arch that deposited him slightly more than 13 feet to the left on the vehicle.
Stan was prevented from making a close and intimate inspection of the windshield by his familial relationship with the seatbelt, and letting his reflexes take over found himself getting rid of the buckle in record speed and diving out of the burning truck, his gun leaping into his hand and searching for the target.
The best showing, however, was delivered by the original gunner of the truck who with the presence of mind especially admirable in the recently deceased and gently charring individual, was propelled directly at the primary threat facing his employers. Seconds before finding his feet, Remy was greeted with the uncommonly fascinating spectacle of a fiery corpse making its speedy descent at his head.
"... merde."
The rest of the running battle swept by the tableau, the bullets and vehicles racing past the wreck that came to its final stop just far enough into the road to separate the cargo trailer from most of its guardians. The mercenaries staffing the convoy had bee drawn primarily from the countries that had the pleasure and honor of being the allies of the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. Their militaries, unsurprisingly, had trained them in the philosophy perfected by the country that brought the Thousand Year Reich to its knees in four.
The rules were simple - obey orders, the Plan is God, only the comman has the Plan, don't get smart and start thinking for yourself.
In the situation where the entire command team was suddenly and violently taken off line, the reactions of the convoyers were admirably uniform. Most of the vehicles executed a jarring change in direction and pointed themselves back toward the wreck with the single-minded purpose of either rescuing their lead element.
Unfortunately, or perhaps very fortunately, the driver of the cargo-trailer was Irish. Paddy Fitzgerald had problems with authority long before he celebrated his sixteenth birthday with punching out a brigade leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (who also happened to be his father) and making for the nearest Dublin recruitment center where he lied about his age and took the Queen's shilling.
Trained to adapt and overcome, rather than follow and obey, Patrick assessed the situation soberly and catalogued a number of fact: turning the cargo trailer on a dime would likely to result in a second flaming wreck, only a quarter of a mile separated him from the auction house, and if he arrived first and with a certain lead-in time there existed a good possibility of pocketing the entirety of the bonus.
And so instead of turning to rendezvous with the rest of the convoy and to ascertain the condition of his fearless leaders, Paddy smiled, found his gas pedal and run over the cycle-scout in front of him, spilled the machine-gunner from the top-nest, sideswiped the jeep which Marie-Ange accidentally put in his way in her attempts to maneuver through the chaos and gripped the wheel.
"Come and get Paddy-boy, if you think you're hard enough!"
The shriek of metal as the truck scraped nearly the entire side of the Jeep off was loud enough to cover the unexpected guttural proclamation from Marie-Ange. She wasn't even sure what it quite meant only that it had a lot of C and Z sounds and Doug liked to use it a lot. She jerked the wheel as the Jeep skidded wildly, turning with the spin until they were again under control.
The convoy careened through a wrought-iron fence and over a golf course, the massive tractor-trailer smashing through carts and at least one foursome on its hell-bent tear forward.
A pessimist would have noted that the evasive driving maneuver put them a full hundred feet behind the speeding tractor trailer, in the midst of what appeared to be a resort gate strewn with flaming vehicle parts, and with at least two unhinged gunmen with questionable taste in music flanking them.
That pessimist would not have counted that the spinout also put them directly on a path to intercept Remy.
Nor would that pessimist have counted on Bishop's marksmanship with a handgun, putting a neat bullethole in the middle of the bellowing Irishman's forehead.
He had no time to focus on the truck, as gunfire erupted from around the ruined hulk of the truck. Remy's staff spun, actually deflecting a pair of rounds with the kinetic haze of dust pulled in by the spinning motion, and the Cajun closed. Whatever Stan's plan had been, it was interrupted by the impact of the staff into his solar plexus, and in the same smooth motion, LeBeau was up and over him, clearing the burning truck and putting it between himself and the swarming mercenaries in to save their leaders.
There was a shriek as the semi's undercarriage scraped along the barriers between the parking lot and the concourse to the auction house, and all action paused for a moment as the truck slammed into the south wall head on. The whole vehicle buckled as the trailer jackknifed up on the cab, and a plume of smoke and masonry dust bellowed out of the building. Remy noticed the jeep pulling along side, and Bishop and Marie-Ange following the vehicle into the building. Good. The mission came first.
However, as the momentary shock of the crash wore off, the attention turned back to him, and now Gambit stood with only a burning truck for cover, as a dozen weapons turned to track him.
"Well," Remy said with a little shrug. "isn't dis awkward..."
***
"That is not a good sign," Emma observed as the tractor-trailer careened wildly across the golf course, terrified golfers scattering before it. She stepped into the Astral Plane and widened her view, following the path of the out of control vehicle through the mindscape, trying to determine where it would end and whether she should warn...
"Oh shit," said Emma as she stepped back out of the Plane. ~Watch out~ she whispered directly into the minds of the Snow Valley folk, hearing the terrible crash and grind as the tractor-trailer crashed, with a certain cosmic neatness, into the wall of the auction room.
"I believe we might have some work to do," she said and, turning, began to run towards the resort.
Emma had to admit that it was entirely possible she could not play golf to save her life. Her handicap was whatever they gave to people who had never played the game and she was still managing to be so far over par that Illyana had run out of room on the little paper card they gave you.
Having Mark as a caddy did not assist matters. The young man's eye for a poorly dressed golfer was exceptional. The fact that Emma was able to drill a ball straight to the back of the neck of a man wearing a plaid plus-fours, a lemon argyle jumper and a flat cap had made her decide that her issue with golf was probably psychological. It didn't help that Illyana carefully noted each "mis-hit" against her stroke count. For the current hole she was already up to 14, and that included two small stick figures for gentlemen who were nursing sudden bruises and, in one case, possibly a slight concussion.
Emma let her mind quest out into the auction room as she addressed the ball and let fly, her movements as graceful as a cat's and probably equally well suited to the game of golf, as she catalogued the reactions of various players. "Everything's going well," she said softly as her ball disappeared, once again, into the water hazard. "Everyone's persona is standing up to scrutiny." She sighed as Mark handed her a new ball and placed it carefully back on the turf.
***
"You know, I was going to say I looked silly but then I got a look at some of these other bodyguards," Wanda commented under her breath to to Sofia as they lingered near the doors to the auction room. The auction house had a clever set up - the room was just small enough to make the crowd of about thirty people seem fairly large but not small enough that it felt overcrowded. Wanda had been to lower keyed auctions and knew that if someone felt there were more potential buyers in a room, the biding would skyrocket.
For her part, she was sticking close to Sofia and playing the part of the bodyguard to the hilt. It had taken her over an hour but she'd managed to slick back her hair and it added to the severity of her black suit with the short skirt and sunglasses. A slight bulge under her jacket hinted at a weapon; she'd had reservations at first about taking the empty gun but she'd quickly found out she wasn't alone and mentally thanked North and Bishop.
As if perpetually on a Vogue cover, a breeze fluttered around Sofia's shoulders, both fanning her hair attractively around her face and keeping their words to themselves. "All I have to say is that I'm debuting my cutout peeptoe pumps at this... event. It had better be worth it," she muttered back, covering the movement of her lips with a sip of the red wine in her hand.
She'd dressed the part, D&G for the dress, Louboutins, of course, her nails painted a deep purple as to be almost black. There was no purse in her hand, nor one being carried by Wanda; her bodyguard was there for real protection, not holding silly girlish purchases or fending off pens. "Without sleeping with him this time."
Shaking hands with the man representing an American multi-national conglomerate, Bashur excused himself to mingle with other, less offensive, guests. Running a hand over his smooth scalp he scanned the room, recognizing many familiar faces and a few new ones. Everyone in the room was a high roller, which meant whatever he was selling was either very valuable or very dangerous. Over the years he'd learned a lot of secrets, though he tried to make it a policy to know as little of what went through his 'office' as possible, which would one day make it easier to deny everything when the police- or interpol- inevitably caught up to him. Bashur was, if nothing else, a realist.
But that day was not this day, or at least, he hoped. Across the room he spotted two new comers- at least he'd never seen them at one of his auctions. Slowly he started to approach them, making his way past more familiar guests, taking time to appraise them. The buyer's clothes screamed money and tastes- from the look of her, she was probably South American... probably Brazillian. The guard was the no nonsense type, he could make out the buldge of a high calibur gun- probably a Dessert Eagle since she looked like your typical ex-Mossad bitch, albeit a frail one. With a charming smile he approached the buyer, hand extended, "Olá! minha flor enchanting, o que trá-lo a esta casa humilde do negócio hoje?" His Portugese was broken and had an Egyptian accent, but understandable, at least to someone who spoke it.
Instantly and smoothly, Wanda slipped in between Bashur and Sofia. She kept her hands loose against her body, as if she were prepared to go for her weapon at any given moment. This was their mark, she recognized him from the debriefing, but she had to act out the part and they could not be too eager to talk to him.
"Ma'am?" she asked, not even looking back at Sofia.
Frowning, she raised a hand, and even without Sofia in her direct line of sight, Wanda cautiously stepped back; still between the newcomer and her boss, but now forming a triangle. "I believe he is comparing me to flowers and asking what I'm doing in his home. Portuguese to Spanish is always so crude," she said, placing her hand in his outstretched one for nothing other than a kiss.
Bashur grinned and took her hand, planting a respectful kiss just below her wrist. "I should have known that such a beauty would not be from somewhere low brow enough to speak Portuguese." He straightened back up, "Though that does not limit where you are from, my dear. Tell me, who is it that you are representing today?" With a fleeting glance back at the muscle, Bashur gave her a smile and began to run her image through the records of various agencies stored in the vast expanses of his mind. His power to mentally store and transmit electronic data had been invaluable in his work as an Infonet courier, and even more so on the black market. While he couldn't access it directly, he'd managed to enlist the services of a disreputable telepath to assist in downloading some purloined data and hard-coding it directly into his memory. If she was known, he'd find her, and if these two were lying...
"Only myself," she replied haughtily, taking back her hand to brush her hair off her shoulder. "Paloma Flores. You should have heard of me, perhaps in a story where it ended with a bang, yes? If you really feel the need to, how do they say, check me out, go ahead, but I have work to do. While I find it is necessary to associate directly from time to time, I do not enjoy it."
At that, Wanda smiled just a little. It wasn't a pleasant one and it was aimed directly at Bashur. She really didn't have much of a speaking role in this but she could play up the scary Amazon bodyguard like no one's business. It wasn't just Bashur she was keeping an eye on, she was also subtly checking out the rest of the rather unsavory room.
While both of them popped up in the CIA databases he carried in his head, there was some sort of strange encryption on the data he could only stare blankly at, but at least both of them seemed on the level. "Checking you out would turn me into an ungracious host, though I am afraid I have not heard of you before, Misses Flores." Bashur gestured for the pair to walk with him through the crowded room. "But regardless, you would not have made it inside if you were not," he gave a nod to the body guard, "Kosher- if you catch my meaning."
"You do me a disservice?" Sofia asked, coldly. "You call me a-a-parasite and then toss aside one of the most powerful arms dealers south of the equator? Tell me," she continued, eyes dark and flint sharp, "Why I should not declare insult on you right now?"
"Forgive me, perhaps I misused the term, but I was using kosher as a pejorative rather than indicating you're allegiance to the puppet nation." An apologetic smile was plastered across his face for a few fleeting moments, "What I meant to say is that you would not have been able to get into this room if you were not who you say you are. This is one of the most secure and," he winked, "most private business meetings on the planet."
At the wink, a soft warning noise came from Wanda as she refocused all of her attention on him.
She seemed to at least not be completely offended anymore, not that it mattered, she needed him more than he needed her. It wasn't as if there weren't forty other 'investors' here who all wanted the bits of data stored in his head. "I apologize, so rude of me to not have introduced myself. My name is Gareb Bashur, and while this might not be the man running this auction, I am the one who will be handling any transfers, if you catch my-" His boasting was cut short by a guard scrambling into the room. Security protocol had clearly stated that each guest was only allowed one armed guard in the room at a time, so who did he belong to? "What in the-"
***
Vanessa surveyed the room carefully. She looked over at Jubilee by her side and then her eyes swept back out to the gathered crowd. "I know some of these people," she said, speaking in a a softly toned Mandarin accent. She nodded to an African man off to their left by a wall. "He's one of the most reliable and cut-throat people I've found in western Africa to buy from." Her spine straightened up just a little bit more and she strode into the room. Vanessa's body she was wearing was no more than five-foot-two, but it was the tight pencil skirt that made walking with any sort of efficiency a problem. Surely short women had found a more effective means of dressing, but then when one was dressed for business who needed to cover ground quickly? This was, after all, about making friends of a sort. Professional contacts were always good for Mei-Lien Zhào to have otherwise how would she ever play nice with the other arms dealers?
Jubilee didn't respond, instead she moved slightly behind 'Zhao', hand pressed briefly to the small ear plug that looked remarkably like those that secret service personnel wore. She'd figured a prop or two would lend credence to her cover as a body guard to Vanessa, that and the Armani suit she wore gave her a look of both elegance, and function. Mei-Lien Zhao paid her staff well, and their loyalty was absolute, at least, that was the story Jubilee had made up in her head as they were getting ready.
Her eyes scanned the room, looking at body language as well as faces. Who looked nervous, or excited, was there anyone who seemed particularly anxious in any way? She wished Doug was here, or that they'd had time to bug the room in some way.
Vanessa's eyes slid to the side to surveil Jubilee momentarily. She was doing her job of looking suspicious and potentially intimidating which made Vanessa nod once to herself as if satisfied with her employee. She picked her way about the room nodding and smiling politely to people. That is, until she found a very tall, twitchy, sweaty fellow. Perhaps he was habitually nervous, or perhaps he was the sort of man she needed to be talking to. Either way there was only one way to find out.
Due to his enormous, and quite unnecessary, height Vanessa was forced to stop more than a mere polite distance from the man. "I do not believe we have met as of yet," she said in the precise sort of English indicative of one who had learnt it academically. "I am Mei-Lien Zhào," she held out a dainty hand, "and you are?"
Turning to look at Vanessa's borrowed form, the tall man held a wide-brimmed hat in one hand, brushing stringy blond hair away from his pale face with the other. He glanced at the proffered hand and shook his head. "We have not," he said in a deep Russian-accented voice. "And I do not believe I have time to be speaking to you. I have business-"
"We have business, Arkady," came another voice, American this time. Its owner became visible as he stepped away from a huddle of Nigerian smugglers. "Ms. Zhao, is it? I must apologize for my comrade, his... condition... has made him rather irritable."
The American looked to be in his mid-fifties, heavyset, with a round face that showed the signs of a life lived in suspicious paranoia accompanied by high blood pressure. By the subtly uneven tan and the day's sign of light red stubble on his cheeks, Vanessa could guess that he'd probably shaved a heavy beard in the last few days in order to change his appearance.
"Abraham Cornelius," the American continued, taking the still-hanging handshake. "My friend here is Arkady Russovich. Forgive me, but your accent intrigues me, are you here representing the Triads, or freelance?"
"Mister Cornelius," she gave him a nod and a polite smile as Vanessa took in every detail of his appearance along with Arkady's. "I am freelance. I represent a number of associates who provide a service to those such as the Triads. Certainly, Mister Cornelius, you don't expect them to understand how to procure their own weapons of questionable legality? People have specialties, that certainly is not the area of expertise for many of my business contacts. And what is your specialty, Mister Cornelius?"
"Biological assets," Cornelius replied with a smug smile. "Both research and implementation. Arkady here is one of my finest-"
"You speak too much," Arkady interrupted gruffly. "We are here for a purpose."
Cornelius turned to his taller comrade, narrowing his eyes. "~Understand this,~" he hissed in Russian, "~if you ever wish to be free of the medications and the surgeries, you will act like a good little Spetznaz and allow me to do my job. Once we have the synthesizer, all will be well.~"
Arkady bristled, but seemed to comply with Cornelius's order, gripping the brim of his hat in his hands and taking a step to the side. The scientist shook his head apologetically, shrugging to "Zhao".
"I apologize. Arkady is something of a worrywart. The climate disagrees with him, you see."
"You might do well to control your monkey then," Jubilee noted, eyeing the Russian with a disdainful air. She'd deliberately dropped the American accent she habitually sported and now spoke with the careful English of someone not used to speaking it as a first language. "We would not want any mistakes being made."
Arkady started forward, but Cornelius planted a hand in the larger man's chest and hissed a command in Russian. "~Go to the safe, retrieve the valise. The sooner we can conclude this, the sooner we leave.~"
The large albino stalked off, pausing to turn and give Jubilee the evil eye before stomping out of the resort's lavish ballroom.
Cornelius turned back to the two women and shrugged. "You just can't build good help these days," he deadpanned. "Again, I apologize. You know how these mutants can get."
Vanessa arched a borrowed eyebrow in a graceful motion. "Mmm," she nodded, "I hear mutants are quite temperamental. A bit of a wild card, yes? He is part of your business, then?" She gestured to the door Arkady had stalked out of. "I have a client interested in the implemention of mutants in their," her voice trailed off, "freedom acquisition efforts." She smiled and Mei-Lien had the smile of a woman planning to take you into the back room and do horribly dirty things to you. Or at least she did when Vanessa drove. Her euphemism had clearly been in reference to terrorism, but who used such words these days? "Would you, then, be a man with whom one should speak on such a matter, Mister Cornelius?"
"Doctor Cornelius, actually," the American replied, but with a sly smile. "Perhaps arrangements of a sort could be made. After the acquisition of... certain items today, I believe that my expertise could be made more widely available."
Jubilee had moved back slightly, giving the appearance of leaving her employer room to have a semi-private chat with the good doctor. She was still within hearing distance to catch any pertinent information however, and was spending her time looking at the rest of the room, and particularly the door the angry Russian had left by.
It was somewhat of a shock however when the semi-truck burst through the wall just to the left of her and showered her with bricks. Luckily for Jubilee, brick exploded into brick dust quite well and she stood in a shower of it, giving Doctor Cornelius and her co-worker a somewhat crazy grin. It was that or freak out, and curl into a ball at the near death experience and Jubilee had had way too many of those in her life to do that.
"Looks like someone started the party without us," she noted to Morgan.
***
Thirty-four miles from Sun City West Resort. A seasonable 75 degrees Fahrenheit, without a cloud in the sky. The veldt stretching to the horizon in every direction, dry grassland and slow rolling hills, broken only by the packed-dirt highway. A cloud of dust in the distance revealed the presence of an oncoming "land train", the sole visible source of motion in this picturesque tableau.
One heavy-duty Freightliner tractor trailer, towing two open-bed trailers laden with crates and military-spec shipping containers restrained by yellow-and-black cargo netting, plodded along at a brisk speed, the armed men perched on the trailers stoically ignoring the dust and wind. Around them sped a number of smaller vehicles, pickup trucks, modified SUVs, and all-terrain motorcycles, each bearing at least one heavily-armed occupant.
The land train had every intention of making it to the destination unharried.
"Big convoy." Remy muttered, staring through his binoculars at the group. "Mixed bag, but dey not de local muscle guarding it. Disciplined. Guessing North African merc, maybe Libyans or Egyptian. Couple of fifty cals on de vehicles, one big stupid looking American monster truck." LeBeau passed over his glasses, considering the combat weight against them.
"De odds are not in our favour."
"Picking them off one at a time would be too noticeable, yes?" Marie-Ange only gave the convoy a short look before handing the glasses to Bishop. "Even with the dust, if they lost contact with more than one or two, it would be too suspicious. I wish Sofia was here. A duststorm would be very helpful right now. How much can the trucks go off the road? We could damage the road and slow them down?"
"Wouldn't have to damage the road, just the lead vehicle. It looks like it's time for military ambush tactics." Bishop didn't bother looking any further, he knew what it would look like by the line of dust and the fact they were heavily armed. "Front vehicle, then rear, then clear out the kill zone."
"Most of de vehicles are offroad ready. Dis is Africa, after all." Remy observed. "We won't trap dem dat way, but we can slow dem down." His eyes tracked the road down towards the town, looking at the landscape, and making a strategic map in his mind. He'd done hundreds of ambushes, and it was just a matter of finding the absolute worst place for the enemy to panic.
"Dere." Remy motioned towards a raised section of the road, moving over a marshy section of ground, covered in low trees. "We hit de lead vehicle dere, and dey only have one way to try and flank us." He sat back down in the jeep, as Marie-Ange turned the wheel. There was some clanking behind him as Bishop held on to the rollbar with one hand, and worked at the top case at his feet. A little backup bartered from a man who had made a fine living for forty years selling American weapons.
The wiry, weasel-faced man behind the wheel of the American monster-truck that caught Remy's eye only a few moments ago reached into his vest pocket and produced a pair of purple pills. His name was Stanislav Mengochauzcraus and at the moment he was entertaining serious doubts as to the wisdom of his decision to leave the employ of the Wild Pack.
The money was better as an independent, but the stress was killing him. The pills cracked under the pressure of the white teeth supported by the understated array of the dental work composed primarily of precious metals and Stan shuddered, his tongue flicking out to a rapid beat of the CD. "What a rush....!"
His brother ignored the entire episode, still addressing the gunner whose not-inconsiderable bulk was completely dwarfed by Grigori's massive figure and whose eyes have long assumed trapped and despairing expression.
Not that it fazed Greg much. Few things did.
"... So I rolled up in this motherfucker and stuck my foh-five up in his grill, you dig? And he's all like don't, please, no I am a little fucking bitch. So me and Stanik, took his blow, and his bread and wasted that fool for real. Good party..."
Stan let his brother's voice wash over him without registering with the ease of long practice. His eyes continued to scan the terrain in front of him as an ingrained reflex.
He fucking hated this continent, but they've been fighting their way up and down Africa for more than a decade now. Savannah, desert, jungle, mountains, the bush was always the same underneath. It hid the enemy and tried to kill you. The gomers were as retarded as a bunch of brain-fucked baboons but they usually knew how to hide. The moment you blinked, you died. And then the fuckers would probably eat your liver.
The veldt was still extra clear and sharp around him, his synapses firing extra fast. Good pills. Another side-benefit of giving that Sablinova bitch the finger. So he popped now and again, he was still the best platoon leader that dried up chicken head ever had. Fucking bitch.
One day they'd settle with her for good. And he had his own outfit now.
Stan glanced quickly at the GPS monitor checking on the convoy's spacing. They were doing well. Experienced troops were pricey, but worth the money. Even these sand-niggers.
He wasn't planning to end up on the wrong end of an RPG because some shitdick wasn't covering his back properly.
He licked his lips, the mouth dry - the only thing that sucked about the purples. He fucking hated not being able to spit.
This job would put them on the map. Then he could start building real cadre. Maybe even Gurkhas, the fucking Russians were putting a lot of good gun-bunnies on the beach. Pity the South Africans were getting out of the game, the trained men leftover from their war dying off.
He rather enjoyed working with the old Koevot veterans. What was the name of that old fucker that first taught him about the bush... Johannes SomethingorWhatevertheFuck.
The things that man could do with the pliers...
There was a glint in the distance and Stan's reflexes pulled on his hands before the conscious mind even registered the danger, sending the truck careening off the road in a zig-zagging evasive spiral.
The rocket came screaming in a second later.
"Merde." Remy said quietly as the rocket exploded against one of the pickup trucks, blasting a hole through the cab and sending a gout of flame and black smoke into the air. The truck flipped over twice, but landed parallel to the road, instead of blocking it. How the monster truck had dodged it was beyond him, although they didn't have time for reflection. Marie-Ange had yanked the wheel, pulling them closer to the convoy with the flaming truck at cover, while Bishop struggled to open the next case.
The Cajun pulled himself up on the seat, and then to the rollbar. He said nothing as he flung himself out into the air, tumbling as he glanced off the hood of the truck they had crossed and coming to a stop in the rear. The two men in the back tried to get their weapons around, only to fall to two brutal staff strikes before they could move, pitching out on to the hard baked dirt from the impact.
LeBeau reversed the staff's spin, the air around it glowing as static draw the fine dust in the air to the staff itself. He slammed the staff through the back window, and in the cab, the dust ignited in a kinetic blast, blowing both driver and passenger out through their respective doors. Remy leapt for another vehicle as the unguided truck spun out of control.
"This would be easier if there was less fire." Not that she couldn't handle the fire, but Marie-Ange felt like she should make it known. She was -very- glad that they'd acquired an automatic, because as it was, she was driving with both feet, one on the gas, one on the brakes, and both hands gripping the wheel to keep the Jeep steady through the occasional explosion, or flying truck door, or flying body. Not that she couldn't drive around, or in this case, over, one of the bodies.
Attached to the visor of the Jeep were a series of cheap postcards, things Marie-Ange had picked up in the airport because they seemed funny to her. Now, they were more useful than funny. The imaged ibex that appeared to cross the road were not entirely realistic, and if anyone had been paying close attention, they would have noticed that the groups seemed oddly uniform, as though they had been copied and repeated as a group. Which they had been. The postcard showed a small family group. The road ahead had several dozen.
With traffic blocked, Bishop moved on to his next planned weapon, an automatic. Kalashnikovs were the weapon of choice for the area and that's what he was easily able to get his hands on. Once the drum was set in and the rifle was charged, he opened fire. Bullets ripped into the kill zone as Marie-Ange blocked the front and Remy blocked the rear. They left no choice for the mercenaries, they had to stay right where they were and that meant staying in the line of fire.
***
The man in the tartan had proven particularly resilient. He hadn't stormed off in his golf cart until Emma had peppered him three times, carefully bending his thoughts so he couldn't see who was hitting the ball. She watched him leaving, her mind following the battle on the road, carefully separating the minds of their opponents from those of her colleagues.
"Now that will never do," she murmured, as she felt the soldier's gaze on Bishop, the sudden sharpening of his thoughts as he aimed. Just as his finger drew back on the trigger, Emma slipped her thoughts into his mind and tugged, just once. His aim destroyed, the soldier's bullets flew wide and Emma withdrew just as LeBeau loomed into view, certain that Bishop would be safe. The touch of her mind whispered across the convoy, twisting here, tilting there, disturbing there. Not enough to take out any particular opponent, but enough to decrease the risk factor to those who mattered to her. And LeBeau, as well, she supposed.
"They're on their way," she said to Mark and Illyana as she drew backwards, measured the distance the convoy still had to come before it made the resort. She looked down at her nails, switching to diamond form for a moment to buff them back to their usual brilliant shine. "I do hope this doesn't take much longer," she said. "I've got a man tied to a chair in my suite. He's perfectly happy right now, but he's going to get very cross and try and escape if I'm gone for too long. And then I'll have to punish him even more and, quite frankly, he's barely worth the imagination that requires. Ball?" She held out her hand to Mark.
***
The familiar distinctive staccato of the AKs painted the background of the fight in audio that concentrated Stan's mind past even the crystal-hard sharpness of the drugs. The events seemed almost slowed down, flowing smoothly into a pattern that his situational hyper-awareness categorized and decoded even as he struggled with the steering.
"Amateurs..." He whispered slowly, his lips distending into an expression that should have had something that lived in the darkness of cold deep behind it. Whoever was trying to jack them wasn't used to working in Africa or wasn't used to dealing with this scale of combat. Or both.
The surprise worked for the attackers and they closed in quickly to exploit it, but it was a wasting asset. What was that saying that Sable always droned on about.... "Surprise is the event that takes place in the mind of the commander."
Competing the evading turn, Stan's truck almost flew back onto the road, taking the position directly in front of the truck.
The jeep that just ran that insane gauntlet lengthwise throughout the entire convoy had disappeared into the dust and cattle just in front of him, miraculously weaving between the goats. The herd closed up behind them blocking the road and the view.
Stan's grin widened, the sun glinting off the gold teeth and his knuckles whitened on the wheel.
"Attack into the ambush, space out and protect the cargo. The first ass-munch that even thinks about slowing down, I'll kill myself!"
The rest of the convoy had already been repositioning, the veteran soldiers dealing with surprise and adjusting. Hearing the commander's voice added some certainty to the chaos and their maneuvers took on more focus and purpose.
The lighter craft fanned out, pushing off the road and forward and Stan could almost feel them as if they were his own fingers splayed out, scouting for trouble.
The heavier vehicles circled the primary, like the pack surrounding a wounded mate.
Stan snapped his fingers without turning around. "Gimme a nice grouping about two hundred yards inward, straight trajectory."
The gunner blinked at him blankly. "But if I splatter the goats they'll block the road, we'll crash!"
"Bro."
Greg's R4 barked, punching the luckless gunner out of the seat and on the floorbed of the truck. The massive Mengo brother was already moving with fluid speed belied by his size.
Sliding behind the twin-barreled Browning he jerked the bolt handle and sighted with with a glance, before letting off a flood of ammunition toward the ibex.
He absently kicked the corpse of the old gunner of the way. "Fucko. What the shit would mountain goats be doing in the middle of savannah, you retard."
Stan wet his lips again and pressed the gas even further toward the floor, the machine under him shuddering and leaping forward.
He glanced in the mirror. Back in the distance the lone remnant of the first assault was grappling with the crew of the rearguard Nissan, three other vehicles burning or veering aimlessly behind.
"Ahmed, say good-bye to Chavez for me."
The man in the secured nest on top of the truck paused for a second, half turning toward the the monster truck, then shrugged and aimed the RPG.
The first rocket impacted short, and the driver of the Nissan swerved, screaming something, still not comprehending.
The second was only moments behind, however.
"WHOSE HOUSE?!" Greg was screaming as he depressed the trigger, the curtain of fire and lead tearing through the mirage just ahead of the convoy. "WHOSE HOUSE, MOTHERFUCKERS?!"
"One jeep! We got one jeep straight ahead!" The head scout's voice was tightly controlled but clearly excited, made scratchy by the commo. "You got a piece of them with that last--."
The transmission cut off with sudden finality, but Stan didn't mind. He could see the vehicle now and the Nissan was burning nicely in his rearview mirror with a clutch of bodies around it, getting smaller by the second.
"WHOSE HOUSE? MENGOS' HOUSE!"
With the ibexes gone, Marie-Ange now had one fewer very complicated thing to contend with, namely trying to drive while controlling a very complex image. And one more simple thing to contend with. Trying to drive with a headache that's throbbing matched the beat of the godawful music they'd been picking up from the monster truck. No one ever said that listening in on communications was an easy task.
At a grunted signal from Bishop, she cut the wheel hard so that the Jeep spun around, kicking up more dust, and kept driving in the direction of the oncoming convoy. With Bishop continuing to fire, she calmly pulled the pins from the two grenades that he'd handed her, tossed them out of the Jeep, and then cut the wheel again, pulling away as the smoke spilled from the two grenades.
Remy sighed as the convoy continued to roll. There were telltales of smoke in front, so obviously Bishop and Tarot weren't dead. Yet. The opposition had been better trained than he was expecting, holding on to their defensive positions despite the gunfire and the Cajun bouncing between trucks at eighty miles an hour. Still, LeBeau had not run out of tricks yet. There was a reason they'd called him Gambit, and he grinned wolfishly as a gunman on a motorcycle completed a wide flanking turn and bore down on his seemingly isolated positions.
Remy twirled the staff and slammed it down into the dirt in front of him. The kinetic energy he channeled through it cascaded through the earth in a radial pattern, and the man was lost in the sudden, billowing cloud of dust that erupted around him. It was too thick for the biker to see through, or avoid, and he plunged in with his gun firing, hoping for a lucky shot. For Remy's spatial sense, he no longer needed to see the bike, his powers already having tracked every possible variation, and at the last second, flicked out with the staff, catching him in the throat and sending the motorcycle and now dying rider into the dirt.
Remy ignored the horrible gurgling noise of the man on the ground, righting the bike and climbing on. Unlike the convoy, he did not have to follow a set route, and he took off at an angle to get some height over the mob he was pursuing. It took a moment to clear his handset, and he swerved to avoid several arroyos of scrub as he contacted the jeep.
"Seems dat plan A didn't work."
"We noticed." Marie-Ange was still driving with both feet, using the quick change from gas to brake to give Bishop the chance to aim and fire on individual vehicles. The change in tactics hadn't been discussed aside from the large man changing weapons, but his intent had been obvious. But picking them off one at a time wouldn't accomplish their goal. "Perhaps we need to go to Plan B? Do you want to catch up with us, or herd the convoy from behind?"
"Stay out in front. I don't think we going to stop dis convoy, but Remy see if I can't knock dat damn truck offline, and see if we can winnow dem down a bit." Remy leaned into the bike, ramming the throttle wide open and gathering speed. The ground was rising, and he was looking down on the convoy from the side. The monster truck was weaving back and forth, trying to herd Marie-Ange and Bishop's jeep away from the main body of vehicles.
Remy twisted the handle bars, gunning the engine as the bike flew over the dirt hill. He narrowed his eyes against the dust, and his hands began to glow. The edge of the hill was rapidly approaching, and now the purplish glow began to spread down the handle bars to the rest of the bike. Now the dust was crackling and popping in a cloud around him.
Remy hit the edge of the hill and the bike flew in the air, now glowing fully purple, a nimbus of energy suffusing it. Now he dropped through the air directly at the truck, and Remy tossed himself off the bike and into the air. He flipped forward, bringing himself out over the truck as the kinetically charged bike slammed directly in the back of the truck with an explosion that tore both back tires off the vehicle. Remy landed easily a few feet from the burning truck, staff out and ready for the Mengo brothers to emerge.
Bishop looked down from his perch to Marie-Ange, "Looks like it's us while he plays." He kicked the tail gate of the jeep out flat, lying down in back. Facing the vehicles trailing them, the former officer produced a tool of precision, not just destruction. He chambered one of the fat shells into the Barrett .50 caliber rifle he had stashed away in back. He knew exactly how to play this game, sighting in the driver of the last vehicle, waiting until he knew the shot would look like a near hit on one of the lead vehicles. He wanted them to think he was firing on them and he wanted them to think he was inept as he worked his way forward, always shooting the driver of the rear most vehicle.
Stan spent a full and eventful year of his life as a cab driver in New York. He came away from that experience with a number of assets - an American warrant for attempted homicide, ability to deal with any number of surprises without endangering his heart rate, an extremely discerning drug habit and a monomaniacal veneration of the seatbelts.
Most of these skills came together in a focused moment of absolute convergence when it started raining motorcycles and Frenchmen on a lonely African highway.
When a truck weighing, conservatively, 9000 pounds suddenly loses half of its means of propulsion while traveling at 82 miles an hour physics seamlessly take over from even the most accomplished of drivers and, cooperating amicably with the gravity. give the crew of that automobile a certain grace period - to stop, reflect and come to terms with their life choices.
Each member of the truck's complement reacted differently to this opportunity.
Grigori Mengochauzcraus, recently engaged in the process of responding to his brother's half-muttered suggestion that perhaps it was time to phone in ahead both to the destination and to the local police (the garrison having been honestly bought and paid for) was rudely interrupted by the crash. Alas Greg did not have the opportunity to complete his musings on the matter and cut short his elaborations to the tune of Fuck the PoPo!
Thus about the time that LeBeau rose to his feet, Greg's left the car and followed the rest of him in a perfect arch that deposited him slightly more than 13 feet to the left on the vehicle.
Stan was prevented from making a close and intimate inspection of the windshield by his familial relationship with the seatbelt, and letting his reflexes take over found himself getting rid of the buckle in record speed and diving out of the burning truck, his gun leaping into his hand and searching for the target.
The best showing, however, was delivered by the original gunner of the truck who with the presence of mind especially admirable in the recently deceased and gently charring individual, was propelled directly at the primary threat facing his employers. Seconds before finding his feet, Remy was greeted with the uncommonly fascinating spectacle of a fiery corpse making its speedy descent at his head.
"... merde."
The rest of the running battle swept by the tableau, the bullets and vehicles racing past the wreck that came to its final stop just far enough into the road to separate the cargo trailer from most of its guardians. The mercenaries staffing the convoy had bee drawn primarily from the countries that had the pleasure and honor of being the allies of the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. Their militaries, unsurprisingly, had trained them in the philosophy perfected by the country that brought the Thousand Year Reich to its knees in four.
The rules were simple - obey orders, the Plan is God, only the comman has the Plan, don't get smart and start thinking for yourself.
In the situation where the entire command team was suddenly and violently taken off line, the reactions of the convoyers were admirably uniform. Most of the vehicles executed a jarring change in direction and pointed themselves back toward the wreck with the single-minded purpose of either rescuing their lead element.
Unfortunately, or perhaps very fortunately, the driver of the cargo-trailer was Irish. Paddy Fitzgerald had problems with authority long before he celebrated his sixteenth birthday with punching out a brigade leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (who also happened to be his father) and making for the nearest Dublin recruitment center where he lied about his age and took the Queen's shilling.
Trained to adapt and overcome, rather than follow and obey, Patrick assessed the situation soberly and catalogued a number of fact: turning the cargo trailer on a dime would likely to result in a second flaming wreck, only a quarter of a mile separated him from the auction house, and if he arrived first and with a certain lead-in time there existed a good possibility of pocketing the entirety of the bonus.
And so instead of turning to rendezvous with the rest of the convoy and to ascertain the condition of his fearless leaders, Paddy smiled, found his gas pedal and run over the cycle-scout in front of him, spilled the machine-gunner from the top-nest, sideswiped the jeep which Marie-Ange accidentally put in his way in her attempts to maneuver through the chaos and gripped the wheel.
"Come and get Paddy-boy, if you think you're hard enough!"
The shriek of metal as the truck scraped nearly the entire side of the Jeep off was loud enough to cover the unexpected guttural proclamation from Marie-Ange. She wasn't even sure what it quite meant only that it had a lot of C and Z sounds and Doug liked to use it a lot. She jerked the wheel as the Jeep skidded wildly, turning with the spin until they were again under control.
The convoy careened through a wrought-iron fence and over a golf course, the massive tractor-trailer smashing through carts and at least one foursome on its hell-bent tear forward.
A pessimist would have noted that the evasive driving maneuver put them a full hundred feet behind the speeding tractor trailer, in the midst of what appeared to be a resort gate strewn with flaming vehicle parts, and with at least two unhinged gunmen with questionable taste in music flanking them.
That pessimist would not have counted that the spinout also put them directly on a path to intercept Remy.
Nor would that pessimist have counted on Bishop's marksmanship with a handgun, putting a neat bullethole in the middle of the bellowing Irishman's forehead.
He had no time to focus on the truck, as gunfire erupted from around the ruined hulk of the truck. Remy's staff spun, actually deflecting a pair of rounds with the kinetic haze of dust pulled in by the spinning motion, and the Cajun closed. Whatever Stan's plan had been, it was interrupted by the impact of the staff into his solar plexus, and in the same smooth motion, LeBeau was up and over him, clearing the burning truck and putting it between himself and the swarming mercenaries in to save their leaders.
There was a shriek as the semi's undercarriage scraped along the barriers between the parking lot and the concourse to the auction house, and all action paused for a moment as the truck slammed into the south wall head on. The whole vehicle buckled as the trailer jackknifed up on the cab, and a plume of smoke and masonry dust bellowed out of the building. Remy noticed the jeep pulling along side, and Bishop and Marie-Ange following the vehicle into the building. Good. The mission came first.
However, as the momentary shock of the crash wore off, the attention turned back to him, and now Gambit stood with only a burning truck for cover, as a dozen weapons turned to track him.
"Well," Remy said with a little shrug. "isn't dis awkward..."
***
"That is not a good sign," Emma observed as the tractor-trailer careened wildly across the golf course, terrified golfers scattering before it. She stepped into the Astral Plane and widened her view, following the path of the out of control vehicle through the mindscape, trying to determine where it would end and whether she should warn...
"Oh shit," said Emma as she stepped back out of the Plane. ~Watch out~ she whispered directly into the minds of the Snow Valley folk, hearing the terrible crash and grind as the tractor-trailer crashed, with a certain cosmic neatness, into the wall of the auction room.
"I believe we might have some work to do," she said and, turning, began to run towards the resort.
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