Operation: A Roving Commission: The Better Devil

[x-gambit.livejournal.com]

Sarah, Doug, marie-Ange and North deal with Bulat, and Remy extracts the information they need from him before leaving him for the police.



The docks were grey and industrial – an Eastern European paean to efficiency over aesthetics. Remy had sent them in to deal with Bulat directly, taking the perimeter for himself and Nico, and sending Jubilee and Amanda after the cargo. Their job was simple; bring down Bulat’s men, and take Bulat alive for questioning.

Bulat was many things, but it was quickly apparent that stupid was not one of them. Despite his red-brown leather jacket and cowboy boots, he arranged his men with the expertise of a Spetsnaz commander and was careful to inspect the area before finally coming in. The ship captain was non-descript; dark hair, bearded, and heavy Slavic features. A face you’d never give a second thought to on the street. Bulat finally approached him and they shook hands.

The all-clear clicked on their phones, indicating that Remy was in position, and now was the time to move.

"I hate no-kill missions," Sarah muttered, stuffing her phone back into her pocket. "This asshole deserves to bleed."

"While I agree, he can bleed later." Marie-Ange suggested. "Besides, you are our, ah, what is the term, ace in the pocket? If he is uncooperative, you get to make him bleed. A very little bit." She shrugged, and unbuttoned her coat, better to shrug out of it if she needed to pull an image from her tattoo. "Until he answers questions, we really need him to be not screaming in pain. He is rather useless if he is."

"Ace in the hole," Doug corrected absently, years of habit in interpreting Marie-Ange's occasional slips with American slang coming to the fore. Truce or no truce, it would have been more awkward, except all of his attention was clearly devoted to analyzing the tactical picture presented before them. Lines of sight, number of combatants, right handed, left handed, favored weapons and how many rounds each clip carried...Doug was attempting to parse a huge amount of information and order it all, trying to find the minute creases in the pattern where X-Force could latch on and pull it all apart.

His own gun was already out of his holster and held low and at the ready, and he could hear the quiet sounds of his teammates and their own preparations: the soft shush of the fabric of Marie-Ange's coat, the creak of Sarah's bones, and the muted pop of the cap coming off the small bottle of isopernaline North favored to jumpstart his short-term precognition.

North swallowed the pill dry and chose to maintain his silence, eyes and ears peeled for any approaching persons. The tell-tale sign of his accelerated heartbeat heralded the double vision that kicked in after a minute. Judging his teammates ready, he unholstered his gun and gestured to their chosen route, moving so that he was in the position to bring up the rear. “All clear.” For now, at least.

"No time like the present." Keeping down, Sarah made a move for a nearby corner to try and get a better vantage point, but with the number of armed guards keeping a watchful eye on the situation, their team's element of surprise was pretty well shot from the beginning. Several handguns fired in her direction at once, and she growled. "Yeah, fuck you all too." There was the sound of running as three of the guards came to investigate, still unclear as to whether this was just a whore in the wrong place at the wrong time. Tightening her grip on the bone in her hand, Sarah waited until the footsteps came close enough that she might be able to swing the bone club and do some damage, and then gleefully threw herself into the fight.

Marie-Ange counted - not seconds, but blossoms of blood on Sarah – and Bulat's guards - clothing, and when it got to three, she signalled the rest to go, and then pulled a card - a man in robes with a crown and sword, and she noted the appropriateness of pulling Justice to fight for her. She stayed back, as the image followed behind Doug and North.

Keeping a safe enough distance from the club-happy Sarah, North moved forward with Doug milliseconds before Marie-Ange had finished signalling. Hammer pulled back, the marksman took out two of the nearest guards, blinking after each unnecessarily silenced shot. “Move,” he warned Doug, withdrawing a second gun with his left hand as a pre-cognitive warning played out in his mind’s eye. With a controlled burst of fire, he shot down the armed idiot who would otherwise have shot him – and likely clipped Doug when he jumped out of the way. “Go grab Bulat. I have your back.”

With the remaining guards occupied, Doug made a beeline for the shouting Bulat, using the crates in the area to cover his charge until the final handful of steps. Bulat was already turning to bring his own gun to bear, but Doug was inside his guard before he could complete the turn, trapping Bulat's gun arm up under his shoulder, then pivoting to give the other man's wrist a violent twist.

The pop of bones dislocating was followed by the clatter of the gun dropping to the ground, and then a grunt as Bulat felt the pain. He reacted swiftly, trying to get an arm around the windpipe of the blond who currently had his back to him, but Doug was still in motion, ducking under the sweep of Bulat's good arm. Bulat quickly reversed the motion, bringing his elbow down towards the base of Doug's skull. Doug expected the blow, however, and rolled with the impact, blunting the force of the strike and putting distance between him and their target.

And also clearing the path for Marie-Ange's Justice image and the sweep of its sword. The image was hampered by the need to subdue rather than kill, and so it struck with the flat of the blade. Bulat took a blow on his shoulder and punch the image in the solar plexus, then the throat. At the second blow, the image collapsed into the ectoplasm it was made of. The image had bought Doug just enough time, and distracted Bulat just enough, so that he could come out of his roll and charge back in to clip the other man behind the ear and knock him out cold.

Doug hoisted the unconscious dealer over his shoulders and made his way back toward his teammates, grunting "Retrieved, withdraw," over X-Force's comm net to indicate success.

"Not so fast." Remy said, appearing from the darkness with Nico in tow. "Change of plans. Our questions about Bulat tripped up something in his investigation. Dey put an APB out on him. We do dis here."

He waited for Doug to set Bulat down and zipped a pair of plastic cuffs securely over his wrists and ankles. He then pulled out a knife, and steadily drove the tip down on the base of Bulat's thumbnail. The man came awake with a jerk, cursing in Romanian. Remy's first slap cleared his head and the second paused his triade.

"Quiet." Remy knew his Romanian was rusty, but he didn't care. Interpol would chalk it up to 'business' rivals regardless of what the man said. "You have been selling young mutants."

"I have no idea what you're-" A slap silenced him.

"Listen very carefully, Bulat. That wasn't a question because I know about your smuggling ring. Now, you have two options. You can tell me what the code is for your exchange to contact your African buyers, and I will leave you alive for the police. Or, you can keep silent. At which point, you are no use to me and I will kill you and find another bottom-feeding slaver."

"I'm supposed to believe you'll let me live." He laughed harshly, but stopped at the look in Remy's eyes.

"No. You're supposed to believe that I will kill you if you don't tell me in the next 60 seconds. Maybe live or certainly die. Which gamble do you perfer?" Remy said, as he placed the blade under the man's eye. Threats weren't always about bombast. The best ones were those which weren't even threats; just cold truths. Bulat was a creature of that world; he'd cowed a dozen rivals by instilling certainity that he would do every horrible thing that he was threatened to do. And he recognized when he faced it.

"Simple call. Leave map coordinates with time in middle, followed by month and day. Groups of two. They've always shown to safe place." Remy stared at him for a moment before nodding, and grabbing Bulat's throat. The pressure on the artery drove him into a struggling, cursing unconsciousness and the Cajun straightened up.

"Leave him here. Doug, if you could pass along de 'anonymous' tip to our local friends in Interpol, dey can collect de trash. Our target just got a lot bigger."