Ambition: A Dark Billionaire Romance Anthology (32 page)

I turned up one of the hills that gave the Heights their name, still thinking. In any other circumstance, there'd be no way I'd be able to go on. Before, I would have insisted to go too, even if only to act as eyes and ears. But there was Andrea to think of. My goddaughter, whose smile was magic and whose little chubby fists contained the strength of her father and mother. She would need me, not only to raise her, but to teach her who her parents were. It was a heavy burden to shoulder, and I wasn't sure if I was strong enough to do it by myself. But I had to.

I saw the driveway to Mount Zion and turned, seeing the bell tower rising above the trees. I knew they were up there, at that moment, preparing. I paused for a moment and just looked at the clear early spring sky, so blue it made my eyes water. The bell tower's peaked roof stabbed upward into the impossible blue, stalwart and resolute. I thought about the people it contained, and my role with them.

I remembered talking with Sophie about how when she and Mark first got together, she told him she wasn't going to play Alfred to his Batman. But as I stood there, I realized that there was nothing wrong with that role. Alfred served as Batman's conscience, as his helper, and as the steady rock he could depend on. In the months of living with Mark, Sophie, and eventually Patrick, I'd read my fair share of Batman comics. Throughout his years, Batman had lost partners, had others leave him, but Alfred was always there.

I decided if that was my role, then so be it. Besides, more than once Alfred did his own little bit of ass kicking from time to time, and was always good for a ironic observation or sardonic comment to break the heaviness of everything. I headed up the driveway, and walked inside. Opening the door to the bell tower, I headed up to my family, finding the three of them hard at work assembling their gear, Andrea in her play seat looking around with big eyes. "He agreed."

"Great," Mark replied, "that means we can take out the Kings."

"He had one request though," I continued, looking over the array of weaponry on the tables and work spaces. "He wants you to minimize casualties if you can. Understandable, considering who he is."

I expected them to stop work, to at least be a little surprised or put off by my words. Instead, nobody missed a beat, even Andrea not pausing in her looking around and enjoying the new sights and sounds.

"It is," Sophie replied to my comment, running a lightly oiled rag over the inner workings of her rifle, her favorite, a heavy caliber AR-15 with magnifying scope. "But he knows that there won't be a guarantee of that. What can he expect?"

"Well, do you guys have rubber bullets?" I asked, and Mark stopped what he was doing, setting down his own guns to look at me. I blushed, feeling childish. "Sorry, stupid question."

"No.... it wasn't," Mark replied. "Because I think I actually have something. In one of my old Snowman hideouts, I took in a crate of unique rounds. It was for a Confederation operation, where Sal Giordano wanted it to look like I made a hit on someone, but we were only making him disappear. So instead of real lead, the bullets were made of a lead and plastic powder polymer. When they hit, they basically vaporize, but the energy goes into the body, shocking the system if you hit someone in the right place."

"Where's the right place?" Patrick asked. "And what caliber rounds do you have?"

"If you hit them in an arm or leg, the whole damn thing goes numb for three to five minutes," Mark said, "leaving the affected area paralyzed and unable to move if I remember right. A hit to the stomach will paralyze the diaphragm for a good minute, they'll pass out from lack of air. But, there's also areas you can hit and drop them permanently."

"Like?" Patrick asked, biting his lower lip. He and I had talked, and I knew that while he'd kicked Melinda Pressman, he'd never actually intentionally killed someone before. He was nervous.

"A frontal or side head shot can kill, an unprotected hit over the heart too. That's the other problem. Even a heavy jacket can diffuse the energy enough to make the rounds useless. I remember shooting some of the test guys for it, and a guy wearing a leather jacket on top of a sweatshirt walked right through the rounds like I was shooting him with a Super Soaker. It wasn't until I put a round in his right thigh that he dropped," Mark said, touching his body to emphasize his words. "And the rounds were in nine millimeter Parabellum. We had to get a whole case of it to avoid the ATF tracking the job down. I should still have about a thousand rounds of that stuff over near Sophie's old apartment. I had a place near there."

"Then let's go in with a mix," Patrick said. "The Glocks carrying those, and a backup with real rounds. Sophie's going to have our butts covered up high with the heavy caliber."

I looked at them, and nodded. "Thanks."

Sophie shook her head. "No need to thank us, Tabby. Mark wants to do it because Bennie Fernandez is a good ally to have. Don't want to lose him just to kill a few street level soldiers. Our goal is to bust up the gang, and if we can do that without killing some of them, the better."

T
he Docks were windy
, which you'd expect from being next to the ocean. It was late afternoon, and the three of us were driving an old, grumpy sounding panel truck through the Dock warehouse area. We looked like any of a dozen different delivery companies in the city, which is exactly what we wanted. All of our gear was in the back, except for a single Glock that Mark kept under his jacket just in case someone stopped us and asked questions we couldn't answer, loaded with the special ammunition of course. We were even dressed like delivery workers, and Sophie looked actually somewhat normal and slightly frumpy in an old denim jacket. Considering Sophie's physique, that was quite an accomplishment.

We weren't noticed as we made all the way down towards Dock 32. I was at first suspicious of parking so close to our ambush point, but Mark's plan had multiple escape options. In fact, if our plan went the way we wanted, we'd not be using the truck at all, which is why we were all wearing gloves. There was little chance it would be dusted for prints, but we wanted to be sure.

The warehouse we selected was empty, and had been a very long time since it had been used last. Formerly owned by Sal Giordano, upon his death it had gone into legal limbo. The probate court was unwilling to release it to the heirs, since there was plenty of suspicion that it was used in criminal activity. However, there was little direct evidence against Sal's warehouse, since it had been little used in favor of air and train delivery instead of sea. Bennie Fernandez and the rest of the Federal prosecutors weren't worrying about digging up evidence of a dead man's crimes, except in terms of how they applied to direct prosecution of current, living criminals. Since most of the men swept up in the Confederation were guilty of much larger and easier to prove crimes than anything tied into the warehouse, the warehouse sat in a legal limbo. Sal's heirs weren't concerned either, as they were living well enough on the money Fernandez and the Feds hadn't touched. Half of a crapload of money was still a lot.

Best of all, Mark had access to the warehouse, having been taught the security system codes by Sal Giodano himself back when he was just a delivery boy for the Confederation godfather. Using the chain operated backup system, he raised the door enough for the truck to be parked inside, then shut it behind us. Unfortunately, while the building security systems may have been active, the power to the lights and other utilities had been cut off, with the fuse boxes literally pulled out.

"Guess it's a good thing I packed a canteen," I quipped as I jumped out of the passenger seat. "Although I wished there was a potty still. So where are we deploying?"

"You and I will be in the alleyway, direct action," Mark said simply, ignoring my joke. "Sophie will be up top. Remember, we're leaving Berkowitz for Bennie Fernandez, so we hit before she gets here. The Latin Kings will follow their standard operating procedures, and show up an hour or more before the meeting time. We let them come in, we close the gap behind them, and we move in.”

"It's still dangerous," I remarked as I helped Mark and Sophie unload our weapons from the back of the van. In addition to Sophie's sniper AR-15, all of us carried handguns with the disabling rounds. For our backup weapon, Mark and I were carrying Heckler & Koch UMP's, one of the best nine millimeter submachine guns in the world from what Mark told me. While Sophie would have her rifle in a nest with a few magazines lying nearby, Mark and I had to carry everything we needed on our persons. We'd be moving most likely, and couldn't depend on an ammunition point. "You worried about the numbers?"

"Are you?" Mark asked, not grinning as I would have expected for such a rejoinder but instead curious, questioning. He was trying to figure out if I was truly ready for this mission, or if he would have to pull out at the last minute and depend on another way to get the Latin Kings eliminated.

"Some, but I trust you two," I finally said in reply. "We can get through this."

Mark nodded, satisfied with my answer. He grabbed his stuff and headed off into the corner, while Sophie shouldered her own load and headed for the stairs. As she passed me, she stopped and looked up into my eyes. "Good answer," she said with a smile. "There might be hope for you yet."

T
he twilight shadows were deepening
, and the Latin Kings hadn't arrived yet. The sun was already down, and the last of the day's sunlight was barely visible against the western buildings. Sophie was keeping an eye through one of her positions inside on one of the approach roads, while Mark had his eye on the other. I came up to Mark, making sure to keep myself low and out of sight of the road. "How's it looking?"

"Still quiet," Mark replied. "The meetings supposed to kick off in ninety minutes. They should be here soon. What do you need?"

"Just a quick question," I said. "Have you given any thought as to what we're going to do with the other two gangs once this is done?”

"I have," Mark replied. “But aren’t you thinking a little far ahead?"

"Like I said, I trust you and Sophie. You trained me well, I just hope I live up to your training. But we've been keeping the others balanced by having the Kings around too. What happens next?" I was surprised I was thinking so far ahead. Maybe I was getting a little ahead of myself, I did tend to do that sometimes. But maybe it was just that I was feeling confident. If I could even consider the problems of the future, at least a good chunk of me thought I'd live through the evening.

"We'll have to figure it out, but I have some ideas. If we live through this, I'll talk them over with you the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow itself is going to be busy enough as it is, and we should take a day to celebrate."

I heard cars in the distance, and our ear buds crackled. "Three cars coming in on the waterside road. They look filled."

"Understood," Mark replied, then tapped me on the chest. "Go to the front, stay down. I'll keep eyes over here in case they come in from two sides."

I nodded, and started to turn. Mark put a hand on my arm to stop me. "Remember, stay down, out of sight. We'll get through this just fine."

"I know. Like I said, you two are the best," I replied. Before Mark could say anything, I jogged down to the end of the little alleyway, staying low and out of sight. There was an old pile of wood pallets that we'd stacked up near that end, enough to provide concealment, but I wouldn't feel comfortable trying to deflect bullets with the cheap thin chunks of wood. They'd work for an initial burst of gunfire, and then I'd have to move.

I was sweating hard underneath the heavy body armor that I was wearing, a choice that Mark had made based off the fact that he and I would be at street level. We were in full tactical gear, including a fully armored vest, Kevlar helmets, and even the shin and knee pads some SWAT teams wore. Cinched in tight to prevent gear rattling, I was sweating even though the evening light meant it was literally below freezing in the shade of the alleyway. I was glad I was in the best shape of my life, because even with that, my heart was hammering. Perhaps from nerves, perhaps from exertion.

I took a knee behind the pallets, looking out between two of the slots as the three cars slowed and came to a stop, two of them fanning out somewhat along the narrow road. The lead car continued on, driving half way out onto the dock itself before coming to a halt. The two spread out cars opened up, each of them discharging five men, all of them pretty standard looking street gang bangers. The other car, about maybe another hundred meters further down the dock, opened up to have only two men get out, although I could still see a driver through the back glass. "Thirteen total, twelve out in the open," Sophie whispered on the radio circuit. She had moved her position, and was settling into her spot. From the warehouse she was in, it was just over a hundred yards to the near cars. Well within her shooting ability, and I knew her handiwork. She wouldn't let nerves get in the way of a good shot.

"One minute, I'm coming up," Mark whispered. "Patrick, I want you to stay where you are. I'll loop around this building and hit them from the side. We should catch them in a ninety degree crossfire."

"UMP's or Glocks?" I asked. The Glocks were loaded with what we were calling the neutralizer rounds, the UMP's with alternating neutralizer and regular nine millimeter rounds. The other clips I had in my vest for the UMP were regular rounds all the way though, there just hadn't been enough time to reload all of the clips with the mix of rounds.

"What's your distance?" Mark asked.

"Twenty meters." It was just on the edge of a good shot for a Glock for me.

"Go with the UMP, I'll use the Glocks," Mark replied. "Sophie, you take out the targets on the dock first, then back us up. You have flash suppression?"

"I'm far enough back for the first two, but there's not enough flash suppression, no," Sophie replied. Before I would’ve never knew what the hell that meant, but they’d taught me well. She was firing from deep enough within the building that any flash from the end of her barrel wouldn't be visible from outside. "I'd have to go to ground level indoors if you want no flash."

“No, stay up there and fire down on burst from close to the window if necessary," Mark replied. I understood his thinking. With Sophie up there, not only could she provide heavy firepower with her larger caliber rifle, but she was safer too. She wasn't quite as armored as we were, foregoing the Kevlar helmet and her vest was only standard thickness instead of having additional trauma plates, but she would have the additional protection of the building. He was protecting her, while at the same time trying to honor Tabby's request by using the Glocks himself. Regardless of his past, if anyone ever doubts that Mark Snow is a honorable man, I'll happily kick their ass.

"Understood," I said, slipping my UMP out from behind my back slowly and taking aim at the nearest group of Latin Kings. I aimed a bit low and to the left, knowing that when I fired it would rise and pull my shoulder to the right. Settling in, I waited for Mark's signal.

"I'm in position," Mark whispered over the radio, "Sophie, you have first shot."

"Understood," Sophie replied.

I waited, feeling my palms sweat and the blood rush in my ears. This was different from my attacks on the 88s or the Gangster Disciples. Hand to hand fighting against thugs or a paintball gun attack on the GDs is one thing. These guys were carrying fully automatic weapons, as was I. People were going to die, regardless of the measures we'd taken to minimize the loss of life. It wasn't even like when my kick ended up killing Melinda Pressman. She'd been trying to kill me, after all. This was an attack.

In an instant, there was no more time to worry about it or to question things. "Sophie you're up.”

"Understood," Sophie whispered, and adrenalin flooded my system. Time stretched out, and I was beginning to wonder what was taking Sophie so long, when a crack pierced the fading light, and all hell broke loose.