[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/Jqhg9Zb.png[/img][/center] [b]Center City, WA 2:15 AM[/b] Tracy sat perfectly still in his chair while Sebastian Hyde fumed. Tracy's shirt and pants were spattered with blood, his ears still rang from the shootout. He'd just left the Flynn home where he'd called Hyde and came straight away to his office. The old man drummed his fingers on the desk and stared at Tracy over his glasses. "You let the whole situation get out of control, Tracy." Tracy shrugged. "Flynn acted on his own accord. He made it clear he was going to move forward, regardless if I helped or not." Hyde sighed and lifted his glasses up to rub his eyes. In the reprieve from conversation, Tracy thought about what went down at the soccer field. Two Russians were gunned down by Flynn's men, while all three of them were killed and Flynn was gutshot. A private doctor was back at the big mansion fixing him up. He was certain Flynn was going to make it. His daughter Linda was shaken up, but not hurt. The same for little Anton Belyakov. Tracy shielded him during the worst of the shooting. Anton's father was unhurt in the shooting. The last he saw of the two Belyakov's, they were driving away from the shootout with the lone Russian who made it out alive. "It's a mess," said Tracy. "But both kids were returned safely. The only ones killed in the whole thing were Flynn and Belyakov's gorillas." "The money?" Tracy laid a stack of banded bills on the desk. Five twenty thousand dollar stacks. Hyde's eyes twinkled from behind his glasses. "That's one hundred grand, Flynn's worth of my service." Hyde took two of the stacks and tucked them in a drawer in his desk. "The rest if for you. I give you the lion's share because you've got one last job to do." Tracy raised an eyebrow while Hyde leaned back in his chair and lit a cigar. The old man took his sweet time inhaling the first puff. Tracy wanted to come across the table and shove that cigar down his throat. "Belyakov and his ilk can't be allowed to live. They perpetrated an unsanctioned kidnapping in my town. Anybody goes behind my back, the cost is death. The rest of the shit stains in this city need to remember that. Send a message, Tracy." Tracy took the remaining sixty thousand and stood. He walked out the office without another word. --- Konstantin Belyakov died two weeks later. He and an associate of his sat parked at a red light when an unknown person on a motorcycle rode up and gunned them down with a submachine gun. This was the final act in a two-week bloodbath where Belyakov's organization was picked apart by unknown assassins. A firebombing in his deli killed six known Russian organized crime members. Three more were gunned down over the course of a night, while one man was strangled in a back alley near a strip club. Another was found after jumping off a roof. Several sources claimed he was pushed by a tall, blonde man with scars on his neck. When Center City Police found Belyakov's body, they also found a message. Written on the hood of the car in the Russian's own blood were the words: DEATH TO KIDNAPPERS. The handful of Russian Organized Crime members in town quickly and quietly left Center City, returning to their West Coast hub of Los Angeles. The message sent to them had been read loud and clear: Center City was off limits. This was and would always be Sebastian Hyde's town. --- [b]Miami 11:23 AM[/b] The Colonel watched Medici swim laps in the Olympic sized pool. The old man had been very clear that he wanted the Colonel at his mansion at precisely eleven that morning. The Colonel had shown up ten minutes before that, waiting in the car before knocking on the door at the stroke of eleven. The servant who answered the door led him to the pool where Augustus Medici was just slipping into the pool. That had been over twenty minutes ago, and Medici had made it very clear that he would not discuss business until after he was through with his laps. The message to the Colonel was very clear: he was hired help and would be treated as such. Never mind that it was the Colonel and his men who kept Medici and the rest of the Trust safe. Like all people who had been born into extreme privilege, the Trust took their safety for granted. It gave the Colonel a small bit of satisfaction that he was here to discuss a threat to that safety. “Parker,” he had said once Medici was out of the pool and drying off. “He’s stepped out of the shadows and back into the light.” “Are you sure?” Medici asked with a frown. The Colonel pulled an envelope from his sports coat and opened it up before passing it to Medici. It was stills of security camera footage from banks, the seal of the Massachusetts State Police stamped on the corners of the pictures. In each shot, the rough face of Parker could be seen clearly. Even though the other men wore masks, Parker went without and even seemed to be mugging for the camera. “That’s Parker,” the old man said as he passed the photos back to the Colonel. “He’s a bank robber now. How exciting.” “A bank robber with a specialty. He’s only hitting banks connected to the Vasco Family. The file that the state police have on him said that it’s very likely that he burned the cash from the heists. He’s not robbing from hunger. He’s trying to make a statement.” Medici furrowed his brow. “What’s Javier say about that?” “A long string of expletives involving Parker and chopping his balls off.” The old man chuckled. “Sounds about right.” “I’ve got Roque in New England,” said the Colonel. “He’s running down Parker’s trail with the help of the cops and the Vasco Family’s own security people. The standing kill on sight order is still good for Parker and all of the Minutemen.” “No,” said Medici. He looked down and rubbed the side of his damp chin before looking back up. “Take him alive. I want to know what he knows. And why exactly he’s come out of retirement.” “I’ll relay those orders to Roque.” “No.” Medici placed a hand, still wrinkled from the water of the pool, on the Colonel’s shoulder. He was dripping water on a twelve hundred dollar jacket and didn’t give a shit. And why would he? Twelve hundred dollars might as well have been twelve cents to a guy like him. “I want you to lead the hunt, Colonel. Like I said, we want Parker brought in alive. That requires precision and temperance, two things Roque doesn’t have in abundance. You’re a scalpel, he’s a sledgehammer. I can have my private jet ready to fly you out to Logan within the hour. What do you say?” The Colonel forced himself to smile. “Let me pack my bag.” --- [b]Chicago 3:23 AM[/b] Quarry cracked his knuckles and settled back into the seat of his car. Six hours into the stakeout and he began to settle in for a long haul. The house he was sitting on was a dump, a scorched husk of a building that someone torched years ago. It was the perfect place for squatters and people trying to lay low. Joe Sampson had led him here. Sampson, a mid-level drug dealer with the Chicago Outfit, had engaged Quarry for his services. A quartet of stick-up boys had been harassing Sampson’s men for almost a month, bootjacking drugs and cash and becoming a serious thorn in his side. It took Sampson a hot minute to figure out there was an inside man. The inside man, Little Roy Lewis, was using the robberies to fund his own drug habit. When Joe found out, he’d called up Quarry and agreed to pay him to close out four accounts. A lot of guys who hired Quarry talked like that. They used vague words like ‘closing an account’ or ‘settling a debt.’ Quarry imagined it was because they didn’t want to use the word kill. It made it real if they said it, and guys like Sampson and all the others thought of themselves as being above it. And, Quarry figured, they kind of were. After all, they were hiring him weren’t they? He’d gotten on Little Roy’s trail that night and followed him across the Southside until he disappeared into the building. That had been a little after nine. And so he waited. He waited until nearly forty thirty in the morning before he made his move. KGB time, they called it. The old Soviet secret police always committed their arrests and assassinations between four and five in the morning. It was the sweet spot where night was beginning to fade away, but morning was still not quite there yet. Even most night owls were soundly asleep by four AM. Quarry slipped on a pair of surgical gloves and carried a Beretta with a suppressor attached to the end under his coat. He looped around the back of the building and came through a broken window, slow and quietly. Quarry pulled the gun out along with a flashlight covered in tape, emitting only a pin-sized light to use as a guide. He held his nose when he passed by three buckets that had been used as latrine. It took him ten minutes to find their stash tucked away in a baseboard near the fireplace. It was all inside a gym bag. At least two pounds of heroin wrapped in cellophane. Recovery was very rarely part of his job, but Sampson was willing to pay for it. Alongside the stash, Quarry found nearly twenty thousand in tens, twenties, and hundred dollar bills, and four machine pistols. Quarry tucked the money, dope, and guns into the satchel and slung it over his shoulder. He slowly glided up the rickety stairs like a ghost. Muscle memory kicked in when he reached the landing where the crew was sleeping. Check the corners, clear the rooms, plan your escape, kill as soon as you have eyes on the target. Flashbacks went through his mind, killing a Bosnian national in the 90's with a sniper rifle, garroting an Al-Qaeda cutout in Iraq. Quarry didn’t believe in the stereotype of born killers, but he was a killer now thanks to Uncle Sam. Like a chunk of coal, the government had applied pressure and polished him up to turn him into a sparkly diamond of murderous potential. The four guys were passed out on piss-stained mattresses. He kept the flashlight beam low and aimed. Recoil shot up his elbow as he fired off four quick shots. The rounds hissed through the room, four bullets exploding the four men's heads. He fired off four more to each man's heart to be sure he was dead before calmly walking out into the early morning air. Quarry tucked the gun into his coat and climbed into the car. He drove six blocks away before burying the gun in a trashcan, and six more blocks before he dumped his gloves in another trashcan.