[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/Gu5Zf6b.png?1[/img][/center] [center][b]Part 3: "Barbarism Begins at Home"[/b][/center] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEOpUqpETcU]Mood Music[/url] [b]Washington Heights 5:12 AM[/b] Morrissey crooned out of Bullseye's earbuds. In his honest opinion, no assassin's playlist could be considered complete without The Smiths. Morrissey's angsty and playful lyrics, accompanied Johnny Marr's great guitar riffs, provided the perfect soundtrack for murder. Bullseye could see the entire street below from his vantage point on the rooftop. Through the scope of his sniper rifle, he watched the unmarked police car skid to a stop outside the five story walk-up building. Detectives Jimmy Burke and Mikey Thompson jumped out the car and rushed into the building as "Barbarism Begins at Home" reach its chorus. [i]Unruly boys who will not grow up Must be taken in hand.[/i] After killing Malone, Bullseye tossed the apartment and found a stack of documents hidden behind a baseboard in the kitchen. He wasn't sure if Malone was the group's record keeper, or if he had the stash for insurance, but Bullseye found it regardless of the dead cop's intent. Records of money laundering and off-shore bank accounts, proof that the bulk of the dirty money the squad received got passed on to lawyers, judges, and politicians. A whole spider-web of corruption, with Abbott and his men at the center. Among the documentation had been information about the Washington Heights apartment that was in Malone's ex-wife's name. The apartment hadn't been listed in any IA financial audit of Malone or the rest of the squad. Something valuable was in that apartment. The two cops showing up so soon after Malone's death was proof of that. It would have been much easier for him to break into the apartment and wait to ambush Burke and Thompson from there. But he'd killed Malone up close and didn't want to repeat himself. After all, wasn't variety the spice of life? A light came on in the apartment a few minutes after the cops went inside. He saw them rushing through a room in search of something. He saw Burke shoot upright and laugh before letting his breath out. Whatever it was, they found it. Bullseye put Burke's smiling face in the middle of his crosshair. [i]A crack on the head is what you get for not asking And a crack on the head is what you get for asking[/i] He let his breath out slowly and squeezed the sniper rifle's trigger. --- [b]Harlem 5:13 AM[/b] Raymond Jones stared down the barrel of a gun. Sergeant Vince Abbott, his eyes wide, stood in front of him with his service glock inches away from Jones' face. Jones was completely naked, having just bedded down for the night with two of his women when Abbott and one of his boys came through the door. The two girls were still in the bed beside him, sheets pulled up around their breasts. "Call it off, Jones," Abbott screamed. "Call what off?" The barrel of the gun struck him across the side of his head. He swayed and stumbled back a few feet, but he stayed upright and felt blood starting to drip from his temple. "You motherfuc--" Abbott pushed him backwards until he was pressed against the wall. "Don't play dumb with me! I start squeezing you for more money, and the next thing I know Malone is killed. Not only is he killed, there are promises to kill the rest of us. Tell me now or I will paint the back of this fucking wall with your brains." Jones chuckled. His head hurt so bad that even that small allowance shot red hot pain through his skull. "You kill me and there's no way to call anything off." Abbott didn't miss a beat. He stepped back and aimed his gun at the two women on the bed while maintaining eye contact with Jones. "You think I care about them hoes?" Jones laughed, showing off his rows of metallic teeth. "Bitches like that are a dime a dozen. C'mon, Mr. Police. Got any more threats? Gonna threaten to run me in? On what grounds, motherfucker?" Abbott started to answer when his phone began to ring. He answered it without looking away from Jones. "Yeah?" His mad look disappeared. One of worry replaced it. "Wait, what the fuck? Say that again." --- [b]Washington Heights 5:15 AM[/b] "Jimmy's dead," Mike Thompson cried into the phone. "I got a fucking sniper over at the apartment. Got me pinned down." Mikey gripped the phone with one hand, his service weapon with the other. He was crouched against a wall. The place had no furniture, so the walls out of sight from the windows were the only place to hide. Jimmy Burke's body lay just a few feet away, a huge chuck of the side of his face gone. "Have you called the cops?" Abbott asked over the phone. "I called you first, Vinny. Dispatch is the second call." "Don't call them." "What?" "Think about what we got in that apartment, Mikey. We're on our way. Just, get out of sight and be calm. We're on the fucking way." The call ended and Thompson swore loudly. He sat there for a few minutes, breathing heavily and sweating. It was easy for Vinny to say that shit from wherever the fuck he was. He wasn't here. He hadn't heard the shot, so loud it was still ringing in Mike's ears. He didn't have to look at Jimmy's dead body, still oozing blood out in the hardwood floor. "Fuck this," he said and started to dial 911. "I got shots fired, and an officer down here at--" He stopped speaking when he heard the door fly open. Could it be Vinny and backup. He peaked around the corner of the wall towards the door. A... man in a costume stood in the doorway, white earbuds stuck in his ear and something metallic and sharp in his hand. Was that... a fucking throwing star? "Hi." Thompson turned the corner and raised his gun. He got a shot off just as the costumed man threw whatever it was from his hand. The door frame above the man exploded in a chunk of wood chips. A microsecond later he felt something hard hit him in the forehead. The force of it dropped him to the ground, a sharp pain accompanying the blow. He suddenly realized he couldn't see, but he could feel pain and blood and something solid and sharp in his forehead. Thompson let out a gasp when he realized what it was. That realization would be one of the last conscious thoughts he would have as his brain began to shut down from the blunt force trauma and destruction from the throwing star. --- Bullseye stepped over the two dead bodies and found what it was they had come to the apartment to find. A ripped up floorboard panel revealed two zipped up gym bags. He reached down and zipped them open. One was stuffed to the brim with cash, the other with three neatly packed kilos of heroin. For Abbott and the cops, the cash and dope was worth dying for, and especially worth killing for. With a smile, Bullseye grabbed both bags and slung them over his shoulder. He stopped by Thompson's body and grabbed his cell phone. He'd need it later for his final play. The Smiths faded and the O'Jays started to sing "For the Love of Money." Maybe a little on the nose? Perhaps, but his phone was on shuffle so what could he do? With the O'Jays still singing, Bullseye walked out the door with the dirty cops' stash as police sirens started to sound from somewhere close by.