Sasha watched the man following the workers inside the building and patiently waited for five minutes. Then she launched herself into flight and swooped down from the roof, landing right next to the warehouse’s main entrance. The lone goon guarding the door was a rock of a man, at least six feet and five inches tall and had biceps that looked more like tree trunks than human upper arms. He looked Sasha up and down with a glance that didn’t strike Sasha as being overly intelligent.
“Swing your ass out before I break your back, slut,” he snarled at Sasha, taking a step towards her.
“Now aren’t you a charming one? Is that how you’re treating a lady around here?” Sasha said, offering him a bittersweet smile and an eyelash bat.
The next moment the brute slammed backwards into the wall and unconsciously slid down, after a kinetic blast from Sasha’s hand had effortlessly wiped the heavy man from his feet.
A second pressure wave knocked the heavy metal door wide open, and shattered it into the wall behind with a deafening bang that loosened a few bricks from the wall. A dozen eyes locked on Sasha, standing in the doorway with her hands resting on her hips.
Sasha let her gaze wander across the room. Three muscled men were in the process of carrying large plastic bags containing a white substance from a huge pile of similar looking bags towards a pair of empty transport boxes. Two others were clad in laboratory coats and safety goggles, and had been bent over a large desk filled with laboratory equipment when Sasha charged in. And the sunglassed guy was standing in the middle of the room, looking important but not taking part in the actual work. Sasha wasn’t surprised about that.
“Nice operation you guys have here,” Sasha teased.
“What the hell are you thinking you’re doing here, bitch?” one of the strongmen snarled in a dark baritone.
The answer came promptly, in the form of a kinetic blast shattering into the man’s chest and knocking him to the floor where he rolled over and groaned in pain.
“Like your friend at the door would have phrased it: Swing your asses out! And I am going to say this really only this one time,” Sasha coldly said.
The leather jacketed guy removed his sunglasses.
And Sasha gasped, for she recognized the man’s face. Despite she hadn’t seen Matthew Finch in a very long time - since the fateful day when she got arrested by the police, after he had provoked Sasha into assaulting him.
“For some reason I knew we’d meet again, Sasha,” Matthew said and pulled a gun from a hidden holster under his shoulder.
Sasha reached out with her mind and tore the pistol from Matthew’s hand before he had any chance to point the weapon at her.
“And for some reason I am not overly surprised that you have chosen to become a gangster either, Matt,” Sasha said, casually catching Matthew’s pistol from the air as it flew towards her.
“Right, so you’re going to finish the job now and actually kill me this time?” the disarmed Matthew said through clenched teeth, staring daggers at Sasha.
Sasha shook her head. “I didn’t want to kill you back then and I have no desire to do so now. And I guess I still owe you one for what I did back then. So, get out of here, Matt, and if you want to do something smart for a change, go look for a new employer. This business is about to go downhill from here, you know?”
“You have no idea who you’re messing with, Sasha.”
“Actually I do. I used to be married to your boss, after all. Give Roger my best regards. And tell him that I will destroy the rest of his organization too, piece by piece, until there is nothing left of it. This is only the beginning.”
Matthew shrugged and motioned to his goons. The six of them left without another word.
As soon as they were gone, Sasha drew on her magic and fired a dozen lightning strikes from her fingers in rapid succession, obliterating laboratory equipment, raw materials and many kilograms of pure heroin - which Black Vortex’s hidden processing lab had been producing here on a daily basis.
When Sasha left the building and launched herself back into the night sky, the warehouse was fully ablaze, the fire consuming everything Sasha’s lightning bolts hadn’t yet destroyed. Roger Brooks had just lost a laboratory and drugs worth a few dozen million dollars.
Sasha smiled as she soared back home.
February 2nd, 2011
Raul cursed as he marched the short distance to the heavy truck, for the relentless rain was pouring down hard on him. When he climbed into the driver’s seat he was completely soaked, and he ran his hand through his hair multiple times in a futile attempt to dry it. The constant wet conditions in the Pacific Northwest unnerved him, but having an outstanding arrest warrant waiting for him in practically every country on the continent south of Canada, he couldn’t be overly picky about his home anymore.
Raul started the engine, switched on the headlights and wipers, and drove the truck towards the exit gate of Port Metro Vancouver. Customs had never inspected this particular load, so he had no official permission to get this truck out of the harbour area. A huge bribe had made sure the customs officers would be looking the other way when the truck would be rolling out of the port, regardless. There would have been no way to get the thousands of automatic rifles, hand guns, and assorted ammunition legally into Canada anyway. Canada’s gun regulation laws were a lot stricter than in its southern neighbour nation, but of course this didn’t mean that the demand for guns wasn’t there. People still wanted to buy them. The Stinger gang was more than happy to step in and provide their customers with what they wanted, from handguns to assault rifles and even mobile grenade launchers - including ammunition in any desired quantity.
All Raul had to do now was getting this truck safely to their distribution centre on the other side of town. And despite the bad weather, Raul was still happy that Black Vortex had personally picked him to carry out the lucrative operation, knowing that his boss would handsomely reward him for completing it. A few more years of doing this and he would be able to retire to a sunny Caribbean nation where winter was just a myth.
Raul approached the port’s outer gateway and slowed down. Two CBSA officers stood at the gate and raised their hands to signal the truck to stop. Raul complied and opened his window. He knew that this was a charade, so he didn’t feel uneasy at all. The customs officer regarded Raul with played official sternness before he acted as if he would be reading through an assortment of forms, which in fact weren’t there. Finally the officer gave Raul a concealed wink, and took a thick envelope from Raul’s hand, which the truck driver knew contained ten thousand dollars in cash. Quickly pocketing the money, the officer signalled his fellow at the gate. “All clear,” he shouted.
Without any delay, the gate opened and the truck left the port, taking a right turn. Two pickup trucks were already waiting in a dark alley one block away, and started their engines in the very moment Raul passed them. Soon after, the two vehicles manoeuvred themselves in the front and rear of the truck. Raul felt a lot more comfortable now, since he knew that the four men in the pickups were heavily armed and would keep any trouble away from him.
The three-car motorcade turned onto Cambie Street, which would take them all the way across the city, to the industrial area in south Vancouver where the Stinger gang had hidden their weapons storage and distribution centre. The load from this truck alone would keep the entire operation running for the better part of a year.
The late night traffic was thin enough to allow Raul and his escort fast progress on a road that was otherwise not known for its fast flow of traffic. The heavy-laden truck now slowly crept up the hill around Queen Elizabeth Park, which meant Raul had covered around half of the distance between the port and his destination. Only around fifteen more minutes of driving, and he could go home, counting a fat wad of money this effort would earn him.
The truck reached the end of the slope and slowly picked up speed again as the street levelled out. The area Raul was now passing was the most expensive neighbourhood in
all of Vancouver. In this part of town, the police was usually a lot more occupied with break and enter than gang activity. He didn’t expect any trouble from the cops.
All the more surprised Raul was when he peeked into the mirror and saw a blue steak of lightning coming down from the sky, striking the rear pickup truck with a thunderous crack, and sending a shower of sparks flying across the entire width of the road. The massive blast of electric energy cleanly blew out the rear tires and sent the vehicle veering left and right, while the pickup’s driver frantically tried to regain control. But only a master driver could have hoped to do so, and the man behind the wheel was certainly not one. The pickup finally went into a full spin and ended its trip by crashing side-wisely into a lantern pole.
Raul was stunned and frightened, for he had absolutely no idea where the massive bolt of lightning had come from. Sure, it was raining. But there was hardly a thunderstorm going on out there - just the season-typical rain, and that condition didn’t tend to produce any lightning. But then Raul spotted the human figure shooting by his truck from behind, flying at low altitude. And he realized what was going on.
Raul stared at his remaining escort and noticed that the crew in the leading pickup had also realized that their convoy was under attack. They had lowered the windows to point their weapons at the white-haired female. A moment later, the usually quiet neighbourhood of Shaughnessy woke up to gunfire as the machine guns spat out a hail of death at the woman.
Raul firmly expected the high calibre bullets to shred the woman apart in the air. Instead he gasped as he witnessed the white-haired girl waving her hand and a transparent field of energy appeared around her, deflecting the incoming bullets left and right with them causing no damage to her at all. Their only visible effect was a shower of sparks exploding at her shield from the bullet impacts. Shaking his head, Raul estimated that his team had fired at least two hundred rounds at the woman, but instead of dying she was still hovering there, matching the convoy’s speed with her own. Raul’s eyes went wide as the white-haired girl pointed at the leading pickup with her hand. Another blinding arc of lightning shot out of her fingers and struck into the pickup, blowing out all six of its tires and scorching the entire carriage. Raul knew that the only reason the car’s passengers weren’t instantly killed by the multi-million volt strike of electric power was that a car functioned as a Faraday cage when struck by lightning, shielding anyone inside from the immense electric current.
But the damage done was more than enough to take out the pickup truck. Having suddenly lost all of its tires and its entire electric system while driving at high speed, the car went into a full spin, missing a deadly hit from Raul’s speeding truck only by mere inches. Gasping at the near collision with his teammates, Raul looked out of the driver’s side window, just to witness the pickup truck bumping over the median strip and flipping over, sliding upside down across the opposing road’s three lanes and coming to a screeching halt at the far side.
Before Raul could recover from the shock, he flinched another time as his truck’s passenger door was suddenly torn out with a load crack and flew wide into the darkness, opening the way for a chilly breeze of winter air to blast into the driver cabin and assault his skin.
The white-hard woman appeared in the open gap and swung herself into the driving truck.
Raul growled and drew his handgun. Before he had any chance to fire a shot, an invisible force grabbed his gun hand and smacked it into the wheel so hard that Raul dropped the pistol with a yelp, and had to concentrate hard not to lose control over his truck.
“Please don’t try this again,” the white-haired girl coldly said, while she made herself comfortable on the passenger seat. “There are two ways we can do this: The easy way, or the hard way. The latter would include me going to shove you out of the truck through your closed door. Take your pick!”
“What’s the easy way?” Raul whispered, realizing that he was no match for the metahuman woman.
“Drive to the nearest police station.”
***
The heavy truck pulled into the small parking lot right in front of the police station and Raul cut the engine, handing the woman his ignition key as instructed by her. Raul looked at his captor, uncertain what she expected him to do now. All that he knew was that this situation was unlikely to end well for him. With a vicious smile, the white-haired woman pulled a pair of handcuffs from her belt and snapped one cuff shut around his right wrist, then closing the other one around the steering wheel.
“Hey, you have no right to arrest me,” Raul protested.
“Oh, I am not arresting you,” the woman said with a shrug, and nodded towards the police station’s front door. “They will do that.”
Raul desperately pulled against his restraints and cursed.
“Have a nice day,” the woman said, and jumped out of the truck.
Raul could see her lifting herself into the air in the same moment as the door opened and four cops marched out, staring at the strange, unexpected truck parking in their lot.
Raul sighed as two of the cops came walking towards him, while the other two opened the truck’s loading doors, where the smuggled weapons were stored.
February 15th, 2011
Barney’s Club was a stereotypical gangster hangout. Located in a dark alley in a run-down industrial area in south Vancouver’s Fraser River area, it wasn’t the sort of place where law-abiding citizens would feel either comfortable or safe at dark night. The hammering bass of the club’s stereo equipment could be heard from at least two blocks away, and the ridiculously over-styled customized sports cars and motorcycles left no doubt about the sort of patrons the establishment attracted.
Sasha realized that if she would enter that building, she would be on her own. This was gang territory and most cops wouldn’t dare voluntarily wandering into it, unless as a part of an invasion force complete with air support and battle tanks. The law was not only unenforced in this place - it simply didn’t apply to Barney’s Club at all. The pub was subject only to the law of the mob. If anything went wrong in there, they would likely find Sasha’s broken body in the sewage in a few days. Or maybe even never at all. Gangsters could be fairly creative when it came to making dead bodies vanish forever.
Sasha didn’t know if she was shivering more because of the chilly winter night or the good chance not to survive the endeavour, when she entered the den of thieves after being scrutinized and waved through by an ugly bouncer who seemed to have biceps thicker than her waist.
Sasha tried her best to ignore the deafening sonic assault coming from the stentorian speakers, but it still felt to her as if the bass was trying to give her a cardiac massage rather than play music. She slipped out of her coat and hung it at the wardrobe. At this very moment she could feel dozens of male heads turning towards her, their eyes going wide and staring at the newcomer from inside the pub room. Sasha silently giggled. She had a role to play here and she had dressed accordingly for it. The strapless and shining black rubber mini-dress seemed to be a bit tighter than her skin and ended barely one inch below her butt. It didn’t leave anything about her curvy body to imagination. And her looks would be her weapon tonight, to bring down the man who had killed her best friend.
Sasha made a point of catwalking herself to the bar with accentuated swings of her hips, keeping the male eyes locked on her. She had already made out her target. Pietro Zampano was nursing a drink at the bar, surrounded by two women wearing dresses similarly skimpy as Sasha’s, but who in contrast to Sasha obviously didn’t know when to ideally stop applying more makeup. The gangster was obviously enjoying himself. Sasha had no idea if the two giggling girls were aware that the guy buying their drinks was a killer for hire - but she didn’t dilute herself into assuming they would care about it much if they knew. As long as he kept money, drinks and drugs going their way, they would be happy.
Sasha had pulled a few favours for getting her hands on Zampano’s police record, including sweet-talkin
g her dad - who had been the hardest to convince to help her of them all. Zampano had a typical gangster career. He wasn’t a dumb person by any means. He was just the type of human who was too lazy to work hard for anything, but wanted to have everything nevertheless - which in his case particularly meant parties, cars, drinks and girls. Zampano had started his criminal career as a stereotypical high-school bully, blackmailing physically less strong classmates for money. He was notorious for his brutality and got expulsed from high-school after he broke a sixteen year old girl’s arm when she refused to pay him for his ‘protection’. The school drop-out had joined a local gang after that, quickly rising up their ranks and enjoying the fast and easy lifestyle of a gangster. In total, he had served several years worth of jail time, but the cops were never able to stick anything major on him, particularly none of the more than twenty assassinations that were attributed to him.
Zampano felt safe from the cops. So safe that he didn’t bother to hide from them or anyone else - which was the entire reason why Sasha had found his favourite hideout without too much trouble.
Placing herself at the bar in the direct line of sight of Zampano, Sasha ordered a drink and counted the seconds. She didn’t have to wait long.
“Whew, wait a second there. No beautiful lady will ever have to pay for her drink while Pietro Zampano is there. That drink is on me,” the gangster told both Sasha and the barkeep, who just nodded and added Sasha’s martini to Zampano’s mile-long bill. Sasha took the glass and turned towards her host, toasting towards him with her drink. She offered him a seductive smile that cost her every little bit of discipline to conjure up - for affection was the very last thing she felt for the person who had murdered Jennifer.
Zampano took it as the intended signal of encouragement and waved his two female companions off with a dismissive gesture. The two girls threw Sasha an icy gaze that didn’t even try to conceal their contempt for the unwelcome newcomer who had just stolen the highest ranking shark in the pond from them. But they also realized that their own rank in the pack was determined by looks and nothing else - and in that regard, Sasha was clearly playing in a different league than they were. With an audible snort, the two girls walked off, already screening the pub room for another financially solvent mobster who would buy them their next batch of drinks.
White Sasha Page 8
