Hunting Mink

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Nothing about the legs?’

  ‘No… just breasts, but he went on and on… Uh, he wasn’t sure exactly what she did, but there were a lot of burned-out machines down there. This place had to be something pretty big.’

  ‘A freak like her wouldn’t hit a place like this unless… There’s been some new form of heroin hitting the streets recently. A lot of overdoses from it. This was probably where they were processing the stuff and she torched it.’

  ‘Uh… At least the stuff’s off the streets…’

  ‘But for how long, Robson? For how long?’

  ~~~

  Lying on the roof across the alley, Mink was wondering that herself. The problem was that the Nine Kings could probably start up the operation somewhere else: the chemist had got away. She had information which could be used to drive further nails into the distribution network, but there was no one to give it to.

  Inman had hit the nail on the head again there. She knew the man, knew his history. He had been part of the SFPD’s Tong Affirmative Action Task Force, so he knew they were not going to do anything about that lab, and they would not be touching the Nine Kings’ distribution network. And handing the data to Vice would just result in the TAATF stepping in and claiming it was theirs.

  Not that she really felt like handing information over to someone who was prone to describing Ultras as ‘freaks.’ He was a good cop, excellent at picking up clues at a crime scene and entirely wasted in Vice, but he had a thing about Ultras. He had a real bug up his butt about Ultras, actually. Maybe worth looking into, but it was not an immediate priority. She could do something about the distribution outside of San Francisco; taking care of that business would have to be enough for now.

  Her attention returned to the alley as a new cop arrived. This one had a strut in his step, an arrogant swagger that suggested he was about to enjoy himself. ‘Inman,’ he said as he approached the building, ‘what are you doing here?’

  ‘Robson here says there’s a drug lab in the basement,’ Inman replied. ‘I’m just standing here waiting for you to turn up, Venkman. Haven’t been inside. I’m sure this one belongs to you.’

  ‘It’s a Red Flag front. We’ve been watching it for a while.’

  ‘Red Flag, huh?’

  ‘Yeah, Red Flag. What happened?’

  ‘One of your witnesses says Mink happened. She must be after the Red Flag tong too.’

  Mink smiled. Inman might be an asshole, but he was almost the right kind of asshole. The task force had been bandying the name ‘Red Flag’ around quite a lot. There had never been a Red Flag tong, but they supposedly had links to China and communist leanings, which gave the TAATF even more sway since they were supposedly dealing with potential terrorists.

  ‘Who knows what she gets up to,’ Venkman said. ‘She won’t work with the Stars. Goes off on these… crusades against whoever she thinks is a criminal, right or wrong. Woman’s crazy, a loose cannon. Not unlike some other people I can think of.’

  Mink could hear the sour note in Inman’s voice as he turned away and started down the alley. ‘Good luck with your crime scene, Venkman. Though I’m sure you don’t need it.’

  ‘Because I’m such a damn good detective, right?’

  ‘Of course, Venkman. Of course. What else would I mean?’

  Mink slipped back from the edge of the roof and got to her feet. Inman was far from pleased with the current state of affairs. Maybe he was worth some study sooner rather than later. But not today. In a little more than an hour, it would be getting light and Mink tended to prefer the dark. Anyway, it was about time she got some rest. At least it would be Sunday and no one cared much if you had a lie-in on a Sunday.

  New Millennium City, MD.

  Penny opened her eyes a crack and then closed them again. She was snug and warm in bed, and at some point June had crawled into bed with her, spooning against her back. Firm breasts pressed through the camisole Penny was wearing, and smoothly muscled thighs cradled her own, rather less developed, limbs. It was, Penny had to admit, not even slightly unpleasant.

  It had been happening with increasing frequency. If June awoke in the night, or just before Penny did, she would walk over to Penny’s room and cuddle up. Not once had she tried to do anything more and maybe Penny was starting to find that… less to her liking than she would have thought. Mind you, Penny had been sleeping as Penny pretty much every night and June knew that Penny was straight. Penny was straight.

  Well… stuff that.

  ‘Oh…’ June grumbled as Penny began to move. ‘Don’t get up; it’s early.’

  ‘It’s half past one,’ Penny replied. ‘In the afternoon.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be back. Just have to… y’know?’

  There was a mumbled reply and Penny slipped out of bed and headed for the attached bathroom. Closing the door behind her, Penny did not y’know, but she stripped off her camisole and panties, and focussed her will. The world shifted around her as she grew several inches. Long, platinum-blonde hair fell down across suddenly larger breasts. The whispering of distant, alien voices which she had not even really heard starting suddenly cut off. Okay, so Penny had been a little nervous. Cygnus’s beautiful, angular face grinned back at her in the mirror because nerves were the last thing Cygnus felt.

  Opening the door, Cygnus padded lightly across the thick carpet to the bed. Leaning over June, she pulled strands of long, dark hair away from June’s face, and then slid the sheets down from her shoulder until the brunette made a mumbling, giggling sound and turned onto her back.

  ‘What are you up to?’ June asked, grinning.

  ‘This,’ Cygnus said, leaning in closer. She heard June’s breathing quicken, felt her breath against her lips as June parted her own lips in preparation.

  And the phone started ringing.

  ‘You have got to be fucking kidding me,’ Cygnus said, not moving from where she was, lips hovering barely a quarter-inch from June’s.

  ‘Andrea will answer it,’ June whispered.

  ‘And when it turns out to be the UID calling about some emergency?’

  ‘Not fair…’

  Cygnus straightened up and then pointed a finger at June. ‘Rain check. That’s all.’

  ‘There’s no hurry, you know? Otherwise I’d have done something.’

  ‘Yeah, well…’ Cygnus marched around the bed, heading for the door. ‘Rain check.’ She walked out just as Andrea stepped out through her own bedroom door, rubbing at her eyes. Cygnus went on walking, unabashed at her nudity, to pick up the phone. ‘This had better be world-shaking,’ Cygnus said into the receiver.

  Andrea yawned, watching an annoyed Cygnus listen to whoever was on the other end. She was not really bothered about a naked Cygnus either. It was not as though the woman wore a whole lot in costume.

  ‘Okay,’ Cygnus said. ‘We’ll be down there in… thirty minutes.’ She slammed the phone down with a little more force than was necessary. Andrea was a little surprised the offending instrument survived.

  ‘So?’ Andrea asked. Her eyes flicked sideways: June was coming out of Penny’s room.

  ‘Someone hijacked a bus with a kiddie-league baseball team on it. Bus and kids are missing. NMCPD are out hunting for them and they’re asking for our assistance.’

  Andrea looked at the light showing through the blinds. ‘It’s broad daylight. I’m next to useless.’

  ‘Jacob wants to take you out in a car. You know the Tonaldo hideouts better than pretty much anyone. I don’t think it’s an excuse to get you alone in a car with him.’

  ‘We’d better get some clothes on then. You more than me.’ Andrea sniffed. ‘They interrupted something.’

  ‘No, not really. We were just–’

  Andrea turned and started back to her room, waving the rebuttal away as she did so. ‘I might not have Red Huntress’s nose, girl, but I know you were up to something. Good.’ She paused to yawn before adding, ‘The sexual tension was startin
g to get to me.’

  ~~~

  ‘I don’t buy it,’ Twilight said as they drove through Downtown. ‘This isn’t the kind of operation David Tonaldo would have authorised. Not kids. If Jonny had taken over… yeah, but no one wanted Jonny in charge.’

  Jacob shrugged. ‘Things change. David Tonaldo was sliced into cold cuts by Diamond. Maybe some of his men aren’t as upstanding and moral as you thought.’

  ‘They’d have to be roasting their own babies over a spit to be less moral and upstanding than I thought, but I still don’t think they’d kidnap a busload of kids.’

  ‘You think Tonaldo would have let this weekend get started at all?’ Heather asked from the back seat.

  ‘It wouldn’t have been needed. The Russian goons would never have dared move in here with David around. He was an utterly ruthless bastard. He bought a guided missile to take out Cygnus, for God’s sake. But he was a family man, in both senses of the word. Kids were off limits. Well, aside from selling them drugs.’ She looked around. ‘Next left. Lennie Belissa managed to pull a fairly big group together on Third Avenue.’

  Jacob turned the car at the next junction, frowned, and pulled over to the side of the road, right behind a school bus. ‘That’s the right plate. You sure Belissa wouldn’t kidnap kids?’

  ‘His daughter’s six. He’s got a four-year-old son. He dotes on both of them. I don’t like this.’

  ‘The weird thing is,’ Heather said, ‘that this road is on a patrol route and no one reported seeing the bus before now.’

  Twilight frowned. ‘Patrols come past here every forty-five minutes or so. It can’t have been here longer than that. I’m guessing someone dumped it here to point the blame at Belissa. Can we keep this under wraps until–’

  ‘Nope,’ Jacob said, pointing across the street.

  Twilight followed the direction his finger was indicating, and saw the police cruiser. One of the occupants was talking into his radio with a lot of animation. ‘Damn. This is going to turn into a real clusterfuck.’

  ~~~

  ‘Opening fire on the cops when they turned up outside his building did not make Belissa look innocent,’ Red Huntress pointed out. Twilight had gone to Red’s office, with Cygnus, to discuss the situation.

  ‘But you’d agree this isn’t his style?’ Twilight asked.

  ‘Yes, I’d agree. Belissa has stayed out of the conflict thus far. He’s been letting the others fight it out and staying behind locked doors.’

  ‘But then he shoots at cops who’ve just knocked on the door,’ Skadi said. Of course, she was there too. ‘And he’s not negotiating. So… why?’

  ‘Dirty Harry,’ Cygnus said.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘There was a Dirty Harry movie where someone wants Harry and some crooks dead. So they send Harry to serve a subpoena and they tell the crooks someone is coming to kill them, and that the killers will announce themselves as cops. Hilarity ensues.’

  ‘Think someone watched the same movie?’ Twilight asked.

  Cygnus shrugged. ‘It’s got Clint Eastwood in it. And with all that happened yesterday, I figure a tip like that would provoke anyone’s paranoia.’

  ‘So they park the bus where it’ll be found and linked to Belissa, and we have a siege. Who’s competing with Belissa for Downtown?’

  Red frowned. ‘The only group with the manpower for this kind of operation is Yanesh Tolnikov’s mob. They’re pressing for control of Uptown, but I’d imagine they want Downtown too.’

  ‘Dom mentioned that name,’ Skadi put in. ‘Tolnikov. She thinks he’s KGB.’

  ‘He has demonstrated considerable organisational skill.’

  ‘Oh…’ Twilight grumbled. ‘This just gets better. Do the Feds know?’

  ‘Dom was talking to them about it,’ Skadi supplied.

  ‘They won’t be pleased if we bust up Tolnikov’s operation.’

  ‘There are children in danger,’ Cygnus said. ‘They can go spin on it.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t say I cared what they thought.’

  ~~~

  It was late in the afternoon by the time Red’s contacts along with Twilight’s ‘new friends’ located the missing children in a warehouse Tolnikov had purchased through a cover company. The siege was still going in Downtown, a complete stand-off though the police were preparing a full-scale assault.

  ‘I’ve got confirmation that the kids are on the second floor,’ Twilight said. Everyone had gathered on a roof opposite the warehouse, which was in Deale Harbour.

  ‘And there are three men on the roof that I can see,’ Skadi said.

  ‘Not to mention the squad in the main warehouse area. I’m told there are twelve, including Tolnikov.’

  ‘Told?’

  ‘You could say I have inside information. Anywhere there are shadows anyway.’

  The copper-haired archer turned from her examination of the opposite roof and looked at her dark companion. ‘That’s kind of scary.’

  Twilight grinned. ‘Want me to tell you what time you went to bed last night?’

  ‘I’m going to assume that’s a joke. So, how do we handle this?’

  ‘Can you take out the guys on the roof?’

  Skadi looked back to the other roof. ‘The way they’re operating… Yeah, I can do it without raising an alarm. I assume that’s what you want.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Twilight turned to Cygnus and Svetilo. ‘Then we run a reverse Cygnus and Twilight op.’

  ‘A reverse one?’ Svetilo asked.

  ‘Normally,’ Cygnus said, ‘I run distraction while Twi sneaks in the back and reduces grown men to quivering lumps of boy-flesh.’

  ‘And I still plan to do that,’ Twilight said, ‘but now that’s the distraction while you two get the kids out via the roof.’

  ‘It’s daylight.’

  ‘There’s enough shadow in that warehouse. They’ve got lights in there, but they’re not strong enough.’

  Cygnus nodded. ‘Okay. You’re sure you can keep them talking long enough?’

  ‘I’m sure that once I get in there, they won’t be bothering checking upstairs.’

  ~~~

  ‘Guards are down. We’re moving in.’

  Cygnus’s voice sounded in Twilight’s ear and she opened the side door of the warehouse and stepped inside. ‘Give me a minute to engage,’ Twilight said.

  ‘Understood.’

  There was little in the warehouse to indicate it was being used. A few crates decorated the concrete floor near the main loading area. A couple of larger piles occupied the far end. Lighting came from single bulbs hung from the ceiling twenty feet up which gave the place a dull, flat quality. It was actually quite a good tactic since it effectively eliminated much in the way of shadow. Soft light was the worst.

  ‘I count nine of them,’ Andrea said as Twilight advanced toward the men at the back, gathered around various tables. ‘That makes three upstairs watching the kids.’

  ‘Let’s see if we can’t get them down,’ Twilight suggested. Then she took a leaf out of Cygnus’s playbook and raised her voice. ‘Hey guys, how’s it hanging? I’m doing a tour of historic warehouses in Deale Harbour and this place is noted for its distinctive wildlife.’

  Men started yelling things in Russian, some of them swear words Twilight recognised from listening to Svetilo, and a they scrabbled around for their weapons. One of the men raised his voice louder than the others and things suddenly got more organised.

  ‘That’s Tolnikov,’ Andrea said. He was a big man, handsome in a rugged, slightly slab-like way, though the buzz cut did nothing much for him. He certainly seemed to have authority and a degree of tactical skill: men with sub-machine guns spread out along a line to cover more ground and make it harder for anyone to take them out in bulk.

  ‘You have made a mistake coming here, shadow girl,’ Tolnikov called out. He had a perfect American accent.

  Twilight kept walking, keeping it casual as though she actually was out for a stroll on a Sunday. She spott
ed two men appearing through a door on the left, one of them running for a scaffolding rig while the other ran to join his comrades. Up on top of the scaffold something had been hidden under a large tarpaulin. ‘One guard left upstairs,’ Twilight said, sotto voce. Then she raised her voice again. ‘Really? There’s no interesting wildlife here?’

  ‘There is just us and we do not like visitors in foolish costumes.’

  Twilight stopped, apparently at random, and struck a pose, cocking her hip and grinning. ‘Seriously? You don’t like the costume? I suppose Russian Ultras wear thermal underwear a lot. Though I hear it gets pretty warm in Moscow this time of year.’

  ‘The guard’s out of the picture,’ Cygnus said into Twilight’s ear. ‘We’re starting to move the kids. They look unharmed, mostly. Couple of bruises and they’re scared.’

  Up on the scaffold, the tarpaulin was pulled aside and Twilight realised that they had put more effort into this than she had initially thought. A second later she had to shade her eyes as a huge spotlight was directed at her.

  ‘We have studied you, Twilight,’ Tolnikov said. ‘You need darkness for your powers to work.’

  ‘That’s amazingly clever of you, Tolnikov,’ Twilight called back. ‘We can come back to that in a minute. So, what I really wanted to know is… Well, what were you hoping to do? Take over organised crime in the city… and then what? You have to know you’d have every agency in the country breathing down your neck in a week, right? That’s without me and Cygnus, and Svetilo has taken it as a personal insult that the KGB is taking an interest.’

  ‘KGB? What do they have to do–’

  ‘Don’t bullshit me, Yanesh. I can call you Yanesh, right?’ Twilight gave him a smile. ‘Let’s not be formal. You’re Yanesh Tolnikov, born in Klin, inducted into the KGB from the army, trained in infiltration and assassination. Your first kill was a CIA agent in Moscow four years ago. You’ve been to the US once since then. You successfully assassinated a Soviet defector in Wisconsin. God knows why, the guy was a nobody. This op is, however, your big moment. Your superiors were a little dubious about sending you, and they figured you wouldn’t actually last too long, but they viewed you as expendable and you were likely to cause at least some disruption. But what did you think you were going to achieve?’