A loud clank reverberated through the tunnel when Deni hauled the handle down. She pushed it open. It was dark on the other side and no shots came in her direction. Deni let out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding and shone her light out into the small room. There was no one there.
The two of them crawled out and sat for a time on the floor, not speaking. It was Hanna who moved first, she unwrapped her rifle and shook the blanket out before pulling it over her shoulders. By arranging it just right, the blanket became an all-encompassing shawl, from her head down to her ankles. It was a good idea. She looked like one of the many homeless street walkers who wandered aimlessly from territory to territory.
Deni followed suit and after they sealed the escape hatch, the two of them shambled out into the buildings underground shanty town. No one gave them a second glance. They made their way through, out onto the open street behind the Workshop, an entire forty story building between them and the traitorous Anja.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It took them twenty minutes to make it to the bolthole Valerie had set up. It wasn’t much, a single room, not much bigger than Hanna and Deni’s original flat back on Blaze.
Hanna dumped her blanket and bags on the floor. She slumped down next to them, her back to the wall.
“What now?” Deni asked.
“How should I know?” Hanna mumbled to the floor.
“You’re the smart one, I’m just the driver.”
Looking up, Hanna’s vision was blurred through the tears in her eyes. “I don’t feel very fucking smart! We’ve lost Valerie, the Crew are light years from here and now the Workshop and the gang are gone! If I’m so smart, why didn’t I see it coming? How many takeovers have we seen just like this one?”
“Yeah,” Deni sighed and sat down next to her. She gazed at the wall opposite for a while before continuing. “You’re right.”
“Eh?”
“You are. You’re right. We should have seen this coming. Valerie was gone and that made us vulnerable. Somehow Anja worked that out before we did and we didn’t tell her anything.”
Some of the pieces clicked in Hanna’s mind. “Rapaport’s been planning this for a while.”
“She must have. Did you recognise any of those Enforcers with Orrick? I’ve seen the files you’ve collected on the surrounding gangs and they weren’t in there.”
“No they weren’t, they must be from outside the city.” Hanna thought furiously. “It takes time to put together a team like that, no way she did it overnight.”
“I’d bet Anja’s been in her pocket since the beginning. She let Rapaport get away with a lot before Valerie put her foot down.”
“And Rapaport’s won.” The excitement of solving the problem leaked out of Hanna. The weight of what happened came back. “Valerie’s out of the way for hours and I let it all get taken away from us.”
“You’re not seeing my point.”
“What point?”
“Valerie didn’t see this coming either. It was planned under her nose and she didn’t know a thing about it. Don’t take all the blame. There are three people in this family and none of us worked it out. I didn’t see it either and I’ve seen as many gang takeovers as you have.” Deni got to her feet and stood looking down at Hanna.
“So, back to my question. What do we do now? The way I see it, we have two options. We go running back to Blaze or we take back our gang.”
“If we leave, we’ll be abandoning Valerie.”
“I don’t want to do that anymore than you do. So?” she held her hand out. Hanna took it and let her friend pull her to her feet.
“So we take back the gang,” Hanna said firmly. “But how?”
“What would Valerie do?”
Hanna smiled. “Walk in there and kill everybody, but I don’t think that’s going to work for us.” As so often was the case, Deni had said just the right thing get her thinking straight again. “Alright then, what do we have to work with?”
“Four pistols, two rifles, eight grenades, three sets of clothes each, probably a couple of weeks of food, some cash, but not much, and your Quartz. Has anyone from the gang replied to your message?”
Hanna glanced at her wristcomp and shook her head. “Nothing yet, but if they did, we have no way of knowing if it’s a set up.”
“We need to work out who wouldn’t want Rapaport in charge.”
“Of course!” Hanna slapped her forehead. “How could I be so slow? Ripper ran this place into the ground. All people could earn were the scraps he left for them. Rapaport’s going to be just like him. Who have been the biggest supporters of Valerie’s changes?”
“Cracker, Hayley, Flint, Hopwood, Yamaguchi and all of the local business owners would be top the list.”
“Cracker’s undoubtedly dead or he would’ve been in contact by now. The locals won’t want to get involved, not directly at least. That’s a very easy way for them to get killed.”
“Did you warn Hopwood and Yamaguchi?” Deni asked.
“Yeah, I sent it out to everyone on a general distribution. Even Rapaport and Anja got the notice.”
“What did you say?”
“Just that Rapaport and Anja were staging a hostile takeover. Everyone should get their heads down. I couldn’t give any of the pre-arranged orders, Anja knows them all.”
“Hayley and Flint will be first on Rapaport’s list as well. Either they’re already on her side or to kill.”
Hanna was feeling the energy coming back to her. She started to pace back and forth in the small room. “Neither are stupid. If they’re not in on it, they’ll go to ground. If we don’t hear from them, we can take the risk that they’re safe to talk to. Hopwood hates Rapaport and from what Cracker told us, it goes back a long way. He wouldn’t side with her.”
“He’ll be running.”
“Yeah, that leaves Yamaguchi.”
“He only met with Valerie, do you know where he is?”
Hanna laughed. “Do I know where he lives? Who do you think you’re talking to? Of course I do, but will he help? He only came to this territory because Valerie’s cut is so low for his takings. He’s a cracking Thief, much better than me. I tracked him on one of his jobs and I lost sight of him a number of times. He’s very good at not being seen.”
Deni looked thoughtful. “There’s something we’ve forgotten.”
“What?”
“Rapaport thinks we’re still locked in the Workshop with no power and unable to talk to anyone.”
“Shit!” Hanna slapped her head again. “How did I miss that? They’re concentrating on Valerie not us. They don’t know where she is and think she could return anytime. They must know her well enough to know she won’t mess about. She’ll come at them hard and fast. We have to move fast though, the longer she doesn’t turn up, the longer they have to break into the Workshop and find we’ve disappeared.”
“Not to mention getting their hands on Valerie’s gear and your Rig.”
“Yeah, they’ll trigger my self-destruct. I don’t want to have to rebuild that again. I don’t think we have the cash for it anymore. We’ll need it if we survive this and want to find out what happened to Valerie.” Accessing her wristcomp, she connected to the Rig and pulled her search program. “Alright then. I’m going to drop a message to Hopwood and let’s go and see Yamaguchi now. He’s at home.”
Deni nodded and slung her blanket over her head. “Let’s do it.”
A short hop on the Underground train and a half hour walk later, they were looking round the corner of an alleyway. Hanna checked for an update on Yamaguchi and pointed to a shop across the road.
“He’s in there.”
“Looks like he’s buying food,” Deni said. “Talk to him on the stairs back to his flat?”
Hanna shook her head. “Too public, we’ll do it inside.”
“What if he slams the door in our faces before we can talk to him? And we have no way to know who else is in there. If we go in with our guns
out, he’s not going to be in the mood to listen.”
“Not if we go in first and check it out before he gets back.”
“Oh, right. Break into a top thief’s home. That’ll be easy.”
“Don’t worry,” Hanna said easily. “His main place is on the other side of the city. This is only his crash pad to make him officially part of Valerie’s gang. I doubt he has anything in there worth stealing. Come on.”
In their street walker personas, they shambled over to Yamaguchi’s building. Once inside, Hanna threw off her blanket and bundled it up under her arm. With a grin to her friend, she dashed up the stairs. Being the middle of the afternoon, they weren’t crowded and the girls took them two at a time. Valerie hadn’t let up on their training during their time on Zeus, but the girls still needed to slow to a jog after the first seven flights and down to a walk for the last five.
Breathing heavily, they waited on the landing for their hearts to slow, before walking out onto the corridor containing Yamaguchi’s flat. No one was about. Hanna slipped out her lock picks and Quartz, while Deni stood guard. She leant against the wall with her pistol out, but held down by her side out of sight. The lock was brand new and Yamaguchi must have installed it when he moved in.
Hanna attached a sensor probe first and did a quick scan. The lock was mainly mechanical, but it did have an electronic warning system on it. Whenever it was opened, it would notify Yamaguchi’s wristcomp. He would know the second Hanna unlocked it if all she had used were her picks. The system was state of the art, but it still only took her ten seconds to divert the signal.
Activating the holocube on her Quartz brought up a 3D model of the lock. Her picks were linked and she was able to see exactly where they needed to go. It was delicate work needing precise control. The slightest slip would reset it and she would have to start again. The pressure was on. Yamaguchi could be coming up those stairs right now. A bead of sweat tickled her forehead as it ran down and caught in her eyebrow. More followed. She had to blink when it became too much and leaked into her eye.
A soft click signalled her success and she sighed heavily. Standing, she tucked the Quartz and picks away and drew her pistol. Deni nodded to her and started counting silently on her fingers. When she reached three, Hanna threw open the door and they entered shoulder to shoulder, pistols up. No one was in the central living area. Doors led off at both ends. Deni went right and Hanna left.
She’d lost count of the number of times Valerie made them practise this. Hanna sent out a mental thank you to her, wherever she was. Sweeping through, Hanna checked the two rooms at her end. They turned out to be a bedroom and bathroom.
Finding nothing, she met Deni back in the middle of the living area. “All clear,” she told her.
“Same here.”
Hanna looked around and pointed to the kitchen area. A set of cupboards with a counter top separated it from the rest of the room. “You duck down behind that and stay there until I call for you. I’ll stand behind the door, out of sight, so he won’t be immediately alarmed when he walks in.”
“And you jumping out at him from behind won’t be alarming at all.”
“I’m not going to jump out at him,” Hanna said indignantly. “I’m going to talk to him calmly, it’ll be fine.”
“Well, OK. If you say so, at least I’ll be able to hear if you need me.”
Deni looked a bit unsure, but still did as Hanna asked. Hanna took a moment to check she was out of sight before taking her own place. Now they had to wait and hope he hadn’t gone off to do something other than a bit of food shopping. She was tempted to check his coms position on her wristcomp, but shook her head. It wasn’t worth the risk connecting to the Workshop and draining the Electron Cell further. If he didn’t get here in the next hour, she’d have a look.
Hiding and waiting was something she knew how to do. At least this time she could stand and had a handy wall to lean against. She found herself fiddling with her pistol, just as Valerie had taught her not to. If Yamaguchi saw she was armed, it probably wouldn’t give the best first impression, so she holstered it.
Thirteen minutes later, she heard the key in the lock and steadied herself. Yamaguchi walked in, swinging the door shut behind him without glancing round. He was preoccupied by juggling the bags of shopping and the chocolate bar he was eating. A slight man, he was the same height as Hanna and unusually his ancestry matched his name, originating in Earth’s Asian continent.
“Mr Yamaguchi?” Hanna asked as politely as possible.
His reaction was instantaneous, the bags and chocolate bar fell from his hands and he spun, a knife appearing in his hand. Hanna let out a startled shriek as it plunged for her stomach. Her body reacted almost on instinct. Her arms shot forwards, crossing at the wrists, trapping his arm and pushing it down as she bent as far away from the blade as possible.
Stepping left, she swung her arms up to head height, forcing his body into an unnatural angle and with her left foot, she lashed a kick out. Her booted heel landed on the side of his muscled thigh, right on the sweet spot of a nerve cluster. His leg collapsed under him and Hanna switched her hold. Grabbing his wrist with her right hand, she slammed her left behind his shoulder, pushing him to the floor. A twist of his wrist caused him to cry out in pain and release the knife. Grabbing it, she threw it across the room, well out of reach.
Every move had been trained into her by Valerie. Conscious thought hadn’t been any part of it. She sent her thanks again and as her mind caught up, she relaxed her grip. With her leverage removed, he spun back to his feet and threw her against the wall. Her head hit. She saw stars and a very angry man advancing on her.
“Stop!” Deni shouted.
Yamaguchi looked over his shoulder, right down the barrel of Deni’s Mag pistol.
“Take one more step and I will shred your face!”
He froze and Deni nodded to one side. “Move over there slowly. Are you alright, Hanna?” she asked as the Thief did as she instructed.
“Yeah,” she rubbed the back of her head, there was definitely going to be a bump there in the morning, if she survived the night. “Ow.”
“You bloody deserve it. I told you this was a bad idea.”
Hanna shook her head and she climbed back to her feet, more than a little unsteady. “No, I think you said something like, ‘jumping out at him being alarming,’ and that’s exactly what I didn’t do.”
“Yeah, and this worked out so much better.”
“No one’s dead, are they?”
“Not yet anyway,” Deni said darkly.
Rubbing her aching head, Hanna saw Yamaguchi was quietly fuming where he stood with Deni’s gun pointed at him. “Lower your gun, Deni.”
“You’re kidding.”
“You said it yourself. He’s not going to listen if we’re pointing guns at him.”
Deni didn’t hide her reluctance, but did lower her gun to her side.
“Look, Mr Yamaguchi, I’m sorry to sneak up on you like this and we’re not here to hurt you.” He looked back at her, still angry and more than a little suspicious. “I’m Hanna and this is Deni. We work with Milicevic. You would have received a message from me telling you Rapaport was trying to take over.”
“I did,” Yamaguchi said. The calmness of his voice at odds with the rest of him. “Where’s Milicevic?”
“She’s, erm, off planet. Won’t be back for a while and any message will take days-.”
“Weeks,” Deni interjected.
“Right, yes, sorry, weeks to get to her.”
“Why are you here?”
“We think it’s not in your interests for Rapaport to succeed. You’re here because Milicevic’s rates are the lowest in Zeus. You’ll be out of pocket if you stay and, I don’t know her plans, but I would put a lot of sovs on Rapaport’s cut being lot more than you want to pay.”
“So?” he shrugged. “I’ll move on.”
“How many times can you do that, Mr Yamaguchi? This is your fifth in two y
ears,” his eyes widened and feet shifted, he didn’t think anyone knew that. “You’re an excellent Thief, Mr Yamaguchi, far better than I can ever be. My talent is Hacking and I know for sure that I’m the best in the system. After you came to us, Milicevic had me track your movements for the last five years. The Bosses wouldn’t like someone moving about to get the best deal off them.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No, that’s not what we do. Milicevic taught us better than that. We don’t threaten, we make promises and I promise you, the Bosses will never hear it from us, even indirectly. They will find out though, you’re not nearly as covered as you think. They’ll probably feel like you’re taking the piss, playing them off against one another like that, and be pretty annoyed.”
“What are you offering?”
“If you help us retake our territory, I’ll clean up your back trail and ensure you can operate here indefinitely free of charge. The only condition will be one hundred percent loyalty to the gang in any disputes.”
“Am I meant to take your word for you being as good as you say?”
“Erm,” she didn’t know what to say to that. She thought her knowledge of his life was going to be good enough.
“He’s got a point, Hanna,” Deni interjected.
“Yeah, but what can I do right here and now?”
“What about that footage you told me about? Do you have it with you?”
“Oooohhh. Good thinking, hang on.” Hanna pulled out her Quartz and started to type furiously.
“What footage?” Yamaguchi asked suspiciously.
“Something Hanna recorded after Milicevic accepted your entry to the territory.” Deni told him. “You didn’t think we’d let you run around without finding out how good you were, did you?”
Crusade For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 2) Page 20
