Water Flowing Underground
The Russian Mob, led by Augusto, had been number one in the smuggling business for over a decade. Power struggles both from within his own organization and with the other gangs had proven him untouchable and utterly to be feared. No one dared cross him. Not even the Tong, who were number two with several hundred bullets. There may have been more of a competition, but the Tong very much considered the Atlantic shipping route to be small potatoes. They ruled the West Coast, and Augusto had been more than happy to concede ground in Vancouver.
Losing the city had been a humiliating blow to Augusto, and the Tong were taking their time reevaluating the power vacuum that remained in his wake. And reevaluating the strength of his empire. With any luck, tonight’s undertaking would remove any doubt from their minds about both conundrums.
The Bikers and the Swedes were both small money in the city, but both operations were within striking distance on foot in the same night. With no van to roll in on, a stealthy approach on foot seemed the best option.
The fake uniforms were a problem. Jacob and Hasan had blown the heist for the patches, and the only triumph of the evening was that they had managed to slip away without blowing the purpose of their mission. But the Witch-Hunters began patrolling the precinct afterward.
Augusto was more amused than upset by this turn of events. “It was worth the trouble,” he had confided to Liam when they were suiting up. “To see the expressions on those two when they had to tell him they’d fucked up such a simple goddamn operation. And when I laughed in their faces.”
The instructions were as follows: It had to look real, so if he or Augusto were hit, they’d need to act wounded; Keep moving when you’re in view of a camera, and take them out before they get a good long recording. They were assuredly being uploaded offsite, so seizing the tapes wouldn’t help. Plus, they wanted their bosses to know who hit them; No witnesses. If they bolt before they see you, let ‘em run. But if anyone got a good look at you, they had to die. Liam was most concerned about this rule. He didn’t much like the idea of shooting anyone who didn’t pose a real threat to begin with, let alone murdering someone in cold blood.
Fortunately, for Liam, the issue never came up. The first hit went off without much of a hitch. The Bikers put up a decent fight. One of Augusto’s men was hit, but not seriously wounded. Six dead, three escaped. One of them had to be executed, though thankfully not by Liam. For his part, two of the escapees belonged to him. His Saiga was a fearsome beast indeed with the drum magazine attached (Anton had loaned him a couple spares for the operation). It was a simple matter of firing in their general direction to get them to break cover and bolt. They seized several bales of cocaine, heroin and hashish, and set a jolly bonfire to what they couldn’t carry out. Liam walked away with a brick of hash, a large bundle of cocaine, a new coach gun and a box of armor-piercing flechette rounds.
The Swedes weren’t made of sterner stuff. Three dead, five fled. No executions. Augusto wasn’t present for the raid, but his men proved just as capable without him. Liam hadn’t had to take a single life in the process - though many had been taken around him. His spoils from this round were even better. A long-range drone and a pair of claymore mines. The device was well beyond his ken, but he knew just the person to give it to. Another contraband bonfire, and they were done for the evening.
As the unmarked van returned Liam to his dropoff point, it picked up Augusto along the way. He was dressed as himself, and his suit was covered in blood. While the others had taken out the Swedes, Augusto had hopped across town and taken out the Tong’s brothel singlehandedly. He’d let the working girls go to spread the story of him slaughtering ten armed professionals, surviving a hail of gunfire and being run through with a ten inch knife. The underworld was full of fish stories like this about Augusto, but this one would have the backing of surveillance tapes.
When shaky, blurry eyewitness footage of the SWAT bonfires hit social media, it would be inevitable that the administration would be waking up to headlines of "VFPD Win in Double Docks Bust" and would have to take credit. No mention would be made of the brothel.
As Liam’s brand-new downtown haven was too small to squeeze into with all this swag, he left the spoils in the trunk of the cruiser on the edge of town. It was too late to go back to the compound, but his new haven was close by. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture, but it was a safe place to stay.
Tomorrow would bring new problems with it. It would be two weeks to the day that Hank had come back from Montréal, and now there was the matter of what to do with him. Truth be told, Liam was looking forward to a night away from things. This was going to be hard on him, no matter what the others decided.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:25, Fri 09 Oct 2020.