I played a hunch and headed over to GD territory. The amateur had hit the 88's once, and the Latin Kings once. If he was trying to actually lower the overall gang presence in Filmore Heights, he'd come after the Gangster Disciples next. After the gang wars of the nineties, they were the last of the big powers left. It was what I would do if I were in his position.
Rappelling quickly down from the steeple, I slid down the church's roof before freeing the rope and then reattaching it to the side of the building and descending to street level. I got on my cycle and drove off, heading towards the east side of Filmore Heights. The GDs had their headquarters in the east side, and they controlled the area with an iron fist. Part of it was due to their numbers. Vastly outnumbering both the 88s and the Latin Kings combined, the GDs were the oldest of the three big gangs in the area. Mostly African American, they also had Hispanics, especially Puerto Ricans which for some reason the Latin Kings didn't accept in their ranks. They'd also absorbed a lot of the remnants of the Filmore Crips at the end of the gang war, boosting their ranks even more.
I stopped my bike while in the border zone between GD and 88 territory, parking it in an alleyway behind a dumpster. I found an old discarded tarp and pulled it over the bike, hoping it would be enough. The electric motorcycle wasn't registered, so if it was stolen there was no way I'd get it back, although the price of replacement didn't worry me. It was the principle of the thing that bothered me. Well, that and having to go rooftop to rooftop or through back alleyways out of Filmore Heights and then somehow still getting my way to my nearest strike base where I had another vehicle in order to get home.
My bike stashed, I headed up the nearest fire escape to the roofs. Staying near the edge so I could still see the streets below, I took off at a light jog, looking for the GD headquarters.
I was two blocks away when the sound of a car engine below caught my attention. This car was tuned up, whatever it was, and I stopped, dropping down to a knee on the rooftop. Pulling out my binoculars, I caught sight of an old compact car down the street. It pulled into a parking lot and out of sight before I could make a clear identification, but something about it tickled my attention. Maybe it was in the shape, but I swore I'd seen a similar vehicle to it before.
Shaking my head, I turned back towards the GD territory, quickly making my way along the rooftops to just across the street from the GD leader's house. Tweak Petersen had been head of the GDs for about three years, after the previous leader had been killed off in an 88 attack. Tweak had consolidated his territory and pulled back, which in the short term weakened the GDs, but allowed them to eventually halt the advance of their rivals. By actively recruiting the young men of his territory, he had plenty of street soldiers.
Tweak was famous for running his operation out of a donut shop that was in his area, which was strange. Not only was the shop fronted by plate glass, making it easy to see him, but also Tweak was a Type 1 diabetic. Insulin dependent, Tweak was almost never seen indulging in the shop's specialty, but instead sipped endless cups of coffee that left him with such a caffeine addiction that it had earned him his nickname.
I was watching the shop for nearly twenty minutes when I heard the movement behind me. I dove to the side and rolled, pulling my Glock to see what it was. "Amateur."
"I really wish you wouldn't call me that," the other man said. "By the way, I almost snuck up on you."
"You were a whole building away," I retorted. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
"Same as you it looks like," he whispered, kneeling next to me. He was carrying a large duffel bag, which was what had made most of the noise, slapping against his back when he jumped. He had something large and either metal or plastic, or a bit of both, in there. "So what is Tweak up to?"
Something in the amateur's voice tickled something in my brain again, but I dismissed it temporarily. Other things to focus on. "Normal night's work for a gang leader," I said, "but I just got here. You going to do anything stupid?"
The amateur shook his head and set his bag down. "Not this second. You can put the gun away."
I holstered my Glock and looked back across the street. It took a little while, but a pattern became evident. A donut shop, even one that was open twenty four hours a day, tends to have very clear peaks in business, especially in the morning hours as you'd expect. It was rare, even at a Krispy Kreme that had fresh hot samples, to have a line after six at night.
While the donut shop Tweak was sitting in never quite got packed, there was a constant line of young men coming in. They'd buy a single donut or sometimes two, then while they were waiting, they'd talk with Tweak for a minute before leaving. It was much higher than normal, as the last time I'd spied on Tweak he had maybe a dozen visitors in a night.
That night however, the visits were almost constant, and Tweak was busy issuing orders directly to the street level. "This is weird," the amateur said. "He shouldn't be talking directly to the soldiers, but his lieutenants. What the hell is going on, Snowman?"
"I have no damn clue," I said, reaching into my leg pocket. "If you shut up, maybe I can find out."
When I'd caught the amateur before, he was using a standard parabolic mic that you can get in any of a hundred stores or websites. About a hundred and fifty bucks, it works well if you have line of sight on your target and there is nothing in between you, like plate glass. What I pulled out was much smaller and higher technology, using a laser to pierce any window and allow me to hear what was being said. The set I was using cost somewhere in the five thousand dollar range, and while great, wasn't perfect. I had to be able to get a surface that I could bounce the laser off of that would reflect back to me, or else I wouldn't be able to detect the changes in the light.
I was slowly trying out potential surfaces when I heard something next to me. Turning my head, I gawked as the amateur clicked something together and stood up. "Fuck it," he said, bringing the device to his shoulder. "Take out Tweak, we wear down the GDs."
He pulled the trigger on his device, and I realized he had a compressed air rifle of some type. The front window of the donut shop shattered as whatever the amateur was shooting impacted and GDs scattered like rats from a fire. In the dim night light I was able to see what the man was holding, and I ducked back. I was willing to help the man, but if he was suicidal, I couldn't do much to help him. "Stop, you fucking idiot!"
"Fuck that," he said, a smile on his voice as he pulled the trigger. His rifle was the grown up version of a paintball gun, with a larger shoulder tank and firing something I guessed was a lot more damaging than just plain old paint. I snuck a look over my shoulder as I saw about half the rounds smash into dust, causing the GDs to start hacking and coughing, and I knew at least half of the rounds he was using were filled with a variant of pepper spray, common with certain SWAT teams for crowd control as it was a lot more accurate and longer range than standard sprays. The other rounds I wasn't sure about, but they looked solid. One GD took a round in his shoulder, spinning him to the ground grabbing his arm in pain, but there was no blood that I could see.
Pulling my Glocks, I dropped back as the idiot finished emptying his air tank before dropping to his knees and looking over at me. "Pretty fucking wild, man!" he said, right before the first rounds started being fired back from the GDs below. "Oh, shit!"
"Yeah, dumb ass," I commented, scrambling back as an automatic rifle chattered below. "What you forgot was that the nearly full moon was behind you and you were kneeling like a fucking Call of Duty player busting shots for fifteen seconds. They know you're up here."
"Not for long," he said, breaking down his rifle in smooth, easy movements before throwing the pieces into his pack. He backed up and threw the bag over his shoulder, grinning like a madman at me. "You coming, or are you going to wait for them to come up the fire escape?"
Shaking my head, I led the way, leaping rooftop to rooftop, away from our pursuit. Still, I could hear the GDs below us, their cars and other vehicles fanning out to find us. "Wh
at you didn't fucking think about," I grunted in between jumps as we ran, "was the tactics of the gang you just decided to hit. The GDs Zerg their opponents when they’re attacked. What you did was like taking a stick to a fire ant hill. Problem is, they're faster than we are."
It was true, each of the groups in Filmore Heights responded to attacks in different ways. The 88s tended to roll in small, highly disciplined squads that would take an attack, but then counterattack with almost berserker ferocity. They'd kill their attackers and about half their family if they needed.
Meanwhile, the Latin Kings were damn near ninjas, working from behind the scenes to get their business done. As long as you didn't publicly insult their machismo, they were the most laid back of the gangs, although they would strike back. If they had to kill someone, they did it quietly, in the middle of the night, and melted away before you could respond. They also conducted themselves by a strict code of honor, which gave them the most support and street cred with the non-criminal residents of Filmore Heights. If you had to rent to a gang banger, you prayed it was a Latin King.
Meanwhile, the Gangster Disciples were like I had told the amateur, the Starcraft Zerg. They swarmed their enemies with more guns and more response than anyone else. You knew they were coming, and you only hoped they ran out of adrenalin or ammo before you got shot.
It was this rolling, firing wave of criminals that I was attempting to outrun. Reaching the alleyway that my bike was in, I looked over the side of the building, yanking my head back as I saw a GD lowrider roar by on the street. "Fuck!"
"What?"
"My bike is down in that alleyway," I said, looking as another car roared by. I knew what the GDs were doing. Sending out cars first, they'd set up a perimeter around their territory, while behind them would be chasers on motorcycles and slower cars who would criss cross the streets until they had their prey. I'd heard about it too many times.
"My car is six blocks that way," the other man said, pointing. "If we can get there, we can get out of here."
"Your car is too far outside GD turf. They're sweeping now, and we can't stay up on rooftop the whole way. Unless you have a way to cross a major street without touching the ground," I said. "Can you ride on the back?"
"You mean on your cycle?" the other man asked. "How big is it? Five hundred, six hundred cc?"
"It's electric," I replied back. He looked at me incredulously, and I nodded. "Great for stealth. Listen, I'm serious, can you hold on well enough so we can get the hell out of here? We get to street level, I bust us through the GD line on my cycle. If they pursue, we high tail it out of Filmore, my bike's still got another forty miles of high speed juice in the battery. If they don't, I drop you at your car, and if I catch you again doing anything that stupid, I shoot you myself."
The other man looked like he was about to argue, but shut his mouth and nodded. "We can discuss that later," he said, reaching for the fire escape. He scrambled down the ladder, with me right on his heels.
Reaching my bike, I was happy to find that it was still undisturbed. Yanking the cover off, I grabbed my helmet and passed it to the man. "You're on back, they'll be shooting at you once we bust through," I said. "It's not bulletproof, but it's better than nothing."
He grabbed my helmet and jammed it on his head over top of his balaclava, and snapped the eyeshield down. "Let's go."
"Hold on tight," I said as he mounted the bike behind me. "This thing doesn't accelerate like a normal bike. It can jump like a bat out of hell."
The other man squeezed tight and I slammed my bike into action, whipping around the corner already going more than thirty miles an hour. The advantages of a motorcycle are enhanced with my bike, in that I'm quick as a flash, and before I even reached the next corner, I was already going sixty five. Even better, being nearly silent meant I wasn't announcing my presence.
Unfortunately for us, the GD barricade was quick and it was tight. Less than thirty seconds after taking off, I saw the first GD car blocking the road, a giant early eighties Chevy sedan that was roughly the size of an elephant. The bangers inside were strapped and ready, and in the instant I had to look, I saw two shotguns and a Uzi.
Immediately, I started swerving side to side, my motor whining in protest as I twisted the accelerator even harder. The lead GD saw us and fired a round, which I avoided easily, but that was when things went to shit.
The last GD, the one with the Uzi, decided the best way to stop us was to spray the entire street from side to side. I heard a long, ripping sound, kind of like a denim tearing, and suddenly the man behind me groaned loudly. Rounding the corner, I abandoned my idea of getting him to his car and took off, knowing I could lose pursuit in the maze of streets between Filmore Heights and Mount Zion.
What followed was some of the tensest riding I've ever done. My battery, which should have been good for forty miles, started to drain at an alarming rate, which told me that something had gotten hit, either my battery or somewhere in the system, creating a short that was draining juice too quickly. I was just happy that nothing mechanical was hit, and pressed my bike as fast as I could.
"Hold on dude," I yelled over my shoulder as we passed into a safe area. I kept my throttle maxed until I felt him start to slip behind me. Coming to a screeching halt, I grabbed his arms and pulled them tight.
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my phone and hit the speed dial for Sophie. "Hello?"
"I've got the amateur with me. He's been shot, I don't know where."
"Where are you?"
"Warehouse district. I'm maybe five minutes from MJT HQ."
"Is he conscious?"
"Non-sensical," I replied. He sagged again, and I pulled his arms tight. "I need your help."
"Get home, ASAP. I'll have the surgical kit ready in the bell tower. We have plasma here."
"Roger," I replied, closing the line and thinking quickly.
Reaching into another pocket on my vest, I pulled out my familiar roll of electrical tape. Not as useful as duct tape, but it was a lot more compact. Grabbing the guy's arms, I slung them over my shoulder and pulled.
"Hold on a bit, man, come on," I encouraged him. He didn't answer, just muttering something deep in his delusional state. Grabbing his wrists, I quickly looped five or six wraps of tape around his hands, leaving the rest of the roll dangling as I leaned into the controls. It shifted some of his weight onto my back, kind of like wearing a huge backpack, but with his butt still on the seat. I couldn't ride at full speed, but I could ride.
It took me nearly twenty minutes to get back to Mount Zion, and more than once I nearly lost my balance going around curves. We were plain lucky that I didn't run into any of the cops, but got home unmolested. I pulled into the garage, where Sophie and Tabby were already there, both of them in surgical masks, both as a precaution against infection and as a way to hide their identities. If he woke up, he wouldn't know who we were.
"He's unconscious," Sophie said as I staggered, trying not to collapse to the concrete as I dismounted. Getting off a motorcycle with two hundred odd pounds of dead weight on your back is hard. "Come on, quickly."
Tabby and Sophie both grabbed one of his legs as I headed through the house towards the bell tower. My lower back was on fire, but I kept going, adjusting him as best I could. Each step was agony, my legs trembling, but I reached the top where Sophie had laid out the foam rubber mat and her surgical kit.
I knelt down, letting Tabby and Sophie maneuver the guy onto the mat. Slipping his arms over my head, I sagged down and gasped, sweet cool air flowing into my lungs. "What happened?" Tabby asked.
"Genius boy over there started shooting the Gangster Disciple donut shop with a goddamned hopped up air gun," I said, "not knowing their tactics. But he didn't complain, took one in the back as I drove us off."
"He's been shot in the right lung," Sophie said, her voice icy and tense the way I knew she was when she was in her doctor mode. She rolled him onto his stomach after checking his chest. "It's still
inside, I need to get it out. Then I need to stop the bleeding."
Reaching for her bandage scissors, she started at the neck of the guy's shirt, cutting down the back and pulling it open. I looked up at Sophie, who was intent on her patient. "How can I help?"
"Plasma, two units on the table, get me a line ready to go. Green IV needle, that's 18 gauge. Tabby, grab that pole and bring it over here so Mark can hang those bags."
Tabby didn't move, and I glanced up at her. She was frozen, staring at the man on the mat as Sophie peeled his shirt back. "Tabby?"
She didn't say anything, and I ignored her, grabbing the pole and setting it up. I set up the plasma line as best I could, and knelt down next to Sophie. "Want me to run the line?"
After my last bit of surgery, I'd told Sophie that I wanted to learn the basics of medical treatment. Starting with dummies and mannequins, she had worked with me up to doing some techniques, including running IV lines and even some basic stitching. I wasn't even good enough to call myself a nurse's assistant, but I could help out.
"Yes. Right arm," she ordered me. I found the arm, and pulled the sleeve down, exposing a series of tattoos. Whoever this guy was, he had some impressive ink on him, stuff I wanted to look at later. I found the large vein on the top of his forearm and tied it off, sinking the IV in on the first try. The large gauge needle would allow us to feed him plasma as quickly as possible, and I loosened the tourniquet.
I turned my attention to Sophie, who was working hard to find the slug. She had spread the entry wound open and was working with forceps. She found the round and pulled, withdrawing it from the wound and dropping it onto the floor. "Mark, over here, I need light."
For the next forty tense minutes, Sophie used her skills to patch him up. She had to put stitches both internally and externally, a task she had told me before she wasn't sure of, and twice had me wipe her forehead as sweat got in her eyes. Finally, sighing, she finished the last stitch on his back. "He'll make it."
We both were surprised when we heard a sob from Tabby, who I had tuned out after she had frozen. There wasn't time for concern at that instant, but now there was. Stripping off the surgical gloves that I'd pulled on when I was preparing the IV, I stood up and took her in my arms. "Tabby, what's wrong?"
Ambition: A Dark Billionaire Romance (Driven Book 1) Page 11