Two Guns 15 - Hungry Like The Wolf

Christmas Eve in Sharon's apartment didn't look very Christmas-y at all; in fact, it looked rather like the rest of the year, a kind of cold disregard for holiday spirit that would make Baby Jesus cry. Well, at least that's what Mark made of it when he stepped inside; there was a pile of guns on her table in various states of cleaning, and Sharon looking stressed out while talking on the phone. Mark set down the large shopping bag, closed the door behind him and leaned against the wall, hands deep in his pockets.

"...I understand, but you're not...I'm not putting you down, I'm just saying...Look, if you'll listen to me for a second. Nobody's there now...yes, yes, emergency response. Okay. Nobody you want to talk to is there. It's Christmas. You do know what Christmas is, right?...Yeah, you too, bitch."

Mark raised an eyebrow, Sharon raised her arms and nobody raised their voice. Sharon just ran her fingers through her hair, eyes closed and head tilted back, as if the annoyance could be massaged out of her skull. Mark stepped forward, a fresh suit under a slightly classier trench coat. He walked behind her, clasped his hands in front of her belly and bowed his head to whisper into her ear.

"Is this a bad time?"
"No worse than any other," she replied. "Aftershave?"
"Some people indulge their inner slob, I indulge my inner snob."
"Occasionally?" she asked playfully.
"Very occasionally. Now, I know just the naughty thing to do..."
"Go on."
"I say you don't pick up that phone tonight..."
"Kinky."
"...and let the machine get your calls."
"I'm shivering from excitement, but I don't really believe in delegating. Now suppose I give in to this delightful madness, what would you have us do with the evening?"
"I have a reservation at Elio's," he said, his gaze shifting about as if he was John Wilkes Booth on the way to the gun shop.
"That's great. I could go for something to eat."
"...and a new dress."
"That's great, too, but what do I wear?"

Sharon realized about two seconds too late that the placement of Mark's hands was no accident; she doubled over and cringed from the revenge tickling, then burst out laughing before she could free herself. He pulled her back in, lifted her off the ground and turned on the spot, carrying her to the door.

"How did you - wooaah! - how did you know my size?" she giggled, finally getting a grip on Mark's hands and forcing them apart. To his credit, he let her down before she had to continue to the painful stage of that move.
"I can read clothes tags, too," he said with a knowing smile. He grabbed the shopping bag and held it open; Sharon drew a long evening dress from it, made of black velvet with a greenish tinge. Wordlessly but with a smile on her face, she held it up to her body for a size sanity check. "Think I know every saleswoman down Fifth Avenue now," he continued.
"It's lovely. And my color, too."
"The photos helped."
"Huh?"

Mark silently pointed to a cupboard. Sharon gave him a glance.

"It occurs to me now," he said by way of apology, "that I could have just asked to look at some pictures of you."
"Oh, you want to get to know me better, then?" she said with a devilish smile. "I have a slideshow, family history...just the thing after lunch tomorrow. And then you'll tell me about your family, okay?" Without waiting for a reply, she snuck away into the bathroom to prepare. That was a prudent measure, as no reply was forthcoming - Mark just stood there, wordlessly. Slowly, a small smile snuck onto his lips.

Well played, milady. Well played.

---

What makes a gentleman, then? Mark looked the part, but Sharon found the little touches lacking. She topped up her glass with more Pergole Torte '79, and wistfully remembered a time where she thought any man who could date her would do this for her, no questions asked. But she could tell Mark wasn't being a jerk about this - he just didn't know, and she didn't want to lecture him. The wine was excellent, no doubt, but that wasn't on her mind - the more time she spent with Mark, the more he managed to convince her that his omnicompetent act was just that. Lots of trivia, but raw, unfocussed. And that's how he worked, basically: he would land his first strike around a nugget of insight, then switch topics before a true master could tell he was faking it. That didn't make him incompetent, far from it, but it did make him seem more...human. And in turn, she felt better about herself, once she stopped assuming things and realized that she knew a lot of things he'd never heard of. There was something like parity in that.

"Thank you for the dinner. For the dress," she said, some small blush escaping from beneath the makeup. "And for everything else."
"It's been a pleasure," he replied, raising his glass. "To chance."
"To chance," she repeated and took another sip of wine.
"Did you enjoy the ride?" he asked, setting down his glass. His eyes twinkled with the steel of business, if only for a moment.
"A lot. And I don't want to stop here."

This is the moment it all goes to shit, she thought.

"All I can promise you is terror for breakfast, pressure for lunch, and aggravation for sleep," he said. He tried to look serious, but she couldn't hold back her grin.
"That was a terrible movie," she said, laughing softly.
"I watched it five times. I'm one of those men who dig terrible movies." She laughed some more. "I also never share my popcorn. You'll always have to buy your own bag. And I sing in the shower."

He waited for her to quiet down, then leaned forward.

"Could you..." he whispered, "could you love a guy like that?"
"I already do," she answered, then leaned in and kissed him.

No room for thought, just candlelight in his eyes and hellfire in her blood.

---

"Evenin', Captain," came the words from the medical examiner's mouth; Paul Whitton hardly registered them anymore. It was like listening to a record of Bing Crosby's White Christmas - eventually, you don't need to listen anymore, you already hear every word in your head. To the morgue staff's credit, the place actually looked slightly festive, with evergreen twigs on the walls, a diorama of Santa Claus on his sleigh and even mistletoe over the door to the supply closet. Whitton couldn't imagine much romance going on here, but he knew that people down here could get very bored and very lonely. All bets are off when you work shifts in a basement.

"Dental work checks out, then?" he asked; the ME merely nodded.

The corpse wasn't pretty, even for a corpse. Just a bloated, middle-aged guy, his face blown off by a rendezvous with firepower. The kind of Kodak moment that made Whitton thankful for his insomnia.

"Any foul play?" he asked.
"Nothing fancy, no. Just got a bullet through the back of his skull, it bounced around a bit inside, then tore out through the front."
"Caliber?"
"Something small and subsonic. Like I said, it went back out, so I can't get any more precise than that. Only thing I can say for sure is that this was an execution, well-aimed shot. Not point blank, though, there's no powder burns on the skin."
"Restraints?"
"No, and that's the strangest thing. It's like he just stood there while somebody shot him in the head."
"But the shot came from behind. Somebody could've snuck up on him."
"Possible, but this was pretty close. We're talking about a pretty sneaky bastard here, Captain."
"I know a couple of those. Well, that's it, then. Thanks for your time, Josh."
"Merry Christmas, Captain."
"Yeah, merry Christmas."

He waited until the medical examiner was out of earshot, then stepped over to the corpse and bowed down.

"And merry fucking Christmas to you, too. For all it's worth."

Leaving the corpse behind, Whitton wasted little time on his way to the elevator. He stepped inside and felt the doors close like the embrace of a lover long gone, the cab shaking as it brought him back to the city of the living.

Goddammit. What happened to you, Berkovitz?

Life - Chapter 1

Check the suit. Iris hated checking the suit.

The suit, as the engineers kept reminding her, was her only shot at surviving the many ugly things that could befall an exoatmospheric vehicle. They also reminded her not to call it a "spaceship" at every turn. These are the kind of things her Master's in Exogeology degree had glossed over. They make you study alien rocks for a year, a whole year of your life spent on nothing but looking at alien rocks, talking about alien rocks and thinking about alien rocks - and all of that on top of her Bachelor's, with a Geology major. It had gotten so bad that Iris couldn't even go for a walk anymore without pondering what had shaped the ground beneath her feet, the hills on the horizon or even Earth itself. Of course, after that this particular level of indoctrination had been achieved, the first thing they'd done to poor Iris - she of 16 years and still in possession of her bleach-blonde hair - was sign her up for an environment that was so rockless as to be a mockery of her profession.

They reminded her of the suit again. Pay attention to the drill, Iris. It's about the suit.

For all intents and purposes, Iris was as much wearer as inhabitant of the suit, and had been for the last 3 months. That was a strange thing, because those 16 years of living on Mother Earth had taught her to change her clothes every day, lest they get dirty and sticky, and who would want to wear the same thing every day? Oh, they did build clothing like the suit, which didn't get dirty or sticky, but what was the point? Most people changed their clothes every day, no matter what, so why make things complicated? Worse, it made her feel like one of the socials. Government-issued smartclothes and no money to spare for the real thing, not to mention that jumpsuits don't really look all that good. In theory, the suit - her suit - might've sounded like a more attractive thing, a unitard of sorts, given that it was supposed to mold itself to the wearer, but that was mostly on the inside layer. Watching Iris in her suit suggested that she had curves, but didn't really show them off. Like a quantum theory of fashion, wearing the suit was neither modest (because there was the next big disconnect: no underwear!) nor particularly flattering. The great egalitarian ideal of Government Issue: makes everyone look equally stupid. In this case, the torso armor (no, wait: protective plating!) and life support backpack obscured anything remotely interesting.

There was no excuse to take off the suit, even. It wasn't uncomfortable, because it fit you perfectly, it carried its own weight - in fact, it made Iris's exposed skin (her head) feel that much worse in comparison, given that it wasn't enjoying the suit's regulation of skin temperature and humidity. You didn't even have to take it off for bodily needs, and so it wasn't designed to be taken off easily, period. It was locked onto you and there it stayed. Instead of dealing with the inefficiencies of the human digestive system (and the engineers wouldn't shut up about that, either: ew! gross!), nutrients and hydration level were regulated by the suit. Direct bloodstream injection. The result was a constant sort of low-level churning in her guts as carefully-dosed drugs told her colon to keep working, lest it shut down. Clearly, dignity wasn't in the budget. The chewing gum in her mouth was losing its flavor, and even worse she couldn't indulge in her childhood habit of swallowing it, either - this was just for flavor, for keeping her jaw muscles working. They showed her the payload calculations for old-school consumables - they made her eyes water. The ship - she persisted in calling it that - would've been four times bigger, with real food and showers and more than the emergency toilet. Clearly the engineers were furious: stupid humans! They need to use their muscles to keep them in working shape, dumbest thing anybody could ever come up with! They were working on this, she felt. Whipping up a strain of humans who don't break down their muscles and bones when they're not used. The greatest problem with human spaceflight was including humans, but sometimes you didn't have that choice, and Iris imagined that this is what inevitably snapped the mind of every engineer in exoplanetary R&D. It made them crazy, and then they twisted that into some sort of punishment for what they couldn't keep away from their beautiful mechanical spaceship. Whip the apes to remind them that they're not welcome. Like with the helmets.

They were getting to the helmet part. God, how she hated the helmet part.

It wasn't enough that she'd left her hair on the floor of the spaceport ("Do you know how much it costs to boost your ponytail into orbit, Miss?") and arrived with a close shave; at least that was convenient when she couldn't really wash her hair, and reducing the number of things that could get stuck between your helmet and the suit collar when you're depending on the two forming a vacuum-proof seal, that was a good thing. (Engineers say that the seal isn't vacuum-proof, it's atmosphere-proof since it keeps the air in. Iris nods. She doesn't feel like fighting over this.)

The helmet. Iris slipped it over her head and felt the helmet come alive around her - the flickering lights of the display built into the faceplate, the clicking interlocks at the collar, the soft test tones of the loudspeakers.

WELCOME

Yeah, you too, helmet. Missed you really bad.

The helmet was a particularly strange piece of, if not technology, then doctrine. One size fits all, exchangeable, with a good deal of helmets to spare for emergency use. Iris considered the payload penalty of that and shivered. She found that she could think of fifty things, little comfort items, that they could've brought for the same weight and volume as a single spare helmet, but apparently this was the right amount of redundancy from a safety engineering perspective. Worse, they smelled. Not overtly, but subtly, because Iris's nose wasn't getting much of a workout and frantically latched onto any recognizable smell. No body odor on the suits, obviously, no other discarded clothing, but the helmets were regularly brought out for drills, at complete random, and then put away and forgotten. They didn't get dirty as such, but they did get used. Iris had heard that cleaning out helmets after drills was actually a job, a viable job, on the big deep exploration vessels, but on a small scoutship like this, mission duration didn't make it necessary. Or maybe the cleaning gear weighed too much. Either way, helmets smelled. Iris could smell the Chief in this one, and worse, she was desperate enough to think this was a good thing.

Boring piece of shit, this expedition. The helmet didn't come off. The engineers laughed.

"That's how we should all walk around," one of them said. "Massive weight savings if you don't keep the vehicle pressurized..."
"Not funny," Iris managed to say; the helmet microphone caught this, the AI determined that the lack of code words precluded it being intended as radio traffic, and instead routed it out of a small, pipsqueaky speaker built into the helmet. The engineers laughed their asses off. It was like talking to someone over a can & string "telephone".

Then there was a horrible tearing noise, and it was all the worse because Iris didn't hear it so much as feel it. The deck under her feet groaned. The engineers had good reflexes, pushing themselves towards the next equipment locker for their helmets, but it simply happened too quickly. In a flash, half the metal around them was gone, and everything was hot and bright. Iris couldn't see much of the brightness, because the helmet darkened the visor at once, shielding her eyes from the intense light and shifting the cooling into overdrive to keep her cool inside while the outer layers of the suit slowly radiated the heat it had absorbed. The gloves of the suit bombarded Iris's fingers with little pricks - radar information, converted into tactile input. She could feel/see something slip past her rapidly and grabbed it, still blind; with the help of the suit's abrasion-resistant material and strength augmentation, she managed to hold on to what had to be a rogue safety rope. The zero-G drills finally paid off; she managed to hold on and clip the rope into the utility harness she wore over the suit. All the while, the suit increased its pressure on her, keeping her blood going to the important parts of her body against the acceleration she was under. Something smashed against her leg, and even the suit couldn't protect her from that one - suddenly, she only felt pain from her right side, but a few seconds of that seemed to confirm that her leg was still attached. She screamed even as the helmet calmly told her that it was activating the distress beacon, and eventually she stopped, not because she wasn't in pain or not afraid, but because she knew that she was wasting air.

You never know how deep the drills stick until you use them.

It felt like minutes until the visor cleared again. Iris barely recognized the ship she was still tethered to; it drifted in the distance, torn asunder into multiple sections that were already spreading away further than she could see them. A look down at her leg showed it sitting at an angle a leg should never sit at, but again the suit did what it could and fortified her blood with a generous dose of painkillers. The material of the suit seemed worn, but not breached, and despite everything else, it looked like she'd gotten off easy.

The helmet should've told her that it was picking up other distress signals. That's what they told her in the drills. Find other survivors, huddle together, share resources.

"Suit..." she managed to say, "I need you to tell me where the other signals are."
NOT RECEIVING OTHER SIGNALS. DAMAGE TO RADIO ASSEMBLY.

One thing the piece of scrap had hit on her torso armor, the one thing, and it had to be the radio assembly. Iris felt like screaming again, just to make a point.

Why did she have to pick exogeology?

Memetastic!

Going through this for Mark.

Boy or girl?

Man. I like to think that that much is obvious...

How old are you?

Ugh, don't remind me. Too old. Younger than Algernon, but the guy gets a pass for being dead a lot of the time. Me, I'm close to retirement.

What's your height?

Six feet and a couple inches. Been that way for as long as I care to remember, actually.

Are you a virgin?

Nope.

Do you have any kids?

Nope, and frankly I don't see how anyone who can't hold a gun could be safe around me. I guess I gotta adopt a teenager or something if I ever want to get that fatherly pride.

What's your favorite food?

Italian-style thin-crust pizza with a pound or two of toppings. No such thing as too much extra cheese.

What's your favorite ice-cream flavor?

Vanilla, actually. I don't like how chocolate tastes. As far as I'm concerned, anything else ain't ice-cream. Keep your cappucino-flavored abominations away from me.

Have you killed anyone?

Yeah, that's pretty much my "thing". Stopped counting.

Do you hate anyone?

I used to get an itch in my trigger finger for a lot of guys, but I guess I'm mellowing out a bit now. I can even think kinda clearly about Dennis Gray, but I owe the guy a few dozen bullets. He's going down. But hate? Nah, that's too strong a word. Just gotta do what I gotta do.

Have any secrets?

I'm just a private guy. There's a lot of things I keep to myself, so if you want to call that having secrets, then yes.

Do you love anyone?

Used to. Didn't work out.

What is your job?

I go places and do things. Usually bad places and very bad things.

Any powers or weapons?

Powers? I've got skills. I guess I'm lucky, generally, but that doesn't seem like much of a power when my co-workers read minds or wield mjolnir. I've got plenty of weapons, though. Pistols up my sleeves, a few knives and whatever else I need, and that's just what I'm carrying. You catch me in my armory, I could outfit a platoon of rambos with bullets to spare.

What do you do to relax?

I train in my off-time, but when I need to get away from the job completely, I usually go to the cinema and read a good book. People should read more books, in general. I don't know how often remembering some piece of trivia has saved my ass, and it makes for good conversation.

What do you think your life expectancy is?

All bets have been off for the last thirty years or so. Why paralyze yourself with the thought? All I know is that it's gonna be violent, and that's fine by me.

What is your opinion of the opposite sex?

I'm kinda in the modern boat, I've seen plenty of women that can keep up with me, so I try not to judge too quickly. But sometimes I can't help but get into "protect the women and children" mode, you know? I guess I can come off as patronizing. Oh, and I have no patience for the whole emancipation thing. You wanna be treated equally? Act that way. You can't just grab all the perks and still expect me to give you the special treatment. And for God's sake, don't preach. Pisses me off something fierce, that.

Now what are you going to do?

Waiting for the next call. Hoping it won't come, 'cause when I get called, things are fucked up already. I guess that's my fate, though.

Two Guns - Chapter 14 - Losing My Religion

Like every waiting room ever conceived by mankind, Dollar's place didn't have comfortable seats. Sharon was slumped over a worn-out leather couch, holding a cup of hot chocolate in one hand and rubbing the tiredness from her eyes with the other. Her clothes were sticky, the tanned animal skin beneath her was hot and cold in all the wrong places, and for some reason she just wanted to walk outside and scream herself hoarse. It was mostly a matter of trying to find a solution to this whole mess that didn't include killing a hell of a lot of people. Everything she'd ignored about Mark that last week was now hitting her, in the manner of being tied to a wall in a game of dodge ball against a particularly vicious pack of 6th grade bullies. She slurped on her not-so-hot chocolate. All the cigarettes in New York City wouldn't have relaxed her.

It was time to stop pretending. Sharon Collins, your boyfriend kills people for a living. How do you feel about that?

Shuffling combat boots were barely audible through the closed door; finally, the wood groaned, the handle turned and the door opened. Mark was awake, steadying himself on a heavy cane; with careful, deliberate steps, he walked through the frame, his mouth forming the beginning of a painful grimace with every movement. All told, he looked more like a man who was acting out a few gunshot wounds rather than a guy with actual lead poisoning, but considering what Sharon knew about Mark, the man had to be tough.

"Mind giving me a shoulder?" he said, and if nothing else, his voice sounded like that of a guy with a couple too many holes in him. Sharon rushed over, ducked under his outstretched arm and helped to steady him, all without thinking about it. "Any news from Whitton?"
"I wouldn't know. I haven't checked in yet."
"We need to find Ded," Mark said. "If we're lucky, Nicky hasn't killed him yet."
"How did Nicolai make it past you?"
"That's what I called Ded for. He endorsed Nicky. The little shit must've snatched him up and forced him."
"Assuming, of course, that Ded didn't sell you guys out. He might be working with Nicolai. We don't know what the Russians are up to, and we haven't exactly tried to find out. Hands-off policy, I'm sure you're familiar with that."
"Listen, I've known Ded for years. He wouldn't do that. That's not how things work here."
"That brings me to another point. Nicolai had a gun. Didn't you frisk him?"
"You come in there, you hand over your guns, that's how the fucking meeting works. I can't just go feeling up the bosses. That's basic etiquette."
"No, it's basic stupidity," Sharon said. "At the checkpoint, the guard is God. That's how the Army does it, that's how we do it, and that's how it makes sense. But I guess that would be too much of a personal slight for your bosses, so instead you do the stupid variant, which only works as long as everyone plays fair. Nicolai knew that when he went in, and as we can see - that man doesn't play fair."

Mark stopped and looked at her. She shrugged.

"I'm a cop. I figure things out."

And thus they walked to the car in silence.

---


The Ingues manor loomed large against the first slice of the new moon; Mark left his Oldsmobile standing in the driveway and hobbled over to the house's side entrance. The inside was comfortably warm, but Mark didn't recognize the new guards. They were crawling all over the area, and Mark couldn't help but wonder who would pay for all those mercenaries. The hallways were echoing a lively discussion; he walked towards the lounge, following the voices to their origin. Aside from five more guys with guns standing guard, the large dinner table played host to Alexandra, Vincent and a large man he didn't recognize. Just then, one of those pieces of sentimental flotsam floated to the top of his consciousness - he remembered his first family dinner with Alfredo Ingues. Mark had to smile at that. It was another winter like that one now, and the first good piece he'd tasted of the Big Apple. The first night in his new home, still scared and with only Alfredo's assurances to keep him company.

Things had worked out so well for so long, Mark found it hard to get his head around the fact that the Boss was dead and buried now.

He closed in, and for the first time it seemed like Alex had really noticed him coming in; she forced a smile onto her face, got up from the table and walked over to Mark, still relying on a cane of her own.

"Looks like we can make a race down the hallway now, Mark," she said and gave him an affectionate hug. Mark winced from the discomfort, but returned it.
"Maybe later, boss. I've got some catching up to do. What's going on?"
"Well, as you can see," Alex said while helping Mark walk to the table, "we've called in a few favors. This" - she indicated the large man - "is John Done. He's new in the mercenary business, but he comes highly recommended."

Mark shook hands with John Done and inspected the man more closely. Underneath the practical clothes, Done was sporting a serious physique. Despite being a good deal younger than Mark, life hadn't done him any favors - several heavy scars marked his weathered face. Mark felt like he'd finally found a man for whom "ugly son of a bitch" would be a compliment.

"Mr. Done will be here to help us organize a response to the recent attacks," Alex continued. "He's also an experienced operator in urban combat, and I can only hope he'll be able to lift some of the 'heavy hitter' burden from you, Mark. Let's face it, you're wearing the results of our previous policies."
"I'm fine with that," Mark said. "There's a lot that needs killin' and my trigger fingers are only so quick."

Done cracked a smile at that; Mark gave him an eyebrow.

"So, what's the plan?" Mark asked Done.
"First, we scout ahead," Alex said; Done kept his lips sealed. "Find out how many men the Russians have and where they hang out. Then we look at who supports them. We take out their support, cut them off from outside help, and then we whittle them down nice and slow. Sooner or later, they're going to go all out and try their home invasion again. And that's when we suck them into a serious ambush. That done, we send in a second team to mop up before they have time to regroup."
"Why are you telling me this?" Mark said.
"Already said it once," Done said. "And she has a pretty voice."

Alex blushed a bit, but Mark frantically hoped that Done would talk again, because that couldn't be his actual voice. It couldn't be the voice of a human being. He must've misheard that, because that wasn't speaking, that was coughing up gravel and tar. Smoking all the tobacco in the world wouldn't give you a voice like that.

"That answer your question?" Done said, and Mark leaned back and nodded. That was Done's voice, and Mark understood why the man didn't talk a lot. He didn't have to.

"Where's your girlfriend?" Alex asked; Mark ripped his gaze off Done and turned to look at her.
"Let her out at the precinct. She has to report in, too."
"Yes, that's what we were worried about," she said. "We have to consider the possibility that she's a plant."

Mark had a strong answer for that, but his better judgment made him keep his voice down and lean back.

"...how?" he asked.
"She's in Whitton's unit, for example. She was where you were when Silvestro's coke deal went down..."
"I was on assignment, she was following a lead. Doesn't strike me as unusual at all."
"Okay, but remember how you had to hold her hand when you faked the evidence? She's more competent than that, we know that now."
"Sure, but we got her on the wrong foot. Everybody has an off day."
"The way I see it, it's more like she was trying to look vulnerable so Daddy would assign you as protection," Alex said, quickly raising her voice and emotional involvement. "That way, she could get close, distract you and Vincent with an attack on the hotel. She knew Silvestro would send his assassins after Daddy then. So she faked the attack..."
"That attack wasn't faked!" Mark protested. "People died that day!"
"Really? I don't see you or her buried next to my father!" Alex cried, rising from her chair. "How did she make it without a scratch while they killed my family?!"

Mark banged his fist on the table; he held back too much anger of his own. Alex froze in full swing and slowly settled back down. The silence was deafening. Mark thought about a funeral he hadn't even known about, a last goodbye forsaken for...what, exactly? His heart pumped raw guilt through his hands and head.

"This is paranoia," he said, recomposing himself.
"What about Whitton, though?" Alex threw in, eerily calm yet sullen. "He knew Nicolai, he could've arranged for all this!" she said, picking up steam again.
"Nice meeting you, Done," Mark said. Without further words, he rose from the chair, grabbed his cane and headed for the stairs.

"Come back here, Mark!" Alex said sharply, producing no result; after a second, she shouted "Simmons!" at him. He froze in place, just for a second. Then he continued on, ignoring her. As he started to climb down the stairs to the basement armory, Alex almost pursued him, but a strong hand on her shoulder held her back.

"I'll handle this," Vince said, then followed Mark.

In the eye of the storm, Done sat back and enjoyed the show. Amateurs...

---

"If you would close the door, Detective..." Whitton began, hunched on his leather-clad office chair and rubbing his temples. Sharon - badge prominently dangling from a chain around her neck - closed the door behind her, closed the blinds and grabbed the rather more spartan chair in front of Whitton's desk. She found Whitton's office comfortingly familiar - the bulletin board with nice, orderly notes about current cases, the file drawers in the back, the hotplate with the customary jug of coffee, even the rather tacky brass-plated cuckoo clock.

She sat down. Whitton opened his eyes and slowly leaned forward.

"Do you know where Simmons is?"
"Right now? He said he was headed for the Ingues family mansion."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
"Good." Whitton leaned back, and his face relaxed a little. "Do you think he'll do something stupid against the Russians?"

A little voice in Sharon's head screamed "Of course he'll do something stupid! He's Mark Simmons!", but she ignored it.

"Well, he's got a major hate-on for Nicolai" - Whitton frowned - "but he's not in fighting shape. He could barely walk when I saw him off."
"Good. We need time to sort through this mess and come to a reasonable conclusion."
"Captain, if I may..."
"Yes?"
"What do you think is a 'reasonable conclusion'?"

Whitton cracked a small grin, as if he was congratulating himself for anticipating that question.

"The one that gets the least people killed. If I can find a way to keep them from shooting up the whole city, that's what I'll go for. Protect and serve, Detective."
"I'm just asking because...back at the restaurant..." Sharon said, then trailed off for a second. "Nicolai. It looked like we were going to back Nicolai."
"I'm not friendly with him, if that's what you're going for. Dolvich called me last week, wanted to introduce me to a new business associate. He's very old-fashioned, the whole 'announce yourself in the lord's domain' thing. He wanted to make it official. So I talked to the guy, figured I'd give it some time before I pass my judgment. When we met at the restaurant, I was just trying to keep Simmons from shooting him right there. What a great idea that turned out to be..."
"Okay, but...Dolvich? The name doesn't ring a bell..."
"Boris Dolvich."
"...oh! Oh, you mean Ded."
"Yes..."
"Sorry, Captain, didn't click for a second. It's just that Mark...that Simmons keeps calling Dolvich 'Ded'. From Dedushka, which means..."
"Grandpa. Yes, I know."

Sharon suddenly felt like she'd been sent to the headmaster's office for a school prank. Get your mind on the job, girl.

"What's eating you, Sharon?" Whitton said, effortlessly slipping from boss to friend in the blink of an eye.
"I'm fine, I just...it feels like I need a vacation from the vacation."
Whitton smiled warmly. "I can see where you're coming from. You've seen a lot of things those last weeks, sights a cop could do without. I understand. You ever consider talking to a counselor about it?"
"No, I haven't actually thought about the whole situation that much. I'm just trying to keep my head above the surface, you know?"
"I back my Detectives 100%, Sharon. I've been there. Up is down and black is white, suddenly, and before you know it you're knee-deep in it."
"It sounds like a cliché when you say it that way."
"Everything's a fucking cliché until it happens to you. Look at yourself, Sharon. You're head over heels for a hitman, torn between law and justice, all the jazz."

Sharon lowered her head a bit. She was actually blushing - still in that headmaster's office.

"All I'm saying is that there's always gonna be rain, Sharon. I'm here with an umbrella, if you need me," he said, with a small paternal grin. "Get some sleep. Put your head straight, and talk to Monica if you want to. You'll see, we'll get all this behind us and then things will get better."

With a sigh, he snapped back to Captain Mode.

"That's all for now, Detective. You can leave now."
"Thank you, Captain. I'll...I'll give you a call if there are any new developments. I don't know where I'll stay..."
"Technically, you're on vacation. I don't think I have to bother you with the dreck that requires reaching you on the phone. You've got enough on your plate already. Just keep swimming, Detective."
"Thank you, Captain."
"You already said that."
"It bears repeating," she replied, with a small smile.

She turned to leave, but Whitton raised his voice again. Sharon braced herself for a parting shot.

"One last thing, though: How is Simmons?"
"I'm...not sure how to interpret that question."
"Is he a decent guy? Does he treat you right?"
"In between the bullets and the terror? Yes, actually, he's a nice guy."
"Good."
"Why did you ask?"
"If you two are going to be together, I'll have to stick my neck out for him, too. I wanted to know if he's worth it."
"Definitely," Sharon said without hesitation.
"Well, don't let me keep you any further, then. Good night."
"Night, Captain."

And so Sharon walked out, feeling curiously...unburdened. As she closed the door behind her, Whitton sat and pondered the events of the last few days. With a heavy sigh, he reached for a file folder on the edge of his desk and opened it. He wasn't going to get any sleep that night.

Two Guns - Chapter 13 - Mr. Policeman

"Are you sure you're okay, Boss?" Sasha asked; Nicolai ignored him as he stalked through the hotel hallway, his bullet wounds hastily bandaged. His eyes burned with the fearless intensity of a man on way too many painkillers.

Better living through chemistry.

"Where are the guards, Sasha?" he asked, passing the last corner to their room. That was a good question, seeing how they weren't standing in front of the door.

---

"Christ, not this joint..." Mark managed to babble even while the two assistants dragged him into the basement; Sharon followed a few meters behind them, scanning the alley for more surprises. She didn't feel anywhere close to safe until they were behind a locked, steel-reinforced door. The basement had seen better times, even by backalley clinic standards - the walls were held together by a colorful assortment of unsavory movie posters, as if to impress upon the patients that their bullet wounds could be much worse. The surgical instruments were stood up in small, transparent water jugs filled with some moonshiney concoction.

But the pièce de résistance was Doctor George Washington Walker, otherwise known as Dollar. His ivory teeth shone in the darkness, his skin held the shade of a particularly bitter chocolate, and his long hair was all bound back into a ponytail, swaying like a thunderstorm in the darkest night. He looked like he had only truly lived in the 70s, then shed his velvet cocoon and tamed his afro into something marginally more practical. A blunt hung from the corner of his crooked mouth, uncomfortably like a cigarette might stick out of Sharon's.

"What'd he do this time?" Dollar said, strolling like a jaguar after a night of heavy drinking. "Sucka gets painted more often than my mama's house."
"Your mama's so fat..." Mark began, but Dollar shushed him and helped the assistants lay Mark on a table in the middle of the room.
"Aww, hell no! They did not put bullets through my everlovin' stitches! Kyla, get your ass over here!"

Sharon had held onto some small degree of respect on account of Dollar's supposed medical degree, but even that was gone the minute she laid eyes upon Kyla. As it turned out, Dollar's surgical nurse was a punk rock girl on the wrong side of 16 years, with mascara'ed eyes that promised trouble and little hands ready to deliver the same.

"'scuse me, comin' thru," Kyla said as she carried a tray of fresh surgical instruments to the operating table. Sharon realized she was standing in the way and took a few steps back until she had her back to the wall. "Ran into bullets again?"
"Get his clothes off!" Dollar said. He popped fresh gloves out of a dispenser box and wandered off to grab a surgical mask - without realizing that this would require putting the blunt down.

A small leather holster dangled from the waistband of Kyla's cargo pants, riveted to the same in lieu of conventional attachment methods; she popped it open and drew a pair of small scissors from it. Mark was too weak to put up an effective defense, so she managed to cut both his shirt and the side of his ballistic vest open with little difficulty. She couldn't help mouthing a "Woah!" as she swabbed the blood away with cotton.

"Three entries, three exits!" she called out. Dollar rushed over, grabbed the scalpel from her waiting hand and started slicing Mark's belly open. Surprisingly, Mark didn't like that. The assistants rushed over and held Mark down. Sharon circled the table and crouched down next to Mark's face.

"Look at me!" she shouted, then yanked his head around to face her. "Look at me, I'm here. I'm here. Look at me!"

Mark had no better reply than renewed screams of pain. Kyla jabbed him a syringe with a synthetic opiate into his veins, but even that was of questionable use considering Dollar's speed. By the time it hit Mark's brain and cascaded up to the "don't feel" stage, Dollar was already putting the first stitches in. Thanks for nothing, painkillers.

---

Mark laid on his side, unconscious but stable, with Sharon sitting by his side and holding his hand. She was fully prepared to wait out Mark's long sleep, as long as it might take, much in the manner of a particularly loyal (if chain-smoking) dog. However, Dollar strode in, blew marijuana smoke into her face and called her a bitch. Presumably, that last one wasn't about said dogged approach to bedside company.

"Bitch," he said, but then went on with "what are you doin'? You should be arresting this fool."
"What? Why?"
"'cause you's a cop. Cops, robbers, that shit ring a bell?"

She looked at him. Dollar understood and laughed into his next cough.

"Aw, shit. You guys playin' cops and robbers on the side, eh? So who gets the handcuffs? Or do you trade?"

Sharon fixed Dollar with a wayward glance; with no intent to her stance, she let go off Mark's hand and righted herself. Dollar suddenly realised that Detective Second Grade Sharon Collins had a few inches on him and the attitude to match. His habit of mentally undressing women and his knowledge of anatomy combined to impart an important fact even through Sharon's clothes - that woman was tensing her muscles for a brawl. Suddenly, Dollar felt inspired to add "Go far, but not too far" to his New Year's vows.

"You'll have to forgive me," she began, dropping the room temperature by several degrees, "but I don't find Mark's friends very endearing. Most of them seem to think that I'm some sort of walking target for all their little in-jokes. I get it. I'm a cop, I'm supposed to be all law & order, you are the only smart people in this city - enough already, I fucking get it. I don't agree, but I get it. You, however, you're a whole new level of jackass. The way you dress, the way you smell, the way you talk - obnoxious. In my dark moments, I want to take that big pearly smile of yours and grind it to dust against a block of concrete. Two things protect you: you saved Mark's life and I'm patient by nature. But Mark will be out of here in a few hours, and my fuse is not getting longer."
"...can I offer you something?" Dollar asked meekly. "Hot chocolate? Decaf?"

Sharon suddenly leaned back and smiled.

"Hot chocolate would be great, thank you."

Dollar hurried out of the room, intent on evacuating his vital points from Sharon's striking range. Sharon turned around and sat back down. The things you can achieve with a little civility...

---

"You've been awfully quiet," Berkovitz said, gently feeling the idling engine rumble through the gear shift. The red light didn't seem to be in a particular hurry. "About all of this, I mean," the officer went on. "It's a shitstorm alright. The best we can do is hunker down and wait for the bastards to finish each other. After that, everything will be dandy, don't you think?"

Ded didn't say anything. His mouth was covered in too much duct tape for that.

"I've known Russians all my life," Berkovitz explained. "My family's from the Ukraine, you know? My mother and my uncle got out in '67. My uncle was a fast thinker, I get that from him. You know what they call all the people who wanted to emigrate after him? Refuseniks. Refusenik. You have to game the system, Boris, I've learned that much."

The signal switched to green.

"My father was a honorable Soviet citizen. No way out for him. Too important to let go, too Jewish to make something of it. He believed the whole crap to the end. You and me, pal, we're the refuse of the cold war. War, you know? Shell casings, dead bodies, plastic packages that held food, all of that is just trash. Dead weight. We're the trash, Boris. We're the trash. So don't think I don't sympathize with you, really, I do."

They drove on in silence for a few more minutes; Ded knew where they were going. The docks loomed outside the window, barely in time for lunch break. A few twists and turns later, Berkovitz stopped the car, breathed silently, then turned off the ignition. He left the car for what seemed like a minute - not enough time for Ded to free himself, though God knows he tried. He squirmed and he struggled and he stretched for anything that might be sharp enough to cut his bonds, but it was no use. Berkovitz came back, opened the back door and hauled him out. Berkovitz was muscle, Ded thought, in the truest sense of the word - big, burly, not too bright, or at least he didn't look like he'd ever seen a college from inside.

They walked to the end of a pier; the weather was beautiful for the season, a bright sun up above and only a soft wind instead of the harsh bite one would expect from this location. Berkovitz lowered Ded onto a bollard and lit himself a cigarette; after a moment's hesitation, he took out a small, weather folding knife and cut a slot in Ded's gag, then lit a cigarette for the Russian and put it in his mouth.

"It's fucked up, Boris. You don't have to tell me, I know. You want to hear my opinion? That Nicolai kid sucks. He doesn't know what we know. He ain't seen what we've seen. They feed you this code of honor bullshit long enough, you start to shit it right back out. I'm glad for you, Boris. Glad that you got away. Glad that you had a good run. But this is where your story ends."

Berkovitz crouched down next to the Ded. Ded calmly smoked his cigarette.

"We're gonna sweep the streets, Boris. Sweep 'em clean when we've got the trash out of the hiding holes. But a little piece of shit like you" - Berkovitz grinned - "we just flush you down the toilet."

He fished a Makarov PB from his coat.

"You know those docks, right? Your place is just upstream. Makes no difference to the Hudson. This place, your place, all the same. We'll be searching for you further down. We'll find you. You'll get a decent burial. So, yeah, sorry about that. Nothing personal."

He aimed the gun at Ded's head.

"Bye."

A whisper, a word, a last beat.

And then Ded went under.

Two Guns - Chapter 12 - Silent Running

Here's how it went down: Suppose you drew a line from the center of the table to Mark and called that 12 o'clock. (Because, really, that kind of finality would fit Mark.) Working from that, you would've found Whitton at 3, Alexandra at 5, Vince at 6, Nicolai at 8 and Sharon at 9.

Nobody said anything. Nobody moved. They kept on doing that.

It was a remarkable long-lived (if still violently metastable) situation for all of the five minutes it took Nicolai's friends to show up. Nicolai's friends were Russian gangsters, too - tattoos, AKs, all that. Nicolai's friends didn't have someone pointing a gun at them; indeed, when they rolled up with their panel van outside the restaurant, they went unnoticed.

Nicolai's friends were about to announce themselves.

---

Much like standing in the cabin door of a burning plane without a parachute, Sharon's predicament was not easily expressed in terms of a golden path. On one hand, compliance might have been able to get her out of this alive, but if Nicolai planned to kill her, death was certain. Fighting back would draw a lethal attack, but offered the minuscule chance of escaping it. She weighed the two alternatives - both sucked. It's hard to gamble when you don't even know the odds.

Then Nicolai's friends showed up, and she felt the gun in her neck shift slightly as Nicolai reflexively took a look. For this split second, Nicolai's friends were her friends, too - not in the sense of inviting them over to watch the Mets game and sharing a case of cold ones with them, but a more tactically expedient and cynical kind of friendship - the distracter/distractee/advantage-taker impromptu friendship triangle. Of death.

The muscles in her arms and hips tensed up, invisible under her clothing, and then she unleashed the stored potential energy by whipping around, slamming the pistol off target with her raised arms. Nicolai fired, taking off her right earlobe and inflicting considerable acoustic trauma on her right ear - call her lucky that it was a suppressed gun. Either of those would have been enough to take down a grown man, short of a dusthead on the last brightest ride of his life; she crumbled, but that left Mark with an opening to shoot Nicolai twice. That, in turn, left Nicolai's friends to return the favor, peppering the room - but mostly Mark - with fire from their AKs. Mark rushed to cover Sharon, taking Nicolai's next shot across the arm before it stopped in his vest.

But Nicolai had to start moving, which meant no more AKs firing into the restaurant. That's what saved Mark from getting his ass killed right there.

Ever ungrateful, Mark rolled around, firing a few shots at the fleeing Nicolai and the gunmen parked outside. More fire came in response; now it was Sharon's turn to have her adrenaline kick in, and she steadied Mark as they skedaddled towards the entrance. Mark retained enough strength to push Sharon towards the table with all of the checked-in guns - while he crouched behind a pillar, Sharon used the momentum to skip onto the table and tip it over for cover.

For a second, the AK gunner didn't see any targets. That made him nervous, and he had every right to be. When Mark and Sharon came back up, they gave him a four-gun 9mm salute. In the space of those four magazines, he was turned from a face only his mother could love to a face even his dentist wouldn't recognize. It was at this point that Nicolai decided to cut his losses and have the car speed off, but not before giving the assembled crowd his final (and, if it had all gone according to plan, only) fuck-you: the bottle of wine went up like a roman candle, apparently consisting of 1/2 top-quality white wine and 1/2 incendiary device. Given the Magnum bottle, that was a lot of incendiary device. (Which, by the way, differ from white wine bottles in both alcohol content and blast radius. In case of doubt or confusion, check the labels.)

Fortunately for our heroes, the room with the bottle - still standing perfectly still in the middle of the medium chaos before turning it into major chaos - was empty now, with most of the round taking cover in the kitchen. They took the rear exit when the restaurant's main room caught a thermate-fueled redecoration. Again, Mark and Sharon were forced to move until they finally hit the exit, flames roaring up behind them. Mark folded against a nearby hydrant, bleeding profusely into his shirt; Sharon crouched down to tend to his wounds, still vaguely unaware of the blood trickling down from her right ear.

"Fuck," Mark coughed up, then slid off into shock.

---

"Fuck fuck fuck!" Nicolai screamed while one of his men held him down onto the floor of their panel van. His right arm was outstretched, with his hand spasming through all the permutations of Gimme! it could muster, until he finally had a small medicine bottle with vicodin pills in his grasp. Even the child safe top didn't stand up to his adrenaline-fueled rage as he twisted the bottle open, popped a few pills into his mouth and chewed down. It took a minute to hit his brain, but then it did and through some freak miracle it didn't kill him.

Don't try this at home.

He recovered from that trip just as one of his men - Sasha - was finishing up the quick'n'dirty dressing on Nicolai's bullet wounds.

"Are you okay, boss?" Sasha asked.
"Did you get him? Did you fucking kill him?"
"Don't know, boss. He was shooting at us when we drove away."
"Fuck!" Nicolai took a deep breath, noted the pain that brought, then took another one. "Fucking Simmons."
"We're on our way to a doctor now, boss. Do you want us to go after Simmons?"
"No, no...that would be stupid. They're on their toes now. We fucked it up."
"Sorry, boss."
"We need to get rid of Boris now, consolidate our position. Sasha?"
"Boss?"
"Thanks for the fire support."
"Anytime, boss."

---

"Fuckers!" Alex snarled, kicking her shin against the glove compartment of Mark's car in a futile attempt to work through her anger. With Vince at the wheel and Sharon taking care of Mark's wounds on the backseat, they were on the move again, headed for an underground clinic - family business, one of the few advantages of being dug in those days.

"Just another bidonista asshole," Vince said. "Silvestro tried, now Little Nicky tries, they all end up dead."
"And who's gonna do that?" Alex said. "Mark can't."
"He's still alive," Sharon threw in.
"And we're doing what we can to keep it that way, Detective, but look at him. He's out of action for two weeks, maybe more."
"So?"
"So? In case you didn't notice, Mark is our insurance policy. I'd be happier than a pig in shit if we had more people with his talents, but fuck, we don't. Our rank-and-file's gone bust since Silvestro. We're fucked."
"What about you, Vince?" Sharon asked innocently.
"Somebody's gotta protect Alex. I'm tempted to go out there and string that leccacazzi up by his palle, but they'll just hit us from the flanks if I leave her. Don't 's'pose you're volounteering, either?"
"..."
"Then fuck you, puttana," Vince said, but his tone suggested more frustration than anger. "Ain't no more backup to call in for us. The Cartel's dry."
"Screw this, this sunshine and lollypop thing," Alex said. "It's getting us killed out here by everyone who's dancing around the rules. They play dirty, we play dirty. We need mercs."
"That's against..." Vince began.
"...the agreement, I know, okay? Jesus. I know. I know all those silly little rules that are supposed to keep this shithole running, but right now they're not exactly working out for us, are they, Ratioli?"
"...no."
"Fact is, we need firepower and we need it fast."
"I know a guy," Vince said after some deliberation. "Canadian ceffo, but he's good. I can give him a call."
"We'll need more than that. Call in everyone who wants a paycheck, we're breaking the bank."
"Gotcha. Do we have enough guns?"
"Does your Canadian throw them away like Mark does?"
"No."
"Then we have enough."

The car slid to a halt next to a small alley; two Columbians were already waiting there and helped Sharon extract Mark from the back seat. While they carried him away, Sharon looked to Alex.

"Don't do this," Sharon said, then took a deep breath. "I know this is bad, but they're fucking us as much as you. I know Whitton, he's gonna come down like a sack of hammers on them, just give us a little time to mobilize..."
"Feel free," Alex said. "But there won't be Russians left to fuck up when we're done. Oh, and that merc thing? That's our little secret, Detective, or I will send Vince on a housecall. I don't trust Whitton and I sure as fuck don't trust you. Stay quiet, take care of Mark, then maybe we can become girlfriends and go shopping when this shitstorm is over. Okay?"
"Okay," Sharon said, like it was not okay.

Then the car sped off. Sharon just stood there, all alone in the snow.

So much for a Cold War.

Two Guns - Chapter 11 - Russians

Mark's hand slowly snaked under the pillow and pressed it against his face. Rather like starting a stubborn Fiat 500 parked in the arctic tundra, Mark's wake-up process was an exercise in frustration. His muscles tensed up in a cascade from his shoulders down to his fingers until he finally stopped fighting it and woke up. He was lying next to Sharon in a hotel bed, and found himself uncovered, with both sheets bunched around her sleeping figure. His memory of last night refused to play back, though it didn't feel like drinking - he just hadn't paid particular attention to anything except her, and he felt that this was greatly superior to the hangover and total darkness of binging on hard liquor.

Like clockwork, the phone rang just in time to ruin the quiet perfection of the sleeping girlfriend morning. Careful not to disturb Sharon, Mark reached across the bed to the nightstand, picked up the receiver and wrestled the phone cord free from a small notch in the bed's frame. He realized that he had no idea under which name he'd checked in or why the fuck he'd ordered a wake-up call, but these kind of things happen and the best you can do is roll with it.

"Yeah?" he said, not requiring a lot of acting to sound sleepy and annoyed.
"I'm calling to remind you," Vince said, "about the meeting."
"Remind me? What fucking meeting? I'm on va-ca-tion, it's all I ever wanted."
"Dude. The Russians."
"The Russians...?"
"You're not bugging out on us, are you?"
"No, I'm just...confused. How the hell did you find me?"
"Uh, Mark? I was there yesterday. You called and asked for your shit, I came by: car, clothes, guns, the whole shebang, and I told Alex you need a new cell phone. Figured I'd write down the hotel and room number..."

Mark turned around, spotting two suitcases leaning against the wall. That was stuff he really should've remembered...

"...and that would be when you told me about the Russians?"
"Quick refresher: 11. The Greek restaurant. And bring Collins, we've got the cops there, too."
"Okay, just one more question..."
"Yeah?"
"What time is it now?"
"...get dressed, Mark."

Click. Hung up, just like that. There was some recollection of a short conversation with Vince, but other than that, Mark's head was still not spun up to operating speed.

Mark reached to put the receiver back on the phone. At the moment of maximum extension, Sharon's eyes opened.

"Morning," she said.
"Hey, baby."
"You look a bit concerned."
"Oh? Nothing, it's just that I may have agreed to some work for both of us."
"May have? Some work? That doesn't sound very good."
"Ah, it's no big deal," Mark said as some memories of last night bubbled back to the surface. Oh, so it was boundless infatuation and alcohol. Thanks, episodic memory! "We're just gonna have a little talk with the Russians, they have some sort of trade dispute with us, your guys will mediate. Boring shit, but they want you and me to be there."
"Has to worry you a little bit, if 'baby' is the best you can come up with..."
"You're incorrigible."
"I'm Irish."
"Same thing."
"I only want you to actualize your full potential. Now, hit me."
"Okay, better than 'baby'...fuzzlebunny? Starshine? Your Royal Highness, Duchess of Éire?"
"Love the last one, but it sounds unwieldy."
"It's not," he insisted.
"How can you tell?"
"Only one way to test..."

With a small jump, he rolled onto the sheets that covered her, then started grinding and moaning in emulation of their late-night activities.

"Oh yes, Your Royal Highness, Duchess of Éire! Do me, Your Royal Highness, Duchess of Éire!" he cried in a faux-pornographic inflection; Sharon giggled beneath him.
"Either that is unwieldy, or you're doing it wrong..."
"I like method acting, but I may need your help with..."
"...getting into character?" she replied with a grin.
"Let's do a test drive," he said and kissed her on the neck.
"Ever the romantic.." she moaned, then pushed him a bit to the side and tried to untangle the bedsheets. "Unless you've got scissors, you're gonna need to..." she began, but he already had one of his hands reaching out for her. With a shout and a laugh, she jumped back and pushed Mark away, then descended into a fit of laughter. "You're cold! You're like a shaved yeti!"
"And whose fault is that? You owe me some warmth, Duchess!"

He pounced, but misjudged the shifting mattress, rolled right over her and off the bed before hitting the floor.

"Are you okay?" she asked, but it was hard to express concern while laughing her lungs out.
"I will be..."

And then the phone rang. Again. After struggling with himself and the floor for a few seconds, Mark finally took the receiver.

"Yes, what is it?" he barked; with Mark standing naked before her, Sharon's self-control was nowhere to be found. Almost involuntarily, she blurted out "Somebody's waking up!" and restarted her laughing fit, rolling away to escape Mark's retaliation. In response, Mark grabbed a loose pillow and chucked it at her, bonking it against her head in an unconventional display of his deadly accuracy. Sharon took the pillow in the spirit of its sender and buried her face in it, trying to muffle her laughter.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" Mark said, now somewhat less annoyed. The resigned sigh on the other end of the line could only come from Vince.
"Are you any more dressed than when I called last time?" he asked.

With Sharon rolling around without the sheets and just barely a cover on her face - surely the part of her that needed the least hiding -, they were arguably less dressed than before, in a rare display of nudistic one-upmanship. Mark idly wondered just how much less dressed they could possibly be without losing skin.

"We're getting there, but it's all Collins. You know how the girls are."
"If you'll forgive me saying so, Mark, you don't sound like you are dressed - or getting dressed."
"How can you..."
"I know you too well, obviously."
"Look, we'll be there, okay?"
"Please, Mark. All I'm asking you is to stop thinking with your johnson for two hours..."
"You didn't answer my question before."
"It's 10 now, Mark. Get a move on."
"Quiet part of town, I know the way, give us 10 minutes to get cleaned and dressed, maybe 3 to find my ride, 35 to the restaurant..."
"You're not actually thinking about what I think you're thinking about, are you?"

Mark turned to look at Sharon. The way she teasingly sprawled herself in front of him and smiled wasn't conductive to rationality. She wasn't just pushing his buttons - she had a brick on his gas pedal.

"Let's say 10 minutes," he said, addressing Sharon. She shook her head. "You can't do that," she said. "Is that a challenge, Your Royal Highness?" he gave back.
"Let me put this in terms your dick will understand," Vince said, annoyed but not necessarily unfriendly. "You get your ass and her ass here by 11. Not 11:15, not 12, not whenever you feel like it. 11."
"Yes, Daddy," Mark said. He pounded the receiver back onto the phone, ripped the phone cord out of its wall socket and made a cracking sound with his neck.

"Now, what's my nickname?" he asked.

Suffice to say, he found out.

---

In powersliding the car around the curve, Mark broke more traffic regulations than one could comfortably cite, but he had a meeting to get to on time. He drove his dark blue '70 Oldsmobile 442 like he wouldn't brake for the God Almighty himself.

"Nice car," Sharon said, but the joke was lost on Mark. "Figured you were the muscle car type." When that generated no reaction, she craned her head around to look over her shoulder. "And it has a back seat..."
"Christ, I can't even think about that right now," Mark said. "I haven't had this much sex in, well, ever. I'm gonna sprain something if I look at you."
"I wasn't going to go there, but..."
"Have you no mercy, Madam? This is some kind of aversion therapy, right? Tell me you're not going to keep this up..."
"I just think we should have as much fun as possible while we're on vacation. Like I said, enjoy the ride. Who knows what'll happen when we're back on the job?"
"I can see that, but that's exactly it - this is starting to become work."
"We usually have more time than those ten minutes, though. Maybe aromatic candles...hm, I do have a few ideas. Hanging around gangsters brings out the naughty girl in me."
"Just for a change," Mark said, "I want to take you out on a couple of dates, catch some cheesy chick flick at the movies, pretend I know what a good year for Pinot wine was...you know, some of this courtship stuff you're supposed to do before the filthy animal sex."
"But that sounds like a relationship. Do you think we're ready for that?" she said sarcastically.

Mark just chuckled to himself.

"Anyway, the Russians," he began. "Two guys. One is 'Nicky'. Nicolai Something, heavy weapons expert, he's new in town and Ded wanted him to get a taste of how things work here. Haven't met him, though."
"Uh huh."
"Ded's Russian Number Two, then. Not his real name, obviously..."
"Dedushka?"
"And every year of it, too. You ever meet him?"
"Nope."
"He's a character, that one. Ex-paratrooper, ex-vory, the only asshole in this town older and craggier than yours truly. Real name's Boris Dolvich. Grew up in the Great Patriotic War, went on to be a Light Colonel with the paratroopers, then they sacked his ass for being a contrarevolutionary in '64 or so. Wheelin' and dealin' while he was an officer, but it's not like anyone was clean there - he just got his line of Party credit cancelled, a Commissar had an easy daughter and a party with lots of vodka. To hear Ded tell it, they were on his ass before he ever got near her's, so they shipped him off to Siberia. In the camp, he buried his soldier career and went full-time gangster. He never told me how the fuck he managed to get out of there, all I know is he did the underground brotherhood of thieves thing for a few years, found out that it was the same shit in pink and crossed over. Anyway, he's been here for as long as I can remember."

The 442's dashboard clock showed 3 minutes to 11 when the car came to a screeching halt in front of a Greek restaurant; for one perfect moment, it seemed like New York City actually had an open parking space in just the right location. (And it was swiftly taken by a sex-crazed hitman. Just about figures, doesn't it?)

"Sorry for the delay," Mark bellowed, cutting off Vincent's angry tirade before he could even start; the Italian hitman briefly reconsidered his angle of attack, but Mark laid into him again before he could make a peep. "We had some breakfast," he said, and that left Vince with an opening to exploit. "Yeah, I bet she has an...appetite."

"You just go in there, okay?" Mark said to Sharon, ushering her into the restaurant and away from the conversation. As soon as she closed the door behind her, he spun around, matching Vince's cheek-to-cheek grin with a mask of desperation.
"She's fucking breaking me in, I can tell," Mark said.
"That's just the usual pussy-whipping in progress. Let me guess, you're going for a romantic dinner?"
"Yeah..."
"And you think it was your idea, too?"
"Fuck you. I get a girl and suddenly everyone else is a relationship expert?"
"I am, anyway. Good form that you're still on time, though. The bosses will be here any minute, I already got the place searched, we're good."
"Thanks, I owe you one."
"I'm just gonna put it on the tab. Oh, and your fly's open."

Instinctively, Mark's hand shot downwards, but Vince's smile betrayed that he'd been had.

"Relax," Vince said. "It's gonna be okay."

Mark had to smile despite himself. What are best friends for, if not pranks and humiliating psychological insight?

---

Nicolai 'Nicky' Danko had a gun in one hand and a phone receiver in the other. He was in a hotel room with five more guys and Ded, though the latter had the unenviable position of being bound to a chair and bleeding from a cut on his forehead.

"...see you," he said, then hung up. Idly tapping the trigger guard of his Makarov PB, he walked over to Ded and woke him up with a hearty slap to the face. Ded's eyes slowly cleared until he could be said to be conscious again; Nicolai gave him a punch to the stomach to celebrate the occasion.
"You're only good for bleeding on carpets," Nicolai said, gesturing at the trickle of saliva and crimson from the corners of Ded's mouth; the old Russian didn't reply. "And you owe us."
"Fuck you," Ded managed to say.
"How American of you. Show me those hands."

Ded's arms were fixed to the armrests of the chair; Nicolai easily grabbed Ded's right hand.

"Those tattoos, they used to mean something, no? We have the same tattoos, that makes us thieves and brothers, yes?"
"..."
"You will help us. Prove that you are loyal to the right people."

Nicky seized Ded's pinky finger; he ran the length of the tattoo on it with his free hand.

"Every tattoo is a promise, Boris."

With a sudden move, one of Nicky's henchmen forced a rolled-up sock into Boris's mouth; despite the old man's struggles, it was soon fixed with a few layers of duct tape, gagging the gangster. Nicky leaned in close and drank the look of terror from Ded's face.

"And when you break a promise" - Nicky forced the finger upwards, snapping the bone to the tune of Ded's muffled screams - "you only hurt yourself."

---

Technically, the restaurant was closed for business on Sunday. The meeting meant renting the whole thing, screening personnel and only serving authorized food. It was rather like arranging a dinner for a Senator, but the money was very good - it was hard, if not impossible, to find a restaurant worker in New York City who didn't depend on tips for their livelihood, and the top strata of gangsters thought in rolls of benjamins.

Mark was tapped as security detail, which raised his spirit somewhat by clarifying that he wouldn't have to speak about his recent actions at the table. His role was easy: greet the guests, take their weapons, shoo away the uninvited. A further advantage of this arrangement was that Mark could keep his own guns, which also contributed greatly to his peace of mind - even if he did have to stand around for the whole duration of the meeting.

Alex was the first to show up, dressed in a tasteful suit and now walking rather briskly with her new cane. She repeated some of the instructions Mark had already received, gave him his new mobile phone - "The plastic on this one is a bit harder, I think", she said with a smirk -, then handed over her SIG and took a seat. Captain Whitton and his Berkovitz goon were next, exchanging no words but providing two Glocks for Mark's checkroom arsenal. Finally, Nicky showed up, carrying a smile and a big bottle of white wine.

"Invitation only," Mark said curtly, but was outdone by Captain Whitton, who walked up to the man, loudly said "Nicolai! Welcome!" and embraced the gangster. Mark raised an eyebrow, but it was at least as good as a picture ID to him.
"Boris couldn't come," Nicky said. "But I brought a little present from him." He handed the bottle to a waiter and ordered it put on ice.
"Couldn't come, huh?" Mark replied. "Where is he?"
"Oh, he's probably sleeping now. He caught a cold."
"Too bad."

Nicky tensed to take a step forward, but Mark motioned for him to stay and dialed Ded's number. "I'll just send him some good wishes," Mark said.

---

Ded's cell phone went off; one of the Russians picked it up, then raised his pistol to Ded's skull.

"You make a good act or you die, panimaijesh?"

Ded nodded; another Russian removed the improvised gag, and the phone call was taken.

"Hello?" Ded managed to say, sounding weak and pained from the ordeal.
"Christ, Boris, you sound like shit," Mark said.
"I look like shit, too."
"What's this about a cold I hear? I got some kid here who's trying to sell me that."
"Buy it," Ded coughed. "You just tell Nikolai what you would tell me."

Boris could hear Mark lower the receiver and say "You're late, you old cocksucker!" in a friendly tone, which brought a smile to his face. A second later, the Enforcer was back on the phone.

"Alright, then. Thanks for the present."

The Russian with the gun tensed up; Ded managed to raise his head and stared the gunman straight in the eye.

"California Merlot," Ded finally said. "Horrible wine, but good for Americans."
"You Vodka gulpers have no room for that shit, comprende? Do they even have wine in Russia?"
"Do we have wine? Hah! Rara Neagra, from Moldova. Excellent red wine. In '67, I killed three Armenians to get a crate. Only thing I took with me to America. My treasure."
"Hm. No need to waste it on me, then. Well, sorry to bother you, Boris. You just lie down and get better."
"I will. Goodbye, Mark."

Hung up. The Russian gunman lowered his pistol.

"Well done, old man."

And thus Ded was gagged again, but not shot.

---

The hard part about being on guard duty in a Greek restaurant was watching everyone else eat. The initial round of drinks had long since vanished, and Mark felt bad about the empty chair that should have been Ded's - instead, the poor guy was probably barfing his lungs out, his face tinted to the same shade as the metaxa sauce on those plates. In response to that thought - the metaxa sauce, not the barfing -, Mark's stomach growled. Well, maybe they'd let him have the doggie bag - even if that was a bit below the dignity one should afford a wolf.

Alexandra tried to call a toast to their newest associate when she noticed the emptiness of her glass; in response, Nicolai graciously offered Ded's bottle.

"Gifts are meant to be used," he said, pouring into the empty wine glasses already provided for this purpose. Mark's other craving - some alcohol to take the edge off - reasserted itself. It was probably overblown to call him an alcoholic, but he definitely liked the buzz a lot. But he didn't feel too envious on that count - he'd never liked the taste of vino.

White wine...nasty shit...Ded has red wine...probably also nasty shit. Give me a beer any day.

It was at this precise moment that Mark's fringe knowledge of alcohol proved to be of advantage - even if he didn't drink wine, he'd seen it served and drunk often. Often enough to know that a Merlot shouldn't be white. And if he knew that, he had a hard time believing that Ded wouldn't. It's the little things that ruin your lies, and Mark was sure he smelled a rat.

His suspicions crystallized into action; he fixed his eyes on Nicky and took a step forward to get a better line of sight.

The lithe Russian obviously had a head for this kind of stuff; Mark noticed that he'd unconsciously decided against shooting him right there because Nicky had managed to sit at the table's side, putting Sharon between himself and Mark. With the Enforcer maneuvering himself into a better position, it was obvious enough for Nicky to notice; the wiry Russian had the split second necessary to draw his hidden Makarov PB and aim it at Sharon's head before Mark could snap his Hi-Power from the sleeve. Within three seconds, the jolly meeting turned into a Mexican standoff. Nobody said a word, until Nicolai raised his voice again.

"We do it the hard way, then."

Two Guns - Chapter 10 - Waiting for a Girl Like You

The soothing azure ocean of her dreams made room for the whooshing waves in the background when Sharon came to again; the sun was shining, and when she sat up, the rays blinded her for a few seconds. A small part of her brain tried to say that a rising sun couldn't shine through the front windows if the boat was pointed west, but she was still too tired to listen to that. With a stroke, she rubbed the rheum from her eyes and looked around. She found Mark standing at the stove without a shirt, heating up a pot of water.

"No sugar on my toast," she said by way of greeting; Mark turned to face her, smiled a bit and nodded.
"I prefer 'Good morning'."
"Yeah, good morning to you."
"Thank you. Now, toast is gonna be a bit hard, but..."

Sharon tried to move her legs, which reminded her that she'd had sex last night.

"How did you clean up?" she asked.
"This" - he held up a washcloth - "and a pot of hot water. I'm warming up one for you right now."

Sharon gave him that look.

"Please tell me there's another one," she said. Mark's look swayed from her face to her uncovered breasts - don't draw attention don't draw attention ah shit she saw you move on move on dammit! - to the washcloth, and then he made a show of not looking at Sharon while he climbed the steps up into the pilot house. Sharon heard a few more footsteps outside, then a splash.

"Begone!" Mark shouted; Sharon suppressed a small giggle. When he walked back in, he saw that she still wasn't doing anything for her modesty, so he covered his eyes and carefully stepped down back into the cabin.
"This isn't easy, you know," he said, trying to find a tone that wasn't offensive.
"Don't play this game," she said, still emphatically not hiding anything. "They were perfectly fine yesterday."

Mark uncovered his eyes and looked at her.

"No entrapment here," she said. "Come on, get your fill."

He looked some more.

"Satisfied?" she asked.
"Not yet..."
"Would you prefer a different pose?" she asked, leaning to the side a bit.
"No, that's alright."

And he looked.

"I'm not trying to shut down something I approved," Sharon said with a tone of resignation, "but I wanted to demystify my body, not put it on exhibition."
"Hey, you opened that door. Also, they are still perfectly fine."

Sharon stretched out, thrust out her chest and smiled.

"...the pot's boiling over," she moaned huskily.

Like a flash, he turned and wrenched the pot off the stove, splashing his hands with some unexpectedly hot water and shaking the uncomfortable fluid off while trying not to spill the whole container all over the floor. Behind him, Sharon sunk down deeper into the bed, raised the sheet over her head and started laughing like a maniac.

"This is not funny," Mark said, turning back to her; Sharon giggled and lowered the sheet a bit, letting him see her eyes peeking out.
"Fuck yeah, it's funny. Don't you hear me laugh?"
"You dirty little..."
"What are you gonna do about it, big man?" she said, lowering the sheet to where it could show off her grin.

Without looking, Mark opened a drawer, fished out another washcloth and dipped it into the pot full of hot water. He wrung out some water, then weighed the damp cloth in his right hand.

"You brought this on yourself, you know," he said, then stepped up to the bed and climbed onto it. Sharon giggled and hid under the sheets in response, while Mark dug at the pile of fabric between them, trying to catch her.

And lo, there was much laughing, scrubbing and squealing.

---

After dressing - some, ahem, time later -, Sharon climbed up into the pilot house and surveyed their position. The boat had drifted overnight, leaving them turned away from the shore and maybe a few miles further out. Mark - now himself dressed in a Saturday Night Fever suit entirely too small for him, yet wearing it with dignity - restarted the engine and slowly brought the tender back on course, then brought the boat to speed and aimed for Sheepshead Bay to the North. He was more somber now than during his romp with Sharon, but still riding the emotional high.

"You ever been there?" she asked as she strolled up next to him, then leaned on the console and looked at the waterfront in the distance.
"Couple of years ago." He sucked in a tiny bit of spit and air, setting his teeth on his lower lip in something approaching an un-whistle in look and sound. "T'was nice."
"So," she said, then didn't continue as she fought her voice for words. "How do we handle this? Do we just...forget about it?"

Somehow, Mark felt no surprise whatsoever.

"'kay."
"No, I'm...no. I'm not saying that we should, I'm just..." She threw her head back, closed her eyes and counted to ten - in Latin, as Mark noted with faint approval. "Okay. Start over. I'm not sure how we should proceed from here. I was asking about your opinion." When he didn't answer, she added "In my charming, rhetorically stunted way."

He tried not to smile and failed. A part of him actually felt relieved.

"I don't know, either. Life's funny that way."

She returned his smile. There wasn't much to say in response.

"We have nine more days," Mark said. "Why decide anything now?"
"So we enjoy the ride," she said.
"Let's."

---

Of course, the clothing situation hadn't improved since the day before, so their first stop after dropping off the tender and a short walk on the promenade was a clothing shop. It wasn't haute couture, just rough denim and cotton suitable for a blue collar neighbourhood, but it provided Mark with an opportunity to place a phone call with Alex.

"It's quiet now," Alex reassured him. "Everybody's taken a step back, and we're working out the new ground rules."
"So you need me."
"I'm not gonna lie, I would really like for you to be here," Alex said, sounding a bit too cold for her age. "This isn't an easy time. But we've really got a chance here, you know?"
"I don't think I follow," Mark said, concerned because he usually did follow. That felt uncomfortable.
"Daddy always aimed for detente with the cops. Now we've got you - and you're the man of the hour, believe me - as liaison. This is gonna help us more than a dozen triggermen on the streets."
"This isn't political."
"No, no, of course not, and that's really great! I mean, look at it this way: if you hated her - which you don't - I'd order you to stay on her, make it look good. But you actually do like her, so it's like, win-win. Right?"
"...right. I just don't want..."
"Mark, look. It's all good. You're out there, I'm here. We both do our jobs, okay?"
"Okay," Mark said, letting his breath out. He felt the tenseness of a bad conscience slip off him. "Take care...boss."

He thought he heard Alex laugh.

"Talk to you later," he said, then hung up.

"What do you think?" Sharon asked, parading around in a fresh set of jeans, a denim jacket, flannel shirt and dockworker boots. The smell of fish pervaded Mark's nose without actually being present.
"Very...nautical. Does that chafe?"
"You're about to find out," she said with a wicked smile, then pointed to a similar getup lying folded on the counter.
"You guessed my size."
"I had your old clothes on the boat and all the time in the world to read the labels."
"Solid police work, as always," Mark replied with a smile. He reached into his pocket, slapped a few large bills onto the counter (to the apparent indifference of the craggy-faced shop owner) and went to change in a small cabin.

"We should get a car," Sharon said.
"Oh, definitely."
"And something to eat."
"Yeah."
"Oh, can we go to Coney Island?"
"Sure."
"Because I want to ride the Cyclone!"
"No problem."
"I kinda wanted to for a long time, you know."
"Uh-huh."
"But I didn't dare."
"Hm."
"I think I'm feeling bold today."
"That's great."
"Yeah, we're definitely gonna ride it. It'll be great."

He stepped out of the cabin with the new clothes. His flannel pattern was a bit darker than hers, but other than that, they were wearing basically the same outfit.

It's a wild decade, Mark concluded, then smiled. "How do I look?" he said.
"Ridiculous," Sharon said, keeping a totally straight face.

He gave her a lopsided, one-eyed glare. She just stuck out her tongue for a second and laughed, then grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the store. The shop owner waited until they were well out of the door, listened to the little bell ring when the door slowly drew closed, then took the wad of cash and started counting it.

"Half woulda done it," he said, then shrugged. "City folk," he said, to nobody in particular.

Two Guns - Chapter 9 - Invisible Touch

The worst of the storm was over when the tender clipped the waves, leaving a burning soon-to-be-wreck behind in the depths of the Atlantic. Owing to its long-range applications, the tender was rather a bit bigger than the Zodiac our heroes had used on the way to the yacht, featuring a small cabin below deck and a half-open pilot house on deck. The latter was where Mark stood, trying to make it back to solid land, while Sharon perused the former to locate dry clothes. When she did walk out, Mark reduced the speed to account for the potential distraction, because no thinking and/or feeling female should ever be forced to wear a pearl-white disco suit with a flimsy silk shirt underneath.

"If you even think of the Bee Gees," she said, "I will smack you." Her dark reddish hair still hung in small clumps over her shoulders. It just refused to dry fully, though it had been downgraded from dripping wet to merely damp. "So, uh, about what Silvestro said..."
"Bullshit," Mark said emphatically.
"Yeah, I guess," she said, biting her lip. She let out a short, nervous laugh. "Probably thought he could mess with me."
"Yeah."
"Something on your mind?" she asked and saw him flinch. Truth be told, she was getting better at reading him.

"Well, I was looking for a good excuse to mention it, but...thanks."
"Okay, but what for?"
"For that crazy stunt in the pool. I don't have a clue how you came up with that, but that was a damn good way to get down quickly, break your fall and bail me out."
"That's a little too much credit," she said, smiling. "I was mostly saving myself."
"Look, you can't know this, but I don't often say 'thank you'."
"I do appreciate that...I just couldn't leave you with a, well, false impression of my motives. Or technique. By everything I know, that shouldn't have worked."
"Frankly, Sharon, all I care about is the what, not the how. So, thanks."
"You said that already."
"Guess I did."

Mark shut down the engines. There was a horrible, ghastly silence as they drifted through some winter fog.

"I don't know what to say," he admitted.
"Maybe you just don't know how to say it."
"Yes!" he exclaimed, then calmed down and blushed a tiny little bit. "Er, I mean, yes, it's more a problem of how than what."
"So what?"
"Detective...Sharon. Would you like to go out for dinner with me?"
"That was it?" she asked.

He nodded.

"It's three minutes past Midnight," she said.
"Umm..."
"...but there is a small galley down there."

She gave him a mischievous smile, and he returned it. They were drifting out of the the fog, gradually revealing the glittering lights of the coast in the distance. When it came into full view, Sharon took a look and caught her breath; Mark slipped the tattered remains of his trenchcoat off and draped them around her shoulders like a cloak.

"Enjoy the silence," Mark said. "I'll fix something."

---

The pilot house was too cold to sit comfortably, so they'd relocated to the cabin below and were now camped out on the bed, sitting in sukhasana and eating out of bowls made when Emiliano Zapata was still trying to stick it to The Man. The glittering lights of New York City were visible through the small forward view ports of the cabin, and the maritime radio was softly whispering summarily ignored weather reports.

"That's certainly something," Sharon admitted after her first taste of the rice & beans dish in front of her. The concoction was, well, hearty and wholesome, but there were a few elements to the flavor she couldn't place. "What's in it?"
"Banana and red pepper," Mark said with an earnest expression.
"Wow," she said, eating another sporkful.
"You know, stakeout food."
"I usually make noodles. You know, with tomato sauce." She smiled softly and added "Old Irish family recipe."

"Do you like it?" he finally said.
"Um-hum," she mumbled, awkwardly pulling the spork from her mouth and swallowing the latest bite. "I do."

In eating, Sharon realized how much she hadn't eaten those past few days. The dish was incredibly rich and filling, but she still managed to finish her bowl, which left her with a cozy, warm feeling when she just let herself fall back onto the bed. The boat swayed softly, as if in response, and she closed her eyes. She felt like she was floating in a warm, tropical ocean, far away from the shores of New England.

"Something nice?" Mark asked.
"Hm?"
"You're smiling."
"Something very nice," she admitted. "Do you have family, Mark?"

He stopped chewing for a second, then thought about his response.

"No."
"That must be hard on you."
"It's okay," he said. "My Dad's been gone a long time, my mother passed away a few years ago...but I hadn't spoken to her since I left. I guess Alfredo was there when I needed a father. I owe him a lot."
"Basics of criminal psychology," Sharon said as if she was reciting something. "Sharp focus on personal loyalty."
"Are you analyzing me again?"
"Yes. It's annoying me, too. Please stop being fascinating."
"Oooh, I'm fascinating?"
"I think you are."
"Well, you're not exactly boring either."
"Does that pass for high praise from you?"

Mark stowed the plates on the floor below and crawled over to Sharon.

"No, of course not. You're also daring, capable and good-looking."
"Not beautiful?"
"Not in that suit," Mark quipped. Sharon jumped up and grabbed his shoulders, rolling him onto the bed and sitting on his chest. "I've half a mind to get out of it," she said with a twinkle in her eye.
"Don't let me stop you."

She bowed down, as if to kiss him, but stopped a few inches short.

"What are we doing?" she whispered, genuinely curious rather than scared.
"I don't know, I'm making it up as I go along..." he said, closing his eyes.
"Do you have any more cliches like that?"
"You'll see, won't you?"
"...hang on," she said, then climbed off and scrambled away from the bed. Mark kept lying there while she scrambled through the various drawers in the small cupboard.

"I don't want to pressure you or anything," he said, "but you, Madam, are a goddamn tease. I didn't go into this with any unclean intentions, you know, but certain expectations have been built up..."

As if in response, he felt a little item being thrown at his chest. He opened his eyes, sat up and reached for it - a condom. He glanced to the side and saw Sharon throw the tattered trenchcoat aside.

"Get dressed," she said.
"Yes, Ma'am," he replied.

Two Guns - Chapter 8 - Ace of Spades

One fucking corner. That's all they got before everything went to shit.

It wasn't their fault, they were careful, it's just that having a guy looking your way right behind the first corner was a case of excessively bad luck. Mark had his gun up and fired a single, suppressed bullet, which was bad enough, but then themerc didn't have the courtesy of going peacefully and screamed as he fell, though he was mostly dead when he hit the ground.

Needless to say, this was a rather worrying development for Mark and Sharon, for now they were two against two dozen and the entire ship was waking up around them. Mark took cover behind a bulkhead, and Sharon followed his lead across the small hallway. It was still dark, and the mercs were reacting to the scream, not the shot, so nobody had thought to switch on the exterior lights. Two mercs came down a nearby exterior staircase and hurried on, passing by the pair with nary a second look at the shadows. Sharon glanced over to Mark - he pointed upwards, and she broke cover, knowing that they had to keep moving. She hurried up the staircase while Mark followed - another merc ran up to them along the side of the deck, spotted Mark but caught a bullet in the chest before he could add another shout. Instead of crumbling down like a nice little corpse, he flailed over the yacht's railing, prompting a "Man overboard!" shout from the top (fourth) deck. The floodlights stirred in response, leaving their assigned patrol routes - and spotting a small rigid-hulled inflatable boat just outside the normal search radius, which produced a shout of "Intruder alert!"

Well, actually, only the "Intruder" part, because then the shouter caught a bullet in the neck and hit the water two seconds later. That didn't result in any more shouting, though. The following noises were much more...martial.

The decks were laid out in an compressed H shape; the walkway Mark and Sharon were on had a twin on the starboard side, both terminating into the outer walls of the superstructure before reaching the yacht's bow. In the middle of the yacht, they opened into a large atrium-esque affair, with a swimming pool on the second deck and a glass roof up there in a pavilion-like construction. At the very end, they branched back into two walkways flanking the rear superstructure. The stairway they'd used on the way up was at the terminating end of the forward superstructure, but without direct (and stealthy) access to the individual cabins, so they had to use the exterior walkway to get up to Silvestro's cabin.

Sharon had the heavier armor and the semiautomatic shotgun, so she stayed back and covered the enemy approach while Mark pressed forward, easily killing the two guards with the rest of his magazine. He dropped the empty mag into the sea below and fed the gun with a spare, then kicked the door to the main cabin open. The guards were still confused and disorganized, which counted for something, but the cabin was empty, and Mark felt like he'd been had again. However, that incident was not an example of Silvestro's fiendish intellect - the silver-haired man was simply downstairs in the game room, ruining his wrists on a particularly vicious game of Tempest. Well, not anymore, at that point he'd heard the shots and prepared for battle...but that wasn't a very positive development, either, and now Mark had to account for the fact that Silvestro could be anywhere on the yacht, potentially not even on the ship at all.

He walked out of Silvestro's cabin just as Sharon fired her first shot, blasting an approaching merc with a faceful of double-ought buck. Although she gladly let Mark take the lead in killing - after all, she reasoned, she was a cop and it was bad enough to assassinate one guy, let alone kill random people -, she felt a little less inhibition towards defending herself, and armed mercenaries charging her position definitely fell into that category.

With a few shots, Mark took out the floodlights on the starboard side of the yacht, then grabbed the rail and climbed down one deck, hoping to catch the bulk of the guards in akillzone between him and Sharon's shotgun. Again, an ill-positioned guard spoiled his plan, but this one put two bullets into Mark's vest and took the rest of the Colt's magazine out of the equation. Angrily, Mark tossed the suppressed pistol and snapped his Hi-Power twins free from their spring-loaded holsters. He was through being sneaky.

Both guns readied, he hurried toward the staircase, turned into it and emptied his magazines into the masses of mercs streaming upwards. It was simple and brutal, but in the close quarters, there was no dodging his fire. Those that could do so jumped free through the exits to the lower decks, but most of the mercs didn't stand a chance. When they finally returned fire, they were standing in the blood-soaked mess of six dead and two injured, while Mark ducked out back onto Deck 3 - and behind cover - to reload. A different hitman might have balked at the 'cheap shots', but Mark had less ego and more survival instinct than that. On the third deck, there were walls and windows flanking the atrium part instead of the top deck's simple hand rails; a window shattered from the return fire before Sharon's shotgun barked again from above.

"How are you holding up?" Mark shouted, slipping fresh magazines into his twins.
"I'm fine!" Sharon shouted back.

With the staircase secure for the moment, Mark proceeded into the atrium and drew fire like a flâneur on the battlefields of Verdun. Reflex took over; he ducked and returned fire, nailing the shooter with a group of three through the chest. The man clutched the bloody mess framed by his rips and took a dive into the swimming pool below. More contenders appeared from the rear stairwell, but Mark fed 'em well. More shots from the SPAS-15; Mark counted three before it stopped firing.

After that, things got suspiciously quiet.

Mark wanted to shout and inquire how Detective Collins was doing, but felt ill at ease doing that while someone might be listening - what with implicating her in anything. He hadn't thought to agree oncodenames - or even taken the elementary precaution of ski masks -, so he did what came naturally.

"Sharon!"
"I said, I'm fine!"
"Anybody else?"

There was a lot of silence.

"We want Silvestro. The rest of you are just in the way!"

Again, nothing. Mark reached under his coat and produced a canister of tear gas.

"Don't say I didn't warn you!" he howled, then removed the safety pin and threw it into the empty space in the middle of the atrium. The result was a resounding splash as the grenade landed in the pool. Mark rolled his eyes, crept up to the rear stairwell, readied a concussion grenade and sent it into the pool, with the result of another splash.

"Third time's the charm!" a merc shouted from below.

Then the grenade's timer ran out, the explosive charge detonated and the pool erupted into a veritable geyser.

By the time the mockingbird-cum-mercenary had recovered from the titanic spray, he had two of Mark's bullet in his belly and no more air for one-liners. Mark had slipped down the stairs in the confusion and the four guards on the second deck had a pretty serious, dressed-in-all-black problem. Of course Mark took a few bullets, including a good hit on his calf where he didn't have any armor to stop it, but underneath his clothes, that kind of injury was hard to see. For all the mercs knew, they weren't hitting Mark, which meant they aimed center mass for a "safe" shot, which was exactly what Mark wanted them to do. Still, when the slides locked back and the men were dead, Mark leaned against a bulkhead and coughed the pain out of his lungs. His coat was shredded and riddled with bullet holes, his strike plates were shattered and it was a minor miracle that the bullet in his leg had missed the femoral arteries. (As a point of interest, Mark had no idea what they were called in detail, but he knew there were a few and that getting shot in them was a Bad Thing.)

He'd just recovered from that little burst of adrenaline when the hairs at the back of his neck told him to move, and he half-jumped, half-fell forward, barely avoiding the stroke of a broadsword aimed at his head. He needed the strength of his legs to be mobile on the ground, but he couldn't risk straining his right one, so he just rolled, grabbed the rail around the pool (now reddish from the diving goon's blood) and righted himself. Mark noted that his right hand was free, then noticed a trickle of blood running down the sleeve. Half of the spring-loader (the one with the gun) was on the ground, caught on a small wire. Mark trailed the wire to its origin, leading back to the sword wielder - probablySilvestro's personal bodyguard.

"Fuck you," Mark said. Then there was more gunfire from the SPAS above.

The bodyguard was distracted. Mark wasn't.

He lunged forward, his sole gun empty but good for clubbing, and closed the distance. His fighting style didn't admit standing around and taking it; the only way to win was to push forward and unbalance the opposition. The Bodyguard wasn't as good a fighter, but he had a goddamn sword and swung it at Mark. The hitman whirled, caught the sword's edge with the still present spring-loader on his other wrist and tangled it with his trenchcoat. It was enough of a move to backhand the Bodyguard with his right arm, but not enough to disarm him. The man tore his sword free, cutting away Mark's coat and most of his equipment belts in the process. The carefully arranged mess of knives and grenades dangled from one strap while Mark was beat back to the staircase, desperately avoiding the powerful strikes.

He can't keep this up, Mark thought. But I can't, either.

Mark tried to reach for a knife, but caught the sword's pommel in the face. He tumbled down the stairs to the first deck, his bandoliers finally torn loose. He slammed into the wall halfway down, shook his head to clear it and looked up to a smiling bodyguard.

Mark smiled back and held up a safety pin.

To his credit, the Bodyguard tried to get out of the way, diving into the stairwell, but all he did was shield Mark from the fragments shooting through the air. Looking vaguely like a disturbingly transhuman porcupine, the man slammed into Mark, ramming the tip of the sword into the fake wood panelling in the vain hope of catching himself. After the customary and deeply meaningful locked glances, Mark shoved the man off. He was really hurting now, combat fatigue and most of his gear blown up. Worse, his brain was rattled, and he wasn't perfectly rational on this much adrenaline.

The question was whether this would actually improve things for the remaining mercs.

When Mark appeared on the first deck, he wielded only the sword and a maniacal grin. There was only one guard watching the stairwell, the restpresumably close to Silvestro. Like a good soldier, the man brought his sidearm up and pulled the trigger. It should've been an easy kill, since Mark wasn't making the slightest effort to dodge it, but then the gun failed to fire.

Nobody knows what Mark did to deserve this much good karma.

At this point, the guard should have done a Tap-Rack-Bang! clearing routine, pulled another gun, called for help or maybe even retreated. He didn't. Instead, he got - and this is the scientifically correct terminology -fuckin' stabbed.

But he didn't die, and so he had some screaming to do when Mark set his food against the man's chest when he pulled the sword back out. In fact, he was still screaming when Mark walked on. Oh, he was lethally wounded, make no mistake, but he refused to become unconscious. That wasn't a very good way to die.

---

As a matter of fact, not all of the remaining mercs were with Silvestro. Sharon knew this because a smoke grenade flew up the staircase, belching thick smoke all over the place. Realising the precariousness of her new situation, Sharon decided against backing towards Silvestro's cabin - a dead end - and instead retreated to the atrium. She pumped a few more shells into the smoke where the stairwell's exit had to be, and generated one scream. Still, they had cover, and they tossed a frag in her direction.

Somehow, Sharon's reflexes made her jump the safety rail.

She hit the bloodied water of the pool below just as the grenade went off and went under at once, the heavy armor and weapons dragging her down. A little gulp of air escaped her mouth, but overall she kept it together and failed to panic. The pool was crimson, but mostly on the surface where the corpse still hovered - below, she could see that the pool had windows in its sides showing the first deck.

She pumped the shotgun...

---

Mark was slowly returning to rationality, at an altogether less than optimal point in time. He had his sword to the neck of a guard, who in turn had his pistol aimed at Mark's face.

"You didn't think this through, did you? The old man's behind me. You ain't gettin' past me." the merc said.
"Hey, at least I'm trying, you know?" Mark shot back for want of a better strategy. He had a problem, namely being screwed. But that had a solution: all he had to do was stall the guy. Because when he'd started thinking again, he'd started looking to the sides again, and his backup plan was just about ready...

---

Sharon braced her legs against the frame of the pool's window and set her SPAS-15 against the heavy glass.

This is totally nuts.

---

It wasn't the buckshot that killed Mister Gun-to-Mark's-head, though that helped - but it was the high-speed jet of water that pushed him over the rail and into the icy water. In a better situation, that could have been survived, but there was no chance of rescue. It might have been a bit of a depressing thought, and so it was good that Sharon didn't share his fate - she slammed against the rail but didn't go over it, then opened her eyes and coughed up water.

"Sharon?" Mark said, softly.
"...fine," she wheezed, as if trying to work in a catch phrase.
"I'm gonna need your guns."

He reached for her shoulder holsters and grabbed the twin Berettas. She opened her eyes; water trickled down from her hair all over her face, and she breathed heavily. With an unreadable softness, Mark smiled.

"It'll be over in a minute."

He stripped off the peppered tactical vest, leaving him standing with just a t-shirt. The noise of a boat's motor echoed from the rear of the yacht; he hurried off in that direction.

---

The two last guards stood watch over the yacht's tender while Silvestro prepared to depart, and then Mark appeared. He didn't even try to trick them - he had his guns up when he closed in, waited for them to notice him and cut them both down when they tried to snap up their weapons. He wasn't in the mood to play this fancy, to do stunts or trick them. He just wanted to get this done and over with. He walked to the rear deck and found Silvestro sitting in the tender with a resigned expression. Mark noted that he'd never seen a picture of the guy, but he knew it was him. A middle-aged man with hispanic features, he favored his left leg and wore an impeccably tailored suit - yeah, that's how a cartel leader looks, Mark thought.

"It's funny, you know," Silvestro said. "The guy who helps me with the tender? You killed him first."

Mark didn't respond, but he didn't shoot, either; the only movement came from Sharon, who slowly limped up to the scene with the SPAS-15 as a crutch.

"Is that him?" Sharon asked; Mark just nodded, never taking his eyes of the drug runner.
"Why are you trying to kill me?" she said, raising the shotgun to fire.

Silvestro just smiled.

"If I tell you, will you let me go?"
"No," Mark said - before Sharon had a chance to even consider it.
"Then I won't tell you."
"Too bad," Mark added again, then raised his gun to shoot.
"Hang on," Sharon said.

Silvestro focussed his look on her.

"Call it off," she said.
"I can't call off what's already over," Silvestro said. "You've killed everyone I sent after you, killed everyone who protected me. You've won."

He just looked at her.

"What do you think this is? Some kind of bad dream, and I'm the genie who fixes everything? What I say now doesn't mean shit."
"I need you to say that I'm safe," she snarled.
"You're not safe. Not ever. You're safe from me, maybe, but don't think you can pull this shit and walk away." He shot a poisonous glance at Mark. "You're fixing nothing. The good times are over. You don't get it, do you? There's no rules anymore. I did what I could get away with. And that old fucker never knew what hit him."

Mark's finger twitched. Silvestro grinned.

"I gave them orders not to kill the girl, you know. I always wanted a daughter..."

They both shot him.

He didn't stumble and fall into the cold water, he just slumped down into the tender and stayed there, unmoving and unblinking. Sharon lowered her gun first. Not the first guy she'd killed, by far, no - but the first one she'd murdered.

"Take care of the body and launch the tender," Mark said. His face was less unreadable than usual, but still not conclusive. He grabbed the shotgun from Sharon and walked off. "I'm gonna scuttle this piece of shit."