"The Tower of Pain": IC (Ask to join, please)

tonyroleplays

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"The Tower of Pain"



(To join, see the note at the bottom)​


The gang banger's expression showed his disappointment in the man standing before him. ""You're Mister Black?"

"I am," the man in the business suit and expensive, eye-hiding sunglasses answered simply. "And you would be K-man."

"I would be," the thug decked out in gang colors familiar to the City said in a tone mocking Mister Black's professional air.

"What does that mean ... the K in K-man, I mean."

K-man pulled the waist band of his over sized shirt up to present a 9mm with an extended length clip. "Kill it."

"Kill it," Mister Black repeated, obviously unconcerned at the sight of the weapon. "Yes. I heard that that was your answer to any situation that didn't seem to be going the direction you wished."

"Works," K-man said simply. He very conspicuously tucked the waist of his shirt behind the hand gun, leaving it exposed and more easily accessible.

The meeting with Mister Black had been carefully arranged, so K-man was feeling confident. He had set the location, he had personally watched Mister Black swept with a metal detector, he was holding in the small of his back the small .38 the strange visitor had announced he was carrying, and he had chosen the hiding spots for his two shooters, the nearest hiding in a van with an AK-47, and the furthest -- a sharp shooter drummed out of the Army for killing civilians in Afghanistan and stealing a truck load of hashish -- armed with a semi-automatic sniper rifle.

"What's with this Men in Black shit," K-man said. He chuckled, and -- in step behind their leader -- the eight gang bangers in a semi-circle behind K-man laughed as well. "You think you're hunting aliens or something?"

"No," Mister Black said, "I'm hunting people who are in my way. And ... you're in my way."

K-man didn't like the threat, and his sudden change in expression -- and the tensing of his body -- showed it. "How the fuck am I in your way."

"The Timmons Tower," Mister Black said, knowing it was all he needed to say.

"Belongs to me," K-man said firmly.

"Not any more. May I reach into my pocket...? Inside left jacket. You're boys already swept me."

K-man slowly lifted his hand to the butt of the Nine in his waste, then nodded. Behind him, the other eight readied themselves in a variety of ways, from casually drawing their weapons, to handling their already drawn weapons in a more ready fashion, to looking around for signs that Mister Black might not be alone.

Mister Black reached very slowly to the inside jacket pocket and, even more slowly, pulled a sheet of paper. He offered it out, and -- after K-man nodded one of his boys that direction, handed it over and said, "The Timmons now belongs to me. Building, grounds ... everything."

K-man kept his eyes on Mister Black as the man with the document read, then summarized. "He bought it for a dollar. A fucking dollar, really?"

"Well, the back taxes and liens were a bit more than that," Mister Black said, sounding like he was in a business meeting with a bunch of suited executives. "But the payment to the bank was, yes, a single dollar."

K-man studied Mister Black for a moment, then smiled widely, then began laughing. Some of the others laughed, too, but a few of them were smart enough to understand that this man in a business suit wouldn't have come to an isolated, abandoned construction site alone to meet known killers if he didn't have some kind of plan or back up.

Ironically, K-man knew this, too. But his over confidence had blinded him to reality. "So, you think this piece of paper is enough to take The Timmons from me?"

"No, of course not," Mister Black said, his tone becoming more friendly with almost every word. "I was hoping that I could convince you to ... resettle ... somewhere else. I might even be able to help you with the expenses. Maybe a moving van ... motel rooms for you and your boys while you look for a new home ... that sort of thing."

K-man's expression was somewhere between amusement and confusion. "Fuck! You're serious, aren't you ... Mister Black?"

"Yes. Beginning right now ... this moment ... The Timmons is off limits to you and your boys." Mister Black shifted his head, to ensure than each of the other eight knew he was looking at them, despite the fact that he'd been eye balling each one of them periodically through the entire meeting from behind the dark glasses. "If you would like, I could arrange a suite at the Marriott for you for a couple of nights ... hookers, booze, drugs ... what ever you need to feel comfortable while you make other arrange--"

"Fuck you!" K-man cut in, his hand now gripping tightly on the butt of the 9mm that -- inconspicuously but still noticed by Mister Black -- he'd just switched from safety to fire with a slowly moving thumb. "The Timmons is mine ... and if you don't want to be dead, you'll get the hell out of this City."

Mister Black's lips spread in the first smile he'd shown the gang bangers. "You disappoint me ... K-man. I ... I was expecting more. I was expecting you to live up to your name."

"What...?" K-man asked incredulously. "You want me to kill you?"

Mister Black's smile faded. "I want you to try."

A moment of hesitation passed, during which each of the gang bangers was tensing up, preparing for an imminent shoot out. For the first time, K-man began to wonder whether or not he'd been the only man to bring his own snipers to the meet. He took his eyes off Mister Black for the first time during their encounter, glancing past the man to the nearby structures.

At that moment, Mister Black dropped and slipped sideways, reaching to his collar directly behind his neck, and in one swift movement pulled and threw a ceramic knife which had escaped the metal detector sweep. It hit K-man in the throat, just left of his trachea. It punctured his carotid, and as a shocked K-man reached up to clutch at his neck, his life force was already pumping out upon him and the ground before him.

The move by Mister Black didn't go unnoticed by the others. Some of them immediately aimed their weapons at the man who had, essentially, just killed their gang's leader; while others -- fearing attack from more than just this one man -- headed for cover while simultaneously trying to level their weapons at the either fearless or insane stranger.

The move by Mister Black hadn't gone unnoticed by others, either. The stationary and moving gang bangers were taken down in seconds by snipers firing from four different directions; and the van containing the AK-47 wielding gunman was being littered with bullets from a sound-suppressed automatic rifle fired by a fifth man hidden, ironically, in the same building where K-man's sniper had already bled out from a silenced bullet to the back of his head.

Mister Black -- not one to risk his life to overconfidence as K-man had mistakenly done -- had rolled to the left, came to his feet quickly, and in a crouched position found cover behind an empty metal barrel. By the time he'd pulled a second ceramic knife from up his sleeve and looked around for a target, the fight was over.

He stood slowly moving out to check on the gang bangers, kicking weapons aside as need be and sticking the knife into the necks of the still living, also as need be. Within 20 seconds of the first knife being thrown, the only man still alive on the construction site was Mister Black.



Five minutes later, the men who had been behind the sniper rifles had the dead gang bangers loaded in a van and their weapons -- covered in the criminal's finger prints -- packed in a crate to establish their still living activities in other locations.

A tall man in gray camouflage stepped up to Mister Black and asked, "Peter, are you gonna need us tonight to get you into the Timmons?"

"No, Skipper," Peter Black said. "I think with these guys out of the way, that should be pretty easy. The snipers in the buildings...?"

"Pfft!" the man said, glancing toward the van full of bodies. "They never saw us coming."

The two men shook, and Peter handed Skipper a back pack. "Two hundred grand, as promised."

"You know this isn't necessary," Skipper said with a sincere tone. "We would have done this for you for free. We all owe you."

"Yes, I know," Peter said, patting the man on the shoulder, then looking and gesturing to each of the other men as was their individual custom. "But you need to get out of town for a few days, just in case this blows up. Find a beach and some girls in bikinis--"

"Naked!" one of the men called out, causing all to laugh.

Peter looked to his friend and former SEAL compatriot. "I have this. It's just a building full of criminals. It's not like its Baghdad or Kabul, right?"

"Right." Skipper shook Peter's hand again, then ordered the others to mount up. He gave Peter one last look before the van pulled away, asking, "Why are you doing this? What the fuck do you care about a building full of gang bangers and whores?"

"I have my reasons, Skip." He waved politely, not enjoying keeping information from the man and men who had been there so often in six different theaters of operation over the past two decades. "Enjoy the sand."

As the van roared away, one of the men called out, "Naked women!"

The last thing Peter Black heard was the laughter of the men fading away into the late afternoon.

<<<<< >>>>>​
See the OOC Thread for information. Please do not post replies in the OOC: it is not a "Seeking Writers" thread. If you want to know more, PM me. Thanks
 
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Despite K-man and several of his TKD Lieutenants and gun hands having been eliminated, The Timmons still had a significant armed presence in and around it. Skipper's concerns about Peter getting into the building would have been something to be concerned about, if Peter hadn't had a rather devious and -- some would say -- retched sense of humor.

The nice thing about having once been a Navy SEAL is that you get to know a lot of people with diverse knowledge and skills. One of the men Peter had served with had been and was again a bee keeper, although the bees he kept -- wasps, hornets, and the like -- were raised for scientific research and horror movies, not honey production. Another one was a dare devil ultralight pilot who, among other things, had flown right down the middle of Manhattan one year, dropping leaflets declaring the war in Iraq a ruse by then-President Bush to enrich his industrial buddies.

As dark fell on the Fourth of July, those residents of The Timmons in good standing with the TKD began gathering on the roof for a wild party and fantastic view of the fire works display taking place less than half a mile away over the river. The crowd of fifty or sixty danced and drank and smoked and fucked: it was just another typical party for society's scum.

Just a few minutes before the 10pm fireworks began, an ultra light -- the sound of its little motor overwhelmed by the big stereo booming on the roof -- passed just over the top of The Timmons, releasing six containers just a few seconds apart. The lightweight, Styrofoam containers burst upon impact, surprising those near enough -- and sober enough -- to notice them.

The curiosity about what was happening gave way quickly to the sharp yells and screams of the party goers as the thousands of angry bees began swarming them, biting and stinging both, depending upon the species preferences for showing their fury.

Men and women slapped at the air and at their bodies, desperately trying to kill the ferocious, mostly unseen creatures. It didn't take long for the party goers to begin running for the roof access, and within a couple of minutes the only people left on the roof were three men and a woman who had long ago passed out and either were left alone by the bees or barely even registered that they were getting attacked.

The ultra light's second pass was well timed: just as the last of the party goers fled into the roof access, heading downstairs for the safety of their apartments, the little craft passed over again, dropping dozens of small devices fell from another container. As they struck the roof, they exploded and sent up huge clouds of thick smoke which -- because of their excellent placement -- drifted across the roof top, essentially putting to sleep those bees that hadn't already blown away with the crisp breeze.

That first ultra light was barely away as a second one -- this one with two people aboard -- approached the building. It appeared as if it was going to crash into the building's top floor, but just before it did, the updraft that the pilot had been expecting suddenly shot it twenty feet above the building's edge. He nosed it down and -- with the loss of the updraft -- easily dropped it down to land upon the building, smashing into the big stereo system -- killing it -- and a table covered in booze and beer bottles.

"Fuck!" the pilot called out, wincing at the smoke drifting across his ride.

"You knew this was going to happen," Peter Black reminded him. "Crash landing, I mean."

"Oh, fuck that!" the man said, unstrapping his belt and jumping out of the ultra light that was dancing in the breeze cutting across the building's roof. He snatched up a broken bottle of whiskey and said with feigned despair, "This is the good stuff, and I went and wasted it with a bad landing."

The two men shared a short laugh, then set to unloading the two canvass bags strapped to the small plane. The loss of the weight of the men had made the ultra light teeter to and fro, but once the heavy bags were removed, it tilted over onto one side, bending the frame as it snapped a metal cable.

"Help me," the pilot said, getting on the upwind side of the craft. Peter moved around to him, and with a mighty shove, they easily pushed the craft over the side of the building. If fell into the night and, unseen and unheard, crashed somewhere below near the base of The Timmons.

"You're good here?" the pilot asked Peter, glancing to the bags, then back to his old Navy buddy. "You sure you don't need me to stick around. Kick some butt."

Peter shook his head and shook the man's hand. "No, this is something I have to do for myself. It's not going to be entirely legal."

"When have our jobs ever been entirely legal?" the former SEAL reminded him.

"And ... some of the things I'm likely to do," Peter went on, his voice hesitant. "Well, let's just say that bible thumping mother of yours wouldn't approve."

"Okay," the man said reluctantly, turning and running over to the building edge, upon which he carefully positioned himself. "Ta ta for now."

Before Peter could even respond the man jumped. With the stereo now silenced, Peter could hear the parachute slap full of wind and even thought he heard the man screaming in delight as he headed out toward the open space of the abandoned baseball fields to the south.
 
(OOC: Introducing my first expendable character.)


Kyle Lee was feeling stood up. His contact inside the TKD was supposed to have met him at 9pm, in between a meeting with a new contact, mysteriously named "Mister Black", and the City's fireworks display, which had always been a big to-do for the gang.

He chuckled to himself briefly, contemplating the criminal organization's fondness for patriotic holidays. Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Veteran's Day: they were all celebrated by the TKD with big blow out drug and sex parties. Kyle could only assume that it had something to do with the ex-military makeup of the gang, which -- to Kyle's knowledge -- included at least seven former army and marine members; and the connection they had to at least three military depots, from which they had long been purchasing misappropriated weapons.

That was Kyle's interest in the TKD: gun running. A dozen shootings around the City attributed to TKD members were carried out with weapons proven to or thought to be from stolen military weapon's caches. Kyle had only just recently made detective and even more recently joined the gang task force.

But he was eager to get the evidence needed to prove these shootings were both TKD and military weapons. He already had assurances from his older brother, an agent with ATF, that if he could prove the connection, his Federal agency would swoop in and clean out The Timmons Tower, which was the source of so much woe in the part of the City.

He checked his watch and, coincidentally, the first of the City's fireworks exploded above the river. An hour late ... fuck. A moment later, his cell phone rang. He answered, "Lee."

"Bad news, buddy," his partner said simply. "We just got word of a gang hit down on Trent and 42nd ... the old Bailey Construction site. Witness was a homeless guy sleeping in an abandoned pump house."

"Who was the target?" Kyle asked anxiously. Whether it was his guy hit or his guy doing some of the hitting, this wasn't good news. "Who's dead?"

"The witness isn't exactly reliable, Kyle. According to him--"

Another explosion in the sky, followed by several others caused the man -- who obviously was within ear shot of the fireworks, too -- to halt for a moment. "Witness says seven or eight guys, maybe more, met another guy or two out in the middle of the construction site. They talked, there was a shoot out, and only one man stood back up."

"Do you have IDs on the dead?" Kyle asked anxiously. "Is my contact down?"

"That's the problem, buddy," the partner said. "No bodies."

Kyle hesitated for a moment. It wasn't unheard of for a shooter to haul away the body of someone he didn't want others to know was dead. But gang hits? Those were usually an act of pride: the bodies were often left out for the cops or fellow gang members to find, often with the shooters' calling cards left behind as a message, "Don't fuck with us!

"Witness says four or five new guys came from the buildings surrounding the Shootout at the OK Corral, threw the bodies in a van, and hauled ass."

Kyle laughed in disbelief. "Bullshit! How do we even know this happened? Is there--"

"Blood?" the partner cut in. "Yeah, lots of it. They kicked dirt over it, trying to make it less obvious, but we've got lots of evidence. Blood, tire tracks, casings -- all the TKD's, by the way -- and boots. And you're not going to believe this, Kyle. The boots ... our forensic guys say there military."

Kyle released a puff of air. "What the fuck!"

"I'll get back to you when I know more, buddy. We don't know much, but ... Didn't your contact say Ken Miser was going to be here personally?"

"K-man, yeah," Kyle said, turning away from the meet point and heading back to his car a block away. "They were meeting some new contact--"

Another round of fireworks lit the sky and filled Kyle's ears. After the sound abated, he continued, "The guy gave K-man ten grand, no strings attached. Told him he didn't even have to come to the meet, but that if he didn't, he'd find someone else to move two and a half million dollars in drugs and weapons."

"What? Two-point-five mil'? You told this to the Captain, didn't you?"

Kyle hesitated. He had concerns about their Captain after allegations of bribery and evidence tampering were leveled at the man who was, by all accounts, living well above his means.

"You can't hide something like this from the Captain," his partner said with genuine concern. "I know you don't trust him--"

With the next set of explosions, Kyle quickly disconnected the call after saying, "Gotta go."

He jumped into this car and shot through the City until, twenty blocks later, he was sitting on the far side of the open space that faced the entrance to The Timmons. He pulled a pair of high powered, night binoculars from the back seat and trained them on the building. The TKD was guarding the front as usual, being inconspicuous and conspicuous at the same time, meaning that their body language said they were armed to those entering and exiting but the weapons they were carrying were concealed, should they have to suddenly flee inside when the cops decided to raid the place.

He watched the building for twenty or thirty minutes and realized that something was definitely wrong. None of K-man's Lieutenants were anywhere to be seen, and there was almost always one of them on The Timmon's entrance. The gang bangers who were at the door looked exceptionally nervous, despite a long time truce with the other City gangs that made this and several other days a day of no violence.

Kyle trained his binoculars on the roof, 22 stories above him. He was on the east side of the building -- the river or fireworks side -- so he'd been expecting to see a whole line of people standing at the building edge, watching the show. There was no one, but there was an odd smoke coming off the top of the building, as if the barbeque had been taken to extremes this year.

When he lowered the binoculars and looked around the neighborhood for anything else odd, he found it. On the ground about seventy feet from the base, a dozen people were standing around a heap of cloth and metal. He looked at them with the binoculars and realized he was looking at the remains of a crashed ultra light aircraft.

He got on his phone and called Central, asking if they had anything on a downed ultra light. The answer was nothing.

Then, as if that wasn't strange enough, cars that he recognized as belonging to TKD members began screaming up to the front of the building and people -- gang bangers and tag-alongs alike -- began flooding out, holding various parts of their bodies as if injured.

As the people jumped into cars and sped away, Kyle -- wearing casual street clothes -- stepped out and walked up to the closest group of people who didn't seem to include a TKD member. When they made eye contact, he asked, "What's up?"

"Killer bees, man," one of the more intoxicated men said. "Fuckin' killer bees man, on the roof."

"Killer bees?" Kyle asked doubtfully. "Up on the roof of The Timmons."

One of the girls held her arm out, showing an inch in diameter swollen spot that was red enough to show up in the low light of the street lamps. "They might not have been killer bees, but the fuckers sting like crazy."

Kyle watched the activity for a while, still looking for his contact, K-man, and the Lieutenants that normally would have gone with them on a meet and greet. He still saw none of them.

He decided to risk name dropping. "Hey, The Timmons ... that's K-man's place, right?"

"Damn straight," the drunk guy spat out.

"Anyone seen him tonight?" Kyle asked. When most of the eyes turned to look at him suspiciously, he pulled up his sleeve to show the fake track marks. "I'm in need, and they said he was the man to talk to."

"No one's seen him all day," one of the women said. When Kyle asked if there was anyone else he should ask, someone who might know more about K-man, the woman shot him a harsh glare. "I'm his fuck! If anyone knows, it's me, prick."

Kyle threw his hands up in a surrender gesture, apologized, hesitated a moment, then backed away and left. He glanced over the entrance, the still departing cars, the ultra light crash, and just shook his head.

What the fuck...
 
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