Part V El Sabio

Matzi was headed for an ambush.

Tasìa kept on his tail, trying to figure out what her favorite little mobster had been up to since he was last a member of her crew.

There had been a great deal of turnover in the big players on the Vida Escondida scene while she was a prisoner of the Salvage, and he had found a new home team somewhere in that chaos.

For whomever it was he had cast his fortune, Matzi fulfilled the same function as a walk around guy like he did for her so many months ago.

Still he wore one of his characteristic pinstripe suits, thin handle bar mustache and fedora.

Tasìa crouched, hidden on the second story roof of a strip mall. To the south, the Densidad ProActiva factory building, where she had executed a tremendously satisfying raid the year before, dominated the salmon-colored beveled mortar that defined the Vida Escondida skyline.

Out to the west, she spotted the neon lit commercial district and scattered scrubland that surrounded del Tessa street. It was her favorite part of the city. There was nothing posh about del Tesse - the surrounding community that shared the name of the main drag.

Motels, gambling joints, squat bungalows, liquor stores, guys selling gray market moddies and tacos out of their vans, automotive repair garages, gun shops, shooting ranges, parks of minihome stacks, and custom order assembly plants spread out along the roadways.

Tasìa turned her attention back to the ambush that caught her eye in the mid-distance to the south where three skaters were shuffling about the down slope of a rain drainage head duct.

Their apathetic circling around was the lack of action that caught Tasìa's attention even before she put a scope on them. They barely feigned interest in their sport of timed board kicks that twist slammed over the duct grills.

Obviously, it was something they had done hundreds of times before, but the lack of energy caused one lad to bust his ass.

The crew was distracted; constantly they threw glances over to the strip mall, impatiently waiting for someone.

Were they spotters? Or, waiting on a call to get into position for a take down?

She spotted hidden in the folds of their loose clothing knife handles.

Tasìa had to peak through the scope to figure out these were just simple switchblades. Their slightly larger alpha operator wore a bandage over his right ear. He was suited up a bit differently, too. His socks were stocking thick, and fastener connected to a set of kneepads.

Tasìa's eyes blurred as she detected beneath the white sock's woolen material an odd shape.

She wiped at her eyeballs. Lack of sleep was making the balls feel dry as dust. Sand gritted against both bottom lids.

Not the time for this shit!

She refused to inject the liquid vellocet she originally intended for the now unemployed office manager Leeza Donada until the NeoPalm heist was in motion, otherwise the energy boost from the methamphetamine might have gone to waste.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Tasìa had a quarter of her water bottle still filled. She doused her palm and wiped her eyes before shaking the drowsy feeling off.

Reestablishing eye visual with her target, she was not able to make heads or tails of the object underneath the sock. Tasìa flipped the Katy Lieds on to record in analysis mode. To save time, she narrowed down the search criteria to an assumption of hidden weaponry.

The object showed in-screen as a neatly compact shock grappler. It could throw a chain four meters out that gripped on a limb before administering a debilitating shock.

Nasty bit of tech; the Katy Lieds gave her a price and ETA delivery time for the product of two hours as it asked her in subdermal mode if she would like to make a purchase.

Tasìa chuckled. Operative equipment cost a little extra to keep commercial applications off the devices. She didn't bother for a streamlined customization. In her mind, this was a short term mission done off the cuff.

Directly below her, people shuffled around a hyper active commercial district. Matzi pretended to be distracted as he mingled at an optical frames kiosk.

Matzi used the many reflective surfaces of the kiosk to locate his tail. From his tensed up neck and forward lean that added a lear to his gaze, she surmised he wasn't just checking his six, he was certain that someone was following him.

Matzi didn't have her advantage of an overhead view, and she caught sight of the operatives following Matzi near to instantly.

Two thugs, a pair of females, chatted together and walked slowly while nibbling sushi roles from infolded containers. They were pretty good at maintaining cover.

But they were the only ones in the moving crowd who halted as Matzi approached the mirror-surfaced kiosk. They shifted left to avoid being sighted, not realizing Matzi was expecting twelve people to pass him within a set time count.

He would note who was missing. Tasìa only knew this because Matzi taught her the technique.

Once again as she studied this pair, her Katy Lieds told her what the contours beneath her target's jackets meant in terms of weaponry. Each carried a Škorpion vz C33. A somewhat more compact variant from the Twentieth Century model Tasìa had lay claim to in Villa Marrón.

She kept the excitement on the down low. No girly squeals at a theft prospect. Tasìa was out of anyone's view, but not out of sound range.

It would be nice to acquire a replacement for the Škorpion she had lost, but it was a distraction from her mission.

And her sleep deprived mind was prone to distraction, but before she even entertained settling down for the evening . . .

- It's morning T! People are here for their breakfast sushi rolls served with hard boiled eggs before going off to work.

. . . she needed to recruit Matzi. The only member she was able to save from being ensnared in Fiona 'Birddog' Caza's snare.

Matzi was on the move again. He was definitely headed across a little park adjacent to the drainage ducts.

Glancing back again, the two thugs cased this change in the scenario with more deliberative professionalism than Tasìa assumed them capable.

They worked a wedge against the crowd to force their way through them.

Similar dress and body build.

Her Katie Lieds updated the search with more info. Custom built machine pistols specced for the Czech Special Operations Team Sametové Indigo.

Škorpions! Irregular issued Škorpions at that!

Tasìa cursed her own naïvete. This was not a pair of thugs that she scoped. They behaved like an extraction team.

Tasìa needed to act before anything happened to Matzi. Perhaps, if she wounded one of the skaters, it would force everyone to withdraw from their chase, and Matzi could get away.

Calm your tits, Tasìa admonished herself. Her gun was too big a caliber for mere flesh wounds.

It needed to be a nonlethal takedown and not break her cover, but the .357 Iconoclastic was loud.

Think fast!

That meant mayhem. Tasìa sifted through her fanny pack where four thumb-sized flash grenades were clipped. She plucked one out, rolled over to the gables, tossed the grenade just in front of the lead operative, and rolled back into cover.

Even as she got back into position, Tasìa had the .357 Iconoclastic Revolver readied. She lined the sight quickly to time the shot with the explosion.

Right there, the alpha operator stood on his board, scratching at his bandaged ear. Matzi running towards him got his attention. The young man reached down while carefully balanced on the board, and pulled out the shock grappler.

She aimed at the weapon, now exposed off to the side of the shin so there was little chance to injure the punk beyond shrapnel toss.

Tasìa eased her index finger onto the trigger. She heard the flash grenade go off, and then . . . through brain fog she heard herself snore.

A familiar whispery laugh disturbed her sleep but did not bring her out of it.