Loyalty Among Thieves

September 22, 2014
9:22 PM

Though bounty hunters are often seen as fiction or ancient history, there may be a few appearing in modern-day Washington D.C., as the Federal Bureau of Intervention has today placed a reward of five million dollars for the capture of each of the Payday Crew members. FBI Director Angelo Stevens was quoted as saying that he was willing to take any measure to remove these criminals, including getting help from outside the Bureau. Will anyone collect on these bounties, or will the Payday Crew simply continue to pile up the bodies of those who stand in their way? Stay tuned for our expert analysis on the Seven O’clock News.

~~~

“So, now that we’re all here, can you tell me just what we’re doing?” Rainbow asked, pointing her binoculars at the road leading through the harbour. There was a makeshift fence of shipping containers pressed right up against the road, one of the highest of which she was holed up in.

“GenSec are the biggest security company on the East Coast,” Bain began. “If someone wants their building secure, private or business, odds are GenSec provides it. They do everything: doors, alarms, manpower... They also tend to move things around a lot, from little Timmy's favourite baseball card to gold bullion for the banks.”

“Let me guess. You found out that this particular convoy’s carrying that gold.”

“Right now, they're in possession of something the Dentist wants. He doesn't know where the item is, but this convoy is carrying a manifesto that might lead us to it. We're going to drop a shipping container as the trucks pass through the harbour, and the gang will spring out, open the trucks and take the document.”

She took her eyes off the road for just a moment to see the container hanging from the magnetic crane. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just tell me when the trucks are coming, and we'll handle the rest of the caper. These docks have a long history of criminal endeavours; hopefully, we can do that record proud.”

“Gotcha.” She turned back to the road. Nothing was coming, still. “That container looks a little high up. Are you sure the crew can survive that drop?”

“If we hang it too low over the road, someone’ll get suspicious. Besides, the Dentist said he had that under control, and I have no reason not to believe him. He knows a lot of people in a lot of places and fields, after all. Calls them his patients.”

Nodding slowly at the revelation, Rainbow turned back to the road. “Hey! Bunch of trucks are coming! Four of ‘em, all painted alike! Must be our convoy!” She paused for a moment as the first turned the corner, then shouted, “Drop it now!”

As the container fell from the magnetic crane, accompanied by a faint purple glow that she wrote off as a mirage of some kind, Rainbow realised she’d mistimed it. The first truck made it through, and the second managed to accelerate just hard enough to get under. “We got the last two trucks,” she reported back. “Sorry, must’ve mistimed the drop.”

“Well, you did what you could,” Hoxton said. “And we’re all okay in here. Guess our contractor came through for us.”

“Looks like there’s a few people getting out of the trucks.” After a moment’s checking without the binoculars, she said, “There’s six of them. Red shirts, red caps, and they’ve all got guns.”

“Roger that,” Dallas replied. “Okay, Wolf, Chains, I’ll leave this part to you. Take the security down, and get the drill mounted on one of the trucks. As soon as it’s open, Hoxton, get to the strongboxes inside. Rainbow, keep an eye out for any incoming police. The other trucks probably already made the call. Ready?” A short pause. “Go!”

The doors of the container burst open, and Rainbow instinctively looked away as the sounds of gunfire echoed in the narrow street. There was a long report from Chains’ machine gun on one side, a single explosion echoing from Wolf’s shotgun, and a few quick bursts from the other that were silenced almost immediately. After a few seconds of total silence, she looked down to see that all the people she’d marked out were dead, along with a few others she hadn’t seen.

From the height she was at it seemed unreal, the bodies seeming as though they were dead before she arrived. The only clue that they were fresh bodies was the blood still pooling underneath them. She started to feel the bile building up again, but with the surreality of the vista she had, along with her will to get the job done this time, she was able to suppress the feeling.

The drill’s distinctive sound broke the silence. “Alright, that’s the first truck ready,” Wolf said without the communicators. “About three minutes before we’re in.”

Wolf’s ‘normal’ speech surprised Rainbow when she heard Chains give her an order through it: “Hey, Rainbow, keep an eye on the road. Cops could show up any minute now.” Sending back a simple acknowledgement, she pulled up her binoculars again, looking out at the roads leading off the scene. Nobody was coming, and even if she focused as far out as possible, she couldn’t see a single moving car.

“Where the hell are the cops?” Wolf asked, leaning against the truck. He pumped his shotgun once, loading the shell straight back in. “What’s taking them so long? They didn’t take this long when we did that Roberts Bank job at the outskirts of town. On Christmas!” Chains was whistling a tune to himself, and didn’t reply. Hoxton and Dallas were out of sight, but the muted screams she could just barely hear indicated that they were busy nonetheless.

“Alright, that’s the dock workers taken care of,” Dallas reported. “What’s the situation out there?”

“Bored out of my mind, but otherwise okay.”

“Totally empty. Nobody around as far as I can see.”

“A minute left on the drill. Get that lockpick of yours ready, Hoxtonator.”

“I don’t like this at all, guys,” Bain said suddenly. “I can’t hear any chatter from the police at all, but we hit the convoy ages ago, and the other trucks must have put out an SOS by now. I can’t shake the feeling we’re about to get sucker punched.” He paused for a moment, then added, “Be ready to move that drill, Wolf. If the manifesto isn’t there, we’ll need to get the other truck too, and that’ll mean we’ll be here even longer. Don’t make this job any longer than it has to be.”

“Just a few seconds to go. Everyone get ready!”

As the drill beeped once, Wolf picked it up and stowed it in his bag. Hoxton stepped up to throw the doors open, then stopped short. Rainbow couldn’t see his face, but he was frozen in terror, shouting a single word: “BULLDOZER!” She didn’t know what it meant, but she saw him turn and duck as the deafening shotgun blast ripped past him.

A large man in thick green armour slid out the open doors, shouting something indistinctly as he landed. He levelled his shotgun at Hoxton again, but was interrupted by Wolf jumping on him and grabbing at the faceplate. Kicking the shotgun out of the ‘Bulldozer’s hands, he tore off the faceplate with his left hand and drew a pistol with his right, levelling it straight at his prone opponent’s face.

Rainbow looked up as the execution ended, and what she saw instead didn’t make her feel any better. “The streets are filling up, guys!” she said. “Cops everywhere! Looks like you’re going to have to fight it out!”

Looking down at last, she saw Wolf helping Hoxton up to his feet. Most of the shotgun pellets had missed him, but a couple had landed in his left arm. Dallas pulled a bandage out of the bag at his hip, along with a bottle of painkillers. “How many do you see?” Bain asked, and she looked back up.

“Six cars that I can see. Don’t know how many inside each. And there’s a SWAT van, too.”

“Alright, people, everyone into the truck! We’ll hold the line there for Hoxton! Wait for them to back off before we go for the other one, if it’s not there!” Dallas ordered. “Bain, you picking up any chatter yet?”

“They’re preparing for an all-out assault. Only a few seconds away... No, they’re going right now! Brace for it!”

A shot rang out from the far side of the alley, and Dallas dove into cover behind the truck’s cab. Shots rang out back and forth as the police, and then the clowns, ducked in and out of cover. A duffel bag full of money flew out of the back of the truck; Hoxton hadn’t found the manifesto yet, but he had found that instead, and decided it was worth keeping. A policeman tried to sneak up and steal the money, only to back off as soon as he saw Wolf draw his pocket knife. It flew across the distance and landed in his neck as he tried to reach for his gun.

“Only one box left,” Hoxton said, then, “Shit! It’s not here! Wolf, we gotta drill the other truck!” Wolf immediately started running towards the second truck, retrieving his knife as he did. Chains ran out behind the truck and provided covering fire, laying down a sustained burst with his machine gun as Wolf set up the drill. Dallas fired off one last shot before following the rest of the group, setting the bag of money down behind the second truck near Hoxton.

“Those SWAT guys are a hostage rescue team! They’re going after those workers you tied down before!” Bain shouted. Swearing, Dallas waved at Chains to come along and ran behind where Rainbow could see, into the docks. She heard movement just below, and suddenly, someone in orange and a helmet climbed into the shipping container with her.

“What the—?” he asked, as Rainbow held up a hoof.

“I don’t want to hurt you. Just get behind me, stay quiet and stay still,” she said. Seeing something down below, she reached up for her earpiece. “They shot the drill! Someone’s gotta restart it!”

Wolf and Hoxton both shouted “Fuck!” at exactly the same time. “What’s the matter with that fucking drill?!” Hoxton added as he pulled out an assault rifle, laying down a burst of cover fire for Wolf again. As he reloaded, one of the officers pulled out a revolver and shot Wolf in the chest. The impact was blunted by the bulletproof vest under the suit, but it was enough to knock him off balance, hindering his progress. In response, Wolf pulled his own revolver out and fired a single shot back, returning to the drill as Hoxton began his cover fire again.

The drill’s whine quickly returned to Rainbow’s ears, and she shouted, “Better keep them off it from now on!”

“Thanks a lot, Captain Obvious!” Wolf shouted back, looking down at his phone. “The drill’s got one minute left to go, if it doesn’t fuck up again!”

“Don’t worry, Wolf, we got this!” Chains replied as he returned to Rainbow’s field of view, letting off another burst from his machine gun. “Dallas, how much longer until the van gets in?”

“Two minutes!” came the voice of Twitch, the crew’s getaway driver.

“Two minutes?! Can’t you do any better?!” Wolf asked.

“I’m driving as fast as I can! You wanna drive?!”

“The drill’s nearly done anyway! Van should arrive just as Hox is done!” Rainbow suggested. “Don’t worry too much about it!” Behind her, she didn’t see the worker pull out a cell phone and start to record her. “Wait a minute, more cops coming in! The cars are piled up past where I can see, so I don’t know how many! Be ready for anything!”

As the second wave came in, the drill beeped once, indicating it was done. Wolf threw the doors open harder than necessary, almost shoving Hoxton in before pointing his revolver towards the street and firing off the other five bullets in rapid succession. As he emptied the shells to reload, he suddenly started spasming and stuttering, dropping the pistol.

“Taser!” Dallas shouted, pointing out a man in navy blue armour who was aiming some kind of plastic gun at Wolf. Chains took the hint, letting loose with a burst of machine gun fire that tore through the armour, causing the ‘Taser’ to fly backwards, waving his arms around like he was at a rave. As soon as he finally fell to the ground, Wolf bent down to grab his gun before diving back behind the truck, just in time to avoid a bullet.

“Hey, I got the file!” Hoxton suddenly shouted. “They’re moving a gemstone on a train a ways out of D.C., tomorrow! This is probably it, but I’m gonna make sure! Only a couple of boxes left here!”

“Guys, I’m here!” Twitch shouted. “Everyone move out! Back corner of the docks, behind the trucks, just like we agreed on!”

“Gimme a minute here, I need to get these boxes!”

“There’s no time, Hoxton! More could be here any minute now! Take that file and go!” Dallas ordered. “Rainbow, it’s nearly time to split! We’ll cover you!”

“When will it be safe to come down?!”

A pause. “Now! Move it!”

Rainbow jumped down out of the container, rolling to take the impact and immediately galloping towards the crew, who were firing over her head. Dallas ushered her through a hole in a wire fence, and she crawled through it quickly. “Chains needs help!” Bain suddenly shouted. Turning around, she saw that he was down on the ground, surrounded by three cops, one of whom was turning him over.

Wolf, who had come through behind her, quickly turned around and fired his revolver, hitting the man holding Chains first, then the other two. He ran out into the street, firing his shotgun wildly, as Hoxton came out of the truck. The two of them helped Chains to his feet and pushed him through the hole. Dallas tried to pull him up, but was waved off. “I can walk, as far as the van anyway,” he said as the other two came through the hole, Hoxton still firing behind the group.

“We gotta go, people! Haul ass!” Twitch insisted, and Dallas started running. Rainbow followed him, then Wolf, Hoxton and Chains, who was limping slightly. The group turned left, through a container, and piled into the van one by one. Hoxton pulled the doors shut behind Chains as he fell into a seat, and the van quickly accelerated off.

They stopped a ways away, piling out into a secluded alley. Dallas attended to Chains with his medic bag as Hoxton pulled out the file again. Wolf looked over his shoulder to see what was written in it. Looking at Chains, Rainbow didn’t hear what Hoxton said, but Bain did. “Alright, looking up the line between those two points...” he said. “I’ve found a spot where I can stop the train. But we’ll have to get the lead out to get into position in time. You guys up for a little road trip?”

“Sounds like fun,” Wolf said. “A great train robbery, just like in the movies.” He cocked his shotgun, then reloaded the unused shell straight back in.

“Hoxton, what did you say the cargo was?”

“Some kind of gemstone. Details are pretty vague. But they’re also moving some kind of prototype anti-infantry turret, and about a dozen bags of ammunition. Gage will probably be happy to see those, if we can get them too.”

“I’ll call up the Dentist, see if he’s looking for a gemstone too... Yeah, he’s after the gemstone. Says it’s beyond any value, though he’s willing to compensate us as well as he can. And that turret sounds like a good idea too, if we have time for it. Get rambling, ramblers.” Everyone piled back into the van, and as the police sirens continued screaming towards the now-empty docks, the Payday Crew, along with their spotter, drove off into the night.