Page 51 of Zero
“I’m going to work on those extra eyes.” Tex promised. “Listen, Rei—if you weren’t okay you’d tell me, right? We are that far in this friendship that you’d tell me.”
“If I wasn’t okay, you’d be the second to know.”
“The second? Brother…”
“Beast would be first.”
“I can live with that.” I could hear laughter in his slow drawl.
“Don’t worry.” I smiled even though I knew he couldn’t see me. “I’d tell you. This has nothing to do with the mission and therefore isn’t important right now.”
Tex exhaled loudly. “All right, brother. Call me back when you’ve all assembled.”
I agreed and killed the call.
It wasn’t hard to find the Joker’s Tears. It was a venue that stood out like a sore thumb because of the bright, almost neon colours painted on the outside. I parked and we alighted silently from the jeep and ducked inside. We were the first to arrive, but it didn’t take very long for the others to arrive.
We ordered food to keep the attention off us as we plotted what we would do. I drew what I remembered of the layout on a piece of napkin for the others to see.
“This place is a sniper’s nightmare.” Barbie muttered while tapping her finger at a certain part of what I’d drawn. “I only have a shot from here. And even then, it’s only a partial one.”
“How deep in are they holding Justice?” Dude asked. “Because if he isn’t too deep we could go in hot if I added a charge to this wall right here. We’d have to go in fast though because exterior walls are almost always load-bearing. If we dilly-dally around, the whole place could come down on our heads.”
“Unfortunately, they are deep in, and there are quite a number of stairs.” I sighed. “Going in hot wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“Well, shit.” Dude muttered.
I frowned down at the drawing. “I wish they were spread out throughout the place. If they were, we could go in quiet, picking them off one by one.”
“How about this.” Bòkò reached in to take the pen from my hand. “Maybe Dude could set a charge on one of the vehicles at the front to distract them. This would draw some of them out to check what happened. Barbie can take out a few of them, level the playing field for us a little bit. While the rest of us keep the guards distracted, others can grab Justice.”
“The place doesn’t have many places to hold up.” I pointed out. “There’s a room in this hall here, but aside from the giant room on the other side of the building and the one where they’re holding Justice, there really isn’t anywhere else.”
“And we didn’t see Morena when we went in.” Bailey spoke up.
Patrick sighed. “I’d suggest we take the building from different angles but that could cause panic. We don’t want that.”
Eton cleared his throat and popped a French fry into his mouth. “I say we go in silently. There are enough of us to spread through the place before they even know we’re there. If we can get in and set up here, here and here—then Dude, do the distraction thing out front, with Barbie set up to make sure those who exit never enters again—”
“I can disable the boat,” Bòkò added. “Then join Dude at the front.”
“That’s a good plan.” Jasmine nodded. “Either way, whoever goes in will have less people to get through. And even if they do get to the boat, they won’t be able to go anywhere.”
“This side can be my domain.” Crash leaned in. “I should be able to navigate it no problem.”
“How?” Bailey asked. “It’s nothing but rails and pipes. Unless you can sprout wings and fly…”
“Parkour.” I told her simple.
“What now?” Bailey wanted to know.
“I free run.” Crash replied. “Climb the sides of buildings, jump across roof tops, that sort of thing, all using my body weight. I’ll show you later. Right now, that skill will come in handy. While everyone is busy, I’ll use it to get Justice to a safe space until one of you guys can pick us up. I’m sure he’s not in a good space right now, physically.”
We spent another few minutes going through the plan until we each had no questions. It was a shaky plot, but at the moment, we didn’t have much of a choice. We’d already taken out a few of Morena’s men. It was only a matter of time before he realizes Justice wouldn’t talk and would have use for him otherwise.
With the plan set, Bailey paid for lunch though we didn’t eat all that much. We all headed back to our vehicles and allowed Tex to navigate us to an empty parking lot at an abandoned building. There, we suited up, Dude retrieved all the tools he needed.
I stopped to silently help Bailey with her Kevlar and handed her a baseball bat, before going back to shove a gun into my right thigh holster. Once we were ready, we drove back, pausing to allow Barbie and her bag to exit.
