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withastolenlantern · 4 years

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When the shooting had started, they’d been standing at a high cocktail table near one end of the hall, next to an arch that lead further into the main manor. She hadn’t seen where the assailants had come from; she’d been picking at the remains of a croquette and making small talk with Santomas, largely ignoring the bustle of the event and trying and failing to ignore her earlier confrontation. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the door security personnel thrown forcefully into the middle of the ballroom, his tuxedo shirt bloodstained. Five masked figures appeared, dressed head to toe in black tactical gear and accompanied by a small jet-black drone whirring overhead. One of them opened fire with an automatic weapon towards the ceiling, drawing a loud gasp from the party-goers and riddling the elaborate murals above with bullet holes. Several people shrieked, or fell out of their chairs in surprise. Some ran immediately to the secondary exits, but the elaborate French doors were evidently locked and only rattled in their hinges.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” someone announced, their voice amplified and scrambled by a speaker in the drone. “What a lovely evening you all appear to be having. It’s a shame we don’t seem to have been invited.”

The room went dead silent. Newby-Ross stood from the center table and walked across the ballroom with a defiance the detective had not expected. “This is a private event, and I don’t know who you are, but you’re trespassing on…”

The lead intruder slapped the heiress across the face, hard, with the back of his gloved hand. Her elaborate undulating scarf fell to the ground, and several more audible gasps came from the crowd. A small trickle of blood ran from her elaborately decorated lips. “Save me the speech Lady Swansea. We know why you’re here, and you can guess why we are too.”

She took a step back, stunned momentarily, and then opened a holo to what Chatham assumed was the rest of the security team stationed outside. The detective could just barely make out the holo window, and the call seemed not to connect. Several other revelers had their mobiles out; some were apparently attempting to take videos of the assailants, but others tried equally in vain to get an outside connection.

“Yeah, that’s not going to work,” the man said with a confident relaxation. “Neither are all those cameras, by the way.” He pointed toward his tactical suit, which Chatham took to mean they were using optic-disrupting camouflage of some kind.

“What are we trying to save this time? Whales? Ginkgos? The Congo basin?” he asked with a slightly chuckle.

“Plastic recy…” someone replied, obviously not understanding the rhetorical nature of the question.

“Jesus, I can’t imagine being so rich and also so stupid,” he bellowed, drawing a snigger from his companions. “Do I look like I give a fuck which of these pointless causes you shit-for-brains are pretending to care about tonight?I’m just here for the money.”

The Lady snorted in response. “You don’t honestly think there’s a big sack full of cash you can just waltz out of here with, do you?”

One of the other mystery men moved from the flanks and walked out into the crowd. “No ma’am. But I know you’ve set up a Paraguayan account to receive all these fine people’s donations. And I know it’s keyed to your biometrics, and I also know that all outgoing transfers require authorization from at least one Board member,” he explained, nodding toward Sir Travers as one of his compatriots walked toward the aristocrat and yanked him from his seat by the crook of his arm.

“Get your hands off me,” Travers argued, attempting to riggle free, but the man kept an iron-clad grip and dragged the businessman from the table and toward the Lady. Several of the other guests started to rise from their seats to intervene, but the man wagged the end of his rifle in their general direction and

“You’ll all get your turn in the barrel, don’t worry. We’ll pass the communion plate around to collect jewelry, mobiles and the rest in just a few moments” the head terrorist joked. He offered mobile forward to the heiress. “Now, if you would be so kind, Lady Swansea.”

“And if I refuse?”

The reply was immediate: the man raised his rifle and fired a three-round burst into one of the many still-seated guests. The victim, stunned, slumped back into his chair, chin to the sky, as a blotch of dark blood bloomed across his pale shirt and he gasped his final breaths. His companion shrieked in terror, and grabbed him tightly. Someone else wadded up napkins and tried to staunch the bleeding, but the man was obviously passed saving.

“Jesus fuck,” Newby-Ross screeched, grabbing Travers by the arm to steady herself.

“Any other dumb questions?”

She shook her head no with a numb silence, and walked forward, shoulders slumped in defeat, extending her hand.

“Emma, no,” Travers argued, but was silenced with a single raised finger from the Lady.

Chatham, still leaning onto the cocktail table, observed in silence. There was not much she could at this point. The four men were heavily armed, and she would need some kind of distraction if she had any prayer to reach the gun strapped under her dress without seeming conspicuous. Santomas kicked her gently under the table, nodding in the direction of the commotion. She glared at him in return, silently bidding him to stay calm.

Things went to shit pretty much immediately after that.

The details were hazy at best, but her recollection was that the lead party crasher extended his mobile toward Newby-Ross to verify her biometrics. As she did, Travers threw his shoulder into the man holding him, knocking him backwards. There was a brief burst of random gunfire in Travers’ direction, hitting only the floor.

The heiress turned immediately and bolted toward the safety of the crowd. People everywhere were screaming, recoiling out of their chairs and huddling as far away from the chaos as they could. One of intruders, a woman likely, walked forward, attempting to corral them together into a clump as best as possible.

Chatham pulled her Webley from its holster and fired several shots into a man who’d been mostly uninvolved to this point. The whiskey had wobbled her aim, but years on the small arms range could not be undone by one too many fifteen-year scotches. He fell to the floor in a heap, several new thirty-eight sized holes in his neck and armpit where the body armor was thin.

The last intruder knelt to assist him, and the above drone turned immediately toward her direction and let out a brrrrp of automatic fire from one of it’s weapon pylons. With a sudden crash the chandelier above her exploded. She’d reflexively ducked and rolled under the table, avoiding most of the shrapnel as the chandelier collapsed in a hail of glass and crystal shards from above. Santomas had not been as quick, and caught many of the fragments with his hands and face; one of the brass support arms caught him in the temple, knocking him what she hoped was briefly unconscious and not something worse. In the ensuing panic she’d pulled him close beside her and flipped the table over on its side to give some cover.

The next burst of fire bit into the table-top; the rounds were small caliber, and the heavy wood absorbed most of them, but they turned the fiberboard undercoating into a flechette of splinters which clipped her in the shoulder and neck through the sheer of her dress. She retorted, firing several wild shots into the proximity of the drone. By luck she hit one of the rotors, and it sparked and sputtered as the motor spun down and the drone came crashing down to the floor.

Travers wrestled with his man to the ground. The thug giving aid abandoned his obviously dead partner and cracked Travers with the butt of his rifle between the shoulder-blades, knocking him to the ground. Travers rolled in agony and the assailants regrouped. While they were distracted, Chatham grabbed Santomas under the armpits and started dragging him quickly down a hallway behind them.

As they slinked off to cover, she heard the lead man start yelling, his voice quieter now that the drone had been destroyed but still confident and clearly irritated. He was commanding the guests to line up against the far walls of the ballroom while his accomplices searched them for valuables. “And find that bitch with the gun,” he barked.

The detective kicked in the first door she came to, snapping her heel in the process. She shoved Santomas awkwardly into what turned out to be the bathroom, and propped him against the wall inside the single toilet stall.

#the world ocean #long post #part 1

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