Double Bluff: Chapter 16
What starts a week off better than more fic? I meant to end last week with this, but it needed a bit more tweaking. Thank you lovely betas! 'Blame' to Monica for the cameo appearance herein. She started the "what if?" that ended in a certain someone showing up.
Warning for swearing/adult language behind the cut. I don't usually bother to warn for that sort of thing because my whole journal has an adult content warning... but in case you're reading at work or something, you might perhaps not want to click the cut link with people looking over your shoulder. You all already know I swear like a sailor though, so you're fair warned, right? :-D
<---- Chapter 15 (Or here on LJ)
Chapter 16: Win Some, Lose Some... Shoot Some
“Jesus fucking H-Christ on a g*d-damned pogo stick, Tony! PLAN C?! Plan C? You said we wouldn’t even get to Plan C!” Harry roared, waving his arms about himself, his hands flying around like deranged hummingbirds on a sugar high. Harry paused a moment to look down at the man who lay passed out at his feet, the dust and shards of a large decorative vase surrounding his body.
“It worked, didn’t it?” Tony muttered, shaking a little from his own adrenaline spike. “Plus, you’re not actually Plan C--” Tony broke off as a small herd of gun-touting, black-clad men poured through the entrance to the room. “Oh hi, fellas.”
“Tony-- how the-- why are there SWAT guys here?” Harry managed as he dusted off his hands.
The mass of bodies still blocking the door parted and a shorter balding man entered. “They’re not SWAT-- they’re FBI.” He snapped. “How’s it going, DiNozzo?”
Tony’s head shot up, his gaze focusing on the newcomer. “Fornell?” he accused incredulously. Harry shuffled nervously towards Tony.
“Somebody pick up this mess!” The FBI agent commanded the surrounding men. Several of them holstered their weapons and stepped forward to check the body on the floor for a pulse. Finding it steady and strong, and realizing that Vanzetti was clearly conscious again, they hoisted him unceremoniously to his feet and began the procedure of arresting him properly.
Harry watched the room warily. Leaning towards Tony, he whispered, “Did Sir forget to tell me something? Such as, perhaps, the whole depth and breadth of Plans C through, I believe it was, ‘F’, as commonly found in the acronym FBI? Also- Mr. FBI over there pronounces your name like it’s got the word ‘nuts’ in it? He’s met you, I see.”
Oh yeah, Harry was fine again if he was pulling out the snide ‘Sir’s, Tony thought. Though it had been interesting to finally see what it took to rile the man his childhood friend had become. Tony inclined his head towards Harry’s ear and hissed back, “Hey-- don’t blame me for Fornell, I expected Franks-- and a whole lot less people.” Tony peered around the room, then turned to address the question to perhaps the only person who had the answer.
“So, Fornell, if you’re here, where’s Franks?”
Fornell glanced back at them from where he was supervising the beginnings of an evidence sweep of the room and offered, “He’s out waiting to pick up Rafferty and Trip, since this idiot here called them both and told them to come over with guns, shovels and tarps. Not too many legal activities that involve that sort of combination. So we think we’ve got a good chance of getting them off guard.”
Harry started laughing and Tony paused in his thoughts to consider how much hysteria was evident in his tone. Hrm... maybe Harry wasn’t one hundred percent calm yet after all. Then again, the image of his former co-workers as shovel-touting, gun-slinging criminals was pretty funny now that they weren’t actually going to get the chance to bury his dead body with said shovels. Plus, he survived Plan B and Plan C, so he was doing pretty well tonight. Tony joined Harry in slightly hysterical laughter, appreciating the moment. Fornell took a second to look at them both like they were insane, then walked over to give instructions to someone on the other side of the room.
A shot rang out. Everyone’s attention leapt to focus on the two officers who had been cuffing Vanzetti. They lay knocked back on the floor, Vanzetti now holding one of their firearms. Vanzetti glanced hurriedly around the room, the trapped look on his face showing that he knew his options were limited. He backed toward the wall, using his peripheral vision to aim himself in a direction where there weren’t any agents. The officers on the ground held up their hands and backed away slowly.
Across the room, Fornell whipped out his firearm and aimed it at Vanzetti’s heart. Most of the other officers around him had taken up a ready stance as well. “Vanzetti, there’s no way for you to win this,” he cautioned.
“Yeah, maybe. But there are a whole lot of worse ways for me to lose it.” Vanzetti snarled back. “And this way, I get a little bit of my own back.” Vanzetti continued sliding along the wall towards the doorway, gesturing with his pistol for people to move along out of his way as he went. He’d almost reached the door when Tony called out to him.
“Hey, Karl! You really want to go down shooting? You’ve always struck me as a practical kind of guy- I didn’t think that had changed just because you turned out to be a practical criminal. I’m sure you’re just in it for the money, after all. Isn’t there something we can offer you?” Tony kept his voice even and lacking in judgment, hoping against hope that this wasn’t going to turn into a shoot-out.
Vanzetti leaned on the door frame, shooting his gaze in and out of the room, gun still pointed at the agents inside as he assessed the empty hallway for getaway opportunities. “DiNozzo, you have no idea what you’re talking about. I have two choices here, die now, or run like hell and never show my face again. The man in charge isn’t going to let me live to talk, either way.”
“So you’re not really the big boss, eh Karl?” Tony couldn’t quite resist taunting for more information, knowing the guy would never tell them more once he was more than 5 minutes post-concussion and not gunning for his life. Even if he wasn’t killed by the “man in charge”, he wasn’t the type to cave for a better sentencing deal. “Who is? Give us a name; we’ll get you under protection.”
“Oh sure, protect me like I’ve been protecting people the last 3 years? There was someone before me you know! There will be someone who takes my place. He’s that good. You won’t even know.” Vanzetti sneered. He took a step into the doorway proper, but didn’t turn his back.
“Karl, you had to care about saving people once, why not give it another try? Give us his name, we can stop him!” Tony reasoned. Fornell took a step forward, coming to a stop next to Tony.
“DiNozzo’s right, Vanzetti. Let’s take this guy down together. You’re safe, we get the bad guy. Everybody wins.”
“It won’t work.” Vanzetti proclaimed, his voice echoing hauntingly due to the resonance of the hallway he was half standing in now. Tony flinched. Creepy.
Vanzetti nodded sharply once at him, and took off running down the hallway. Instantly, Tony and ten federal agents took off after him. Fornell could be heard radioing the men outside the house to warn them of Vanzetti’s approach. Harry was left, standing alone, suddenly conscious of noise his breathing made in the now-empty room.
Abruptly, three gunshots crashed into the tentative silence, and the sound of men yelling followed. Harry slowly lowered himself into the nearest chair. He could hear that one of the men shouting was Tony, so clearly his friend was alive. Beyond that, he didn’t care anymore. In case he’d forgotten why he’d never become a cop, it was all flooding back now. The next few days were going to be interesting. Oh joy.
PS~ Someone tell me if I took the "deranged hummingbirds on a sugar high" sentence from somebody else. It popped into my head in that way things do where you can't quite be sure if you made it up whole cloth and full on inspiration, or you just read someone else's fic and oops, you're brain is still clearly subconsciously holding on to it. I'd hate to steal someone else's line by accident and I'd like to change it if I did. It seems sort of Rodney McKay applicable, doesn't it?
PPS~ Yeah, okay, this one I did mean to end on a cliffhanger. I swear it's the first one I really did on purpose though.
Chapter 17----> (Or here on LJ)
This entry was originally posted at http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/60792.html, where there are
comments. Please comment on either journal as you please.
Warning for swearing/adult language behind the cut. I don't usually bother to warn for that sort of thing because my whole journal has an adult content warning... but in case you're reading at work or something, you might perhaps not want to click the cut link with people looking over your shoulder. You all already know I swear like a sailor though, so you're fair warned, right? :-D
<---- Chapter 15 (Or here on LJ)
Chapter 16: Win Some, Lose Some... Shoot Some
“Jesus fucking H-Christ on a g*d-damned pogo stick, Tony! PLAN C?! Plan C? You said we wouldn’t even get to Plan C!” Harry roared, waving his arms about himself, his hands flying around like deranged hummingbirds on a sugar high. Harry paused a moment to look down at the man who lay passed out at his feet, the dust and shards of a large decorative vase surrounding his body.
“It worked, didn’t it?” Tony muttered, shaking a little from his own adrenaline spike. “Plus, you’re not actually Plan C--” Tony broke off as a small herd of gun-touting, black-clad men poured through the entrance to the room. “Oh hi, fellas.”
“Tony-- how the-- why are there SWAT guys here?” Harry managed as he dusted off his hands.
The mass of bodies still blocking the door parted and a shorter balding man entered. “They’re not SWAT-- they’re FBI.” He snapped. “How’s it going, DiNozzo?”
Tony’s head shot up, his gaze focusing on the newcomer. “Fornell?” he accused incredulously. Harry shuffled nervously towards Tony.
“Somebody pick up this mess!” The FBI agent commanded the surrounding men. Several of them holstered their weapons and stepped forward to check the body on the floor for a pulse. Finding it steady and strong, and realizing that Vanzetti was clearly conscious again, they hoisted him unceremoniously to his feet and began the procedure of arresting him properly.
Harry watched the room warily. Leaning towards Tony, he whispered, “Did Sir forget to tell me something? Such as, perhaps, the whole depth and breadth of Plans C through, I believe it was, ‘F’, as commonly found in the acronym FBI? Also- Mr. FBI over there pronounces your name like it’s got the word ‘nuts’ in it? He’s met you, I see.”
Oh yeah, Harry was fine again if he was pulling out the snide ‘Sir’s, Tony thought. Though it had been interesting to finally see what it took to rile the man his childhood friend had become. Tony inclined his head towards Harry’s ear and hissed back, “Hey-- don’t blame me for Fornell, I expected Franks-- and a whole lot less people.” Tony peered around the room, then turned to address the question to perhaps the only person who had the answer.
“So, Fornell, if you’re here, where’s Franks?”
Fornell glanced back at them from where he was supervising the beginnings of an evidence sweep of the room and offered, “He’s out waiting to pick up Rafferty and Trip, since this idiot here called them both and told them to come over with guns, shovels and tarps. Not too many legal activities that involve that sort of combination. So we think we’ve got a good chance of getting them off guard.”
Harry started laughing and Tony paused in his thoughts to consider how much hysteria was evident in his tone. Hrm... maybe Harry wasn’t one hundred percent calm yet after all. Then again, the image of his former co-workers as shovel-touting, gun-slinging criminals was pretty funny now that they weren’t actually going to get the chance to bury his dead body with said shovels. Plus, he survived Plan B and Plan C, so he was doing pretty well tonight. Tony joined Harry in slightly hysterical laughter, appreciating the moment. Fornell took a second to look at them both like they were insane, then walked over to give instructions to someone on the other side of the room.
A shot rang out. Everyone’s attention leapt to focus on the two officers who had been cuffing Vanzetti. They lay knocked back on the floor, Vanzetti now holding one of their firearms. Vanzetti glanced hurriedly around the room, the trapped look on his face showing that he knew his options were limited. He backed toward the wall, using his peripheral vision to aim himself in a direction where there weren’t any agents. The officers on the ground held up their hands and backed away slowly.
Across the room, Fornell whipped out his firearm and aimed it at Vanzetti’s heart. Most of the other officers around him had taken up a ready stance as well. “Vanzetti, there’s no way for you to win this,” he cautioned.
“Yeah, maybe. But there are a whole lot of worse ways for me to lose it.” Vanzetti snarled back. “And this way, I get a little bit of my own back.” Vanzetti continued sliding along the wall towards the doorway, gesturing with his pistol for people to move along out of his way as he went. He’d almost reached the door when Tony called out to him.
“Hey, Karl! You really want to go down shooting? You’ve always struck me as a practical kind of guy- I didn’t think that had changed just because you turned out to be a practical criminal. I’m sure you’re just in it for the money, after all. Isn’t there something we can offer you?” Tony kept his voice even and lacking in judgment, hoping against hope that this wasn’t going to turn into a shoot-out.
Vanzetti leaned on the door frame, shooting his gaze in and out of the room, gun still pointed at the agents inside as he assessed the empty hallway for getaway opportunities. “DiNozzo, you have no idea what you’re talking about. I have two choices here, die now, or run like hell and never show my face again. The man in charge isn’t going to let me live to talk, either way.”
“So you’re not really the big boss, eh Karl?” Tony couldn’t quite resist taunting for more information, knowing the guy would never tell them more once he was more than 5 minutes post-concussion and not gunning for his life. Even if he wasn’t killed by the “man in charge”, he wasn’t the type to cave for a better sentencing deal. “Who is? Give us a name; we’ll get you under protection.”
“Oh sure, protect me like I’ve been protecting people the last 3 years? There was someone before me you know! There will be someone who takes my place. He’s that good. You won’t even know.” Vanzetti sneered. He took a step into the doorway proper, but didn’t turn his back.
“Karl, you had to care about saving people once, why not give it another try? Give us his name, we can stop him!” Tony reasoned. Fornell took a step forward, coming to a stop next to Tony.
“DiNozzo’s right, Vanzetti. Let’s take this guy down together. You’re safe, we get the bad guy. Everybody wins.”
“It won’t work.” Vanzetti proclaimed, his voice echoing hauntingly due to the resonance of the hallway he was half standing in now. Tony flinched. Creepy.
Vanzetti nodded sharply once at him, and took off running down the hallway. Instantly, Tony and ten federal agents took off after him. Fornell could be heard radioing the men outside the house to warn them of Vanzetti’s approach. Harry was left, standing alone, suddenly conscious of noise his breathing made in the now-empty room.
Abruptly, three gunshots crashed into the tentative silence, and the sound of men yelling followed. Harry slowly lowered himself into the nearest chair. He could hear that one of the men shouting was Tony, so clearly his friend was alive. Beyond that, he didn’t care anymore. In case he’d forgotten why he’d never become a cop, it was all flooding back now. The next few days were going to be interesting. Oh joy.
PS~ Someone tell me if I took the "deranged hummingbirds on a sugar high" sentence from somebody else. It popped into my head in that way things do where you can't quite be sure if you made it up whole cloth and full on inspiration, or you just read someone else's fic and oops, you're brain is still clearly subconsciously holding on to it. I'd hate to steal someone else's line by accident and I'd like to change it if I did. It seems sort of Rodney McKay applicable, doesn't it?
PPS~ Yeah, okay, this one I did mean to end on a cliffhanger. I swear it's the first one I really did on purpose though.
Chapter 17----> (Or here on LJ)
This entry was originally posted at http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/60792.html, where there are
comments. Please comment on either journal as you please.