by Captain Sammitch
New Orleans, Louisiana:
Phil Smith strode across the street and up to a patrolman exiting one of the police cruisers. "What's going on?" he asked.
"Sir, I'm going to need you to stay back," the officer warned him.
"I'm a writer for the paper," Phil lied, pulling out a notepad. "I just want to know what's happening in there."
"We got the call from H.Q.," the patrolman said. "We're taking down the Forelli brothers for extortion. If we play our cards right, we might be able to tie them to the Gambini family and bust them eventually." He looked around. "But I'm gonna ask you to stay away from the building, okay?"
"I've got info from some good sources," Phil said quietly, "that they're holding a little girl and her mother in there as part of a blackmail bid by Gambini."
"No shit?" That seemed to surprise the officer. "We were told there'd be no collaterals."
"Well, make sure the rest of your people know that," Phil said.
"We've lost four or five hostages in various standoffs so far this year," the patrolman replied. "We'll do our best to make sure the trend doesn't continue." He looked around. "Honestly," he said under his breath, "it'd be nice to have that meta vigilante from New York around in situations like this."
Phil nodded. "I bet." He backed away from the row of police cars and headed back toward the diner, but not until after managing to toss a little cube-shaped device under one of the cars.
Two little amber lights on the sides of the box began flashing steadily.
Inside:
"There's cops outside," Vincent Forelli called to his brother.
Joe Forelli frowned. "Damn." He looked over in the corner, where Diana Piper held her daughter Latisha and looked back at the Forellis inquisitively. "You think Piper talked?"
Vincent shook his head. "Ain't no way. The guy's a softie. He wouldn't even think about double-crossing us. 'Sides, we woulda known by now if something was up."
Joe nodded. "Still, there's cops out there, and they ain't here for no tea and crumpets."
Vincent shrugged. "They're probably bustin' that crack pusher downstairs." He pulled out his phone. "Still, I better let the boys know." He frowned. "What the hell?"
"What?"
Vincent looked at his phone curiously. "I can't get a signal. I've been talkin' on this phone all day, and now it doesn't wanna place a call."
"Something's up," Joe said as he headed over to the regular phone plugged into the wall.
Across town, ex-mercenary Grissom Montag had just pried a manhole cover open and was gazing at the maze of phone lines that serviced this side of the street. It just might take a while to figure this out...
"Griss!"
Grissom rolled his eyes. "What is it now, Phil?"
"We got trouble. The police intend to arrest the Forellis -- who happen to have Diana and Latisha -- within an hour and are surrounding the house. The Forellis are probably putting two and two together right now. If they sound the alarm, we're gonna have some serious trouble getting the Pipers out of their hands. I took out their cell phones with the static box, but the land lines for their conventional phones are still intact."
"I'm in the process of isolating the line to my target."
"We don't have that kind of time. They're gonna pick up that phone any second now."
"I know, but I'm looking at a couple hundred..."
"Cut 'em!"
Grissom shrugged. "So much for surgical precision." He wrapped a length of Primacord around the bundle of telephone cables and climbed out of the manhole, carefully replacing the cover. After putting a good twenty feet of distance between himself and the manhole, Grissom removed a detonator -- disguised as a pocket watch on a chain -- from his pocket, flipped up the lid over the watch facing, and pushed a small button on the side of the watch.
The Primacord didn't make a lot of noise, but the manhole cover jumped about six inches into the air, then slammed back down and spun around a few times before settling back into place.
It was pretty safe to say that the people in Grissom's building wouldn't be saying much to the outside world.
Inside:
"Vin, we got trouble," Joe Forelli lamented.
"Got that right," Vincent said. "There's cops makin' a big circle around the building."
"I can't get a call through to Frank and the others," Joe added. "Says the number's been disconnected."
"Bullshit," Vincent retorted. "We just called there an hour ago." He looked out the window. "Something's up."
"You think they know about the hostages?" Joe asked.
"I don't see how," Vin answered, "unless Piper talked."
Joe frowned and pulled his gun from its holster. "You think we need to deal with those two?" He looked over at Diana and Latisha.
Vincent shook his head. "If the cops are really after us, we're gonna need a bargaining chip." He looked at the two hostages. "Don't hurt 'em just yet. But get the other guys up here from downstairs. We might need some spare guns."
Outside:
"Phones are out of commission," Grissom informed Phil through his earpiece.
"Copy that," Phil replied. He switched his earpiece to a police frequency.
"The guy told you they have hostages?"
"Yeah, but we weren't told there would be anyone else in there."
"So are there hostages or not?"
"We haven't been able to check into that yet. We're still securing the perimeter of the building."
"See if you can get someone to run surveillance. I don't want to take any chances."
Phil looked up at the curtained upstairs window. If the police got involved, then there'd be no chance to rescue Kit's kids. From what he'd found out from Griffin, these mobsters were a bit amateurish, but they knew how to use hostages, and in the event of a standoff, a rescue could prove just about impossible.
Impossible for anyone but the Unidentified Man.
Phil had a choice to make. He had done his best to make sure that he left that part of himself in New York. Did he really want to resurrect that persona, even for a moment? And if he did, would he be able to turn back?
But did he really have a choice?
Phil switched his earpiece back to the MBL frequency. "Griss, execute at your discretion. Repeat, execute at your discretion. You copy?"
Grissom sounded alarmed. "Are you giving me the green light? Now? Please confirm."
Phil nodded. "That's an affirmative, Griss. Execute at discretion, weapons free." He checked his weapons and prepared to go invisible.
"It's go time."