Fan Fiction: Crossovers
And So I Made the Choice
by Stephensmat.
Part: 1 2 3 4 5 6
2.
Three days after your plane took off, the Leyland family, started to muscle in on the Biggs territory. And as usual with mob wars, innocent people were slaughtered in the process. My underworld contacts were stretched too thinly, I heard about very few attacks in time. The Leyland's had been preparing this for months. They were very good at keeping it a secret, I did not hear about it until it had already started. They had quietly moved people into Biggs territory disguised as businessmen, and everyday shoppers, they had been hiring gunfighters in small groups here and there, they had retrofitted ordinary cars to be bullet-proof for drive bys.
For almost a week the reports kept coming in. Each time it was either a suspected attack, which quite often were just rumour, sometimes, they were reports of gained or lost territory belonging to each family, there were countless reports of brutal attacks which were swift and bloody. But the worst reports of all… were the casualty lists. There were dozens of them, coming in at all hours. Hundreds of deaths. Names, faces, coroner files, all started to blend into each other. More than a few agents too.
The Leyland's were gaining ground quickly, but the Biggs made them fight for every inch of space, more killing was the result. It quickly came to the point where I couldn't keep up. The attacks were constant, random and swift. So I knew that the only way to stop it, was at the source. But if I took down only one of the mobsters, then the other 2 would flood into his territory, and that his sub-bosses would massacre each other trying to become crime lords themselves. The same would happen if I took them all down at once.
But I couldn't do that anyway because once the fighting started, all the bosses went to ground and disappeared. The only other way I could think of, and I curse that moment in my memory, would be to make the conflict expand, so that each lord would be forced to pull back their forces, and put them on the defensive. The ferocity and sheer amount of the public attacks would decrease to a point where we could keep up with them, and the public would be considerably safer.
Peter was starting to see where this was going. Stephen had actually tried to EXPAND a mob war? He said nothing, it was clear that his partner had to tell someone the whole story, and Peter was the only one he could trust.
After taking a long sip of his drink, Stephen continued, making extravagant gestures with one hand, constantly pacing in frustration. "I did not know enough about the climate of the underworld at that moment, to even attempt such a bold move, so I had to go to someone who did…"
I went to Cliff Marsland. He was a brand new agent. Only been with us for a month and was constantly taking bold risks. All his moves were power plays; he took the initiative far too easily. I met him as The Shadow of course, because I needed his professional advice as an underworld snitch. I explained to him my idea and asked if it could be done.
"It could be done," he said. "What if, the Defalk family, entered into the conflict. A three way fight would have everyone pulling back because there would be multiple fronts to fight on."
"That's a good idea," I told him. "But how would we get them into the fight?"
"By convincing them that it is in there own best interests. What if, The Leyland's were planning to hit the Defalk territory too?"
"It could happen, The Leyland's would then effectively control the city. But we would need proof that they are planning a strike against the Defalk family."
"If there was proof anywhere, then it would be at this address."
He handed me a slip of paper with an address on it and told me that if was a front for the Leyland family. They used it as a conference hall for 'Family Business'.
So that night, I was at the address, it was just a huge office building, very few people in it, and no sign on the front. I don't know what the business was but it didn't matter.
I stalked through the hallways invisible to the guards. I went from one record room to the other, searching every safe, looking over every desk, jimmying every lock, searching for something tangible that I show to the Defalk. But there was nothing. So I went back to Cliff Marsland.
"There are no plans." I told him. He was silent for a moment, and began to smile.
"Who said that there actually had to be plans?"
"Are you implying that we fake some plan of attack?" I asked him.
"I'm not implying, I'm saying it outright. We just have to convince them, right?"
"Maybe I should have just ended it there!" snapped Stephen. "Maybe I should have just said 'Thanks for the suggestion, Cliff Ill take it under consideration' walked out the door and left. And I did. I told him I would think about it and came back here." He was gesturing broadly around the Sanctum, Peter was still silent. Stephen was almost shouting now, angry and something that was close to self-revulsion.
"But when I came back here," Stephen continued, "waiting for me was another of those damn casualty lists! So I made the choice…"
|
