Gunshots rang out in the street. Hera lay next to a squirming Gwen on the floor and panicked. What had just happened and why were there incessant gunshots outside?
"Is Gwen all right? - Petra crawled over. Her funny round glasses that Gwen always laughed at were shattered from a sudden fall or perhaps a shockwave. The empty frames with no lenses looked a little creepy.
"Guys I'm fine, I'm just sick to my stomach and then I hit my head hard. You need to get out of here, I have a bad feeling about this," Gwen said through clenched teeth, suppressing the unbearable pain. She didn't want to scare her friends with a spider bite. Something was clearly going on outside and her friends would be better off hiding for a while. They wouldn't be able to help her now anyway.- Gwen is right, we should leave the common room and hide in some technical room until things clear up.
"You want to leave Gwen?! - Petra suddenly flared up.
"How could you say that?! Of course we'll take her with us! - Hera was angry with Petra. - Help me.
"Girls I'm fine, just leave me here, - tried to refuse to help Gwen.
"Shut up, I'm not a bastard to abandon my friends, - Hera got up and lifted up, leaned Gwen's weakened body on herself. - With great strength comes great responsibility. That's what my boxing coach used to tell me.
"Hera, I thought you were Daddy's little girl, but it turns out there's something cool about you.
"Gwen, are you gonna try and make fun of me even when I'm dead? You know I don't have a father.
"Ha ha ha, maybe," Gwen lowered her head.
Hera remembered the rough layout of the exhibit since she had been here before. As they left the general exhibit hall, the trio heard gunshots and screams from there. A cold sweat ran down Petra's back at that moment. For some reason, it seemed to her that they had missed death.
"Here, not many people in their right mind would go in here.
Hera opened the door to the basement. A long iron staircase led gently downwards. The girls closed the door behind them and climbed down. Gunshots and screams were already happening throughout the exhibit. It became clear to everyone that the exhibition had been attacked.
They wanted to hide somewhere until the police arrived. The basement was the best option. A dark, low-lit, huge space with a maze of iron pipes and wires. If you wanted to, you could hide here in such a way that even someone who knew you were hiding here would have to spend a couple of hours looking for you.
Walking deep into the basement, the girls chose the most inconspicuous spot. Gwen was carefully laid on the floor, and Petra and Hera were left to observe the situation.
"I think it's a terrorist attack," Petra said after taking a breath.
"What kind of terrorist attack, where would it come from?
"Maybe the mafia is involved?
"Petra, it doesn't matter who is guilty, now we just need to wait until the police and the special forces sort it out, and then we will get out of here.
...
"Leave a couple of dozen people, - sounded the same emotionless female voice. The chaos going on caused no hesitation in the woman who spoke. Dozens of innocent people inside the building were dying in a hail of bullets. There was no resistance, the guards armed with simple pistols were the first to die.
Blood poured all over the floor, with a few dozen people left alive in the hall. Most of the people managed to escape from the gunfire. The militants did not pursue them. Some of those who escaped were caught near the emergency exits and shot.
"Tie up the rest and get down to the basement, we need to de-energise the building. You and you, go to the security room, delete the video tapes.
Slapping on the blood-stained floor, the terrorists split up. Some went to follow the captain's commands, while the others stayed to control the situation inside the hall. The female captain looked out the window.
The shootout with the police was in full swing. A large bus blocked the main entrance and the arriving special forces could not yet drive the armoured vehicles into the courtyard. Without special equipment, the police were powerless.
The fire was gaining momentum. The park next to the exhibition was engulfed in flames. The arriving firefighters did not enter the firefighting zone and tried to put out the fire through the outer wall of the park, with a canopy. They were not particularly successful.
"Three girls were found in the basement, one of them in serious condition," the terrorist captain's radio hissed.
"Bring them here, - there were fewer hostages left than expected, most of the visitors to the exhibition had been killed. It was necessary to gather more people.
Ten minutes later the two dispatched teams were finished. Hera, Gwen and Petra had been caught. They hadn't expected the terrorists who had descended into the basement to be carrying NVRs and thermal imaging scopes. The weaponry of the attackers was top notch, they didn't look like ordinary terrorists at all.
"Careful with her, she's passed out! - Hera was furious when she saw the unconscious Gwen being thrown hard onto the glass-strewn floor.
"Shut up or you'll be lying next to them," came a dead voice. Hera and Petra slowly turned their heads in the direction the bandit had indicated and went into shock. The entire exhibition hall was drenched in blood and littered with corpses.
The girls instantly vomited, only Gwen was blissfully unaware of what was happening.
"Time, let's get out of here!
The militants grabbed the hostages and ran to the back of the exhibition centre. The terrorists on the other side of the street threw up smoke all around the perimeter.
A group of twenty militants leading two dozen hostages went out the back door, climbed over the fence and shot at the police cars on duty. Then they ran down one street and a blue bus with the logo of a well-known travel company immediately pulled up to them. The raiders loaded the hostages into the bus and fled on it.
"We're done," the radio of the militant who was shooting back in the park sounded. He was the commander of the second group and was responsible for the diversion. There were twenty men left with him, though ten to be exact. The police brought up an excavator and pushed the bus away, allowing the armoured SWAT vehicles to drive in. With the armoured vehicles in place, the balance of power changed.
"Retreat to the building, let's go to part two!
The terrorists from the street slowly retreated into the building and began to stall for time, using the lives of ten hostages as cover. Heavily armed police surrounded Flushing Meadows Park, adjacent to the Stark Expo building, and then the building itself. The militants were completely surrounded and had no choice but to stall for time, which was all they were supposed to do.
While the second team left in "Stark Expo", diverted all attention to themselves, the first team with hostages was already on the outskirts of New York. Everything went off without any repercussions. During the transport, they changed transport three times, it was impossible to track them.
...
"... according to preliminary data, sixty-seven people were killed in the terrorist raid at the Stark Expo, seventeen of them men, thirty-two others were injured... - a tall blond man was broadcasting, standing behind a police car in a blue bulletproof vest with the word "press" written on it. It was a live broadcast, and it was clear from the background noise that the conflict between the militants and the police was not over, but no shots were heard. - Twelve more people were taken hostage. At the moment, George Stacey, the famous captain of the New York Police Department, is negotiating with the terrorists in the building....
"They're out of their fucking minds! - jumped up from her seat and slammed the desk with a two-metre tall, pumped-up woman.
"Quiet Camille, look at Kingpin, she's furious," the grey-haired old woman whispered in Camille's ear and sat her back down at the table.
"How do we respond to this Mistress? Some cunts came into our house and shit on our table! - Another woman stood up, a forty-year-old Italian woman from the Soprano family that held New Jersey under her. She worked closely with all the big Italian families in New York and other cities, and Kingpin valued her very much, so she allowed her a lot.
The woman who jumped up was supported by Camille and a number of other bosses. Only the 'old' cast remained silent and furrowed their brows. A few old ladies had seen a lot of things in their lives and knew how to keep their cool.
Vanessa quietly smoked a cigar and watched the live report. By the looks of it, she was calm, even too calm. The young bosses who had recently joined their friendly family didn't understand Fisk's calmness and only the 'grey-haired five' saw the full picture.
"The Grey-haired Five", this was the nickname given to the five criminal masterminds who managed to survive the event of ten years ago, the "New York Massacre". All of them were old women over sixty, with grey hair and disgusting character, and there were five of them in total. Hence the name "the grey-haired five."
They had stood by Vanessa's side since the beginning of her ascent. Kingpin treated them with respect, so most of the later bosses who joined later also treated them as wise elders.
"I've lost my appetite," Vanessa mumbled after ten minutes. - Our family dinner is ruined, and the peaceful atmosphere is ruined.
"Vanessa. you don't have to make... rash decisions," the oldest woman in the room pointed at the television with a twitching hand. Her name was Frederica Solomanco, she was one hundred and eight years old and came from the largest Mexican Solomanco family. This woman had power over all the Mexican cartels and basically owned all of Mexico. Nothing happened there without her knowledge. She was rightfully the leader of the "grey-haired five" and her authority was second only to Fisk's.
"Dear grandmother, don't worry, you need peace, - behind Frederica stood her granddaughter, the current head of the Solomanko family. She attended these gatherings and gained experience at them so that she could later take her grandmother's place at the Kingpin family dinners.
In general, the current criminal queen of America did not let anyone into her close circle of dialogue, or as Vanessa called it "family". Here were present only the most famous and influential criminal bosses of America, whose influence extended to other countries.
Italian family Soprano, holding the whole gambling business and having serious connections in Italy, Russian group of Volkovs, trading in weapons and having an exit on political leaders of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine, Solomanko family having in hands the forces of all Mexican cartels, a direct exit on the president of Mexico and full control over drug trafficking.
All the bosses at the Kingpin dinner complemented each other, the illegal business was strictly divided, no one was prying into other people's plates. At moments of family dinners at the Kingpin house, all the biggest crime bosses met and made deals worth millions, if not tens of millions of dollars. In the past, the Russians, of the Volkov group, had worked with the Mexicans through the Solomanko family, providing weapons for the cartels. Now the course has changed and now Solomanko is working with the Chinese Yun clan and the Volkovs are doing business with the Sopranos.
"Frederica, with all due respect, as your senior, I can't just turn a blind eye to this. New York is my home, and the rest of America is my backyard. When you have pest cockroaches in your house, what do you do about them? They think the answer is obvious," Frederica's hand twitched, the dozen bosses at the table holding their breath at Kingpin's words. - But you're right, taking a slipper and crushing the abomination by smearing it on the floor, I think is wrong. What I need to do is to make sure the cockroach abomination doesn't stain my house.
The old woman's hand stopped twitching and Solomanko looked at Vanessa. The way parents look at their own children, with warmth and care.
"I think we should get down to business and show the cockroaches that they should have notified us before entering our home. I will ask the matriarch of the Yun clan, Nadezhda Volkova and the Matriarch of the Solomanko family to stay. Everyone else, please return to your rooms, you will be treated to the highest class of service. The day after tomorrow, we will continue our dinner.
A dozen people got up from the table, politely said goodbye and left. Only four people remained. The people named Kingpin and Frederica's granddaughter.
"It's been a long time since I've made a mess," smiled a full-figured woman with gold teeth, the head of the Russian group.
"... Look, Anita Starka arrived here with her bodyguard, - the camera was redirected from the journalist to the car, from where serious Anita got out, supported by August. - As we can see, the appearance of Anita Stark's bodyguard is confirmed. I wonder if he got his white hair by nature or if a series of tragic events influenced his bleaching... - the camera panned to August in close-up. The live broadcast journalist was a sly weasel, he had run out of topics to air and nothing was happening now. He couldn't just stand there silently talking nonsense - the broadcast would lose viewers. So he temporarily reduced the topic to Stark's bodyguard. He was a fairly hot and constantly discussed topic on the internet. Thanks to the temporary shift, the airwaves wouldn't lose viewers and would probably gain viewers.
"Wow, he's so handsome, I have an older daughter running around without a husband. Always something in the guys she does not like, can not satisfy her normally? - Nadezhda waved her hand irritably. - I think it is necessary to clean up this guy, maybe my daughter will like it. If she says no, I'll take it.
"Don't you dare," Kingpin growled angrily through gritted teeth. Surprising those present with her behaviour.
"What?" Nadezhda asked confused.
"He's mine.
"All right, all right Mistress, I don't climb on other people's things, you know me, - Volkova smiled with her gold teeth and patted her chest.
"About the cockroaches, what is required of my clan? - interrupted the awkward silence, the matriarch of the Yun Clan.
...
Stark disregarded Fury's edict and used a contrived device to copy text from her father's diaries as well as videos from the tapes. Then yawned and satisfied as an elephant, turned to Augustus.
"Remember my shoulders," Anita stretched tiredly.
Augustus, without taking his eyes off the news magazine, reached out his hand towards Stark and rubbed his fingers together, hinting at money.
"Come on, stop it already. I mean, I'm an attractive girl, I get called for photo shoots all the time....
"They're only calling you to do you favours. You have a lot of money and influence, they want you to pay attention to them," August interrupted Anita, turning the page of the magazine.
"You think I don't know that? - Anita arched her eyebrows. - All right, let's go for two thousand.
"There's been inflation, the price has gone up, five thousand.
"What inflation?! The best masseur in New York City only charges $1,000 for a half-hour session. I've already overcharged you!
"A masseur specialises in massage, a bodyguard in security. That's why I'm charging you extra money for a job outside your speciality. You want a cheaper massage, go to that better masseur and don't bother me with this.
"What a bore, all right, let's do it for five grand.
"Six.
"August, I sometimes think that even gangsters are not as cruel as you are, - Anita chewed her lips and glared at the man's face, sighed heavily and "gave up". - All right, let's go for six.
The mercenary put the magazine on the table and slowly stood up, showing his displeasure, which pissed Stark off. She turned away from him and squared her shoulders, preparing to enjoy a few minutes of pleasure.
Anita felt Augustus slowly approach her from behind. His hands were about to touch her slack shoulders, but right at the final moment, when the anticipation had fully taken over, the door to their room swung open. A girl remotely familiar to Anita in tactical trousers and a tight black T-shirt appeared in the doorway.
"Anita, August, there's been a terrorist attack at the Stark Expo. Heaps of dead and wounded, militants have taken hostages.
Stark's heart sank sharply, her back was covered with cold sweat, and her head thudded painfully.
"Gather quickly, the car is already prepared! - Lydia hurried the couple.
***
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