BIA Ch. 136

Drawing a pistol from his back pocket, Isaiah grabbed Mickey’s head with his other hand and slammed it onto the floor. Mickey screamed and collapsed. Isaiah grabbed Harold, who was next to Mickey, by the collar and used his heavy body as a shield against the incoming bullets. In that position, leaning his head out just enough, he pulled the trigger towards the sedan.

— Bang!

The head of the guy leaning out of the passenger window snapped back as blood spurted.

“Aaaaaaargh!”

The guy leaning out similarly from the back seat screamed and fired his gun frantically. Isaiah lifted the instantly blood-soaked Harold higher. Lifting the nearly 100 kg frame with one arm felt like his shoulder would tear off, but it was worth it. The bullets fired by the man embedded themselves squarely in Harold’s thick torso. Not a single one even penetrated through.

Blood gushed from Harold’s mouth with a cough. Isaiah, his face covered in blood, leaned his head out again and pulled the pistol’s trigger. Bang! Blood and brain matter splattered everywhere. In the blink of an eye, the man in the back seat, his head blown off, slumped over with only his neck remaining.

Isaiah tossed Harold’s corpse aside and gripped the pistol with both hands. Through the thick bulletproof glass, he could see Manny in the driver’s seat frantically turning the steering wheel.

Did he really think he could escape and survive? Since all the car’s windshields are bulletproof. It wasn’t a rifle equipped with 8mm Magnum rounds; an old pistol like that could never penetrate it. Is that what he thought?

Foolish Manny. Even though he knew perfectly well why I was so obsessed with that damned supply depot.

— CRASH!

A tremendous roar shook the underground parking garage. The sound of tires screeching, gunshots, and bulletproof glass shattering from Teflon-coated KTW rounds mixed together, sounding like something had exploded.

Isaiah holstered the pistol, smoke wafting from its muzzle, and turned around. He nudged the thigh of Mickey, still prone on the floor, with the tip of his boot and said.

“Let’s go.”

Mickey lifted his head, his face drained of all spirit. Scrambling to his feet, he glanced around absently, then shut his eyes tightly upon seeing Harold’s corpse sprawled on the floor.

“Oh God…”

Isaiah grabbed Mickey, who looked ready to collapse again as if his legs had given out, and dragged him to the car.

“Get a grip.”

He opened the driver’s door, pushed him inside, and went to the passenger seat himself.

Fortunately, Mickey seemed to regain his senses soon, inserted the key into the ignition, and started the engine. But his hands gripping the steering wheel were still trembling. Even though Harold had constantly tormented him, seeing him riddled with bullets like a honeycomb seemed to deeply unsettle him.

“Why…”

Mickey said as he reversed the car to pull out.

“Why did you save me?”

“What?”

Isaiah stopped wiping the blood off his face with the hem of his t-shirt and looked towards the driver’s seat. As Isaiah stared at him with an expression that clearly asked what kind of bullshit he was spouting, Mickey began to stammer excuses, flustered.

“No, I mean, I was closer to you than Harold was back then. If you needed a human shield quickly, it would have made more sense to use me since I was right there. Why did you push me away and specifically grab Harold…?”

“An FBI agent you don’t know versus an FBI agent you do know. If it were you, which one would you save?”

Isaiah cut Mickey off mid-sentence. Mickey said nothing more.

Kestrel was waiting in front of the elevator, holding his own caddy bag and Isaiah’s fishing bag.

“Hey, what the hell is going on?”

Kestrel said, handing the fishing bag to Isaiah.

“Looks like a war broke out over there. It was so chaotic I couldn’t even tell if I hit anything or not.”

“Good enough, then.”

Isaiah retorted nonchalantly, taking out a semi-assembled rifle from the fishing bag.

“Besides, there’s no client left to complain that you didn’t shoot.”

“Why, did you kill him?”

Kestrel asked as he got into the back seat.

“I’m about to.”

Kestrel burst out laughing loudly. As soon as the car started moving, Isaiah turned around and spoke.

“Bored? I’ve got a part-time gig. Interested?”

“How much are you paying?”

“How much do you want?”

Isaiah asked, fitting a 20-inch barrel onto the receiver.

“Hmm, well. I might not look it, but I’m quite expensive.”

“I know. WD’s Number One.”

Isaiah subtly hinted that he had deserted WD while pretending to praise Kestrel. Instead of asking what that meant, Kestrel just smiled faintly and said.

“How about this? If you come back to WD, I’ll do it for free.”

“Forget it. Just sit tight back there quietly.”

Kestrel sank into the seat, bursting into laughter.

“Let me know anytime if you change your mind.”

“Not gonna happen.”

Isaiah stated flatly. He hadn’t expected anything else in the first place. Unlike him, Kestrel took immense pride in being part of WD. He valued the group’s honor and reputation just as much. The moment Kestrel ignored Chester’s request—potentially damaging his own mission success rate—to grant Isaiah’s plea, he had fulfilled his obligation as a former colleague. Isaiah didn’t want to push him any further. He refused to accumulate debts he couldn’t possibly repay.

From St. Patrick’s Church to Taten was 800 yards as the crow flies, a 3-minute drive. Of course, that was based on a late weekday night with no traffic; during rush hour like now, it would take 5 minutes, maybe even 6 if unlucky.

But Manny had arrived in less than 3 minutes. He wondered how on earth Manny had arrived so quickly, only to realize the roads were being controlled. Manny had ignored it, pretended not to see the sheriff standing in the middle of the road, and sped through.

When Isaiah told Mickey to do the same, sure enough, they reached the church in 2 minutes. The sheriff didn’t even think of pursuing, just blared his siren and radioed frantically from a distance. But what could he do when there was no backup available? Probably every police officer in the entire Eloy area was rushing towards St. Patrick’s Church.

“The police… they’re already here.”

Mickey said, parking the car on the street opposite the church. It had only been ten minutes since the shootout began. For the Eloy police, this was unbelievably fast.

“But there aren’t many. I can only see about four police cars from here.”

“That’s probably all of them.”

The Eloy police were the types who made a living thanks to the mafia. While they sometimes made arrests thanks to the mafia, their collusion was just as deep. When incidents happened between mafia factions, they wouldn’t even dispatch officers, let alone punish anyone. They’d show up sluggishly after everything was already cleaned up, just say ‘Submit the CCTV footage,’ and leave. And if the footage was reported ‘lost,’ that was the end of it.

The officers who had arrived now had rushed here because the situation was serious, but they would undoubtedly stay hidden in their cars, clinging to their radios under the pretext of waiting for backup. Of course, regardless of collusion, the situation was unavoidable. The opposing side numbered in the hundreds (including the dead), and they were all armed. Armed with shotguns and even machine guns. To suppress this, SWAT would probably need to be deployed. They might have already been dispatched. The problem was, it was seven PM on a Friday evening, and Eloy City’s traffic congestion was notorious, among the worst in America. It would take at least 40 minutes for a SWAT team dispatched from near City Hall to reach here.

“Won’t they come by helicopter?”

“Who knows. They might be deliberately waiting for everyone to kill each other.”

Isaiah said nonchalantly, loading the KTW pistol rounds he’d acquired yesterday into his M1911 magazine.

“Hmm, makes sense.”

Kestrel interjected abruptly from the back seat.

“It does make sense.”

A shootout at a church in a quiet residential area, away from the bustling city center. As long as there were no civilian casualties, it was indeed cleaner to let the mafiosi kill each other off and just arrest the survivors. Looking back at periods when criminal organizations ran rampant, there were often moments like this when they seemed to sort themselves out.

“So, who’s the guy you’re trying to save?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Who else could it be? It must be the guy I was supposed to kill.”

Kestrel folded his arms and snorted, Hmph. Isaiah aimed the pistol in his hand at the space between Kestrel’s eyebrows and said.

“Don’t mess around. Stay quiet.”

“Ooh, scary.”

Kestrel feigned fright. Isaiah clicked his tongue, tsk, then put the pistol back in his rear pants pocket. He then took a bulletproof vest out of the fishing bag, put it on, and spoke to Mickey.

“You stay in the car.”

“What? I’m not providing covering fire?”

That had been the plan, but judging by the atmosphere, the situation seemed to have worsened since they left Taten. Specifically, the incessant sound of machine gun fire meant Barone’s forces were largely intact, which indicated Bran’s men were struggling significantly. Taking Mickey into a situation like this was tantamount to sending him to his death. He would clearly be more of a hindrance than a help.

“Just watch this guy instead.”

Isaiah assigned Mickey this new task, grabbed his rifle, and got out of the car.

Across the street, near the church’s main entrance, there were four police cars, but not a single officer was visible. Thanks to this, Isaiah could cross the street without any interference.

Just in case, instead of the main entrance, he entered the church grounds through a side gate he had scouted during a previous reconnaissance. He was struggling to squeeze through the narrow gap between the rectory building wall and a low stone wall, holding his loaded rifle in one hand.

Just then, Rat-tat-tat-tat! Machine gun fire erupted nearby, and bloodied men screamed as they tumbled down right before his eyes.

Are those Bran’s men?

His heart racing, Isaiah hurried out of the narrow gap, ignoring his clothes snagging on the rough stone wall.

— Bang! Bang!

Two consecutive gunshots rang out, and the machine gun fire abruptly stopped.

Isaiah instinctively aimed his rifle towards the direction of the gunshots. It was a purely instinctual movement, devoid of reason.

“Gonna shoot?”

A tall man said as he took the machine gun from the corpse’s grasp. He was bent over and covered in blood, making his face hard to see, but Isaiah recognized the voice.

It was Bran.