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A Cat Among the Stool-pigeons. Episode 5. Note: Dafydd is the Welsh equivalent of "David" and is pronounced "Davith"

"Mr Owen, you might want to come out here, we've a gentleman that insists on speaking to you, he claims his name is Mitchell."

Shit.

ShitFuckHate.

This was a complication I really didn't need right now. Two keystrokes engaged the electronic locks on all the doors, internal and external. A couple more activated the camera and an audio channel to the left hand "office" where Hannah was engrossed in a video game. I brought up the front office camera too and looked at my newest visitor. He was a pretty handsome stag, sporting 6 or 7 points and a lean healthy build.. I needed to verify his identity or I'd be emerging from my office behind a gun.

"Hannah, I'm sorry to interrupt your game but I need your help and it may be a little dangerous so I've locked down every door in here.. "

"Mr Owen? What's going on?"

"I'm sending an image to your monitor, do you recognize this guy?"

"Oh my God! It's my dad.. He's safe!"

I released the lock on the left side room and toggled my intercom.

"Miss Jackson, if you would direct our visitor to the left room, he might find someone there he very much wants to meet. I'll join them shortly."

"Yes, Mr Owen."

I watched with one eye the tearful reuniting of father and daughter. I was going to have to deal with these two real soon, but I was already dialing Marko. I needed security coverage on a warehouse in Rochester within the next few minutes if I was to save the undercover cop that was going to walk in there in a few hours with no notion that it was a trap specifically tailored to her pretty hide. I was going to need to push my luck on speeding down highway 52 to get there as it was, I didn't need delays at my office. The emotions seemed to be running down in the office next door so I released all the internal locks and stood up. Brushing off my suit I nodded to Liz as I passed through the front office and then busted in on the family reunion.

"Mr Mitchell..."

"Mr Owen, so good to see you.. I'm glad you were able to save at least some of my family..."

"You fucked up. You dropped them in it yourself."

"No.. No I didn't.. That was a colleague of mine who found the stored logs and called them in without realizing what he'd done. I went underground as soon as I was notified that somebody else had accessed them."

I could feel my pupils narrowing to fine slits as I focused on the deer in front of me.. I had to clamp down on my emotions to stop my freak instincts sending me at him to bring him down.. "You never thought your wife was playing around. You were checking me out."

"Well, yes.. And you checked out just fine, as you've proved over the last day or two. I do apologize, Mr Owen. If you hadn't been so skilled at laying false trails I'd have been in your office before those two lowlives shot up your building the other day."

"Mr Mitchell, the hornets nest you or your hypothetical colleague have kicked is still spilling over with nasty buzzing things that pack a pretty decent sting. I am running out of time in dealling with one of those. Can I leave you two here while I deal with that and you can then give me the full story in a few hours?"

"What do you mean?"

"This chain of events have exposed an undercover cop to the gang she infiltrated. I need to get her out of it and I need to do it now."

"Go. I'll stay here with my daughter."

"I'll lock the door on my way out, if you don't mind..."

"A perfectly understandable precaution."

Leaving the side office I did exactly as I had promised and looked down at Liz.. She returned my gaze, a quizzical look shading her tawny muzzle..

"If he's a 'software engineer' and nothing else, I'm a damn monkeys uncle. Keep that door locked down but dont be surprised if those two find some way to disappear. Take no action. Are you up for some overtime today?"

"I've no plans this evening."

"Thank you, Liz. I appreciate it. I need to make a run to Rochester and I'd appreciate it if you manned the desk until I got back."

I didn't need the distraction of Liz Jackson wriggling in her seat and demonstrating that she was definitely NOT a man but that image was going to haunt me on the drive I was about to take, and the vixen knew it, darn her..

"Of course, Mr Owen. I'll be here when you get back."

....

Rolling into the trucking lot a block away from the warehouse that was my target I parked and rummaged in the glove box for the suppressor that I carefully screwed onto the front of my sidearm. I hoped I wuldnt have to shoot anyone tonight but if I did then I didnt want the sound alerting their colleagues to my presence. Having done that I checked the loaded mag, pulled back the slide far enough to verify that there was a round chambered and stepped out into the darkening evening. I tapped the button on my bluetooth headset. It hadn't even time to ring once before a voice answered.

"Mr Owen, we have you approaching from the southwest. "

"Yes."

"Be cautious, there is a rifleman on top of the northenmost tank to your right. Total of three inside, was five but two have left."

I kept my route close to the base of the tanks, in his blind spot, as I approached the warehouse. I waited at the base of the tank on which I knew a rifleman was sitting, covering the openspace between me and the warehouse.

"Security patrol is approaching. You should have a nice light well in 20 seconds"

Sure enough, the security patrol illuminated the tanks from the far side. I knew the rifleman on top of the tank was scooting back into shadow and couldnt either see or shoot into the broad fan of darkness that extended from the tank farm to the warehouse. I sprinted down the center of it and ducked behinid the door before the light flicked off. Easing around the walls I found a set of steps to a catwalk that gave me a good view of the warehouse floor. I stayd prone on th ecatwalk as I took in the scene before me. Looked like I was too late - a pale-furred lynx was on the floor in front of a pair of komodo dragons. I stared at them, feelling my ears swivel to focus the sound. I felt a visceral fury start to rise up and clamped down on it. Too soon to think about going berserker, but the hunter-senses would be a help, so I didn't shut it all the way down. I wrinkled my nose as the true magnitude of the stink in this place hit me, opening my mouth in something between a snarl and a spit. My peripheral vision started to go away, all my awareness focusing in on the lizards my subconscious was tagging as "prey" and I was dimly aware of the rhythmic lashing of the last third of my tail. I smelled cat and lizard.. I didn't smell any blood. Maybe she was still alive.

I had an interesting tactical situation here. I could easily take down both lizards from here, but the rifleman would see it happen. He'd make a phone call and this place would be swarming with their friends - probably more of 'em than I could take on. Hell, probably more of them than I had bullets. That rifleman might decide to take a shot or three into the lynx on the floor too, just to make sure an undercover cop who had seen faces was in no position to testify. In his position I know I would. I needed some way to get the rifleman off his perch or neutralized...no, scratch that. He had to be taken down too. These three were the only ones in the Rochester gang that had seen this womans face and could id her as a narc. They all had to go away. Quietly I spoke to Marko's support team.

"Can you take out the rifleman?"

"How much exposure can you tolerate?"

"None. This is supposed to be a sea story that never happened."

"Then negative. At the angle we have it's better than even odds we put a hot round into that tank. The target will be a crispy critter when it goes up but that will flood the area with too many local uniforms for us or you to safely egress unnoticed."

The lynx on the floor was starting to stir.. she was alive.. hogtied, gagged and probably with a severe headache, but alive. The two lizards had noticed that too. One of them looked out the door at the tank farm.

"Hey, Tony!"

"Yeah?" voice from outside.. angle says it's the rifleman on the tank. (what, can't every feline triangulate a sound source with their ears? I could do it with one ear muffled by my bluetooth headset but that was just because my primitive hunter instincts were fully online.)

"You ever fucked pussycat?"

"Nope."

"If you wanna, get your ass in here now." The two lizards below me picked her up by the arms and started dragging her towards a back office.

Over the bluetooth "Mr Owen, the rifleman is descending the ladder. We have no eyes inside the building and from this position no shot on the rifleman."

"Stand by"

Good news, bad news. The good news was that my three targets were about to be concentrated in one place. The bad news was that I was out of the visual coverage of my overwatch team and the targets were about to enter a space I did not have a good line of fire into. Here we go again, dangling out on the end of pretty thin limb with my ass about to drop into the fucking piranha tank. Thank you, Sir. May I have another? Carefully I made my way over to a position above the offices. They all had skylights in their ceilings, opening them up to the warehouse lights. I couldn't drop from here without anyone on the warehouse floor seeing me. I positioned myself above the one furthest from where the two lizards were dragging the lynx. I had to wait until they were inside and drop before Tony, the rifleman, entered the warehouse. It was a 15 foot drop, longer than I'd ever made before and stayed truly "cat-footed" - but this one really HAD to be silent. If I thumped the roof here they'd all hear it and my plan would be totally fucked. I unscrewed the suppressor from my gun and tucked it in a pocket, then holstered my weapon. I was going to need both hands here.

"Tell me when the rifleman enters the building"

"Roger. He's about 10 seconds out."

The two inside the place were already passing out of my view.. if I couldn't see them, they couldn't see me. I hoisted myself over the rail and slid down to dangle from the catwalk itself. That cut six feet off the drop.

"Five seconds..."

I let go and landed in a perfect, silent, four-point stance. Dropped to my belly and froze, staring at the entrance.

"He's at the door, Mr Owen"

This was no lizard. Their designated hitter was a fully grown timber wolf that looked like he ate barbells for breakfast. Threat level red, Dafydd... take this guy down with your first shot or he's gonna hand you your ass. I waited until he passed out of my view, heading for the same office they'd dragged the lynx into, before I dared move. As I silently padded across the roof of the block of offices, I screwed the suppressor back on my gun. I didn't want this to get loud. I was within a couple of meters of the skylight I was aiming for when I started to be able to hear them again.

"Yeah, well.. Pussycat, you aint getting out of this one. We know what you are, Pussycat. We know you're a cop. You're probably hoping that somebody is gonna pull you out of this and maybe you're right.. but if you want to be in one piece when they arrive you gotta keep two lizards and a wolf happy and make sure we dont get bored with you, because if we do we're going to cut that pretty throat and leave you here. Understand? Just nod, we aint taking off that gag until it's time stuff a dick in there. Forget it, Pussycat. You are in deep shit and only how well you fuck is gonna keep you alive. Right now you aint a pussycat.. you're just a pussy."

Looking down I watched the dragon that had been speaking unfold a knife and methodically cut away her clothing, leaing her nude hogtied and gagged on the couch in the office below me. I had no solution on all three assailants, I had to wait until I could take them all down in seconds.. My first shot would shatter the skylight, suppressed or not it would announce my presence. If one of the three was not distracted that would be the end of it, because I'd only have time to get off one more shot after I hit the deck. The three moved closer.. better for me, worse for her. The guy with the knife took off his pants and poised himself between her legs, pushing them apart..

"You ready to serve a lizard, Pussy? Ready or not here I come.. "

He drove into her and the other lizard and the wolf gathered around to watch. Jackpot. I sighted on the wolf's head and squeezed off one round. Skylight shattered and I felt myself drop as the wolf folded up on the floor. Before my foot-paws hit the deck I was lining my weapon on the unengaged lizard. My finger pushed back on the trigger twice.. the first would have been enough because he took the round between the eyes.. the second went right through his x-ring. The other lizard was hauling his cock out of the lynx on the couch and turning to face me. I dropped my gun and ripped my right-hand claws into his crotch, shredding his manhood. He mewled like a girl and tried to double over as the pain hit. My other hand gripped his neck, holding him upright.

"Goodbye, fuckstick."

My claws convulsed, ripping out his throat and painting the far wall as he sprayed it, falling backwards in a symphony of red.

Now I could smell blood. I sucked air and spat as my muscles twitched, slowly coming down off the predator high. My prey were dead. I kept that thought in the front of my mind, using it to calm the urge to lower my muzzle and bite off portions of their flesh. I may be a fucking throwback, but I wasn't a feral eater. I had to get out of here, I had to get my shit together and make myself and the woman on the couch disappear. I pulled open my pocket knife and cut her bonds and the gag away. She mewed as circulation returned to her extremities.. it hurt but there was no avoiding it. I stripped off my jacket and handed it to her.

"It's not much but it's better than the rags these shits made of your clothes. Come on, we need to get out of here before all hell breaks loose."

She pulled my jacket on without a word and followed me out of the warehouse. She kept giving me strange looks that made my ears flatten and my hair rise but she didnt say anything until we reached my car. I burned rubber out of the parking lot and made my last statement to Marko's overwatch team.

"Clear down, vanish. This never happened." The line simply hung up.

"The name you are using is Vivian Downer. I know that's a crock of shit. Given that, what would you wish me to call you?"

"Sarah. Sergeant Sarah Marshall."

"Ok, Sarge, I'm going to get you back to my office where I have a full field medics kit. If there's anything I cant handle I'll drive you down to the hospital myself and call a couple of friends I can trust on metro homicide to babysit you while you're there. Are you ok with that, Sarah, or should I make alternate plans?"

"Before I answer that, would you mind telling me what the fuck is going on here?"

"You're blown. There's a mole in metro drugs and gangs that shopped you to Koob. I got involved because he was also going after my clients. I laid a rather hefty incentive on him to back the fuck off and as a result was able to find out where you were walking into a setup. I owe a few cops in metro homicide a favor and in the interests of saving them paperwork and heartbreak from seeing one of their own gutted like a fish I decided to pull you out of that shit if I could. Any questions?"

"Just one.. who's the stinking mole?"

"No idea.. but I think I gave my friends enough info to find 'em."

"Shit!"

"Yeah, I know.. blown once you can't ever work undercover again.. but you're alive."

"yeah, and ALMOST unraped."

"Loverboy is a problem for the Rochester ME. I know you'd have preferred to render him that way yourself, but I had other concerns at that point. I couldn't drop in until I could take all three. I'm sorry. For what it's worth, when we get back to my office the first thing I'll be doing is hitting the shower to wash the stench of his flesh off my claws. I've got bits of lizard junk under my fingernails on one hand and chunks of the same bastards throat on the other and I want them gone."

"Why shower alone?"

"Sarah, I know why you asked that question and I don't see a need to answer the one you were thinking when you said that. To answer the question you actually asked, I will admit that under other circumstances I would be thinking about ways to get you into that shower with me - you're a beautiful woman and I'd have to be blind and dead from the neck down not to notice that. However, you have just escaped from a traumatic and life-threatening situation and I have issues that you don't know about. Between those two situations it's probably better not to go there on such short acquaintance. So I'll take the fifth on that, counsellor."

to be continued...