Part 3 - Rising Son

 

Mark's heart pounded to a steady 150, torqueing like a big block Diesel to respond to the large amount of adrenaline coursing through the Enforcer's system. He half-tumbled, half-ran down a rather shallow hill, ending up in Hibiya Park with the local constabulary hot on his trail. His brain was hard at work, too; filtering all the impressions and distilling them into an exit strategy was an unglamorous, if very necessary job at the moment.

 

Mark heard the barking of firearms behind him; almost reflexively, he ID'ed the blasts as small-caliber, so atleast they weren't after him with rifles yet. Sprinting down the small road, Mark drew the pistol and squeezed off shots at the lamps illuminating the way ahead; sure, it made his job harder, but he was willing to bet that the people shooting at him wouldn't have an easier time of their's, either.

 

A pair of cops ran to head him off at the next pavillon; Mark saw them raise revolvers and answered with a few shots over their heads, leaving them scrambling for cover. The irony of it all was that he was steadily closing in on them, or rather the low wall they were crouching behind. He could see the Imperial Palace coming closer, and he vaguely recalled a moat around it - nothing like a good dive to lose the fuzz.

 

In a move he would later come to regret, Senior Police Officer Hirohito rose from behind cover to attempt to talk Mark down. For his effort, he caught a faceful of loafer as Mark vaulted the wall with his left hand on the same; the near-dropkick may have been unintended, but it was highly effective. Mark's momentum carried him well clear of the wall; he landed, spun and gave Cop Nr. 2 a legshot with the pistol. Right there, his thought processes caught up with his body enough that he could pick up Senior Police Officer Hirohito's .38 Revolver, look at Nr. 2s revolver on the ground, and ask the following question:

 

If all the cops use these .38s - who was that with the semi and the shotgun?

 

Mark started running again. He didn't like the implications of that at all.

 

The faint whap-whap-whap of a police chopper closing in registered with Mark - barely -, but right there he was focussed on getting the hell out of town. The shotgun dangled from its tactical sling, slamming into his back every now and then, but that was so far below the pain treshold of Mark's combat mindset that it hardly registered as anything but dull thumping.

 

"Almost there", Mark coughed to himself when he reached a set of stairs leading down; the moat was visible just ahead.

 

Go faster.

 

A black car came to a screaching stop at the bottom of the stairs just as Mark hit the first step at the upper end; Mark drew the police revolver, hopped onto the smooth metal handrail and slid down, setting his feet onto the rail until he was tackling the slide on his feet. Doors sprung open, ejecting people in leather jackets with automatic firearms; Mark pumped them full of lead from his two handguns as he cleared the last few meters, vaulted off the rail onto the car's roof and removed himself towards the moat with a forward flip, emptying the last of his ammo into the car in the terminal phase of his two-jump stunt.

 

He threw the spent handguns into the moat; now that he was close enough to see it, he knew that he had barely enough desperation to go for a swim there. He started towards the car, slamming one half-dead gunman into the safety glass of his door and liberating his MP5K. The chopper was closing in, along with a small army of cops - and although he couldn't make them out specifically, somebody seemed to be eager to kill him before the cops could get him.

 

At the end of the day, Mark thought, you could break out of a holding cell. Death - that was a bit trickier to untangle.

 

Mark took a deep breath and dove right into the moat, torn clothes, guns and all. Underwater, Mark realised that he couldn't see squat in the murky water at night, but he had a general sense of direction that would lead towards the palace, and he figured he'd find a good hiding place there. Visibility improved somewhat as the chopper shone its searchlight onto the moat; Mark went down a bit deeper. It was here, perhaps, that he realised for the first time how completely out of place he was in this situation - he wasn't even that good of a swimmer, mainly coasting on his general physique rather than any affinity for water.

 

Then, there was light in front of him.

 

He swam towards it, even when he could feel his lungs slowly begin the protest a more accustomed freediver might have described as "passing gear". What he found was a frogman; Mark raised his SMG to fire, trusting that something built by Heckler & Koch could withstand at least one shot underwater, but the frogman raised his hands in mock surrender, then drew quick letters onto an illuminated patch of his suit.

 

PAC

 

Mark nodded in response; the frogman closed in and handed Mark a second mouthpiece, which the Enforcer eagerly accepted. It was, perhaps, not the best environment for a crash course in open-circuit shallow water diving, but Mark made do by breathing however he wanted, dammit, and improvising a few formation-swimming moves to stay close to his new air-pal.

 

Together, they swam off into the darkness while the Tokyo's finest called in their own divers and secured the trashed black car. It began to look like this night wouldn't end particularly well for anyone.