Sniper Duel
"Heh. You're right — we really ought to settle this, and fast." Gin lowered the pistol he'd been holding on Vermouth and drew the listening device from his pocket, his gaze settling on Mouri Kogoro's head poking out of the agency window below. "Whoever planted this thing may have been careless enough to leave prints on it. Once we've killed this man, we start digging through everyone around him — that ought to turn up whoever's been playing games with us."
Without warning, Cointreau sensed something. His hand snapped out, seized Gin's arm, and hauled it toward himself — narrowly dodging the bullet that had been streaking straight for the bug in Gin's hand.
The sudden crack of gunfire sent Mouri Kogoro, Edogawa Conan, and Judy all craning their heads upward. Korn and Chianti could no longer afford to keep their sights calmly trained on Kogoro and the brat either; both straightened and turned toward the point the shot had come from.
"Behind us. Eight o'clock." Korn looked back at the building rising at their rear.
"Seven hundred yards, give or take." Cointreau shaded his eyes with one hand, studying the far rooftop as he made a rough estimate of the distance.
At that, Gin pocketed the bug he had only just taken out, snatched up the sniper rifle Korn had set aside, and put his eye to the scope, fixing on the building across the way.
"Akai Shuichi!" The instant Gin made out the face of the man who had fired that shot, his eyes widened a fraction and the name tore out of him through gritted teeth.
On the other rooftop, Akai Shuichi watched his shot miss its intended mark. His brow creased faintly, and he murmured to himself, "I didn't take out that bug... this complicates things."
He edged the muzzle slightly sideways, toward the figure standing close at Gin's flank — the one who had reacted fast enough to read the shot and haul Gin clear.
When he got a clear look at the man's face, Akai understood at once: it was the stranger who had appeared out of nowhere at the harbor. Solid technique, razor-sharp reflexes, decisive under fire — practically as thorny a customer as Gin himself. The Organization fielding a man like that was very bad news indeed.
Noting Gin's movements, Akai swung his scope back onto Gin — and the moment he saw Gin raising a sniper rifle of his own, he put a round straight through the other man's scope. Consider it a gift for their reunion.
Seeing his bullet shatter the scope of the rifle in Gin's hands, Akai allowed himself a faint smile.
Then his heart clenched — danger — and on pure instinct he tipped his body slightly sideways.
"Crack!"
He had barely begun to turn when the round skimmed his cheek and slammed into the wall behind him. Had he been a beat slower in dodging, he might well have...
Besides Gin, who else in the Organization could place a shot on target from beyond seven hundred yards?!
Akai's eye flew back to the scope at once. Sure enough — it was that man. As dangerous as Gin... no. More dangerous still.
Meanwhile, at Gin's side, Cointreau was already lining up on Akai once more through the rifle he had just "borrowed" from Chianti. He fired.
"Tch." Cointreau wasn't entirely satisfied — Akai had slipped away from the kill zone yet again. Still, the man hadn't escaped clean this time; by the look of it, the round had caught his shoulder.
Cointreau's own position left something to be desired. He sat considerably lower than Akai, and shooting uphill from a low perch never felt quite natural in the hands.
Akai, needless to say, felt none of that awkwardness. All he felt was the man pressing him, step by relentless step. He kept his gaze locked on his opponent's every movement in the scope and twisted aside by a hair's breadth from another round aimed at his vitals.
"Ugh!"
The evasion fell short — the bullet punched into his shoulder. But Akai bit down on the pain almost at once; his hand shuddered a single time before steadying the rifle again, and he fired back down the slope, spoiling the man's aim before it could settle.
For his part, Cointreau kept reading Akai's movements, slipping away from the opposing muzzle and firing whenever he could scrape together even a rough line on the man's position.
He had to hand it to him — the FBI's ace for a reason. That earlier hit had landed only because Akai had never laid eyes on him before and hadn't been guarding against him. The man's attention had been pinned on Gin; Cointreau's first shot had knocked him off his rhythm, and only while he was still scrambling to recover had the next one found flesh. Even then, Akai had kept his vitals clear in time. Cointreau found himself regarding the man with new respect.
"Aren't we going? The police will be here soon." Cointreau gave the reminder without turning his head, eyes never straying from Akai's direction.
Gin wiped at the wound the shattered scope had carved into him, gazing at the building in the distance with an expression that gave nothing away.
"Move. We're withdrawing!"
The order left Gin's mouth without a heartbeat's hesitation. Their ground was bad, and of the Organization members on site, only Cointreau could actually put Akai Shuichi in danger. If they lingered and the FBI closed a ring around them, matters would grow uglier still.
"But... what about the detective and the brat? Are we still killing them?" Chianti asked.
Vermouth swept her a glance devoid of all feeling. "This is hardly the time to be thinking about that. Besides — if the FBI showed up here to snipe at us, it means this was a trap from the start, and that detective was the bait. Do you understand or don't you?!"
"Why, you—!" Chianti glared at Vermouth with naked fury in her eyes; she was certain the woman's words had been a dig at her intelligence.
"Enough! Of all the times to start a catfight — move it!" Gin threw Chianti and Vermouth a warning look.
Under Cointreau's covering fire, the group abandoned the rooftop at speed.
The corner of his eye caught the others pulling out, and Cointreau stopped bothering to aim in earnest. He loosed a string of shots at Akai's approximate position, and before the man could settle his scope for a counter-shot, he too was gone, following the rest down.
Watching the Black Organization's vehicles pull away, Judy and Conan outside the agency building both let out breaths they'd been holding. Judy had her phone out in an instant, feeding her colleagues the direction the Organization's cars had taken and sending them after it.
A tail had been arranged — but nobody, Judy included, gave it much hope. They all knew the cars would likely shake their pursuers somewhere along the way. Even so, it had to be tried.
In the Porsche 356A, Vodka drove with his whole mind on the road, hunting for the move that would shed the FBI cars clinging to their bumper.
"Gin, what was that woman on about back there — calling the detective 'bait'? What's that supposed to mean?" In the other car, Chianti was splitting herself two ways, eyes on the road as she worked to lose the tail, mouth busy on the comm demanding to know what Vermouth's words had actually meant.
"Idiot." Vermouth sat in the back seat, arms crossed as she leaned against the headrest. Her mood was already sour, and at Chianti's question the word slipped out of her in a low murmur before she could stop it.
Fortunately for the peace of the convoy, Chianti never heard that particular assessment — otherwise the two of them would no doubt have launched into yet another round of one-sided warfare.