Log:Safehouse Shoot Out

The Lady in White 2020/03/26 Night Marshal Tamara 3

Moonlighting again. It's been easy to make time in the evenings for the stakeout while Gabrielle is in the hospital and Tamara is busy on her case, neither interrupting his vigilante activities. The past two nights have been quiet on stakeout of the town home housing the witness. This is a mostly residential area. Tree lined street, some traffic. Unassuming.

Night Marshal ends up staking out from a neighboring rooftop. He makes sure to get up on the roof while the owner isn't home, and he remains hidden as best he can while he's up there.

Because it's a corner townhouse, Night Marshal can see the side windows of the home. The lights are on, but the curtains are drawn. They're being careful, as no one's shadow is ever seen passing the windows.

As 9:15pm rolls around, he sees a woman and a man walking down the street and turning to go to the front door of the townhouse. While they're dressed in plain professional clothes, he's able to recognize Tamara. The other person with her has a telltale bulge of a sidearm under his coat.

There's something else. There's a black SUV with tinted windows parked up the street. Not unusual in this neighborhood, but based on the license plate, it's not one Night Marshall as seen parked here on his prior stakeouts.

There's heat signatures for four people in the SUV. It's been parked there for at least an hour.

Night Marshal furrows his brow and makes a note of the license plate, in case he needs to look it up later.

Tamara knocks on the door. After waiting for almost a minute, the door opens and lets her and her colleague in, shutting the door behind.

A few minutes later once the street looks clear, the car doors for the SUV open and four men pile out. They look around as they walk down the sidewalk towards the town house. Two draw guns and start heading down the side towards the rear, while the remaining two draw their guns and move towards the front.

As soon as he sees the guns, Night Marshal launches from the rooftop, gliding toward the closest group as quickly as possible.

Carpenter recognizes at least two of these as some of Capelli's suspected men. Nothing concrete enough to stick in a court of law, and not direct underlings, but mooks much lower on the totem pole.

Night Marshal lands and doesn't give them any warning. He just goes to strike one with his taser glove, "No assassinations today, gentlemen."

The first guy goes down like a sack of potatoes. He doesn't even know what hit him. "Hey, Gino, Angelo, get back 'ere!" calls his paired up body.

"Don't use our real names, Coglione!" curses one as they start running back to the front.

The trio try and to shoot from the hip at Night Marshal.

Night Marshal gets hit in the shoulder. Thankfully the kevlar does its job. He'll have a bruise, but the armor kept him from bleeding. He follows up with a strike at the other close target, keeping with the martial arts for the moment.

Another one, this one the guy who got insulted for using names, falls to the ground and twitches a bit before losing consciousness.

There was a definitely crunch and a sizzle in both attacks that have left the men breathless from the assault.

Seeing two of their number go down so quick. One of the mooks starts running for the SUV. The other gets the hint and starts running, too. They fire back at Night Marshal to get some cover fire for their getaway attempt.

Night Marshal tries to draw his pistol quickly, move a bit closer...and then fire at one of the two.

Night Marshal's pistol practically leaps into his hand and he closes some distance before opening fire.

One of the men gets struck in the back and stumbles to his knees before falling down unconscious.

Night Marshal closes some more distance, and fires on the last goon at close range.

That shot lands, and the kick from the close range sounds painful, but at least the damage won't be as lasting as the first two. He goes down halfway to the SUV, his gun sliding across the sidewalk.

Night Marshal looks around to check on the goons' status, paying special attention to the two he actually struck with the taser. He does want to make sure he didn't kill them.

The two hit with the taser aren't looking so good. Follows with the impact, they have some electrical burns, cracked bones, and the voltage may have done some damage internally. They're stable, but very hurt.

Night Marshal sighs. His anger about these guys clearly got the better of him. At least they'll likely survive.

The front door opens and one of the agents on the inside uses partial cover of the door with his gun drawn. "Freeze!"

Night Marshal has already holstered his weapon, thankfully. He puts his hands up. "Officer, if you call Miss Garcia out here, she can explain my presence here."

The agent keeps his gun trained on Night Marshal, but the holstered gun and the hands up causes him to consider the vigilante's words. He calls over his shoulder, keeping his eyes on Night Marshal. "Ms. Garcia, is that right? Can you explain this?"

Tamara comes out from where they had her take cover and creeps towards the door. "Oh, yes. He's with us, gentlemen. You could put down your guns."

The agent lowers his gun from Night Marshal and keeps it trained on the downed men as he radios it in.

Night Marshal points to the four guys. "They advanced on the house once you were inside. I was keeping them from hitting the place."

Another Agent advances to the door, gun drawn but held pointed towards the ground. He holsters his gun and steps out, moving to cuff the nearest unconscious guy.

Tamara takes a breath to try and keep her calm. "I appreciate you helping out with this situation." She turns to the man who had Night Marshal held at gun point and takes charge. "Agent Fenton, we need our witness relocated right away. I want CBPD and a transport available ASAP while I arrange a new safe house."

Agent Fenton looks a bit surprised and put off, but nods and turns aside to radio in the rest.

Night Marshal rubs his chin, and starts to be more careful about his accent with Tamara around. "I reckon the two guys I shot should be fine. Non-lethal rounds. I hit those other two guys pretty hard, though. They're going to need medical attention. And the bullet I took didn't get through my armor."

Agent Fenton nods to Night Marshal. "...and send an EMT."

Tamara turns towards Night Marshal and folds her arms the way she would in the courtroom. Or possibly when she was trying to position herself to win a debate between her and Carpenter. "I think we can overlook any excessive force, since you saved our bacon." She takes her time to look him over appraisingly, one eyebrow raised in judgement of Carpenter's rival. "You're very thorough."

Night Marshal tips his hat to her, "Thank you kindly, ma'am. I aim to please." He smiles, but it's barely visible under the mask. "I reckon I heard a couple of these guys work for Capelli." He points out the two in question.

Despite herself, Tamara smiles at the manners and the aim to please. Though when he mentions Capelli, she goes back to looking serious and looks towards the man. "Damn. How the hell did they find out about this place?"

The other agent has cuffed the two injured ones and moves on to the ones who were dropped while running.

Night Marshal also rattles off the names that were spoken, since they did state them once the fight started. "I'm not sure how they found out about it. But ya'll must have a leak someplace."

That prospect makes Tamara frown. "I'll have to go through the list of people who knew. I tried to be tight lipped on this witness."

Agent Fenton side-eyes Tamara. "It seems you weren't -that- tight-lipped," he says, glancing Night Marshal's way. "Trusting vigilantes to help."

Night Marshal tilts his head, "Had I not been here, you'd have had these four coming inside to shoot the lot of you. If I was the leak, I wouldn't be stopping it. I did take a bullet, remember." He points at the hole his his shoulder armor.

Tamara looks sternly back at Fenton. "He was recommended by a trusted associate, Agent Fenton. If you have problems with that, you can take it up with Chamberlain." She turns back to Night Marshal, rolling her neck once as she takes a moment to calm herself. "Do you need medical attention, too? I thought you said it didn't get through."

Night Marshal shakes his head, "It didn't get through, ma'am. I'll just have a bruise for a day or two."

"Alright. Good," Tamara says with some relief. "I can't thank you enough for helping out."

Night Marshal tips his hat again, "You're welcome. I'm glad I was able to help out. Do you need an official statement from me?"

Tamara looks surprised by the offer. Pleasantly so. "If you're willing to stay to give one, that would be appreciated. Especially for prosecuting these guys," she motions towards the mooks.

Night Marshal nods, "Of course, ma'am. Anything that'll help to put them behind bars."

Tamara's smile grows, as does her intrigue. "I can see why He recommended you," she comments, not giving away Carpenter as she notices Fenton eyeing both her and Night Marshal.

Log:Waffling Witness