17274/The Maroni Raid (The Split - Part I)

The Maroni Raid (The Split - Part I)
Date of Scene:	09 March 2024
Location:	The Narrows - Miagani Island
Synopsis:	A moonlight raid on Sal Maroni's casino ship ends up with four dead cops, a pile of bloodied gangsters, Sal Maroni in cuffs and his oldest son disfigured. All under the orchestration of Harvey Dent
Cast of Characters:	Harvey Dent, Stephanie Brown, Barbara Gordon, Kaine Parker, Austin Reese

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Harvey Dent has posed:
Sal Maroni joined the Gotham Mob when he was twelve years old. He worked his way up the ranks, through bloodshed and hard work. He capped his first mark right before he dropped out of high school. The number of bodies that go back to his name, one way or another, would make a pile higher than some of the tenements the bastard owns.

Tonight, Harvey Dent and the GCPD are taking him down.

The Lady Luck is a massive boat, a floating casino, originally designed for Atlantic City and then floated down the coast to Gotham when Maroni got the bid (under questionable circumstances). Ironically, the crooked deal to buy the boat was one of the first ins Harvey ever got into Maroni's finances, letting him start to unravel the tangled web of mob cash and payoffs, getting to the deep corruption underlying it all. Maroni had his fingers in a hundred pies, each more corrupt than the last. But he'd never faced justice. Not until now.

Harvey should be back in the office, but instead he's on the scene, with the cops, pacing back and forth. Gordon was elsewhere but accessible by phone or radio with ease - no need to put them both at risk and Harvey needed to see Maroni's face when they slapped the cuffs on him. Three years of work, all paying off tonight.

Nobody leaked for once. Not until right beforehand. A last minute tip, a scared dirty cop caving in and ratting to his boss in the desperate hope of saving his own skin. Which is why, when Harvey makes the call and the Major Crimes tactical team starts to move in, the crooks on board are going to be waiting for them.

Harvey rolls his lucky coin between his fingers. Maybe he'll get lucky tonight. Maybe someone else will show up to help save the day.

Maybe not.

Stephanie Brown has posed:
The passive sensors on the Batsub are active as it glides through the dark water a hundred feet down from the surface. The vessel looks more like a car than a submarine, with bubble canopies covering both seats. Within, the blond Batgirl is piloting it, wearing her costume that has some extra built-in features for underwater operations.

She releases a buoy which floats just below the surface, elevating a small antennae up so the sub can more easily tap into the police frequencies, as well as send messages out on the Batcomms at a more rapid speed than the low frequency transmissions necessary when down so deep.

<< I'm coming up on the location of the Lady Luck. Coming up beneath it so no one will see me. How is it looking topside? >>

Barbara Gordon has posed:
After dealing with a syndicate of criminal 'Sad clowns' in New York on the previous night, Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) is out in her Batmobile tracking down a number of names she'd gotten out of the leader of the team that had been peddling alien weapons. Her lightly armored Batmobile, similar to a Formula-1 race car, trundles down a back alley at high speeds, casting a wave of water up in its wake as it crosses between an intersection of dark alleys. Speeding past a few homeless people gathered around a fire-barrel for warmth, Batgirl peers at her display monitors in the cockpit's front seat of two seats.

She's aware of the Harvey Dent operation taking place tonight, and is closely monitoring it as she is not terribly far away from where it is going down.

The homeless man closest to the Batmobile, turns to shout at it, waving a gloved fist at the speeding armored car that zips past he and his companions.

In the sky, above the buildings that Batgirl drives between, a flock of black Bat-drones glide gracefully through the sky, directly connected to Barbara's network of technology she employs to help her in her Gotham City goals of keeping the populace safer.

Kaine Parker has posed:
Blood Spider is out in Gotham. There's a lot of back and forth whether he should stay in New York or come out to a new city. Gotham's a prime alternative candidate. All of that police activity catches his attention. It's not loud, just dumb luck that he caught the barricade heading that way.

"Thwp!" "Thwp!" "Thwp!" he follows them and hangs back on the roof of a building. Yeah, there's not a lot of clearance, but there is no such thing as a Spider-Sub. And if there was, it would be in possession with that other guy.

Blood just hangs outside because this operation has too many moving parts. He thinks either something is going to go sideways, or this is going to work like a set of Christmas Lights. If one thing goes out, or wrong, it'll take everything else out with it.

"Hopefully you guys are better than New York's finest," he says softly and crosses his fingers, metaphorically.

Austin Reese has posed:
As much as he would rather be continuing to try to track down the few names that have not been uncrossed from his list in the Sewell case, sometimes other things require attention. Gotham as a whole has to remain the overall priority, no matter how personal things might get.

Perched on one of the multitude of cranes that line the Gotham riverside, Osprey looks down at the water when he hears the communication from Batgirl about how things are looking topside. The mention of the GCPD raid was on the briefing for the night, which is part of why he had staked out a position here. It had a great view of the Lady Luck from on high, and was in range of a zipline if things went crazy. Never know when the cops might need an extra hand.

<"This is Osprey. So far not seeing anything too out of the ordinary. But you know how nights like this go.">

Harvey Dent has posed:
The police hit the boat hard and fast. The primary strikeforce goes up the gangplank - mostly unused at the moment, with just a couple of guards on it. No party tonight, no festivities, just a private meeting between Sal and some of his underbosses. VIPs only, made men as far as the eye can see. No civilians, no innocents, no hostages. Just the way it needs to be for the raid to go down right.

Harvey grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches, his head hurts. The headaches have been worse lately. Overwork. Stress. Not gonna get better even if this goes right. A hard nasty prosecution. Maroni's lawyers were good. Scum but expert scum.

Two more teams of cops rappel up the backside of the boat, throwing grapples and scrambling up more quietly while the main team kicks in the front door. The GCPD had started to learn a few things from the Bats.

But down below, in the hold, the mob gets itself armed to the teeth, literally pulling heavy weapons out of boxes ready to ship on the next tide, heading straight to Corto Maltese. Umberto Maroni, Sal's eldest son, pumps a shotgun and grins at his boys. "Let's make the pigs pay for their insolence."

The crack of gunshots starts soon after. Harvey can't see it from where he is. But he should stay back. Even though this was his fight. Maroni couldn't slip between his fingers. Not this time. Not again!

Stephanie Brown has posed:
Batgirl finds herself humming Octopus's Garden as she pulls up to the bottom of the luxury boat. An arm extends up, the electromagnet on the end padded to be silent as it affixes itself to the hull, keeping the vessel in place.

<< Oh do we ever know how nights like this go. I'm tempted to head up now. Actually I think I will. Nothing like a swim in Gotham's harbors to try to mutate myself a pair of gills right? >>

Batgirl lifts the respirator to her mouth, and her cowl's lenses drop into place and make a watertight seal. She floods her part of the little cockpit and then the bubble above her retracts and she's swimming free. Not going very far she doesn't bother with fins. Just snakes her way up the bottom of the hull until she makes it to the surface. Just the top half of her head coming up as she peers up at the ship above.

That's when she hears the shots.

Kaine Parker has posed:
Gunfire. A constant request in the super hero life. Oh, this is going to get bad. Blood Spider sighs, then does "Thwp!" "Thwp!" two lines connected to his web shooter. Taking a few steps back, the plan is simple. Slingshot himself to the roof of the boat. Then he can maybe try to bottle neck some people. Easier said than done.

Austin Reese has posed:
<"Hey that wouldn't be the worst mutation, would it?"> Osprey asks back over comms. He was about to add something else to it, but suddenly the sound of gunfire rattles off from the ship below. Not just the sound of handguns either, he could hear automatic weapons among the chaos.

"<Yeah I jinxed it, that one's on me."> He quips as he gets back up to his feet, turning around to anchor the zip-line launcher to the crane, before firing the line down to the top of the casino boat, "<I'm moving in to the roof. Watch out for the GCPD contacts on the back of the ship above you.">

Then he hops out onto the zipline and rides it down towards the top of the Lady Luck, releasing from it just before impact and rolling to a stop on the roof of the ship. He quickly scrambles up to his feet and moves to the edge of the roof, swinging down around it to get inside of the top deck proper.

Harvey Dent has posed:
It wasn't supposed to go down like this. They were supposed to have the drop on them, catch them with their pants down. Easy arrests, all around. A triumph for the DA's office and the GCPD.

Instead, puddles of blood are already forming on the deck. Two cops down. The radio chatter is loud, intense: "They were ready for us! Somebody ratted us out!" one of the lieutenants yells on the police channel. Harvey Dent lets out a shout of rage and throws the radio against the round, shattering it into pieces.

The arriving heroes will find themselves rapidly beset by mooks with pistols and submachine guns, although the close quarters may make aiming something of a pain. Plenty of collateral damage. Below deck, Umberto Maroni leads his father and his closest lieutenants down a back hallway, trying to make their way to a side hatch and a hidden motorboat so they can make their escape. At the same time, the District Attorney of Gotham City is running up the gangplank and into the middle of the fray. What's he thinking? Is he nuts?!?

Stephanie Brown has posed:
Batgirl is monitoring the police comms as well as the Bat's more secure communications. As soon as she hears it is going so wrong, she points her grapple gun up and launches a line up towards the railing.

She reels herself up at a rapid speed, releasing from the line so she flies upwards and over the railing, landing on the deck.

A cop is just down the deck from her, firing at a pair of gunmen further down.

A batarang is thrown that way, dispersing smoke behind it. "Keep down," she tells the officer as she runs down the deck, then drops to slide low as the gunmen fire into the smoke at body height. She slides out of the smoke just in front of them, popping up and extending her bo staff to full height. It clocks one of the gunmen in the head, as Batgirl moves evasively as the second starts shooting at her.

Kaine Parker has posed:
Landing on the boat. Blood Spider scrambles. That's supposed to be higher up. He'll kick the gunman appearing out of a door. "Not you!" At least there's a splash ound. "Thwp-Thwp-Thwp-Thwp" he seals up that door and then tries to work around to some of the windows. He'll duck low.

Guns bark as they go off. Bullets bite into the ship from both sides. "I don't know if this is safer than New York!" he say almost angrily. Staying low, he'll try to close up some windwos. Again, trying to force them into places the cops have a better and more obvious chance at hitting. It's just going to take a bit of time to attempt this. And that's if everything is perfect.

Austin Reese has posed:
Close quarters combat in a situation like this can always be made worse by the introduction of smoke. Osprey throws handfuls of smoke pellets down the gangway he's found himself in, sending up plumes of smoke that obscure the vision of the mobsters in there. He switches to his thermal vision and uses it to pick his targets. He keeps his movements erratic in order to keep the guys firing into the smoke off balance, and takes down several of them in rapid succession.

He moves from that gangway into one of the larger open casino areas. Below he spots several of the guys in tactical gear engaged in a desperate firefight with the better armed gangsters. He pulls a pair of small concussion grenades out of his bandolier and jumps off the balcony, tossing them both down in the midst of the gang before dropping in himself. One of the mobsters manages to crack him with the butt of his rifle, but his distraction allows the tactical team to move up and close the distance on the mobsters.

Osprey is thrown into one of the card tables, grabbing a handful of chips from it and whipping around to throw them in the goon's face, able to stumble him back and get the gun pointed somewhere else as he continues the engagement.

Harvey Dent has posed:
Harvey ends up in the middle of a scrum, pulling a crook off of a knocked down officer and tossing him over the side of the boat. The splash down below means he's probably okay, but it doesn't seem like Harvey's checking. The DA knew the layout of the boat, its blueprints had been part of his preparation. He knows where Maroni's heading.

"Watch the southwest corner," he shouts into the radio. "We have to cut off Maroni's escape route. He can't get away. Not this time!" he says. Harvey gets clipped with the butt of a gun, knocked into one of the walls in a narrow passageway, only to respond with a vicious left hook that probably concusses the guy. The DA's a big man, a former boxer in his youth, he's got heavy hands. Is he authorized to use them? Probably not, but this isn't the time for legal niceties. Not with Sal Maroni slipping between his fingers.

Spider and Bat and Ospreay alike start to wear down the bad guys. The cops are glad to see them, too, no hostility from the GCPD here. Of course with the raid going this violently, odds are Jim Gordon might've called the whole thing off by now in an attempt to prevent further bloodshed among the police force. But Harvey's obsession isn't going to make that an option.

Stephanie Brown has posed:
The gunman fires three times, only hitting Batgirl's cape as she evades just ahead of his aim. The tip of her bo staff slams into his gut, making him keel over, and then clips the side of his head.

She heads deeper into the ship. A small camera lets her peek around a corner and see the men below armed with shotguns waiting for someone to come down the stairs.

Soon a flash of light and a loud bang sound as she tosses down flash pellets. Before they can recover, she's among them, taking them down and disarming them, then cuffing them to the railing.

Kaine Parker has posed:
The second someone sticks out of the window, "Thwp!" pull. The gunman cries out and it's an awkward takedown. Blood Spider rears his headback to give a Glassgow kiss, headbutting the poor guy. There's a sickening "Crnnch!" A simple toss. Then he tries to web up that window.

as soon as the guy is tossed off the spider-senses scream and he immedately does a roll back. Gun fire hits into the deck he's on before he goes to hide.

"This is nuts. Whose keeping this blood bath going?!" he growls low.

Austin Reese has posed:
With everything happening all at once, it's nearly impossible to keep track of everyone. Still, when the SWAT team rolls in and secures the group in the main casino, Osprey is able to overhear the police bands mentioning the Southwest corner. He leaves the cops there, heading in that direction, though as he rounds a corner to get back onto the outside of the ship, he finds himself face to face with a pair of goons with shotguns.

Without much time to react, Osprey instead opts to slam his fist into the ground between himself and the pair, using the cryo-charge loaded in his gauntlet to freeze the ground in front of him, forcing the pair to slip and fall as Osprey hops up and moves past them via the railing, swapping out the expended charge for an electric one as he scans for wherever Maroni is trying to get away as.

Harvey Dent has posed:
On the deck on the southwest corner, Sal Maroni, his son Umberto and his account, Dick Giordano, find themselves facing the raging silhouette of the DA of Gotham. Blood trickles from his temple where he got bashed off the wall. Some of the blood on his shirt doesn't belong to him, though. He's heaving, eyes bulging. The madness in his eyes is hard to argue.

Umberto holds up a gun while Sal laughs, "You arrogant bastard! Comin' here in the flesh, to face me! You're gonna die! Put him down, Bertie."

Umberto 'Bertie' Maroni is the apple of his father's eye, tall and handsome, recently engaged to a beautiful Sicilian girl from the old country. They'll be flying back to Europe for the wedding in the summer. It'll be a great moment, solidifying ties and expanding the family empire even beyond Gotham. Umberto steps forward and grins as he prepares to execute his father's greatest enemy.

Harvey sneers, "The only one going down today is you, Maroni," he says. And before that trigger can be pulled, Harvey slaps a nearby shelf, where the maintenance supplies for the boat are kept. The acid there is just to get off the barnacles, the salt that builds up. It's deadly, burns through your skin like fire. Harvey flings it right in Umberto's face.

The kid screams, falling to his knees, his face ruined as the DA moves in and clips Sal in the face with his fist. "Jesus Christ! BERTIE! BERTIE! HELP HIM YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

The screams echo through the boat. The few remaining members of the mob quiet as they hear the golden boy of the Maroni family scream in agony. Harvey Dent finishes cuffing Maroni, the accountant cowering nearby as the DA looks down at Umberto. He pulls out his coin and rolls it in his hand, his father's lucky coin. "Tell you what - if he wins the flip, I'll call for help," he says. "What's that Bertie? You want tails?" he says, as the howling turns incoherent.

Kaine Parker has posed:
Blood Spider pops up as everything goes quiet except for the scream. Spid just watches the excahnge. He's half tempted to wb the coin if it goes up in the air. The man pauses and can't believe his thoughts drift into this area. He's done worse than Harvey's threatening. Now, Blood Spider is trying to be the moral one. The dramatic irony is not lost on him.

Austin Reese has posed:
As he reaches the railing, Osprey gets a great view of the DA being held at gunpoint. He's about to make a move, but he doesn't get a chance, as that jar of acid goes flying straight into the younger Maroni's face. It was self defense, sure. But the actions that follow seem to make it personal.

The vigilante hops back down off the railing he was on, and does a quick glance around. It seems that the cops have taken the advantage and gained the upper hand over the mobsters, <"I think it's about time for us to make our exit."> He comments over comms after a moment, getting his way back up to the roof so he can escape back up the cable he'd shot down initially. Does he think Dent went too far? No. Not really, not when he's been doing the same thing lately. He understands things getting personal.

Harvey Dent has posed:
Someone does eventually help Bertie. Far too late. Not that he'll die. He'll live, at least until he loses the will to do it anymore. There are limits to even what plastic surgery can do. Not to mention the pain. The only good thing is that some of the nerves are gone now, never to feel a thing again.

The Maronis are cuffed and lead away. The heroes get a chance to slip away. The recriminations start almost immediately. Three dead cops. A dozen wounded. Six dead mobsters and most of the rest in the hospital. Umberto Maroni mutilated for life.

The phone against Harvey's ear carries Jim Gordon's words. The blame, the anger. The commissioner wants to know what Harvey was thinking, how this operation got so out of hand. But Harvey just swipes the call shut. He walks to the edge, pulls out a cigarette and puts it between his lips. He's supposed to be quitting. "Tails I quit," he says, flipping the double headed coin and then giving a rough laugh as he lights up. And he smiles, the first real smile he's had that wasn't for a poster, that wasn't for show, in as long as he can remember. Tonight, he'll dream of Umberto Maroni's screams and they will be sweet, sweet dreams.

Tomorrow, the clean-up will begin and so will the prosecution. But for tonight? Harvey Dent is the happiest man in Gotham.