16, Paybacks
“You’d lose a spelling contest to a second grader, you dumb shit.” Special agent Trent Murdock’s voice was weak. It had only been three days since his rescue, and he hadn’t fully recovered from the torture he’d received at the hands of the ruthless drug lord, El Tiberon (The Shark). “Seriously, I don’t know how you got past elementary school.”
“Says the man who can’t do basic math,” retorted Murdocks best friend, fellow special agent Dale O’Connor. “I’d be insulted if you had an ounce of intelligence, but this is coming from a guy who ruins grilled meat by slathering it in corn syrup and pretends its barbecue sauce.”
“Fuck you, Doc!”
“No, fuck you!”
The two men spoke in cycles. They’d be calm while bickering and insulting each other, then burst out passionately in profanity at each other, then go right back to speaking calmly. It was a predictable kind of dysfunction that they fell naturally into.
“Seriously, you can’t spell shit.”
“S.H.I.T., asshole. Want me to use it in a sentence?” O’Connor swirled the ice cubes in his whiskey glass. “Shit. My best friend has half the intelligence of a moldy pile of rhinoceros shit. Shit.”
“No, for real. I’ll bet you you can’t spell iCup.”
“iCup? Apple’s making imaginary products for you to pretend to drink coffee from, huh? iCup, I.C.U.P.”
“Ha! You creep! Stop looking at my dick when I piss!” Murdock laughed at his immature joke.
O’Connor played the straight man. “You’re a liar, Murdock. You’re not urinating and I’m not looking. You shouldn’t lie.”
“Dammit Doc, you just said I.C.U.P., you dumbass.”
“Yeah, cuz you told me I couldn’t spell iCup. And you were wrong, so lick my testicles clean of their salt, you piss watching shit bag.”
“No, fuck you, Doc! You just said you see me pee! Sicko!”
“You are a mental midget.”
“That’s racist.”
O’Connor raised his voice in a passionate retort, “Oh, the lies of a bootlicking hypocritical idiot! And to whom exactly am I racist towards now?”
“Little people.” Trent Murdock lifted his nose to feign disapproval.
“Ah,” nodded O’Connor in agreement. “And as you expose your insincere moral positioning, are you thinking how you can lie about how you help little people in any tangible way?
“I stop bigots like you from speaking ill of them.”
O’Connor snorted. “Them, as in they’re different from your kind and you’re labeling them, right? So as you judge and separate little people from the rest of humanity with your judgmental language, how do you defend yourself from being the smarmy, disingenuous piece of shit bigot that you are?”
“That’s racist.”
“Like I said, you’re a mental midget.”
“I rest my case.”
“Oh ye of obsequious morality.”
“Shove your made up words up your ass, Doc! Don’t play smart with me!”
In a chair a few feet from them, Tiberon sat gagged, blindfolded and tied up. He hadn’t been given food, water or a bathroom break for three straight days. He’d urinated himself several times and the room stunk. Neither agent even acknowledged that he was there. They were too busy going at each others throats.
“So you’re trying to tell me that even though you were dumb enough to get drugged by an obvious hooker in a night club, then captured and hung from your ankles and shocked for a day straight, that you are somehow, ‘smart?’ Please explain.”
“I’m not saying I’m free from faults.” Murdock used some tongs to put a few fresh ice cubes into his rocks glass, then followed suit to O’Connor’s glass without asking. “I have a weakness for the female form, and I admit it occasionally gets me into trouble.”
O’Connor was indignant. “If a woman has daddy issues or mental illness, you’re drawn to her like a moth to flame.”
“Well, I can’t argue there.” Murdock poured a few more ounces of whiskey into his glass and poured the remaining little bit of whiskey from the bottle into O’Connor’s glass. He set the empty bottle next to three other empty bottles. Neither man commented on the bottles. “I am happy to report that it’s been over a year since the last time an angry woman waved a hand gun at me.”
“At the briefings you’d miss, we referred to you as TP, short for Target Practice.”
“Now that’s just hurtful, Doc.” Murdock shook his head in protest.
O’Connor did a very slow clap, sarcastically applauding Murdock’s shitty taste in women.
Murdock shrugged. “A wise man once said, I’ve got the clap and I’m giving it to you.”
“I hate that fucking guy, and I hate you.” O’Connor spoke as calmly as if he were discussing a peaceful weather day.
There was a knock on the door and master thief Owens walked into the room.
“Owens! What’s up, dude!?” O’Connor leaped out of his seat to hug his friend.
“Doc! Murdock! What’s up fellas!” Owens had something that looked like a very thick black leather blanket folded under his arm. He handed it to O’Connor but crinkled his nose. “It smells like piss in here.”
“It’s Murdock’s breath. What’s this?” O’Connor asked as he took the hunk of material in confusion. It was bulky and heavy. He began to unfold it and gasped. “My trench coat! How did you get this!?!?” He looked at Owens and noted his toothy grin. “Oh yeah, you steal shit. Dude, have a whiskey and have a seat!”
“Hellz yes, don’t mind if I do!”
Murdock opened a new bottle of booze and poured Owens a whiskey on ice, then slid it across the table to him. “Thanks Murdock! I heard you’ve had a hell of a week, eh?”
“It’s been a doozy, but I’m on the mend.” Murdock thought back to the electric torture he’d endured a the hands of Tiberon and laughed.
Owens laughed too. “I was trying to think of some sort of electricity pun when I heard about it, like, hey dude, watts up? Or, I’m shocked to see you! But I forgot when I smelled this place.”
“He deserves the puns, and the stench,” O’Connor muttered.
Owens looked at the two of them and saw huge bags under their eyes. They’d been bickering in front of Tiberon for three straight days, strong, with no breaks. “The room for real smells like piss,” Owens said sincerely.
“Tiberon has to use his underwear as a urinal.” Tiberon was falling in and out of consciousness and moaned. Murdock shrugged. “Usually we’re not animals like this, but when it’s someone this evil, my empathy disappears.”
“I understand completely. His thugs at the docks were all fighting. They know he’s gone and assume he’s dead. I don’t speak Spanish, but it sounds like his organization has a power vacuum.”
O’Connor’s interest perked up. “Yeah, I wanna hear how you got my trench coat! Tell me everything.”
Owens took a sip of his ice cold Jameson and smiled a wide, joyful smile. “Well, Porter came to Russia to get me and the Moscow unit. As soon as we got to the safe house, Rice filled us in about your mission debacle at the night club. Schuman was in the room and told us she was in love, which she’s never talked like that ever, so that was strange.”
“Yeah, it’s gotta be some kind of Stockholm syndrome, we think.” O’Connor shrugged. “She’s got a pretty smile that we never saw before this trip. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but personally I hope she finds the guy and marries him. She’s annoyed some of the team, but I think it’s awesome in a weird way.”
Owens took a deep sip of his whiskey and said, “I love this team.”
“Back to my trench coat, I wanna hear it all.”
“Ah yes, so we locked in on your wrist watch communicator beacon. It was in a house right by the docks on the river. I snuck in and there were five guys in there. They were arguing heatedly, so they never saw me.” Owens spoke matter of factly as if this were a normal everyday occurrence, but Murdock and O’Connor knew that he was a freak of nature. They listened intently. “I slipped into a side room where I found your wrist com, your trench coat, and all but one of your weapons.”
“What? Which one was missing?” O’Connor hadn’t blinked and was giving Owens his full attention.
“Your hand gun. I figured someone had it, and I was right.”
Tiberon moaned loudly. Murdock had no empathy. “Shut up, piss boy. We’ll get back to you. Tell us about the hand gun.”
Owens gave Tiberon a brief glance but dove right back into his story. “I slipped into the bathroom and hid behind the shower curtain. A few guys came in to take a piss. I did some pick pocketing without them even knowing. One of them had Doc’s gun in his waist band. Easy as cake.”
Murdock and O’Connor had seen Owens do things that seemed impossible, but this statement left so many questions. Both of them had their jaws dropped.
O’Connor asked, “So you just, took the gun out of the dude’s belt loop and he didn’t even notice?”
Owens had been taking a sip of whiskey. He finished swallowing the glorious nectar of the Irish gods and simply answered, “yup.” He sat in awkward silence for several seconds, then took a nervous sip. “That’s it. I wish I had a better story for you, but that’s it.”
Murdock shook his head in disbelief even though he believed his friend completely. His muscles still hurt from being tortured but he was quite inebriated now so his reception to pain was dulled to perfection. “Did you take anything fun?”
“Oh yeah!” Owens perked up and became more animated. “I snagged the usual laptop and a few of their wallets, but the cool thing is I stole some keys out of a dude’s pocket as he was taking a leak! I got bored in their house after several hours, so I slipped out with Doc’s things and the other stuff, then poked around the area to try and find the vehicle that went with the keys. Imagine how jacked I was to find out the keys were for a sports car! I found it parked several blocks away, so that was cool. It’s fast as fuck. Miller swept it for GPS trackers and other broadcasting signals, but it’s clean.”
O’Connor smiled. “When we’re done with Tiberon, I want a ride. I’m too drunk to drive, of course.”
“Of course,” Owens said with compassionate understanding. “The team is gonna make a move on the next target while you two finish up here. Lorenz and Miller are actually loading up with Porter shortly to head down the mountain. Rice has me, Mickey and Von Stryker doing some recon tonight on some businessmen in from Moscow on the other side of town.”
Murdock drooled a little but was too drunk to care about cleaning himself up. “Ah, Von Stryker. Tell her I’ll pay her that twenty bucks I owe her when I’m done here.”
“I’ll pass the message. I still can’t believe you lost a distance pissing contest to her. That’s embarrassing, dude.”
“The cool breeze caused a lot of shrinkage that night and I wasn’t on my game. Don’t judge.” Murdock grinned as he raised his glass to Owens.
“No judgement here, brother.” Owens downed the rest of his whiskey and stood up. “Well boys, I have to go put on a tuxedo and pretend to be an investor from New York at tonight’s recon mission. I fucking hate getting dressed up.” He nodded at Tiberon. “Good luck making this asshole bleed from the ears.”
O’Connor instantly got indignant. “Well that’ll be no problem with the fucking drivel that comes out of this sorry excuse for an agent. His stupidity steals joy from the universe.”
Murdock snorted. “Yeah, this coming from a man who thinks that humans built the pyramids.”
“Aliens didn’t build them, you fucking nitwit. They have human math all over them. And they were built by artisans with amazing precision. There’s no way they were built by slaves.”
“That’s racist.”
Tiberon groaned loudly in protest as Owens slipped out of the room unnoticed. O’Connor and Murdock were drunk as fuck, but even if they were sober, they wouldn’t have seen him leave. His ability to move stealthily was super human. Without knowing it, Murdock may have been right about aliens. Owens very well might be an alien among humans, but they were too dumb to ever ask.
In the distance, Pilot Porter drove down the mountain and into the jungles of Columbia with two highly trained snipers as Owens joined the Moscow unit for a formal dinner at the prime ministers villa in the hills.
