17, Recon
“It’s like a faucet of sweat is turned on and dripping down my cleavage non fucking stop. I really wish I had someone to kill right now.” Special agent Mikayla Doniak was normally very laid back and agreeable, but the unrelenting Columbian humidity had robbed her of her patience.
“That sucks, Mickey. Obviously speaking from a male perspective, I can’t relate to the misery of swoobs, but I imagine it’s no fun.” Master thief Owens pulled a wallet out his pocket and handed it to Doniak.
Doniak took the wallet and used a cell phone to start snapping photos of its contents. “Swoobs. I haven’t heard that one for awhile.”
Owens grinned his toothy smile. “I imagine it’s like swass, which sadly I’m the current poster child.”
The humor injected a bit of enthusiasm back into Doniak as she hustled to snap photos. “Swass. Yup, I definitely need to kill someone.”
“And to think you’ve only been on Team Whiskey for a year,” Owens joked. “In a decade, you won’t remember what life was like before you joined.”
Doniak put the credit cards back into the wallet and handed it back to the master thief. “One more hour, Owens, and I get dibs on that glorious cold shower that awaits when this shit is over.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Mickey.”
“Thanks, Owens,” Doniak muttered. She rarely complained and loved her job, but the humidity was a joy thief. “When we’re done here, I want to go back to dry ass Russia as soon possible. My tits are floating in my own disgusting sweat and it is god damned driving me bonkers.”
“You’ve seen me wear flip flops on snow days. I’m dying in this tux.” Owens nodded to his friend and prepared to walk back into the action. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m going to walk around in my underwear in the woods for a week after this mission, fuck the haters.”
“I’m joining you,” Doniak joked.
Owens walked back into the lobby of the prime ministers chateau. The room was packed with Columbian and Russian businessmen. Hand shakes and fake smiles ruled the evening. Owens mingled about until he found the businessman he’d stolen the wallet from. He casually slipped the wallet back into the mans pocket as he intentionally bumped into him. “Sorry!” he said, but he wasn’t.
A beautiful woman wearing a long, elegant black evening dress walked up to him and gave him a big smile. “How’s it going in the steel business?” she asked.
Owens smiled widely but spoke very softly. “I hate this shit with everything in my being, Von Stryker. This should be Murdock’s gig, not mine.” Owens took a small step towards a woman and with the speed of a striking cobra, he reached into her very tiny purse and pulled out a small clump of bundled credit cards. “He’s a terrible pick pocket, of course, but he’s better at bullshitting.”
“Oh, he’s the king of bullshit alright,” Von Stryker laughed. “We did a job once in Vegas. He actually connected real businessmen with each other and they ended up doing a billion dollar project in New Mexico, but of course he didn’t get the intel on a sleeze ball we were surveilling so McVandalay simply had to mug the guy after the party.”
“Remind me, why is Murdock even on this team?” Owens did a no look pick pocket to a random waiter without the man even noticing.
“Murdock has his strengths. Being a secret agent isn’t one of them.”
A businessman walked up to Von Stryker and she lit up like she knew him. Owens gracefully bowed out with a quick nod. He made eye connect with Doniak from across the room, then walked through a doorway. A minute later, Doniak entered. She pulled her phone out as Owens laid out his pick pocketed contents on a table.
“Von Stryker and I were discussing Murdock’s strengths and skills.” Doniak snapped phots meticulously and quickly. “It was a short conversation.” Owens giggled at his own cleverness.
“I don’t know the guy from Adam, to be honest. Mulroony assigned me to Moscow right away and Murdock’s yet to be there since I’ve been working, at least as far as I know. I’ve still never met the guy and he rarely speaks in our online briefings.”
Owens blurted out a huge laugh as Doniak finished snapping photos. She handed him the wares and he pocketed them. “Murdock is a character. A myth. A legend. A rumor in the wind.” He wiped the sweat pouring from his brow and headed back to the fray in the room next door.
“Legend, huh? I still hate this humidity, in case you were wondering…”
Owens found the waiter and slipped the mans wallet back into his pocket seamlessly, then saw the woman whom he’d pickpocketed. She was talking to a very powerful Colombian businessman and their conversation was very flirty.
Owens got close, then gasped as he watched the woman open her small purse. She rifled through it’s limited contents and looked confused. “Fuck,” he muttered to himself. He walked up and intentionally tripped over his own feet. The woman gasped as he reached out to grab her arm, but he grabbed her purse instead. He pulled it down to the ground, and in the same movement, he slipped the woman’s credit cards back into the purse.
“I’m so sorry!” said Owens as he scurried to get back upright. “I literally tripped over my own two feet! My apologies!”
The woman was busy collecting her purse. She made note that the credit cards were there. She tried to make eye contact with Owens but he was too busy dusting himself off. He looked up innocently at the woman again and started apologizing, but she shook her head and waved it off. Satisfied that it was an accident, she went right back into her conversation as Owens headed off to pick more pockets.
A few minutes had passed and Owens had lifted four more wallets from their owners. He walked into the back room as Von Stryker walked in from a different door.
“Every single one of these businessmen knows that Tiberon is out of the game.” Von Stryker’s eyes were alive. She loved espionage and the humidity hadn’t stolen her happiness yet. “They’re all waiting to see how the cartels respond to each other.”
Owens spoke enthusiastically as he handed more stolen contents to Doniak. “I did over hear that there could be some serious civil strife among the growers. Tiberon was very violent and there’s a lot of anger leftover from his violence that is gonna become mainstream pretty soon.”
“My swoobs are to the point where I seriously am going to kill someone soon, maybe myself.” Doniak was efficient as she snapped photos of the contents of stolen wallets. She handed the objects back to Owens. “If I can shoot drug dealing gangsters, that would be the most productive way to deal with my hate.”
Von Stryker laughed. “Swoobs,” she said. She looked off into the distance as if she were narrating a film noir movie. “The human body has an amazing propensity to cool itself down by the miracle of perspiration, but oh how that sweat can change a person’s happiness if the context isn’t right.”
Doniak tried to get Von Stryker’s attention. “You don’t have to talk into the distance like that, you know.”
Von Stryker was lost in her own personal monologue. “On a warm summers day as you work in the garden, sweat makes you feel alive. It reminds you that you’re human.”
“Yup, I’m right here.” Doniak waved her hand back and forth to try and get her friends attention. “Earth to Von Stryker?” It was no use.
“Oh yes, as your tits bounce in that perspiration soaked brassiere, all I can say is, swotten sucks.”
“Swotten?” Owens asked.
“Sweaty cotton.” Von Stryker shook her head as if she had been hypnotized and was all of a sudden realizing where she was. She took a deep breath through her nose. “Sorry about that, gang. I get carried away sometimes.”
“You and Doc,” muttered Owens. “He’s always in his own little world.” Owens headed back into the fray to return the wallets he’d stolen.
Doniak stretched and tried to make the best of the oppressive heat and humidity. “What’s the vibe, Von Stryker? Tiberon’s gone and every single one of those businessmen out there had to answer to him or through him. Are they excited that he’s gone?”
“Not necessarily. They’re mostly cautious and afraid. Tiberon was violent, but he was consistent as the sunrise. Who knows who’ll fill the void now that he’s out of the picture.”
Doniak used a hand towel to clear the sweat from her forehead. “What’s the word on the Moscow side of things?”
Von Stryker chuckled. “Obviously Russia imports about one one hundredth of the amount of cocaine that we do. Most of these businessmen are investors, hoping to get a piece of the American market.”
“That explains why their boarder patrol leadership is here.”
“As well as the higher ups within the Ministry of Ag,” Von Stryker added. “Tiberon was much greedier with money. With him gone, the margins are large enough that people are willing to turn a blind eye to the law in order to share in the profits.”
Doniak nodded, “They’ll share for now, that is.”
“For now, yes.” Von Stryker got herself composed and flashed a mischievous smile at her friend. “There’s one last conversation I need to have, and that’s with the head admiral.” She grinned. “He has a crush on me and I need to find out where he’s buying the steel for their next warship.”
Owens walked back into the room with a few more wallets. “Are we done, yet?” He tossed his wares to Doniak and they did their routine.
“You look good in a tux, Owens, not gonna lie. And you’re the best pick pocket a girl could ask for.”
Owens appreciated the compliment. “I love it when you talk dirty to me.”
“I’m your boss and if you want a raise, you’d best keep stealing shit.”
Owens shrugged, “If I wanted a raise, wouldn’t I just steal enough money to buy whatever it is that I wanted a raise for to begin with?”
Doniak snapped photo after photo. “Do you own anything more than a fishing rod and some flip flops?”
Owens laughed. “I own some golf clubs that I’m pretty sure are defective, but I’ve yet to throw them out.”
Doniak laughed. “Fucking golf. I’ll take swoobs on a golf course any day over this shit.”
In the distance, Colombian and Russian businessmen wined and dined each other in hopes of being in a position to capitalize on the newly found cocaine profit stream left by Tiberon’s disappearance.
