3, Cave.
“If I gave you a penny for your thoughts, I’d expect change!” Flames exploded from a barrel of fuel as special agent Death half jumped, half was blasted into a nearby erosion ditch. She fell several feet and landed hard on her side. She was just in time to miss the violent heat wave wash over her.
“Things have gone awry,” said the voice of special agent Trent Murdock through the speaker of her communicator. As calm as a peaceful spring day, he said, “I lost visual with you. Tell me you’re in one piece, Death.”
She lifted her wrist watch communicator back to her mouth and continued her rant as if she hadn’t just about been blown to bits. “For real, if you paid me a dollar for every good idea you’ve had, I’d be dead broke!”
Murdock smiled. “Glad you’re alive.”
“This is a job for Owens, dammit, not me. I’m supposed to be in Japan watching a sumo match tonight, but nooooo…” Death bitched. “That fuck face is fishing in Russia of all god damned places.”
“He went off radar after that last job with the ladies,” replied Murdock. “How do you know he went fishing?”
Death wiggled her toes and cracked her neck side to side. Everything was still in its place. “He texts me pretty poetry every morning,” Death said sarcastically. She paused when Murdock didn’t reply. “He fucking told all of us he was going fishing at the last intel meeting, you idiot. Did you not pay attention?”
“I was distracted by Doc picking his nose and spaced out most of that meeting.”
“How characteristic of you, A.D.D. boy.”
“Guilty as charged,” Murdock laughed. He spoke calmly and rationally, but deep inside he always loved the insults that Death would throw out in tense situations. “Ok, so you almost got blown to bits instead of watching Japanese wrestling and Owens went fishing which is just par for the course with that asshole.”
“Owens is half the asshole you are, Mr. ‘GO FOR IT DEATH, THE COAST IS CLEAR’!”
“I kind of get aroused when you’re angry and mean, I wont’ lie.” He tried not to laugh.
“Well I have to talk like an idiot so you can understand your own damn language!” She paused to laugh at her dumb joke, but went back to it. “Now let’s try this again, sweet cheeks. On your god damned video screens, does anyone else in that supposedly empty cave entrance have a fucking rocket launcher?”
“Ummm, since we now know it’s clearly not empty….” he paused. He was sitting in van full of surveillance equipment and looked at four different screens. He leisurely answered, “yeah, the smoke has cleared a bit and they have a few more rocket launchers. Nine or ten by the looks of it.”
Death sighed deeply and said, “Lorenz and Miller should be seeing this through their scopes, unless they’re busy making out.”
“We had sex this morning and my nipples are still throbbing like a mother fucker.” Special agent Jack Miller’s voice filled Murdock’s headphones.
“Has the bleeding stopped, my darling?” Special agent Laura Lorenz’s voice chuckled through their com ear pieces as she looked through the high powered scope on her sniper rifle. “And no complaining cuz you said you wanted more hot sauce on the bite marks.”
“It hurts so good, honey,” he laughed.
“I thought you both smelled like salsa at this morning’s briefing,” Death chimed in.
“Jesus, you three.” The sound of sniper fire filled Murdock’s headphones. Miller and Lorenz picked off the bad guys running out of the cave entrance as they ran towards Death’s position.
Agent Death sat up and peeked from the ditch to see bodies falling dead left and right. “Things have gone awry indeed, Murdock. What an understatement,” she muttered. She was annoyed, but she loved a challenge. “I’ll call you back.” She clicked a few buttons on her wrist communicator and the sound of a roaring engine could be heard through the tiny little speaker.
“Death! You’re calling me two hours early! Dare I ask?” said a sweet female voice on the other end.
“Porter, it turns out the cave was full of terrorists all along but our scanners didn’t pick them up. Wanna come hit the back up rendezvous point in ten minutes?”
“If you need to me to pick you up right now, I can be there in less than five, no problem!” Even in the heat of battle, pilot Porter sounded like she was having a delightful day and wanted everyone else to do the same.
“I don’t know about that just yet, but it’s obviously not gonna be as easy as sneaking in, planting listening devices and leaving undetected.”
“I’m in the pilot’s chair and my bird is gassed up. If I don’t hear from you in ten, I’ll assume the worst and come collect your bodies, no matter what shape y’all are in!” Her cheerful tone was both hilarious as well as disturbing.
“You’re a maniac Porter. Keep your com open! Death out.”
She clicked a few more buttons on her communicator and said, “General, this won’t surprise you in the slightest. The cave was full of terrorists.”
“Shit,” replied general Rice on the other end. She was nervous but all business. “Do they know the team is there or do they think it’s just you?”
“They fired a rocket at me the second they saw me without hesitating, as if they were waiting for me. I don’t think they know where Murdock is positioned but they’ll know we have snipers cuz Lorenz and Miller are picking them apart as they run out of the cave.”
“Obviously we gotta go to plan B now.” Rice swore angrily under her breath. “We need information and I doubt any of them will let themselves be captured. Do what you must and then sweep the cave for computers or other info. Oh, and if you get back to base before the Cubs game, the first beer is on me.”
“The second and third are on me after that, general.” The ladies said their usual military goodbyes as the sounds of voices shouting in a foreign language got near. “Things have gone awry,” Death muttered to herself. “Understatement of the day. Fuckin’ Murdock.”
A thousand yards away, agent Trent Murdock was viewing the carnage from the comfort of some high resolution screens. Miller and Lorenz had hit “broadcast/record” on their scopes, and Murdock watched bad guy after bad guy drop dead as if he were watching a video game. “Remind me not to piss you two off in a deep, dark alley,” he joked through his headset mic.
“All in a days work, Murdock,” answered Lorenz. She breathed in a controlled manner as she expertly moved the rifle millimeters in different directions. The high velocity bullets always found their mark.
Death again poked her head up and surveyed the scene. “It’s like a fuckin clown car at a circus!” she yelled. “They just keep pouring out of that cave like it’s never ending!”
Murdock spoke, “We’ll blow that cave up after Death can search it. We just need to find proof of the financial connection between the oil company money and this terrorist cell. There’s gotta be evidence in there somewhere.” He watched for a few moments and noticed that no one was running out of the cave anymore. “Death, it looks like the coast clear. Proceed with caution, you crazy bitch.”
“Do all the girls get turned on when you talk so sweetly to them, Murdock?” Agent Death popped up with her automatic rifle in hand. She ran quickly to the cave entrance and poked her head around. “The sensors didn’t pick up shit earlier, but are they picking up anything now?”
“Not a damn thing, Death. You’re going in blind.” Murdock again checked all the screens for any data that might help her. He saw nothing. He encouragingly said, “If they kill you, I call dibs on your drag outfits.”
“Doc already called dibs on those years ago. You can have my assless chaps collection.” She felt her pocket and gasped. “Shit, Lucky Ray must’ve slipped out of my pocket over there.” The woman couldn’t kill without her lucky picture of Ray Charles in her pocket. She never explained it and the rest of the agents never asked.
Agent Death turned around and ran back to look around. She stopped just short of the ditch and at that moment was instantly knocked forward again by an explosion that erupted from the cave behind her. She was blown forward and landed hard on her side for the second time that morning.
Flames blasted out of the cave like fire from the mouth a dragon. Death curled into the fetal position with her hands over her ringing ears. The heat radiated out, then dissipated as the fire subsided to a mellow burn. Dark, ominous smoke billowed out of the cave at a steady pace.
The radio communication between the agents was quiet. They all observed the carnage with mouths agape as Death stayed still. This mission was supposed to be a quick sneak in and sneak out affair but turned out to be a scene filled with dead terrorists and burning wreckage. A cheery voice broke the silence. “Anyone alive down there, or do I need to make some uncomfortable calls to your loved ones back home?” No one replied to Porter, so she continued. “Oh yeah, none of us have loved ones back home. My bad!” Her upbeat tone combined with dark humor brought the others back to life.
“Porter, sorry, normally I’d be laughing my ass off but the cave just blew up,” said Death. “I don’t think my body is fully working.”
“Turns out, it wasn’t overkill after all to set us up here in sniper positions. Good call on that one, Murdock,” said Lorenz begrudgingly. She hated giving him anything that he could brag about.
“It was a surprise to us up here when we saw that first prick come running out with a rocket launcher, I’ll be honest,” added Miller.
Death swore under her breath and talked back to her watch. “The assholes at the top who fund these bastards are gonna keep getting away with it if we can’t legally prove there’s a connection.” Her anger fueled her resolve to keep looking for answers, but she relaxed a bit as she found her lucky picture. Had she not come back for it, she’d have been killed in the massive explosion. Lucky Ray was looking out for her yet again.
“Death, get back here to me and we’ll drive back to base. Lorenz and Miller, tear down and meet Porter at the drop point. You guys all did great,” said Murdock humbly from his headset mic. “We didn’t see shit on our prelim scanners and none of us could’ve predicted this.” He tried to lighten the mood. “Sometimes, things just go awry.”
In the distance, the sounds of a cheerful but crazy lady pilot singing Shiny Happy People to herself was drowned out over the roar of a chopper engine flying low and fast for an evacuation of a mission gone terribly awry indeed.
