41, Driving
“They eat grass, and every animal that eats grass is gonna fart a lot. They have to ferment the grass in their guts to get all the nutrition out of it. How do you not know this?” Master thief Owens was riding shotgun in an SUV as Pilot Porter drove it like a bullet let loose from a sniper rifle down a rural Siberian highway.
Von Styrker had been looking at the vast nothingness of the Russian landscape fly by for the past five hours of the drive. She was a professional, but even professionals got bored on long road trips. “I knew cows fart a lot, but not elk.”
“They all fart way more if they’re fed corn. If they’re raised on grass, it’s considerably less.”
Von Stryker looked up from her phone with a look of disgust. “Are you telling me you’ve stuck your face in an elk’s ass before?”
“Only one, and it ate grass.” Owens said the statement so matter of factly that no one in the car challenged him.
Pilot Porter broke the awkward silence. “Do you guys think that Sarge has lost her mind?” She wondered if she’d lost hers too.
Von Stryker was in the seat directly behind Porter. “This whole thing with her being obsessed about Bean Pole is only gonna be a liability for all of us from here on out.”
Master thief Anastasia Boothausen had been undergoing advanced training in Washington D.C. to become a special agent for the past three months. She was young and green, but her skills with stealth and espionage were unmatched in the world, even by Owens. “How is it a liability to fall in love?” Her tone was more sarcastic than inquisitive.
“When you have something to lose, the bad guys have leverage over you.” Owens ignored the sarcasm and answered her genuinely. “Bad guys always threaten good people with implied violence to their loved ones. Always.”
“Governments are the best at that,” Von Stryker bitterly added.
“Best at what?” Boothausen asked.
“Implied violence.” Dale O’Connor sat in the very back of the SUV with his head against the window, hungover and hurting, but he didn’t complain. In fact, the conversation seemed to rouse him. “Pay your taxes or a man with a badge and a gun comes to your front door to put you in a cage.”
The rest of the agents rolled their eyes and grunted as Owens muttered, “here we go.”
Von Stryker tried to cut this part of the conversation short. “Dammit Doc, we don’t need any more of your libertarian bullshit.”
O’Connor shrugged. “Don’t blame me, you brought it up.” He got serious. “When someone takes your money from you without asking, that’s theft. Tax is theft, pure and simple, and the only way we as a culture allow that theft is because of the implied violence from the authoritarian establishment if we don’t comply.”
Special agent Mikayla Doniak also sat in the back row of the vehicle. She’d been trying not to choke on the smell of booze that was emanating from O’Connor. She addressed her friend. “We’re paid with tax payer dollars. Doesn’t that bug you?”
O’Connor smiled. “I donate all of my income to charity. I only live off of the money I steal from bad guys.”
Pilot Porter laughed at this statement loudly and her boisterous joy was contagious to the others. “So Doc, do you consider yourself a modern day Robin Hood? Rob from the rich and give to the poor?”
“Nope. I’m a mercenary with morals. I steal from bad guys and give it back the local economy by drinking in bars.” O’Connor looked at Boothausen. “New girl, remember this. In our line of work, love is a liability.”
Anastasia Boothausen was the same age as the others but she was still the outsider despite that she’d eventually one day be leading the team. “That doesn’t make sense. What’s the point of fighting if you don’t have something to fight for?”
Porter had been out of sorts for the whole road trip. She’d experienced love at first sight for the first time in her life while driving in a race a week earlier. She’d only caught a glimpse of the a man she was racing, but his scowl and beard called to her like a lion roaring on the Serengeti. Even as she pitched into the conversation, she was thinking about that man. “Some people just need to fight for no reason, Ana. In society, those people end up in jail. In the military, those people end up on Team Whiskey.”
“Hey, I resemble that remark,” O’Connor joked.
Boothausen looked curiously at the demolitions expert. “So you’re telling me, you don’t have anyone you love that you’re afraid to lose, Dale?”
O’Connor shuddered at the sound of his slave name. “Dale is my useless deadbeat father’s name, and Mr. O’Connor is my baptist preacher grandpa who died in jail after getting pinched for a lifetime of illegal bootlegging. Call me Doc.”
Boothausen had only been employed by the military for three months but she’d pulled off heists that even made Owens jealous. She wasn’t born yesterday. “Fair enough, Doc, but don’t skip the question,” she replied sternly. “I see it in your eyes, there’s someone. Who are you afraid to lose?”
“I never said I don’t have people I can’t lose.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “There are a handful of people in the world I can’t lose, and currently three of them are in a Siberian prison.” He laughed to himself. “Well, I guess Murdock is the expendable one.”
Porter gasped. “Doc!”
“I’m just joking!” but the whole van was laughing. They also knew, he was serious about his friends. Despite his loyalty to everyone on the team, the only thing in the world that Dale O’Connor was afraid to lose were his best friends that he’d grown to love on his team.
Boothausen eased up a bit. “I knew beneath that booze soaked skin of yours, you were a fighter.”
“I’m a lover, not a fighter,” O’Connor tried to joke, but his words were swallowed up by the roar of the engine.
“We’ve got a helicopter eight clicks ahead, coming in hot. It’s military.” No one could see what Porter was talking about, but her eyesight was better than an bird of prey. Her face became all business as she clicked a button on the dashboard. A dashboard cover dropped down like a tray to reveal a patchwork of buttons like they were in a James Bond movie. She pushed one and the sound of super charged RPM’s roared from the engine. “We gotta get undercover, like, right now.”
The SUV lurched forward at an insane speed as the G forces pushed the agents back in their seats. As if Porter knew the drive perfectly like she’d driven it a thousand times, she drove the vehicle off the road and into the only large thicket of brush and small trees that was around for a hundred miles in either direction.
“I’d tell you all to shut up and be quiet, but they’re in a helicopter,” Porter joked. “I’ve got us hidden and our tracks won’t be visible from the elevation they’re flying.”
Von Stryker had gathered herself the quickest of all the agents. “Jesus, Porter, I thought you were trying to kill us.”
The pilot laughed. “Nope! If you all die, I don’t get to fly as much. That’s not an option for me, thank you.”
“Glad to know that our personal safety is your number one priority,” O’Connor said dryly.
In her typical chipper tone, Porter replied, “Have I ever let any of you down, ever?” Despite the nice tone, the agents all felt like she was scolding them. She sensed this and quickly added, “I’m good at my job you guys. Just trust me and I’ll get you in and out of Siberia without Mother Russia even knowing we were here.”
Owens had been enjoying the banter and felt now was the time to chime in. “The only way we get in and out is if we get Murdock out last.”
“And let’s hope there aren’t any female guards around or he’ll get us all pinched,” O’Connor added bitterly.
“We have no idea where they’re being held,” Von Stryker said.
“Leave that to me and Owens,” Boothausen chimed in. She grinned at her mentor. “We have our ways.”
“I’d be nervous as fuck if we didn’t have you two doing your ninja bullshit.” Mikayla Doniak fidgeted with Bradley McVandalay’s huge .50mm Desert Eagle hand gun. “I can’t wait to get this back to its rightful owner.”
“You’ll get it to him,” Porter said as she looked through the windshield up at the sky. She crinkled her brow, then smiled. “Wow.”
“Whaddya see, friend?” O’Connor asked.
Porter grinned from ear to ear. “It’s him.” The agents looked at each other confusedly and she noted their confusion. “It’s him! The driver! From the race. The Russian guy. It’s him.”
“How can you be sure?”
Porter shook her head as if they were asking the obvious. “Look at the angle of the chopper compared to the wind speed. I know you don’t know anything about flying physics, but believe me. I’m the only person I know that can fly something that big that fast at that angle, and he’s the only pilot that can match me.”
“Unreal,” O’Connor muttered. “Impressive, Porter.”
“Crap,” she muttered, “I’ll bet he saw me before I got this rig under cover.” She momentarily started talking in gibberish to herself but snapped out of it. “His eyesight has to be as good as mine. There’s no way he didn’t see us. Crap.”
Doniak looked at McVandalay’s hand gun and nodded at Von Stryker. “I know you’re in love with him Porter, but if push comes to shove, he’s gotta go.”
Von Stryker was quick to add, “Remember we need to do all of this with no bullets if at all possible. I’m not just saying this to keep Porters’ dream man alive. This mission only truly works if they don’t know we’re coming.” She too looked at the sky through the window but couldn’t see the helicopter from her vantage point. “That prison is so remote that no one has ever even attempted an escape, let alone a rescue. It’s madness to even consider that we’re thinking about it.”
Within a minute the agents could hear the helicopter thousands of feet above them go ripping past. Porter and Von Stryker made eye contact and nodded. “They’re not looking for anyone. They’re transporting someone.”
Doniak knew enough to trust Von Stryker when it came to Russian psychology, but her curiosity got the best of her. “Why would they use a military chopper to transport a prisoner?”
“That’s no prisoner they’re transporting. That’s someone important.”
“Dammit, now I want to tail them,” Porter muttered. “I wish I was in the air.”
Three more hours of solo driving passed until they finally pulled up to a hill that was only a few miles from the prison. “This is where you all hoof it from here on out,” Porter said. “Even at night, they’ll see us driving in.”
The crew piled out of the SUV and gathered the necessary gear from the trunk. Even Porter was wearing a black ninja suit, complete with gadgets to help her scale walls, black out lights and cut through metal if needed.
O’Connor had slept the entire last part of the drive. The sleep had made him feel bullet proof. “I’m ready to help in any way I can.”
Porter looked him in the eye and said, “Drive this SUV back to the safe house back in Sangar, then get as drunk as you like and wait for my instructions.”
The whole crew looked at Porter strangely. Doniak spoke up. “Ah, Porter, how do you suggest we’re gonna get out of here?”
Porter smiled a grin that made her look like a serial killer. “We’re flying out of here, low and under the radar, in that twelve man jet plane.” She pointed in the dark in the direction of the plane she was talking about but no one else could see like she could. It might as well have been an imaginary plane. She licked her lips, then said, “Owens, Ana, I’ll need you to find me the keys. Even if it’s low on gas, I can get us to northern Japan with no problems.” She looked at O’Connor. “You can handle the ten hour drive, right Doc?”
He considered the question and answered honestly, “Yes.” He hadn’t been behind the wheel of a vehicle in the better part of ten years. “Besides, if I can’t blow anything up, I’m useless to this mission anyways. Does this thing have enough gas to get me home?”
Porter was back to her chipper self. “Yup! It’s a hybrid with an extended tank that can drive for twenty four hours at full speed before needing to be filled back up. You’ve still got sixteen hours of full speed drive time left.”
O’Connor nodded, as if resigning to his fate. He wouldn’t be helping retrieve his friends. “Well I don’t drive half as fast as you, Porter.” He turned to his friends. “Get them out in one piece, please. Even Murdock.”
“You know we will, brother,” Doniak said as she put a hand on his shoulder.
The crew checked their gear and said their goodbyes. Owens and Anastasia were already a few hundred yards ahead of the other three agents and moving fast as O’Connor fired up the rig and drove off in the opposite direction.
In the distance, a Russian pilot transported a powerful mob boss and a military general back to Moscow in a heavily armed chopper but said nothing of the American SUV he’d seen with his razor sharp vision, knowing that it was being driven by a female American driver who was a total stranger but with whom he’d fallen madly in love with in hopes of protecting her so they could one day meet again.
