55, Serpientes
“If we get any closer, they’ll smell you and the mission will go to shit, darling.” Special agent Laura Lorenz was an ace sniper. She giggled at her joke as she added, “literally, shit.” She paused. “Cuz that’s what you smell like.” She got no response, then added, “shit, honey, for real, you smell like shit.” She loved her boyfriend, but his terrible flatulence was so awful that she could barely think straight.
Special agent sniper Jack Miller was repulsed by his own stench and joked back. He submitted to the verbal beating with dignity. “It serves me right for eating that damn burrito.” He rubbed his hand over his perfectly shaved head and felt the heat of the afternoon Mexican sun as it cooked his bright white scalp. “Everything about this country wants me to sweat.”
“Oh honey, you know you don’t have to eat everything drowned in hot sauce and peppers, right?” Lorenz handed him a light brown bandana to cover his head. “Like, you can just eat a meal and enjoy its flavors as they are. You’re aware of this idea, perhaps?”
Miller laughed with gratitude as he gratefully took the piece of fabric from his girlfriend. “Thanks babe.” He began folding it to put over his dome when he added, “Life is too short to skip the hot sauce.”
Lorenz knew her relationship with Miller was solid but sometimes she watched too much talk tv. “The women on Good Morning Ladies say that men who eat lots of spicy foods do it because they feel dead inside. Do you feel dead inside?”
Miller paused in the middle of tying the bandana behind his head. “You know those women on Good Morning Ladies are dumb as fuck, right?”
Lorenz was a confident woman but loved to pretend she was a sensitive social justice warrior. “How sexist of you!”
“Yeah, that’s me,” Miller joked back. He finished tying the fabric to his noggin as he added, “I can’t imagine how that show ever made it on the air.”
“Are you mocking the intelligence of four strong women because you’re intimidated by their feminine power?” Lorenz gasped as she pretended to be insulted.
“I don’t like those mouthy bitches but I won’t mock them. They’re genius! I just want to know how that show got pitched to network executives. Like, think about it. What did they say?” Miller pretended he was in a pitch meeting. “Ok, instead of asking men why they enjoy eating delicious foods, let’s just make shit up. For real, let’s never talk to men and only imagine what they think instead of actually finding out. I say we put our own lack of self worth on them and pretend their dietary menu reflects our own insecurities. Then, let’s go to commercial break six times in an hour long show. What do you think?”
Lorenz started howling with laughter and had to cover her mouth. She didn’t want to draw any attention to their location. The two of them were perched behind an outcropping of red boulders on a hill that overlooked a compound owned by a group of Mexican narcos known as Los Serpientes (The Snakes). The intel they had on these narcos showed that they were bad men and had sold lots of meth into the US which caused a lot of American suffering.
A group of red neck bikers from Austin used to buy weed and other drugs from these narcos for resale in America, but recently stopped. A week ago these eighteen bikers woke up to discover their motorcycles had been stolen and burned to a crisp in front of their favorite bar. Team Whiskey was responsible for the burned bikes in retaliation to them for burning agent Death’s car. They’d incorrectly thought her car belonged to a rival biker gang member since they didn’t even know that Team Whiskey existed. After the bikes were burned in retaliation, they blamed the narcos, thinking it was a personal hit. The bikers were now heavily armed and traveling in four windowless vans towards the compound of Los Serpientes.
Miller and Lorenz were positioned to the west of the walled compound about an eighth of a mile away. Special agent Trent Murdock was positioned to the east of the compound about the same distance away. The three of them were the only members on this mission, and they were there to observe the interaction, then if needed, kill any of the narcotics dealers or bad guy bikers that might survive the encounter.
Currently, Miller’s farts were making Lorenz second guess all of her life choices that had lead up to this moment. She rolled her eyes. “Do you know how much I care for your well being?”
“Do tell,” Miller asked lovingly.
She reached into her backpack and showed him a ziplock bag containing a roll of toilet paper. “Just in case, cuz you’re such a hot sauce junkie.” She put it back and then pulled out a bottle of pink anti-diarrhea medication. “I know you’ll need this at some point too.”
Miller laughed like a drunk frat boy who’d just heard a fart joke. “Honey, you are the best. I love you.”
“I love you too, babe. Try not to shit your pants until we’ve killed all of these ass hat meth dealers, please.”
“Ass hat meth dealers. Good one, babe.”
“I do what I can. And I’m serious, don’t shit yourself. It’ll be a real turn off.”
Miller’s cell phone started beeping a strange warning tone. “Speaking of shit,” Miller muttered, “SHIT.”
Lorenz wasn’t accustomed to that particular sound from his phone. “I’m afraid to ask what in the hell is going on.”
Miller cursed some more and tried to explain. “Obviously you know how Murdock is always being captured and dragged off by bad guys, so in the off chance we might have an issue with this mission, I planted a GPS tracker on him and programmed my phone to alert me if he moved from his position. Well,” Miller paused as he fired up his phone, “the fucker moved.”
“God dammit, Murdock,” Lorenz said with disappointment.
“I set up a remote broadcasting camera above his position to watch his sniper location but the cell service here is spotty. It might not work. Gimme a sec and we’ll see if it shows us anything.” Miller typed on the flat screen of his smart phone and waited half a minute, then showed his girlfriend. “There you go.”
Lorenz watched the screen as a camera showed Murdock lying flat on his belly, looking through binoculars. He didn’t hear a man sneak up behind him. The video showed Murdock get smacked on the back of the head with the butt of a rifle. His body went limp. Four automatic rifle toting Mexican cartel thugs entered into the camera’s view. They picked up his big, heavy body and dragged the American secret agent out of the camera’s view. “God dammit, Murdock. Was he drunk?”
“Not that I know of,” Miller guessed. “I used to think it was bad luck. Then I thought it was pure incompetence. Now I honestly think, he’s cursed.” Miller lifted his leg and let another fart rip.
“God have mercy!” Lorenz rolled her eyes at the toot and contemplated the thought about having to rescue Murdock. “Don’t stick up for that mother fucker. This changes the whole mission.”
“I’m serious, honey. I think he’s got a curse that someone put on him and he needs to have it lifted by a witch, or something. It’s the only explanation.”
“Pookums,” Lorenz said with a flirtatious but stern tone, “Murdock has fucked this team over time and again. And now, the bad guys know they’re being watched by a white guy, so when the crazy fuckin Texans roll into their compound, they’ll get shot up before they’re even out of their vans.”
The word made Miller smile. “I’ve always wanted to see….”
Lorenz interrupted him. “Yeah yeah….”
The two said together, “a Mexican shootout.”
Miller didn’t skip a beat. “For real, we’ve been in shootouts all over the world except for, where, my dear?”
“Canada. We’ve never been in a shootout in Canada.”
Miller thought about it. “Dammit honey, why are you fucking with me? This is my dream! I’ve always wanted to see a Mexican shootout!”
“Or Cuba. Or South Africa. Or about five dozen other countries.”
“Woman!”
Miller said the word in defiance, but after a woman has banged a guy for a few years, her sensitivity towards sexism as shock value goes numb. Lorenz didn’t flinch. “We have an issue we gotta deal with before you get to live out your dream of blood and gore south of the boarder, darling.”
Miller shook his head. “Fucking Murdock.”
Lorenz was still enjoying her victory in their little battle of wits. “You know, Blacktide would say that Blood and Gore is a good punk band name.”
Miller couldn’t help but laugh. “And she’d be right.”
“I miss that bitch. We gotta get the whole team together at some point and get drunk together again.”
Miller’s phone beeped again. A map popped up and he could see that the little red dot that represented Murdock had entered the compound. He relayed the info to his girlfriend and added, “Part of me wants to leave him in there and teach him a lesson.”
Lorenz protested, “We can’t leave him in there, honey. He owes me twenty bucks and I won’t let that fucker get out of paying up.”
Miller looked a little confused. “What did you two bet on?”
“He said I couldn’t drink that entire pitcher of frozen margaritas from the cantina two days ago and not puke.”
Lorenz was barely a hundred and twenty five pounds when soaking wet with change in her pockets, but the woman could pound sauce like a three hundred pound fat man. Miller laughed, “Where in the hell was I when you two made this wager?”
“Taking a piss, I think.”
Miller shrugged. “Well, it was a rookie mistake on his part.”
“He honestly thought I couldn’t hold down tequila. Sexism is real, darling.”
“Well now honey, you can’t blame him! He’s looking at a five foot six inch skinny blond bitch who’s drinking like a fat, German monk.”
His joke fell short and Lorenz was all business. “The fucker owes me twenty skins. We’re not leaving him.”
Miller conceded, “well twenty bucks is twenty bucks. I’ll hike up behind that outcropping up there and see if I can get a view of their courtyard.”
“Good. I can’t stand being close to your stinky ass.”
Meanwhile, Trent Murdock regained consciousness as the four men carrying him unceremoniously dropped him in the middle of a dirt path between buildings. The leader of Los Serpientes walked out of a building with an evil grin on his face. Murdock’s brain was foggy but he instantly understood what was going on. The thug walked up to him and his thick Mexican accent had an ominous threat to it. “Amigo! Today is not a good day for you!”
Murdock rubbed the back of his head. It hurt like a mother fucker. Regardless of the pain, his never ending defiance was in full force. “Oh, I don’t know, amigo. Today is shaping up pretty nicely, to be honest.” He looked up and saw the four men pointing their rifles at him. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs in a big hug to stretch out his hurting back. “I mean, look at the sky. The Mexican sky line is beautiful!”
The thugs didn’t speak English very well, but they could tell the American was being an asshole. The murderous tone of the leader made his soldiers laugh. “We’re gonna torture you, then we’re gonna kill you, so choose your last words carefully.”
“Oh, who me?” Murdock released his stretch and pointed his thumbs to his chest. “Yeah, I hate to tell you, pal, it’s sad news to my enemies and friends alike, I have way more words to say in my life. Like, millions and millions of words.” He dropped his chin to his chest and stretched out his spine as his hands went to the dirt. Very subtly, he grabbed up gravel and dust in each hand.
“Look, amigo,” the leader said forcefully, but Murdock made his move in a millisecond.
He flung the gravel and dirt into the eyes of the four soldiers and very temporarily blinded them. In the same motion, he rolled several times crazy fast towards the closest soldier until he felt his body bump into him and knock him over like a bowling pin. Somehow Murdock was on his side and was able to grab the falling rifle out of the soldiers flailing hands. By instinct, he thrust the rifle into the jaw of the fallen soldier and saw his unconcious body collapse from the impact.
He pointed the rifle at the other soldiers but never pulled the trigger. In the blink of an eye he watched all three of them drop as red explosions replaced where their heads used to be. Instinctually Murdock muttered, “I fucking love you, Lorenz,” simply assuming she was shooting them from her vantage point. She was the mouthiest, funniest and most talented shooter he’d ever met, and in that moment, he shook his head as he remembered, “Fuck, I still owe that psycho twenty bucks!”
Lorenz’s voice popped into his ear piece. “Yes you do, fucker. And I see they took your wrist communicator.”
Murdock spoke, knowing that the mic in the ear piece was enough for Lorenz and Miller to hear him. “Yes they did, but I don’t have time to search these bodies just yet to find out who took it.”
The weaponless leader of the thugs had ducked down and ran away towards the small building from where he’d initially come from. Murdock aimed and pulled the trigger on the rifle but it didn’t fire. He looked at the weapon and saw that the safety was on. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.” He didn’t take the time to fiddle with the rifle because the sounds of shouting could be heard from all over the complex. By instinct, he got up and dove towards the closest wall while snapping the safety off.
Lorenz’s voice popped into his ear piece. “My sexy man got the two on the left and I snapped the fella on the right. Good work taking out that guy you knocked down.”
“Don’t butter me up, Lorenz. You’re only saving my ass because I owe you money, so what say we go double or nothing.”
Lorenz’s laughter lightened the tense mood. “What’ve you got in mind?”
Two groups of heavily armed men came running out of two different buildings and were yelling wildly. “I’ll bet I get out of here with more confirmed kills than you. Double or nothing.”
Four men dropped dead from the first group within a second of him saying those words. “Lemme guess,” Lorenz joked, “those kills don’t count?”
“Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick, lady, you’re nuts,” Murdock said.
“Double or nothing, fuck face! You’re on.” Lorenz was giggling but also all business.
Miller’s voice popped into his ear piece. “A fool and his money are soon to part. Wait, hold on….” Miller’s voice drifted away momentarily and then said, “Murdock, find cover, now! The vans are here and they’re gonna come crashing through the gate!”
Lorenz’s voice was sweet as she said, “Ah, here’s the Mexican shootout you’ve always wanted to see, sweetie!”
Murdock ran like hell for raised concrete retaining wall and dove behind it as the first van came crashing through the gate of the compound. Automatic gunfire filled the van full of bullet holes but didn’t slow it down. Three more vans came pouring in and separated into different directions, spreading out over the compound campus. Millers’ excitement couldn’t be held in. “It’s happening! It’s a dream come true!” He farted and the mic in his ear piece picked up the sound.
“That was fucked up, Miller,” Murdock said while collapsed behind the concrete barrier, completely out of breath from sprinting.
Somewhere in the distance, lonely American women with victim mentalities watched commercial after commercial waiting for the return of a television show broadcast that featured four overpaid women who did nothing but complain about society, men, and fake problems in general while never once offering proactive solutions or encouragement to any of their viewers about empowering them to take charge of their own personal situations to improve anything about their lives.
