64, Boom
“When I was young, I believed that if I held my breath, it would make me immune to poison ivy.” Demolitions expert Dale O’Connor sipped a glass of expensive whiskey on ice and exhaled lightly through pursed lips to cool the burn from it’s fiery bite. “Turns out, holding your breath just makes you pass out over and over, so the itching doesn’t bother you as much.”
“Holding your breath ’til you pass out, huh?” Special agent Emerald Blitz pulled a flute of champagne to her mouth and took a small sip. It’s fruity elegance tasted underwhelming compared to the burn from it’s sixteen percent alcohol.
The agents were at a beautiful Mexican seaside resort where military officers and government officials rubbed elbows with weapons manufacturers as well as narcotics bosses. The hob nobbing was apparent and the corruption wasn’t hidden from anyone.
O’Connor hiccuped as he muttered, “Murdock got jock itch after spending the afternoon in that cat house back in Syria and I told him a hundred times to hold his breath ’til he passed out, but he simply scratched himself ’til his skin about came off.”
Blitz didn’t want to hear this info, but couldn’t resist. “Crotch crickets are a bitch.”
“God bless pubic pesticides,” O’Connor said dryly. “But I’m not lying. You can take it to the bank whether you’ve got bush fairies or not, holding your breath until you pass out helps with an itch.”
“Passing out from holding your breath. Simply stunning.” Emerald Blitz was a tried and true killer of bad men, but she could still be grossed out. Bad jokes about people’s private parts didn’t phase her. She snapped back to reality and addressed O’Connor’s medical advice. “This explains so much about you, Doc.”
“Jesus, Em, I’m afraid to ask.”
Everyone was dressed to impress. Blitz wore a gorgeous dress that hugged her curves and had a high cut up the back that showed off her powerful shoulder blades and half of her back. Her long blonde hair was pulled back in a pony tail that danced perfectly on her skin. O’Connor wore a tuxedo that he’d customized to hold weapons and other toys that might turn out to be handy if something unforeseen were to happen.
“You. Holding your breath. Passing out.” Blitz nodded at O’Connor as if he was supposed to understand. He didn’t.
“Your point?” He wasn’t mad or defensive. O’Connor simply wanted to hear what she had to say.
“Jesus, Doc. You’re an idiot. You say you passed out a lot. This explains so much.”
Speaking in a tone without emotion or defensiveness, he inquired plainly, “How does my brilliant tactic of avoiding itching explain that I’m an idiot?”
Blitz was taken aback by the question but recovered quickly. “Well fuck, where do I start with that question? For one, you’re best friends with Murdock.”
“Damn, that is idiotic, isn’t it,” O’Connor nodded in acceptance.
“You drink like a fish, and you believe in conspiracy theories which eat up most of our productive time together.”
In his usual dry, emotionless tone, O’Connor replied, “The great pyramids were built over twelve thousand years ago by an advanced civilization of humans who clearly used machines of some sort. The evidence is plain as day.” He lifted his drink to his lips and muttered silently, “I drink because of Harvey. Rest in peace, little guy.”
Blitz didn’t hear his comment about drinking and soldiered on about the conspiracy theories. “Is there any evidence to prove your pyramid bullshit?”
O’Connor didn’t flinch. “The Younger Dryas comet impact theory shows that the glaciers flooded the earth’s coastlines and changed the Earth’s climate for over a millennium to make it less hospitable for widespread human habitation. Chances are good that many of the machines used to carve and move the large stones would’ve been submerged and destroyed in the flood.”
With pure sarcasm, Blitz muttered, “Here we go.”
“Ocean water decimates metal, Em. Look at the Titanic. Experts estimate it’ll be indistinguishable in less than a thousand years, and the comet impact hit us over twelve thousand years ago.”
Blitz didn’t want to talk about this but she really wanted to push O’Connor’s buttons. “So big machines disappear in salt water.”
“Along with thirty nine large species of animals in North America, northern Europe and Siberia. The remaining starving, desperate humans who survived the weather, fires and floods from the impact hunted any surviving big megafauna to complete extinction.”
The feeling of annoyance spread over Emerald Blitz and she contemplated killing her friend. “Then how did humans survive when all of those animal species died, Doc?”
“Where we’re from, they didn’t. The Clovis people disappear in the archeological record. Mitochondrial DNA shows that there were large pockets of survivors in the Amazon, but it was humans in the other parts of the world that eventually emigrated to every imaginable ecosystem. It took thousands of years for the population to recover, even though their technologies would be lost.”
With her champagne flute empty, Blitz got the attention of a waiter and summoned him to bring her more booze. She didn’t want to be sober and have to listen to O’Connor’s strange fascination of megalithic building societies from millennia ago. She tried to change the subject. “So when do the lizard people come into the picture.”
Without flinching, O’Connor replied, “In 1953.”
Thankfully for Blitz, the waiter walked up with a tray of champagne. It was none other than special agent Bradley McVandalay. He smiled politely and spoke with his teeth together so no one would know he was having a chat with Blitz. “I’m losing my mind, Em. I’m getting sick of gathering intel. I want to kill a bad guy.”
Blitz smiled back at McVandalay as she made eyes at O’Connor. “I’m sharing your murderous desire.”
General Rice’s voice snapped at them in their ear pieces. “Get your shit together, agents! We need one hundred percent proof or we’re fucked.”
The continuing mission was to gather intel about an upcoming coup of the Mexican government that included military, narcos, politicians and judges, a few of whom were gathered in the seaside resort.
McVandalay watched Blitz down a champagne flute, then grab another one. He shook his head and addressed Rice, “Boss, can you tell me a day, any day, where we haven’t been fucked?”
Rice sounded exhausted in his ears. “Just do your god damned job, Bradley.”
“Yes boss.” McVandalay laughed. Looking back to Blitz, he saw that she’d downed half of yet another flute of booze. “That bad, huh? Which conspiracy is he going on about? Lemme guess, the long lost Nazi perpetual energy cube?”
“The pyramids,” Blitz said with her teeth gritted.
“Oh!” McVandalay smiled and looked around. No one was watching, so he replied, “Actually there’s a lot of evidence that an advanced civilization of humans built them. I think he’s right about that one.”
Blitz felt blindsided. She looked at her glass of hooch, then back at her friend. “Oh fuck, not you too?”
“Don’t worry, I don’t think aliens were involved. There’s little errors here and there that only humans make. But whoever built it, they were fucking incredible engineers.”
“God dammit, Bradley. I’m gonna walk out on this fucking mission if you start spouting off a bunch of Doc’s stupid shit.”
O’Connor gasped and stepped behind Blitz. “Shit! I’m fucked. Gosavich just walked in. He’ll recognize me from the restaurant a week ago. I have to bail.” He looked down at the ground and said audibly, “Shiiiiiit!”
A Russian man named Gosavich was involved in the oil industry and also suspected to be in cahoots with the power hungry Mexican dissidents. Gosavich had seen O’Connor when he was posing as an undercover waiter the week before while dining with Mexican oilmen at a fancy restaurant. If O’Connor was spotted tonight, it would ruin the intel gathering mission.
“You’re right,” McVandalay said. “Follow me.”
O’Connor put his head down and nodded at Blitz, then reached out and squeezed her hand as if saying, “it’s gonna be alright!” He quickly followed McVandalay until they reached a doorway leading to the back kitchen. McVadnalay pointed subtly to the door and said, “see you soon,” as O’Connor slipped by him.
Feeling like he instinctively knew where the kitchen exit was, he walked with his head down while workers around him asked if he was ok. He answered in perfect Spanish, “I just need to get away from an ex lover of mine before she sees me. She hates me.” Since all of the employees were men, they believed the gringo who spoke perfect Spanish.
As O’Connor opened the door to the outside, he hit some sort of obstacle that wouldn’t let the door completely open. He slipped out and closed the door behind him to see a very large man in an expensive three piece suit. The thug had a pock marked face and a neck tattoo that covered the whole left side of his neck. He’d been smoking a cigarette and O’Connor had knocked the smoke out of his hand when the door had hit the thug as it opened unexpectedly. The thug moved in on O’Connor quickly.
“Amigo!” O’Connor said cheerfully as he instinctively threw an uppercut. The cheerful distraction was enough that his punch was able to land. The man’s jaw broke in several places as his brain shook inside of his skull. His body went limp and fell to the ground like a bag of potatoes. The impact of the thug hitting the ground reverberated up and down the small alleyway with a “thud” that made O’Connor’s nerves feel gross. “Ouch!”
“Nice uppercut, buddy.” The voice of special agent Jack Miller filled his ears.
“I’m glad somebody saw that,” O’Connor replied. The microphone in his ear piece picked up his voice perfectly. “I doubt anyone would believe me if you hadn’t seen it. Lorenz, tell me you got that on camera, please.”
Special agent ace sniper Laura Lorenz spoke up in his ears. “Affirmative, you booze filled fool. We’ve been keeping an eye on that guy. He’s been smoking cigarette after cigarette for an hour straight by that door, as if he’s been waiting for someone, but he’s nervous about it.”
“Interesting!” O’Connor replied with a little life to his voice. “I wonder if he was waiting to jump somebody.” O’Connor dropped down and started going through the thug’s pockets. He quickly found a set of brass knuckles, along with a small wad of Mexican cash and a set of car keys with a wireless fab. “Any idea which rig is his?”
“No clue, Doc,” Miller replied in his ears. “No one saw him pull into the parking lot, but he walked up the path from there, so who knows.”
O’Connor stood back up and jingled the keys in the air to show his friends who were watching from afar. He started walking to the parking lot like he had a mission. “Well let’s find out which rig these go to, shall we?”
“Dude, if he works for one of the narcos, you may have just started a shit storm,” Lorenz said.
“If he works for one of the narcos, I vote we go rogue and kill them all,” O’Connor said ruefully.
“You really are trying to get fired, aren’t you?” general Rice asked in their ears.
“Sorry, boss. I just knocked out a thug and I’m looking for his wheels.” He walked into the parking lot and started clicking the unlock button while he walked around the fancy cars. Finally, he saw headlights from a few rows over flash, so he assumed he’d found it. “I’ve got something, gang. It’s a few rows over. Gimme a second.”
“We’ve got eyes on the area and no one’s around, Doc. Check it out,” Lorenz said in his ears matter of factly.
He walked towards where he though he’d seen the headlights flash and clicked the unlock button again. “Fuck me,” O’Connor muttered to his friends. “It’s a limousine.”
Miller whistled and the audio compressor in O’Connor’s ear piece distorted the sound so the volume wouldn’t blow out his ear drums. His enthusiasm was contagious. “Steal some shit, Doc! I call dibs on any booze that you don’t want to drink.”
O’Connor’s laugh sounded more like an old man grunting. “You already know that there’s not a booze on Earth that I wouldn’t drink, Miller.” O’Connor clicked the unlock button on the keyless entry and opened the driver side door. The cab reeked from a mixture of cigar smoke and cannabis, but other than the stale stench, it was clean with no trash or debris. “Nothing to report in the drivers cab. Gonna check the back now.”
Now it was Lorenz’s turn to speak up in his ear piece. “Look for weapons under the seat. If you find a pistol, I call dibs.”
“You love a good piece of steel, don’t you sweetie?” Miller joked.
“All I ask for is something long and hard and that shoots straight.”
O’Connor’s grunt laugh filled their ears. “You two are something else.” A moment later he said, “Sure as shit, you were onto something, Lorenz. There are a pair of pistols under the seat and a small box of ammo.”
“Dibs, mother fuckers!” Lorenz said in a sweet, girly tone.
O’Connor grabbed the weapons, then pulled a gadget out of his tuxedo coat sleeve that was the size of a pack of cards. He tossed the small device where the guns had been, then lowered the drivers seat back down. “Checking the back now.”
A few minutes passed as O’Connor raided the liquor stash in the back of the limo. In one of the drawers of the mini fridge, he found bags of white power as well as stinky cannabis. “Anyone want any weed or blow?” O’Connor asked.
In fine sarcastic fashion, Miller chimed in. “I’ll have all the blow I need when Lorenz and I get back to the hotel.”
“Nice one, honey,” Lorenz giggled.
“I do what I can, babe.” Miller’s voice changed quickly. “Doc, the thug you knocked out is headed back to the parking lot and he has a few dudes in suits with him. I’m running and I.D. scan to let you know who they are. In the meantime, get out of there!”
“Roger.” O’Connor exited the back of the limo, hit the lock button on the key fab. As he heard the internal locking mechanisms click on the doors, he tossed the keys by the drivers side door to make it look like the thug accidentally dropped his keys. O’Connor scurried off a few rows and dove down behind a row of cars.
Miller’s voice spoke quietly in O’Connor’s ears. “The two suits with the thug are both known narcos. They’re captains under the narco known as El Fuego.”
“The fire, huh?” O’Connor replied in a whisper. “Time to quench the flame, I think.” He watched as the the thug saw his keys on the ground by the driver side door. The thug instinctively looked around, looking for O’Connor, undoubtedly for revenge. The thug dropped to a knee and picked up the keys, then unlocked the limo. After helping the captains into the back of the limo, the thug jumped behind the wheel and fired up the rig. He pulled out of the parking lot slowly, then turned onto the seaside road and drove away.
“All clear, Doc,” Miller said in his ears. “Blitz and McVanadlay have placed a few listening devices around the room and our boys back at Langley are recording the conversations. Nothing new to report.”
“Roger,” O’Connor said. “Hey Miller, from your vantage point, can you see the road that leads into this place?”
“I can’t see for several blocks, but I can see when the road twists up the hill, yeah. In fact, the limo just came into the view. Why do you ask?”
Even though Miller was a thousand yards away, O’Connor said, “Hold my beer and watch this.” He pulled a small device the size of a cigarette lighter from his pocket. It had one button on the end. He pressed it four times in quick succession, then covered his ears.
In the distance, a stretch limousine exploded with intense fury, instantly killing its driver and passengers while sending shockwaves into the surrounding estates and creating a boom that resonated all the way down the coastline, alerting all of the crooked guests of the seaside resort party that opposing forces were onto them and no one was safe.
