7, Bursting
“Jesus Christ pal, buy a girl a drink before you mug her in a dark alley, wouldja?” Sergeant Schuman was mouthy and didn’t even try to play the role of being a helpless victim. Her hands were up as if she were being arrested, but she showed no visible fear as she took a good look at the petty thief standing a few feet in front of her. Despite the night being almost completely devoid of light, he could see the faint starlight reflect brightly off of her blindingly white perfect teeth, like a real life cheshire cat in Wonderland.
“I said, on the ground now, bitch!” The thug’s thick Spanish accent sounded like he called her a “beach” which greatly annoyed her. He was sweating and nervous, clearly intoxicated on a cocktail of drugs that Schuman correctly guessed consisted mostly of illegal substances in nature. This was Colombia after all, home to the world’s most notorious cocaine cartels. This particular part of Bogota was well known for nasty men and violent criminal mischief. Shit always went down night after night, so the sergeant came here a few times per year on her time off to relax and unwind. Hunting and killing bad guys was her idea of leisure.
He crinkled his eyes in confusion at her smiling face and tightened the grip on his pistol. Her grin got even bigger, yet she spoke with little emotion. “Look amigo, not a night goes by where I don’t fight or fuck, and I’ve experienced a painful lack of the latter as of late. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m horny as hell and you’re getting in the way of me scoring some D.”
Before he could blink, the sergeant dropped down and swept the legs out from under the man as smooth as a lightning bolt travels across stormy clouds. As the wannabe thief lost his grip on terra firma, Schuman magically pulled out a large hunting knife from a hidden sheath under her tank top. The thief was in mid fall when the large knife thrust into his back. The whole move was only a fraction of a second, but the starlight seemed to artistically twinkle off the blood covered blade that protruded from his chest like a painting in a haunted house.
Without hardly any effort, she held the entirety of his full weight the same as someone doing a dumbbell curl. She looked at his lifeless body like it was a freshly delivered pizza. “Next time somebody calls me a bitch, they’d better say the word sexy first,” she muttered to herself.
Gravity greedily pulled his carcass to the dirty alley floor while Schuman cracked her neck from side to side holding the blood stained knife. “Fuck me running, I’m pent up.” The whole ordeal was over in only a few seconds, but she felt like her night was ruined. Sergeant Schuman wiped a bit of spittle off of the side of her mouth, then used the dead mans shirt to clean her knife before returning it to it’s concealed sheath.
“Nice pistol, asshole,” she said, finally showing some interest in her current situation. “Old school Colt 45. Murdock loves these fucking things.” Stuffing the gun into her bra, she stood up and took a deep breath of the humid, warm midnight air and muttered to herself, “that only leaves McVandaly on my Christmas list, and he’s easy.”
She made a mental note to stop in Chicago on her way home to do some quick shopping for his present. She again felt the physical need for a chemical brain release and said with pure sexual frustration, “I should’ve gone to Vegas.” She shook her head and disappeared into the dark Columbian night like a light ocean mist evaporates in an Irish sunrise.
A few days later she was in a conference room at CIA headquarters. “Jesus Murphy, Sarge! Why can’t you just get shit faced and sunbathe when you’re on vacation like the rest of us! FUCK!!!” CIA director Mulroony was furious, pacing back and forth and waving his hands aimlessly. “Of all the thugs to murder…”
Schuman was annoyed and sternly interrupted him, “I still haven’t had a good lay in a few weeks, boss. Don’t push my buttons, god dammit or I might go nuclear.”
General Rice sipped her seventeenth cup of coffee for the morning and said, “holy shit, I hear you there, sister.”
Special agent Death opened her eyes from a long blink, as if she were remembering a pleasant memory. “I’m telling you both, you should’ve banged those Canadian army rangers we met last month. Mine tasted like maple syrup.”
Rice shrugged, “yeah, but you had a bangover the next day and slept through the raid.”
Schuman was still pent up. “Canada, that’s been on my mind since we left. I should’ve seized that god damned opportunity to get some, but nooooo, I always have to be well rested when I know I get to kill the next day…”
Director Mulroony exploded. “I don’t give a fuck about your twisted personal life, Schuman! I give a fuck that you started a gang war amongst some well organized, well armed criminal organizations that have the monetary resources to crumble the world economy!” He looked at his ten member special operations team sitting at the conference table with amazement. Besides Schuman’s indignant sexual frustration, none one of them showed any emotion. Their blank stares and indifference made him even angrier. “I expect this kind of shit from Murdock, but not from you, Sarge!”
Special agent Murdock picked some gunk from under a finger nail. He flicked it at his assassin friend Bradly McVandaly as he feigned protest, “hey, I resent that comment, boss…”
McVandalay leisurely dodged the airborne speck of nail gunk without even looking up from his cellphone and muttered, “Cubs just got a double play.”
General Rice polished off her coffee and said, “gross, Murdock.”
“I do what I can,” he replied with a shrug.
Mulroony was to the bursting point. “Look fuckers, this shit is serious!!! Sarge killed the nephew to the most dangerous man in the southern hemisphere, Marteen Tiberon! I have president Clever breathing down my neck! There have already been retaliation killings among the cartels, and things are getting out of hand. If we don’t clean this fucking mess up right fucking now, shit could go global!”
Dale O’Connor was the best demolitions expert in the world, but he was also half drunk at 10am. “Come on, boss, no need to blow a blood vessel over this petty shit. Sarge could take out Marteen and his whole crew with her bare hands without breaking a sweat by tomorrow morning, then finish off any other crime family by lunch. Hell, she’d still have enough time to bare knuckle box in Northern Africa by evening.” He hiccuped lightly and the faint smell of Jameson filled the room.
Schuman grinned and looked at her pilot friend, “only if Porter can give me a lift.”
Porter had been using an emery board to smooth out her toe nails during the conversation and said, “piece of cake. My new record from Bogota to Algiers is just under two hours, and if we can catch a tail wind, I bet I can knock off another fifteen minutes.” She smiled unapologetically to CIA director Mulroony, “and yes, I’m bragging. It’d be all under the radar, of course, boss.”
Mulroony was on the verge of a mental breakdown. “The ten of you will clean this god damn mess up in forty eight hours or less before the Monday morning news cycle! The last thing I need is for Columbia to go into a revolution being funded by the Rojo Cartel right before this World Cup happens. If you fuck faces are caught or killed, you’re on your own!” He stormed out of the room and slammed the door with an impressive “thud” that resonated through the quiet room.
“Strikeout,” said McVandaly casually. “Cubs are up three to zip going into the bottom of the fourth inning.”
Murdock yawned. Doc hiccuped again as Porter started putting her socks and shoes back on.
Special agents Emerald Blitz and Alexi Blacktide hadn’t said shit the whole time. Both women looked haggard as hell from a long night of partying. “I was gonna do laundry and sleep in over the weekend,” yawned Blitz. “I hope y’all don’t mind me wearing my pajamas, cuz my head hurts too much to go shop for anything new to wear.”
Blacktide rubbed her blood shot eyes and said, “there’s not enough coffee in Columbia to cure my damn hangover. Oh well, I deserve it. Do the crime, pay the time.” Despite her pounding headache, she was smiling at the adventure that awaited them.
Jack Miller and his girlfriend Laura Lorenz had also been silent the whole time. Lorenz reached into her ears and pulled out something that was the size of a pea from each ear. They were state of the art wireless ear buds. “Oh, shit, I wasn’t paying attention,” she said. “Mulroony seemed pissed, but I tuned him out cuz we were finishing our audiobook. What an ending.”
Miller pulled out his ear buds and said, “the little boy sees dead people, and the guy he interacted with was dead the whole damn time. I didn’t see that one coming. What’d we miss?”
Agent Death stood up and slowly stretched her tired body. “Sarge killed an asshole in Columbia and it might destabilize the world banking economy causing billions of people to possibly starve and die of disease from lack of medical supply delivery, plunging the world into a dark age not seen since the last millennia, et cetera et cetera.” Her spine cracked loudly as she stretched. “You know, the usual. Anybody up for tacos?”
Lorenz mentally ran through this new information and smiled. “Shit sarge, you pulled a Murdock?”
Special agent Trent Murdock feigned resentment and whined, “what’s that supposed to mean, Lorenz?”
She answered, “it means sarge fucked up and the world is gonna end. You know, she pulled a Murdock. And yeah, I’m totally down for tacos.”
Murdock faked being shocked. “You call that pulling a Murdock. I call that a normal Tuesday.”
A few peeps started getting to their feet and ignored him as they chatted about getting tacos. “Sorry about this, friends,” muttered Schuman. “But look on the bright side. We haven’t all done a job together since… since…” She wracked her foggy memory.
Porter finished the thought. “Thailand, two and a half years ago. Somebody order me a few spicy burritos and I’ll fire up the bird.”
“I got you covered, Porter. I’ve been sitting behind a desk for the past year,” muttered Rice. “I’m running intel on this one and no one better complain that the boss is coming with y’all cuz I’m buying lunch.” She pulled out her phone and started writing down everyone’s orders.
“It’ll be good to have you with us, general,” said McVandaly as he put away his phone. “And hey, it’s good to get the whole band back together. Whaddya say gang, let’s go kill everyone from warring Colombian crime syndicates and save the world… again.” He whipped out his Israeli made Desert Eagle hand guns out of habit and looked them over. “Been awhile since I’ve been able to use these puppies. This’ll be fun. Lemme take a piss and I’ll meet y’all at the hanger. Rice, please grab me a few hard shells at the taco truck, and hold the onions since none of you deserve my onion breath.” He holstered the weapons and walked quickly, as if he might not make it to the urinal in time.
Blitz groaned. “With the state my guts are in, food would only come up if I ate. Anyone got any alka seltzer? I’m never drinking tequila again.”
“Tequila makes me play hide and seek with my morals,” Murdock joked.
“What are these supposed morals of which you speak?” Death asked.
“Fair point,” giggled Murdock.
Dale O’Connor pulled out a flask from his hip and took a sip, then offered it to his hungover friends. “Hair of the dog, ladies?” Blacktide took a big swig and handed it to Blitz. She begrudgingly took a big pull of the Irish whiskey and tried to hand it back to Doc. He waved it away in a gesture for her to keep it. She nodded gratefully and took another pull.
Miller got up and said, “Lorenz and I got matching sniper rifles for our anniversary. This’ll be fun to try them out.” He kissed his girlfriend and they looked lovingly at each other.
Ten minutes later, Porter was accelerating over the Caribbean ocean with Team Whiskey in the cargo bay of her insanely fast stealth jet, all of whom were heavily armed and ready to kill. In the distance, an undercover Columbian drug lord informant sent a text from his taco truck to his contacts back in Bogota with the simple message, “company is headed your way.”
