76, Fire

“Have you ever wondered what your life might be like if you weren’t such a dumb fuck?”  Special agent Alexi Blacktide used a very sharp hunting knife to cut a piece of wire, then slipped the blade back into her hip sheath.  “I’m shocked and amazed that you don’t drool more than you already do.”

“I really want to pretend to be offended, but I learned a long time ago that it’s pointless to ignore the truth.  It only makes life more difficult.”  Special agent demolitions expert Dale O’Connor gladly accepted the piece of wire he was being handed and nodded politely to his friend.  “I thought I could handle it, what can I say?”

Blacktide’s brain wouldn’t let her process how dumb O’Connor really was.  “You’re telling me with a straight face that you ordered the nuclear curry at the number one Indian restaurant in America that was made famous because they have to call an ambulance at least once a week for their patrons who are dumb enough to order that particular menu item, and that somehow when it arrived at your dinner table, you honestly thought you could handle it?”

O’Connor shrugged innocently as he used a wire cutting tool to strip off the rubber coating on the last inch of the wire he’d been handed.  “I was drunk.”

Shaking her head, Blacktide muttered, “uh huh.”

“Yup.  Like, really fucking drunk.”  O’Connor drank a lot, but the memory of how blind drunk he was on that particular evening came back to him.  “Russian drunk.”

“Jesus, Doc.”  

“Yeah, well my ass reminded me that reality is an unforgiving bitch within an hour of leaving that place.”

“I’m trying my best to think of a diarrhea pun but I’m failing,” Blacktide admitted.

O’Connor paused his task and grinned.  After a lifetime of drinking in bars and late night shenanigans, his inner comedian didn’t hold back.  “There are five reasons I’ll never eat their spicy curry again, but number two was the worst.”

Blacktide groaned.  “Dumb.”

“I’m just getting started.”  As O’Connor thought of his next toilet humor joke, he perfectly placed the exposed wire into a piece of putty attached to a stick of C4 explosive.  “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but it’s diarrhea awareness week.”  He set the explosive down along side the other nine that he’d prepped and said, “It runs through Friday night.”

It took her a second to understand the pun, but once she did, her eyes involuntarily rolled.  “Runs.”  Regardless of his ridiculous humor, Blacktide was really enjoying exploring her newly discovered attraction towards O’Connor.  She couldn’t hold back a smile.  “Dumb.”

“I apologize that my potty humor didn’t get off to a solid start.”  O’Connor knew he was an idiot when it came to flirting with women, but being an idiot with Blacktide was a natural as drinking to him.  He loved how she flirted back and he was enjoying her company more and more this past twenty four hours.  Alexi Blacktide continued to shake her head and smile as O’Connor finished his potty puns with a bang.  “Sorry, Lex, but you asked me for it.”  He paused, then added, “I couldn’t hold it in.”

“God dammit, Doc!  Gross!”  Blacktide jumped up from the work bench and walked over to a table with a small dorm fridge.  She snagged two beers and racked her memory for any comedic potty jokes but her brain was fried.  She decided to change the subject.  “Hey, remember earlier when you said you’d need to take advantage of my flexibility?”

“Yup.  Later, I promise.”  O’Connor’s face had dropped the flirting and he was all business as he packed the explosives into a carrying bag.  “Your years of yoga might keep me out of jail, Lex.”

Not knowing how to keep the flirting going, Blacktide simply said, “Right.”  Her newly discovered horniness for O’Connor was fun to explore in her mind, but obviously this wasn’t the ideal time to take action on these new emotions.

As if he were suddenly plugged into a wall outlet that made him speed up to full throttle, O’Connor popped up from his work bench.  “They’re ready,” he said as he nodded to the bag full of explosives.  “You’re driving.”

“Let’s roll,” Blacktide said.

Two months had gone by and no one in Team Whiskey had heard from O’Connor at all.  Not a text or call, and even the rumor spreaders at Langley had no clue where he’d been.  He returned out of the blue at special agent Alexi Blacktide’s office in headquarters and acted like nothing was wrong.  When asked, he simply replied that he’d been undercover for General Rice on some sort of mission where he had to arrange purchasing a large order of illegal drugs.  The purchase failed and now O’Connor was responsible for seventy five thousand dollar that had gone missing.

Any normal human would be stressed out of their mind from the legal ramifications that the demolitions expert had found himself entangled in, however if O’Connor was nervous, he wasn’t showing any emotion at all.  He’d confided to Blacktide that he’d discovered a warehouse full of drugs that he was not going to turn over to the DEA.  Instead, O’Connor decided he was going to do something about it himself without going through the proper law enforcement channels established by the government.  As Blacktide drove their jet black armored sedan towards the address he’d given her, she wondered if knew she was aiding and abetting a soon to be felon.  “Doc, do you ever wonder what your life would’ve been like if you hadn’t joined Team Whiskey?”

The question rolled around in O’Connor’s mind as the speeding car flew down the road like a ghost, whizzing past other vehicles and blasting past newly renovated buildings.  “I’d drink more, I think.”

Not satisfied with his answer, Blacktide pushed him further.  “Seriously, do you ever imagine settling down and starting a family?  Maybe coach little league or something?”

The lack of emotion from O’Connor was creepy.  “Nope.”  He looked at Blacktide and admired her beauty as he contemplated what being in a relationship with her might be like.  “I do think about moving to rural Ireland and working the rest of my life at a distillery though.”  O’Connor gazed off into the front windshield and sighed.  “I think about that a lot.”

Blacktide gave her friend a side glance with big eyes, then stared back at the road.  She expertly wove the vehicle through an unusually large amount of city traffic for such a late hour.  “Rural Ireland, huh?  And in all of your daydreams, you’re never married, or a father?”

Without thinking, O’Connor shrugged and muttered, “Come on, Lex.  Let’s be real.  If someone falls in love with one of us, we can’t be ourselves around them.  We’re not normal.”  His tone was emotionless and his words felt absolute.  “What kind of woman who wants to settle down would marry a guy who’s always drunk and blowing up bad guys?”

Alexi Blacktide never wanted to settle down in her life, but for the first time, she actually contemplated what it might be like to be with O’Connor.  She gave it a real thought.  “You’d make a woman happy, you know.  Don’t sell yourself short.”

Blacktide was usually the one to snort, but this time it was O’Connor’s turn.  For the first time in the drive, his voice had emotion.  “Oh sure, Lex!”  He pretended to be an imaginary house wife.  “Hi honey, how was your day?”  He answered himself as an imaginary husband.  “Just another day in the office with Team Whiskey, darling!  Today I instantly murdered a dozen bad guys while I blew up a warehouse full of illegal opiates!”  Switching back to the imaginary house wife, he replied, “Well it’s always nice to hear that there will be less hard drugs on the streets of America, darling!  Great job being a killer!”

Red and blue lights started flashing behind the black armored sedan.  Blacktide looked in her rear view mirror for a second, then her eyes were back on the road.  As if it wasn’t an issue at all, she ignored the police lights behind them.  “You just need to find the right woman, Doc.  I know you’re a sweetheart down deep.”

“Yup, I’m made of rainbows and sunshine.  That’s me,” O’Connor said dryly.  “And why all of this talk about me?  What about you?  You know you’d be a great mom and wife someday.”  He looked back at his friend.  The red and blue lights coming through the windows made her somehow look even more attractive than ever.  

“Ha!  ME!  A mom?!”  Blacktide was pulling away from the police car as if she were in a foot race with a fat frat boy.  “My kid would need more therapy than an L.A. soccer mom.”

“That’s funny,” O’Connor said plainly.  “And fuck that shit.  You’re a rock star, Lex.”

The compliment made her feel great.  She yanked on the wheel and zipped around a block, then hit an alleyway at fifty five miles an hour.  It was empty and she stomped on the accelerator even more.  As the sedan exited the alleyway, the red and blue lights were long gone.  “You’re too kind, Doc, but my daughter would be more fucked up than me in so many ways.”

Blacktide froze at the thought.  Daughter?  She’d never imagined having a child, let alone what gender the child might be.  The thought made her brain start to over heat.  All she’d known since she was eighteen years old was how to kill bad guys, not to raise children up to be good guys.  Her fear of inadequacy drained her of the ability to say anything further as her head became a hurricane.

O’Connor broke the short silence by returning the conversation back to business.  “Park over there by those trees.  We’ll walk the last two blocks.”

Shaken back into reality, all she could reply is, “Got it.”

Neither agent said anything as they parked the car and removed their weapons and explosives from it.  “Follow me,” O’Connor said as he started walking at a brisk pace.

Blacktide’s long legs had to work hard to keep up with O’Connor.  His athleticism caught her off guard since all she’d ever seen him do is drink.  “Doc, do you ever exercise?”

“Everyday.”

She wondered if his comment was sincere or snide.  “Do you run?”

“Only from the cops, which by the way, good driving back there.  You’re unreal.”

Blacktide was starting to breathe a bit heavily to keep up with him and she noticed he wasn’t out of breath at all.  “No, for real, do you actually exercise?”

O’Connor laughed an easy laugh.  “Yup.  Everyday.  I lift like a mule and run five miles as hard as I can.  Why in the fuck do you think I have this fantastic body?  Did you think I drank myself to six pack abs?”  He lifted his shirt to reveal a shredded ripped physique that Blacktide had no idea he had.

“Jesus, Doc!  I had no clue!”  Her strange and confused attraction towards him grew even deeper.

“I’m not one to go around topless, Lex.  That’s not my style.”  

“Me neither, unless you wanna count spring break of my senior year of college in Mexico,” Blacktide said candidly.

O’Connor seemed to be able to walk at a pace that most people would consider brisk jogging but his voice was as steady as if he were sitting at a dining table having a cup of tea.  “God bless alcohol and young, horny women.”

“Amen,” Blacktide said as she breathed heavily to catch her breath.

“Hi guys!”  

The chipper voice of Master Thief Owens entered their conversation and scared the living shit out of Blacktide, but O’Connor kept walking as if Owens had been there the whole time.  He spoke to the thief as casually as if they’d been chatting the whole time.  “What’s the sitch in there?”

Blacktide wanted to protest but Owens went right to business.  “Ten guys total.  Four in the office, four watching guard and two who are packing and sorting packages.”

O’Connor nodded at this info.  “Any chance that our seventy five k is around?” he asked.

Blacktide asked, “What do you mean by ‘our seventy five k’,” but Owens answered O’Connor without explaining.

“They’re counting over a million in cash, easy.  I  nicked a hundred right in front of them as they were counting it.”

Blacktide was damn near panting and jogging at a light pace to keep up with the two men.  “A hundred?  Well gee, Owens, don’t spend it all in once place!” she joked.

O’Connor wasn’t mean, but he was blunt.  “That’s a hundred large, Lex.  They’ll notice, and that’s the kind of discordant noise that I want going on as the warehouse comes down.”

“Discordant!  Good word,” Owens said appreciately.

“I’ve won awards,” O’Connor joked back.

With a huge grin on his face, Owens said, “When they go to pack up a suitcase…”  He giggled to himself, “heads are gonna roll, Doc!”

“Good work, Owens.”  O’Connor reached into his bag and pulled out four sticks of explosives.  “You know what to do.”  

“Roger!  Meet up for wings afterwards?” Owens asked innocently as if they weren’t about to go and blow up millions of dollars worth of drugs and murder ten awful humans.

Blacktide was now sucking wind and jogging to keep up with her teammates and thinking to herself that she needed to do more cardio.  “What place will be open in the middle of the night that sells wings, for fucks sake!?”

O’Connor and Owens laughed at the same time.  “Christiansens!” they answered.

“Angela makes the best god damned wings east of the Mississippi,” Owens said with conviction.

“And even though they don’t sell booze, she always has a cocktail waiting for us,” O’Connor added.  He looked at Owens and reached out as Owens gave him a fist bump.  “Catch you at the meet up spot.”

“Roger,” Owens answered, then he sprinted off into the darkness.

“Hurry,” O’Connor said to Blacktide as he too started jogging quickly.

“Fuck,” she muttered as she picked up her pace.

Twenty minutes later, all of the explosives had been set on the outside.  O’Connor said, “All we gotta do is hit the boom boom button and this place goes bye bye.”

Blacktide had caught her breath and cooled off, but her annoyance at not being able to keep up with her friends was still heavy on her mind.  She felt cranky as she said, “Is there an echo, echo out here?”

An instinctive laugh blurted out of O’Connor’s mouth.  “God dammit woman, you’re funny,” he said with appreciation.  For the first time in hours, O’Connor turned off his work brain and enjoyed the flirting again.  “You’re awesome.”

“No, you’re awesome!” Blacktide said, as if it was a normal day to tell a demolitions expert that he was something special regardless of the millions of dollars of damage he was about to cause.  “Wait, hold up, what about Owens?”

“He’s already at Christiansens having drink.”

She knew he was right but a part of her female brain still worried irrationally that Owens might be in danger.  “I know he’s crazy fast at breaking and entering and all, but for real, I don’t wanna blow him up right now.”

O’Connor lifted his wrist watch and showed it to Blacktide as if it were proof enough that he was telling the truth.  “He texted me.  All good.  I told him to have pint while he’s waiting for us, and no god damned blu cheese on our wings.”  A grin crossed his face.  “Ready to kill some bad guys?”

The moment was broken by the sound of gunfire inside of the warehouse.  The bad guys were shooting each other over the stolen hundred grand.  Both Blacktide and O’Connor smiled, and deep satisfaction crept over each of them.  “Maybe we should let them kill each other for a few minutes before you click that button?”

A thought crossed his brain that terrified him, but he decided to go for it.  “Lex….”  He paused and gave her a smile.  She returned the smile.  “I really want to kiss you right now.”

Alexi Blacktide had killed countless bad men in her life.  She’d been in firefights, high speed shootouts, been shot at in helicopters as missiles exploded all around, and she’d kissed her share of many boys in her life, most of whom were as rough and satisfying as herself.  However, in this moment, her heart beat at a million miles a minute.  Her mouth went dry and her cheeks suddenly hurt from smiling.  It was as if she was a fifteen year old girl again, about to kiss the varsity quarterback.  “Yeah,” is all she could muster to say.

Confused, O’Connor looked at her smile and waited for a sign.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”  Blacktide waited for him to make a move.  “Well, what in the fuck are you waiting for, you idiot?”

O’Connor felt his heart race just as quickly.  He stepped up to her and put his left arm around her waist to pull her up to him.  With a clicker controller in his right hand, he pushed a lone red button on it and said, “This.”

He pulled her in and stuck his lips to hers.  Their combined desire unlocked in every part of their bodies as their tongues became acquainted with each other.  At the exact same second, a massive explosion occurred a block away as a huge plume of flame went sky high.  As the two members of Team Whiskey played tonsil hockey, their silhouette was illuminated by the massive flames and crumbling building.  The destruction raged and the air heated to hundreds of degrees as it spread in every direction, but the fiery heat wasn’t even half as hot as their first kiss.

In the distance, a master thief and an all night diner owner sipped cold bourbon and nibbled on hot wings while waiting and waiting for their two friends to join them, and although their time together was pleasant and quite enjoyable, the two peeps they were waiting for had spontaneous plans of their own that kept them from joining humanity at all, as well as kept them sleepless for hours and hours.