77, Lost

“I stuck my neck out for you, you son of a bitch, and you’ve made me look like an asshole to the brass!”  General Rice was normally a very calm, collected woman.  Years of martial arts training, flying planes and seeing heavy combat had taught her to be cool under pressure.  Currently, she was livid.  “I’m gonna fuck you up!” Rice angrily blurted.

“Well, boss, I always say, if you can’t get fucked, get fucked up.”  Dale O’Connor ducked as Rice furiously threw a haymaker at his jaw.  His face was emotionless and he didn’t even breathe heavily as he added, “I’m not drunk enough to get my ass kicked right now, dammit,” he said dispassionately.

General Rice instinctively threw another punch at his body, but O’Connor had the reflexes of a house fly evading a fly swatter.  He sucked in his stomach as her punch narrowly missed him and she found her anger bubbling over even worse.  “You fucking idiot!”

“Yeah, that’s true, but you’ve called me worse, boss,” O’Connor said flatly as he bent over backwards to avoid a high kick from Rice.  It was as if he was Neo in the Matrix, avoiding every advance with ease.  Her years of kickboxing were useless against his god like reflexive avoidance of her attacks.  The fact that she couldn’t hit him pissed her off but his perfectly emotionless demeanor was even more infuriating.  He had no emotions, but he was as fast as a cat when she struck.  “Remember the time you called me a scum sucking dick licker?  That was a good one.”

Rice was glad that she didn’t have a gun on her at the moment or she honestly thought she’d draw it and point it at him.  Her anger was burning.  “You have no idea the shit I’ve gone through to stick up for you!”

“Yeah, I don’t,” O’Connor said casually.  “You’re a good boss and I suck.  I know.  But I gotta tell you…”

“FUCK YOU!” Rice yelled as she attempted one more right hook.  Unsurprisingly, despite her insane strength and speed, she missed O’Connor’s nose by inches yet again, and true to character, he didn’t flinch or show any emotion, let alone fear.  “You’re fired, Doc!  You’re off Team Whiskey, and I’ll have you arrested where you can rot in jail!”

“Oh.  Well that sucks,” O’Connor replied calmly as he took off his wrist watch communicator and tossed it on his boss’s desk.  “You can send someone to get my guns,” he said as he began to walk out of her office.

“Where in the fuck do you think you’re going, mister!” she yelled.  Rice’s office was next to several high ranking officials offices and anyone in that part of CIA headquarters could hear her yelling at the top of her lungs.

Without emotion, O’Connor replied, “The bar.  It’s been a pleasure working for you, boss.”  He turned to walk out the door and paused at the doorway as he said, “hey, just so you know, the seventy five grand got put back in the account, so, you know…” he shrugged completely nonchalantly, “half the brass is probably gonna get fired over this cuz they’re the completely incompetent dumb fucks, not you.”

As he calmly exited her office she yelled, “Get the fuck back in here mother fucker!” but he had already taken a step and disappeared into the hallway.

He bent backwards and grabbed onto the doorjamb to where she could only see his face.  “You just fired me,” O’Connor said plainly.  “I wanna go to the bar and drink away my sadness.  Can’t you see I’m sad?” he asked with no emotion.

Rice’s temper was as mad as she could humanly be.  “God dammit!” was all she could yell, but her brain snapped.  “What did you just say?”

O’Connor was still emotionless.  “I’m sad cuz I just lost my dream job and I wanna get drunk.”  

His complete lack of emotion in his response was so unnerving that it actually made Rice laugh out loud involuntarily.  O’Connor watched her with his face completely plain for a second, then disappeared from the doorway.  

It took Rice half a minute to gather herself from laughing, then she spoke out, “get back in here, asshole,” but this time she had much less anger.  After ten seconds of nothing, she yelled out, “quit fucking around, Doc.  Get the fuck back in here!”  Again, several seconds went by and nothing happened.  “Doc!” she yelled, but again, nothing.

The face of a CIA intern appeared in her doorway.  “Pardon me, ma’am, but Mr. O’Connor walked right to the door and walked out quickly.”

“That mother fucker!” she yelled, but then quickly recovered.  “Thank you!  Dismissed!” she barked.  She felt guilty as the intern walked away sheepishly, but her rekindled anger with O’Connor overpowered her guilt at snapping at an intern.  

She picked up her phone and hit a few buttons.  The other line picked up and she quipped, “Clancy, this is Rice.  O’Connor is going to be exiting the building shortly.  Don’t let him leave.  Arrest the fucker if you have to.”

“Ma’am?” the man confusedly asked on the other side of the call.  “You want me to arrest Mr. O’Connor?”  

The comical thought went through her head that people knew Doc as “Mr. O’Connor” but the humor left her.  “Yes, Clancy, that’s affirmative!  Don’t let that mother fucker out of the building!”

“Yes ma’am.”  A voice on the other end started talking to the man and he said, “Oh wait, ma’am.”  Rice could hear a mumbled conversation and then the voice of Clancy came out of the ear piece in her phone.  “Sorry, ma’am, he apparently exited the building a minute ago.”

Rice did the mental math.  How in the fuck did O’Connor traverse several thousand feet worth of hallways, then exit the building through that very large foyer, all in the span of less than two minutes?  “Was he sprinting when he left?”

“No, ma’am.  He gave us all a nod and walked out like he always does.  Would you like us to go outside and try to find him?”

Rice knew in her guts that it was no use.  “Fuck,” she muttered to herself.  “No thank you, Clancy.  Disregard all of this.  I’m gonna kill that mother fucker when I see him next.  Rice out.”

“Ma’am,” Clancy said as the call terminated.

Forty eight hours later, general Rice found herself walking into yet another Washington D.C. bar at 9am to look for her demolitions expert.  She looked around and saw a few people drinking coffee at the bar while watching the morning news on a tv but there was no sign of O’Connor.  After a few inquiries to the bartender she politely thanked him for his time.  Exiting the bar, she wondered how long it would be until she’d see him again.  “God dammit, Doc,” she said to no one.  “Where are you.”

O’Connor was known to disappear for days at a time, always going on some sort of bender, but this time it was different.  Rice knew that O’Connor couldn’t actually believe that he was really fired, for real, but she had some sort of nagging doubt that this time was different.  Rice had every reason to be furious with him two days earlier.  O’Connor had been given an assignment that included using seventy five thousand dollars to make a purchase of illegal drugs.  He’d reported that he’d made an arrangement to purchase the drugs and given the money to the drug dealers, but then he reported that they’d stolen it.

Normally, government agencies didn’t give a fuck about tax payer money disappearing.  They were great at making money evaporate into thin air.  What O’Connor didn’t know was that some of the brass were trying to make Rice look bad with this mission.

O’Connor was supposed to purchase drugs from a drug dealer, but the dealer was actually a set up.  He would lose the money, fail in producing any drugs at all since there weren’t any, and the shame would come pouring down on Rice at her Team’s incompetence.

What Rice didn’t know was that O’Connor had followed his orders in the mission perfectly, but when the drugs never materialized, he’d figured out his contact was a fraud.  After doing some recon of his own, he’d found some actual real drug dealers.  Using his powers of espionage, he’d followed them and discovered a massive drug smuggling operation in D.C. based out of a warehouse.

He’d made an unauthorized plan with Master Thief Owens to steal some money from the drug dealers, then blow up the warehouse, killing them all.  Special agent Alexi Blacktide had joined him in the operation.  As the warehouse blew up, O’Connor kissed Blacktide in the style of the French, and they’d hooked up for a crazy night of passion and romance until sunrise.

In the few hours before sunrise when O’Connor and Blacktide had finally fallen asleep, O’Connor sent one last text to Master Thief Owens with a plan.  Owens went to the bank and made an early deposit into O’Connor’s work account of seventy five thousand dollars.  From there, he broke into the CIA headquarters and snooped around.  While in an air vent, he’d heard two high ranking generals named Stephens and Rodriguez laughing about trying to make Rice look bad so she’d be demoted while one of their friends would be promoted.  Bingo, Owens found his target.

Like O’Connor, Owens was a man who took matters into his own hands.  He’d stolen a hundred k from the drug dealers. He’d deposited seventy five of it into O’Connor’s work account an hour earlier. He put the remaining twenty five thousand dollars cash into a very large manila envelope and wrote “For Stephens and Rodriguez” on the front, then slipped the envelope onto a random secretaries desk a hallway over.  When she saw that the envelope wasn’t sealed, she peeped inside to discover the cash.  As she made inquiries around the office, rumors started flying.

On top of that, Owens had sent a text to computer expert Yen Roar.  He filled Yen in on the whole situation and asked her if she had any ideas to help.  Yen replied in her usual excited tone that she could indeed snoop around the network to see if she could find anything.  Sure enough, the hacker was in the zone as she discovered some incongruent spending reports signed by the generals, so she intentionally sent anonymous emails to the military police as well as the investigative press.  Stephens and Rodriguez would soon be facing a hearing committee to answer for the blatant inconsistencies.

A few hours later, Rice knew none of this as she chewed out O’Connor. She angrily yelled that he was fired and he’d disappeared.  Since that moment, she’d been looking all over D.C. to find him.

Every time she turned on the radio in her car, the dj’s were talking about a warehouse explosion where ten dead were found.  The police were baffled as to why the warehouse explosion didn’t cause a fire in the surrounding areas.  The explosion imploded instead exploding, as if it were a controlled demolition.  

Rice wasn’t dumb.  She knew the work of her demolitions expert, and once it was discovered that the warehouse was full of burned up heroin, she shook her head.  “God dammit, Doc.  You’re a crafty fuck.”  Rice shook her head as she drove all over town, checking every dive bar and seedy pub that existed within a twenty mile radius of their work headquarters.

After two days of twelve hours of looking, she was exhausted and defeated.  She ordered a beer at a bar, then another one, and after several more she started walking.  Despite that she was drunk, she recognized that she was in the neighborhood of Alexi Blacktide’s apartment building.  It was only 9pm, so she decided to stop by.

Right before hitting Blacktide’s doorbell, Rice hesitated.  “Is this a good idea?” she asked herself, wondering if she should bother her friend.  Technically Blacktide was her employee, but she was also a friend who didn’t mind having a drink at random times.  Rice pushed the doorbell.

She could hear Blacktide yell, “Ahhhh….” then a long pause, followed by, “just a minute!” from somewhere inside the apartment.  Several minutes later, Blacktide opened her apartment door just barely enough to look out and see who it was.  Her hair was a mess and her skin was glowing.  “General!  Um, now’s not the best time for me.”

Rice could see that Alexi Blacktide was wearing an oversized t-shirt that most likely belonged to a man and that the beads of sweat on her forehead showed she was clearly doing something physical.  “Oh, shit!  You have a man over!  Sorry Lex!”  Rice tried to peak into the apartment but was stopped as Blacktide pushed the door tighter to the door jam.  “Um, I was just in the neighborhood and I…” Rice paused.

“All good general.  If there’s nothing important going on, then I’m gonna get back to what I was doing if that’s ok.”  Blacktide wasn’t rude, but she was direct.

“Of course, Lex.  Have a good night,” Rice said sheepishly.

“Who’s at the door?” a male voice asked as the door closed.

Rice recognized the voice instantly.  “Doc?”  She turned back towards the closed door and beat on it.  “O’Connor, I heard you!  I know you’re in there!”  She started pounding on the door.

A few seconds later, Dale O’Connor answered the door shirtless wearing only his skivvies.  He looked like an underwear super model, and it took Rice a few seconds to process how sexy he actually was.  “Um, woah,” was all she could say as she took in the sight before her eyes.  Then, her brain processed that two of her agents were clearly hooking up and she said, “WOAH!” again, but this time with pure surprise.

“Hey general,” O’Connor said.  “I’m retired.  Ask another demolitions guy.”

“When did you and Lex…” Rice started to ask, but she couldn’t get the question out.  She was drunk and angry but also sad, and now processing that these two were banging each other was once again starting to overload her brain.   To top it off, O’Connor had the physique of a shredded body builder and it seriously turned her on.  Her mental processor couldn’t handle it.

“Well general, as you can see we’re kind of in the middle of something here.”  In typical dry fashion, O’Connor showed no emotion.  Rice looked around the apartment and saw that it was a complete disaster.  Clearly the two agents had been rolling all over the place together, knocking over bookshelves and bumping into chairs that had been flipped over.  Couch cushions were tossed in random places and blankets were strewn all over the place.  “I’m gonna go now,” he said, matter of factly.

“No, wait!” Rice blurted as she stuck her foot in the door jam to stop the door from closing.  “Where in the fuck have you been?!?”

Completely stone faced, O’Connor shook his head slightly and answered, “the bar and here.  Gotta go.”

“God dammit, no!  I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“Well you found me, but I gotta go.  You’re cock blocking me, general, and Lex is a monster in the sack.  Go away.”  His dry delivery was so matter of factly that any other person would think that O’Connor was a robot.

“No, fuck!  FUCK!  Just listen to me for a second!  You were right!  The account had the seventy five grand in it, and you can’t believe what happened after you left with Rodriguez and Stephens!”

“Let me guess,” O’Connor said without changing his vocal inflection even a little.  “They’re sniffing each others asses and trying to give each other promotions regardless of the fact that their daddies got them into West Point instead of their actual merit and despite that they’ve never served in the field, let alone done anything productive with their careers, they’re continuing to rise the among the ranks of military politics.”  For the first time in a long time, Rice saw him smile.  “I’m glad I don’t have to be around those fuckers anymore.  Being retired is nice.”

“I know it was you who gave them that cash, Doc.”

“I give bartenders cash and they give me booze.  It’s a win win.”  Changing the subject, O’Connor said, “You need to go now, you know.  Alexi and I have some very important business matters to discuss.”

Rice shoved her hand out on the door and blurted, “Fuck!  Ok, ok, fine.  I’ll go.  But I’m glad I found you.  I wanted to apologize, and…” Rice looked for the strength to say it but it pained her do do so, “You were right, and I just wanted to say thank you.”

“Oh, that was nice,” O’Connor said again with no emotion, but his little nod to her showed his appreciation.  “Thanks.  See you around.”

He went to close the door but Rice pushed back one last time and said, “You’re not fired.  Come back to work for me.  I have another mission for you.”

O’Connor stared blankly at the general for several awkward seconds.  He was the best poker player of anyone on Team Whiskey.  He was certainly great at knowing the math probability of the cards, but he was a serious killer because he was completely unreadable.  After what seemed an eternity, he nodded.  “Sounds good.  Get me my wrist communicator back by oh seven hundred here tomorrow morning and I’ll report by o nine hundred.  Cool?”

As if the last forty eight hours didn’t happen, Rice felt like the universe somehow had righted itself.  “Have a good night, Doc,” was all she could reply.

The door shut gently and Rice heard the deadbolt click locked as she turned away.  As she opened the doorway to the stairwell to head back towards the apartment lobby, she could hear Blacktide yell out a big giggle from all the way down the hallway from behind her apartment door.  “I don’t even wanna know,” she muttered to herself as she drunkenly headed out of the building.

In the distance, two generals pointed angry fingers at each other and argued bitterly over who’s fault it was that the two of them would have to face a senate finance committee to justify their terrible spending mishaps, knowing that their careers would likely be coming to a swift end and the authority granted to them by their rank would soon vanish like a woman’s dignity vanishes when she lets herself get talked into bed by a smooth, persuasive band guy.