SPECIAL, Christmas Past
“I didn’t know cat piss could smell this bad.” Special agent Trent Murdock whispered and tried not to choke on the awful odor as he lowered his gun. “No way anyone actually lives here. No way.” He pinched his nose and whispered through his nasal cavity. “This has to be misdirection.” It was 5am on Christmas morning of 2015, and Murdock had the feeling that it was going to be devoid of joy or merriment.
“We saw him come in at midnight. He’s here,” special agent Dale O’Connor whispered emphatically. He had a metaphorical stomach made of steel, but the stench of the nasty London apartment was pushing his intestinal resolve to its limits. O’Connor thought to himself, “I refuse to puke. Never have, never will.” Years of drinking had dulled his sense of tase and smell, but it was still everything he could do to finish this mission. He willed his body against the putrid rotting cat piss perfume to go further into the domicile with his gun raised despite the nauseating scent repelling him like an invisible shield.
“I’m going to take a bath in fire when today is over,” special agent Bradley McVandalay thought to himself. He moved as quietly as a ghost. All three men had extraordinary abilities, but McVandalay had complete control over his mind and body. He closed his eyes and meditated for a second. The part of his brain that registered smells turned off. He reopened his eyes and smiled. He could see as clearly in the dark as if it were a sunny day. A big inhale through his nose registered no smells. He whispered, “You two can stay outside if you want. I’ll kill him and we can go burn our clothes together afterwards.”
Murdock started to wretch. “I’ll take you up on that, Bradley. Merry Christmas to me.” He exited the apartment as quickly and fought for breath as he gulped in the stale hallway air.
“I wanna kill this fucker too badly to turn back now,” O’Connor whispered in defiance to the foul fragrance. He knew the drug dealing bastard who lived here had gotten high school students hooked on hard drugs and ruined the lives of many families. His loathing to murder the bad guy was too strong to not finish the job.
It was a very chilly pitch black Christmas morning and the agents were breaking into a filthy corner apartment on the top floor of a five story building. Their instructions were to apprehend a very dangerous drug dealer, but taking him prisoner was now out of the question. The offensive bouquet filling their nostrils had charged their murderous thoughts with rage and hate.
The place was littered with burger wrappers and empty soda cups from local fast food restuarants. The parts of the furniture that could be seen were covered in cat hair. At one time the apartment was undoubtedly appealingly quaint, but it had clearly been severely neglected and now was a dump house for the garbage of its piece of shit resident. The two remaining agents tip toed through the darkness. They could hear Murdock puking in the hallway outside.
Suddenly the lights popped on. Both agents instinctively dropped for cover as two gun shots boomed through the room. The sound was deafening and the awful smell was paralyzing. “I’ll never be clean again,” O’Connor muttered to himself as his body crashed onto the garbage strewn floor. He could hear McVanadaly return fire, but his ears were ringing too much to discern anything else.
Bradley McVandalay could hear a whisper from a block away, but his brain could also tune out large explosions as if his ears had an off switch. He heard a window slide open in the other room and couldn’t figure out the sounds after that. “He’s in there,” he yelled at O’Connor, but he knew his friend would be useless. With his weapon raised and ready to fire again, McVandalay blasted around the corner into the dark kitchen. A large window had been thrown open and he could see a pole that ran parallel to the fire escape. He stuck his gun out out the window and looked down to see the drug dealer. The bad guy had slid down the pole to the street in no time flat and ran around a corner out of view. “Fuck! He’s getting away!”
McVandalay holstered his huge ass hand gun and in one motion raised his wrist to his mouth while simultaneously scurrying out the window to the fire escape platform. “The suspect is on the street heading west and he’s got a decent head start on me. I’m going to pursue.” Within a second he was out of the window and hollered back into O’Connor, “you search this place, I’m going after him!” With that, gravity speedily pulled McVandaly down the pole like a stripper who’d temporarily lost her grip.
O’Connor got back up and raised his weapon, but his instincts knew he was alone. He spent less than a minute searching the small place, each room being filthier than the next and found nobody. He raised his wrist watch to his mouth. “The apartment is clear. I’m out.” With that, he quickly exited the apartment and slammed the door behind him.
“Tell me you killed the fucker,” Murdock asked as he stood back up. His face was green and his eyes were puffy.
“Negative. He slipped out a window and now is on the street.” O’Connor calmly reached into his back pocket and pulled out a flask. He took a sip of Irish whiskey and the sweet burn seemed to revitalize his fried senses. He offered it to Murdock.
“Dude, it’s five in the fucking morning.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” O’Connor asked innocently.
“I just puked all over.” Murdock looked at his best friend as if his words explained everything. O’Connor didn’t budge, but he wasn’t pressuring either. “You know what, fuck it.” Murdock took the flask and took a big sip.
“Atta boy, brother. Let the nectar bring you back to life.”
The whiskey only made Murdock’s guts more queazy, but he couldn’t lose face to his best friend. He handed the flask back to O’Connor and said, “Let’s get out of here before the locals start making our lives hell.” As if on cue, the door to the stairs closed behind them as other apartment doors started opening with scared residents poking their heads out to see where in the hell the gun shots had come from.
Meanwhile, McVandalay had reached the street. He’d pulled his hand gun out of his holster and was running against a wall for cover in the direction he thought the suspect had run. “Porter, Death, do either of you have a visual?”
Pilot Porter was sitting in a getaway van a block away. Her amazingly chipper voice gave a bit of Christmas cheer to the moment. “He didn’t run my way, Bradley.”
Special agent Death’s voice filled their ear pieces. “Ah, I see him! He’s running due west along the parked cars. I’m in pursuit.” She took off at full speed and within less than a minute she was side by side to McVandalay. “Jesus, Bradley, you smell like a septic tank. Fuck.”
“That apartment was the worst place I’ve…” McVandalay was at a loss for words.
“Enough said,” Death understood perfectly as she moved away a few feet from him. She still could smell the whiff of grossness on him. “I figured this would be a quick job.”
“Me too,” McVandalay admitted. He saw the bad guy duck down into an alleyway. “Death, you follow him. I’m gonna go around and see if I can cut him off.” The agent was sprinting top speed as he spilt away. “He’s a terrible shooter, but be careful.”
Agent Death laughed under her breath, “serves the Brits right for living with an oppressive government. Won’t let citizens own firearms…” she muttered more to herself but her heavy breathing took over and her pro firearm brain rant faded into panting.
She put on her night vision goggles as she pulled up to the alleyway. Death peered around the corner and saw nothing, but the sound of something clanging in the early morning stillness gave away that the bad guy was trying to hide. “Gotcha, fucker.” She lifted her wrist watch to her face and reported, “McV, he’s hiding behind a dumpster about two thirds of the way down the alleyway. Maybe he even jumped in, I can’t quite tell.”
“Well it’ll be hard to smell him in that case,” he wheezed as he too breathed heavily from running.
A single gunshot rang loudly down the alleyway immediately followed by the sound of something crashing. McVandalay’s voice popped into her ears. “Shit. He must’ve shot open a door.”
Agent Death loved to hunt bad guys, but her patience was wearing thin. “It’s way too early for this shit, dammit.”
“That’s not the Christmas spirit, sister. I’m disappointed in you,” McVandalay joked.
“I’m supposed to be eating cookies and sipping egg nog on Christmas morning, not sprinting in the fucking alleyway olympics.”
“Well, meth gives people unlimited energy when they need it.”
“Yeah, but at what cost?” Death asked with thick sarcasm.
“Your teeth, for one.” McVandaly ran up the alleyway with his gun drawn and found the door that had been shot open. He took several deep breaths to regain his composure from the sprint he’d just endured. As his breathing slowed and settled into a more silent pattern, he entered the dark building.
Murdock and O’Connor had gotten down the stairs and out onto the street. After following the sound of the gunshot, they were a block from agent Death. She saw them approaching and signaled for them to cover the front of the building, then lifted her wrist communicator to her mouth. “Hey boys, fucko snuck into the backdoor of one of these businesses. Y’all cover the front in case he comes shooting his way out.”
Without missing a step, both agents were running for the store fronts. O’Connor’s voice replied in her ears, “He’s a terrible shooter.”
Agent Death really wanted to go on a pro firearms ownership rant for real but refrained. “Yes, but it doesn’t mean he can’t be lucky. Take cover and keep your eyes sharp.”
“Hey Death,” Murdock’s voice asked, “do you think it’s too stereotypical to make fun of the British for eating fish and chips?” Even in the heat of battle, none of the agents could keep their com lines open without trying to fuck with each other.
“They conquered the whole world and the only thing they brought back to this soggy ass island that’s worth a damn is curry.” She paused and added, “I admit, I love that shit.”
“Curry rips me up something fierce,” O’Connor answered in her ear piece.
“Gang,” McVandalay whispered, “he’s in a restaurant. I can hear him panting. I think he’s hiding behind a wall trying to catch his breath.” Another gunshot was fired and the sound of breaking glass filled their ears. “Jesus, he really is a terrible shooter.”
O’Connor and Murdock saw the pistol flash from a window and headed for the action. “He’s in a pub.”
“An Irish pub!” O’Connor added. “If he breaks any bottles of whiskey, I will kill him with my bare hands, I promise.”
Three more gun shots could be heard as the large picture glass window of the pub shattered into the sidewalk. McVandalay’s voice was quick to report, “That’s six total shots. If he has a revolver, it’s lights out time.”
The perp tried to jump out of the window but his pants got caught on a large shard of glass sticking up from the sill. As he struggled to get free, Murdock fired and didn’t miss. The lifeless body of the bad guy slumped out onto the sidewalk as Murdock tried to be cool. “Feliz Navidad, bitch.”
“What did you just say?” O’Connor lowered his gun and crinkled his brow as he looked at Murdock. “Did you just try to be cool and mutter a catch phrase?” His disgust was evident.
Murdock lowered his hand gun and looked at his friend with contempt. “My nether regions are tingling. Is that something I should be concerned about?”
O’Connor ignored the dumb question. “Feliz Navidad, bitch? For real?” O’Connor shook his head in disappointment as he holstered his hand gun. He walked towards the dead man leisurely and complained to himself. “My best friend is a fucking idiot.”
“Hey!” Murdock started to object. He jogged a little bit to catch up and tried to protest. “As if you have something better to say?”
“Yeah, anything other than Feliz fucking Navidad.”
“That’s racist.”
“You’re a mess, dude.”
Completely satisfied on making the world a safer place with his well placed shot, Murdock said, “Not as much as this piece of shit is.”
“I won’t disagree with you on that one, but Feliz Navidad? Bitch???” O’Connor picked up his pace and saw McVandalay peeking out of the open window.
A van pulled up seconds later. Porter called out, “load him up and let’s get out of here, you guys!” Even in the chaos and destruction, her chipper tone and big smile made the agents feel like not bickering. Agent Death ran around the block to see the three men load up the dead body into the back of the van as she jumped into shotgun.
“Wow, you guys, you reek!” No one argued with Porter, and even though they smelled awful, her happiness rejuvenated them all. Like a cheetah on the African grassland plains, Porter sped away and into the pitch black morning with the windows down for fresh air.
In the distance, the children of London woke up to presents and processed sugar while law enforcement and clean up crews bitched heartily that they didn’t get paid enough to do this shit.
