25, Run

“Well I didn’t even know I snored until just now, so give a girl a minute to process the information, god dammit!”  Bullets whizzed by special agent Laura Lorenz’s head.  She had no fear of the fire fight she was in, but rather she was putting most of her concentration into the fight she was having with her boyfriend.

“It’s no biggie, I told you!  It’s not like a herd of elephants or anything!”  Special agent Jack Miller pleaded with his girlfriend as he pulled the trigger on the rocket launcher.  The weapon released its payload with perfect precision as a jeep full of bad guys that had been pursuing them through the jungle exploded in a massive fiery fury.  “You snore in a very subtle, adorable way actually!”

“Next up, you’re gonna tell me my nostril hairs are hanging out all over the place!”  Lorenz was upset.  Her normal weapon of choice was a custom built sniper rifle she’d acquired from a one legged firearms dealer that everyone called “Peg” due to his peg leg.  The rifle was in a case in the trunk so currently she had a regular old automatic rifle. She’d wreaked massive damage thus far in the mission with the weapon.  “Now I’ll never let myself fall asleep before you again.  Ever.”

Miller reloaded a fresh rocket as he watched Lorenz’s rifle chew up the front end of another jeep with perfect aim.  “PTL, baby!”

Lorenz looked confused.  “PTL?”

“Praise the Lord, baby.”  Miller looked at his girlfriend.  “As in, nice job blowing up that jeep, Praise The Lord.”

“I bet I snore as loudly as that explosion.”  Lorenz was too blue and couldn’t shake it.  “I mean it.  You have to fall asleep first for the rest of our lives.”

“Honey,” Miller hesitated, “orgasms knock you out, and I really don’t want to give up that part of our life.”

Lorenz went through the motions to reload her own clip as she angrily muttered, “shit, you’re right.”  

The jeep they were in bounced aggressively on the beat up jungle road.  Pilot Porter was at the wheel, smiling from ear.  This was her happy time, when she got to ferry her team from place to place as fast and efficiently as possible.  She had the hammer down on the gas pedal, but the engine wasn’t as powerful as the jeeps that were pursuing her.  Her driving was superior, and if it weren’t for long straight stretches of road where the bad guys could catch up, she’d have left them in the dust long ago.

The road turned into more of a two rut trail as Porter yelled, “hold on!”  The jeep bounced hard as it started climbing uphill.  Despite vines and tree branches impairing her view, she navigated the jeep as if she were a Jedi using the force.  After a few minutes, the trail cleared up a bit.  The jeep drove smoothly with no pursuers.

“Good job back there, guys!”  Porters compliment fell on deaf ears.  Both agents were still in the thick of their relationship insecurities.

“Seriously, babe, it’s never been an issue,” Miller said plainly to his girlfriend.  “For real, if my bladder didn’t wake me up in the middle of the night I wouldn’t even know you snored.”

“It’s just,” Lorenz paused.  She couldn’t find the words.  Her fear of rejection ran irrationally deep, and despite the verbal reassurances from her loving boyfriend, the crazy sometimes ran the show.  “I just worry that you’re gonna leave me.”

“What!?”

“I don’t know!  I just get the feeling that you’re gonna fall in love with a Mexican bartender named Rosa and you’re gonna go live off of the radar.”  Lorenz bounced up and down as the jeep plowed onward through the jungle.  She stared forward and held tightly to the roll cage frame as a small tear rolled down her cheek.

Miller was flabbergasted.  He’d had long conversations with Lorenz about desires, needs and wants while not letting work get in the way of their relationship.  They were tight, they killed bad guys together, and as far as he knew, he’d found his future bride.  “Um, ok, am I still a secret agent in this scenario?”

Lorenz wiped her nose and tried not to let her knuckles jam up her nostrils as the jeep bounced hard.  “You’re a pool hustler in some little back roads cantina and Rosa makes love to you every night.”

Miller’s head went back with laughter, but he caught himself quickly.  This was no laughing matter.  “Is she better than you in bed?”

Another tear fell down Lorenz’s cheek.  The jungle scene all around her went black as she closed her eyes.  “Yes.”

Miller briefly considered consoling the irrational love of his life but decided not to.  “I don’t know how you found us out, but you did, honey.  Her name is actually Consuela, and we’ll run a hand made tortilla business that operates on ancient aztec powers.  That is, when we’re not having amazing sex, which I just found out will be most of the time, so that’s cool.”

For the first time in hours, Lorenz smiled.  “Fuck you, honey,” she snorted.  “Tortillas, huh?  What happened to your paleo diet?”

“Hey!” snapped Miller.  “This is MY fantasy!  You will NOT interfere with my tortillas!”  He made eye contact with his smiling girlfriend and added, “Consuela has way bigger boobs than you do, by the way.”  Lorenz snorted laughter.  “I’m talking, Mexican soap opera boobs.”

“You’re an asshole,” Lorenz muttered.

“And you’re an amazing woman whom I happen to be pretty fucking in love with.  So cut the shit, soldier!”

Porter had been silent for quite awhile so her voice caught them off guard.  “I don’t mean to butt into your chit chat, but this isn’t good up ahead.”  She brought the jeep to a stop as the agents surveyed the scene ahead.  “I count at least five.”

“I see a lot of kicked up dust behind those jeeps, so I’d guess there could be another five behind them,” Miller said matter of factly.  “I’ve got six rockets left, and I’ll make them count.  Honey, what’s your ammo status?”

“Ten clips.  We’re fine.”  Her tone of certainty let Miller know, her head was fully in the game now.

Porter yelled, “Hold on like hell and trust me!”  She stomped on the gas and headed straight towards the jeeps.  There were three to four men in each one, all holding automatic rifles.  They scattered and dropped to a knee as they raised their rifles at the approaching jeep.  “Yay!  Military trained bad guys!  This is gonna be fun!” Porter squealed with real excitement.

She jerked the wheel hard to the left as one of the bad guys yelled “shoot!” in Spanish.  The jeep smashed through green branches and drove uphill into the thick forest as bullets whizzed everywhere.  Tree trunks exploded in a wood chip shrapnel as bullets ripped through everything in their path, but none of them found their intended target.

The agents bounced violently as the wheels underneath them struggled to gain purchase on the slippery vegetation.  Porter was able to put a large amount of distance between them and this new batch of pursuers by simply bushwhacking with the jeep.

Somehow, someway, the jeep never slipped into any ditches or ravines.  Even on slopes, the jeep motored forward as if the jungle floor was just another washed out dirt road.  A strong thicket of bamboo forced the jeep uphill, then Porter yelled, “Lorenz, get on Miller’s lap and brace for liftoff!”

Without thinking, Lorenz unbuckled and slipped over to the drivers side of the back seat as she straddled her boyfriend.  He threw his arms around her and held as tightly as he could while she reciprocated by embracing him.  Porter threw the wheel back and forth a few times as she worked the gas pedal in perfect timing.  The jeep went up on it’s left wheels while the right ones flew up in the air.  The jeep slipped through a narrow gap between two trees, then Porter yanked the wheel and it came down hard.  The slamming tires threw mud and vegetation everywhere as the rig soldiered forward.

“Thanks for being my wingman, Porter,” yelled Lorenz.  She gave her boyfriend a cautious kiss as the jeep jerked all over, then she slipped back into her seat belt on the passenger side.  

“Any time, friend!”  Porter couldn’t articulate why, but she just followed her instincts.  The jeep weaved it’s way through the thick vegetation as if it could find its own way back to flatter ground.  After ten minutes, Porter pulled onto a decently maintained dirt road.  She slowed down their pace and the drive became pleasant for the first time since they made their getaway.

“For real, great job back there, you two.”  Porter was chipper, as if they hadn’t just driven through the jungle to run away from thugs protecting a cocaine processing operation in the middle of nowhere.

“Us?” Lorenz remarked.  “To hell with that.  You’re amazing, Porter.”

“Yeah, you’re from another planet,” added Miller.

“Ah, you two sure know how to make a girl blush.”  Porter grinned and nodded in acceptance of the compliments.  “But I’m serious.  Lorenz, the shots you made from way up there, and you didn’t even miss!”

“The US Army spent a lot of money to teach me how to shoot accurately, Porter.  A lot of money.”  

Miller smiled.  “If it weren’t for that damn convoy coming in, we’d have gotten away unseen.  Oh well.”

“Yeah, they’re clearly up to no damn good out there,” Porter added.  “No outfit would invest that much money and equipment in the middle of nowhere if there wasn’t a return on that investment.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re the biggest cocaine processor in the world.”

“I’d come back anytime.”  Lorenz laughed as she thought about her sniper rifle in its case in the trunk.  She looked at her boyfriend.  “We should go visit Peg when we get back.”

Agent Miller laughed easily now.  “Ah, old Peg.  How much you wanna bet that he’s drunk right now with a cigarette in his mouth?”

“I’d lose that bet, so no thank you.”  Lorenz smiled.  “Hey Porter, what’re you up to when we get back?”

“Well if Murdock’s action plan gets approved by Mulroony, I’m off to Spain. If not, I’m gonna join Dirt for a bit back in Bogota.  He’s got an aviation club that I wanna join, and they can get us a lot more intel on the overall situation that we’re up against down there as the ashes settle from the Tiberon mission.  I told Sarge I’d hang with her for a little while on her walkabout.”

Miller scowled in confusion.  “Schuman is on a walkabout? I haven’t heard about this.  Do tell.”

Porter shrugged.  “Sarge is in love and won’t leave Bogota until she finds the man who stole her heart.  So if Spain doesn’t happen, I’m gonna go find a cute Colombian boy or two and have a little fun on the side while I hang out with her.  Call me if you need a ride, of course.”

“You’re a legend, Porter.”  Lorenz smiled as she said genuinely, “keep us posted on your adventures, but keep your sexual conquests to yourself.”

“Well duh!” laughed Porter.  The hair on all three of their arms went up, but it didn’t feel like danger.  “What do we have up here?” she asked.

Porter stopped the car as the agents got out.  Lorenz traded her machine gun for her sniper rifle and Miller grabbed the duffle with the extra rocket propelled grenades.  They walked up to a ledge and looked down at the canyon below.  To their amazement, there were the ten jeeps with the bad men who’d been trained by the military.  They were parked tightly together in a very small opening in the forest canopy. 

Miller couldn’t believe their luck.  “Lined up for easy pickings.  This is the greatest.”  With that, he raised his rocket launcher and pulled the trigger.  Before the explosive had hit it’s target, he’d reloaded and was aiming at a different jeep.  Meanwhile, Lorenz did what she did best and dropped men who’d been completely unaware that they were even under attack.

Miller pulled the trigger to launch his second rocket as the first ordnance violently blew up.  By the sixth explosion, all the jeeps were destroyed and most of the soldiers were dead.  Lorenz used sniped the last confused soldiers, and with that, their mission was truly done.

“Dang, gang,” muttered Porter.

“You’re a poet and didn’t know it,” joked Lorenz.

The agents took in the smoldering scene in front of them. Miller grinned and made the two women laugh as he mimicked a southern baptist preacher. “PTL baby, PTL.”

“I’m getting you two back to the States as quickly as humanly possible,” Porter said with authority.  Neither agent protested.

In the distance, a smoldering pile of jeeps eventually stopped burning, only to be overtaken by the jungle, and as the decades passed their metal bodies rusted out and their rubber parts solarized to dusty flakes in the pitiless Colombian jungle sun.