34, Limbo
“The Russians are like a loud, smelly fart with the windows up. They’re in the room, they’re going nowhere, and if you’re uncomfortable, that’s on you.” Von Stryker gave this cultural lesson without making eye contact. She stared at her phone and sent a few very important text messages as she stepped up her pace to keep up with the crew. “American’s think Russians are rude because of their bluntness.” Von Stryker’s phone made a whooshing sound as her message sent off into the universe. “Russians think Americans are pussies.”
“Sounds like they’re both right to me,” said special agent Dale O’Connor. He chatted with no emotion, as if he were discussing the weather with a friend on a pleasant Sunday afternoon. “They’re rude as fuck and we are indeed pussies of the highest caliber. Two for two.” He took a sip from a flask and enjoyed the sweet fluid as it descended over his taste buds and burned like ignited gasoline down his protesting gullet.
“Stereotypes exist for a reason, sure, but honestly I’ve found Russians to be a pretty funny batch of folks. Americans are just really sensitive in comparison.” Von Stryker clicked on her phone and a video feed from a security camera popped up. She pulled a walkie talkie to her mouth but didn’t click to speak just yet. “I’ve stopped going to coffee shops when I’m in the States or Canada anymore because I swear I’m going to kill the next white woman I hear complaining.”
O’Connor exhaled a stench of whiskey and deep gut hunger. “I feel like shit lately, Von. And it’s not just because the Moscow architecture is lifeless. I seriously feel dead inside. Is that complaining?”
“Nope. That’s your body telling you to eat a fucking vegetable and put the whiskey down.” She smiled at O’Connor as he shrugged and grinned. “That’s different than some white bitch telling the morning Starbucks employees that corporate’s gonna get a call because of some dissatisfaction on a latté order. Fuck those entitled bitches.”
Special agent Bradley McVandalay was looking at his cell phone and watching a mid day baseball game halfway across the world. “I don’t know why I pay for the premium package. They’re not even a premium team.”
McVandalay talked calmly, but secretly all of his friends were waiting for the day he’d snap. The man had no fear of death but it pained him to his soul when the Cubs blew a lead in a baseball game. The day of his reckoning from all of that stupid stress would be awful because he was really good with weapons.
As per usual, his friends ignored him. The tall Moscow apartment buildings gloomily towered above the five of them as they walked quickly to warm up a little in the evening chill.
O’Connor tried to lighten the mood. “Von Stryker, would you say that the Russians actually, say, seek misery? As in, they’re really looking for it?”
Von Stryker laughed as her phone lit up. She looked at it and answered her friend. “Well what some Russians call cooking, I call misery, so yeah, I guess so.” She laughed half heartedly to herself. “I swear I’ve eaten at the dining room tables of old women who were trying to kill me with their terrible cooking. Yeah, it’s the definition of misery.”
O’Connor spoke up as if he had a clue. “Tragedy is a part of life in Russia. There’s been untold suffering. These people know how to endure way better than we Americans do.”
McVandalay was still in his depression funk. He spoke with an angry, sarcastic voice. “And of course, we give up another home run! Take my hopes and dreams of a post season and just fucking piss all over me, won’t you!?”
“In my limited experience with mental health, people who openly say they don’t like golden showers always love to get pissed on.” Sergeant Schuman had been quiet up ’til now so her voice felt out of place in the conversation.
“Golden shower, shmolden shmower, I’m losing my mind.” McVanadaly’s love and hate for the Chicago Cubs was causing his anger to build violently. He pocketed his cell phone and started deep breathing to try and calm himself.
As per usual, the conversation lumbered forward. O’Connor had his hands in his pockets and felt himself on the edge of moving awkwardly to keep up with the crew. “I’m outta whiskey. Anyone wanna find a bar?”
“You don’t have to join us on this recon meeting, Doc,” Von Stryker said. “But I need answers.”
“Well I hope you get them,” he answered matter of factly. “If any of you need me, I’m headed for that neon sign up there.” He pointed to a bar several blocks away. “My guess is they’ll sell me something cold with alcohol in it that I can put in my mouth.”
Von Stryker couldn’t help herself. “Or it’s a gay whore house and you’ll have something else in your mouth.”
“That’s fair. I’ll either get fucked or fucked up. I’m outta here.” O’Connor’s joke got no laughs from the band of hardened killers as he crossed the street and headed for the neon light.
As O’Connor walked away McVandalay tried to calmly ask, “Yo Von, any update on this meeting?”
“No, which I don’t like it one bit. This was supposed to be a legit meet up from a trusted outfit. I honestly don’t know why my sources are now telling me to hold off.” Von Stryker sent another text message and added, “but they say that they’ve all known for sometime now that there’s either a secret Russian military team, or if they’re private, they’re military trained.”
McVandalay was calmer. “It really makes me wonder if Team Vodka’s members are like us at all.”
A warehouse explosion a kilometer away rocketed huge orange flames into the air.
Schuman spoke for the second time all night. “Wow, I didn’t see that coming.”
Several blocks away, a car went screeching off at high speed. Police sirens blared as the buildings reflected the lights and sounds. The distinct sounds of a car chase filled their ears until another sound interrupted it. An American Ford Expedition came to a screeching halt next to the agents as Porter yelled out the window, “jump in!”
The crew did as instructed and the large vehicle raced off into the Moscow night. Porter kept the window down and listened as the engine strained and red lined from having the gas pedal floored. The vehicle went up and over curbs, around moving and parked cars alike. Within a few minutes, Porter was less than half a mile behind a line of sirens that were flying down the interstate.
“I gotta catch that woman,” Porter said confidently to herself.
McVandalay had jumped into the shotgun seat and spoke loudly so he could be heard over the insanely loud engine. “Porter, why are you following the sirens? Shouldn’t we be trying to avoid the cops?”
Porter laughed and threw her head back which momentarily took her eyes off the road. Even though the vehicle was traveling 90mph through residential streets, she maneuvered the thing with power, grace and ease, as if she were a dolphin in a swim race. “Good point, Bradley.” Porter pointed to the conglomeration of flashing lights up ahead of them. “You see, if I wasn’t trying to catch her, we’d be going the other way.” Even though the gas pedal had been floored, the vehicle somehow sped up even more, as if she were magically willing the rig to catch up to the party ahead.
“Ah!” McVandalay exclaimed, “so help me out here, Porter! Why are we trying to catch her? And for that matter, who in the fuck are we talking about?”
Porter yelled out, “HOLD ON!” The vehicle hit a drainage ditch and dropped, then the shocks bounced hard. The agents all bounced around but Porter kept the gas pedal floored. “I don’t know, Bradley! I swear to you, I don’t honestly know!” The driver expertly weaved in and around obstacles as the group of blinking lights grew quickly closer. “I just know she’s a hell of a driver and I have to race her.”
McVanadalay made eye contact with Schuman to help. Without skipping a beat, Schuman said, “you want me to help you convince a woman not to do something she’s already convinced she’s going to do? Remember who you’re talking to.”
Von Stryker added, “You got better luck giving birth yourself, pal.”
“Well shit.” He held on tightly as the rig tossed and bounced. “I hope Doc is doing better than we are.”
At that moment, special agent Dale O’Connor entered at a Moscow bar that had one patron sitting on a barstool with his head down over his drink. O’Connor sat couple of stools down. The drunk man lifted his head and looked at O’Connor. His Russian accent was thick. “You smell like Jameson whiskey and C4 explosives.”
O’Connor nodded. “I haven’t showered for a few days, forgive me.” He put his elbows on the bar and made eye contact with the patron. “You smell like twelve gauge trip wire straight from the factory.” He muttered his order to the bartender in Russian, then said to the patron, “and you smell like you’ve been swimming in an ocean of vodka.”
The drunk nodded. “I haven’t showered for a few days, forgive me.”
“Von Stryker is right about the Russians being funny,” O’Connor muttered to himself.
The bartender served O’Connor a whiskey on ice as the drunk patron asked in his thick accent, “so what is beeg, tall American man doink een Moscvah smelling like explosives, hmmm?”
“Work trip. Do you wanna tell me why you smell identical to a factory that sells wire to demolition experts all over the world?”
Without hesitating, the drunk man said, “I am demolitions expert. Thees ees why I smell like wire, yes?”
“Well I’m an expert too.” The American wasn’t flaunting it, but rather just sharing the enthusiasm.
“I can tell,” the drunk patron said. “You are working for American meeleetary special group, yes?”
O’Connor didn’t hesitate. “Yup, that’s me. I do the demolitions work. And you must be working with a Russian military group?”
“Dah. I am explosives expert.”
Neither man smiled. They spoke matter of factly. O’Connor said, “we call your group Team Vodka.”
For the first time, the drunk man laughed. “And we call your team, The Slow Pussies.” The way his Russian accent lingered on the word “pussies” made O’Connor return the laugh.
At that moment, the drunk patrons’ cell phone lit up while O’Connor’s com watch lit up. O’Connor had no clue what was going on, but McVandalay’s message had said, “Porter is pulling a Sarge, trying to race some Russian lady. Might need a bail out or bust out by the end of the night.”
Both men read their messages, then the Russian spoke first. “Our driver ees goink slowly enough for your driver to catch up. He says your driver is one of the finest men he’s ever seen drive.”
“That’s interesting, because my driver is a woman, and she thinks you driver is also a woman. This should be fun.”
In the distance, a Ford Expedition came speeding past a group of police vehicles and pulled up side by side to a Russian SUV which kicked off a real world city scape high speed race and chase while two demolitions experts from different countries realized they were born to be drinking buddies.
