Chapter 50

Flashback – Ira and Mira – Undisclosed location

Mira continued traversing to and fro across the sand and shouting "Just who does that braying, bulbous, baboon, benefactor believes he is? It is obvious his carbuncled cranial carapace completely cohabitates in his alimentary orifice and produces massive retention of fecal matter!"

Yes Mira had thusly been motivated for hours since our new orders arrived! I was pleased it was night therefore my sister could not perceive my facial expression of mirth. I fueled her antiquated Plymouth automobile (Fury), "Mira our orders can not be that devastating! We will cease and desist action on our mission and return to Israel as you have continually desired."

She paced and continued, "Cease and desist our mission! I will cease and I will desist when the harlequins are terminated and not one minutia sooner. They must pay for their insolence!"

I could not resist, "Mira, is it prudent to directly contravene a direct order?"

She expressed further displeasure, "Direct order my gluteus maximus! I will not obey the orders of an incompetent, intoxicated, imbecile intent on inflicting insult to our existence!"

I was joy overed that the proximate death experience elicited such positive and profoundly dangerous emotions but I carefully continued, "Mirinka, you must be reasonable. We must not incur the wrath of our benevolent benefactor."

Perhaps I underestimated her anger as she converted her wrath toward me, "Irina Sedankina, even though it is dark I perceive from the tone of your voice your facial expression of mirth regarding my misery. Remove that facial expression immediately or my misery will have your companionship!"

I cogitated that, in Mira's irrational condition, retreat would be particularly prudent and informed her, "Mira, I will prepare our motorcycles posthaste." I commenced my task but I still gained massive pleasure from Mira's continued ruminations which were plainly audible.

My sister Ira befitted an annoying female child and instead of assuaging my arising anger, she initially increased my ire with her insipid intercourse. She still erroneously assumed my anger was precipitated by a slight brush with termination. However my anger was affected directly by my dosimeter which indicated a larger than desirable dose of radiation expelled by the harlequins manipulation of the blast which decimated the warhead.

The miscreants escaped the fallout while Ira and I received a dosage which was troubling for me and which now would be terminally troubling for the harlequins!

Flashback – Jack – Undisclosed location

I was pissed as hell and continued to swear, "That fucking bastard Major! I don't believe he sent us in here without an exit strategy in place."

Banzai continued with his scary look and commented without emotion, "Yes Jack it's the only conclusion which makes sense because the radiation poisoning lie should have had him getting us out of here ASAP."

I added, "Banzai, we need to fix his little red wagon so he will never do this again. You took all those death courses at the spook school, can you think of anything that would make him suffer for days and die a horrible death?"

He turned to me and said, "Jack I need to think again so drive me someplace while I take a short nap. Wake me up when you get there."

Shit! Not this again!

Flashback – Ben – Undisclosed location

I turned toward the window, stared out into the coming dawn and started to think about this logically. Shit! Someone had to come up with a plan because Jack was the out of control partner this time. In hindsight I never should have told Jack about the lack of an exit strategy - I knew better because that was one of his biggest hot buttons. But I wasn't sure and wanted his take on my thought.

I had some confidence the Major wasn't like most of the officers we'd met because of the long private talk we had when Mira and Ira were taken out of the country (I sort of owed him one for that because I owed Ira for saving my life). Of course Jack would never accept that because he'd been bent over too many times to ever trust another officer. I knew the Major had some sort of exit strategy in place when we came into this fucking desert, but I think we majorly fucked it up when we started taking out the targets. I'll bet he was working like hell to figure something out, but I realized we just might be on our own on this one.

I turned back to Jack and said, "Jack, another change in plans. Find someplace to hide this big fucking truck because I have work to do."

He looked at me, "So you aren't going to sleep for two days this time?"

I answered, "Jack, we don't have the luxury to waste that amount of time."

He found a ravine, barely made it into the ravine without tipping the truck over and asked, "What now?"

I said, "Help me unload this truck, then find someplace to sack out. I will wake you if I need you."

He grumbled, "Dammit Banzai, make up your mind. First we load everything into this truck now you want it all unloaded."

I flipped him off and said, "Jack stop being a royal pain in the ass!"

Flashback – Jack – Undisclosed location

I flipped off Banzai and countered, "Well you need to grow the fuck up." Then I started to unload the crapload of gear from the back of the truck. I swear we seemed to pick up more gear from each place we destroyed so I decided to make three piles: One for shit we would never need; one for shit we might need; and the final one for shit we definitely need.

He laughed and then stated, "I'll tell you what, I'll grow up when you learn to trust Major M. What are the three piles you've started?"

I stopped, looked at him and griped, "Don't tell me you trust that bastard - not after what he did to us."

He explained to me how he felt and when he was done it did make sense so I replied, "Well if the Major can pull a rabbit out of his hat and find some way to get us the hell out here, I still won't trust him, but I will feel better about working for him and I won't kill him."

I begin moving shit to the three piles again and Banzai re-asked, "Jack what's going on with the three piles?"

I pointed to the biggest pile and stated, "That's shit we're throwing away." I pointed to the next biggest pile and added, "And that's shit we might take with us." Then the smallest pile and said, "And this is shit we need."

Banzai about had a conniption, but my plan worked perfectly...

Flashback – Ben – Undisclosed location

I complained, "Jack, you're throwing away shit that I'm going to need."

He grinned at me and stated, "Well, I outrank you and it's my decision."

I flipped him off and countered, "I don't believe you pulled the old outrank me bullshit. Now get the hell out of here before I kick your ass!"

I noticed a grin when he left and realized the bastard had tricked me again. I thought, you just wait you cranky old bastard, my surprise is going to scare the shit out of you!