Guess who showed up to join the party? No, not the CEO of Budweiser, Scarlet! I don’t remember the exact time she arrived, sometime after breakfast. She’s still driving that old ’69 Corvette. She caused quite a stir, too.
Since the bombings, security at both the Whitehouse and the Estate has been at least tripled, and every agent is on hyper-alert. I mean, this is like DEFCON 1 in spades. We even have a few snipers in a couple of the second story windows.
So Scarlet drives up in the middle of all this and parks outside the front gate. Of course the gate is open, allowing personnel and others on the presidential and S.S. staff to get through. But there were quite a few S.S. Agents out there, headed up by Agent Callaway.
They weren’t going to let her in at first, even when she said she knew Josh and had some info he would want to hear. So she got the drop on Callaway, which alone surprised everyone, and, holding Callaway’s own combat knife to his throat, got them to call Josh outside.
Josh and Scarlet cleared things up pretty quick, Callaway wasn’t even going to hold a grudge. Scarlet even let him park her car, she’s never let me drive it anywhere.
Me, Josh and Scarlet had an quick meeting and Scarlet told us that Carl had indeed been responsible for the car bombing. The S.O.B. Anyways, she also said that the reason there were two almost simultaneous hits was because Pyros and Carl had some unhealthy competition between ‘em.
Seems the two of them had some problems, neither liked working with the other and both wanted to be able to claim the kill and therefore the payoff. There was a lack of communication between ‘em and they made their own arrangements. Stupid move, since it tipped both their hands and put us on full red alert. If they had only hit one location, either the Whitehouse or the Estate, then they would still have the other location to try. Now both places were locked down tighter than Fort Knox.
After our truly uplifting Sit rep from Scarlet, I decided to go bar-hopping. The first place I stopped was a bust. Some nut job with a Harley tattoo on his shoulder decided he wanted my place under the TV. Damn fool tried to pick a fight and lost, but got both of us kicked out. The second place I picked wasn’t much, this medium-sized hole called the “Silver Bucket”. But, regardless of seedy appearances and smoky atmosphere, I chose a back table and started ordering . I had started a Carlsberg at my first stop, but switched to Miller at the second place. See, I’ve always had a high alcohol tolerance. I mean, I can handle two skinny-necks of tequila with a clear head when most guys go down after only downing a fourth of that. Now this generic crap, it’s got a lower alcohol content than stuff like tequila or vodka, so I can literally drink one or two cases without being phased much. So when I want a nice, quiet night on the town, I stick to generic. P.S.: Carlsberg tastes like crap.
By my second Miller I had learned my waitress’ name, Ella Slader. By my third I knew she had a cat she called, ironically, “Dog”, and a few other bits of personal information. For example, I knew she was a big fan of that new TV crime drama called… what was it…. Oh yeah, “CSI: Portland”. She lived in a little condo about an hour and a half drive from the Estate, and her ride was a pretty little blue Eclipse. By then I could have asked for her phone number and pant size, and by my fourth I probably could have gone for credit card number and a night at her place.
Thing is, I didn’t want any of that. I haven’t wanted any of that for a while now. You see, there is this little hole somewhere deep inside me than a month of one-night stands couldn’t fill. There is also this chain around my neck and the ring that hangs from it, right next to my dog tags and just right of my heart. And it’s this one ring, this little circle of silver set with one sapphire stone, that weighed heavier than my heavy conscience and tainted heart combined.
I’m not gonna write too much, just this will open to many wounds and rend too many tears than the ones I already bear. But, I guess about a year ago I ended up in this little town in Texas after the last, and final, mission against the Taske Empire.
The mission was to infiltrate and eliminate a Family-owned warehouse in San Diego. We knew going in that the Family was sharing the place with a branch of the Irish Mafia, but we hadn’t seen much activity during recon, and hadn’t heard of them using the warehouse for anything but smalltime storage for over like seven months. Little did we know that they were bringing in a large shipment of something the very night we planned our strike.
Josh was, of course, heading up the operation. Wraith was our eyes and ears and worked the paperwork side of things. Me, Scarlet and a friend of mine from my Marine days, a guy called “Sniper”, we made up the infantry. We went in late that night, each of us taking a different side of the complex. We were supposed to get in, take out whatever resistance we met with, and set some heavy-explosive charges at key points. After that we were supposed to get out and wait for word from Wraith, who had the side of the complex with a couple of those movable office/trailers. His job was to go through their files and get all the evidence he could to hurt the Family, and maybe give us our next target.
My angle was the front gate. I took the guards at the guard house and set charges in two of the corners of the house. I was getting ready to get out of there when, lo and behold, the SDPD showed up with lights flashing and told me to come out with my hands up. See, the Mafias, and especially the Irish guys, they work on a different wavelength than the Taske Family. While the Family would have tried to take care of us themselves and leave the law out of it, the Mafia called the cops to report a robbery at their warehouse, the S.O.B.’s.
Josh and Scarlet set off their explosives to distract the cops, and I made my escape. But not before taking a bullet to the side. I was driving a red Toyota Tacoma at the time, and after reaching it I simply picked a direction and drove. I don’t know how long I went for, but next thing I know I was woke up in a little town just inside the Texas border. I guess I had a bit of an accident and tried running my truck through the granite base of a statue they had of their town’s founder. Truck was wrecked, but the damn statue was still standing.
Anyways, I spent a couple of weeks there and was even fixing to settle down with this girl who was kinda taking care of me. Her name was Marcella Garcia; she was this beautiful Hispanic girl with beautiful raven-colored hair and these huge brown eyes you could get lost in. Skin as soft as silk, voice as sweet as the saddest song. We only spent one night together, but we planned for the rest of our lives.
There was a crime boss in the town who thought my presence threatened his operation, so he had Marcella kidnapped. She was shot during my attempt to rescue her. I know how Josh felt, when his family was killed before his eyes… I felt the same way when Marcella died in my arms. I killed over fifteen men that night, including the leader of the operation.
When I had everything cleaned up, a couple of the town’s people saw me off. They gave me Marcella’s ring, and her dad’s old Harley motorcycle as a kinda goin’ away gift. The ring is just a physical reminder of what I really want in life. It also serves as a reminder that I probably will never get it.
To rap this up (I gotta get to bed), I was roused from my reverie by the realization that a whole bunch of Mercs and a few Assassins had started filling the bar. It suddenly dawned on me what Pyros and Mash’s next move would be. Why carry out a nearly impossible mission when you could hire a bunch of rent-a-killers to do it for you?
I knew Josh had to hear about this, so next time Ella came by I told her to take cover, then I got up and took on my “drunk sailor” routine. See, I’m known by a lot of Mercs in the Underworld, an’ not many f them like me. I figured I needed a major distraction if I wanted to get out alive. So I picked a guy I was sure I had never met, some fatso with “I shot Santa” stenciled on his arm. I “accidentally” spilled my beer on ‘im and made a few insulting remarks, and successfully started the biggest bar fight I’ve seen in a while. Ole Santa-Claws managed to throw me through the bar’s front window, which was just fine by me. I hit the ground rollin’ and jumped on the Honda I had gotten from Josh’s place in Eugene. Then I burned rubber for Josh’s place.
