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SUZANNE EXPLODED FROM the passenger seat of the SUV, “Where the hell are we, a giant litter box!”
Joe who wasn’t used to rhetorical questions answered, “We are only a few miles to target.”
“Is all this equipment necessary? I’m used to going in quick, hitting the target, and getting out quick. Okay, maybe occasionally I have to play an extended charade, but only if the payoff is worth it. This last one was not,” she snarled as she racked the slide back on her .380 G42 Glock and stuck it into her vest.
“Yes. As I told you before, we have to have scapegoats, and we have to broadcast them to the world. Sneaking in and offing them, as you have so delicately put it, does us no good.”
“Ah yes, shaming them before the world, I do like the sound of that, but they are going to have a messy end, right? You did promise me I get to finish what I started, and I started to annihilate them, so that’s what I plan on doing. You make them look foolish, which, from what I remember of them, that won’t be difficult. Then I get to tear them apart, little by little, tiny piece by tiny piece. The world will cheer as your scapegoats lives are ended one by one.” While painting this pretty picture, Suzanne broke a full box of ammo in half with her hands.
The IT personnel who were transfixed and horrified by Suzanne’s words recoiled in their seats when the box of ammo snapped in half. Jeremy, the newest IT member of the team, freaked out completely when the container gave way. He let out a high-pitched squeak and flung his iPad up into the air; it struck the SUV’s ceiling with a thud. Jeremy, Alex, and Cody had been recruited by Joe since he needed IT people who didn’t mind bending the law slightly, or altogether. In this case, all three IT recruits were on parole for hacking government systems and were not allowed to own or use any computers. When Joe asked them to join this expedition, they all jumped at the chance to use their skills again.
Suzanne, taping the ammo box back together, told Joe, “Please tell me these fearless he-men are staying in the vehicle. It was bad enough riding with that jabbering idiot Conner those few miles. Thank God he jumped into the second vehicle with your other buddies, but then we picked up these heroes.” She turned to look at the courageous twenty-somethings trembling in the backseat. The squeaky one, Jeremy, who had just tossed his iPad in the air, had a mass of curly dark hair atop a nearly perfectly round head attached to a toothpick body. He looks like a god damn lollipop, Suzanne thought to herself. Alex and Cody looked like they should still be in high school despite being in their mid-twenties. Alex was small and compact with shoulder length sandy hair that usually hung over his face, and wore round wire-rimmed glasses he was forever pushing up on his nose. Cody looked like a football player but dressed like a mixture of a rock, punk, and heavy metal aficionado. His jet black hair was cut into a Mohawk and he had multiple piercings on his face. He was dressed in black and dark purple clothing, which clung to his beefy six foot, 230 pound frame of quivering jelly.
“Yes, they can do everything remotely from the SUV. The other SUV has four highly trained personnel to assist in our mission and your “friend”, the chemist, you already met to assist in finding any relevant material.
“Thank God. Otherwise, I would’ve had to kill one of these nerds to keep the others in line.”
“Ha, that’s funny. She’s just kidding, right? You were just kidding,” Jeremy said to no one in particular.