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“RECONNOITER, YOU FUCK heads, reconnoiter and drop a couple of the bugs quietly into the house, then meet back at the SUV in five, ten minutes at the latest. Was that so fucking hard for you two shits? I don’t recall saying blow a fucking hole in the fucking wall and alerting everyone in the house to our arrival and then dumping all of our bugs into the house. What the fuck is the matter with you? Tell me why I shouldn’t shoot both of you right now?” Joe shouted as he alternately pointed his M9 Beretta between Ruckers and Ridgeway’s heads. “Go ahead, tell me. I’ll give your equipment to the fuck nerds in the SUV and have them take care of business. No problem. They can’t be any worse than you two. And I know since they are nerds, they’ve gotta be smarter than you two. It’d be a win, win situation. That’s it!” Rucker and Ridgeway stood unmoving, plastered against the SUV in hopes of somehow melting into the vehicle and disappearing either into it or possibly another dimension.
Rucker and Ridgeway, who were mercenaries like Joe, had never cowered from anything or anyone in their lives. In ten minutes of this simple recon mission, they had panicked and were now in fear of their lives in front of Joe who they sensed might literally rip their heads off with his bare hands. They had seen this same look before in other men, and it never ended well. What they didn’t know was, this was the longest speech Joe had ever given in his entire life.
Joe had no idea why he lost his temper. He never lost his temper. He was the one that always kept it together even when things went sideways. There had been countless times when things had been more fucked up than now, and he hadn’t lost his temper.
“Hey, you do know we can hear everything you’re saying, right?” asked Jeremy over the headsets.
“And your point is?” growled Joe.
“We would rather stay in the SUV. Also, we prefer geeks to”
“Shut it.”
Suzanne had been leaning out the window of the SUV with a rapt expression on her face. “Bravo Joe here, use my Taurus. She only has a hundred or so rounds through her, hardly broken in. She’s a .45 and makes lovelier holes than your .9mm. Boy, if we didn’t have a mission to fulfill I would be all over you like stink on a skunk.” She dangled the gun in her hand toward Joe in what she thought was a seductive manner.
“Booby traps, and they already knew we were here,” said Rucker all in a rush.
“Yes, weird booby traps and at first we didn’t know what it was. I thought I was seeing things and didn’t want to say anything, but Rucker already had the tannerite out and plastered it by the, uhh, booby trap. We then fired at the tannerite from a prudent distance to ignite it, and when the tannerite went off, we just flung the bugs in as we passed by the hole. We didn’t see the necessity of sticking around and got the hell out of there. Isn’t that right, Ridgeway?”
“Okay shitheads, that’s what reconnoiter means, look for surprises, like fucking booby-traps. You then report back to us so we can avoid the booby traps. You don’t go blowing up what sounded like half the house.”
“It was part of the back wall off the patio, the kitchen area, I think,” said Ridgeway.
“Isn’t that fucking fantastic. So much for our stealthy approach, and down the crapper goes the plan to make our targets look foolish and turn them into scapegoats!” Joe fumed.
“Wait, did we get the kitchen wall demolish with those robots on video or on your body cams?” asked Suzanne
“Ummm, both. Yes” came the faint reply from IT Alex.
“We might be able to salvage this after all, and turn the targets into terrorists. If we fiddle with the footage, we can make it look like they blew up the kitchen themselves, and we, of course, came prepared for any kind of scenario and had to defend ourselves. This can still work. We just have to be careful and make us look like a peacekeeping, information-gathering group, and make them look like crazed, off the grid nut jobs. They caused the entire formula-based, horrifying mess, and when confronted with the truth, self-destructed.”
“It sounded like they’ve already started self-destructing. I hear a lot of gunshots going on in there,” said Joe, lowering his gun and turning toward the house. As soon as he lowered his weapon, Rucker and Ridgeway dropped to the ground and rolled under the SUV to the other side.
There was a faint throat clearing. Then IT Alex, who had been chosen as the spokesperson after losing a heated rock, paper, scissors game-off, tentatively said, “Umm, they are shooting at and surprisingly hitting quite a few of the bugs let loose in the house.”
“What kind of firepower do they have, and how many are there?” asked Joe.
“Maybe eight or more people, at least eight, and they seem heavily armed with shotguns and handguns. They are using both on the bugs. Pretty effectively too.”
“Allred and Mims, you two are on the north side in the back, flashbangs at the ready. Don’t go in until I give the go ahead. Rucker and Ridgeway, since you two are allergic to the back, you are going right through the front door on the south. Suzanne can’t go to the front since they know her from Lexi. I’ll be on the northeast corner, and Suzanne will be on southeast corner to start. Rucker, change clothes with Cody in IT and make sure you have your body camera functional and filming when you approach. Ridgeway, you stay in the SUV until Rucker gives the signal, then you follow him in. Leave the chemist in the vehicle for now. We have enough fuck ups without adding another one to the mix. No matter who comes to the door, they are going to be heavily armed, which will look bad on their part. Wait, what was that part about the booby trap on the south side of the house? Did you guys disarm it at least before running away like little girls?”
“Well, we never saw, at least I never saw anything like it before, Boss, well not in real life. It flickered for an instant. It just appeared when we got within 25 feet of the patio. We decided to tannerite it. We just put some on the patio and on the wall, moved a prudent distance away and fired at it and, you know, tannerite...boom. We misjudged the amount, and the wall sorta went away...” Rucker trailed off at the end of this explanation. But in a happier tone said, “We got the booby trap, though. Blown to bits.”
“Good enough for us. Let’s go, Mims. This will be a piece of cake,” Allred said over his shoulder as he headed toward the house.
“Shouldn’t we hear what the booby trap was?” asked Mims
“No need. All blown up, like the man said. These are civilians and are most likely cowering in the house like little lambs. Easy peasy. Like I told you when we signed up for this job, this will be the easiest paycheck you will ever earn. Trust me.”
For Christ’s sake, just what did you morons see?” Suzanne hissed to Rucker and Ridgeway.