A day in the life of rural Hungary.
In 16 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ►Podcast at Connected.
'Here be Dragons' wasn't always a tourist gimmick.
(Vizsla and links to the past)
The driver stopped at a rustic roadside inn. It had been an uncomfortable three hour drive to the East-Southeast of Budapest and even Pamela seemed to have lost her bearings. Our luggage had been placed in the bonnet (trunk), but we kept our duffels, with our weaponry, on our laps the entire trip. Selena, Pamela and I were squeezed into the back seat, while Alkonyka sat up front with our amiable driver. He was full of interesting tips, jokes and local legends. If he wanted us to forget he was part of a company of killers, he failed.
Selena ignored me. Instead, she tried to engage Pamela in conversation three times over the course of the trip. Each time, Pamela responded with chilly disdain. That left Selena a tad bit grumpy by the time we stopped.
"Leave your weapons," Selena demanded. This clearly wasn't the Kazakhstan consulate. This was the ass-end of nowhere with Black Hand all around. Pamela and I left our duffels outside the vacated car, stretched out some kinks and began handing our personal weapons over to the driver and Selena.
"Is that everything?" our driver smiled. Alkonyka was coming around to our side. She gave up my spare Glock-22 that I had given her and her father's Special Forces knife.
"No," I answered. "We have a ceremonial dagger. To take that is a terrible insult." He motioned us to give them over and I did. Pamela's followed mine two second later.
"Only him," Selena directed me to the front door of the inn. I looked to Pamela. We both shrugged.
"Alkonyka, relax," I smiled at my latest female of interest. "I'll either be back soon or the snipers hiding about the place will kill you so fast, you won't notice." Blink. I wasn't joking.
As my eyes were adjusting from the bright day outside to the inn's dark interior, two men patted me down. I obviously hadn't been lying about disarming, but they did have me remove my light ballistic vest, it was way too hot for my duster. I suspected that they wanted me to get redressed, so I put my shirt back on, unbuttoned, and then added my jacket, I took my time since they were both being dicks.
Finally, they allowed me to walk into the bar proper. Sure enough, a mid-to-late 50ish woman was sitting at a round table in the back. Halfway to her table, I deviated, jumped over the bar, and poured myself a nice German lager. Stein in hand, I walked her way.
"I didn't say you could have a drink," the Vizsla commented.
"Oh, my apologies," I shrugged. I put the stein on a nearby table and waited.
"Have a seat," she directed. I came up to her table and examined the three empty chairs. I held back until she pointed to the chair opposite her. I sat down, but didn't make eye contact. Instead, I examined the various paintings and photographs on the walls. It was an old place.
"You killed Matthias, even though you knew he worked for me," she uttered.
"I can confirm that information to be correct," I looked her way. That, wasn't what she expected.
"Why?"
"Why what?" I countered. There was a method to my madness; this was going to be a lesson in competence, and what happens when you don't respect it.
"Why did you kill Matthias?"
"I needed a reason?" I tried to look pensive. "Maybe I didn't like the cut of his facial hair?"
"Do you think this is a joke?" she replied dryly. "The Black Hand always avenge our own."
"Damn," I looked perplexed. "No one told me that when I arrived. Can we call Matthias's extermination a 50/50 bad call, both ways?"
"Matthias was my cousin," the Vizsla continued.
"My condolences," I sighed. "The next Black Hand douche-bag the Amazons waste, I'll have them ask if he's related to you first. How's that?"
"You are so not likely to have that opportunity," she pointed out.
"Oh," I laughed, "you are so wrong about that."
"You are far stupider than I had been informed," the Vizsla's eyes narrowed.
"Nope. You and your cast of 'Dumb and Dumber' have been treating us like idiots since we touched down at Ferenc Liszt International, so I'm pretending to be that simpleton sock-puppet just for you, Vizsla. You've added to that by heaping disrespect and derision on my people," I grinned.
"You tried to have me and my entourage murdered and Matthias paid the price for that. Everyone knows I'm here. And after your bungled attempt to have me killed, no one is going to believe you did anything but murder me, if I don't show up eventually. Now do you prefer the stupid me, or the brighter than normal me?"
"If you think acting like a smart-ass is somehow endearing, you are mistaken," she let me know.
"Whatever," I shrugged. "You called this meeting. What do you want?"
"Beyond killing one of my lieutenants, I wanted to know what you are doing here?" she studied me.
"I would like to leave now. I'm wasting my time here," I responded.
"I want answers," she pressed.
"You have been given the answers to both your talking points, Matthias died because of your orders and I am here looking for three lost Amazon bloodlines," I replied.
"That seems bizarre," the Vizsla expressed her doubts.
"Bizarre? You are talking to the sole male Amazon House Head in three thousand years," I reminded her. "Besides, you only just now finished telling me how the Black Hand look after their own. The Amazons are the same way; we have lost kin who need to be made aware of their background."
"What do we do about Matthias?" the Vizsla asked.
"In all honesty, had he not personally threatened to stab a member of my team, I would have settled for kicking the crap out of him. He put a knife to Ms. Martin's throat. That assured his death sentence. I think the Host will be willing to accept my hypothesis that Matthias was acting on his own initiative, which should settle the matter."
And just like that, the expediency of the Black Hand shown forth. The truth of the matter was that he had acted on the Vizsla's orders. Unfortunately, that would have meant my side would have come after the Vizsla and she would have had to avenge his death, lots of needless bloodshed. So Matthias posthumously became a rabid dog gone rogue and one who ended up crossing the wrong people. No vengeance required by anyone. We could get back to business.
"That is settled. So, what do you want from your new allies?" the Vizsla inquired. A certain level of cold-blooded ruthlessness had been required to achieve her spot in the Black Hand. Likewise, honesty was the best policy when dealing with casually lethal people. They didn't like self-important asses wasting their time.
"I need to find an individual named 'Branko'. He has kidnapped a young lady who is one of our lost Amazons. We don't require any aid, but if you could leave Selena with us, it would be appreciated," I requested.
"What are you going to do when you catch up with this 'Branko'?" she questioned.
"I'd like to say I am going to buy her back, but I think we both know that is a pipe-dream. He's not going to like me interfering in his business, so I'm going to kill him, and any other bastards who are in close proximity," I confessed. She studied me for over a minute.
"Do you wish a piece of advice?" the Vizsla said.
"Of course," I nodded. It cost me nothing to acknowledge her vastly superior experience.
"Take a step back," she advised. Seeing that I didn't understand, "If you recall every single death by your hand, you will go mad. You don't possess the detachment of a true killer, Cáel. Not every member of the Black Hand is an assassin.
Your driver, Josef, is from a long line of Black Hand members. He doesn't have what it takes to get close and personal in order to kill a human being, so he drives and provides security. He still matters and serves a necessary function." That was almost nice of her. The advice was based on her decision to keep me around as a useful tool. Going nuts would derail that.
"There is the life we wish to lead, and the life we must lead, Vizsla," I recalled. There was so much there, whirling around in my skull, it took me all this time to find the link I was looking for. Recall every single death by my hand, "On January 26th, 1847, the Black Hand Chapter House of the Wolf in Verona was wiped out, there were no survivors."
"If you say so," she regarded me oddly.
"Yeah, look into it. Then come back to me when you have the right questions," I stood up. "And 'Branko'?"
"I will relay information on this individual to Selena. We should have something by the time you get back to Buda," she got out before one of the bodyguards came running our way.
He had his H&K MP5 out and was in deep conversation with his ear piece.
"Our two spotters failed to respond correctly," he told the Vizsla in Hungarian. She gave me another quick once over.
"My people?" I rose slowly.
The Vizsla gave the man a subtle hand gesture. Seconds later, pushing Alkonyka ahead of them, Pamela, Selena and Josef came running through the door. Pamela and Selena had our duffels. Two more Black Hand materialized from a back room.
The Black Hand was actually a small outfit. Each Chapter had two or three houses, each with four or five true assassins and maybe six times that in support personnel/recruits in each location. That meant the entire Black Hand organization numbered less than 1000. They had several thousand peripheral contacts across their sphere of Europe and they could purchase some sort of private security given time. But their best protection was their hidden nature and small size. That also meant what we had was what we had. There was no Black Hand SWAT team on the way.
Working with hand gestures alone, the Vizsla was directing us to a trap door behind the bar. Josef's phone rang. He hesitantly answered.
"It is for you," he offered it to our host. She took it. Halfway through the caller's diatribe, she shot me a suspicious look.
"Why don't you ask him?" she stated, then handed me the phone.
"Hello Nyilas. Do you know who this is?" the man on the other end stated, in Mycenean Greek.
"Yes, I do. What do you want? I'm kind of busy here?" I grinned. It was laughing at death all over again.
"I can relieve you of your pressing schedule. You and the other Amazon step outside and I'll make it quick."
"No can-do Studly," I smirked. "If I go out there, it is going to take a while."
"I sincerely doubt that."
"Don't sell yourself short," I jibed. "I figure clipping off those bull-sized testicles of yours is going to take some work. But I do promise that after I make you a eunuch, I'll use a condom when I bend you over and make you my bitch too. Was there anything else you wanted to know?"
"No. I think we have a mutual understanding," he laughed. "I'll be seeing you soon." He hung up.
"Who was that?" Vizsla inquired. She wasn't alone in her curiosity.
"Ajax," I beamed confidence. I was confident my tenure on this Earth was ending real soon.
"I think we should be leaving," Vizsla suggested.
"Selena, help Alkonyka get her sister back," I requested. "I'll catch up when I can. Pamela, you do what you feel you need to do. Vizsla, they are after me, so I'm going to keep them busy while you get away," I explained.
No useless 'you don't have to do this' nonsense. She knew the score, I wasn't a member of her outfit and she wanted to live. She did do me one favor. She gave another hand movement. Selena slit Josef's throat in a surprise motion.
He didn't die right away. Selena's slash made bleeding out inevitable, but he'd be a while in dying. Odds were, that only Vizsla and Josef knew in advance where we were meeting. Whatever payoff the Condottieri had put in his bank account wasn't going to do him any good. Selena bent over his still-thrashing body and removed his pistol.
"I will bring you Angyalka Lovasz," Selena pledged. Pamela and I were gearing up. Ajax and his buddies were going to be coming for me any second now. Alkonyka gave me one more worried look before she vanished into the secret basement. "Don't be late," was the last thing Selena said before going down into the darkness. Pamela made sure the trap door was covered up.
Lust and Bullets
"We've used Butch and Sundance," Pamela checked her L42 Enfield Sniper Rifle. It was the weapon Pamela had trained with and used for longer than I'd been alive, old yet very effective even today.
"Heat?" I offered up. "You can be De Niro and I can be Kilmer."
"Nice. Michael Mann really had a way of killing people," Pamela grinned, then pumped her eyebrows. "Too bad I end up dead in this one."
"We'll avoid airports, you should be safe," I joked. Three explosions rocked the building, shooting glass throughout the place. Fortunately, Pamela and I were hiding behind the bar.
"Let's go," she whispered over the din. Charging out the front door seemed pretty suicidal to me, but Pamela's copious battle lore was something I had the utmost faith in. I respected her judgment and followed along. There was a method to her madness. Two 40 mm grenades had taken out the two cars parked in front. A third launched grenade had blown open the door.
The petrol in the cars equated to flaming wreckage and a huge smoke screen. It was broad daylight, no night vision goggles. The flames made IR useless and the smoke temporarily obscured regular vision. The machineguns going off around us scared the crap out of me. It was my old buddy, suppression fire: they weren't shooting directly at us.
Metaphysically, Ishara was dueling with Ares. There was a low stone wall, a little over a meter high, that separated an adjacent field from the inn's gravel parking lot. Right as we got to our side of it, three of Ajax's boys came up on the other. Pamela and I remained perfectly still, crouching tightly against our shelter.
Two knelt and fired several bursts from their H&K HK416 (Wow! Germany's newest killing machine, they looked slick) into the closest open windows while the third one fired a grenade in. Again, we remained perfectly still. We were about two meters from those three. The drab color of our hastily donned dusters, the congested air and our stillness combined to save us from their notice.
The second after that grenade went off, the three vaulted the wall and rushed the building. From the cacophony of the battle, they were storming the building from several directions at once.
"Quick, go find that guy with the machinegun," Pamela whispered over a feral grin. How was I going to do that?
The old fashioned way, I leapt over the wall and ran away from all the flames, explosions and the continuous widespread fusillade of assault weapons fire. I was partially bent over as I ran. I'm still a big guy though. The machine gunner was in a shallow dip in the meadow 30 meters away, on the edge of the woods.
He saw me, shifted his MG4 (fuck Ajax and his crew for having the best Bang-Bangs) minutely and unleashed hell my way. In hindsight, the 1st round flattened against my duster as it impacted my upper left thigh. Round #2 hit the duster again, coming below my vest, but hitting my belt (every bit of leather helps).
The #3 556 mm slug hit my vest due south of my belly button (Fuck!), # 4 landed a few centimeters up and to the right, taking in both the duster and my ballistic vest. The #5 round clipped my lower side of my right ribcage. The resulting force sent me spinning back and to my right.
Honestly, as I landed hard on my back (no rolling with the blow this time), I thought a midget mule team had kicked me in the guts. Apparently, I made a convincing mortally wounded human being. He stopped shooting and Pamela got pissed.
I learned a few things at that moment: you do not get used to being shot; you can never appreciate the value of good body amour enough; you can never understand the true value of a sniper until your life is totally in their hands; and damn, Pamela was exceptional. Pamela put a bullet through his nasal cavity in that split second between him exposing himself with his muzzle flashes and deciding to put a few more bullets into my prone form.
Pain dictated that I lie where I was. Survival instincts overrode that. I went to my side, pushed up and resumed my crouched stance. Then I was running once more until I could throw myself beside his corpse. I was stunningly calm. Machineguns, snipers, I had to cover Pamela's run across the meadow. I didn't stay by the dead gunner.
I grabbed his weapon, some spare ammo and quick-stepped it to the wood line. I rapidly assessed the best spot that could provide cover from each flank. That was where I went down, cradled the device and started shooting at any muzzle flash I could see. The moment I opened fire, Pamela began her own sprint.
Unlike my mad dash, Pamela took evasive maneuvers, serpentine, which worked out well when one sniper figured out she wasn't one of them. He/she had two shots at her before she dove past me. Her mien was one of intense, emptiness? She gave me a quick pat-down to make sure I wasn't gushing blood, took a deep breath and then smirked.
"Come on, Dummy!" she laughed. "We still have a shot at a sequel."
"Shot, sequel, you are a laugh riot," I wheezed as I stood, abandoned the MG4 and joined her as we both ran deeper into the woods. A few shots zinged past us before Ajax's crew realized we were in full-on flight mode. They weren't going to waste the bullets.
This was the point where archaic and modern warfare diverged. In the olden (pre-Pamela, ow! How did she know what I was thinking?) days, when your enemy broke and ran, it was relatively easy to run them down and slaughter them in their panic. If a few men tried to stem the tide, they would be quickly overwhelmed.
After the invention of rapid-fire rifles, that changed. Suddenly, headlong pursuit could be incredibly costly. All it took was a small, resolute band to find some sort of hard cover and they could buy minutes, or even hours, for their retreating brethren. Sure, if you were willing to pay the butcher's bill, you could storm their position.
But you had to understand, each defender could fire and work the bolt action in under three seconds. You reloaded your magazine with a prepared clip ~ maybe five more seconds. Ten men could put 150 bullets down range per minute as long as their ammo held out. Sending men into that kind of firepower was murder; very few troops could sustain their attack under those conditions.
Ajax's resurrected Mycenaean's were tough enough to do it. Ajax's problem was their finite number. Despite catching Ajax off-guard with Pamela's mad plan, her ungodly skills and a great deal of my pain, we had only managed to kill one so far. The great unknowns were terrain (we didn't know where we were,) and my luck.
As Pamela and I ran through the forest at a good clip, we began to make out a specific background noise. It was a river. Not a creek, stream, waterfall, or dam, a river.
"Did you pack your jet ski?" Pamela snorted.
"I left it in the car. You said it was so '1990's'," I panted back. A few more footsteps and,
We heard dogs barking. Ajax had some pooches; how wonderful. His men weren't rushing after us. They didn't have to. Pamela and I were running at a river. Undoubtedly, he had stationed small teams to the north and south of us along the river so we couldn't slip by. Had Ajax realized how much the cosmos loves me, he would have come charging in. We heard a boat.
"Bikini bimbos, or studious college types?" Pamela snickered. It was a given that there would be women onboard. I really do have that kind of luck. We broke out of the woods and narrowly avoided getting stuck in the muddy river bank. Sure enough, a wooden, nine meter long barge rebuilt as a house boat was gently working its way north. Four women were in barely-clad evidence.
I didn't waste a minute. My FN P90 went to Pamela and my clothes were shed in true horn-dog fashion. Two of the women noticed me by the time I was down to my white boy shorts underwear. My dive was graceful, my strokes strong and my welcome very promising. One girl remained piloting this beast while the other three gained two more friends.
"What happened to you?" the leader, a girl with thin blonde hair, large sunglasses and a petite build asked, in Hungarian. Three of them helped me on board, despite my blade strapped to my forearm. Goddess, you have to love what water does to white fabric and combat arouses me.
"I'm a contract killer in training," I began weaving my tale.
"My maternal Grandmother, who I thought was dead since I was a small boy, has come back to teach me the family trade," I embellished. "The people who murdered my family tracked us down to an inn a few kilometer away and they are hot on our trail." The sane response was to call the cops and let me fend for myself.
To counteract that, I was presenting my nearly naked, obviously bruised and scarred body for their feminine perusal. I had also bolstered my masculinity score (I was a hunter of men, hopefully bad men). My concern for a non-threatening (from a sexual standpoint) female friend (thus proving I embraced the concept of loyalty) further elevated my desirability. The hormonal response was to save my life with the near guarantee of some righteous dicking to come.
The women exchanged some hurried glances and came to a consensus.
"We will help," the leader offered.
"I need to go back to the bank and get my Grandmother and our gear," I said. Four of the women had on khaki shorts and bikini tops.
Two dropped their shorts to reveal bikini bottoms and the three of us swam back to the shore. Pamela had secured out weapons in the duffels and stripped down to her bra and panties. The four of us divided up the weight and made for the boat. The dogs were getting louder. The girls took our body armor while Pamela and I carried our luggage.
Despite our ironmongery, I could tell the girls weren't totally invested in my story until the first armed men and dogs appeared along the bank. Pamela took a sniper's perch on top of the cabin compartment, concealed by solar panels. I was positioned by pilot's station in the stern. This boat was never designed for speed, plus it was chugging against the weak current, so our progress to the far side of the river was achingly slow.
In our favor was the shape and flora of the banks. The riverside had thick undergrowth right to the water's edge. The first meter into the water was slimly algae over slick mud. The heavy undergrowth went inland over three meters which made nice cover, except that once you fired, we would pin the shooter to that spot because the land was molasses-like muck, which made quick movement difficult.
In contrast to their dubious concealment, Pamela and I had thick, multi-planked wood as hard cover. It was a stalemate, we would catch glimpses of Ajax's troops on the west bank of the river. Well, it was a stalemate until they brought up some machineguns. Those, with a good deal of small arms fire and a few grenades, would chip the boat to splinters and we'd risk being sunk.
Our Hungarian Captain, Jolan, had gone full throttle, which equated to a lightning speed of 13 kph (8 mph). Pamela judged our pursuers could, at best, do 17 kph (10.5 mph) over the rough terrain.
"How much farther is the west bank covered in forest?" I asked the Skipper, in Hungarian. Orsi, the spokeswomen for this college set, answered instead.
"There is thick woods all the way to Mindszent," she informed me. Since I appeared lost, she added, "Mindszent is on the east bank and it has a ferry, not a bridge."
I kissed, really kissed her. The 'get her heatedly moaning, chest pressed against me while she grinds her crotch into my lap' kind of kiss, I was still kneeling out of fear of being shot.
Katalin, the third Hungarian on the crew, cleared her throat. The crew were college friends who had made the refurbishment of this old barge a group project. Monika, the German, was the architect. Anya, the Bulgarian, was the mechanical engineer who had rebuilt the twin inboard engines that were now propelling us northward against the sluggish current.
Magdalena was a Slovakian Jewish girl and artist; she had been the one to find this old barge. She had also ponied up half the money to make this restoration possible. Hungarian Orsi was the other financier of this project, and a practical electrical engineer, the type that could keep the generators and appliances functioning.
Skipper Jolan, the only seasoned sailor, was familiar with the Danube and many of its tributaries, including the Tisza, plus she was an economics major and the team book-keeper. Katalin was the interior designer, and if she was anything like her friends, a damn good one. I hadn't made it inside yet to verify that.
"I think someone is trying to signal you," Katalin pointed.
Pamela hadn't put a bullet in them yet to avoid reciprocal fire. I looked over the gunwale and there was this one guy holding his gun aloft.
"It is one of those people from last night," Pamela identified him for me. Sure enough, it was that guy, except he had camo paint on his face, high-tech camouflage clothing, body armor, an assault rifle held over his head plus a few other secondary weapons.
I took a chance, stood up and held my P90 over my head.
"Pamela,” I said in Hittite; “don't forget, Ajax was historically accompanied by his half-brother, Teucer, who was renowned as an archer," I cautioned her. That probably translated over to a modern sniper, or so I feared.
"Oh, I hadn't recalled that," Pamela snorted. "The pansy probably uses a DSR-50." That was the modern German equivalent of the tiny .50 BMG caliber, direct-fire cannon.
"Hey guy," I shouted, in Mycenaean Greek; "How are you doing?"
"Better than Augewas," he replied (Augewas must have been the machine gunner). "Ajax wishes a parlay."
"Sorry about your friend. Such is war. How about we speak a current language? I don't want my hosts to be left out of this conversation."
"English appears to be your native tongue. It will do. Do you agree to the parlay?" the man asked. I looked to Jolan and Orsi.
"We speak okay English," Orsi confirmed.
"I agree to your parlay. Tell Ajax he can swim on over and we'll help him onboard," I said.
"Since we hold the upper hand, I suggest you come to us," the man countered.
"What is your name?" I requested.
"Eruthros," he answered. That meant 'red' in his native tongue.
"Okay, Red, I'm coming over. I'll keep my personal blade," I replied.
Having just re-dressed, I undressed. I rummaged through my duffel for my 'Hail Mary' weapon. It was worth a shot.
"Cáel, normally I accept you doing infantile crap. This time, I'd like to know what you've got planned, beyond defeating the purpose of getting on this boat in the first place," Pamela insisted.
"I'm operating on my pathetic knowledge of Greek hospitality and how this parlay-shit works," I replied. "I'm seeing if I can buy us some time."
"Cáel, I'd take it as a personal favor if you'd come back in one piece," she told me. That was unusual, considering the number of times I'd faced death since we first met.
"I got this covered," I jibed. "After all, I passed every on-line course in the 'Mortal Kombat Conflict Resolution' curriculum, so what could possibly go wrong? By the way, do you think Ajax took that 'bull testicle' thing seriously?"
"I love you," was all Pamela could reply.
I finished stripping down, but before I could dive over the side, both Jolan and Orsi hugged me tightly.
"If I make it back alive, will you two consent to have sex with me? I need something to live for," I grinned pleasantly at them. The 'sexy' would come later.
They looked at one another, over to the other three companions currently visible and finally back to me. They were teary-eyed.
"Yes, if you make it back Cáel, we will ALL have sex with you, if you think that promise will help you stay alive?" Orsi offered.
"Cool. I'll definitely find a way to keep those fifty guys at bay," I kissed Jolan and Orsi on the forehead. Downplay the erotic, elevate my sincerity in the 'life and death' struggle to get back to them. I dove into the cool waters of the Tisza and made to the hostile shore. Red and a buddy were there to help me out. I declined and they didn't seem to mind.
My fingers had barely combed my wet hair out of my eyes when I came face to face with Ajax. He was even more imposing in person than he had been in the vision Tadêfi had imparted to me. He was a few centimeters over two meters (6' 9") and one hundred and forty-five kilograms (320 lbs.) of solid muscle.
He was also a hairy cuss, with long, thick black hair, a trimmed mustache and beard, and body hair evident on every bit of exposed flesh, except his palms. I wasn't certain who would have out arm-wrestled who, him or dead uncle Carrig. He was equipped in a modern style, firearms and body armor similar to his men. On the plus side, he was smiling at me.
What followed was in his native language, Mycenaean Greek.
"I was told you didn't lack courage," he noted.
"I am indeed fearless," I retorted, "but I make up for it by being dumb as a stump." Laughter all around. By that time, the assembled Greeks amounted to over twenty men, Molpadia / Kwenhamai and four large hunting dogs.
Oh crap, they sympathized with me. I remained optimistic in the face of death and that resonated with them, these ancient warriors.
"I am here to kill you," Ajax stated.
"Yes, that was my view of the situation as well, one of us having to gak the other," I corrected.
"Are you prepared to die then?" he regarded me with a certain kinship.
"It depends on how I die," I grinned. "If it is 'death by zug zug', well, I ain't going out like that. Be prepared to shoot me as I run away." More laughter.
"I like you," he patted my shoulder. "You have a knife. We can knife fight?"
"I'm not 100% up on the rules for parlay, but I was thinking that we would be working out arrangements for a fight at some set time in the future," I said.
"You would be wrong," Ajax shook his head. "Your people, the Amazons, used dishonorable means to kill me and my men, so I am not obligated to treat you as an equal."
That was Ajax being an asshole. The Amazons poisoned him because he'd lured the Amazons to a dinner, then drugged, raped and enslaved them. Bringing that up would be pointless. History had painted him to be a misogynist and Molpadia / Kwenhamai, I was going to start calling her Kwen, was screwed if she was hoping Ajax would restore her mother's honor.
There was an upside to all of this. I really hadn't expected Ajax to confer safe passage with his offer of parlay anyway. I thought he and his men actually understood that was my expectation coming into this. For whatever reason, they didn't translate my actions to be anything but assisted suicide. Their bad. My Hail Mary was really just my opening gambit. Life finds a way.
"I will meet you half way," I offered. "You have chosen the time and the place of this parlay, so it is only fair to allow me the choice of weapons."
"Out of respect for your personal courage, I will agree. How do you wish to perish?" Ajax nodded. I presented my 'secret weapon', a bag of knucklebones.
"You are wagering your life on a game?" Ajax scoffed.
"As opposed to a whole series of martial contests I have no chance at? Yeah, I'm staking my life on my hand-eye coordination," I grinned. Knucklebones is the granddaddy of modern day Jacks and was played at the time of the Trojan Wars.
"I suppose it was too much to hope that any scion of the Amazons would choose to go out like a man," Ajax muttered. I hit him. I hit him hard enough to rock him back a half step. The group mirth quieted down.
"Beware Greek," I growled. "I am Cáel Wakko Ishara and my people left your body buried in the soil of Troy. We have survived all these centuries while the remnants of your children are nothing more than curiosities in museums. I will banter over my life. My kin are not to be mocked."
"Your kin are cowardly women," Ajax laughed. "It seems you wish to die at my hands. So be it."
"You know much of cowardice and nothing of men," I snidely responded. "There is nothing terribly honorable about killing people anyway." Why wasn't the crowd rushing in to pummel me? Smack-talking was the martial norm for these guys.
In a way, they accepted that Ajax had that hit coming for his insult to my people. And Yes, , they hated the Amazons too. But that didn't mean any of them would get a bye when insulting them in my presence. Had I denigrated all the men of Salamis, Ajax's kingdom, I could have expected the punch I gave him.
"I'm sure you and your gang disagree, except all of you ended dead because you were lousy hosts and pathetic jailors, so your opinion can't be all that useful, now can it?" I dredged up our common history. "Ajax, you remain a bully, a thug and an insult to true masculinity. Let's dance, Brony," I defied him.
"You remain amusing to the bitter end. Are those your last words?" Ajax was getting ready to rip me to pieces. I wasn't going down without a fight.
"On second thought," I fell into my Brazilian jujutsu stance, "it might as well be 'Where there is Valor there is Hope'."
"You have valor without merit, Cáel, Wakko, Ishara, Nyilas, whoever you are," he mocked me. "Die knowing I will send everyone you love to the Black Sands, including your 'daughter'," Ajax chuckled. If he thought threatening Aya was going to unsettle me, it only showed he had no idea who Katrina was. Aya had far more effective guardians than me. I was still going to make sure he died with as much extra pain as I could pack on for daring to bring her up.
Three blows. It took him three pulverizing blows to put me where I wanted to be. Being a martial legend apparently had its downside. He may have been one of the most epic warriors who ever lived, but now, fighting the sexiest male doofus to have ever challenged him, he neglected to keep an eye on the terrain we were fighting on, or more accurately, he disregarded my stratagem, which included me not dying.
Two blocked punches drove me back.
The third blow, the kick, sent me flying into the river. It took every ounce of willpower I had left to force myself back to my feet. I half-lunged back at Ajax, prepped my lungs for a long, underwater sojourn, then turned and lunged into the current. With the most powerful strokes I could muster, I swam deeper and deeper.
My progress startled a Starry Sturgeon that bolted in a slightly higher, nearly parallel path to me. That poor bastard must have lived 60 years to get to his 2.3 meter (7' 6"), 80 kg. (176 lbs.) size. The critical factor at the moment was that, in the muddy waters of the Tisza, his wake was far more visible than mine.
Ten assault rifles opened up on what they thought was yours truly. I owed my life to that one tough fish. He must have soaked up fifty rounds before finally going belly up. I swore by Dot Ishara that if I survived scenic Central Europe, I was going to sponsor a Starry Sturgeon reintroduction program. I had thought the Starry were extinct on the Tisza, and now they probably were.
What I didn't know was the gamble Pamela was engaged in. How stupid of me was it to give her sniping advice? Pamela borrowed one of the girl's iPads, recorded herself looking into it for ten seconds then looped the footage. She placed the iPad far enough in her primitive blind so that it could be confused for her actual face.
Pamela then settled in beside her rifle with her own spotter's scope and went looking for her opposition. She couldn't simply move to a secondary location because odds were my P-90 might not have the range to reach ole Teucer. When I leapt beneath the water, Teucer blew the iPad to pieces. Pamela spotted the shot, rolled over to her gun and returned fire.
Teucer must have realized that human heads don't explode like that, he was firing a .50 BMG, and understood that he was on the wrong side of the sniper/counter-sniper equation. Upstream, he was busy throwing himself out of the tree he'd been using to shoot from when Pamela put a bullet through his left collarbone where it intersected his throat.
Had he not been diving deeper into the forest she would have killed him by severing his spinal cord between the C2 and C3 vertebrae. As it was, he got to live, but he would be convalescing for quite a while. Now with Teucer dealt with, it was time for Ajax and company to feel her wrath. She put three of them down, one definitely dead (a human head doesn't expand like that and survive).
She would have put a bullet into Ajax, except one of his men tackled him to the ground. Killing the SOB would have made her Christmas, but stopping the Mycenaeans from shooting at me (aka Mr. Starry Sturgeon) was her primary concern. My lungs were on fire by the time I clawed my way under the vessel and came up on the far side. Jolan had slowed and moved toward the west bank when I swam to meet Ajax.
The engines were roaring to full power again. Orsi and Monika, shielded by the mass of the main cabin, helped me up. This time it took an extreme effort because I was even more bruised and completely exhausted from my extra-long underwater swim and generally having my ass-kicked. I didn't have much time to recover. As soon as Ajax's group had made themselves scarce, they began taking pot-shots at the boat.
It was a harassment tactic. They could shoot at us while using the trees trunks as cover. Even if a limb, or piece of underbrush deflected, or slow downed the round, we still had to keep crouched down and on edge. The 'race' was on for Mindszent. Ajax's crew had to get back to their vehicles, then race to the ferry landing.
If they could get people on both banks, it was pretty much over for Pamela and me. A long history of equivocating during my college years, plus my incarceration at Havenstone, helped me formulate a plan. I borrowed Jolan's phone and called the United States. I was dialing in a bomb threat from a source everyone would believe, the CIA. Don't laugh.
I had finally found a use for Senior Field Officer George Cresky, after all. It took four rings. The poor bastard was probably sleeping in on, early Saturday morning. He was probably curious how I /Katrina found out his mobile number as well. That would wait.
"Wa, huh, " George mumbled. He didn't recognize the number calling him.
"George! Wake the fuck up," I raised my voice. "This is Nyilas and I have a problem."
"Nyilas, how the fuck do you have my personal number?" old George bolted awake.
"Funny story, I'll get to it later. Right now I need for you to fabricate a bomb threat against the ferry at Mindszent, Hungary.
Get that ferry to the east, I repeat EAST, bank of the Tisza River," I explained.
"Is there a bomb on the ferry?" he questioned.
"Of course there isn't a bomb on board the damn boat. I'm being chased by fifty mercenaries and bad shit is going to happen to me and six hot chicks if they reach that ferry," I related.
"So you want me to send a false terrorist bomb threat to a NATO ally in order to save your ass?" George was drawing this out.
"Now I know why you are on the task force," I gave him false praise. "Are you going to do it?"
"Are you breaking any laws? In Hungary?" he asked.
"Of course I'm breaking the fucking law. I've been engaged in a firefight, at least three people are dead, several more are wounded, two cars and one historic moment/inn has been blown up, set on fire and demolished. I'm pretty sure the authorities aren't happy about the truck load of people we killed yesterday getting off the Metro and last night outside a club either," I informed him. "Anything else you need to know?"
"Is Riki okay?" George kept trying my patience.
"You want to bang Riki Martin?" I reposted. He hesitated, probably looking over at his sleeping wife.
"Yes."
"I swear to God, I'll put in a good word for you," I promised. I was lying because I was a letch, not a pimp. He was blackmailing me over Riki because he was a cheating swine, not because worked for the CIA.
"I'll call it in," he replied. "Good luck." The connection ended. I called Javiera next.
"Hey Javiera," I began.
"Cáel? What's gone wrong now?" she perked up. Ah, she knew me so well, already.
"I just got off the phone with George and I asked him to call in a bomb threat for me. Could you call him in five minutes to make sure he did it?" I begged.
"Oh God, are my people okay?" she worried.
"Virginia and Chaz got clipped. Mona says they don't need to go to the hospital. Right now, I hope they've made it to Romania while Pamela and me are trying not to die at the hands of Ajax and his buddies," I told her.
"They are all heavily armed, explosions, dead bodies, a Library of Congress-sized number of criminal violations."
"Oh, are you okay?" she sounded sincere.
"An unhealthy array of new bruises, but no actual bodily penetrations," I gave my health status update.
"The fight isn't over yet though. There is still at least fifty of them out there and they are all walking advertisements for Heckler & Koch," I reminded her. "If George doesn't make that call, I'm a goner. If he does, I have to explain to Riki that George physically desires her. I'm not sure which is worse."
"I will take care of George. You and Pamela stay alive. I'll be in touch, and whose phone are you using?" Javiera inquired.
"After the rustic inn caught on fire, Pamela and I ran to the river Tisza. A house boat was cruising by and they gave us a ride," I answered.
"Jolan is a girl's name," she prodded.
"Why yes it is and she and her five bikini clad college friends are cruising the Upper Danube basin for their summer break," I said. "They are all very nice young ladies."
"I bet they are," she joked. "Keep your eyes on the goal. By that, I mean 'staying alive', in case you become confused about your priorities. Take care."
She was off to let the US government know I was associated with another calamity. Thirty minutes later, we received our first confirmation that George hadn't let me down. 'Red' appeared on the western shore. The ladies' watercraft kept scraping over submerged branches, we were traveling so close to the eastern bank. This time we really had to yell at one another.
"Did you draw the short straw?" I called out while I kept him in the sight of my P-90. At 80 meters, I'd cut him in two if I felt like it. Pamela had disappeared, probably to a hidden spot near the bow.
"No," he laughed. "I chose to come. I salute you," he declared as he pumped his weapon over his head twice. "We salute your quick wit and clever nature, Cáel Wakko Ishara," he added.
"My little diversion cost me a case of Taiwanese-made tequila, the number of a clap-free whorehouse in Budapest's Red Light district and a pair of Hitler Youth goulashes. We will see if it was worth it," I joked.
"You must have friends in high places and with questionable tastes," 'Red' responded.
"Is Teucer okay?"
"He will live. Fortunately, he's ambidextries," Eruthros informed me.
"Good for him. Tell Ajax that if I see him, or his brother, and am in a position to, I shall kill them both," I told my foe.
"I count his family to be unworthy in my sight and beneath the contempt of my people, no more than maddened beasts in the field," I proclaimed.
"Why aren't you shooting at me?" Red shouted.
"I judge each person by their merits and flaws, not by whatever misfortune places them in another's company," I replied.
"Very well, Basilόpais," 'Red' proclaimed loudly. "We will meet again," and he was dodging back into the undergrowth. Great, now the Mycenaean's were calling me a prince. Yet another worthless title with no paycheck attached.
"Why didn't you shoot him?" Orsi questioned. I was so used to being the novice combatant that I was momentarily stymied by her request.
"If I shot him, I'd have killed him. His companions would have then been obliged to shoot back at your boat. I would have shoved you down and the rest of your friends would have hit the deck, so they would have to put several hundred rounds into the boat itself. A few of us would have been wounded by splinters, but been okay," I explained, "until, "
"Until?" Jolan seemed completely engaged with my speculation.
"Until they decided to unleash a hail of grenades at us, blowing this boat to pieces. If we were lucky, we'd have jumped overboard and made it to the far shore in the confusion. Most likely, some of us would have died," I continued.
"Why didn't they do that anyway?" Orsi wondered.
"I saw them with grenade launchers, but their problem was the low silhouette of your wonderful vessel makes a damaging, direct-fire hit hard to make at this range ~ 90 to 100 meters. They could air-burst a few above us, except the pilot house and the massive cabin all have thick wooden roofs.
Even your solar panels would help protect us. Their problem is that to efficiently shoot at us, they pretty much have to expose themselves to being shot at by us. Even if they sink the vessel, we could still escape. Then they've expended a ton of ordinance, made a hell of a racket and still failed in their objective."
It was not at all lost on me that this talk about imminent death was making them horny.
"Why did you go over there in the first place?" Orsi mused. Now to make hay on all my silly, romantic displays from earlier. Kissing them on the foreheads meant I was a 'good' guy. Now, I was going to show them I was a romantic too.
I had the muscular, battle-scarred physique down pat.
"A girl," I sighed in personal disappointment. "She's caught up with the wrong guy. We are related and I can't sit back and let the guy she has fallen in with ruin her life. I had to show her that he's a complete bastard. If that means I have to put my life on the line, so be it.
I'm not sure I reached her though." See, I was a hero in need of some serious positive reinforcement. If there was any doubt, that meant sex. I felt like the old me for a while. I was being an idiot and I could (hopefully) live with that. A few more tense minutes and we heard a helicopter coming in from the north.
My sniper scope identified it as a small, unarmed MD 500 helicopter. As it raced by overhead, I could make out the Hungarian National Police markings. The billowing smoke of the inn-turned-pyre was drawing their attention. We were on our final approach to Mindszent.
"Do you want us to smuggle you past the docks?" Jolan whispered unnecessarily.
"No," I stroked her shoulder. "The police are probably going to want to stop us and ask some questions. Are you okay with that?"
"Sure," Orsi nodded. "I'll make sure we have our stories straight, unless you want us say we picked you up in a firefight?" she joked.
"Grandmother and I have to slip over the side now," I informed them. "Is there a place in Mindszent where we can meet up?"
"Go to the Seven Fishermen's Guest House on Damjanich u. 16th," she recommended. "We'll catch up with you there."
(Scenic Mindszent)
One more round of kisses, then Pamela and I were down to our skivvies and jumping into chest-deep water. We held our duffels over our head. The girls gave us a final wave as the barge kept chugging upstream. Me and Pamela waded ashore, got inside the overgrowth and began shedding our underwear for a fresh set of clothing.
"Yes, that would make things awkward, wouldn't it?" Pamela chortled. She'd caught me scoping her out at the same time I caught her doing the same. Pamela was lean, like a cheetah. She was tall, very thin, yet not anorexic. She took exceptional care of herself, so I attributed the thinness to genes, not diet.
"Hell ya," I snorted. "Fun and definitely changing our relationship," I added with a sigh. We finished getting dressed in silence, placed our wet articles in plastic bags (so the dampness wouldn't be evident in the duffel bags) and started trekking to the north-east. A rural highway presented itself, so we checked to see that no one saw us exiting the woods and then we casually began walking into Mindszent from the south.
Now we looked like two people hiking across Europe, baggage slung over our shoulders and hair rapidly drying in the Hungarian summer heat. The inhabitants of this fine town happily showed us to the Seven Fishermen's. The places was partially filled with people superficially like us, people biking, hitch-hiking, and/or walking across the region.
Pamela rented us the remaining ten bunks in the larger (13 person occupancy) guest room. The smaller (8 person) one was already filled up. The 'good' news was I had a message waiting for me when I arrived. I had to call my 'Cousin George'. It was urgent. The two ladies managing the place showed a suitably kind level of concern.
I borrowed their land line and called my 'cousin' in the CIA. The message was pre-recorded. I was to meet with an agent at a place called the 'Both st. Brewery' at 4 pm, in an hour. In case you were wondering, Both st. was another designation for Mindszent and the Brewery was actually a brewery and a pub/drinking hole.
In our bunkroom, we found three Macedonians resting after a day of sight-seeing: two guys and girl. One of the guys seemed annoyed that a hostess was showing us our bunks and explaining the rules for using the showers and the kitchen while the Macedonians were trying to sleep. Once she left, he looked my way.
"You are Americans?" he said it as if it was an insult.
"Yes," I answered sincerely. "I apologize for disturbing your nap. Where are you from?"
"Look at these two idiots," he engaged his friends, in Macedonian.
"That lady looks ancient," the girl said.
"Maybe she is the only whore he could afford," the second guy laughed.
"What do you call a Macedonian man with a sheep?" I asked Pamela.
"Married," she snickered. The three were stunned that we knew their lingo. "What do you call a Macedonian in a restroom?"
"Lost. What do you call," I was continuing the verbal offensive. At which point the two guys slipped off their bunks and got all riled up.
"You two had better watch out," the leader growled. He brandished an antler-handled knife, too.
"Let's get one thing straight," I turned to face him.
"You are feeling insulted after you insulted my grandmother and me. We responded to your boorish behavior by disrespecting you and your countrymen. You got served," I pointed out.
"Apologize," he demanded. "I'm not afraid of you."
"I apologize," I shrugged. He and his buddy were flummoxed.
"You are pissing me off," he grumbled. I took off my shirt because I needed to change.
"So, after you insulted me, you asked me to apologize. I apologized. Now, you are pissed off because I did what you requested?" I mused.
"I think he's one of those homosexuals who likes to wrestle men," Pamela drawled.
"He's not a homosexual. He's a Macedonian," I countered.
"Macedonians are what Europeans call Homosexuals, Son," Pamela enlightened me.
"Shut up, Old Lady," the second guy stabbed a finger at Pamela. She grabbed that one finger, twisted and bent it in ways nature had not intended and the boy was on his knees crying.
The knife guy took his eyes off me so I obliged him by knocking the knife out of his hand. He stumbled back while the girl rushed me. To her credit, she tried to kick me, as opposed to bum-rush me. She was having difficulty trying to figure out what to do, what with me holding her foot at waist level. I could see her next foolish action playing across her face.
"Please don't," I advised her. "Doing a roundhouse kick with me holding your other foot is incredibly difficult and if you haven't trained to do it, you are far more likely to land on your head than hit me." She was doing the same calculations. I let her foot go and took a step back. She took a step back as well, plus she gave me a sexually curious twist of the lips.
The knife-guy retrieved his blade and moved to confront me once more.
"Emil, stop it," the girl stated. He wasn't in the mood to listen to reason. The man stepped forward, made one jab, followed by a wide slash.
"Monkey-brains," I complained as I caught his wrist, again.
I continued through with the attack by driving my knee into his groin, and when he was doubled over, a knee to the jaw. The knife fell out of his slackened grasp, then I shoved him back onto his bunk.
"Um, ah, I'm Divna. Would you please let my brother go? His name is Neven," she looked from me to Pamela, then back.
Pamela let the guy go with a smile and a nod to the girl.
"You had better hide any drugs and weapons you have," Pamela counseled.
"Why?" Divna inquired.
"Have you missed the tons of cops down by the ferry?" I said.
"What cops?" Neven worried.
"Cops, National Police and a helicopter, or two," I informed them.
"Ya," Pamela nodded. "They might come around and check out any strangers in town. Just a friendly word of warning." They hadn't been friendly to us, which wasn't an issue.
What we didn't need was anyone running to the cops and pointing them our way. Pamela's and my duffels had a nice little ribbon with the Republic of Ireland's "Diplomatic Status" stamped on it. In theory, that made the bags immune to search and seizure. Of course, if I made a stink about it, Ireland might begin wondering who the fuck I was and who in the hell qualified me as a member of their diplomatic corps.
"Are we going to have any more problems?" I looked the three Macedonians over. Divna and Neven shook their heads. It turned out that Emil was Divna's boyfriend. He was still trying to will his balls to drop out of his stomach cavity. I picked up his knife and handed it to Divna.
"Who are you?" Divna was warming up to me already.
"I'm Cáel Nyilas, Agent of SHIELD. My companion is an LMD (Life Model Decoy) called PAMELA, which stands for Puissant Assault Military-grade Efficiently Lethal Android. Director Fury has sent on us on a special covert mission to infiltrate M.A.R.S. and bring back proof that they are experimenting with illegal nano-technology," I confided to them.
"She's an android?" Neven gawked.
"Didn't she feel stronger than any human possibly could?" I asked. Of course the majority of Pamela's power had come from leverage, not raw strength, but for Neven, being owned by an artificial human was much easier to accept than being beaten by a woman clearly forty years his senior.
"You are right," Neven nodded eagerly.
"Well, my partner and I have a meeting to go to. You three behave, act like nothing is amiss," Pamela stated, "and we'll see you later tonight."
"You are coming back, though?" Divna inquired.
"Absolutely," I confirmed. "I have a six person industrial espionage team, masquerading as college students that I need to interrogate. They will be staying here in this room tonight."
"Oh," Divna gulped.
"Don't worry. I'll keep the noise down," I lied.
"Good-bye gang," Pamela waved as she steered me out the door. I left word with the manager about where we were going, in case the boat girls asked. Once she got us out onto the street, Pamela bumped against me. "Cáel, you scared me today. I don't like that feeling," Pamela admitted.
"Me getting shot? I've been shot, stabbed and beaten plenty of times," I replied.
"Not on my watch," she sighed. "Never when your life was in my hands. I have to say it truly sucked." I put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her to my side as we walked.
"Pamela, the only thing that matters to me is that we are doing something worth the risk, making a difference, saving lives and never giving-in to fear," I comforted her.
"You are such a hopeless romantic," she smiled at me.
"I prefer hopeful romantic," I grinned. "Like 'hopefully I will get laid six times tonight'."
"It could be seven," Pamela was lightening up.
"I was actually hoping to have that one for breakfast," I laughed, and she joined in.
"By the way," Pamela snorted in amusement.
"Yes?"
"Congratulations on weaving Joss Whedon, Marvel Comics and the plot of GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra all into one nice, neatly-packaged lie," she snickered. "I continue to admire you."
"Well, I had to come up with something to explain my planned orgy tonight that still had her wanting to have sex with me in the morning. A guy's got to plan ahead," I teased.
"It is the art of telling people, not what they want to hear, but what they want to believe," Pamela pointed out. "It is your own spin on Bruce Lee's 'Art of fighting without fighting'."
The Both st. Brewery was easy enough to locate. This town was not overly big, most of the businesses were small scale operations (10~40 people) and agriculture was a big deal here. It also meant that everyone pretty much knew, or knew of, everyone else. Locating the person who didn't belong wasn't all that difficult in a bar around 4 pm on a Saturday afternoon.
"Hi," I sat down. "You must be the intelligence officer we were told to meet."
"Could you keep it down? We don't want to make a scene," the only other stranger in the sparse, late afternoon, eight person crowd cautioned us.
"Excuse me, but we are in a burgh of roughly seven thousand people," Pamela chided him. "We stand out by simply being here."
"How about you try and keep it down anyway?" he countered snidely.
"Fine. I'm Cáel and this is Pamela," I made the introductions.
"What name do you go by?" Pamela asked when he wasn't immediately forthcoming.
"Whatever is handy," he said.
"Your name is 'Whatever S. Handy? How sad," I remarked.
"No. My name is not important," he retorted.
"Would you make up your mind? Is that 'Knot' with a 'K'?" Pamela frowned.
"Were you named after Don Knotts, the comedic actor?" I inquired.
"Stop it. Just call me Mister," he grumbled.
"That's not very original and could easily confuse any number of male patrons. How about we use something 'mission specific'? We will call you American Super Spy," I suggested.
"Keep your voice down," he hissed insistently.
"Oh, come on Cáel, that's too long. Let's break it down to the acronym," Pamela winked at me.
"Right, but let's keep that personal touch, too," I stressed.
"Absolutely," Pamela agreed with me. To the stranger, "How does Mister Ass sound to you?"
"Wait. Wasn't there a wrestler named Mister Ass?" I questioned.
"You are right, Billy Gunn!" Pamela shared my alarm.
"How could you ever forget the Fame-ass-er!?" I faux-gasped.
"I'm ashamed of myself," Pamela owned up to her disgrace.
"What is wrong with you people?" the guy butted in. Pamela and I stared at him innocently.
"Okay, just call me whatever," he muttered, then caught onto our game. "I mean call me whatever name in common usage you two can remember."
"Up?" Pamela said to me.
"Up?" I mused.
"Yeah," Pamela nodded, "it is a word in common usage, has a multitude of meanings so you are never really sure what it means, Up."
"Works for me. Hello Up."
"You two are being dicks," Up glared. "Do you have any friends?"
I looked at Pamela who looked back at me. We both looked back to Up.
"Just each other," we jointly affirmed. His reaction to a life-and-death situation was very different than ours and it was showing. It got better too.
"Hi Cáel and Cáel's Grandmother," Monika called out as she and the other five girls entered the brewery/pub. Unlike us, the girls had made better time because they knew the town.
"Who are they?" Up whispered.
"Do I have to explain the Birds and the Bees to you?" Pamela responded in a loud clear voice.
"No," Up mumbled.
"Then don't worry about them," Pamela smirked.
"Cáel, are you going to be long?" Orsi inquired, in Hungarian. "The girls and I were thinking we could all have an early dinner together."
"I'm being debriefed by a deep cover NATO operative who is in this country illegally, so it shouldn't take too long," I enlightened her.
"Do you two want to get arrested?" Up groused.
"Nah," Pamela replied. "In case you missed it, no one here gives a damn about what happened across the bloody river. No locals got shot, so they are choosing blissful ignorance," Pamela taunted him. "Besides, there hasn't been a straight female law enforcement agent created yet who can resist Cáel here. Me? I'm a contortionist. I'm not terribly worried."
"You should be," he grunted. "One call to the Terrorelhárítási Központ (TEK, the Hungarian National Counter-terrorism Centre) and you guys are going into a deep, dark hole. They have a different view of Civil Rights in this country."
"Scared?" I asked Pamela.
"Yes. You?"
"Terrified," I stifled a yawn. "Let's cooperate."
"Agreed. Okay Up, what do you want to know?" Pamela offered politely enough.
"What can you tell me about the Metro shootout?" he began.
Orsi and Anya joined us with their beers, fresh from the distillery.
"Ladies, this is a private discussion," Up tried to dismiss my prospective fuck buddies. Blink.
"Is it possible you are incapable of a verbal exchange in the local language?" I asked Up. See, saying 'do you speak Hungarian?' was probably a phrase he'd memorized.
Up stared at me a few seconds too long.
"Let's keep the conversation to French, Mandarin, or Russian," Up countered. I guessed he was ignorant of Euro-Chick multi-linguicism.
"Well, why don't you start with what agency you are with? It is painfully obvious you are not with the Central Intelligence Agency, that's for sure," I accused him, in Russian.
"Who I am with is not important," he declared. Pamela shifted around the table to make room for the arriving girls.
"Do you feel that?" Pamela smiled at Up. "That's my knife pressing against your femoral artery." Pamela was beside him with one hand under the table.
"Here is how it is going to go down; you will answer our questions and we are going to answer your questions. Or, I'm going to slice your femoral artery from mid-thigh to crotch with my blade while I crush your trachea so you can't scream, much less beg for help while we walk away. You will be dead inside a minute. How do you want this to play out?" Pamela laid out her proposal.
I noticed Anya blanch. She apparently understood Russian as well.
"It is okay Anya," I said in Bulgarian, as I tilted her chin so that we were eye to eye. "We are trying to save lives, not take them. You saw how we behaved on your boat. In this fight, they are the aggressors and we are going to stop them."
"By threatening to murder that man?" Anya reposted.
"He either agrees to tell us what we need to know and will keep you and your friends out of this, or yes, Pamela will kill him," I explained. "You saved our lives. I cannot repay that kindness by letting these other people threaten you."
"Oh, okay," Anya gave me a weak smile. Back to Up.
"Do you know what happens if I end up dead after coming to meet you?" Up grumbled, in Russian.
"I'll use an Ouija board and let you know how it turns out," Pamela gave a shark-like grin.
"At the Metro," I decided to move things along, "me and the people I'm with were jumped by a team of mercenaries who belonged to an organization called the Condottieri. They were definitely second-stringers. They were sloppy, so they ended up dead."
"And?" Up prodded.
"And either the next words out of your mouth had better be useful to us, or be what you want said over your unmarked grave, Asshole," Pamela purred.
"I can't tell you that," he stated. I shrugged in Romanian.
"Ladies, it is time for us to leave," I addressed my boat-buddies as I stood to leave. "Say good-bye to Mr. Up."
"Is she going to kill him now?" Anya's eyes were wide with worry.
"Yes; yes she is, Anya. This is not a game. This is very harsh reality and I'm sorry I've gotten you involved in this mess," I sympathized.
"G, good-bye Mr. Up," Anya said softly as a tear escaped down her cheek.
With that incredibly human reaction, it dawned on Up that Pamela was an assassin with ice-water in her veins and that his intransigence was about to cost him his life.
"Wait," he called out, in Russian. "I am with the National Security Agency. I've been assigned to track major financial transactions between key global financial institutions.
We discovered funds from Intesa Sanpaolo, a major Italian banking institution, had been involved with numerous work permits for properties in London we've associated with those so-called Ukrainians in the All Hallows Shootout," he confessed.
"I know those guys," Pamela laughed. "They used to be Banco Ambrosiano Veneto. They were called 'God's Bankers', and not for being even remotely holy. Their leadership consisted of corrupt Masons, so I think that points to the Condottieri, not the Egyptians."
"Egyptians? What Egyptians?" Up got interested. "Muslim Brotherhood?"
"No. Contact Federal Prosecutor Javiera Castello for the details on the Egyptians. We don't have the time to bring you up to speed," I told him in Russian. "Suffice it to say, you are on the right path and watch your ass. These guys have no problem shooting up a crowd to kill one person."
"Fine. What does any of that have to do with the bomb threat today?" Up requested.
"That was totally fabricated by me," I confessed. "It turned out there was a top flight hit squad in Budapest. They bribed a member of a covert operations group to betray the group's leadership whom I was meeting with to discuss regional security. When they attacked, my friend here and I provided a distraction so that leader could escape.
That left us with our backs to the River Tisza. We met these fine young women, who saved our lives by taking us onboard their boat and bringing us here. Since the opposition was quite large and on the west side of the river, I needed to keep the ferry on the east bank," I brought Up up to speed in Russian.
"Don't forget the parlay and you nearly getting killed," Anya interjected.
"Parlay? What is that code for?" Up asked.
"It is code for Cáel doing stupid shit," Pamela chastised me.
"He was trying to save a girl, a girl running with a dangerous crowd," Anya insisted.
"We ain't too pretty," Pamela hummed.
"We ain't too proud," I completed. Crickets.
"You are very pretty, Cáel," Anya complemented me and squeezed my hand on the table.
"Oh my God," Pamela gasped. "We are living in an anti-Billy Joel wilderness."
"Don't sweat it," I grinned. "You are just as cute as Christie Brinkley."
"That's nice of you to say," Pamela smiled, "considering she's younger than me."
"Oh! You are finally saying something I can understand," Monika yelped. "I know Ms. Brinkley. She's an environmental activist, but she's old." I chuckled.
"Monika, I swear to you, Cáel and I are not romantically, or physically, involved," Pamela addressed the issue, in German. "Call me old again and I'll cut your hair off while you are asleep. Are we clear?"
"Yes Ms, Mrs, I don't know your name?" Monika paled.
"Don't!" Pamela fixed me with a spooky glare. I was about to call her 'Honey Boo-boo'.
"Pamela in Greek means 'Honey', I swear," I grinned.
"That wasn't what you were thinking," Pamela's eyes narrowed. She looked over at the girls. "Cáel and I are psychically linked." They all nodded. "I think we've had enough of Greeks for one day," Pamela noted. I conceded the issue.
"Have you told me everything?" Up persisted.
"The key words you might want to be looking for are Ajax, Alal, Baraqu and Cáel," I suggested.
"Barak? Is there an Islamist angle?" Up showed his mind was stuck in 2013.
"B-a-r-a-q-u," I spelled it out for him. "It is a Sumerian name, but any religion that man practiced was a long, long time ago. In fact, the fate of Western Christendom as well as Islam is being decided in China as we speak, so get with the program."
"This 'Khanate' situation? Strategically speaking, the Chinese should settle their hash soon," Up pronounced. "At the same time, the Russians will close in from the north and that's that," he sounded confident.
"Whatever," I shrugged. "Let's get a bit to eat," I suggested to everyone else.
"Up, don't send the police after us, or have someone tail us, please," Pamela requested as she stood. Up didn't reply, which was okay. We weren't expecting a truthful comeback.
Outside, the girls got all cuddly (YES!!). I had one final piece of business to perform. How were we going to find the rest of our company? I was going to use a United States espionage technique that (almost) never failed. I was going to pretend to be a Canadian. I borrowed Anya's phone for this call. Ring, ring,
"Bonjour?" a female voice murmured. She was so sexy.
"Anais, it's Cáel," I let that sink in.
"Cáel? It is really you?" she sounded suitably shocked.
"I'm afraid so, and I need a big favor," I tried to remain upbeat.
"Oh, of course you do. Hang on a moment," she insisted. She was having our phone call recorded and traced. For some reason, okay, I KNEW why she didn't trust me. Forty-five seconds later, "Who is Anya and where are you calling from?" she spoke using The Force.
"Anya is a Bulgarian mechanical engineering student," I sighed. "She's petite, dark-skinned and we haven't had sex yet," I added the last bit as a plea for mercy.
"Give her the phone," Anais commanded.
"Anya, this is a former girlfriend of mine. She lives in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada and she is with the Gendarmerie royale du Canada, aka a Mountie," I told Anya before handing her phone back.
"Hello?" Anya cautiously entered the interrogation. Twenty questions later, "Hold on, I said, shut the fuck up!" she was screaming over the interruptions at the end. "Listen, I don't know who you are, but I saw Cáel get the shit beat out of him, I saw a person killed and I've been shot at with automatic weapons. I've had a bad day. Are we clear!
My name is Anya, I am Bulgarian. I'm studying Mechanical Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague," she informed Anais. "We are in Mindszent, Hungary. No, I will not give you my last name, why? Because people are trying to KILL ME! Didn't I make that clear earlier?" Anya gave me the phone back.
To be continued.
By FinalStand, for Literotica