Life as a New Hire Ch. 32

"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?"

[Macedonian] "Look at these two idiots," he engaged his friends.

[Macedonian] "That lady looks ancient," the girl said.

[Macedonian] "Maybe she is the only whore he could afford," the second guy laughed.

[Macedonian] "What do you call a Macedonian man with a sheep?" I asked Pamela.

[Macedonian] "Married," she snickered. The three were stunned that we knew their lingo. "What do you call a Macedonian in a restroom?"

[Macedonian] "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.

"Ummm...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."