Itinerary
by Yukitsu
Standard Disclaimers Apply.
The first thing Balalaika did when she woke up that morning was look at the clock (eleven), smoke a cigarette (cloves), drink coffee (black, with a splash of milk), and brush her teeth (extra strong, with whitening). She did not take breakfast, and instead got to work immediately despite being in nothing but her underwear, scrutinizing documents and listing Important Things to be included in the itinerary for that afternoon's meeting.
She ate lunch at three with her comrade in arms, efficiently cutting at the meat despite not looking at her plate, despite being too busy talking about plans and people and future ghosts. They listened intently, and she listened to them, and over all it was a very productive meeting.
She didn't eat dinner that night. Instead Balalaika took a box of cigars and her lighter, and sat down next to a gun case in a jeep, in a section of Roanapur that she usually avoided because the American Mafia always felt like lording over the place. Balalaika would tell them exactly how little twelve blocks of canal was worth to everyone else, but she might be tempted to plug their bodies with bullets in Morse code.
Balalaika looked bored. Her sergeant sat next to her, quiet as always.
Three hours of stakeout now, five minutes of raid later. For the most part, Balalaika thought that it was a fairly slow night, and lit a cigar. Her position had been deliberately placed far enough from the target for this. Next to her, in another jeep, one of her men was mechanically cleaning a handgun. The blond recognized it as the one she gave him, and chuckled in amusement.
"Sixty minutes, Kapitan," her sergeant rumbled at her other side.
"Aaah," Balalaika replied, propping her elbow on the top of the window and her chin on her hand. The cigar's smoke wisped upwards in a wavy line; the glowing tip reminded her of gunfire when she could actually still enjoy shooting as a sport, and not as a means to an end.
It was a simple assignment, this time. Get rid of small insects trying to leech off the bigger insect's glory, and hopefully kill off the bigger insect while at it. They had all proven to be nuisances to her, at any rate, and what better opportunity was there than a big meeting between the leaders of all the factions?
Balalaika turned her gaze upwards, following the trail of the smoke until it disappeared into Roanapur's sky. At least the nuisances had the decency to conduct their meeting during the new moon. Roanapur's sky was clearer during the night, though she reckoned it was because there too little light to see the smog-stained clouds from where she was. It was a slow night.
"Kapitan."
She murmured something affirmative and killed her cigar. "Move out," Balalaika said in the next minute, getting out of the car slowly and fluidly as the rest of her battalion rushed forward in precise movements, moving as one unit just like that time in the desert. Not many of her comrades managed to stay with her up to this day, but they lived on in their successors.
"Sergeant." Balalaika cut herself a fresh cigar. The man hovered just behind her shoulder, as usual. "Tonight's bloodbath might just be entertaining after all."
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9:05PM 07/02/2007