Good evening everyone, this is my first attempt at writing an expendables fiction. I love the movies, i love the characters and I couldn't resist playing in this world with my OC. I hope it's a decent beginning, still getting the hand of writing stories. Thanks!
Drummer can hear the roar of the engine as the bikes draws closer, he takes a sip of his drink as he waits for his expected guest to enter the small bar. Sure enough, just a few moments later he hears the doors swing open and can hear the heavy footfalls of boots on the old wooden floor. Two pairs, he grins to himself wondering why the man didn't come alone. He turns in his seat and sees Barney Ross walking towards him. "How ya doin' Barney?" He greets him warmly with a handshake, Barney smiles back and nods. Drummer spares a glance at the man beside him and can tell that it's the Englishman he can barely understand. He barely acknowledges him, but asks Barney to join him at the bar for a drink.
Barney takes a beer, gulping half of it down before turning towards Drummer. "So what's the job?"
"Shall we just skip the pleasantries then?" Drummer asks with a laugh. He can hear the Brit mutter something under his breath but ignores him. He glances back at Barney, "You said you wanted something big right?"
Barney recalls their last few conversations, he and his team have done several jobs for Drummer over the past year but since their team has expanded the shares have grown smaller so a large job with a large fee would be preferred so they can take a nice break for a bit. "A big payday." Barney confirms as he lights his cigar.
"Well I have just the job." Drummer says with a smile as he passes him a file. "There's a very high profile target who's evaded capture for a very long time." Drummer starts, taking another sip of his drink. Barney and Christmas listen intently, "Someone has managed to acquire this target and the word on the grapevine is that they are going to hold an auction to sell the target to the highest bidder."
"So why not just go in and bid?"
Drummer tries his best not to roll his eyes at the Brit's interjection, "Cause we don't work like that. So instead we'll take the money and pay you and your team of misfits to grab the target."
"Before or after the target is sold?" Barney asks.
"I don't really care how or when, just that the target makes it back safely." Drummer takes particular care in saying the last word a bit louder. "I need her back in one piece, preferably no bullet or knife holes."
"Her?" Christmas and Barney both look so surprised.
"Yes. Her." Drummer says passing them a file.
Barney opens it, flicking through a few pages. "There are no photos." Christmas says looking over Barney's shoulder. Barney looks expectantly at Drummer. It does make the job a little harder when they don't quite know what their target looks like.
"Sorry boys. We can't help you with a photo, like I said, she's a hard one to find."
Barney looks at the information again, briefly glancing over a few details. "Allecto."
"No last name either I'm afraid. See…she's a bit of a mystery. Hell, that's probably an alias anyway but it's what she goes by in our world." Drummer says ordering another round.
Christmas takes a sip of his second beer before asking, "If she's such a mystery, why is she so important to you boys at the CIA?"
Barney closes the file and awaits Drummer's reply.
"Her name, Allecto, it's popped up in conjunction with a lot of jobs that have been done over the past few years. So many high profile jobs it'll make your head spin. Of course, no one has ever seen her, or lived to tell anyone how she looks. This is a stone cold killer gentleman, as smart as they come, and I need you to grab her from a bunch of crazy murderous, vengeful men who are going to be in a room trying to outbid each other to grab her and do all forms of unspeakable torture to her." Drummer says tossing back the remainder of his drink and throwing down a few twenties on the bar. He looks up to find Barney staring at him with doubt. He had been hoping he'd just grab the file and accept the job, not question the details.
"That simple huh?" Barney says sarcastically.
"Yeah, pretty straight forward. You make a plan, grab the target before she goes up for auction, while she's up for auction, or after she's been sold possibly after leaving for transport to her new home. I don't care when or how, you just need to get her and keep her in one piece while bringing her back to me and my men." Drummer explains.
"And what exactly are you and your men going to do to her that's so different from those murderous men?" Christmas doesn't quite like the idea of bringing in a woman to the CIA, knowing very well what they might do.
"The rumor is that she used to be one of us, became a ghost a few years back and started a new life doing what she does best. If this is the truth, then we have a few questions, she might have valuable intel that we can use to our advantage."
"And what if she's not an old Agent?" Barney asks, not liking the idea of turning a woman over to be tortured or worse.
"We're not going to torture her, just offer her a few options. So are you gonna keep asking me questions and doubting the job, am I going to have to find someone else to take this job?" Drummer asks glancing at the two men before pulling on his sun glasses, "I'm sure Trench Mauser would love the opportunity to…."
"We'll take it." Barney replies quickly, finishing his beer before grabbing the file and heading out the small bar into the hot afternoon sun, Christmas following him closely.
"You sure about this?" He asks the older man as he mounts his Ducati.
Barney mounts his chopper, putting the file in his pack before starting the engine. He revs it a few times, silently mulling over the small bits of information he knows about this job. There are a lot of unknown variables he's sure that Drummer failed to mention, not a whole lot of info in the file but he'll give it another look. "We'll ask Tool to look into it a little more, but yeah, I'm sure about this." Barney replies.
Christmas sighs and with a shrug they ride down the streets of New Orleans.
"Well, did you find anything?" Barney asks sitting on the small black couch in Tool's shop. It's been roughly 24 hours since he'd seen Drummer and been given the file. What little information was in the file had been passed around the team, they'd all talked about it and agreed to do the job but they also agreed that more information would be nice to know going into this kind of a job. So they had given the information to Tool and thankfully the old man seemed to come through.
"Her name is almost whispered in reverence among some circles." Tool says with a wry smile, "Allecto, a Fury. A woman that no man seems to trifle with. The few I spoke to refused to discuss it, and those that speak of her practically whisper in awe."
"Just visual aid gentleman," Tool tells them, he hears Luna clear her throat, "and Lady." he corrects himself with a smile as he tosses down some photos. "It's a picture of the furies, you know, like from Ancient Greece."
"What the hell…" Gunnar starts to ask before Toll cuts him off.
"The Furies, like from Greek mythology." Toll says with a slight smile, Mythology was always one of his favorite topics, second only to classical poetry. "In ancient Greek and Roman mythology a fury was the spirit of justice and vengeance. Punishing wrongdoers by driving them mad, and when not running around wreaking havoc, living in the underworld, Tartarus." He explains happily as the others look on.
Barney nods his head in appreciation for the history lesson before turning his attention back to Tool. "Did you get an actual picture of our target?" He asks.
Tool sighs loudly before taking a sip of beer. "No luck there, but I did get my hands on some information about some jobs her name's been attached to." Tool says dropping a folder almost two inches thick on the bar top. Barney and the entire team just stare at it for a moment disbelievingly. He glances back up at Tool. "That's not even all the jobs she's been attached to, that's just the ones that Intel shows she's been a part of. There's still tons more her name comes up in, but I figured at least this little bit would give you guys a good idea of what you were coming up against."
"Let's start reading." Barney says as he grabs a section, passing the folder down the bar to Christmas as the rest of the team starts reaching for pages.
A few hours and beers later they're all shocked at what they've read. Shocked and impressed, if half these jobs were truly Allecto's, the woman had one hell of a resume.
"Do you know what she would've had to do to access this locale?" Thorn asks excitedly. "She would've had to scale this cliff face and…." He continues muttering as Luna rolls her eyes, flicking through a few more pages.
"These jobs are all very complex, the weapons and equipment needed are top of the line in everything. Her weapon proficiency is incredible." Mars says in wonderment.
"Hand to hand combat is looking pretty crazy too." Smilee adds.
It becomes apparent to Barney that the young men all seem to be developing a crush on this 'Allecto' character. Luna seems unfazed, or at least she's trying to appear that way. The rest of his team seem equally impressed but not as vocal about it.
"So, we need to start planning this thing out." Barney says leaning back in his chair.
"I think the best approach might be hitting it after the auction has taken place." Thorn waits for the team's reaction.
Barney waits to hear more input, his original plan did involve going in after the auction but he wants to hear why his team feels the same way and if anyone has any other ideas before moving forward.
"I agree." Smilee says with a nod.
"It might make it easier since we won't have to deal with all the maniacs that'll be at the auction." Luna adds in.
"Yeah just the maniac that takes her home." Mars says with a grin.
Gunnar finishes another beer, adding it to the growing pile in front of him. "We can scout out a location to keep an eye on the compound so we can see who comes and goes."
"I'll plan a few escape routes and start thinking about which vehicles we'll need." Toll calls out from the back.
"I'll get some tranquilizer to keep the target in check during transport back." Doc adds in, after reading these files he sure as hell doesn't want this woman wide awake on the flight back.
"That sounds like a great idea." Galgo says with a smile.
"I think we should have eyes on the inside of this thing." Christmas adds quietly.
"That seems a little crazy." Smilee replies before Barney can interject.
"We have no real idea what we're up against or who is going to be involved in this thing…." Thorn starts explaining all the possible pitfalls of sending someone inside this auction.
"We know where it'll be held." Christmas replies.
"We know the city, not the exact location." Luna counters.
"Hey." Barney calls them to order, taking a long draw of his cigar before continuing. "We'll find out the exact location when we get there. There's still a lot of factors to consider, but if we can get two or three of us into this thing it might be beneficial. I do like the idea of grabbing the target once the auction has finished and she's being transported because that does make it easier. But it'd be nice to know what's happening inside this thing and who's going to be taking her home before we follow them there."
The team quiets down, all nodding their head in agreement. There's a lot of wrinkles to iron out, and a lot more Intel to rifle through before he feels completely comfortable with this assignment. He looks around at his team, they're some of the best talent the mercenary world has to offer, and they're his family. They can handle this. After all, how hard can it be to wrangle in one woman?
Well what do ya think? Thanks for taking a chance and reading. Any reviews/input is appreciated.