In the head of the Cartel's mansion, the man in white paced at the head of the same table, where he addressed his subordinates. He held the same 1927 Sistema semi-automatic Roberta favored in his left hand, though this weapon was polished chrome. The pearl grips flexed under his fingers as he asked, not raising his voice, nor looking to the man with whom he was speaking, "So tell me again, Fernando; why am I paying you?"
Every now and again, the man in white twitched, raising the tension throughout the room as he stepped back and forth. Finally he turned to face the man he was speaking to and again calmly asked, sure to accentuate his name as he spoke it, "Fernando?"
"Boss?" Fernando quietly replied.
"Why the fuck, am I fucking paying you!" The man in white roared. "Last night, my fucking package boy makes a delivery to Tumaco, and this morning, he tells me the ship from Roanapur is coming in early. I'm paying you to be my eyes and ears, and my useless fucking, piece-of-shit nephew, is the one to tell me this."
"Boss-"
Fernando was interrupted as the boss placed a .45 caliber slug in his skull. Fernando's blood sprayed onto his white suit and he turned the gun onto the rest of his subordinates. They all flinched as he calmly spoke and waved the gun about, "Let this be a fucking lesson to each and every one of you bitches; Jesus Escamillo will not tolerate failure!" As two of his men dragged Fernando's corpse from the room, Jesus pointed to him with his gun and continued, "If any of you fuck up like that fucking asshole, and are stupid enough to come back here, you will end up just like him!"
Silence filled the room and finally, Jesus managed to calm himself. He placed his gun on the table and gave it a spin which seemed to ease the tension in the room for a moment. He pulled a vial from his coat pocket, cracked it and sniffed the contents, then picked up the gun. Again his men seemed to cower in their seats and he addressed them once more, "These Roanapur bitches arrive in Tumaco in four hours. I want our best guns to follow them to the fields. Wait until they think they're home free, slow them down, and bring them to me. I don't trust any of you fucking idiots to take care of this job then and there."
"Boss we can-"
Jesus raised his pistol to the ceiling and fired off a single shot, interrupting one of his men, "Shut the fuck up! Just do as I fucking tell you, and bring them here, alive."
At the port of Tumaco, the Lagoon Company piled into a military issue jeep. As she took a seat in on the unpadded bench in the rear, Revy commented, "We're rolling in fuckin' luxury these days."
Benny adjusted the driver's seat, and Dutch turned to face Captain Delgado, "Much obliged, Captain."
"Anytime, Dutch." The Captain handed Dutch a rather cumbersome yellow phone and commented, "I don't know how you feel about these, but you're a long way from home; I think you'd be smart to take it with you."
Dutch smiled as he accepted the phone, "Satellite phone, right?"
Captain Delgado smiled and replied, "That's right. All the numbers you should need to get me are on the back, and the battery is good for a week."
From the back seat, Rock replied, "I can't imagine we'll need it, but better safe than sorry, right?"
"Smart kid you have there, Dutch."
Dutch turned back to face Rock, and replied, "Don't let him fool you; he's one crazy son-of-a-bitch."
The Captain smiled and knocked on the side of the jeep signaling them to go, and with little hesitation, Benny pulled the jeep onto the main road out of the port.
"So where the fuck is this place?" Revy shouted over the wind and road noise.
"'Bout an hour north of Bogota," Dutch replied. "We've got a long drive ahead of us, but on the bright side, it's barely noon. We play our cards right, and we should be back in Tumaco just in time to head on home."
Revy wanted nothing more than to get into a fight with the boss over his unfailing optimism. With the noise and having to scream to speak, she kept her frustration simple, "Awfully fuckin' optimistic, boss-man."
"We play it cool, ain't no reason anyone should fuck with us, Revy."
She kept her outburst to herself, and merely pulled one of her Cutlass from its holster. At the sight of her pulling one of her guns, Rock's eyes locked on her. She slid the magazine from the frame, and reinserted the gun into its holster. Taking the magazine into her right hand, she pushed out one 9x19 after another into her left hand. Rock smiled slightly; he'd seen her do this before. The morning they left Japan to come back to Roanapur, a few weeks later right before Roberta returned to Roanapur, and once more the morning after Roberta and company left for Venezuela.
It seemed to be some sort of pseudo-self-therapy. In truth, the sight of her in such an obsessive compulsive state was both highly unsettling, and at the same time, calming to some degree. She'd only started doing this bizarre ritual recently, and only seemed to do so when she was nervous. He silently watched on as she mouthed her count, "…twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen."
She switched hands, and began feeding the cartridges back into the magazine, again counting to herself. Finally, he spoke just loud enough to try and keep their conversation buried under the wind and road noise, "Are you alright, Revy?" She didn't turn to him, and again he asked, just a bit louder, "Revy?"
"Huh?" She looked up from what she was doing, and with a completely innocent look on her face asked, "What?"
Rock looked and nodded in the direction of her hands, and they simply stared at one another for a moment. After a few seconds of silence Rock continued, "You double-check your bullet counts when you're nervous."
"And?" Revy curtly replied.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fuckin' fine, Rock," Revy quietly barked, ending their conversation. After finishing her count, Revy pulled her Cutlass and reinserted the magazine. She snapped the slide back, chambering a round, and holding the hammer with her thumb, she squeezed the trigger decocking the weapon. She slipped the weapon back in its holster and without a thought pulled the other Cutlass. She instinctually repeated the process with the other gun, only to find Rock staring at her, stopping her in her tracks.
The emotion and concern in that stare was so thick it could have been cut with a knife. Not looking to have this conversation ever, never mind having to scream it, Revy resumed what she was doing and offered just loud enough for Rock to hear, "Go to sleep, Rock. I'll wake you up when we get there."
In the Lovelace mansion, Gabriel was just finishing up the details of the shipment with Garcia. He was amazed how much like his father Garcia had become. He quickly caught on to everything Gabriel explained, and soaked up knowledge like a sponge.
"Captain Cantillo is a good man, and has been doing business with your father for years," Gabriel explained. "I have no doubt he'll help you smooth over any issues with the transaction."
"I think I'm ready," Garcia happily replied.
They went over the details once more, while outside the study, Roberta watched on. As they were heading out for the day, she was dressed in a feminine business suit as opposed to her maid's attire; black slacks, collared white button-down shirt, and a black dress coat. Her hair was tied back in a single ponytail, and beneath her coat, her chambered Sistema Colts patiently waited.
Garcia and Gabriel exited the study a few moments later, and Roberta discreetly turned to a mirror to adjust her collar. As Garcia approached her, he soaked up her attire with an awestruck glance. He'd never seen her dressed so elegantly, and in that moment, he felt like the luckiest man in the world, simply to be in the presence of such an amazing creature.
"Are you ready, Master Garcia?" Roberta asked with a warm smile.
Just barely out of his trance, Garcia replied with a telling grin, "Uh-huh."
Noticing his somewhat mesmerized gaze, Roberta looked to Gabriel and asked, "Is everything alright?"
Gabriel placed his hand on Garcia's shoulder, and Roberta couldn't help but lock her eyes on the simple action. "Garcia is catching on very quickly. His father would be proud."
"Thank you, Gabriel," Garcia replied, turning slightly to look him in the eye.
"You're welcome. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting with some of our clients back at the office. If you need anything, please don't hesitate to call," Gabriel offered before Roberta gestured to escort him to the door.
As she walked him to the door, Roberta spoke to Gabriel, "Thank you for helping the young master."
Gabriel turned in the doorway and proudly smiled, "He hardly requires helping. He's quite a bright young man." He looked her over briefly and quietly spoke, "Miss Roberta, I don't suppose I could impose on you to have dinner with me some night?"
Of all she'd seen and taken part in, in her twenty-five years, Roberta had never been asked on a date. She'd never known the time or opportunity for that matter. However, as she stood before Gabriel, not much more than a shy girl being asked out for the first time, she barely even thought on her response as she spoke it, "No thank you."
The abruptness of her rejection brought Gabriel to flinch and ask, "I'm sorry, how rude of me. Are you seeing someone?"
Just as his thoughts were of her, ever since their kiss in the jungles of Roanapur, hers were of Garcia. A slight grin appeared on her lips and she quietly spoke, "I am."
Revy, Rock, Dutch and Benny stood in a large make-shift hut in the middle of an expansive coca field. At the sight of the numerous trays of white powder throughout the hut, they each stood with their mouths agape in complete shock and awe. The sheer scale of the amount of cocaine in the room was something none of them had ever seen before. Of course it would be Revy who stated the obvious in its most simple form, "Now that's a lot of fuckin' coke."
The would-be shop foreman gave a high-pitched chuckle and commented, "We harvest best product in all of Colombia."
Dutch collected his jaw and replied, "Yeah so about our pickup?"
The foreman collected a moderately sized duffle bag from a stack of several others just like it, and threw it to Rock. He carefully caught it and Dutch approached him and slid the zipper open. Revy joined them and commented, "We came all this fuckin' way for one fuckin' bag?"
"We no cut product here," the foreman curtly replied. "Abrego cut back in Roanapur."
"Bag like this'll probably yield five times its current value when that asshole's done with it," Dutch remarked.
Revy scoffed, still upset at their situation, "Whatever. Are we fuckin' done here?"
"I think so," Dutch replied. He turned back to the foreman and asked, "Anything else?"
"Go on, get fuck out here! You contaminate product!"
The Lagoon Company quickly headed out of the hut and Revy commented, "What a fuckin' asshole."
"Same as the fucker we're delivering to," Dutch replied. They piled into the jeep and Dutch spoke once more, "Come on, Benny-boy; take us home."
Benny adjusted his side-view mirror, when activity behind him caught his attention. Several men seemed to be watching them, and he further tweaked the mirror to get a better look. Since the jeep hadn't moved after giving the okay to go, Dutch asked, "Somethin' wrong?"
Benny's eyes narrowed as he replied, "Five guys in that jeep back there." Dutch adjusted his mirror, as Benny continued, "They've been watching us since we got here. Since we walked out, they've been on their radios."
Revy smiled just slightly as she spoke, "You smell it, Dutch?"
Dutch lit a cigarette and quickly exhaled a puff of smoke before replying, "I hate it when you're right, Revy."
Not wanting to turn around and give up that they knew they were being watched, Rock asked, "Somebody want to fill me in?"
"I'll bet my boat we're looking at a rival Cartel."
"But how'd they know we were here?" Rock asked.
"Don't matter," Dutch casually answered. "I've heard of shit like this but I've never actually fuckin' seen it; rival cartels who think they deserve their countries drugs more than some other asshole."
Dutch pondered what to do for a moment, and Benny finally asked, "What's the word, Dutch?"
"Pull out of here nice and slow, Benny-boy," Dutch replied. As the jeep slowly progressed through the field and into the woods, Dutch glanced over his right shoulder towards his gunslinger and spoke, "Stay sharp, Revy."
"Locked and loaded, Dutchy," Revy replied with a smile as she discreetly unsnapped her holsters. Just looking on her smiling lips, her barely exposed clenched teeth, a chill went up Rock's spine. No matter how many times he'd seen her become gleeful at the prospect of a gunfight, it never got any easier to watch.
"These guys try any shit, don't get fancy," Dutch ordered. "Slowin'em down, or stopping them altogether is better than trying to take each and every one of'em out."
"Relax, boss-man," Revy calmly replied. "These fuckers try anything, I'll-"
As they pulled onto the main road, the sight of a half-dozen approaching jeeps interrupted Revy, and Benny shouted, "Fuck! Hang on to something!" He slammed his left foot onto the emergency brake, and cut the wheel hard left. Before the jeep had completely turned, he disengaged the brake and forced the shifter into first, despite the protests of the gearbox. While Benny was the most mild-mannered of the Lagoon Company, he did enjoy a good car chase. A smile appeared on his lips and he shouted, "Here we go!"
All four of the jeep's tires ripped at the loose gravel, and they quickly got to speed.
"You two alright back there?" Dutch shouted over his shoulder. Before they could even respond the gunfire commenced. "Fuck!" Dutch growled as he pulled his 629 from its holster. "Revy?"
A bullet skimmed the side of the jeep just beside Rock, and immediately Revy's heart jumped. "Rock! Get the fuck down!" Revy roared as she drew her Cutlass. "Ready, boss-man?"
"Remember; take out their vehicles, not them!" Dutch reminded.
"Got it!" Revy shouted. Taking notice that Rock was still cowering in a seated position, she grabbed him by his tie and pulled him down to the floor of the jeep. She moved the duffle bag behind him as somewhat of a bullet stop, and ordered, "Stay the fuck down, dumb-ass!" Another bullet came a bit too for comfort, and finally Revy got to work. She came out of cover with a smile on her lips, and quietly muttered to herself, "Dance for Miss Rebecca."
She opened fire on the encroaching jeeps, and began whittling down their numbers, flattening the front tires of one jeep, then another. Apparently their assailants finished a round of reloading and opened fire on her once again. She ducked back to the floor of the jeep and reloaded her Cutlass. She clicked the slide lock on the gun in her left hand with her pointer finger, and looked up only to find Rock staring at her. She paused her frantic motions for a moment, and Rock calmly spoke over the noise of the jeep and scattered gunfire, "Hi."
She chuckled just slightly as she clicked the magazine in place, "Hey." A bullet ripped through the seatback above her, and her smile vanished. An animalistic growl manifested in her lungs, and she let it out as she stood and opened fire once again, "Motherfuckers!"
Just so we're clear, our bad guy's last name is pronounced "Hey-zeus". You know, as in father of Apollo, Mt. Olympus?