"Negative, Leytenant. I have no trail on the two targets that managed to escape. Da, will continue to look, and will link up with Treker 1 and 4 to move on to the next location. Treker 3 out," the Spetnaz soldier said as he turned toward the exit of the alley.
He didn't get a chance to walk forward as his head was sent into a wall at high speed. His helmet took the biggest brunt of the impact, but he had made the mistake of not using the face shield that day. The massive hand that seemed to come from nowhere shattered most of the bones in his face. He stumbled, his eyes mostly useless now, and felt his bayonet being pulled from its sheath, and then plunged in under his arm and into his heart.
Ethan regarded the corpse with little more than a source of resources. Radio was useful to keep track of their ops, and the rifle, though it was a piece of shit in the American's eyes, was better than his revolver.
"You are not one to waste too much time, are you Senor," Roberta asked as he picked the AKS74U up and checked the chamber.
He looked over at her, "Don't really have the option right now. Boris told me once that these new soldiers were nothing compared to the Red Army. I have fought against the Red Army, I have to agree with him. Here, I prefer a longer rifle anyways."
"Gracias," she said as took a step and her dress nearly tripped her up.
She grimaced. She used to be able to engage in elite acrobatics in these dresses, what had changed? Was she going to have to look into a modification when she arrived home?
"Issues," Ethan asked noticing.
"Nothing major," she replied.
Ethan looked at her for a second. She was a little self conscious of his look, but did her best to keep her cool, and her heartbeat under control. Dressed as he was in a nice professional business suit, and being this close, her infatuation was making it way more difficult than she would really like to admit.
"Stand still," he said as he approached with the soldier's bayonet.
She wasn't sure what he intended until he dropped down to one knee, grabbed the hem of her skirt between her legs, and then cut up to just below her crotch. She was about to hit him with the butt of the rifle when he began wrapping the split pieces around her legs and rolling them up into a pair of ersatz pants.
"Uh, that should, make things much, easier, gracias," she tried her best to hide the fact she was breathing hard.
He stood up, "Sorry about the skirt, but we don't have time for you to twist an ankle in that get up. I've heard about what you can do, and you took out people I worked with in the past. As far as I can tell though, you're still human. I said I was going to get you back to the kid, so you are going to have put up with shit like this, got it?"
"Si," she barked quickly, almost not catching herself falling back into the paramilitary demeanor she had developed while part of F.A.R.C.
"Good, let's move."
They moved slowly, through area that was supposed to have been secured by the Colombians. It wasn't that big of a surprise that they fucked up and did nothing. Ethan couldn't help but let hate flow through him, stemming from a single Steyr GB. His.
He couldn't believe it. It seemed like this city couldn't get enough of torturing people. It shouldn't have surprised him, not given who Pipsqueak was. That he would have ever tracked her down, and harmed her, was going to factor into the retribution that Caleb Coffey was going to rain upon him.
"Senor Haines," Roberta placed an arm across his chest.
Ethan looked down at the tripwire he had almost hit. He needed to calm down, or it was going to get him killed. He was Ethan right now, Caleb could think about what he was going to do later.
"Thank you. I need to get my head in the game," he said.
The woman smiled, "It is nothing. Right now, we are each other's lifeline, if you die, there is a good chance I do."
Ethan couldn't help but smile in return, "Good to work with someone who actually knows the score again. It's been awhile. What do you think, grenade trap, or antipersonnel mine?"
They squatted down, and looked down the wire to a gap between a wall and garbage can. In the gap was a RGD-5 with a MUV on it. If anything, you could tell that their hunters were Russian Military. They weren't overly creative, but in the inherited power structure they worked, that was considered a bad thing.
Ethan went over and cut the wire, "Well, that could have been exciting. Hmm, might keep hold of this."
Roberta looked at the trap questioning, but actually wanted to see what he had in mind with it. She hadn't known him very long, but something about him seemed familiar. He had mentioned Mexico... what was she thinking?
They kept moving. Trying to avoid going out into the open if possible. They occasionally heard units making calls over the radio, and the announcement of the body of the soldier Ethan had killed. They knew the two were still around, and apparently they had managed to get enough of a foot hold that the gangs weren't able to dislodge them yet. That was concerning in and of itself. Worse was it appeared they were several blocks into the Spetsnaz lines.
"I can't fucking believe it. How did they manage to get this many men in place, especially without anyone noticing? They have at least a division's worth of units," Ethan was having trouble understanding the situation.
"You said they are Spetsnaz? Don't they at times go in as civilians," Roberta asked.
"Do they? Shit, that would explain a lot of shit that has gone down on previous ops I was on. They don't just have Spetsnaz though, they have regular ground forces as well. Shit, how did I not know that Spetsnaz went in undercover, especially having been at it for this long," Ethan's face dropped at his ignorance.
Roberta managed to hide a slight giggle at his appearance. He was actually really cute. For someone that at one point coldly ruined her skirt, and killed a man with absolutely no care, he didn't really try to hide any of his emotions. He must of really trusted her if he was willing to let down his defenses.
"We should probably get some rest. There should be somewhere we could go to ground," she changed the subject to make it easier on herself.
"Not a good plan right now. They may have most of their forces in active combat, but we already know they are looking for us. Shit, we need to figure out a way to get in contact with someone on the other side of the lines," he leaned against a wall in the alley they were in.
"We have the radio," Roberta offered.
He shook his head, "This isn't the shitty commercial units guerrillas tend to have. These are the latest greatest Russian Military units. They are going to be encoded to only transmit to their com-net, and scramble anything in case of interception. I don't even know where we are, not without people on the street. I don't pay attention to the buildings so much, as the gang members and civilians. They all have their own areas they inhabit, and I cant read Thai."
She should have thought about something like that. Had she really been away from things so long, that she had forgotten something so trivial. She was still so deadly, even if she wanted to leave that behind... What was she doing with a rifle in her hand now? Why did she take it so easily?
"You Ok," she came back to reality at Ethan's words.
She nodded, "I'm sorry. I just, am a little tired. I much prefer the life I have built as a simple maid and guardian for the Young Master. I, no longer am as well suited for these situations."
"No one is ever suited for these situations. You just have to hope you can adapt well enough to come out of it alive. We haven't run into any patrols, so it should be safe enough to take a couple of hours to rest. You go first, I will wake you up in an hour," he held his hand out for the AK.
Roberta handed it over and slid down the wall. She closed her eyes and was out almost immediately, thankful for the chance.
Ethan took another look at the woman as he sat down against the wall. Something about her kinda itched at the back of his head. He couldn't figure it out though, so he pushed it to the side until they were out of this. Still, he could have worse to look at in the situation.
He noticed that the apex of the cut in her skirt showed her lingerie, and he did his best to look away, even as a part of him wondered what the rest of it might look like. It wasn't really the best subject to think about in their circumstances, but it was better than the fact that there was a chance they wouldn't get out of the situation.
He listened to the radio, finding that his fluency in Russian might not have been as good as he would have liked, At least he didn't have any knowledge of the military codes since Afghanistan. The slang had changed a little too, but it wasn't the most difficult to figure out what they were meaning with the contexts of the messages.
Despite not wanting to, he kept looking over at the woman. He couldn't really lie and say she didn't look a bit ridiculous in the french maid getup, but he also couldn't deny she was really damn beautiful. She also wasn't bad at what they were dealing with. There weren't that many people with as much experience as he had at surviving bullshit situations, and he was expecting his number to come up sooner rather than later with this. Shame if they survived, he was probably never going to see her again once she headed back to Venezuela.
Eventually the hour was up and he woke Roberta. He was out almost as quickly once the AK was handed over. It might have confused and bothered people not used to conflict, but most soldiers and mercenaries wouldn't have given it a second thought.
Roberta didn't have much choice but to look at the sleeping man. Something kept bothering her, but she just couldn't place it. It probably didn't matter in the scheme of things. She was a little sad though, given that once she left, she might never return to this god forsaken hellhole. It was amazing to think that there was anything that could make the place bearable.
Ethan's eyes shot open suddenly, and he put a hand to the headset connected to the radio. His eyes got wide and he started scanning the rooftops he could see from his position.
"Frontlines are pushing back this way. We need to find a place to go to ground now. Sounds like it is mainly Hotel Moscow fighting back, but we have Chinese incoming. Not to mention that they are pushing against most of a platoon of regular soldiers," Ethan got to his feet, and held out his hand to help Roberta up.
"Would it be worth trying to set up an ambush, help them out some," the woman double checked the magazine of the rifle.
Ethan shook his head, "Might end up making ourselves targets by accident. Best thing we can do is find a building, and wait for the push to advance past us," he moved toward the back of the alley.
Unfortunately, one of the trackers chose that moment to step out of a doorway right in his face. Both men were somewhat shocked, but Ethan recovered just slightly faster. Fast enough that he was able to push the man back, and grab his rifle from him while he was off balance.
Ethan stepped forward and struck hard with the butt across the mans face, knocking him unconscious. He started to bring his foot up to drive his heel down into the man's face, but decided against it. Instead he pulled out the grenade trap from his pocket and looked at the prostrate form.
"This is probably the cruelest, and most dickish, thing I can think of doing. This is going to be fun," he said as he started setting the man up against a wall and taking everything useful off of him.
A few minutes later they found themselves behind the counter of a store filled with corpses. Apparently, the Spetsnaz forces hadn't wanted to take the chance of any resistance behind them. The idea of slaughtering everyone you couldn't secure was sound, but horrified both Ethan and Roberta. Both were no strangers to this, but one was seeking redemption from these acts, and the other could only see his own child caught up in it.
For an hour or two, things were quiet. They wondered if the front-lines had stabilized since there wasn't much traffic on the radio. A message about an unconscious unit came over, and then they heard a grenade detonate a few blocks over.
"So, I guess your idea of rigging the man wasn't the biggest waste of time," the woman said, becoming more and more worried about Garcia and Fabiola as time wore on.
Ethan shrugged, "Sounds like it got a good five or six of them in the blast radius. Hopefully it forces them to try to stay in that area, instead of coming this way."
"You speak Russian, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Maybe you can misdirect them or something."
Ethan shook his head, "They are using codewords and slang I don't know. They would figure me out immediately. I thought I missed this at one point. I guess I learned I don't."
"People in this city seem to have a high opinion of you," Roberta said, remembering a few stories she had heard while picking up food and other necessities.
"They have respect for who they think I am. I used to try to live up to it. I recently found out I had a daughter, she showed up just a few days ago. Now I don't care as much. I, may never see her again after next week, if I live through this. So, they can take their opinions, and shove them up their ass. Sounds like Hotel Moscow is making a push where the Triads were. Tank? Are they... Where the fuck did Hotel Moscow get a fucking T64? What the utter fuck? I swear, everyday this city just gets so much weirder," Ethan threw his hands up in surrender to the crazy.
Roberta looked at him just as surprised, "Uh, I guess that is, one way to make a breakthrough."
"Hopefully. I swear, where were they even keeping that fucking thing? Sounds like the Spetsnaz are having a fit trying to figure out how to handle it. They weren't expecting any kind of armor, so they didn't bring any anti-armor weapons. Small favors and all that," he rubbed his eyes as a gunshot went off next to his head.
Ethan immediately turned and dropped, bringing his rifle up to bear, only to find a Russian soldier missing his cheekbones. He looked over to see Roberta with a smirk on her face.
"I can't let you have all the fun, Tipazo," she said lowering the weapon.
"Maldita sea, avísame antes de intentar volarme el puto tímpano. Bueno, supongo que tenemos que encontrar otro lugar para escondernos.(God dammit, warn me before you try to blow out my fucking eardrum. Well, guess we need to find another place to hide.)," as usual, Ethan switched out to spanish when angered enough.
Roberta for some reason just wanted to kiss him seeing him so flustered. What was wrong with her now? Was it old age?
A/N: I don't tell all of you how much I appreciate your continued patronage of this story enough. I know it has been a long time, and it doesn't seem like it is getting any closer to completion, while I have fic two years newer and eighty one chapters long that I have finished and started a sequel to.
Mechanic means a lot more to me, and I try to make it the best I can. I spend a lot of time just letting things run through my head to get an idea where things are going. This story is a labor of love. I also enjoy every review I get, and they help me figure out where I need to improve.
Just the journey of seeing a main OC find his place with such an established crew, I never thought that I would be able to do as well as I am lead to believe I have. I have often said that Black Lagoon is a series about relationships, not necessarily romantic ones, with action slotted inbetween.
Please, I want to hear what everyone thinks, and if they have any ideas for how I can improve the story. I can't say I will take them verbatim, but I will find a way to make them work if I can. Also, I will take PMs if you would rather do it that way.