extraction

I left the small room in the four story building one minute after the Hector exploded. I left with nothing. I mean absolutely nothing but my fake passport and a small wad of US Dollars. The Boss had sent me a message detailing the operation as much as could be anticipated. One of the things anticipated was that a man carrying a case with a rifle inside was likely to be shot on sight. If not, at least subjected to some very severe interrogation. Best not to be seen with one of those cases.

Also a man found with a huge roll of hundred dollar bills after an assassination might create some interest. Lowest on the list, but still on the list, was a gringo in a nice suit trying to get the hell out of Columbia. That also was likely to raise an eyebrow or two. The Boss had decided that it would be best, if I made my way to the coast in a taxi. What the hell, two hundred miles in an old columbian taxi, I couldn't afford the attention created by a newer one, would be a trip to remembered.

"Mr. Jeff, there is most likely going to be a checkpoint on the highway leaving Medellin," the driver said. The driver had been recommended by someone in the American government. I figured that the Boss worked hand in hand with the CIA. It's probably how I got the job in the first place. I guess you might say I had filtered down through the legitimate army programs, to the murky CIA jobs, and finally down to Swamp Thing Ops.

The guys at Swamp Thing liked me because I had once killed a man with a piece of notebook paper, or so they told each other. Actually the easiest way to kill a man with a piece of paper is to wad it up and force it into his throat. Yes I had done that, but he was unconscious at the time. The result of a blow on the head with a very heavy golfing trophy. Still the myth persisted, and I didn't discourage it. Oh yeah, the paper was a plan to dump ricin in the water system of an America town.

"Well we have to stop for it. I think I can get through, if the word hasn't filtered down about the Lawyer." Now you might wonder why a drug lawyer would warrant such a quick search for the shooter. Okay I'll tell you, he was in the running for president of Columbia. With the drug lords backing him, he had a good chance of winning. The current U.S. president might think he could negotiate drugs out of existence, but a lot of guys in the murky waters thought he was the enemy. The drug lawyer I mean, not the president. Okay maybe some of them thought he was did as well. Either way the lawyer was a big fish down there.

"Papers," the soldier demanded. He didn't look a bit friendly, of course they never did. Since the other soldiers were just smoking and hanging out, they didn't appear to be on high alert. The driver handed over his ID card, just before the soldier collected my passport. Things were tense a few minutes while he pretended that he could read my passport. Finally he handed both back to the driver and waved us on. The clerical dickie had worked one more time, I thought.

I realized that I hadn't taken a breath for the whole two minutes that the soldier had held my fake passport. If he began questioning me, the story about being a missionary would never hold up. There just weren't all that many legitimate reasons for a gringo to be in Columbia. Their only major exports were coffee and cocaine. I didn't think I could pass for a coffee expert any better than a Missionary, so the Boss went that way.

"So you whupped them again," Gloria said. I have never met an Arab with a southern accent, so it sounded really strange coming from her.

"For the moment yeah, but the odds are on their side," I whispered under my breath. There was no sense giving the driver an excuse to put my crazy ass out of the cab. "Now you either leave, or be quiet the driver is nervous enough already."

If you were to ask me how far it was from Medellin to the coast, I would have to tell you that it is six hours in a beat up old taxi. It is the only thing I know for sure. I'm not even sure there were crows there, let alone how far they fly.

The driver stopped for, not so cheap gas, once. I bought a hand full of American candy bars at the same time. Candy and American soft drinks were probably the biggest imports, led only by American hundred dollar bills from the drug trade.

"So this is the Boss's idea of a safe house?" Gloria asked after the driver left use outside the run down shack. "My God Jeffie, you can see the sky through the roof."

"Well be glad that it isn't the rainy season," I replied. Since we were alone, I could speak in a normal voice.

"How long will we be staying in this honeymoon suite?" she asked.

"Gloria, I will let you insult me if you like, but I will not sleep with you. That is just too weird."

"Don't flatter yourself. I would never sleep with the man who got me killed."

"I have told you a hundred times, the man with the bomb killed you not me."

"You changed the outcome of the operation and it got me killed. You can't change that damn it." She really was angry. She was also picking up the vocabulary of an agent. She should be it was all she heard these days.

She had heard all the arguments before, so I simply said, "Let's just not talk anymore for a while. The pickup should be in a few hours. They said sometime after dark."

I heard them coming long before they arrived at the door of the shack. Since there would likely be no metal detectors along the route of this extraction, I had concealed a small knife in my boot. I had it out as I stook behind the ruined door of the ruined shack.

"Yankee," the voice said with a passable Spanish accent.

"Clipper," I replied with an American southern accent. His accent might save his life, but mine would get me killed in most parts of the world.

"Get your things and let's get a move on man. We need to meet the big boat in half an hour."

"I have no things, let's go," I answered.

An hour and fifteen minutes later I was being shown around the stateroom on a cruise ship. "If you need anything more, don't hesitate to ring," the young woman said.

"Actually I probably need some new clothes." I said it because the clothes I had worn from Medellin were a mess. Instead of answering she opened the small closet's door. Inside were four hangers with a shirt on each. Also there were two hangers with worn blue jeans, one pair on each hanger. "Well you do think of everything."

"Someone does for sure," she said as she turned to go.

"I don't like that blonde bitch," Gloria said while the cruise ship employee turned down my bed. I didn't answer..