Season THREE – Episode 07 – “Nowhere to Hide”
With her back pressed against the grey, tin-sided garage, Sally shuffled her feet one at a time making headway toward the rear of the safehouse. She calculated twelve strides from the garage to the back door of the home. In between there would be “Nowhere to Hide” and her sidekick Eagle Two (Hazel Brown) had already vanished from the scene.
“She who hesitates is lost” Sally thought, then dove to the ground and army crawled across the open space possessing a Glock Gen5 in each hand. Reaching the back door a Noisy Miner perched in a gum tree became audible with a long range of scolding alarms. If Sally could have reached the branch she would have rung its neck.
The back door led to a porch which then led to a kitchen. Peering inside the lower left pane of the rear entrance window she could see no movement on the interior. Then with ear to door, between screeches from the bird, there was detection of monologue from a distant TV. To Sally it sounded vaguely familiar, perhaps the popular Australian soap Neighbours.
“Damn…Damn…Damn…Now what?” she thought, and squeezed her eyes shut as if that would allow her to see inside the building. Then with one of the Glocks she forcefully tapped the glass on the door with the barrel of the gun and then bolted to the side bushes on the back corner of the four-season porch.
On her knees she peered through the bushes into an adjacent window and waited to see if anyone would answer the back door. Thirteen seconds later, not a lucky number, was how long it took for the shorter of the two Eastern European men to reach the back door.
“What the……How are these guys getting ahead of me?!?!” she contemplated while shrinking down into her hide. And THEN, the distinct sound of a Toyota Corolla horn blasted from the direction of the front street.
Popping her head up, the man briefly disappeared from the back door and then returned at full speed bounding out the exit and sprinting to the confines of the garage. Sally remained frozen like an ice sculpture with sidearms at the ready. The garage door flew open—the roar of twin exhaust from a Ford Falcon GT-HO Phase III street rod came to life—a positraction rear end catapulted 300 horsepower down the alleyway—shredded gravel led to burnt pavement as the car sped away.
Sally Squatnfishes… Renowned outdoor fashion model turned international special ops secret agent… Then lunged against the back door, busted through the porch into the kitchen, and clipped the legs out from under the taller version of bad guy Eastern European. There was a crash—there was a dull melon-like thudding noise—there was an unconscious thug face down on the oval braided floor rug.
Then she continued to the great room that faced the main thoroughfare of the street, and seated adjacent to the natural stone fireplace was a hooded and bound individual wearing olive aura colored Nike Air Pegasus. Eagle Three (Sally’s personally recruited counterpart) had landed.
Rushing to assist the captive—Sally worked brazenly by cutting bound wrists with her Strider SMR combat folding knife. The 4” drop point S30V steel blade slashed effortlessly through the double-braided military style rope. Next came off the blackout hood and then a release of the constrained ankles. Lastly, the silver lined duct tape. This was the silencer that gagged the mouth, and it was wrapped in such a manner that bleach blonde laden strands of hair on both sides and back of Eagle Three were plentifully contained within the stickiness of the tape.
“Shit… This is gonna suck…” Sally whispered while staring into a pool of deep blue eyes with exaggerated pupils. Then she cautiously reversed the angle of the blade to mindfully cut pieces away from the skin.
“Just hack it and let’s go!” pleaded the occupant of the chair, once the tape was cleared for speech. “There was one short guy and one taller dude that were holding me here. I assume you’ve seen them?”
“Yep, sir Too-Tall is taking a nap on the hardwood in the other room and Shorty-Short lit outta here a few minutes ago driving the vehicle we were supposed to use to get to Bremer Bay. Now hold still and let me trim these beautiful blonde locks.” Sally instructed.
With her request being met—there was a horn blast from the rear of the safehouse and both visitors inside bolted to the back porch. “I’ll be… It’s Eagle Two, let’s rock!” Sally howled.
Sprinting shoulder to shoulder, stride for stride, they covered the back yard as if the grass under their feet were set ablaze. Sally’s maneuvers from earlier that same day were repeated by flinging open the driver’s door, hand checking and shoulder slamming her way behind the wheel–Eagle Three piled into the backseat.
“Well, nice to see you too!” quipped Hazel, now forcefully positioned in the passenger seat.
“Where’s Shorty-Short?” questioned Sally.
“You mean the guy I lured out of the safehouse, led on a chase to the outskirts of town, then left behind me stuck on a two-track goat path? And you’re welcome by the way!”
“Yep, that’s the guy I’m talking about. How’d you figure one of them would come after you on the street?”
“I didn’t. But I liked my odds better in this car than I did banging down a backdoor with a Glock in my hand. Plus, I figured if there was anyone held in there, it would give you a chance to explore options. I’m not as blonde as your partner there in the back.”
“Well, maybe a dirtier version—but either way your mission just got extended.” Sally was southbound with her accelerator foot slamming to the floor. They were exactly halfway to Bremer Bay, another 239km before this operation was originally planned to get spicey. Eagle One—Eagle Two—Eagle Three—peas in a pod destined to face The Kraken.
Meanwhile, Mr. Rusty Flathers was facing his own dilemma. The rain was relentless and so was the daunting task of loading the fifty-five-gallon drum of diesel fuel over the gunnel of Hooked on Poutine.
Inside the skiff—bent at the waist on the port side, Professor Scale held tight to the floating dock as Rusty tipped the two wheeled cart forward in effort to rest the container against the upper edge of the boat.
Patience would have placed a ratchet strap connecting the barrel and the cart as one, but she was nowhere to be found. So, with a pouring faucet of water running down his backside, Rusty tried to move the unit as one and properly jackknifed the ensemble.
Cos was quick to respond—securing the barrel before it tipped—but the cart sprang to life like a diver exiting the 10-meter-high dive—propelling itself upward and outward—Rusty, laying on his backside with “Nowhere to Hide” watched the event unfold in slow motion.
A golf clapping crowd enthusiastically gathered toward the pier in anticipation of the next chain of unorthodox happenings. “At least it’s not raining,” Rusty gleaned to himself.
– To Be Continued –