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It was supposed to be a dead-drop in the middle of an open air mall. No fuss, no muss. In and out. Intel collected, intel passed. Of course, what’s supposed to happen and what’s actually happening aren’t even in the same ballpark which surprises neither Mac nor Jack.
“Any time you wanna make a bazooka out of paperclips and toothpicks, Mac. I’m getting my ass handed to me over here!” Jack shouts.
“Love to, Jack, but I’m a little busy!” Mac punctuates the last word by grabbing one of his assailants by the back of the neck and bringing his face down into Mac’s rising knee. The man shouts and stumbles, and Mac shoves him, sending him tumbling to the ground.
There are a few other — small — victories. Jack breaks some guy’s jaw with a right hook and someone else’s knee with a mule kick. Mac lands a few solid punches and manages to kick one guy right in the stomach. But those are all their victories. In fairness, two against fifteen — even two highly trained operatives — wasn’t ever going to end well for them.
The beginning of the “not ending well” comes first for Mac when he takes a baton to the back of his right thigh, just above his knee. His leg buckles instantly and he tumbles over. He doesn’t have time to recover before four men are pressing him into the concrete and zip-tying his hands.
In the split second where Jack’s focus is diverted to Mac, someone manages to jam a taser into his ribs and he goes down, the rent-a-mercs swarming him.
But despite all of this going down in public, no one does a damn thing help. In fairness, there isn’t much a bunch of soccer moms and accountants could really do to help against a swarm of armed thugs, but it’s something else to have seventy-five bystanders watching as you’re hauled into a van by people who plan to find you a nice shallow grave somewhere in the tri-state area.
The moment Jack lands next to Mac on the floor of the panel van he’s looking over his partner. “Mac, you okay, buddy?”
Mac nods and shifts earning him a half-hearted kick to the ribs by one of the masked mercs. “Yeah, just deadlegged me.”
Their assailants are exceptionally brash given that there are at least twenty people filming the proceedings, and they wait with the doors open, Jack and Mac in full view of the public, while they discuss who goes in which panel van. Apparently, Mac and Jack did enough damage to the goon squad that they’re going to load up the injured all into one van to head to wherever it is that guns-for-hire get their off-the-books medical care. The remaining five guys are going to take Mac and Jack “on a ride,” which is the least reassuring euphemism either of them has ever heard.
Luckily, while they’ve got their backs turned and are talking, Mac slips his Swiss army knife out of his pocket and snips their zip-tie cuffs. Jack clutches the ends of the zip-tie between his fingers and stays put on the floor while the discount foot-soldiers finally get done with their little tea party and load up.
“‘Bout time, boys. We were getting lonely,” Jack says.
One of the guys leans forward from his aftermarket bench, which is bolted rather haphazardly into the side of the van, and punches Jack right in the jaw. “Shut the hell up.”
Jack grins and spits out the first mouthful of blood. “Nah, I think I’ll keep talking. What about you, Mac? You feel like having a conversation?”
Mac shrugs and smiles. “I could be up for some small talk. How about you guys?”
The guy who just punched Jack stands, hunched over in the back of the now moving van, and looms over Mac. “It’s your funeral. You wanna spend your last minutes getting the shit kicked out of you ‘cause you won’t shut up, that’s your choice.”
“Aw, man. Come on. I gotta get my dry cleaning later and if I don’t pick up by the end of the week they’ll bill me twice. Do we really gotta do this today?” Jack whines.
“Hit him, again,” another one says.
The guy rears back and then Mac and Jack spring into action. Three versus two is much better odds and they have those guys on the floor, in various states of injury, before the goon in the passenger seat gets his seatbelt off.
Mr. I-Call-Shotgun gets roughly wrestled back into his seat where Mac chokes him out while Jack tries to fight with the driver without also running into a pedestrian or driving them into oncoming traffic. Finally, once Mac is done with the passenger, Mac helps Jack drag the driver out of his seat and then takes the wheel.
“Where are we going, Mac?” Jack calls.
“Looks like we’re going right here, actually. There’s a roadblock. Looks like Phoenix agents.”
“Oh, thank fuck. These guys are getting annoying. And I really do need to pick up my dry cleaning.”
The van slows to a stop and Jack can see familiar faces of the Phoenix grunts running towards them. In moments, the doors are open and Mac and Jack help haul the now thoroughly ziptied jackasses to the Phoenix folks.
“Bag ‘em, tag ‘em, don’t forget to show your license to Game and Fish if they ask about your catch,” Jack calls as they walk towards the paramedics waving them over.
“Really? You have dry cleaning?” Mac asks as they get checked out.
Jack narrows his eyes at Mac. “Are you saying I don’t own anything nice enough to be worth dry cleaning?”
“No, I’m saying you wouldn’t wear it even if you did own it.”
Jack leans forward and points at Mac only for a medic to put a hand on his shoulder to put him back where he was. “Now listen here, skinny boy... You might be right. Doesn’t mean you need to point it out.”
Mac laughs and shakes his head.
It’s not another minute before the medics either give up on keeping Jack in line or decide that there’s nothing wrong with him that they can fix without a degree in abnormal psych. In any case, they’re free and Jack hails the first Phoenix agent he can to get a ride back to the car that they left behind when they were abducted. Of course, their freedom is relative when they’re headed back to explain their collective failures to Matty.
But that’s at the office. For now, they can detour to the burger joint where Bozer used to work and have a nice lunch while they lick their wounds. Just another Tuesday at the office.