Faith Baptist Church
"If you call a helo jockey a "driver"," V replied, "He'd bring us the "catch of the day" to grill, if you know what I mean, and got me & my team out of a couple of rough spots too."
"Right, Night Stalker," Dozer nodded, before turning to V, "So you were in interrogations, then?"
His question was more curiosity than 'grilling'
"Indeed," replied V. "And cross-trained a bit into PSYOPS. In the words of Sun Tzu, "to fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." After a while of really getting into the minds of the enemy, you start putting together ways of using that to demoralize them while minimizing our own guys' exposure to needless risk."
Dozer's smile got bigger.
"Yep, you definitely sound like an egg scrambler, alright," He winked to show he was teasing, before thumbing towards himself, "Infantry, front of the line. Occasionally would get to ride around in a heavily armored bus packed with Fourth of July goodness."
"Fun stuff. Couldn't help but notice your Ranger tab, btw..."
"Yeah, got that after I caught the eye of an officer," Dozer glanced at it, "just the tab, though, not the scroll. Events ended up, ahem, interrupting before I had the chance to go for it."
Dozer looked around.
"I'd tell you what those events were, but," he leaned in and spoke out the side of his mouth, "PITFALL's lawyers might be listening, and I don't want to have to deal with them here."
V took a quick look around & gives him a knowing nod.
"How about we finish up here & go talk somewhere more private & less formal afterwards?"
Dozer nodded, "Sure thing," he thumbed the tip of his cap in a cowboy like way.
V & Max finished formally paying their respects at the casket, make polite small-talk w/ the other attendees, & V found Barnum again back towards the entrance.
"You say you've transferred to CTTF?" Dozer asked.
"More like was transferred," she said, "Is there a good bar in the area you know? Like I said, let's find someplace less formal & I'll tell you all about it."
"Ah, I'll admit I'm not familiar with all the bars in the area," Dozer scratched behind his ear, "I was just wondering if you'd been specifically moved to the Office of Special Assignments. Just got transferred over there myself."
"Something tells me a guy like you gets a frequent flier discount at more than one of the local watering holes," said V, narrowing her eyes in mock suspicion, "But yeah, just reassigned to here from my post at ICE going after smugglers & traffickers. Things got a little..."politically inconvenient", w/ one of my investigations, shall we say," she rubbed the back of her neck & making a grimacing face.
Dozer chuckled a bit at the discount comment, before pulling out his phone to pull up a map.
Barnum. That names just sound so familiar. V pulled out her phone as they followed...
Miller's Alehouse - Orlando East Colonial, Orlando FL
Dozer, V, and Max took off their caps at the threshold before walking over to the bar.
"Well, since I don't get many opportunities to use this..." Dozer said as he pulled out a medallion-sized challenge coin and placed it down, before turning to V and Max expectedly.
V and Max pulled out their own coins.
"You're buying, now," V said with a wink.
"Well darn, so much for this round," Dozer turned, and, after getting the couples' choice in drinks, called the bartender for the order.
V looked down at Dozer's coin.
"I've never seen one quite like this before," she said, curious, "mind if I take a look? I'll show you mine if you show me yours," she winked again.
Dozer waved, "Knock yourself out," he said as he took V's coin to look himself as they walked over to their table.
Max spoke up, "So, my wife tells me you two will be working together down at the Bureau counter-terrorism office?"
"Yeah, I'd been meaning to talk about that. I've actually transferred over to the Office of Special Assignments recently, and I was curious if she was going to be there, too."
"Yeah, that's where V said she'd be working, right, honey?" Max turned to his wife.
"That's right babe, kicking ass & taking names, just like always," V said, running her hand through his
hair before turning her attention back to the coin in her hand.
"That one was given special from a friend of mine," Dozer said, noting her interest.
"Can't say I've seen one quite like this before...must be one of those cool things you SPEC-OPS guys get, eh?" V said with a teasing hint of mock jealousy before passing it to Max, "you ever seen one like this?"
"No, can't say I have," Max said before passing it back to Dozer.
Dozer chuckled.
"Not so SpecOps, I'm afraid. Like I said, events transpired to keep me from getting my scroll."
He took and put his coin away while handing back V's, "Which is something we wanted to talk about, if I remembered correctly."
V's eyes narrowed, "Yeah, what's really going on?"
The conversation paused however as the waitress came by with their drinks.
"Ah, thank you kindly," Dozer said with a smile as he accepted his.
Then, after the couple thanked the waitress, Dozer noticed V nudge Max while whispering, "hey, she's cute," with Max nodding as they watched the waitress serve the other customers.
Dozer just smiled and shook his head.
Flatlanders.
He straightened up as they turned back to him.
"we're both former intel," V said, her face serious, "we know something's up here. Let's hear it.""
"Well, before I start," Dozer glanced around, "I'd suggest memorizing the exits and usable chairs in case some guys in suits decide to barge in."
V got the feeling Barnum was only being half serious. However, she did note that his eyes are moving around in a practiced fashion, like he was actually scoping the exits and chairs.
"Why do you think we decided to get a booth near the back exit? This isn't our first rodeo," she said.
"Alright, so what I'm about to say is off the record, so technically... there wasn't an incident with an agent of a certain global peacekeeping organization.
"That agent didn't intentionally practice the cold blooded ending of an innocent's person's life.
"And that same agent also didn't end up meeting with multiple blows from a clenched fingered appendage."
Dozer wiggled his fingers.
"Additionally, said unharmed agent also didn't end up with multiple fractured ribs, a broken jaw, and had to be admitted into a medical ward where he had to be put into a coma."
Dozer picked up his drink, a fairly light beer.
"And the person, that didn't inflict this on said agent, wasn't sent to Japan."
Sip
"To guard a dumpster."
A pause.
"And after a bit of good behavior, was moved to guard the broom closet."
V cocked an eyebrow.
"You mean to not guard?" She smiled.
Dozer shrugged, "Meh, can't not say something for only so long."
"Say what?" V said nonchalantly, tapping the side of her nose.
Dozer paused, then looked up in a slightly confused thinking expression, before his brain finally clicked that last step.
"Oh right," he said, before taking more of a gulp because of the sudden headache he'd given himself.
"So that wasn't me, and not why I'm not actually a SpecOps guy," Dozer lightly pointed at V, "why don't we move onto something that's less confusing."
"Yes?" V said, amused.
"I seem to remember you said something about political inconvenience," Dozer said.
"Oh yes, that," she said, folding her arms behind her head, leaning back, & rolling her eyes.
"Well, what's to tell, really...?" she continued, taking a swig of her hard cider, "I was hunting down smugglers, like usual, when we started coming across unusual shipments of US guns being trafficked down to Mexico... Did my damn job, followed that all the way up the chain, & who do I find is orchestrating the gun-running, but our at-" she leans in close & whispered "Pitfall" in Dozer's ear, "Did my damnest to shut the whole bloody thing down, but not before the cartel fuckers slaughtered dozens of American citizens with our fucking guns..." she trailed off bitterly.
Dozer shook his head.
"Unbelievable," he said.
"And not a lick of consequences for the cunts at the top pulling the strings," V spat.
"That said, you apparently did a lot of damnest to get noticed by the legendary Daniela Flores," Dozer noted.
"Thanks. I just do my job & damn the politics. "Fiat justitia ruat caelum" - Let justice be done though the heavens fall," she stared off into her drink.
She didn't notice the smile tugging at Dozer's lips.
"Hmm. Justice. Seems to be a lot of things masquerading as that these days." he said, bringing his bottle up,
"No doubt all those deaths were labelled as 'in the pursuit of Justice'."
"Ain't that the bloody truth," she said, keeping her voice low, "fucking illegal gunrunning & for what? To "catch" cartel pendejos that a wall would have kept out? If I get my hands on the one who did it, I'll feed them the muzzles of their own sidearms."
"I'd suggest doing it without witnesses," Dozer took another sip, "Not that I have personal experience with that."
"Mmmhmm... not like we learned a thing or two fighting towelheads over in the Sandbox..." V took a sip herself, giving Dozer a knowing look.
Dozer 'hmm'ed.
"Not like they were the ones with shrapnel in their leg because they were dumb enough to protect a school by themselves for a half-hour," he nodded his head, "That one I can admit to."
"I read about that," V said, smiling at Dozer's reaction, "Yeah, don't look so surprised, I did my homework. Intel, remember? Anyway, a whole lotta kids are alive today because of you - that's something."
Dozer smiled back.
"Hoo'ah," he said, raising his bottle.
V & Max echoed the 'Hoo'ah' as the three of them clinked their bottles.
Later...
Homestead
Having gotten home safely, Dozer tossed his cap onto the table in front of the couch. He only paused for a second before making a bee-line to another room. Feeling around under a desk he pulled out a burner phone and a piece of paper. He then dialed the number, and waited for the click. He then punched in his serial number, before waiting for another click.
"Send traffic."
"Dozer requesting check on one Sergeant Volkova, US Army. Served in Afghanistan as an interrogator, trained as PSYOPS. Recently transferred from ICE anti-trafficking to FBI CTTF OSA. Mark as possible coin recipient, will observe further. Out."
