Jack's Back

What happened next?

 

Well, so like, we went to Sloans.

 

Sloans?  It sounds like a supermarket to me.  I smile as I picture this team in a supermarket.  Middle-aged housewives stare jealously as Paris gracefully glides by in high heels and the latest Parisian fashion. Produce boys drop their melons (and their jaws) as she passes.  Rossi salivates as he tries to decide what he wants on his tombstone – frozen pizza, that is.  Karin furiously flips through her Foreigner’s Guide to Idiomatic English as she tries to figure out why we sell nasty produce (fresh fruits) and polite tables (Courtesy Desk), and why people keep getting on the Express line with more than ten items.  Okay, so maybe the last one is me, but it is a pet peeve…

 

No, dudette (he finally realized that I wasn’t kidding when I said I was going to add one of his body parts to my art wall if he called me dude one more time), Sloan’s is like a biker bar.

 

Yes, it was a really seedy place.  The men were disgusting.

 

Ja, und all Paris vanted vas teet.  Paris wanted teeth?  Don’t we offer dental coverage?  Oh, she wanted a man with all of his teeth. Got it.

 

But, don’t vorry, I killt ze nasty von, Frank.  Who the fuck is Frank?

 

Um, there was an unavoidable casualty when one of the gang members moved into the road in front of the car. 

 

Nein, I ran him o…

 

Um, Sheila, would you cover your ears for a minute?

 

I cover my ears and sing the la-la-la song as I watch Paris try and instruct Karin in the fine art of making your mission report palatable to the powers that be.  I may, and this is a slim may, have the smallest amount of sympathy for Cahill.

 

Let me backtrack…

 

You are probably wondering where I’ve been.  Well, after a bizarre escapade in South America almost led Jack (through greed and a failure to resist temptation) and me (through an undying devotion to and susceptibility to Jack plans) to try and steal a shit load o’ gold under circumstances that almost certainly would have resulted in our apprehension and execution at the hands of a bunch of Argentinean Neo-Nazis, we decided that it was time for Jack to go the route of the Dread Pirate Roberts.  Rossi, having used Jack’s name and set off an explosion killing several Dutch police officers in said previous fiasco, seemed the heir-apparent.

 

Jack and I took him to France, and under our patient and loving tutelage, Rossi learned all he needed to know to become Jacques, the International Cabaret Terrorist.  Then we patched him up and got him ready for action.

 

It is now time for Jacques, the International Cabaret Terrorist, II, to go to the states to partake in a mission.  Rossi/Jacques joins up with Karin, the anorexic linguistically impaired German, and Paris, who plans on having a lovely mission.

 

The team is to go to some bar called Sloan’s in Pennsylvania and ensure that some Middle Eastern person, we’ll call him Haji (but only because his name is Haji) is unable to make a deal with a group led by someone we’ll call Bart (but only because Bartholomew is a pain in the ass to type).  They must also ensure that Haji does not take up residence in the United States.

 

Off the team goes to find a bar called Sloan’s.  They drive by to do a little recon and are less than pleased to see that it is a biker bar.

 

Rossi takes cash and buys a trick ’69 Camaro figuring it is cool enough that he can show up to the bar in it.  The girls don some tight leather, hop in and Rossi drives into the parking lot.

 

The presence of a rather large bouncer named Tiny at the door prompts Paris to leave her weapon in the car.  However, the bouncer only wands Rossi, who pulls out his Jacques flask as a diversion to explain why it hit on his waist and manages to get in the bar with his gun.

 

They enter the bar and find it is filled with less than savory characters.  The girls play pool to attract some attention.  Needless to say, they are successful.  Rossi wants to invite some guys to the table to get information, so Paris asks him to at least find some with teeth.  She should have specified all of their teeth.

 

Their new table partner, Frank, wants to know if the girls are Rossi’s honies.  Not knowing what a honey is, but knowing that Paris and Karin are sweet, well Paris is anyway, Rossi replies yes.  Now that he thinks that Karin and Paris are up for grabs, Frank makes some less than chivalrous remarks.  Karin tells him that she is going to kill him. He laughs and doesn’t believe her.  Doesn’t he know that Germans don’t do comedy?

 

Eventually, Bart enters the bar.  Paris and Karin, uncomfortable at the mood in the bar, go out to the car.  They decide it’s time to leave, but are unsure how to get Rossi without attracting too much attention.  Karin goes back in and tells him that she’s out of diet pills and he needs to take her to get more. He leaves with her.

 

Outside, the team has a planning session.  ‘What we need,’ says Rossi/Jacques, ‘is a plan.’  Paris groans and Karin says, ‘Ja.’

 

‘Okay, here’s the plan… we steal a fuel truck, drive it up to the bar and set it on fire.’

 

Well, it is definitely a Jack plan.

 

Paris stays to watch the bar for Haji’s arrival while Rossi and Karin go to steal a fuel truck.  The only one that Rossi is able to locate is a jet fuel truck.  Hey! Now it’s a Jack plan with a Sheila implementation.  I love it!

 

Rossi drives his beautiful Camaro through the airport gate, denting his car and losing a headlight.  The fuel truck is open and the keys fall to the floor when Rossi pulls down the visor.  He drives the truck away and Karin drives the Camaro.  Rossi calls Paris and tells her that she definitely wants to be out of the area of the bar when his ignites the truck.  She drives to a nearby convenience store.  Then Rossi calls Karin and tells her the he needs her to drive to the bar and give him a flare to ignite the truck.  About halfway through his request, he realizes that she will never get it right, so he switches to German.

 

Karin calls Paris, who tells her to come to the Circle K.

 

Silence.  Then, but Circle ist not spellt vis a K.

 

It’s the place with a large K inside a circle.  It’s got a western feel, it will go with your pigtails.

 

You vant me to stop und put pigtails in my hair?

 

No, look there’s a sign.

 

The prolonged silence on the other end of the phone tells Paris that Karin will likely end up either at some traffic circle or examining all of the street signs in town, looking for the ‘K’, so she rewords her request to include exact directions from the bar.

 

Karin picks up Paris, who leaves her rental car at the Circle K.

 

They wait a half block away from the bar for Rossi, so he can get a flare.

 

Rossi realizes that he will have to awkwardly wedge the truck in front of the bar in order to get close enough due to the cars in the parking lot, so he opens the valve to start spilling a small stream of jet fuel that he can ignite from a safe distance. 

 

Ooh, now that just sound like a destined-to-fail Jack plan with a Sheila implementation, doesn’t it? Cahill snidely tells me that my team has stolen a jet fuel truck and asks what I think they will do with it.  I beam proudly at my team’s actions and smile as I fondly recall the small diversionary explosion I set off at a small northern New York airport.

 

Karin leaves the car idling as she and Paris await Rossi’s return.

 

Rossi drives into the parking lot and through a car that’s in his path.  Fortunately, the resulting impact fails to ignite the leaking jet fuel.  He then drives over a line of bikes parked in front of the bar.  Fortunately, he takes no damage as one of the bikes bursts into flame.  Realizing that now would be a really good time to beat a hasty retreat, Rossi jumps out of the truck and starts running.  He gets about a hundred feet away (not truly a safe distance), when the truck explodes, killing just about everybody in the bar.

 

He jumps in the car and Karin Takes off.  Paris and Rossi quickly realize that they are being followed by four motorcyclists.  Karin heads to a place where she remembers a lot of sand in the road, hoping that the riders will wipe out.

 

 

She finds the place and executes a perfect 180 a la Beau Duke … right in front of the obscured-from-view-waiting-for-speeders police car.  The four horsemen of the apocalypse pull their guns.  Well, three do – one loses his grip as he pulls the weapon.  He turns to look in the direction of the lost gun and Rossi shoots him, knocking him off the bike.  Paris has pulled her weapon, as well, however she wisely ducks as the remaining three riders shoot at the car, blowing out the back windshield.

 

Karin yells ‘ROOSTER’ and floors the gas pedal.  Paris and Rossi exchange astonished looks before realizing that Karin has incorrectly (once again) interpreted and masculine-ized the ridiculously macho game of Chicken.

 

Seeing that the riders are going to successfully avoid the car, she opens the car door and knocks one of them over. She barely misses hitting a second rider who had fallen off his bike as she struggles to regain control of the car on the sandy surface.

 

Karin heads back in the direction of the bar with the remaining motorcyclist and police car in pursuit.

 

As they near the bar, they see a lone, astonished figure standing in the road.

 

It’s Frank.

 

Karin’s eyes narrow, her grip on the wheel tightens and she accelerates in Frank’s direction.  (I told you Germans don’t do comedy.) The car bumps over Frank and continues on its way.  The unsuspecting rider behind them hits Frank’s remains and is thrown off his bike.  The police car skids to a halt and the jumps out to render aid to the fallen homicidal, drug dealing waste of life freak.

 

Cahill and I are now in a helicopter for a bird’s eye view of the unfolding disaster.  We intercept a communication that mentions a truck that is ready for the Camaro.  I try to ring the team, but all I get are message services, so I leave Paris a message that someone is after them.  She’ll laugh about it when she finally get to hear it! … Maybe.

 

Karin continues speeding away from the bar.  Rossi is a little nervous at her speed (did he forget that she drives the Autobahn for fun?) and asks her to slow down.  Fortunately, she doesn’t slow down until she makes it past the chain-link fence road barrier just before the idiots on the side of the road are able to raise it.

 

She stops the car and she and Rossi being to argue over who should drive.  They are literally at each other’s throats.  Paris, noticing that they were being shot at from behind, urges them to stop fighting and start driving.  Karin once again nails the gas.  As she gets back up to speed, she sees emergency vehicles heading toward her with sirens blaring and lights flashing.

 

‘ROOSTER!’

 

‘NO ROOSTER!’ shout Paris and Rossi simultaneously.

 

Karin manages to pull over (albeit on the wrong side of the road) without engaging in any head-on collisions.  Some of the occupants yell at her and she flips them off.

 

When the police and fire vehicles have passed, they continue on their way.  Rossi calls me and I give him specifics about the chase and tell him I’m right behind him. He doesn’t believe me, so the pilot flies the helicopter down behind the car.  When Rossi mentions trying to shoot down the helicopter, we hastily gain some altitude.  Paris is trying to free her hair from the tangle caused by the wind from the helicopter wind blowing in through the missing back windshield.

 

The trio drives the car to Philadelphia and ditches the Camaro (only after Rossi spray paints a big ‘HEY’ on the door).

 

Well, that brings us back to the frustrating de-briefing.  I think I’ll take the transcript, strike all of the dude remarks and anything that came from Karin’s mouth.  That’s it, I’ll use Paris’s story.

 

Welcome Back Jack.