Ah, Saturday night and I have no worries. No work, no terrorists holed up in my apartment, Dante has stopped calling about Annalee’s transfer, I haven’t seen an engineering geek in hours, (Up)Chuck’s gay admirer hasn’t stopped by in days, my plush new carpet is still clean, my shoes are vomit free and my head hasn’t ached in weeks. There is only one message on the answering machine and I choose to not spoil the peace of the evening by listening to it.
I sit down to watch a movie. Then the phone rings. It’s Jack …
He’s in Scotland …
With Paris, the agent, not the city …
He wants me to join him there …
I run for my extra-large bottle of extra-strength aspirin. Rejecting Jack’s offer to come to Paris, the city not the agent, to get me because that would surely ensure another run in with Inspector Clusine, I agree to drive to Scotland. I take out my unused papers in the name of Celia Langdon and, since there is no way I am letting Jack anywhere near my new car, go to rent a car. Since all of the reputable places have my picture in a dart board hanging on their wall, I go to Fly-By-Night Rentals.
During the long drive to Scotland, I contemplate my options: I can shoot Jack on sight and be back in Paris in time to catch the Late Late movie on TV, I can take Paris and run screaming for the hills, or I can actually help in his idiotic plan for revenge.
I arrive at the keep and they must have been glad to see me, because they sat me down and wouldn’t let me anywhere near the kitchen, instead serving me food and chewy coffee! I am less than thrilled as Jack lays out his plan for murder and mayhem. The long drive started catching up with me and I go to Jack’s room to take a nap.
I awaken with a feeling that something is not right in my world. I check my bag. My passport is gone! Flashbacks start to haunt me. I grab my gun and find Jack. He denies any knowledge as to the location of my pristine I-am-not-wanted-by-anyone ID but I think he’s lying. Anyway, Mr. Browning and I manage to convince Jack to return my passport.
During the long drive up here, I was wondering how Paris would have a lovely revenge and now I know. She and Corey are going to Greece for a few days. As we bid Corey and Paris goodbye, I tell Jack he has four days to put his plan into action. And oh yeah, I will only stay if he eats my cooking.
Jack sits at the table with fork in hand and a paper bag next to him. To Jack’s surprise, he enjoys the meal I prepare (of course, that’s only because he doesn’t know what was in it).
I stare at Jack’s wish list. Paris has conveniently left the land of kilts and haggis, and I don’t know where to get any of this shit. Jack wants to try and find explosives at some local mines, so we drive around looking for one that is fairly quiet.
We are unable to locate one that has a conveniently located explosives store and instead have to go to an active mine where the are actually keeping the incendiary devices secure.
We wait until the mass end-of-the-work-day exodus has occurred and find a straggler. We approach him and I politely ask where the explosives are stored. He doesn’t seem inclined to answer, so I once again enlist the aid of Mr. Browning, whose powers of interrogation are astounding, and he pisses in his pants. Thinking that perhaps that was the wrong tactic, I hand the gun to Jack, knowing that nobody is in any danger of being shot, and put my arm around the poor miner. He tells me where we can find them and I take his ID badge. Then I tell Jack to put on his coveralls.
Prissy Jack seems less than thrilled to put on the pissy pants, so I take Mr. Browning back and tell him again. We become alarmed by the sudden dirt cloud being kicked up by the fleeing miner. I turn and shoot the poor man then turn back to Jack, who now puts the coveralls on.
Jack heads into the mine. I wait.
I take a few minutes to picture Jack’s head hanging on my living room wall, but then I decide that his coloring doesn’t match my decor. I continue to wait.
I picture Paris and Corey getting sunburned on a Grecian beach. Still I wait.
I pop a couple of aspirins. And wait.
I think I’ll mail my cell phone to Inspector Clusine. He can keep it on his desk next to my steering wheel. Boy is this waiting pissing me off. (Which is still better than running around in coveralls that somebody else peed in.)
Finally, Jack emerges empty-handed from the mine. There were guards that wouldn’t allow him in the blast zone, so he never made it to the explosives. To my absolute horror, he jumps in the car still wearing the pissy pants. I must have yelled loud enough, because he removes them and throws them out the window, followed by the ID badge.
I ask him if he wants me to back up so he can wipe his fingerprints off of the badge. "What are the odds that they’ll find it?" he asks. Before I can provide him with the statistical probability that the badge will be located, he yells, "Back up." Jack then sets fire to the badge and his hand.
We return to the keep sans explosives.
So, let me get this straight, I am in Scotland, a country I had sworn never to set foot in again, with Jack the about-to-earn-his-reputation International Cabaret Terrorist, who is planning on driving a gasoline truck through the front of the Quickening, and I killed an innocent miner with poor bladder control so Jack could not get some explosives from the mine!