Hey, Sheila here. Apparently, ISIS has decided that we’ve had enough of Europe (or Europe has had enough of us), so they send us to South America to recover some rich kids who have been kidnapped in Chile.
Somehow they manage to tear Paris, the agent, not the city, away from Europe to meet up with Vince, (Up)Chuck, Major Annalee and me. These rich kids were doing the Tour de South America thing when they were kidnapped, and their parents were contacted via the Internet with ransom demands for oodles o’ cash. We are told that we have 96 hours to find them. That was before the not-so-briefing, after which we only have 95 hours. That was before the (roughly) 20 hours it took us to get to Punta Arenas. That’s okay, we work well under pressure!
Upon arriving in Punta Arenas, we go the Best Western (Jack’s favorite hotel chain). I take a quick inventory: we have one major with an attitude, one protector person who is fast becoming a germaophobe, one former electrician-turned gambling International terrorist-turned stock broker who still feels a strange pull toward Mother Russia, an acquisitions socialite who will soon publish a book entitled, Salad Under Fire: the hottest salad bars in Europe, and me - and I HATE South America. Actually, since my divorce, I hate all things Latino. What we don’t have is information. That’s right, we are clueless in Punta Arenas.
Having no idea as to where to start, we do what any good roll player/spy would do and go out looking for random encounters. Scores under ten have provided Vince with a contact from the Marines and Annalee and me with Cult and Squid.
Vince takes his buddy to a bar only to learn that his buddy has not seen the kids, while Annalee and I find out that Cult and Squid have been here for a few days and have not seen our kidnappees, either.
Annalee and I call Paris, the agent, not the city, and have her join us for a trip to a local psychic. We test her out with my wedding ring. She seems pretty good, so we try showing her the pictures of the kids. She tells us they were here, she sees mountains and water (she was probably looking out the window), and they are still somewhere in the area. Then she sticks her hand out for twenty bucks. I feel almost as good about this as I did forking over five grand to figure out (Up)Chuck’s knight confusion problem. I keep paying people to tell me things that I already know.
Anyway, we head back to the hotel, as does Vince, and (Up)Chuck heads out for a jog. He sees several out of place looking Gringos packing weapons onto a launch marked, Le French Boat. (Up)Chuck returns to the hotel and takes Paris, the agent, not the city, and the mini-van to get a look out in the direction that the launch headed.
Vince and I go to the local watering hole, where he greases the palm of the bartender in an attempt to get information. There are three European looking dudes sitting in the corner. We decide to see what they are up to, so when they are getting ready to leave, we go out before them, pretending to be drunk.
Vince turns to lean on the wall, as if he were about to get ill. The three guys come out of the bar and help Vince by kicking his legs out from under him, so he falls to the ground. Then they ask if he is okay. I do manage to spot a French Legionnaire’s tattoo on one guy’s arm. Vince limps back to the hotel with me, and we meet up with (Up)Chuck and Paris, who have seen Le French Boat way out in the water.
Let’s see, we have two possible contacts in the area, an out-of-place boat, some French Legionnaires and a bartender who saw our kidnappees. I would have to say that a fairly successful day was had by all.
The next day, we were back in our usual form. Annalee and I take a ride on Cult and Squid’s boat past Le French Boat, and note that there are several men on guard duty, but they do not have shoulder arms. (Up)Chuck gets lost trying to find the spot where he saw the boat the day before, Vince is unable to locate his contact today and gives more money to the bartender only to learn that he knows nothing yet, Vince and I return to the bar with (Up)Chuck, but there are no Frenchmen there, and Annalee and Paris, the agent, not the city, have no random encounters at another bar.
At this point, we come up with the grand-daddy of all plans. We, five well-trained, infallible spies, including a major and her attitude, (Up)Chuck who is beginning to become dehydrated because he won’t drink anything here, lest he contract dysentery, Vince, who can hit the side of the barn, but not the person standing in front of it, Paris, the agent, not the city, whose quest to begin the sequel, South America on a Salad a Day, has not yet been successful, Annalee, who although armed at all times with her attitude, wants some bigger guns, and me, and my only problem with this plan is that it includes us -- are going to take some Legionnaires prisoner, interrogate them for information, stealthily board Le French Boat, free the captives and remove them from the ship, which is full of French Legionnaires-turned-mercenaries.
Am I the only person who is questioning the wisdom of this plan? No, Annalee agrees with me that this is, without a doubt, one of our stupidest endeavors to date. Anyway, we make a list of items we need and give it to Paris, the agent, not the city. Actually, (Up)Chuck is making the list, and we almost come to blows, because he refuses to put a drop-cloth on the list. They must remind him of hospital sheets, or something.
While Paris, the agent, not the city, is out getting our stuff with Cult and Squid, Vince meets his contact and embellishes - I mean tells him how he was viciously attacked by three armed mercenaries.
Anyway, it’s time to put our plan into action. (Up)Chuck and Annalee are at the bar, waiting for the arrival of the mercenaries. Vince and I go the dock to secure the launch. We approach the two men guarding the launch, while arguing. On three, not one, two, three - go, we turn and shoot them. Oh, did I say we shot them? Sorry, I shot my guy, but Vince, and this is a surprise, misses. The about-to-shoot- mercenary miraculously ends up wounded in the water. Vince, however, is slipping all over the dock and can’t make it over to shoot the guy in the water, so I do. We eventually manage to make him dead in the water and board the launch. We secure the weapons and are soon joined by (Up)Chuck and Annalee. Paris, that agent, not the city, has brought a take-out salad (she’s changed the sequel’s working title to Salads on the Go) and lots of beer to the Infra.
The four unsuspecting mercenaries approach and we yell freeze, while pointing MP-5s at them. They give up! We overcome our amazement at the ease with which this has occurred, and tie them up.
We are finally on our way to Le French Boat, with (Up)Chuck at the helm, and Vince in charge of the interrogation. He is not making much progress with prisoner No. 1, so he decides to shoot him in the leg with his dart gun. Of course, he misses and Annalee, whose attitude is going from bad to worse, yells, "that’s not how you do it, this is" and shoots prisoner No. 1 in the head. Vince is stunned! Not only has she (in his opinion) gone to plaid, but she actually hit her target!
While they argue about the holy head, I hear one of the prisoners shit himself. When Vince turns back to the interrogation, I point out the voided man as the next interrogatee. Unfortunately, Prisoner No. 3 has had a heart attack. Vince throws Prisoners No. 1 and 3 over the side of the launch and returns to Prisoner No. 2, aka Monsieur LePew. After getting several answers on where the captives are being held, he turns to Prisoner No. 4, who is less than cooperative. Annalee shoots Prisoner No. 4 in the kneecap. M. LePew answers some more questions. Vince shoots Prisoner No. 4 in the other kneecap for good measure and throws him overboard.
Vince decides to administer Sodium Pentathol to see if the unfortunate M. LePew was lying. He wasn’t.
Finally, we are boarding the ship. Vince and (Up)Chuck are carrying M. LePew and claiming that he is sick. One of the guards on the gangway realizes that we are not six male mercenaries and goes for his weapon. Being the only one who was able to get a shot off, I kill him and we all turn toward the other guard. This worked out well, because Annalee figured that we each had to kill sixteen and a quarter men, so we all got a quarter credit for the holy man.
Once on the ship, Vince and (Up)Chuck head aft. Vince is in the lead as they enter the machine shop. He spots another mercenary in the hallway and throws one of his (borrowed from a dead ex-Legionnaire) stun grenades down the hall.
Meanwhile, Annalee and I have come under heavy fire on deck. (Up)Chuck returns to the deck to join the merriment. The next few minutes are a flurry of exchanged gunfire, flying Fs and much dodging and cursing.
Vince is throwing everything he’s got at his opponent, including stun grenades, gunfire, and yes, even his gun (which, surprise, surprise misses). He finally bests the guard. Annalee has made her way down to join the hostage recovery effort. Vince is faced with three doors (even though the GM is NOT a Monty Hall kind of guy). He chooses door number two and opens it. Even though he has not tried the friendly sternum rub approach, he gets punched in the face by one of the hostages.
Meanwhile, on deck, I manage to deftly avoid the grenade that has been thrown at me (not really, a bad roll has necessitated an F’in miracle, so the idiots drop it and blow themselves to smithereens). (Up)Chuck and a mercenary have scared the shit out of each other as they came around a corner at the same time. There is no room to raise his gun, so (Up)Chuck butts the mercenary with it.
Unfortunately, the sound of the grenade explosion has spooked the two female hostages, so they run at full speed to the deck. The first girl gets shot as she comes out and the other girl wisely backs up.
On the bridge, an F’in mistake has been made, and we all dive for cover as 250 rounds pelt the bridge and just about everything else on deck.
Eventually we all make our way to the launch, which (Up)Chuck has ready to go. Our elation at a job sort-of-well done is only dampened by the arrival of one of the male hostages and Annalee who have fallen on the gangway and roll/fall into the launch, bowling most of us over in the process.
As everybody else is trying to pick themselves up and (Up)Chuck is piloting the launch towards Cult and Squid’s boat, I see two men in doorways on the ship: one with a machine gun and one with a rocket launcher.
Deciding that chancing a miss by machine gun man was better than leaving rocket man free to blow us to pieces, I shoot rocket man and at least manage to stop him. Vince rejoices as the male hostage that punched him gets hit. The rest of manage to escape with no more bullet wounds.
We make our way to the safety of Cult and Squid’s boat, where Paris, the agent, not the city, has sniped two of the mercenaries on Le French Boat in between bites of her take-out salad.