First Timers

It was my first field assignment. No more simulated environments, no more training officer hovering over my shoulder. Task force 44. They were legendary around the training barracks for doing high speed shit down in Latin America. Kicking in doors, snatching up bad guys. If they hit you on a Tuesday you’d wake up Thursday in some Middle Eastern shit hole spilling everything. From who was dirty in the Mexican army to who gave you your first handjob in middle school. They had a reputation. And I was going to be part of the action.

When I arrived, I was eager to get into the fight. I volunteered for a week of surveillance which would give me time to get acclimated and learn the players. Four of us would wait until the city was asleep then sneak into an abandoned apartment building that overlooked a row of low-slung dirty warehouses that acted as sort of an unofficial clubhouse for a bunch of the low level cartel guys. It was Carnival and the rumor was that a few of these guys were bringing in their own Columbian to try and do an end run around the bosses while everyone else was out of town celebrating.

It should have been perfect but a couple of junkies fucked us. We were set up the apartment, I was sitting back from a window just watching the street. Suddenly the door to the apartment opened and I turned to see these two filthy teenagers standing there. Rail thin with that twitchy nervous energy that addicts give off. I could see the older one’s eyes, wide with surprise, take in the room. Our weapons leaning against the walls, our gear spread around the room. The trash from our MREs piled in the corners. The cameras on the tripods pointed out the windows and the warehouses beyond. I could almost see the understanding as it spread across his face. He turned and ran so fast it looked like he vanished into thin air and before any of us could move we heard the two of them crashing down the stairs. We starred at each other, “what the fuck just happened?” hung heavily in the air.

“Go!” Screamed our team leader, breaking the silence. “Don’t let anyone leave that fucking warehouse.” He was already on the radio calling for the rest of the task force by the time we were out of the apartment. We scrambled down the stairs and across the street. I found myself in the lead and we stacked for just a moment outside the door while I tried the handle. It was unlocked.

They were playing a card game when we came through the door, screaming like the devil himself, spreading out to cover the room. Two of the guys just froze, their hands crushing the cards as they tensed in fear. One of the guys grabbed a gun off the table and started firing even as he was turning to run, his shots burying themselves into the ceiling. The rest of them scattered. This heavyset guy in a pair of jeans and a sports coat was right in front of me, I leapt a couch and chased him into a dark maze of offices in the rear of the warehouse. Suddenly blind, I prayed he wasn’t hiding around a corner waiting to brain me with a baseball bat when a rectangle of light appeared and I saw him silhouetted for a moment before he was outside.

The alley behind the warehouse was a stinking stretch of unpaved road that still held puddles of oily water from the last time it rained. Blinking in the sudden light I could see that it ended in an enormous pile of rotting garbage, evidence of the problems that the city had with illegal dumping. He was skidding to a stop, trying to avoid plowing face first into the refuse. I pulled my side arm and pointed it at him noticing for the first time that there was a comically big Desert Eagle doing it’s worst to stay concealed in a shoulder holster under his sports coat.

“Throw me the gun.” I said in Spanish. “Lay face down on the ground and nobody gets hurt.”

I was unsure what to do. I didn’t have anything on me but a few pesos and a gun. All my gear still being in the apartment. I could hear voices coming from the warehouse but it was too faint to hear the language or if was my team. He looked at me then at the garbage pile and the freedom that lay beyond if he could climb it.

“Don’t fucking do it.” I said watching his hands, making sure he didn’t go for the gun.

“I don’t think you’re going to hurt me.” He said. “If you had wanted to hurt me, you would have done so already.” I could hear his voice crack with nervousness but we both knew he was right. The question was what would I do if he took a runner for it. He wasn’t a big guy and he didn’t look to be in particularly good shape, I knew I could beat the shit out of him and tie him up with this shirt if it came to that but there was the pesky matter of that Desert Eagle.

He was starting to drift back towards the garbage pile. “Don’t.” I said but he just kept watching my gun, moving slowly.

Behind me the door to the warehouse crashed open. I whirled around to see the junkie from the apartment as he slid on the dirt and fell. He saw me and the gun and before I could say anything, he disappeared back into the warehouse. “Fuck” I screamed at him in frustration but he was already gone. Then I screamed again, this time in fear, knowing that I had just turned my back to a man with a gun. In the moment that it took me to turn around, I expected to feel the punch between my shoulder blades that meant he had shot me.

But he wasn’t looking to shoot me. He was half way up the garbage pile, one hand against the warehouse wall for balance. “Get down here or I’ll shoot you.” I yelled.

“You won’t shoot me.” He yelled back not bothering to turn around.

“I will shoot you.”

“You didn’t shoot that other man.” He said.

“There wasn’t time to shoot that other man,” I almost said but bit my tongue. This was ridiculous. I was having an argument with an armed drug smuggler about whether I would shoot him or not. It shouldn’t have been a question. I was authorized to shoot him. Any of the cartel guys were fair game as far as our ROI went. And my last orders were to make sure that no one left the warehouse. If I let him get away it could compromise our entire reason for being here. Plus that junkie appearing then disappearing was a bad sign. It meant that we didn’t have control of the warehouse. It meant that no one was going to magically appear and help me with this fuck up. But worse, it meant that someone from my team could be in real danger in there while I was out in this alley playing grab ass with an asshole in a sports coat that could have stolen from any cut-rate Midwestern community college professor.

“I’m fucking tell you again.” I yelled and we could both hear the panic in my voice. He was almost at the top of the garbage pile. Another few moments and he could tumble to safety on the other side. He didn’t bother to answer me

I starred at him as he made the top of the pile. He glanced back briefly, disgust was evident in his face but so was triumph. Whoever I was, he had gambled and won and now he was free.

It surprised me when the gun jumped in my hand, fire spitting out the front, the roar deafening me in the narrow alley. I saw a look of pain on his face as his knees buckled and he started to slump back towards me. I hadn’t consciously decided to shoot him. I stood there frozen until I saw him struggling to unsnap the shoulder holster. Then I fired again, twice in rapid succession and he fell face forward into the garbage, half burying himself. “Goddamn it,” I thought. “God fucking damnit.”

But there was still work to be done. I quickly searched him, taking the Desert Eagle, his wallet and what I hoped was an address book and not just where he kept the odd poem and recipe he came across. When I was sure that I wasn’t going to find anything else of value on him, I pulled the door to the warehouse open again and disappeared inside.