Monday, April 18, 2022 Santiago, Chile

The next day Bahu and team reported back at the hotel. The Atacama mine had been abandoned. No presence at all of anyone. They ahead asked around and the locals said that the mine had been sold and the new owners hadn’t gotten here to resume lithium mining.

And the Buenos Aires team wasn’t finding much either. They were establishing a new safe house for the Aqrabuamelu and hunkering down for now.

They decided to find a new base of operations since carrying weapons in and out of the hotel was tedious. But they also wanted to make contact with the local gangs to find out what was going on.

Ella went this time. They were there to meet with a local drug dealer as muscle for hire. He passed them up the ladder twice until they set up a meet with a local lieutenant at his headquarters.

Namtar took the lead again. But this time their story was a bit more flexible, they were ex-military from the United States looking for work. Work that involved killing.

Apparently the Aqrabuamelu did this sort of hiring out often. The gang leader switched to surprisingly fluent English almost immediately.

“So… how do I know you can do what you can say you can do? She…” and he pointed right at Ella, “isn’t a soldier. We aren’t paying for anyone’s puta here.”

Ella was about to respond, she wasn’t sure how. And then she heard an awful hissing, gasping noise. She turned around to see Zaidu laughing. It was horrible sounding.

He spit to the side. And then said, “This puta will take any two of you and not even sweat.” Gee thanks Zaidu, you asshole.

“Señor, you look like a soldier but her?” The lieutenant looked at her skeptically.

She reached over and put down her rifle and sidearm. Pulled the knife out of its sheathe and placed it next to them. And then unwrapped the garrote wire from her waist and then remembered the pepper spray she also had. It made her feel naked.

Well, thought Ella, let’s make this happen. “Usad cuchillos.” Man her Spanish sucked.

And then, because this was about posturing, she began doing ridiculous, cheesy stretches and warmups. Like the embarrassing kinds out of a ’80s exercise video. Knee bends, hip swivels, quad stretches, large arm circles.

“No, no…” the lieutenant was laughing. “We believe you soldadita.” Which set off the gang members to laughing further. But their side didn’t laugh and Ella kept warming up.

“Oh come on…” she said plaintively. “At least let me get some fun in.”

All this theater to goad them into submission .

She turned to Zaidu and said, not quietly at all, “Do I let them think it was close or just finish it fast so we can move on?”

At that the lieutenant motioned one of his bodyguards, the smaller one Ella noted, to his side, and whispered in his ear.

He smiled and put his gun to the side. And the knife.

“Hey!” and she stamped her foot like a little child. Misdirection was key to making this impactful, “I said you could bring your knife. And a friend.”

Provocation and comedy and derision in equal measure. Theater.

Ella remembered a scene in a movie and put her hands up, reversed her stance and then put her hands up again like she was figuring it out.

“Enough crap,” hissed Zaidu. “Finish this

“Sir, yes sir.” Ella said.

The bodyguard came closer with a boxer’s stance and movement. He was three or four inches taller than Ella, maybe 170 pounds. A bit smaller than Zaidu.

Kick him in the balls? Ella thought about it and decided it wouldn’t show decisive superiority. He threw a feint and it was so… slow. She didn’t even move, it was so transparent.

He fired off a one-two and Ella just tilted her head and slipped them and then reached up and tweaked his nose. The room was silent.

He looked at her for a moment and set his face.

“Come on chico, get serious here,” Ella said and threw him a big smile.

He threw a jab and cross. Ella knew a jab-cross-hook was next, his footwork was atrocious, and he telegraphed each shot. She slipped the jab and cross, tilting her body to the right and then left. Then weaved from right to left under the hook and planted her right elbow in his gut along the way. She felt ribs crack from the blow and he lifted up from the ground a bit before falling back.

“Sorry sir. I’ll drop the next one faster next time.”

She kept her face straight as she took her position by Zaidu, but didn’t make a move to rearm herself.

“So the puta gets lucky,” the lieutenant drawled.

“Offers on for two still. Although, I can probably up it to three after seeing that. And they can still have the knives.”

Now the little bit of humor dropped from the room and the lieutenant had to restrain his other bodyguard.

“You’ve watched too much television, puta. You think we are full of machismo pride and either we won’t hit you and you can win, embarrassing us, or we hit you and look like brutes.”

Ella’s estimation of the lieutenant went up a notch. Against a normal opponent his conclusion would have been right. But this was not a normal situation, the other side just didn’t know it.

“That is enough. She is more than capable of killing each and every one of you with her bare hands. Pathetic.” Zaidu spat.

Ella dropped her posing and walked right up to the lieutenant ignoring the guns pointed at her. “Send someone who is taking it seriously. I’ll drop them in under fifteen seconds. But then the price for our services goes up.”

The bodyguard was still lying on the floor moaning.

“Fine, puta,” he started, but Ella, tired of being called a whore, slapped him. She did it hard and he tumbled off the chair.

“Call me that one more time, and I’ll cut out that tongue of yours and stick it up your own ass.”

He stood up and for one second he looked like he would order his people to shoot and both sides got tense. But then he smiled.

“Eduardo…” he called over a shoulder.

And out from the back came another man, not much bigger than the first couple but much more vicious looking with tattoos up from his neck onto his face.

“Eduardo will cut up a baby if I tell him to. He will do it.”

Eduardo smiled, “¿Cuchillo?” he said in a somewhat dissonant higher pitched voice.

“Sure” said Ella.

He pulled a knife and lunged at Ella over the lieutenants shoulder in one smooth motion.

It was still too slow. Ella leaned back to avoid the blade and the obvious slash that followed.

“Are you going to hide behind your boss?”

“¿Que?” Eduardo said, and the lieutenant quickly translated.

He stepped around and forward and moved in quickly for a slash. Ella caught the arm on hers and quickly broke Eduardo’s arm using her block as a leverage point. The snap was audible. She caught the knife as he dropped it and then stepped back and offered it hilt first back to Eduardo.

“Conchetumare” Eduardo swore and grabbed the knife with his off hand and swung it at her.

Ella thought she could have caught the blade in-between her fingers but didn’t quite have the guts to try. She let the wild swing go by and gave Eduardo’s elbow a bit of an extra shove to spin him around and then push-kicked him in the butt, causing him to stumble forward.

“Ten seconds,” hissed Zaidu.

Shit, I forgot about the fifteen seconds, Ella thought. She ran forward, grabbed his good arm in an arm bar, and snapped it over her leg.

She stood up and looked at the crowd. Eduardo was lying on the ground and looking pale.

“Sorry sir. I won’t play as much for the next one.” and she turned back to the lieutenant, waiting. No more smiles and no more ditzy talk. The point had been made.

And then it was time to talk salary.

Zaidu was super pissed after the show she had put on.

“When faced by an enemy you drop them quick. Even children like these idiots could have gotten lucky.”

Ella spent a lot of the evening being chewed out by Zaidu while Bahu and the rest of the team negotiated for more weapons and started asking questions about the shakedown by the police. Zaidu didn’t care about the presence of the gang members and his utter disregard and contempt for them was as powerful as her demonstration. They weren’t even worth him yelling at them.

Eduardo watched her as his arms were splinted and bandaged. An ugly look on his face and his eyes hooded and glittering.