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A B S O L O M
...more precisely, over Absolom. Or maybe, over the water surrounding Absolom. Absolom... Absolom... the inmates had whispered it, over and over. In discussions over three hots a day. In the yard. On little pieces of paper passed from cell to cell. Absolom. It was like a fart in the wind. Nobody could pin it down, but it damn sure existed. In the hearts and minds of the poor, misguided, fucked-up souls still rotting in their 6X10's, Absolom was either Boogeyman, or Saint Peter. Choking cloud of Sarin gas, or the sweet scent of 'No. 1 Imperial Majesty' perfume. Detroit, or Beverly Hills. There were a thousand different theories. Most of them bullshit. All of them far-fetched.
Nevertheless, at this very moment, two inmates -- #4542378-E6B (Berthier, Jacques) and #4777345-F7F (DeLuca, Olivia) -- were strapped into their seats aboard a helicopter, bound, gagged, and blindfolded. And, as guard Tim Olson looked at his watch, they'd be coming around any time. Some took longer, which never went so well for the Fresh Fish. One way or the other, awake or not, when they arrived at the LZ, it was cut and run. If they weren't conscious by that time, so be it. Still, Tim hoped these two woke up... he had money on DeLuca lasting more than a week.
Olson took a quick look around at the cabin. There were six guards, three on the fore bulkhead, separated from the cockpit by a hatch behind Gunny's seat, and three against the aft bulkhead. All were fully armed with an array of weaponry, and wore black tac gear, head to foot. Two waist gunners manned the twin 7.62mm mini-guns on the Huey, and in the fore compartment sat the pilot and co-pilot / gunner. It was a standard deportation drop. No goods. And aside from a few tense moments, and a very tight timeline, nothing was out of the ordinary. Tim checked his chron, signalled Gunny. Five minutes.
One was stirring. The other was either still out, or acting like it. It didn't make a good goddamn bit of monkey-shit difference to Gunnery Sergeant Mike Evans. These would go out, just like the rest. Whether they hit the ground running, or like 150 lbs of ground beef, made no difference to Gunny. He gave the signal to his men, and various weapons locked and loaded. The two waist gunners leaned out on the landing skids of the jet-black chopper as the noise, and the wind, changed. The chopper engaged its' whisper mode, and though not entirely silent, became far less deafening, which was a feat of engineering that Gunny didn't fully comprehend. Two of his men affixed night-vision goggles, and all gave the thumbs-up.
Red light on. One minute. Gunny gave the signal, the op was a go. The chopper banked now and again, decreasing in altitude and speed. Olson withdrew his knife and readied himself for the order. Five weapons pointed at the two prisoners. Five weapons, and Tim Olson's box-cutter. The chopper slowed again. Lurched. Updraft. They were over the target.
Green light on. Tim moved precisely, carefully, cutting the two straps holding the prisoners in a single, deft slice. Gunny nodded, and Tim grabbed prisoner DeLuca, while Cormier grabbed prisoner Berthier. Their movements were practiced, fluid, economical. Each prisoner was unceremoniously tossed out the open side doors of the Huey, as it hovered six to eight feet off the ground. The only difference this time, as opposed to the many other drops Tim Olson had been a part of, was that he removed prisoner DeLuca's blindfold while he sent her out, palming the cloth as he did so, and stuffing it in a thigh pocket. It would fetch a good dollar on the dark web.
On Olson and Cormier's 'Clear' the chopper gained altitude and flew off, barely on-site for more than ten seconds. Not a shot fired. No contact. Nothing. Absolom was dark like the night sky. In less than a minute, there was no sign the helicopter had ever been there.
On the ground, Berthier and Cormier had landed less than twenty feet from each-other. Their wrists and ankles were zip-tied, and they were still ball-gagged. Berthier was also blindfolded. At first, all was chaos. Disorientation, weightlessness, nausea (coming around from the heavy sedative) and the trauma of a near-ten-foot fall from a moving vehicle (mind you, not moving too fast.) Everything around them seemed to be in motion. As if they had been sucked into a tornado. But as the chopper departed, the chaos diminished. Stillness, and heat. Humid, sticky, so-thick-you-could-tatse-it heat. And slowly, the sounds of nature. Bugs, the occasional bird.
