"Nice to meet you Robert."

Brian turns back to the window, speaking to himself under his breath. Moten can, however, just barely make out the movement of his lips, enough to know what he's saying...

"I fucking hate Siberia"

Artis and Peter approach the rig, hearing the sounds of someone trying to hotwire the engine. The starter whirs with a depressing sound of futility then goes silent then fires up again with the same result.

Their advances seem to go unnoticed as they get within striking distance of rig's cab.

Artis takes a deep breath and then jerks the passenger door open, pointing the AKSU up into the cab.

"If you wanted a ride, you could've asked. Get your hands up!"

Peter calls from behind Art, readying his revolver.

"Stick your hands up, asshole! And God help you if you messed with the stereo wiring!"

"Do you have a phone number that you can call to contact of the rest of your team?" Moten asks. "It would be good if we could connect with them."

Brian produces the agency cell phone, still amazed that the little gadget hasn't broken into a million pieces. Would make a great ad for Nokia. He turns it on again, and tries to get in touch with the rest of the team, hoping someone is in the answering mood.

Siberian Highway

"If you wanted a ride, you could've asked. Get your hands up!"

"Stick your hands up, asshole! And God help you if you messed with the stereo wiring!"

Flanked on either side of the truckcab, the passenger holds his (still cuffed) hands up over his head, dropping Peter's Leatherman™ into his lap.

(speaking in heavily accented English)

"Hey, cowboys. Don't shoot! Ok? I was...I was just trying to...ok. I was trying to steal your truck and failed miserably. Although judging from the kind of gear you have (rattling off just about every electronic gadget in the cab), you're not truckers hauling cabbage."

His know-how and technical expertise impresses Peter, although it does nothing to improve his opinion of the rat's nest of wires now hanging underneath the rig's steering column.

---

(If ADS knows any better, he should be able to take my last OOC remark and turn it into a very funny post dealing with cardoors and celphones.) :cheesy:

Peter looks at the wiring.

"Stealing? You're fucking ruining it! And you sound like you should know better, so maybe I ought to take your dish of cable salad as personal insult, then?"

In this episode of, "When Geeks Attack."

Quote:

Quote: from Gatac on 9:11 am on Jan. 18, 2005
Peter looks at the wiring.

"Stealing? You're fucking ruining it! And you sound like you should know better, so maybe I ought to take your dish of cable salad as personal insult, then?"

"It's not like trying to hotwire a Lada, that's for sure. You've got half a mile of cable underneath here and I can't make heads or tails of whether it's ignition or stereo wires. A true connesieur would have everything labeled and tied off properly. Where did you learn how to wire a car? And this fusebox...don't even get me started on the fusebox."

"Label? LABEL? What kind of chickenshit amateur do you think I am? It's color-coded, you lameass! I have the circuit in my head, and that's where it's supposed to be. It was hard enough to build, why should it be easy to understand?"

That said, Peter levels his revolver at the guy.

"See this? I call this the closing statement. Instantly ends every debate in my favor, one way or another. Do you want me to ... elaborate?"

Quote:

Quote: from fanchergw on 2:13 pm on Jan. 14, 2005
Seeing the look of utter incomprehension on the woman's face, Jacque tries a different tack. "Do you speak English, by any chance," he asks in fluent British-accented English.

Ayumi frowns, not quite sure what to do or say for a moment.

"Keep him covered," she tells the man, and then, not taking her eyes off him, says, "Carla, we how's it looking in there?"

"He's not going to be going anywhere for a while."

What the nice gentleman doesn't see is that Carla's currently straddling the intruder holding a big fuck-off knife to his throat.

Quote:

Quote: from Infested Paladin on 1:42 pm on Jan. 18, 2005
Ayumi frowns, not quite sure what to do or say for a moment.

"Keep him covered," she tells the man, and then, not taking her eyes off him, says, "Carla, how's it looking in there?"

"Uhm... Okay, ma'am," Jacques replies. "Are you ladies alright?" From the looks of things, they seem unhurt, including the one out of sight.

"What do you want to do with this fellow? You're welcome to him. I doubt he'll give you too much trouble at this point..."

As the adrenaline settles down; Ayumi, Carla, and their new friend Jacque take in the situation at hand. The two men seem to either be inept or just very unlucky in their executions (no pun intended).

Upon further reflection by Ayumi, the man she stabbed went down surprisingly fast for an assassin. No "professional" would have surrendered after a relatively minor stabwound, at gunpoint or not. The guy seemed ill-prepared for the task.

Which brings the focus on the dude who crashed through their door. With all the subtlety of a sledgehammer smashing a plate-glass window, the man advanced with little thought as to what he was going to do upon entering the cabin. He too went down pretty quick, although being impaled with a knife and a swift boot to the gonads is nothing to laugh about...ever.

Jacque overhears the babushka talking to her younger colleague.

"I will find the conductor and he will call the SMP. Stay calm."

"We don't have time for this," Artis says, grabbing the passenger and hauling him across the seat so his head and perhaps shoulders are hanging out the side door. He slowly swings the cab door back and forth, making sure the passenger sees his intent while ensuring it's going to hit somewhere unpleasant. Going into full-on Jack Bauer mode, Artis continues:

"If you don't convince me you're telling the truth I'm going to kill Sasha first, then you. Sasha will die quickly. I can't say the same for you. Who do you work for? If the owners of those crates knew they were gone, they would have detonated them way before we got involved. Why weren't you a smoking crater already?"

Quote:

Quote: from admiralducksauce on 10:59 am on Jan. 19, 2005

"If you don't convince me you're telling the truth I'm going to kill Sasha first, then you. Sasha will die quickly. I can't say the same for you. Who do you work for? If the owners of those crates knew they were gone, they would have detonated them way before we got involved. Why weren't you a smoking crater already?"

"I don't work for anyone! Those...those crates I didn't even know they were in the trunk. That's Sasha's shit, not mine! I was just hitching a ride with him!" screams Sasha, who has seen enough gangster movies to know what happens next.

Artis' first reaction is to move on to the What is your primary objective? portion of the interrogation.

*WHAM*

"Don't move. I'll go get Sasha."

(Is Sasha in a condition to even talk?)

The young woman efficiently KO's the goon on the floor. Having no further need for his pistol, Jacques holsters it.

Words come to his ears from the cabin he just recently vacated. A couple steps return him to it's door. <"No need, ma'am. I'll be happy to take care of that. How is your young friend doing, by the way?">

Once he gets a response, Jacques heads off in search of a conductor to report this mess to.

The armor-plated cab door smashes the guy's head like a walnut. His glasses shatter under the force, along with his jaw. He'll definitely need a good dentist too.

(frothing at the mouth with spit and blood)

"Yearrgh. Jeeshus! Yer bloke my frucking jawr!"

Sasha's eyes have since rolled back and his facial color is now an unhealthy shade of blue.

*Artis' phone rings*

Caller-ID indicates that it is Brian.

Back on the train to Krasnoyarsk...

Jacque finds the conductor a few cars down and reports the incident to him. He immediately calls on his radio to what (presumably) is the central control. Jacque hears the person on the radio acknowledge the circumstances and that members of the SMP will be at the next crossing...some 100km down the tracks.

Artis fishes his phone out, leaving Sasha to the great white north.

"Zdravstvuite?"

(Zdravstvuite, while Russian for hello, doesn't have the same ring to it that Bonjour has)