Just Another Dive Bar

She walked down the street, deep in thought about the events from the past week. She didn’t see her tail, even though he wasn’t being particularly careful. She was too self-absorbed in her own thoughts. She had been going by the name Jasmine of late, perhaps that was to hide from her past, perhaps it was to start afresh. She didn’t even know anymore.

Her previous lover told her that she would never be able to hide who she was because her face was unforgettable. He told her that she was too beautiful to ever be forgotten. She might have thought that he spoke in jest or heightened flattery, but the truth of it was that she had noticed that men never did forget her. Was she really that beautiful? She had never thought she was that remarkable. Sure, she was good looking, she must be the way the boys chased her. But unforgettable?

She was going to meet her new contact finally in person today. He had picked out the location, a local dive bar. A true dive bar, hard to describe such a place really. She walked in and the place was covered with sawdust all over the ground. Two old timers swooshed a pile of discarded peanut shells onto the floor next to her feet when she walked him. Her eyes slowly looked at them, they were too engrained in their conversation and didn’t even notice it was a usual occurrence. The dead animals around the place hanging on the wall were just another oddity that gave the place a sense of a cemetery. Clearly, this shadowy place was not one for the upper classes.

“Can I get a Vodka Cranberry, please?”, she asked of the barkeep. He gave a rather rough grunt, which she took to be acceptance. He journeyed off to make the drink while she waited patiently at the bar. She glanced over at the two old timers who now apparently had forgotten their conversation and were blatantly staring at her, beers forgotten half raised to both of their lips.

She quipped, “Are you going to take a picture, boys? Just for posterity?”

They stammered some hushed response, but the younger of the two eventually piped up, “Sorry ma’am. Didn’t mean to be rude.”

“Here’s your drink miss.”

“What do I owe you?”, Jasmine requested.

“The man in the corner is paying for this,” he commented.

“What’s that?”

“He came in about an hour ago, he’s been sitting in the back over there,” he gestured to a man sitting in the shadows in the back of the bar. “He said if the most beautiful woman you have ever seen comes in today, he would be buying her drinks. I’m not sure he meant you, but then I don’t know how he couldn’t have. I guess he was expecting you?”

“Uh, sure thing, let’s go with a that. Appreciate it.”

She glanced over to the two old timers who where still stealing glances but where doing it with slightly more discretion, she caught both of their eyes and winked before grabbing her drink and walking back into the shadows of the bar.

Another man who had been casually lounging at the entrance now walked up to the bar and ordered a drink and a burger. He said some raunchy comment that had the three men at the bar laughing. It appeared he fit in with the good ol’ boys well enough. He flipped out a smart-phone and appeared truly engrossed in its content as he walked with his beer and sat down at a booth near the one in the corner. He of course missed the start of the conversation, so he started overhearing it mid-conversation and mid-sentence.

She was exclaiming in a hushed whisper, “… they stole the package? You know we spent weeks putting together that intelligence. How could this happen!”

“Look Jasmine, we knew they were planning a move like this. We just didn’t think they would be so brazen to do it this soon or in the middle of the day. Still, I understand the frustration. Six months of counterintelligence against the cartel. The body counts just keep going up.” The mystery man leaned back and downed his whiskey in one gulp. Then he poured a glass of water, apparently, he had the presence of mind to get an entire flask of it before sitting at the table.

“This information changes everything Samuel. How safe is it right now?” asked Jasmine. “We were all thinking we had months yet before possible exposure, and even then, that was going to be controlled exposure. What about the entire plan? If they got the entire intelligence briefing, identities could be compromised.” This could be a complete disaster. A year undercover, trying in infiltrate the Boazra cartel, the largest operating in the United States might have been a complete waste of time. Not to mention a dozen agents or more might be killed if they weren’t immediately moved into protective custody.

“Our three undercover agents in California have already been exacted. They will be enjoying a long overdue vacation, far away from North and South America.” He grew melancholy and swirled his water in his glass. “You know, they probably won’t be back for two or three years. As you just said, we couldn’t risk it, we immediately moved to get them out. The entire task-force in Florida is being disassembled as well.”

Jasmine was quiet for a minute as she looked at him. “You were really growing to love her, weren’t you? They shipped her off to the Middle East or South Pacific for two years now?” They were both silent for several minutes. “You were buying my drinks, right? Give me a minute.”

“Now wait just a minute, Jas…”.

She lost his plea and what she assumed was a rather spicy retort as she slipped out of the booth and was half-way to her next beverage before his voice was lost in the drone of the bar.

“Did you miss me, boys?”, she said with another wink. She turned to the bartender, “The fine gentlemen in the corner has agreed to get us another round, isn’t that great? I think these two boys here also need another round.”

She had never one to flaunt it, but she couldn’t help twitching her hips a bit as she carried the whiskey and vodka back to the corner table.

“Surprised you didn’t buy a round for the entire place.” He muttered.

“What? I didn’t?” “Yo! Barkeep!”

“Shush! What! We are trying to be inconspicuous here! Multi-national threat, lives at stake! Hello!”

She has outright laughing now, the faint lights streaking off her soft features and adding their own permeating glow to the room. She was beautiful on a bad day, but when she laughed. It was like the entire world shifted just for her. “Ah come on man, you have to have a little fun. You only live once, right? Besides, you practically did buy a round for the place, there’s only like two other people in here you haven’t bought drinks for. Why you so uptight anyway, you’re expensing it anyway.”

“The department has been frowning on the budget lately. You know me, trying to fly under the political drama. Anyway, I’ll get over it. Look, we’ve been working together for two years and this is the first time we’ve sat down. Bottom line, we need to get you out, and quick. We don’t know how long it’ll be for the cartel to comb through the details and put together all the leads, but it was pretty obvious you were an agent in those briefs. This means you have days right now to leave the country, assuming they already haven’t put together the pieces. You can’t contact anyone you know at this point, don’t talk to anyone.”

Jasmine’s eyes stared blankly at the table, “You had to get all real didn’t you. Why do you think I got another drink? They must know at this point. Rathas must already have hitmen out there on me. Am I going to the airport right now then? You know I’ve been in deep a year now, and the previous year building street creds to go in deep. Two years now, two years. I’ve made real friends in this world, this underworld. I have more real friends in the cartel now than I do outside of it. And just like that I must leave it all behind? I left everything behind in my real life. You know I haven’t talked to my parents in two years?”

The unnamed man reached out and patted her hand, “I know Jasmine. There’s literally no alternative here. We both know they are coming. Your flight leaves in four hours, you are not to return for anything. Don’t talk to anyone inside the organization, just disappear.” He slid over a manila envelope, it looked stuffed. “All the standard documents. New identity end-to-end. Passport, social security, driver’s license, birth certificate. You get another new name, isn’t that fun? Enough currency to start you out, anyway, should be twenty thousand dollars in there. Plus, all the standard unmarked and untraceable equipment. We also included a small black notebook with detailed information on contacts and next steps. Guard that with your life, literally. It’s not as damning as the information we just lost of course, but still we can’t let anyone get their hands on that information outside the organization.”

The vodka went down smooth, but it was entirely unsatisfying. She grabbed the envelop and tucked it into her pack. “I’m out then. Never one to dawdle, I guess. Right now, I’m not going to feel quite right until I am through security in the airport.” She took several steps away from the table and then turned around looking back, “You know it’s actually really good to finally meet you in person. I doubt we will see each other any time soon though. But I guess I owe you a huge thank you, I might even owe you my life. But either way, you are only getting thanked for the vodka.” She laughed at her own quip and immediately spun around and moved toward the door. She made a lewd comment as she walked past the bartender that had her and the three men rolling in laughter.

She was pulling open the outer door when she heard the muffled tat-tat. As she glanced over her shoulder, she saw the man who had been sitting a booth over from them, now standing over his slumped body. The pistol with the silencer still pointed at his head, which had slumped down and was resting on the table, rapidly pooling blood across the table’s surface.

She broke in a dead run, a deadly run. Thank God she hadn’t wore the heels she was planning on wearing. She’d dressed casual with tennis-shoes. That decision might have just saved her life. She ran, dodged, and dove into a car sitting two blocks over out of sight from the bar. There’s no way he could have seen where she went. She began hotwiring the car, slightly bleeding from when she’d broken the window to get in.

Jasmine started driving. Well, she wasn’t Jasmine anymore. She didn’t know who she was. She hadn’t known who she was for a long time now, honestly. But she was driving, and she was driving anywhere but the airport.