by Aidan Truhen
Which I admit I did not absolutely plan for.
* * *
—
This is not Humvee country they do not have those here. Humvees are all about an American kind of war porn that is sort of WWE and militia cool and rap and rock music all in one place at one time. Like there was an American commander in Afghanistan who famously wore a sheriff’s badge and a ten-gallon hat and that is exactly the sort of behavior that makes Europeans think Americans have something wrong in the head parts I do not know what the Afghans thought about it but I am assuming it started with whatever is the word for fuck in Pashtun. A hat like that has swinging big dick energy and why would you ever show a bunch of snipers your dick energy that is just putting a target on your energetic dick.
But that is not to say there is no swinging dick energy in Europe there is so much dick here sometimes you would actually think there was no room for more dick but newsflash: there is always room for more dick and on that basis there is the Mercedes G-Wagen Service Edition. The original ’70s model was a street-legal German military truck and the Service Edition is the modern cartel-grade road tank executive upgrade and this one has been additionally pimped with big lights on top like you would use to shoot squid from a boat if that was a thing anyone did. It is less a vehicle than an enormity with wheels and I see it before Agent Hannah or the driver because I happen to be looking out the right window. It is going to T-bone us like a bear taking a buffalo calf like that.
Huge.
Fucking.
Truck.
Do you know the Greek royal family have these, they bought like a baker’s dozen in anthracite matte apparently so all the kids could have one.
Wow that is so big and I start to say LOOK OUT but I say:
LO—
I am thinking: huge big thing big coming so fast I swear every fucker in this conversation has meaner tools than I have I am woefully under-tooled—
No not like—no I mean—
WHAM.
* * *
—
There is clarity in flight.
I do not mean in flying but in being in flight because the whole world stops and you see everything in the future and the past and you see it perfectly because you have stopped too. You don’t have time for extraneous thoughts you just have one endlessly extended instant of frozen white light and knowing and I know:
We are upside down in midair.
Agent Hannah has her hands braced against the ceiling and her head is half turned to me to tell me something probably that I am an asshole. She probably thinks this is my team but I already know it’s not because if it was my team they would have used Saul and Saul would have used a spike strip.
Out of the front window I can see the sky like an endless nighttime blanket over the mountains and the world.
And under me I can see—
I can see the road but not just the road I can see—
Metal—
And—
What the shit is that is that—
Like seething velvet: moonlit and cloudy and blue.
When we hit the water I bang my head so I do not get to feel the cold. At least I do not feel it as it happens. But my bones remember it and I think they always will.
The water comes into the car and I am upside down so first it is great I am hooked to the ceiling and FUCK MY FUCKING FEET ARE ON FIRE no that is water O SHIT COLD COLD and it is rising and the agents in the car are not looking so good and the car is fucking SINKING are you KIDDING ME—
Right now I would give anything to have Lucille’s appalling sweet potato ballsack. I think my balls are not so much blue and frozen as retracted into my body as if I was a baby again and I think probably they will never come out again and I do not honestly blame them if I could go somewhere warm and hide I would also do that.
The water is rising up my chest up my back the car is O SHIT the car is TURNING OVER and so I will go down into the—
—ICE WATER—
Ice water white and blue and green and chalky and thick and I cannot tell you how cold how cold. Cold like another life like being hit like being—
At least—it’s odd—at least in this cold I don’t really feel the need to breathe. Or move.
In the water, I wonder if I should just die. After all that time I was scared of heights and burning and ash here I am cold and clean under a Swiss river with my hands hooked to the floor of an upside-down cop car and not—
My face breaks the water and we’re like sideways so only half my face is drowning and I can breathe water if I just stay in this damned uncomfortable position forever and the car does not sink. Agent Hannah’s cop friends are yelling but not screaming because they have serious intestinal fortitude I got to give them that they have integrity they have Swissness.
Heh. I’m pretty sure your boss hateboinked my fingers while she was arresting me and that let me tell you boys even I know that is motherfucking un-Swiss. But I love your integrity I do. And I love hers too because Agent Hannah is alive and awake and she looks at me and I see her see me seeing her and I know what she’s thinking because in the end we’re not that different. She’s a dedicated cop and I’m a professional criminal and there’s all that but in the end—we’re both people who do, and then there are people who don’t, and that is all. And she is thinking that she cannot let me get offed here.
Someone gets shot in the face. It isn’t me so I don’t care.
Hannah lunges like a fucking eel from the front seat down into the back in her soaking sweatpants. Down between my knees and into the water and her fingers must be numb there’s no way she can use a key there in the cold water and then the car is rolling again and she’s standing on the roof and I am hanging by the cuffs and then real big I see the jawless man’s residual head come toward me like a morning star from that awful TV show and I think there’s some fucking karmic shit happening here and then WHUD.
Night night.
* * *
—
All the world is a gun and it is firing over and over and over and over and—
Ratatataata—yeah yeah that’s just a waste of perfectly good projectiles none of you is—
Wait I’m alive that’s good—
Fuck I’m cold FUCK—
Cold cold cold O JESUS so cold. Lying in the water faceup cold and all around this huge noise ratatatata. ZOING ZOING that’s in the water that’s not good that’s where I am someone do something I pay taxes do I not? Under several names and in several countries actually so I ought to get at least some kind of fucking police presence for that.
Agent Hannah rattatatas and Agent Hannah’s flunkies ratatatatatatat and then up on the bridge more people ratatatatata down at us and this is very fucking un-Swiss and it should not be allowed.
Things whizz by that are sharp and hard. Shrapnel and bullets and I fucking hate guns and how come everyone has one except me.
Ratatata.
Too cold to move like all my zing is gone into the—
I am Jack Price.
I am Banjo fucking Telemark.
There is not enough cold in the whole world to take my zing.
“In that case Jack is necessary you move fat bourgeois ass and not die am I right?”
“Yeah big guy I hear ya it’s just cozy here.”
“Yeah was cozy also in the snow machine where I threw myself to give you a chance so—”
“Fuck don’t guilt me I hate that—”
“Yeah also as it happens I fell in by accident I actually was hijacking but did not go well. Now move Jack. Is bad manners to die with my red corpsicles still in your blood.”
“I think that would be corpuscles—”
“Sure splain to the dead guy why not you got time—OH WAIT NO YOU DIE HERE UNLESS YOU MOVE ASS—”
“Shit all right all
right—”
I drag myself up out of the water my hands are just white clubs on the end of my arms my feet are clumsy but I move until I am behind a little low wall on the waterside with the cops. Agent Hannah has found a crappy little boulder to hide behind all Butch and Sundance and we all know THAT turned out well.
Hannah says something and one of the guys ONLY TWO GUYS says something back: Chäschuechli Chäschuechli. That is the Swiss word for cheesecake and they are not saying cheesecake but if you are not Swiss and you are listening to deep Swiss gunfight crisis lingo it really does not matter how good your language skills may be some variation of that is what you are hearing.
There are seven men from the G-Wagen up on the bridge and they have some serious weapons and they are—
Ratatataat—RATATATAT—
And we are pinned down and I’m amazed I am even alive because there is our car sinking in the Aare and Hannah must have actually fucking unlocked me under the fucking water and dragged me here that is super-duper responsible and law enforcey and Swiss but she is not fucking Wonder Woman so she cannot—
RATATATATA—
RATATATATAATATATTTAA—
Ratatata SPLINCH.
That is Hannah’s left-hand guy leaving his thinkparts on the white stones by the side of the river and leaking into the cloudy blue water.
White lights shining down on us like an eye. G-Wagen.
What the fuck is the response time here it cannot be anything this is the fucking federal capital is everyone a-fucking-sleep?
There’s Hannah now by herself and she’s too exposed over there she needs to be over here but she cannot get from there to here and they will kill her and then they will come down here and kill me.
Agent Hannah’s right-hand guy says this and she says something and he says no and she says no and he pops up and gives her covering fire and Agent Hannah says NEEEIIIII—
And that turns out to be a bad decision for him and so she is alone and so am I. Which means— O for fuck’s sake really we’re doing this? What the actual fuck Doc will—well she will not be happy whatever happens here.
I get my feet under me.
Ratatatatatata! Stay where you fucking are Jack Price or I shoot you myself—
I don’t run toward her directly so I do not get shot at right off. I run the other way to the dead left-hand guy. By the time the G-Wagen guys wake to what’s happening I get him on my back in his bullet vest and I run back to Hannah with him pushed up onto my head like a stupid hat and that is how I get to her alive. It feels as if dead man and I are together holding up an elephant because all the bullets in the world are hitting him FLOB FLOB PIZZIAAAOW ZIAAAOW ZNOING FLOB FLOBBBABLOB. Hannah looks at me like this is the worst thing that has ever happened in the world (FLOB FLOB) I grab her and drag her back and back to the little wall. It is like running with an umbrella under a meat shower. Then we get down behind the wall and the rain stops and she stares at me. She has some of her friend in her hair.
“What the fuck is WRONG with you?”
“Lady you are looking in fact for the words Danke schön or THANK YOU would also be fine—”
“LOOK WHAT YOU HAVE DONE—”
“What you think he still gave a shit his face is over there by the water—”
(Ratatatatatatata but whole meters away this time so I hardly notice.)
“You are a monster.”
“I am not—”
“Get your damn head down criminal—”
“Much as I would love that now is hardly the time—”
She stares at me: “You would make that joke here and now?”
“Lady you inappropriately lovebuttoned my innocent finger and I am going to sue the fuck out of that later and I realize you do not believe this but my name is BANJO TELEMARK I am an ARTIST not a fucking—”
“O sure—”
Ratatatatata SPLUDDER.
And that is another man down and that is it. Now it’s just us versus them and Agent Hannah’s big gun is empty and she has a backup and—
I don’t know where the fuck would I find out about little European popgun thingies but it is the first gun I have seen this trip that does not make me feel inferior and HOW THE FUCK IS IT THE GUN BETWEEN ME AND DEATH that is just fucking annoying.
It is a tiny fucking gun.
RATATATATATA ZING SCHWING ZING.
Agent Hannah’s gun goes ponk.
RATATATATA. RATA ATTTATATATATATA ZSCHWING FRISSSS ATATATA!
(ponk)
For actual fuck’s sake.
I may die of just being fucking embarrassed. I’ll sure as hell die if I try to run.
Except.
Something weird is happening right now.
In any other country on earth you would hear sirens right now and helicopters and sure you can hear those things.
But you can also hear something else. It is a really fucking weird sound. It sounds like geese.
Angry fucking geese.
Angry geese talking about cheesecake so—
Not geese. People.
And doors opening.
Because this is Switzerland.
Until a couple years ago every household had a service rifle in a case. Most every single guy here shoots off a mandated number of rounds per month. They’ve been cutting back. But not that much. There are still plenty of homes here that are armed. And the people in them are actually trained in the use of weapons and in group maneuvers. They have a rank system and assigned roles because they are the Swiss. Fucking. Army.
Ratatata.
(ponk)
RATATATA—
But now also:
“DURCHZÄHLEN!”
“MORGES!”
“KRIENS!”
“MORGES!”
“DREI MAL—”
“VIER—”
“OFFICIER, DÉTACHEMENT DE RECONNAISSANCE DE L’ARMÉE DIX—”
“À VOTRE COMMANDE—”
“À GAUCHE—”
Clickaclack and running feet crisscrossing. Tic tac tic tact: infantry advance, urban warfare style.
This.
Is.
Awesome.
Because this here is a gunfight in the heart of a nation’s capital city. It might be a terror attack. It might be something else. But it is dangerous and criminal and not allowed and for whatever reason the people who should be dealing with it are not here yet and so it is continuing in despite of good order and public safety—
And that is not fucking Swiss.
BROKKA BROKKA BROKKA
Semiautomatic rifle fire.
From.
Everywhere.
BROKKA BROKKA BROKKA
BROKKA BROKKA BROKKA
BROKKA BROKKA BROKKA
BROKKA BROKKA BROKKA BROKKA BROKKA BROKKA BROKKA BROKKA BROKKA—
Seven guys from the G-Wagen are right now having a totally shitty night.
And I’m happy.
Because here I am freezing on the banks of a river and some cop lady who wants to arrest me who has this tiny gun is defending me from being deadified by men in a giant death car who are—going out on a limb here I’m gonna say Hans Eiger has made a call—and now the citizenry has risen up and taking a stand and at last at fucking last I understand what the shit is happening in the world.
Robbing a bank? Sure. Sure I get that. I see it but it’s not actually my jam.
This though.
This is like when you’ve been away from your house and you get through the door and you’re not really thinking about it and you’ve got something to do right away and you draw that first breath and the exact combination of smells and moisture and your life hits you in the brain and you know you’re where you are meant to be.
Where I’m meant to be—
Ponk ratatatata ponk BROKKA BROKKA—
I take three steps and fall forward into the river as Agent Hannah turns and sees me and screams WAS SCHEIßEREI—
But she isn’t going to shoot me now because she wants to arrest me and because although it was disgusting and appalling she knows I just saved her life and she saved mine and that is a thing.
Another thing.
Between us.
Agent Hannah lowers her gun and screams at me and I let the ice-cold water wash me away and away.
River flows fast. Don’t know if Hannah came after me. Guessing not. Guessing the G-Wagen boys are more her priority right now.
Paramilitary operations in her capital city and all that.
So cold. How long do I have before I freeze like three minutes. Less because I was cold when I went in.
Doesn’t matter. Hypothermic is fixable shot is not prison—
Well prison is negotiable except that once you’re in everyone EVERYONE knows where to find you and for a man in my position that is not good.
Out in the main stream. Getting warmer.
Which means going under.
Behind me far away bokka bokka still and now sirens now helicopters. Not long before Hannah tasks one of them in my direction surely time to get out.
Just don’t know if I have the energy.
Gravel under my feet. Huge bend in the river and here’s the strand. Bathing spot with a wooden pontoon that’s convenient if only I could—
“Ayaaaawuh that is correct come come—”
Help. Switzerland of course there is help.
Yes of course.
“I’m—”
“Here quickly we must dry you—there is an ambulance here—”
Heat packs all over agonizing agonizing pass out don’t pass out—
“Sit still here you will be fine but you must get warm here are clothes who should we call for you—”
“I’m—”
Who am I? Who’s safe to be—
Tired. I’m tired. “Need a drink is there something hot?”
“Yes there is soup goulasch soup from the café here—”
Of course it is.