Tension filled the air in the office of Team Seven of the ATF, practically dripping off the walls. The entire team was gathered around the desk that Ezra shared with Vin, which was currently inhabited by Chris. Everyone was watching the telephone with expressions of anticipation. And then it rang.
The group jumped, and Chris snatched up the phone. "ATF. Larabee."
The others watched him, biting their lips.
"No, sir, I'm afraid there's no—one here by that name."
The team breathed a collective sigh of relief and relaxed.
"No. No. No, this is not the number for Jake's Barber Shop. I'm sorry, sir, no. No, five o'clock will not be all right. Because this is not a barber shop, that's why. No, it isn't! It's the ATF! No, I have no idea what — no. I just told you! Of course I don't sound like Jake! I don't know if he's sick! I've never even heard of him before! No, he hasn't moved. Listen carefully: this is the A...T...F. Yes, dammit!" Chris rolled his eyes, struggling to hold his temper in check. "No, sir. I wouldn't know if there are any openings tomorrow, sir, since I have absolutely nothing to do with this barber. Yes. That's correct. ATF, yes. No, not a barber shop. No, I can't call him for you. All right. Thank you."
Chris hung up, rubbed his face. "Good Lord, I hate people like that. What's so hard to understand about ATF—"
The phone rang again. The group tensed.
"ATF. Larabee." An expression of disbelief mixed with fury flickered over Chris's face, quickly replaced by the bland expression that everyone knew meant trouble. The rest of the team drew back.
"No, sir, I'm afraid you've reached the ATF again. No, I don't know when— You know what? Hold on a second and I'll check the books."
Chris placed his hand over the receiver and looked at the youngest member of his team. "JD, do me a favour? Trace this call."
JD nodded obediently and got busy doing things with gadgets.
Chris watched him idly for a few seconds before returning to the call. "Hello? Right, yes. We have an opening at 3am tonight. Tomorrow morning, then. Your name, sir? Ah. Thank you. No, I'm afraid it's the only one for weeks. Yes. No, three a.m. Not five this evening. No, not five. No!"
JD gave Chris a thumbs—up sign, and the older man thankfully hung up the phone, took a deep breath, and picked it up again.
"Hello, Steven? Could you do me a favour? I have this address, I was wondering if you could go there and arrest one Bobby Jenkins? I don't know, being a public nuisance? Disturbing the peace? I don't care! Make something up! Thanks. I'll have JD fax it over, or something. Great, bye."
Chris hung up again and sighed in satisfaction. Then, noticing the looks everyone was giving him, he snapped, "What?!"
They looked away hurriedly.
"Nothing, nothing."
"Hmmmm?"
"Hey, wow, look at the size of that fly."
Chris glared at them for a second, until the phone rang yet again. He snatched it up. "What?!" His eyes widened as he smacked himself on the forehead and closed his eyes briefly. "Oh, hello, Judge."
The team promptly tensed when they heard who he was talking to. JD closed his eyes and started murmuring, "I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little—death that brings total obliteration." It didn't seem to help.
"Right, hah, no. Prank caller and all. Right. Okay. Okay. Do we— okay. Thank you, Judge."
Chris hung up, and, after a moment spent staring at the telephonic apparatus, looked at his team. They looked back, trying valiantly to hide their dread. Chris looked at each of them in turn before leaning back in his — well, Ezra's, actually — chair. "As of tomorrow," he said slowly, and paused. Then started again. "As of tomorrow, we are all on vacation. For two weeks."
The moans of dismay echoed around the office and beyond, causing a secretary outside to pause in her brisk walk to the elevator. 'Must be going on vacation again, poor bastards,' she thought, before continuing on her trek.
"Guys, guys!" yelled Chris, attempting to regain order among the ranks. "It's not that bad!"
"Yes, it is, Chris! Every single time we go on vacation, and that's singly or together, one or more of us gets shot, beaten, stabbed, blown up or otherwise injured!"
Chris knew very well that Buck was right, but he also knew that as team leader it was his duty to try and allay their fears.
"Come on, now, Buck, that's not true," he said, not very convincingly.
"Oh, no? Name one vacation in the last three years where all of us got back to work unscathed."
"Uh, well, there was that time in the, the... at that hotel, you know? The one with the bar decorated in blue and purple stripes?"
Nathan shook his head. "That was a lunch break, Chris, it doesn't count. And Vin got stabbed, remember?"
Chris frowned. "Oh, yeah." He paused. "That was just a flesh wound, though. That waitress had no business screaming and panicking everyone like that."
Vin decided to help out. "How about that time in Hawaii, when — oh, no. Buck got beaten up. Right."
"I know," Chris put in, "how about that time on the boat in Canada? Nobody got hurt then."
Josiah shot him down with ease. "No, Chris, you got shot, remember?"
Chris nodded slightly. "Oh yeah. I keep forgetting."
"Well, nasty head wounds'll do that to you."
"Algeria?"
"JD. Gunshot to the shoulder."
"Niagra Falls?"
"Nate. Gunshot to the leg."
Pause. Then: "Mauritius?"
"Vin. Side."
"Weeeell, shit."
The team stared at their leader in silence for a few minutes, attempting to shame him into letting them stay at work.
"Look, guys, I'm sorry," Chris said, the firmness of his tone rather negated by the nervousness with which he licked his lips. "This is the Judge's way of thanking us for doing such a good job. We can't turn him down, it would hurt his feelings. He was very insistent about that."
"Better to hurt his feelings than endure yet another stay at a hospital." Ezra's laugh died on his lips in the face of the glare he received from his boss. "Or not," he added.
"Can't we just keep doing a good job here? Instead of getting hurt on vacation?" JD asked pleadingly.
"Sorry, no. But look on the bright side! We're booked for a motel in a teeny tiny town on a teensy weensy island just off the coast of... uh... somewhere or other. I have the brochure in my office. The beach, such as it is, is thirty miles away, and utterly horrible, apparently. No self respecting criminal in their right mind would go there."
Vin raised an eyebrow. "And when was the last time we met a self respecting criminal in his right mind?"
"Last week, actually, at the trial for Marvin the bat-sheep man." Ezra muttered.
"Point taken, Vin," said Chris, ignoring Ezra utterly. "Nevertheless, nothing will happen to us in this town. We will have a nice, relaxing holiday in which no—one will get hurt in any way, and that is an order. Understood?"
"Yes, sir," groaned the team.
"Here we are! Haven!" JD excitedly sat forward in his seat and pointed at the tiny sign that announced their destination.
"Thank God," chorused Nathan and Josiah.
"Where is it? I don't see anything." Buck looked around eagerly as he flashed his lights as a signal to Chris, who was driving behind him with Vin and Ezra. Josiah had reluctantly agreed to go with Buck and the kid, and Nate had gone along to keep him company. They had then been horrified when JD and Buck had spent the majority of the long trip playing "sweet or sour", a game which involves waving frantically at all passing vehicles. If the driver or any other occupant of the vehicle waves back, they are "sweet". If not, they are "sour". This game is generally played by people ten years of age or younger.
"We're there!" Chris announced, seeing the lights of Buck's truck flicker.
"Thank God," groaned Ezra, who was bored out of his skull. "Where is it? I don't see anything. I need recreation!" He would been content to pass the trip playing word games, but since neither Chris nor Vin were big on speaking, he'd been forced to while away the time working on his card skills. And since those were already perfect, he didn't really have much to do. Vin, typically, said nothing.
"Uh, isn't that it?" JD pointed to a distant cluster of buildings.
"Wow. Chris wasn't kidding when he said it was a tiny town." Josiah observed, noting the lack of any interesting entertainment whatsoever. "Peaceful and relaxing is one thing, but this is just downright boring."
"You don't know that..." said Nathan doubtfully. "There has to be something to do."
JD sighed. "Hey, at least it's safe."
Buck gestured excitedly, almost causing the truck to go off the road. "I think I see a bar! That'll teach you to be so pessimistic, Josiah."
After they had checked into their hotel ("Hotel? Surely you jest? This building is indubitably condemned!"), the group stood around outside feeling bored.
Vin looked over at Chris. "Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" he drawled.
Chris grinned lazily. "Oh, definitely."
The others rolled their eyes as Vin nodded slightly and started to go back into the hotel.
Chris blinked.
"Hey! Where are you going?"
Vin blinked, too. "I'm going to get some rest! I'm bushed after that long drive."
Chris shook his head, bewildered. "I thought you were gonna head down to the bar with me and have a drink?"
"No, I was just gonna go lie down. Didn't you...?" Vin's voice trailed off as the two stared at each other in confusion.
Finally, Buck broke the silence. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm dying for a drink."
Everyone else quickly agreed, and they set off on foot (it was a very small town) in the direction of the bar, Buck pulling Chris along by the arm. Vin followed slowly.
"Here we go," said Nathan. "Introducing your local bar, The... Saloon..."
The seven men stared at the large sign announcing the bar as The Saloon.
"My, my," said Ezra, succinctly. "Isn't it uncanny how wherever we go there is always a saloon as opposed to a bar."
They shrugged, entered, and sat in a long row at the bar, since there weren't any tables large enough for all of them. JD complained loudly about not being able to talk to everyone at once to tell them his newest joke, until Buck slapped him upside the head and gently informed him that his jokes always sucked anyway.
The bartender, whose nametag introduced him as Fred, shook his head disapprovingly. In his opinion, no-one should drink before five p.m. But, hey, he had a job to do.
"What can I get you guys?" he asked, automatically wiping the counter in front of them.
Everyone ordered a beer except for Chris and Vin, who ordered whiskey to soothe their shattered nerves. If their silent communication thingy had failed once, who was to say it had ever been there before? Maybe all the times they'd had silent conversations, one of them had been talking about the latest/next/current bust, while the other had been talking about his newest houseplant and how well it was responding to the Beethoven he'd been playing it.
Three hours later, the men were well on their way to being drunk.
"And so, every time we go on holiday we almost get killed," sniffed Nathan, looking mournfully at his empty glass until Fred refilled it. "So we ended up here in this little piss-ant town with nothing to do, and we're bored, and it's only our first day here."
"Well, sir, and all you other sirs, too," said Fred, thoughtfully wiping a glass in true bartender fashion — never let it be said that he was one to break tradition! — "Do you often get drunk before five o'clock?"
"Only when we go on vacation," said JD, trying to stop crying into his beer. He was so depressed!
Fred nodded. "Well, young sir," he said, carefully, "seems to me you're a bunch of complete incompetents and you're damn lucky you haven't been killed before."
JD took a sip of his beer and frowned. "Is this stuff watered down?"
Then what Fred had just said sank in. With everyone.
"What?!" snapped Chris. "What the hell kind of bartender are you? You're supposed to commiserate, not criticise!"
Okay, so occasionally he broke tradition.
"Yes, all right, I don't conform exactly to the image everyone has of bartenders, right?" Fred said, irritated. "I'm not a complete puppet, after all. I do try to maintain a streak of individuality."
"Well, Mr. Individuality, I'll have you know we're the best damn ATF team in the country!" yelled Vin.
Fred raised an eyebrow. "And you just happen to get drunk this early every time you're on holiday? Thereby leaving yourselves open to attack?"
"No!" Josiah stepped in. "We've never done it before. The kid was just making a point."
Fred blinked. "Oh. Well, in that case, I'd blame it on that stupid hat he's wearing."
JD's hands went protectively to his cap. "Hey!"
"No, really," said Fred, earnestly. "It must be cursed."
Buck made a disgusted sound. "Come on, man. The only one that's allowed to make fun of that cap is me."
"Think about it! Does he ever wear that cap at work?"
The seven exchanged glances with difficulty. They were still sitting in a line.
"Uh, no..." said Nate. "Not often."
"And how often do you get shot when you're at work?"
"Do you mean at work, or working?" asked Ezra.
"At work."
"Oh, not very often. Comparatively speaking."
"And while you're working? Like, at a bust?"
"Regularly. Far too frequently."
"And does he wear that inferior little hat at busts?"
Everyone looked at JD.
"Well, yes," he stammered. "It's good luck!"
Chris held up a hand. "JD, were you wearing it three weeks ago, at that deal with the frogs and the rainforest conspiracy?"
JD shook his head. "I left it at home. I didn't have time to pick it up after the incident with the irate bunny at the office."
Ezra frowned. "Well, no-one got shot then. Although I think JD still has the scar from the rabbit."
The bartender smirked. "And he always wears it during vacations, I'll bet."
Buck stared at his friend. "Take it off, JD."
JD gaped. "No! I love this cap!"
"JD, take it off!"
"No!"
"Take the damn thing off!"
"NO!!" JD jumped up from his seat and fled. Buck followed close behind, grabbing at the cap whenever he got close enough.
Ezra was muttering something about how on the other hand, although they frequently got shot, none of them had actually ever died, and was thus completely oblivious to the plight of JD's cap.
Chris and Vin exchanged looks, and nodded in unison. At which point Chris got up, reaching for his wallet, and Vin stayed sitting, reaching for another drink. They froze mid-reach and stared at each other.
"I thought—"
"Weren't you—"
There was a pause. Chris took a deep breath.
"I was going to go and rescue JD and his cap."
"And I was going to let them sort it out themselves, and have another drink."
"Right. Well." Chris shook his head slightly, obviously shaken. "I'm gonna go and... I'm gonna go and... I'm gonna go."
Vin jumped up hurriedly. "I'll go too."
The rest of the group rose to their feet reluctantly, and allowed Chris to pay the tab. He put it on ATF expenses. After all, he wouldn't be here if the Judge hadn't threatened to fire the entire team.
Finally, thought Fred, as he watched them leave. He'd thought he'd never get rid of them.
Eventually Buck had convinced JD to remove the cap, just for one week, as a test. The week passed uneventfully enough. The seven had quickly discovered how much they disliked uneventful, as they were all extremely tired of the mindless tedium of getting drunk every day. They had discovered boredom in its perfect form, and hated it. Which was just as well, since if they hadn't been desperately looking for trouble they would probably have missed the illegal weapons sale going down in the house next door to their hotel.
"Chris, Chris!" JD came racing into the bar, where the team had spent most of their holiday, since there wasn't even a movie theatre around, and the hotel rooms didn't have cable. "Something's up next to the hotel. I think it's an arms deal."
"I thought you promised Buck you'd keep that thing off for a week." Chris gestured with a knife at the cap that JD was once again wearing. In a moment of incredible boredom, Chris had discovered that he was quite good at carving. Now he was driving everyone nuts by doing it at all hours and presenting them with little gifts. It was hard to be enthusiastic after the tenth horse-shaped bit of wood.
"I did." JD shook off the remark with the enthusiasm of youth. "I'm telling you, Chris, something's up over there!"
Chris looked cautiously at Vin. Their same-wavelength thing had been out of kilter all week. He raised an eyebrow, Vin shrugged.
By his raised eyebrow, Chris had meant, 'I trust the instincts of all my agents, therefore there's probably some merit to what the kid's saying. Right?' And he had interpreted Vin's shrug as 'Right'.
Vin, however, had assumed that Chris's eyebrow was saying, "Just the kid overreacting again, right?" And by his shrug, he had meant, "Right." Their two-way communication device needed tuning.
As a result, Chris carefully put down the tree he was trying, with limited success, to carve, and got to his feet, while Vin asked Fred for another drink.
Chris looked at the sharpshooter and sighed. His gaze traveled over to Buck, who had stood up at the same time as Chris, and he sighed again.
"Hey, Vin, what say we go see if there's anything in what JD's saying?" he said, in an overly bright manner.
Vin swallowed, nodded, and stood.
JD pointed excitedly. "In there! Highly suspicious activity!"
"It's not really our jurisdiction, Chris," Nathan pointed out.
Chris raised an eyebrow. "We're ATF, right? Last part being "and firearms"? This involves firearms, therefore it's our jurisdiction." He looked around. "Any volunteers to take a closer look?"
"It would be my privilege to undertake the aforementioned devoir."
Everyone looked at Ezra. "What?"
"He means he'll do it," said JD hurriedly.
"I know that, JD," snapped Chris irritably. "I just wanted to know why he can't talk English like normal people."
Ezra sighed. "I'll do it, Chris!" he said, in a sing-song tone.
Chris nodded, satisfied. "Josiah, go with him."
The other five members of Team 7 stood around in an awkward silence, pretending that they weren't slightly tipsy, while they waited for the profiler and the undercover man to return from their reconnoitering. Which, shortly, they did.
"Definitely an arms deal," said Ezra. "There's this easy to climb tree, see, and if you swing from this big branch you can get through a window, and there's one of those upper level thingies just inside, like a really big shelf sticking out of the wall, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Turns out it's more of a warehouse than a house, and you can see exactly what's going on. And Josiah found some or other way to hear what was happening. And it's a weapons sale, and there's about, oh, twelve, thirteen men, I couldn't get an exact count, but anyway none of them are on guard duty; they're not expecting trouble." He paused, seeming slightly disgusted, and glared at Chris. "I feel I ought to tell you, Mr. Larabee, that it greatly offends my sensibilities to converse in what you so blithely call "English"."
Chris shrugged. "What's the layout like?"
Josiah and Ezra combined their powers of observation to give their teammates a pretty good idea of what the building looked like from the inside.
"Did anyone bring any weapons?"
"On this nice, peaceful vacation?" asked Buck. "Of course. Vin never goes anywhere without enough guns to arm a small country."
Vin acknowledged the truth of this statement with a small nod, and ambled off to his hotel room to fetch his implements of war.
Nathan waved a hand around. "I have knives on me."
"Fine, but since you're the only one that throws 'em that doesn't really help the rest of us." JD pointed out.
This sparked a mild, tension-relieving argument over the merits of knives vs. guns in accuracy, deadliness, noise and reload speed. Nathan made an excellent point when he pointed out that knives didn't need to be reloaded, and Ezra made a better one when he observed that it was much easier to carry sixty bullets than sixty knives.
The debate was brought to an end by the arrival of one Vin Tanner, who silently began handing out guns and ammo from a seemingly endless supply in his coat.
JD watched the sharpshooter give Chris and Josiah an extra gun each. Ezra still had the dinky little gun he kept up his sleeve, Nathan had his knives, and Buck and JD would have to make do with one each, since Vin had never gotten into the habit of carrying more than his usual ten guns.
"Damn, Vin, how d'you fit all those in there?" the kid asked, awed.
Vin smiled. "It's a kind of magic."
His friends stared at him for a second, then shrugged.
"JD, call the local police force and ask for backup," ordered Chris.
"Aw, Chris, why me? Come on! Can't Buck do it? And they'd never get here in time anyway, and —"
"JD, call the local police force and ask for backup," Chris repeated, in exactly the same tone.
"Yes, sir." JD dejectedly started to make his way to the hotel to find a phone, pulling his cap low over his forehead.
"JD."
"Yes, sir?" JD turned sadly.
"You can use my cellphone, son. You don't want to miss any of the action, do you?"
JD brightened instantly, accepting the phone that Chris offered him, and made the call while Chris told everyone where he wanted them to be.
"Good," he said eventually, when everyone was clear. "Let's go. Ezra, show me this tree." Ezra nodded and moved off, Chris and Vin following closely, while the others prepared to slink in at the other entrance.
Security was lax inside the house.
"Look, Smith, this place is a dump. The nearest beach is thirty miles away, for crying out loud, and it sucks! No self respecting cop in their right mind would show up here."
"Yes," said Smith, "but I've heard things. I've heard of this team in the ATF that always turn up where they shouldn't be. It's uncanny. You wouldn't believe how many of my associates have gone down because of this group."
The other man shrugged. "Well, I'm telling you, there is no way they'll be here."
"All right. But you'd better be sure, Smythe," Smith growled.
It was now apparent to the ATF team that was watching quietly that the two leaders were not using their real names. They weren't known as the Magnificent Seven for nothing, after all: they had amazing powers of observation and deduction.
The team was scattered around the building; being used to such unexpected weapons deals, they had become very good at sneaking in where they weren't wanted.
Chris very carefully counted the bad guys — thirteen. Easy to deal with. He was about to give the signal to move in when the building started to shake.
"What the hell is that?!" Buck whispered.
"Act of God," was Josiah's reply from somewhere to his left.
"What?"
"An earthquake, you idiot!" Nathan hissed from his other side.
"Let's get out of here and find a doorway to stand in or something, then!"
Nathan produced one of his knives, aimed carefully, and threw it. It imbedded itself in the wall exactly halfway between Chris and Vin, who were having some difficulty keeping their balance (Ezra didn't seem to be having any trouble at all), and stayed there, quivering. Chris allowed his gaze to travel to where the other members of his team were hiding, immediately understood their intentions, nodded his head, and whispered, "Retreat!"
They exited the building with all speed, picking up JD on the way. The bad guys, on the other hand, were looking around stupidly, thinking that this part of the world just didn't get earthquakes, and wondering whether they should secure the highly unstable explosives upstairs just in case. Just as well that they were concentrating on that fact, since it meant that they didn't even notice when the house collapsed on them.
Team 7 watched in awe as the building fell in on itself. As soon as it had finished, the ground stopped shaking. Buck, Chris, Nathan and Josiah immediately headed for what remained of the building.
"Might I inquire — Pardon me, I meant to say: where d'you all think you're going, dudes?" Ezra asked, experiencing some difficulty getting his tongue around the 'vulgar' normal-people words.
"Checking for survivors," Vin guessed. "Useless, I'd say."
JD took two steps towards his friends, intending to help out, when the wreck exploded with a "whoomph!" and a very interesting fireball.
"Ooh," said JD, eyes wide. "Pretty."
Chris picked himself up off the ground, dusted himself off, extended a hand to Buck and another to Nathan, and helped them up. Then the three of them pitched in to pull Josiah to his feet.
"Pretty, indeed," sighed Chris, once all this was done. "Everyone all right?"
"Yup."
"Yeah."
"Yes, sir."
"Thank the Lord, yes."
"Quite."
Buck examined his thumb carefully. "I think I got a splinter."
"JD, I guess that hat ain't so unlucky after all."
"So we'll never know why we always get hurt on holiday..."
"But none of us are hurt! Maybe we've broken the curse!" JD sounded excited. As usual, everyone ignored him.
"Talk about an act of God." Nathan gently picked a small piece of wood off his shoulder. "If there were one person left alive in there, it would be a miracle."
"Which is a pity, 'cos if there's no witness of all those nasty dealings that were going on, our reputation for solving cases while on vacation will be absolutely ruined."
"I'll be damned! A miracle!"
All eyes turned to the burning wreck that had once been a dwelling place. To their astonishment, the man calling himself Smythe was staggering out of the smoke, covered in soot. He came to a halt in front of them, gave them a glassy-eyed stare, said, "Well, hot damn! Smith was right! Boy do I feel stupid!", and flopped over onto the grass.
Vin scratched the back of his neck absently, staring at the unconscious man. "Huh," he muttered, summing up the feelings of the group.
They stared for a few more seconds, until the local cops arrived.
"What in the hell happened here?" asked one, sounding like a hick if ever they'd heard one.
"Bad guys. Arms deal. Earthquake." Vin and Chris spoke in unison, then looked at each other in delight. They were back on track, it seemed.
Team 7 turned as one and headed next door.
"Wait!" called the hick cop, whose name was Billy-Bob. "Where are you going?"
"Saloon," the seven men chorused.
The cops watched them go, then turned back to the mess in front of them.
"Better call an ambulance for this one; I think he's still breathing." Billy-Bob's partner kicked Smythe to make sure, and was rewarded with a groan. "Yup."
"Boy, what I wouldn't give to know what happened here!"
Billy-Bob's partner surveyed the area — the burning, flattened pile of timber, the scorched grass, the blackened Smythe, the crack in the ground caused by the 'quake — and sucked her bottom lip. There was a long pause. Eventually, the partner spoke again. "Act of God," she decided, and, as she picked up her radio to call for help, she idly wondered if the guy with the mustache was free that night.
The End