Saturday, May 22, 2004

   Cream Filling & Nougat: Third Helping (Chapter IV)
[Funny sidenote: my brother who is a police officer was recently part of an ERT training exercise (another name for a SWAT-like team) playing both a hostage and a terrorist. In the final exercise, he was waiting in a room, watching a door. Then, the ERT guys came out of nowhere and mp5'ed him with the paint shells. Afterwards a documentary guy asked for them to do it again, and my brother got shot up again (about 13 "bullets" hit him by the end of it). He still has welts and bruises on his back and arms. Hehe . . . . . being a police officer would be fun!]


Nougat crossed off names and added new marks on his map as the car made its way through the downtown area. Ruit and Raute - or as they now affectionately dubbed themselves "The R-Team" - had just radioed in a couple of names which Nougat had already run and referenced.
"Alright," the lieutenant said, "that's more incentive to go down to Nissin Street. You take main and hunker down from the north, we'll wait on the south." After getting Ruit's acknowledgement, he told Pastille to make his way northwards.

"Nougat, come in," Cream said through the car's radio about ten minutes afterwards. Nougat picked up the radio and replied.
"I hear ya, Whip', tell me what'cha know."
"Schotse and Munt just beat a couple names outta some guy on Richmond Street," Cream reported. "Oh, and Munt wants a new shirt waiting for him back at the precinct . . . seems the bastard pulled a knife on him as they closed the gap."
"Perfect," Nougat said, "if he's gonna get that violent, the names must be good, then."
"Perfect . . . interesting choice of words all things considering, Noug'."
"We'll worry about it afterwards, we've gotta keep the press on."

Nougat took the names, compared them to the notes, and added more circles and lines to his map for a moment.
"Alright . . . you guys have narrowed your area down pretty well. Okay . . . . . check . . . the construction site at Pattulo and Surrey. A lot of things on your half of the map seem to be coming out from there."
"Sounds good. We'll be there shortly, El-Tee," Cream said.
"Dude . . . that just sounds weird," Nougat said, slightly uncomfortable with his new accolade. Cream laughed on the other side of the radio.
"Alright, old man. We won't use that one."
"Wiseass."
"And how!" Cream chuckled into the radio again. "Alright, I'll get back to ya. Out."

Another hour passed. Nougat and his squad had just finished off the last of the names on their end - by then they had easily driven around the entire west end of the downtown area once over. Going by his simple calculations, all the bigger operations seemed to be pointing east, near where Cream was headed.
"Wow, I can't believe this has worked so well so far . . ." Nougat said to himself.
"What was that, lieutenant?" Pastille asked.
"Nothing, nothing . . . alright, start heading east, I think we're pretty much done on our end." Nougat picked up the radio again. "Yo, R-team, pickitup."
"Car-R at your service!" Ruit chimed out cheerfully. Nougat rolled his eyes unbeknownst to him.
"You guys are idiots . . . . . start driving eastward, we're gonna try to shorten our outing a little."

Shortly afterwards the radio started up once again.
"Noug', it's me again," Cream said through the sound of wind and such.
"Whip'?" Nougat said, "Where are ya?"
"I'm next to a big van parked just outside the construction site. It's kinda deserted, but from listening to the boys and girl, we've hit something big." Nougat clicked off the radio and whooped quickly to himself before clicking the radio back on.
"This sounds good . . . how big would you rate it?" he asked.
"Well . . ." Cream said, ". . the three of them have their guns drawn, Munt has a knee between a guy on the ground's shoulder-blades, and Losanje is shouting things my mother would find fascinating to hear coming out of a woman."
"Give me something else, those three would do that anyway," Nougat contended.
"Oh, and I think one of them said it looked like a small lab inside."
"That's pretty big, then, yeah." Nougat was excstatic. "Alright, you confirm that and get back to me."
"Just give me a second . . ."

Nougat's car was stopped at a light when Cream radioed back.
"Alright, I'm inside the back of the van," he said. Nougat asked,
"How's it look in there?" Cream paused for a moment before clicking back in.
"Total grow-op in here . . . I dunno, are we allowed to term chemical drugs with 'grow-op'?"
"Details, I'm sure," Nougat replied.
"In any case, it's a total cryssal factory in here. The stuff is everywhere along with about a dozen butchered junior chemistry sets, probably."
"Try to find me some papers, will ya?"
"One moment . . . . ." Nougat listently vigilantly as Cream did whatever he was doing in the van. By then the light was green and the car was moving again. "Alright, I found a clipboard," Cream said, coming back on.
"Great," Nougat said, "what've we got?" Cream started a string of various things:
"Let's see . . . grow charts, grow charts, recipes . . . aw hell, Valdez's name popped up . . . . . uh, there's a DiBiase, a Heenan, a Hennig . . . a Rude . . . a Santana . . . . . ah, this name can't be real . . ."
"What?"
"There's . . . . . there's a Sprinkle?"

"What the suck did you just say?!" Nougat asked, emotions sparked. "Did you just say Sprinkle?!"
"Yeah, I did, what does . . . ." The radio cut off just as a loud popping noise caused Nougat and Pastille to jump.

"Noug'!" Cream shouted, the radio clicking back to life with more popping noises in the background, "I'll hafta get back to ya in a sec, I think we're in thick and heavy-like right now! Get us some back-up!"
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