Flying sucks

Ellen here. Malcolm and I are on our first delivery, as he mentioned in his last post. It has been exactly as dull as you'd expect. We stopped by Anna's shack in the middle of nowhere, didn't even get asked inside, then drove several hours, only to get on a plane and take a long ass flight. Flying from the US to fucking Russia is one of the single most boring and frustrating experiences in my life. Like most people involved in this sort of mess, being stuck in a small space with no viable exits is one of my least favorite experiences in the world. The fact that I wasn't allowed to be armed didn't help. Stupid airport security.

Though, it's totally possible to trick that with a ceramic knife. Not that I did that, of course. Malcolm would have been upset at me for putting the delivery at risk. But theoretically, if one were wearing tall boots and stuck a ceramic knife in them, it wouldn't show up on the scanner. Good tip for runners and proxies alike if you get stuck on a plane and you think you might need to defend yourself. I'm not actually saying I did this, of course, or endorsing it because that's crazy illegal and I don't want to show up on some watch list somewhere for saying shit on a blog.

In any event the two of us (completely unarmed, of course) got off the plane a few hours ago. Now, I was tired and wanted to stop off for a nap and possibly some vodka (when in Rome, after all), but Malcolm just handed me a cup of coffee and insisted on heading straight over to our crazy Russian boys. That was about the point I lost track of what was going on. I don't speak Russian, which is why Mal came along on the job in the first place. As far as I know, he's the only one on the team that does.

What I do know is that the moment we knocked we were greeted by a very angry looking guy with a gun, and another, injured guy (I'm guessing that was Incognito himself?) holding a bigger gun. I understand being cautious about who you allow in, but guns in the face feels a bit excessive when you know you're expecting company. There was yelling, but it was in Russian, so I'm not sure what was said. Malcolm greeted this with his signature reptilian cool and replied, which thankfully resulted in the guns being set aside for the moment. Mal did the swap, Incognito handed over a hard drive, and then the angry guy shoved his gun in our face again, which I took to be our cue to go

I told Mal that there was no way I was getting back on the plane for at least another twelve hours, so we've been taking in the sights and enjoying the local alcohol. I never had such an appreciation for vodka before. Their beer is pretty fantastic too. I should get some sleep, though, it's crazy late here and I've got another flight in the morning. Ellen out.