Somewhere deep within the Santa Cruz mountains, four men sat astride a large nondescript white van, clad in an eclectic motley of hiking gear and thick jackets, semi-automatic rifles slung across their backs. One quietly puffed away at a cigarette, wispy trails of smoke rising from the smouldering tip, curling through the needle-studded branches of the Santa Cruz Cypress he was leaning against. The men rarely moved, occasionally moving about to readjust their positions...

Or, every once in a while, to water the shrubbery behind the tree.

It didn’t take a genius to see that they were bored, and incredibly so, even though they’d only arrived mere minutes earlier. Perhaps they simply didn’t like to wait.

The tallest of the men, his face hidden behind a balaclava, let out a yawn.

His eyes widened. He pointed down a nearby paved road, leading toward the path they themselves stood beside.

“Shit, shit!” The smoker sputtered, his cigarette dropping to the ground as he extinguished it with his own urine, feverishly zipping up his pants. By the time he’d reached the van and had swung his rifle around to his front, his comrades were already prepared, cradling their weapons at a lazy state of low readiness. 

Each man, rifles at the ready, peered down the road toward the set of headlights crawling downhill toward them, beams of light occasionally flashing through the trees. With every second that passed, the lights drew ever closer, until a second van became visible, carefully snaking its way down the road, through the trees.

The three men tensed, ever-so-slightly pulling their guns upward, ready to strike at a moment’s notice.

The van came closer.

Closer.

Closer. 

It was only a few moments before the thing was practically staring them in the face, a mere handful of meters away... And then, pulling to the opposite side of the road, it stopped. The driver Didn’t bother to turn the key, instead allowing the near-silent electrical engine to thrum away as the car’s side door slid open, and out stepped two more men, a third cradling a large, sagging messenger bag in his arms.

“Nice day, isn’t it?” One of the new arrivals said, evenly eyeing the smoker.. “Sure as shit isn’t nice as it was before the visitation, I bed, but you almost forget the world’s FUBAR in places like this.” 

The smoker nodded back at him. “My dad used to love these mountains. Took me out here all the time as a kid. I still miss him.” 

The new arrival nodded back, gesturing toward the man carrying the bag. He nodded back, bent down, and pulled open the zipper, only to reveal stacks upon stacks of hundred dollar bills. 

“Is there more?” Came a voice from inside the van, rough and gravelly, so slow and drawling that it seemed like he was frustrated to even be there, like he’d rather be literally anywhere else.

“We brought a dozen more bags. Unmarked, like you asked. The bags, too - should be untraceable. Will that satisfy the seller?” The first new arrival said, his hand wandering toward a small pistol at his hip.

“Check the bag. Make sure it’s legitimate.” The voice continued. The smoker nodded, though whoever the voice originated from couldn’t even see him, and bent down to inspect the bills, shining a UV light at a few handfuls as he went about his work, simply visually inspecting others.

After a few silent, tense minutes, each of the men present itching to pull a trigger, he rose back to his feet. “It’s real. Much as I can tell without spending five hours rifling through this shit, anyways.”

The smoker and the new arrival exchanged a quick nod, beginning the process of transferring bags between their vehicles. With a team of five, it was relatively easy work, despite the weight - and then, the three men briefly crawled back in their own truck. Wheeling out a tall, unusually long cart, down a ramp that unfurled from the open side of the van. They pushed it into the car opposite, and then, their mysterious business complete, the five men each piled back into their cars.

“Think this thing’ll blow up on us before we get back to Rio?” The driver said, glancing back over his shoulder at his comrades.

Then men gave a collective shrug in response.