In the Den of the Moldovan Bear

I had been wandering around Mogadishu for several days looking for work and getting no love from the locals. Five years ago a well-known international mercenary such as myself walking through Mogadishu's Bukhara Market would get solicited for work in about ten minutes, but hell I must have gone through the damn Bukhara Market fifteen times already this week and not gotten any work. There's too many god damn mercenaries here, and just not enough work or money to go around. And they don't out-source much here- if there's killing to be done, the Somalis just hire other Somalis to do their dirty work, instead of going with more professional, international mercenaries that would do better jobs. The Somalis' close-minded, provincial way of thinking really bugs me, but there's not much I can do about it.

I was however fortunate to come upon a pair of UN relief workers, whom I robbed and then beat the hell out of. They had food and medicine and a little money, so that tided me over for a few days. But when that stuff ran out, I went back to the Bukhara market, hoping for a break.

So I was scanning the crowd, debating whether or not I should just take a random passerby hostage in an effort to get a little ransom money, when suddenly some ass-hole stuck a gun in my back.

"Doan move, McStallen!" said the gunmen.

Immediately I recognized the voice- it was Crotop the Moldovan Bear. He was a moderately successful trial attorney in America for several years until he was deported back to Moldova. Enraged over the deportation, Crotop turned to a life of professional international violence.

Crotop became a well-respected mercenary, and we eventually crossed paths in Chile. I was guarding my old buddy General Augusto, who has been a victim of alot of unfair, biased international press. There were alot of people out to get General Augusto, and some of them paid Crotop to lead an extraction team into General Augusto's house to kidnap him. But Crotop's point man tripped a claymore out front and that alerted us, and we opened up with a couple of .30 calibers from the house- it was a real turkey shoot. We got about half his team right there on the front lawn, and the rest retreated. The mission was widely considered to be a huge failure for Crotop, and he had alot of trouble getting work for the next six months or so- rumor had it he was even black-listed by the entire Latin American mercenary community. So needless to say Crotop was not very fond of me.

Anyway Crotop took me at gun-point to his compound in northern Mogadishu. He sat me down in a chair and tied me to it.

"If you're not CCCP, you're not shit!" he roared as he pointed to his T-shirt emblazoned with the words "CCCP."

I wasn't in the mood for Soviet propaganda.
"What do you want, you poor-man's-Romanian?!" I demanded.

"I want American women. Get me late McStallen. You know American women. You introduce me and get me late. I doan know American women, and I doan know what to say to them. But you do- so get me late. That's all I want now- American women. All I want. Get me late." he said.

Well, let me tell you, that is a tall order- I only know a few American women, and the possibility that any of them are currently in Somalia is extremely low. Compounding matters was the fact that Crotop is a bloody social retard and it's tough finding any poor girl to pass him off on.

I asked him if he had tried J-Date or some other on-line service, but that only enraged The Bear and he fired a .45 slug right by my ear.

"YOU get me late. No J-Date. No mail order. You McStallen- You get me late!" roared Crotop.

I told him I'd get him a girl if he let me go, and that it was "laid," not "late." He told me I had 48 hours to produce "American women," or one of his underlings would whack me. He put a couple of tails on me, and I embarked on a presumably hopeless search.