Kiss of Surrender

by Sandra Hill

  He and Nicole were both blushing as they followed the commander to the waiting bus.

  Before they boarded, Nicole thanked Trond for his help, even if it had only distracted her from worrying so much. Then she added something that was both alarming to him and joyful. “I wish you weren’t gay.”

  The only thing missing from this Halloween party was Freddy Krueger . . .

  The Big Reveal took place a week later, and it was almost like a costume party. A dead-serious costume party. A dress rehearsal for what could be a life-or-death mission into Arab tangoland.

  The OctoTiger project plans had been revised and revised to the point that Nicole, Donita, and Marie would be the only women going inside the harem, and Trond would be an unscrupulous trader in human flesh, not the brother to the three of them, which would have been ludicrous with Donita, anyhow, considering her ebony skin. The other women, to their chagrin, would be staying behind this time.

  Their leader, Slick, kept emphasizing the importance of smaller numbers, and the ability to slip in and out of tight spaces. In the most successful battles, no shots were fired. Expectations hovered a lot lower this time.

  Late arriving intel had revealed that Najid had a passion for blonde women; so that’s what Nicole and Marie were, right down to their dyed pubic hair, which they hoped would not have to be exposed, but they were prepared for that eventuality if it happened. There was no changing Donita, but maybe her sharp contrast, dark to light, would provide an attraction of sorts.

  The SEALs had an inside contact who’d made arrangements for Trond aka Saleem ben Abdullah to present the three women for consideration to be added to Najid’s harem. Their charms had been highly touted beforehand, and the rest was up to Trond and the three of them to pass the inspection of the harem master, who in the old days would have been a eunuch. She rather doubted that even with a holy jihad, men today would be willing to sacrifice their manhood to procure or protect their leaders’ women. In any case, Nicole wasn’t sure she had the kind of physical assets that would please an evil man like Najid, but she was willing to try. Or pretend to try. She cringed to think what kind of mythical sexual talents Trond had hyped for the three women. She couldn’t speak for Donita and Marie, but any skills she might have ever had were rusty from disuse by now.

  Slick would be overseeing the entire OctoTiger operation in Davastan but would fill in wherever needed. No one could surpass JAM and Cage as sharpshooters. K–4, Cody, and Flash would secure the perimeter, meaning the wall that enclosed the home/headquarters, the harems, and other buildings. Geek would handle communications. Omar would go into the compound with the breachers, those experts at breaking down doors quickly and efficiently before anyone realized what was happening. F.U. would handle the caves. Karl and Max would be working the guards stationed outside the compound walls.

  Then, too, there were all the operatives who would man the Blackhawks going in for the insertion and the Chinooks coming out for the extraction, the assumption being they would have fourteen new “packages” to carry home. Most important might be the medics on the outgoing flight, in case they were needed either for the hostages or for any personnel wounded during the mission.

  If all went well, once Nicole, Marie, and Donita were inside the harem and had the hostages in sight, the whole event should be over in less than an hour. Two, if there were glitches in the original plans. More than that meant snafu and a quick changeover to Plan B.

  “Well, it’s almost eighteen hundred. Are we good to go?” Nicole asked her two friends as they stood in front of the mirror in the ladies’ room at the command center. Everyone involved in the mission was expected to report in a few minutes in full disguise.

  They grinned at each other, although their smiles were not evident under the head-to-toe burqas they wore with only slits for the eye openings. Nicole and Marie’s eyebrows had been dyed a lighter shade of brown to complement their new blonde identities. Donita’s appearance remained pretty much the same, except that her hair was clipped short to the head; she looked like some Ethiopian princess of old. If Najid, or his harem master, didn’t put aside his blonde preference for her beauty, he had to be blind.

  As they exited the room, the three women pumped a fist in the air and gave a muffled cheer of “Game on!” Then they proceeded to walk down the hall with short, meek steps, heads bent downward in modesty. Their hands were folded neatly under their robes.

  The first person they met at the doorway to the conference room was a short, mustached and bearded Arab with an embroidered skullcap, and a long white robe called a thobe that was traditionally worn by Arab men. It was F.U. He let out a hoot of laughter as he opened the door wide so they could enter.

  The consensus within seemed to be: “Holy shit!” Especially when they took off the outer garments to show the revealing gowns they wore underneath.

  “You can join my harem any day,” someone yelled out, which was met with a communal “Hoo-yah!”

  Sixteen

  Where angels fear to tread, they send vangels . . .

  On September 5, the night before they were to leave, Trond waited until everyone was asleep before teletransporting himself over to the Hotel del Coronado. Karl would keep a lookout for anyone straying into their room in the middle of the night.

  “You are freakin’ unbelievable,” Trond said when he entered the luxurious suite.

  No one even looked up.

  A virtual buffet was set out on the dining table. Everything from crab claws to hot wings, enough to feed twenty hungry warriors just home from the wars. The only thing missing was a side of roast boar and a tun of mead, but wait, that looked like a side of roast beef. Ice buckets held dozens of different kinds of beer in cute little cans that any good Viking could consume in one swallow.

  He assumed the mute blood ceorl Dagmar was behind the locked bedroom door to one side. She would be loath to witness that lackwit Ivak, wearing a T-shirt with the logo, “Do You Have Any Viking in You? Would You Like Some?,” being lap-danced by a scantily clad woman—scantily, as in underwear: push-up half bra and thong—to the music of Lady Gaga blaring from a boom box. He hoped his brothers had at least had the good sense to offer Dagmar some food.

  Through another open doorway he saw a circular bed on a raised dais. Lot of good it would do any of them! Ivak sure as sin wouldn’t be doing anything with his lap dancer with his brothers here to rein him in, although they hadn’t done much reining so far.

  Harek, with his own ridiculous T-shirt proclaiming “I See Dead Pixels” was oblivious to Ivak’s shenanigans, immersed as he was in something on his laptop that sat on an alcove desk. With eyes glued to the screen, he reached blindly for chips and beer on either side of the computer.

  Mordr didn’t wear any message T-shirt, but he was equally oblivious, and his usual dour self, as he watched a bloody World War II History Channel documentary on the widescreen TV. A multitasker as they all were, he was also oiling his specially designed Sauer pistol that shot bullets quenched symbolically in the blood of Christ. The bullets could dissolve Lucies into puddles of sulfurous slime if shot in exactly the right spots, and the VIK had had one thousand, one hundred, sixty-three years to practice their aim.

  In this mix of luxury and dimwittedness, incongruously, a virtual arsenal of specially prepared weapons had been propped up against the doorway, ready to be used in the upcoming encounter.

  In one swift swoop, Trond pulled the plugs on the boom box, computer, and television.

  “What?” three stunned men said as one.

  “Are you three demented? I could have been a Lucie coming in here and not one of you would have been the wiser.”

  “We sensor-wired the perimeter,” Mordr said defensively.

  “I got in without your noticing,” Trond pointed out.

  “Wired against Lucies and other nonvangels, lackwit,” Mordr elaborated.

  “And what would that be perched on Ivak’s lap? An angel sent by Mike to soothe the savage beast?”<
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  Mordr and Harek turned with surprise to see the woman still jiggling her arse on Ivak’s thighs, as if the music was still playing. They all blinked for a moment, turning their heads this way and that, to observe the unique phenomenon—unique to them, leastways—of her making her buttocks quiver endlessly like vibrating Jell-O molds. Could one learn to do that, or is it an inborn talent like wiggling one’s nose, which I have never been able to master? Trond wondered, then slapped himself upside the head, virtually.

  “Where did she come from?” Mordr demanded of Ivak.

  “She was with the serving staff who brought the food. I invited her to stay,” Ivak revealed, not at all embarrassed or apologetic. “Don’t mind them, sweetling,” he told the stunned woman, who was probably only eighteen but made up to look years older.

  “I thought I told you,” Mordr said through gritted teeth, “No. Strippers.”

  “She’s not a stripper. For shame, Mordr. She’s a dance artiste. Someday she’s going to be famous. Maybe try out for X Factor. Aren’t you, honey?” He glanced up at them. “Her name really is Honey, by the by. Isn’t that amazing?”

  Yeah, really amazing. She probably is a stripper, after all, with some stage name like Honey Pot, or Honey Cunt. No, that was too obvious. Honey Haven. Honey Showers. Yeah, that would be it. “You can lick my honey, Viking, if you’ll just slip me a few coins.”

  “You’re talking to yourself,” Harek pointed out to him.

  The woman had already gathered up her belongings, including the boom box, and was scurrying toward the door, clutching a handful of bills Ivak had given her in one hand. She smiled widely and gave them all a little wave as she left. It must have been hundred-dollar bills by the wattage of that smile.

  “What in bloody hell is Hex Factor?” Mordr asked Ivak.

  “It’s a television show, and it’s X Factor,” Harek informed Mordr.

  “You two have been watching too much television,” Mordr decided. “They don’t have anything like that on the History Channel.”

  “She has talent, all right. Quivering buttocks. That ought to go over great with the judges,” Trond remarked.

  “Actually, that’s a popular dance move today,” Harek replied. “Have you seen the latest music video from—”

  “Aaarrgh!” Mordr said, standing and glaring at all three of them.

  Why is he glaring at me? All I did was show up.

  “You were supposed to be here hours ago,” Mordr snarled.

  “I couldn’t get away till now. The guys were all amped up and wanting to talk about the mission. We’re going to be wheels up by dawn, you know?”

  Mordr nodded. “We’ll be leaving at the same time, but while you’ll have a stopover in Kabul, we’ll be going directly to Davastan.” He cleared the low coffee table and laid out some maps to show Trond and the others. “Here’s the most up-to-date layout I sent Trond yesterday to slip into his commander’s file. You’re going to have a bitch of a time getting your female SEALs into that harem. There are four guards on the ground patrolling the harem building, two on the roof, and two more inside. Keep in mind that Najid has a harem of three wives, six concubines, who knows how many slaves, and all his children in one part of the harem. That’s aside from the female hostages.”

  “Busy man!” Ivak remarked, not without a bit of envy. This past year of serving in prison had not been kind to Ivak’s libido.

  “We were there yesterday,” Harek interjected, and opened a link on his laptop to show them another graphic. “This is a cave network about a mile from Najid’s compound. It’s overflowing with Lucies.”

  “Zebulan?” Trond guessed.

  Mordr nodded. “He’s there, although Haroun al Rashid is organizing the whole bloody operation.”

  “Numbers?”

  “Hard to say for sure because they keep coming and going. I think Zeb and Haroun are the only haakai in the region, but there are lots of warrior mungs and hordlings, a few imps.”

  “And they are there in such numbers because . . . ?”

  Mordr shrugged. “They hope to get a couple of SEALs . . . JAM and Sly at the least . . . although they don’t know you’ve saved JAM or that Sly will be absent. They desperately want some special forces guys, though. And you, of course, now that Zeb knows you’re working with the SEALs. Aside from that, I expect they’ll harvest all the evil tangos they can. They’re not looking for innocent humans, like the hostages. They want humans who are evil to the bone, or leaning in that direction so that a little fanging will push them over the edge.”

  Trond nodded his understanding. “Do we know yet whether Najid is a Lucie or just on his way to becoming a Lucie?”

  “Not a Lucie yet, but he’s been fanged. And more than once,” Harek said. “One of my men was close to him last week in Pakistan, and he said his scent was so strong he could have been a lemon meringue pie.”

  Interesting to know.

  Trond studied the diagram carefully, knowing he would have to employ a double-pronged strategy on this mission. The SEAL one and the vangel one. Help to save the hostages. Kill as many Lucies as possible. Then, when he got back to Coronado, God willing, he would try once again to save Sly. After that, he didn’t know what he would do, but oddly, Nicole’s face came to mind. At first, he was alarmed, but then he thought, Oh, that’s right. I promised to go to Chicago with her where I intend to kick some husband-abuser ass. For a minute there, I thought my brain was actually considering a future with the woman. Ha, ha, ha!

  For the next two hours, they worked diligently, as a team, each contributing his own skills to the discussion. He and his brothers complemented each other in much the same way the SEAL team members did. They could set goals, establish priorities, assign duties, and follow through. Clean, mean, fighting machines.

  And, yes, they were foolish at times, like Ivak with his lap dancer, but Trond could excuse that. In truth, he’d been the one most likely to screw up in the past. Still was, probably.

  He stood and stretched his arms wide, yawning loudly. “It’s two a.m., guys. I’ve gotta get back.”

  His brothers stood as well and joined hands. Bowing their heads, they prayed silently, a ritual they followed before every mission.

  “Take care,” he said, preparing to teletransport himself back to the BQ.

  “By the by,” Ivak said at the last minute. “I heard your ‘friend’ is now a blonde. Is it true what they say about blondes being more fun?” Ivak blinked guilelessly at him.

  “I wish I knew.”

  The best-laid plans of mice and men . . . and vampire angels . . .

  They were all in full military ruck as they sat on the bench seats of a low-riding, stealth-configured Blackhawk helo, even Trond and Karl, who were not official members of the U.S. armed forces.

  Some would say that the lunar gods had blessed them with a moonless night, but Trond knew with a certainty that it was another God altogether guiding their fate. Even with the blessed darkness, the helo lights had been extinguished once they entered Davastan airways to avoid detection below. They could see one another, though, in that eerie, greenish, pixelated filter of NVGs.

  The rotors were relatively quiet, but the insertion into the hills of Afghanistan would have to be completed quickly nonetheless. They had prepared for this mission in any and every way they could, but there was always the element of surprise. Even in the seeming silence, a deeper silence reigned as awareness rippled through the aircraft of that Chinook that had been shot down by Taliban insurgents not so far from here, in which twenty-two SEALs had been among the thirty-eight fatalities.

  They all wore bulletproof flak vests under their camouflage shirts and pants that made use of the numerous pockets and loops. Blow-out kits for field medical trauma, as well as kits for insertion and extraction, including money and various passports. Cammie paint and boonie hats. Little booklets that contained photographs of the tangos they hoped to apprehend, along with their significant others, such as Najid’s wives and con
cubines, his sons, and close confidants. Every piece of the uniform served a purpose, whether a special sheath for K-Bar knives or thigh holsters, or slings for weapons. And Trond had to be impressed with the sharpshooters, or snipers, who carried a regular arsenal of different kinds of assault rifles, never being sure which would be needed for what terrain, whether air or land or sea, with their aim always being, “One shot, one kill.” Some of the men also carried C–4 charges for blasting through metal doors, stun grenades for momentarily freezing an enemy, and even laser designators that could “paint” targets for airborne assaults.

  Of course, they all carried backpacks with Arab clothing that they would don on landing. The women couldn’t fast-rope down from a hovering helo in a voluminous gown, nor some of the men who would wear long white robes, as well. On this op, those infiltrating the compound had receiving mics implanted in their right ears and sending mics implanted between the thumb and forefinger of their left hands. The women wore contact lenses with cameras in them, but they were fragile and might not hold up if they got themselves in a tight situation. Some of the SEALs, who would stay in uniform away from the fray, wore cameras on their helmets that televised everything back to the Pentagon, but more importantly to CentCom at its McGill Air Force Base headquarters, and to JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command. The CIA and FBI would also be watching, and listening, he assumed. Lots of fingers in the antiterrorism pie, with good reason.

  They’d landed at Bagram Airfield north of Kabul last night. Now, they were minutes away from Davastan, which was farther south.

  “Are you afraid?” Trond asked, leaning close to Nicole’s ear so he could be heard.

  She nodded.

  “That’s good. Fear is good.”

  “Now you decide to appreciate motivational sayings?”