“Welcome aboard the Triumph, Ma’am.”
“Thank you,” she replied.
“Our orders are to escort you to the briefing room after your team has had an opportunity to change out of your wetsuits and secure your gear. If you will just follow the corridor through the hatch we just came through, the second door on your right will be your staging area. You can head there now if you’d like.”
“Thank you. Lieutenant, after you,” I replied as I gestured to the hatch for Helena to go through first.
She offered me a cynical smile and bumped me playfully on her way to the hatch. The two midshipmen watched, tilting their heads to watch as she bent at the waist to fit through. I had to chuckle as I watched as well, a slight feeling of possessive pride passing over me. It me of a time back in college when I attended a party with a foreign exchange student from France. She was beautiful, and every guy there hated my guts because of it. Granted it didn’t amount to much. My arms crossed against my chest, I glanced over at the two seamen who looked at me, jealousy in their eyes, the silent one of the two arching an eyebrow suggestively.
I let out a quick laugh, before placing a hand on the inquisitive man’s shoulder.
“I wouldn’t go there, my friend,” I told him, pointing at my black eye. “Trust me.”
Whether he thought I was threatening him, or merely reaffirming his fears that he had no chance, his shoulders slumped in defeat.
Releasing his shoulder, I followed after Helena.
Halfway through, I heard the inner hatch open and two men drop to the floor.
“Welcome aboard the…”
The man didn’t get a chance to continue before Santino cut him off. “Yeah, yeah, now where’s this ‘tea’ I’ve heard so much about?”
***
It was another fifteen minutes before the last of the team cycled through the airlock, and another ten before we had our gear in lockers, hung up our wetsuits, and changed into duty gear the crew had provided for us.
Gathered in the small briefing room, the team waited and chatted while we waited for our briefing to begin. Joining the team was the sub’s skipper, Captain Billings, whose physicality could have in no way better fit the role of a sub commander. He was short in stature and thin like a runner, a perfect build for the cramped confines of a submarine. His square jaw and perpetual five o’clock shadow gave him a roguish look that ladies probably slobbered over. I couldn’t help but notice Helena’s interest, which was probably more annoying than it should have been.
Don’t be jealous, Jacob, she’ll probably never see him again.
Jealous? What the hell is wrong with you? She’s the one who almost knocked you out.
Shut up. Just shut up.
I tried to distract myself by probing my damaged eye, which was still black, and hurt like hell. At least Santino seemed to think it was funny.
The thought of my troublesome friend brought my eyes across the aisle at him. I found him already looking at me, flicking his eyes in Billings’ direction, then over at Helena, giving me another one of his annoying smiles.
He’ll never let me live this down.
Still, despite his antics, I appreciated his attention. It reminded me I had a friend with me. Someone I could rely on. Even if he was an arrogant jackass. So I did what any good friend would do and took a rubber band from my briefing packet, and loaded it around my fingers. Taking careful aim, I fired, nailing him right between the eyes. One of his hands reactively flung to his forehead to ease the sting, and he gave me the same glare he’d offered earlier when I kicked his chair out from beneath him.
I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Something funny, Hunter?”
I glanced over at Helena. “Hmm? Oh, nothing. Just Santino being Santino.”
She leaned forward to see him rubbing his struck forehead, mumbling.
“You two have a history don’t you?”
“Oh, yeah,” I sighed. “We certainly do.”
“Oooh, I feel a story coming,” she replied excitedly, clutching her hands together between her thighs and shrugging her head between her shoulders, giving me an uncharacteristically childish smile.
Cute. Annoying. But cute.
I sighed again, realizing I owed her a story. I was doubly annoyed because I knew I couldn’t just end this one with Santino. It was about more than just him.
“In a nut shell,” I began after taking a long breath, “his Delta squad was cut off from extraction while on an op in North Korea. We were assigned as their standby unit and were sent in to pull their asses out if they got in trouble. They did, and my team was ambushed in the process of rescuing them, and we were cut off from Santino and his men. Through a stroke of pure luck, our two positions ran into one other. The momentary confusion on the enemy’s part allowed us to finally get the hell out of there. But on our way out, I was shot in the leg. Twice. In the same damn leg. The wounds were pretty bad and I was losing a lot of blood. I knew I was done for when a bad guy blundered onto me.”
I had to pause and close my eyes as the flashback forced me to recall one of the most horrible memories I had. My hand instinctually moved to my thigh to massage the area where I’d been hit.
“He pointed his gun at my face and started to taunt me, laughing all the while. I’d lost my rifle after hitting the ground, and my pistol was inaccessible. A few seconds later, he shot me in the arm.” My hand now moved to massage the area just above the elbow on my left arm. “Just for the hell of it. It was at that point that I knew I was going to die. Even thought I saw some angels. But, the next thing I know, Santino was there, ramming his knife through the back of the man’s throat, severing his spinal column. Guy died instantly. That’s where he does his best work, you know, up close. Santino’s as quiet as a ghost and even scarier than one with a knife.”
Helena nodded, waiting for me to continue.
“Anyway, we didn’t really know each other yet. We’d only met once during a cross training operation a year back. We were barely acquaintances. Even so, he came back for me. He slapped on a few field bandages, picked me up, and pulled my fat out of the fire. He even found my rifle for me.”
“For such a free spirited asshole, he seems like a good man to have your back.”
“He’s the best. I spent three months in the hospital where we ended up. Santino was assigned to a training detail on the base at the same time and he came to visit every day. I always wondered if he used some of that Delta pull to swing the training detail, but he’d never tell me if he did. We just sat there every chance we got playing cards and video games, cracking jokes at lame day time soap operas, and shooting the shit. We became instant friends. I’ll never make a better one if I live a dozen lives.”
I smiled, remembering the days as Santino became one of my best friends, before sighing a third time, my mind wandering to the rest of the time I spent in the hospital. The time I spent in the company of someone else.
A few minutes ago, I’d thought about telling Helena the rest of this story, but now, I wasn’t so sure. The second half began the day I awoke from my surgery, and was assigned a very attractive nurse to take care of me. It was a story I hadn’t told anyone before, and even Santino didn’t know the full extent of it. That nurse changed the way I looked at the world.
After a few sessions of rehab where we had to work very close together, it was obvious the nurse was interested, and so was I. After a few weeks, our time together transcended the typical patient/care giver relationship and bloomed into something more. During my recuperation, we would go on long walks and spend hours in the gym together rehabbing my injury. I remembered how every day when she came to my room, Santino would just sit there as she completely ignored him, tending to my ever need.
I sighed to myself, Helena still waiting patiently for me to continue.
I’d never grown more close to a woman than I did during those few months. Relationships had never been my strong suit, but somehow she and I just clicked. I fell har
d for her, and even though I couldn’t explain it, I rolled with it. I was completely unphased by the fact that I knew we’d probably never be able to see each other again after I was reassigned to active duty. The war had barely just begun and the average life expectancy of service men and women deployed in the field shortened every day.
I’d only known her two months by the time I thought about proposing. Thought about, yes, but I never went through with it. Deep down, I knew it couldn’t last. The world was too confusing and bigger than either one of us, and I knew we could never be together. Sooner or later, I would have to leave and she would have to stay. Even with thoughts of marriage in mind, I tried my hardest to keep our relationship to a minimum, but it grew too fast for us both.
After I was finally discharged, I knew it was over.
When she and Santino carted me out in a wheel chair the nurse helped me out of it while Santino went to pack the car. Neither one of us knew what to say, and we just stood there looking at each other. After a few seconds, still not knowing what to say, she threw herself into my arms and gave me a kiss that held us there for minutes. When she pulled away, she told me she hoped to see me again, but I knew she didn’t even believe her own words. I said goodbye as strongly as I could, which only managed to be little more than a whisper. She put on a brave face, but as I watched her retreat back towards the hospital, I noticed a trail of tears tracing her steps like fat rain drops on the pavement.
It had all been like a fairy tale until that point.
Thinking about those happy, but inevitably painful few months did little to lighten my mood. Those days could have been better. It’s why I hated this story. It was like one of those dreams where everything was so perfect, and you felt so happy, only to wake up and realize that it was all just a dream and your life is everything but perfect.
I had to live that dream.
In any other place, in any other situation, we could have had a kid by now, living a quiet life. I remember sending her flowers with a note that said to look me up if she was ever in Hawaii, but I knew I’d never see her again.
As I played the story over in my head, I found myself staring at the back of the chair in front of me. My gaze was interrupted by Helena waving a hand in front of my face.
“Hello, Jacob…” she said. “Anybody home?”
I jerked my head in response and turned to look at her.
“What?” I asked.
“I believe you were about to finish your story. You and Santino were in a hospital?”
I turned away and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
No. I couldn’t tell her quite yet.
“Sorry, Helena,” I said looking back at her, “but the rest of that story can wait for another time.”
Her eyes narrowed in confusion, probably wondering what could be so personal that I couldn’t tell her after she’d so readily offered her own story. She opened her mouth to inquire further, but she never got a chance to finish her question before Billings began his briefing.
“All right, mates,” his voice, from an American’s perspective, was a typical British drawl, “I’ll try and keep this short. I know you’ve already been briefed on your specific mission parameters, but I’ll key you in on the operational position of my sub.”
Billings pulled up a map of the Mediterranean Sea on a projector, and zoomed in on the Eastern coast where we would be making our insertion. The map looked similar to the one McDougal had presented earlier.
“We’ll be dropping you off here,” he said, indicating a point on the map with a laser pointer, “a few miles off the shore line. Once you disembark, you’ll be on your own. Our presence here is completely off the grid. We’re not even supposed to be in the Mediterranean.”
He manipulated the map to show the satellite imagery of the port we were going to hit. The image showed a shabby town, looking typical for the impoverished area. The port had numerous ships docked, cargo ships mostly, but no military gear.
“This image was downloaded ten minutes ago from an Argos II Surveillance Satellite that will remain in geosynchronous orbit throughout the duration of the mission. The port has little to no military presence that we can see, and intelligence and satellite imagery confirms there won’t be any guards in the area. Your target ship just docked, but unloading isn’t scheduled until later tonight. Your contact in town is part of the crew, so our information should be accurate.”
He shifted the image again, zooming out and eastward towards the town.
“As you can see, the town is quite the opposite of the port and is crawling with armed guards, patrols, and picket points. Intel suggests this activity is normal for the area, so expect plenty of armed resistance. When it’s time to leave, you will need to get back to the port so we can pick you up. We’ll have a team waiting to bring you back to the Triumph. Chopper extraction is out of the question, as resources in the area are negligible.”
That last part caused me to wince. Even if things go completely by the book, and we accomplish our mission goals without alerting anyone, extraction will still be the most difficult part. Commandeering a vehicle will be difficult without alerting any guards, especially if that image was right, and the bad guys had check points set up. Picking up Helena would only complicate matters, but if we had to come out guns blazing, having her covering our asses would be invaluable.
“If there are no other questions, we’re done here. We’ll be arriving at our drop off point in six hours. Questions?”
The Praetorians were silent
“Well then. Good luck, chaps.”
IV
War
Mediterranean Sea, Syrian Coast
July, 2021
Five hours later, we were once again in our wetsuits and awaiting the go ahead to get our feet wet. The past few hours had been relatively uneventful, a first for me these days. I spent the time chatting with Santino, trying to catch up on lost time, checking out my gear, and making sure my magazines were fully loaded and secure on my rig, which was once again, safe in its water proof bag.
To get off the sub we were going out the same way we came in, through the top hatch. Helena and I were first out and were well on our way to removing the CRRC from the sub’s external equipment locker by the time Vincent and Santino pressurized the hatch.
The Combat Rubber Raiding Craft was simple in design and nature and had a legacy almost as long as the SEALs themselves. Stored, it was the size of a small sofa, folded around its high powered engine. When we disengaged the mechanism keeping the sub’s external storage area door closed, the CRRC shot out, inflating as it sped towards the surface.
Helena stared up after it, prompting me to give her a quick nudge. When I had her attention, I pointed upwards and waggled my hand in a swimming motion, indicating her to head up after the boat. She nodded and went on her way.
I waited a few seconds for the next group to come through the submarine’s hatch. As soon as I saw Santino’s head pop out, I began my ascension.
Breaking the surface, it was a quick swim to the boat which was conveniently deployed and ready to go, and a simple exertion of muscle got me aboard. Helena was already there, removing her re-breather and donning her combat armor. She cut a pretty sexy figure in the moon light, as her wetsuit glimmered tightly against the curves of her body and her damp black hair shimmered in the gentle moonlight.
I couldn’t help but smile as she covered her hair with a backwards baseball cap and painted her face with a stick of black camo chalk. She went light with the chalk in areas that produced natural shadows like her eye sockets, and darker in places that reflect light, like her cheeks and forehead. Good training, and I had to admit the hat was rather fetching on her.
“What?” She asked, noticing my attention. “Does it work?”
She started performing poses with the hat and made goofy facial expressions as she modeled it for me.
I laughed. “It looks good. You may pass for a sniper yet.”
“Ha. You k
now, we never got around to finding out who’s the better shot. When we get back. You and me. On the range. Maybe then you’ll put your money where your mouth is.”
Her banter was calming and the playful infliction took all the sting out of her comments as she handed me the chalk.
“You’re on, sister,” I shot back.
As I took off my re-breather gear, Santino surfaced just off the starboard side.
“Hey! Quit smooching and help me up.”
***
Once the entire team was aboard and our combat gear ready to go, Bordeaux activated the engine and we sped away quietly.
It was only during these few minutes before things got interesting that I started to worry. It wasn’t that I was afraid, just that I thought too much. People do it all the time. I can remember nights before a big test back in college where I would spend hours awake, trying to process the information, only to end up confusing myself even more by morning. Same thing applies here, only if I second guess myself now, I could not only get myself, but my entire team killed.
I glanced up at the moon, thankfully only a quarter full and dim, and wondered why I really transferred my service. I’d just settled into my command as a SEAL team leader, and was working with some of the finest operators on the planet. My team and I had been deployed to Iran, Mexico, Siberia, Pakistan, North Korea, Africa, Azerbaijan and countless other countries, and each time I had made it out alive, and relatively unscathed. Except for Korea, of course. I’d had some of the most qualified men at my side to thank for that, and I remembered too many close calls that could have ended in my death if not for them. So why, only a few months later, am I sitting in this boat with two Brits, an aging priest, a beautiful Ice-Queen, a Frenchman, and of all people, Santino?
I’d always lived by the tenants of God, country, and family, only I’d never known what order to put them in. Up until the war, I’d always considered myself Catholic because that’s how my mother raised me. Granted, I understood the faith, believed in it and appreciated the values, but I’d never really felt like it meant that much to me. While I went to church when I could and tried to lead as pious and noble a life as I could, but up until maybe four years ago, I didn’t really care that much.
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