The Repairman- The Complete Box Set

by L. J. Martin

  “You are stupid and ugly,” he says in Arabic, having no idea Connie understands his every word.

  “Sorry, sir. So sorry. This one was brought by worthless women who said it was at your command.”

  “Leave us and bring the singer to me,” the Sheik commands. And the two guards spin on their heels and escape quickly.

  Connie stands before him. He’s reclined in a pile of pillows of various colors—some half the size of the twin mattress she’d been assigned, many much smaller. He wears a silk robe, partially open to the belly button—not that you can see his as it’s buried in rolls of fat. The man has a wattle that would make a turkey jealous, but only visible when he turns his head as a straggly salt and pepper beard hangs to his chest. Beyond the beard, the vee of a heavy gold chain supports a ruby the size of a robin’s egg. Fat begins below his ears and continues to his ankles. A platter of grapes, dates, nuts, and cheeses lays on the slate before him. A hot tub steams a few feet away, and beyond it a lap pool wafts chlorine odor.

  At least, Connie thinks, they have some sense of cleanliness.

  Working hard not to show her revolt at the man’s appearance, Connie gives him a tight smile.

  “You must be the sheik,” she says, as if interested.

  He puffs up, vainglorious, “I am Sheik Ali Hassan, son of rulers of the desert, Bedouins who have ridden this country for many centuries, subjects of the great Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him, all faithful to Islam and the Holy Quran. Black gold, which you infidels are so dependent upon, flows from my sands like water from your rivers. We will rule the world soon.”

  “I am impressed. I presume you have many wives?”

  “Only three, however as you know, many concubines. You are now one of them. You risk punishment looking me in the eye.”

  “I know you are all powerful, Sheik.”

  Not for long are you all powerful, you motherfucker, she thinks, but smiles and as she slips off the slippers she’s been provided says, “What can I do to please you, my sheik?”

  He gives her a tight smile in return, and eyes her up and down.

  “You can begin by disrobing?”

  “Is that a restroom?” she asks, pointing to a nearby door.

  “It is a dressing area with a toilet.”

  “May I have permission to use the toilet and disrobe in the dressing room?”

  He eyes her a little suspiciously, then nods hard enough his wattle vibrates. “You may, but do not tarry.”

  “Yes, my sheik,” she says, and moves to the room and enters. Simone is on her way, Connie presumes. If it is going to begin now, she wants Simone under her wing. She closes the door, giving the sheik a brilliant smile as she does.

  Then she pulls the door shut, reaches into her robe, slips the .380 out of the soft holster on her thigh and checks the load. She slips the robe off one shoulder, exposing a nicely tanned breast, then opens the door and leans out just far enough to tease him with a nipple.

  “My Sheik, please, I need help with a hook. Would you please?”

  He eyes the breast, and she ducks back, giving him only a glance.

  Sounding irritated, he snaps, “I am not your house maid, woman.”

  “Then would you please call one to attend me. I need assistance before I can please you.”

  He mumbles a ‘humph,’ but lumbers to his feet and moves forward as she ducks back inside.

  Shoving the door aside, he enters and she, coyly, gives him her tanned, smooth, bare back as she holds the .380 pressed into the soft flesh of her stomach.

  “What?” he commands.

  She spins, pushes the door shut with one hand while shoving the muzzle of the .380 into a fold in his belly with the other, and pulls the trigger. His rolls of fat are almost as good as a suppressor, and the shot blows through his prodigious belly, taking out his aorta and shattering his backbone. He reaches for her throat with both hands, but without clamping down sinks to his knees with an “oof,” then flops to his side as she shoves him away, wallowing like a walrus for a moment. She thinks about putting another one in his ear but doesn’t want to risk the noise or waste another cartridge. It isn’t necessary as he moans and groans, saliva rolling over his bulbous lips, then quiets. Eyes bulge, but do not close. She is already down to five shots and a guard, or more, will soon be back with Simone.

  She shuts the dressing room door tightly behind her as she returns to the pile of pillows, removes her robe and the holster and hides holster and .380 under a pillow. Then she reclines, naked, in a Marilyn Monroe pose, but with a hand on the pistol under the pillow and waits.

  Abby and Waddy have put the women to good use, stacking wood in a dozen piles in a circle one hundred feet across. When they hear the approach, the wop, wop, wop of more than one helicopter, they light the fires.

  Then all are rocked by the low pass of a Wart Hog A10. The women begin to shout and applaud.

  In less than a half minute, a Chinook chopper hovers above, then settles, and a dozen SEALs pour out and spread out. The chopper lifts off leaving the SEAL team.

  Both Abby and Waddy approach, wisely with their long-arms slung and their hands on their heads.

  “Where’s Reardon?” a SEAL who seems to be in command demands, lifting his NVD, his night vision device.

  “In Libya, chasing more of your women,” Abby says. Then adds, “Things are secure here. We have neutralized all militants we’ve found. We have not secured every structure so be advised.”

  The SEAL speaks into a mike mouthpiece extending from his helmet, and other SEALs in teams of three disappear into the darkness. He speaks again into his mouthpiece and a CH-53E Super Stallion takes the place of the first bird.

  Then the commander snaps, “Load up the ladies. Half in this bird.”

  Abby and Waddy help the commander and one remaining SEAL begin loading the captives, who are smiling and laughing. A master loader and two Marines help the women aboard. The chopper takes over fifty women, lifts off. Another replaces it, and another loader and two crew members load the remaining women.

  As the two Stallions depart, the Chinook lands again and the SEALs regroup. The commander walks over and shakes hands with both Waddy and Abby. “You two staying or do you need a lift?”

  “We have got gear and two Rovers down the hill a ways. Tell Reardon he needs to repay Taj for our services.”

  “Who’s Taj?” the commander asks.

  “Reardon will know. Is your team going to back him up? There are only three of them, if you don’t count their captive.”

  “Don’t know about a captive and have no orders to continue on. Thanks for the help,” the commander says, and follows his men into the Chinook.

  And they lift off.

  61

  With her free hand, Connie, lying in a voluptuous pose, holds a date to her mouth, her lips pursed around it, as two guards enter. Their AK47s are slung over their shoulders, each with a hand on one of Simone’s arms. Simone has her jaw set and looks adamant rather than fearful.

  As they approach, they realize Connie is naked. By the way they stop and stare, you know they’ve never seen a beautiful, tan, well endowed, naked infidel.

  “Where…where…Sheik?” one of them manages, still staring.

  Connie points to the toilet. “He’s indisposed.”

  One guard starts that way, his back to her. Connie rises with the .380 held slightly behind and, with an enticing smile, takes a step toward the remaining guard still holding Simone. With the smoothness and accuracy of one who’s spent many hours on the range and on combat courses, she raises the .380, and the shot takes the guard in the throat. Without hesitating she spins, and her second shot takes the guard in the side just below the armpit, as he has one hand on the dressing room door handle. He bounces off the door jamb and tries to unsling his AK. She calmly steps forward, and her next is through his eye. He crashes through the doorway and joins the Sheik on the dressing room floor.

  Then she walks back to where the first gu
ard is on his back on the floor, both hands over the wound in his throat, blood seeping between his fingers. She considers double tapping him but doesn’t want to waste another cartridge, then realizes she now has two AK47s, each with a thirty-shot banana clip. So, she pulls Simone behind her, bends and puts one in his forehead.

  Then she orders Simone, “Run back to the entry door and lock it.”

  Simone is wide eyed but complies.

  Then she returns while Connie dresses. “What now?” Simone asks.

  “Check for other ways in and make sure doors are locked. We pile all we can in front of the doorways. Then we wait, hold down the fort, and pray.”

  Just as we exit the courtyard outside the dormitory rooms, shots ring out from somewhere ahead. Both of us drop to a knee and scan the area, wondering what the hell is happening, when a half-dozen soldiers, pulling on shirts, but carrying weapons, pour from a doorway ahead. They are not headed our way, but rather toward where it seems the shots rang out.

  Two of them remain behind, hooking up their trousers. I tap Bo on the shoulder, pull my Glock, recover the suppressor that’s in a thigh pocket on my battle trousers and screw it on. He gets it and does the same. Before the pair still dressing can follow their comrades, we are on them. One sees us coming, so from twenty feet, I put one in his upper body mass and he wheels back, arms flailing, while the other tries to raise his weapon. Before I can even re-target, his head explodes from Bo’s well-placed shot. The other four are fifty yards ahead of us, and we begin to pursue, when a tower on the far end of the complex lights the night with machine gun fire and the earth begins to explode all around us. Both of us scramble back to the courtyard door and dive inside. But the courtyard walls must be mud, and they begin dissolving as .50 cal machine-gun fire makes hash of them. Crabbing, we head for the doorway to the dorm and scramble inside. These walls are at least eighteen inches thick, so they withstand the fire much better.

  But for how long?

  The courtyard walls are beginning to crumble to pea gravel with the hammering fire of the fifty.

  I get on the handheld. “Paxman, a machine gun tower twenty feet beyond the main gates, built into the wall. Drop a couple on them, please.”

  “Do my best,” comes back.

  The machine gunner has slowed down and is trying to place his shots with three-shot bursts. He gets another dozen rounds off before the courtyard, forty yards from the tower, explodes in a shower of slate projectiles.

  “Plus forty yards, and ten degrees north,” I yell into the radio.

  “Say again,” he comes back. And I do. In thirty seconds, another explosion, but this one I cannot see as it’s outside the walls.

  “You’ve bracketed him. But I can’t help as I couldn’t see how far over you were.”

  “Ten four. Another.”

  “Fucking A,” I shout, and this one explodes at the base of the wall, but fifty or sixty feet this way.

  “Let’s try to put one down his throat,” I yell at Bo and load a grenade to the M4’s M203 launcher, Bo does the same and we elevate and fire. Mine is twenty yards short and Bo’s bounces off the wall and explodes in mid-air.

  We haven’t done more than shake them up, but the firing stops. In moments, I see two men run from a door at the base of the tower. I guess they don’t have the stomach for a mortar and grenades. Unless they’re military types, they have no idea what’s blowing up the terrain around them.

  So, we head out again. Just as we step through the minced courtyard wall, small arms fire spits up chunks of slate and pieces of mud wall, and we clamor back inside, and use the fallen courtyard for cover.

  “What the fuck, over,” Bo says as we both go prone behind the fallen wall.

  “Well, they abandoned the big boy and are no sharpshooter medals with the AKs, but I guess we got their attention. You clean?” I ask as I pick some rock chards out of my cheeks and neck.

  “Got a crease on the hip, but no bone. I’m still a player.”

  “You need a compress?” I ask.

  “Let’s roll a while. I don’t want them sneaking up on us.”

  “Let’s change positions,” I suggest. “No sense letting them know exactly our twenty.”

  “I wonder if there’s a back door out of the dorm?”

  “I didn’t notice one,” I offer.

  “But the uniform building code would insist,” he says, and we both manage a laugh.

  I suggest, “You keep the sand slime from closing on us, and I’ll recon the back door.”

  “Ten four,” he says, and rises up to a firing position on the chunks of wall.

  Just as I reach the doorway, he yells, “Hold on.” And I scramble back.

  “We’re fucked,” he says, and is pointing toward the gates, which are open. One military half-track has already entered and is quickly followed by another. Then, a third, a Toyota truck with a .50 cal mounted in the bed.

  They brake and uniforms begin piling out the backs. We fire the last four rifle grenades and have them scrambling. At least two are laid out, but there are many more of them finding cover.

  “Time for a new plan,” I say. “Let’s both find that back door or make one.”

  “Move it,” he says, and I do.

  62

  There is no back door, not even a window.

  Too bad they haven’t adopted the uniform building code. But then again, we decide to make this building comply. But I understand why no door or window, as the back wall is also the compound wall. If we’re out through it, we’re out of the compound. That’s the good news. The bad is, we’ll be on the open slope of the mountain. Hardly a rock to give cover.

  I’ve used my five pounds of C4, but Bo has not and now has what Skip had carried. We find a likely spot in a storeroom where the explosion will be fairly-well contained, peel off a pound of C4 and place it at the base of the wall. Then I suggest, “Let’s cause them a little worry and gain us a little diversion.”

  Bo shrugs.

  So, I call Ji Su and Pax on the radio. “Paxman, in five mikes put your remaining at the far end of the compound. Keep them in the courtyard so we don’t take out the ladies. Ji Su, after he drops his last one, do a fly by and bomb them with three grenades. Both of you keep a couple in reserve in case we get our tits in a crack. Lady, don’t mess around, put pedal to the metal. There was an active .50 cal in that tower by the gate.”

  Pax comes right back. “What do you mean, in case? Sounds like you stepped in it?”

  I laugh. “Close, but we’re about to exit via a hole in the south wall. But I ain’t leaving without Connie and my charges.”

  “Hey, there must be two dozen more bogies in there. I suggest we recon, regroup, and re-evaluate.”

  “I have a bad feeling these military guys might want to get rid of the evidence. My lady is evidence and so are my charges. Libyans are not renowned for their mercy. I gotta keep pushing.”

  “Reardon, we’re four. Limited resources. They are two or three dozen, probably the latter. Let’s move back and call for reinforcements. Taj can probably…”

  “Got to go, throw up a diversion, please.”

  “You got it.”

  In moments, mortars began to drop into the far end of the compound. We set the C4 for one minute, trying to time it to coincide with one of Pax’s mortars, but it’s late.

  The wall blows damn near the whole end of the storeroom away, and Bo and I scramble through as the Jet Ranger passes overhead only fifty or sixty feet off the deck. The rotor wash will confuse them, and I hope they run out to see who the chopper is and step on a couple of the grenades.

  She barely clears the end of the compound when the grenades begin to explode. Bo and I haul ass down the hillside. Luckily, it’s still dark. We get to a small olive grove at the bottom of the hill and turn back to make sure we’re not being pursued. When my handheld vibrates.

  “What’s up?” I answer.

  “I don’t know what’s up,” Ji Su reports, “but those boys in t
he trucks must not like the sound of the chopper or the grenades or mortars. They are loading up and hauling ass. A half-dozen a-holes in white robes are running behind them as if they want to go but are being left.”

  “We’re going back in,” I say and glance over at Bo, who shrugs again.

  So, I lead out, jogging back to the new doorway we’ve made in the wall.

  Just as we reach it, I hear the sound of a chopper again, but this one is different. In fact, I see two incoming.

  Chinooks. I’m praying for them being ours. Then both slide to a hover over the roof of the palace, and SEALs begin to rappel onto the roofs.

  Former SEAL Bo flashes me a smile. “I’ll bet I know some of those assholes.”

  You couldn’t wipe the grin off my puss with a Claymore. “Can you raise them on the radio?”

  “Not these chickenshit little things, but I can get Ji Su to get through to them.”

  “Advise the ladies are likely behind the rose-colored door damn near compound center. That’s about all the intel I can offer, other than take out that tower just in case some ambitious local wants to get a quick trip to virginville.”

  He laughs and radios Ji Su.

  We hold in the dorm area after advising where we’re located. There are no more than two dozen rounds fired in the next few minutes. Then we get an all clear radio message and walk out, weapons slung over shoulders, over the destroyed dorm compound wall into the main compound. While we await tying up with the SEALs, I remove Alia’s blindfold and muzzle.

  “Alia?” I make sure she’s who I think she is. And she nods. “I’m going to leave you here. I’m going to send Sa’id,” her eyes widen, then she begins to tear up, “to get you. I’ve made him a promise you two can go free as he has helped us find you. If you return to Al-Shabaab, I will know, and I will put you on the list to join your family. Do you understand?”