by John Ringo
But she had changed after the last battle. She hardly put on anyone at all anymore and occasionally did nice things for them. She had fixed Nikki’s broken CD player. She had helped Martya with her English lessons.
But the girls weren’t willing to place too much faith in the unexplained change. Not with Katya.
So knocking on her door to ask her to turn down the stereo was the last thing that Martya wanted to do. But Tinata had insisted. Nobody was getting anything done.
The music cut off and the door was yanked open. The sight left Martya staring.
Katya was a very beautiful blonde, just medium height with bright blue eyes that could be cold as a shark or innocent as a virgin depending on her choice and mood. At the moment she was looking pissed, but not deadly. What had Martya’s attention, though, was that she was wearing a two-piece bathing suit and the top was dangling from her hand, leaving her topless.
The girls, naturally, had often seen each other naked. But answering the door holding the top of your bathing suit was unusual. As was wearing one in the depths of the Georgian winter. It was below zero Celsius outside and blowing hard. A bathing suit didn’t make much sense. Even with the heaters, the caravanserai was cold.
“Katya, please,” Martya said. “We cannot study with all the noise.”
“That’s a problem,” Katya admitted, lowering the suit. “Because I’m studying.”
“What?” Martya said, then noticed that there was another woman in the room. She was older and dressed in Western clothes. Not very pretty even when she was younger, Martya was sure.
“That you don’t need to know,” Katya replied.
“Can you at least stop the whooping?” Martya asked. “That is what is getting us.”
“No, I need to do the whooping,” Katya said. “I won’t be doing this much longer. I think.”
“Okay,” Martya said with a sigh. “Sorry to have bothered you.”
“No problem,” Katya said. “I just need to get back in character.”
“Okay,” Martya said as the door closed in her face. “What did that mean?”
“I have to wonder if this is really necessary,” Katya said, waving the bathing suit back and forth. “And I’m freezing.”
“You’d be surprised how cold it can get at Daytona Beach in spring,” Jay replied, gesturing with his chin at the muted TV set. “Look at the nipples. Most of those girls are quite cold.”
“Yeah?” Katya said, striking a pose. “Well, look at mine.”
“I’ve seen them,” Jay replied evenly. “If you’re prepared to continue?”
“Why in the hell would I want to be on a ‘Girls Gone Wild’ video?” Katya asked.
“You don’t,” Jay replied. “Ever. Be assured of that. But you do need to learn to mimic the actions. Girls like that can get into virtually anywhere but a shield room, and you’d be surprised how many have made it that far. Playing the stupid, wild, partying slut is a very good cover. Among other things, if you have to avoid capture, slipping into that guise is a good way for a girl as good looking as you to disappear. Change your appearance slightly, go into a club and be the sluttiest slut there. Pick up one of the many guys who are hankering for you, take him home and stay there overnight. No hotel room, no traceable apartment. I can think of a thousand reasons to learn this particular cover. That you cannot troubles me.”
“This padwan asks the Master’s apology,” Katya said, bowing with a smirk. “I see what you mean, though.”
“Now, let us work on removing the top again,” Jay said with a sigh. “I will admit that I’m enjoying the sight, I am heterosexual, but you are just not doing it right. If you’d only spent some time as a stripper it might help. With mental conditioning if nothing else. You have to feel the need to expose yourself and you so dislike the very thought that it is interfering.”
“I’ve been naked in front of many men,” Katya said, coldly. “And none of them have ever known I was not happy about it.”
“I do,” Jay said. “Any trained observer would see it in you. Most men, yes, are not so trained. But it is not those you need fear. If you are in a situation like this the most you need to worry about is a Rohypnol slipped in your drink or date-rape. Don’t drink anything you don’t see poured by the bartender for the former. Since you are intending to fulfill your side of an implied contract inherent in going home with a male from such a party, you need not fear the latter. You, in fact, need to let go of your fear. That is what is trapping you. You will not be the agent you could be until you stop fearing men.”
“I don’t fear men,” Katya said. “I just want to kill them all.”
“Are you refusing to accept my training?” Jay asked calmly.
“No,” Katya replied. That was the one agreement between them. Katya would do whatever Jay told her in training and the only punishment was that, if she stopped learning, if she decided she knew more than he, he would simply stop training her.
Since Katya wanted to know it all, she was very careful to be on her best behavior with the master spy.
“Then do not challenge that statement,” Jay said. “Especially since it’s true. Are you unaware that you fear men or unwilling to admit it?”
“Unwilling to admit it,” Katya said after a moment.
“You cannot carry that baggage and be who you should be,” Jay said. “Almost all women fear men at some level. It is one part of their nature, one you should be aware of. Men are, by and large, bigger, stronger and more aggressive. Men go through life with a predator mindset, women with that of prey. But you, Katya, need never fear them again. You are the predator. What do you fear? Being beaten? You have survived beatings and more. Being raped? You have survived that. Dying? If it came to that, most men would have a hard time killing you unless they surprised you. As you know having killed a few who were trying to do that. You are not one of the girls in this video. You are not virtually defenseless before a stronger male. But you still fear.”
“Yes,” Katya admitted.
“But these women, these girls, these do not,” Jay said, restarting the video. “Watch them carefully. They are enjoying themselves. They have no fear of the stares, of the shouts, of the attention. Oh, a few do. That mousey girl on the left, brown hair and nipples. She is afraid of the attention. Basically introverted I suspect or just raised in a prudish environment. Generally not a problem unless you’re in a situation like that. I have no clue why she is up there having ice water dashed on her. A dare from friends? A boyfriend who has psychological power over her? Drink? But she fears. Could you be her? You would have to wrap yourself around your fear, show it, use it, let it blossom in your eyes? Could you do that? And still be the predator you truly are?”
“No,” Katya said.
“Then, again, you are not the person you must be,” Jay said, stopping the video again. “When you can be that girl, up there on stage in a wet T-shirt contest, on TV no less, afraid of all the consequences, the men suddenly charging the stage, her parents seeing the video, her friends back at college whispering behind her back, guys figuring she’s a slut and only after her body, then, padwan, you will be on the road to perfection. But we will concentrate on the blonde in the striped bathing suit again. Now, in character… Whoop!”
“Mike, open the damned door,” Adams said. The damned wood was hurting his knuckles.
He stepped into the room and looked around. He hadn’t been up to Mike’s sanctum before but it was pretty cozy. A radiator kept it warm, it had nice paneled walls, the chair looked comfortable. On the other hand, it smelled. Stank, really. Booze — the bottles were all over the place — and just the reek of a person who hadn’t washed enough holed up in a small room too long.
“I gotta ask,” Adams said. “What’s behind the steel plate? Everybody is dying to know. A black hole? A TV? What?”
“None of your God-damned business,” Mike said.
Mike Harmon was thirty-seven years old, brown of hair and eye, medium height with a muscular
build due to years as a SEAL instructor. An almost prescient talent for silent-kill had earned him the nickname “Ghost” while on the SEAL teams. After sixteen years as a SEAL, mostly an instructor in everything from “direct action” to HALO, he had found himself physically beaten and psychologically unsuitable to the Teams. So he’d gotten out and gone to college. It was a long road to being the Kildar, one with half the terrorists on earth searching for a guy code-named Ghost, but he’d made it every step of the way. The scars on his body, and in his heart, were proof.
“What do you want, Ass-boy?” Mike asked.
“Ass-boy yourself,” Adams replied. “We’ve got a mission.”
“I heard,” Mike said. “We really don’t need the money and I’m tired of laying it on the line over and over and over again. So… no.”
“I want to go.”
“Go.”
“I want to take two teams.”
Mike finally looked at him, then back at the wall.
“Whatever.”
“Is that a ‘yes,’ O Kildar?” Adams asked angrily.
“Just try not to fuck up too much,” Mike said. “Now get out.”
“Christ, I really should beat the crap out of you,” Adams said.
“Do you really think you could?” Mike asked, his teeth grinding.
“In your current condition?” Adams said. “Hell, yeah. Let me tell you something, Kildar. I had a talk with your team chief after you quit. I wanted to know how such a God-damned good operator could have had his ass fucking fired by a chief I knew had his head on his shoulders. And do you want to know what he said? It had dick all to do with the AD, by the way.”
“I could give a fuck less,” Mike said. “Now would you get the fuck out?”
“He said you weren’t hard-core enough,” Adams replied. “Simple as that. You’d gotten soft playing big boy instructor with the meats. You thought it was all a big game, that you could just wave a fucking stress card and get a point for effort. He called you a fucking crybaby. When I pulled you out of that fucking bunker, I couldn’t figure what the fuck he was talking about. But he saw it when I didn’t. You’re a fucking crybaby. So you lost a piece of ass. Ass is cheap, buddy. You got a dozen pieces here in the house. There’s more in the Keldara and they’re all willing and you know it. So get off your fucking ass!”
“You done?” Mike asked calmly.
“Yeah,” Adams said, sighing.
“Go do the mission,” Mike said. “Collect a bonus. Then stay in the fucking States. I don’t want to see your face again after that door shuts.”
“You’re fucking firing me?” Adams said, incredulous. “Well then, fuck you, I’ll just leave.”
“Big mission,” Mike pointed out. “American civilians might die. You might stop that. And do you really want the Keldara wandering around the U.S. alone?”
“Fuck,” Adams said. “You know just where the buttons are, don’t you?”
“You weren’t hired for your brains,” Mike replied. “By the same token, you should know when you’re out of your depth on something. And you just proved you don’t. So I don’t want you around.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Adams asked.
“You’ve been married, what? Six times? Which means that you’re the perfect SEAL, more balls than brains and no fucking heart at all. It’s just a piece of ass. Big fucking deal. Which meant you had no clue what you were just saying. No fucking clue at all. Since you don’t even have the introspection to realize that, please leave this room and get the fuck out of my life. Go do the mission and then just… leave.”
“I should have left you to die in that damned bunker,” Adams said, hitting the door control.
“I wish you had,” Mike whispered after the door was closed. Then he raised the plate…
Chapter Two
Adams stepped off the plane and breathed deep. Humid as hell and about seventy degrees. Ah, Florida winter.
Homestead Air Force Base was located just south of the city of Miami near the town of Homestead, Florida. The base had once housed a variety of bombers from Strategic Air Command, back in the days when “pad alert” had teeth. But the end of the Cold War had caused various reevaluations of the base, especially given the pressures from the burgeoning Miami area.
However, its strategic location — it was the only base that really had a lock on the Caribbean — had kept it at minimal status. Demoted to an “Air Force Reserve Base” it, nonetheless, maintained a squadron of “reserve” F-16s as an antiterror Combat Air Patrol over the Miami area as well as supported the antidrug planes that patrolled the region.
The old girl was getting a little weary, but hanging in there.
“Mr. Adams?” the officer waiting for them asked, holding out a hand. “I’m Lieutenant Mike Himes, sir. I’m your liaison officer.”
“Pleased to meet you, Lieutenant,” Adams said. The officer was tall and almost skeletally thin, maybe weighing one-fifty if he was soaking wet. A shock of red hair was apparent under the beret. Adams had learned to read Army doo-dads over the years, though, and the LT was wearing a CIB and a combat patch from the Third ID.
“I’ve arranged billeting for your personnel on base,” the LT continued, waving to the terminal building.
“I think we’ve got a hotel set up,” Adams said. “Sorry about that. The usual clusterfuck. But we’ll need someplace to store our gear.”
“About that… yes,” the LT said. “We’ve got a meeting just about to start you probably should attend. The joint headquarters for the action teams is here on base. You’ll be able to meet all the movers if you know what I mean, sir. And there are some issues to resolve.”
“Ain’t there always,” Adams said with a sigh. “I swear that’s why the colonel stayed behind; he didn’t want to sit in the meetings.”
“Possibly, sir,” the LT said. “I’ve got escorts for your personnel and a truck is on the way to pick up their gear. We’ll arrange transport to town. If you could follow me?”
“Hello, my old friend,” Kurt said in perfect German. It was, after all, his native language.
He was sitting in an open air bar in Bimini, listening to some really awful rap music. But the view was spectacular since some Canadian girls were down on vacation and seemed to quite enjoy the caterwauling.
“Hello,” the man on the phone said. “I thought you should know that your friends are arriving today.”
“Is that so?” Kurt said. “Then I think we should make plans to receive them well, don’t you think?”
“Arrangements have already been made,” the man said. “I was just informing you. They will be well taken care of.”
“Wonderful,” Kurt said, hanging up the phone. “Just perfect.”
The meeting room featured a long table with seats at it and along the walls behind. Most of the seats were filled when Adams arrived.
“This way, sir,” Himes whispered, leading Adams to one of the chairs, then taking the one behind him.
“Who are you?” the guy next to Adams asked, leaning over. He was a heavy-set guy wearing a FEMA jacket. In fact, most of the people in the room, males and females, wore jackets denoting their agencies. Maybe he should have Mike make up jackets for the Keldara so people would know who they were. No, fuck Mike. After this one he was gone.
“I’m not sure I get to tell you that,” Adams said.
“Or you’d have to kill me?” the man joked.
Adams turned and just stared.
“Been there, done that.”
“Oookay,” the man said, turning back to the table.
“This meeting is in order.”
The man at the head of the table was a Navy admiral. Adams vaguely recognized him but he wasn’t a SEAL admiral, not that there were many of those. Flyboy, if Adams recalled.
“We need to start by signing the standard form,” the admiral said, unsealing the briefing document in front of him with a letter opener.
Adams looked at the folder, puzzled, f
or a moment then pulled out his Spyderco folding knife and slit open the top. Inside was another envelope with a form on the front. He perused it for a moment, shrugged, then signed the bottom.
“Collect them,” the admiral said when everyone had finished signing the forms. It was apparent that some of them had taken the time to read the fine print. Slowly.
His aide circled the room, picking up the forms, then took them back to the admiral. The admiral then proceeded to read each of them.
“CBP,” the admiral said, looking over at the representative from Customs and Border Protection. “You have an objection to Clause Two?”
Adams had long before learned the technique of sleeping at the drop of a hat. He wasn’t sure how long it was before someone poked him the back.
“Mr… Adams?” the admiral said.
“Sir?” the master chief replied, sitting up.
“You’re heading the… Georgian contingent?” the admiral asked. “I see that you have clearance for this briefing but I’m not sure what your part in all of this is.”
“We’re just here to help out, sir,” Adams said. “We have both a team of intel specialists and a team of shooters. If you localize anything, we can take it down. Guaranteed.”
“Excuse me?” the FBI rep said, leaning over to look down the table. “What did you just say?”
“I think it was pretty obvious,” Adams replied. “I mean, why else did we fly all this way?”
“We have two tac teams, highly trained tac teams I might add, standing by,” the FBI rep said. “If anything needs to be ‘taken down’ it will be licensed officers of the United States government.”
“Fine,” Adams said, pulling out a cigar. He wasn’t much of a smoker, but there were times… “Then I’ll just sit here and nap.”
“There is no smoking in this room,” the admiral snapped.
