Classic – she was playing possum. I already knew she wasn’t dead, and there’s no way she’d STILL be out after 30 seconds.
I leaned down, still out of her vision, and pushed her hands and ankles aside, and slapped her now almost bare ass, as hard as I could – and she squealed like a little girl. “Ahhhh good, she’s awake!” I rolled her onto her side and boy, was she PISSED! “Yeah yeah, I know you’re upset. I’m not sure if it’s because the tables are turned, or that they’re turned and I obliterated you in a mere fraction of the time that you took to do the same to me, all those years ago.”
She groaned or moaned, I couldn’t tell the difference. I picked her up by an arm and a leg and carried her down the hall – her suite looked just like mine, despite being in another building, so I knew right where it was. Oddly, she had a very frilly, girly room – light pastel colors, pinks and yellows. I wouldn’t have expected that. I dumped her on the bed, pushed her onto one side, and then pulled a comfy chair over so she could see me as I sat down, unzipping my uniform pants and letting them drop as I sat.
“I suspect you never really figured this would happen, did you, hotass?” I was stroking my engorged cock at this point – I wasn’t hung like a horse, but I do okay with what I’ve got. I was incredibly turned on by how brutal that encounter had been, and now she was damn near naked in front of me. When the time came, I stood up and put a hand on her throat, orienting her face so that I could spray across her face and chest. I smiled as I looked down at her, not even raped – just abused and UN-molested – and grabbed a handful of the shreds of her t-shirt, yanking hard enough to both pull it out from under her, as well as rip it clear away from her body.
“I appreciated the lesson – and some of the best sex I’d ever had, yes, to date, and made very sure it would never happen again. I don’t think you expected that, but then again, I also don’t think you expected payback. Did you ever take advantage of any other recruits like that?”
She nodded in the affirmative. She was trying to rub herself on the bed… She must be just as turned on, by now.
“And did any of them ever get a second shot at you?”
She shook her in the negative. She futilely tried to blink away the salty fluid now dripping off her eyelashes into her eyes.
“So, has anyone else ever managed to lock you down this way?”
Her head shook definitively NO.
And did you ever wish they would have?
The implant pinged me, in her voice, just as I remembered it. Oh god yes!
I wiped myself off with her tattered t-shirt, and tossed it at her.
As I stood and pulled my pants back up, I pulled Rage from the horizontally mounted sheath behind me, picked up her t-shirt remnants and wiped it down – making sure she could see me.
“Turnabout is fair play, after all.” I cut the flex cuff that was holding her ankles to her wrists – but not the ones holding her wrists together, or her ankles together.
“Stop by sometime, we’ll talk more, maybe have some… more… fun.” I walked out, to her pinging me repeatedly to come back and at least cut her loose. The cuffs weren’t too tight, she’d be able to hobble to the kitchen and get herself cut loose.
I told my implant to hold any messages from Captain Ivy Hotez until 8am the next day. I had a date – my boys and I were going out clubbing at one of the local bars.
Chapter 26: Double Trouble.
We had routine missions for the next 8 months or so, and then we got a sticky one.
Remember the last time I’d been deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina-Croatia, something like 4 years prior?
Apparently that was due to some SF prick’s… uhh, make that, a teammate’s need for a “diversion” – which is why we never got very far, except for lots of practice at catching mortar rounds. Some of the trouble we’d been having with COB mission leak was suspected to have started around that timeframe.
I got called in Colonel Wentz’s office on a Thursday afternoon late in October for a ‘chat.’
“Wolf, your team is being deployed to Croatia – you know the area, which is why we’re sending you.
“We’ll also be sending an intelligence platoon with you to gather information; this isn’t a battle, this is a sneak mission. You’re being frocked to Major for this mission, as your intel support platoon is run by a captain, as is your logistics platoon, and I don’t want any bitching from them about who’s running the ops side of this vacation. You’re there partly for intel gathering needs, but you’re also there for security of the intel team, and the logistics platoon will stage your ingress and egress of the AOR for you, and base out of facilities a bit more protected.”
That struck me as odd. The Intel platoon was closer to ‘normal’ sized; why was I handling security?”
“Since our COB teams are a bit smaller than the Intel platoon, you’re actually going to be there with Lieutenant Colonel Trudeau’s team as well – she’ll be the nominal lead for the mission overall, but will be basing with the logistics platoon. Her team and yours will be under your command, as the detachment commander.”
Okay, ignore what I said about odd. It still bothered me that I came up with these questions before they were asked – but at least I was working with a team now who actually fucking thought about this stuff, even if they thought about it slower than I did.
“Thank you sir. Who and what’s the target, and what’s our mission?”
The details don’t matter to you; you don’t have clearance to know anyway. Suffice to say, it was somewhat related to the last fiasco that occurred, and got me all that pretty flair for my dress uniform.
The only awkward part about this was that the Intel platoon… was Ivy’s. Sorry, I mean Captain Hotez. We’d been… “seeing” each other for a while. When this mission came up, we had to cut that off, at least temporarily – since for this mission, she worked for me.
We based out of (and with our trail elements staying in) Zagreb, which had allowed UN traffic for ages. Our FOB was in Stari Brod, a small town in Croatia across the river and a bit north from where my last deployment had been. The UN, basically not much more than an administrative arm of the US government now, had put in a bridge across the river, halfway between Stari Brod and Stari Farkasic (another town, maybe two or three minutes up the road) to enable more commerce. This was typical Social Justice Hero bullshit, since there was already a road on either side of the river closer to Stari Brod – but that wouldn’t have been ‘fair.’ Can you hear my teeth gritting?
Didn’t matter in the long run; the town had grown into a small city in the last few years, and we trickled in, one by one, dressed like locals (which honestly wasn’t that much different than any town back home – just… no brand-name designer clothes.
We were renting out a small combination event center and hotel, under the auspices of being there for a “business retreat” – which in a way, it was.
Ivy’s team had gotten hooked into the local nightlife, and we quickly found our target. Surveillance was easy; security was even easier. Legal weapons had been scarce in most of Europe forever – we’d simply driven a small van into town with bags full of our gear. Most of it looked like mix-and-match roller-board suitcases and duffle bags; for the two dozen or so of us that were armed, we were able to get enough gear onsite that we could pretty quickly handle anything that came our way in a less than pleasant manner.
Those of us who weren’t armed – at least, not with the intent to use it as our primary ‘business tool’ – outnumbered those of us who were. Not by much, but the MIB platoon under Captain Hotez had nearly 60 people there, in business casual. They scurried about looking important and acting like they had someplace to be anytime they weren’t in the event center (which, thankfully, was far less time than when they were inside the event center!). They usually had one or two of my team go with them, and they were encouraged never to go out in less than groups of three. This wasn’t for security’s sake – it was for appearance’s sa
ke. Everyone in the Regiment was ranger-qualified, more than capable to take on anything less than an angry mob of a dozen or more people, on their own. That said, this population was heavily Roman Catholic, and they could get pretty militant about things if they caught you in the midst of something they didn’t agree with. Colonel Haskins, ‘way back in AELS, had talked about some pretty intense low-level conflict in a place called “Ireland”, which had long since lost its national identity into the European Union. Why the fuck was it always people and their magical boogeymen in the sky that caused so much trouble?
Don’t care – unless said boogeyman is giving them magical armor, they’re just as likely to fall-down-get-dead when I shoot them.
Trudeau’s team – ostensibly mine for the duration of this deployment, but whatever – I put on security, guarding the event center both actively and passively. Active, meaning, they were wearing business formal (i.e. suits and ties) and armed with submachine guns hidden under their suit jackets, guarding the doors, hallways, as well as patrolling the entire event center; and passive, meaning, enjoy areas outside the event center in non-business clothing – but don’t go anywhere unarmed, anytime you go outside of the event center.
We’d picked up several contacts in the local espionage network (Hey, don’t laugh – this place was a nice, quiet, out-of-the-way place where spies could go for some privacy!), and we were making progress. By “progress,” I mean, as far as building the case for a larger assault on forces that were planning on gathering in the area prior to an assault on UN Peacekeeping troops. Regular bursts of electronic traffic bounced off of several satellites, back to the deployment base at Zagreb were occurring, so that we didn’t lose any data even if we were overrun – my call, not Trudeau’s.
For whatever reason, Trudeau must have figured I couldn’t handle things, though. The “retreat” that we’d planned was supposed to last for a month, and we’d gotten here at the end of October. Three weeks into November, Lieutenant Colonel Trudeau showed up in a small, white panel van along with several other support troops, obviously armed if you were looking them over like I was – and not so obvious, to the blissfully sleeping-in-their-daily-routine people all around us. The only reason it was myself and not Brice monitoring the front lobby and small driveway/courtyard for arrivals, was because I had him running the night shift. Fuck you. Rank hath its privileges.
“Justine, nice to see you, glad you could make it!” No. Not nice to see you, you’re an extra to this party, and you’re not fucking welcome. “Welcome, please, come in!”
After we got inside, I put a hand on her back and guided her gently towards the retreat reception area, and towards the corner – just like any other executive would do with a late-comer to a business function.
“What the hell are you doing here? What’s going on?” I murmured quietly, still smiling for anyone who was watching.
I was less than thrilled about her reply. “I need to meet with my team; please have them assemble in the front lobby area.”
“Justine, that’s-“ I began. Remember, this wasn’t garrison – this was on mission. Discipline!
“Just do it, James.”
“Yes ma’am.” Fuck. I was trying to tell her that here, that would look far too suspicious, and by doing so, she could actually be creating a risk for our last week and a bit onsite.
She wandered off to the gift shop next to the front desk, and I pinged an implant message to everyone on Trudeau’s team, asking them to standby for relief, and then one by one, addressed my team to get them to prepare for and relieve the various security points that Trudeau’s team members were covering. I knew they were assembling in twos and threes, before walking to the lobby – and before long, all 15 of them were present and ostensibly sitting in or standing around the casual seating for guests. I walked over. “Hi Everyone, just to let you know, Justine made it in after all – She was asking if you’d meet with her, one moment while I go get her.”
I went to the gift shop, collected her by eye, and held out my hand for the bottle of water she’d pulled out of the freezer. “Hey Justine, why don’t I take care of that for you?”
“Thanks James. Is there a private room we can use?”
“Sorry, no, pretty much all are set up as breakout rooms for the other sessions.” It wasn’t that big of a place to begin with. “The rear courtyard might be an option, but the only easy way to get there without disturbing other sessions, “ meaning, I don’t want my surveillance people interrupted by you babbling at your team, “is to walk back out and around to the side of the main building, follow the footpath to the rear of the building. It’s quite a cozy and welcoming place.” I emphasized the two words to get the point across that the courtyard was swept daily for bugs, and had no easy lines of sight for being counter-surveilled by unwanted listeners.
She walked out and I heard her greet the team. “Hey everyone! Glad you can spare time away from your seminars – Let’s head to the courtyard for a quick chat about some key items we need to tackle when we get back to the grind at home in a couple of weeks.”
Seemed innocuous enough – but that didn’t smell right to me.
Shame we didn’t think to have dogs along, too – they might have smelled the explosives. Trudeau apparently didn’t cross-check the logistics team who got her the vehicle and the driver; when she walked back outside, leading her entire team, the van blew so hard that it knocked the front doors (which opened to the outside), INTO the lobby area. Glass and other debris pelted me from behind, only hitting my back – instinct had me turning away from the blast as soon as I heard it. I took the brunt of it on my back (did you know that skin is anywhere from 2mm to 4mm thick – but that your back tends to be the thickest skin on your body?), ducking my head and pulling my arms and hands in front, but not hunching to stretch the skin tight. I still caught something with the side of my head, feeling the sting of a cut on my ear.
All units guard in place – MIB team, as available, lock up and head out front for medical assistance!
- Bvt Maj Wolf
Perhaps a quarter of the sixty-person MIB platoon were out front within seconds; my team pinged me back with status updates. As I’d pinged everyone else, I was helping the counter clerk – a cute, bone-thin redhead – who’d taken some debris to the face. Once she was stable (albeit shaken) I got on the phone and dialed 112 – the European version of 911.
Ambulances didn’t take long to get there, but the MIB team had already confirmed that everyone was dead. Ivy, wearing glasses (yeah, she has 20/20, but the glasses have about 4h of data storage and a 4k resolution on the camera in the bridge of the glasses), had walked around the vehicle, looking at it from all angles. She walked up to me, surprisingly not too disturbed. Then again, she’d been doing this as long or longer than I had, so I guess not that big of a deal.
“James, there’s… no-one made it.”
“I’m not surprised. Get inside and start closing down your ops – not an emergency, but make it fast. We’re blown, no pun intended, and we’re out.” I reached up and snagged the glasses off of her head. “I’m going to hang onto this, I want to review it myself on the ride back.” She seemed a little surprised, but didn’t say anything, just left to do what I’d ordered her to do. The glasses were designed to
I had to sweet-talk the manager, Kristofor – who’d been gone on an early lunch break, and came back to find his event center a shambles. “Kristo, I’m SO sorry about Blaga – I don’t think she’s seriously hurt, but I did the best I could.” Yeah, with the shitty equipment I had available, and without outing myself as being more capable than this ice cream stand’s best doctor.
He was, understandable, upset for multiple reasons. “Mister Focks, I t’ank you for de help you have offered, I am choor you dit ev’ryting you coult, I t’ank you ver much for dat. I also understant you wish to depart early, I am so sorry about dis…” Mr. Focks? Yeah, you didn’t think I was gonna give this guy my REAL name, did you? I made my excuses, but
we’d already packed and we were outies.
I didn’t trust anyone at this point – this was WAY too much of a coincidence to take lightly. Then my cell phone rang. “This is James Focks, how may I help you?”
“James, Sean. I heard you guys have problems?” It was Ballard.
“That’s right, Sean. We’re cutting the retreat short; I can’t talk long as I need to make arrangements for our coworkers’ bodies to be returned with us. I’ll be in touch shortly.”
I went to hang up, but he wasn’t done. “Hold on, Doug wants to talk to you. I put the phone back against my ear – even though it wasn’t necessary, but I didn’t want anyone else to realize that, as our implants were still better than what you could get commercially, especially here.
“James, I’ll make this quick.” Colonel Bradburry’s voice sounded a little worried. “Effective immediately and for the duration, nix the brevet. Do you take my meaning?”
“Yes, got it, Doug. Thank you; I’ve got more information coming soon.” In a nutshell, congratulations to me; I was a major now, not just breveted to that rank.
Rage & Fury Page 26
