"Yes."
Launa wanted to say something, but used the last strength she had to keep her jaws set against the emptiness her gut struggled to vomit out.
She let the darkness come.
* * *
Launa came awake to a knocking at her door. The clock told her she had slept two hours.
"Come in." Her voice was weak, but Jack entered. Launa lay under two blankets. Groggy, she pulled herself up. Looking at him, she fingered the neck of the nightshirt she now wore.
"Judith evicted me and put you to bed. She's still rather old fashioned. You should have seen the flannel nightgown she was wearing this morning."
But Launa's eyes were for what he carried. He put down his rifle and held up the uniform he had slung over his arm. "Your first set of BDU's complete with butter bars."
Actually, the rank insignias were camouflage black, not the gold of a second lieutenant, but Launa's grin knew no limit.
"Your presence is requested at a working lunch. Can you make it?"
"If I can get to the shower, I just might live."
Launa slowly rolled out of bed, groaning only twice. Jack hung the uniform in the bathroom and started water running. Launa rummaged in her dresser for the necessary underwear, then shoved him out of the bathroom and closed the door.
She had no strength so she showered quickly. When she presented herself in the open doorway, Jack was hovering beside it, as if he thought she might need a lifeguard. He had searched her closet and had her boots ready.
"You look good, Lieutenant."
"Thank you." She felt a lot better.
"Can I help you on with your boots?"
For a moment, hard independence flashed in her gut, then she let it out with a sigh. "I need to sit down. I'd appreciate the help."
She plopped into the room's single stuffed chair and stared into space while he put on her socks and laced up her boots. The touch of his hands on her feet returned sensuality to a heart she thought was eternally stone.
He offered her a hand up when he was done. She took it gratefully. "I think I was crazy there for a while."
He retrieved his M-16. As he locked the door to her room, he spoke. "You hadn't had much to eat. Your body was burning a lot to keep going. Since this morning, you must have been going on adrenalin alone. That would make anybody crazy. And spent," he added.
"I'd hate to become crazy like Marilyn."
Jack nodded and followed Launa's slow pace down the stairs to the dining room.
A long table was set with cold cuts. The drapes were pulled closed and the windows covered with masking tape. All except one. Plywood covered, it was a casualty of the morning.
Judith and Brent, the CIA chief and Samantha joined them. Enough weapons to topple most governments were carefully place on tables within easy reach.
Launa started heaping meat on a sandwich. When Jack added beans and potato salad to her plate she gave him a grateful smile.
"What's happening in the world?" Judith asked.
"Negotiations didn't go too well." The CIA man's words were dry as kindling. "They met the head of the Movement. He wants to be called the Leader."
"That's Fuhrer in German." Brent noted.
"Yeah." The old timer nodded. Launa stopped a fork full of beans half way to her mouth, trying to recall all she could about the leader of the Third Reich.
"The new Fuhrer didn't beat around the bush. For the next twenty years he wants three trillion dollars a year from the developed world. Calls it `tribute'. If he doesn't get it, he'll attack Europe."
"This guy doesn't sound very reasonable." Jack frowned.
Brent shook his head “That's one of the risks you take. With a reasonable person, offers and counter offers lead to solutions. Power oriented people mistake offers for concessions. A willingness to talk is mistaken for weakness they seek to dominate."
"What are we going to do?" Launa said, looking from face to face.
"Not much we can do,” the CIA man said with a shrug. "Somebody sold the Libyans the new French radars that can spot stealth aircraft. They're deployed around the Chinese made missiles that satellite imagery shows are locked and loaded in Uganda. Generals don't think the missiles will fly anywhere near the two missile anti-missile sites the Russians got.
“Since the Europeans haven't bought a missile defense, we're flying Europe anything that has a chance of shooting one down. The President and his people are putting together a new offer– more money coated with threats and demands."
"Frightening, isn't it?" Judith said, shaking her head ruefully. "Now they cooperate – but with no idea how to confront a dominator. It happens again."
Launa finished off the last bit of sandwich and reached for more fixings. "That covers the world. How are things here? Is the chopper pilot all right?"
The CIA chief shook his head. "We got four dead, including him, Dick and Marilyn. A number of wounded, none bad. Marilyn blew up most of your pottery and fiber, but the copper and bronze gear survived. So did the animals. With minor exceptions, you are mission capable. That's more than I can say for the other teams."
"How bad are they?" To Launa's surprise, Samantha sounded concerned.
"Pretty bad. I don't think any team has enough personnel to send a full complement. We're it."
"And Livermore?" Launa said with a worried frown.
"They got hit, but they beat it off with no problem. The bad guys showed up at the wrong gate."
"That's probably the way Marilyn arranged it.” Samantha's voice sounded weak and distant. "I'll bet she was manipulating the Movement while they thought they were controlling her. She sure did want to go. With everyone else dead, she and Jack would be the only ones left to send."
"I wonder how long I'd have lived?" Jack said, glancing Launa’s way.
"She wanted to be empress of the world,” Judith said. “And saw a chance to make it happen. When everything started slipping away, I guess she threw in with the Leader."
Marilyn was crazy, Launa reflected, but how sane was she today?
Samantha shivered. "I'm glad we caught her before the jump. Think of the trouble she would have made once she was there. She wouldn't have cared one whit about history."
"That's how most history is made," Judith snapped. "By people who can't see past what they want today. I hope this lesson isn't lost on all present." Her face was hard as she searched first Jack's, then Launa's eyes.
Neither flinched.
Samantha brought them back to the present. "We're awaiting orders. While the Secretary of State flies back to Washington, nothing's happening. We need to get you two in for shots and final medical. As soon as they can break an airplane loose, you’ll probably be ordered to Livermore."
"Brent and I are making some last preparations also," Judith said.
The station chief pushed back from the table. "And my people will try to clean up this mess and make sure you're not disturbed again. Everybody got weapons?"
All nodded, except Judith. She shook her head firmly.
"May I persuade you to at least carry a cane?"
Judith frowned. The CIA Chief offered her an ornate walking cane, then detached the head to show a wicked blade.
She took it.
"You look very distinguished," Brent guffawed, "for an old lady."
Judith hit him with the cane.
* * *
The day was full. There were not enough seconds in each minute.
Gear had to be checked for damage. Jack insisted they work out, “To relieve tension and help with all those shots.”
He kept it gentle and Launa was grateful.
Over supper, Judith admitted that she and Brent had a few more phone calls to make before they were ready to pick a time and place.
As evening came on, Launa was still sore from the shots. A jacuzzi session did not help. She paused at her door.
"I'm too keyed up to sleep."
"Me too. Think a walk would help?"
They hefted
their rifles and headed out the back way. A guard materialized at their elbow before they got to the archery range. "Where y'all headed, sir?"
"A walk, maybe a chance to talk. Day's been kind of busy," Jack said.
"Has been kind of like that. Any particular direction?"
"Out to the rim of the cap-rock," Launa said.
The man turned away and spoke into his headset, then turned back. "Y'all walk slow and don't try sneaking around anything. We're kind of nervous tonight."
"Maybe we ought to forget this?" Launa said.
"I'd really like to have a chance to talk." Jack didn't keep a pleading undertone out of his voice. Launa relented.
The guard reached in his pocket. "Here's a Chemlite. Tonight's blue. Use it when you come back into the perimeter."
* * *
They walked in silence, Jack with rifle slung, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. Launa fiddled with the light.
"Was this your first time to face a gun?" Jack didn't look at her as he spoke.
"There was something in high school, but I didn't think he'd use the gun on me." Launa had not thought much of it then and compared to today, it was nothing.
She shivered as she again saw bubbles breaking the surface, a face bashed to mush on the rocks, a pilot slumped over his collective who had still gotten his passengers down.
"What about you, Jack?" Launa asked, turning her mind away from her own demons.
"You know about Saudi. I saw enough action with the 24th Mech even if it didn't turn out to be much of a fight. I never thought the aftermath of a war `won' would be harder to face than the war, but it was." Jack got silent again. Launa let the quiet hang although she wanted to scream at him to talk, to say whatever was on his mind.
They were half way to the rim before Jack turned to her. "Launa, I'm sorry about that stupid hike. The only excuse I can give you is I needed to know you could take care of yourself. I care about you – maybe too much. You're a very good soldier, Launa, a good comrade, but you're more than that to me."
That was not what Launa wanted to hear. "God damn it, Jack. I am not Sandy and I'm never going to take her place. Just because the Army has thrown us together and I look like her does not mean that you need to protect me like your wife!"
"Whoa. Time out, woman." Jack took two steps back, held his hands up in a crossed "T."
"What the hell are you talking about? Nobody could fill Sandy's place. I've spent three years learning that lesson and I've got it down solid. And who said you looked like her. If anybody around here looked the part, it's Samantha, for Christ sake. As for protection, Sandy was one woman who could take very good care of herself and wouldn't let anyone forget that. Launa, what gave you any idea. . ." Jack stopped, puzzled
Now it was Launa's turn to stumble back. For a moment, the silence of the night held them. "Marilyn told me I looked like Sandy."
"Marilyn never met Sandy."
"But she told me . . .. I think I've been had, Captain."
"I think we've both been had by one manipulative bitch. Every time we met she always managed to mention your inexperience and somehow dig at how you'd handle yourself if I died." Jack shook his head.
"I took survival training in Panama and Bahrain."
"It wasn't in your file."
"I know. I was an Army brat then and I got too mad to tell you now."
"I'm sorry."
"I guess I haven't been handling myself too well. You were right; we shouldn't have ridden that chopper in this morning and if that asshole back in the hills had had any smarts about him, he would have gotten me."
Launa gulped, a tremor went through her as she realized how close she had come to death twice today.
"You did better than any other soldier I know, man or woman."
All her life, Launa had wanted to hear such praise from the colonel. She never had. Then Jack opened his arms and suddenly that was the only place she wanted to be.
It was not much of a hug; they were both toting an armory and metal got in the way. But for Launa, there was more comfort in Jack's arms than any place she could recall in her twenty-one years. It went on for a long time. While he held her, the images of death stayed at bay.
Jack had been talking for some time before Launa realized it. "When I lost Sandy and Sam, I swore I'd never get close to another human being. It hurt too much and I didn't want to hurt like that again. I didn't think another woman could ever mean anything to me. These last three weeks, working with you, I found one very special person, like no one else I've ever met. In spite of myself, I think I'm falling in love with you."
Launa started at the word, but before she could react, there was noise behind them. They both brought M-16's off their shoulders in one fluid motion, safeties clicking off. A blue light showed about a hundred meters off. "Captain, Lieutenant. We got more message traffic coming in. Skipper said you'd want to hear it."
Launa flipped the safety back on. Jack was slower. "Show yourself."
The guard's camouflage was good. Even with the light, they could hardly see him. Mainly it was his motion against the starlit backdrop that Launa's eyes traced. He walked in, his gun held out to his left.
"How'd you know where to find us?" Jack's voice started to relax.
"We got pick-up mikes scattered here abouts."
Launa wondered how much of their guts was now on tape. It did not seem to matter. That she had not answered Jack mattered much to her.
* * *
The com center was alive with everyone by the time they arrive. The Station Chief took center stage. "The Leader just delivered an ultimatum."
He scanned down his message sheet. "The usual crap, the price is still three trillion. He wants agreement by noon day after tomorrow or he will retaliate."
"Retaliate?" Brent looked half asleep, but the word caught his attention.
"Retaliate. He seems to think we're already at war."
"Somebody ought to teach that boy something about logic," the old scholar grumbled.
Launa saw a bigger problem. "Does that ultimatum expires at noon Nairobi time, European or Washington?"
The CIA chief shook his head. "I don't know. Good question."
A com tech handed the Chief a message. He grinned like a cougar smelling prey. "Listen up folks, we got orders at last. A C-5 will be here at 0800 local to pick up the team. They want you folks at Livermore early tomorrow."
"All right!"
"About time!"
"Thought they'd forgotten us."
The room bubbled with enthusiasm. Launa turned to Jack. He nodded gravely. They had orders, the orders they had hoped never to get.
10
The wake-up call was scheduled for 0500. Launa came awake from a nightmare she could not remember. As she picked up the phone, the clock beside it said 0730. "What the hell!"
"Things are moving kind of slow this morning," a voice drawled. "Judith and Samantha thought you could maybe use some extra sleep. The Chief agreed."
"Where's Jack?"
"I just called him, Ma'am. He asked if you'd like to meet him in five minutes."
She hung up and reached for her gear.
The work out was good, but her body had been wasted by the last few days. Again, Jack kept things gentle and words few.
Over a late breakfast, Judith brought them up to date on what was happening. "The Secretary of State is back, but the President has delayed the Tele-Summit until sometime later today. Time's still not set."
Launa winced as she reached for an apple. "That's cutting it close. Does anyone know when the ultimatum expires?"
Judith shook her head. "I think the President is hoping to stretch it to the limit by not getting it cleared up."
Jack frowned. "That may not be too smart."
Judith just shrugged.
Launa bit into her apple. "Why'd we get to sleep in?" She hated to squander time.
"Someone sent our C-5 to Frankfort. The replacement they assigned us blew an engine on take-off fro
m Dover. They finally snatched one at Tinker that was scheduled for an overhaul, but they hadn't started on it yet. They're trying to shanghai a crew now. The Chief doesn't want to leave here until the plane's ninety minutes out."
Launa shook her head. Hell was knocking and it business as usual. "Let's just hope this bird will stay in the air."
The morning went slowly. Several off-duty guards started a baseball game. Jack and Launa exercised the horses and dogs. Afterwards, he showed her what he had collected.
"If we can get it there, I prefer not to take it." Still, four bows, six quivers of flint tipped arrows and two quarter staffs with large flint spear points were at the top of his list. Several copper axe heads, digging mattocks and copper edged scythes were laid out and packed away in leather bags. Copper and bronze tools, trading goods of shells, red ocher and obsidian were also put carefully away.
A separate bag held rough chunks of raw copper and tin. "Most of the clay cooking vessels and bowls were smashed yesterday. I prefer to take metal anyway."
Weavers had provided warm, brightly colored blankets and baskets to hold gear. Jack had fashioned pack frames to hang the baskets on the horses. "Much of this we'll cache and go back for. I just don't want to arrive penniless."
"I notice a lot of copper, but not much bronze?"
"Still no word whether we're going to the bronze age or before." Jack said with a fatalistic shrug.
Word finally came over lunch that their plane was in the air. They finished eating.
As Judith helped Launa finish packing, Maria approached with a finely tooled leather bag.
"This is the book my daughter gave me on herbal medicine. I'm sorry I didn't get it to you sooner." She offered it to Launa. "Take it with you. You can study it on the plane. It will help you."
"But I'm not sure I'll be able to get it back to you."
"That is okay. You will need it. Take it."
Accepting the leather bag, Launa felt the weight of the book inside. She clasped it to her breast tightly; it felt sun warm.
Launa knew how to fight and kill; this book could teach her how to heal and take away suffering. Would there be time to memorize all it offered her?
Lost Dawns: A Short Prequel Novel to the Lost Millinnium Trilogy Page 10
