Hardened by Steel

by J. B. Havens

  I remembered the musty smell of the closet, the tiny space and the heavy darkness. I remembered the sting of a slap and a hard shove hitting my narrow back, making me stumble and trip.

  Shake it off, Michaels. You don’t have time for this. The men need you; get your shit together!

  The pep talk did little to help. It’s so hard to listen to your own advice, even when you know it’s good advice. Practicalities get pushed to the side in the wake of such deep-seated pain.

  Before I knew it I found myself at Jackson’s door. Waiting inside was the one man in this world whom I respected and trusted totally. Also waiting for me was an orange file with a red stamp. I both relished and dreaded the thought.

  Chapter 3

  Rook picked up the knight from his chess board, tossing it from hand to hand. Being here was like coming home for him. He wasn’t part of Steel yet, but he could see himself being here for a very long time.

  He didn’t like to talk much, but heard and saw nearly everything. He knew that he made the others uncomfortable because of his cousin. He had been briefed on the whole story prior to arriving. He’d been told about the mission in Colombia and Phillips’s death. Jackson had warned him that he might get the cold shoulder for quite a while.

  Fact of the matter was, he hadn’t known his cousin, hadn’t seen him since they were kids. Their parents had not gotten along and they never saw each other beyond the occasional awkward holiday dinner. It had taken him a few minutes to place who Jackson was even talking about when he’d said “your cousin might be a problem”.

  Flynn was the only one that he felt he had to win over; the rest would follow. With that goal in mind, he gathered his chess board. He stood in the doorway to the living room for a moment before letting his presence become known. Flynn was there, talking with Jordon.

  “I get that it wasn’t Mic’s decision, but you know as well I do that she fucking knew... and didn’t tell us.” Flynn was pacing back and forth. Jordon was kicked back on the couch, slapping one flip-flop against the bottom of his foot.

  “Look man, I get it, but she would have told us if she was allowed to. She has to follow orders the same as us,” Jordon said, taking a drink from his beer.

  “I don’t fucking care, Jordon! She should have told us!” Flynn shouted.

  “She was ordered not to,” Rook said, enjoying the shock on their faces. He set the chess board on the coffee table, knocking Jordon’s feet off in the process.

  “What do you want, Riley?” Flynn snapped.

  “First off, don’t call me Riley. It’s Rook or Matt. Second of all, I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. Get the fuck over it.”

  Flynn moved to lunge at Rook, but Jordon stepped between them, putting a hand on each of their chests. Though if they really decided they were going to step off and tear each other apart, other than shooting them, there wasn’t much Jordon could do about it.

  “Knock it off. Both of you.” Jordon shoved them, making them take a few steps back. “What exactly is your plan here, Rook?”

  “Chess.” He bent down and began sorting the black pieces from the white, placing them all in their respective homes on the board.

  “Come again?” Flynn was calming down, his voice nearly back to normal. He was like an emotional yo-yo today.

  “We’re going to sit here and play chess until you realize I am not your enemy.” Rook took a seat on the couch, the shiny white pieces facing him.

  “What makes you think I want anything to do with you or chess?” Flynn crossed his arms over his chest, staring at the board as if it was going to jump up and latch onto him like a face hugger. Alien this was not.

  “Because you’re Steel and very soon I will be as well. We can go outside and I can beat you into the dirt or we can settle this in a slightly more civilized manner. We may be warriors and soldiers, but we don’t have to be animals.” He kept his tone level and even; talking to Flynn was not much different than talking a jumper off a ledge.

  “You’re speaking to Flynn here, Rook; you would do well to remember that.” Pierce materialized out of nowhere.

  “Who the fuck are you, Houdini?” Flynn kept snapping at everyone like a dog on a short leash.

  “Sit your ass down, Flynn. Play chess. Un-wad your thong.” Pierce gripped both of Flynn’s shoulders and pressed down, forcing him to sit.

  “I don’t wear a thong, asshole.” Flynn was heading into to an epic level-ten pout.

  “Excuse me; sorry, I forgot. You wear boy shorts, red lacy ones.” Flynn shot his foot out and kicked Pierce in the shin. When he didn’t get the reaction he was hoping for, he moved a pawn two spaces forward.

  “Chess is the game of gentleman. Disputes have been settled over of a game of chess for centuries.” Rook also moved a pawn.

  “I am no gentleman.” Flynn moved again. The game went on silently after that. Each moving and taking the other’s pieces. Soon, they both had a respectable pile of their opponent’s pieces.

  “Check.” Rook sat back and allowed Flynn to think. Over the course of the game, Flynn had seemingly forgotten what he was so angry about. “When I was in Iraq this last time, I was fortunate enough to find a chess board; I kept it in my tent. Every time we made it back to base, my buddy and I would take a turn, but only after a successful mission.”

  Flynn was trying not to pay attention, but obviously failing. He was staring at the board, looking for a way to move that didn’t put him right back into check in two turns.

  With a heavy sigh, Flynn moved his queen, in full retreat now.

  “Only one day, we were on patrol; normal everyday stuff over there.” Rook moved a rook, putting pressure on Flynn’s queen. “Our Humvee got hit by an IED.” Flynn moved his queen. “My buddy was thrown from the vehicle. We were taking heavy fire. Most of us were wounded or dead. I called in air support and a medivac for him. By the time they got there, it was too late. He was dead. Bled to death in the sand.” Rook took Flynn’s vulnerable queen.

  “We’ve all been there, Rook. Each of us have lost brothers over there,” Flynn said, backing his king up.

  “The Apaches greased the fuckers firing on us. I got back to my tent and the chess board sat there. This same board. I never got to finish that game with him. While that was happening to me, you guys were in Colombia. I was over the Atlantic when Phillips was killed.”

  “It’s a sad story, but what’s your point?” Flynn moved his king again; Rook was chasing him all over the board.

  “I never want to leave another chess match unfinished. I can have that here. So... I’m here to stay, Flynn. Get over it.” Rook moved his last knight, cornering Flynn’s king. “Check-mate.”

  Without waiting for a response, Rook gathered his board and went back to his room. Softly shutting the door behind him, he turned the radio on and Jefferson Airplane’s, White Rabbit came on. It was fitting for the moment, since he felt a lot like Alice right now. Falling down the rabbit-hole and things were getting stranger by the second.

  ****

  Flynn sat back on the couch and stared at the ceiling, counting the tiles under his breath. Jordon and Pierce both stood there glowering at him; as if they were the disapproving parents and he was the errant child.

  “Well... that went well,” Pierce said.

  “I think it did,” Jordon interjected.

  “He made his point, that’s for sure,” Flynn said, getting up and grabbing a beer.

  “He put you in your place, is what he did,” Pierce said, catching the beer his teammate threw at him.

  “Yeah, I was there, dick. I noticed.” Popping the top and letting the cool beer slide down his throat, Flynn shut his eyes and ears to what was around him. He didn’t want to like Rook. He didn’t want to let this go.

  “Did you?” Jordon asked. Burping and slapping his chest, he pitched his now empty can into the trash. “Two points!” He exclaimed, before standing to get another beer.

  Flynn grabbed a second beer and went outside. He was
n’t about to sit in there and listen to this shit. He went back to his own cabin and locked the door, giving Pierce a none-too-subtle “fuck off”, by locking him out of his own cabin. He flipped them both the bird over his shoulder for good measure; not caring that they couldn’t see it.

  Chapter 4

  I knocked on Jackson’s door. The sun was making its way down behind the mountains, throwing strange shadows across the training yard behind me, stretching out long and black as if the night was anxious to descend, and reaching as far as it could to hasten its arrival. Just as Jackson opened his door I saw Flynn going into his cabin alone, beer in hand.

  Wonder what that’s all about?

  I shoved it aside for now. It was a problem for later. I had much bigger issues staring me in the face. A giant, angry-looking one glaring down at me. Jackson was as mad as I’d ever seen him. I had a bad feeling this was all directed at me.

  “Master Sergeant,” I said, stepping around him into the cabin.

  “Staff Sergeant. Sit.”

  When your superior speaks to you in that tone, you do as you are told. I sat and had to bite words back; now was not the time to break protocol and speak before being spoken to.

  “Would you care to explain this?” He dropped a phone into my lap. I recognized it immediately; it was my burner phone. Fuck fuckity fuck. My stomach dropped to my feet like a lead weight before flipping over and threatening to expel its contents.

  “I have no defense, Master Sergeant.” First lesson in taking an ass chewing, make no excuses. Take it on the chin and hope you come out alive.

  “Try.” His voice was as cold as ice.

  “It’s mine. I call one person on it; it’s untraceable.”

  “Who?” His voice was cold and tight with fury.

  “My aunt.” I flipped open the phone with a practiced flick of my thumb and pulled up her number.

  He jerked the phone out of my hand and threw it across the room suddenly, shattering it into plastic confetti.

  “Why?” He turned his back; seemingly unable to face me while trying to get his anger under control.

  “I can’t let her think I’m dead. We’re all the family the other has. I can’t bear to be the reason for her grief.” My voice cracked as I spoke the last. My eyes burned, but I swallowed the threatening tears down.

  “How long?” We were up to two words now. Making progress in the conversation department.

  “Years. We did our first couple of missions, but after the op I did with Liam, when we took down those Nazi freaks, I called her then. I’ve never spoken to her, I just leave a message on her machine.” I didn’t try to spare myself, I just laid it all out there.

  “God dammit, Bea, do you have any idea what you’ve done? I should knock your ass back to Private and ship you off to the most miserable shithole I can think of.” He used my first name. I could count on one hand the number of times he’d called me Bea, and still have three fingers left over. Both times were when I was wounded and he was patching me up. He finally sat down, clasping his hands in front of his mouth and staring at me.

  “Master Sergeant, how did you find out?” I thought I had been so careful, that I had covered my tracks completely.

  “Are you fucking kidding me, right now? The NSA is my bitch. I can find out anything I want about nearly anyone in the world. I have suspected something was going on for some time, but I couldn’t nail it down. I had them ping off all outgoing calls from the compound for three days after every mission. A call came from an unknown number originating from your cabin. So today when you were on your hike, I searched your cabin. It took me a while to find the phone, I’ll give you that.” It was sometimes easy to forget that Jackson had once been in my shoes; he had the same skill-sets as me. He could break into and out of just about anywhere.

  “What happens now?” I didn’t think he would be demoting me and kicking me out of Steel, or he would have done it already.

  “Your aunt is in danger. If she didn’t need our help so desperately right now, you would be out on your ass.” He tossed a folder into my lap.

  “What the fuck are you talking about? All she knows is that I’m alive. That’s it. I haven’t told her anything else. Just that I’m above ground, and more or less okay.”

  “Just open the fucking folder, Mic,” Jackson ordered as he paced around the cabin.

  Inside was a picture of my Aunt Beatrice, her dark hair healthy and shiny. She had of course aged since I’d last seen her; she had more wrinkles and worry lines around her mouth and eyes than I liked, but she was as stunning as ever. Her brown eyes sparkled with laugher and warmth, just like always. She had elegant cheekbones and a wide smiling mouth... she was beautiful.

  Below her picture was a standard file, outlining her address, work details, and bank account information, along with a few pages of handwritten notes. Someone had been keeping her under surveillance, most likely the NSA. The notes outlined her daily schedule and routines. All very predictable: leaves the house for work at the same time every day, comes home at the same time nearly every weeknight. She has book club on Saturday afternoons. Sundays she stays at home or does her grocery shopping.

  “Who’s been watching her?” I asked, not looking up from the file. I was starving for this information the same way someone dying of thirst begs for water. Any drip of information about her was refreshing and delicious.

  “A friend of mine that I was in boot with, he works for the NSA now. He’s been personally doing her surveillance.”

  “Why is she in danger?” I didn’t see much here beyond a normal dossier.

  “Flip to the last page.” Jackson sat across from me and tugged over his green ash tray then lit a cigar.

  There were slightly grainy, black and white pictures of people looking in my aunt’s windows. The figures were heavily disguised, their faces and heads covered with tactical hoods. None of the pictures gave me any idea of who they were. They definitely didn’t look like your average criminals casing the place though. They were too organized, too well-equipped, to be your average B&E guys.

  “Tell me Jackson, please just fucking spit it out,” I begged, a cold shiver gliding down my spine.

  What have I done?

  “Those men belong to a cartel out of Mexico.” The shiver turned to a lump of sickening fear in my gut. I didn’t like the way this was going. “They’re led by a man named Vega, Adolfo Vega. You won’t recognize the name, but if Diego was still breathing, he would. Vega is the cousin to Diego’s widow. The families are tied together; they worked together moving drugs and weapons. Diego and his father handled the cocaine. Vega and his men control the fields where the poppies are grown, and the villages where the poppies are processed into opium, and finally into heroin. Also, they run guns back and forth between Colombia and the States.”

  “And what does that have to do with my Aunt Beatrice?” Fear was choking me in a vise-like grip.

  “Diego covered his ass. After you killed him, I sent his phone off to the NSA. He made a few calls to Mexico on his way here. He had your name, Mic. The only thing that staved this off until now was that those fuckers had trouble accessing your records because legally, you’re dead. Your Aunt Beatrice is listed as your next of kin on your death certificate. That’s how they found her.”

  “We have to help her. They’ll kill her to get to me. You know it as well as I do, Jackson, and it won’t be a pleasant death. Either you help me bring her here or I’m done. I’ll protect her myself.” I stood, ready to get in my Jeep and drive to Ohio.

  “Keep your pants on, Mic. Of course we’re going to go get her. Sit the fuck back down and let me finish.”

  As badly as I wanted to get to my aunt as fast as possible, I sat again, as ordered. “Okay, I’m listening.” My legs were twitching with the urge to jump up and run out. I couldn’t let anything happen to her because of me.

  “They tapped her phones and listened to your message. They were probably going to go for her anyways, but now that the
y know you keep in touch, their timetable has been moved up. The NSA tells me that the DEA is working with Mexican Police, trying to infiltrate this cartel. They have a mole inside the Vega family. According to their source, there is a hit out on your aunt.”

  “When Jackson? Fucking when are they coming for her?” I stood abruptly, it was taking everything I had not to just say ‘fuck you, Jackson’ go get her.

  “Tonight or tomorrow.”

  I hurried to the door. I wasn’t dicking around anymore. I was going to go get her, and fuck the consequences.

  Jackson followed me, watching me, and not commenting as I pulled out my phone and set off the tones. Everyone’s phone would beep and flash a message to meet in the hangar, ASAP. Ohio was only a four hour drive, but I wasn’t about to wait that long. We were taking the jet.

  “Michaels. Chill out a fucking minute.” Jackson jerked my arm and pulled me to a stop. I could see the others running out of their cabins, heading for the hangar. They would be throwing open their lockers and gearing up. “Go get her, but don’t come back here. Go to the other house. She’ll be more comfortable there than here and it’s more secure. I’m not taking any chances with these guards after what Riley did.”

  I jerked on my arm which didn’t loosen his grip at all; with a heavy glare, he released me.

  “Copy that, Master Sergeant.” Impatience coloring my tone, I was borderline insubordinate. I turned to go, needing to brief the men. I needed Jones to hack into a satellite and get me some real-time feed on my aunt. I needed to see with my own eyes that she was okay, for the moment, at least.

  Jogging down the steps, I quickly cut a path to the hangar. The bay door was rising even as I approached. Jackson’s long legs let him easily keep pace with me. “This isn’t over. Get her, and I’ll meet you at the house; then we’ll finish this. Don’t think you get off the hook that easily, Staff Sergeant.”