Chapter 23

As the morning sky lightened, the surviving defenders were setting in the main kitchen drinking coffee and hot chocolate, and reviewing the lessons of the night. Carla was forcing comfort food on them. "Here, try a little strudel. It'll make you feel better." Sally, Gunny, Sasha, and Booboo were all sitting at a round table. "Sally, do you have enough coco?"

Sally nodded as Sasha held a comforting arm around her. The full impact of what she had done was just setting in, and she started to shake from the chill settling over her. She had deliberately taken a weapon and had killed men. The tears slowly burning a trail down her cheeks offset the chill.

Gunny had seen this reaction in the best of young soldiers, many not much more mature than Sally, when they first experienced the horror of war. As the adrenaline of battle subsides, the morality of their youth came back. Killing, even for a just cause, is evil. It runs against the basic beliefs of civilization. Gunny knew that this hatred of killing is what made the American military the force for good it had become, and prayed it would never be easy for his countrymen to kill. He knew there was a tendency to avoid the reality of what had just been done. He had seen too many men try to hide this reality of pain while it destroyed them from the inside.

A good NCO is part leader, part teacher, part mother, part father, part chaplain, and part shrink. These hats are interchangeable, and are sometimes worn at the same time. Gunny had to get Sally talking about what had just happened, and the sooner the better. The truth was, though, she was a natural. She hadn't missed a thing. She just might have been that Amazon warrior in a former life. She had done nothing wrong, except one thing.

"Sally?"

"Yes, Gunny?"

"You did a good job out there tonight."

"I did?"

"I have to tell you that when you started hanging out at the training camp, I thought you were just a spoiled little rich kid wanting to play war games. If it hadn't have been for your Aunt Jen forcing Jack to make me back off, I would have thrown your ass out of the training sessions. I was wrong. You are as good a marine as I've ever worked with, and I've worked with the best. Your instincts are as good as mine, and your composure is the best I've seen in a first time fire fight."

"Thank you Gunny."

"I've just got one question." Gunny's voice started rising from the soft monotone he was using into the drill sergeant mode. "What in the world, young lady, were you thinking about when you were holding that hand grenade and counting?"

"I saw John Wayne do that in one of Dad's old war movies."

"Girl, John Wayne was an actor. He was a great American, but didn't have any military training. He was never in a war and never handled a real hand grenade. Those dammed things sometimes have short fuses. They go off in five to ten seconds, not ten seconds. If I ever see you do that again, I'll kick your ass so hard you'll have to take your knickers off to get a drink of water. I don't care if you 'are' the Amazon warrior that saved my life. Your head is too damn pretty to be blown off by doing something that stupid.

Booboo looked up from his bowl of ice cream. "You not hurt my friend Sally. She nice to Booboo."

Gunny looked at the big man and smiled. "You know Booboo? She will never have to worry about anyone hurting her as long as I'm alive and close by."

One of the relief team came into the kitchen. "Gunny, I think you may want to talk to one of the captives. The other prisoners claim he is their leader. He hasn't opened his mouth. You want a shot at him?"

"Damn right I do. Let's go. Better yet, bring his ass in here. I've got an Amazon Warrior I just might turn lose on him. Sasha, would you and Carla mind talking Booboo to the dining room to finish his ice cream?"

The leader of the attack team was brought in the kitchen and pushed into a kitchen chair.

Gunny looked into the angry face and said, "You're a fucking lousy planer. Didn't you do any recon before you decided to take an armed facility? What kind of a idiot hired you?"

The man glared at Gunny, but didn't say a word. Gunny looked at him again. "OK, what's your name?"

Silence.

"You gotta give me something. We got way too many dead people here not to get the law involved. Come on at least give me your name."

Harry came in and handed Gunny a stack of papers that Harry had printed out form his web search. Looking down at the papers, Gunny whistled. "Jesus Christ. So you're Nathan Whittier, brigadier general for the South African Army, logistical genius, and overall bigot. Says here you were thrown out of the Army because you refused to take an oath of loyalty to the new government. Based on what I've seen tonight, you should have been thrown out on ineptness."

Whittier looked at Gunny with pure hate.

Gunny chuckled. "Don't hate me. I didn't kick your ass. Sally come here.

"Meet Sally Brown. She's 13 years old, and she just took out your entire command. Let me ask you again. Who in the fuck set you up to get slaughtered?"

"No bloody kid did that."

"Don't be so sure. I counted 7 men she took down by herself, and there's not a scratch on her. She's also the person who discovered your poor excuse for a raid and sounded the alarm. I ask you again, How in the hell did you let yourself get suckered into this?"

The shame finally loosened the man's tong. "Damn Smites told me that this was a whore house that had a bunch of rental security guards earning minimum wage. He said he had checked out the place and gave me the layout."

"Really? He didn't tell you that the layout of the grounds is a test site for the grounds of the new embassy for Saudi Arabia? He didn't tell you this is part of a contract training site for the CIA and other worldwide antiterrorist groups? He didn't tell you the lowest wage paid to one of our people is $100,000 a year? He didn't tell you that 50% of our people are recruited from Special Ops groups and the rest pass tests that eliminate 98 % of all applicants? If I were you, I'd be upset."

"You're lying."

"Really? How do you explain what happened to your command? How do you explain how a top secret helicopter just showed up with state of the art weapons that the military doesn't even have yet? No, I think your buddy Smites is the one lying. Why isn't he here, by the way?"

The man sat looking at his shoes for a second. "Why should I answer you?"

"I don't know. Sally, what do you think?"

"I sure would be mad if someone did this to me. But that's just me. You may be a very nice man with a forgiving nature."

"Good point sweetie. Good point. Well, Whittier, I'm not going to offer you any deal, because I don't like you or your kind. You give what I do for a living a bad name. If you want to get back at the guy who set you up, you help us. If you don't, that's your problem." Gunny turned his back on Whittier and walked out the door.

"Mr. Whittier, I think you should talk to Gunny. You would be wrong to think he is going to stay away. You don't know him all that well, but I think he's really mad. You killed two of his people. That could be pretty bad news."

A few seconds later, Whittier looked at Sally. "You're 13 years old?"

"Almost 14."

"Bloody hell. Where did you learn how to fire an automatic weapon?"

"My Uncle Jack owns the security company. He talked Gunny into letting me train with the troops. They kind of treated me as a mascot."

"A mascot? You took out 7 of my best men."

"I'm really sorry about that, Mr. Whittier, but they were trying to hurt my friends. I really don't like what I did. I'm ashamed of violence. I'd rather talk my way out of stuff."

A look of awe came over Whittier's face. "You are a true warrior. You have nothing to apologize for. What do you want to know?"

"Let me get Gunny."

Paul put the phone down. "I have some disturbing news. There was an attack on the Ranch by a paramilitary group. They were sent to retrieve Sasha, and kill everyone else."

Kenny and Callie turned at once. Jen dropped the stack of folders she was carrying. "Was anyone hurt?"

A very frightened Callie asked, "Sally?"

"First, Sally is just fine. Second, Gunny Stewart claims she took out seven of the attackers, and saved the day by herself. Seems your daughter is a hero. We lost two dead and three wounded. They lost 12 dead 14, wounded, and 5 captured. Larry Thompson is on his way to take over the scene now, but Gunny's still in charge. I'm going to recall my jet. We need to get back there."

Kenny rose from his desk. "I'll take care of getting us there. I have a National Guard chopper that will take us directly there. Let's go."

Bob, Shawn, and Rhonda raced past the main entrance to the ranch and almost got shot before the guard recognized Rhonda and waved them through. As the van pulled to a stop at the main house, Sally ran out of the house and embraced her father.

"Dad, it was terrible. All the shooting and poor Mr. Santiago and Mr. Smith are dead. I was so scared. I don't even remember what happened."

"Shawn and Rhonda turned Sally around. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"No, I'm just confused."

Another car pulled up behind the Ranch's van. Ron and Jessica Volker got out of the car. Ron pushed Rhonda away and resumed Sally's inspection. "Young lady, you're gonna be the death of me yet. What'd you get yourself into this time?"

Gunny put his hand on Ron's shoulder. "Keep your voice civil. This girl just saved my life."

"Gunny, I'm just worried."

"There are a lot of people you can be worried about. We have wounded. Doctor Volker, could you take a look at one of my kids? She took one in her head."

"Show me the way."

Paul turned to Kenny. "It's kind of nice to have transport like this at your call."

"I don't have this all the time. Kenny Junior is a major in the Army National Guard. We're just lucky it was my son's squadron training here this week."

A voice came over the intercom. "Better take a look outside. We have company. What in the hell do they want?"

Paul looked out the window and saw the faint outline of a black craft stationed on the craft's starboard side. He looked across the craft and saw another on the port side.

Kenny's son said, "They want to know who we are and what we're doing here."

Paul pulled on the pilot's shoulder. "Clearance code is Tango, Romeo, Alpha, 166. That should clear us."

KJ repeated the code and shook his head. "That did it. They'll escort us the rest of the way in. Are these guy's thinking we're in a war or something?"

"Fourteen people died here tonight. I'd say we're in some sort of something. I need to check out my people."

KJ landed the National Guard Helicopter with such a gentle touch the passengers didn't even realize they were on the ground for several seconds. Kenny slapped his son on the shoulder and proudly proclaimed, "Couldn't have done better myself."

"Pop, you couldn't even get one of these things off the ground, but thanks anyway."

Paul had been holding onto Callie to keep her from jumping out of the craft and running to her only child. As soon as he felt it safe, he let go, and she was gone. It was Ron's turn to get pushed away from Sally as motherhood surfaced in the distraught woman.

"Honey, are you all right?"

"Gee Mom, everybody asks the same question. I was hoping you'd come up with something original."

Paul laughed. "There's nothing wrong with this kid. Gunny what in the hell happened here?"

"All we can get is a story from the leader of the attack. He said that some South African named Smites paid him a lot of money to capture Sasha and bring her back to some compound on the other side of Las Vegas. We have no idea how he knew she was here, or why they wanted to get her."

"What about this compound?"

"We have a couple of Super Predators up now looking for them. Harry and Sasha are controlling the search from the command center. We haven't found anything yet."

Callie whispered into Paul's ear, "Come talk to Sally."

Paul and Bob followed Callie to a secluded part of the courtyard. A fidgety Sally sat on a chair at a round table. The adults took the other three chairs and looked at their young hero.

"Uncle Paul. I talked to Mr. Whittier. This Mr. Smites sounds like the guy who hired us for that film project Sissy and I got involved with. He seemed like a nice guy at the time, but the people on the set were afraid of him."

Paul looked at his not so young niece. "Did you get any idea that he was involved with any other activity?"

"He did tell us over lunch that he headed a group of people looking for very young talent to develop. I got the impression that we were some of the older people he wanted to find. I think that's why Sissy pushed so hard to get involved. She thought we might be too old if we waited around too long."

"She wouldn't have gone to find that idiot would she?" Paul asked himself.

Ester held Steve's hand as they left the club and walked to their car. Barb had been entertaining, but not useful in their search for answers. They knew something was going on in the desert, it was a three-hour trip, and the bosses made the trip about once a week, but nothing else.

"Well," started Steve. "That was a waist of time."

Ester spun on Steve, stopped the much larger man, and as much as possible got in his face. "I was a waist of time?"

Steve blushed. "NO! Not that part. That was great. I mean you are ... You were. I mean we didn't learn where they are."

Ester smiled. "I knew what you meant, but we did learn some things. One, the club is connected to this gig. Two, there is some operation in the desert about three hours from here. Three, the bosses are there now. We need to get back to the ranch and report. Let's get our bodyguards and leave. Oh! We learned one more thing."

"What's that?"

"When this is over, I'm gonna screw you until you are too exhausted to move, then I'm gonna let you recover and then I'm gonna shag you until you can't move. Then I'm gonna get serious about fucking your brains out."