Chapter 10

Flashback — Mira — Day three and early morning day four, week one of spook school

Yes I was in love, but no I was not completely crazy. I had rational reasons for forcing L.Cpl. Blaine and stinky Sgt. Reynolds to abide in my old room tonight. Certainly it corresponded to the persona of the shy-girl-next-door (which surely acquired L.Cpl. Blaine's attention), but I had received an e-mail from Ira and I knew I had an enormous quantity of work to discharge this evening. I did not want a bumbling Marine (no matter how competent he was - he was still not a spy and would be a hindrance) and his even more incompetent comedic sidekick meddling with my assignment.

Sgt. Reynolds grumbled, "Mira, be reasonable. Just let us sleep in the room tonight because if you don't Banzai is going to be pissed as hell at me. He might even want to sleep in the same bed as you tonight."

I crimsoned and berated Sgt. Reynolds in persona, "Sgt. Reynolds! Just what sort of young lady do you assume me to personify! I would never let any man sleep in the same bed with me until our nuptials are complete, let alone allow two unattached hooligan males to sleep in the same room with me. It is too opprobrious for a young lady of my comportment. Take your and L.Cpl. Blaine's clothes and leave my room posthaste!"

He resembled a dog that had done something improper as he picked up some clothes and averred, "Mira, you are making a big mistake. I don't think Banzai will ever forgive you for this."

For a very brief second I faltered, then regained my persona and commanded, "Sgt. Reynolds vacate my room!" I placed my hand upon my practice katana for emphasis.

He shook his head and finally left. I instantly sprang into action: I sadly wrote a note for my boyfriend banishing him to my old room and taped it to our door (I was certain he would have joyfully trained me tonight but sadly it was not to be); then I slipped on my dark black ninja outfit and prepared my many weapons; finally I lay on the bed, contemplated my misfortune, sadly waited for my boyfriend to find the note and leave in disappointment. Afterwards, I could perform my mission.

Our enemies made an incredibly incompetent error when they did not recognize I had on body armor and now they would pay for that error with their lives. But first they would pay for preventing me from being trained by L.Cpl. Blaine with the unendurable pain I had in mind for them. It would not overly affect them since it would only mollify a miniscule measure of my frustration. They would not be very aware because by now they would in all likelihood be intoxicated from hashish.

Yes, our enemies were Hashshashin¹: Religious, drug crazed fanatics ordered to destroy Ira and me because of our successful mission against their Imam. For us, eliminating their Imam was nothing but a duty to destroy a defiled demagogue desiring to incite his followers to act-out atrocious acts. He, like many of his ilk, professed holiness but was nothing but a fraud as he could not wait to train his young and nubile twin servant girls - a 'gift' from a 'friend.' I had once again 'lost' to Ira and was to go first. He was greatly grotesque in his degenerate desires and I was hugely happy Ira terminated his 'holy heaviness' before I endured anything more than one nauseating kiss.

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashshashin

Unfortunately there was a leak and his fanatic followers discovered our identity. The leak expired in a massively macabre way, but the damage was done and now we were incessantly irritated by the Hashshashin. At first they were exceedingly disciplined, and presented quite an interesting and amusing challenge as they attacked us in pairs using many of their wide-range of techniques. Of course, their endeavors to eliminate us were completely ineffective. We conjectured they sent their best trained agents against us first and by now all that was left were the bungling bumbling buffoons such as those who nearly injured my boyfriend.

The time had come so I surreptitiously sneaked out of our room and into the hallway, locked the door, slipped to the exit and vacated the building. Ira's e-mail informed me of the location of the two enemies who attempted to eliminate me and almost injured L.Cpl. Blaine. It was peculiar performing a mission without my sister because it did not occur regularly and when it did I usually experienced apprehension. But for some non-rational reason I did not have any such problem tonight.

I easily scaled the fence and climbed into the waiting car Ira had ordered. We drove in silence to the location while I steeled myself for the coming combat. The driver stopped the vehicle two blocks away and said, "Good luck!"

I replied, "Luck has nothing to do with this. This just requires training and skill." I left the car and headed to their 'not-so-safe' house. I squatted behind a bush across from the house to begin observation. It was pitch black which initiated concern the information we received was incorrect; however there was a vehicle in the driveway which lessened my concern. I scanned the house for an additional fifteen minutes, saw no movement and finally decided they must be incapacitated from their hashish orgy and it was safe to enter the house.

I boldly stood and walked across the street and up to the front door as if I belonged in the neighborhood. I was very surprised upon reaching the front door, because it was ajar and I immediately became concerned I might be walking into a trap. I squatted, drew my pistol, pushed the door open, listened and waited.

A very light breeze blew through the front door. Abruptly a plethora of familiar aromas assailed my anterior naris, (no it was not hashish!) but it was the obvious odor of spent ammunition with an undercurrent of coagulating blood. This was either a very elaborate trap, or my foes were already annihilated.

I carefully crept into the house but still nothing moved. Both aromas were significantly stronger now and emanated from the back hallway. It was time since I was within the house to actuate my night vision goggles. I slipped them over my eyes, actuated them and the whole room meta-morphed into varying shades of green.

I glanced around the corner, down the hallway but did not see anything. So I proceeded, glanced in the first side room and quickly brought up my pistol because there was one of the foes lying on the bed. However, there was no need to fire because the night vision goggles displayed the bed in light green where his blood covered the sheets. He had already expired!

But I must find foe two before I examined the scene more thoroughly. I danced down the hallway to the end room and found foe two in the same state as my first foe, dead on the bed. I carefully examined the scene: He had been shot three times - once in the head, once in the heart and once in the crotch. There was something on the wall but I could not read it. I pulled off the night vision goggles and briefly actuated my LED flashlight to better view the writing on the wall - it read MS-13².

² http://www.knowgangs.com/gang_resources/profiles/ms13/

I went back to the first room and discovered the same circumstances, even to the writing on the wall. I did turn on the lights and took many photos of the crime scenes which I would send to Ira for later analysis. Then I searched thoroughly but could not find any ammo cases in either room. On more careful examination of the two corpses I could not even find any bullet fragments in the bodies. This was very puzzling because it was not standard tactics for MS-13. First the shots were too precise - if I were to measure I would say they were less than a centimeter difference between the two bodies on projectile placement. Second, MS-13's weapon of choice was normally a nine millimeter pistol, usually a MAC-10³ which had been converted to fully-automatic operation and they usually sprayed the room and target with projectiles. Finally there were no cases, which told me whoever dispatched my foes, did so silently because they did not worry about attracting attention from the sound of gunfire, and could afford the time to recover the cases.

³ The MAC-10 (Military Armament Corporation Model 10, officially the M10) is a highly compact, blowback operated machine pistol developed by Gordon B. Ingram.

This was most troubling for me since I had been terribly thwarted, my foes were already vanquished and someone made a very amateurish attempt to have it resemble a gang murder. I walked back into the night, leaving the front door wide open, and headed back to my vehicle with more questions than answers.

Flashback — Ben — Early morning day four, week one of spook school, the 'not-so-safe' house

We watched Mira enter the bastard's house and Tom whispered in his headset, "Damn Mira is quiet as hell and moves like a cat."

I whispered a reply, "Yeah, she's good but she's too fucking late!" As we waited for her to come back out of the house, I remembered earlier tonight...

Flashback — Ben — Day three, week one of spook school

I read Mira's note throwing me out of our room and was fucking depressed. Even after my talk with Charlie, when she warned me not to get romantically involved with Mira, I had decided, (after her girl-next-door look, which I couldn't resist) I was going to train, shit, I mean bang the hell out of her all night long!

Besides, I wasn't so sure Charlie's motives were pure: I could tell she wasn't used to being turned down and I think Charlie was playing some sort of game to see if she could nail me before Mira did. It would be funny as hell to play them against each other, but Anna's voice kept engaging my morals and I couldn't do it.

Now I was banished to Mira's old room, but something didn't feel or smell right about this. And the more I thought about it, the less sense it made! Mira, the Mira that continuously wanted to sleep with me was throwing me out of the room! What the fuck! I was deep in thought when my mobile phone vibrated, so I pulled it out and asked, "What's going on Tom?"

He answered, "Ben, it was a good thing you had me clone Mira's mobile phone."

I questioned, "Tom, what do you have for me?"

He answered, "First, when they talk it's in some sort of language that no one understands. However, her sister sent an e-mail which was in code so it took a while for me to decipher it. It looks like she was the target today, not you. Her sister also gave us the address of the safe house of where the two fuckers are."

Suddenly Mira throwing us out of the room made sense - this was some sort of fucking elaborate smokescreen to get Jack and me out of the way for tonight. Fuck this shit! I wasn't about to let Mira head off and do whatever the hell she was going to do by herself! I became extremely pissed and ordered, "Tom, I need you to bring me a full black combat rig with stealth shoes and fully suppressed weapons. I'm going to take care of those bastards!"

He questioned, "You want Howard and me along for backup?"

I replied, "Hell no! This is personal!"

Tom argued, "Them shooting at you made it personal for us. So you're getting backup whether you like it or not. Besides one of us needs to drive you to the location."

He was right and I didn't want to waste time arguing so I asked, "When are you guys coming for me?"

Thom laughed, "Get your ass out here, because we're here waiting for you."

Flashback — Ben — Early morning day four, week one of spook school, the 'not-so-safe' house

The lights came on in the first bedroom and Howard whispered in his headset, "What the hell do you suppose Mira's doing now?"

I replied, "I would guess she's doing a thorough examination of the crime scene."

Tom bragged, "I'm sure glad I thought of making it look like the MS-13 did this." I thought about his statement and worried because Mira was sharp as hell, and something just didn't seem right to me about the fake MS-13 crime scenes, but I couldn't place my finger on it.

A few minutes later, we watched the light come on in the second bedroom and knew Mira was being totally thorough and I whispered in my headset, "Get ready guys, because we leave when she leaves."

Howard sassed back, "Damn Ben, you really care for her!"

I thought, yeah I really do and if she hadn't thrown me out of the room tonight, things would be very different right now. We watched as she left the house and I whispered over the radios, "Let's get the hell out of here. She's safe...

Flashback — Mira — Early morning day four, week one of spook school, the way back to the school

As I walked to the vehicle, I was still very bewildered. Someone, not MS-13, had eliminated my quarry and robbed me of my coup. It made me fantastically frustrated as I poured over the many details of the crime scene in my mind. No, it was most certainly not MS-13 because this was a precision strike carried out by someone with incredible training ... Humm, training similar to that undertaken by my boyfriend! But how in the world could he have discovered my plan because he was after all, just a simple Marine!

I entered the vehicle and my driver commented, "That did not take long."

He was much too verbose for me, so I just grunted at him, "Be quiet and take me back to the school." I reached over, picked up my mobile phone, turned it on, waited until it became functional, and it vibrated like crazy!

I glanced at the display, it was multiple text messages which read, "911 CALL ME!"

I knew it was Ira so I immediately placed the call!!!

Flashback — Ben — Early morning day four, week one of spook school, headed back to the school

We laughed our asses off while heading back to the school in and Tom said, "Damn! Mira was totally fooled by my MS-Thirteen trick. The Score: Recons one - spies nothing."

Howard added, "Yeah, I wish I could have seen her face. But dammit Ben, you should have let us handle one of them."

I replied, "Guys, first I wouldn't count on her being fooled. She's one of the smartest damn women I've ever met. And second, the bastard's shot at her and me and it was my honor and most certainly my fucking kills."

I had a very bad feeling when my mobile phone began to vibrate!!!

Flashback — Mira — Early morning day four, week one of spook school, the way back to the school

After my emergency phone call with Ira, I knew I must break protocol and directly contact my boyfriend on his mobile phone! As his girlfriend, there were of course multiple indulgences I must take with his privacy since it was a normal girlfriend responsibility! And as his SPY girlfriend, I must brag, I knew more about my boyfriend than he knew about himself!

I dialed his mobile phone and waited. He finally answered and said, "Hello Mira." His reply concerned me! How in the world did he know it was me?

I replied with utmost crankiness, "Good very late evening L.Cpl. Blaine. I already know you are NOT in my old room with stinky Sgt. Reynolds. Please inform me that you are not spending the night with that broken down, worn out, syphilis infected instructor commonly called Charlie! If you are, then I must inform you, as your girlfriend, I will be forced to damage you in a very extreme manner!"

Yes I was more upset than I ever had been in my life. Ira informed me with very great joy (had she secretly sensed I love him?), that our other agent at the school informed her L.Cpl. Blaine had never returned to my old room last night. He also revealed that stinky Sgt. Reynolds had fallen to misfortune. I naturally assumed L.Cpl. Blaine had fallen to an almost mortal moral misfortune with the broken down, worn out, syphilis infected, soon to be expired instructor Charlie! And he was spending the night training her and NOT ME! So I made a call to his mobile phone and placed my probing question!

There was very much noise and confusion while I waited for my answer, even some moaning and groaning which greatly added to my despair. Finally my boyfriend said, "Mira, Tom, Howard and I are taking a joyride!"

I ascertained that my boyfriend told me mostly the truth. However I must teach him an extremely large lesson. I simply said, "While you and your friends were acting like fractious fools, your best friend Sgt. Reynolds was abducted!!!"

Flashback — Jack — Day three, week one of spook school

Shit! I waited for Banzai to show up but he never did. I figured he must have finally gotten his head out of his ass and was busy screwing either Mira or Charlie so I gave up, turned out the lights and hit the sack. I was well into a hot as hell dream with Charlie as the nasty teacher, Mira as the naughty school girl and me as the stern principal who caught them in flagrante delicto⁴. I was just getting ready to punish them with my rod when I woke because the door opened. I grouched, "It's about..." Then all hell broke loose!

⁴ The Latin term is sometimes used colloquially as a euphemism for a couple being caught in the act of sexual intercourse.

Flashback — Ben — Early morning day four, week one of spook school, headed back to the school

I yelled at the guys to shut the fuck up! Mira (how in the hell did she get my mobile phone number) needed to tell me something important. They found out it was her and started acting like a pack of fucking baboons. Finally they shut up and Mira informed me, "While you and your friends were acting like fractious fools, your best friend Sgt. Reynolds was abducted!!!"

I yelled, "Mira! What the fuck are you taking about?"

I could tell she relished telling me and answered in a sarcastic as hell tone, "Well, L.Cpl. Blaine, it seems while you and your friends decided to take a 'joyride.' My old room was invaded and your very best friend Sgt. Reynolds left the door unblocked, wrongly thinking you would come back to the room. And it appears he has now been kidnapped."

What the hell! The fucking bastard instructors took Jack! I'm going to kill their fucking, nasty, skanky asses! I demanded, "Mira, do you know where they have taken Jack?"

She replied, "I most certainly do L.Cpl. Blaine and if you meet me back at the barracks, we will go and rescue your Sgt."

Son-of-a-fucking-bitch! Someone is going to pay for this shit! I yelled, "Guys the fucking instructors have Jack and we need to rescue him. Tom, kick this piece of shit car in the ass!"

Flashback — Jack — Day three, week one of spook school

At first I thought it was Banzai fucking around when the door opened. Even after the first flashbang, I still thought it was him playing a fucking practical joke. But after three more flashbangs, I knew it wasn't Banzai, this wasn't a joke, and I was under fucking attack! I was smart enough to keep my wits about me and kept my eyes shut. After the noise, I flew out of the bed, Kimber in hand, but the bastards never turned on the lights. One big whack on my arm, and I dropped the Kimber; another one on my head rendered me unconscious.

Now I was awake, confused as hell but not so confused I didn't pretend to still be unconscious. I'd been drugged! I didn't know what fucking drug these bastards gave me, but I felt fucking great, was as high as a fucking kite and certainly felt no pain! The bastards taped me to a chair and were across the room from me.

I carefully watched the two of them, out of the corner of one eye and they seemed confused! First I don't think they were the fucking instructors, otherwise I would have beat the hell out of them, and second, they kept looking at me, shaking their heads and then talking, almost like they didn't expect me to be in the room.

Dammit, perhaps Banzai is right, perhaps I am out of shape and getting too old for this shit. If I couldn't even take care of two fuckers who broke into my room, I was a pretty sorry sack of shit!