Chapter 8

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

I sat straight up in bed and suddenly, everything made perfect sense to me. Thank you unconscious mind! I loved it when I fell asleep thinking about a problem and then while I was sleeping my mind went ahead and figured it out. Now I finally understood, and things were going to be much easier from this day forward.

I checked my watch and noted it's a bit early, but I might as well get up and get ready for the day. Now everything would be perfect if I just wasn't at this damn sorry excuse for a school. The only good thing about this place was the classes last night - and then Jack, the son-of-a-bitch, got us kicked out of those.

Mira was sure pissed when the instructor hit on me: Charlie was old but was still hot. Perhaps I should do her just to aggravate Mira — on second thought, I'd like to keep my balls attached to the rest of my body so I better leave well enough alone. But that doesn't mean I can't use Charlie as a distraction for Mira. You know if those two fought, it might be entertaining.

I laughed like hell last night when Jack told me what Mira did to the poor bastard at the martial arts training. It sure put some fear of Mira in him and the rest of the school when the poor bastard had to tell them what she had done. Hey that just gave me another hell-of-a-idea! This day was going to be fun as hell! Yes, payback was coming big time and it was going to be a bitch!

I jumped out of bed, flipped on the light and Jack yelled.

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

Banzai turned the light on, I checked my watch and I could have slept another half an hour so I yelled, "Turn off that damn light and let me sleep!"

He yelled back, "Rise and shine sleepyhead!" The damn little piss ant knew I hated hearing those words. I had to figure some sort of way to take the wind out of his sails today. His shenanigans were fun at first, but then they got his ass-kicking girlfriend fired up and finally they even got me fired up when that bitch teacher just ignored me.

Oh well, he wasn't going to let me sleep this morning so I might as well get up. I'm tired as hell because I slept like shit, I had nightmares all night long: Mira either kicked my ass or tried to rip my balls off. I hobbled out of bed today and felt like a broken old man; damn my ass was sore as hell today. If she tried to kick my ass today, I might just have to shoot her.

Banzai looked at me and laughed, "Damn Jack, you're walking like an old man!"

I bitched, "Yeah it's your damn girlfriends fault. I think she broke my ass yesterday."

He laughed more, "I told you to put an ice pack on it last night."

I grumped because the damn fool was right, "Have you ever tried sitting on a fucking ice pack. It'll give you hemorrhoids."

He laughed and asked, "Hey Jack if we get hemorrhoids what the hell do Eskimo's get?"

My ass was fucking broke and he's telling jokes, but I played the straight man anyway. "Fucking laid if they're lucky?"

He replied, "No they get polaroids."

I gave him a dirty look and complained, "That's fucked up!"

He kept going, "You know what space aliens get?"

I smiled and responded, "Keep it up and you're going to get probed?"

He grinned, "They get assteroids."

Now that one was half funny but I had my fill of him, "You know you're not a fucking hemorrhoid so get off my ass."

Banzai thought that was damn funny and laughed his ass off. At least he was in a good mood. I just hoped it would rub off on his ass-kicking girlfriend. If she started on me again today, my ass couldn't take it. I wonder if you could get a medical discharge if your ass was broken - nah, that's a half-assed idea. Then I grinned while I imagined my ass being in a sling. I guess he forgot we snuck out of the room last night and left Mira. I sure as hell didn't forget and I definitely didn't want to face her wrath today.

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

I had a long talk with Ira last night and told her everything. I even described all the clothes and gear I received and she was shocked. She reminded me to bring the combat body armor home because our good friend Herr Henrick was very interested in using some for a secret project he was working on. I told her I did not know what would happen to the gear when I left but I would try my best to bring it all back.

I also confessed to her how L.Cpl. Blaine infected me with his childishness and how badly I acted. She laughed very much about how I kicked Sgt. Reynolds rear and even more about the smart mouthed man and then scolded me a little bit and told me to make sure I did not include those in my report or we both would be punished.

She asked me multiple times if I felt okay, because she said, "Mira you sound different." I wanted to jump off the bed, dance around the room and tell her I felt the best ever because I was in love. But I knew she would not like to hear that. Yes I was in love for the first time in my life - it was very distracting and made it hard to follow my mission plan. I slept so well last night and had multiple dreams of L.Cpl. Blaine training me and how wonderful it would be to perform that with someone I love! The dreams were so intense I needed to take a shower this morning when I woke up.

Yes, I was up early this morning and waited for my L.Cpl. Blaine and his stinky Sgt. Reynolds to come back to our room like guilty puppy dogs. Staying away all last night was a bad thing for him to do and I would have to scold him like a good girlfriend should - but just a little bit because I did not want him to be sad all day.

I already had the coffee brewing and looked at the breakfast MREs, but we still only had the two choices for breakfast. There were many more boxes of MREs than there were yesterday so I surmised the magic gnomes brought them when they brought my fantastic footlockers. Yes, what a wonderful gift that was. I looked at everything again this morning, but this time tried my best to put what I was not wearing away correctly and I even tried my best to make the bed. I realized L.Cpl. Blaine liked these things. Now if they would just hurry up and get here, I wanted a good morning kiss!

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

We were both ready so I looked at Jack and said, "Let's go to our room, wake up Mira, have some breakfast and then do our PT."

He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "You want to head back to our room early? She's going to be pissed as hell we left last night. You go be the cannon fodder and get your ass kicked first. I'll be down in ten minutes."

Jack was a chronic complainer, but I could tell he was really hurting today. Shit I think I would have been hurting too if I had my ass whipped like his was. I needed to tell Mira to lay off Jack's ass today.

I knew she would be upset, but not violently angry at me so I wasn't worried. I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Okay Jack, I think you're making too big of a deal about this. But make sure you're not too late or you won't get breakfast again today." Jack had put on a few pounds so if he missed a few meals it wouldn't kill him.

I pulled the block out from under the door and walked down to our room. I rapped on the door and said, "Mira, are you awake? Open the door and let me in."

The door flew open so fast it surprised the shit out of me! But that wasn't as surprising as when a fully dressed Mira jumped on me and gave me a hell of a good morning kiss. Even though I didn't love her and knew I never would, it was still hard not to respond at least a little bit when being kissed like that.

She finally pulled away, gave me a grumpy look and whined...

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

L.Cpl. Blaine finally showed up without stinky Sgt. Reynolds. I was worried and thought about going to find him. I jumped on him and gave him a big good morning kiss. At first he was surprised and did not respond, but finally he stopped being recalcitrant and returned just a tiny bit of my emotions! Oh today is going to be a great day!

I pulled back and like a good girlfriend scolded, "Honey you were very bad staying out all night. You had me very worried because I thought the instructors had captured you. Do not ever do that again or I will be forced to look for you and spank you like a bad boy!"

He grinned at me and responded, "Maria you're right. It wasn't a good thing for Jack or me to stay gone all night. You could have been taken by the instructors. I'm sorry and we won't do it again."

Did he just call me by some other woman's name or did I hear incorrectly? If he did he is in very big trouble. But he was worried about me last night so he does care for me! However my scolding did have the effect I hoped for because tonight he is sleeping in our room - I just need to figure out some way to render the bathtub unusable for a bed.

I was puzzled at first, because this was the first time his tool had not tried to greet me. Then I blushed because I decided he probably spent so much time exercising his tool last night and thinking happy thoughts about me this morning, it must just be an exhausted tool today. However my tool was happy to see him so I was very glad I added extra protection to my regulation underwear today or they would already be uncomfortable.

I said, "As you can see I am already dressed this morning in all regulation clothing - you may inspect me if you wish. I started our morning coffee. If you would have stayed here with me last night I would serve you a MRE in bed this morning. Since you had eggs and sausage yesterday, can I make egg omelet for you today?"

He smiled and answered, "Either one is fine for me. I'm going to get my pack ready for today."

I declared, "I have already prepared our packs for today and I do hope you will inspect them to make sure I did not forget anything."

He smiled again at me and stated, "Thanks I will inspect them just to make sure."

I decided to give him the omelet, because I wanted to give him the best and I am sure it was better than egg and sausage. I started making one for each of us, poured him a big cup of coffee and took it to him. He looked at me as I grinned, stuck my finger in his coffee and said, "There, I just made it sweeter for you." I giggled and ran back to take care of the other MREs.

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

Mira was totally out of control today and I was concerned as hell she had fallen in love with me. But I'm more concerned about when I have to tell her I don't and can't love her, at least not now. I have visions of her separating me from my balls and hanging them on the wall. So I will have to gradually, and very slowly and carefully, help her realize this fact.

She did a good job of packing my pack, she even had our lunch MREs in it and there was no Country Captain Chicken. I guess she learned her lesson last night - damn that look on her face from the first bite still made me laugh.

I noticed there was no rifle in my pack today and noticed she's still in the case and noted I forgot to lock the case last night. But I do have all the extra mags for my pistol. I questioned, "You didn't pack my rifle today?"

She grinned and giggled at me, "No Sir! I will not touch your rifle unless you allow me too. Plus I checked and the rifle range is still inoperative today. So we are having pistol training."

I thought great if the rifle range was bogus, I bet the pistol range was even worse and started to get worked up. What a huge fucking waste of time this piece of shit school was. But I needed to remain calm.

I mentioned to Mira, "I am asking you to not kick Sgt. Reynolds ass today. He is so sore this morning he can hardly move."

She giggled and replied with her stock answer, "Yes Sir! I will do whatever you ask me to do! And if I kicked your rear, I would kiss it and make it all better."

I grinned at her and reiterated, "You will do whatever I ask you to do?"

She jumped up and said, "Yes Sir! Whatever!"

I smiled and knew things were working out just like I planned and Mira was certainly efficient and a big help. I still felt I might need my rifle today so I took her out of the case and carefully put her in the pack.

Mira asked, "Why are you taking your rifle anyway?"

I answered, "You never know when you might need it and I'm already used to the way my pack feels with her in it."

Inspecting her pack was the most interesting thing I'd done in a very long time and gave me great insights into one very incredible, competent and spine-chilling (yeah fucking scary) woman. She had modified the pack to carry a full assortment of serious martial arts weapons! I'm happy as hell she didn't have any of these when we fought that first day because weapons were my one weakness. First she had a serious as a heart attack katana - I didn't take it out of its scabbard because if she's this serious it had to draw blood before it was replaced. She surprised me because she also had a wooden practice katana. My guess was she planned on teaching some weapons at the martial arts class today. There was a nice short sword for close fighting, a hell of a lot of throwing stars, a bunch more throwing knives and darts. But the biggest surprise of all, way a fully suppressed, illegal as hell .22 LR Ruger MkII pistol - standard issue for Spetsnaz agents. I looked at the mags and it had one subsonic, quiet as hell mag; one high velocity mag; and one that looked like it was designed to penetrate body armor. She was one serious as a heart attack woman!

After I inspected her pack, I realized I had seriously underestimated her and I was in deep shit! Somehow I had always had women falling for me, but I had very little experience in breaking up with women. Like Anna said, I'd been a real chicken shit and I had never learned how to break up with a woman and now my life depended on how I broke up with Maria! Shit I mean Mira. That's twice I've made that stupid mistake: If I keep it up she'll kick my ass.

When I first met Mira I wrongly assumed this fly was dealing with a common house spider and could play her all day long, but after inspecting her pack I knew I was playing with a Brazilian wandering spider (commonly called a banana spider), the most aggressive, lethal and venomous spider in the world! If I made one wrong step she would bite me and suck the life out of me! Yes I was very close to being fucked forever!

Mira came over, smiled at me and said, "Here is your breakfast, I hope you enjoy it." I just hoped to live through it.

And we ate sitting side by side on the bed while she kept sneaking glances at me. Shit! This little fly was in big trouble unless his plan worked, and worked very well.

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

Well fifteen minutes passed and I guessed I needed to go and see if Mira left Banzai alive. I could only imagine how angry she was when we left the room last night. I stepped into the hallway, walked towards the room and found Banzai and Mira walking towards me.

Shit! She didn't look pissed at all: Instead she looked — well like she was in love. That was all the hell I needed today because nothing was more irrational than a woman in love. Any little bit of brains they had in their heads turned to mush and they thought about, flowers, moonlight walks on the beach, houses with white picket fences and (even worse) children!

Banzai said, "Morning Jack, time for PT." Mira smiled and said, "It is a magnificent morning Sgt. Reynolds I can hardly wait for PT."

Damn! She was definitely in love! I felt a little sorry for Banzai, because she was a determined bitch and had Banzai in her sights. I complained, "What about breakfast?"

Mira replied, "Yes it was grand, we both had egg omelets seated right alongside each other."

Banzai replied, "Jack, I said ten minutes, you showed up in fifteen. There's no time left for your breakfast."

I was hungry as hell and yelled, "No fucking time for breakfast! What the hell do you mean?"

Mira turned, gave me a very dangerous look and said, "Sgt. Reynolds, stop behaving like a fractious child. You were tardy today, missed breakfast and you heard what L.Cpl. Blaine said, no breakfast for you this morning. Besides, you do need to shed some of your abdominal adipose tissue and this will help."

What the fuck! She just said I was getting fat! I got angry, upset and answered, "The hell with this bullshit, I'm going back to the room and eat breakfast!"

And I then realized I'd made the second mistake of the day, with the first was being late for breakfast.

Mira got right in my face and said, "Sgt. Reynolds do we need to have an undesirable discourse like I had with that other man yesterday?"

For a brief second, I felt like challenging her, but the look on her face told me she was a woman not to be fucked with right now. I replied, "No Mira, I understand you perfectly."

She turned and said, "Good, then let us do our PT and then go for a run."

I grumped, "I didn't even get a fucking cup of coffee. This is pure fucking agony."

Banzai sassed, "Jack, you snooze you lose."

And I thought, yeah, I can't wait for the run. Banzai's a smart ass and that bitch might be able to kick my ass, but neither of them was as sneaky as I was. And I was going to kill both those love birds with one big fucking stone today. Yeah, payback's a coming for both of you!

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

It was good to see that for once Jack infuriated someone besides me. But he'd better watch it with Mira since she was even edgier today than yesterday. And she seemed to think she needed to protect me! Now that was funny as hell seeing as I'm a Marine and I kicked her ass the first day we were here.

But the old fart had gotten quiet, too quiet. That always meant he was going to try to be sneaky. What was it about old guys? They got old and thought they were sneakier than us young guys just because of their age. Shit! Now that was funny as hell because we had been through all the sneaky shit they could pull since we were kids and had come up with a shitload of our own original stuff they'd never seen or dreamed of. It wasn't like the old guys were sneaky enough to break into the Old Man's stash of breakfast MREs which I must say, were very good. That was my young Recon friends.

Here I was in a great fucking mood and Jack and even Mira were both ruining it. I decided to pour a little salt in Jack's grumpy wound, "Thanks Mira for making the coffee, the great egg omelet and for getting my pack ready this morning."

She beamed at me, winked and replied, "I like doing things for you. In fact I would do anything you asked me to do."

Shit! She was going to do it again all day, but it was too early to totally implement my new plan. So I grinned back and asked, "Anything? Are you sure about that?"

She answered, "Yes Sir! Anything!" And the fly slowly started the transformation into a Tarantula Hawk Wasp¹.

¹ A Wasp that hunts spiders.

We did the circuit training and for once, Jack didn't complain or say a word, but I could tell he was planning something. But Mira was a little chatterbox today.

As we did pull ups she said, "L.Cpl. Blaine you are very good at those. Perhaps you would help me today? With the additional weight of the body armor they are very difficult."

Yesterday it would have bothered the hell out of me, but not today. I replied, "Sure let me help." I went over and helped her on the up portion and let her control the down portion."

She challenged me on pushups and said, "I wonder if you can perform those if I sat on your back?"

Jack finally broke his silence and in the most sarcastic tone I'd ever heard, "Yeah Banzai, I wonder if you can do those while she's riding on your back?"

Yesterday I would have worried, but today, I grinned at both of them and ordered, "Hop on Mira."

She made a huge production as she wriggled around on me and tried to turn me on. It didn't bother me, plus she was a tiny thing so it was no big deal. I easily did my pushups, looked at Jack and said, "So Jack, you up to the challenge?"

He grumped, "Oh Hell No! I don't want her anywhere near me!"

Well let me see how the two of them liked my new little plan. I looked at Mira and ordered, "Mira, you said you'd do anything for me, so sit on Jack's back while he does pushups."

She gave me a terribly shocked look; she even looked as if she was going to throw up. For a second I felt bad, then I commanded, "Mira, move it."

She complained, "Honey, please don't make me perform those!"

Jack argued, "Like hell she's sitting on my back while I do pushups."

I questioned, "Mira, are you going to break your promise to me?"

She looked down and said, "No I would never do that. But Sgt. Reynolds has refused to let me sit on his back."

Jack added, "Damn straight she's not sitting on my back."

I looked sad and said, "Mira, you told me you'd do anything I asked you to do. I asked you to sit on Jack's back when he does his pushups. Now you can either figure out some way to do that or you can break your promise to me."

Yeah, I was being an ass but I was tired of Mira's constant teasing and I decided to call her bluff. She was lucky as hell I didn't order her to kiss Jack's ass but if she kept it up I just might do that.

I knew I'd won when I saw the look of resolve on her face. She walked over to Jack and said, "Sgt. Reynolds, even though it is a tremendously odious thing for me to do, I must demand that I sit on your back when you do your pushups."

He laughed at her (was he fucking crazy) and said, "Mira there's no way in hell that's going to happen."

I saw her get angry, she bent down and whispered something to Jack and I watched the concern grow on his face. He replied, "Mira, believe me I'm not going to like this either."

Neither of them was happy, and I thought Mira was the unhappiest of all, because she really had a dislike for Jack which I didn't understand. But Jack was barely able to do ten pushups with Mira on his back, and Mira jumped off him when he was done so fast I thought her ass was on fire.

I laughed, "Damn Jack, you've become weak as hell in your old age."

He gave me a hateful look and said, "Just keep it up! You'll get yours."

Oh yeah, he had something sneaky as hell planned for me and I bet it included Mira. I needed to be ready for it.

Mira walked past me all huffy and said, "L.Cpl. Blaine that was an intolerably mean-spirited act you compelled me to perform and I am not happy at all about the way you coerced me!"

And I had a very enjoyable rest of our workout because neither of them said one additional word to me. But I had figured Jack planned to make his move on the run. He hated running and would try to get out of it - sometimes he's too predictable.

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

Banzai just kept pushing my buttons all fucking morning! The absolute worst was when I had to do pushups with his ball-busting-bitch on my back. I emphatically refused until she whispered to me if I made her break her word to him she'd tie me down, cut my dick off a piece at a time and make me eat it. I wasn't sure she'd really do that, but after the poor bastard yesterday, I couldn't be sure that she wouldn't.

I could tell Banzai enjoyed the hell out of it while Mira and I hated the hell out of it. Keep it up you laughing-hyena-son-of-a-bitch, wait until the fucking run. I'm going to play you both against each other like Itzhak Perlman played Paganini on a Stradivarius. And I will give both of you a lesson in how to be sneaky!

She was even pissed as hell at him. But shit, it didn't last long enough and much too soon she was all fucking twitterpated again. I sure as hell hoped she was smart enough not to tell him she'd do anything, or whatever he wanted her to. Because he was one sick and devious bastard and he'd have her doing something even worse to me.

We finished the last circuit and I felt like I dodged a bullet because she didn't say it again. We took a few, I caught my breath and watched as Mira and Banzai had a serious as hell conversation about something, I wasn't so sure he didn't even chew her ass about something.

Banzai announced, "Time for our run." And now it was time for the old master to show these two young pups how the game was played. I couldn't wait because soon these two would be kicking each other asses and I would get to sit back, watch and laugh my ass off!

I waited until we'd gone about a mile and casually remarked, "Hey Banzai did you have some sort of nightmares last night?"

He looked at me, grinned like a smart ass and replied, "I don't think I dreamed at all last night."

Mira played right into my trap when she asked, "Do you mean L.Cpl. Blaine you did not dream about me?"

The fool replied, "Sorry Mira, I went to bed thinking about a problem and I think it occupied my brain all last night so I'm almost sure I didn't dream at all last night."

Mira pouted and I knew it was the perfect time. I sprung my trap by remarking, "Well you sure as hell woke me up four times when you yelled out Charlie's name. You moaned and groaned and carried on so much I thought she had slipped in our room and we two were going at it." There, chew on that you piss ant!

I watched as Mira's face flushed, she got angry as hell, and I could hardly wait for her to explode at Banzai. She yelled, "Sgt. Jack Reynolds!"

What the fuck! She was supposed to get mad a Banzai not me!

She screamed, "You are not a very adept liar and I recognized you just lied to us! But even worse you attempted to make L.Cpl. Blaine resemble an exceedingly bad man! And even more, you tried to get me furious at him! I admonished you and now I must..." I didn't need to hear the rest of what she said because I knew what was coming. I ran for my life and suddenly realized that was my third mistake of the young day.

I did hear Banzai as he yelled, "Mira remember you promised not to kick his ass!"

God damn, my boy's finally back to his senses and has realized that taking good care of your spotter is more important than some piece of tail. I bet he chewed her ass about this very thing during the break! Well if she can't kick my ass that also means she can't take my balls or my dick, so I slowed up.

CRACK! Son-of-a-bitch, I think someone just shot me in my helmet. My ears rang like Quasimodo's church bells and my head hurt like hell. I looked behind me just in time to see Mira swinging a stick at me and, whap, whap, whap, whap! She was beating the shit out of me with that damn stick! I started running at full speed again.

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

Mira and I had a hell of a great conversation during the break about rifles. She really is knowledgeable as hell about them. I asked her what she normally uses and she told me an H&K PSG-1². Shit! That's like a fifteen-thousand dollar rifle. I told her about our military tests where both the M-21³ and the M-40⁴ were tested against the PSG-1 and found to be much more accurate. She got feisty as hell with me and told me I didn't know what the hell I was talking about, well not in those exact words. I think she said, "Excuse me L.Cpl. Blaine, while you may be an excellent sniper, it is obvious you do not know anything about rifles." I laughed my ass off about that one.

² PSG -1 is a semi-automatic rifle designed by the German company Heckler & Koch and it is considered to be one of the most accurate semi-automatic sniper rifles in the world.

³ M21 Sniper Weapon System (SWS) is the semi-automatic sniper rifle adaptation of the M14 rifle.

⁴ The M40 is a bolt-action sniper rifle used by the United States Marine Corps.

We started on the run and I waited for Jack to make his play. It had better be pretty good because Mira isn't one of the stupid half-drunk bar bimbos that will swallow just any old lie, she's sharp as hell and Jack is a terrible liar.

I knew the minute Jack asked me about nightmares, he was pulling the same old lame trick that had been around for a hundred years. He was going to try to make Mira think I had orgasmic dreams about another woman last night. Shit! I hoped he had something new but this was boring as hell and I had to play along. I decided if he wanted to dig his own grave that was his choice, because Mira wasn't going to fall for this shit.

Sure enough, Jack fucked up big time and his 'sneaky' plan backfired. He thought he would get Mira pissed at me, but he was a worse liar than me and he got Mira pissed at him. At least he figured out she was going to get him and took off running like hell. But then the old fool slowed up when I reminded Mira not to kick his ass.