Chapter 32

Flashback – Jack – On the way to Russia

Now this totally sucked! After a nice as hell trip back stateside, during which Banzai 'took many for the team', everything turned ugly. We had just touched down when the Major became a major prick. He gave us our briefing, (Banzai was remarkably accurate in his WAG of the situation) then we barely had time to clean up, get into uniform and grab our gear when we were headed to Russia - only this time it was on a fucking commercial airliner.

I squirmed in my seat, tried to get comfortable and complained, "This is worse than flying on a C-one-thirty."

Banzai was distracted by a cute flight attendant and replied, "Oh I don't know, things could be interesting."

I elbowed him and said, "Look you don't have to 'take this one for the team'."

He smiled and volunteered, "Oh I wouldn't mind, but I am a little tired."

I teased, "Yeah I wonder why? We could hear her yelling all the way in the back of the Rear Admiral's plane. The way she kept shouting 'Oh God' I thought she was having a religious experience."

Banzai grinned, "Yeah she sure was noisy, my ears are still a little sore."

I teased some more, "Was that because she using them to steer your mouth where she wanted it?"

He punched me in the arm and said, "Jack you know I don't kiss and tell! Now I'm tired and I'm going to sleep."

He tried his best to get comfortable but the bastard behind us kicked his seat when he reclined it. He stood up gave the guy an evil eye and I thought the guy was going to shit his pants. It wasn't long till he fell asleep and I thought about the dream of Russia I had on the Rear Admiral's plane - it was a strange one and bothered me...

Flashback – Major M – Undisclosed base

I couldn't wait to get Sgt. Reynolds and Sgt. Blaine out of my hair. I never did determine a way to get out of the bind they had me in so I figured the next best thing was to ship their asses to Russia. Then I could have some peace and quiet and figure out how to undo what they'd done.

I made a quick stop by my office, grabbed something that caught my eye, then headed to see the Old Man.

I got to his office and his aide said, "Take a seat Major, he will be with you when he can."

I thought, 'Oh great, it's never good when he makes someone wait'.

I was almost napping (damn Sgt. Blaine and the bitch that made so much noise on the flight I couldn't get to sleep) when the aide announced, "The General will see you now."

I steeled myself, entered his office and stood at attention. The bastard ignored me for about five minutes, finally looked up and said, "Take a seat Major and tell me how in the hell you lost Baskerville but found the two missing and presumed dead Sgts."

I replied, "Sir we were ambushed by some enemy agents and were lucky to make it out of there with our lives." Then I went on to describe a greatly glorified version of 'the truth' (If the General knew it was only the Sedankina bitches, he would have chewed my ass even more) and finished with, "It looks like Baskerville was a total loss."

He gave me the evil eye and questioned, "Major explain yourself."

I slid the classified folder across his desk and stated, "Sir! You can see from this series of images that the person piloting Baskerville finally lost control of it and it crashed into the ocean."

He perused the images, closed the folder and questioned, "Should we mount a recovery operation?"

The last thing I wanted to do was head back to that God forsaken country so I truthfully stated, "Sir! That would be ill-advised. As you remember, the depth of the water in that location is such that we would need a submersible and it's support ship to salvage Baskerville."

He looked at me and questioned, "So Baskerville is lost."

I responded, "Yes Sir, totally lost."

He continued, "Major I'm not happy with this mission. However the recovery of the two Sgts. makes up for the loss of Baskerville. I do expect a full written report on this including the whereabouts of the L.Cpl. You are dismissed."