Chapter 44

Flashback – Ben – With team Vympel

The plane started its descent when the Captain motioned to Yuri. He walked over and as they talked they glanced at me and without hearing I could tell it was about me ... Yuri regained his seat beside me and I asked, "Yuri, what did the Captain want."

Yuri shook his head and replied, "At first he wanted to leave you on the plane, but I persuaded him to let you come observe, but you have to remain with me."

I thought to myself that there is no fucking way they were going to keep me on this plane. I smiled at Yuri and thanked him, "Thank you for standing up for me."

He answered, "We all agree with the way you feel, but we cannot say anything about it."

The plane landed at Vladikavkaz airport and we jumped into action...

Flashback – Jack – In Moscow

Masha was a hell of a woman and did a great job distracting me, but I knew it was time to 'pay the piper'.

I got up, grabbed my computer and Masha immediately questioned, "Jack my love, what are you doing?"

I smiled at her and said, "Well I need to let the Major know I missed getting deployed with team Vympel."

She got a concerned look on her face and asked, "What will you tell him?"

I dejectedly shook my head, "I was going to tell him I was sick but I don't have any proof."

She smiled and offered, "Jack, do not contact him until I return. I will obtain a report from the hospital which states you had a severe case of food poisoning. We will scan the report and include it in your transmission."

She jumped up started to dress. (God I loved to watch her move) She pecked me on the cheek as she left. I looked around but was concerned about Banzai. I called his phone twice more without an answer so I made a quick decision...

Flashback – Ben – Beslan

We arrived at the school and things were not running like a well-oiled machine - in fact they were royally fucked! If this was how they responded to a crisis, then I could see how the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002 at the Dubrovka Theater had ended up being such a huge cluster fuck (129 hostages died). It was the typical case of too many officers and not enough intelligence (I have often wondered whether when you get more officers together it has a decreasing effect on intelligence).

I stood and listened to the officers arguing with each other for about 10 minutes without being distracted by the cries coming from the school. How the hell could they ignore the cries?

Yuri was by my side. I looked at him and stated, "Fuck this shit Yuri, I'm going to see what the hell is going on in the school."

Yuri grabbed my arm, "Ben do not get me in trouble."

I snatched my arm away and argued, "Yuri, I have to do something! You can either follow me or report me."

He wisely stated, "I will follow you unless you do something totally foolish."

We moved closer to the school, and I swore, "Yuri, look at the bodies outside of the school! Those fuckers have already killed people and your officers aren't doing anything about it."

Yuri answered, "What can we do?"

I went into my go bag, pulled out my periscope and said, "I'm going to recon to see what's going on. How about letting me have your AK?"

Yuri stated, "Ben you cannot do this, you will be caught. And I cannot let you have a weapon, you are only an observer."

I laughed, "Yuri, the day I can't sneak up on a school like this is the day I turn in my HOGs tooth and become a REMF. Since you won't give me a weapon, at least cover me."

I didn't wait for a reply and headed toward the school...

Flashback – Jack – In Moscow

I found the way back to my old apartment, went in but it was dark. There was Banzai's cell phone on the table along with dirty dishes. This wasn't like him at all – he always cleaned up after himself. I went into his room and checked, noticed his go bag was gone and my heart sank. Yes, he deployed without me.

I walked out of his room, cleaned up the mess he left and headed back to my new apartment. I felt like shit for not being there for Banzai...

Flashback – Masha – In Moscow

I experienced no problems obtaining the medical report I needed since the doctor owed me a favor plus I expended some additional currency. However I still had the issues of my feelings toward Jack. My superiors were going to commence asking for information soon and I had decided that Jack was more important than – well, anything else. There was no way I could ever ask him about any secrets. In fact I required some method to resign my job. But that is an even larger problem - how do you resign from a position as a spy?