Chapter 47

Present – Jens – In the equipment room

I am pissed as hell for not controlling my team better! And my condition is made all the worse because the old fart Jack was right! Liz got a bug in her butt about Maria, insulted her and now the two of them are fighting like – well like two women. And for those of you that haven't seen women really fight, it's not a pretty sight. There's hair pulling, clawing, biting, kicking and all the other non-marital arts bullshit that women do when they fight. Bernie is wise enough to stay out of the way (hell the biggest mistake a man can make is trying to break up a fight between two women as they invariably both turn on the man).

Unfortunately, it's my job to stop this bullshit. I begin to push myself up but it hurts like hell. The fucking wood clamp Maria put on my chest wound bothers the hell out of me so I pull it off, then I get a great idea and throw it, with all my imagined strength, at Liz and Maria who are rolling around on the floor. It smacks Maria upside the head and she swears, "What the fuck!" But it doesn't even slow down the fight.

I begin my yoga breathing and meditation to push the pain (which is so severe I want to puke) to the back of my mind. I force myself to my feet and stumble toward them. I get close enough to reach down, grab the wood clamp and begin to beat the shit out of them...

Present – Maria – In the equipment room

Son of a bitch, Liz fights better than I thought she would! Oh, it's not like my earlier fight with my Princess Boss which was a martial arts contest – this is a real knockdown, drag out fight between women – which means it isn't a fair fight because this is about winning, not being fair. I've lost hell - I don't know how much hair, but I've done my best and given Liz a few fucking bald spots too.

Something clocks me upside the head and really pisses me off. I'm getting ready to give this royal pain in the ass bitch a beating she will never forget when someone starts beating the hell out of my back. If it's that damn fiancé of hers I will rip off his balls.

I turn and I'm totally shocked when I recognize that it's Jens and the self-inflicted shame at making our situation worse finally gets me to quit fighting, then...

Present – Liz – In the equipment room

I'm teaching this princess a thing or two about fighting – yeah, she might be on top of me, but that was my plan. Suddenly she stops fighting, I see my chance and punch her with my hardest blow right under the chin. She falls on top of me and I began to whoop, "Yeah that will teach you who the fucking princess is around here!"

Then I hear Jens softly ask, "Are you two about done with your stupidity?"

I move Maria and see Jens teetering over us with the wood clamp in her hand. She begins to sway and I yell, "Bernie catch Jens, she's going to fall!"

He runs over, grabs her by the arms and helps lower her to the floor.

I push Maria's fat fucking ass off me, crawl over to Jens and ask, "Are you okay?"

She coughs up some blood and complains, "Hell no I'm not okay! My BFF and my girl Friday just had a knockdown drag out fight. What the hell were you two thinking?"

Jen is right, I begin to swallow my pride and say, "Sorry Jens, we weren't..."

Jens sighs, her eyes roll back in her head and she becomes limp. I yell at Bernie, "I think that was Jens last breath and she's dying. Help me get her to the table."

He carries her to the table, I run over behind him and notice that Jens has undone all the work Maria did to her. The wood clamp is missing and blood has covered her shirt. Jens pulled out her IV and there's blood everywhere from it and the chest tube thing is lying on the table. I feel for a pulse - thank God there is a pulse. I look at Bernie and say, "We need Maria, please wake her up."

Bernie waffles, "Liz, after your fight I'm not sure that is such a wise idea."

I counter, "Bernie, if we can't wake up Maria then Jens might die."

I watch as Bernie grabs a pitcher, fills it full of water, walks over and dumps in on Maria.

Maria wakes up and yells...

Present – Maria – In the equipment room

Hells bells! Someone throws a pitcher of cold damn water on me and I'm mad as a wet hen. Wait – what the hell happened? Fuck! I remember: I stopped fighting because Jens was beating the shit out of me with the wood clamp and that damn bitch Liz landed a lucky punch! I jump up and announce, "Liz fucking Morgan, your ass is grass."

I notice she's at the table by Jens and she announces, "Maria, we can settle this later if we still need to, Jens desperately needs our help."

I run over to the table and fuck no! Jens has undone everything I did. Hell, her chest wound is bleeding like the horsehead scene from The Godfather, the blood transfusion is spilling all over the floor and she even pulled out her chest tube and her lung has collapsed again. No this actually looks worse than the horsehead scene from The Godfather.

I realize how fucking stupid it was to fight with Liz – hell, it might cost me my Princess Boss's life. I begin working on her again and order, "Get me some more blood and warm it like before...

Present – Mike (formerly Major and then Captain M) – At the cabin.

What a hell of a fucking night! I am frustrated as hell since nothing has gone as planned: Not only has Ben, and whoever the fuck his accomplice is, avoided the drone and the Apaches; he pranked the hell out of me; blew the shit out of the PortaPotties (literally); and made me look and smell like shit in front of the Special Forces. All I want to do is get back to my hotel, clean up and regroup for tomorrow. I plan on commandeering one of the Chinooks to take me back to my hotel since Ben put a fifty caliber hole into the engine on my chopper. I'm finally settled in the Chinook, the pilot fires up the engine, there's a loud bang, the indicator lights on the control panel go fucking crazy and the pilot yells, "Fuck! We need to get out of here now before she blows!"

The bastard pilot opens his door and takes off like his ass is on fire leaving me to fend for myself inside the ticking time bomb Chinook. I roll to the side door, open it and suddenly face a hell of a drop off! I can't wait for help so I push the wheels on my fucking wheelchair and launch myself out of the Chinook. I hit the fucking ground hard, hear my backup wheelchair go crack, and tumble ass over elbows.

The Captain runs up and questions, "Sir, are you okay?"

I order, "Get me away from here before the chopper blows up."

The Captain and a couple of helpers haul my ass away from the Chinook before it explodes. After a few minutes a grunt comes up and reports to the Captain, "Sir, Mike's wheelchair is broken and the Chinook isn't going to blow up. Apparently our tango put flashbangs into the air intakes on the engines. When the pilot started the engines on this Chinook, they detonated and made him believe the engines were going to explode. This was determined when we did an immediate search of the other Chinooks."

I swear, "Captain! Where the hell were your men when this happened?"

He defends his actions (and his ass), "Sir, they were guarding the prisoner tent as you ordered earlier."

I plead in the hope that something went right, "Please tell me some of the prisoners tried to escape and are now not counted among the living."

The Captain deflates my wishes, "Sorry Sir, it appears that they are obeying Jack Reynolds. He ordered them not to attempt escape or to even remove their shackles."

Son of a fucking bitch, I was flanked again...

Present – Ben – At the cabin

I am quite pleased with the opening battles of this mission. I'm not sure of all the results yet, but just seeing the PortaPotty explode with the son of a fucking bitch Mike in it was worth all my effort. I begin to make my MRE and ask, "Destiny, would you like an MRE?"

She states, "Yes Ben, but I am ashamed to tell you I do not know how to prepare them."

I consider for a moment checking if I have either a Captain Upchuck Chicken or Hotdog MRE, but reconsider because she was a hell of a help earlier with her bow. I rummage through the MRE's and continue, "You have your choice of Thai Chicken or Beef Stew."

She asks, "Is the Thai Chicken spicy?"

I reply, "It's not bad by itself, but if you trust me to work on it, then it's pretty damn good and spicy. For dessert I will show you how to make Recon cookies from what's left."

She totally blows me away when she asks, "Would it be similar to the way you fixed Jennifer's, Jack's and Ivan's MREs?"

I am baffled, shake my head trying to fathom how she asked what she asked, stand up as best I can in this cramped bunker and demand, "How the fucking hell do you know about my MREs I made for them?"

She calms me, "Ben, sit back down. Ivan made your special MREs for Liz, Bernie, Maria and a little for Jens, all of whom are trapped in the tunnels. Jack and the others had to eat cold MREs in the prisoner tent because the greenie slaves said the heaters could be used to create bombs and so withheld any means to heat the MREs. Jack was especially upset because he gave his roast beef MRE to Mabel and ate her hotdog MRE."

What the fuck! How in the hell does she know all this? I confront and deliver an timely ultimatum, "Destiny, you need to tell me how the fuck you know all this information immediately! Otherwise, I'm kicking you the hell out of this bunker and you will be on your own!"

Destiny smiles and assures me, "Ben, when the hell will you believe me? As I have told you before I am a shaman and I see what other's see and feel what they feel. By the way, your flashbangs worked on the first Chinook Mike tried to take. Your surprise scared, as you would say, 'the hell out of him' and he broke his last wheelchair escaping from the helicopter when he felt it was going to explode. However, they found the flashbangs in the other Chinooks and Mike is now heading back to his hotel in Denver in one of those Chinooks."

I begin to prepare our MREs and swear, "Son of a bitch, I should have known they would have found the other flashbangs - I hate wasting ordinance on faulty planning."

Destiny one again tries to calm me, "Ben, don't worry. They haven't found your 'bear traps' yet."

That comment makes me feel better because those are going to temporarily take troops out of the patrols.

I hand Destiny her 'improved' Thai chicken and she questions, "Ben, I sense you have plans for the little tabasco bottles you saved?"

I smile and explain, "I learned a little trick in Iraq with these bottles that I don't think the greenies have learned. But first I need to give the greenies some music to listen to tonight."

Destiny smiles and confirms my feelings, "Yes, music can be a powerful psychological weapon."

I continue, "Then this song should really fix their asses..."

I hook up my music player to my comm station, which happens to have all the security keys for their comm stations, fire it up, lean back and comment, "Well I don't know about you, but I need to get some sleep to get ready for tomorrow night's missions."

Destiny asks, "Which song are you playing for them."

I laugh, "It's by Wednesday 13 and it called Bad Things Happen to you¹."

¹ Only listen if you can handle metal music - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgFLiQiwIwI