Chapter 84A

Flashback - Ben - About a month later on his Chechen mission

I've had a hell of a good month so I suppose I should fill you in on most of it. Let's see where did I leave off ... Yes, I remember! Before I left on my mission, Oksana came into my room at their house and once again offered me sex but because of my loyalty to the liar Tatiana I refused. We then had a long discussion and I shockingly discovered that she was working as a prostitute to pay for the upkeep of the house. I didn't like this one bit! She was too wonderful a girl to be forced to humiliate herself in that manner. So I fixed it. After I left I called Yuri and had him create a 'new special retirement' annuity for Oleg that would more than cover any repairs to the house - hell I even had Yuri configure it so Oksana would continue to receive the money after Oleg's impending demise. Yuri asked me why I was doing this so I pulled rank on him and told him Captains don't have to tell Sergeants jack shit and hung up the phone.

Ah Oleg. He did a hell of a great job on the PTRD trigger and even helped me sight it in. It was a hell of a rifle and I never did push the maximum range of the 14.5 round. But I did shoot rings around Oleg's sight in shots.

The information Yuri gave me on location of the Chechen bastards was spot on, plus he kept updating the locations when I would call him which was almost daily.

But most importantly my mission was going great. I had successfully eliminated all the Chechen bastards in this direction from Moscow with the PTRD being an integral part of the mission - it was great to reach out and 'touch' them from a couple thousand meters away. Now it was time to head back in the opposite direction and take care of the Chechen bastards that were there. But first I decided to stop back by the village and see how Oleg, Oksana and the rest of my friends were doing. The real reason for the visit was that I was tired of eating the excellent officer rations and had finished off the entire case of homemade vodka Oleg gave me (hey, it was used medicinally so don't give me shit), so I looked forward to a refill of the vodka and one of Oksana's great home cooked meals. I pulled up in front of their house, stopped my козел, opened the door, began to step out when a very excited Oksana ran out of the house. She flashed me a million dollar smile and said, "Comrade Captain, you have returned!"

I stretched my sore as hell back, smiled back at Oksana and answered, "Of course I did. I told you I would when I left. How are you and Oleg?"

I saw a few tears in her eyes when she answered, "Comrade Captain, I am sorry to report Прадед passed a week after you left."

I shook my head and silently cursed myself for not leaving them my mobile phone number and replied, "Damn, I wish I could have been here for the funeral."

Oksana amazingly smiled, wiped away the tears and answered, "But Comrade Captain, you gave my Прадед a better gift. You allowed him to help you with the PTRD. He was so happy the whole week that all he talked about was you and we prayed every night for you and your mission."

I replied, "Well your prayers were answered because my mission so far has been picture perfect."

Oksana then asked, "Comrade Captain, was it you who found the extra retirement money for Прадед?"

I gave her my best I don't know what the hell you're talking about look and lied, "Oksana, I have no idea what you are talking about."

She glared at me, defiantly put her hands on her hips and declared, "Comrade Captain, you are a terrible liar!" Then she blushed and continued, "Because of the extra money, which even continues after my Прадед has passed, I no longer have to work at my previous occupation as I had to before."

I held up both hands in submission and said, "Oksana, you're right that I made some calls. So what are your plans now that Oleg has passed, are you going to head back to Moscow?"

She blushed again and immediately answered, "No Comrade Captain, Прадед was right. This is a wonderful place to live and thanks to you I will never have to go back to that rat race in Moscow. In fact Comrade Captain, I should scold you for not being more observant."

She held out her right hand (wedding and engagement rings are worn on the right hand in Russia) and I observed a moderately sized engagement ring. I smiled and confessed, "You are correct, I didn't notice your engagement ring, congratulations! Who is the lucky man?"

She enthusiastically answered, "He is my old childhood friend. I hadn't seen him since I came back until one day he showed up after Прадед passed and told me he'd always wanted to work in the quarry."

I continued my interrogation, "Well, what's his name and can I meet him before I leave?"

Oksana giggled like a little girl and replied, "His name is Ivan Gregoravich and if you will stay for dinner tonight, you can meet him."

I rubbed my hands together in anticipation and said, " I would love a home cooked meal tonight and to meet your fiancé. Now if I could use your spare room and shower I would appreciate it."

She giggled and answered, "Of course Comrade Captain, you very much need a shower and would you like for me to wash your uniform while you shower?"

I sniffed my uniform and asked, "Is it that bad?"

She plugged her noise, giggled and answered, "Yes very much so. Just leave it outside the bathroom and I will take care of washing it."

I blushed a little as I asked, "Oksana, I hate to impose but could you also wash my other uniforms, socks and underwear?"

She faked embarrassment and answered, "Comrade Captain, we hardly know each other! However you are like the older brother I never had so I will do it just this one time."

She sure as hell didn't know what she was getting herself into because I had almost a month worth of dirty clothes to wash. I did my best to wash them in between killing the Chechens and tried to dry them in the back of the козел, but it sure as hell wasn't the 'clean' I liked.

I grabbed my huge dirty clothes bag, my necessary bag and my dress uniform while Oksana took my arm as we headed into the house. She looked at the huge dirty clothes bag, her eyes about bulged out of her head and she asked, "Are those all your dirty clothes?"

I laughed and answered, "Nope, the clothes I have on are dirty too."

I saw a twinkle in her eye which let me know her complaint was really a tease and she said, "Comrade Captain, how long do you plan on staying? It will take me all night to wash that many clothes!"

I laughed and answered, "Hey, you're the one who offered to wash my dirty clothes. If it's too difficult for you, let me know where your machine is and I will gladly wash them all at once."

I knew that would 'get her goat' and she seriously complained, "There is no way I'm going to let you close to my washing machine! You would probably try to wash everything at once and break it."

Being with her was different this time because she was different. Gone was the sexual tension and constant worry about her wanting to rope me into having sex. Yeah, it did feel more like she was my little sister not a ... Well, it's not nice to call little sisters those names even if that's what they used to do.

I luxuriated in the hot shower, scrubbed the hell out of myself when I heard a knock at the door and Oksana asked, "Comrade Captain, perhaps you would like a баня¹ after dinner?"

¹ баня – banya – Russian steam room

Hells bells - that would be great because I loved баняs! I yelled back, "Do fish swim, do birds fly?"

Oksana questioned, "Comrade Captain, I do not understand your sayings."

Shit, I forgot those sayings aren't Russian but I fixed the mistake when I replied, "Oksana, that would be wonderful, however if you are coming I don't have a swimsuit."

She giggled and answered, "Comrade Captain, of course I will come and do not worry, we have extra swimming suits."

Because of the impending баня I cut my shower short (I knew I would need another shower after I sweat my ass off in the баня), dressed in my last pair of clean underwear and started to get into my dress uniform (it was the only damn uniform I had which was still clean) and swore some when it didn't fit me right. Hell, even though I had been eating most of the officer's rations each day, I had lost some weight and this bothered the hell out of me...

Flashback – Tatiana – About a month later in Moscow

I had hoped that during the week I had off work to find Ben, we would easily find him. However that was not be. At first I was depressed because we didn't find him, but now it is three weeks later and the team, even with a different leader, still could not find him.

I was back at work, but work was not the same because instead of being Ben's personal nurse I was back to being a normal floor nurse – and it was worse than before because the other nurses resented me and I was given the worst patients.

It made me realize two things: First how lucky I was when I was Ben's personal nurse and second how much I loved and missed him.

I almost forgot to mention with my preoccupation about Ben, Jack and Masha's wedding was next week...

Flashback – Masha – about a month later at Masha's flat

What an exciting month this had been! So many things have happened that it is hard to remember all of them. First, Tatiana finally remembered the details about the car so my team was able to find one that was for sale and arranged, with the aid of some extra rubles for the driver to 'aid his memory', to purchase the vehicle. Jack and I went to his flat and I was very impressed with Jack's negotiating skills. Even though he couldn't speak Russian and the man selling us the car couldn't speak English – we were able to purchase the car for five thousand dollars. Jack was so proud that he bragged about his negotiating skills all the way back to the storage garage the team had found for the car. Of course during the trip to the storage garage we had to fight the typical Moscow traffic jam and Jack now understood why I didn't drive 'my car'.

Jack still trained daily with the Spetsnaz but had adapted well to the intense training and had lost all the weight he had gained and even more! When he tried on his blue uniform for our wedding (he looked so very handsome in it!) it was actually too large so we took it to a tailor for alterations. I of course got up in the mornings to make him breakfast and kiss him goodbye. And thank God he wasn't so tired anymore at night and we started having fun again.

Ah the Major! Needless to say my plan was working perfectly and he was in major trouble.

But the most important and incredible thing was: I was marrying Jack next week! Even though I was angry at Ben for going AWOL, unbeknownst to Jack or myself, he left an almost obscene amount of money with Tatiana for our wedding. In secret she had planned the difficult parts like the location and reception hall while she was off work for the one week she searched for Ben. Then she finally included me and we had fine-tuned the plan for the last three weeks. With Ben's lavish gift we would have one of the finest weddings in Moscow – the only thing that spoiled it was Ben would not be here to be Jack's best man.

Flashback – Jack – about a month later training with the Spetsnaz

Hells Bells, for the first week of taking Banzai's place on the Spetsnaz team, I didn't know if I would survive! And if I did survive, I was going to figure out some way to kick Banzai's ass if I ever saw him again. But now I actually looked forward to the days, other than all the fucking running we did. The only thing that made running bearable were the Moscow citizens: They still stopped, made a path for us through the crowds, clapped and cheered and gave us gifts as we passed.

I could tell I had finally gained the respect of my Spetsnaz team, however I still couldn't get any information about Banzai from them - much to the dismay of Masha and especially Tatiana. Speaking of Ben and Tatiana, Ben had left a shitload of money for Masha and my wedding and Tatiana had taken care of all the hard parts of planning a wedding (according to my Masha). Tatiana was interminably sad because Ben was missing and I felt guilty for giving her the shit I did and for my bad feelings toward her. Shit! I was getting married next week and looked forward to using the extra money Ben left for the car (I was able to get the damn car back for the same price Masha sold it to the man) to take us on a great honeymoon. With Yuri's help, we found this nice resort in Sochi where it was supposed to be warm.

And thank God Masha's plan for the Major was working perfectly and that I was too busy with the Spetsnaz training for him to give me any shit...

Flashback – Major M – about a month later at the hospital

Son of a bitch! Other than my nights with Victoria, this month was almost as bad as my time in Thule with the boney bitch and I was even beginning to have problems with the nights with Victoria. I arrived later than hell at the hospital my second day in Moscow because Victoria and I had an ungodly amount of sex and a fucking Russian Colonel had been waiting for me all day. He reamed me up one side and down the other and directly blamed me for Sergeant Blaine going AWOL. I began to complain then he pulled out several reports from Sergeant Blaine's file. The papers from his psychologists attested to the fact that he went AWOL primarily because of my return to Moscow. I tried to defend myself to no avail and now the fucking shrinks were on my ass to discover what I did to cause a former 'model soldier' and 'fucking hero of fucking Russia' to go AWOL.

They subjected me to fucking batteries of tests to determine if I was 'unsuitable for command'. And the fuckers wouldn't even tell me how I was doing.

The only good thing that happened was the impending wedding between Sergeant Reynolds and his bitch had distracted the Old Man and I had been able to keep the news of Sergeant Blaine going AWOL from him.

Ah yes, I was shocked by another kind of reality! I was having problems getting it up at night for Victoria. This had never happened before and if I was in America I would have gone to a doctor for some of the 'little blue pills' but there was no way in hell I was going to a doctor here about that. I was sure somehow that would end up on my permanent medical information.

Now I had another meeting with Sergeant Blaine's fucking psychologists for more fucking tests. Things were not looking good for me...

Flashback – Glen – About a month later at the home

For a month that started out FUBAR, it had ended up to be somewhere between okay and good. When we talked last time, Jennifer had been committed to the psychiatric ward of the hospital for 'self-injuring' her back. The JA and I got to the hospital, we went in to comfort Jennifer and she told us exactly what happened. We then checked her chart and it told a completely different story. The long and short of it: After the JA did some investigation he discovered a group of nurses and several doctors (including the fucking shrink who committed Jennifer) were addicted to pain medication and were stealing doses from the patients. They would either change the times they were supposed to give the medications or only give the patients half a dose and take or save the other dose for themselves. The JA informed me that this was a common problem in the medical community and instead of sending them all to Thule or locking them up, they were relieved of duty and placed in a drug rehabilitation program. Jennifer's chart was expunged and she was released back to her original floor.

Jennifer healed enough to be released from the hospital and went home with the bitch nurse Katie – a condition which Katie was regretting each and every day. When Jennifer wasn't in school, she was either practicing her ballet or making Katie's life a living hell. After one week Katie called me and told me Jennifer could come home (I thought it sounded a little like begging), but Jennifer was so stubborn she refused to come home and continued to inflict hell upon Katie – Ha! The bitch deserved it as far as I was concerned! Hell, I was trying to figure out a way to make people live with the bitchy Jennifer instead of sending them to Thule.

I put the fear of me into Robert and his parents and so far he had behaved himself. Of course the 'thing' I bought Jennifer helped to make sure of that. I will let her tell you about what it was because with all the women out of my house, it was time for a large pizza, several beers and a couple of shots...

Flashback – Jennifer – about a month later at the ballet school

I began to put on my tights for practice, almost got them on and shoot! I forgot something again! I took them back off, put on the athletic cup that Daddy got me, made sure it was in the right place so that Ro-fricken-bear couldn't touch my privates (like Daddy explained to me) then began to put my tights back on. My back began to hurt again from all the movement so I looked at the bottle of pills in my ballet bag and decided that one more today shouldn't be a problem. I took one with a sip of water from my bottle.

I still remembered the first time Ro-fricken-bear performed a bicycle lift on me, his hand encountered the cup and he was so surprised he dropped me (the first of many times!) and then complained to Olga about it. Olga came over, felt my crotch without asking (which I didn't care for) and complained. But I held my ground and told her if she wanted a bicycle lift in this Swan Lake, I was going to wear the athletic cup. Of course Olga called in Katie and Katie tried, in her bovine excrement ways, to convince me to give in so I retaliated by staging a hunger and no-ballet strike. It took a whole week, in which I still practiced in the privacy of my own room, (I guess I forgot to mention I made my room at Katie's house off limits to her by putting hasps and locks on the inside and outside of the doors). OMG I also forgot to mention I took all my meals to my room, ate them there and left the plates. When I was finished with this room it was going to be a toxic waste dump!

Katie tried to wiggle out of the agreement for me staying at her house after one week, but I was having too much fun and I refused to cancel the agreement!

Let's see what else had I done in Katie's house? Well, I hacked into her computer and downloaded a bunch of really gross lesbian porn to it; I got ahold of her credit card numbers and had been subscribing to all the lezzy magazines that I could; I even ordered gross sex toys delivered to her house. I then bought myself a great new laptop and had it delivered here. I used torrent clients to download and serve as many files as I could until her ISP threw a huge fit and threatened to shut down her connection. So I found a neighbor's open WIFI connection and piggybacked her computer on that while it still served the torrents. Now it gave me back all the bandwidth the torrents had sucked so I had better access. Ah I almost forgot, I signed her up for quite a few dating sites with profiles that stated she just wanted to have sex with men so she was getting emails and phone calls at all hours of the day. And when I wasn't in my room, I was in the bathroom running all the hot water faucets so she never had hot water. There were bunches of other little things - Oh gee, I got sidetracked and since I was telling you about Swan-fricken-Lake, let me get back to that.

I kept my royal Prima Bitcherina attitude the whole time, was insulting, condescending and a RPITR like I told Daddy I would be. Because of the lost week of practice, Ro-fricken-bear did worse than ever. And it didn't help that every time he tried to do a lift on me, I didn't help so he had to do all the work. You do know that ballerinas help on the lifts didn't you? Ro-fricken-bear tried to do a bicycle lift on me again and I moved a little to throw off his balance. He couldn't hold the lift, I fell on top of him making sure to elbow the heck out of his side and complained, "Olga, how in the heck am I supposed to dance when he is so incompetent?"

Ro-fricken-bear couldn't talk because I knocked the wind out of him and Olga came over and scolded him, "Robert, you need to go to the gym more and lift weights. Jennifer is not a very large girl and yet you still can't lift her correctly."

Katie added her uninvited opinion, "Olga, I feel that Robert is having problems with the lift because of Jennifer's insistence in wearing the athletic cup."

I glared at Katie, stood up and bitched, "That is it! I am finished dancing for today!"

Olga complained, "But Jennifer, you need the practice if we are going to have the performance."

I smiled at Olga, glared at Katie and answered, "Olga, you know that I can dance my parts perfectly, I am not the problem! Robert's continued incompetence is the problem. Until he can demonstrate a successful bicycle lift with Peggy, I refuse to continue to let him try on me. He drops me every time and one of these times when he drops me I will be injured and then I won't be able to dance." I chose Peggy because she was a huge, fat, dancer and even if she helped I doubted that Ro-fricken-bear could hold her up on a bicycle lift.

Olga tried to reason with me but I sat down on the floor and pretended to cry. Katie came over to comfort me, she hugged me and I exploded, "Get your lesbian hands off of me or I will call the police."

She jumped away from me, she and Olga exchanged glances and Olga called, "Peggy, come over here and let Robert practice the bicycle lift with you."

Peggy walked toward center stage; when she got close to me she knelt down, hugged me and whispered, "Thank you Jennifer, I can't wait for Robert to touch me there."

Her comment practically made me throw up...

Flashback – Alexi – about a month later at the laboratory

This has been an exciting month for me. My 'parents' took me into the laboratory the next day where I told the psychiatrist about my mother hitting me with the rolled up magazine. 'Mother' tried to tell him I was acting like a dog so she disciplined me like a dog. In response I gave him my best I couldn't believe what she said look and denounced everything. He believed me and pulled me out of my 'parents' house.

At first I was worried about how I would live, but things worked out great. I had my own room, had excellent food, and had the run of the laboratory all day and night.

My 'parents' stopped by every day to see how I was doing, but since I was in the laboratory and had more than I could ever want I stopped acting like a dog. So while the psychologist, allowed my parents to visit, he made it certain that I would stay at the laboratory for the time being.

My 'parents' did bring in my clothes and the cryptex which I was now free to work on unencumbered...

Flashback – Safia – about a month later flying to Japan

I successfully destroyed the old Mossad building like the twins wanted me to even though I didn't understand it. I was thankful the building was empty so the destruction didn't kill anyone. The twins weren't so lucky and didn't really care - they destroyed the new Mossad headquarters which was filled with agents who died. I now had a deeper understanding of the twins and I was not sure I liked what I discovered.

However with the deaths of the Mossad agents, things got really hot in Israel so we were on a private flight to Japan, thanks to Akhmed. I was looking forward to my new life however I was still worried about the twins and how they so easily killed all those agents...

Flashback – Todd – about a month later on the island

I had argued with Liu until I was blue in the face about leaving the island and having our baby someplace safe. She would have nothing to do with it and the harder I argued, the harder she fought against me. I even moved out of the cave and into one of the buildings which I cleaned up.

Lin still stopped by every day and we worked on my ASL and JSL plus she gave me updates on Liu.

After we made love, she held my hand and said, "Todd, do not worry, I should be able to deliver Liu's baby."

I signed, "What if there are problems?"

She smiled at me and said, "Todd, we will need to pray there are no problems."

This was not the answer I wanted! There had to be a way to take Liu off the island and I needed to find it...

Home 2 Chapter 084B

Copyright 2014 Banzai Ben and Amazing Anastasia

Flashback - Ben – About another two months later, the end of his Chechen mission and the return to Moscow

I loved it when a mission went mostly right but I wish like hell it would have gone totally right. I killed almost all the fuckers other than the most important 'ringleaders'. As much as I hate to admit it they were smart as hell and once they found out all the other fuckers that helped with Beslan were dead, they headed back to their Godforsaken country and went into hiding. Oh, I could have gone in after them, but I was running low on supplies. Hell, it was my own fault since I knew I should have resupplied when I was in Moscow but I needed to get the hell out of there as fast as possible.

Shit that reminded me. I told you how the mission was going, but I didn't tell you about anything else that happened for the past two months. Let's see, I left off on my trip to Oksana's house. Her fiancé Ivan Gregoravich showed up close to dinner time. He was tall, easily over 6 feet, and looked like a fucking body builder. I discretely remarked about that during our time in the баня (I said discretely because I didn't want him to get the idea I was a homo) and Oksana laughed like crazy and informed me that he looked like a string bean until he started working at the quarry with Sergei. I was concerned at first that Ivan Gregoravich might have been after the annuity I had setup for Oksana, but he ended up being a great guy and really loved Oksana. Hell, he even helped her with the dishes after dinner like I had done on my earlier visit (this is almost unheard of for a Russian male).

She asked me what I thought of him and I told her she had 'С милым рай и в шалаше' (love in a cottage) and not to mess it up. After the баня, Ivan Gregoravich and I took a walk: I put the fear of God (and perhaps even more the fear of Ben) in him about ever hurting Oksana and he assured me he loved her with his whole heart and felt lucky to have her as a fiancée. As I left I felt good about the whole situation — no more than that, I wished someday to have a situation like this of my own.

Ivan Gregoravich took over the still from Oleg and continued to make vodka. He gave me a case of it and while it was good, it wasn't as good as Oleg's.

Let's see what else did I forget? Ah, this one will surprise the hell out of all of you because I know it surprised the hell out of everyone else. Since I was headed the other direction from Moscow, it only made sense for me to make a surprise appearance at Jack and Masha's wedding to be the best man. Yeah, Yuri had the Spetsnaz team sneak me into the church. The look on Tatiana's face was priceless when I walked up beside her in the back of the church to escort her up to the front wearing my dress blues. She cried the whole time and tried to talk to me but I shushed her and told her the wedding was more important. And what a fucking wedding it was, I had never seen better! Jack looked better than I remembered in a very long time. I guess Yuri and the Spetsnaz training was good for him. I found out about the plan that Masha devised to keep me (and Jack) out of trouble with the brass. Major M was there and I made sure to glare at him every time I looked at him. As soon as the wedding finished, the Spetsnaz team ran interference and I hightailed it out of there before I was captured and unfortunately (as I mentioned earlier) didn't resupply because I didn't have time.

I continued to lose weight, even though I ate like a fucking horse. My strength was better than ever, my legs worked fine and I could run, again albeit a little slower than before, but most of the time my back hurt like a son of a bitch.

I killed all the fuckers in the other direction from Moscow, other than the ringleaders who I mentioned earlier. Now it was time to head back to Moscow and see how much trouble I was in. I set up a meeting with Yuri and the Spetsnaz team so Yuri, the team and Jack met me on the outskirts of Moscow in the early morning.

Jack grinned at me (and I knew something was up), gave me a hell of a hug, stepped back and I couldn't believe it when the old fart tried a leg sweep on me. I blocked it and demanded, "Jack, what the hell was that for? And you're still too slow to catch me with my guard down."

Jack continued with the grin and answered, "Banzai, that was for you taking the hell off and not telling me about it. I was trying to kick your ass."

I laughed and taunted, "Jack, you may have trained with the Spetsnaz for the last three months but you're still no match for me. However I'm your Huckleberry if you want to give it another try."

Yuri distracted me when he came up and ordered, "Ben, we need all your uniforms and whatever equipment you have left."