Putting lives back together after the battle.
In 16 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ►Podcast at Connected.
Either you embrace Change and are destroyed by it, or you resist Change and are overwhelmed by it. What is your choice?
(The Politics of 'Not' Being Dead)
The rest of the trip was made in silence. They dropped us off at the edge of Miercurea Ciuc, home base of the 61st Mountain Troops Brigade, of Professor Loma and from whence all this craziness had originated. The meeting was already awkward before I arrived. It only got worse. Where to begin? Well, Russia, the United States, the UK, Romania, Hungary and Ireland were now all interested parties. And I had gained two personal distinctions:
1.) Not only was I now heralded (and not really joking anymore) by some sources as Magyarorszag es Erdely Hercege, I was thereby re-awakening old nationalistic and territorial fears. Hungary didn't want a Prince, yet they did have an anemic Monarchist party. I might not be a Hapsburg (the last royal house of Hungary), but I could possibly be misconstrued as a long-lost Árpád scion (first King and founder of the Hungarian state), which would be even better.
A crisis was looming in my ancestral crucible. It seems I already had a webpage in Budapest and six hundred "friends" within 24 hours. Worse, they had some pictures of me. Besides being 'of regal bearing' in the descriptions, I was sexy-hot and a soldier of fortune, a modern day 'Wild Geese, (Goose?)' who was wanted for questioning in a, or perhaps multiple, murder(s) involving either a duel over a woman's honor or killing a dozen armed gangsters who prayed on young innocents newly arrived to the big city.
I wasn't alone. My trusty companion was A.) an ascetic Jedi Mistress (my own, personal Yoda), B.) an ancient witch schooled in the necromantic arts (apparently the reason I couldn't die), or C.) a Cold-War Era SMERSH (too much James Bond) assassin repaying an old debt to the descendent of an anti-communist partisan she'd killed years ago, eerily close to the truth for once. That, plus the TEK investigation, were Hungary's main points of concern involving me.
2.) I was now a person involved in significant events for half a dozen nations on the world scene.
Let's start with Romania. Okay, foremost, I was responsible for the single deadliest day in modern (post-WWII) Romanian Land Forces history. There was no covering this up. Close to one hundred men and women had died in combat, and then you added the forty-some dead Amazons, many of them apparently tortured, and this was a political and public relations nightmare.
No one doubted their troops behaved heroically. That wasn't the problem. The political conundrum was how could they explain Ajax and his fifty seasoned killers penetrating into central Romania with no one being aware of the danger? A few politicians wanted to blame Székely nationalists (by that, they meant the ethnic minority who 'vaguely' wanted Transylvania to rejoin Hungary), except they had me, the Hungarian Prince, leading the charge.
Life would have been so much easier for them if I had died. Yes, I could read the minds of those politicians. Screw a girl, then her younger sister, and then his wife, who all say they love me, and you'll recognized the emotional intent a father directs your way. (I'd only done that once, and once was enough.) I was getting that vibe again.
Unfortunately for them, I wasn't dead and three big time foreign governments (and Ireland) seemed really curious about me, my performance and my mortality. So dragging me out back for a firing squad wasn't going to happen. Riki Martin of the US State Department was there and she told me a representative of the US Military Mission was on his way up to debrief me. Russia's sexy military attaché was still on site and looking happy for some reason. Flaviu, who had some experience with me, was soon to be gone; replaced by some person who had some serious lettuce before his actual name and didn't know me from didly. Not good.
The UK had one of their diplomats coming up as well, just so I didn't get lonely. They weren't driving up with the Irishman, or the American. No one considers their carbon footprint in a crisis, I swear. But wait! It gets better. My Romanian Special Force dudes had brought the rest of their company (around a hundred new buddies) with them, they seriously didn't want me to get homesick and wander off (because, you know, I liked living and freedom).
The Romanian army shouldn't have worried. It seemed that there were some US Army Rangers with NATO in Kosovo, Albania, or Bosnia and Uncle Sam was expressing a desire for them to 'stop by'. Maybe they could share their C-130 with the British paratroopers who were equally concerned about my well-being. I just hoped everyone was going to play nice when the Spetsnaz arrived. Putin was suddenly (and surprisingly to me, anyway) my new pal. I had a feeling I'd soon be discovering my secret Russian heritage if I wasn't careful. I was thinking maybe I could squeeze an Order of Lenin, or a Hero of the Soviet Union out of him. I heard they both looked nice, were obsolete and came without an actual pension.
If Katrina wouldn't let me write off this calamity as PTO, I was going to be irate. I was on the verge of having a large family to support after all, unless you considered me marrying a billionaire's heiress to be compensation enough. The only group involved who weren't trying to actually see me was the Khanate.
Temujin most likely had some shamanistic mojo that would let him know if I croaked. That bit smacked of paganism, so it was kept under wraps because he had to appear dutifully Islamic for the masses. Still, some koumiss would have been nice. Heck, right then I could have gone for an 'atta boy', perhaps even a 'two thumbs up'.
Oh yeah; the general of the 4th Romanian Division wanted me to stop by when I had the chance (if I didn't, he'd send men to kill me, or so it was insinuated). The 61st Mountain Troops was part of his division's combat command and if the General Staff went looking for someone to crucify, he was making damn sure it wasn't going to be him.
It occurred to me that I could send a handsome-looking Spetsnaz (if there was such a thing) to go in my place. They were brother Slavs, right? I was sure that between the 'Fall of the Berlin Wall', Moldavian Independence and Romania joining NATO, they would have much to discuss. Out of the blue, Pamela smacked me on the back of my head, Jethro Gibbs' style. My 'more-evil Russian doppelganger' idea must have been poorly thought out.
Before I could implement that silliness, or trigger the big brouhaha, there was a preamble: I had three compatriots. Of greater importance, I had three heavily armed/gravely-serious bodyguards who wouldn't surrender their weapons and/or abandon me. So I thought "play nice" thoughts to myself.
Diplomacy, sovereignty and legality all reared their ugly heads. I wasn't really an Irish diplomat. My paperwork was still valid, but the Romanian government hadn't permitted my entry into their country under the standard diplomatic protocols. Ireland wanted to talk to me about that, why was I running around armed and killing people in two Central European countries? I was acting more like an Irish adventurer from the 17th century, than a genteel civil servant from the 21st.
Then there was the niggling little complication that involved me, my friends and our criminal possession of military-grade hardware. Chaz had the dubious excuse of being an official British government agent on assignment. That meant he could hope for a prisoner exchange within the next decade. Rachel and Pamela were private citizens with painfully sketchy proofs of US citizenship.
When the Romanian legal system finished buggering them, it would be off to Hungry and its serious inquiry into all the dead bodies we'd left in our wake. Who was I kidding? What I was really worrying about was how many members of the Romanian penal system would die when they escaped. Their flimsy identities gave no clue to how dangerous they actually were. Hell, they'd beat me home.
I had the added difficulty of Ireland and their questions about who the fuck I was and why I had their gold filigree on something I didn't deserve sitting snugly in my back pocket.
So first off, this new band of 'Eagles' wanted to disarm and separate us.
"Don't insult me," I scoffed. "I am your Prince. Don't make me explain it to your widow."
"I'm not married," the Lieutenant snarled back, daring me.
"Well, rush out and marry somebody. I haven't got all day. We don't want me to be caught in an idle boast now do we?" I grinned. Verbal sparring apparently wasn't in his repertoire.
"What?"
"Shut the fuck up, Carl," Chaz blithely inserted himself into the conversation.
"But you don't even speak Romanian," I countered. "How do you even know what I said?" The Romanians didn't know English, but they knew Carl. The tension between us ebbed.
"By the expression on the officer's face, Hercege," he winked. "It's universal to the brotherhood."
"Who is he with?" The officer questioned me.
"You and he are the same," I answered.
"You cannot go any farther armed," he returned to his mission parameters.
"I don't envy you going in and telling the Colonel to come out here, but so be it," I held my ground.
"We could kill you and take them off your corpses," he studied my reaction.
"You are the second handsome man to tell me that today," I shook my head. "I'll tell you what I told him: 'you sure are cute, just not my type'." Pause then laughter.
"You are a madman," the lieutenant snorted. "I'll go talk to the Colonel."
I was a jerk, loved maidens and was a master of bullshit. Did that make me a modern day Minotaur? The lieutenant came back out, then ushered me inside; Riki had to wait for the moment. He motioned my team come along. In the staff room of the 61st were a handful of officers and several suits.
"Mr. Nyilas," the Colonel gazed upon me. "I don't know what to make of you."
"You and my Mother both," I mumbled. Despite the somber atmosphere, a few of the men and women let their moods lighten. They didn't hold my levity against me. I'd been there, on the battlefield and if humor was how I dealt with the experience, so be it.
"Ha," the greying man mused. "It is wholly my fault that I disregard most of the information you supplied my staff. You were unerringly accurate in your assessment of our enemy's capabilities. I know my men and I know how good they are. Veteran commanders can barely describe what my troops endured. You warned us and I didn't believe you. I was wrong and my men died because of it," he sighed.
"Sir, I do not believe you could have done anything else and succeeded," I interrupted.
"Succeeded? Is this what you consider success?" he hardened.
"Absolutely, Sir. Had you been slower to respond, those men would have most likely come here, to Miercurea Ciuc, and you would have fought the same battle, except your civilians would have been caught in the mix," I lied.
If Ajax had escaped he'd have hunted me down. The location would have been irrelevant to him. How he knew where to be was a question for later and something to be presented to smarter, more experienced minds.
"Perhaps," he allowed. "They were heading north when we encountered them.
The Alal in me was going back over the plan. It had been sound.
"Sir, you had every reason to doubt my military experience and to believe I exaggerated the threat. I was right and I take no joy in that, nor do I think anyone can hold your decisions against you," I stated.
Now he gave a bitter laugh. Yes, they could hold all the deaths against him.
"We both know your men and women didn't die for their country, they killed for it. Quite frankly, I believe they killed some of the most vicious creatures to ever walk the face of the Earth. Fuck them for taking so many of us. Pile their bodies up and burn them," I suggested.
"They deserve no more Romanian soil than a spot to inter their ashes," I concluded.
"You do not sound like any diplomat I've ever met," the Colonel regained his gruff exterior.
"I'm not. I'm a fraud. I know as much about Ireland as I do about being a prince," I confessed. "That said, I didn't come here to kill anyone. I came to save lives."
"How has that worked out for you?" a sitting woman in a suit questioned, in Romanian. She was slender, waspish and didn't sound comfortable speaking English, though she knew enough to get by.
"I am not a fortune-teller. I don't know how this is going to work out," I said.
"That's not what I asked," she prodded.
"Yes it was," I corrected her. "You wanted to know if I thought the price of your dead countrymen was worth the life of me, my friends and the lives of your countrymen I came to save. I can't measure the promise of those lives against the loss of all the dead. Don't play games with me. I'm have a degree in Philosophy and I eat morally ambiguous people like you for lunch."
Pamela laughed aloud and lively.
"Kimberly and Katrina would be so proud of you right now," she chortled.
"I don't think you grasp the deep pit your find yourself in, Friend" the suit stayed chillingly calm.
"Oh, I think we all know we both screwed the pooch big time," I smirked. "The difference is me and mine are all happy to be alive after two of the most trying, fun-filled days of our lives. You want to throw us in prison. The Hungarians want to throw us in prison. I'm sure if I get back to the States, they will want to put us in prison too. Have I missed anyone?"
"I'm glad you will confess. It will make it easier on us," she grinned like sexy weasel.
"Wait," Rachel put a restraining arm on me. "I've wanted to say this for some time." To the weasel, "Blow it out your ass, dipshit."
"Rachel, you don't know what she said," Pamela faux-gasped.
"I don't know the words, but I know what he meant," Rachel glowered. She missed Charlotte so much, she was willing to court pain and death. "I want to go back in time and slap her mother repeatedly for not strangling her in the crib. Is that succinct enough?"
"I apologize for ever meeting you, Rachel. I've brought you to a bad end," I gave her a tender look.
"It's okay. I never thought I'd live long enough to sleep with you anyway," she smiled back.
Phifft, sigh. It was so sad that I recognized the sound of a low-caliber, silenced round.
"Listen up, dipshit," Pamela snickered. "Good one, Rachel. If you don't believe the next one is going through your skull, you clearly haven't been listening to us. You are fucking with the wrong monkeys. You have this bizarre idea that if I kill you, your government won't replace your worthless, bullet-riddled hide with someone we find more agreeable. My grandson sent in motion a half million combatants a few hours ago, he nearly died leading your soldiers against your nation's enemies and you want him to kiss your shoes as if you matter at all in the grand scheme of things?" she snarled. "Think again."
No one was moving because Pamela had her silenced .22 Beretta out and pointed at Weasel's head. The SF's were caught flat-footed, as was everyone else. No guards came rushing in because the closed doors further muffled the sound. "I think this is a good time for us to get a drink," Chaz advised as he slowly reached out and lowered Pamela's gun hand.
It was Pamela's gunboat diplomacy yet again. She hadn't meant to kill the women. Hell, she'd been a random target of opportunity. What Pamela had done was clear up the doubts in the room. Everyone on the staff could self-consciously let themselves off the hook for not being in the front lines, risking themselves with their comrades. Thanks to Pamela, they too had confronted violence.
'Crazy' Grandma had fired off her piece and everyone sighed with relief when Chaz got her to lower it. I was pretty sure Chaz was in on this dangerous game. It resided with the Colonel as to how to resolve this hiccup in our dispute.
"Mr. Nyilas, why don't we take a walk outside, just the two of us?" he 'requested'.
I nodded because I'm not always as dumb as I look. He was letting my people off with incredible temperance and I could honorably send them away. They'd scoped out the scene and believed I'd be safe enough. He, in turn, had an excuse to take a step away from his political watchdogs.
"I think that is for the best," I nodded. "Do you want me to leave my guns behind?"
"No, Mr. Nyilas, we might run into trouble out there and one of my Captains has suggested you are a man who can take care of himself," he replied. That was very nice of him indeed. If I did do something stupid, he had a ton of troops about who would make my regrets rather temporary. I decided to behave as if I had a passing acquaintance with sanity.
His first questions were about the fighting at the ruins. I peppered our exchange with my interest in what had happened to the advance force of the 22nd. It was bleak news, yet the Colonel felt a sense of relief. He was coming to accept the lethality of his enemies, which in turn, led to an understanding, if not acceptance, of the carnage his men had been subjected to.
He was in a cycle of context, grief, context. He'd gambled on me and men died. Once the battle was joined though, his soldiers had done precisely the right thing under considerable stress. He could be proud without dishonoring the dead. Only Pamela and I had engaged Ajax earlier. Only I had talked with the man.
The Colonel had to look into my eyes to get the spark that led to understanding the mind and ruthlessness of his opponent. The name 'Ajax' never came up. That was more than a rational mind could accept at the moment. He knew his men had fought and killed the best and that helped him cope a tiny bit. Our interview ended when the first of the unwanted guests arrived.
Only when I walked inside did it occur to me that this had been my first soldier to soldier chat. We had respected one another and discussed matters like men who knew the score. That was depressing in its own right. It was well passed nightfall when we went back inside. In our absence, Riki had started to redeem my existence. My salvation lay in Romantic Americana Symbolism.
Translation: I was a Horatio Alger, a working class kid raised by a widower father, who earned a scholarship to a quiet New England college, graduated near the top of my class and gotten an excellent job (salary and benefits not disclosed). That was the was the first part of the Americana, proof positive that America was still the land of opportunity and a place where poor children could still reach the highest levels of society (umm, okay?).
The second Americana Part: my Father had been murdered in a case of mistaken identity. Those heavily-armed foreign corporate/rogue governmental-sponsored terrorist mercenaries (their exact origin was shrouded in double-dealing misinformation) had ruthlessly murdered my Pa to cover up their error. Like any true Son of the American Dream, I had sworn vengeance.
The Symbolic Part: My compassionate, understanding government (the good governmental servants of Republican Democracy, not the bad, hires the covert, secret, black-bag, unaccountable private contractors/ pawns of the Wall Street Elite bureaucrats) allowed me to participate in a multi-national taskforce. These selfless guardians of the freedom had formed a coalition which had hunted down the villains.
With the priceless assistance of two Central European countries, who currently had to remain nameless (cough: Hungary and Romania), we'd achieved a final, violent confrontation in which my allies and I had emerged bloody, scarred, yet victorious. Once more, free men and women had answered the call of duty and some had made the ultimate sacrifice.
See, I had a good government that cared enough about me to let me become a gun-toting menace to the civilized world. Like a Hollywood Western hero of the 1950's, 60's and 70's, I had taken personal revenge against the forces of wickedness, exit the railroad tycoons and cattle barons, enter the shadowy world of private security forces and uncontrolled corporate capitalism.
The Romantic Part: My behind-the-scenes personal protectors (Riki, Javiera and Katrina) were prepping Hana Sulkanen, my fiancé, Brooke Lee (my good female friend), Libra Chalmers (my other good female friend) and Yasmin Palhavã (my sultry Brazilian, single mother and co-worker) to subtly tell the Globe what a sweet, caring, modern, passionate, warm-hearted guy I was.
According to their presentation, I had given up my philandering lifestyle because I only had eyes for Hana. I was a handsome, sexually-successful man who was cleaning up my dark past before devoting himself to family life. The other girls were merely friends. How that didn't make me a metrosexual wasn't clear to me. Also, if anyone thought this would become my new reality, they were sorely mistaken. I was hornier than ever and I hadn't sexed up a lady since dawn.
Around midnight, the 4th Division's Commander gave up on me extracting myself from this complicated morass and sent an aide to barrage me with questions, all of which I had answered numerous time before, by the time he got there. He was also to stop me from 'sneaking away'. How me and my forty-something numbered current entourage would accomplish this? Not sure.
Note on the Cáel Geopolitical Situation:
Ireland: Here was their take on the situation, I was an O'Shea. The word 'Illuminati' was never mentioned. This guy was not 'in the know'. I was son of the O'Shea clan and despite having crossed the Atlantic, I remained an honorary member of the Irish Diaspora, a reborn Tuath Dé Danann; a wayward son to be proud of. It was that whole 'manly, vengeance, compassion/warrior-poet' deal going down. I could keep my fraudulent diplomatic ablative shielding (emphasis on the 'ablative).
The United States: The well-wishers who chastened me over yet another staring match with Death were exceeded by the numbers and majesty of those who were telling me don't do another God damn thing that makes the US look bad crowd. If I planned to do anything spontaneous, or show initiative, I had to give them fair warning first. I wasn't sure how that would work.
Somewhere along the line, I figured I'd be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom while warming a bunk at Guantanamo Bay. I could put it next my autographed picture of Vladimir Putin that I was sure I'd get for Christmas. I got it from both barrels about me being a member of a Secret Society and an obscure public figure (I now had added 1750 online friends in the last few hours and my popularity was exploding exponentially, did that make me a virus?).
I reminded each and every one of them that this was not my god damn job! I was an intern gopher, I lived in a neighborhood that qualified me for the an automatic subscription to the NRA's American Rifleman and a Life Time membership if I remained bullet-proof for a decade, and I was the victim of pent up divine female aggression. I wanted some fucking sympathy.
On the 'we still love you side', I met a really swell US Army Ranger Lieutenant from Mississippi and his 9-man squad. Except for him constantly, loudly and publically referring to the Spetsnaz as 'those Commie Bastards', we got along just fine.
In the bonus round over the telephone, I had three Very Important People, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (ASSEEA) Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs (ASSCAA) Robert O. Blake Jr., and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (ASSEAP) Daniel R. Russel, all gift me with brief words of encouragement (if 10 minutes counts as brief) plus they HAD to talk with me when I got back home (aka Washington DC, which wasn't my home).
Ass-ee!, Ass-Caa(w), Ass-Eap! Don't any of these people look at their freaking letterheads? I decided I could work with Victoria. Sure, she was a 40-something, married with two kids, but that had never stopped me before. She passed along something for me to consider as my next project; Russia, the Khanate and Georgia.
I wasn't sure how she knew Georgia Lansky and I was sure Georgia would never be up to a gang-bang on that scale. Riki 'suggested' she meant Georgia, the country, not the girl or the state. Still confused, Riki then enlightened me about Russia gobbling up two chunks of Georgia before I was an adult.
Did anyone seriously think I could convince Comrade President Putin to cough up anything he had liberated
ASSCAA Blake Jr. demanded, kinda, sorta, it was hard to pin him down on any specifics, that I give him my contact numbers to the Khanate. I refused (because I didn't want to give up the only one I had, Iskender) and he got pissy. Damn him. Temujin had made his job a hell of a lot easier by annexing half the countries in his jurisdiction. Ivy League jackalope.
ASSEAP Russel was plain pissy; no refusal on my part required. He left no doubt in my mind that our (the US's) friendship with the PRC was a MUST due to regional security and economic concerns. He seethed pure condemnation at me for turning his plan for policy integration (shrug?) in East Asia on its ear. It seemed that half a dozen diplomats from SE Asia expected him to have up-to-date information on what was going on in their backyard and to make sure they were included in whatever solution the US decided to implement. I was making him look incompetent to his so-called peers. (This level of embarrassment apparently ran contrary to his government servant turned richly paid lobbyist for Asian factions life plan.)
He was also blaming me for the birth of the Khanate and their war with China. I told him to calm down. I explained that I'd read all about him in college (a lie that fed into his ego), had come to utterly despise him for no earthly reason I could put a name to, and had set all of this in motion just to destroy his career and fuck him over. Then I hung up. Only when I saw Riki's face drain of blood did it occur to me that Riki was a 'China Expert' and thus a member of ole Russel's department. Whoops.
The United Kingdom: God praise the Queen! Somebody loved me. Maybe it was because I was screwing two of their traditional headaches, the Bear (Russia) and the Hooligans (either Manchester United, or the Irish), but they were the only ones to give me a pat on the back. I could keep my two British 'bestest' buddies in the World, plus they sent some paratroopers to stop the Rangers from engaging the Russian Killer Death Squad in any unpleasantness.
Otherwise, it was 'keep up the good work', stay alive and if I ever attempted to set foot on the British Isles, they'd blow up the Chunnel, torpedo my vessel, or blast my plane out of the sky first. I blithely inquired about a spaceship crashing to Earth. The Russians did that stuff all the time.
The polite woman from SIS/MI-6 at the other end requested I give the phone to Colour Sergeant Tomorrow (Chaz). I looked at him, then informed the kind lady that he was in the WC at the moment. I could relay a message if she liked. She told me I'd clearly gotten the message, so that would not be necessary. Delilah told me the lady was joking. Chaz didn't look convinced of that.
Hungary: Officers Gala and Kupec of the TEK showed up to talk to me (and Pamela), armed with a Judicial request for Romania to hand us over to Hungarian law enforcement (aka them), if things got nasty. It got nasty real fast.
"We told you to stay in Mindszent, you didn't. Instead, you beat up a foreign national (the German Pamela had convinced to give us his motorcycle, once she'd rendered him unconscious), stole his conveyance (his BMW, a sweet ride) and fled the country," Gala started.
"The language of our hosts, if you please," I sighed. "I made my case clear. We didn't want to die, or a repeat of the inn, so we left."
"I see, so you brought death to our neighbors instead," she taunted me. "You did a great job of getting the Romanians to do your dirty work for you. You brought this upon them."
That misinterpretation of events could have been a problem.
"Don't be stupid," I snapped. "Did I kill the forty-six women and children too?"
"I wouldn't put it past you," she glared right back. I took a deep breath. My eyes migrated to the floor. I wasn't shying away from her gaze. I was trying to not commit murder.
"I'm going to take a companion home for burial, Officer Gala. I'm never going to forget all the Romanian 'Vânători de munte' bodies lying beside her," I murmured. "Apologize, or fight, because I swear to God, in five seconds I'm going to beat that apology out of you if you don't," I promised in my native tongue.
"Lady, I'm not like him," Chaz mused smoothly while looking at Officer Kupec whose hand was migrating to her firearm. "I'll kill you without hesitation and then go eat breakfast."
"Who would you be?" she countered icily. "I'm an officer of the law and you aren't Romanian."
"Colour Sergeant Charles Tomorrow of her Majesty's SRR," he was unperturbed.
"Five," I muttered as I launched myself at Gala. Even with a warning, my speed caught her off-guard. Boxing perfection, straight to the chin. She bounced off the wall, stunned. My follow up was a body blow that drove the air out of her lungs despite her ballistic vest. Rachel and one of the Rangers snared my arms and yanked me away. Gala slumped down.
Once pulled back, I saw that Chaz had his L129A1 sighted on Kupec. Her hand hasn't even touched the butt of her pistol and I was pretty sure she knew death was an electron's pulse away.
"Son of a bitch," Gala shook her head. "You hit me," she screamed in Hungarian. The two Romanian soldiers, men of the 24th, began to react and not in Gala's favor. I relaxed so Rachel and the Ranger let go.
"I was wrong. Everyone back off. This was my fuck up. Officer Gala, despite of what you think of me, I did this. This battle was mine. Ajax followed me here, but he tortured and murdered those women for his own twisted reasons. This was part of a vendetta that goes back a long, long time. He's dead, his men are dead and some very good men and women died to make that so," I confessed.
"Congratulations. You got me. I'm guilty. He came to Romania to kill me and now he's dead, and the fight is still not over. There are thousands of men of his mold out there, organized and ready to fight me and my friends no matter where they find us," I ranted. "You arrest me, they will kill me in jail, and the fight will still go on."
"This is nothing more than vengeance for you dead father," she retorted.
"Yes, and?" I shrugged. "That doesn't mean I'd put innocent lives at risk. They killed my Father. I want to make them pay for that. That is about as primal and human as it gets."
"That is why we have laws and a system of justice," Gala wouldn't relent.
"Ha," I huffed. "Have you tried to arrest any of them? You know; the people actually butchering people?" Selena slipped into the room, taking in the tense stances.
"Who are you with?" Kupec asked Selena.
"Cáel, what seems to be the problem?" she asked me as she ignored the cop.
"TEK," I told her. "They are here to drag me back to Budapest to stand trial."
"Right," Selena laughed. "That's not going to happen Officer, "
"Kupec and Gala," I designated each one.
"Oh, that's where I've seen you before," Selena eyed TEK Officer Gala.
"Do we know each other?" Gala kept me in her line of sight.
"My Mother's oldest brother knew your Father, you are 'Forbidden'," she stated without explanation.
"Forbidden? What does that mean?" Gala swiveled toward Selena.
"Life for a life," Selena tilted her head slightly. "Your father saved my uncle's life, so until that debt is repaid, you are 'Forbidden'," again with the half-answer. I lived in a small, all-around screwed-up world except the Black Hand was a tiny, mostly familial, organization. Selena's uncle must have been the Black Hand Assassin that Gala's father sprung from jail.
Not from any jail either, a political prison, probably with very high security, which was why the old man hadn't escaped on his own. That had to be its own separate adventure; I wasn't going to rush down the rabbit hole to figure it out.
"You are, " Gala dared not say it in a room with so many strangers. She held up an open hand.
"What have you been telling the outsiders?" Selena's eyes skewered me.
"She knows 'of' your group plus a few nom de guerre's," I replied. "I told her she was on the right track, but I was the wrong person to be talking to."
"You are with the Black Hand?" Kupec studied Selena seriously for the first time.
"The Black Hand is a criminal boogeyman," Selena scoffed. "There is no such thing."
"So, you are," Gala said. "If so, what are you doing here?"
"Strangely enough, I'm doing your job, seeing that justice is done," Selena responded.
"Were you at the firefight?" Kupec asked.
"Yes, I followed Cáel into battle and I witnessed him challenge the enemy champion to single combat. The pyrotechnic grenade going off over their heads obscured my sight of the confrontation," Selena replied. "When the smoke cleared, they were both down. Only Cáel got back up."
"So the grenade killed their leader," Gala wondered.
"No. I personally examined the body before the Romanians took it away. Not a burn on him and his facial lacerations were not caused by shrapnel. He had more dagger-like wounds, cauterized, and he'd been disemboweled. The man died in a great deal of agony," she related.
"What did you do to him?" Gala returned to me. Since Selena neglected to mention that the majority of Ajax's wounds happened beneath his intact clothing and armor, I decided to do the same.
"I'd tell you except you are already questioning my sanity," I sighed. "Suffice it to say, I knew two things that he didn't and I used that advantage to make him dead." Chaz's stomach rumbled.
"Let's cut to the chase," he yawned. "He killed the one called Ajax in front of dozens of witnesses. He's not going to tell you how he did it. He's not going to tell you why he came to Romania. He's not going back with you to Hungry. By now you should realize there is crap going on that is clearly above your pay grades.
Give it a rest, get a bite to eat and tell your superiors you are reexamining the available data. This is what they really want to hear anyway," he reminded all present. Maybe it was the tone of his voice. It could have been his casually lethal demeanor. Whatever the reason, his advice ended the discussion and I finally got to eat. I hadn't been able to eat last night, too much on my mind.
Romania: After much hand-wringing, late night cups of coffee and copious amounts of cigars and cigarettes, somewhere at the top of the Romanian hierarchy it was decided I was a hero. To paint me as a criminal would ruin all the pain and death I'd brought with me. It would make all the dead men and women of the 22nd and 24th stupidly dead, not martyrs.
At that moment, they needed martyrs in order to rally public opinion over what had happened. I wasn't going to be a divisive figure, despite my claims of Transylvanian nobility. Let the Székely rejoice at their Warrior-Prince's return, as long as I loved Romania and the Vlach people, too. While Flaviu's report was, as usual, a tad indecisive, many voices within the 61st Mountain Troops Brigade spoke volumes in my defense:
-I had provided useful and accurate information.
-I hadn't usurped anyone's authority (they didn't count enlisting Master Corporal Menner in my mad plan against me).
-I had fought bravely and in a manner most considered to have saved soldiers' lives.
-Also, one of my companions had perished and another had been gravely wounded in the defense of Romanian soil.
-I was a good guy, who should consider going to another country really really soon.
The Russian Federation: They apologized for any confusion concerning their men in New York and Hana. At the time, I had no idea what they were talking about. When I did, I felt like punching a Russian in the nose. Considering the twenty Spetsnaz close by, my ignorance probably saved me some quickly administered bleeding and bruising.
In their favor, they offered to help the Romanians hunt down the two remaining Greeks. One escapee had been taken, shot up, but alive, at around eleven pm. The Russian Military Attaché to Bucharest (Romania's capital) was getting into her groove. Riki gave me some of her 411. She'd had a promising career in the GRU until she was caught having an affair with her boss's wife, now she was in the hinterlands.
By the looks I was getting from Major Tatianna Semenina Volkov, she was at least bi-sexual. Despite my dubious nature and her being in a building full of prime physical specimens, there was her knowledge that I'd suddenly and unexpectedly resuscitated her prospects for advancement in her chosen vocation. Big people in Moscow were reading documents with her name on them.
If Operation: Funhouse was counted a success, there was a Podpolkovnik (Lieutenant-Colonel) promotion in her immediate future. If things fell apart, there was always that hope of being posted to the further hinterlands, maybe Uganda? A little past midnight, by way of Riki and the NRO, I got the first inkling that the Great Khan was implementing the directive I had suggested. It was the dawn of a new day and all I wanted to know was" how had I ended up here?"
End Cael's Geopolitical situation, Begin World News
While I was being beneficently informed that Russian troops had crossed the Nei Mongol border, their reconnaissance elements were racing unopposed toward the critical junctures of Morin Dawa and Zalantun. The Khanate was even clearing the designated routes of all traffic to ease their advancement, while Russian and Khanate Air Forces cautiously patrolled the same airspace.
By US estimations, the Russians had better hurry, too. The Mongolians at Morin Dawa were barely clinging to the eastern (Chinese) bank of the Nen River. Elements of the PLA's 69th Motorized and 7th Reserve were making near-suicidal attacks in an effort to collapse the shrinking Mongolian perimeter.
Meanwhile, repeated sorties by the PLAAF had damaged the bridge, but not brought it down and their planes paid a hellish price going up against the Khanate Air Force and anti-air defenses to get that much done. In doing so, the PLA had to leave the Amur River guarded by only a thin layer of lightly equipped military police units to oppose any Russian move.
To counter this crisis at Morin Dawa, Kazakhstan C-295's parachuted elements of the Panther battalion of the former Kyrgyz Army into the combat zone. The Kazaks had transport aircraft, but no paratroopers. The Kyrgyz used other nation's aircraft to train their paratroopers. As one Finnish journalist noted, it was bizarre to watch two military units from the same country, but who couldn't speak each other's languages, coordinating their actions on a dry-erase board and with hand signals.
At Zalantun, another desperate struggle was being waged. By the time the first Russians arrived, the Khanate had secured every one of the city's main chokepoints as well as the heights overlooking the southeastern end of the mountain pass. The 1st Mongolian Defense brigade (their National Guard), the North Mongol Banner Tumens and the 330th Mongolian Special Task Battalion slugged it out with the 3rd PLA Reserve Division.
In the final battle for the gateway to the Manchurian Plain, both sides threw in everything they had left. It was the ill-equipped versus the ill-equipped, the senior (largely made up of the men closest to retirement) battalion of the 1st MDB versus the support and security battalions of the 3rd Reserve Div. Both sides knew the price of failure.
In the last gasp, only concentrated counter-battery fire and close air support broke the final Chinese counter-attack. The death toll on both sides was ghastly. In the northeast, the Khanate and the PLA were spent forces. The Chinese would recover faster. Both sides were being forced to field older equipment, but the PLA had a massively larger force pool to draw from and much more equipment to field.
By this time, the logistic realities were eating away at the Khanate forces. High-tech equipment needed intensive maintenance. Soldiers needed to eat and sleep, ammo carriers needed to be reloaded and vehicles refueled. From a strategic standpoint, the Chinese military had plenty of fight left in them and were getting more units into the fight every hour.
The Tumens couldn't bypass every PLA strongpoint. Whenever they had to assault a place, their advance was paid for in priceless men and equipment. This was a factor known to every major military establishment. That the Khanate's initial offensive's first thrusts would run out of steam was a limitation Temujin accepted and the Chinese were counting on.
As critical as logistics were, there was a whole new category of woes applying a stranglehold to the conflict. Stocks, bonds, monetary exchanges and the flow of resources were all being strained. For 24 hours, at the urging of the key world governments, the major markets had remained calm. When it was revealed that the Khanate was an actual and long-term threat to global stability, panic set in.
Historically, every conflict ran on the strength of the involved countries' ability to feed and equip their armies and to tax their populace. In the modern age, colonialism, imperialism and mercantilism had complicated the equation. Suddenly nation-states were consuming materials in their martial efforts that they didn't personally possess.
When the British Royal Navy adopted fuel oil engines, the pattern of warfare changed forever. At that moment in time, the British Empire didn't own any oil fields, the fields were in Iran, the Ottoman Empire, Russia and the United States.
In the post-Imperialism, post-WWII period, China dropped off the economic radar, but the developing African, South American, Middle Eastern and Subcontinent nations more than filled in the gap. China reappearing in the 1970's and the fall of most of the Communist regimes furthered global interdependence.
Whether or not you considered the concept of the nation-state a dead ideal, the power of international banking had been a fact of life for over a century. Financial institutions, national banks, stock and commodities markets developed their own independent interests. When countries went to war, their governments rapidly had to float credit to finance their war debt.
At some point, their debt got so crushing they couldn't afford to lose, or, their bankers couldn't survive their failure. You could make a fortune in a war, or you could lose everything. Magnifying the issue was that virtually every nation now had to purchase foreign resources and goods they didn't have/produce locally. That caused massive price fluctuations, usually up, way up.
The Khanate had enough petrochemical resources to destabilize world oil prices. China produced so many manufactured goods for others that consumer price indexes worldwide were skyrocketing. China had massive financial reserves, mostly in the form of other nations' foreign debt. The Khanate had a massive inherited monetary 'Sword of Damocles' hanging over its head: Would the Khanate repudiate the debts of the old republics it had absorbed? Would close to a € trillion of electronic currency instantly evaporate?
The Chinese yuan (¥) wasn't globally traded. Until this moment in history, that had benefited the PRC. Now they were about to spend billions and billions in whatever currency you chose to mention for weaponry they couldn't produce, thanks to the Khanate's aerial campaign against their armaments industries.
In turn, the countries that had the resources and technology the Chinese needed were considering the possibilities of how to redress the fiscal and trade imbalances that had previously existed. The Khanate also needed a great deal of financial and technological assistance. How could a broke-ass, infant, semi-autocratic country afford anything?
Well,,
A) The Khanate was currently winning the war. It was slowly sinking into the monetary minds that the Khanate would last at least six months, if not longer. You can roll over Certificates of Deposit (the original CD's) that fast. Those financing Khanate War Bonds wouldn't have to roll them out at 'pennies on the dollar'.
B) Harsh fact; for those who economically and/or militarily opposed the People's Republic of China, every dollar ($), Euro (€), or Yen (also ¥) devoted to assisting the Khanate would cost the PLA/PLAAF/PLAN four or five times that amount to defeat. By its very existence, the Khanate was forcing the PRC to invest a far larger chunk of their (now shrinking) GNP into their defense budget and rebuilding their war-battered infrastructure.
Face it, the Khanate could slap a JDAM on a Russian made FAB-500 for around $30,000. Four of those would shatter a multi-million dollar dam in one minute. When you started tacking on the cost of automotive/rail bridges and tunnels, that bill ballooned terribly fast. Then you could add the lost revenue from the trade network disruptions. All for $120,000.
C) The Khanate started with a sizeable piece of the world's 'Oil and Natural Gas Reserves' pie as well as sizeable critical mineral supplies to boot. You could combine that with the fact that the sections of China she'd overrun held nearly a third of the Chinese oil fields and capacity. Those fields they hadn't snatched up, they'd bombed. Many of those were in Manchuria.
That meant the commodities the Khanate had to sell were earning them more money. If the Khanate did succeed, they could make good on their debt and then some. To solidify that deathly specter, Iran announced they were preparing to send twice as much oil by the end of July to China as they had in all of June, all at inflated prices, of course. Iran would make up their domestic petroleum shortfalls by purchasing the slightly less expensive Khanate oil. Woot, revenue for the Khanate.
D) Geopolitically, the Khanate, if it survived, would transform Asia. A week ago, Asia was dominated by two global powers (China and Russia) and two 'also ran's (India and Pakistan) with a slowly waning US presence. Regionally, India and Pakistan had wasted a huge amount of their potential on wars (with each other and China) and dealing with religious strife.
Russia had been rebuilding itself since its sudden experimental plunge into Free Market Capitalism and Democracy in the 1990's. She was getting stronger, even as the lives of her dissidents became more arduous. To the outside world, China appeared to be a titanic, monolithic state, where the life of dissidents was equally unfortunate.
Along came the Khanate and, for the US and the strongest European states, this was a global chance to regain some of their fading influence and polish their prestige on the world stage. For Taiwan (ROC), Vietnam and Japan, it was a chance to buy some much needed breathing room against the rising threat of the Chinese Colossus. There was no ignoring the rumblings of a much anticipated (by some) creation of this Islamic Super-state either.
That's how.
China had been about to become the World's largest economy. When the northern ports came under aerial attack, the exports the Chinese treasury relied on slowed down. Imports, especially oil and natural gas deliveries, were becoming cripplingly more expensive and under constant threat.
While I was having my chat with the Colonel of the 61st, a fully-loaded Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) tanker about to dock at the port of Guangzhou (Canton for us ignorant Westerners) struck three mines. It was a stupendously ill-fated contact. You might as well have dropped a nuke on the city. Buildings a kilometer away were flattened. The fire departments, medical facilities and civil authorities were completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster.
The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)'s frigate Huaihua (PN-566), augmenting the harbor's air defenses, was close enough to the vessel when it exploded that the warship capsized. A Chinese Coast Guard cutter in the vicinity also caught fire. The flames and the resulting secondary explosions doomed that ship as well.
The People's Republic of China began screaming about the latest Khanate atrocity. An hour later, an oil tanker in the Port of Ningbo-Zhoushan (East China Sea), the world's busiest sea transport center, erupted in an incendiary series of detonations. Suspiciously numerous and abnormal catastrophic failures cascaded through the petrochemical refinery and cargo container areas, setting two dozen square kilometers of the dock area ablaze.
This time, the authorities caught two of what appeared to be a gang of saboteurs. Before they could be questioned, both women took their own lives by overdosing on opiates they had hidden 'inside' their persons. A group calling itself 'The True Chinese Resistance' took credit for both attacks. The outside world only found out about this a few hours later from multiple internet uploads from Kuala Lumpur.
For those in the know, death by surgically implanted opiates was the preferred method of suicide by Black Lotus members of the 9 Clans. In the embryotic New World Order, Katrina Love, my boss, relayed that information to Federal Prosecutor Javiera Castello. Within minutes, MI-6 and the CIA were in the loop. There was a spy network operating on the Chinese mainland that those two could access.
There was a price for the cooperation of the Black Lotus. An hour after Javiera and Katrina called Japan, an Amazon diplomat in Nagasaki requested the Ninja set up a meeting between their Chinese sectarians and members of the Amazons, British and US intelligence services. The cost for this favor was rather odd.
In Okinawa, a small, ancient Secret Society dating back to the 16th century and the Ryukyu Kingdom, wanted something that only the US Marines stationed on that island could provide. For this favor, the Okinawans would join the Ninja in their struggle to regain control of the Nipponese Underworld, expelling the agents of the Seven Pillars of Heaven and the traitorous Ninja family they had subverted.
The Ninja would be able to keep the money spigot flowing to the Black Lotus and the Black Lotus would keep the Americans and British up to date on the internal disruptions and dissent the war was causing the PRC. By that convoluted logic, the US and UK weren't 'really' committing espionage on the Chinese mainland. The world kept turning.
End World News
(Echoes beyond battle)
"Cáel?" a voice said over the phone. Tiger Lily had roused me from a trance by handing it to me. I didn't sleep that much anymore.
"Hana?" I mumbled. "It has to be, way early where you are. Is anything wrong?"
"No, I'm fine. Rumor has it you were in a firefight," she countered.
"Ya, yes," I replied.
"I was told that one of your bodyguards died," she tentatively explored my mood.
"Yeah. Her name was Charlotte. I wasn't involved in the majority of the fighting. I let the Romanians carry most of the weight," I lied.
The whispers and looks my two constant 24th Mountain Troop guardians gave me told me one of them understood English and they knew I was lying. I mouthed 'fiancé' in Romanian as an explanation to them. More whispers.
"Buffy says you are lying," Hana accused me. That was bad, Buffy and being caught in a lie.
"What did she say?" I groaned.
"She says you were in the thick of the fighting," Hana stated.
"That's not really true. As I said, the Romanians took the brunt of the action. I sort of observed the fight as it developed and helped out where I could," I evaded.
"She says you are lying again," Hana snorted. Oh, Buffy hadn't just informed Hana what was going on, she was also present.
"May I talk to her, please," I requested. Rustling noises came across the airwaves.
"Buffy," I spoke first. "Don't tell Hana what I really do. She doesn't understand."
"No, you listen to me," Buffy fought back. "She needs to know the generalities of what you do. Lying to her will only ruin your marriage." Not what I expected. Buffy was almost endorsing my matrimony. Then there was a pause. "Cáel, Charlotte was SD (Security Detail, the Amazon Elite). They are all volunteers and they want to fight for the Host.
None of them want to die, yet if they perish, they want to do it in battle against our enemies. I imagine you are hurting right now. I want you to know that no one holds her death against you. Had you been attempting something truly stupid, everyone knows Rachel would have stopped you. We are Amazons and warfare is what we do.
In war, people die and from what I read of Rachel's report, Charlotte killed at least two people and died saving Vincent's life. It was the best death any member of the SD can ask for. Got that?" Buffy drove her point home.
"That doesn't help," I answered.
"I know it doesn't right now," Buffy softened. "In time, it will make more sense. That you mourn for her makes you all the more worthy of being an Amazon."
"I need to send in some sort of a report, don't I?" I sighed.
"Yes. You are our Chief Diplomat now, as well as Head of House Ishara and in contact with allied agencies," Buffy reminded me.
"Fine. You are right. St. Marie and Katrina need to look over what I've figure out to date. It is real important news." The current leader, St. Marie, the Golden Mare, and Katrina Love, my boss, head of Executive Services at Havenstone and their Spymaster.
Oh, I wasn't going to tell them the whole truth about me and Grandpa Alal. Unlike Pamela, my 'sisters' would kill me in a heartbeat to significantly reduce the threat to the Host that his/my existence presented.
"Yes you do," Buffy's voice soothed me. "And Cáel, "
"Yes?"
"40 days, Bitch," she teased me. Mother-fucker.
"Screw you," I snorted. She was trying to make me happy and succeeding. "I'm going to let Aya win," I taunted her.
"Aya is too young to compete," Buffy scoffed.
"She's small. I'll smuggle her inside the hunting grounds in my backpack," I chortled. "They'll never see it coming." Pause.
"Your secret is safe with me," Buffy became soothing once more. She'd relayed her emotional messages and could now let me off the hook. "Here is Hana."
"Cáel, are you going to keep lying to me?" my fiancé asked.
"Yes, but only when I think I can get away with it," I answered.
"Sigh," she vocalized. "Meet me in Rome?"
"Huh?"
"I'm going to be in Rome this evening on my way to the Khanate," she told me.
"Oh!" I grunted. "I almost forgot. I got you two bodyguards. Where do you want them to meet you?"
"Astana. That's my next stop," she replied. "Are they any good?"
"First time on the job. Normally they are hired assassins," I joked, "but they are very good at it."
"I feel safer already," she joked back with me. "Rome?"
"I'll see what I can do," was all I could really say at the moment.
"Ms. Chalmers will be with me," she slipped a test in on me.
"Libra?"
"Yes. She says she wants to get involved, so she's coming along as my back-up assistant Gunga Din in case things get dicey," she added on.
"Wow, that's something I didn't expect," I mused. "I would have gone with 'Kim', except that could get confusing. If I can make it to Rome, it will be to see you, Hana."
"Is there anything you want me to pass on to her?" Hana asked.
"Yes, tell her to wear that turquoise thong. She'll know the one," I got smarmy.
"You really are a reprehensible human being," she chuckled. "Does anyone tell you that?"
"A surprisingly large number of people, mostly women," I confessed. Pause.
"If I've done things that have made your life more difficult, I apologize," she said softly.
"You have," I said in dour tone. "We are working so well together, everyone thinks I've already got a life-partner. It is cramping my 'Playa' image."
"Oh, keep up that Playboy attitude and I'm going to make you behave. Desiree suggested a shock collar," Hana showed some faux-outrage. She was also getting to know my crowd,
"I don't think I have enough turtle-necks," I snorted.
"Your neck isn't what is going to be wrapped around," she retorted.
"You are not encouraging me to abandon my dangerous lifestyle, I'll have you know," I sighed in far better spirits than I'd started this conversation in.
"No need to worry about it. Buffy informs me you'd kill yourself in a libido-induced act of auto-erotic-electrocution," she yawned. "No collar for you, I guess."
"Thanks for the call, Hana, and Buffy," I said. "Get some sleep. I need to check up on my people. I'll call you when I know what my plans will look like."
"Good night, Cáel," she yawned again. That was that for now. We hung up.
"Virginia wanted you to know they are flying Vincent out to Ramstein Air Force base in Germany in two hours," Tiger Lily told me.
"Is he in any shape for me to see him before he goes?" I stood up.
"Sure," she nodded. She handed me my windbreaker. Even in summer, Transylvanian mornings could be chilly. As we exited the room my small group had used as a bivouac, the sounds of the Romanian military base surrounded us. Rachel and Wiesława were sleeping. From my last report, Mona was still working beside the Romanian hospital staff.
I had been told that NATO was also flying in supplies and medical personnel. I supposed that they were arriving by now. I'd also been told the less critically wounded had been moved to neighboring hospitals in this and other counties. The Jandarmeria Română (Romania's paramilitary police force) had taken over the hunt and the foot work of the investigation. The military units were returning to their barracks, there had been no declaration of Martial Law.
From the perspective of the various national and foreign intelligence services, me and mine had best get the Hell out of Dodge as well. They'd want me to come back in a few weeks, once the Romanians had sorted out the legalities of what had transpired at the ruins.
It was personally depressing to see I didn't need to worry about personal protection without my Amazons. Besides Tiger Lily, I had one each of the US Rangers, the British Paratroopers, the Romanian 24th and the Spetsnaz. It appeared that the 24th itself had adopted me and sent their own Special Forces home. The trip to the hospital was sad. We had to park way down the street due to the official traffic: the wounded going out, the dead headed to coroners and supplies coming in.
Our Romanian trooper quick-stepped it up to the woman in charge of Jandarmeria Română's outer cordon of guardians. She knew who I was. Still, she double-checked our ID's before letting us inside. I didn't have to ask the harried receptionist were Vincent was. He had inherited two of my Rangers as his personal security, so my guy knew the way.
Vincent looked like re-tenderized road-kill. Some of that had to do with the antiseptic they scrubbed him with when they operated. His right calf was in a cast, his tibia, fibula and heel had taken the brunt of a grenade's explosion. Even with his Romanian heavy vest, bullets had crushed his right collar bone and shoulder socket.
As a final indignity, he'd take a rifle butt to the left side of his head. That ear was swathed in bandages and he couldn't see out of his left eye. I prayed there was no permanent damage.
"Hey kid," he mumbled. "They told me we won." Multiple comebacks came to mind.
"We did. Two are still at large. We captured a few and killed the rest," I answered.
"Charlotte, she's dead, isn't she?" he rasped. They had removed his breathing tube a half hour earlier and still had an oxygen tube going up his nose.
"She's dead. We found her near you," I told him the truth.
"She saved my life," he murmured. "I was pretty sure I'd bought it when I emptied the shotgun."
I was going for my pistol when this son of a bitch appeared out of nowhere. I was prone. He unloaded on the Romanian about a meter away, emptied the last of the magazine. Before I could bring my gun up, he smashed me in the head. I reflexively shot him in the foot. He screamed. Someone blew his head off the, I saw Charlotte kneeling beside me for a few seconds, firing in three directions.
She, I thought, she was yanked back. It must have been the bullets hitting her," he ended in a whisper. "Does she have family I can talk with, when I get back?" He meant the States.
"I'll relay your request," I put my hand over his. "Are your daughters being contacted?"
"I'm sure Javiera will send some people around. Don't worry about me," his grin was more a grimace.
"How did everyone else do?" he cleared his throat.
"Mona is still doing her medic thing, going on half a day now," I began. "Selena, Rachel, Pamela and Chaz are fine. Saku got battered, but she insists she's walking-wounded. "Virginia, "
"She stopped by about a half an hour ago. I was pretty groggy," he then coughed. "The kid is upset that she wasn't around to save Charlotte and me. Don't let her beat herself up about that."
"No more beatings, got it," I tried some levity. He grinned/grimaced again. He had to be on some serious pain-killers. "Tiger Lily," I looked behind me, "is right there, watching over me."
"Riki, Odette, Wiesława and Delilah are fine. No one showed up with questions and guns, just guns," I snorted. "Politically, this is a shit-storm. I am afraid I shat on Riki's boss, because I was cranky by the time I got around to him."
"How are the Romanians handling it? If their losses elsewhere were like what we faced on the ridge, " he muttered.
"Worse. The blocking force had over a hundred casualties, Vincent," I told him.
"Hmmm, then you were right to call in the Army, Cáel," he struggled to squeeze my hand. "Police would have been wiped out. I've never seen so much firepower. I'm sorry our guys died, but the civil authorities would have died and lost."
"People keep telling me I've done the right thing, and I think I'm beginning to understand what they mean. I've got to accept that it could have been far worse," I nodded. "I've got to get past the faces of the dead and think about what comes next. This isn't over."
"Correct, Cáel," Vincent couldn't even nod in his current state. "Pick up the pieces, figure what their next move is, like you did here. We both know this goes far beyond any type of terrorist conspiracy our government has seen before. Javiera is on the ball. Your Ms. Love seems to have her mind in the game as well. The United States is better off working with you. I'm sure of that now," he ground out through the residual pain.
"It is not just Charlotte. Men like Colour Sgt. Tomorrow wouldn't follow just anyone into battle. So Cáel, don't waste your time knowing you are not the best man for this job," he grunted, stressing his point. "What matters is that you were the man on the spot when this began and you've got to see it through, no matter what."
"You don't fight the war with the army you want," I recited.
"You fight the war with the army you have," Vincent completed. "By the way, pass a message on to Pamela for me."
"Sure."
"Tell her she didn't have to go so easy on me. I would have understood," he dry chuckled.
"No problem," I smiled. "I'll tell her 'you knew' and she'll do all the translating on her own." Two medical technicians showed up, ready to move Vincent to the airport. They were in a hurry, had a backlog of critical tasks to accomplish and I was selfish to stick around. I gave Vincent's hand one more squeeze. The tech's closed in and my people withdrew.
No one who owned a piece of me was demanding that I be somewhere doing something I didn't want to do, so I migrated to several tents they'd set up in one of the parking lots. The emergency room was the center of the Romanian/NATO triage efforts. Three seriously wounded Jandarmeria were being brought in as I was walking around the outside of the hospitals main building.
Those three and one other had been ambushed by one of the two Mycenaean's still at large. From what information my 24th'er was able to retrieve for me, the man had held a rural family hostage, then had the father flag down the Jandarmeria, claiming that he'd seen the intruder close by in the woods. He hadn't been lying.
While the three had started a foot-bound search, the lone Greek snuck up, slit the driver's throat, and then gunned down the rest from behind. They had been caught in an open field with no cover. As Vincent had said, these were policemen, super-tough cops, but still law enforcement. That bad news was balanced by the arrival of Romania's superior Vlad Ţepeş counter-terrorism formation and their K-9 unit.
I spent an hour, walking among the wounded that could wait on surgery, or could even be up and moving around in a few days. In a peculiar bit of misplacement, I remained a foreign civilian. That meant I wasn't bound by the judicial and military codes of conduct, thus I could call various soldiers' loved ones without breaking the law ~ or at least breaking it badly.
Chaz and my 24th guardian were similarly constrained. Tiger Lily wasn't and before long, she and I were relaying messages from the wounded to their loved ones. To stay within the letter of the law, the trooper couldn't directly talk with the person I had called, so they had to tell me then I could tell the person on the other end, even though I was close enough for them to actually listen to one another. It had the emotional rush that an illicit, false-ID keg run had provoked at school, yet felt a thousand times better.
I stayed two hours. Rachel called me and said the gang was regrouping at the Professors house and I needed to be there as quickly as possible. We had to create a new itinerary, prepare Charlotte for her flight back home and plot our next moves concerning the Secret War, sort out the mystery of the true House of the Dragon, House SzélAnya, and determine how to move against the pseudo-Amazons who were masquerading as that house. More work to do.
Suddenly, I really wanted to go to Rome.
To be continued.
By FinalStand, for Literotica