Novella: Ninja 13.

Posted by Ric delCampo on December 15, 2002 at 17:04:24:

Ok, here is my un-holiday story. BTW, this one took about 3 months to write, so don't expect too many more like this.

NINJA 13
by
Ric delCampo

Dramatis Personae:

The Good Guys:

M. Peter Ross: Texas Billionaire.
Lee Yaeger: His bodyguard, (MSgt. US Army SF ret.) AKA El Cazador.
Senator David Jacob MacCandles: Senior Senator from Texas. AKA Big Jake.
Colonel Carlos Keystone: CO 1st SFG US Army.
Captain Julia Chung: CO ODA 113 US Army. AKA Ninja 1.
Lt. Trina Nguyen: XO ODA 113 US Army. AKA Ninja 2.
Sgt. Jasmine Reyes: Communications/Engineer. ODA 113 US Army. AKA Ninja 3.
Sgt. Yamila St. Claire: Intelligence/Communications. ODA 113 US Army. AKA Ninja 4.
Sgt. Dawn Velasquez: Operations/Logistics. ODA 113 US Army. AKA Ninja 5.
Sgt. Ann Rizki: Engineer/Small Arms. ODA 113 US Army. AKA Ninja 6.
Sgt. Felicia Dee: Logistics/Operations. ODA 113 US Army. AKA Ninja 7.
Sgt. Cherrill Han: Medic/Engineer. ODA 113 US Army. AKA Ninja 8.
Sgt. Mai Janejira: Small Arms/Logistics. ODA 113 US Army. AKA Ninja 9.
Sgt. Rosa Guerrero: Small Arms/Sniper. ODA 113 US Army. AKA Ninja 10.
Sgt. Maria Cafarelli: Engineer/Small Arms. ODA 113 US Army. AKA Ninja 11.
Sgt. Mika Nakano: Small Arms/Medic. ODA 113 US Army. AKA Ninja 12.

The Bad Guys:

Colonel Chou Lai Na: Proprietor of the Glorious Long March Academy for Young
Women.
Captain Ming Ai Li: Public Relations Officer.
390 Officers, NCOs, Enlisted Personnel, and Staff of the Glorious Long March Academy
for Young Women.
Pedro Escobedo: Colombian Drug Lord.
Pablo & Raul Escobedo: His deceased brothers.
Paulina de Escobedo, His wife.
Her bodyguards.

Others:

Raquel Ramos: Slave/Assassin in Training. AKA Rei Ling.
Raquel Ramos de Lopez: Her deceased mother.
Major Juan Antonio Lopez, Army of the Argentine Republic: Her deceased stepfather.

The aircraft was a Chinese knock-off of a Russian knock-off of a DC-3. It looked
that old too. I don’t know how many passenger seats there had once been; but all but six
had been torn out to make cargo space. There was at least half an inch of dirt and
accumulated filth covering the floor and there were tiny stress fractures in the aluminum
skin around every rivet. With every jolt of turbulence the cabin was filled with billowing
clouds of foul dust and flakes of rust. The elderly Chinese couple across the aisle were
busy contributing half digested balls of rice into the mix. The crates behind us strained at
the tie-down ropes. But what really amazed me the most was that the wings stayed on.
After thirteen hours of this carnival ride, we landed. A couple of Chinese
peasants-- do they still call them coolies?-- pushed wooden steps up to the door and
opened it. My fellow passengers fled. The two pilots, their ties undone and flung over
their shoulders, sauntered down the aisle and departed without a word. All I had was a
duffel bag, but a rich capitalist bastard would expect some one to carry his bags for him. I
sat patiently, like some rich capitalist running dog, waiting for some coolie to pick up my
bag.
No one seemed to care I was a rich Yankee bastard; so I picked up my own bag
and stepped onto the runway. It was really a grass strip. The airport consisted of a
cinderblock building with a rusted tin roof. A fuel truck, blue smoke billowing from its
rusty tailpipe, rumbled toward the aircraft. Behind it two flatbeds followed. All three
trucks looked as if they were built in the nineteen-fifties.
Behind them a black Russian Zil limousine waited. A young woman in a PLA
uniform stood outside the car holding a sign reading: “Mr. Ross.” I walked toward the
car. At least it was new.
“Mr. Ross?”
“Yes, I am Peter Ross,” I replied.
“It is very good to meet you, Mr. Ross. Welcome to The People’s Republic of
China,” she said. “I am Captain Ming Ai Li, and I will be your guide and interpreter.”
Captain Ming spoke perfect English, with an Oxford accent. She didn’t look like a
normal captain in the People’s Liberation Army. She was tall for an Asian, around
five-ten; very slender, and very well endowed-- probably not naturally. She had long,
silky black hair down to her waspish waist.
Her uniform wasn’t the Maoist, colorless, frumpy sort normally seen on a
member of the PLA. It was tailored-made to accent her figure, the dark olive green jacket
and skirt were brighter than normal. She wore a light olive green blouse and a red tie. The
skirt was so short, it was barely longer than the uniform jacket. She wore black hose and
knee-high, black boots. Did I mention the gorgeous legs? The shine on the boots was
perfect for a parade. She wore an officer’s field hat with a red star.
The driver popped the trunk from inside. It took a moment for Captain Ming to
realize I wasn’t going to put my bag in the trunk myself. She called to the driver who
came out, lifted it into the trunk, and slammed it shut.
At least I had her convinced I was a rich, capitalist bastard.
The driver was shorter than Captain Ming and no doctor had enhanced her breasts.
She wore the rank of corporal. But her uniform was also tailor-made. She had the delicate
looks of a teenager, but was probable in her mid-twenties. I felt like a jerk making a little
girl carry my bag, but I had to win that Oscar.
Normally, I open car doors for women; but I waited for Captain Ming to open the
door for me.
Once inside and on our way, I asked, “How far to the academy?”
“About an hour.”
I expected Captain Ming to grill me about my trip or some other pertinent
information; but she seemed most interested in parties and Hollywood stars and which I
had attended and who I had met. Mr. Ross isn’t much impressed by Hollywood and he
doesn’t attend parties, so I offered very little information and the conversation stalled.
Until I mentioned I had once met Jet Li. Then Captain Ming was excited again. Jet Li
was “her favorite old movie star.” I had actually met him at an amateur martial arts
tournament at which I was a judge, not long after I had retired from the army. He was the
honored guest and we judges lined up to shake his hand. That story wasn’t good enough
for Captain Ming, so I made up a fabulous Hollywood party and an engaging
conversation with the Chinese movie star. It wasn’t until later I realize that Captain Ming
may have been testing me. Maybe she knew Mr. Ross didn’t go to parties.
One more reason I would not have made a very good spy. I was a lousy liar.
About a hour later we descended into a valley and I got my first look at the
academy. It looked very much like a prison-of-war compound. Two eighteen foot high
fences topped off with concertina wire. Four guard towers. The north compound had 28
barracks, four rows of seven, all nearly identical. All clapboard and tarpaper and
corrugated tin roofs. The center compound consisted of about twenty structures of varying
size. These were school buildings, a hospital, a gymnasium, training fields and ranges,
dinning hall, etc. The south compound was for the staff. There was a five-story
cinderblock command center, staff dormitories, and a motor pool.
At the main gate, which led into the center compound, there were two Privates
and a NCO in the same crisp, tailor-made uniforms. Interestingly, they were armed with
old Russian AK-47s rather than Chinese SKSs. The Sergeant was in the gate shack. The
two outside simply opened the gate and waved us through. No ID check. No examination
of the vehicle. While these girls were ravishing in their ornate uniforms, which were
freshly pressed and laundered, and looked very sharp; they were, in practice, sloppy
guards.
While we drove toward the south compound, Ming pointed out some of the
buildings. From the hospital: “We have three of the best plastic surgeons in China on
staff,” to the Fine Arts and Literature Building: “We give our students a world-class
liberal arts education.” The academy buildings were just a fair better quality than the
student barracks.
There were another set of guards at the entrance to the south compound. All
beautiful young women in sexy, form-fitting uniforms-- not a one of them a trained
sentry. They just waved us through the gate. I got my first good look at one of the towers.
The machine gun and searchlight were pointing in, as if to prevent some one from
escaping, rather than some one from breaking in. The two women in the nearest tower
were lounging and smoking. We pulled up to the command center, and again, the two
sentries at the front door appeared more for decoration.
Captain Ming took me up to the forth floor, (no elevator,) and, as I had left my
bag in the car, one of the guards had to lug it up the stairs behind us. My room was about
the size of a cheap hotel room, and a bit less furnished. She told me she would have some
dinner sent up soon and that she would be back in about two hours. Fifteen minutes later
a girl in a sexy French maid’s uniform-- mini skirt, black fish-net stockings, and a white
apron-- showed up with a tray of food: A bowel of boiled rice, noodles in a meatless
broth, and a small pot of green tea. She didn’t speak a word of English, and I didn’t know
any Chinese beyond “Ni hau ma?” So she left it on the table and departed without a word.
I opened my bag a took out my laptop, a sat-phone, a couple of cameras, and my
cordless shaver. There was no telephone outlet, so I plugged in the sat-phone to the
laptop. There was a GPS built into the laptop and it transmitted the location of the
academy to a pre-programmed location in the United States-- I assumed. I went into the
bathroom, washed my face, and began to shave. There was a bug-detector built into the
shaver and I quickly found two bugs in the bathroom: One: an audio bug above the
shower head and, Second: a video/audio bug behind the mirror. I wandered out into the
bedroom and found three more bugs. A video/audio next to the door, facing into the
room, another video/audio in the ceiling above the bed, and an audio bug on the window
sill.
When I finished shaving I set the shaver down next to the laptop, its disguised IR
port facing the laptop’s IR port, and downloaded the bug information into the laptop. I ate
a bit of the bland food, showered, and dressed in the suit they had left for me. (Mr. Ross
and I wear the same size, and that is no coincidence.)
Captain Ming returned and I followed her up to the fifth floor. There she
introduced me to Colonel Chou Lai Na, the commanding officer of the academy and
mastermind behind the entire operation.
Colonel Chou was about fifty years old, but look ten years younger. She too was
very tall for an Asian, though not as tall as Ming, and very slender. She had shoulder
length, black hair in a bun. She was stunningly beautiful, except for her eyes. Her fierce
dark eyes had that hard look of a burned-out prostitute. Chou was dressed in a uniform
that looked as if it came form Saville-Row in London. Her skirt was longer than Ming’s. I
half expected her to be smoking a slender cigarette in a long cigarette holder. But her
cigarette had a brown wrap and no holder. Her teeth were yellow when later she smiled.
Unlike her soldiers, she didn’t look like a delicate flower. She was an excellent physical
specimen. There was the delicate fragrance of an expensive French perfume.
As a side note, the entire fifth floor consisted of Colonel Chou’s office and living
quarters. While she spoke, Colonel Chou spoke only Chinese, while I spoke only English.
Captain Ming translated. For brevity’s sake, I will leave out Captain Ming’s part of the
conversation, including some of the clarifications in translation that were necessary.
“I hope you had a pleasant flight,” Colonel Chou said.
“It was tolerable,” I said, “But I do thank you for the opportunity to visit your
school and view your product first hand.”
“You will see, Mr. Ross,” Colonel Chou said, with some pride, “that the Glorious
Long March Academy for Young Women produces the finest slaves in all the world.”
“About that word-- Slaves,” I said. “We have to be careful not to ever use the
word ‘slave’ again. The only civil war in my country’s history was fought over slavery
and people are still sensitive to the word. Not to mention slavery is illegal in the United
States.”
“I was under the impression that you wanted to buy some of my slaves,” Colonel
Chou said.
“Yes, I do. And I am even more interested in going into business with you. I
would like to represent you in the United States. I have at least a hundred friends who
would just jump at a chance to own one or two of your girls.”
Colonel Chou was doing a good impression of an inscrutable Asian-- until I
mentioned the hundred friends-- then she smiled greedily. ( Remember the yellow teeth?)
It took a moment or two for her to regain her poker face.
“Here’s the deal,” I said, “we’ll have to do this with the appearance of legality.
We cannot simply buy or sell girls. I’ve kicked this around with some of my lawyers and
we’ve come up with a few ideas.
“The best one is for you to start a service providing or employment company.
Hong Kong, or one of the Pacific rim Asian countries would be best location. Preferably
not one of the more democratic countries. One where we could have some influence-- if
you catch my drift. This company would sell service contracts. Service contracts for
services such as personal assistants, maids, cooks, or other household help. I understand
some of your girls are trained as bodyguards; that is another service you could provide.”
Captain Ming was required to spend some time explaining what a personal
assistant was. There were other terms that didn’t translate well. When I mentioned
bodyguards, Colonel Chou enthusiastically talked about the para-military training her
girls received, not only the bodyguards, but also training in industrial espionage, political
assassination, and para-military black ops’. I tried not to seem too interested in that.
She also went on endlessly about how sexually proficient all her girls were.
However, her biggest concern was payment. From the description I gave her, it
didn’t seem she would be paid up front. The slaves’ cost ranged between one million
dollars (US), for the least trained, up to ten million dollars for the best available model. I
talked a bit about cash flow, and how a service agreement might work, but she was still
very concerned about getting her money up front.
“I’ll have my lawyers get with your lawyers and work out the details,” I told her.
“I don’t have lawyers,” Colonel Chou said.
“I’ll have to get you some,” I said.
She didn’t find that funny at all. The discussion turned to lawyers and went on
quite some time. “And how do you expect to profit?” she asked.
“A finder’s fee,” I said. “You can pay me a percentage of every sale you make to
one of my friends. It doesn’t have to be very much. You have to understand Americans.
They are very much like sheep. Once a fad becomes fashionable, everybody wants one.
All I’ll have to do is buy a couple of your girls, show them off to my friends, and you’ll
be raking in the cash faster that you can believe.”
Colonel Chou told me a bit about the tour of the academy I would be taking the
next day and sent me back to my room. Captain Ming escorted me back.
“We had to confiscate your cameras and your sat-phone,” she told me. “You were
told not to bring them.”
“Well, I hoped you’d make an exception,” I said. “But I understand your need for
security. However, could I have the sat-phone back tomorrow, I do need to conduct some
business.”
After Captain Ming left I searched my room, several of the tell-tales I had left
were gone or out of place. They had been through my bag and into my laptop. But only
the cameras and sat-phone were missing.
Captain Ming returned about twenty minutes later. She had five girls with her:
A Japanese girl in a school-girl outfit: white socks, plaid mini-skirt, white blouse, and
plaid tie. A Blonde in a French maid’s uniform: black-mini-skirt, fishnet stockings, and
white apron. An auburn-haired Tai in a push-up bra and a white, nurse’s mini-dress,
unzipped to her navel. A Chinese girl in a red silk dress, a slit up one side showed off
most of her left leg, and a keyhole in the front exposed ample cleavage. And an African
girl in a tiger-striped bikini.
All five girls were tall, slender, athletic, with long, silky hair, enhanced bosoms,
and waspish waistlines. All were in their early twenties.
“Colonel Chou wishes to present you with the gift of one of these girl’s company
tonight,” Captain Ming explain. “All have been extensively trained in the art of
lovemaking. Please pick one.”
I have never been much of a prude, but I’ve never purchased the services of a
prostitute. If I had to screw some one, it was going to be some one who deserved it.
“Why don’t you stay,” I said to Captain Ming. “I love a girl in uniform.”
Captain Ming blushed, but also smiled. She quickly dismissed the other girls.
“Shall I go change into some more appropriate?”
“No, don’t,” I said.
If they wanted some one to keep an eye on me tonight, what more to put them at
ease than to have her be one of their officers?
“So Captain Ming,” I said as I unbuttoned her jacket, “what is your name?”
“Ai Li,” she said. (Pronounced Eye-Lee.) “What do I call you?”
“Master!” I said. “Because I am going to make love to you like never before.”
I slowly undressed her, one article of clothing at a time, all the while caressing her
athletic body. kissing her, kissing her on the back of the neck, the throat, her cheeks, and
slowly working my way to her mouth. making her wait for it. I explored her body with my
hands, lightly touching her, gently caressing her. Starting in safe zones, and carefully,
slowly, moving my fingers to more sensual zones.
When she was naked, I carried her to the bed.
I caressed her back, moving my hand down, slowly, teasing, pulling it back. Then
starting again, until I finally caressed her ass. I caressed her belly, kissing it, moving my
mouth ever so slowly northward, stopping at her breasts; then starting again until I was
kissing the bottom of her breasts, then her nipples. I caressed her legs, moving my fingers
ever so slowly up to her inner thigh, then pulling back and starting again; until finally I
reached her clitoris and began to manually stimulate it. I nibbled at her erect nipples, at
her exposed throat, caressed her entire body with my tongue.
All the while exploring her, feeling her out, discovering what stimulated her, what
excited her, what drove her wild.
When she could stand it no longer I slid into her wet pussy.
Again I started to explore what movements turned her on. I became a machine, a
hard steel machine, rhythmically working her body to a frenzy, bringing it the peek of
ecstasy. She arched her back, trying to drive me deeper into her. I pushed in as hard as I
could.
Her breath came in gasps, her eyes rolled back, her back was arched. Love juices
flowed freely from her pussy and she moaned as she came.
“Oh, Master! That was wonderful!”
Silently, without a word, I started my work again. This time I brought her to
climax in half the time. This time I knew her body and just what thrilled her.
Ai Li was grasping for breath as her orgasm exploded within her.
Yet, I didn’t pause.
“No, no more-- Oh Yes! Oh Yes! YES. No! OH Master!”
Ai Li moaned and gasped as her third orgasm rippled through out her sweat-
soaked body.
I withdrew from her and emptied my load onto her belly. None of my seed would
enter her body.
We cuddled, but she was exhausted and was soon asleep. I twisted my class ring
around, opened the secret compartment, and pressed it against Ai Li’s neck. The sleeping
drug seeped into her skin, ensuring she would remain fast asleep for four to six hours.
I pressed a button on my watch. The laptop locked onto the various bugs in the
room and began recording their transmissions. If any one had been watching, I hoped that
they had enjoyed the show; but would now find it extremely boring. I lay still for about
thirty minutes while the laptop recorded.
I pressed another button and the laptop began jamming the transmissions and
replacing them with the recording it had made. Any one watching the security monitors
now would see a recording of the two of us fast asleep.
I got up and dressed in my ‘ninja’ suit. Actually black sweats and slippers. If I got
caught, I hoped to pass them off as my PJs. I switched watches. This one had a motion
detector and a fibre-optic camera for looking around corners. Its face was the screen.
I made my way silently down to the second floor where the offices were located. It
was easy enough. There were no hall cameras to jam and only one guard per floor. I easily
evaded them.
Entering the records office was easy enough. It had an old fashion mechanical
lock. My electric lock pick opened it in 15 seconds. I moved to the back of the office and
turned on one of the computers in a back cubicle. I left the monitor off. Nothing to see. I
slipped in a disk. The disk contained a virus which located the server’s database, copied
it, compressed it, and downloaded it to a pre-programmed location. Then the virus
self-destructed, leaving no trace.
While the first virus was working, I turned on a second computer and slipped in
another disk. This virus was much faster because it had less to do. It located the student
files and began searching for a student file which matched a set of programmed
parameters. It found her in fifteen seconds.
I brought up the condensed English translation:

Name: Rei Ling.
Birth Name: Raquel Ramos.
DOB: Oct. 24, 1998.
POB: Buenos Aires, Argentina. S.A.
Mother’s Name: Raquel Ramos de Lopez. ( Colombian national. Died Oct. 24,
1998.)
Father’s Name: UNKNOWN.
Step-Father: Major Juan Antonio Lopez. ( Army of the Argentine Republic. Died:
Feb. 13 1999.)
No siblings.
Placed in orphanage San Francisco de los Huerfanos, Buenos Aires, Oct. 25
1998.
Child purchased Dec. 4 2004. Cost: US$ 6000.00.
Completed Track 1: Dec. 31 2010. (Elementary Education.)
Completed Track 2: Dec. 31 2016. (Secondary Education.)
Completed Track 3: Dec 31 2020. (Basic University Education.)
Track 5 (Sexually proficiency.) 2 of 3 years completed.
Track 6 (Fine arts and literature.) 2 of 3 years completed.
Track 7 (Wines and Gormet cooking.) 2 of 3 years completed.
Track 17 (Para-military operations.) 2 of 4 years completed.
Track 18 (Assassination.) 1 of 3 years completed.
Languages: Spanish (native,) Mandarin, English.

Purchaser: Pedro Escobedo, (Colombian national.)
DOP: Aug. 30 2016.
Down payment: US $ 1,000,000.00 (Aug. 30, 2016.)
Subsequent Payments: US $ 1,000,000.00, (Aug. 30, 2020.)
US $ 1,000,000.00 (Aug. 30, 2023.)
US $ 3,000,000.00 due upon completion of Track 17 and 18,
on or about Aug 25, 2025.
US $ 5,000,000.00 bonus due upon completion of assigned assassination.
Assigned Target: The President of the United States of America.

I just about shit my pants when I read that last sentence. What the Hell had Mr.
Ross got me into? Reading Pedro Escobero’s name had been bad enough. I had
assassinated his older brother, Pablo Escobedo, about fifteen years earlier, and a
Colombian Army sniper I had trained had got his younger brother, Raul Escobedo, a few
years later. Pedro had been in deep hiding since then. Maybe he had decided it was time
for pay-backs?
But we were talking about an assassination attempt on the President. That was
well beyond anything I should be involved with. It was well beyond anything Mr. Ross
should be involved with. There were several pictures of Raquel, at various ages, and I
memorized her face. Then I ejected both disks, broke them into small pieces, and threw
the pieces into several different waste baskets.
I made back into my bed and switched off the jammer. I had been gone just under
two hours.
The next morning Ai Li and I fucked again and ate breakfast together. Then I
fucked her again. She left to change into a fresh uniform and I showered and dressed.
We started the tour visiting some of the elementary and secondary level classes.
They were all very much the same. All the girls were dressed in uniform: White blouses,
plaid skirts, ties. They all sat at attention, silent, like robots.
The teachers, all female-- all dressed in conservative-cut business suits, except for
their mini-skirts-- would bark out a question. All the students would stand and chant back
the answer in unison. Then they would sit down together, like robots. There were about
thirty girls per class. Two female soldiers wandered up and down the aisles of each class
room, watching for any inappropriate behavior-- such as acting human-- they carried
small switches; but I never saw them strike any of the students.
One class sang a song, declaring the glory of serving their future master. Captain
Ming translated. In truth, it sounded awful, even without the translation.
The university level classes were different only in that the students were not
always acting in unison. There was also more variety in classes. “We wish them to be
cultured, young women; able to interact in a cultured society,” Ming explained to me. We
saw young women studying art, literature, fashion, and history.
I passed on the sexually proficiency classes. “You certainly don’t need them,”
Ming slyly commented.
She showed me their hospital where cosmetic surgeons, all three were female,
corrected any blemishes and added to nature’s design. All the young women were
sterilized.
We stopped at the firing range where a group of five students, studying
paramilitary operations, bodyguarding and/or assassination were target-practicing. One
hundred yards away were three upright logs buried in the ground. I assumed they would
hang bulls-eyes from the logs. I assumed wrong. Several soldiers dragged out three naked
women and tied them the to logs, hanging them by their arms.
The drill instructor would call out a target, such as “Heart!” and the student would
try to shoot one of the naked women in the heart.
“Who are they?” I asked.
“Local girls, mostly,” Ming said. “Their parents sell them to us to get rid of them.
They want boys and have to get rid of their daughters first.”
A rifle cracked and one female target jerked, blood spurted from her left breast
with each last beat of her punctured heart. The unfortunate girl gasped out in horror and
shock, but quickly her head slumped over.
“Good shot!” the DI shout.
“Bravo!” the other students shouted in unison. (This was in Chinese, of course.)
The second girl was shot in the lower belly. She screamed and cried in agony, her
small, tanned body writhing in pain. She kicked out futilely, trying to free herself.
Another shot rang out and blood splashed from her right breast. She grunted as the slug
ripped her soft flesh and tore deep into her. A third shot hit her in the leg, shattering the
bone. She stopped kicking.
“Foul!” cried the DI.
“Foul!” repeated the students.
The middle girl slowly bled to death while the DI chewed out the student who had
missed her designated target.
The DI shouted out a target and the fifth student fired. Her shot went wild,
plowing into the sandbags behind the logs. Her second, and third shots also missed. The
DI howled at her. Spit spewed from her rage contorted face. A soldier walked up. The
student held out her hand and the soldier gave her three slaps with her switch.
“Shame!” cried the DI.
“Shame! Shame! Shame!” cried the students in robotic unison. The fifth student
was led away.
“What’s going on?”
“She’s a better shot than that,” Ming explained. “She missed because she was
shooting at a live target. That is why we use live targets. We have to know that our girls
will not be squeamish when it comes to killing another human being.”
“So what’s going to happen to her?”
“She’ll be recycled. If it happens again, she’ll be re-educated for a different
specialty, or if she is unsellable, we may use her here in a clerical position. Worst case,
we’ll use her for target practice.
“There’s one girl left alive,” Ming said, “would you like to have a shot at her?”
“No, thanks.”
The four remaining students switched their weapons to full auto and shot the
whimpering girl to pieces. Her tender body was riddled with dozens of bloody holes.
“I notice they didn’t hit her very hard,” I said, referring to the disobedient student,
as we left the firing range.
“We don’t believe in corporal punishment for disobedience, “ Ming explained.
“Many of these girls are being trained to enjoy pain, whether it is to please a sadistic
master, or to withstand torture. A slap on the wrist is merely symbolic. It is the shame of
their peers that we use to punish them.
“ Our first goal with the girls is to strip away their individuality and their free will.
We then substitute absolute loyalty and submission to the school. Upon their sale, their
loyalty is transferred to their new owner. Our ultimate goal is to create a slave girl who
will do anything for her master, no matter how depraved, how criminal, how
self-destructive. Their only desire is to please their master.”
“Quite a number of them are training to be assassins. With whom is a man more
likely to let his guard down? A young naked woman, no? Most will be trained to commit
suicide after killing their target. Thus leaving no trail back to their owner.”
Captain Ming then took me into the Dojo where several girls were leaning martial
arts or Kung Fu. (Yes, I know, Dojo is Japanese. But I don’t know the Chinese word.)
The Sifu or Master was a very severe-looking, thirty-five year old woman. The iron-faced
bitch was beating the shit out of her students.
I recognized one of the students. A tall, willowy girl, with silky, waist-length,
auburn hair, honey-colored skin, and almond eyes. Once her name had been Raquel. She
was the one I was looking for.
“Can I spar with one of the girls?” I asked Ming. “Just to see their progress.”
“You know Kung Fu?”
“No, American Kempo,” I said. “Learned it in the Marines.” (This was only
partially true, Mr. Ross was a former Marine; I had been in the US Army. I learned
Kempo as a teenager.)
Ming discussed this with the instructor. “She asks if you wish to spar with her?”
Ming said.
“And get my ass kicked?” I said. “Who’re you kidding? How about I spar with
that Mexican chick.” I indicated Raquel. They agreed and I stripped off my shoes and
shirt. “We’ll use amateur tournament rules,” I said, “so no one’ll get hurt-- least of all
me!” I had to explain the rules while Ming translated.
I walked out and bowed to Raquel. She just stared at me. I assumed a fighting
stance and so did she. I held my ground while I watched her. She was tentative at first,
circling me, trying to flank me, trying to read me. She threw a couple of feints and kicked
high for my head. I easily stepped out of the way.
“Como te llamas?” I asked. “Te llamas Raquel?” I watched her reaction as I asked
her name. I used Spanish on purpose. I was hoping to trigger some distant memories and
see a visual reaction. If there was one, it was too subtle for me.
She kicked at my head and I stepped under it, re-directed her leg to throw her off
balance, and thrust a knife-edge, side kick to her groin. I pulled my kick half an inch from
contact. Had she been a male, this would have been a devastating blow. As if was, it
merely would have hurt. I crossed out behind her and round-house kicked her in the
kidney. Again, I pulled my kick as not to hurt her. And held my foot in place so all could
see the contact.
At this point in an amateur bout the referee would have called a point and then
restarted the match when both contestants were ready. I turned my back on Raquel to
smile triumphantly at Captain Ming.
WHAM!
Raquel roundhouse kicked me in the head and smashed me to the floor. I stayed
down, dazed, unable to stand. I wobbled to me feet.
“En el mundo de verdad, senor,” Raquel scolded me, “no hay reglas!” “In the real
world, sir, there are no rules!”
I cut short my tour and Ming took me back to my room.
“How much for that Mexican girl?” I asked Ming.
“She’s already sold,” Ming said. “If you would like, we can custom build you one,
identical to her. Just like an auto from Detroit.”
“How about if I were to double the price?”
“I’m sorry; she has already been trained for a specific task and we can not back
out of the deal this late.”
Later that evening Captain Ming, (or perhaps I should call her Ai Li here, as she
was dressed not in her uniform, but in a blue silk dress,) escorted me up to the fifth floor
to have dinner with Colonel Chou.
Unlike the previous meals, the food was not Asian. There were no chop sticks.
With Asian food, the meat is already cut into bite-sized morsels so there is no need of a
knife at the dinner table.
This meal was Texas beefsteaks and Idaho potatoes and red beans and onions.
There were razor sharp steak knives at each setting.
And one more thing. There were no plates. The food was served on the bellies of
naked girls.
It was a bit unsettling at first and only got worse. It was nearly impossible to cut
the steak without slicing the belly of the girl-plate. Colonel Chou had no qualms about
cutting her meat and soon her ‘plate’ was bleeding profusely. Rather than be alarmed at
this, Colonel Chou dipped her meat into the girl’s blood as if it were steak sauce.
All the while the ‘plates’ never complained or even made a sound. They were as
motionless as real plates, even when sliced or burned by the sizzling steaks. If I hadn’t
been so revolted, I would have been impressed at their self-control.
That was the point.
“My girls will do anything their master requests,” Colonel Chou declared at the
conclusion of the meal. She brought over one of the servers: a Chinese girl in a French
maid’s uniform. One of her bodyguards handed Colonel Chou her pistol. “Please shoot
her, Mr. Ross,” Colonel Chou insisted, handing me the weapon. “She will enjoy dying for
you.”
“No, that’s OK, I believe you.”
“Typical squeamish American,” Colonel Chou said. “Can’t abide the sight of
blood.”
“I just don’t want to cause you any extra expense on my behalf.”
“Nonsense! Girls like this are a dime a dozen.” Colonel Chou handed the pistol to
the maid. “Shoot yourself in the belly and die real slow for Mr. Ross.”
“Yes, My Colonel.” The girl took the pistol, pressed the muzzle into her belly, and
pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
“You see, Mr. Ross, how obedient she is . . .”
The maid interrupted Colonel Chou. “I am so sorry, my Colonel. I am so sorry I
failed. I am so ashamed!”
“Quiet!” Colonel Chou commanded. She handed the weapon back to her
bodyguard.
“It was just a test of loyalty,” Ai Li said in English.
Too bad the maid didn’t understand English.
The crying girl seized one of the razor sharp steak knives and plunged it into her
belly. She twisted the blade and groaned in agony. Red blood stained her starched, white
apron. It bubbled out between her delicate fingers She thrust the knife in deeper and
moaned orgasmic. “I die for you, Mr. Ross,” she cooed, (in Chinese.)
Blood dripped from her lips. She licked her lips and smiled. The maid withdrew
the knife and gave it to me. I watched dumbfounded as she sank to her knees and slowly
collapsed at my feet. Her little body trembled, then was still. Blood pooled at my feet.
“Bravo!” cheered Colonel Chou.
Every one applauded.
Except me.
“Colonel Chou was very disappointed in you this evening,” Ai Li told me later as
she undressed. She wasn’t wearing a bra-- didn’t need one-- and I licked her nipples to
show my appreciation.
“I guess I’m just not used to eating off the belly of a naked girl while another stabs
herself to death for me.” I kissed the back of her neck.
“Are you going to fuck me,” Ai Li asked, “or you just going to stand there and
complain?”
I was fucking her hard when the door burst open and six soldiers, all armed with
AKs and bayonets rushed in. The grabbed me, dragged me down the stairs to the
basement, and threw me into a cell. (Well, actually, I was too big for them to drag or
throw; but it sounded more dramatic. And those bayonets encouraged my cooperation.)
I sat in darkness for hours.
“Who the hell are you?” Colonel Chou demanded when she finally arrived. “Who
the fucking hell are you?”
“I am Mr. Peter Ross.”
“This is Mr. Ross-- Not fucking you!” She thrust a photograph of Mr. Ross
through the bars. “Who are you?”
The game was up.
“My name is Lee Yaeger. I am Mr. Ross’s bodyguard.”
“His fucking bodyguard! He sent his Fucking bodyguard!” Colonel Chou was
livid. Spittle flew from her mouth. Fire roared from her eyes. (The spittle part is true.)
“You have two strikes against you. Don’t make it a third,” I said to Colonel Chou.
(Captain Ming must have had a chore translating the baseball terms.)
“Strike One. You demanded Mr. Ross come alone. Mr. Ross never goes anywhere
alone. He always travels with a lawyer, a doctor, several personal assistants, and six
bodyguards.
“Strike Two. You demanded that he come to this godforsaken hellhole, where
ever the hell this is. He offered to meet you in Beijing. But no, you wouldn’t even tell
him where he would be going.
Mr. Ross didn’t become the richest man in Texas by being an idiot. Only an idiot
would come to this rat-trap alone. How could he know that you wouldn’t kidnap him and
hold him for ransom?”
I paused. Captain Ming translated.
“Mr. Ross wants to do business with you. But you have to act like a rational
businesswoman. Do you want to be rich beyond your wildest dreams? Mr. Ross has the
contacts in the US to do just that. America is where all the money is. You know that. That
is why you were searching for an American contact.
“Strike Three will be if I don’t return. If I disappear, Mr. Ross will not only not do
business with you, he will make sure you never do business in the United States.”
I shut up.
It must have worked because a few hours later I was on my way back to the
airstrip.
“I really wanted to be fucked by a millionaire,” Captain Ming told me. “But, when
Mr. Ross comes to China, will you come with him?”
“Of course.”
“Then you can fuck me any time you want,” Ming Ai Li smiled lustily.
Two days later I landed in Tokyo, Japan.
As I was walking toward customs when I was intercepted by a Major from the US
Air Force. “Will you come with me, sir?” He lead me past customs and back out to the air
strip. A two-seater F-15 with USAF markings was waiting for me.
“What is this?”
The Major handed me a hand-written note. It was dated the day I left for China
and was signed by Mr. Ross. It read:
“Lee:
Please cooperate fully with the US military. I will explain later.
Pete.”
The F-15E flew me across South East Asia, to the former USAF airbase at Korat,
Thailand where I was transferred to an US Army helicopter and flown out to the northern
jungle. We landed at a temporary base camp. Just a few tents, a few trucks and trailers,
and four helicopters under camouflage netting. When we landed I saw two were Pave
Low long- range, troop ships; two were mid-flight, refueling tanker variants of the Pave
Low. Their US Army markings had been painted out.
A full-bird colonel wearing the green beret of the US Army Special Forces met
me at the helo-pad.
“Hello, Sergeant Yaeger,” he said and thrust out his hand.
“Hello, Lieutenant Keystone,” I replied. I called him ‘lieutenant’ because the last
time I had seen him he was a shavetail 2nd louie on his first combat assignment in
Colombia. I wanted to remind him that I was no longer a sergeant. I was something better
than a sergeant, or a lieutenant, or a colonel; I was a civilian!
“So what’s this all about, Carlos?”
“I have some people I want you to meet,” Colonel Keystone said, escorting me
toward a tent. Colonel Keystone was the CO ( Commanding Officer,) of the 1st SFG,
(Special Forces Group.) “After that, it should be obvious-- even to an ol’ fart like you.”
He threw back the tent flap and it was obvious, right away.
Inside were twelve of the toughest, most physically fit women I had ever seen.
They all wore tiger-striped, combat fatigues without any insignia. Even though I had
never met any of them personally, I immediately recognized who they were.
They were one of the three female ODAs, (Operational Detachments Alpha or,
more commonly, A-Teams,) in the United States Army Special Forces.
When the US Army integrated women into its combat forces, especially into its
special forces, they made two very good decisions, (in my opinion.) First, the ODAs were
single gender only. And second, and more importantly, female applicants had to meet the
same requirements as males. Physical, Mental, Educational. That was why only one of the
ODAs in the 1st SFG were female.
For those unacquainted with A-Teams: They are a twelve man squad, commanded
by a Captain, with a 1st Lieutenant or Chief Warrant Officer as the XO, (Executive
Officer,) and ten senior NCOs. (Non-Commissioned Officers.) Each has extensive
training in a military specialty and in a back-up specialty, such as: command, operations,
intelligence, weapons, counter-terrorism, linguistics, communications, combat medicine.
They are, as a unit, the most highly trained, and due to their training, the most highly
motivated units in the US Army. Each team possesses the basic knowledge to train an
army or to carry out any mission assigned to it. ( And because each member is crossed
trained, the team can be split into two teams of six, each with the same knowledge and
capabilities of the team as a whole.)
This team, ODA 113, was known commonly as the Female Asian A-team
because their cultural and linguistically area of expertise was Asia. ( The 1st SFG’s area
of operations includes Asia.) Eight of the twelve were of Asian or Amer-Asian descent,
three were Latin American Hispanic or Indian who could pass as Asian, and the twelfth
was a Sergeant Cafarelli, of Italian descent, who was also the shortest of the 12, with
jet-black hair. In the dark, with her perfect Chinese, she could pass also for Asian.
The CO of ODA 113 was Captain Julia Chung, 35, with 15 years in the Army.
She was Amer-Asian: father of Chinese descent, mother of European. At six feet, she was
the tallest member of the team. She had a Ph.D. in Chinese history, spoke Mandarin and
Cantonese fluently. Other languages included her native English, Japanese, Korean,
Vietnamese, and Tagalog. She held a tenth degree Black Belt in Wing Chun Kung Fu.
She was a trained expert in military command, logistics, operations, intelligence, and
counter-terrorism.
Her XO was Lieutenant Trina Nguyen, 28, with ten years in the US Army. She
was of Vietnamese descent. She had a BA from West Point, (third in her class,) in
military history. She spoke English, Vietnamese, Mandarin, some Cantonese, and
Spanish. Areas of expertise included operations, intelligence, logistics, and
counter-terrorism.
As an example of the NCOs, there was Sergeant Rosa Guerrero, whom I got to
know the best. She was 26, with 6 years in the Army. She was a Cachikel Indian from
Guatemala who had immigrated to the United States when she was twelve. Her native
language was Cachikel. She had learned Spanish in primary school in Guatemala, and
English in high school in the US. She had spent two years in an university in Chinese
Studies before getting bored and dropping out to join the Army. She spoke both Mandarin
and Cantonese. She held a Black Belt in Karate. Her areas of expertise included weapons,
logistics, hand-to-hand combat, and she was the team sniper.
The other NCOs had similar back-grounds.
Colonel Keystone made a quick introduction.
The SF soldiers were surrounding a table with a scale model mock-up of the
Glorious Long March Academy for Young Women. There was no way they could have
put that sand-box model together so soon.
“Of course, we’ve known the location of the slave-camp for months,” Lt. Nguyen
explained to me. “In fact, I was right here,” she pointed to a hill overlooking the school,
“when they took you in and when they took you out.”
“So why did I take in a GPS?” I asked, “I thought nobody knew where the camp
was.”
“That was just in case they took you somewhere else,” Colonel Keystone
explained.
“We’ve had the camp under observation for six months,” Captain Chung said.
“But we’ve never been able to get any one inside. When Mr. Ross offered his help, it was
like pennies from heaven.”
I spent the next twelve hours debriefing the team on my observations of the camp.
From the beginning it was obvious that they had been planning an operation for some
time as they knew more about the camp than I did. But the one place where I had them
beat was inside the buildings. They had never been inside and lacked knowledge of the
interior layouts.
When we were finished Colonel Keystone escorted me out. “You hungry?”
“Yeah. Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“Need-to-know, sergeant. Same ol’ Need-to-know bullshit.”
He took me to the mess tent. “There is one more person here who would like to
talk to you,” Colonel Keystone said. “I’ll go get him while you’re eating.”
I was even more surprised to see this person. In ambled the senior senator from
Texas, David Jacob MacCandles. He was best friends with Mr. Ross. They had been in
the Marines together and Mr. Ross had served as the senator’s chief campaign fund raiser
for three elections. He offered me his huge hand. “Good to see ya’, Lee.” Senator
MacCandles was a big, John-Waynesque man.
“Same, senator.” We knew each other.
“It’s Jake,” he reminded, “and I want to tell you a long and sad tale.” He started
into it.
“About ten years ago, when I was first running for the senate, my campaign staff
warned me we were moving into the big leagues. (Senator MacCandles had been a
congressman for two terms, prior to running for the senate.) They wanted to investigate
me to see if there was any dirty laundry in my past my opponent could use against me.
They found one skeleton in my closet I didn’t know about.
“Twenty some years ago I was serving my last assignment in the Marine Corps; I
was the Military Liaison to the US Embassy in Colombia. When it was time for me to
retire and return to the US, the embassy staff threw a going away party for me. I got a bit
nostalgic and a bit more wasted. There was a beautiful young Colombian woman at the
party. Her name was Raquel Ramos. I went home with her. Spent the night. We both
understood it was a one night stand. I used protection. In the morning we said our
good-byes and I never saw her again.
“What I didn’t know was that she became pregnant. She married an Argentine
Army officer and moved to Argentina. She died in childbirth. Since the child was not his,
the Argentine officer placed the child in an orphanage in Buenos Aires. When she was six
years old a Chinese couple bought her from the orphanage. It was right before Christmas
and they offered six thousand dollars in donations if the orphanage would give them the
child and erase all records of her.
“I didn’t know any of this until private investigators working for my campaign
discovered it. That is where the trail went cold. They couldn’t find out anything after the
orphanage.
“My senate opponent never discovered any of this; or if he did, decided it wasn’t
enough of an issue.
“But it was for me. I have never stopped looking for my daughter. After I joined
the senate intelligence committee, I asked some friends in the CIA for help. They were
investigating this slave-camp in China. Buyers from this camp travel the third-world
buying children from orphanages. That seemed to match what had happened to my
daughter. Until you got in and sent out the data, I didn’t know if she was there or not.
Now I know.
“Pete has known about my daughter for years. He offered to pretend he was
interested in buying a slave girl so he could get you into the camp to find her or confirm
she was there. So don’t be mad at Pete. This has all been my fault.”
“Just one thing,” I said. (I wasn’t mad at him or Mr. Ross. It was just part of the
job, and it paid better than the army.) “ Why didn’t you tell me this before I went in?”
“If they caught you, drugged you, tortured you, what would you have told them?”
“That I was looking for a specific girl for my boss, Mr. Ross. I didn’t know
anything else beyond that.”
“Exactly! That was the truth as far as you knew. You didn’t know you were really
working for the CIA and the US Army; and you couldn’t have told them that no matter
what they did to you. It was to protect the mission and to protect you.”
“If you don’t mind, sir, what is the mission? The Alpha operators aren’t here for
fun.”
“I have the President’s orders right here.” He tapped his pocket. “And I have one
more favor to ask you.
“The team is going in tomorrow night. I want you to go in with them and help
bring out my daughter. You know what she looks like; you’ve met her, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, and she taught me a real important lesson I’d forgotten-- Never to turn my
back on any one. That’s why I can’t go,” I said. “I’m too old; I’ve been out of the business
too long. I’d be a fifth wheel, I’d be in the team’s way. You can’t do this to them, sir. You
were in the Marines; you know better than to screw with a team.”
“I have the President’s orders for you right here, Lee. He’s reinstating you in the
Army at your former rank of Master Sergeant. You’re going in because I asked him for
this favor and he agreed. I want you in there to take care of my daughter. I’m sorry, but
there’s no room for discussion, Sergeant. You’re going.”
I learned long ago it’s no use arguing with the President of the USA. So I shut up
“Now, let’s go give the team its orders.”
We rejoined Colonel Keystone and returned to the tent where the A-Team was
still reviewing the camp model. “I’m sure you all know who Senator MacCandles is, “
Keystone said. They did, MacCandles was a big supporter of the military. His senate
committee had authorized many of my covert missions, including assassinations of drug
lords in Colombia. “He has brought the President’s orders.”
“Will you read them, Colonel?” Senator MacCandles said. He handed them over.
“The President of the United States has commissioned a White Paper which has
determined that the Glorious Long March Academy for Young Women constitutes a
Clear and Present Danger to the Security and Safety of the Citizens of the United States
of America.
“Therefore, Captain Julia Chung, ODA 113 is ordered to complete the following
tasks:
“1. To terminate with extreme prejudice Colonel Chou Lai Na, operator of this
terrorist camp.
“2. To terminate with extreme prejudice the senior officers of this terrorist camp.
“3. To terminate with extreme prejudice as many as feasible of the junior officers,
NCOs, support staff, and instructors of this terrorist camp.
“4. To destroy all physical structures, with an emphasis on the command center
and the instructional facilities, as you determine feasible; while avoiding damaging the
student dormitories.
“5. To minimize loss of life or injury to the minor students of this terrorist facility.
“6. To locate, rescue, and return safely to the United States of America, the US
Citizen known as Raquel Ramos.
“End of Orders.”
The team had known what their orders were going to be for some time-- in order
to plan the mission-- and they were raring to go.
Senator MacCandles rained on their parade when he told them I was going with
them. They were too disciplined to complain. However, Captain Chung saw it as her duty
to protect her team. So she did voice her concerns about old men interfering with team
work.
“Sergeant Yaeger is no old man,” the Senator said. “He has twenty years
experience in the Army, fifteen with the Special Forces. Five years running he was the
Army’s top sniper.”
“Yaeger-- Isn’t Jaeger German for ‘Hunter?’” Sergeant Guerrero asked no one in
particular.
“Yeah.” I said.
“You ever in South America?”
“Over twenty deployments.”
“Are you the guy who used to call himself ‘El Cazador?’ -- The Hunter?”
“Yeah, I used that Nombre de Guerra for awhile-- then passed it onto one of my
Colombian proteges.”
“Do you know who this guy is?” Guerrero asked the rest of the team. There was
some excitement in her voice, some admiration. “This is the guy who popped Pablo
Escobedo, and Raul Escobedo. He’s got 105 confirmed kills. Many at a thousand meters.”
“I didn’t get Raul,” I corrected her. “That was my Colombian student.”
“I gotta question for you,” Guerrero asked. “You used to leave a hunting license
behind after every kill. It had all the details of the hit, even down to the time of day and
the yardage. How did you know all that beforehand?”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I took a laptop with me and printed them out after the hit.”
“What the hell is this hunting license shit,” a sergeant asked.
Captain Chung knew the answer to that. “Psychological warfare.”
“I only left them after successful hits, “ I explained. “Once El Cazador earned the
reputation for never missing, I changed tactics. When I couldn’t take the shot, I would
stamp on the license, ‘License suspended until further notice.’ My intended target would
believe the only reason he was still alive was because I didn’t have permission yet. That’s
why Pedro Escobedo is so far underground. I left three of those for him. Lucky bastard!
He may be the richest son-of-a-bitch in Colombia, but I assure you, he ain’t enjoying it.
“My best Colombian student still uses that name and the bad guys think it’s the
same El Cazador as always.”
After a few more stories like this Captain Chung finally decided I wasn’t a total
disaster for her team. “Sergeant Guerrero is tasked with rescuing Raquel Ramos,” she told
me, “You stick with her, do everything she tells you, and you can forget you outrank her.”
“Yes, Sir!”
“It’s Ma’am, Sergeant!” I’m no PC freak!”
They had a cot waiting for me in a tent and the team medic, Sgt. Han, gave me a
little red pill-- Red for stop. I stopped and slept for twelve hours.
When we were awake, Sergeant Guerrero had the duty of acquainting me with
some of the new gear we would be using.
The CAR-15s, M-16s and the MP-5s the team carried were only the latest model
of the carbines, rifles and submachine pistols the Army and been using for decades. The
Pave Low helicopters were almost forty years old-- the helicopters, not the design.
There was also the old reliable Ka-Bar Marine combat knife.
But mounted on the weapons was the latest B&L laserscope. “The laser is
invisible to the naked-eye,” Guerrero demonstrated. “It no longer just shows where the
muzzle is pointed. It measures the range to the target, air density and humidity, wind. The
weapon and ammo data is pre-programmed. The laserscope calculates the data and
adjusts the laser accordingly.”
“Hell! With a toy like this,” I said, “anyone can make a thousand meter shot.”
“Two thousand-- if you’re good!”
I took that to mean Guerrero was good.
“You can also tie it into the HUD (Heads Up Display) on your goggles and see
what your rifle ‘sees’-- good for looking around corners without exposing your head.”
The K-Pot (Kevlar Helmet) looked like the one I wore, same design as introduced
in the nineteen-eighties, but lighter. The comm’ gear was built into the helmet, with
earplug speakers and whisker microphones. Each member of the team had her own,
voice-activated walkie-talkie. The goggles not only had the HUD Guerrero mentioned,
but night-vision, infra-red, motion detectors, and heat sensors. They could all but see
through walls. Under the K-Pot we wore a Nomex fireproof ski-mask. Like NASCAR
drivers wear.
There had been great advances in body armor with the creation of Kevlar fabric.
Kevlar fabric is just a bit lighter and more flexible than canvas. The ALICE packs -- I
know, they’re called MOLLEs now --- and belts were made of Kevlar fabric. The
camel-back canteen was Kevlar. There were panels of Kevlar fabric sewn into the BDUs.
(Battle Dress Uniform.) Over the lower and upper legs, groin and buttocks; over the back
and chest. In the collar.
Eat your hearts out, leathernecks!
(Two hundred years ago Marines wore a leather collar to protect their necks from
sword strikes-- Hence the nickname: Leathernecks.)
There were Kevlar knee and elbow pads. “To protect your knees and elbows from
falls-- accidental or on purpose,” Guerrero said. She faked a knee-strike to the groin.
“They’re also great for improving the damage caused by a knee strike or elbow strike.”
We wore Nomex shooting gloves -- fingerless-- with a Kevlar panel on the back of the
hand. “Good for back-handing the bad guys,” Guerrero demonstrated. There was a Kevlar
panel in the bottom of the boots. Anti-mine. “If you’re on your back, and they’re shooting
at you,” Guerrero said, “lift your boots and use them as shields.”
The women wore Nomex/Lycra sport bras. I was issued a Nomex/Lycra jockstrap.
Gotta protect those family jewels!
While Guerrero was checking me out, Big Jake approached with a wooden box--
from my closet at home!
“Pete said you had to have this,” Senator MacCandles said by way of apologizing
for the intrusion on my privacy.
“What’s in it?” Sergeant Guerrero asked.
I took out a recently refurbished Model 1911 Colt .45 Automatic Pistol.
“This is the same pistol the Army issued to my Great-grandfather in 1914 when he
joined General Black Jack Pershing’s expeditionary force into Mexico to hunt down
Pancho Villa. He also carried it with him in France in 1918. After the First World War he
had it refurbished, placed it in this box, and hid it in his closet-- hoping to never see it
again.
“On December 8th, 1941, he took it out and gave it to my Grandfather who had
just returned from an Army recruiting station. My Grandfather carried it with him in the
Pacific war, during the occupation of Japan, and the Korean War. He then refurbished it
and hid it away, hoping to never see it again.
“He gave it to my Father in 1965.
“My Father carried it with him during all four tours of duty in Vietnam. He too
refurbished it and hid it away. He made me swear I would never join the Army. I was
born not long after South Vietnam fell to the communists. ‘Three generations are enough
for any family.’ he told me.
“But on September 12th, 2001, after I got back from the Army recruiting station,
he took it down from its hiding place and gave it to me. I carried it for twenty years. Like
my ancestors, I refurbished it and hid it away.
“I don’t have a son to give it to. Maybe that’s why I never married.”
Fully out-fitted, I wore black and blue Urban Combat (Night) Camouflage BDUs.
A black Nomex mask and shooting gloves. A Marine Ka-Bar Combat knife strapped to
my lower right leg. My APC .45 on my right hip. A two-liter black, camel-back canteen
on my back and an old-style, green plastic, quart canteen in a black cotton case on my
left hip. Black K-Pot on my head and I carried the latest version of the H&K MP-5 with a
silencer/flash-suppresser and the B&L 2020 laserscope. Black jump boots. In/on the
ALICE pack were twenty-five clips of thirty rounds each for the MP-5, ten clips of 9
rounds each for the APC. Ten fragmentation grenades, 5 WP (White Phosphorous--
incendiary,) grenades, and 5 Flash-bangs. A basic Med.-Kit. Twenty ration bars-- the
army’s version of Power Bars, with 2000 calories each, a day’s worth of vitamins, and a
pot-full of caffeine.
Two hours before lift-off we ate a breakfast of eggs, steak, fruits, toast and jam,
and black coffee-- ninety percent caffeine. We popped a green pill-- green for GO.
“Our call sign is Ninja,” Guerrero said. “Captain Chung is Ninja 1, Lt. Nguyen is
Ninja 2, I am Ninja 10, Sgt. Nakano is Ninja 12. That makes you Ninja 13. You’re not
superstitious, are you? If you are, just remember in Asia the number 13 is not bad luck,
it’s number 4.
“To active your mike, you need to say your call sign. ‘Ninja 13.’ If you want to
speak to one person, you say their call sign: ‘Ninja 13 to Ninja 10.’ Otherwise, it’s an
open mike to the whole team. There’s a decibel suppresser. That’s for if a teammate gets
shot! You don’t have her screaming in your ear.”
We lifted off at dusk. Six team members in one Pave Low, seven in the other. Just
before crossing into China, the tanker topped off our fuel. It was just passed midnight,
local time, when the helicopters dropped us off in the hills about ten klicks from the slave
school. We didn’t make a sound as we humped through the hills.
With the night-vision goggles we could see plain as day. Maybe just a touch of
green tint-- like wearing cheap sunglasses on a sunny day. We made good time arriving at
the pre-cached explosives just before 2:00 AM. We divided up the charges and split into
six fire-teams for our final approach.
Any one who is not frightened before going into combat is either stupid or insane.
I’m not stupid-- so I must be insane. I stopped being frightened about ten years into my
army career. I was worried, however; worried that I would screw up the team’s plan. I had
not trained with them, I had only the most rudimentary knowledge of the plan, and I
didn’t speak a word of the local language. I still didn’t see how I could possible be an
asset to this mission.
Fire Team Six: Sergeants Guerrero, Nakano, and I dropped into our pre-dug,
camouflaged sniper hole about 700 meters from the north east watch tower. Sergeant
Guerrero took the spotter scope and handed me her M-16. “You take the shot.”
Was she being sarcastic? Or admirative? I couldn’t argue with her. There was no
time.
I sighted in on one of the guards and thumbed the laser. An invisible dot appeared
on her chest for only an instant. An instant later the cross-hairs in the scope adjusted to
the targeting data. I had to lift the weapon only a fraction. I sighted in on the second
guard, and then , placed the cross-hairs on the first and recalibrated.
“Team 6 in place.” Guerrero reported.
The tower guards seemed bored. They stood, their shoulders slumped from
weariness. It was halfway through their shift. Their senses were starting to dull. I didn’t
look at their faces. Delicate doll-like faces. I zeroed in on her chest. Concentrated on her
heart, spine. Tried to ignore her pert little breasts. Her clean, pressed, cotton uniform
blouse stretch tight over her young, firm breasts.
“Team Ninja. Execute. Execute. Execute!” Captain Chung’s command came over
the entire comm’ net.
“Shoot!” Guerrero said.
I took the shot. The slug slammed into the guard just below her left breasts,
traversed her heart, and shattered her spine. The impact lifted her onto her toes for just an
instant, then dropped her like a rag doll. I barely noticed as I shifted to the second target.
“Hit!” Guerrero announced. “Shoot!”
The second guard barely had time to register shock on her pretty little face before
the slug slammed into her, dead center of her chest, punched through her heart, and
ricocheted off her spine. The startled look on her face was replaced by a grimace of fear
and pain. She dropped out of sight.
“Hit.” Guerrero said. “Ninja 1, NE tower clear.”
I dropped the rifle to my alternative targets. A roving guard just outside the fence
lay twitching in the grass. Her blouse glistened in the dark. I searched for another
alternative just in time to see another rover along the north fence throw up her arms and
twirl around. Blood spurted from her left breast. Her feet entangled and she fell into the
dirt.
The fire teams reported all tower and exterior guards eliminated. There hadn’t
been a sound. Sixteen guards were dead in less than five seconds.
Guerrero and I swapped weapons. I flipped the selector on my MP-5 to single
shot. Guerrero gave me a funny look. I gave her a ‘I know what I’m doing’ look. “No use
wasting ammo,” I whispered. “Can’t hit ‘em the first time, no use being here.”
We moved silently to the fence. Guerrero and Nakano had ten anti-structure mines
between them. They loaded me up with six while they carried the other four. At least I
was a good mule. Nakano snipped through the wire while Guerrero and I maintained
watch.
We slipped through the fence, silently, and invaded the camp. A guard rounded
the corner of a building, but she never saw us. I tapped her in the chest.
“Ugh!” she grunted and bounced off the wall, slowly sliding down, and collapsed
into a heap. I dragged her into the shadows. Nakano pulled the first mine off my ALICE
pack. The mines weren’t powerful enough to knock the building down, they weren’t big
enough. We couldn’t carry enough of them to do it that way. This was an incendiary
device. It would blow a hole in the wall, spray liquid napalm inside and ignite it. The
resulting fire should completely destroy the dry, wooden structure. Nakano set the mine in
place and set the timer. Three hours to detonation. Unless some one tried to pull it off.
The detonator had a motion detector. There was also a receiver for remote detonation.
Three other fire teams were busy mining the buildings.
Guerrero glanced at her watch when we had set all ten mines, on six buildings, we
were several minutes ahead of schedule-- thanks to the mule?
We silently moved toward to gate to the north compound. Another fire team had
already passed through the gate. The corporal of the guard lay face down in the guard
shack, in a pool of blood. A second guard lay on top of her, face up. And the third guard
lay on top, her firm little breasts, now punctured and bleeding, pressed into the second
guard’s chest. As a cruel joke, their lips were touching in a mortal kiss, blood dripping
from the top guard’s mouth into the open lips of the girl below her. Their sightless eyes
gazed into each other’s, like dead lovers.
We moved toward dormitory 28, near the east fence, not many yards from where
we had infiltrated. We encountered another dead guard, lying behind a rain barrel, a
smoldering cigarette hanging from her dead lips. Ash had burned a hole in her blouse
above one breast. I rubbed out the cigarette in the dirt.
Reaching dormitory 28 we clicked onto the heat sensors and motion detectors. We
picked up a faint heat source just beyond the front door, but it wasn’t moving, and didn’t
have a human form. “I’ll go in first,” I volunteered. Nakano sprayed WD-40 on the hinges
and latch. While Nakano and Guerrero each stood to one side, Guerrero turned the door
handle and opened the door. I activated the HUD and poked the MP-5 inside. A single
guard lay asleep in her chair, behind a desk which had obscured her heat signature.
I crept toward her. Her feet where up on the desk top. I got a very good view up
her short skirt. She had white panties.
I circled behind her, clapped my left hand over her mouth, and drove the Ka-Bar
into her chest, between her ribs, into her heart. I felt her heart beat against the razor sharp
blade, slicing it in half. The beating stopped and I lowered her quietly to the floor. Her
panties were wet and stained now.
Nakano sprayed more lubricant on the door hinges to the bunk room. She stayed
behind providing cover while Guerrero and I crept between the rows of bunk beds, each
one containing a sleeping beauty, until we reached the end.
Bunk number twenty-eight was empty!
“Can you read this?” I whispered, indicating the name plate.
“Rei Ling,” Guerrero said.
“Shit!” I looked at bunk 27, above 28. The girl was Asian. I checked the other
bunks around that side while Guerrero looked over those on the other side. “Shit!
Nothing!” I cursed, “Shit, she’s gone.”
“Do the girls usually sleep in their uniforms?” Guerrero asked. I glanced around.
The girls were all in their school uniform: white blouse, short blue plaid skirt, knee-high,
white stockings. The Blue blazers and red ties hung within easy reach.
I grabbed the girl in bunk 27, clamped my hand over her mouth, and drug her back
to the office. “Ask her if she speaks English,” I said to Guerrero. “No, tell her first that I
bought her. I’m her master.”
The girl’s eyes were wide with fear while Guerrero translated. Then she relaxed
and I released her.
“Where is Raquel-- or Rei Ling? She was supposed to be mine too.”
“They took her, my master.”
“Who took her?”
“The officers took her. I do not know where. They came for her at bedtime. She
packed all her things. They said she was going to her new master.”
“Why are you dressed in your uniform?” Guerrero asked. The girl looked to me
for permission to answer.
“Tell her.”
“In case the evil ones come,” she said. “The officers said evil ones were coming
to steal us from our masters. We must be prepared to fight them. We belong to our
masters.”
“When were the evil ones coming?” I asked.
“I do not know,” the girl said. “This is the first night we were to be dressed and
ready. This is the first night the buses came and took away all the younger girls into the
hills to protect them. Only we who have been trained to kill remain behind.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Have I pleased you, my Master?”
“Yes.”
“Will you kill me now? All my life I have desired for you to kill me. Please kill
me.”
I chopped her in the back of the neck and knocked her out. As I was lowering her
to the floor---
“And me, Master? Will you kill me? Please, Kill me.” Another girl was standing
in the doorway. Nakano had neglected to shut the door to the bunk room. This girl looked
Greek or Italian. Dusky, dark hair, full lips. “Please, My Master, let me die for you!”
I shot her in her heart. She gasped. Her breath cut short. She couldn’t speak. It
wasn’t as pleasurable to die as she imagined. She clutched at her breast and sank to the
floor.
“Shut the fucking door,” I barked at Nakano.
“What the hell d’ya shoot her for?” Guerrero demanded.
I drug the bleeding girl around the desk and dropped her on the dead guard.
“B‘cause she asked for it! Why the hell do you think I shot her? She was about to wake
up the whole damn bunkhouse.”
“I could’ve tasered her,” Guerrero retorted.
“So why didn’t you?”
“Fuck! You’re right. It’s my fault,” Guerrero said.
“Forget it!” I said “These girls are so screwed up, I did her a favor.”
I was getting this awful feeling at the pit of my stomach, and it wasn’t from killing
girls.
“Shit! We’ve walked into an ambush. They’re waiting for us.”
“If this is an ambush,” Guerrero said, “it’s a really shitty one. I can see sacrificing
the exterior guards to suck us in, but they should have sprung the trap by now.”
“What’s the plan now?”
“If we had Raquel, we’d head to the first rally point. Otherwise, we’re to join up
with another fire team and help place mines.”
“Where’s Captain Chung?”
“She’ll be in the command center. Probably in the basement setting charges.”
“Look. I’m going to join up with Captain Chung,” I said. “You go join up with the
other fire team.”
“Your orders are to stay with me.”
“Didn’t they teach you-- No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy?”
Guerrero was spitting mad when I left her. But she didn’t have the guts to shoot
me in the back.
At the guard shack to the command compound there were three dead girls laying
in a heap inside. Outside the shack was a new addition, a sandbag bunker. Inside the
bunker was a wooden crate, unopened. Stenciled in Chinese, Russian, and English were
the words. “Machine Gun, Light, .30 Cal.”
I poked my MP-5 inside the main entrance to the command center. Nothing.
“Ninja 13 to Ninja 1.”
“Copy you.”
“I’m just outside the command center. I’m coming in. Where are you?”
“Where’s Ninja 10?”
“On task. I’m coming in. Don’t shoot.”
I found her in the basement with Ninja 3, 6 and 8. They were setting demolition
charges, not incendiaries.
“Raquel Ramos is gone. They took her away today. They bused all the little girls
away too. I think they knew we were coming. I think we’ve walked into an ambush.”
“If this is an ambush, these assholes don’t know shit about ambushes, “ Captain
Chung said with disdain. “We’re just about done here. On my verbal command I can drop
this entire building into the basement. If they were going to ambush us, they should’ve
done it before we got in here.”
“I think I know somebody who can tell me where Raquel is,” I said. “I’m asking
permission to go to the forth floor and find her.”
“Before I drop this building,” Captain Chung said, “I’m supposed to personally
snuff Colonel Chou and get a DNA sample. I’ll take you up when we do that.”
“Done!” Ninja 6 reported.
“Head to rally one,” Chung told Ninja 6 and 8. “Let’s go waste this bitch,” she
said to me and Ninja 3.
We had just reached the stairs when a loud speaker began blaring.
“Fuck it all!”
“No, wait,” Chung said. She listened to the announcement. “It’s a drill. They’re
announcing a drill. They don’t know we’re here yet.”
“It won’t take long.”
The command center shook as a sudden explosion outside rolled across the
campus. Small arms fire erupted. All AK-47s. The American weapons were all silent.
“No time to waste,” Chung said. “Let’s get out and drop this shack.”
“What about Colonel Chou?”
“You want her, you go up and waste her. Scalp her. Bring a hunk of hair back
with you. But you only got fifteen minutes before I drop this building.”
Another explosion shook the building.
Ninja 1 and Ninja 3 turned around and sprinted for the exit. The mission had just
dropped into the crapper and Captain Chung wanted to be with her women.
I flipped the selector on the MP-5 to semi-auto. Inserted a fresh clip.
Up the stairs.
At the third floor landing I ran into three soldiers and an officer. They were
surprised.
I was fast.
I hosed them down. The three girls clutched at their bleeding bellies, groaned and
winced, and stumbled and tumbled down the stairs. I leapt over their bleeding bodies and
pumped three rounds into the officer’s tits. She grunted, her arms flew up, her pistol
bounced off the ceiling. She stumbled against the wall, tripped and fell.
On the forth floor landing a sentry took a shot at me. She missed.
I didn’t.
On the fifth floor. There were six of them waiting. Their AKs opened up before I
even before I rounded the corner. I dove for cover.
I poked the MP-5 around the corner. They saw it, and waited for me to follow.
I squeezed off a shot and a Captain grunted her surprise. She looked at the hole in
her blouse pocket. Blood was leaking out. She whined in protest and slumped to the floor.
The remaining five opened up again.
I pulled a pin on a grenade, released the spoon. It popped and the fuse began to
burn. I tossed it to them.
The five girls were ripped and shredded. As the smoke cleared their bloody bodies
lay in heaps upon each other.
One bloody girl was trying to reach her AK. I shot her in the back.
I shot the door handle off the entrance to Colonel Chou’s office.
The office was empty.
I continued on to the bedroom.
I clicked on the heat sensors and motion detectors outside the door to the
bedroom. There were ten or eleven people inside. All standing. They seemed to be in a
circle. There could have been some one inside that circle, but the multiple heat signatures
obscured each other.
I had yanked the pin on another grenade when dozens of bullets splintered the
door and wall and slammed into me. The fury of the impacts knocked me off my feet,
knocked me breathless. The Kevlar stopped most of them.
I heard a hissing noise.
My grenade lay beside me. The spoon was gone.
I batted at it and rolled away.
The grenade blew the door off its hinges. Blew it into splinters and chunks.
My arm stung.
I regained my feet and staggered drunkenly. Fell through the door way.
The room was full of smoke.
Two or three AKs opened up on me. I returned fire just as three slugs impacted on
my chest. I was stunned.
I stopped shooting.
Withering fire ripped the MP-5 from my hands and shattered it.
A slug bounced off the K-Pot.
Six more slugs slammed into my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I fell.
I lay at the foot of a huge bed. Too stunned to move. Grasping hands ripped off
my helmet. Off came the Nomex mask.
Hands pinned me down.
My head slowly cleared along with the smoke in the room. A girl in a French
maid’s uniform sat hunched up against one wall. A wooden splinter had impaled her
stomach and she clutched at it and cried. Her white apron was bright red.
There were nine other girls in the room. None in military uniforms. They were all
dressed in sexy costumes. All were armed with AK-47s. Standing behind them, using
them as human shields, was Colonel Chou.
Colonel Chou didn’t look like a colonel. Her hair was down. She wore a black silk
push-up bra. Black silk panties. Split crotch panties. Black garter belts and fish net
stockings. She held a horse whip.
There was a double headed dildo on the bed.
“Interruptin’ somethin’ important?” I croaked.
“How many are you?” a girl dressed as a very sexy secretary translated. “Why
have you come?”
“I thought you girls could do with a real man for a change.”
Colonel Chou spat out an order. Two girls yanked me to my feet. Another girl,
dressed only in split crotch panties and a pink push-up bra, reached for my crotch. And a
forth girl, dressed in a silk teddy, pulled out the ugliest knife I ever saw.
“You won’t be a man for long,” secretary girl translated. She leered lustily at me
through her round glasses.
I snap-kicked crotch girl between her legs. It didn’t hurt as much as it would have
a man. But it surprised her. I wrapped my left arm around one girl next to me and pulled
her in front of me as a human shield. The other I hit in her throat with a right, back thrust
elbow strike. She staggered away. The Kevlar elbow pad had shattered her larynx. She
clutched at her throat and tried to gasp for air. No air. She gasped. She choked to death. I
pulled my .45 and shot knife girl in her belly. She dropped the knife. Grabbed herself.
Fell dead.
Several AKs opened up. Shield girl’s body jerked and spasmed as she was riddled
with AK rounds. A few ripped through her lithe body to bounce off my body armor and
tear her up some more. She cired out in protest. But blood spurted from her mouth,
drowning out her words.
I picked off a blonde girl dressed as a Catholic nun. Blew her right out of her
habit. Another .45 round put down a black girl in a furry tiger bikini. She roared her
displeasure at dying. Yet a another killed a blonde nurse. Punched her right through her
pneumatic right breast. Her starchy white uniform was unzipped to her navel. No need to
shoot holes in her uniform. A little laundry job and it would be ready for the next whore.
Her white bra wasn’t as lucky. It had a bullet hole in it. A very bloody hole.
Knife girl wasn’t dead yet. She ignored her agony and reached for the knife. I shot
her in the heart. She dropped stone cold dead onto the knife.
Crotch girl had regained her breath and was reaching for an AK. The .45 wouldn’t
fire. The slide was back and locked.
When had I fired the entire clip? I shoved my shield onto top of her and dove
behind the bed.
“Kill him! Kill him!” secretary girl was screaming.
Crotch girl came over the bed. She was dripping blood. She held an AK-47 with a
bayonet. The clip was missing. I ducked under her bayonet thrust and stuck my Ka-Bar in
her flat belly. Her eyes went wide. Her pouty mouth flew open. She sucked in a little air,
but it hurt to breathe.
I ripped her open to her crotch and she stopped breathing.
I threw the AK-47 like a spear and impaled secretary girl to the wall. She
squirmed and pulled at the weapon. The AK dropped to the floor, but the bayonet was
still inside her. A red stain spread across her crisp white blouse. She slowly bled out and
hung on the wall like a bloody trophy.
Only one girl was left. A pigtailed, Japanese girl in a white sailor suit. She
whimpered in fear. Shaking with desperation, Sailor girl sat down, poked the muzzle of
her AK into her pussy, and pulled the trigger with her toe.
Sailor girl’s pussy exploded into a pink, frothy mess. But she stopped
whimpering.
Only Colonel Chou remained standing. She cursed at me, but made no move to
defend herself. I’ll never know why.
Slowly, because I hurt all over, and very deliberately, because I didn’t want to
screw it up, I load a fresh clip into the .45.
I walked up to Colonel Chou.
She spat on me.
I shot her in her pussy.
I shot her in her bellybutton.
I shot her in her right breast.
She wasn’t quite dead when I walked out of her office, a hunk of her silky black
hair hanging from my belt; but three .45 slugs in her body were more than enough to do
the job.
I didn’t want it to be fast for her. I didn’t finish her.
I wanted her to die in agony.
I readjusted my K-Pot. The Nomex mask was ripped and laying a pool of blood,
so I left it. Likewise, the MP-5 was shattered. I snatched up an AK-47 and several
magazines.
I dashed back down to the forth floor, to the officers’s quarters.
A lieutenant was just coming out of her room, still buttoning her blouse. She
stopped to stare at me. “I thought this was a drill,” she said to me, in English no less.
“No, it isn’t,” I said. I aimed the AK at her. “Could you show me Captain Ming’s
quarters?”
She indicated a door down the hall. “Thank you,” I told her. Then I ruined her
clean blouse by shooting holes in it. Probably ruined her bra too.
I knocked on Ming’s door. Her voice responded in Chinese. I pulled the door open
and stepped quickly in.
Captain Ming wasn’t quite dressed yet either. No shoes, no blouse. Just a skirt and
a bra.
“Lee, how wonderful to see you again so soon,” Ming Ai Li said, “I certainly
hope you’ve come to fuck me again.”
I pressed the muzzle of the .45 deep into her left breast. “I need to know where
Raquel Ramos is. Rei Ling.”
Ai Li smiled brightly. “So, Mr. Escobedo was right. You were CIA.”
I pressed harder. “Where is Raquel Ramos?”
Ai Li smiled. “You must fuck me first. Fuck me and I shall tell you what ever you
wish to know.”
“Talk first.”
“Fuck first,” she countered lustily. “I really want to tell you.”
I reached under her skirt and ripped off her panties.
Ai Li moaned in pleasure. She reached down to my trousers.
“Tell me.”
“Not until you’re inside me.”
I didn’t fight her as she took me in her delicate hands and guided me into her. I
nailed her to the wall.
“That’s what I want!” Ai Li moaned. “Harder!”
“Where’s Raquel?” I grunted, pressing her hard against the wall.
Between moaning and panting, she said, “Mr. Escobedo told us Mr. Peter Ross
was too much of a religious fanatic to ever be buying slaves. He said you were CIA. He
warned us you’d be coming for her. He didn’t want to lose her, even though we weren’t
done training her. He insisted we put her on the plane for Beijing. She left at midnight.
We put her on a truck with 12 bodyguards.”
“To the local airport?”
“Yes. OHH YES!”
“Did he send his own plane?”
“YES! YES! YES!-- I mean no, I don’t think so. I think she’s waiting for the
local plane.”
“It doesn’t leave until sunrise?”
“YES! YES! YES! and yes.”
Ai Li’s eyes rolled back and she sucked in air as she came in an explosive orgasm.
“FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! You’re so fucking good. So fucking hard.”
I pulled out and buttoned up.
Ai Li licked her lips. “When you’re done here, how can I contact you?”
“Sorry, when we’re done, we’re done.”
“But I want you to fuck me again. Nobody’s ever fucked me like that. If you
promise to fuck me again, I shall defect!”
“Sorry. But you can give a message to Mr. Pedro Escobedo for me the next time
you see him.”
“What is it?” Ai Li asked.
“Tell him: Welcome to HELL!”
I riddled her lithe body with AK rounds. Ai Li danced and jerked as the slugs
ripped into her, punctured her tender flesh, shattered her organs. Her hot blood poured out
of her riddled body like water out of a sieve. She slumped against the wall and left an
awful red smear as she slid to the floor.
Ai Li looked up, sadness in her beautiful exotic eyes, as if to say, “How could
you?”
I gave her Mike Hammer’s answer. “It was easy!”
Half a dozen senior officers were milling around in the hall when I rushed out.
They were utterly confused about the drill. It seemed so real. I tossed them a grenade and
ducked back into a room.
Four were killed outright. Another officer sat next to the wall, trying to stuff her
intestines back in. The sixth was crawling away from the pile of dead bodies. Her legs
were broken. I finished both with a single shot to the head.
A janitor swung her broom at me on the second floor landing. I redirected her
swing and hit her with a handsword in the back of the neck. There was a distinct crack as
her vertebrae snapped. She dropped like a broken puppet.
As I approached the main entrance I became aware of the sounds of the battle
outside. It sounded like a one sided fire-fight. All I could hear was the chatter of AK-47s.
Interrupted by grenades and incendiary mines exploding.
Six of the Ninja were pinned down by what was left of the guard shack. The guard
house itself was shredded. The Americans were in the sandbag bunker. Dozens of
academy soldiers were firing from inside and outside the buildings facing the command
center. About fifteen bodies littered the ground between the buildings and the bunker.
Only three of the Americans were returning fire. Their weapons killed silently.
I was running, crouched, toward the guard shack when a tremendous explosion
blew me off my feet and threw me through the air. Dust, smoke, flames, and ash billowed
all around me. Only the K-Pot ear protect saved my hearing.
I rolled over sandbags, right into Ninja 3’s lap.
You’re not dead,” Sgt. Reyes stated, pushing me off and snapping off another
shot.
Captain Chung was unconscious. Blood smeared all over her body. Ninja 8, the
team medic was working on her between shots. Ninja 5 and Ninja 6 were both severely
wounded and out of the fight.
“How’s the Capt’n?”
“Bad!” Ninja 8, Sgt. Han said. She crawled over to me. “You look like shit.” She
started probing for wounds.
“Forget me! Get back to the Capt’n!”
“You’re wounded.”
“Like hell I am.”
Ninja 8 crawled back to Captain Chung. It was only then I realized she was right.
My BDUs were shredded and I was bleeding from a dozen cuts and tears in my skin. It
just hadn’t started hurting yet. I yanked the med’ spray out of my kit and sprayed every
hole in my hide I could find.
Fire Team 1: Captain Chung and Ninja 3, Sgt. Reyes, had initially eliminated the
guards in the South West tower, then eliminated the guards in the guard shack at the
entrance to the command compound. Fire Team 4: Ninja 6, Sgt. Rizki, and Ninja 8, Sgt.
Han, the medic, had eliminated the guards in the South East tower. They rendezvoused
with Captain Chung, eliminated the guards on the first floor and basement of the
command building, and began to mine the building.
Fire Team 3: Ninja 5, Sgt. Velasquez, and Ninja 7, Sgt. Dee, eliminated the roving
guards along the east side of the school. They entered the fence by the motor pool, which
was on the east end of the command compound, mined the diesel and gasoline fuel tanks,
and proceeded into the center compound to mine school buildings.
When the drill had begun, they got into a brief, but intense firefight with twelve
soldiers. The academy soldiers were taken by surprise and gunned down en masse. But
Sgt. Velasquez took a round in her lower leg. As she fell, a second round hit inside her
collar, spun around her neck, and tore up her throat. Sgt. Dee applied a heavy trauma
bandage and began dragging Ninja 5 by her shoulder straps towards Rally One, by the
SW tower. They only made it as far as the sandbag bunker before they were pinned down
by rapidly increasing small arms fire.
Fire Teams 1 and 4 were exiting the command building about this time, and
instead of heading toward Rally One, they made their way to the bunker, to assist Sgt.
Dee, just as the academy soldiers staged a massive frontal assault. Sgt. Rizki never made
it to the bunker. She took an armor piercing bullet through her stomach. Sgt. Han grabbed
her limp body and threw her into the bunker. Captain Chung and Sgts. Reyes and Dee
covered her.
Caught in the open, the academy soldiers were mowed down. They retreated,
leaving about 15 dead or wounded behind.
Before they could evacuate the bunker, several snipers hidden among the building
opened up.
Captain Chung took a bullet through the throat. She almost bled out before Sgt.
Han reached her.
That was the situation when I reached them.
“Where’s Ninja 2?” I asked Reyes.
“Don’t know.”
“Ninja 13 to Ninja 2.” I tried several time, but got no answer. I tried to reach Ninja
4, Sgt. St.Claire, the second half of Fire Team 2, but she didn’t answer as well.
“Ninja 13 to Ninja 9.”
“9.”
“What’s your status?”
“We’re at Rally One.”
Fire Team 5: Ninja 9, Sgt. Janejira, and Ninja 11, Sgt. Cafarelli, had eliminated
the guards in the North East tower and one roving guard along the north fence. Skirting
the dormitories, they killed two guards, then wiped out the three guards the guard shack
entrance to the dormitory compound. Entering the center compound, they mined several
buildings, shot one more guard, and were almost to Rally One when the first shots were
fired.
At the same time:
Fire Team 2: Lt. Nguyen and Ninja 4, Sgt. St.Claire, infiltrated the east fence,
killing two exterior, roving guards outside, and three inside. They mined buildings in the
east side of the center compound.
“Ninja 13 to Ninja 10.”
“10.”
“State status.”
“In flux-- the gomers’ve taken Ninja 2 and 4 captive. We’re moving in.”
And she cut me off. I had no idea where they were. I assumed they were still
somewhere in the center compound.
“Can you remote detonate the mines?” I asked Sgt. Reyes.
“Yeah!”
“We’ll blow those buildings as soon as Ninja 10 is clear.” I was indicating the
buildings facing us, from which we were taking fire.
Fire Team 2 had been mining buildings when the drill had begun. As academy
soldiers poured out of an adjacent buildings, Nguyen and St. Claire cut them down until
there was a pile of bodies at the foot of the steps. At some point the academy soldiers
caught on that stepping outside was akin to committing suicide and began returning fire
from within the buildings.
One hot slug struck a mine on St. Claire’s back detonating it. If not for the
fireproof clothing, both Ninjas would have been instantly, fatally burned. The concussion
blew off their helmets, scorched their uniforms, shattered their equipment, and caused
internal injuries to both women. Both had scorched lungs. Academy soldiers rushed from
their hiding places and began the beat the two unconscious women. Kicking them,
butt-stroking them, and striking them with 2x4s and pipes.
Guerrero and Nakano maneuvered in behind the frenzied mob. Switching their
weapons to single shot, they began picking off the academy soldiers. Using the Sergeant
York technique, they killed the soldiers in back first, so by the time those in front realized
they were under attack, there were only a few left.
There wasn’t time to assess injuries, each one grabbed an injured comrade by her
ALICE pack straps and began to drag her away.
“Ninja 10 to 13.”
“Go ahead,” I replied.
“We’ve recovered Ninja 2 and 4. Both are down. En route to Rally One.”
“Get clear of the buildings. We’re gonna blow ‘em!”
“Copy!”
Sgt. Reyes had pulled the remote detonator from Chung’s wrist.
“Let’s blow a few on the north side to distract ‘em,” I said.
“Yeah,” she nodded.
A fire ball rose into the dark sky. Milliseconds later the shock waves rolled over
us. Reyes blew three more, then started blowing the buildings facing us.
“Get the wounded ready to go,” I shouted, “we’re bookin’!”
In rapid succession the buildings facing us erupted in billowing flames. Academy
soldiers fled the inferno. Some rushed out engulfed in flames. Screaming human torches
twirled about the compound. None of the Ninjas bothered to put them out of their misery.
Let them burn to death. The survivors began to rush us, seeking safety in our proximity. I
grabbed Chung, threw her over my shoulder.
“Go!”
Firing one handed, I mowed down two white-bloused students armed with AKs.
They shrieked as their bellies erupted, spilling blood and guts, threw up their arms, and
pitched headlong into the dirt.
Han grabbed Velasquez and Dee grabbed Rizki.
Fire Team 5 was waiting for us as we reached Rally One. They provided covering
fire. Right behind us was Fire Team 6 and the two wounded they were carrying.
Reyes detonated the fuel tanks. Two huge fireballs streaked skyward. The shock
waves hammered us. Enemy soldiers were blow off their feet and stunned. Fiery debris
rained down all around us. Multiple fires erupted in the south compound. I handed Chung
off to Janejira. “Head to Rally Two!”
Guerrero, Nakano, and I stayed behind as a rear guard to cover the withdrawal.
Fourteen soldiers and students rushed our position. Guerrero and Nakano pitched
hand grenades as I picked off the stragglers.
Nakano grunted and sat down hard. Blood poured from her right shoulder, both
front and rear. “Somebody’s got AP,” she grimaced at me. Guerrero slapped on a temp’
patch.
When they reached Rally Two, a small hill about 800 yards to the south west,
Reyes began detonating all the mines.
We made our withdrawal in the confusion. Guerrero shoulder carried Nakano
while I provided cover.
A girl in a white blouse and red miniskirt popped out of nowhere. “Don’t shoot,
I’m just a secretary,” she pleaded. I shot her in the heart. As she dropped, stunned to be
dead, a pistol fell from her hands.
A girl in a crop top white T-shirt reached down to pick it up. Her T-shirt
blossomed red as I riddled her tiny tits.
We struggled uphill till we reached Rally Two. Reyes, Janejira, and Cafarelli
provided cover fire while the rest of us picked up the wounded and ran to Rally Three,
just over the top of the next hill. Of course, we didn’t take the direct route, to avoid
silhouetting ourselves against the horizon. Reaching the back of the crest, we set down
the wounded, and Guerrero, Dee and I took up positions to cover the other three as they
withdrew. Han stayed with the wounded.
Just as she reached the crest, Sgt. Janejira cried out, threw up her arms, and
collapsed in my face. I grabbed her and rolled her around behind me.
“We gotta get that fucker shootin’ APs,” I shouted at Guerrero.
“You show me, I’ll kill her ass!” Guerrero shouted back.
Han ran up to check on Janejira, while Cafarelli took her place. “Choppers
inbound,” Reyes announced.
“How far to the LZ?”
“Two klicks!”
My AK spat out its last round. I reached over and grabbed Janeiro’s M-16.
“Sergeant Han, d’you think you, Dee, Reyes, an’ Cafarelli can get the wounded to
the LZ.”
It was really more of an order than a question.
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Where’s that leave us?” Guerrero asked.
“You an’ me are gonna cover their sweet littl’ asses.”
Some where, without realizing it, I had assumed command, and nobody was
protesting. I out-ranked all the survivors.
Reyes and Cafarelli threw us most of their remaining ammo.
I selected single shot, tied my HUD into the M-16’s laserscope, and began
searching for targets.
Most of the enemy survivors had pulled back to the fence line. A few were
scattered between us and Rally One. The group down by the fence was growing larger as
more survivors of the burning camp joined them. A few surviving officers were trying to
organize the academy soldiers.
Guerrero picked off a girl running downhill. She pitched forward and rolled the
rest of the way.
Down by the fence, a woman with Captain pips on her shoulder boards was trying
to organize the survivors. I shot her in the back. She fell into the fence, gripped it to hold
her self up, then shuddered and fell.
Secondary explosions were racking the camp by now. Most of the buildings were
burning. Even the unmined dormitories were on fire.
I shot a lieutenant. She grasped her stomach. Looked as if she were ready to puke,
and then blood spewed from her mouth.
A woman in a white lab coat, one of the plastic surgeons, was running away from
the fight. Normally, it’s best to let panicked enemy flee; but she was a high priority target.
I put a round through her spine. She crawled away to die.
Something hit me in the head.
“Shit!” Guerrero cursed.
Her helmet was gone. It had flown off her head and smacked me in mine.
There was a perfect round hole in Guerrero’s K-Pot.
“You OK?”
“Must’ve bounced off’a my skull.”
I threw the K-Pot back to her.
“We gotta kill that fucker!”
I began scanning for the sniper with the armor piercing bullets. Guerrero picked
off a couple more stragglers.
Down by the fence the soldiers had retreated a bit while they reorganized.
The was movement in the south west tower. Light glinted off rifle scope.
“Gotcha, fucker!” I flipped the selector to full auto and riddled the tower with a
full magazine. As the first bullets tore through the tower walls, tore through the sniper,
she jerked upright into a standing position. More hot lead streaked through her, riddling
her body, and making her dance like a spastic puppet. My hammer fell on an empty
chamber and the sniper fell head over heels out of the shattered tower.
Guerrero picked off two more stragglers.
“I think we can book it outta here now,” I said.
We ran headlong down the hill and up the next. We caught up with the others
even before they reached the LZ.
One Pave Low was touching down as we reached the LZ, the other stayed
airborne to provide cover. A crewman rushed out to help load the wounded. Sgt. Han and
Sgt. Dee stayed with the wounded.
Guerrero, Reyes, and Cafarelli waited with me for the second chopper.
I was the last to board. Just as I hit the ramp, something slammed into my back.
Something damp and wet poured down my back and legs. A round had penetrated my
camelback canteen.
Cafarelli wasn’t as lucky. A round hit her in the foot, she fell backwards, twisting
her knee. We heard it pop out of joint. “Aw shit! she grunted. A medic pulled her up the
ramp.
Three dozen screaming, frenzied female soldiers poured over the hilltop and
rushed madly at the helicopter. The pilot rotated the craft ninety degrees to give one of his
minigun gunners a clear shot. The minigun opened up spewing a ten foot long cone of
flames. Every third bullet was a tracer and the stream of bullets looked like a sci-fi death
ray. Firing at a rate of 6,000 rounds per minute, the minigun tore the frenzied mob to
shreds. As wave after wave of soldiers crested the hill, one by one they were mowed
down, their fragile bodies erupting with gore and blood. They were cut down like wheat
with a scythe. One by one they screamed or cried out in horror and pain, threw up their
arms, and fell in rapid succession until none were left alive.
The Pave Low lifted off and flew south.
I moved forward to talk with the pilot.
“There’s a grass airstrip about an hour’s drive west of here; you know where it
is?”
“Yes.”
“I need you to drop us just out of sight there.”
“Got no orders to take you there, sergeant.” The pilot was a captain.
“We got one task left, Captain. It’s the most important one. The rescue of an
American citizen. She’s at that airport.”
“I can’t be waiting around for you. Gotta be outta China by daylight.”
“We can hold out until tomorrow night if needs be. But we’ll steal us a Chinese
DC-3 and fly out on it.”
“You can fly a DC-3?” Guerrero asked.
“Sure I can,” I lied, “Been taking lessons.”
Ten minutes later the Pave Low set us down about 2 klicks from the airstrip.
Only Sgt. Guerrero, Reyes, and I debarked. We rearmed with spare ammo,
weapons. I had an M-16, don’t know whose it was. I’d shed my ruined camel-back
canteen, only to discover my plastic canteen was also shot through. Cafarelli gave me
hers. I popped another Green-Go pill and a couple of Tylenol. Guerrero pulled a piece of
wire, a piece of an American fragmentation grenade, out of my arm and sprayed on a
temp’ bandage.
On the ground, I smeared mud on my face.
We figured twelve to three odds was pretty much in our favor.
The plan was ultra simple: We’d move in separately, eliminate the sentries, and
rush the control ‘tower.’ Night-vision and silenced weapons gave us an edge over the bad
guys-- bad girls?
We split up and approached from three different directions.
Off to my left I heard some girlish giggling. Upon investigating I found two
academy soldiers, their blouses unbuttoned, rolling in the grass and masturbating each
other. As one girl moved on top of the other, reaching under her mini-skirt, I fired a single
shot into her back. She stiffened, arched her back, and fell onto her dead companion. The
bullet had traversed both bodies, killing both lovers.
A sentry near the Chinese DC-3 suddenly disappeared. Reyes had snuck up behind
her, gripped her by the head, and snapped her neck.
I snapped off a silenced shot a took out the other sentry by the aircraft before she
realized she was alone.
Guerrero drove her Ka-Bar into the back of a sentry by a fuel truck. With her hand
firmly clamped over the girl’s mouth, she twisted her knife and ended her life. As her
companion came to investigate, Guerrero rammed the knife into her guts and pushed her
to the ground. She probed for the sentry’s heart, found it, sliced it in half. Guerrero held
her hand over the writhing girl’s mouth till she stopped squirming.
I worked my way around the blockhouse till I could peek around the corner at the
front door. There was a single sentry, bored, smoking a cigarette. She looked my way, but
didn’t see the laserscope or M-16, pointing at her.
There was a wet thump. Her eyes went wide, her cigarette fell from her gaping
mouth. She tried to gasp for air, but her lungs didn’t work. She fell onto her face.
A ninja throwing star was embedded in her spine.
“Always wanted to try one of those,” Guerrero whispered to me. She joined me by
the front door.
“Don’t always kill ‘em outright,” I replied, placing the muzzle of my M-16 to the
back of the sentry’s head. She stopped writhing when I put a slug into her skull.
Reyes joined us. “What’s the play?”
I had flipped on my IR and motion detectors. “If my intel’ was correct, there’s
only five of them left.
“There’s nine in the building I can see. Four aren’t moving. Look to be siting
down.”
“Hostages?”
“One may be Raquel. The others may be the pilots or the tower/radio operator.”
“I go in low,” Guerrero suggested, “you go in high, Reyes’ll cover us.”
“You remember what she looks like?”
“Yeah. No shooting the spic chick. Just the chinks.”
We set a charge to blow the door. Reyes pulled the pins on a couple of
flash-bangs.
The door blew open just as Reyes’s flash-bangs crashed through the windows and
detonated.
Guerrero rushed in crouching low. I was right behind her, my M-16 above her
back. She swept to the left, I swept right.
She popped off three rapid shoots, catching an academy soldier square in her
chest. She didn’t even have a weapon to drop. She clutched at her bleeding chest,
slumped against the wall, and slid down to sit in a rapidly growing pool of her own blood.
I put a single round through the throat of an academy officer, right through the
knot on her tie. She grabbed at her neck as blood spurted between her fingers. I shoved
her aside as we rushed into the next room.
Guerrero hosed down two more soldiers who were close together, fumbling with
their AKs. Their bodies spasmed as the slugs ripped through them. They dropped their
weapons and collapsed on each other.
Another officer had drawn her pistol. She slowly, deliberately aimed it at me. She
didn’t have the time to be slow or deliberate. I shot her in the heart and killed her
instantly.
There were three hostages, tied up, and sitting on the floor. The two pilots and the
local worker. Sitting on a bench next to them, untied, unarmed, was Raquel Ramos.
“Muy bien. Bien hecho!” she said, as the smoke cleared. “Very good. Well
done!” It didn’t seem to bother her a bit that there were dead girls laying at her feet.
“We’ve come for you,” I told her, also in Spanish, “you got a problem with that?”
“Should I?”
Guerrero had taken out her taser, and as Raquel talked to me, Guerrero shot her in
the back. Raquel’s body stiffened, gave a single jerk, then she fell over. Guerrero knelt
over her and began to flex-cuff her hands, arms, and legs. “Don’t trust her.” she
explained.
“Entiendo,” I replied. “I understand.” I checked the bodies to make sure every
one was dead. Reyes joined me. None of us made any move to free the hostages. We were
speaking Spanish to help disguise our identity as the pilots probably spoke some English.
The Chinese DC-3 was sitting out on the runway. Guerrero thumbed at it. “Can
you really fly that thing?”
“I’m willing to give it a try. I got a single engine rating. I’ve flown a couple of
small, duel engines. Let’s go see if it’s prep’ed. If we need help, maybe one of these
gentlemen’ll help.”
In spite of the fact all the gages were in Chinese, the airplane wasn’t all that hard
to figure out. The fuel gages read full and there was electrical power when I flipped on
the power switches.
The sunlight was just peeking over the hill and we had to decide if we wanted to
fly out or hide out until the Pave Low could return.
Two helicopters, -- no military markings-- swooping in fast and landing directly in
front of us, took away our decision. A dozen women, armed with MAC-10s and Uzi
submachine guns departed from each helicopter. They weren’t wearing Chinese uniforms,
nor did they appear to be Chinese. Most appeared to be Hispanic. Many were wearing
white peasant blouses and leather mini skirts.
Six from one helicopter started towards the blockhouse/tower. The others began to
spread out, to take up sentry positions.
“Duck!” We ducked out of sight as two Hispanic women started toward the DC-3.
“Now who the hell are these bitches?” Reyes asked.
A twin engine Apache airplane made its final approach and landed at the other
end of the grass strip. Two more bodyguards got off, looked around, and then a third
woman debarked and started toward the blockhouse. One of the first bodyguards ran out
of the blockhouse and intercepted her. She talked with wildly gestating hands. Obviously
she had discovered the carnage and chaos inside.
At that moment the two who had walked up to the DC-3 pulled open the side
door.
“Surprise!” Guerrero said, and riddled their ample breasts with auto fire. The two
girls jerked and spasmed as their lovely bodies were perforated with bullets. Reyes and
Guerrero grabbed the bodies, pulled them inside, and shut the hatch.
The apparent leader followed her bodyguard back to the blockhouse. A few
minutes later one of the Chinese pilots appeared along side them and pointed to the DC-3.
I was still watching from the cockpit. “Hell! We were speaking Spanish. How did
he know we were still here?”
The head bodyguard shouted orders and most of the other women began running
toward us. Only the leader, the three pilots, and the two bodyguards from her airplane
stayed behind.
“Well, boss, what’s the plan?” Guerrero asked laconically.
“We ain’t got time to fly outta here now. Twenty-four to three ain’t bad odds.”
I could already hear the tic-tic of bullets puncturing the aluminum skin of the
aircraft. There was a muffled poof as one tire blew out. Then the second blew up. Part of
the cowling on the right engine flew off as some one hosed down that engine. One blade
of the propeller fell off.
I smashed out the pilot’s window and took aim. The furthest away was a
statuesque, blonde woman in a sleeveless, ruffled white blouse and denim mini-skirt. She
was armed with an Uzi. I put a single round through her left tit. She looked up with a look
of astonishment on her angelic face. She dropped her submachine gun and grabbed her
wounded breast. She fell dead in the grass, her white blouse stained with a red blotch.
Only the few who held back saw her drop.
Reyes and Guerrero, firing from passenger windows, each dropped a target.
I sighted in on a tanned, athletic woman in a white , bare midriff, peasant blouse.
She wore a brown leather miniskirt and carried a MAC-10 with a huge silencer. I put a
round right through her sternum. The Mac-10 flew out of her hands and she stumbled
backward, tripped, and fell twitching into the grass.
A girl with waist-length, black silky hair, dropped her weapon and clutched her
bleeding stomach. Blood trickled from her ample lips.
A red head with a scoped rifle put a round through the co-pilot’s window before
Reyes dropped her with a round through her head. She went down hard and fast.
The leader frantically called back the survivors. They hadn’t yet realized how
many of their comrades had gone down.
The survivors, along with the three pilots, regrouped inside the blockhouse.
“You notice how they didn’t put too many rounds through the aircraft. They
concentrated mainly on the wheels and engines,” Guerrero said.
“Maybe we have something they want.” I said.
A moment later one of the Chinese pilots appeared. He had a white flag on the
end of a stick.
We allowed him to approach the aircraft, but not enter.
“They want to talk,” he told us while standing just outside the side door. The poor
slob was shaking with fear and could barely get the words out in English.
“Tell their leader we’ll talk, here, and to come alone and unarmed.”
“Yes, sir,” the pilot stammered.
He returned and a few minutes later the leader fearlessly approached us carrying
the white flag. I let her walk right up to the side door before I opened it and jumped out
beside her.
“Usted tiene algo que me pertenece a mi!” she stated emphatically. She was a
stunningly beautiful woman, in her mid-forties, with silky black hair, a model’s high
cheekbones, and honey-colored skin. She was dressed in tight leather pants and knee high
leather boots, a white blouse, which strained against her well rounded breasts, a brown
leather flight jacket, and a yellow silk scarf around her lovely throat.
So convinced was she that she had the upper hand, had us hopelessly trapped, that
she had actually come alone and unarmed. “You have something which belongs to me!”
She looked familiar.
“Y que‘s?” I responded. “And what’s that?”
“The slave girl. Raquel or Rei Ling. She is mine.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
“I am Mrs. Paulina de Escobedo. Perhaps you’ve heard of my husband.”
“Oh, Petey? Why the hell ain’t he here? Ain’t he got the balls to do his own dirty
work. Gotta send his woman. Whatta coward!”
“My husband is dead!”
That was news to me. “Yeah, right.”
“You are Lee Yaeger, no? Mr. Ross’s bodyguard. Or are you CIA?” It was her
turn to show off.
“I ain’t no fuckin’ spook!” I spat out, trying to maintain plausible deniability. “So
what you got to talk about.”
“Give me Raquel and I’ll let you live.”
“How about you bitches get on your airplanes, get outta here, and we’ll let you
live.”
“Don’t make hollow threats. You’re trapped in this airplane. In an hour I can have
dozens more soldiers here. Turn the slave girl over to me. I am not leaving without her,”
Paulina said.
“We could always shoot her.” I threatened.
“How much do you want?”
“How much what?”
“How much money, asshole! Apes like you always have a price. What is Mr. Ross
or the CIA paying you? I’ll double it. Triple it. It’s better to take my money than my
bullets-- remember, bullets are cheaper.”
“Mr. Ross is paying us one million each, one hundred grand up front, and nine
more when we deliver the girl,” I told her, playing along. “That’s five million dollars, not
counting the helicopter pilots, and other support personnel.”
Her eyebrow went up just a tad. She thought I had let slip how many were left in
the aircraft.
“Ten million, for the five of you,” Paulina said. “And you can walk out of here
alive.”
“What do you want her for?”
“That is my business. What does the CIA want her for?”
“I told you, I don’t work for the C I A. She’s the illegitimate daughter of a good
friend. Mr. Ross wants to buy a little influence in Washington.”
“Liar! Mr. Ross does not blackmail people. Certainly not Senator MacCandles.”
“If you insist.” I couldn’t tell if she believed me or not. She had bought so many
people off, it was hard for her to believe Mr. Ross was not capable of the same thing.
Whether she believed Mr. Ross was corrupt or not, she was beginning to believe I
worked for Mr. Ross.
“I still wanna know what you want her for.”
“Revenge, asshole! That’s all I’ll say. The CIA murdered my husband and I’ll
have my revenge.”
“When did Petey die?” I was truly curious.
“Ten years ago!”
I almost slipped and said, ‘like hell!’ but there was no way I wanted her to know
ten years earlier I was hunting her husband.
“The Cazador killed him. A CIA assassin. He kept leaving these fucking hunting
licenses with Pedro’s name on them. He killed Pedro’s brothers and his cousins. Finally
my beloved husband could stand it no longer. He blew out his own brains. I took over and
let no one know he was dead. For I shall have my revenge!”
“I don’t care about your fuckin’ revenge. Okay. You’ve convinced me you want
her. How do I know I can trust you? How do I know you’re not gonna shoot us in the
back if we turn the chick over to you.”
“Tell me what you want.”
“A sat-phone. I’m sure you have one. You can wire-transfer the money into an
account. We’ll wait until an accomplice can move it someplace safe. Meanwhile, my
comrades will take off, and you won’t follow them. When I’m sure the money’s where we
want it, and my comrades are safe; I’ll hand Raquel over to you.”
“Agreed. I will go get my phone.” Paulina walked back to the blockhouse.
I re-entered the airplane. “It’s us or them,” I told Reyes and Guerrero. She ain’t
gonna let us live, no way. Our only ace card is that she really wants Raquel alive. I think I
bought us some time. I have a plan.”
“So what’s so special about Raquel? I thought she was an American citizen, the
first they’d kidnapped. We were sent in to teach ‘em not to mess with Americans,”
Guerrero asked.
“That and more,” I said. “She’s Senator MacCandles’s daughter. Illegitimate.
That’s why he insisted I come along. I don’t know how they planned to do it, but for the
past few years they’ve been training Raquel to assassinate the President. And I just found
out why. Pedro Escobedo’s dead. His widow wants revenge.”
I walked back to Raquel. She was still flex-cuffed.
“I don’t know what you know or think you know. But let me tell you something.
You are an American citizen. You’re nobody’s slave, and we’re here to take you home.
You cooperate with us and you can’t imagine how much better your life will be. You
don’t cooperate with us and you’re dead. Right here. Right now.”
“You seem to be professionals,” Raquel said. “You ought to see your position is
hopeless. Give me to my master and perhaps you will live.”
“Shit! Did they fuck you up!”
I walked back to Guerrero and Reyes. “Here’s the plan. They think there’re five of
us in here. The three of you are going to leave, as a show of good faith, while I arrange
for a wire-transfer and my fifth partner holds a gun to Raquel’s head.”
“And?”
“And the three of you head for the hills. Call in air transport tonight. You ought to
be able to evade these idiots for at least a day.”
“Two problems,” Guerrero said. “First, Raquel is still dressed in her school
uniform. She doesn’t look like one of us. Two. What about you?”
“One of you can switch pants with her. You can steal those black leather pants off
one of those dead bitches back there to replace ‘em. The other one can give her a black
T-shirt and Nomex mask to cover her face. We’ll bloody up some bandages to put on her
so she’ll look wounded. Throw my ALICE pack on her. She’ll look like she’s partly in
uniform.”
“That don’t answer my second question.”
“Once you’re clear of here, I’m going to kill Paulina.”
“That’s kinda’fa shitty plan.”
Guerrero tasered Raquel again. We stripped off her school uniform and dressed
her in Reyes’ pants, Guerrero’s T-shirt and mask, and my ALICE pack. We dipped a
couple of temp’ bandages in the dead women’s blood and bandaged her face and chest.
Reyes pulled on one of the dead woman’s pants and bandaged them up to disguise them.
Guerrero stuck a fake, bloody bandage on her own face.
We were ready when Paulina returned with the sat-phone.
I met her at the door. “You’re going to let three of my people go now,” I told her.
“You won’t follow them. If they see anybody following them, they’ll radio back and we’ll
blow out Raquel’s brains.”
Paulina was fine with that plan. It meant I was dividing my forces. Easier for her
to kill me now, and them later.
Reyes and Guerrero, carrying an unconscious Raquel between them, hobbled out
of the plane and ran for the hills. It looked as if I was sending away my wounded.
“Give me the number,” Paulina demanded. “I’ll dial it.”
“Fine,” I said. I gave her the number of my bank in Houston.
She spoke to somebody and then asked me, “What’s your account number and
password?”
I gave her what she wanted.
“This is going to take a while,” she said.
“I know. It’ll give my people time to get away.”
“You have a helicopter?”
“Something like that.”
“May I see Raquel?”
“Sure, why not?”
I stepped up into the aircraft and offered her my hand.
“If you betray me, my people will kill you.”
“Of course.”
She stepped into the plane. The first things she saw were the two dead
bodyguards. One of them had no pants.
“Where’s Raquel?”
“She’s dead,” I said calmly. “Blown up when we blew up the academy. Why don’t
you try calling them. Nobody will answer.”
“I know,” she said. “We flew over it today. But you forget, the Chinese pilots told
me she was here, told me you brought her to this plane.”
“So they lied so you wouldn’t kill them,” I said. “Just like I lied so my friends
could get away.”
“If you hurt me, my people will kill you.” It just began to dawn on her that
perhaps I wasn’t a rational man: a man who could be bought and stay bought.
“I know,” I said. “Let’s just wait for a while longer, so my people can get away.”
“What do you want?” She began to tremble just a little. She had been so confident
I was in her power. Now that confidence cracked.
“I’ll still give you the money.”
“If you want to.” My indifference was unnerving to her. She had never before met
a man she could not control though bribery or threats.
Her sat-phone rang and she jumped with a start. She answered it. “It’s for you,”
she said. “Your money’s ready.”
“I took the phone. “This is Lee Yaeger. That money that was just transferred into
my account, call the FBI and have them put a trace on it. It’s an illegal transaction. Thank
you.” I gave the phone back to her.
“You’re insane,” she said. “That was ten million dollars you just threw away.”
I smiled at her. My smile frightened her even more. She could not comprehend
some one who was not motivated by money or greed. Or fear.
“How long are we going to sit here?”
“Until your people come for you,” I said.
“Then what?”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“Why?” she believed me and was trembling now.
“I am El Cazador, I hunt the enemies of my country, and kill them.”
She came at me in a spitting blind rage. I knocked her down, found my hands
around her neck-- her soft delicate neck.
I began to throttle her. To strangle her. She beat against me with her fists. She
kicked at me until I pinned her legs down with my leg. Methodically, I pressed my
thumbs into her windpipe, slowly crushed her larynx, and strangled her to death. She
flailed at me, each movement weaker than the last, until her arms fell to her sides. Pressed
up against her body, I felt her heart stop to beat.
I released her. Paulina stared at me with dead eyes.
I picked up my M-16 and loaded a fresh clip. Checked my .45. I adjusted my body
armor, stuck on my K-Pot, threw Paulina’s body over my shoulder, and started toward the
blockhouse.
I was halfway there before any one noticed me. One by one they wandered out to
stare at me, not comprehending what was going on.
One woman aimed her MAC-10 at me. I stitched a row of bloody holes across her
white blouse. She twisted and jerked and crashed against the wall. I gunned down two
more women before they realized what was happening. The bodyguards began pouring
out of the blockhouse. They were hesitant at first to return fire. But after I shot down
three more women, they seized their weapons and started shooting back.
I dropped to my knees. Paulina’s body offered some protection. It jerked each
time a slug thudded into it. I threw two flash-bangs into the blockhouse. And two frag’s at
the gaggle of women outside the door.
The two Chinese pilots and their co-worker appeared at the door. They were
dazed, but coherent enough to run away. I stood up and hurled two WP and two frag’s
into the blockhouse. In moments it was in flames. The last surviving bodyguards
abandoned it and charged me. I took three hits before one did any real damaged. Then a
round penetrated my damaged armor and scooped out a hunk of flesh on my left calf. I
fell, still firing. Another woman clutched her breasts and staggered away bleeding.
Paulina’s bullet ridden body slumped into the dirt beside me.
A round pinged off my helmet.
Something hot ripped open my cheek.
The M-16 shattered in my hands.
I threw away the fragments.
I struggled back to my knees and drew my .45.
I blew a hole clean through a young woman’s finely toned, bare ab’s. She grunted
in shock, tried to hold her guts in, and fell into the dirt.
Two more M-16s opened up on full auto.
The bodyguards, caught in the cross fire, staggered, danced, jerked, and twitched,
as they were shot down by Reyes and Guerrero approaching from opposite directions
behind them.
I took another round in the chest and shot the shooter in her left breast.
Unfortunately for her, she didn’t have body armor. All she had was a white cotton
peasant blouse. No protection from a .45 round punching through the soft tender flesh of
her breast. Her feet flew out from beneath her and she fell on her back.
In mere moments all the bodyguards were down, dead, lying in bloody heaps in
front of the blazing blockhouse. Guerrero and Reyes cleared their weapons and walked up
to check on me.
“You were supposed to head for the hills,” I said.
“And miss all this fun,” Guerrero joked. “We don’t leave any one behind,.” she
added more seriously.
“Where’s Raquel.”
“She’s safe.”
Guerrero retrieved Raquel from where they had hidden her, while Reyes and I
stacked the dead druggies along the runway. Reyes wrote a note in Chinese which read:
“Death to Drug Dealers.” I added a hand-written hunting license, in Spanish, with
Paulina’s name on it, signed it, ‘El Cazador,’ and nailed it to her body with a bayonet.
We set fire to the two helicopters.
I had actually had flight training in an Apache, so it was no big deal to steal
Paulina’s airplane and fly it to Thailand. We used a GPS to navigate to a friendly airport
where we were picked up by an US Amry helicopter and flown back to the base camp.
We spent a few minutes in a preliminary debriefing while medics led Raquel away
for a medical check-up. Colonel Keystone told me most of our wounded had been flown
to a US Navy hospital ship in the Indian ocean. The colonel was very depressed at having
lost nearly an entire ODA.
We were commiserating on the vagaries of combat when a sergeant stuck his head
into the tent. “They’re taking Senator MacCandles to see his daughter now.”
“Well, that’s one bright point,” Keystone said,” you’ve saved the daughter of the
President of the United States.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Didn’t MacCandles tell you? He’s running for President next election.”
“Dammit! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Wha . . .”
“She still had two years training left. Don’t you see? Raquel wasn’t going to
assassinate this president. She was in training to assassinate her father. Oh, Fuck it all! It
was revenge on MacCandles they wanted.”
We ran outside. They where about two hundred yards away. One secret service
man was leading Raquel to her father. Two others were guarding MacCandles. All three
stepped back to give them some privacy. Raquel started directly toward her father, with
no hesitancy.
“Ah, shit! She’ gonna kill him right now!”
I grabbed an M-16 from nearby soldier.
“You can’t shoot her!” Keystone protested.
I couldn’t; MacCandles was in the way.
I fired.
MacCandles dropped.
The secret service men reacted instantly to protect him. Raquel chopped one in the
neck, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. The second barely had time to turn before she
kicked him in the balls, then launched a second kick to his head. He too collapsed.
But the third secret service man had time to taser her. She jolted in pain and
dropped to the dirt beside her father.
Keystone yanked the M-16 from my hands. “What the hell ‘ve you just done?” he
screamed in my face.
“Winged him. Got him right below the knee. Just enough to knock him down,” I
said.
More secret service men and army medics were swarming over the scene.
Later, MacCandles asked me into the medical tent. He was lying in a cot, his leg
bandaged. “What the hell did you shoot me for?” he asked.
“I had to shoot one of you,” I said. “And I figured you’d never forgive me if I shot
your daughter. Besides, you were in the way.”
“You’re right, Lee;” he said after he thought about it, “ I never would’ve forgiven
you if you’d shot her.”
“I got the job done, Senator.” I paused a beat. “You realize she is screwed up?
They’ve spent twenty years brainwashing her until her only goal in life is to kill you. It’ll
take years to repair the damage.”
“Yeah, I know,” he wearily agreed. “But at least I have her now. I can get her the
help she needs.
“Now, what about you, Lee? What do you want?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to be President of the United States in two years. You name it, I’ll get
it for you.”
“What I want, Senator; is to go home. To sleep in my own bed. Get some rest, so I
can get to work on Monday morning. That is all I want.”
He had no reply to that.
I left him.
Sergeant Rosa Guerrero found me in my tent, cleaning my Colt .45.
“You need a son to give that to,” she said. I looked up, she had cleaned up nicely.
“I’d need a wife first.”
“Ready, willing, able to give you both,” she declared.
I looked at her again. She really was a beautiful girl-- if you liked Mayan
goddesses.
Just so happens, I do.
***

News Item: LA Times. Fiery Bus Accident in Thailand injuries US Army
personnel.
The US Army reported that eight members of an Special Forces Detachment on a
road building assignment in Northern Thailand were injured when their bus overturned
and caught fire. The injured included Captain Julia Chung from Santa Monica . . .

News Item: Washington Post: Cocaine Shipments from Colombia Down.
After FBI seizures of millions of dollars in cartel bank accounts and amidst
rumors of a leadership struggle in the Escobedo Family drug cartel, shipments of cocaine
from Colombia have dramatically fallen this past year . . .

News Item: Washington Post: Senator MacCandles retires from politics.
Pro-Gun, Pro-Military, Pro-Life, Pro-Family Senator David MacCandles from
Texas, who lost last year’s presidential election amidst rumors of having fathered an
illegitimate daughter, announced today that he is retiring from politics to “spend more
time with my family ” . . .

New Item: Houston Chronicle:
Birth Announcements.
Born to: Rosa G. Yaeger and Lee Yaeger, of Houston: a son.

THE END.