***
Three days later, we were still waiting for Caligula to come through on his end of the bargain. We were still locked up in the same building we had been thrown in the very first night, but there really wasn’t much room for complaint. We were no longer treated as prisoners, at least not officially, and we were allowed to leave the building, a freedom we took advantage of twice a day to workout. Food was provided, we were given fresh clothes and bedding on a regular basis, and we had our very own private bathroom which was, thankfully, only a short walk away from our little house.
On the downside, however, we were always under the watchful eyes of Praetorian guardsmen, and our weapons were confiscated again, including our side arms. The Romans weren’t going to let that trick fly twice. Occasionally, one or two particular Praetorians, their names not provided, would spend hours speaking to Vincent. He spoke in detail about our weapons, as well as modern combat tactics. The Romans were extremely interested in our methods of waging war, where the largest battlefields saw small, eight man squads engaging in endless skirmishes, as opposed to legions of thousands of men fighting one massive battle. He left out the parts about tanks, planes, ships, and nukes, at least for the time being.
I continued to voice my disapproval about telling them anything at all, reiterating the fact that we could still be in the process of altering future events. I even recounted to him a story about time traveling dinosaur hunters who accidentally killed a butterfly in the past and ended up changing their utopian government into a tyrannical regime, sixty five million years later. Granted, it was a fictional, extreme, unscientific opinion of what could happen, but I hoped it would be enough to change his mind.
It didn’t, and I eventually realized there was nothing I could do to convince Vincent. For some reason, he was being particularly stubborn about his decisions.
Still, despite the tight spaces and endless boredom, the time helped the unit bond. As a team, we spent the time playing cards and chatting endlessly.
Generally, the games left me pretty frustrated, especially after I realized Wang and Helena were phenomenal poker players. I never knew poker was so popular amongst the English and Germans, but while I gained little from the games, I learned plenty about my teammates.
Bordeaux, for instance, spoke of his checkered youth, a life of crime and insolence that landed him in the foreign legion. He told us how his military life had changed him, how he had found God, and even a wife.
During a mission in Africa, his team had rescued a group of French peacekeepers, captured by a local guerrilla militia. After the successful rescue, one of the young women immediately fell in love with the bulky hero, and eventually married him. The story lacked a happy ending, however, as Bordeaux also told us how she had died in the Vatican terrorist attacks. The attack only sharpened his focus, and it had driven him to find his own way into the Praetorians, instead of being chosen like I was. I immediately connected his loss with the reason behind his unfocused attention during the briefing back in modern day Rome.
Wang continued to grieve, but his attitude quickly shifted when he realized his poker skills were far superior to the rest of ours. Poker soon boiled down to a deadly game of one on one between him and Helena.
I didn’t mind. I wasn’t very good at poker, anyway.
He seemed happiest, though, when he told stories of McDougal and his heroics. From what I learned, he couldn’t have been a better commander, and I only wished I could have served with him longer.
Santino, meanwhile, had a story for everything. Whether it was about his first stealth kill in North Korea or the first vanilla smoothie he ever had in high school, he always had something to say. And while it may have seemed annoying, they were actually good stories, even the one about the smoothie, which he seriously told.
Helena and I held back our more personal stories with the group, both of us reluctant to delve into our personal lives. It was, however, a personality quirk that strengthened our own friendship. Since swim buddies were bunked together, we had plenty of alone time, and we often found ourselves talking about things we couldn’t have told the others. She became someone I could really talk to.
Our stories tended to revolve around our repressive fathers, who always had the best intentions at heart, but at the expense of what their children wanted. Her father had taught her to hunt, and mine, to play baseball, but both led us in directions neither one of us really wanted to go. When she had pressed the issue of why I never finished my schooling, I told her it was because of the way my father forced me into the military. It was his opinion that school was unnecessary after achieving an undergraduate degree, and only because that degree was important in securing entry into Officer Candidate School.
It was a bad moment in the Hunter family saga. Dad spoke of cutting me off, severing my ties to the family if I didn’t comply with the family tradition. The shouting matches had been epic. When I’d given up completely, figuring I’d have to settle for Christmas cards from mom only, she and my sister took up the cause and pleaded with him to let me make my own choices, but he was adamant. My sister stopped talking to him for a long while, but my mother was more diplomatic. She loved her husband and wanted to make him happy, so she relented and sat me down. Like any good mom could, she compromised, making me understand that military service would be good for me and my career, and that since the world was as peaceful as it had been in decades, it would be safe. So, wanting to make my mother happy, as she did my father, I signed up, and instead of taking the safe route by joining the intelligence sector, I decided to stick it to my father and do something he never could. I joined the SEALs, something he’d tried for back in the 80s, but couldn’t hack.
We didn’t hate our fathers, we just didn’t understand them, like they didn’t understand us. After my father had snubbed me back at the airport, though, hate wasn’t that far off.
Our mothers, on the other hand, were startlingly similar, despite completely different backgrounds. Loving, guiding, and our primary care givers, we had both spent more time with them than our fathers and had loved every moment of it. After the way Helena spoke of her mother, I really hoped to meet her one day.
A duchess or baroness of some kind, Helena had described her as eternally loving and beautiful, far more so than even herself, reason enough to get home so I could meet her. She had been very hands-on with Helena, always a guiding presence, in spite of the cadre of maids, nurses, teachers, and other caregivers Helena had been surrounded by. My mother had been horribly pedestrian in comparison, but after I’d shown Helena a picture of her that I kept stashed in my go-bag, she commented that she must have been a wonderful lady, beautiful both inside and out.
She had been surprised at how close my mom and I had been, and had jokingly called me a “momma’s boy” because of it. I told her to try my cooking and see if she still wanted to joke about it. She backed off immediately, admitting she could barely boil water herself.
I still held back my “nurse” story, figuring there’d be plenty of time to get into that one later.
The only one of us who seemed aloof was Vincent. Plagued by the duties of command, he knew better than to socialize with the rest of us in a casual atmosphere. Even so, we spent plenty of time in “Latin 101”, as Santino dubbed it. A few times a day, we would learn the basics as best we could from Vincent’s instruction. It took me six years to learn what I know now, and the rest of the time since then to forget it, so I sat in on the basic grammar and vocabulary lessons as well. By the third day, I began to wonder if Vincent had actually written the text book I used in high school, as he seemed to follow the lessons almost to the letter.
While the rest of the team struggled, and would probably continue to do so for the months to come, I started picking things up rather quickly. Listening in, as well as trying my own hand at conversation when the Romans came to chat, I found myself slowly reaching my old level of proficiency and beyo
nd.
I always knew I was good at Latin, even though my professors would never admit it.
All in all, things were going well, if not boringly well, but by the end of the third day, our patience was rewarded with the news that the Romans had recovered McDougal’s body, and our gear containers, thankfully locked from prying eyes.
The next morning, dressed in our BDUs, we met McDougal’s corpse a few miles outside the walls of Rome, an area we estimated was clear of the city in our own time. Interestingly, Caligula was also there, indicating his wish to be present both to honor the dead, and to observe our burial rituals.
Father Vincent, back in priest mode I had originally seen him in, began with a prayer.
“In nomi…”
He paused. As with many masses spoken in the twenty first century, much of it was still spoken in Latin. Vincent looked me in the eye, realizing how odd it would sound to the Romans to hear their own language spoken in our prayers.
He covered with a cough before starting again. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” He cleverly left out the “amen” what was originally a Latin word.
We continued as many funerals did, with the reading of a scripture passage from a Bible Vincent kept on his person, as well as a eulogy, delivered by Wang. His delivery was heartfelt, but strong, the discipline of a military man showing itself. Nearing the end, we all gathered some dirt, and sprinkled it over McDougal’s body, already laid roughly six feet deep in the earth.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We commend this soul into your heavenly embrace, oh Father. Look upon him kindly.”
With that, Vincent ended the funeral as it had begun.
The ceremony complete, we finished burying the body, staking a wooden cross in the ground at its head, wrapping one of McDougal’s dog tags around it. Vincent kept the other half.
Noticing our ritual had ended, Caligula approached, respectfully. “You have my deepest sympathy and my thanks for your permission to attend the ceremony.”
Vincent spoke up. “Who am I to deny the most powerful man in the world?”
Caligula smiled. “Who indeed? Still, I found it very interesting. Now, to discuss more important matters.”
“Of course.”
Caligula took a deep breath of the fresh, crisp fall air. “Such a beautiful day. Why don’t we walk back to Rome together?”
Vincent nodded, gesturing for the rest of us to fall in behind them.
“You seem to know quite a bit about my little empire,” Caligula began, strolling down the pristine Roman road. “Yet, I know almost nothing of you, except that you have capabilities far beyond anything I can muster. So, I ask you again, who are you, and where are you from?”
Vincent and Caligula walked side by side, with the rest of the team filed in behind them. Helena was limping on her own at this point, while Bordeaux had a cast around his ankle and a cane to help support him. Surrounding us were more of Caligula’s Praetorians, hands on the hilts of their swords, ready to protect their emperor at moment’s notice.
Vincent held out his arms, palms open, as innocently as possible. “I am sorry, but I cannot say. It may do more harm than good.”
“Yes, you keep telling me that, but your words mean nothing to me. You speak in riddles. How am I to fully trust you if you will not answer my questions?”
“We are here to serve, Caesar.”
Well, that was interesting, Vincent. Since when did we have plans to throw in with the Romans? I mean, really?
Caligula thought it over. “Very well. If that is truly the case, there is something you must do for me.”
“Name it, Caesar.”
“I mean to claim the northern island of Britannia into my domain. However, my plans are not yet ready and with the winter months approaching, will have to wait. However, with your abilities, you should be able to speed the matter up rather effectively.”
Speed things up is right. Caligula never made an attempt to invade Britain for at least three more years, and things didn’t go so well. Sources claim that he ordered his troops to gather seashells, and little else. It wasn’t until his uncle Claudius that Rome made any progress in the area.
“What would you have us do?”
“The country is far from unified, or civil. It’s nothing but a barbaric hinterland. But, that is our goal as Romans, to bring civilization to the far corners of the world. For your part, there is one particular war chieftain, Adminius is his name, who is quite troublesome. I would like you to eliminate him, and cause as much destruction to his camp as possible. We have word that he is keeping a large portion of his military strength close to him, but we don’t know why. Additionally, we have learned that he has erected his winter quarters deep on the mainland, for peace talks amongst the Gauls. Probably not for any direct action against us now, but maybe to build up his strength for the future. We can’t have that.”
“I understand.” Vincent considered for a minute. “Very well. I will send three of my people.”
“Only three? Would not all be better?”
Vincent looked over his shoulder at us. “Two of my people could do it alone if I allowed it, but these are hardly normal circumstances, and I’d prefer only sending a small team.”
“Surely the woman is not one of these two?”
“Actually, she is, and she will be one of the three that goes. I will also send the man who destroyed your column, and myself. However, the two of them will need time to heal. At least two weeks.”
Caligula mulled that over. “That will do. It will allow me to send for a guide who is familiar with the area. Now, tell me how you plan to accomplish your task.”
So he did.
Vincent went over every detail of what he planned meticulously, as if he had been planning it for weeks. The way things were going at this point, that wouldn’t necessarily surprise me one bit. He spoke all the way to the gates of Rome, with Caligula venturing questions at random.
Vincent’s plan called for a jungle creep, a term coined for any lengthy excursion through the wilderness. When they reached the camp, they would spend a day scouting the location and identifying the high value target, before using the cover of darkness to place demolition charges in key positions around the camp. Come morning, they would eliminate the HVT, blow the camp, and extract as quickly as possible. The team would have ample cover, not to mention at least a mile between their targets, so getting out wouldn’t be a problem. In theory it seemed simple, and for once in my military career, I could honestly say that it really was.
In our own time, the same kind of mission was relatively straightforward as well. However, the enemy here would have no idea what hit them, and would more likely be prostrating themselves before their gods than looking for any mortal culprit.
It was a safe bet Caligula had already figured that out, and had planned exactly for it. We were a perfect way to inflict a crushing military blow against his enemies, with absolutely no expense to him, or fingers pointed at Rome. The man must have been planning this since the day we met him.
By the time we reached our little home away from home, Caligula seemed pleased with our plan, and told us he would call for us when our guide arrived. Until then, we were back to being his guests, under armed guard of course. We were stuck in our four bedroom apartment, allowed to leave only under the watchful eye of the Praetorians.
So, when we got back to the room, there was little more to do except pull out the cards and start playing.
It was going to be a long two weeks.
The Last Roman (The Praetorian Series - Book I) Page 38