Rage & Fury

by Darryl Hadfield

  Another ‘sneak’ topic was called ‘tradecraft’ – basically, how to be a spy. This was pretty involved, and included things like surveillance, counter-surveillance, setting up and using dead-drops (for getting information back ‘home’), etc.. It also included some better education about technology – both what was in place inside arkscrapers, what was available near them, as well as what was likely available (or not) in the areas into which we’d likely deploy.

  We must have lucked out when it came to eye-candy, though. We had a smoking hot blonde with a huge rack who did our training there, a captain who ran one of their platoons. Her name was Captain Ivy Hotez. Yeah. THAT Hotez.

  Lectures were hard, almost as hard as I was. You’d figure that having had the shit kicked out of me by this lady, I’d have a permanent case of shrinky-dink. You’d also be wrong; it was damn hot that she was as capable as she was. I’d also had a bit of training since then, too, and already knew I’d never be a pushover like she’d encountered the first time.

  Hm. We’re in the same higher level unit, but not in each other’s chain of command…

  I quickly refocused on her face, instead of her tits, since I couldn’t afford to cruise through these classes.

  I’m going to skip to the end. By the time we were done the Delta course (Yeah, they still called it that – although now, because it meant “change” – as they were changing us from Ranger-qualified, to “fucking crazy lunatics with guns.” Or something like that), Hotez had made it clear she knew who I was, but that she was off-limits. Dammit.

  Then, I got two more surprises when I finally reported for duty, all trained up.

  Colonel Bradburry was walking me through the team areas, since I hadn’t really gotten into them before, and was introducing me to key people. As it turns out, I was going to be a platoon leader again, as a captain. “Captain Wolf, if you recall, I’d mentioned that rank works a little differently in COB. Here, we expect more, we require more – because you have less people, and everyone needs to count. Quality is better than quantity!” Ah, yes, one of the core Special Forces truths.

  “You won’t see many officers below captain here; Lieutenant Paulson who you met only briefly, is now Captain Paulson – he was waiting on paperwork, which has now finalized, and he’s got another skillset that we needed. You’ll find that platoons – “Teams” for us - are much smaller here, too, with only 16 troops, including yourself. This isn’t the usual structure that Infantry uses – but then again, we aren’t infantry, so you should expect to see things run differently. You’ve got three bricks, each with four troops and a leader. We don’t generally use privates at all; your lowest ranking soldier is a Corporal – and you only have one. Each brick has a Sergeant, Sergeant First Class, or a Master Sergeant running it, all reporting to you, as the Team Leader. On occasion, we’ll assign a newer team lead into a team to act as an alternate team lead, and to observe and learn on the job, but you’ve had enough experience with leading people that that shouldn’t be an issue. Ahh, here we are, Team 9’s public area.” Five action teams in the battalion, only odd numbers (1, 3, 5, 7, and 9) just to keep things different. Each team had it’s own area, and ‘lived’ together. There were no married couples, the job couldn’t tolerate those kinds of attachments.

  As we walked in, I immediately recognized the crazy Filipino that jumped up and came right over. “Brice! Wasn’t expecting to see YOU here!”

  “Good to see you sir – and congrats!”

  “Thanks… ahhh, Master Sergeant, now. Nice! Congrats yourself!”

  Then I stopped cold. There was a face I knew, that I hadn’t seen in a long time.

  “Ry?”

  Sergeant First Class Ry Little stood up and walked over. “Afternoon Sir. Long time no see.” My jaw dropped.

  “When… how… I don’t get it!”

  Colonel Bradburry laughed. “I’ll leave you two to get re-acquainted, Captain Wolf – Brice, please make sure the rest of the team meets Captain Wolf as soon as they’re available. I have to go collect my winnings from General Watts, who didn’t think Captain Wolf would be speechless.”

  Chapter 25: The Boys are Back in Town

  I was shocked, stunned, surprised, pleased… it was a whirlwind.

  Things worked very differently in this unit, than in my last one. However, as any good officer, I knew the value of working with my senior enlisted member. What a surprise that it was Brice – he knew these guys, and had been working with them as the interim team leader, while I was getting up to speed.

  Ry, however, was a shock. As it turns out, he was in the next batch of recruits that Colonel Bradburry had sent in, and he’d had a slightly harder time of it than I had.

  He was still pretty quiet – and I had to admit, it was weird thinking of him as “Sergeant Little” instead of Ry, but just the same… Thinking back to his fighting ability, not to mention how damn good he was with locks, and it didn’t seem as odd to me that he was here. Then I caught myself thinking in terms of leading my empire, and realized I’d made him a noncom, years before he ever put the uniform on.

  I also found myself in an awkward position, for fraternization reasons, too. He was RY, for god’s sake…

  He wasn’t the only one, either. Hotez was wandering around, too, and… I wanted a rematch – not only the fighting aspect, either. I was no saint, and I’d picked up a few tricks while enjoying various “evening adventures” on the civvie side of things.

  They were different cases, but for different reasons. Ry, I had to keep a degree of distance from – because he was one of my section leaders. Hotez on the other hand… she ran a (even bigger) platoon in MIB – so while we were in the same unit, it was unlikely we’d ever be deploying, and that meant odds were good I could get away with it.

  I had other more pressing concerns than getting some ass, though. I was… unaware of any unstated expectations, and it was time that I start learning the things that couldn’t be cleanly taught in the classroom, where my new team was concerned.

  I spent some time with Major Bekins (team 1) and Lieutenant Colonel Trudeau (Team 5), to get a feel for how they handled their teams. We were, in theory, supposed to be entirely interchangeable. It wasn’t quite that easy, but it generally worked.

  LCol Trudeau (“Seriously, James, just call me Justine”) was a short, stocky brunette. Cute, in her own way, but played Rugby in school and her physique still showed it. I was no slouch, but while she was shorter than I was, she probably had enough muscle mass to equal my own weight. Normally, that doesn’t do it for me, but on her, it looked good. What, you think I wanted to bang her? Don’t be an idiot. She was a fellow team lead.

  In any case, Brice kept the home fires burning while I was acclimatizing myself to the new role I was going to be filling. Not so much administrative – although there was some of that. Not so much paperwork, administrative or otherwise – much of it was verbal; put too much stuff on paper and then it leaks, then it’s a headache for not just the unit, but the entire military – and the whole damn government. We did a lot of stuff word-of-mouth, and there were general basic expectations that we keep up appearances. I mean, we *WERE* ostensibly part of STB – we had to make sure that training records got updated, that payroll issues got handled, and of course, general PER records always got new things added to them.

  “You’ve got to realize, James, that with only a few exceptions, most of the people we lead are going to be legacy military, with legacy mindsets. We don’t care so much about whether or not someone has had their dental checkup every year, we care more about whether or not our troops are deployable, and how effective they are when we deploy them.”

  “Yes ma’am, I understand that, but-“

  “No, you don’t. I’m not ‘ma’am’ – I’m Justine. Now, if I took Colonel Wentz’s place, I’d be ma’am – but for now, I’m your peer, not your commander – so ‘Justine’ is more appropriate. It’s generally not regarded as professional to do so, but I’d strongly suggest
you dump that with your guys, too. Having fewer people under us, less troops to command, and all of us depending on each other means that we need to get past that ‘by the book’ nonsense – and for us, it is nonsense – and focus on operational capability instead.”

  “Yes ma- Yes, Justine, I get it. That’s always been my preference, but I spent a long time learning how to avoid hassles by giving the chain of command a lot of attention. That might take me some time to re-adjust to.”

  “Good. Bear in mind, that we sometimes get more BTB clowns in here, and they’ll insist on making those changes. If that happens? We’ll just let them do their thing, and they’ll get eased back out of the unit. I should mention, too, that that’s generally just for your own team – I don’t want my guys calling you by your first name, and would prefer you encourage the same attitude with your guys – although Master Sergeant Pangan seems like he’s got that well under control already.”

  “Yeah, he does.. He actually worked for me when we were in a line regiment, a while back.”

  “I’d heard about that – that was when you ended up getting some ‘flair’, wasn’t it?” She laughed.

  I didn’t. “Yeah. Most of that was bullshit.”

  “I’d heard some of it was, but that not all of it. There are people watching you as a result, you know… keep your shit together; you’re a bit old for a captain, but not when you consider that you came up from the enlisted ranks.”

  She had good information, and excellent advice. I just wish she’d been better, operationally – if she had, we’d have had a much easier time of it later that year – but that story comes later.

  I had actually originally asked her to get me up to speed on how we implement support from logistics command – after all, Most Special Operations require non-SOF assistance – another one of those SOF truths again. Long story short, it boiled down to… “We don’t.” I was pretty confused, but as it turns out, we had our OWN support staff platoons within COB – who, in turn, would accommodate things like “get more ammo” or “find us a plane” or “replace broken equipment.”

  That was nice, but STILL didn’t explain it. “You’re over-thinking it, James. If you need something, anything – just contact the necessary support platoon. If you need beans, bullets or gear, Logistics. Air Transport? Aviation. Waterborne ops? NavOps. Heck, you can even call on Infantry for up to regiment-level diversions, Armor for mobile covering fire, or even Artillery, although I can’t imagine why.”

  Oh. That made it, um, easy. Seriously, this was smelling more and more like not much more than a constant party with leisurely acceptance of missions that we had a blank check to acquire whatever we needed for. This was even worse than the “combat loss” stuff I’d seen in Logistics!

  I’d met the ranger CO already – in fact, had known General Watts for a while and had served under him previously – but I had actually not met the Covert Ops Battalion Commanding Officer yet – he was a surprisingly busy guy, and apparently was the only person in the unit who had any significant oversight. This was both a good thing and a bad thing, and when I finally got the opportunity to talk to him, I inquired to him why there was so little of it for any of us except for him.

  “That’s an easy question to answer, young man. The current administration – like many before it – are the sort who believe in ‘Do as I say, not as I do’, not to mention, they want a degree of plausible deniability. Remember that, if you’re ever offered the option to sit in this particular position – because if any of you, “ and he jabbed a finger at me, “ever fuck up in a bad way, I, “ and he jammed both thumbs at his own chest, “am the one who gets called onto the carpet to explain it.”

  “I see, Sir. I think I understand. That would explain why I’m a captain running a platoon when all of my peers are majors or lieutenant colonels?”

  “Yes, son. That’s why we’re so damn careful about who we let in, as well as who’s allowed to remain in, when they do get in. I would strongly encourage that as a part of your adjustment into life on the teams, you get in touch with the more senior people in each role. For your immediate needs, that would be Lieutenant Colonel Trudeau, Team 5.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Trudeau did clarify a lot of things for me with a lot of different things, especially in regard to the fraternization stuff. That wasn’t just about my team, though, although she probably didn’t recognize my line of questioning at the time.

  Good thing.

  “Come in!” The voice wasn’t quite as ‘edgy’ as I’d remembered, but Ivy did sound pretty confident. I opened the door and took a step inside, hand still on the door handle.

  “You busy?”

  She laughed, smirked, and I started wondering if this was a good idea after all. “Nope, not busy… yet. Come in, shut the door, make yourself comfortable.”

  I did, and she turned away from her little kitchenette area in her quarters, to face me as I stood leaning against the door, looking her up and down. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  “Oh, not fancy. I was wondering when I’d see you socially… things are a little, “ she stressed the word, “different now than they were the last time I saw you.”

  She was, simply, gorgeous. She was wearing an OD green t-shirt with no evidence of a bra underneath, and a pair of PT shorts the same color as our usual dark gray uniform. She looked like she’d been getting ready for a workout.

  I took a few steps towards her and slipped an arm around her waist. I already knew she wasn’t dating anyone that she’d made obvious, so I figured I wasn’t stepping on any toes. I pulled her close and she purred like a kitten when I leaned down to kiss her, sending my other hand to her hair – still long, a bit more blonde than the last time I’d seen her, running my fingers through it. I figured it was inevitable…

  … She returned the kiss, groping my crotch before her hand left, and her knee made a sharp upward strike.

  The hand in her hair gripped hard, and pulled her backwards as I stepped aside, easily blocking her knee. The hand on her hip came out and across, using her own clothes to spin her around and shove her – fistful of hair holding her head captive against the counter. “That won’t work this time, hot-ass.”

  She moaned, and I could feel the muscles on her scalp flexing – so I gripped tighter. “Unless, of course, you’d rather not try for the rematch.”

  She grunted as she tried a foot sweep to pull me off balance – which didn’t work; I had her fairly securely pinned. “Of course, recruit, if you think you can handle me this time..”

  I laughed. “Recruit? Not for a while, toots.” The hand I’d used to spin her slid between her legs, and it was pretty obvious that she was enjoying this as much as I was.

  Her heel came down hard on the top of the arch of my foot – or would have, had I not felt the motion. I skidded my foot backwards so that she stomped the tile on the floor, and then brought the same leg back, with my knee forcing itself between her legs to spread them. She’d been holding herself up slightly with her hands, but now she took the risk of bringing her hands into play – her right arm trying for a pressure point on my right arm holding her by the hair, now face-down on her kitchen counter. I laughed out loud, and when her left arm whipped around with a paring knife in it, I simply stroked my hand up under her shirt (hmm… definitely no bra, not even a sports bra), using it to tangle her arm. I laughed out loud, harder this time, as I bashed her left hand against the cupboard above her head, till she dropped the knife- and then continued the motion with the shirt to disable her left arm entirely.

  My left arm came around in a textbook rear naked choke, releasing her hair to bring my right arm into play. She struggled, even getting a few shots into my face, trying for an eye gouge, but it was too late. Ten seconds later, she was a ragdoll, and 20 seconds later – with a bit more pressure – she was likely going to be out for a minute or two.

  I’d planned this out well in advance. I dropped her – not gently – to the hard tile floor. I checked to make sure she
still had a pulse (geez, you sick fuck, I didn’t want to kill her!). I had flex-cuffs in my pocket and one went on her wrists (arms behind her back, face down on the floor), and another went on her ankles. I used a third (of the four I brought – always ALWAYS have a spare!) to hogtie her by cinching the cuffs on her wrists and ankles together. The small roll of nylon tape came out, and a strip went around her head entirely, closing down her ability to open her mouth – and coincidentally, making a royal fucking mess in her hair whenever she was able to start taking it out.

  With that all done and her still out, I physically ripped her shirt and shorts – not entirely off, but enough that another good tug and they’d come off entirely – and slipped off her running shoes and sport socks. I waited 30 seconds, standing far enough away she couldn’t spin and hit me, then told her… “Wakey wakey, blondie… “ I nudged her with my foot, but she didn’t move.