They stared at her as if none of the three had a clue where she was going.
Metzler said, “That being?”
“Gentlemen, soldiers, I’m not eighteen, but I’m not eighty either.”
It was so obvious, yet they seemed to have no idea what she was about to suggest. Maybe she was too elevated in their minds, too much the big-deal doctor. Rainee gave off a half smile and said, “Well, men in party mode are susceptible. We don’t need tree limbs or branches, we need something more basic. Girl limbs. They see a nearly naked, drunk female. Preferably a tall, kick-ass American. Well, if I can’t stop the bastards, all the running and working out I have done over the years has been an utter waste of time.”
The headlights were heading their way and it was going to be minutes before the car arrived.
She said, as she took off her pack and put it down, her weapon on top of it, “I’ll stop the car and engage their full attention and you come in and take the prize. My fine mind sits atop a very toned body.”
That should have brought some wry chuckles from her guys but didn’t. It was Metzler who said, “She’s right, it’s perfect. These guys will be drunk, or high, and they’ll see a tall, good-looking, half-naked girl. Perfect.”
There were no objections.
Then she took off her running sneakers and began to strip off her still-wet running pants and shirt.
The men turned away from her and looked back toward the approach of the car, still a quarter mile or so away. Maybe they were a little embarrassed.
She was now stripped down to her black panties and black running bra. “We can’t afford to fail, so we aren’t going to fail,” she said.
“They might still see this as a setup,” Keegan said, offering the first negative.
“No. They won’t,” Metzler said. Duran agreed with him. Rainee said, “They’ll see it for what it is: A drunk, beat-up, half-naked girl getting away from some party. Vulnerable, or at least not something they’d just run down. Not the most unusual thing around here, I’m sure. I assume they like tall, naked, drunk girls.”
“I think she’s right,” Duran said.
Metzler turned to Duran and said, “Don’t be too agreeable.”
That got a good laugh, easing the tension. She didn’t know if there was a blush on Duran’s face, but he looked down for a moment.
“Okay, then let’s do it,” Keegan said. He directed Metzler and Duran to one side of the road, while he took the other.
53
Rainee reached down and came up with a handful of dirt, rubbing it on her arms and legs, the application rough, sandy, and, she thought, effective in the headlights of a car.
She knew her scheme was not only the best one available, it was really the only one that could make this work without a big gunfight. They had to get the car stopped peacefully.
She dismissed the one potential problem—that the people in the car already knew the commando team was onshore and heading for the Facility. Or that the Vereen compound had been hit. But there would be a much bigger response than one car.
Her mind spun a million miles an hour. She struggled to calm herself. Those damn pills. It was a little like staring at an object, or the world around you, yet able to see the molecular structure beneath it all. Deep breaths. Moon, stars. Mountains.
Mora needed them to be very smart. Her uncle didn’t die for no reason. And for a much larger issue, they had to succeed.
Rainee glanced back and there was no one there. They’d gone to their ambush places on both sides of the road and she was alone on a lonely road under a stressed sky filled with torn fog and partially visible stars and moon.
Then she turned, standing in the road more naked than not, utterly vulnerable, yet in that vulnerability, there was strength. The fate of females throughout history, she thought, sensing the paradoxes and ironies.
She studied the headlights dodging through the trees toward her. “C’mon boys,” she said quietly, with an urgency and determination, “come to the after-party fun. Check this chick out. I have a killer body. Unfortunately for you, I have a killer mind as well.”
She knew, on some level, she should be afraid, but that fear paled before the fear of failure and all that failure meant.
Wearing black panties and a running bra that flattened her breasts, Rainee decided to remove the bra for greater effect. “Women,” she said, “have weapons of mass distraction. How’s the look? Good enough to get a carload of miserable, asshole drunks to slow down?”
“You’d stop a drone in midflight,” Metzler, on the south side of the road, said, strong, a man.
“You’re what triggered the Iliad,” Keegan, on the north side, added. Even more powerful. Fun.
Duran said nothing. Embarrassed? That boy likes me, she thought with a smile. Then she got serious.
She practiced her stagger, walking away from the approaching car.
In the distance, a faint moon, like some high artist’s rendition of what a moon should be, and the fog dying in the hills, all of it like the slow unfolding of something beautifully dangerous and mysterious. It would be getting light soon. Normally, her favorite time of day.
This was one of those moments in her life that would be memorable if she survived it. That’s how she thought of other moments. It was part of her dramatic nature.
A great lover of classic novels, she thought of a line from James Dickey, where one of the characters in Deliverance said, “I believe in survival.”
Yes, so do I, she thought. So do I.
The car lights disappeared in the hollow for a moment, maybe two hundred yards away, dropping out of view like the eyes of an evil puppet created by Stephen King.
There was a moment when the lights shot up closer, rounding a knoll, where she felt a weird tingle of excitement. The enemy blindly coming into the trap. Her trap. At its primitive essence, she reflected, every woman is a vagina, a birth canal, and every man a dick looking for entrance. “C’mon, here it is,” she said.
The headlights bore down on her, not yet picking her up, the speed faster than she wanted.
Keegan, her miracle Afghanistan save, with his Johnny Cash voice, suggested she get over more on the side of the road. He was looking out for her survival. She appreciated that, but it wasn’t good enough. The car had to be stopped. “Keegan,” she said, “they run me down, make sure the bastard behind the wheel pays.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Keegan said. “They run you down, I’ll kill them very slow and very mean.”
She had no doubt. She felt a little crazy, like a character in a film of a demented runway model. And right now, she hoped she was good, sexy, what made men stupid.
Pussy Riot, she thought. That courageous Russian female music group that was always being beat up and imprisoned by Putin and his henchmen.
Rainee heard the pipes of the car growling as it backed down to lower gears.
This is the moment of truth, boys. You want me, I want you.
Maybe they would see what was going down, step on the gas, and run her down.
That’s exactly what they’ll do, she thought. They probably got word of the boat wreck. They knew this was a setup.
And this guy, according to Keegan, was Mexican Special Forces! He couldn’t be a fool. He’d see it all instantly.
I’m dead, she thought without much of a reaction to the thought.
The car lights were high beam, blinding her. Now committed, she went into her role, out onto the center of the dirt road, and began staggering away from the oncoming car, acting as if she was about to fall.
Her breasts free, covered by an arm as she created a drunken stagger, she made a calculated stumble, went down on one knee, then got up again.
I’m a piece of meat, boys. No problem. No worries. An easy target. Come to mama.
As the car slowed, she moved with a deliberate stumble toward the side of the road, thinking if these bastards tried to run her down, she might be able to dive down the incline.
The two men in the front seats of the new Mercedes, both Mexican-American, were laughing at a joke. They were both fairly high from the party, though the driver, Armando, wasn’t as high as the security officer, a man he despised.
It had been a great night. Armando, while nothing but a driver and aide, had actually met the new governor of Baja, and the man chosen to become the next president of Mexico, and eventually the one who would orchestrate the merger with America. For him it was exciting, something to tell his wife and kids about.
But then the headlights picked up the girl.
“Que diablo es eso?” A drunken voice coming from the back seat, the head of security.
Armando slowed. What the hell was a tall, naked beauty doing stumbling down this road? But, as was his nature, he said something positive even as he feared the situation: “Dios es bueno.” God is good.
The high beams of the Mercedes were now full on the near naked, dirty, tall woman. She staggered as if drunk or drugged. American?
The man in the passenger seat said, “I don’t like this.”
“You’re paranoid, my friend,” the man in the back seat said. “What’s that saying, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Let’s have a little chat with this filly. Armando, desviar hacia la cuneta!” A body that’s a gift from God.
Armando pulled up to where the girl was and stopped.
“Maybe from Pedro’s,” the man in the back seat said. “He likes to beat his women when they don’t behave.”
Both men laughed. There was nothing threatening. Just a well-stacked female, naked and dirty, and obviously drunk.
Still, Armando saw nothing good coming of this. The girl would end up raped and dead was the most likely scenario.
Or was something else going on?
54
Rainee, in the glow of the lights, felt the car close now, inching up to her, framing her in its high beams. She offered the men in the car a full view.
Stumbling along, Rainee had moved to the side of the road, seeking a bank where she intended to dive if violence erupted, but to enhance the effect, and stop the goddamn car, she staggered back to the center of the road.
It was all or nothing.
She acted like she was about to collapse.
The car came to a stop.
I’m good at this, Rainee thought darkly. Two days ago, she was jogging on the bluffs of La Jolla and now she was nearly naked and mimicking a drunk on a road in Baja. Life is not a rational proposition, she thought. Not even close.
Now, now, do it! Hit them now, dammit, what are you guys waiting for?
She took a couple of staggered steps toward the side of the road.
Keegan had the night goggles trained on the car. He knew all the occupants. He told everyone to hold for his signal. Doctor Hall had orchestrated the perfect scenario. She was brilliant. Two people in the car, the head of security, and the driver, Armando, had the ability to come and go at the Facility. One of them had to survive. He preferred Armando.
The moment of truth arrived when Rainee heard the car door open. Her heart jumped a few beats, her breath stopped.
She turned, holding up her hand to block the headlights.
Another door opened. She considered this to be a good time to get the hell out of there, but she waited, though she wasn’t sure if she was trembling a bit in the legs. Waiting for the ambush to commence.
A man approached her and said in Spanish, “Chica, ¿qué estás haciendo aquí?”
What are you doing out here?
She backed up, one arm covering her breasts, the other her eyes, feigning a look of confusion and fright.
Someone emerged from the car’s back door, saying something she couldn’t understand, then something she did understand—the soft, deadly, muffled sound of a silencer.
The man in front of her, in the headlights, partially blinding to her, a mirage, whirled around as he pulled a weapon. He went down.
It all happened so fast, if she wanted to run, dive out of the way, it didn’t matter. It came like a sudden wave of violence and was over.
Someone emerged on one side near the back of the car, then rose from the road itself. Then another.
She backed away and stumbled, hearing Keegan’s muffler voice demanding somebody surrender.
It was over.
No more shots. The lights of the car went off. She heard Keegan giving an order to someone in the car.
Rainee ran back to where her clothes were and struggled to get dressed. No easy task as they were wet and she was streaked with dirt.
When she turned toward the car, she saw that Duran had one man down and was zip-tying his hands behind his back while Metzler was dragging a body off the road and Keegan had a man up against the car and was talking to him in rapid-fire Spanish.
Though she was familiar with the cold, swift ruthlessness of war and combat, it was still shocking how efficient these men were. A friend of hers, not connected to the military, but to PTSD research, had once said, “I really don’t understand the reality of what soldiers go through. I envy you that. You do.”
And Rainee had answered, “No. I only understand what I’ve gone through. And from my perspective. I know only that, and it’s not enough. The rest is what I study.”
Yes, she thought now, in the midst of another violent episode, that’s all I know.
The two captives who’d survived were taken into the woods and bound to trees. And then they all got into the Mercedes.
Metzler had all their cell phones and was looking at what the last calls were.
“This is Armando,” Keegan said. “He says you’re a good-looking woman, but not quite up to his wife.”
“That makes him a very smart man,” Rainee said. “His wife must be a very fine woman.”
Both Keegan and Armando smiled, but the Mexican’s smile was less effusive. He was very nervous. He thought he would soon be dead.
Metzler and Duran sat with her in the back seat of the top-end silver Mercedes. Keegan sat up front with the very nervous driver, Armando.
Duran turned to her. “Good job, Doc.”
“I thought you weren’t peeking.”
Close now, she could see his blush. She smiled and said, “I do good work in or out of clothes.”
He got mocking looks from Keegan and Metzler.
As they headed down the road toward the Facility, it became obvious that Keegan and the driver knew each other well, had a long association at the Facility, and he was assuring Keegan that he had no dog in this fight.
PART FOUR
55
Rainee, having struggled to get back into her wet, dirty running outfit, sat next to Duran in the back seat. “I need a bath,” she said.
He didn’t reply. His shyness is cute, she thought. The driver glanced in the mirror, a quick glance, but she saw the fear in his eyes.
As they drove slowly toward the Facility, Rainee couldn’t help feeling some pride in her role as the helpless drunk and its success in accomplishing their goal, and with such effectiveness when it had looked like a potential disaster. She turned to Duran. “How’d I do?”
“You did real good out there,” Duran said, “though I didn’t have time to witness the performance.”
“Bullshit,” Metzler, sitting on the other side of her, said, looking across Rainee to Duran. He and Keegan both chuckled at Duran’s expense.
“Seriously,” Duran insisted. “I’m kinda shy about taking advantage of situations.”
“You weren’t shy at that Vegas strip club,” Metzler said, getting grunts from both of his colleagues.
“That’s business,” Duran insisted. “You pay, you play.”
Then Rainee said, in a mock serious voice, “You didn’t even peek out of unstoppable male curiosity? I worked hard for this body.”
“Well . . . maybe just a peek against my will.”
Even the driver joined in the laugh.
; The joking took the tension down a notch or two as they headed toward the Facility, but it was quickly back to the business.
As they moved slowly down the road, Keegan kept interrogating the driver, calling him Armando, asking how his wife and kids were, his voice quiet yet very intimidating at the same time.
Armando seemed to have no interest in opposing or irritating Keegan. He talked fast and didn’t hide his fears, chattering in a chopped mix of English and Spanish. He asked Keegan several times not to kill him for the sake of his family.
Keegan, one hand gripping the driver’s shoulder, the other hand resting his weapon on the dash, assured Armando he had no intention of killing him.
“My friend, you will live to see your kids and your wife. Unless, that is, you attempt to send some secret signal when we enter the Facility. That will get you killed.”
Armando assured him there was no chance of that. He insisted he was neutral. “I’m just a driver, ” he insisted. Once he got them in, all he wanted to do was go back to his family.
Keegan said, “When we’re in and the Facility has been secured, you will go home to your loving family, my friend. How many armed men are still there?”
“Important guests leave. Only four security. House staff, two.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. The special detail protect important guests no longer here when the generals go back to States.”
“Raab’s chopper there?”
“Yes.” Armando shot a quick glance in the rearview mirror. “He wait for Doctor Hall. Keep clinic open.”
One of the cell phones Metzler had from the ambush rang. “It’s your commanding officer, Eagle himself,” Metzler said with a note of contempt, handing the phone to Keegan.
Keegan held the phone in front of Armando. “Tell Colonel Tessler that your boss is dead drunk, sick, and asleep. Don’t get into a conversation.” He put it on speakerphone so they all could hear.
Operation Chaos Page 17