She kicked the guy hard in the side. The perfect toe point of her patent leather stiletto made hard contact with a rib. A loud crack mixed with the sound of the man’s groan as she walked back to the car and sat in the driver’s seat.
If they wanted a second round, they’d have started it before now.
Sarah had no idea where she was, but she could see one landmark. She drove toward the light at the top of the Luxor hotel.
I need a drink.
Once she found herself on the strip, she pulled into the parking garage of Caesar’s Palace, wiped her prints from the steering wheel and gearshift and left the keys inside the car.
She strode with purpose to the front desk and asked for a room.
When she arrived at her room, she stared at herself in the mirror and saw exactly why the desk clerk and everyone else in the lobby had gawked at her.
I’m a mess!
Torn skirt, blood on her right shoe and calf, not to mention her hair was a total wreck. She had just survived an attack by four men and should have been hysterical, but all she could muster was anger.
She picked up the phone by the bed and called room service. “This is room three-eighteen. I’d like a pitcher of Margaritas, on the rocks, immediately, please. One glass and don’t salt it.”
I sure as hell don’t feel like shopping tonight, but I am definitely going to have a few drinks and listen to some loud music!
Then she called the concierge. “I need a dress appropriate for Pure, preferably black, in a size eight. I’ll also need a pair of shoes to match. Three-inch heels, size ten. Oh, and some nylons. Tan.”
Sarah had just finished with the call to the concierge when room service arrived.
The waiter appeared stunned when Sarah opened the door. “Ma’am, are you okay?” He leaned toward her, looking around the room for anyone else and whispered, “I can call the police.”
Sarah laughed. “I know. I look like hell. No, there won’t be any need for the police. This happened before I got here. I had a fight with a flat tire and lost.” Sarah paid him for the pitcher and tipped him twenty dollars. His concern touched her.
“Thank you very much, ma’am. Are you sure you’re all right?”
Sarah nodded. “A shower and a drink will have me feeling just fine in no time at all. Thank you.”
Sometime between her first and second Margarita, she had a chance to wind down from the adrenaline high and think.
“This isn’t worth a hundred bucks!” Is that what he said?
Sarah breathed a sigh of relief as she realized she must have just passed the final test.
Ha, ha! Surprise attack on the street or a board question and review session? I’ve been through board reviews. I’d rather have the surprise attack on the street any day!
A knock on the door pulled her from her thoughts.
Sarah set her drink on the bedside table and answered the door.
A well-dressed young woman carrying a Versace garment bag and a shoebox stood in the hall. The woman gasped at the sight of Sarah. She stepped just inside the doorway then whispered, “I can call the police for you.”
“No, that won’t be necessary, thank you. My car broke down and I tried to fix it myself. I should have known better.”
Sarah signed for the dress, shoes and nylons and tipped the woman before ushering her out the door. She laid the clothes on the bed.
After a hot shower and another Margarita, Sarah decided a change in plans was in order. She wanted to celebrate her new job.
She walked straight past the line at Pure and directly up to the same doorman who’d been so nice to her last time. He had the velvet rope opened by the time she got to him. He placed his hand on the small of her back again, and this time, she kissed him on the cheek, slipped a twenty into his breast pocket, smiled and said, “Thank you.”
I’m living large now. Rock bottom is moving further away and my life is finally looking up.
A part of Sarah hoped she’d see Vince in the club again, but her mind told her he probably wouldn’t be there and that would be for the best.
Now that I have my life together, the last thing I need is an emotional entanglement. This infatuation needs to be squashed.
Sarah quickly scanned the white room as she walked in and her eyes stopped at the end of the bar as she caught her breath reflexively.
There he was.
Sarah, get a grip! Men are nothing but trouble for you and any man that has this sort of an effect on you is definitely more trouble than you can handle.
She watched him for a moment as he motioned to the bartender and then said something to him. The bartender nodded and went back to mixing drinks.
Sarah spied a spot at the other end of the bar, far away from Vince and walked toward it.
The bartender brought her a Margarita, just the way she liked it, as she arrived and sat. “From the gentleman in black at the end of the bar,” he said in answer to her quizzical look.
She already knew who the gentleman was, but when she turned, he was gone.
Who is this guy and why does he have such an effect on me? Worse yet, why couldn’t he just do me a favor and ignore me since I’m clearly incapable of ignoring him?
~~~
The next day, after a good night’s sleep and a little shopping, Sarah took a taxi to the Stratosphere to catch her ride back to camp.
The black Suburban pulled up right on time. Shawn and the other two guys were already seated and ready to go.
Shawn nodded toward the Versace garment bag. “Do a little shopping?”
“Among other things,” Sarah replied confidently. She wore a pair of hiking boots, jeans and an AC/DC T-shirt she had picked up at the Boulevard Mall that morning. The clothes and shoes she’d worn into town last night had been trashed. Sarah slid forward until her head and shoulders were between the two front seats. “Shawn, you pull a stunt like that on me again and I will kick your ass.”
The mystery scout in the other front seat started to smile and turned away, before she could get a good look at him.
The blue-eyed guy who had told her to bounce gave a hearty laugh.
“Easy, Killer,” Shawn said jovially. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Besides, it had to be done.”
“So, did I pass?”
Blue eyes nodded. “Straight A’s, pork chop.”
Sarah turned and scowled at the man, not sure how to take his comment.
My God, you are an attractive man.
She returned his smile. “Thanks, I think.”
Shawn glanced at her in the rear view mirror. “Yeah, you passed.”
Getting dropped and jumped was a setup, but what Sarah didn’t understand was what the mystery scout had to do with the whole scenario.
Were you the person who has been spying on me? Is that what you do?
Upon checking back in to the camp, Sarah received a short briefing by the very well put together man in the cool office.
He stood by the door when she entered his office and shook her hand. “Nice work, Stevens.” He motioned for her to sit in one of the Chippendale chairs as he moved around to sit behind the desk.
“Okay, you’ve been chosen specifically for assignment to a team within Task Force 125. It’s a special task force created for clandestine counter-terrorism operations. Few people know about this task force and that is how we’d like to keep it. As long you all fly under the radar of the press, your missions will never be compromised. You can expect to spend extensive periods of time abroad and under deep cover. It isn’t an easy job.”
I came here to escape my troubles in the real world. What better way to escape than deep cover? Long live the new Sarah!
He pulled a folder out of the top drawer of his desk, laid it carefully on the desk and opened it. The first item on top of the pile of papers was a blue credit card. He handed the piece of plastic to Sarah.
It read, “Credit Suisse” along the top and had a Master Card logo. “A Swiss account?” Her
eyes widened.
He pointed to the card. “This is attached to a numbered Swiss bank account. It’s the account we’ll deposit your monthly pay in as well as any extra money you’ll need for job-related expenses. This account can’t be traced back to the U.S. government, but if you ever go rogue on us, we’ll kill the account quicker than you can say oops.”
Sarah had seen enough movies and read enough to know that she’d signed on for life. “Okay. Since we’re talking about money, what am I looking at for pay?”
He handed her a small slip of paper. “The first number is your pin. Memorize it. The second is the pay amount your particular job earns.”
Sarah stared at the small five-digit figure.
This is ridiculous!
She placed her elbow on the desk in front of her, leaned in and glared at the man. “Are you kidding me? A GS-1 starting out with a federal job makes more than this every year!”
“Uh…Stevens.” He smiled. “That’s monthly.”
Sarah suppressed a nervous giggle. Excitement threatened to bubble out her ears. She took a deep breath to calm herself, sank in her chair, crossed her legs and leaned on one of the armrests. She stared at the toe of her boot and blinked several times while she wrapped her brain around the math. After a few moments, she looked up at the man and smiled sweetly. “That’ll be just fine.”
He smirked. “Okay, now that we have that out of the way, we’ll need to take care of the formalities.”
Sarah spent at least forty-five minutes reading and signing a slew of nondisclosure, personal risk, health insurance and life insurance papers. When she made it to the final document and signed her name, she dropped the pen on the desk and let out a sigh. “Is that it?”
He shook his head. “Do you have any civilian clothes in your storage unit that fit you?”
Her answer was easy. “Nope.”
He gestured to the door. Jeff is outside my office. He’ll take you into town so you can pick up a few things. Your mission orientation briefing is tomorrow at o-seven-hundred in building one-twenty-five. Wear casual attire.”
~~~
As per her instructions, Sarah arrived wearing civilian clothes. She wore leather hiking shoes, black canvas shorts and a black tank top. For some reason she still couldn’t manage to shake the military look, even in civis. Two guards stood outside the door when she arrived ten minutes early at building one-twenty-five.
“Name?” one of them asked.
“Stevens, Sarah M.”
He looked her up and down. “If you have a cell phone, leave it with us.”
Sarah shook her head. “I don’t have one.”
“Go ahead.” One of the guards stepped aside as another guard opened the door.
Sarah counted six men already in the room and seated at a large table. She recognized several of them. One was her fantasy man with the massive shoulders and a second was the handsome blue-eyed guy who’d told her to “bounce.” Two others she recognized as the ones she’d rode into town with her on her first liberty.
This should be interesting…
A man at the far end of the room stood. “Okay, let’s get started.”
She found the nearest empty chair and sat.
“Welcome to Task Force 125. Take a look around the room. These people are going to be your family until you either die or retire.”
Family, huh? Holy moly! I’ve got one seriously buff family! Look at these guys…you’d think I’d died and gone to heaven! Pecs and biceps and delts, oh my!
“I’m Colonel Young. I’m the handler for Task Force 125, which is the special unit you now belong to. This task force is a special counter-terrorism unit. We receive information from the U.S. intelligence community and act upon that information. Generally we add to that information and share our findings with them. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work.”
“Yeah, sometimes we have to give them the information,” someone mumbled.
Young continued, ignoring the side comment. “You’re in ‘Black World’ now. You’re spooks and you don’t exist. You are part of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Special Activities Staff. The Special Activities Division is divided into Air, Maritime and Ground branches, but you folks are going to have to be a little more versatile. We need a team in the Mediterranean AOR that can work both land and sea. You may also need to work with operators from coalition nations. Between the six of you, we believe you’ve got the skills necessary to do all of that.”
“Flatterer,” mumbled the guy sitting to Sarah’s right.
“Your primary mission is to acquire the necessary intelligence on high value targets to remove them and their organizations from circulation. That means you’ll be doing a lot of undercover work, some snatch and grab, interrogations and a lot of link analysis. In particular, you’ll deal with the people who are financing and supplying terrorists. The regular military is doing what they can, but your job is a bit more delicate.
Young stopped and looked out the window as he spoke. “You have to do things that Congress doesn’t really want to know about. You operate outside the Geneva Convention and although that means you have more freedom to get the job done, you’re also going to encounter more risks to meet your objective.” He looked around the table. “Before we go too far, let’s get one thing out on the table now. If any of you get captured or killed, the government will not negotiate for your release. In fact, here’s the official statement that will be issued:
U.S. citizen, John Doe, has allegedly represented himself as an American government and/or military official. The public should be aware that Doe does not represent the American government and we do not employ him.”
“That’s love,” said the jokester sitting beside Sarah.
Young looked directly at the jokester. “The people in this room are all you’ll have. You will be equipped as necessary and have at your disposal anything the Agency can muster. You are your primary support unit. You’ll have a contact within the Sixth Fleet, but you’ll be expected to accomplish your missions on your own. Seated in this room are people from diverse military and paramilitary backgrounds. We’ve got Marines, Air Force, Army, Navy, CIA and FBI. The fact is we need the experience and expertise that each of you has in order to create a team that will be equipped to fight terrorism from a very unique angle.”
Just the people in this room against all the terrorists in the world?
The puzzlement must have registered on Sarah’s face.
Young pointed at her. “You got a question, Stevens?”
Sarah took a deep breath as she prepared to ask the question on her mind. “Yeah. Is this the only team that does this sort of thing?”
“No. We currently have nine other teams on this task force doing missions similar to yours. Your particular area of responsibility will be the Mediterranean and the surrounding area. This, like everything else about your job, could change at a moment’s notice. Stay flexible.”
Sarah nodded her understanding.
“The code name for your team is American Swift. In our branch of operations, secrecy is a matter of life and death. If the media gets wind of what you’re doing or who you are, there will be a veritable shitstorm from the White House on down and we’ll have an even bigger handicap in the war on terror. Bottom linestay under the radar at all times. Your primary mission is to gather as much intelligence as possible, any way you can, without being detected. We don’t do assassinations. The Clinton Administration made that illegal. However if a terrorist or financier dies in one of your operations, well that’s unlucky for him. You’ll be expected to either clean up the mess or make sure it looks like somebody else did it. I shouldn’t have to explain that to any of you.”
Sarah glanced around the table and saw a few barely hidden smiles.
Colonel Young stood. “Okay, you’ve got fifteen minutes. There’s a smoking area behind the building. If anybody is too squeamish to deal with what we do, report to the command hut now for debrief and you can do the d
uffel bag drag back to your civilian life.”
The guys in the room exited through a back door and into what looked like an office.
Squeamish? Nope. This is my chance to do something big. I’m staying.
Sarah decided to go have a cigarette. She exited the door she’d come in through and walked around back to the smoking area.
I don’t have a problem beating terrorists at their own game, but where exactly do I come into the equation?
As Sarah rounded the first corner of the building, she reached into her cargo pocket and removed a box of cigarettes. She tapped out a cigarette and placed it between her lips. She dug into her front pocket for the lighter. As she rounded the second corner of the building, voices in the smoking area caught her attention and she glanced up. There was the mystery scout she’d been admiring for weeks and it hit her like a brick as she realized who he was.
She stopped short, cigarette still unlit between her lips.
He wore the black BDU cap and the dark glasses, but Vince’s voice came from the mystery scout. There was simply no mistaking that voice. The two men she’d fantasized about were the same guy.
Oh, dear God!
“Morning,” he said with a wide, brilliant smile. “I guess this means you’re going through with it? Welcome to the team. Nice work on your final test, by the way. I lost fifty bucks to Shawn on that fight.”
Just hearing his voice makes me weak in the knees! Okay, check yourself. There are four other guys here and not one of them will admire your ability to get stupid at the sound of one man’s voice. Be tough, be cool and for God’s sake don’t drool.
Sarah regained her composure, cigarette still unlit. “That’ll teach you to bet against me.”
She broke off her stare when the familiar clink of a Zippo lighter sounded to her right. She turned toward the source and recognized the guy who had whistled at her before her first trip to Vegas from the camp. He looked to be in his mid twenties.
He lit her cigarette and said, “I made two hundred on that fight, thank you very much. I’m Jason. Hey, did you keep the knife?”
The Path to Freedom (Task Force 125) Page 8