Arachnosaur

by Richard Jeffries

  He thought she might frown and read him the riot act, but, to his surprise, she did the opposite. Looking down with a small smile, she subtly started rolling up her skirt hem. Using her hips to block the view of anyone but Daniels, she revealed a plastic flask gartered on her right thigh, and curved so it adhered perfectly to that shapely limb.

  “No Bean, Daniels, or Walker,” she said softly. “But would Mister Jameson do?” She may have even winked. “Pardon me taking your last name in vain.”

  “All trespasses forgiven when it comes to my brother from another mother, Jack Daniels,” the sergeant said, almost enthused. “How did you get that stuff over the border, let alone in here?”

  “A girl’s got to have her secrets,” she said, slipping him the flask. “But none between us, right? Come on, tell me everything.”

  Daniels suddenly became circumspect. He looked in every direction, then leaned down conspiratorially. “Look, we can’t risk us all getting kicked out of here. They gave me a room in case I wanted to rest. Let’s go there, let me use this”—he shook the flask as if he were having tremors—“and when my tongue is nice and loose…”

  Strenkofski stood with an inviting smile while rolling down her skirt. “Lead the way, soldier.”

  Within instants the second lieutenant and sergeant were gone. For more than a minute afterwards, the only thing that happened in the room was the biofeedback graph burping and the patients breathing.

  Then Josiah Key opened his eyes. “Okay,” he whispered to Eshe Rahal. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 18

  Key and Rahal were skating down the darkened radiology hall in their stocking feet like hospital-scrubs-wearing ninja, doing everything they could not to make a sound other than their hushed voices.

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Key whispered. “They had to know where I was. How else could they have found Professor Davi?”

  “But the Saudi copter attacked first,” Rahal said.

  “The Saudis must’ve known the desert better,” he said, thinking it through. “They figured out the hideout and went after it first. Up until then they must’ve followed the marines, who were tracking me.”

  “I still can’t believe—”

  “Has to be,” Key said, his mind racing through possibilities to pinpoint probabilities. “They found Morty too, in the middle of the gulf, for God’s sake. Can’t be a coincidence. Can’t be.”

  “So why are your superiors tracking you? Don’t they trust you?”

  Key snorted. “Trust is for the battlefield, not field offices. Make no mistake. It won’t be Logan or even Strenkofski spearheading the actual surveillance. They’re probably too busy with whoever’s pulling their strings. So they passed on the shadowing to locals. The guys who found Morty and me had to be on strict need-to-know duty. No way Logan was going into detail with anyone on something this big.”

  “So they bugged you, if you’ll excuse the term,” Rahal said.

  “That’s my guess,” he replied. “Had to be during my recovery at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti.”

  “Well, I guess we’re about to find out for sure,” Rahal replied as they reached the CAT-scan room.

  She walked in like this was old home week, but it was all new to Key. He looked at the platform hovering in the middle of a white donut. “Sure a simple X-ray wouldn’t do the trick? Or an MRI?”

  Rahal snorted as she quickly, and professionally, started the machine. “We don’t want to spend all night here, now do we? We can search with X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging, but that’s like using a flashlight to find a lost kitten in a forest. Better to just flood you with light to find the potential intruder.”

  She pointed at the platform, and Key hustled over. “How long will it take to check everything?” he asked while lying down.

  “If they’re not already listening to every word we’re saying,” Rahal surmised, “it would have to be a basic tracker put in the least sensitive area. Your back has only a tiny section of the somatosensory cortex devoted to its sensations. And the other parts of the body that are least sensitive are the ventral forearm and the back of your neck. So I’ll concentrate on those.”

  She started the process, and even though she was taking a more direct, pinpointed approach, it was still taking longer than Key would have liked. She could sense his growing disquiet, so thought it would be a good time to both heighten it as well as distract him.

  “So,” she said quietly while checking the images from his spine, “they must have planted a tracker on Sergeant Daniels as well. When and how do you think they did that?”

  Key shrugged. “With the way he saws wood—I mean, sleeps—they probably could’ve installed a telecommunications tower inside him without him knowing.”

  “Nothing in your neck or back you weren’t born with,” she reported. “I’m betting it’s in your arm.”

  “Hope so.”

  “Stay still.”

  Key did as he was told as the metal donut hummed from his shoulders to his wrists. As he waited, he heard her voice again. “So why do you think Second Lieutenant Strenkofski came all the way here?”

  Key breathed evenly, but his mind was moving quickly through an obstacle course. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he finally told her. “And I mean that literally. I’m betting you’ve got an IQ off the charts. So why do you think a distrustful captain would send his beautiful blonde aide all the way over here to ply Morty with her thigh booze and baby blues?”

  Rahal’s eyes were intent on the results of the CAT scan, but her mind focused on one conclusion. “Because the captain thinks she can get something from him that they couldn’t get from you.”

  One corner of Key’s lower lip turned down as he considered the possibilities. “I guess he, and we, are about to find out.”

  * * * *

  The room the college had loaned Daniels was essentially a windowless broom closet that had been amended into a rest area for exhausted medics. It was shaped like a shoebox, with just enough room for a narrow bunkbed and a coffee table. A lone yellow light was in the middle of the ceiling, yet Strenkofski still looked like a Valkyrie who had escaped from a photo shoot.

  Daniels admired her in many ways as she seemingly claimed the room simply by moving into it. As he watched, slowly closing the door behind them, she, unbidden, took off the lab coat, loosened her tie, unbuttoned the top of her shirt, and sat gracefully on the edge of the lower bunk’s thin mattress.

  “Let me have a shot of that, would you Sergeant?” she said quietly, putting her hand out toward the curved plastic flask he still held.

  “Is that an order, sir?” he replied with a growing smile.

  “Consider it anything you’d like,” she said. “Just give it to me.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said as quietly as she had, handing her the flask as he sat beside her on the bed.

  She took an impressive pull, then took her time looking around the room, as she carefully moved her left leg out while drawing her right leg up. Daniels stared, hypnotized, as the move somehow allowed her skirt to drape across her knee. Her shins, not surprisingly, were most impressive.

  Although he was sorely tempted to comment, like a well-trained marine, or a well-raised child, Daniels did not speak to superiors until spoken to.

  “You know, Sergeant,” she said calmly, “I meet a lot of soldiers.” Then she purposefully turned her head until her gaze locked onto his like grappling hooks. “But I don’t meet a lot of men.”

  “It’s our androgynous society,” he said cynically. “Beats the testosterone out of us.”

  “Out of some,” she gently corrected.

  He resisted, mightily, the urge to look down when he felt her hand had magically moved to his nearest thigh.

  No, you don’t meet a lot of men, he thought, because you eat them. That’s what he thought, but what he
said was, “No?”

  She took the opportunity to shake her head slightly, smile slightly, and lower her head slightly. “No,” she replied. Then he found out why she had lowered her head. She lowered her head so she could raise it again, slightly, and look up at him with eyes that now spat glue. He had met many a woman who used that tact, but none who used it as well as Barbara Strenkofski.

  If she had suddenly exploded like Goodman and Ayman, Daniels would not have been surprised. Instead, he felt her right hand—which was, like the other, somehow both warm and cool at the same time—laying flat on his upper right chest. It snaked up slowly until it was behind his neck, while the other five-fingered forward exploratory unit was moving up his thigh. Her pale pink lips parted, but no words emerged. They weren’t necessary.

  But Daniels was taking no chances. “Permission to come aboard, sir,” he asked as her face neared.

  “Permission granted,” she whispered just before she planted her mouth on his.

  God, she was good, Daniels thought as he tasted her delicious lips and her tart tongue darted behind the lines. She was also taking no chances either, her southern hand finding the space between his legs like a homing device.

  As he expected, her hunger intensified, but he was undecided what percentage was faked and what percentage was real. Quickly he decided there were more important things than to judge percentages. As she moved in to occupy the territory, he was surprised, and a little delighted, that the seven-part creed of a United States marine, which he was taught at basic training, invaded his mind.

  One, this is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

  She had his rifle between her warm and cool fingers—fingers which were rapidly becoming warmer.

  Two, my rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

  That was no problem, considering the way her mouth was working his, giving his skull no opportunity to retreat, even if he had wanted to.

  Three, my rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will.

  It was time to join the dance. Daniels’s arms moved to strongly embrace her as he opened his legs and started sitting back.

  Four, my rifle and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit.

  She went with him down toward the mattress, but only so far. She widened her own legs so her skirt rose to her thighs. She straddled him, his unsurprisingly erect member being a Washington’s Monument in front of her pristine, dewy, beautifully shaved and waxed Lincoln’s Memorial.

  If little else, there was one thing Strenkofski and Lailani had in common: they weren’t wearing panties.

  Five, my rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights, and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes, and my heart against damage. I will keep my rifle clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will.

  As the blonde gripped his shaft like a detonator switch, and shifted her hips to properly aim it unerringly at her target, Daniels’s used both hands to do his condom trick on her shirt buttons.

  As much as he would have loved simply tearing it open, letting the buttons ricochet around the room, it simply wouldn’t do to have a second lieutenant wandering around the Middle East with an unclose-able shirt. And any disappointment he had about her not servicing him first, with what she had already proved was an amazing mouth, was tempered by his knowledge that she obviously wanted her lips free for other purposes.

  Her breasts were extraordinary, dew-dropped water balloons housed in the barest of barely there bras, its spandex lace only just enclosing her pink, circular aureoles and tiny pink button nipples. Her body was equally impressive, his eyes quickly making a now nearly unconscious judgment of thirty-six D, twenty-five, thirty-six. With an easy, casual dropping of his index fingers, her chest bounced free, causing even him to find he was holding his breath.

  Then she impaled herself on him.

  Six, before God, I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.

  She grabbed his hands and planted them on her breasts. His hands were not unwilling participants. She started grinding her hips on his with the urgency of an expert bronco buster mixed with a drowning woman. The fact they were locked between bunks in the middle of an Oman college clinic, forcing any noise they made to be discreet, only made it all the more exciting. The sounds that came from her working mouth, like breaths escaping from popping bubbles, only fueled his cannon all the more.

  “Sergeant Daniels”—she gasped, grinding—“report.”

  “Ma’am?” He grunted, squeezing and thrusting rhythmically.

  “That’s,” she mewled, “an—”

  He watched her carefully. Her eyes were smoky and unfocused. He saw that she was trying to form the final word, but somehow the road from her brain to her mouth had flooded. Her jaw sank and rose, then sank again. Her head began to droop, her amazing body sagging even further onto him.

  “—order,” she managed to say before falling into a sedated sleep.

  Morty Daniels looked from the beautiful, half-naked, comatose blonde collapsed on his haunches to the plastic flask laying on the floor—the flask he had been holding the entire trip from the patient ward, the flask he had put the remainder of the chloral hydrate he had left over from Club Blue in as she had surveyed the room—and tried to grin. He failed.

  “You better pray that saving the fucking world is worth it, Joe,” he muttered as he started the careful process of leaving the second lieutenant fully clothed under the covers for a nice, safe, long nap. He had learned his Lailani lesson. Wouldn’t do to have the blonde leap on his back as he was trying to escape this place. He had no doubt Strenkofski, unlike Lailani, would leave him headless, above the neck and above the balls.

  He took a moment at the door to look on her angelically slumbering form under the thin cover, unavoidably recalling the final line of the Marine creed.

  Seven, so be it, until victory is America’s and there is no enemy, but peace.

  “Amen, brother,” Daniels grumbled, then went to find his friend where they had planned to meet.

  * * * *

  The tracking device was in Key’s left arm. Rahal was unsurprised.

  “Even if you felt an ache there,” she muttered, “you might chalk it up to all the intravenous needles they were using to test blood and nourish you.”

  “Clever,” he admitted.

  While they spoke, she used a scalpel and forceps to find and remove the tiny thing. She glued, cotton padded, and taped him back together, resisting the urge to offer him a lollipop. Even that habit had been imported from West Virginia.

  They went quickly back to the clinic room, where he put the tracker under his pillow, hoping whoever was manning the surveillance had relaxed since all concerned thought Key was in a coma. It wouldn’t do to have been caught leaving the bed, running to radiology, then returning to bed.

  As if on cue, Daniels came in quickly and quietly, as they had originally planned. But any happy reunion was quickly and quietly short lived. Rahal immediately started checking Daniels’ left arm, praying that whoever installed the things was consistent. As she did, Key surveyed his cohort with a raised eyebrow.

  “Even in my coma,” he commented, “I had a hard time not rolling my eyes when you started reciting shock symptoms. Why not mention the low urine volume?”

  “I had to say something,” Daniels cracked back. �
�I didn’t want to start asking how a patrol just happened to be in the Gulf of Oman at the same time Leilani and I were.” He smiled at Key and then Rahal. “Ya see, I’m not as dumb as I look, or act.”

  “Actually, you are,” Key answered, but with approval and even regard. “You’re just a much better liar than anyone who didn’t know you would guess.”

  Suddenly Rahal stilled, and when Daniels looked at her, he found she was looking at him as well.

  “You didn’t,” she breathed.

  “Didn’t what?” he asked, the picture of innocence.

  “You didn’t,” Rahal repeated, her thumb feeling an unnatural fleck in his arm, “Leilani her?”

  Daniels knew what she was referring to. “The Jameson was right there,” he said in his defense. “And I had a little Mickey Finn left over from Club Blue, so—ouch!”

  Rahal had taken that moment to slice his skin. “Shush,” she warned. “My students can cover for us only so much.”

  “It’s a frigging clinic,” Daniels said as Rahal slid the forceps into the cut. “I’m sure everybody on this floor has heard ‘ouch’ before,” he finished with gritted teeth.

  They waited as Rahal started extracting the bug they somehow planted on Daniels, until another thought occurred to Key. “Morty,” he said, “you didn’t give Second Louie Strenkofski the full Leilani, did you?”

  Daniels gave Key a look that combined utter shock with leering certainty. “A gentleman never tells,” he said. “But rest assured that if I did, it was way before Mickey showed up. Ouch!”

  He looked hurt at Rahal, who had jabbed him again. It was her turn to feign complete innocence. She glued, padded, and taped his cut, then held up the second speck-like transmitter in the forceps. “What should we do with these?”

  “Well,” Key said, “I was tempted to send Alshshaytan back into the desert with them, but once Babs wakes”—he gave Daniels a cutting glance—“she, and the jig, will be up. Might as well leave them here. Your students, however, should make themselves scarce.”