Codename: Bear: Secret Agent (Codename Universe Book 1)

by Geoffrey C Porter

  Archangel asked, "What do you mean, all of us aren't going?"

  "You're going. You're ready. Jet and Zen are staying home."

  "That's shit! I'm fine!" Zen said with a spiteful glare. Then she clutched at her stomach and groaned.

  Jet sighed. "I can barely walk. I need more time."

  "Talk to us more about this base. It looks like it's surrounded by jungle," I said.

  Nancy hit another button to zoom out on the map. "To reach it on foot it is a two day march through swamp and jungle. You'll have to carry packs of explosives. Enough food to get in and out. Plus a small water filter. Camping gear."

  "Swimming is very challenging for me," Archangel said.

  "There shouldn't be too much swimming. You'll also carry a rope in case you encounter any quicksand."

  "Jungle? Swamp? Quicksand?" Sphinx asked. "I'm excited!"

  "Me, too!" Thomas exclaimed.

  I looked from one grinning idiot to the other. Swamps have snakes, crocodiles, and poisonous spiders. Big bugs. Two day hike with heavy packs. "I'm not excited."

  "It's an opportunity to get with nature. Really get down with the great Earth mother."

  I looked around. Two days in the swamp and jungle with Enigma, Archangel, Sphinx, and Thomas. "Where is this base?"

  "Burma," Nancy said.

  Sphinx bounced up and down in her chair. "Awesome! The snakes will be big. I haven't eaten snake in months."

  From what I knew of Burma, it wasn't exactly a democracy. "What about the locals? Will they be on our side?"

  "Burma has a small Agency," Nancy said, "and the government there, although oppressive, is totally against Centurian. MindBender is a plague on their villages and cities. Their organized crime influences elections, and rigs votes. It's a difficult place to live and govern, but they'll help us."

  The idiots all seemed excited. High fiving each other and slapping each other on the back. I wanted to puke. Maybe I was coming down with something. Maybe I should opt-out. My tummy was unhappy. I didn't complain or anything. "When do we leave?"

  Nancy looked up at me. "They just had a delivery today which means there are more people there right now. You leave in two days."

  Two days to get my affairs in order. I have always known I would die in a swamp. Just ever since I was a little kid, my worst nightmare have been about swamps. Well, since joining the Agency, it's been blood and dead people, but when I was a kid. I looked around, and the room was empty. Everybody left me. I went for a run, a nice long run. Hour and a half.

  Dinner was good that night. We had brisket, and since I'd be eating rations and snake in two days, I figured I better enjoy myself now.

  "Danger room, after dinner," Thomas said.

  "Man," I said, "if I'm going to be in swamp for four days, I want to just relax and watch movies or something."

  "You're soft," Sphinx said.

  "I hate swamps. I have swampophobia."

  "That's not even a word."

  "Marijuana is a good treatment for phobias," Thomas said.

  Sphinx punched him on the arm. "You think marijuana is a treatment for everything."

  "Because it is."

  "I don't want to camp in a swamp," I whined.

  Thomas pulled out a cell phone and started dialing. "Ms. Heathers? Yes. Bear's afraid of swamps. He wants to opt out of our latest mission." Then he hung up the phone.

  It went across the intercom. "Bear, call Dr. Heathers."

  Gave Thomas my best, I hate you, look. I went to my room and dialed Dr. Heathers.

  She smiled at me through the screen. "Swamps are very dangerous. It's natural to be afraid."

  I nodded at the screen. I wasn't really afraid. Little kids get afraid. Grown men don't.

  "Have you been in a swamp before?" Heathers asked.

  "I got lost in a swamp when I was ten. Spent the night: cold, alone, and wet, in a moonless night."

  "Now we're getting somewhere."

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  I wiped moisture out of my eyes. "I spent all night inventing prayers. I begged."

  "You were weak. A child."

  I'm not weak now. Friends with me. My heart will stay strong.

  "Sun came up, and I remember being hungry," I said, "but I didn't look for food. I started running and shouting at the top of my lungs. Search parties said they heard my cries, and that's how they found me."

  Heathers smiled wide. "Even at ten you had a strong spirit."

  I was a tough little fucker I guess.

  "You'll go on the mission?" Heathers asked.

  "Yes."

  Two days later we were on an airplane. Enigma, Thomas, Sphinx, and Archangel played cards. Sometimes I played too, but I mostly stayed on the terminal researching Burma. Well, Myanmar. Our plane landed, and we walked out into the blazing sun. I was expecting heat, but for April, I wasn't expecting this. A female wearing a broad hat, a badge, and a pistol smiled at us with perfect teeth. "I am guide," she said.

  Sphinx said something in some Asian language, and the two of them chatted for a few moments back and forth. Sphinx said, "Her name is Jules."

  Jules waved her hand. "The truck is this way."

  We followed her. The truck was some old Chinese model, kicking out dirty clouds of black diesel smoke. Our troop climbed in the back. Jules drove. The truck bounced around down a dirt road. We went through two small villages. I got to see a baby elephant. It was pretty cute, too. There were little kids in the villages, and they seemed reasonably well fed. We stopped for lunch in a third village. We had rations, but Jules bought us sticks with meat on them. The meat was good, some kind of teriyaki. I couldn't figure out what kind of meat it was, so I asked.

  "Cobra," Jules replied.

  "At least she didn't say, 'human,'" Thomas said.

  Eating snake really didn't freak me out. It tasted good, nice, and tender.

  We drove until sunset, bouncing around in the back of the truck. Jules pulled us into a clearing. We set up our tents. Inflatable domes with mattresses. Each was a two-man tent, and we had three of them. The ground, the air, for some reason smelled really good surrounded by jungle. Smelled like home and life.

  Sphinx and Enigma took one tent. Archangel and Thomas took the second. I climbed in the third one, and Jules climbed in after me. "You no expect me to sleep with the bugs and cobras?"

  Jules was not bad looking. Female. The others were asleep. Just lean in and kiss her. No. I'll be a gentleman. I lay down on my back and went to sleep. Woke with her arm around my chest and her face resting on my shoulder. I whispered, "Wake up…"

  She stirred and said something in a language I didn't know. We packed up the tents and ate rations. We marched. The sun beat down on us. Monkeys attacked us, throwing rotten fruit and poop at us. They ran at us, chucked their ammo then ran back for a fresh projectile. Some of the projectiles were stickier than others, like the fruit was half eaten and gross.

  Jules shouted, "Run! We're in their territory!"

  We ran. The packs were heavy. Well, twenty-five kilos, approximately. Not counting guns and ammo. Archangel was carrying a rifle, so he had the worst of it. We were traveling through jungle. I tapped Jules on the shoulder. "When does the swamp start?"

  Jules laughed. "Swamp come with monsoon."

  Sphinx chuckled just a bit and said something to Jules in some foreign language.

  We stopped for lunch then for dinner. The sounds in the swamp were so beautiful: the occasional burp of a frog, insect mating calls, birds, the random hiss of a nearby snake. Nothing like being in a city.

  "Cold front moving in," Jules said. "Fire good."

  We scattered looking for deadwood and built a nice fire. I crawled into my tent. Jules followed me in. She whispered in my ear, "Better sleep naked, feel the fire."

  "I don't think so."

  She held her fingers apart about .3 meters. "Sphinx say you this big."

  I grabbed her hands and moved them closer together. Then I laughed at what the hell
I was doing. I was not sleeping with the beautiful Asian woman no matter what. "Sleep!"

  She stripped naked and curled up against me. I wasn't about to complain.

  A few hours after breakfast, marching, we came upon a swamp. Jules said, "I lie. Swamp here."

  The water was about hip deep on me, and I took the lead into the water. I was afraid, but damn if I was going to show it. The moisture up to my nuts and the plants growing on the surface of the water made me want to push forward faster and faster. I had an urge to swim, and that would get my ammo wet. There were bugs dancing along the surface of the water almost as big as my hands. Little snakes were not that uncommon, but they fled from our noise. Every twitch in the water in front of us made my heart race. I jumped at every insect. The afternoon sun baked us, and I was hungry. The water ended, and we were back on solid ground.

  I didn't even kiss the dirt, but I was happy. We ate more rations. We marched through jungle and camped. Archangel killed a python with a machete, and Sphinx skinned it and cooked it. The cobra had better spice to it, and the python was tougher. Jules produced some salt for the meat. We slept. Within an hour after breakfast, we could see the guard towers in the distance.

  Archangel spied on each tower with his scope. "Towers are unmanned."

  "Good, the less people we have to kill the better," Jules said.

  Sphinx and Jules exchanged more words in a language I didn't understand. Sphinx held her fingers a third meter apart from each other, and Jules pushed her hands closer together just like I had and then pointed at my groin. Sphinx winked in my general direction.

  Damnit, we were wasting time.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  I started pushing forward. The complex in front me consisted of a raised block of concrete 500 meters by 500 meters. It stood three meters tall and was surrounded by huts and shacks made out of sheets of aluminum and wooden poles. I checked my compass. We were right on target. The closest buildings to us would house the sensors. Other buildings were housing or just for show. Some must have had pigs in them, because I smelled pig shit.

  Archangel set up on the perimeter with his rifle. My eyes drifted around checking for movement. Other than the sounds of the jungle, mostly insect breeding calls, there was an occasional sound of a pig squealing. I pulled my backpack around to the front. I had twenty cubes of 500 gram blocks of some Chor'Tan explosive. They had glue on one side, with a layer of wax paper keeping it sticky.

  The cubes were small: I could have easily held four of them in my hand. I stayed crouched low and advanced. Thomas moved with me. Sphinx and Enigma headed off to the other side. I ran forward about forty meters. I pulled the wax paper off the explosive and stuck it about chest height on the wall of the structure. A twig snapped. Damn Thomas. He looked at me and nodded. I attached more explosives, each about two meters from the previous one. From their specifications, they would cause a chain reaction if they were five meters apart, but we wanted optimal damage.

  I stuck the last square to the wall. We spaced everything properly so my last chunk was less than a meter from Thomas's first. Sphinx and Enigma were already heading back to the perimeter. Thomas stuck a detonator in a two kilogram block on the corner, and we ran back to where Archangel was. Thomas pulled out a remote.

  Archangel shouted, "No!"

  We looked at him.

  "We're maybe fifty meters from those Chor'Tan explosives," Archangel said. "Shrapnel will kill us."

  Thomas pointed at our big friend. "You're a smart man."

  We went about fifty more meters into the jungle. "Good enough?" Thomas asked.

  Archangel nodded. We ducked. Thomas pushed the remote on the detonator. Nothing happened. Although I think it's possible one of the women farted.

  Enigma asked, "Will a bullet set those explosives off?"

  "Won't be hot enough," Archangel said, "but I have something."

  He pulled off his backpack. His hand reached in the pack and withdrew a damn rocket. Next came a launcher for the rocket. Kind of a tube thing that rests on his shoulder, then the rocket goes in the end.

  Archangel was smiling so wide I thought he was going to be the one to explode. He put the rocket together, lined up his sights, and swoosh. Then boom. Big boom. Fireball forty meters into the air.

  "We run," Thomas said.

  I took the lead into the jungle. Jules shouted at me, "Wrong way!"

  I turned to look at her. She and the others were going in the other direction. I chased after them. Way in the distance, behind us, some engines cranked to life. What sounded like trucks, maybe a couple of motorcycles.

  We ran. I stepped on a snake and tripped. Luckily the snake slithered away. Sphinx was there, standing over me. "Are you going to get up?"

  "I kind of like it down here," I said.

  She reached down and lifted me to my feet. Then we chased after the others. A few shots rang out in the distance, and one hit a tree next to me. Sphinx and I stopped and turned backwards. We drew our pistols with a lightning quickness. There were two men behind us firing at us, but they clearly were not good shots. They weren't even aiming, firing from the hip.

  Sphinx and I aimed and shot. Two dead men hit the ground. Two fresh men took their places, and these two seemed to be smart enough to aim. Sphinx got the one on the left. My bullet pierced the heart on the one the right.

  Thomas came running up behind us. "What the hell are you two doing?"

  "Shooting back, you dumbass," Sphinx said.

  "We have to run."

  The three of us ran. We caught up to Enigma, Jules, and Archangel.

  "You run good for Americans," Jules said.

  Sphinx said, "I'm not American."

  "I didn't mean you, I meant the whites."

  "I'm not white," Archangel said.

  Thomas said, "Are we camping here?"

  "Swamp another kilometer. Better camp here," Jules said.

  Thomas pulled out a joint and started smoking it. We ate rations. Jules said, "I hit that."

  Thomas handed the burning thing to Jules, and she puffed on it a few times. "Not bad," she said. "I grow better stuff in my backyard."

  "Let me give you my address. You can send me some seeds," Thomas said.

  "Seeds good, but climate matters, soil matters," Jules said.

  "Sad but true."

  At least the smoke from the joint seemed to drive away insects. My balls were itching. I don't know why. They seemed kind of swollen too. Jules slept on the opposite side of me in the tent.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  I woke up, and my nuts ached. Went to take a leak, and they were definitely swollen. The others were in kind of a hurry as we ate breakfast, and I kept the nature of my balls to myself. A kilometer then swamp. My nutsack rubbed against the insides of my legs. We reached the swamp, and it was very uncomfortable.

  I caught Enigma's eyes. "Will you look at my balls?"

  She hissed the word. "Charges."

  "No, there's something seriously wrong with me. My nuts hurt bad."

  "Make Thomas look."

  "Hell no," Thomas shouted. "You've got to look, Enigma."

  "Please?" I begged.

  "Drop your pants," she said.

  In front of everyone? Hell, I didn't care, I was in pain. I dropped my pants.

  "I meant away from the others," Enigma said.

  Archangel howled. "Your balls are huge! I've seen smaller grapefruit."

  "You better get some antibiotics in you," Thomas said, "or those fuckers are going to fall off."

  Fall off? Fall off! Hell no. "Did you bring any antibiotics, Enigma?"

  She looked away. I whispered, "Enigma?"

  "I'm only supposed to give them out in an emergency."

  "This is an emergency!

  I put my nuts away. She got out a needle and jabbed me on the arm. "Penicillin."

  We hiked through the swamp. The cool water actually made my genitalia feel better, but the sides were still rubbing real bad with each step. We c
ouldn't stop though. No choice but to press forward. I was slowing the troop down, but there really wasn't anything I could do. Every step was agony.

  We reached dry ground, and I collapsed. Enigma said, "Let me see, again."

  Everybody turned away. I undid my pants. She put on rubber gloves. No, this was not some fantasy of mine. She moved my scrotum out of the way and looked at the cracks between that and my legs. "You're bleeding."

  Had to keep up. I slowed us down too much already. Weakest link.

  She jammed some gauze in between things. "Try and keep that gauze in place as long as possible."

  I pulled my pants up. Jules said, "We camp here."

  "There are four or five hours of daylight left," Sphinx said.

  "We have to stop," Enigma said.

  "I'm sorry," I said.

  Sphinx looked at me. At the blood on my pants. "We stop. Rest for the night. Let the antibiotics work."

  "Thank you," I whispered.

  "Dead men are of no use, and you're just going to get slower and slower."

  Thomas pulled out a joint. "You're a tough bastard for making it through the swamp. The weed will make you feel better."

  "It will not!" I shouted.

  Enigma gave me a pill, and damn if I wasn't out like a light in a half hour. I barely made it into my tent. When I woke up, it wasn't even dawn. I went off to the side of the camp and peed. It didn't hurt. I ate last night's dinner. A noise scrapped behind me. I spun around and drew my 9mm. It was Sphinx sharpening a knife. It was one of our Agency knives.

  "You slow us down today," she said.

  "It wasn't my fault."

  "Don't do it again."

  I'll try. Figured my best bet was to change the subject. "You know there's really no point in scrapping an Agency knife across a whetstone."

  "It relaxes me. I'm well aware that our knives are harder than any whetstone other than diamond."

  "So pretending to sharpen a knife relaxes you?"