Serve and Protect

by Douglas Varnell

  The next morning they were back out front of the dorm in their sweats again. They did a couple of miles to warm-up and soon entered a gym with several matts placed on the floor and six hand-to-hand stations. Each station was manned by a different member of the staff and represented a skill that had been taught during the past six months; defending yourself against a knife attack, against a gun at close range, against a club wielding opponent, against multiple aggressors, and as an attacker set to kill with either a choke-hold or a neck break. By this time Hunter was tired of holding back and knew that everyone else expected the unexpected from him. When his turn came up, all eyes were on him. He took the knife away from his first attacker and used it on the man with the gun. Used the gun he took away from him and shot the man with the club. He used a Jxansa Gha move to paralyze his three attackers and did the same to the two he was supposed to kill with a choke or neck break, indicating he could pretty much do as he pleased with the incapacitated subjects. When he walked away, he could feel the eyes of those he had paralyzed following him across the room. He smiled at Captain Bentley and commented, “It seems like I’m forgetting something. You have any idea what that might be? Bentley laughed and casually pointed behind Hunter at the frozen men. Hunter turned and stood staring, and looked at the rest of his class. He asked, “No doubt these men have given all of you a hard time since you arrived. What about it, should I let them stay that way for a few days?” Jill was now laughing and asked, “What if they need to use the bathroom?” Hunter looked down and joked, “Well, they are standing on a rubber mat.” He felt the eyes follow him as he slowly walked their way. In a few minutes all of them were moving around freely. Two of them did in fact need to use the bathroom. Everyone got a good laugh when they raced in that direction.

  After lunch, it was time for the obstacle course. It was a typical military type course, but with walls and obstacles that more resembled what you may encounter in a city than in the woods. Hunter was at the end of the line and walked forward to the course director, saying, “Sir, no offence, but I have been last on every exercise this week. I would appreciate the chance to go first for a change so I don’t run over the slower moving people in front of me. The ex-Seal looked at Hunter and over his shoulder to the others behind him, and saw 18 heads nodding in agreement. The wiry man pointed toward the course, saying, “Have at it, but don’t get hurt.” Hunter decided to attack the course just like he did the mountains at home when he did his freestyle and free-climb runs. Nineteen people watched Hunter put on an exhibition of freestyle running like none they had ever seen. He ran ten feet up the side of a wall to leap for the bottom rail of a fire-escape, pulled himself up and over the rail in a flip and pushed off the wall as he leaped to the top of the building on the other side of the narrow alley. He scaled walls and fences and ran along railings that others would soon crawl across. He leaped from three or four floors off the tops of buildings, landing with a controlled role and proceeding to the next obstacle. Everyone watched with their mouths hanging open when he bounced off one wall then the other as he literally ran up the walls between two buildings. He reached the top in seconds and held his hands over his head to signify his completion of the course. No one else wanted to follow, it was simply too intimidating. Finally, Jill said, “Well, someone has to go. We can’t just stand here, now can we?” The rest of them looked pretty normal as they grunted and groaned their way through the treacherous course. Everyone made it and no one got hurt. Hunter greeted each one at the finish line as they completed the course. All they could talk about for the rest of the evening was Hunter on that course and how he had toyed with the hand-to-hand instructors. For the first time since he arrived, there was joking and laughter in the dorm at The Farm. Hunter had made 18 new friends. He knew that the next six months would be a pleasure.

  Friday after doing a morning run, some weight training and spending several hours in a class on dealing with a hostage situation, they were finally allowed to have an evening out. The married couples wanted a nice evening alone together. Several of the others had become couples. A few of the men simply wanted to hit a sports bar. Hunter, Bentley and Martinez opted for some good seafood. When Hunter pulled up in front of the dorm in his car, Randall laughed, saying, “Call him Bond; James Bond.” Bentley and Martinez quickly joined him in the M6 and they headed for Norfolk to a restaurant both Martinez and Bentley had eaten at before; Sunset Grill at Willoughby Harbor Marina. It was an easy ride and being close to the ocean made the outside temperature feel 20 degrees warmer. Hunter and his friends got plenty of envious looks as they climbed out of the sleek vehicle and headed for the Grill. Half-way through the meal, Hunter decided that he was definitely going to do something about getting a few more good seafood restaurants on Verron. The dinner conversation led to talking about what they planned to do when they finished the course. Hunter told them about the Terrorist Elimination Unit that he was going to be commanding, both Martinez and Bentley immediately expressed their desire to be a part of it. Hunter asked, “You two won’t have a problem being under the command of a soon to be 24 year-old Colonel.” Bentley asked, “If we work for you, will you tell me how your Grandpa pulled off those stunts he pulled in Africa, Yemen and Iraq?” Hunter smiled as he replied, “Not only will I tell you, the both of you will be doing the same things he did.” Major Bentley proceeded to tell the story from his perspective about King Verron and the hostage rescue and beheading of the al Qaeda/ISIS kidnappers. Bentley had a great sense of humor and had them both rolling with laughter as he told his tale. These two were going to make his stay at The Farm much more enjoyable.

  Now that the week of exams was over, things at Camp Peary settled into the normal daily stress that usually existed there. Each day was filled with a new challenge, whether it was a classroom activity or field work, Hunter was learning more and more about the CIA perspective on how to run clandestine operations. What surprised Hunter most was not so much what was being taught, but that the techniques were a good bit like what he had learned from Vlad. However, the philosophy was totally different. Hunter felt like as cold and hard as an agent of the CIA had to be to get his job done, there was still an underlying political agenda and a bit of political correctness about how things got done. He asked about that and was told that unlike Russia, America has dozens of political watchdog groups that would love nothing more than to undermine the CIA. Russia’s intelligence organizations did not have that problem, the public knew better than to complain. Hunter especially enjoyed when they would do drills outside the camp. They were often tasked with following someone unseen, or losing a tail in the city streets. They spent hours learning how to do a drop or a pick-up unnoticed and how to read people in a glance. Hunter told them how Vlad would drop one of his people into a strange country and see how long they could pass for a native, or if they could pass for one at all. He ended up assisting an instructor on teaching the class some of the subtle little differences that could give you away. He laughed when he told them how the worst part was avoiding hygiene for days at a time, but a person who looked to clean and smelled springtime fresh in Ukraine or Bosnia would be quick to draw attention, especially if you were working in river ports or industrial districts. He was however developing a true sense of what the CIA was all about, and was proud to be associated with such dedicated and devoted patriots. He had never seen as many people striving so hard for perfection, except for on Verron. He knew these men and women were the best of the best.

  Everything had been rolling along just fine for those first four weeks. Hunter was getting used to the routine and Agent Oswald hardly spoke to him at all after that initial week of tests. The hand-to-hand instructors were interested to learn exactly how Hunter had disabled their staff of experts, so Hunter was now showing them and the students some fundamental Jxansa Gha techniques. When he told them how old this style of fighting was they looked at him like he had lost his mind. It had been a good week and Hunter had just gotten finished watching a Friday night
movie with the rest of the group and eating popcorn. It was an old Borne Identity series movie. The others were going to watch the next movie in the series when Hunter decided to go to bed.

  It was 2:00 AM and Hunter was sound asleep, when he began to hear voices in his head. At first he thought he was having a dream, but finally realized it was Lucy speaking to him through his implant. He sat up and looked around at first, realizing that he was still half asleep. Then finally comprehended what she was saying. He was being summoned back to Verron along with the rest of the Dragon Guard. He immediately knew that something very important was about to happen. He crawled out of bed and slipped on his commando grays and stepped through a gateway back to Verron. After they all arrived from places scattered across several galaxies, King Verron informed them that it was time to payback ISIS for the Atlanta bombing. Hunter was the first to ask, “How soon do we go?” He was ready to teach a lesson to those who tried to kill his Mother. As his team was leaving the room, Paul told them, “Make sure you get plenty to eat and make your last minute pit stop, when we leave in one hour, there won’t be time to take a break.”

  Saturday morning when Hunter didn’t show up for breakfast everyone was concerned, he was always the first one to be in the dining room, greeting the others with a smile and comment as they drug themselves in looking for coffee. He was a disgustingly cheerful ‘morning person.’ When the dining room was full and still no Hunter, Martinez went to his room. After several knocks on the door with no answer, he opened the door to look into an unoccupied room. The bed was unmade, but Hunter’s things were neatly organized in their proper place. He looked in the closet and realized that his gray commandoes, boots and hat were missing. Everything else was just where it usually was, he smiled as he thought “This boy must be OCD.” He couldn’t resist and opened a drawer. He smiled, Hunters socks, undershorts and T-shirts were neatly folded and arranged in perfect order, just as he had suspected. He went down the hall to the showers and looked again, but still no Hunter. He had no choice but to tell the others and they knew that they would have to tell Oswald that Hunter was missing. Over the next few hours Camp Peary was searched from end to end, producing no sign of Hunter. His BMW was still in the vehicle storage facility. Someone suggested that he may have been kidnapped; he was after all a Prince. An APB was given to the local and state police and Agent Oswald put in a call to DIC Sullivan, to tell him about the situation. He smiled to himself, “He finally had his excuse to boot the kid out of The Farm.

  Hunter reappeared Sunday evening just in time for supper carrying two large bags of BBQ Kzki. Ninety-nine had prepared it while the others were in Iraq and Syria. He placed the two bags on the table and was welcomed by the first words from Bentley, saying, “Where the hell have you been. Oswald is furious. He listed you as AWOL and even put out a Police APB for you. We’ve searched every inch of the Camp and we’ve been worried sick about you. You just gave the old man an excuse to boot you out. Hunter smiled his “I know something you don’t know” smile and told his friends, “Well since this may be my last meal at The Farm let’s enjoy it before Oswald has a chance to find out I’m home and ruin our supper.” He proceeded to pass out Kzki BBQ sandwiches. It was pretty obvious that the room was under surveillance when Oswald and four of his henchmen arrived just before they finished eating. When they came in, Hunter offered them all some BBQ. Oswald was angry beyond words. He had spent a lot of man hours searching for Hunter and here he sat as if nothing had happened. Hunter knew that by now King Verron had already informed DIC Sullivan about what had happened and that if he wanted a briefing on the mission, Hunter could handle it; after all, he was already there. Oswald and three members of his goon squad escorted Hunter to his office for an interrogation while he had one of his other goons pack Hunter’s things. Agent Oswald was obviously enjoying his opportunity to cuss the kid out and expel him from the school. He was just getting to the part where he was going to hand Hunter his things and have him escorted from the facility, when he was interrupted by his secretary telling him he had a call. He was beside himself. He had told her never to disturb him when he was in the middle of an interview. She stood her ground and demanded, “You better take this one, its Director Sullivan and he told me to interrupt you no matter what you were doing.” Oswald took a deep breath to calm himself and picked up the phone, saying very little but “yes sir” – “right away sir” – “I’ll take care of it immediately” then hung up. He glared at Hunter and barked, “Get the hell out of here.”

  While Colonel Lawson was giving a briefing on the Iraq/Syrian invasion to the Pentagon, Director Sullivan and his staff arrived at the airfield on Camp Peary and were driven to a large briefing room at The Swamp. Hunter had been instructed that he was to give a complete debriefing on the events that took place with ISIS. He was the first cadet in history to give a military operation briefing to the Director in Charge of the CIA. He requested that the other cadets be allowed to attend since it would be a good training experience on how to conduct a detailed debriefing. When everyone was seated, Hunter stepped to the front of the room and reached into his pocket and placed his com unit in the middle of the table. Suddenly people pushed away when it projected a detailed holograph. He proceeded to give an in depth report beginning with the exact same pre-strike briefing that had been given by King Paul. He then had a composite of actual video footage projected onto the big screen showing the precision air strikes, the computerized target acquisition and their stroll through Aleppo. Everyone was speechless as they watched machine guns, RPGs and constant rifle fire bounce harmlessly off the Verron Body Armor. They gasped at the devastation when buildings disappeared as the Containment Bomb evaporated them. The film ended with Hunter picking up the wounded little boy. He informed them that Verron now had 19,000 Kurdish, Iraqi and Syrian Christian refugees and that there was not one single Verron casualty. They smiled when he explained about the future Terrorist Elimination Unit and that the equipment used in this video would soon be used by U.S. and allied troops to take the war on terrorism to a new level. He smiled and looked at Director Sullivan as he pointed to Martinez and Bentley, saying, “I already have two volunteers who want to join the unit.” He then made a factual and slightly bragging statement. “I will be commander of the Terrorist Elimination Unit. The main purpose in being here is to better understand to way the CIA thinks and works together. I appreciate all that I have learned already and look forward to the next five months.” Sullivan rose from his seat and shook Hunter’s hand and publically expressed his gratitude for what Verron is doing. He then told the story of how he had first met Hunter in his own office and told those in the room about his trip to Verron. Oswald sat silently, knowing that any chance of getting rid of Prince Hunter was gone.

  Chapter 6

  It was the middle of May and Paul was in his office preparing for a trip to finally visit Grnardo in the Alpha Centauri star system. Renee had made several trips and numerous visitors from Grnardo had already visited Verron. He was so proud of Renee. She really was a take charge kind of girl and was doing a fantastic job of building trade relations with every planet now allied with Verron. He had brought his Uncle Ken back from Mississippi to deal with the numerous building projects now going on across Verron. In spite of the riots that took place in L.A. over the Job Fair, Renee managed to obtain over one million more people desiring relocation to Verron. Ken and the construction crews were working around the clock to build enough housing to handle what would most likely be double their current population by years end and double that again by the end of the next year. Paul looked at the report again; 5 million people by years end and 10 million by the end of next year, with projections showing between 80 and 100 million people living on Verron within the next five years.

  The 19,000 Christians from the Middle East were settled in at the far side of the continent. With their approval, Paul had his staff geologists and agriculturist identify the perfect location for them to raise sheep, plant olive trees and
orange groves. They had requested being allowed to live in a location less influenced by the big cities. The group reminded Paul of the small Amish community that was being established in the southern portion of the continent. He had his construction crews working overtime preparing the Kurdish, Iraqi and Syrians a far better place to live than they could have ever imagined, but nowhere near as modern and high tech as the rest of Verron. Ibrahim and his sister Lydia were officially adopted by Tlase and Zimuel and were a joy to have around Mountain City. Ninety-nine was about to explode with anticipation, his new companion was due to come out of the cloning chamber in 30 days.