The Ides of Matt 2017

by M. L. Buchman

  A mannequin bearing an RPG leaned out of a doorway.

  Only habit had her shooting it twice in the face and once in the chest.

  Chapter Nine

  Betsy finished the Range 37 course with the same high marks she always did, but felt none of the victory at the score—even though she’d managed to snatch-and-grab the bad guy on her own.

  The next two days were a slow slog through the bureaucracy of leaving a service she’d given a decade to. Quartermaster this. Housing that. Personnel records the other thing.

  She couldn’t equate the Range 37 exercise and the two days of bureaucracy involved in leaving the service with the three days she’d spent with Horatio the Herder tracking a stray Christmas reindeer.

  At each step she took through her Fort Bragg reality over the same three days, she could feel the other reality fading into memory. The three days with Horatio had passed so quickly and now time crawled.

  December 21st: Quartermaster this. Horatio’s strong hands resting on her shoulders a moment longer than needed as he helped her into a red-and-white parka while they stood in the most magnificent stables she’d ever seen.

  December 22nd: Housing that. Holding each other close in a small hayloft in Detah on the frozen shores of the Great Slave Lake. A feeling of belonging she’d never known.

  December 23rd: Personnel records the other thing. Waking in his arms in a Glacier Park cabin and knowing she had never been anywhere so safe or so…important before in her life.

  December 24th: nothing but a blur. Horatio the elf would be with his reindeer, making sure they performed their annual flight, preparing the stable for their return. Bedding them down when they were done.

  No one that she’d served with was currently rotated into Fort Bragg from abroad, so she passed her final days in the US military in silence. Alone.

  The snow had melted and new teams were working their way through Range 37. No twelfth-century French village with bad wine and poisonous stew would be awaiting them any more than it was awaiting her. She’d go back if she could, just to see Horatio once more. Once she was out, maybe she’d take her motorcycle to Europe and go searching for a French pub with an Airborne shoulder patch carved into one table’s surface.

  But there wouldn’t be. Hallucinations didn’t work that way. It had taken a long and lonely Christmas eve to convince herself that was all it had been.

  Early Christmas morning, she turned in her firearm, was issued her DD 214 Honorable Discharge form, and was issued a temporary visitor badge that would see her to the front gates. She bundled up against the chilly day, missing the warmth of the North Pole parka, though she didn’t really feel the cold anymore. Climbing on her Yamaha YZF superbike, Betsy rolled out the Manchester Gate by Pope Airfield.

  Maybe she’d swing south and see a bit of the country. She had no real plans until summer. But then her course would be certain. This summer, she’d be chasing the melting snow north, starting with the Flathead Wilderness. Even if it hadn’t been real, she’d retrace the path as far north as she possibly could, right up to Reindeer Station on the banks of the Mackenzie River.

  Perhaps there would be a reindeer, a small fawn grown into the grand bull that would at least remind her of Jeremy and she could pretend that he would lead her north to a stable made of yew trees.

  At the Fort Bragg gate, the corporal took her temporary pass, and saluted her smartly. She returned the gesture for the last time, then rolled out the gate. Out Manchester Road, she’d pick up North Bragg Boulevard and punch south.

  For now.

  Then she’d—

  Betsy slammed on the brakes and tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

  Just off base, along the wooded lane, stood Pyrates Sports Bar. It wasn’t much of a place: pool, beer, and a decent burger.

  And leaning against one of the big maples stood an impossibly thin man with black hair down to his waist and eyes the color of the Big Sky.

  She couldn’t release her death grip on the handlebars as Horatio strolled up to her and reached out to raise the visor on her helmet.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi? Hi! That’s what you have to say for yourself? I’ve spent three days convincing myself that you were just a hallucination. What are you doing to me? Is this some kind of weird drug experiment or—”

  Horatio leaned in and kissed her.

  She dropped the clutch. The Yamaha lurched then stalled, and broke the kiss. She’d already forgotten his taste of cinnamon and the great outdoors. How had she possibly forgotten that?

  “Does that feel like a hallucination in your consideration?”

  Betsy could only shake her head.

  “I know this is a little abrupt, but how would you like a job?”

  “No way, Horatio. You evaporated at the end of the last one.”

  “I would not this time.”

  “And I’m supposed to trust an elf hallucination on that?”

  “Absolutely,” and Horatio’s smile lit his eyes to a merry twinkle, just as they did every time.

  “Why?”

  “Because I could use the assistance of a skilled reindeer herder.”

  “You want me to live at the North Pole with you?”

  “We would travel a lot. I only tend the reindeer around Christmas. An elf’s main job during the year is rather global: spreading good cheer wherever he can.”

  “Can you promise me that you’re not a hallucination? I really want you to not be a hallucination.” Even if he was, Betsy had the feeling that she wasn’t going to care.

  “I’ve been wracking my brain to find an appropriate Christmas present for you. That wish will do nicely. I promise you that I am completely real.”

  She hadn’t thought about a Christmas wish in a long time, but if there was ever one she wanted to come true…

  Betsy kissed him lightly, then nodded toward the back of the bike.

  “Climb aboard, Horatio. We’ve got some good cheer to spread.”

  Chapter Ten

  Betsy leaned against the yew tree that made one side of the stable’s main door and pulled her red-and-white parka more tightly about her as she watched Horatio with the herd. It was Christmas Eve and once more the excitement practically shimmered through St. Nick’s stables.

  Harnesses with bright polished bells were laid upon well-curry-combed backs as the reindeer pranced with delight. A small elf choir stood up in the hayloft singing about Good King Wenceslas, Little Drummer Boys, and Friendly Beasts. She noted that Rudolph was nowhere in the repertoire—Jeremy was not a fan of Robert L. May. He’d grown to be a very dignified reindeer.

  “Especially now that he has a family to look after,” Horatio had whispered softly in her ear one night.

  And his nose was definitely not red, his main point of contention.

  Before Jeremy was harnessed into the lead position, he clopped over to her and faced her silently.

  Betsy’s grasp of reindeer language still sucked, though she was improving.

  But he didn’t say a word.

  Instead, he tipped his head down, and shifted his face gently against her chest and simply rested it there. His great rack of antlers framed her protectively to either side.

  She hugged him, wrapping her arms around his head.

  “Merry Christmas to all,” she whispered to him. “And have a good flight.”

  He snorted a soft laugh at her twisting of the last line of Rudolph’s story before pulling away to stride over to his position to be harnessed in.

  With a stamp and snort and a prance and a paw, the herd was soon aloft, towing St. Nick and his sleigh on their merry rounds.

  The silence seemed to be a long time settling over the stables once they were gone. But in time, even the fireflies had settled and only the quiet stars of the Arctic night lit the stables.

  Jeremy slipped close beside her and wrapped his arms about her. She rested back against him and marveled at how her life had changed. How she would never be alone again.


  Last Christmas, Horatio had given her a gift beyond imagining, she was no longer alone in the world.

  She rested her hand on her own belly.

  Tomorrow, Christmas morning—after the reindeer had completed their flight, then gone to bed for the night—she would tell him the news.

  Her gift to him would be—she tried not to think it in the same rhythm as the Rudolph poem, but being married to a Christmas elf was changing her in many wondrous ways—that quite soon they’d be three.

  If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy:

  The Christmas Lights Objective

  Kelsey “Killjoy” Killaney can track down the worst drug lord of a Mexican cartel. But of all stupid days, why must it be on Christmas? Her least favorite day of the year.

  Jason Gould flies with the very best, the Night Stalkers 5E helicopter company. Christmas ranked as his best day every year, until this one.

  When the mission comes to take out a drug lord on Christmas Eve, maybe they can both track the Christmas Lights Objective.

  Introduction

  I decided that I wanted to end the year with the Night Stalkers. And this story was for December, so another Christmas story seemed appropriate. We’re once more aboard the Calamity Jane II, which is fast becoming my favorite heli-crew. (Of course, every team is my favorite when I’m writing about them.)

  I felt bad for Jason, because for several books and short stories now, he’s been the quiet guy hanging out alone at the far rear ramp-gunner position. I felt that Christmas was high time for him to finally get his own happy-ever-after adventure.

  The problem with a helicopter is that it is a fairly static world. Hard to bring in an excuse for adventure, danger, romance, and Christmas. So I sent them out into the world on a “kingpin” mission.

  The heart of this story though, is Christmas.

  The challenge for a writer is getting “truth” on the page. It doesn’t have to be factual or reality-true, but it must be some part of the writer’s own personal “truth.” I had to wrestle hard with this story, both the planning and the writing.

  My childhood family was the one that saved up all of the year’s fights to have a massive, multi-month one over the Christmas tree. Not Christmas itself, just the poor tree. Once I was grown, it took years before I could accept a friend’s invitation to spend Christmas with them.

  And on the other side of the coin, when I finally met the lady who is now my wife, she showed me that Christmas is also a celebration of joy and family. It came straight from her heart and I’m glad to say straight into mine.

  Why do I write romance? Because she taught me to believe in it that too.

  Chapter One

  This sounds as much fun as an air raid at Christmas… Wait, that’s what it is.” The guy in the goofy Santa hat cut Kelsey off after her opening line of the mission briefing: This mission flies tonight.

  “Dashing through the air,” the senior crew chief of the Night Stalker Chinook helicopter team began singing in her bright soprano. “In a two-rotor heli-sleigh.”

  “Over the jungle we go, a-fighting all the way,” another joined in—an off-key tenor.

  The various members of the operation’s primary helicopter crew began adding in verses. Soon both pilots and three crew chiefs were rocking to the beat just as if they were in their massive, twin-rotor Chinook.

  Sergeant Jason Gould—loadmaster on the Calamity Jane II and the man wearing the goofy Santa hat—joined in with a rich baritone. She didn’t know why she should be surprised.

  But she was surprised. He looked like a New York Jew from her own Brooklyn neighborhood. His speaking voice, while pleasant in the few words she’d been willing to exchange with someone in a Santa hat, hadn’t foreshadowed the bone-melting baritone that quickly became the anchor of the song.

  She could almost like him, except his hat sported a blinking-nose Rudolph on it. In her book, it was a target saying, “Please shoot me here.” Though since they’d just met, and they were both US Special Operations, she left her sidearm in its holster.

  They sat in a meeting room in the team’s residence building. It stood beside a large hangar—labeled as abandoned. Abandoned deep in the woods of Fort Rucker, Alabama. She’d been directed down a tiny access road that was marked as closed and had looked disused. The gray afternoon, dripping with December rain, made both the building and hangar appear even more sad and weather-beaten. She’d almost turned around—until she noticed the cutting-edge surveillance and security system tucked in the corners of the structures.

  The inside of the residence, once she’d gained admittance, was immaculate and comfortable with all of the latest conveniences. She hadn’t seen the inside of the hangar yet.

  The meeting room’s walls were covered in brilliant travel posters—so many of them that they were starting to overlap: Costa Rica, Honduras, and Venezuela were understandable. But there was also Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya…

  It was the strangest briefing room décor Kelsey Killaney had ever worked in.

  “It’s my Christmas, too. Not my call.” She grimaced as her protest cut off the singing. Killjoy Killaney. Once again, the old high school nickname was definitely her. If it had been up to her, she’d have scheduled the flight for Christmas Eve anyway, just so that she didn’t have to think about “the happy season” for one more millisecond than necessary. But it had been circumstances, not orders that had brought them together on Christmas Eve afternoon.

  This morning, everyone at her office in Fort Belvoir, Virginia had been buzzing with the “Best Wishes” and merry yeah-whatever. She’d wanted to lie on the floor and throw a tantrum as if she was nine, not twenty-nine—the little girl wanting everyone to just shut up. Her worldview was more mature now. Now, she was a grown woman who just wished everyone would go away.

  Another Christmas wish gone bust. Not that any of the ones as a child had paid off.

  This morning, Michael Gibson, the commander of Delta Force, had appeared at her desk inside The Activity’s headquarters without warning—not even from security who were there to make sure such things didn’t happen. The Intelligence Support Activity worked in one of the most secure buildings on a fort made up of twenty major intel agencies. The Activity’s sole purpose was serving the Special Operations Forces, but that didn’t mean they were supposed to be able to just walk in.

  “There’s a jet waiting for you at Davison Army Airfield,” had been his idea of a pleasant Christmas Eve morning greeting—which actually worked for her. “Here’s your team and mission file to read on the flight.”

  He’d handed her a slim folder that she wanted to handle as much as a live snake. It had a yellow fly sheet with a dark red border. In large type it only had an identification number and two of the scariest words in the intelligence business: Eyes Only. She’d checked the back of the fly sheet. Her name had been added in the second position, countersigned by Colonel Michael Gibson himself. Theirs were the only two names on the file.

  She’d looked back up at him, but he’d been gone. If not for the file clutched in her white-knuckled fingers, she’d have doubted he’d ever been there. One look at the first page and she was on the move. On her way out the door to grab the scram kit from the trunk of her car, she’d stopped off at the front desk. Just as she suspected, he never had been signed in…or even seen—Delta Force guys were just creepy sometimes.

  Reading the mission portion of the file Gibson had given her, made her the obvious choice for the operation. Actually, the only choice.

  Reading the portion about the 5E was just…headshaking.

  The 5E had an unprecedented number of missions with an unlikely success rate—even by the Night Stalkers’ stratospheric standards. Yet the details of most of their missions had been redacted from the file now sitting in the locked briefcase at her feet.

  With their song cut off, they were all sitting and waiting. Waiting and ready for their latest mission assignment. That’s when she looked at the posters again
.

  “Duh!”

  Jason, happy in his Santa hat, looked over but she just shook her head to ward him off. She hoped he would look away before she was forced to attack Rudolph’s blinking nose. The last thing she needed was to explain herself to a Night Stalking Christmas elf, no matter how nice a voice he had. Why was a New York Jew singing Christmas carols anyway?

  Except he wasn’t a fellow Brooklynite. According to the file, Loadmaster Jason Gould was from Florida no matter how much he sounded New York.

  Kelsey understood now. She didn’t need the list of redacted missions—they were right there on the walls. These people collected travel posters of everywhere they’d ever had an operation. Now she could start putting some of the pieces together.

  Each poster was a snapshot of a mission file.

  “Find Beauty in Honduras.” A black ops Honduran mission last year that had shaken the corrupt banking-military cooperative to the core. It had significantly stabilized the duly-elected government—but no hint of who had done the mission. The answer sat in this room.

  “Surf Kamchatka.” The 5E had done the Russian drone mission.

  “Hike the Negev.” The disastrous Negev Desert, Israel, mission that had shaken The Activity itself to the core, somehow salvaged by the field team. By this team.

  She tried to catch her breath, but wasn’t having much luck. No wonder she hadn’t heard of the 5E, though they were the logical extension of Henderson’s and Beale’s D Company. The 5D had been hugely innovative in their approach to military tactics. The 5E, however, were the tactical equivalent of Delta Force—silent and dangerous as hell…or Christmas.

  “Damn it!” Jason complained. “Christmas Eve! Shit, man! And I was going to get my nails done tonight.” That earned a laugh around the table. The team was apparently unflappable.