"My face don't bother you?" Mr. Smith said.
"You service?" the older man said.
Mr. Smith nodded. The old man held out his hand and said, "Thank you and God bless you for your service and your sacrifice."
Mr. Smith turned and walked out.
"Sir? I'm sorry...sir?"
He walked down the street, got into his car, pulled away. He saw the old man standing on the walk, watching him drive away. Mr. Smith studied his face in the mirror. His eyes were glazed with yellow, cracking red at the corners. He pulled over, took out some eye drops, squirted them into his eyes till the liquid ran down his cheeks.
Jimmy John Wylde and Lizzy Caprica
Jimmy bent Lizzy over the bed, gripped her hips with both hands, driving and driving hard and brutal into her, each thrust punctuated with her gasp. Her hands bunched the sheets, and she writhed back against him.
"Harder," she said. "Fuck me harder."
Jimmy did. He dug his fingers into the muscle of her rounded hips, slammed his pelvis against her sweaty ass, each thrust rewarded with another cry from her that made him harder and harder...he felt his coming rise up in him, his balls squeezed tight up against the base of his penis, and just as he started to shoot in her, he reached around and grabbed one breast, pulled her back against him and bit her, hard, on the shoulder just as she cried out....
...he reached around and cupped her cunt, pulled her tight against him so she couldn't slip out.
Till his legs trembled and shook.
Later, in the bed, sheets crumpled and wet, her curled against his chest. Heart rate subsiding, breath slowing. She rubbed her shoulder.
"Did you leave a mark?" she said.
He looked. "I didn't break the skin."
She pressed up against him, reached down and stroked him till he started to harden.
"You can break the skin," she said.
***
Later, after, she came from the bathroom with a warm washrag, wiped his throbbing penis and scrotum clean. Took the washcloth back into the bathroom, then returned and slipped beneath the sheets.
The companionable silence between them they both cherished.
"I like it when you need me," she said.
"I know."
"Are you better?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No."
She laid her head down on his shoulder, draped an arm and leg across him. Slipped into sleep while Jimmy stared at the ceiling, the early morning light dappled and falling, a mountainside in Afghanistan in his mind's eye...
...flames, behind him the heat, so hot his skin was wrinkling, was he on fire? He couldn't tell, the brap brap of automatic bursts somewhere near him, head ringing, crawling, pulling with both arms, pushing with the one that still worked, where was his carbine? Pulled his pistol, rolled behind a rock and saw one of the Muj poke a barrel out, rested the Glock 19 on the rock pulled the trigger bap bap bap...
...screams of the wounded, the burning...
...Jimmy! Help me, Jimmy, fuck, I'm on fire, Jimmy....
***
Sitting up in the bed. Across the room, sitting in a chair, sipping coffee, silently watching him, Lizzy, her red hair wound up in a towel, an old flannel shirt wrapped around her.
"You told me once to never touch you when you dream," she said.
Jimmy's heart, pounding. Sweat on his brow, a cold steel taste in his dry mouth.
She unwound from the chair, all yogini-dancer grace, went into the bathroom, returned with a glass of water she handed him. He drank it down. She took it, refilled it, handed it to him.
More slowly this time, he drank it down. Got up and pissed for a long time, the tinkling of his water in the toilet a reminder of where he was.
He shut the door, turned on a scalding hot shower.
In his room, Lizzy watched the door, closed her eyes, and prayed to all that was great for the relief of the pain that her man carried.
Nina Capushek
Nina didn't jog, she didn't power walk, she ran. Full tilt. Like a jaguar closing in on her kill. Asics, Smartwool socks, Athleta shorts and tank top, and an ultra-marathoner waist pack built by Go-Lite for a water bottle and her Glock 30.
She tore past the pretty boys and girls in their spandex posing and preening, ripped along the path around Lake Heron, a smooth hard flash of muscle and sweat -- no looks for the boys, she didn't fuck boys, she didn't fuck anybody anymore, but if she did, she'd fuck a man who had muscles from work, or maybe a beautiful woman who didn't have the neediness of a man-boy --
-- she felt the burn rising up in her, stepped it up harder, fought down the fatigue by sheer will --
And came to a stop at the base of the hill, walked, chest heaving, hands on hips, a picture Nike wish they had...
She walked by the admiring men, the running club she passed each morning, the same ritual, them nodding and waving her along, she ignoring them and busting their asses with her sprints. Up the hill, the grass beneath her feet, to her favorite spot beneath a tree, where she could see the lake and the rest of Lake City laid out beneath her. Sat down, stretched, began a power yoga routine designed for her by her good friend and occasional night out partner Lizzy Caprica, probably the most beautiful woman inside and out she'd ever met, whose boyfriend Jimmy Wylde Nina was probably going to have to kill.
Someday.
Nina laughed out loud. Stretched in the sun. Lay on her back and let the fatigue drop into the earth, the sun beating down on her.
Got up and as she walked the short blocks home, thought: Kill Jimmy? Fuck Jimmy? Maybe that's why she wanted to kill him. Not just because he was a stone killer and a serious bad guy. Because she liked him. She'd fought beside him. And she very likely owed him her life.
It was enough to drive a girl to drink.
***
After her shower, Nina made a cup of coffee in her brand new Keurig machine. Poured a short shot of Amaretto in it, splash of cream, curled up in her favorite arm chair, the only piece of furniture she'd brought with her from Minneapolis when she left. Snuggled in, stared out the window.
This was the way to start a new day.
Mr. Smith
"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day in the neighborhood, won't you be mine, won't you be mine..." Mr. Smith sang. He hunched over the narrow platform table that lined one wall of the Motel 6 room, his components laid out in neat orderly rows: good old C4 in one-pound blocks, det cord, the detonators in a neat metal box, lined up all so carefully, his soldering tool smoking a little bit as he worked on the circuit board taken from the Trac-Fone (two others lined up neatly) he'd disassembled, the green foil box that held the bottle of Bushmills Green Label he had set to one side.
Everything in its place. Order is essential in the bomber's business. At least the ones who live.
The challenge wasn't in making the firing circuit; it was to install a reliable back up circuit that wouldn't/couldn't be easily spoofed by a cell phone killer (the very cool high tech gadget that runs off a phone cell network as you move the gadget through it) or someone deliberately or inadvertently setting it off with a random signal. American cities had *so* many signals -- wi-fi, cell phones, 3G/4G data transmission pipelines, high power cables, digital and analog encrypted and unencrypted radio frequencies -- such a rich signal environment and each signal ran the risk of setting off a remote activated device.
It made Mr. Smith long for the old days of fuses, pressure release plates, barometric switches and all the Old School solutions to blowing things and people the fuck up.
He checked the RF monitor beside him. There were 8 separate wi-fi signals, at least 11 cellphones (according to the program running on his laptop) and a radio transmission from a nearby police car across the street at the BBQ stand and an interstate trucker taking a break down the road.
Dang. Might make some people nervous.
But it's just another day in the neighborhood for Mr. Smith.
"Won't you be mine....won't you be mine...."
***
He'd always liked making the big bang. Even as a kid. Fires were first; those were easy. Then firecrackers. Getting spanked by his mom for putting the firecrackers on the frogs and setting them off. His first real big bang, a propane tank with a railroad flare...dang, he still remembered that. Lit up the whole hillside and set the summer grass aflame.
Toasty.
As a Special Forces engineer, he'd learned how to build bridges and how to blow them up. As a door kicker he'd worked with the legendary Steve Mattson, Gen 1 Delta, on refining the exact requirements for explosive entry; he'd gotten so good he could weigh it out by eye, punch a hole big enough for a hand or a handful of shooters, you call it, he'd deliver. In the 'Stan he could blow a wall on the run, make a breach and get the crew in place, but the truth was, not so much call for that, though he had some great scores, including setting a rock slide off to crush some runaway Taliban in an unreported firefight in the far reaches of the Tora Bora -- just like in the fucking movies, dude. Pretty cool, and brought him more than a few beers when he told the tale.
Task Force was like that. Old School updated, Gen 4.5 of the Killer Elite, all the Old School attitude with the New School technology. More like Star Wars than the civvies would ever know, especially since the Patriot Act allowed contractors and DHS to field test military tech for surveillance unbeknownst to the civil liberty yo-yos...tracking dandruff from satellites, nano tags in the blood and on their clothing, press on micro circuits. Life was like a sci-fi movie.
Or a horror movie. Depends on the day and which side you were on.
After his Big Burn (and there was a part of him, someplace deep down, that wondered if there wasn't something to this whole karma thing, when he thought of how many people he'd blown up or burned in his life, but he'd always been on the side of the angels, or at least he comforted himself with that thought...) and the lengthy stay courtesy of DOD and the ever so helpful OGA in the best rehab, he'd been hard pressed to come up with something to do. Teaching wasn't gonna work, they wouldn't put him back in the field, and all of his options were complicated by the fact that, well, technically, he was dead and cremated in a box and his ashes handed off to a third tier auntie or some such relative he'd never met. Problem with being an orphan, there's a gnome in the DOD computer that flags guys with certain skill sets that come up with a certain family background: as in no family, few friends, no social network, none of the things that get people caught or identified; that family/social network coupled with a certain psych profile -- ability to get along, be low key, hide in plain sight -- hell that's harder to find than the technical skills, get the right guy (and it's mostly guys, though rumor had it there were a few women in The Program) and you can *teach* him the skills. Reminded him of a SEAL acquaintance, who told him the apocryphal story of the BUDS candidate who turned up for his swim test into BUDS. Like all the rest, he was handed a brick and told to swim it to the other end of the pool. To the astonishment of all watching, the young candidate held the brick, sank to the bottom, and walked the length of the pool, before pulling himself up and out and handing the brick to the BUDS instructor.
"Son? What the fuck did you just do?"
"I can't swim, sir."
"You can't fucking swim?"
"No sir."
"Why are you here?"
"I want to be a SEAL."
The BUDS instructor looked at his candidate, looked at the brick, grinned and said, "Hell, son. I can teach you to swim. Welcome to BUDS."
Kinda like that. But not as nice.
Mr. Smith was like that.
But he didn't spend much time thinking. No, he was a in-the-moment kind of guy. He didn't spend too much time thinking about himself. Just about what to do. One moment after the other. During his time in the hospital, a nurse asked him if he wanted the TV. Nope. Book? Nope. What do you want? Quiet. So she left him alone. Eight months like that. Alone with no thought and a great deal of pain.
And in that, a plan took shape.
And then he met someone who was looking for a particular skill set coupled with a certain psychological bent, and, fucked up or not, there just weren't many of them around, so he got himself a job for as long as he could last, and plenty of money to buy the drugs that kept him working. And the opportunity to do a little side work, return a few favors, one in particular.
And to look up old friends, like Jimmy John.
"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day in the neighborhood..."
Nina Capushek and Lizzy Caprica
Lizzy and Nina sat at a table near the window, easily the two most beautiful women in the Loring Bar, ignoring the OMG looks from the young muscle heads and soulfully unshaven artist wannabes flocking around them, sharing a bottle of good Chilean cabernet, and to hell with the idea that women only drank white --
-- Nina in a classic summer frock, showing off her tanned taut legs, arms and back, the Converse SWAT boots her private joke; Lizzy in sleek black tights with a black miniskirt and knee high leather boots.
"I love you, Nina," Lizzy said.
"What?"
"I love you."
Nina laughed. "Somewhere there's a guy groaning and touching himself."
Lizzy smiled her serene smile. "Really."
"Okay."
"Is it hard for you to accept that when it's said to you?"
Nina weighed that question, tipped her glass and emptied it. Lizzy picked up the bottle and poured for Nina, graceful as a geisha.
"Yes," Nina said.
"Thank you. For trusting me."
"I don't know why."
"Your heart knows you're safe with me."
"Am I?"
"Yes. And you know it."
Nina tilted her glass. Lizzy picked up hers and they touched glasses.
"Here's to knowing," Nina said.
"Yes."
They drank their wine together as their eyes drank each other in.
***
Later, over pate and fresh baguettes, the men in their life.
"How's Jimmy?" Nina said.
Lizzy considered that question. The weight of the words. Conscientiously spread pate evenly on the baguette slice.
"Nina, have you been with men like Jimmy?"
Nina snorted. "Honey, not to swell your head, but there aren't many men like Jimmy. And that's both bad and good."
"Have you?"
"Yes," Nina said. "I have."
"What should I know about a man like him?"
"Oh, Lizzy..." Nina said. "You could write a book."
"You could," Lizzy said. "That's not my gift. But I need, I want, to understand. Will you help me?"
Nina slowly shredded a baguette slice, rolled the pieces into little balls, popped them in her mouth.
"Men like Jimmy," she said. "Wow. Where to start?"
"Just let it flow through you," Lizzy said.
Nina nodded. "Layers, Lizzy. Think layers of armor. On top, there's what he wants you to see. Or, rather, what he *thinks* you want to see. Or what he thinks the rest of the world wants to see. But that's not real. Jimmy, Jimmy's got secrets. Not just his doings in Lake City, which we're not going to talk about...but his whole life. Lots of secrets there. So what do we do when we run into a man with secrets? We want him to tell us. But if everything he's about is having and holding secrets, the normal way, the sitting and listening, the pillow talk, the day-to-day-ness...that doesn't work."
Lizzy nodded. "Yes. Eight fold armor."
"Yes. He's a warrior, though I hate that word, every wannabe in the world flings it around so much it's lost it's meaning."
"What does it mean to you?
"Warriors are defined by war. It shapes them. Shapes their thinking, how they relate to the world. They only find their true selves in the fight, in the battle...and most of their lives they live impatiently between battles. Does that make sense?"
"Yes. Like you."
&nbs
p; Nina stared Lizzy in the eye, not the mad dog look, just a deep and honest appraisal. "Yes. Like me."
"It's not only the men who are warriors."
"Not on my fucking planet."
They both laughed, turning heads across the restaurant.
"And..." Lizzy said.
"He's defined by secrets he holds and fights he enters into. And being prepared for that. And Jimmy...Jimmy in particular -- he's got a deep hurt. A wound. A wound with a capital W. That's one of his deepest secrets."
"Yes," Lizzy said. "He has terrible nightmares. More lately. Something happened to him."
"The war?"
Lizzy paused, closed her eyes, tilted her head as though listening to a voice, far away.
Opened her eyes.
"Yes. I know that I can trust you with this."
"No. You can't. Jimmy and I aren't necessarily on the same side of the fence. And you know it. I respect Jimmy, but if it comes down to it, I'd take him in if it came to that."
"You love him too."
"No."
Lizzy shrugged, a graceful flexing and mounding of her thin, muscled shoulders. "We both do, Nina. And he loves us both. In different ways. You're a warrior, you're his peer in that world. He's the presence of the Divine Masculine in my world, and I am the Feminine in his. The three of us, there's karma and past lives --"
"Jimmy's got past lives in this life."
Tinkling laughter from Lizzy. "Oh, Nina. If you knew how true that is. I think you're becoming a Buddhist, too!"
"Only if Buddha packs a .45."
Jimmy John Wylde
Jimmy John, Jimmy John, where do you belong...
I didn't want to think about that. I wanted to concentrate on the sound of someone working their piano scales two houses down, the tinkling of keys carrying through my open window, as I drank coffee after another restless night.
Got up and went into my backroom, where I kept all the shit I didn't want anyone to see under lock and key. Gun safes, lockers of gear, a computer locked down with every kind of software to keep it as secure as anything on the net, a hard wire interface to a cable network direct to a VPN firewall...
Too Wylde Page 3