Hell To Pay

by Andrik Rovson

  “Let's go inside, I have this room again, as long as we need it,” The DIA man explained when he walked up. After they'd stepped through the door he locked it. “My man is outside, so we're clear, what do you need? Did you reconsider my last offer, it's still on the table.”

  “I have a counter.” Jabo looked at him, casually sitting on the table edge to hide his boiling emotions, in control like he was in the field, in battle or planning in a hot, stifling canvas tent in a forward base or sitting, like this, in near arctic air conditioning in a highly secure briefing room where the highest secrets could be openly discussed without outside surveillance.

  “I get everything you offered and six months off, with pay before I assume my new billet, where ever the hell that is, doing what you want me to do.” He looked at Brooks, like they were negotiating over a highly desirable hot rod or an exotic shotgun, not the next four years of his life. Going back in would put his marriage on hold once more, probably killing it forever, unless Cathy was a saint as well as the most attractive female he'd ever known. Disappointing her hurt him, more than anything else, even his grandparent's sudden, terrible deaths. But they were gone and already buried in his mind, another thing you learned in combat, to let go and move on, as soon as possible, in seconds sometimes. He wasn't doing this because he hurt inside – he had to. He was a Bowie.

  “Well...” Brooks was getting what his superiors had demanded, giving him complete freedom to make any deal he thought would keep 'the prodigy', what they called him, a freak who was the ideal soldier and special forces fighter, which required more mental ability than pure physical skills and strength. There were plenty of men who had those things, enough to pass the nearly deadly selection process, but thinkers who had built up their own skill set that outclassed nearly everyone else in the field with far more years of experience, of those there were only three he knew of and two of them were getting long in the tooth, assigned to training, years ago. That made Jabo his top draft pick for a unit Jabo had never heard of, something Brooks was going to manage with Jabo in command, if they could work out the details.

  “Why don't we talk about this tomorrow, at my place?” which meant a jet ride in the Gulf-stream waiting in the Base Commander's personal hangar, gassed and ready to fly as soon as he was aboard, leaving with Jabo as well.

  “I have things to do, here.” Jabo looked Brooks in the eye, letting him see a little of the pain and rage he felt. The small bit that leaked out was enough to make Brooks step back, seeing what the senior FBI agent had seen, knowing what it meant. Jabo was on a mission and he'd decided he needed help from Brooks, after which he'd fulfill his obligation like he had when he'd graduated college and entered the service, four years ago. His absolute integrity, his word was another reason they wanted him.

  “Alright, you want me to stay, help you out?” Brooks felt his juices rising, a familiar aura radiating around his body and circulating in his blood, the kind of visceral excitement they'd taken way from him when they put him in staffing and talent spotting, pulling him out of the field. Now, through Jabo, he had a backdoor to get back inside.

  “This is going to be off the books,” Jabo thought he'd be forced to fall back on the resources he could scrounge, living off favors from people he knew outside the inner circle who'd briefed them in the field, representatives of one of the 'letter' agencies and other ones who didn't have letters or official recognition, invisible parasites tacked onto budgets whose details were regularly blacked out for all but a select few.

  “No shit,” Brooks said, already aware of what had happened to his grandparents, since he knew anything that influenced his decisions or his people. A phone call an hour earlier had explained the FBI agent was coming via helicopter after he'd stepped out from his transition meeting with Jabo, taking the call. At that point Jabo's exit processing was nearly done and Brooks had been certain Jabo was lost to him, no matter what he offered, not that he blamed him.

  But now he was back and Brooks would do anything to keep Jabo's services, even cut him loose for as long as he needed. He wanted to tag along, providing help so he'd finish his personal quest faster and to get an idea of his abilities that had impressed so many. It seemed to be Jabo's price and Brook's boss had said 'anything'. Now Brooks would find out what 'anything' meant to someone higher up, who managed their elite, results oriented community where the 'mission' was the only job, for everyone, until it was finished.

  One thing about Jabo's jacket raised some questions. He thought the superlatives were fluff or overdone praise, common practice in a world where everyone had a B average and won a trophy for participating. That had been his impression until he was fully briefed by his former commander, who'd explained, in detail, how Jabo operated. After talking with Jabo, fast didn't quite capture the flow of mental processing he was witnessing. Brooks thought he was a good chess player but Jabo was ten moves ahead of him. He'd go along and hope he could keep up.

  “How about your fiancee?” Brooks offered, wondering how Jabo was going to deal with her, if she'd raise a stink through her parents' government connections which had to include most of the Federal representatives from the grand state of Texas, at least the conservative ones, with seniority. He'd been ready to work with Jabo to integrate his new wife into a life in the military, for as many years as he could keep him. Four years would be nice, anything past that was pure gravy, giving them time to find someone close to his ability and motivation.

  “She comes with me, but won't be a part of this,” he looked at Brooks, “she can live here, or in Washington D.C., which might be better for her, someplace as secure as the White house or the Pentagon,” Brooks didn't doubt Jabo was speaking without any trace of metaphor. A bedroom in the White house would be top on the list but modest house in the exclusive Army facility where the Joint Chiefs lived would be acceptable, barely. It was doable, since he'd been detailed by a senior staffer from the Chiefs to get Jabo to stay, it was that high up for this young man who moved at light speed compared to normal Army officers, much less the ponderous bureaucracy of the Federal Government.

  “Can do, tell her its a national emergency if you want, I can get confirmation, off the books, keep her parents quiet, they'll play along I'm sure.”

  “Done, I get married next week, a slight speed up, but she's been planning this for a year and made it clear we had to go over everything before she started pushing the buttons, financially. Her family...”

  Brooks cut him off, “I know. Her father's an ass, but he's our ass, a good man but hard to deflect and impossible to bullshit. A senator will explain why you've been asked to stay on,” he smiled as Jabo reacted, out of character, like an actor dropping his line and losing his focus, suddenly a guy in a costume and makeup on a stage – lost. His face said he didn't realize his retention was that important, a slight mistake on Brooks' part, but convention was out the window in this situation. They were both winging it since they'd entered the room, like you did when you were dropped into an op without any plan and little backup, just do it, win, prevail and kill the motherfuckers you find there – something Jabo had direct experience doing, very recently.

  “Him?” Jabo asked, wondering if the senior Senator, a respectable but not very flexible man would be able to pull it off. He had to mean the freshly elected maverick, a new Senator who'd broken all the rules and won when everyone said he didn't have a chance, too cocky to pass muster, but the citizens of Texas loved him for calling it as it lay.

  “Yeah, you wanna meet him some time, hell of a shot, dove hunting,” it felt inappropriate the moment he name dropped, what he'd done in D.C. Showing off there was a national pastime – how you staked your claim, who you knew and what they'd do for you when asked, politely.

  “Whatever,” Jabo dismissed it, his momentary shock over. Brooks felt like a private who'd talked out of turn to his commanding general. Jabo had a command aura, like Alexander the Great must have been, a kid, barely out of his teens when he'd taken over the reins of
government, killed off his rivals in house, then took the army to wipe out everyone locally who'd thought it would be a great time to invade and kick the new ruler's ass, then take over his kingdom. Bad idea. He'd become the biggest military bad ass of all time until Genghis Khan conquered nearly all of the known world outside North and South America. Some guys can't stop once they get started, and Jabo was about to step on the gas...

  Chapter Three

  You haven't seen me testy... yet.

  B. Salazar

  Leaving Brooks behind in the Command Headquarters building, Jabo called Cathy as he descended the steps outside. He didn't know how he was going to tell her their plans to make a life outside the Army were over because he'd signed up for four more years.

  “Something's come up, I'll see you in two days,” he told his wife to be. He hadn't gone by the hotel where Cathy was waiting for him to restart the mind killing details of their wedding. He'd left before she'd started a detailed briefing on their honeymoon travels, at least a month of restaurants, museums and sight seeing in the Med, not high on his list of memories for the last four years, like visiting a bloody battlefield or its attendant graveyard. She found it very romantic he hadn't seen the Acropolis, so they were tentatively going to start there, fly in to the Athens airport he'd visited, but only on hops, the maximum range a large gulf stream could go before needing gas to complete it's trip to the Middle East from Florida, the fast lane to his and everyone else's hunting grounds.

  “Hold it Jabo, full stop, you're coming here to explain the change in plans,” Cathy put her feet down, a terrier digging in on a short walk, pulling the leash the opposite direction, not that she was on a tether. It felt like he was the one with a collar and a new master.

  “No can do,” and there was a long silence. His gut was doing what he'd specifically designed their life together to never do, churn as he idled, waiting for her next move, knowing his, since he was in Grand master mode, seeing his next month in exquisite detail and none of his moves included her. That's how he'd been able to live his life in the service, never considering her feelings or desires, but now...

  “Jabo, this line is not secure, so you can't talk, if it's that, and it damn well better be that, comprendo?” She never used her version of TexMex or whatever white Anglo's called it, unless she was fully 'lit', pissed off and ready to explode. “I'm in, your four year hiatus with me waiting on the front porch swing is over so get used to it. Where can we talk, and I mean now.”

  “Honey... ” his first and last attempt to sweet talk her out of her decision ended in a quick search on the web for a Starbucks close enough to both of them they could halve the travel time and meet in fifteen minutes.

  “What the fuck was that?” Brooks had caught up to him as he stood on the stairs outside the Command building, talking to his future wife. He hoped he wasn't showing any trace of a smile or he'd lose what he just got out of Jabo, a commitment to another four years of his life for the minuscule price of rank and some bonus money which the government would spend ten or twenty times over to get someone who was half as good as he was. He was like a hot pitcher who could fill out the rotation and take a team to the world series – as the well worn commercial says, 'priceless'. Welcome to marriage Jabo. It's what we all live with, the infinite price of unconditional love and companionship at a deep level.

  “I've got to go,” his stare ended discussion before it started and Brooks mumbled to himself, pissed he felt like a subordinate when he was the boss and in charge.

  “I'll drive, you nav,” Jabo exposed his other side, an alternate personality, the one who didn't give orders – the thinker, absorbed with his own issues. The clipped suggestions were as close to friendly as he could muster. His hard, quick stare said look at your phone and amuse yourself until I'm done. The millennial generation was so broken to wasting time on their electronic toys, like children who had to have Christmas every fucking day of the year, but it did make them easy to boss around, lap dogs without knowing it. Once again, Brooks felt like a teenager who'd been dressed down by his dad by talking out of turn or saying something eminently stupid.

  Luckily a small park, oddly green in the desert environment of El Paso, was across the street from the coffee shop. It was where Jabo led his wife to be, to sit on a bench looking down on the hazy bustling border town. The acrid, stinky breeze was a reminder they were a few miles away from open sewers and a very poor urban sprawl, the ass of Mexico, pressed up hard against the Rio Grande, trying to bust out of its panties – the huge back end of a fat lady who'd misplaced her girdle for a day.

  “Tell me, lay it out, leave nothing out.” She looked out, sipping her lady drink, all sugar substitute, sprinkles and no foam, with soy milk – how women liked their food – rich without calories or its attendant guilt.

  “You know...” and that's as far as he got, once again. His operational mind was appalled she'd ambushed him a second time in less than a half hour. It was like his first week of his first tour, nearly stepping on a mine the others jerked him away from before he finished his step, pointing out the signs they'd seen from a hundred feet away that he still couldn't catch when they pointed them out. That had changed him, not wanting to come back missing a foot or arm to this sweet yet fierce, loving and very demanding young woman who'd fulfilled her promise and expected he would fulfill his – end of discussion. He'd left whole and made it back in one piece, but now that contract was over and it was time to hammer out another one.

  She'd run her father's affairs, and not as a symbolic smiley face. She'd really taken over the reins and made decisions her father had backed up when he returned from urgent trips to shore up a hemorrhaging subsidiary or close a deal on a short term opportunity. She knew command as much as her future husband and his hedging was to hide details he'd decided she couldn't handle, or worse, he didn't want her to join in deciding.

  “Jabo, I waited, kept quiet and never doubted you'd finish up your service and come back to me,” she looked at him, his young lioness who'd pulled back the frilly lace and spotless satin to show her real personality, as strong as his, why he'd fallen for her the moment they met.

  “I never asked for a single thing, no visits on a regular basis, no reports on who you met or fucked in the field, nothing.” She looked at him, giving him a shockingly sexy smile that made him start to harden, like his indiscretions were a turn on for her, had made him more attractive, confirming he was a hunk and the catch of the century in her mind and to millions of other females.

  “I'm a big girl, you need to understand this is 'us' now, not you saving the world, solo, got it?” She smiled, giving him a squeeze on his hand he realized she was holding on her lap, right over her crotch, making his face heat up, blushing like a virgin seeing raw porn for the first time, and liking it.

  Time to find out, she deserved it and had made her case, in her own feminine but determined way. It was exciting to feel her strength matching his, equals, confirming his and every other man's fantasy, to find a female who could 'take it', who wouldn't require a softened, edited version of his life – who could handle exposure to the ghastly reality he was facing right now.

  “I lost my grandparents, they were murdered,” he started crying, a man who hadn't shed a tear when he'd lost three great friends to an RPG explosion, leaving misshapen chunks and torn bodies that had been the deepest buddies he'd ever known, all gone in a flash. She made him feel safe, emotionally – raw and exposed. He became her baby in her arms. She reached out to hug him close then drop him on her lap, where he turned his face into her lower belly to wet her expensive dress, all he'd ever seen her in, that or naked, once. He bawled, letting out the tension and loss he'd felt since the cold eyed FBI man had briefed him a few hours before, changing his life and plans that involved this woman, this girl who was all grown up, like him, the next generation taking over, taking charge. When he finished he sat up, taking a handkerchief from her, rubbing his cheeks then looking at her.

  “So wha
t did you find out, who did it, how are we going to find these bastards and kill them all?” She was serious. Her face had a hint of a smile, from the deep love she had for him that had started gushing out when he got 'short', feeling their relationship restarting, a special desert bloom breaking out to find the sun and fill the air with its intense, nurturing fragrance. Her attitude reminded him of the Aussie SAS operator he'd worked with for two months, a woman who'd had a rough time being accepted by his unit. They'd passed through a few minutes of shock, then questioning and a little boyish flirting that got an immediate, emphatic negative and she was in. All that male / female crap never came up again. It would have been an insult, to the entire SAS team, fucking with Australia and its tradition of sexual equality that American women could only dream of.

  Cathy had that heft, the physical presence and mental edge of a warrior even though he was certain she'd never liked guns or anything to do with the tools of war he'd carried on his body – lovingly oiled, sharpened, cleaned, then stowed, loaded and ready, a round in the chamber – his locked and loaded life that now was going to continue, but with a new team member – Cathy.

  “Right, I re-upped and now I'm a light Colonel and we're going to live in D.C. Well, you are, when I'm out and about. It's a nice place, where all the Joint Chiefs live, security up the ass.”

  “So you don't have to worry about blow back, got it,” she squeezed his hand, her face beaming. She was on the inside, at last, the operational blackout of the past four years was over, she'd paid her dues and it was well worth it to hear what was really happening at last. “You'll write me in, something, logistics, right?”

  “Well...” she caught him again. Fuck! That was three times now and he'd walked right into it, his third mine. He was losing limbs and they hadn't even entered the battle area. Her stare, as cold and deadly as a cobra, settled him, making him smile, infuriating her for a second then she laughed, feeling free, they both did.