Savages Recruit

by Loki Renard

  Several minutes later, Savage emerged from the shower barely clad in a complimentary silk robe. He padded across the thickly carpeted room and wrapped his arms around her midsection from behind, squeezing her against his torso. “Are you ready?” He purred the question into her ear, almost making it sound like an invitation to further pleasure, though it was anything but. To the causal observer perched on the rooftop across the road with a pair of binoculars, they might have looked like lovers casually enjoying one another’s company, but the truth of the matter was that they were about to embark on the mission that had brought them halfway around the world.

  “Always,” Zora replied with the utmost bravado, smoothing her palm over the rough hair that covered the backs of his muscular forearms. She’d come to know every inch of his body in the past week, and she was still awed by the gorgeous but functional power the man possessed. He’d been hewn into shape by the challenges of a lifetime and when she ran her fingers across his scar marked skin, she fancied she could sense some of the pains he must have endured in a world of danger that she was now part of.

  They had traveled through Greece and crossed the Bulgarian border without incident. Their cover had not been difficult to maintain. Given free reign to express their affection and desire, there had barely been a moment in the past week that they hadn’t had their hands all over each other’s bodies. Zora had almost forgotten the mission at hand, until Savage pulled out a series of schematics in Haskovo and had her study them every evening before they made love, and sometimes afterward too.

  Now he turned her in his arms, took her by the hand and undid her watch. “Remember. No electronics. No watch. No phone. Nothing. If the system picks up on any electromagnetic activity at all, it locks down.” He caught her eye. “With you inside.”

  Zora paled ever so slightly. “And if that happens? You’ll come and save me?”

  “We’ll try, but they’ll have you first, and you really don’t want that. So let’s just make sure you don’t carry anything in there that might set the system off.” He smiled reassuringly and Zora’s concern melted away. This was the madness of early lust and early love. Her faith in the man now busy wanding her for traces of electromagnetic activity was so complete she would have walked into the fires of hell if he’d told her to. As he ran the detector over her body, she caught flashes of his fine physique through the gaps in his robes. Just the sight of the man made her loins tingle.

  As Zora obligingly stayed in place, ogling him for all she was worth, Savage ran through the finer details one last time. “Your name is General Ekaterina Vlovich. You’re a military inspector. The uniform you’re wearing gives you the kind of rank these people dream of.”

  “So the terrorists are the military?”

  “Not quite. They’re connected in some areas. It’s hard to get the kind of hardware and systems these people have without military hookups. We’re sending you in as an authority. If anyone questions you, glare at them.”

  “Glare at them?” Zora spluttered. “That’s your advice?”

  “You’ve got a good glare on you,” Savage assured her. “If that doesn’t work, there will be backup.”

  “Wait wait wait,” Zora waved her hands in front of her face and shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense. There will be backup if my glaring fails, but not if the whole thing shuts down?”

  Savage kept going through the preparatory motions, his large, strong hands moving over her body as he ignored her little display of incredulity. “It’s easier to get someone to confirm your identity than it is to storm the place. Take off your sweater.”

  Stripped down to her bra, Zora stood in place as Savage fitted a light bullet proof vest over her head. “Stab proof and bullet proof,” he said, gently pressing a closed fist against it.

  Poking it with a finger, Zora saw a flaw in this part of the plan too. “Unless they stab or shoot you not in the chest.”

  “They’ll go for the chest first,” he said. “Center mass is the most reliable place to take someone down…”

  She smirked as she interrupted him. “…unless they’re wearing a bullet proof vest.”

  “Quit being a smart-ass,” Savage resorted to the last defense of an authority who knows they’ve lost the argument but is pretty sure that they’re in the right regardless. “Usually I’d put a camera on you, but that’s not going to work for obvious reasons. You’ll be alone when you go in, but the team will be around. You might see a few of them there. Under no circumstances can you acknowledge that you know any of them, understand? You get in there, you deactivate the system and you get out.”

  Nodding, Zora looked back over at the layout schematics unrolled on the hotel table. She’d looked at it a hundred times over the last few days. The system control room was marked with three red concentric circles. The entrance of the base was marked with a gold star just like the ones she’d received on school projects as a child. As it had turned out, the security system for the missile wasn’t on location with the actual missile, rather it was at the evil doers’ HQ in the heart of Haskovo. Both missile site and security system were protected by the same electromagnetic sensor system, and triggering it at either location could lead to disaster, though shutting the system down at HQ left the missile completely vulnerable.

  The path to the room itself wasn’t terribly difficult to navigate, at least in theory. You went in the front doors, past the reception area and down the hall to the left. The system controls weren’t heavily guarded, but the lobby was and the second floor doubled as barracks. They didn’t need guards on every door to keep the place safe. If the slightest suspicious activity were detected, there was enough personnel on hand to ensure that it would be all over in minutes for anyone foolish enough to try to break in. With just one viable entrance and exit, the building was incredibly secure. Breaking in by force or stealth would have been an exercise in futility. The only way in was through the front door, and that was the way Zora was going to take. It was brazen, it was bold and it was risky as hell.

  “You okay?” Savage gripped her by the chin and looked deep into her eyes, scanning them for any traces of anxiety or panic.

  “I’ll be fine.” Zora meant it. Terrorists aside, this was a matter of walking into a building and solving an equation. She could do that. She had to do that. To prove that she could. To prove that Anja was wrong. To prove to Savage that she was capable of keeping up with him. To prove to herself that she was the equal of any of them. Oh, and to save the world. “I just need a drink,” she teased.

  “You do this, you can drink as much as you want,” he promised. “Within reason,” he amended quickly, seeing a familiar gleam come into her eyes. “Time to get into uniform,” he said, reaching into the closet and pulling out what was quite possibly the most unflattering uniform ever designed by man.

  He handed her the uniform and proceeded to get dressed himself in a neat pair of black slacks, a white shirt, dark tie and black jacket. The look was completed with a peaked cap that made him look like a charming manservant.

  Wrinkling her nose at her fashion misfortune, Zora put on a pair of thick beige pantyhose and an ill fitting olive green skirt with matching shirt. The black shoes that went with the outfit were thick soled and heavy, shined to the point she could see her face in them. That didn’t make them any less uncomfortable. “No wonder these people are terrorists. Damn ugly uniform,” she muttered as Savage looped a black tie around her neck and tied it expertly faster than she could make out what he was doing.

  “Okay,” he said, handing her the blazer and checking his watch. “We have one hour. Get that on and let’s go. I’ll drop you out front in the car.”

  They made their way out of the hotel room and into the Jaguar that was fast becoming a second home. Zora breathed deeply as she got in, the smell of the now very familiar leather interior calming her as they began their penultimate journey through Haskovo.

  In many ways it was a drive like any other, yet Zora was fraught with the
queerest of tension. Savage reached out for her hand and held it the entire way. For the most part they drove in silence. What was there to say? He was dropping her off to perhaps die or face a possibly worse fate at the hands of terrorists. Yet the sun still shone, the birds still sang and all around the place, people went about their daily lives. The world would continue to turn whether she ended up in a deep dark underground dungeon or blinked out of existence entirely. Zora felt oddly separate and disconnected from the world. She was still a part of it, but she was not like the people who laughed and frowned their way across the pavements and streets, caught up in petty concerns. She was part of something deeper, the web that underlay society. She knew things that nobody else knew.

  As that thought settled in her mind, a little tingle started at the base of her spine, not a tingle of fear, but a tingle of power. A similar tingle to the one she felt when she was deliberately defiant. She was about to do the unthinkable. She was about to walk into a military installation, disable its security systems, and walk out again. This mission was the ultimate in defiance and it thrilled her to her core.

  Savage’s rumble broke through her thoughts. “What are you smiling about?”

  “Nothing,” Zora’s little smile grew a little wider.

  Savage chuckled. “You’re enjoying this aren’t you.”

  “A little.”

  “There’s not much like it,” he admitted. “Once you’ve done this, not much else is going to compare.” The car began to slow as they approached the building. Zora had seen the concrete block facade many times in pictures, but in person it was much bigger, much more foreboding. “Remember, you own the place,” Savage reminded her, squeezing her hand one last time. “Just walk in there and do your thing. Anybody questions you, ignore them. If they insist on pushing it, somebody will come to your aid.”

  Last minute nerves took the opportunity to assail Zora with doubts. “Aren’t they going to wonder what I’m doing to the system? Aren’t they going to ask questions? Won’t they…”

  “They don’t have clearance to know,” Savage interjected. “They’ve been warned to expect an inspection, so they’ll be on their best behavior, which doesn’t include questioning a superior officer.”

  “So their discipline will be their downfall?

  “Quite.”

  “Ironic, no?” She raised a brow at him.

  “I get the point, brat,” Savage growled playfully as he brought the car to a halt. “Now get in there and do your job.”

  He gave her a quick kiss and Zora exited the vehicle, straightened her shoulders and marched towards the front door of the monolithic concrete HQ. Two armed guards stood on either side of the door, their faces expressionless like dolls. She didn’t know if they looked at her because as Savage had suggested, she was not looking at them. She was looking right through them with the forthright confidence of someone in command. But in spite of her confidence, a little trickle of fear assailed her as she drew closer. What if they shot her? Or worse, what if they asked her something? She clip-clopped closer in her clumsy shoes and all that happened was the lighting fast saluting of subordinates who have spotted an important bit of ribbon. Zora walked between them without so much as a glance.

  Once she was inside, she immediately spotted a friendly face. Tank had managed to squeeze himself into one of the ugly uniforms and was in residence at the front desk. He leaped up and saluted briskly, along with the other four armed guards in the lobby. She ignored him completely and proceeded through the reception area into the hallway beyond without any interference aside from the light fapping sounds of arms being lifted and dropped in salute. She was forced to keep her features composed as she realized it was working. It was actually working. This was what discipline got you, it got you mindless orderbots incapable of seeing past a symbol of authority. She’d make sure to drive that point home to Savage when it was all over and she was free once more.

  As she walked through the facility in her starchy, itchy uniform she had entirely forgotten to feel afraid. It was all business now, everything that had been planned was unfolding perfectly. Olive green door on the left. Another door on the left. There it was. The third door on the left. A perfectly ordinary door. Not the sort of door behind which one security systems for high powered missiles should have waited. There was a large sign on the door, which could have said KEEP OUT, or maybe NO ELECTRONICS BEYOND THIS POINT, or maybe PONIES FOR CLOWNS. Zora wouldn’t have known in any event, the script was completely unrecognizable to her.

  She opened the door and walked into the room, which was entirely ordinary in almost every way. The walls were the same chipped institution green color of the rest of the facility and the carpet the same industrial brown high traffic material so rough and encrusted with the dirt of decades that it almost crunched beneath her shoes. She spotted the computer controlling the security system immediately. It sat at the back of the room on a thick metal desk. The system the bad guys were using to guard their missile might have been ingenious, but it was in no way terribly expensive. They hadn’t even sprung for a modern computer. Instead of the futuristic technology Zora had become accustomed to stateside, an antiquated CRT monitor waited for her, lit up with green text.

  She approached it and immediately saw the formula waiting to be answered. She did not understand the native language, but the language of mathematics had never failed her. She gazed up on the question in the darkness, a single riddle standing between good and evil. This was the big moment, the moment upon which all things hinged. It passed utterly unremarkably. The answer popped into Zora’s head in the same way a question on the two times table would pop into any reasonably educated adult’s head, without thought or effort.

  ‘424242.422’ She typed the digits in and hit what had to be the enter key. The screen flickered for a moment, then flashed unintelligible green text.

  That was it. At least, she thought that was probably it. If what she’d been told was true, the missile security system was now entirely offline. If it wasn’t, well, she’d done her best. She turned and walked out of the room, back through the halls and out the front door without acknowledging anyone at all.

  Her departure was noted by unseen observers, and over a mile away soldiers immediately began swarming in on a much more deadly, but no less dangerous mission that Zora would never know anything about. They would probably capture the missile, but that did not concern her, her job was done. She walked across the street without a care in the world and slipped back into the car where Savage waited patiently.

  “Done,” she said casually, shrugging off the blazer.

  His grin was broader than she’d ever seen it, but he didn’t waste time in conversation. He was much too focused on getting them out of the area before any of the serious men with serious guns realized what had happened. He started the car and they made their way through the city, returning not to their hotel love nest, but to the airport.

  “We’re not going back on the big plane?” Zora wondered aloud as they passed by sign after sign with an airplane painted on it in an obvious way even the dimmest tourist couldn’t miss.

  “The borders will be difficult to get through by the time we get to them. If we leave now through a commercial terminal, we’re much less likely to arouse suspicion.” The smile had not left Savage’s face, and it grew broader when he checked his cell whilst waiting at the lights. “They got confirmation. The system is down. The secondary mission is underway now. You did it Zora, you really did it.”

  She smiled, trying not to seem too awfully pleased with herself even though she was bursting with pride. “I did? Oh good. I wondered if I’d done anything. It didn’t seem like it. It was pretty non eventful.”

  “That means you did a good job,” he chuckled. “If you ever find yourself with bullets whizzing over your head like in the movies, it means someone fucked something up somewhere.” He reached over and patted her hand. “You proved the doubters wrong.”

  “Damn straight I did,”
Zora agreed proudly. “So now what? Am I free now?” She looked at him as the last remnants of Haskovo flashed by the window.

  “Well.” Savage’s expression suddenly became decidedly less jovial. “Well,” he repeated himself.

  “Well what?” Zora prompted him. “I get to be free now, right? I did what you wanted me to?”

  “Well.” The big man seemed uncharacteristically tongue tied as they pulled into a parking space at the airport. “Let’s sort that out once we’re back home, huh?”

  “Home? Where’s home? You took my home, remember?” Zora’s glee was quickly turning into frustration and anger.

  “Just trust me, okay?” He looked over at her, his jaw set in the determined way that made him look more like a walking talking G.I Joe than ever. “Let’s get back to the states and sort this out there.”

  “You mean let’s get back to the states and you can lock me up again like a dog, you mean?” Zora repeated herself as she began to get frothy with spittly anger.

  “Just get changed into something less likely to draw attention. There’s clothes in the back seat,” Savage said, taking refuge in orders.

  “Fine.” Zora undid her seat belt and squeezed between the front seats and into the back. “But this isn’t over.”

  “Of course it’s not,” Savage groaned, resting his forehead against the steering wheel. “God give me strength.”

  “God give you strength? What about me?” Zora argued from the back, her voice muffled as a result of being stuck halfway out of an ugly uniform and halfway into a much more comfortable hooded sweatshirt. “This is silly!”

  “I thought we’d come to an understanding,” Savage said, looking in the rear view mirror as Zora fought with her clothing. “You do as I say and nobody gets their ass spanked.”

  “So what, I’m your slave forever?”

  Her petulant tone was met with a broad smile. “I can’t say I’d complain about that.”