Savages Recruit

by Loki Renard

  Zora watched him leave and was subsequently escorted back to her cell by two severe looking soldiers who didn’t respond to her attempts at conversation. Of Savage himself there was no sign.

  She spent three days locked away in the little cell going stir crazy. She looked at the door every few seconds, expecting to see it open, but all that happened was that the food slot opened three times a day and a foil covered tray was slipped through it. She tried asking for clothing, but was ignored and eventually she took a spare blanket, gnawed a small hole in the middle of it then tore at the fabric until she had fashioned a poncho that covered more of her body than the shirt did.

  Solitude was not her friend. She found herself sitting next to the door, her ears pricked up keenly for any sound. Sometimes footsteps would approach and her stomach would twist both in anticipation of seeing a friendly face and fear of something worse. It occurred to her more than once that this was a deliberate attempt to break her and make her more receptive to playing nicely. But Zora had never played nicely and though the kind of solitude she was subjected to was not pleasant, she was an introvert who had always been comfortable with her own company. She entertained herself by scratching stick figures into the paint on the walls with the foil from the food trays and moving the mattress around the room to test the Feng Shui of various positions.

  On the third day, the door opened and Savage stood there. He was covered from head to toe in a mixture of mud, blood and grease and he stank to high heaven. She’d never been so happy to see him, but she hid the grin that threatened to break across her face and kept her expression impassive. “What happened to you?”

  “There was another mission called. No time to get you out. I’m sorry.” He ambled into the cell and slumped down on the bed beside her with a groan.

  She poked at the crusted red flaky stuff on his arm. “Is that your blood?”

  “Some of it,” he said offhandedly.

  “Is there any point asking what happened?”

  “Couldn’t tell you if I wanted to.” He sighed. “I wanted to get back sooner. But I figured you’d be safe enough, if not entirely comfortable.” He smiled what might have been a rueful smile. “Plus, three days is a decent cooling off period.”

  “They had me debrief,” she told him. “It did not go well.”

  “Sounds about right,” Savage smiled and shook his head. “Tell me you didn’t give them too hard a time.”

  “They gave me a harder time.” She lifted her poncho clad arm in demonstration of her dire circumstances.

  “Yeah, they’ll do that.” He closed his eyes, revealing the only clean spots on his body, the two pink patches of his eyelids. Whatever daemon he’d been battling, he’d clearly been looking it in the eye the whole time. No blinking. That was beneath a man like Savage.

  “The guy said you hadn’t disciplined me enough.”

  Savage smirked but didn’t open his eyes. “He’s right.”

  “What’s going to happen to me?” There was a slight tremor in her voice. She was glad to see Savage, but the callous indifference of the treatment she’d received in the past 72 hours had given her more of a scare than she cared to admit. Still a little voice in her head told her to be careful. Had he really been called off on a mission? Or had he simply engineered three days of solitude to soften her up, to make her see him as her savior? If that was the case, he was a damn good actor. He looked trashed.

  “That depends on you,” Savage said finally. “If you accept your new situation, things can be made pleasant for you.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You’re not going to be happy if you have to be locked up like a dog every time I’m not around.”

  Zora’s jaw dropped. “You’re serious, aren’t you.”

  “Of course.”

  “How can you do this to me? I’m a person. I’m a human.”

  “Technically you’re government property.”

  There was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She didn’t yell or scream or hit, but she made her displeasure abundantly clear. “Technically you can suck my dick.”

  His eyes snapped open as he gave her an incredulous look. “How do you do it, Zora?”

  “How do I do what?”

  “How do you keep giving me attitude even when you know it means you’ll be stuck here?”

  Zora shrugged. “Maybe I have a secret fetish for being locked up.”

  His expression was thoughtful. “Maybe you do.”

  “Yeah,” a small grin broke over her lips. “Maybe you should teach me a lesson by letting me go.”

  A strange look passed over his face, an expression somewhere between concern and a smirk. Smircern. Consmirk. “You wouldn’t last all that long if we just let you go.”

  “No?” She thought he was joking at first, but her smile faded as she realized he wasn’t.

  He looked at her steadily, speaking quite casually, as if telling an innocent woman that terrorists wanted her dead was a completely normal part of his day. “The people we’re working against would love to find someone like you out in the wild. A soft target who knows more than she should. I’d give you a week on the outside. Two at most.”

  She felt fear’s tight grasp back at work in her chest. “Are you trying to scare me?”

  “No, just informing you of a few unpleasant truths you might not be aware of. You’re in deeper than you think Zora. There were cameras in that base. They know what you look like and they’ll be looking for you.”

  Zora looked at him, her lip curling slowly with deep seated derision. “Well that’s something you conveniently failed to mention before or during the mission,” she said, her voice tight and controlled. “How hard would it have been to say, ‘hey Zora, thanks for risking your life, by the way, you’re going to spend the rest of your life being hunted’.” She shook her head at him. “Brett, you’re a total bastard.”

  “And you,” he said, tweaking her nose with more humor and affection than she expected from him. “Are a spoiled, hard headed brat.”

  She wiped the filth from his fingers off her nose with the back of her blanked poncho. “You don’t care do you? You don’t care what you’ve done to me or my life.”

  “I care enough to keep you in one piece.”

  “You think that’s enough do you? You think that keeping someone in one piece is a job well done. You set the bar for caring real fucking low, you know that?”

  His shoulders lifted in a brief shrug. “It’s more than most in this line of work can expect.”

  “I’m not in this line of work,” she reminded him. “I did one job because you made me.”

  “That’s how it starts. You know Ethan? He was brought in for a one off job too. Now he loves the place.”

  “He drinks on the sly, Brett.”

  “Brett again? You’re being awfully familiar today,” he noted.

  “I think we’re past formality,” she said, flopping her makeshift poncho around. “And dignity, and common courtesy for that matter.”

  “And past the shrieking as well,” he observed. “That’s a good thing.”

  “I wouldn’t count your chickens there bucko,” Zora said, her expression clouding. “Just because I’m keeping myself from clawing your eyes out doesn’t mean I’m going to play nice with you. I helped you out and you fucked me over. I won’t forget that.”

  “I don’t know if I fucked you over, but I definitely fucked you.” The leer on his dirty face was mischievous.

  She punched him in the shoulder. “Get the fuck out of here Brett.”

  That lit the fire in his eyes and brought stern Savage back to the surface. “No no girl, you don’t give the orders.”

  “I sure as hell don’t take them anymore either,” she said, her chin lifted with determination.

  He snorted. “We’ll see about that.”

  “You want to play hardball with me? I’ve just spent the last three days wearing a blanket in the asshole of the earth. I walked into a terrori
st installation to disarm a nuclear missile without a second thought. You think you scare me? I don’t give a fuck what you do.” She put as much conviction as she could into the little speech, hoping he would believe her. The worst that could happen now was that he would simply get up and leave her locked up, possibly forever.

  A spike of adrenaline shot through her as he stood up and smiled down at her with a thin smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “And that, little Zora, is why you’re one of us whether you like it or not. Now do you want to get out of here? Or do you want to spend another three days proving what a bad ass you are?”

  “I want to get out of here,” she mumbled.

  “I’m sorry,” he cupped his ear. “I didn’t quite hear that.”

  “Ugh,” Zora growled. “Fine. I want to get out of here. You win. I don’t like being locked up,” she spat vengefully.

  “Good,” he nodded. “Then hurry up.”

  They made quite the pair as they left the cell, Savage moving with the stiff gait of one who has seen far too much action and Zora trailing after him, barefoot and clad in her ragged blanket. In the stainless steel and fluorescent lights of the halls they were both out of place, too filthy and messily human to really fit in amongst the uniform sterility of the place.

  Zora was glad to be free from the little cell, but her relief was tempered by spinning confusion that threatened to drive her crazy. Savage was not the man she had always taken him to be. Yes he was honorable and strong and determined, but he wasn’t playing by the normal rules. The man she’d given her body, and more than a little of her hear to, was more of a stranger to her than ever. She didn’t understand his motivations, she didn’t know what his true feelings on almost anything were and she was beginning to think she never would.

  What she did know was that she was going to have to get more crafty if she wanted to get ahead of him. He’d been leading her by the nose from the moment she’d set eyes on him, and that could not continue. It was time to be smart. It was time to play the game.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Deep underground in an office that seemed to look out over expansive rolling fields thanks to the digital screens disguised as windows, General Hurtzwald greeted Savage with a hearty handshake and a great big beaming smile that threatened to crack his winkled skin right open. “Captain Savage, good work in Bulgaria,” he boomed. The General had never been the kind of man who modulated his voice. When he was happy, you knew it, when he was angry, you knew that too. Everybody in a five mile radius did.

  “Thank you sir.” Savage nodded, acknowledging the compliment with his customary reserve. He stood at ease, his body naturally holding the good military posture that had been drilled into him since he was a young man. He was dressed in casual civilian clothes, a checkered shirt and blue jeans, but his bearing would have given him away anywhere.

  “Dammed good job actually,” Hurtzwald wandered back around his desk, his hands clasped behind his back, making him look somewhat like an oversized penguin as he walked his stiff legged walk. The old man had the distinction of having been injured in almost every war since he’d been born and it showed when he moved. “That’s going to make negotiations a great deal easier.”

  “I am glad to hear it sir.” There was a certain lack of enthusiasm in Savage’s responses. He knew very well that the General had not brought him in solely to compliment him on the Bulgarian mission. It had taken place several weeks earlier and he had been involved in other, equally important actions since then. Whatever the General wanted to talk to him about was obviously connected with the Bulgarian mission however, for he waffled on about it at general length for a good five minutes whilst Savage stood ramrod straight, his eyes following Hurtzwald as he paced about the room. It was not like the man to be so indirect, which meant the matter, when he got to it, would not be a pleasant one.

  “We have an issue, Savage,” Hurtzwald finally approached the point of the meeting.

  “Yes sir?” Savage’s was a picture of perfect attentiveness, relaxed, but ready for whatever bomb the General was about to drop.

  “Zora Matthews,” Hurtzwald said, standing behind his desk and placing his palms on the surface as he leaned across it to address Savage with an earnest gaze. “She’s outlived her usefulness.”

  A small tic in Savage’s jaw was the only sign of the cold jolt that speared through him. Hurtzwald said it so casually. ‘Outlived her usefulness’. What he really meant to say was ‘I think we should murder Zora Matthews’. Keeping a tight control on his emotions, Savage nodded, then began the delicate process of attempting to argue a superior out of a decision. “With respect sir, I disagree.”

  Hurtzwald snorted, a bullish sound. “You believe she has a function?”

  “Yes. She handles herself well under pressure and she has an excellent mind. She went into the field with next to no training and performed better than most trained men. It would be a pity to…” he paused, searching for a phrase that made the subject less rage inducing. “…lose the benefit of her rare skill set.”

  “Perhaps,” his commander acknowledged. “But I’ve seen the evaluations since then. She is not cooperating with anybody. She’s not even trying to cooperate. So these skills and traits are not exactly useful to us, are they?”

  Savage nodded in agreement, acknowledging the point, which was a valid one. “She does what she needs to do and little else, that is true. But she cooperated completely on the Bulgarian mission. Her work was invaluable to us and may well be again.” Though Savage spoke with a calm, detached tone, he knew he was quite literally arguing for Zora’s life. People who did not serve the greater good did not live for long. The compound was extensive, but there was no room in it for anyone who failed to pull their weight.

  “You have a personal component to your relationship,” Hurtzwald abruptly changed conversational course and approached the issue from the one perspective Savage really wished he wouldn’t.

  “Yes,” Savage made the admission readily. No point denying it. It was common knowledge, though they had not engaged in anything sexual since their return from Bulgaria. He had been too busy, and she too contrary.

  “Why?” The commander’s eyes twinkled lasciviously. Mention sex and all thought of death went out the window – temporarily at least.

  Savage did not stoop to his level and deftly avoided being trapped into an admission of bias. “She would not have cooperated otherwise. She had no reason to do as we asked. A personal relationship provided that motivation.”

  “So your decision to engage with Ms Matthews in the bedroom was purely tactical in nature? And it is not, in any way, interfering with your judgment now?” The commander gave him the old ice stare, a look designed to ferret out any untruth.

  “Precisely.” Savage hoped the simple conviction in his voice was enough to convince Hurtzwald to at least agree to a stay of execution.

  “Very well, I’ll take your word on it this time Savage,” Hurtzwald relented. “But she shows improvement within the week or you put a bullet in her.” The commander beamed jovially as he gave the order. The deaths of others had long since ceased to weigh on his conscience. He gave such orders on a daily basis. The reluctance he’d shown to address the issue directly at first had everything to do with not wanting one of his best agents off side and nothing to do with whatever sanctity there might have been in life.

  Savage left the meeting with his stomach in a knot. Hurtzwald’s infamous iron fist had been removed from its kid glove and was making menacing motions at the woman who had quite inadvertently captured his heart. She didn’t know that of course, even she thought his interest in her was a mere manipulation designed to elicit compliance. A life time of shielding his real emotions and playing roles on top of roles had lead him to a place where nobody could tell what it was he thought or felt. He was the perfect soldier, a machine that did what was necessary to get things done. Zora was supposed to be just another one of those things he did and if she was going to survive, it w
as essential everyone kept thinking that.

  He made his way to the communications section where Zora was supposed to be working with Ethan. To his relief, the room did contain two occupants. She was where she was supposed to be, but only Ethan seemed to be busy at work, twirling the end of his beard in his fingers the way he did when he concentrated. Savage could tell from the door that Zora was not doing work of any kind. Instead she was lolling about in a chair, leaning so far backwards that her feet were dangling inches off the ground, staring at the roof and blathering on to Ethan, probably about a matter of little consequence.

  “Zora.” He growled her name as he stepped into the room, hoping it would telegraph the general idea of taking him seriously.

  It didn’t. She pushed herself forward in the chair and planted her feet on the ground, a pout on her lips. “Where have you been?” Her eyes swept up and down his body. “Looks like you got out. Nice for some.” Attitude rolled off her in waves. He had to give it to her. Zora knew how to stand her ground. Lesser women would have crumbled by now. Not her though. He wondered if she had it in her to take a subordinate role. Was she capable of even the slightest submission? He hoped so.

  Taking the opportunity the moment gave him he stood over her, using his imposing bulk to intimidate. “No more,” he said in his most menacing voice. “No more fucking around, you got it? Run those numbers.”

  She cocked her head to the side and looked at him. Gazing down at her, he saw the eyes of the woman he had made passionate love to and, just for a moment, his expression softened. He was fast realizing that the sex had probably been a mistake. It had given her the impression that they were equals on one level or another. He saw the impending refusal in her gaze before she opened her mouth and gave voice to her rebellion. “No.” To add insult to injury, she had the audacity to raise her hand and flip him the bird.

  Even if Hurtzwald hadn’t been threatening her life, that would have pissed him off. He reacted by grabbing her wrist and slapping her hand hard enough to leave red finger marks on the back of her knuckles. Years of hard living had callused his palms to a texture like iron, being slapped by him was no small matter. She gasped with the pain and her eyes flew wide open, her mouth parted in an ‘o’ of surprise and dismay. He had a fair idea why. Yes, he’d been spanking her for weeks on end, but he’d very rarely come close to using anywhere near his full strength on her. He still hadn’t in fact. The slap she’d just experienced had fallen with a fraction of the force that was at his disposal. But it had shocked her. He waited to see if it would be enough.