by Arno Joubert
“In,” Laiveaux commanded in his gravelly voice.
She stepped inside, stood up straight, then saluted. He looked up at her, smiling, gesturing toward a chair.
“General?” she asked when seated.
The tall man studied her with his piercing grey eyes. “Bruce sends his regards. I’ve been updating him with your progress, and I must say, we are impressed. You are making us proud, my girl. Your dad would have been proud as well.”
Natalie felt immense relief surge through her body. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. “Thank you, General,” she said, trying to steady her voice.
The man nodded then stood up. He paced the room, his crop stuck into his armpit and his hands behind his back. “Tomorrow you will be receiving your white Kepi and will be officially introduced as a member of the French Foreign Legion.” He turned to her, studying her face with those intense grey eyes. He made her nervous.
“Thank you, General. Thank you so much,” she stammered. Had it been four months? She couldn’t recall. The past couple of months were a blur.
Laiveaux strode to a metal filing cabinet, pulled open a drawer, and removed a sheet of paper. He placed it on the desk and pushed it toward Natalie. It looked like a certificate of some kind.
“Your new identity,” Laiveaux said.
She held up the certificate, scanning the contents. It was a temporary traveling permit. It afforded the bearer—Alexa Guerra—the protection of the French government as a permanent citizen of the Republic of France. Her photo was affixed to the top right-hand corner.
“Your passport will arrive in two weeks' time,” Laiveaux said.
Natalie blinked her eyes. She looked at Laiveaux then back at the certificate and began to sob, feeling all the pent-up emotion drain from her body. Shut up, she thought, control yourself. She had been working toward this for months, and now she held the reward in her hands.
Laiveaux held out his arms. She jumped up and ran toward him and was comforted by a fatherly hug, crying against his chest.
“Well done, my girl, well done. You’ve made it,” he whispered, patting her back.
He held her shoulders at arms-length in front of him. “But that’s not all.”
She looked up at him, confused, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Excuse me, General?”
Laiveaux removed an epaulet from his top pocket and stuck out his hand.
“Congratulations, Lieutenant,” he said and handed her the badge. She took it from him and shook his hand, overawed.
“You deserve it. We all agree.”
Natalie stared at the rank. She couldn’t take her eyes off of it.
“Report for the graduation ceremony at 0700, sharp. You are dismissed, Lieutenant.”
Natalie looked up at Laiveaux and back at the epaulet, shaking her head. She beamed at Laiveaux and saluted smartly. “General,” she said and turned on her heel and exited his office.
Once she closed the door, she shimmied a jig and silently screamed in jubilation.
Alexa bolted upright in bed up as she heard a knock on the door. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and fumbled for her watch. The luminous dials indicated close to two in the morning.
“What’s going on?” she shouted.
The drill sergeant opened the door and stuck his head inside the room. “We urgently need you on the parade ground, Lieutenant,” he said and softly closed the door.
Alexa jumped out of bed, pulled on her pants, and hurried outside, grabbing her jacket and Kepi from the back of a chair as she went.
The entire division had assembled on the parade ground. Bright lights shone from the encampment walls, casting eerie shadows around the troops. Steamy breaths hung above the bodies like a fog. Alexa rubbed her arms and fell in with her platoon.
The drill sergeant nodded at Laiveaux, who was standing in front of the soldiers on a small platform. Laiveaux lifted a voice amplifier to his mouth and spoke.
“A Legionnaire has been found dead tonight, beaten to death on the obstacle course.” He kept quiet and scanned their faces. “If anyone has any information regarding his murder, please step forward.”
A murmur swept through the assembled troops. Someone lifted his hand in a fist.
“Yes, Montpellier?” Laiveaux asked.
“Who was it, General?” the soldier asked, standing to attention.
“Pascoe. Benedict Pascoe.”
The murmur grew louder. Alexa heard a snigger behind her.
“Anyone?” Laiveaux asked again.
The men settled down and became silent.
“In that case, your session will begin three hours early.” Laiveaux turned around with a wave of his hand and tossed the amplifier to the drill sergeant.
“Attention,” the sergeant shouted. In unison, the troops snapped to attention, bringing their heels down with a thud.
“The first one who throws up misses two meals,” the sergeant growled. “Five miles and then on to course six.”
Alexa sighed as she trundled to the obstacle course. She had a long day ahead of her.
French Foreign League Headquarters
Aubagne, France
Alexa marched around the parade ground with the remaining thirty-eight troops who had completed the training with her. They stopped in front of Laiveaux, thudded their right boots down in unison, then saluted.
He saluted back. “At ease, lady and gentlemen,” he said, winking at Alexa. She smiled back.
He called them forward one by one, handing them their braided epaulets and white Kepis. Alexa’s name was called last. She marched forward and saluted. Laiveaux simply stood there, smiling. He took her shoulders and kissed her, once on each cheek, then handed her the epaulet and Kepi. “I never thought I would see this day, Miss Guerra.”
She smiled. “Didn’t think I had it in me, General?”
He pursed his lips, intense grey eyes assessing her. “You are an astonishing young lady.”
“What happens next, General?” she stammered, unable to think of anything else to say.
He gazed at her for a moment longer then smiled. “I’m going to fast-track your career, Lieutenant.”
“General?”
“I’ll be sending you to Greece, parabatallions. You’re going to learn how to jump out of planes, my girl.”
Alexa’s mouth dropped open. She didn’t know what to say; her heart was beating in her throat. She had always wanted to skydive. And it was damn near impossible being selected for this elite unit. “Thanks, thank you so much, General.” Control yourself, dammit, she thought to herself. He is a normal man, not a god.
He saluted. “Just be careful, my girl.”
She nodded then saluted smartly. “I’ll try, General.”
She turned around and saw the amazed faces of her fellow troops. Screw protocol, she thought as she fist-pumped the air.
Gibraltar, Spain
Nine Months Later
Alexa glanced up as Reg Voelkner greeted her. “Mind if I sit?” he asked, holding onto Alexa’s chair as he tried to steady himself against the rocking motion of the train.
“Sure,” she said folding up the newspaper and pushing her dishes aside.
“You excited?” he asked.
She nodded. The eight months at the parabatallion unit felt like they were over in the blink of an eye. She had used every opportunity she could to get into the sky, completing more than three hundred jumps, and had graduated top of her class. She was sorry to go, but Laiveaux had decided that he wanted her to learn to dive. He was truly putting her career on fast forward.
“Wish I could have done another couple of jumps, though.”
“You’d never jump out of another plane in your life if it depended on the general,” Voelkner said with a chuckle.
She laughed. She stretched her arms then massaged her leg muscles. The fitness regime had intensified. If she thought they would let off on the physical training, she was sorely mistaken. The Legion liked to keep their troops trained
and battle-ready. They believed a bored troop would get into trouble, so they kept them in a permanent state of fatigue.
She smiled and popped a piece of toast in her mouth. “Enough about me, are you excited to join the French Marine Commandos?”
He shrugged. “Not really.”
She frowned. “What do you mean, it’s an honor to be chosen—“
“I didn’t exactly volunteer, Lieutenant.”
“What?”
“Laiveaux commanded me to go.”
“Laiveaux, why?”
He sighed. “He said I needed to keep an eye on you. He was afraid that you may get hurt or something.”
“Hurt? How?”
Voelkner chuckled. “You have developed the reputation of being quite the daredevil, Lieutenant Guerra.”
She waved a hand. “Bah, that’s rubbish. I’m going to end up babysitting you, Voelkner.”
He chuckled, glancing up at her shyly. “That better be a promise, Lieutenant.”
French Naval Base
Morocco
Alexa crawled out of the ocean on all fours and collapsed on the ground, sucking in deep breaths. Captain Kristian Le Roux sauntered toward her, jotting down notes on his clipboard. He dragged her out of the waves by her belt and dumped her on the beach, then he strolled to a whiteboard and updated the rolling record of the divers’ efforts.
“No one can catch up with you now, Guerra. It seems you’re going to graduate top of your class.” He rolled his eyes. “Again.”
She rolled onto her side on the warm white sand, coughed up some saltwater, and then slipped out of her army fatigues and removed her boots. The sun was beating down mercilessly, and she cupped her hands over her eyes as she spoke. “Good.”
The first men started appearing behind the waves, and Alexa glanced over the shiny ocean surface. “Shit,” she said and jogged back into the sea.
“What?”
“Voelkner’s taking strain,” she shouted, wading deeper.
Le Roux lifted his binoculars to his eyes and scanned the horizon. “Leave him.”
“Then you’ll need to tell Laiveaux that you allowed one of his men to drown,” she shouted and dove into a wave.
“Whatever,” he mumbled, scribbling some more notes.
She returned a few minutes later, dragging Voelkner out of the waves by his collar. Coughing and spluttering, he collapsed on his back on the beach. “Thanks,” he said between breaths. “I thought I was going to be a goner.”
“You going to save the others as well?” Le Roux asked, checking the progress of the men in the water.
She rubbed her arm over her brow. “Voelkner was my only concern.”
Voelkner nodded appreciatively, wiping the water from his face, struggling to slip off his backpack.
The captain sauntered to where Alexa sat on the beach, her arms on her legs. “Are you up for a real challenge, Lieutenant?”
Alexa sat back with her hands in the sand and studied him for a moment. He was tanned and sinewy. She smiled and nodded. “I’m always up for a challenge, as you put it, Captain.”
He tapped his clipboard with the pen. “Free dive, the deepest man wins.”
Alexa considered this for a moment. She knew he was good. He held the record at a hundred and twenty feet. But he was also too smug to her liking. “Or the best woman,” she said as she wiped her hands against her pants.
“We shall see,” Le Roux said with a grin. He ruffled her hair. “See you in five minutes, down at the quay.” He looked up at the ocean then spoke into a two-way radio. “Pick them all up, no one’s coming out today, by the looks of things.”
A couple of minutes later, she met up with Le Roux, Voelkner accompanying her, and they took an inflatable rubber speedboat to an area clear of coral and rocks. Two assistant divers kitted up and submerged. They would act as a rescue team, monitoring Alexa and Kristian to make sure they got back safely.
“I’ll go first,” Kristian said, stripping to his swimming trunks. He dove gracefully into the water and surfaced. He took a couple of deep breaths, winked at Alexa, and showed her the OK sign. His head disappeared below the water and he started his dive.
Alexa and the rest of the divers leaned over the side of the boat, peering into the depths. After four and a half minutes, a large bubble exploded to the surface.
“Shit, he’s receiving air from the rescue divers,” Alexa said. “Here they come, make way.”
They emerged a couple of seconds later with Kristian. He was unconscious, his head lolling to the side like a rag doll.
“What happened?” she shouted.
One of the rescue divers swam to the boat, dragging Kristian behind him. They helped haul his unconscious body over the side. “The idiot blacked out on his way to the top. He was pushing the limits, the bloody show-off.”
They helped the rescue diver into the boat, and he started with emergency resuscitation on Kristian. “I saw him swallow a couple of gallons of water before he blacked out.”
They rolled Kristian onto his side and fit an oxygen mask over his face. A moment later the man coughed and spluttered then pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, vomiting water and slime. He took a deep, wheezing breath and glanced up. “How deep?” he asked, pulling the mask off his face.
Alexa lifted his arm and looked at his dive watch. “One hundred and fifty-eight feet. But it doesn’t count, you blacked out.”
The other divers whooped and cheered, slapping Kristian on his back.
He smiled, drying himself with a towel. “I’m here, aren’t I? I’m alive, and my dive watch confirms the depth." He glanced at the other men on the boat. "I think it should count.”
Alexa shrugged. “Bloody men,” she muttered. Then she balanced on the side of the boat and dove into the water. She hyperventilated, took a deep breath and started her descent, swimming slowly and gracefully, conserving her oxygen.
Once she reached fifty feet, she descended faster with less kicking, relaxing, allowing gravity to take her deeper. Her dive watch beeped as she reached one-hundred feet. Her ears felt like they were about to burst. She equalized by moving her jaws and swam even deeper into the murky depths. The color of the warm waters changed from a hazy green to a muddy brown and finally to black. Thirty seconds later, Alexa could see the bottom of the ocean bed. She kicked slowly and grabbed a handful of sand at the bottom, then she pushed herself up from the ocean floor with her legs and started her leisurely ascent.
Within a minute, she reached the scuba divers. They had opted to stay at a shallower depth to allow them enough decompression time. They swam up with her to fifteen feet and stopped. She burst through the surface and swallowed in lungfuls of air, then screamed triumphantly.
She managed to control her breathing and swam toward the inflatable. Voelkner and another diver pulled her aboard and sat her down on the side of the boat.
She dumped the sand onto the floor of the boat and looked up, smiling.
“How deep?” Le Roux asked, deep furrows on his brow.
She glanced at her dive watch. “Two hundred and fifteen feet.”
They rushed toward her, one guy grabbing her arm to confirm the depth. He let out a low whistle. “Shit, Lieutenant, if this is true, it’s a new world record.”
“Bullshit,” Kristian said, looking doubtful. “There’s something wrong with her watch. Let’s measure it.”
They retrieved a dive line and ballast from one of the compartments on the boat and started lowering it into the ocean. A minute later it hit the bottom.
Kristian walked closer and read the measurement. He glanced at the sand Alexa had dropped onto the floor of the boat and looked back up at Alexa. He pursed his lips and lifted his eyebrows. “It seems that you are an official world record holder in freestyle diving, Lieutenant.”
The men gathered around her, shaking her hand and slapping her on the shoulders. Kristian stuck out his hand toward her. She grabbed it, and he shook it vigorously.
“
Well done, mon amie, you never cease to amaze me,“ he said, his blue eyes shimmering as he smiled.
She grinned back at him then laughed. “Get used to it.”
Alexa looked up from her dive charts when she heard a soft rap on her door. “In,” she called.
The door opened and Kristian peered around the corner. “Major Batet wants to see us in his office.” He chuckled. “I guess it’s about our little competition we had yesterday.”
Alexa pulled herself up from her seat and strode toward Kristian. “Right now?”
He nodded, holding the door open for her. They made their way through the compound toward Batet’s office. “Should we be worried?” she asked, glancing sideways at Le Roux as they walked.
He twirled his Kepi around his finger. “Nah, apparently he’s taking heat from one of his superiors. It’ll probably be a rap over the knuckles, nothing more.”
“Shit, it’s probably Laiveaux.” Alexa pulled her uniform straight as she stopped in front of the major’s door. Kristian frowned.
She knocked once then entered, Kristian closing the door behind them. They marched to his desk and stood to attention. “Major.”
Batet was holding a telephone receiver in front of him, making a talking gesture with his hands. He cupped the mouthpiece. “Your little excursion has upset a certain General Laiveaux at HQ.”
He put the phone to his ear. “Yes, yes I do understand, General. Yes I will. No, never, General. Yes, right away, General.”
He held the telephone out to Alexa. “He wants to speak to you, Lieutenant.”
She took the phone and gingerly put it to her ear. “General?”
Laiveaux spoke in English. “Alexa, my girl, are you all right? Do you know how concerned Bruce and I have been about you? What is this rubbish with diving records and stuff? We send you to the most remote station in the League and still you manage to put yourself in harm’s way.”
Alexa looked up at Major Batet with a frown. The major shrugged, the corner of his mouth pulled up in a smile. She placed the receiver back on her ear.