Core of Steel

by J. B. Havens

  “I should never have done it. Though admittedly grabbing your ass was worth the elbow to the face. I don’t regret that part of it, just all the shit I’ve had to take because of it.” He smiled at me while holding the water bottle on his face, looking both ridiculous and cute. I shook myself mentally to try and dispel the notion. Cute? Fellow team members were not cute. Or at least they shouldn’t be…right?

  “Thanks, I’ll take the compliment but there can’t be any attraction going on, no matter how I may feel. We’re here to do a job; that’s all it can be between us.” I looked away from him, hoping that I didn’t just make a fool of myself. I’d worked too long and too hard for the respect I’d earned to throw it all away on a subordinate member of my unit. I really needed to get out more.

  “Hey Bea, don’t worry. I’m definitely attracted to you, but I get it. No fraternization among the ranks. You are my superior, but you are also a woman and I’m a man. We aren’t machines without feelings, no matter how much we wish it otherwise.” It was his turn to shrug and turn away. “I’m not going to throw away my career for a woman, no matter how attractive I find her.” He turned and winked, making me laugh.

  “Just so you know though, Chris, if it was somehow possible, I wouldn’t hesitate for even a second. We’d be having a very good time if circumstances were different.” It was the truth, and I could see by the way his breath hitched and his pupils dilated that he agreed whole-heartedly.

  “I think this is the best “let’s be friends” speech I’ve ever gotten; one that doesn’t crush my soul and ego in equal measure,” Chris said staring right into my eyes. I laughed again and walked back around to the driver’s side of the Jeep.

  “I’m glad. The last thing I want is for things to be awkward between us. This needs to go to the back burner and stay there. We need you ready to ship out in two weeks. Since you’re new you’re going to be on my six and I’ll be on yours. That’s part of the reason I asked you out here tonight. We’re going to be attached at the hip for the foreseeable future, and two weeks isn’t much time to get to know each other. I will be trusting you with my life out there,” I said, voice heavy. I gave him solid eye contact, trying to assess his resolve. I needed to know that this man would walk through the fires of hell at my back, and when he got burned, he’d just beg the devil for more. I would need to read his file soon; it wouldn’t tell me about the gritty inside of Jordon, but it would at least hit the highlights and give me a glimpse into the man, and, more importantly, why he was here.

  We got back into the Jeep and bumped down the other side of the hill. There was no room to turn around here and I was hungry. However, there was a nice clearing with a flat spot up ahead where we could park and eat our sandwiches. We plopped down in the camp chairs and ate in a comfortable silence. The air wasn’t charged with half-truths or things left unsaid. The silence was as refreshing as a cool summer shower on a hot day.

  “How did you get to be part of Steel, Mic?” Jordon asked breaking the silence. His question was a valid one. It was almost unheard of for a female to be in combat regularly, let alone for one to be an officer in combat.

  “Just lucky, I guess. Early on, I showed a proficiency for leadership, intelligence, and extraction techniques. At the beginning of my career, I wasn’t in combat at all, just working as an advisor until one simple mission went completely FUBAR. We were betrayed by a local informant and ambushed. My NCO was killed in the attack and I found myself behind enemy lines with eight guys counting on me to get them home.” I spared Jordon a glance. His jaw was set and he was looking at the landscape around us. Everyone in Steel has been in combat. We’ve all lost people; we’ve all seen our friends blown to bits around us in a red rain. We all deal with it differently. Death is an unshakable reality of a soldier’s life. Either taking lives or losing them, death is not a stranger, but a familiar friend.

  “I got my unit out of hell. We were all wounded, but I made them keep going until we reached a friendly zone. We patched each other up on the run. It took us two solid days of running and fighting to get out. After that, I was recruited for Steel, which was just a hopeful idea at the time. The brass wanted to prevent massacres like the one my unit survived. Out of the three units involved in the mission, mine was the only one to come back more or less whole. The other two were completely wiped out. No survivors, no bodies for families. It’s still classified, so the families of those poor boys will never know how they died or what they died for. That’s why I do this.” I stood and gathered up my chair and the cooler.

  I never intended to unload all that onto him. It was something I tried not to think or talk about. For some reason, the story just gushed out like a fountain of violent verbiage. It didn’t take much for the memories to tighten my chest and clench my fists. The smell of blood and gunpowder filled my nostrils and I was back in that Middle Eastern hell hole. I braced my hands on the back of the Jeep, squeezing the steel and trying to remain present and aware. Grenades exploded around me, throwing shrapnel and sand into the air and into my friends. Screams and curses filled my ears back-dropped by the sound of machine gun fire. My mouth went dry, and the taste of blood and fear was like pennies under my tongue. I saw my NCO fall before me, his body dancing like a marionette with jerking strings as bullets slammed into him. The hot burn of a bullet grazed my arm as I fired over and over, my throat raw from shouting to the men, “On me! On me!” Our Humvee was blown up into the air by an IED, choking the air with thick black smoke and the stench of burning rubber. I felt the grip of my M-16 under my hands, rather than the Jeep. Sweat brought out by fear popped out all over my body as my muscles seized up. My vision started to go white and spotty so I forced myself to drag a slow, painful breath into my lungs.

  With a sharp jerk of my head I pulled myself back to the present. The Jeep was warm under my palms as I gripped and released my hands over and over. There was grass under my feet, not sand; crickets and birds chirped around me instead of the rat-a-tat-tat of machine guns or the earth shaking booms of grenades. I took a long breath in and raised my head to find myself looking straight into Jordon’s grass-green eyes. He’d moved up beside me without me noticing it: a potentially deadly mistake. I haven’t had a flashback outside of my dreams since right after that mission. Once I joined Steel, I pushed all of that aside. That fact that I was constantly training and dropping into jungles and deserts kept me firmly planted in the present.

  “Welcome back. I was getting worried there for a second. Thought I’d have to risk taking another elbow to bring you out of it. That happen often?” Jordon cocked an eyebrow at me, seeming to dare me to deny it.

  “Not often. I’m good. Get in the Jeep, you still have watch tonight.” My tone was harsh and clipped, but I didn’t care. I needed some space. Jordon was too easy to talk to. His boy-next-door charm was effortless and impossible to resist. He wasn’t even doing it on purpose.

  My life since that mission has been nothing but training and missions, followed by debriefing and more training. I have the men, but I don’t have the closeness with them that they have with each other. I’m their superior officer and I have to hold myself above, and slightly apart, from them. They lean on each other when shit starts to creep up on them; I only have myself to lean on. Until now, it hadn’t bothered me at all. I hadn’t wanted to leave anyone behind waiting for that knock on the door, saying I wouldn’t be coming home.

  On the drive back to base we talked of small things, trying to lighten the mood after my flashback. The setting sun was backlighting us with a blazing, fiery beauty as we jerked and rolled back down the mountain to the compound.

  Chapter 6

  The following day passed uneventfully for the most part. We were in the mess hall, finishing up dinner.

  I was lost in thought, picking at my food. “This sucks,” I muttered under my breath. The mission was getting closer by the day and as a result I was having to speed things up. It was risky as hell.

  In a normal training situatio
n we would be at this for weeks before even considering a mission. But time was a luxury that we didn’t have this time around. Jordon was more than capable of handling anything normal combat threw at him. It was the abnormal, fucked up, crazy-beyond-common-sense missions that I was worried about. Would he be able to keep his shit together when we were dropping in behind enemy lines? Or when we were extracting a terrorist to take to a secret installation for the DoD? What about when we crept across the African landscape to quietly deal with a sex-trafficking, arms-dealing drug lord?

  Unfortunately for me, there was no time to get the answers to these questions. According to his file he had seen some seriously heavy combat in Afghanistan, real “Black Hawk Down” stuff. His file wasn’t much to go on. It was full of jargon and time stamps. It gave me a clear picture in technical terms, but didn’t paint his tours in a picture that I could envision. The file was black and white; I needed to see the full-color version. These questions continued to plague me throughout dinner.

  “Holding up ok, Mic?” Phillips asked, as he sat down next to me. I pushed my food away, having lost my appetite completely.

  “Mostly. How about you? Ready for this?” I asked him. As was his habit, he rubbed his hand over his beard when he was thinking.

  “No, but it must be done,” he said as he stood. “Find anything out in the file we can use?”

  “Agreed. And no, not much. He’s fucking tough. But we know that after today.” He would have to be strong, in both body and mind, if he was going to make it through what was coming.

  “Yeah, kid has some damn good take downs. Not to mention, he almost beat your time in the close combat course.”

  “Yes, I was there.” Jordon had moved through the course like water, not slowing, not pausing for more than the time it took to check a corner. It was damn impressive. He found and secured Flynn faster than anyone else had been able to manage today.

  “I can see why Jackson brought him in. Boy has mad skills.”

  “It takes more than mad skills to be Steel, Phillips, you know that.”

  “I know. But he’s scary in his abilities to anticipate a threat. His instincts have probably saved his life more than he even realizes.”

  Reaching for my iced tea, I nodded. “Yes, I agree. We’ll see how this shakes out. He still has a few tests to pass before we know if he has the balls to hack it with us.”

  “You know as well as I do, Mic, he’s already one of us.” Phillips stood and drew my attention to where Jordon was throwing darts with Flynn.

  “See you later, Sergeant,” I said, as he went over, apparently willing to join in on the fun for once.

  The others were ribbing each other back and forth, giving Jordon a hell of a tongue lashing over a missed shot. I dropped off my tray and left the mess hall without them even noticing I was gone. Something I was fine with. I didn’t need a salute whenever I entered or left a building. They showed their respect for me by unquestionably following my orders. Which was all I asked for.

  Back at my cabin, I switched the air conditioning on high and Frank Sinatra on low. I stripped and climbed into my huge empty bed after setting my alarm, hoping that I had dreams of flying away instead of bodies dancing like puppets. I would get no more than an hour nap in before doing what had to be done. As unpleasant as it was, being the NCO meant doing the hard things, the necessary things, and the no-matter-how-scarring-to-the-soul things.

  I tossed and turned back and forth all across the bed, throwing pillows and the deep blue down comforter onto the floor. Sleep was a long time coming, and when the sandman finally gave me respite, my dreams were haunted by blazing green eyes staring at me from a face that was a mask of blood.

  ****

  Jordon stood in the shower, hands flat against the wall, letting the hot water beat on him and wash away the sweat and grime of the day. Hanging his head, he reflected back on two of the best and worst days he’d ever experienced. The first day of boot camp didn’t have shit on this level of training, equal measures of knife-in-the-gut-awful and heart-thumping exhilaration. Fucking hell seemed to be the only thing he could say over and over. The goddamn panic room had almost done him in. Watching Bea cradle that rifle and send thirty rounds down range was one of the most impressive and equally sexy sights he’d ever had the pleasure of witnessing. He tried to shut off that train of thought as easily as he shut off the cooling water. Thinking of Bea, correct that, Mic as anything other than his superior was bad news. She was trouble through and through, and not just because she was his NCO. Even if they weren’t pawns on the government chess board of secrets and black ops, any involvement with her would be a bad idea.

  He felt like he had shown his true self today in both the hand-to-hand training and the movable course. His shoulder ached where he had tackled Phillips. Taking down that man was like wrestling a bear, a slippery, well-trained bear.

  Before long his thoughts returned to his NCO. He was a man that liked to be in control, he thought, as he dressed in gym shorts and an old t-shirt and collapsed into bed with a groan. Bea was a man-eater of a woman and he didn’t like the idea of being lunch. He liked his women loose and easy, not wound up tight and hard-assed as any drill sergeant he’d ever dealt with. There was nothing easy about her. She’d had a flashback on that mountain though, so she was hiding pain inside, just as he was. He tried to pretend he hadn’t seen a soft vulnerability in her eyes after that obvious PTSD episode. There was more to Mic than what met the eye. Still waters run deep, as the saying goes.

  After what seemed like minutes of sleep Jordon was jerked awake by the tinkling of breaking glass and the squeak of the front door opening. He was on his feet, weapon in hand, before his mind even registered what was happening. The just audible sound of Phillips and Jones having the same reaction carried back to him as he glided down the hall toward the living room in the dark. Two shadows moving across the wall alerted him to Phillips and Jones on his right and left. Using hand signals and nods they communicated silently and determined that Chris would go in first and the other two would cover him and make a grease spot of whoever was there, if necessary.

  Taking a deep, quiet breath in, Jordon dropped to one knee and rounded the corner, M9 pointed at what appeared to be an empty room. Appearances could be deceiving, as they say. His heart was racing with the adrenaline rush, but on the outside he was calm and still. He slid along the wall to the right, and sensed, more than saw, Phillips going left, with Jones providing cover and watching their backs. They didn’t make a sound as they crept through the deafening silence.

  Just ahead, crouched next to the couch, was a shadow that didn’t belong. Whoever it was trying to blend in with the dark shape of the couch failed, and was about to feel a world of hurt. Jordon could get in and out silently, so he figured it was safe to assume that someone else might also have those skills. Though if Jordon had done this sneak routine, he wouldn’t have had to break a window and sure as fuck wouldn’t have made a noise. Jordon didn’t think beyond that point, giving himself no further time to consider how someone got into the compound, let alone into their cabin, without an alarm going nuts.

  Pointing and signaling to Phillips that he had it, Jordon stalked forward on silent feet. Like a rumor in the night, he crept forward to the shadow invading his space. He tucked his pistol into his shorts before snaking his forearm around the dead-man-walking’s throat, and slapped his huge hand across the assailant’s mouth and nose, jerking backward sharply. He had this fucker dead-to-rights he thought, as he flexed over the artery in the intruders neck and squeezed down, counting until lights out. Almost….there. Jordon felt a jab to the small of his back, which forced a grunt from his chest, followed by a punch to the kidney that earned a curse, but he still didn’t drop his prize. He kicked out behind him, but got nothing but air. He turned, trying to get his eyes on the shit-face behind him, but got nothing but a brutal kick to the back of one knee, dropping him down hard on to it.

  Hearing a pop-pop to both his left
and right, Jordon whipped his head back and forth in time to see more man-shaped shadows lowering Phillips and Jones to the floor. Another hit, this time to his temple, emptied his arms of his hard-won prize and dropped him to his hands and knees. He took a couple of painful breaths and shook the blackness from his vision. The attacker flew out the door like a hell hound was on his heels. There was one about to be, as Jordon jumped to his feet, shaking off the pain in his knee and followed as fast as his feet would carry him, clearing the porch steps in one leap. He didn’t register the gravel jabbing his feet as he landed, or the cool night air on his exposed arms and legs. His entire being was focused on the fast-moving shadow in front of him. Damn fast. Sparing a thought for the men on the floor of their cabin, Jordon shouted as best he could while running full out, raising the alarm. He ran deeper and deeper into the black woods, pine needles and rocks sticking into his bare feet, and branches slapping at his arms and face. He needed to slow down and figure this out. He was out here alone, with no gear and no backup. Damn dangerous place to be when he had no idea how many of the enemy there were. No information to go on. If he could just catch this fucker, he’d get all the info they needed, one knuckle-bruising punch at a time.

  The shadow made a sharp turn to the right behind some trees, causing him to slow his headlong pursuit and pivot. Jordon tried to track him by sound so he could jump him. He crouched and listened intently. There… Jordon snapped his head to the left where he heard a branch snap. Walking on the balls of his feet he crept forward towards the sound, searching the deep blue-black shadows. He froze, hearing leaves rustle behind him. Behind him? A flying tackle slammed into his back and side, taking him down hard onto rocks and leaves. Heavy blackness covered his face and the unmistakable sharp jab of a needle in his thigh heralded lights out, spreading fire from his leg out. Fighting to remain conscious, Jordon fought with jabs and kicks as best he could, but the drugs were dragging him under, making him slow and frustratingly ineffective. He couldn’t tell if he was landing any hits or not, but he kept trying even if it was in vain. If he was going to go down, he was going to go down swinging, giving everything he had to swim against the current the drugs created. His face was ground into the hard earth as they rolled him over, and the last thing his mind registered was his arms being jerked behind him and laughter that would make the Mad Hatter envious.