Back from the Dead

Damnit, I was hoping to get some sleep.
My phone was ringing. I hate it when my phone rings and the sun isn't up, but I don't really have the option of turning it off when I sleep, part of the job of being a PBE employee is that we're technically on call for the duration of our contracts. I looked over at the clock. 0300 local, I was in Madrid, supposedly taking it easy while my leg healed.
"Soren here, what is it?"
"Can you talk freely?"
It was BTDT, one of the few people who can give orders in the company that I actually have to listen to. I don't normally have to deal with "orders", I'm generally just attached to a team of shooters and told to do what they need done, which gives me a pretty large amount of autonomy. Still, if he was calling, it meant this was coming from the top.
"Get your ass back to the Chateau, immediately. Yes, I know you're on leave for the month. We lost a pair of operators in Florida, and we think one is still alive and being held captive. We're going to extract them both, and everyone not currently engaged in combat is coming back."
"They did what? They're actually holding one of ours alive? Do we know who these soon-to-be dying in a painful fashion assholes are?"
Somewhere up in Heaven, or more likely Hell, there's a list of things people have done that were recorded for posterity as notable examples of human stupidity. There's a fairly lengthy list of things people have done that guaranteed their demise, and if taunting the world's most notorious mercenary company wasn't on the list, I'm going to add it when I get there.
"No, we don't, but we have a rough idea where they are, out in the Keys. Frankly, their names don't matter, we'll search their bodies for ID."
"Yeah, we're on our way. We'll be there by...fuck, we'll be there as soon as we can. You'll get our ETA as soon as we get it."
Oh, yeah, I wasn't alone, either. I'd finally snagged a decent girlfriend, one who could actually deal with the hassle of dating a PBE employee, and instead of giving her the ring I'd gotten in Paris while we were in Switzerland next week, I'd be doing something personally violent to some shitstain in the Florida Keys, which is a place that's only romantic to people who've never been outside the US.
Damnit.
I got dressed, threw my gear into my day pack, and walked into the next room and turned on the lights.
"Kahlan, wake up. Rise and shine, darlin', it's time to get to work."
"uh, wha? Soren, it's not even dawn." She mumbled sleepily. "They said you had a month off for your leg to heal? What happened?"
"One of our guys got kidnapped, or so they think. Everyone on the payroll's getting called up."
That woke her up.
"Oh. Oh. Alright then, I'll be ready in five. We're taking a charter?"
"Unless stealing a plane is faster, but we need to get to Florida without stopping for gas, so probably."
You know those guys, the rich executive types, who've got a such a good relationship with some airline that they can hold planes without any reservations, that can just walk into an airport, flash a card, and get a free seat?
Well, PBE is kinda like that, only it's the charter companies that cater to us. A few phone calls later, I had the name of a guy at the airport who had a charter jet that had landed last night, and was supposed to be waiting in town for a few days for some executive type to get his business done.
I bet I'll pay more than the exec does.
Kahlan's good, she was ready in four minutes. We grabbed our stuff and left, the hotel the kind of place that had cabs waiting overnight just in case guests needed to leave. A signature for the charges at the desk, and we were gone.
It was another half hour to the airport in question, a smaller municipal place outside of Madrid proper. It only took a few minutes of haggling to get the pilot, an Italian, to abandon the exec for the next 48 hours. By haggling, I mean I offered the guy $5,000 in cash, with $10,000 more upon landing in Miami, and told him that with his accent, he wouldn't be spending the night alone unless he wanted to. He'd still be able to collect his executive fare as well, so this would be additional profit.
Just over 12 hours later, we touched down in Miami. A PBE SUV was waiting for us, and we got inside to find out that we'd be waiting another half hour for some operators coming in from Rio to land. While we waited, I was on the phone, trying to figure out where my plane was.
It turned out that PBE's AC-47, an old DC-3 that we'd picked up in Iran and upgraded the hell out of, was currently sitting in a hangar in India, along with a very, very pissed-off flight crew. Our single most valuable non-meat asset wouldn't be involved in this operation, not even as backup. Granted, raining fire from 3,000 feet into a compound that has hostages isn't the best way to get them out alive, but it's still a nice thing to have.
OK, so why do I need to be here? I can't do grunt work anymore, I'm barely up to walking a few miles and still being able to stand the next day.
We all got back to the Chateau by 1900. I'd seen our base full of people before, but we'd never been all called back like this. It wasn't a case of the normal staff plus a bunch of guests, these were all shooters. Nearly two hundred legit grunts, plus pilots, drivers, mechanics, and gunsmiths. Whatever was going on, it was certainly not going to stop after the sacking of one Florida Keys villa, that much was obvious.
I dropped my gear off at my quarters, grabbed my rifle from the armory, and headed to the chow hall. Kahlan and I had cleared out the meager amount of snack food that was on the charter plane, and PBE doesn't do drive-through orders from a fast-food joint. Or, at least, I was headed to the chow hall, an overhead announcement came through that everyone was ordered to head to the theater for a initial briefing, which would be followed by specialized briefings for various teams.
We all piled into the theater, nearly 300 personnel, about 275 of whom were carrying rifles. That we were on high alert had gone without saying, and because none of us knew what to expect, everyone who was authorized to had grabbed their rifles and was carrying hot. Normally, a family reunion like this would be a party, and the place would be full of laughter and smiles. This time, no one was laughing, and no one smiled.
It was an intimidating sight.
"Gentlemen, as you've all been told, Revived and Wombat, a probational operator, were attacked two days ago. Also a non-PBE guy named Sonny was kiled. He'd been doing some UC work for us, but we can get more of those without much trouble.
"From the information we've gathered, it appears that Revived is still alive, although the enemy has removed his tag. Wombat appears to be KIA. We've got a close enough trace on their location that we know they were, up until recently, in a certain villa. We don't really know who's behind this, but they just fucked with the wrong people. Their time on earth is nearly over, we're going to take down this entire group.
"We're going to split you up into five groups, one of which will be tasked with recovering Revived. The other four will be tasked with hitting the rest of the group that's behind this. We know that it's not a small-time gang of swamp rats, they've been promoting themselves as the guys are tough enough to have captured a PBE employee.
"Yeah, you heard that right. These shitstains are using Revived to put themselves on the radar. Well, we picked up the blip, and we're going to make them regret it. All right, that's enough for tonight. As you leave, stop by the mess hall, get some food, say "hi" to your friends, and find your newly-assigned platoons. PBE is officially at war."
I hate sad homecomings. The Chateau's always been an interesting place. For the first few years, while the company was pretty small, it had some empty parts, but when folks came "home", they'd get welcomed back, and we were a really tight family. As we grew, it stayed really tight, much like other elite units around the world. This time, however, we were back not because we were done fighting and it was time to relax, but because we were about to start a small war.
Not to mention that even if this went perfectly, we were still going to have to bury one of our own. He might have been a FNG, but he was still [i]our[/i] FNG, and the guys Wombat came through selection with were taking it pretty hard.
Regardless, it was good to see some old friends. The command staff and I had been working together for a decade now, and some of us had known each other for nearly 20 years. Before long, quiet laughter could be heard, and that was a good sign.
As we ate, the command staff was going from table to table, handing out envelopes. They contained our team assignments, and I was glad to see that they'd assigned us in a relatively logical fashion. We were going in by squad.
PBE normally runs teams of four, bigger assignments will get squads of eight, or multiple squads as needed. Squads get assigned to missions based on a lot of different factors, but outside of death and retirement, they generally keep the same guys. It makes for better unit cohesion when guys are familiar with each other. Support staff, like pilots, mechanics, cooks, etc, get assigned to whatever squad needs us.
No sense in paying a five-man flight crew sit on the runway while a squad halfway around the world goes without air support.
Anyways, since my plane was halfway around the world, I was being assigned to a helicopter as a door gunner. I'm not even remotely qualified to actually pilot a helo, but apparently that doesn't prevent me from sitting in the back with a belt-fed MG and covering the medics. If we get shot down, of course, I'll be about as useful as the guy we're extracting.
The basic plan was to send in two squads (16 shooters) by Zodiac, with the helo on station to get Revived out once he was found and freed. Once he was in the helo, one of the squads would exfil on the bird while the other would check for survivors, grab anything shiny that might tell us who these assholes are, then level the place and leave via boat. Additionally, a sniper team would be inserted on a small island offshore, and would get picked up by the exfil boats.
Who the fuck wrote this thing up? Shit, it's like five times as complicated as the standard "Kill everyone we don't know, then leave" plans we normally have. Those are solid plans, not this chess game shit.
I am a pilot. I fly in a line from place to place, occasionally making wide circles around things that need to die, or deftly flying past things that I shouldn't fly into. I have never really understood how the troopers can keep a complicated plan, complete with single-use code phrases, in their heads while they're getting shot at. More than I could ever do, anyways, but we all have things that we specialize in.
The op was set to start at 0400, so I went back to my quarters. "If possible, sleep" is one of those rules of war that no one ever talks about, but everyone who's ever been on an actual operation knows. An hour here, two hours there, and it's better than caffeine ever could be.
I got up around midnight, and by 0300, I was sitting in a helicopter in full body armor, with an M-60 on my lap, sweating my balls off because it was still 85 degrees with 85% humidity. I looked over, and both Bushwacker and Echo0Sierra had the exact same expression on their faces as I did. Nothing's more fun than the waiting game. Even worse was that none of us really had anything to say.
Seriously, fuck Florida. Oh, I know it's His Madness' adopted home, and it ain't a bad place to live, past the annual "God hates us all" hurricane season, but it's still a shitty place to fight a war. It's hot, it's humid, and it's fucking crawling with civilians. Not one of them is unaware of who PBE is, of course. If we do this wrong, it'll be all over the news before we even get back to the Chateau.
The radio crackled at 0315. The Zodiacs were five miles out, so we took off to play the next round of the waiting game, orbiting a random spot in the ocean and waiting for the good news. Ten minutes later, the second Zodiac dropped the snipers off at the small offshore island, and they immediately started an overwatch on the structure.
"Base, we're in position. Winds are light but steeady, and the building is lit up like a Christmas tree. The compound's got some lighting, but it's spotty, looks like their genset's not up to lighting interior and the exterior at the same time. Should be great for infiltration. Oh, and the guards are lazy as fuck. They're just standing around, but they're not watching their sectors. Standard weapons, nothing fancy, but there are a lot of cars in the lot."
"Copy, Swissguy. Stand by for the shooting to start. You're clear to kill everything you see once that happens."
"Copy that."
BTDT was taking personal command of this op, which meant that everything would go smoothly, so long as we didn't mess up too badly. He'd been there and done that enough that most contingencies had been planned for.
The man's getting old, though. He'd have his stars if he'd stayed in the .mil Damnit, he's only four years older than me. I'm getting old, too.
"Not yet." I muttered. Just loud enough to get picked up on the microphones we all wore.
"Not yet?" BTDT said angrly. "Get the fuck off comms, Soren. Green team GO! Blue team GO!"
Bushwacker reached over and punched the side of my helmet. You dumbass, he mouthed. I grimaced, I'd catch hell for that when we all got back. I have a push-to-talk button on the flight yoke, I can, and do, rant and rave while I'm flying without anybody knowing, but apparently the helo mics are always on.
The two entry teams had been practicing in a shoot house in a relatively part of the Chateau. PBE uses shoot houses in a way that makes most SWAT teams jealous, mostly because we don't really care if we light it on fire while we're practicing. We've torched them more than once, often just because HM wants a team to practice shooting in a burning building.
Practice, however, pays off. The opfor may have known the layout of their compound, but so did we. BTDT and his teams had crept to within scant feet of the fence, and once the command to attack was given, were over the fence in seconds.
They dispatched the first sentries with short bursts from their rifles, and Swissguy smoked the only guy that had been standin on the roof, then started watching the second-story windows, hoping someone would stop look look out at the ocean. The entry teams swiftly moved to the target buildings, setting charges on the vehicles they passed, and stacked up outside the main entry doors, and set small breaching charges.
While the op had been "quiet" so far, there's no way to be quiet while running inside a house, so the teams would enter with charges, kill everyone they didn't recognize, and hopefully find Revived alive. There wasn't any concern about damaging the building, we'd level it anyways.
I didn't get to see exactly what happened, but apparently they hadn't been expecting us. Not only had they not been expecting us, they'd been so not expecting us that they'd decided to have some friends over for dinner. While over a dozen men had been expected, there were nearly three dozen men, the majority of whom were wearing nice clothes that marked them as foreigners from all over the world.
I'm told that BTDT, upon entering through the shattered door and seeing the crowd, had simply ducked and fired his M203 into the far wall. The resultant explosion blew a hole threw it, and had the side effect of injuring half the crowd, which the fire team then mowed down.
Revived was found in the basement, as expected, and alive, which we had only been hoping. No one was really sure how "alive" he'd be, since we'd only heard rumors that he was alive. He was relatively fine, the beatings had apparently stopped soon after he'd been captured, although his arm had been broken pretty badly. Once he saw the rescuers, apparently he'd said something incoherent about sleeping angels, asked for a weapon, then collapsed.
The actual combat phase of the operation had taken just 13 minutes. We'd started flying in the instant we heard Revived was alive, and got to the LZ just seconds after the entry team did. Bushwacker and Echo ran out, strapped him to a stretcher board, and carried him back the the chopper, then the entry team fell back to the chopper by twos and we started the short flight home.
Considering I flew home from Madrid in the early morning yesterday, this seems really anti-climactic. I haven't even gotten to shoot anything, not even a pod of dolphins from the helicopter.
The radio crackled again. The boat team had finished loading computers, valuables, and Wombat's body into the Zodiacs, and were about to blow the place. We'd bury Wombat tomorrow, with as much formality as we buried anyone. Tonight, however, was to be a solemn night, and it'd be a few days before we got any solid data from the computers.
It wasn't our job to hide the bodies, although I didn't really want to know how much that would cost. Things were about to get very interesting. I was right about one thing, though: News reports of the demolition of the villa did make it on the air before the boat teams got back, but initial reports were indicating that an explosion had occured when a generator malfunctioned.
I was able to visit Revived in the infirmary the next morning, although he was still sleeping. Echo'd doped him up pretty good, and his arm was in a cast all the way up to his shoulder.
"Someone's gonna pay for this," I told him, even though he couldn't hear me.
I don't know who you are, but Payback is coming your way.

Crazy

"Oh, I'm in Tulsa. Some friends from the internets that I've never met offered me a place to stay indefinitely, and told me they'd try to get me a job, so I drove 1,560 miles out there to take them up on it."

"That's crazy!"

No, it just looks crazy. For most folks, I guess I understand that, but then again, most folks are walking meat puppets. They hardly ever think more than five minutes ahead, and rarely do anything but what (should) make their lives easier. However, to me it ranks up there as one of the more rational things I've done.

Why? Well, there's a philosophical concept I try to implement in my life, and while I don't know if there's an official term for it, I call it "being internally consistent". To me, it means that each of the disparate parts of my life, the various things I believe, do, and say, need to be as consistent as possible with all the other parts.

Of course, conflict is inevitable, so a hierarchy needs to be established. For me, that means everything starts with Christ. If I'm actually going to call myself a Christian, I can't put Christ fourth, third, or second, He's gotta be the first step, the bedrock upon which everything else is built.

The relevant part of this concept is that if I really believe that God speaks to people, and if I really believe that God is speaking to me, than I can't ignore it. If I really believe that God Himself is telling me to do something, I'd have to be absolutely mad to tell Him that I don't really feel like it.

So, when I was offered a place to stay in Tulsa, and told that the guys were going to try to get me a job, should I have turned that down to be homeless somewhere else? When I randomly met a Christian lady, while working a shift I wasn't scheduled for and didn't want to take, who told me how much she regretted not getting into mission aviation and how much I'd like Oklahoma, was I supposed to ascribe that to pure chance?

Maybe, maybe not. Even looking at my "options", I had three choices:

1. Keep working a part-time job in Spokane, renting a studio apartment for MORE than I was previously paying, with little-to-no chance of even breaking even, let alone paying stuff off so I can save up for school.

2. Move to Idaho, rent a very similar apartment, only I wouldn't have a job.

3. Move to Oklahoma, where I'd have a rent-free room for a while, some meals provided, and a fairly high chance of getting a really nice job with some pretty cool people.

Just looking at the options, Tulsa makes sense, even without the consistent answer to prayer, even without random folks telling me that I should go. But with it all taken together?

I'd have to be crazy to have done anything else. It was so obvious that I'm not even sure it qualifies as a "leap of Faith". It might, but I think I reserve the term for doing things that don't have a visible solution. Quitting a job for no reason other than God's telling me to quit, that took faith. Going to school without enough money to refill the gas tank once I got there, that took faith.

Driving to Oklahoma was one of the easiest things I've ever done. I have no doubt, absolutely none, that God will provide. He's done so before, and God's not going to abandon me now, just when things are really starting to get fun.

On the other hand, maybe I'm nuts. Hell, I went to a school 400 miles from home to get trained for a career that at the time, I didn't really want, and by the time I got thrown out, I had become as motivated as anyone I've ever met to be successful at it. Even after getting thrown out of the premier mission-av training school, I'm still locked on getting into mission aviation, and as long as God opens the doors I need open, that's where I'm headed.

I want to get into a career that basically doesn't come with a paycheck, flying in the second-most-dangerous flight environment I know of, only with less safety protocols than the first. And all because a voice in my head that I call "God" is telling me to.

Am I crazy? Yes, and no, and neither of them. Short form, God needs sane people to do sane things, and crazy people to do the crazy things. I may be crazy, but that's not the issue. The issue is, am I the right kind of crazy?

I say yes. The voice in my head agrees with me, and it's consistent with the rest of what I know and believe.

If that's "crazy", I don't want to be "sane".

Dancing (a deleted scene)

(This got cut out of "Rock and Roll", mostly because it didn't really fit the storyline. Had a lot of fun writing it, though, so I figured I'd post it as a one-off.)

I love a good night out on the town. It's always fun to watch people who have no idea what they're doing in life try to manipulate guys who have seen and done it all. We drove a PBE-marked SUV to the front door of one of the nicest nightclubs in the city. The steak was delicious, cooked to perfection, the milkshake was spectacular, and the ladies were beautiful. And young.

"Oh my God, are you guys with Payback Enterprises? Oh my God, this is so amazing!"

And stupid. BTDT winked at me.

I've got to start this, or BTDT's going to win tonight's bet.

"Ask her to dance, Balci."

The girl started babbling again.

"Balci. That's a cool name! Where are you from? Do you want to dance with me?"

Let's be honest. PBE gets the ladies. After a while, it stopped being fun to bet on who could charm a girl the fastest, mostly because the skank factor went through the roof when we got famous. Soon enough, the bet turned into who could do something "culturally different" and still charm the girl. In Arab countries, that meant alcohol, in Europe, it meant taking her to get tacos, and in America, it meant acting like a gentleman. America girls...lack class.

"Sure, ma'am. I'll talk to the DJ, I've got a song I want to hear."

A few quiet words later, Balci passed the DJ a few bills. "Yes, that one will do fine."

Miami has never really left the 1980s. It's still a neon-lit party town, full of tropically-clad girls and guys, only with less cocaine and more MDMA. The Bangles had been replaced by another pop harlot, but the personality hadn't changed a bit.

"Shall we?"

He led the girl onto the dance floor, paused for a second, then put an arm around her waist, and grabbed her left hand. The music stopped, rare for a dance club, and a piano piece started coming over the speakers. It was a complete waste of the sound system, Mozart had never been one for throbbing bass lines.

"I thought we were going dance?"

"And we shall, my dear, we shall."

Balci led her through a waltz, in the middle of a now-empty dance floor. He'd learned to dance properly while he was an honor guard for some king before his PBE days, and there are some things the body never forgets. She'd picked it up by the end of the song, and He nodded to the DJ to play another, similar piece.

By this time, Bushwacker was either having a seizure, or laughing his ass off, either way he was rolling on the ground. The normal club patrons had stopped buying drinks, and were wondering what the hell had happened to their dance party. Another waltz started playing, and the girl clearly wanted another dance.

"HEY. OLD MAN! Put the dance music back on!"

I looked over across hall. A frat member had recovered his shock enough to realize that most of the women were watching Balci, not his muscles, and probably figured he'd make up for grace with intimidation.

"This is dance music, and the lady and I were dancing, pup. Perhaps you and your lady can do the same?"

Balci turned back to the girl, and her eyes widened. He ducked, and the frat's punch threw him off balance. Fighting is a lot like dancing, it's a thing of grace and economy of motion. None of that is learned bench-pressing a keg, and from the booth, we started to smile.

"Leave, pup. You don't want to do this."

"Yes, I do."

He punched and missed, Balci punched back. Some of the kid's college-aged friends rushed in to help, four middle-aged bodyslayers in black polos jumped onto the dance floor.

"Balci, how did you manage to turn a waltz into a fucked-up version of West Side Story?"

"Pup's jealous of my dancing partner."

"This is our club, you old faggot men. Get the fuck out, before we put you in the hospital."

Balci thanked the girl for her time, and punched the kid in the face. It was on. I've always had a thing for bar brawls, the way two men fighting turns into 30, as people who've no reason to fight somehow still get involved. It's fun to watch happen, fun to start, and I'm always sober enough to talk my way out when the cops show up.

The fight cost me the bonus I got for bringing a plane back without bullet holes. Balci had officially started it, according to the manager, and while he appreciated our patronage and thanked Balci for showing the girl how to dance properly, he'd have to file charges if we didn't pay for the damage to the bar. HM raised an eyebrow, but I told him I thought it was a fair exchange, and paid the man.

The bet had been forgotten about. I suppose that means I won.

Rock and Roll, Part Six.

I woke up again to Bushwhacker and Kahlan arguing in the hallway.

"What? What's going on now?"

Bushwhacker stuck his head back inside the room.

"You're going home. To the Chateau, anyways. Your lady here..." I heard a cough "...Says we need to be careful with your leg, and we can't risk bending it. I'm trying to tell her that you'll be fine once we get you into the jet."

"Jet?"

"Private charter. Medevac back home. This area's too close to the shit to keep you here for another month, and these doctors suck. Echo's call, not mine. HM's saying the same thing, we are not going to risk anyone knowing you're here."

"Kahlan, Bushwhacker's not going to screw up my leg. Let him do his job."

"Soren, the stitches won't hold up to much strain. You need to be careful."

My wife used that same tone of voice.

"I'll be fine, Kahlan."

Bushwhacker's phone rang and he tapped his earpiece. "Yeah, copy that. ETA 15."

He shut his phone off and fished into his backpack.

"It's time, Soren."

"Good. I fucking hate hospitals. People die in these places."

Then he handed me a pistol.

"Oh, it's like that, then?"

I checked the chamber and mag, then tucked it under the blanket. I'm not a trooper, but even for a pilot, this was undignified. I'm a professional, it's just not right to be shooting from a moving hospital bed.

PAYBACK Dynamics: Art of the Tactical Bed.

"Bushie, if I have to shoot someone from a hospital bed while half-naked, it's going to be embarrassing for everyone present. You'd better defend my dignity."

"Dude, you've been shitting in a bedpan for eight days. Dignity is that thing you had, and can never get back."

"Oh, right. Just get me on the plane before I start shooting at random stuff."

There was an ambulance waiting outside. I'd actually never been in one and conscious before. Bushwhacker did a good job of getting me into the ambulance, I only wanted to shoot him once. The trip to the airport went smoothly, and we were airborne before I got to shoot at anything. Once they'd strapped me into the airplane, it wasn't long until I fell asleep again.

I woke up over the Atlantic. Bushwhacker was sleeping, and had apparently found the plane's minibar.

Good for him, he needs a day off.

"Kahlan, you awake?"

"Yes," came the reply "you up for talking? For the book?

"Yeah, it's story time."

"Mind if I record this?"

"Not really. You want I should start at the beginning?"

"Yeah, sure."

"OK, so the first job was in Best Korea. North Korea, it was back then..."

As war stories go, mine have never been the stuff of legends and medal citations, instead being the stuff of police reports and FBI investigations. I've spent a decade flying for PBE, and in that time have gotten more than my share of blood on my hands. I've killed people with rifles and pistols, I've dropped explosives on them, and even gotten personal with a knife a few times. That's excluding the kill squad that started it all.

No one really talks about the killing, we all understand that it's impossibly rare to find someone who's going to get it. The people who join up to kill people normally get killed pretty quick, they're not in it for the job, and they go off mission and get shot. A few of them have been retired, several by my hand. That sort of thing is simply impossible to explain to civilians, so no one does.

But shit, it was good to tell the story. I'll give Kahlan credit, once that tape recorder started, she only threw up once. She's seen my blood all over an airplane, but hearing me talk about the early days, when PBE worked with knives as often as gunfire, it just wasn't something she was ready for. I've never really gotten a thrill from killing the way a few of the troopers do, but I enjoyed my work as a pilot, and I was very good at it.

I'd told the story of the first years when the tape recorder started clicking. That thing had been running for six hours. Kahlan wasn't looking at me directly anymore, that had stopped when I'd started talking about that clusterfuck in Burma. I thought I saw the beginnings of tears in her eyes.

Shit. It doesn't look like this is going to end pleasantly.

We landed at the Chateau at dawn. Hotaru and the medical staff was there to debrief me. At least this time I had a wheelchair.

"Boss, I don't know if I'll be back on active duty very soon."

"Oh, that's fine, Soren," Hotaru was wearing that grin of his. "Once Echo's got you back on your feet, several of the training cadre have offered their rehabilitation services. They feel they can accelerate the healing process if they take shifts."

"How nice of them."

"Only the best, company motto. Miss, how is the research for your book going?"

Kahlan coughed. "Well, I think I've got plenty of raw data, the trick will be telling the story. I should have a manuscript in a few weeks."

"Wonderful. I'm looking forward to it. In the mean time, feel free to spend some time talking to Soren, who's off active duty for a while."

She walked into my quarters a few hours later.

"Your boss wants..." She began.

"Wants us to end up together." I cut her off. "I know, and while I don't know why, I know he's pushing it. Fuck. This. Shit."

"What?"

"Look, you're a nice lady, so I'll be honest. I'm getting older, but I'm not going to retire for another decade. You know as well as anyone what I do for a living, and why I keep doing it. You're a nice lady, but being a family man was a dream I gave up over a decade ago, and I don't know if you're going to be OK with living with a merc. It's not for everyone, you know that."

"Soren...why did you say that? You just shut me down and locked me out, didn't even give me a chance to tell you what I thought. Do you do that to everyone?"

"Just the ones I like."

She laughed. Not a cynical laugh, either, but an honest-to-God laugh, something born of amusement.

"You never did learn anything, did you? I've seen you at your very worst, heard you talk about darker days than I've ever read in a novel. But you know what I saw? I didn't see the stone-cold killer you are when you have to be, I saw the nice guy you are when you're off the clock. Soren, you're a good man, who just happens to be paid to do horrific things to people.

"Soren, You've spent a decade killing people, or helping other folks kill people, and you're still that awkwardly-nice guy that I knew back in college. You're in the shit, but you don't smell like it. For all you've done, you haven't let it corrupt you. There are dogs in that yard out there that are going to have to be put down one day. You know that, and it still bothers you. You don't mind the killing, but you hate that it has to be done.

"I listened to you talk for six hours about a job you hate, but one you do because you won't trust anyone else to do it right. Back in college, no one understood that. You'd even state it, but no one got it. I get it now."

"Kahlan," I held up a hand. "Do you know,"

"Shut the fuck up, Soren, before you disappear for another decade of my life."

"What?"

She kissed my hand, then gave me a hug.

"Soren, we both know who we are," she said into my shoulder. "Let's see where this goes. Get back on your feet, take some time off, and show me the world. Remember how I wanted to travel?"

"Yes, ma'am."

The End.

Rock and Roll, Part Five

"Troll Six Actual for Chateau Actual, over."

PanamaJack had been placed in charge of the combined team, which had been dubbed Troll Squad.

"Chateau Actual here. You're doing what exactly?"

"We think the Islamists will come here to bury themselves in the toughest bunker in the country, so we gonna, ya know, walk in and kill everyone inside after we've killed everyone outside."

"I said exactly, shithead."

"Blow the power lines, snipe the guards, hope the mortar teams don't find us in time, spook the guard and staff buildings, and generally cause chaos until everyone outside is dead. After that, find a vehicle, drive it down the tunnel, and politely ask them to open up."

"You have sixteen men. There are over one hundred guards at that installation, an unknown number of possibly-armed non-military personnel, and you are in hostile territory."

"We have sixteen men who can hit at a half-kilometer, and we're going to hit them from two sides and the barracks at the same time. There won't be anyone alive."

"Operational command is yours. Make the call, and don't forget that you have to be alive to get paid."

"We're going in tomorrow night at nightfall. Send everyone you can possibly send our way to help us out."

"We'll do what we can. Vendimus Mortem."

"Go ahead and fuck up their shit."

The reason they waited a day was to get snipers in position. The Americans had just taken Shahin Shar, and it was hoped that the Iranians would be too distracted by the Americans to notice a single van that had been parked on the other side of the mountains from the base.

Two hours after the call went out, a pair of UH-1 Hueys took off from an airfield outside Baghdad. Each bird had two pilots and six ice-eyed men in the back. They flew below the hills, hiding from the radar. Three hours later, they landed on a long, cratered airstrip just north of Shahin Shahr. The Americans had bombed the strip itself, then stationed a small Army detachment there to provide support for helicopter operations.

PBE has a surprising relationship with the United States Military. On one hand, we exist outside the chain of command, we don't even read their ROE, we don't take prisoners without charging extra, and we don't normally get along with anyone who bleeds flag colors. On the other hand, we often make magical phone calls to men wearing stars on their shoulders, and gates are opened, records are erased, and we walk past doors marked "Do not enter."

Within short order, the helicopters had been refueled, and some more phone calls were made. One was to HQ, telling the Boss that the QRF was in position. Another was to PJ, telling him the same thing. A third went to the local radio station, requesting Lady Gaga be played, and yet another, placed in fluent Farsi, asked a local man if he had Sheik Albert in a can.

The local food delivery service, sadly, had been destroyed during the invasion.

In Kandahar, a heavily-armed C-47 was fueled, and the crew ate a quick meal, preparing to sprint to the runway the instant the call came through. The holes in the fuselage had not been repaired, there would be time for cosmetic repairs another day.

In the dusty hills outside the Natanz Nuclear enrichment facility, four two-man teams got into position and began to wait, laying nearly motionless under dusty tan camo netting, sipping water and hoping they didn't get seen until it was time to start shooting.

In a regular military, if one was told to assault a facility that had 27 machine gun emplacements, an unknown number of mortar emplacements, an unknown number of heavy weapons kept inside buildings, and only had 16 men to assault the place with, they'd laugh nervously and refuse the mission. In a superpower's military, they'd soften the place up with artillery or airstrikes.

PBE just starts shooting. We're not going to pass up opportunities to complete the mission just because we're outnumbered. It's amazing what accurate long-range fire can do to even the odds.

The lead sniper on this mission was Jasta, a Canadian guy who'd joined up a few years back. He was amazing at long ranges, and had become PBE's top sniper when Swissguy had transfered to full-time training. He'd been tasked with coordinating the sniping attacks, and the instant the sun hit the horizon, he told the snipers glassing the gate to start.

The first rounds went downrange almost simultaneously, sailed through the windows of the guard huts without appreciably deflecting, and smashed into the chests of the two men who'd been distractedly discussing the progress of the war.

As soon as they went down, Jasta clicked the radio once, and the rest of the snipers opened up. The four teams had roughly encircled the eastern half of the facility, leaving the western approach where the assault team was waiting untouched. The snipers made quick work of the guards who'd been manning the towers, then went to work on the guards manning the weapons. At 500 yards, it was better to hit the guy with binoculars than the guy with the gun, because the guy with the gun couldn't see shit.

15 seconds after the first shot, a series of charges detonated, knocking over the first four high-tension powerlines leading into the facility. It was obvious that they'd have onsite power generation, but that wouldn't be able to power everything.

Standard assault doctrine is to weaken the approach side, and the flanks so that reinforcements will be slow in coming. A side benefit of that is that an untouched side will generally not be reinforced, which is why PJ's team had started low-crawling towards the wire the instant the lights went out. They stopped 50 meters short of the fenceline, breathing dirt and keeping grenade launchers aimed at the weapons emplacements.

The guards piled out of several different buildings and began to move towards the eastern side of the base. They started taking fire immediately, the snipers knew that it was easier to hit men running towards the fence than the men ducking behind walls, and they also knew the importance of disrupting the reinforcements as much as possible.

The radio crackled, informing PanamaJack that air support was 30 seconds out. The choppers were hiding just behind the mountain, waiting for the Spooky to blow the big stuff up before the air assault guys came in. And that's when everything went wrong.

One of the snipers saw it first, a column of dust snaking it's way up the desert towards the facility. Towards an already-outnumbered squad of mercs trying to shoot their way into a fortified compound.

"Fuck, we've got incoming!"

"OK, Cobra: check it out! Entry team: BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!"

Six 40-mm grenades were launched almost instantly, destroying the two closest gun emplacements, as well as the watch towers and the small huts next to them. The barbed wire took four more grenades to clear a small path through, and then it became a standard street-to-street operation. During the day, that would have been dicey, but at night with most of the lights out, the PBE troopers were as gods among children.

"PJ! Jasta, the column's the fucking Americans! They're telling us to abort the operation immediately!"

"What? We're in a fucking firefight, tell them we'll stop when we're not getting shot at!"

"They're pissed!"

"So am I! Payback, stay put, but do NOT let yourself get shot."

Four minutes, the Americans reached the front gate and officially joined the fight. Nothing PBE troopers carry has quite the effect of Abrams-mounted M2 machine guns, so once they started shooting, our troopers dove for cover and stayed down.

"PJ, Cobra here. I've told the Americans your location, they're ordering us to stand down and approach the column."

"Fuckers. All right, tell them we're in. Do not let them shoot at us. Jasta, get your men in here, we're done for the day."

It can't be said that the Americans aren't good in a fight. They tore through the remaining defenders with a ferocity rarely seen on the battlefield, and they moved with incredible coordination. These were definitely not the rank-and-file grunts we'd seen in action in Chile a few years before.

"Payback? Who the fuck's in charge of you assholes?"

However, it didn't seem their attitudes had improved any.

PJ stepped forward. "Technically, Colonel, I am in charge of this operation. At least until His Madness releases me from command."

"Ok, get your boys out of here. You're not authorized..." Some of the troopers laughed "...to be assaulting this facility."

"Our contract reads..."

"If you don't get the fuck out of here, your contract will be canceled and your boys will be listed KIA. You arrogant mercs, you think you can just waltz in and out of our combat zone, doing anything you like? You guys are thugs in polo shirts, nothing but the latest generation of thugs and contract killers."

"Well, Colonel, we're sorry that we didn't leave enough combat for you. I'll have a chat with my boss, and we'll clear out."

"You've got fifteen minutes."

PanamaJack walked around the corner and fished his satellite phone out of his backpack.

"Hotaru, what the fuck's going on?"

"Officially, the contract is being listed as fulfilled, but unofficially, the Americans are so pissed they can barely talk. Apparently, they're shitting themselves that the press might find out and/or the durkas might have a failsafe in there. They want this place intact, and they damn sure don't want us taking it for them."

"We're getting paid, right?"

"That's still under discussion."

"Paid or Payback, we're coming home."

Rock and Roll, Part Four.

I woke up staring at a white tile ceiling, listening to something beep rhythmically. My head was fuzzy.

What happened?

"Where am I? Kahlan? What happened?"

"You got shot, Soren. We're in a Catholic hospital in Azerbaijan."

"You're here?"

"Yeah. Bushwackers's here too."

"Bro, what happened?"

"You nearly completed the mission with that fuckin' nuke of yours."

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah, so apparently the Ayatollah was hosting a party that night at Khomenei's mosque. That bomb you dropped leveled the building, took out 11 of the 23 Islamists we were paid to hunt. PJ's team hit one of the safehouses the next night, got 6 more."

"Why are you here?"

"I got called in to keep an eye on your until they can move you. Wut's team went in two days ago, they're still in-theatre with PJ's team."

"How long was I out?"

"You've been in a medically-induced coma for three days. You got winged by a fuckin' Ma Deuce on your right leg. You nearly bled out on the plane, and these nuns put five pints of blood into you while they stitched on your leg. Then that shit got infected, and you nearly died again. You're still sick, but I told the doctors that we're moving you out of the area before news of our presence leaks to the press."

"Well, all that from a near miss. If it had hit me, it would have blown me in half."

Bushwacker yanked the the blanket off the bed. My leg was bandaged, but it was obvious I'd have a huge, puckered scar for the rest of my life. The round had definitely hit me, but another two inches and it would have missed me entirely. He grabbed the chart from the foot of the bed.

"You damn near lost your leg, asshole."

"How long until I walk again?"

"You start PT as soon as the doctors say the muscles have healed enough." He took a deep breath. "Soren, that's going to be nearly a month. You're going to be off active duty for a couple months at the least. You're going to have a limp, and running may never be possible."

I started laughing. "Well, that's not too bad. I was worried this was serious."

Kahlan looked at me worriedly, then Bushwacker chuckled.

"The Mad Hatter's going to be fine, ma'am. If he's alive enough to laugh, he'll pull through."

"Mad Hatter?"

"Just another name we have for this asshole."

I fell asleep again.

Panamajack's team had inserted flawlessly. Splashing into the resevoir in a line 150 yards long, they'd regrouped and come onshore in a well-rehearsed manner. Sneaking into the utility yard at the dam itself, they'd stolen a utility van and driven into Tehran at night. There they'd selected a storage facility from a list of predetermined safe houses, backed the van in, and slept.

News of the bombing had greeted them with their morning communiques from the Chateau. Locally, they'd been able to determine who'd been killed, and had relayed to the Chateau that almost all of the primary targets had been wiped. Along with the continuing PR fallout from the porn video, Iran was erupting in chaos.

They'd hit the primary safehouse the following night, taking the chance that the Islamic leadership would hunker down there the first night, then move on. They were right, they'd gotten six more of the bastards. All of them had been executed, on their knees. The message was simple: They died like weaklings, not in battle.

Along with the primaries, they'd also recovered some intelligence that none of us had wanted to find. Not only had Iran been pursuing nukes, which everyone knew, they'd actually made some. Not in the megaton range, thankfully, nor especially small, but they had at least three Little Boy-type bombs. Small enough to put in a moving van, big enough to wipe out a city, simple enough that an idiot could set one off.

That information had been passed on to the US almost immediately, who had thanked PBE, then given prompt orders to find and kill the last six guys and then work on the nukes. Luckily for us, PBE's second team was ready to go, and was inserted the next day, although they had to swim in from the Caspian.

The decapitation of Iran's Islamic leadership had caused the US military to advance it's airstrike timetable by two days. Anything made of steel started getting bombed the night after Wut's team was inserted. By the third day, Iran's air force was reduced to scrap, and US fighter-bombers were given free reign to kill anything they wanted, any time they wanted.

That's a nasty environment for a pair of 8-man tactical teams to work in. Air force pilots simply don't give a shit if they kill some mercs, most of them view us as amoral assholes who profit from war. Consequently, instead of being able to do their job, they hunkered down and waited for the flyboys to calm down.

That turned out to cost us. Realizing that there were assassination teams in the area after the first safehouse had gotten hit, the Islamic leadership had abandoned it's plan to run from house to house, and instead hooked up with a detachment of the Quds Force for safety. The only thing worse than hitting a moving target is hitting one protected by a detachment of an elite unit.

The troopers suddenly found themselves tracking a moving target that they couldn't come close to defeating.

On the other hand, it's a hell of a lot easier to find a group of 80 than a group of 8. The Islamic leadership had traded concealment for cover, and it was going to cost them. The Americans had started the ground war the day the air war quieted down, and the imams were going to run out of space to run around in damned soon.

It was Wut's team that came up with the idea to draw them out. He'd realized that they'd run unless Quds force could be drawn into attacking them, and if they could be baited enough to commit, we could drop the hammer on them like Thor fighting a serpent.

The biggest, shiniest thing left in Iran was the nuclear enrichment center at Natanz. The US was planning on taking it intact, they wanted proof that Iran had nukes. The couldn't bomb anywhere near it for political reasons, the last thing they could afford was to irradiate part of the country they'd decided to free the shit out of.

A pair of white delivery fans left Tehran the next morning, and drove to Tehran. As scenic drives go, it was rathe boring, they passed little but bombed-out military buildings and burning vehicles. Four hours later, they pulled off the highway a few miles short the Natanz Nuclear Enrichment Facility, or whatever the Iranians were calling it.

Rock and Roll, Part Three.

The preferred SEAL method of entering highly hostile territory is a HAHO jump. They'll jump out of a airplane at 30,000 feet, pop a chute, and float 30 miles to their LZ, then do their whole sneaky bastard thing. It's extremely effective, unless of course the country being snuck into has been setting up to defend against Israeli airstrikes for 20 years. With Iran, that simply wasn't an option from any direction, they weren't unaware that the US had invaded Afghanistan two decades prior. The entire country bristled with AA.

Of course, that's only the preferred method if you don't have pilots who specialize in low-altitude insanity. Staos and I were going to fly in from Dubai at about 50 feet above the waves, fly through Iran at about 75 feet above the dirt, drop an 8-man team of shooters into the reservoir just out of town without even slowing down, then buzz a few towns on the way out of the country, dodge the Caspian Sea portion of the Iranian navy, then land in Baki, Azerbaijan.

The shooters would sneak and steal their way into Tehran, wait for the signal while taking pictures, then slaughter their way through as many of Allah's chosen as possible when we got the signal. They'd be working in the same area as several other SF and SOF teams, and the chances of having a friendly-fire incident always goes up when those guys start calling in airstrikes.

PMCs, if they even have the capability, make damned sure that they don't accidentally splash a Coalition squad when airstrikes are called in. On the reverse, we don't always have those neat little IR strobes that mark us as friendlies. Also, they don't always let us know that cruise missiles are inbound, and one particularly unlucky PMC had lost an entire 8-man force when a SEAL team had targeted a bomb factory and didn't know the mercs were in the area.

PanamaJack's team met up with me in Iraq. We hadn't worked together in a while, but it's always cool to see old friends. His team is one of the more lethal teams in the company, they've got a reputation for shooting first, hitting the target, then shooting again just to make sure. Definitely the people we wanted to send in first, I'd pick up Wut?'s team in Azerbaijan and be ready to deploy them as backup if things really went south.

We took off just after dusk, and reached the Iranian shoreline just as night really fell. I'd been assigned a copilot for this op, Staos had finally gotten certified to our standards on multiple-engine aircraft. He was another guy who'd come from the website, and had spent years battling a heroin addiction. He'd beaten it eventually, and had come looking for us when we started getting famous.

Night flying is a boring exercise for everyone but the pilots. Especially when we're flying over Iran, which is a boring place to fly over anyways. Even at our stupidly low altitude, we didn't see much that shone in the night. Occasional huts were lit up, but on the whole, we were flying in darkness, past darkness. Just the way I liked it, to be sure.

Four hours of low-level flying after we cross the shoreline, I let the troopers know that we were about to fly over the drop point. This was going to be the hairy part, they'd leave a plane going 150 miles an hour over a lake at night low enough that their chutes would really only slow them enough to not skip across the surface of the lake like stones.

The cabin radio started blasting The Clash's Rock the Casbah, the green light went on, and mercs started the invasion. Eight men, with a week's worth of supplies, jumped out of an airplane flying 175 miles an hour only 75 feet above the water.

I turned the plane to follow the valley out to the coast. It would take us about 20 minutes to get there, and we weren't done with the dangerous portion of the flight.

If I get seen, we're going to have to make sure that they dont't think we dropped off a team. That means carnage on a serious scale.

"Make ready the port-side cannons!"

"Aye, Cap'n. "

My jumpmaster, an older Shogun named Mike, opened and secured the gun windows on the pilot's side of the airplane. We now had a pair of GM-134 miniguns and a 20mm cannon that used to be attached to a Messerschmitt aimed out the port side of the airplane. All were computer-controlled, aimed by the comms guy sitting behind me and staring at a pair of IR feeds. The miniguns were paired together, the cannon could be aimed somewhat independently if necessary.

"Mr. Torpido, let me the know the exact second we get spotted. We're about to hit the coastal areas, and we're going to be noticed."

They knew all this, and they knew that I knew that they knew, but decorum has to be maintained. One of the lessons of leadership is that leaders should always appear to be in charge, and I'm the pilot, which makes me the leader.

I always wanted to be a pirate, though.

I couldn't fly any lower, and with the troopers out of the building and the fuel load where it was, I was flying as fast the engines would haul us. We roared past first one lit house, then two more, then we were in the city.

There. That's the line.

I realized I was holding my breath. I hadn't been this on edge for a long time. I took a deep breath. We'd be fine.

"Shit! They know we're here. Radio just lit up like a Christmas tree!"

"Alright boys, we're on Plan B. have they launched any airplanes yet?"

"No, but Command says the military comms just went crazy."

"Fuck it. Plan C, everyone."

I wrenched us into a hard left turn. We had to go downtown, to make some noise. We couldn't let them know we'd dropped a tactical team in the resevoir outside town.

"Mr. Mike, make something important blow up. Preferably something that will really piss them off."

"Cap'n, your choices are the Parliment building or Khomenei's mosque."

"Mr. Mike, drop the bomb on the mosque, if we can hit it."

The original plan had been to fly low and fast out over the coast and go to Azerbaijan. The backup to that was to fly out a different way, still going to Azerbaijan. The backup to that was to make it look like an attempted assassination of someone really important. Subtlety is key in our business, but the best way to cover up an infiltration is to do something insanely obvious, and make it look like an accident.

Strapped to the back wall of the cargo hold were two 100-quart Rubbermaid coolers, solidly wrapped in five rolls of duct tape. Inside them, we'd stacked 99.5 gallons' worth of C4 blocks, and topped them off with a 3-minute delayed fuse and a parachute. Much like jump troopers in WWII, the chute was static-lined to the plane. Unlike the jump troopers, so was the fuse.

Technically, the closure rate for a ground target is the same whether the aircraft is 50 feet off the ground or 5,000. The calculation is rather simple: One aircraft, traveling at 225 miles an hour relative to the target, should release a chute-retarded package pretty much right over the target. Chutes go straight down, after all.

It helps when the target is lit up brighter than anything else in the city. The bombs got kicked out 3 seconds apart, I made a hard turn to the north, and firewalled the throttles. The coast was now 12 minutes away, the bomb would go off in three.

We'd just left Tehran's airspace when the sky lit up. We'd have to wait for the news cameras to show up to see what we'd hit, but a pair of coolers full of over 350 pounds pounds of exploding Composition C-4 each were bound to make a dent in whatever it had landed on.

It also makes a amazing distraction.

For the next 9 minutes, we flew lower than anyone sane would try. My eyes were throbbing, I'd been wearing wide-angle NVGs for six hours. We finally hit the coast, and I told my copilot to take us the rest of the way while I searched for some painkillers.

That was when the tracers found us. A ragged line of holes went through the starboard side of the aircraft and a matching set appeared in the top of the plane. I reflexively dove for the deck.

"What the fuck just shot us?"

"Patrol boat. Starboard side, 400 yards."

"KILL IT!!"

"Aye!"

Staos pulled the plane into a hard port turn. We could sink most boats, bet we had to be turning to port to do it. Another burst rippled our way, some of it hit the plane. I tried to stand up, but the plane was at too much of an angle, and I bounced off the wall and into a jump seat.

Damnit, why's my leg hurt so bad? I must have fallen into something.

I heard Kahlan scream.

Fuck, I hope she's OK.

Then the turn was completed, and Torpido jammed the firing button down. A standard GM-134 minigun has the barrels zeroed, meaning that all of them are aimed at the same place. When HM had first talked with me about making our C-47 into a Spooky, we'd decided to have the miniguns adjusted so that the six barrels would hit each point and the center of a 2-MOA star. At the 600 yards from us to the patrol boat, that meant a pattern about 12 inches across.

Holy shit are those loud.

A third-party observer would have seen twin bars of light reach across the distance between the plane and the boat. To me, looking out the window from a jump seat, it looked like fireflies gently floating out to the boat. The boat captain just saw a spray of death headed his way at 2,800 feet per second, and died befoe he realized what it was.

Torpido walked the miniguns' fire down to the waterline, back to the stern, then up and off the bow. He'd kept the cannon tracking the cabin, filling it with fire and death. The lights on the boat went out almost immediately, then the boat stopped in the water.

"Soren, the boat's toast."

"Good."

What's wrong with my ears? My voice sounds funny.

"Soren?" I heard a girl call. "SOREN!"

Fuckin' NVG migraine, I can barely see anything.

"Shit! He's been hit!" a man's voice said.

Who?

Then things went black.