Rend, page 9
They’d called it quits early tonight because they inserted into the city one hour after sunrise tomorrow, which meant that they had to be at the airfield where they’d secured their gear by 0600 in order to kit up. It was just as well that they’d only gone to dinner instead of the bar because he needed to shower. There was no telling when he’d be able to do so again. The mission called for inserting into the city in the morning, completing all of their tasks and then pulling out before dark. Asher grinned as he remembered an old military axiom which said that no plan ever survived first contact.
Asher looked at himself in the mirror and grimaced. He needed to shave his beard off for his protective mask to get a proper seal and he was feeling nostalgic. He’d worn a beard for more than eighteen years, at first to help his team blend in at a distance with the local population in the hills of Afghanistan and Pakistan and then after he returned to the States, he kept the beard to help delineate him from the trainees attending the SERE course. Once he retired, he’d had the damn thing so long that it didn’t make any sense to shave it off, even if there was more gray in it than black nowadays.
Being clean-shaven was the only option now. If the rubber from the gas mask didn’t sit directly against his skin, then he’d risk the radiation leaking into the face shield and then he’d be doing the kickin’ chicken. Well, actually not, he corrected himself. That’s what happened to people exposed to nerve agents. Those exposed to high doses of radiation either died right away or developed awesome tumors in their bodies that killed them after a few years. Neither option was optimal, so it was best to keep all of his skin covered and not breathe the air.
He took the electric clippers that he’d paid way too much for at the local pharmacy and trimmed his beard as close as he could get with them. Asher suppressed a smile as he glanced down into the sink and saw the gray and dark brown hairs mingled together. As a guy, he’d never really used hair dryers or anything like that in the bathroom so he was concerned with somehow shocking himself to death before the zombies got a chance to eat him tomorrow. So, with a slightly over-exaggerated motion he unplugged the clippers from the wall and then turned on the water to wash the remains of his beard down the drain.
The hot shower felt amazing and he dialed it up as deep into the red as his body could stand. The constant hot water was about the only good thing about living in a hotel. At home, his water heater only allowed him to take at most, a fifteen-minute shower and sometimes he just stood under the water and stared vacantly at the wall. He convinced himself that long showers were simply relaxing and not girly like his father used to tell him, especially after so many years of living in austere environments.
After twenty minutes he’d finally had enough hot water so he rinsed off the soap residue and stepped out into the steamed-up bathroom. For the first time in as long as he could remember he had to wipe the fog from the mirror with a towel and apply shaving cream. He went gently with the new razor over his virgin skin for fear of nicking himself. He’d completed his neck and the right side of his face when a knock on the hotel room door interrupted him.
“Shit,” he muttered as he involuntarily jerked at the sound and cut his cheek. He quickly wrapped the towel around himself and opened the door, prepared to finally give the goddamned maid a piece of his mind. “Listen lady, I don’t need any fucking…”
He trailed off as Allyson’s eyes went wide at the sight of his scarred chest and then she recovered. “It’s a good thing that I didn’t come over here to offer you any fucking then,” she replied, smirking.
“I’m sorry, Allyson. I thought you were the maid offering me more towels. She’s already been by here twice tonight.”
“She was just trying to get a peek at you,” she quipped. “Can I come in? It doesn’t look appropriate for a woman to be standing in the doorway of a hotel room that isn’t hers.”
He stepped back and held the door open for her. “And going inside a hotel room that isn’t yours looks any better?”
“Point to you,” she replied and looked around the room until she found the desk chair. “Please, by all means, finish shaving before it dries and you have to reapply more cream. I’ll just sit here and check my email on my phone.”
“Ok, give me a few minutes, I’m still getting used to shaving again.”
“Yeah, I see that you’ve got a little cut on your cheek there.”
Asher started to say something about it being her fault, but thought better of it. “Thanks, I’ll make sure to be more careful.” He stepped into the bathroom and turned the water back on. The damned shaving cream had already gotten dry and foamy so he had to rinse off the old and apply a new layer.
He saw her shadow in the doorway and she said, “I wanted to come over here and tell you that the sniper teams are on station and have begun shooting the creatures and the sound buoys have been deployed at the prearranged locations.”
He grunted approval as he jutted his jaw out so the blade could get as close to his skin as possible. The pre-insertion plan called for several teams of snipers on Little Bird helicopters to hover and shoot everything that they saw. Like most of the ideas they’d come up with for this operation, there were pluses and minuses to it. The positive was that they believed the noise from the helicopter would help draw out some of the zombies from the downtown area, but the negative was that they might be drawing some in from the outskirts.
They had also dropped over a hundred sound buoys at various points across the city, starting within a half a mile of the Archives. The buoys were activated remotely and could be turned on or off, as needed, in order to further draw the creatures away from the operational area. Another key to the operation was that they had dedicated satellite and helo support, both gunships and cargo helicopters. Asher had insisted that be the case or else the mission was off.
He saw her finger extend along the door jam and gently run up and down the painted surface. “It’s a good plan, Asher. You should be proud of yourself.”
He pulled up on his cheek, sliding the razor in the opposite direction and then rinsed out the stubble into the sink. He watched the tiny black hairs swirl around the drain and disappear. “It’s the best we could do,” he replied. “I wish that they’d give us clearance to use artillery and blast them all to Hell, but they won’t.”
He patted his face dry and reached for the aftershave. “Guess I cut myself worse than I thought,” he remarked as he pointed at the blood on the white towel.
“Oh my God, are you okay?”
“Yeah, doesn’t really hurt until… ahh, yeah, there it is,” he grimaced as he rubbed the aftershave across the cut.
“Let me look at that you idiot,” she muttered as she leaned in and tilted his head up into the light. “You’ll be okay. It just looks a lot worse than it is.”
She pressed close against his toweled body and dropped her hand from his face to his chest. “I’m scared, Asher. This will be my first time facing these things. My entire team, the team that I directed from the safety of the headquarters, was killed the last time that we went into the city.”
He pulled her angular chin upwards and looked into her eyes. “You’ll be alright, Allyson,” he replied. “I’ll protect you.”
She stood on her toes and kissed him deeply on the mouth. His hand lowered and cupped her rear end to bring her closer to him. “Will you stay the night with me?” he breathed softly in her ear when they separated.
“Oh God, yes! I’ve wanted you to ask me that since that first day I met you,” she sighed and pulled him toward the bedroom. She kicked off her shoes as they settled onto the bed.
FOUR
08 March, 0552 hrs local
FBI Forward Field Headquarters Airfield
Quantico, Virginia
The morning arrived entirely too early for Asher and Allyson. They’d spent more of the night exploring each other’s bodies than they had sleeping. The room’s tiny coffee pot couldn’t keep up with their demand so they stopped by an espresso shop on the way to the airfield. They’d held hands like schoolchildren as they walked from the parking lot into the coffee shop.
The worker was already bored by the morning’s slow sales, but seeing the older man with the younger woman brought a smile to her face. Even if she was nothing but a trophy to him, the two of them looked like they truly enjoyed being in one another’s company. The barista wiped the foamed milk off of the steaming nozzle on the espresso machine while she watched them from under her hat. The woman helped the man make his coffee and their body language clearly indicated that they’d recently been intimate together. She continued to watch them as they walked out of the store to the man’s truck and he opened the door for her like an old-school gentleman.
Asher had finished his coffee by the time they pulled up to the airfield and shut off his vehicle. He leaned across the center console and pulled Allyson toward him so he could kiss her once more. “Probably better to keep our relationship under wraps,” he said with a slight smirk.
“We have a relationship?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “That’s quite presumptuous of you, Mr. Hawke.”
“I’m sorry Allyson, I didn’t mean that. I mean, we should keep what happened last night—and this morning—secret from everyone. It will just be easier.”
“I know what you meant. I’m just messing with you. Don’t worry; I know how to keep an office romance quiet.”
“I know. I just felt that I should mention it,” he replied.
“It’s okay—” she started to reply but a loud slap on the hood of the truck interrupted her. “Well, at least we don’t need to worry about breaking the news later on,” she murmured with a small wave at the HRT operative who’d slapped his hand on Asher’s truck.
“Hey guys, whatcha doin’?” the shooter asked.
“We’re just talking, Caleb. We’ll be in the hanger to suit up in a few minutes,” Asher replied.
“Sure, sure. What you guys do after hours is your business, man. Just remember to keep it professional once we go out on the mission.”
Asher flew out of the vehicle, flipped the FBI operator around and twisted his arm up into a hammerlock. “You don’t even have a clue who the fuck you’re dealing with, Caleb. I could fucking snap your pussy-ass FBI neck and the only thing that I’d think about is what was for breakfast,” he hissed in his ear. “I am in fucking charge of this fucking mission. If I said I’d be along shortly, then that’s what I meant. You fucking get me?”
“Yes… Yes, sir. I’m sorry,” the younger man replied through clenched teeth at the pain in his shoulder.
Asher released the pressure a little and said, “If we were in my community, I would have dislocated your shoulder and called in another shooter for the mission just to prove a point. I would never jeopardize a mission for any reason. Ever. I am not your friend. I am your superior officer. Don’t ever question me again,” he said with a shove on the man’s back toward the hangar.
Caleb turned around and painfully rotated his arm. “Watch your back, old man. You may be some hot-shit operator that the director is infatuated with, but stray bullets in a firefight don’t care who likes you.”
“Same goes for you, Caleb. Although my advice to you is that zombies don’t give a fuck what piece of shit they eat.”
The HRT operative flipped him the bird and walked toward the hangar. Asher sighed and noticed Allyson standing next to the hood of the truck on her side. “What the fuck was that, Asher?” she asked in shock. The whole incident had occurred in less than thirty seconds while she’d struggled to disconnect her seatbelt.
“He disrespected you and called my judgment into question by telling me to not screw up the mission. I can’t allow insubordination, that’s how people get killed.”
“You practically broke Caleb’s arm and then threatened his life. Are you… Are you okay?”
“You’ve read my psych eval. If that’s what you’re asking, then yes I’m fine.”
“Don’t do this, Asher. We’ve been great friends this week, and last night was amazing, so don’t shut me out. I need to know what’s going on in your head. Everything was fine and then you flipped the fuck out on someone for pointing out the relatively obvious.”
“I’ve spent the last thirty years in a zero defect society. If there was an issue, we dealt with it immediately. Issues have a way of growing into problems if you don’t deal with them quickly and effectively,” he replied before pausing and staring longingly into her eyes. “I’m sorry. We wouldn’t have tolerated that guy’s behavior in the Special Operations community. Maybe I overreacted a little bit.”
“Yeah, that’s not how things are handled in the real world,” she chastised him. “We talk through our problems and we don’t go around beating up people just because we can. Oh, and by the way, I’m in charge of this mission, not you. Get it?”
“You may be in charge of the overall mission, but I make the tactical calls once we’re inside The Wall, not you,” he retorted.
She tapped her fingers on the hood for a full ten seconds while she thought of a response that wouldn’t set him off, “You know what I mean. I’m ultimately responsible for this mission and the safety of everyone involved.”
“Of course you are. But I need to know that you will support my decisions in the field. There may be some extremely tough decisions to make. I’m prepared to make them and I’ll take responsibility for it.”
“I’ve already agreed to that. You’re the tactical team lead.”
“Okay, I’m glad we worked that out,” he said with a smile that melted her heart. She liked him, but he was maddeningly stubborn and she wasn’t entirely sure what the hell had just happened with him. After the Bureau decided that he was their man and Asher Hawke had agreed to the mission, the CIA gave her a little bit more of his file. The man was a legitimate hero, but no one would ever know about it. His level of involvement was so deep that most people in the Agency had no idea what his teams had been doing.
The file she received was redacted to the point that some parts were virtually unreadable, but it was enough to know that he probably had some major issues upstairs. In fact, that was what had nearly cost her the opportunity to use him. His psychological evaluations, both during service and after retirement, stated that he dealt with his issues sufficiently and that he wasn’t a danger to society, so the director had ultimately agreed to her decision. After witnessing him flip out on Caleb Campbell she hoped it wasn’t the wrong one.
“Asher, I want you to know that I think last night was wonderful,” she said as she stared across the vehicle at him. “But I don’t want things to change between us. We’ve had a great working relationship during training and you haven’t cut me any slack for not being one of the HRT-trained shooters. I—”
He surprised her by coming around the vehicle and wrapping her in his arms. In public. “Allyson, I won’t treat you any differently than I treat everyone else. I promise you. If I allowed you to slip up or cut corners, you might end up getting killed. I want you… Correction, I need you to be safe and come back from this mission. Alright?”
She nodded her head and whispered softly, “Thank you.”
He stepped back and clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Come on,” he grinned. “Let’s go kill some shit.”
*****
08 March, 0628 hrs local
FBI Forward Field Headquarters Airfield
Quantico, Virginia
Allyson felt like the goddamned Stay-Puffed Marshmallow Man in all the padding that she wore. She glanced at herself in the bathroom mirror and decided that she looked like a boy with her fiery hair tucked away underneath the mesh hood and the total lack of definition that the suit provided. She wrinkled her nose; she was already beginning to smell like a boy too. The only positive thing about the outfit was that it should do its job and keep zombies at bay.
Asher had insisted that members of the team wear a mesh sharksuit under their utility uniforms and bulletproof vests. The suits were designed to protect divers from accidental shark bites and could theoretically foil the teeth of a zombie. Thousands of tiny metal rings linked together to form a fine mesh layer of protection that was similar to the chain mail that medieval knights wore.
The suits that they’d been outfitted with covered every inch of their bodies except for the face area and Allison thought they looked more like footie pajamas—complete with an ass-flap in the back for using the restroom—than a protective measure. They also wore an extra shark-feeding sleeve on their arms where, theoretically, the biggest risk of a bite was. The entire getup was surprisingly light and quiet for the level of protection that it would offer the team.
She sighed and stepped awkwardly out of the restroom as she tried to get comfortable with the adult diaper she wore in case she had to go to the bathroom. It was a little uncomfortable walking around in the stuff, but they’d been able to train in it all day yesterday so she felt confident that it wouldn’t be too much of a hindrance and she’d get accustomed to it quickly. The good definitely outweighed the bad in this case. She’d taken the advice of fellow team members and baby powdered her body before putting the suit on, but now she wondered if she should have applied petroleum jelly instead, like she used for long-distance running. God, all I need is a heat rash in my crotch during a zombie-infested firefight! she thought as she walked down the hallway toward the hangar bay where her team would meet prior to loading the helicopters for the mission.
Allyson was mildly surprised to see that she wasn’t the last one in the room. Less than half of the team was assembled and she noticed Caleb slowly circling his shoulder to try and work out the soreness that Asher had inflicted. She made a beeline for the shooter. “Hey, Caleb. I need to talk to you for a second.”
“Sure thing, Allyson,” he remarked without even turning around. It didn’t surprise her that he knew who it was without seeing her since she was the only female on the team except for one of the artifact recovery specialists, whose voice sounded entirely different than hers.
