John Ringo - A Deeper Blue

As a fork of lightning rippled the horizon, the door of the bird slid open and a man in casual clothes, slacks, polo shirt, nice shoes, got out in the driving rain. If he noticed that it was pouring, it was not apparent. He was medium height with a heavy build and brown hair that flowed onto his forehead in the storm. He strode through the downpour, not bothering to duck the rotors, straight up to the door.

“You Ryan?” the man said.

“Admiral Ryan, yes,” the admiral said, straightening up. “And you are?”

“You can call me the Kildar,” the man said, turning to the DEA rep, his head tracking like a turret. “Who are you?”

“Bob Johnson,” the DEA rep said, sticking out his hand. “What kind of a name is Kildar?”

“The kind that will cut your fucking hand off if you don’t pull it back,” Mike said, tracking back to the admiral. “I read the report on this clusterfuck on the bird over. If you fuck with me I will have you chipping paint the next morning. In Diego Garcia. Are we clear?”

“Clear,” the admiral said, his jaw flexing.

“You are going to open Harmony and every other base you’ve got, fully,” Mike continued. “But my top intel guy is in a coma in the hospital so I need an intel spec familiar with your systems and DEA’s and FBI’s and every other fucking acronym. I need her by tomorrow. Somebody who is not PC and doesn’t give a fuck what happens to terrorists. Tell her to take a plane to Nassau, send her data to me, pic, name, the whole deal. This time don’t leave anything out. I’ll take over from there.”

“Her?” Ryan asked, raising his eyebrows.

“All my intel people but one are women,” Mike said. “The one is in the hospital. I’m not going to explain to some cockhound know-it-all to sit the fuck down. Her. Tomorrow. In Nassau.” He spun on his heel and headed back out into the storm.

“Where are you going?” the DEA rep asked sharply. “The command center is here .”

“I’m going where you dick-brains can’t fuck my op up,” Mike said, pausing but not turning around. “ Your job from here on out is to give me intel. I’ll take it from there.”

Mike walked in the hospital room and shook his head.

“You grow ’em up, you let ’em wear shoes…”

“Hey, Boss,” Adams said, wincing. “I’m good. Get these canker merchants to let me go.” He was wheezing as he said it.

“You’ve got GSWs to the upper chest,” Mike pointed out. “That’s not something you just up and walk away from. Not even you, Master Chief.”

“You see Vanner?” Adams said, looking away.

“Yeah,” Mike said. “Still in ICU. Doc says he’s probably going to make it. But he’s unconscious, still. Not a coma they tell me, just sleeping. I told the doc I could wake him up if he wanted me to. They didn’t think it was very funny. But I need him back at work.”

“I can work,” Adams said, flexing his jaw. “If you still want me.”

“I was stressed,” Mike said, walking over and sitting on the bed. “I’d like to have you back. You okay with coming back?”

“I’m good,” the master chief said, looking away. “Sorry about what I said.”

“Not an issue,” Mike replied. “I’d heard the crybaby line before, by the way. From the team chief. Right before I told him to shove it up his ass. But I’ve had a long time to think about it, too…”

“I was wrong to say it,” Adams said. “Whatever you are, you’re not a crybaby.”

“Wrong,” Mike said. “From his perspective, from yours, I am . Want to hear the rest?”

“This crybaby time?” Adams said. “Because I could cry a fucking bucket. I really fucked up.”

“No, you didn’t,” Mike said. “I did. I sent you out on something that I knew was over your head. That’s my fuck-up, Chuck. And that’s what this is about. You got your thinking cap on, Master Chief?”

“Go,” Adams said.

“What’s a crybaby?” Mike asked. “I never shed a tear on the teams. Never whined. Never quit. But there was something different about me. I didn’t fit in. It came across to the team chief as soft and in a way it is. You’re always asking how come I can make the girls happy. That’s part of it, too. You starting to get a feeling, here?”

“When you were talking about stalking,” Adams said, nodding. “Something about feeling the other guy.”

“It’s called empathy,” Mike said. “But it’s more than that. It’s a… feel for a situation. I don’t know if the alarm bells would have gone off on that op or not, but they have from time to time. You remember how I was so heavy on ammo for the raid on the last op?”

“Too much for what we were doing,” Adams said, nodding. “Especially since we had to hump it all in.”

“I knew that it was going to go to hell,” Mike said. “Not how bad, but I knew it was going to go to hell. It’s a sense, not just when things are right in front of me but broader. It’s one of the reasons I can command well, too. I can sense the needs of the guys, sometimes before they even know they’re there. But having that sense… it makes me soft. Soft like an M M. Crunchy on the outside with a softy candy inside. Not much breaks that shell, but…”

“When it breaks,” Adams said.

“Yep,” Mike said, standing up and heading to the door. “One difference. When it breaks, then reforms, well, there’s a good side and a bad side. Good side is, there ain’t much crybaby there, now. Bad side… there ain’t much of anything at all.”

Lieutenant Britney Harder watched, fascinated, as the Lynx helo dropped towards the broad deck of the yacht.

The entire transfer had been interesting. First she’d received a call to report to the SOCOM commander. Not his office, the general. There she’d been handed tickets and told to wear civilian clothes. She was going to Nassau and that was all the general either knew or was going to tell her.

At first she’d been pissed. There was a major op going down right next door in Miami. She’d only caught pieces of it, it wasn’t in her compartment, but it was big. Sooner or later she was going to get in. And she knew the op involved fucking muj. Britney seriously wanted a piece of anything that hurt Islamic terrorists. She had scores to settle.

But she hadn’t been drawn in and, honestly, she probably wouldn’t be. She’d drawn the South American shop, the Narc Shop as they put it. There was a low probability that she’d have a chance to do anything about the fucking muj. So flying to the Bahamas wasn’t all bad.

When she’d arrived at the airport, though, she hadn’t known where to go. When a man walked up and looked her up and down she’d assumed he was just more obvious than normal.

Britney Harder was 5’5” tall with long, curly, blonde hair, a deeply cleft chin and a gorgeous if underendowed figure. She also had an issue with guys just examining her at close range. She’d gotten over having issues with guys, period, but she still didn’t care for jerks who couldn’t keep their eyes in their heads.

“Can I help you?” she’d snapped.

“Lieutenant Harder?” the man had said. Accent. Balkans or Russian. Slavic derivation, anyway.

“Yes.”

“Come.”

He’d led her out to the Lynx, opened the door politely, then climbed in behind.

The pilots were females, Americans from what she’d caught of the accent, and they were good . The cold front that had pushed through Florida was breaking up over the southern Bahamas but Nassau still caught a piece of it. The skies were gray and the wind was whipping but if either pilot cared it wasn’t apparent.

The ride had been rough but Britney kept her light breakfast. She’d once been one of those kids who could throw up in a second if it meant avoiding school. And it helped during her brief bulimic period in high school. But once upon a time she’d seen some things, done some things, that made throwing up thereafter pretty much pointless.