John Ringo: A Deeper Blue

“With it being WMD, hell yeah!” Adams said.

“Okay,” Nielson said. “You go break it to the Kildar. When you get his okay, I’ll call Pierson.”

“We taking Katya?” Vanner asked. “And has anyone seen J?”

“Two very good questions,” Nielson replied, smiling grimly. “You’re not him, are you?”

“Katya!”

Martya Dzintas wasn’t happy to be knocking on the girl’s door. But the noise was disrupting class.

Martya was fifteen, a harem girl and proud of it. She had been raised on a small farm not far from the caravanserai and at fourteen she’d been sold by her parents to a group of Chechens. She didn’t hold it against her parents; being “sent to town” was just one of those things. Not only did the Chechens have guns and a serious interest in buying the beautiful fourteen-year old, her parents needed the money.

She didn’t want to be a whore, which was what the Chechens intended for her, but there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. Except the Kildar. When the Chechens made the mistake of kidnapping one of the Keldara girls, the Kildar had responded with his usual understated manner.

After he had the girls in the van cleaned of the blood, though, he had a problem. None of the girls had homes to go back to. To their parents they were “no deposit, no return.” Not only were they, presumably, no longer virgins, the farms in the area were too marginal to bring another mouth back to feed.

The Kildar had, therefore, brought them into his own household as concubines. But he had a very odd view of what to do with harem slaves. The first rule he’d laid down, damn him, was that the girls had to be sixteen before he’d bed them. It was, as he pointed out, younger than his culture would consider “okay” but given that twelve was considered marriageable in the area it was a good median. The second rule he’d laid down was that the girls had to learn . When they were old enough he intended them to move on, to go get a job, go to university, get a husband, have kids, have a “real life.”

And he’d been careful and considerate in bedding them. Yes, he occasionally had an evening just to relieve his need, but most of the time the girls returned to the harem half unconscious with endorphins and ready to go back as soon as they recovered. The Kildar was as good in bed as he was in battle. None of the girls who had done so minded bedding him, not one bit.

And then there was the matter of status. This region was very backward and she’d come to understand that. It was not a normal place compared to the U.S. or Europe. But it was the culture she had been raised in. And in that culture, the Kildar had very high status. The Keldara, and the Kildar, were legends in the region long before the present Kildar arrived. It had been a long time since a true Kildar was in the valley, and the old people had bemoaned that. The new Kildar, furthermore, truly had brought back the good times. The Chechens no longer extorted “taxes” and burned farms when they didn’t pay up. They no longer stole children. They no longer took the food and livestock. And the money the Kildar brought in — often through killing Islamics which to the mostly Orthodox believers in the area was a good thing — spread out. Things were looking up in the region.

Thus, Martya’s status, even as a “harem slave,” was far higher than it had been as the daughter of a penniless farmer, much less as a whore. She loved the Kildar for bringing her into his household, for feeding her febrile mind through learning, for giving her status even in her parents’ eyes. And she was counting the days to her sixteenth birthday.

But at the moment, she had a problem. The noise from Katya’s room was disrupting class. Especially the whooping.

Katya was the one thing in the Kildar’s household Martya did not enjoy. The Russian whore was… evil. Mean didn’t begin to describe it. She would do small, petty, things that she could get away with to hurt the other girls. And there was little they could do about it. The whore was being trained by the Kildar as an “insertion agent,” a spy. And the Americans had given her special powers and, notably, poisoned fingernails. Even before she’d started training, all of the girls had feared her. Now they were terrified of her.

But she had changed after the last battle. She hardly put on anyone at all anymore and occasionally did nice things for them. She had fixed Nikki’s broken CD player. She had helped Martya with her English lessons.

But the girls weren’t willing to place too much faith in the unexplained change. Not with Katya.

So knocking on her door to ask her to turn down the stereo was the last thing that Martya wanted to do. But Tinata had insisted. Nobody was getting anything done.

The music cut off and the door was yanked open. The sight left Martya staring.

Katya was a very beautiful blonde, just medium height with bright blue eyes that could be cold as a shark or innocent as a virgin depending on her choice and mood. At the moment she was looking pissed, but not deadly. What had Martya’s attention, though, was that she was wearing a two-piece bathing suit and the top was dangling from her hand, leaving her topless.

The girls, naturally, had often seen each other naked. But answering the door holding the top of your bathing suit was unusual. As was wearing one in the depths of the Georgian winter. It was below zero Celsius outside and blowing hard. A bathing suit didn’t make much sense. Even with the heaters, the caravanserai was cold.

“Katya, please,” Martya said. “We cannot study with all the noise.”

“That’s a problem,” Katya admitted, lowering the suit. “Because I’m studying.”

“What?” Martya said, then noticed that there was another woman in the room. She was older and dressed in Western clothes. Not very pretty even when she was younger, Martya was sure.

“ That you don’t need to know,” Katya replied.

“Can you at least stop the whooping?” Martya asked. “That is what is getting us.”

“No, I need to do the whooping,” Katya said. “I won’t be doing this much longer. I think.”

“Okay,” Martya said with a sigh. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

“No problem,” Katya said. “I just need to get back in character.”

“Okay,” Martya said as the door closed in her face. “What did that mean?”

“I have to wonder if this is really necessary,” Katya said, waving the bathing suit back and forth. “And I’m freezing .”

“You’d be surprised how cold it can get at Daytona Beach in spring,” Jay replied, gesturing with his chin at the muted TV set. “Look at the nipples. Most of those girls are quite cold.”

“Yeah?” Katya said, striking a pose. “Well, look at mine.”

“I’ve seen them,” Jay replied evenly. “If you’re prepared to continue?”

“Why in the hell would I want to be on a ‘Girls Gone Wild’ video?” Katya asked.

“You don’t,” Jay replied. “Ever. Be assured of that. But you do need to learn to mimic the actions. Girls like that can get into virtually anywhere but a shield room, and you’d be surprised how many have made it that far. Playing the stupid, wild, partying slut is a very good cover. Among other things, if you have to avoid capture, slipping into that guise is a good way for a girl as good looking as you to disappear. Change your appearance slightly, go into a club and be the sluttiest slut there. Pick up one of the many guys who are hankering for you, take him home and stay there overnight. No hotel room, no traceable apartment. I can think of a thousand reasons to learn this particular cover. That you cannot troubles me.”