Zeus and Io Books 1 and 2Chapter 16
- 4 years ago
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"Well, you've really bought yourself a boat load of trouble, this time," Master Chief Martinez said in my head.
I think she'll be fine. You know, I did it on purpose. I think she'll be more effective as a decoy if she's got something to prove.
"Maybe. But you might wind up paying more of a price than one little decoy-mission is worth."
Done is done. We'll have to see how it works out, I answered back.
I easily caught up with Arti, but neither of us said anything. So we marched the mile to a grove of stunted, desert trees that had a view of the building. It was a low adobe cabin, one window on the left side of the door, a tin roof that was extended to give a bit of shade to a front porch area. There was a beat up looking SUV-type vehicle on the right. No sign of a tomato delivery truck anywhere.
We settled in, two clumps of desert soil in the mottled shade of a tree.
I clicked on the satellite link that would enable our ITEs to talk to Io, and then activated the ITE.
"Io, are you there?"
There was a brief delay as the signal bounced off the satellite. "I am here, Zeus," she replied.
"We're at the GPS coordinates, but there's no sign of any tomato truck."
"That is right. The truck unloaded three bodies last night and then turned back. There were two men who stayed behind."
"Bodies?" I asked, before Martinez could scream it into my head.
"Yes, they were unconscious. There were IV bottles attached to each of them."
"Thanks, Io."
I was about to cut the satellite connection, when Arti spoke up.
"Io, I'm having a little trouble with my memory. Who was it who got the drop on the assassin from 5225, and then dragged Zeus back to the car? Was that me or Sonny?" she asked, icicles in her voice.
"Surely you remember that was you, Arti? Why?" answered our computer friend.
"Okay. Thanks partner. You make a good team member, Io," she said.
I waited another thirty seconds and then clicked off the satellite connection.
"You better fix this. I like Arti," said Martinez.
So do I, Master Chief, so do I, I thought back at him.
"You got a damn queer way of showing it. You wouldn't pull that shit on me."
"Listen, Arti, I'm sorry. I just..." I began, aloud.
"Voice travels far in the desert," she whispered in a harsh tone. "Shh."
"It ain't gonna be easy," said my MCPO.
ArtemisThe sun sets quickly in the desert. One minute it's up and there's light all around. The next minute it's dark.
I gathered my spotting equipment and the infrared monocular and stood up.
"Where are you going?" whispered Zeus.
"The infrared only works at two hundred yards, maximum. I want to see who and how many are inside that building," I answered.
"Okay."
He gathered up his rifle and followed me down a little gully toward the cabin. I stopped every few yards and looked through the monocular. Who knew how far two hundred yards was to a building you could barely see in the starlight. The moon wasn't up yet.
Finally I could see forms inside through the walls. I moved a few dozen yards closer and picked out a good spot for Zeus to set up. I broke out the spotting equipment, flopped to the ground, and was still, waiting for him.
I sighted in on the front door and read him the parameters just as he was almost dug in.
"Did you say 175 to the front door?" he said, turning some dials.
I turned my head to look at him. "Do you want them all again? ... No wind, distance to the front door is 175, lat is..."
"No, I got 'em ... thanks. And I'm sorry about before," he whispered.
"Not now," I cut him off again. "It's mission time."
I began to take off my ghillie suit, and got out my knife to cut up my regular clothes. I'd be better 'honey' for the flies if I was wearing something besides combat gear. Zeus had reached into one of the cargo pockets of his pants and threw me some of my own clothes.
They were a pair of my shortest cutoff shorts – real Daisy Duke style – and one of my new yellow cropped t-shirts.
I looked at them and considered the forethought that must have gone into getting them. "You're a real asshole, you know that?" I snarled at him.
"Yes. I'm beginning to get that message."
"Beginning? I guess I haven't been clear enough," I nearly snarled at him.
"I said I was sor..."
"Shh!"
I stripped down to my panties, put on the Daisy Dukes, and then realized that the French-cut panties I had on would show above the jean shorts. I reversed course and stripped all the way. I shucked the long sleeved shirt, and then put on the shorts and the t-shirt.
Starting to smear dirt on myself, I whispered to Zeus, quiet and machine-gun fast, "Did I always do what was needed? Didn't I do that even though I was scared shitless? Did I even complain about it? Didn't I tell you back in Austin that I'd do whatever it took, even if I wound up getting killed?" I paused, and looked at him in the gloom. "Well?" I hissed.
"Yes, you always did. I fucked up ... Now we have this mission to take care of," he answered.
He began to toss water on me from his canteen, and then fistfuls of dirt. "The dirt'll stick better."
I got up, now dirty and dusty, and went to put my Glock in the waistband of my shorts, in the back. "Use this," he said. He tossed me his backup gun ... somewhat smaller than mine, with a suppressor it was somewhat longer. "Tuck this in your pocket." He tossed me an extra clip.
"I'll take the guy nearest the door, then come back for the other one – if there are two," he said.
"There will be two. I'll get both of them outside. That's got to be easier than trying to get one at a time," I replied.
"I figure you go..."
"I got it," I cut him off again, while I was unlacing my boots and taking off my socks. A little water and some dirt and I figured the 'honey' was dirty and bedraggled enough.
One last look through the monocular and I set off toward the front door. I hoped the asshole remembered to turn on the night vision in his scope.
Twenty yards from the front door, I made a right turn and moved well out of Zeus' line of fire. My heel didn't make much of a dent in the hard pack of the desert floor, but I'd scraped enough to make a little hidey spot for the Glock. Two handfuls of dirt covered it up enough. Not that they'd be looking at that, I hoped. They'd never see it.
Adopting the tiredest pose I could think of, I shouted feebly at the door. "O-la, O-LA inside the hacy-en-da." Fortunately, I could remember the pigeon Mexican that most Texas red-necks sounded like. I was perfectly fluent in Mexi-Spanish, but this wasn't the time. "O-LA!"
The door opened and one bad guy stepped out. "Do you ... avay vou agua? My boyfriend broke his leg..." I pointed to my leg and mimed a limp. "Do you have ... habes telephono?"
He turned his head a little, and spoke over his shoulder to bad guy #2, in fast Spanish, "Hey Pepe. We got us a little white whore. Now we can have her for desert, and not bother the little girls. She wants to know if we have any water."
"Yes. Si, si," I said. "Agua! Please."
He was beginning to walk toward me, to see me better in the starlight. One small sideways step put my bare foot on top of the Glock. I started another step and seemed to crumple to the ground as I feigned a twisted ankle. The ITE that was hidden by my hair had been on the whole time, and was relayed up to the satellite and down to Zeus. "Now," I said softly. "OW!" I said loudly.
I heard the three shot cluster from Zeus' rifle, but I didn't look. I was busy with the Glock I recovered from the ground. I fired twice myself, the suppressed sound making a discrete pair of coughs.
The first round hit him in the belly, and as the gun kicked up from the shot, the second went into his neck.
Zeus' fourth round spun him around and he fell face down in the dust.
"Anything moving inside?" I asked Zeus quietly.
"Just a lump where the three girls are, probably," he answered.
With my Glock still in my hand, I went over to the guy on the ground, and turned him over. He'd have been good looking, except for the large exit hole in the back of his head, near the bottom. The guy near the door had two nice holes, one on the bridge of his nose and one in the middle of his chest. There seemed to be three holes lodged in the splintered door frame.
I looked inside the cabin and saw three naked little girls lined up like cordwood.
Zeus said, over the ITE headset, "You did good, Arti. It was your first time killing anybody, and you'll probably feel some adrenaline let down. But you did real good."
I began to crumple to the ground – this time for real. My head hung between my knees and I said, in a suddenly very tired voice. "Hey, asshole. I think you missed with one of your shots."
Then I shut my eyes and began to cry.
Zeus seemed to take a long time coming in, and I could hear him dragging the bodies off to the side of the cabin. I stopped crying after a while, but my chest hurt even more than before.
The front room had a cooking area, a dry sink, and a table barely big enough for two. Right now, it held a radio, which crackled to life.
In poor Spanish, heavily accented, it said, "Hello. This is Night Bird. We should be at your location in fifteen minutes. Will make a pass to make sure everything is all right."
"ZEUS!" I shouted through the open door.
"I heard it," he answered from just outside. "Looks like we got some more hunting to do tonight. You got ten minutes to get your ghillie suit back on."
Ignoring the pain that made every movement of my upper body scream, I went outside and just put the suit on, on top of my 'honey' getup. Zeus went inside, grabbed the mic and held the transmit button.
"Si," was all he said into the mic.
He went over and checked the girls. They were stripped bare, as if they were going on display. Hell. They were going on display, for Señior Puerco. He covered them with a coarse blanket.
Clicking on the satellite link, he said, "Io. We're going to have incoming traffic. Please advise what you see."
Io came online with the expected satellite delay, "Single plane about ten miles out from your position. It's south-southeast of you..." There was a pause of about five seconds. "Judging from its speed, I'd say it was a jet."
"Crap," said Zeus. "I can't fly a jet."
I thought you said it was going to be a Beechcraft prop job, I thought to Martinez.
That's what I saw, he answered.
"Wait until we have it under control," said Arti. "Then you can call in whatever Pete has arranged."
"Yeah," said Zeus. "Io, I can't see topography for shit. Can you pick out a little hill near here for me?"
"They will probably land from the south, using a flat area to your west. There is a small hill a little north of you; it's only five feet or so. To your east is a canyon. They'll want to stay away from that," she answered.
"I'm going to leave the sat. link on, so I can talk to Arti ... Arti, you're going to drive the SUV. Pull it over to the landing spot Io suggested. Leave the lights on, but get out of the car. Become a dark spot in the desert," he said.
"Just leave the car?" I asked, just to make sure.
"Yup. Leave on the headlights. That'll focus their attention on the car. You should get away from the car."
"Okay," I said as I headed for the SUV.
I got to the proposed landing spot, just a few minutes before the jet screamed over head. I flashed the lights off and on, 'cause I remembered that they were looking for some signal. Or did I make that up, and just did what I saw TV guys do for a signal. Anyway, I did it.
Killing the dome light, but leaving the headlights on high, I exited the car, when the jet was headed away from me, and beginning its turn. I crouched and ran. When the plane lined up to land, and hit its landing lights, I dropped and crawled. I got about fifty or seventy yards from the car, faster than you can clench your ass. Mine was already clenched. You can get pretty motivated at moving fast, when you know the bad guys are going to target what you left behind.
I ceased movement as the plane came to a stop, and took out my Glock. Err ... Zeus' Glock. I put mine on the sand, nearby. I hoped I didn't need them, because I doubted I'd hit anything at this range at night, especially with my hands shaking like they were.
The bruise in the middle of my chest was singing to me again. It hurt like a son of a bitch. I knew just where the Arnica tube was, in my pocket, and just left it to my imagination. I wasn't going to reach for it now.
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Hi, To all Iss reader this is my first story hope U all would like it a complete fiction.my self raj i live in Mumbai this story is about my aunty nandita,let me describe her she is in her 30s,lives with her husband and daughter.She is born beauty with an awesome fig of 36.28.40 ..her assets are her huge melons of 36 d and her ass that will give a hard on to any guy who looks at it So now my story starts this was like 5 years ago when I was appearing for my 12 th HSC examination at that time my...
January 17 It's not like I didn't know what to do. Zeus had been wounded before, had been unconscious before, in circumstances where I had been the only person to rescue him, before. So I wasn't worried about him dying – not really. I was worried about where the wound was. Something had hit him in the head. Right on the titanium plate, where he'd been wounded before. And that 'something' had somehow chased Martinez out of Zeus' brain. That had happened before, too. Okay, maybe not in...
We were just putting together our breakfast in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It was a little bit off the beaten track, about an hour or so off I-40, but Dolly Parton had always been an idol of mine. Ever since I was eight and I saw her on TV with those huge tits, and this was my chance to see Dollywood. Arti had never been, and still wasn't, much of country music fan, but she was a good sport. I kept trying to educate her to the finer points of that genre, but ... what can I say? She still...
Main Processing Thread This waiting thing is for the birds! I'm impatient. It's been more than a full day since Zeus, Artemis and Zhengfu were taken aboard that submarine; 28.24793 hours to be exact. At the Missouri's maximum speed of 25 knots, or 28 standard miles per hour, it should have taken them 18.2524 hours to cover the 510.8721726 standard miles distance from their last known position at 31.3952617, 121.5592786 to Nago, Okinawa, Japan. I've made an error in stating my...
It took Navajo Pete about two days to upgrade the day scope for the M200, to his standards. He had all the parts and was about to fit the scope to a fancy hunting rifle for a customer in Denver. He said the Denver customer could wait a few days. All he had to do was fit the new device to the mount for the M200 and get it sighted properly. It was about twenty times more powerful than the regular scope, and if I wanted to switch it over to a night scope all I had to do was plug in a battery. I...
I squatted in the bushes for several moments. No sense getting caught now. I waited while I watched the WalMart lot for hostiles. Time to review the situation: Who were these amateur guys? Unknown. How did Io get my phone number? Unknown. How did she find out about the attempted snatch – or maybe it was more than a snatch? Unknown. I didn't like 'unknown' answers. After seventeen minutes, I came out of the tall grass and crossed the parking lot to my truck. No sign of anything. I...
"Well, did I check out?" It was Artemis' soft contralto, coming at me from the other side of a large salad bowl. We were sitting in the dining room of her house, finishing the dinner she'd prepared. It was actually pretty good: several types of salad greens, some thinly sliced chicken, all kinds of fresh vegetables, some hard boiled eggs, Chinese noodles, nuts, and all topped off with a sesame vinaigrette. She offered some wine, but I didn't want to even approach the limits that the VA...
We were sleeping in the camper. Crowded as it was, it was still big enough for two people and all their 'necessary' stuff, if they had access to Navajo Pete's house to live in during the daylight hours. All day, every day, we were gone: appointments with an architect (an Apache who worked out of Gallup) to discuss the house, meetings with engineers, a different architect from Denver about the computer installation, and meetings with site prep people from the wind and solar installation...
Tuesday came, as usual. I got up early and started to make some bacon and eggs. Coffee was not on the menu. Didn't want to take any chances on being jumpy at the airport. Also, I didn't want Arti to have to make any side trips to the Ladies' Room. Coffee always turned on her internal water works, it seemed. We'd have enough problems with the Mexican kidnappers of the girls, and the 5225 kidnappers of me. The plan was to get to the airport by about 0930 in full DEA regalia, look around,...
President Thomas Jefferson Wentworth had just taken off his tuxedo jacket after a long State Dinner to honor the Prime Minister of Australia, when his private cell phone buzzed. He had returned to Washington especially for this event, having made a two-day hole in his campaign schedule. "Now what?" he said as he fumbled for the device. "Oh shit!" he exclaimed when he realized that it was not his regular phone, but the special one he had his daughter secretly buy; the phone that only...
October 24, 2012 Shortly after Master Chief Martinez made his cataclysmic announcement that his daughter was still subject to a death threat, we formulated a plan. At a moment's notice we were prepared to drop everything, and go to San Diego. Additionally, the replacement for her cell phone (a Galaxy Android with the newest features) was supplied by the airline from which she had been abducted. The airline was so conciliatory, that the girls' families didn't even have to threaten a...
0400, October 27, 2012 Zeus slipped into the water from Shell Path, a small coastal road behind Roger Williams University that attracted little attention in normal times. Now, with the threat of Hurricane Sandy, it was deserted. He re-re-checked the load that was trailing the DPV as it struggled against the incoming surf. All was well. The small but powerful electric motor that ran the propeller was idling slowly as he worked the device out into the bay. He checked his GPS display and the...
In Manassas, VA, stands an anonymous building with just a number: 5225. It stands on Wellington Drive between two other anonymous buildings, across the street from a businessman's lunch restaurant. Occupying this innocuous building is an organization that doesn't exist. It's not a corporation, or an LLP, or any other state created entity. Most of the employees think it's a lobbying enterprise and there are people in suits who make appointments with people in D.C. There are two dozen...
The tomato delivery truck stopped to clear customs. It was a matter of routine. Their papers were all in order, and the enclosed body of the truck was empty except for a few used, empty crates. NAFTA was a wonderful thing for JJ Reodondo's trucks, as all the border crossings were routine, now. Even the drug and explosives sniffing dogs were giving their approval to the trucks. Reodondo's drugs were taped to the inside of the diesel tanks, in vacuum sealed, triple wrapped plastic. No trace...
I sat in my room after a shower, the warm sun caressing my skin as I smoothed lotion over my body. It was my day off, so I had the flat to myself. My hands caressed the lotion in long, languorous strokes with intense, massaging pressures over the particularly rough patches, and with a lighter touch over particularly sensitive ones. Perhaps that was why, after I spread my thighs to massage the lotion between them, the glorious heat of the sunlight kindled an answering heat between my legs, and...
I sat in my room after a shower, the warm sun caressing my skin as I smoothed lotion over my body. It was my day off, so I had the flat to myself. My hands caressed the lotion in long, languorous strokes with intense, massaging pressures over the particularly rough patches, and with a lighter touch over particularly sensitive ones. Perhaps that was why, after I spread my thighs to massage the lotion between them, the glorious heat of the sunlight kindled an answering heat between my legs, and...
Fantasy & Sci-FiJanuary 11 Okinawa Island is in the Okinawa Prefecture of Japan and is a small island in the chain of islands that run from the southern tip of Japan to Taiwan. It is in the middle of the sea; officially it is between the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea. Compared to the other islands in the Prefecture, it is very large; compared to the islands in the rest of the world it is pretty small. Although someone will say that it is officially sub-tropical, I'm here to tell you that in January...
I was itchy to do something again. Back in ... that is, when I was ... well, in the days before Arti ... uh, when I was on my own ... I mean, I'm still on my own, because I don't have any sort of caretaker or anything ... but, you know ... before we started doing everything as "us" doing something. Back then, I was busy all the time. I had a string of alternative identities to care for. Go to Comanche, and be Lee Roberts for a few days. Go to Weatherford, Texas, and work on the John...
We flew into our new home later that morning. 'Our new home' was a bit of a stretch. It was a construction site on ten acres of high desert that backed up to a canyon of sorts, at the bottom of which was a dried up creek bed. The canyon wasn't very deep or wide, but it looked like a canyon to me – or at least a decent exit point for an escape tunnel. In addition to the workforce, with their assorted collection of old, dusty pickups, there was Io's H2 with attached camper. The double-wide...
Late January People can be so persistent at times, annoyingly, when I wanted them to give up. Especially when their whole city is blocked off from the internet, as Shanghai was in those initial days when Chiang was loose in Shanghai. They were pulling plugs on mainframes; they were rebooting everything under the sun; they were even replacing mainframes with older, obsolete equipment that wasn't 'corrupted.' I could understand. If people tried to cut me off from the greater part of 'me,...