The Last Roman (Praetorian Series - Book One) (12 page)

“Thank you,” I replied as I gestured to the hatch
for Helena to go through first. “Lieutenant, after you.”

She offered me a cynical smile and bumped me
playfully on her way to the hatch. The two midshipmen watched,
tilting their heads to watch as she bent at the waist to fit
through. I had to chuckle as I watched as well, a slight feeling of
possessive pride passing over me. It reminded me of a time back in
college when I attended a party with a foreign exchange student
from France. She had been beautiful, and every guy there hated my
guts because of it – even if the relationship hadn’t amounted to
much.

My arms crossed against my chest, I glanced over at
the two seamen who looked at me, jealousy in their eyes, the silent
one of the two arching an eyebrow suggestively. I let out a quick
laugh before placing a hand on the inquisitive man’s shoulder.

“I wouldn’t go there, my friend,” I told him,
pointing at my black eye. “Trust me.”

Whether he thought I was threatening him, or merely
reaffirming his fears that he had no chance, his shoulders slumped
in defeat.

Releasing his shoulder, I followed after Helena.

Halfway through, I heard the inner hatch open and
two men drop to the floor.

“Welcome aboard the…”

The man didn’t get a chance to continue before
Santino cut him off. “Yeah, yeah, now where’s this ‘tea’ I’ve heard
so much about?”

***

It took fifteen minutes for the last of the team to
cycle through the airlock, and another twenty before we had our
gear in lockers, had our wetsuits hung up, and had changed into
duty gear the crew had provided for us.

Gathered in the small briefing room, the team waited
and chatted while we waited for our briefing to begin. Joining the
team was the sub’s skipper, Captain Billings, whose physicality
could have in no way better fit the role of a sub commander. He was
short in stature and thin like a runner, a perfect build for the
cramped confines of a submarine. His square jaw and perpetual five
o’clock shadow gave him a roguish look that the ladies probably
loved. I couldn’t help but notice Helena’s interest, which was
probably more annoying than it should have been.

Don’t be jealous, Jacob, she’ll probably never see
him again.

Jealous? What the hell is wrong with you? She’s the
one who almost knocked you out.

Shut up. Just shut up.

I tried to distract myself by probing my damaged
eye, which was still black, and hurt like hell. At least Santino
seemed to think it was funny.

The thought of my troublesome friend brought my eyes
across the aisle towards him. I found him already looking at me,
flicking his eyes in Billings’ direction, then over at Helena,
giving me another one of his annoying smiles.

He’ll never let me live this down.

Still, despite his antics, I appreciated his
attention. It reminded me that I had a friend. Someone I could rely
on. Even if he was an arrogant jackass. So I did what any good
friend would do and took a rubber band from my briefing packet, and
loaded it around my fingers. Taking careful aim, I fired, nailing
him right between the eyes. One of his hands reactively flung to
his forehead to ease the sting, and he gave me the same glare he’d
offered earlier when I kicked his chair out from beneath him.

I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Something funny, Hunter?”

I glanced over at Helena, whose interest was now on
me instead of Billings. “Hmm? Oh, nothing. Just Santino being
Santino.”

She leaned forward to see him rubbing his struck
forehead, mumbling.

“You two have a history don’t you?”

“Oh, yeah,” I sighed. “We certainly do.”

“Oooh, I feel a story coming,” she replied
excitedly, clutching her hands together between her thighs and
shrugging her head between her shoulders, giving me an
uncharacteristically childish smile.

Cute. Annoying. But cute.

I sighed again, realizing I owed her a story. I was
doubly annoyed because I knew I couldn’t just end this one with
Santino. It was about more than just him.

“In a nut shell,” I began after taking a long
breath, “his Delta squad was cut off from extraction while on an op
in North Korea. We were assigned as their standby unit and were
sent in to pull their asses out if they got in trouble. They did,
and my team was ambushed in the process of rescuing them, and we
were cut off from Santino and his men. Through a stroke of pure
luck, our two positions ran into one other. The momentary confusion
on the enemy’s part gave us the time we needed to get the hell out
of there. But on our way out, I was shot in the leg. Twice. In the
same damn leg. The wounds were pretty bad and I was losing a lot of
blood. Possible arterial bleeding. I never knew and never asked
afterwards, but I had known that I was done for when a bad guy
blundered onto me as I laid there dying.”

I had to pause and close my eyes as the flashback
forced me to recall one of the most horrible memories I had. My
hand instinctually moved to my thigh to massage the area where I’d
been hit. The scars on that leg remained, and were not pretty.

“He pointed his gun at my face and started to taunt
me, laughing all the while. I’d lost my rifle after hitting the
ground, and my pistol was inaccessible. A few seconds later, he
shot me in the arm.” My hand now moved to massage the area just
above the elbow on my left arm. “Just for the hell of it. It was at
that point that I knew I was going to die. Even thought I saw some
angels. But, the next thing I know, Santino was there, ramming his
knife through the back of the man’s throat, severing his spinal
column. Guy died instantly. That’s where he does his best work, you
know, up close. Santino’s as quiet as a ghost and even scarier than
one with a knife.”

Helena nodded, waiting for me to continue.

“Anyway, we didn’t really know each other yet. We’d
only met once during a cross training operation a year back. We
were barely acquaintances. Even so, he came back for me. He slapped
on a few field bandages, picked me up, and pulled my fat out of the
fire. He even found my rifle for me.”

“For such a free spirited asshole, he seems like a
good man to have your back.”

“He’s the best,” I said wholeheartedly. “I spent
three months in the hospital where we ended up. Santino was
assigned to a training detail on the base at the same time and he
came to visit every day. I always wondered if he used some of that
Delta pull to swing the training detail, but he’d never tell me if
he did. We just sat there every chance we got playing cards and
video games, cracking jokes at lame day time soap operas and
shooting the shit. We became instant friends. I’ll never make a
better one if I live a dozen lives.”

I smiled, remembering the days as Santino became one
of my best friends, before sighing a third time, my mind wandering
to the rest of the time I spent in the hospital. The time I’d spent
in the company of someone else as well.

A few minutes ago, I’d thought about telling Helena
the rest of this story, but now, I wasn’t so sure. The second half
began the day I awoke from my surgery, and was assigned a very
attractive nurse to take care of me. It was a story I hadn’t told
anyone before, and even Santino didn’t know the full extent of it.
That nurse changed the way I looked at my life.

After a few sessions of rehab where we had to work
very close together, it was obvious the nurse was interested, and
so was I. After a few weeks, our time together transcended the
typical patient/care giver relationship and bloomed into something
more. During my recuperation, we would go on long walks and spend
hours in the gym together rehabbing my injury. I remembered how
every day when she came to my room, Santino would just sit there as
she completely ignored him, tending to my ever need.

I sighed to myself while Helena waited patiently for
me to continue.

I’d never grown closer to a woman than I did during
those few months. Relationships had never been my strong suit, but
somehow she and I just clicked. I fell hard for her, and even
though I couldn’t explain it, I rolled with it. I was completely
unphased by the fact that I knew we’d probably never see each other
again after I returned to active duty. The war had barely just
begun and the average life expectancy of service men and women
deployed in the field shortened every day.

I’d only known her two months by the time I’d
thought about proposing. Thought about it, sure, but never really
put much actual thought into going through with it. Deep down, I
knew it couldn’t last. The world was too confusing and bigger than
either one of us, and I knew we could never be together. Sooner or
later, I would have to leave and she would have to stay. Even with
thoughts of marriage in mind, I tried my hardest to keep our
relationship to a minimum, but it grew too fast for us both.

After I was finally discharged, I knew it was
over.

When she and Santino carted me out in a wheelchair,
the nurse helped me out of it while Santino went to pack the taxi.
Neither one of us knew what to say, and we just stood there looking
at each other. After a few seconds, still not knowing what to say,
she threw herself into my arms and gave me a kiss that held us
there for minutes. When she pulled away, she told me she hoped to
see me again, but I knew even she didn’t believe her own words. I
said goodbye as strongly as I could, which only managed to be
little more than a whisper. She put on a brave face, but as I
watched her retreat back to the hospital, I noticed a trail of
tears tracing her steps like fat rain drops on the pavement.

It had all been like a fairy tale until that
point.

Thinking about those happy, but inevitably painful
few months did little to lighten my mood now. Those days could have
been better. It’s why I hated this story. It was like one of those
dreams where everything was so perfect, and you felt so happy, only
to wake up and realize that it was all just a dream and your life
was everything but.

I had to live that dream.

In any other place, in any other situation, we could
have had a kid by now, living a quiet life. I remember sending her
flowers with a note that said to look me up if she was ever in
Hawaii, but I knew I’d never see her again.

As I played the story over in my head, I found
myself staring at the back of the chair in front of me. My gaze was
interrupted by Helena waving a hand in front of my face.

“Hello… Jacob…” she said. “Anybody home?”

I jerked my head in response and turned to look at
her.

“What?” I asked.

“I believe you were about to finish your story. You
and Santino were in a hospital?”

I turned away and took a deep breath, letting it out
slowly.

No. I couldn’t tell her quite yet.

“Sorry, Helena,” I said looking back at her, “but
the rest of that story can wait for another time.”

Her eyebrows scrunched in confusion, probably
wondering what could be so personal that I couldn’t tell her after
she’d so readily offered her own story. She opened her mouth to
inquire further, but she never got a chance to finish her question
before Billings began his briefing.

“All right, mates,” his voice, from an American’s
perspective, was a typical British drawl, “I’ll try and keep this
short. I know you’ve already been briefed on your specific mission
parameters, so I’ll key you in on the operational position of my
sub.”

Billings pulled up a map of the Mediterranean Sea on
a monitor, and zoomed in on the Eastern coast where we would be
making our insertion. The map looked similar to the one McDougal
had presented earlier.

“We’ll be dropping you off here,” he said,
indicating a point on the map with a laser pointer, “a few miles
off the shore line. Once you disembark, you’ll be on your own. Our
presence here is completely off the grid. We’re not even supposed
to be in the Mediterranean.”

He manipulated the map to show the satellite imagery
of the port we were going to hit. The image showed a shabby town,
looking typical for the impoverished area. The port had numerous
ships docked, cargo ships mostly, but no military gear.

“This image was downloaded ten minutes ago from an
Argos II Surveillance Satellite that will remain in geosynchronous
orbit throughout the duration of the mission. The port has little
to no military presence that we can see, and intelligence and
satellite imagery confirms there won’t be any guards in the area.
Your target ship just docked, but unloading isn’t scheduled until
later tonight. Your contact in town is part of the crew, so our
information should be accurate.”

He shifted the image again, zooming out and eastward
towards the town.

“As you can see, the town is quite the opposite of
the port and is crawling with armed guards, patrols, and picket
points. Intel suggests this activity is normal for the area, so
expect plenty of resistance should it come to a firefight. When
it’s time to leave, you will need to get back to the port so we can
pick you up. We’ll have a team waiting to bring you back to the
Triumph
. Chopper extraction is out of the question as
resources in the area are negligible.”

That last part caused me to wince. Even if things go
completely by the book, and we accomplish our mission goals without
alerting anyone, extraction will still be the most difficult part.
Commandeering a vehicle will be difficult without alerting any
guards, especially if that image was right, and the bad guys had
check points set up. Picking up Helena would only complicate
matters, but if we had to come out guns blazing, having her
covering our asses would be invaluable.

“If there are no other questions, we’re done here.
We’ll be arriving at our drop off point in thirty five hours. Until
then, my ship is yours. Questions?”