Until We Meet Once More

Until We Meet Once More

Revised edition, November

Copyright (c) by Josh Lanyon

Cover by Lex Valentine

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from Just Joshin’ Publications

ISBN: –-

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Just Joshin

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www.joshlanyon.com

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Josh Lanyon

Until We Meet Once More

Anchors Aweigh, my boys,

Anchors Aweigh.

Farwell to foreign shores,

We sail at break of day-ay-ay-ay.

Through our last night ashore,

Drink to the foam,

Until we meet once more.

Here’s wishing you a happy voyage home

Anchors Aweigh - Lt. Charles A. Zimmerman

Present day, , Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan

“What we don’t want,” Lt. Colonel Marsden said, “is another Roberts’ Ridge.”

“Understood, sir.”

Army Ranger Captain Vic Black was thirty-two, a tall, broad-shouldered man with dark hair prematurely silver at the temples, and eyes a color a former lover had once referred to as “jungle green.” Those light green eyes studied his commanding officer as Marsden, his face lined with weariness, looked instinctively at the silent phone on his desk.

Vic understood only too well what Marsden was thinking. The parallels between this rescue operation and the disastrous Battle of Takur Gar — commonly known as Roberts’ Ridge — were painfully clear. In the Battle of Takur Gar the rescue of a Navy SEAL had resulted in two helicopters getting shot down and the deaths of seven U.S. soldiers — including the Navy SEAL, Petty Officer First Class Neil C. Roberts. Yeah, the last thing anyone wanted was another Roberts’ Ridge.

Marsden admitted, “I know what you’re thinking, but we’re in better position to get their man out even if they didn’t have their hands full with Akhtar Shah Omar on the other side of the valley.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Vic said woodenly. Well, it was one of the things the rangers were there for. Rapid response. Rescue. Whatever was needed. Like the SEALs, the Rangers were an elite special operations force, highly trained and able to handle a variety of conventional and special op missions — everything from air assault to recovery of personnel or special equipment. This missing Navy SEAL seemed to qualify as both of the latter.

“No QRF. No TACP. No USAF. Just a three man rescue team carried in by a MH-Chinook and inserted at hours meters on the Arma mountain range.” Marsden pointed to a place on the map.

“Has there been any further communication from the surviving SEAL?” Vic asked, scrutinizing the map. Those impenetrable mountains were riddled with Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. Another enemy was the weather — it was winter now — and the brutal terrain. The Shah-i-Kot valley and surrounding mountains provided natural protection. For the last , years Afghan fighters had successfully resisted everyone from Alexander the Great in B.C., to the British Army in ’s to the Soviets in .

“No,” Marsden replied. “But this is a valuable man with valuable intel. They —
we
— need him back.”

“That’s what rangers do. Kick down the doors, take care of business, and bring the good guys home safe and sound.”

Marsden met Vic’s gaze — reading him correctly — and grimaced. “I know, Vic. I know. He may be dead. But his IR strobe is still active and a Predator drone live video feed showed him on his feet and making for the landing zone as of two hours ago.”

“Good enough,” Vic said. And he did mean that. If there was a chance of getting that poor bastard off that fucking mountain in one piece, he was willing to try.

“If we’re all very, very lucky, you’ll be in and out before the enemy ever knows you dropped by.”

Vic nodded curtly. They would all certainly be very lucky if it went down like that. If he developed that kind of luck, he might take up betting on the ponies fulltime when he got back to the States next month. “Does this frogman have a name?” he inquired.

“Lt. Commander Sean Kennedy.”

The wallop was like…looking both ways only to get hit by a passing freight train.

“
Sean Kennedy
?” Vic repeated faintly.

“You know him?”

Marsden was staring at him, and no wonder. Vic’s nickname wasn’t “Stoney” for nothing. He managed to say evenly, “If it’s the same man. Yeah. I knew him. A long time ago.”

“Sean Kennedy is a common enough name.” Marsden was still eyeing Vic curiously. “Well, it’s a small world, and that’s a fact. Good friend, was Kennedy?”

“Funny how things work out,” Marsden said, apparently in one of his philosophical moods. “Well, whether this Kennedy is your Kennedy or not, it looks like it’s your job to bring him home. You deploy at oh one hundred hours.”

oOo

Twelve years ago, , Beneath the chapel of the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland

Eerie blue light bathed the marble sarcophagus of John Paul Jones.

“Jee-zus, you’re one crazy sonofabitch,” Midshipman Second Class Sean Kennedy said admiringly — though this was very much the pot calling the kettle black. “Remind me not to gamble with you again.” He looked around the chamber with awe.

“Are you chickening out?” Vic asked in a hard voice because if Sean was, Vic was liable to strangle him out of sheer frustration and murderous disappointment.

Ever since he’d seen fellow plebe Kennedy laughing down at him from the top of Herndon Monument — sunlight gilding his chestnut hair and honey-colored skin, turning his hazel eyes gold — he’d wanted him. Wanted him so bad it kept him up at nights. And it hadn’t helped when they’d become friends. Or roommates. And if it hadn’t been for the presence of their other bunkmate, Midshipman “Specs” Davis…

But then Vic had known he had a problem from the time he was fifteen. He was eighteen now. Oh, he liked girls okay. But not the way his friends did. In fact, he felt a little queasy listening to the stuff his friends talked about wanting to do to chicks. Vic liked to jack off in front of the mirror in his bedroom at home — position himself so he couldn’t see his face, just watch his hand moving on his dick, watch his dick thicken and lengthen, and pretend it was someone else’s hand and someone else’s dick.

And then he’d met Midshipman Fourth Class Sean Kennedy and figured out whose hand he wanted — and whose dick. Because it turned out that Kennedy had the same problem.

“I’m not chickening out,” Sean said evenly. “You won your bet.”

Yep. He’d won his bet — and if they got caught, they were both out. Finished. Washed up. And goddamn if it didn’t feel worth the risk standing there in the creepy darkness of the crypt beneath the chapel, Sean’s eyes gleaming as they watched him. Not trusting himself to speak, hands shaking a little, Vic unzipped his uniform trousers.

Sean’s shadowy figure dropped to its knees before him and Sean’s mouth — lips so soft and tongue so hot and wet — closed around Vic’s cock.

Vic groaned. He couldn’t help it. But the sound reverberated off the marble floors and stone walls like old John Paul Jones had just noticed what was going on.

Sean disgorged him, spat out, “
Shut the fuck up!
”

And then, to his abject relief, that marvel of a mouth closed around him again. Vic closed his eyes and concentrated on that wondrous wet tongue licking and lapping at the head of his dick. Vic shifted, stepped further apart to give Sean better access. Sean’s mouth closed around him and he began to suck in earnest. So good. So humblingly good that fierce draw following the slow, reluctant repel, hard and soft, wet and hot.

Vic opened his eyes. It gave him a sense of power too; staring down at Sean’s bent head, the dull gleam of his chestnut hair, the dark crescents of his eye lashes, and his mouth…

Oh, that mouth.

His gaze fell on one of the four giant bronze dolphins that braced the marble sarcophagus. The dolphin seemed to be sticking its tongue out at him. In the eerie blue light from above Vic could just make out the name “Ranger” carved in the marble floor above the “John” in
John Paul Jones
. All seven of the ships Jones had commanded were listed there.

Two things eventually occurred to Vic: never again was he going to be satisfied with a girl blowing him — and Sean had done this before.

In fact, Sean gave head like a he did it for a living. Like a professional whore. It made Vic angry and it made him crazy for more because it was so good. ‘Good’ being a feeble word for the best goddamned thing in the world.

That beautiful sucking pull, that wet slide…a sweet tension was building, building with every synchronized pulse of heart and dick, building….

Oh yeah, and there it was, rolling through his nerves and muscles…bones and blood and every cell in his body…picking up weight and energy like a tidal wave surging up and then crashing down in wave after wave of shuddering sensation that sent sparks shooting behind his eyes.

Vic slumped against the black and white marble column. His legs were shaking so hard he wasn’t sure he could stay on his feet. “Christ.” His whisper seemed to echo in every corner of the crypt.

Sean was kneeling at his feet, breathing hard like he’d run a marathon, and Vic suddenly wanted to do it to him. Not just to taste him — although he did, to his shame, want to taste Sean’s cock — but to give him that. That…rush.

But that hadn’t been the bargain.

Anyway, Sean was pushing to his feet. Vic straightened, groped for his handkerchief and wiped himself off. He was astonished to see Sean unzip his pants and mop his own groin and genitals.

“You came
watching
me?”

Sean laughed a little unsteadily, nodded.

And because he was weirdly moved and excited by that, Vic said arrogantly, “Yeah, I have that affect on a lot of people.”

“Making plebes pee their pants isn’t the same thing, asshole.” But Sean was chuckling, and something about him, about that husky laugh in the intimate gloom and the scent of him — sex and soap and an aftershave that was too old for him — Vic grabbed him, nearly knocking him down, and kissed him.

Caught off guard, Sean’s mouth opened right up. Probably intending to protest, but Vic’s mouth covered his. Sean’s lips were warm and tasted of salty-sweet. A taste that was just a little too close to tears. Vic kissed him harder and kept kissing him until he recollected that officers and gentlemen did not kiss other officers and gentlemen.

When they finally went up through the chapel Sean pointed at the one of the stained glass windows facing the altar. Sir Galahad with his sword raised. “Hey,” he whispered. “Notice a resemblance around the jaw?”

To put him in his place, Vic said, “No way. You’ve got a mouth like a girl.”

This seemed to hit Sean’s funny bone — he always had a weird sense of humor. “Not
me
, asshole. I was kind of thinking he looks like you.”

oOo

Present day, , Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan

Afghanistan in November was a cold day in hell.

At one o’clock in the morning the Chinook was spinning up on the tarmac, the craft shaking like a giant living, breathing bird. Warm exhaust gusted into Vic’s face as he climbed aboard after combat controller Tech Sergeant Bill O’Riley and Specialist Paul Matturo.

This was Vic’s handpicked rescue team. In addition to his mini quick reaction force, the Chinook helicopter was manned by five crew members including the pilot Major Kate Cheyney. Every one on this mission — code name operation Blue Dolphin — was a combat-seasoned veteran.

They buckled in and the chopper rose, whirling them off toward the snowcapped mountains.

They had a hundred and fifty mile flight to the rendezvous point. Everyone had their job and settled down to it, planning what to do when they hit the ground. The basic plan was to land, set up a perimeter, extract the Navy SEAL, and bug out.