“Wait a second,” she started.
I started to chuckle. I had a horrible poker face. “I’m kidding. She looked nothing like you. She was blond, five and a half feet tall, and you get much cuter when you’re angry.”
It felt so good to have the story off my chest that I couldn’t help but laugh. The rage in her eyes only made me laugh harder, but it faltered when I saw her eyes still ablaze in fury a minute later.
Settling down, I apologized. “Look, Helena, I’m sorry. It was a bad joke. I didn’t mean to bring it up again.”
Her mouth twitched, and her look softened, a smile spreading across her own face.
“You’re so gullible, Lieutenant,” she said slyly.
It took me a minute before I smiled as well. “Oh… oh, you’re good.”
After that night, the two of us never hesitated if either one of us needed to talk.
As for the team as a whole, we spent our nights going through our gear and cataloging it. Needless to say, there was a lot of it, much more than we originally thought. If the situation called for it, we could spend most of our lives working as a private mercenary group, and never need to pick up a shield and sword. We’d be pretty expensive too.
I was also very pleased to find at least some of the Future Force Warrior gear I thought I’d never see again hidden in one of the containers. While we all still had our eye pieces and computer systems, the only other gear we brought with us was on our backs. While the traditional BDUs we found were nice, the other clothing item we discovered inside was a godsend.
There was no official name for what they were, as far as I knew, but I liked to call them combat assault fatigues. Both pants and jacket sets had numerous pockets festooned over them, and were camouflaged in multicam, useful in almost any terrain environment. We also found duplicate pairs, colored and patterned in dark gray and black, meant for night operations. Because its defensive abilities required tight contact with the skin, each set seemed specifically sized for each of us, with a left over set for McDougal.
Along the shins, calves, thighs, hamstrings, groin, outer forearms and upper arms were thin pads that jutted out an inch from the clothing. Inside the pads was a polyethylene type gel that had a most unique property. In its normal state, the gel feels soft and squishy, like a stress ball, but when struck by a sudden and forceful impact, it instantaneously becomes as hard as titanium. The gel then liquidizes a heartbeat later, ready for another impact, and it could take the repeated hardening and softening transition over and over again. Additional protective measures the outfit provided were small thin strips of a very light and flexible Kevlar like material that ran vertically down the pants and horizontally along the jacket. For creature comfort, they were water resistant and additionally equipped with an internal A/C and heating system to keep the body comfortable in any weather condition
During the war in Iraq, the polyethylene substance was hoped to be the next evolution of the bullet proof vest, but early testing indicated it wasn’t effective enough to risk the lives of troops on it. It wasn’t until 2016 when advancements were made in its base properties that the gel finally lived up to its potential. It had been a ground breaking development for soldiers, having saved thousands of lives since its implementation.
I only had one problem with it. If it was so soft and flexible, I never understood why the entire pants and jacket set wasn’t completely smothered in the stuff. Leave it to the military brass to cut corners. Even the helmets supplied in the containers were the old school versions that were notorious for being anything but bullet proof. At least they had the decency to cover the groin, but any impact to that region wouldn’t end well anyway.
Sometimes I really wondered who was running the military.
Other than the combat fatigues, there was little other advanced equipment within. We were still supplied with electronic equipment like night vision, flashlights, and the means to charge their batteries, but I guess the papacy didn’t want to make its new soldiers too reliant on technology, something I was completely at ease with. A soldier was only as good as his training, instincts, and determination. To rely on technology was a recipe for disaster.
So the days went.
Thankfully, two weeks to the day after Caligula set his time table, he sent us a message, indicating his three assassins were required. That morning, the six of us spent two hours prepping the team assigned on the mission.
Bordeaux gathered a large amount of C-4, at least thirty bricks, enough to bring down the Colosseum had it been built yet. Vincent borrowed Santino’s UAV for aerial recon, and Helena grabbed the “Light Fifty” from storage. All three packed their night ops combat fatigues, tents, and survival gear.
As they completed their preparations, Helena pulled me aside, a frustrated look on her face.
“Jacob, there’s something I really need to tell you.”
I groaned. Usually, when women “really” needed to tell me something, I ended up spending a long night cleaning up tissues.
Holding my hands in the air, I feigned innocence. “You know. If this is one of those, ‘I may die tomorrow, so we should be together tonight’ speeches, you really should know that tomorrow is now, and we kinda missed our chance last night. I mean, I could try and get it over within the two minutes we have, but I think that would kinda ruin the moment.”
Surprisingly, Helena’s look wasn’t one of annoyed anger I expected, but instead, she wore a smile that could make even the most womanizing of men’s hearts think twice about her. I was ready for any reaction except that one. To make matters worse, she took a step closer, bringing her mouth just to the side of my ear, and dropped her voice to a seductive whisper
“My, my, Lieutenant, aren’t we the naughty one. Maybe you had better hope I don’t make it back, or I may make you put your money where your mouth is.”
Did I mention women sometimes annoy me?
I sighed, surprised at how easily I shrugged off my embarrassment. I really was getting used to her. “So, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?”
Backing away and ignoring her little performance, she cut right to the point. “I’ve never killed anyone with the fifty. I’ve never even fired it in the field.”
“What!?” I practically yelled the word, enticing the rest of the team to turn in our direction. Throwing them a smile, I grabbed Helena by the arm and pulled her away from the group. “But your record said you had confirmed kills with it. Dozens.”
She sighed. “My government tweaked my record a bit. They just wanted one of their own on the team and they knew the Pope wanted a female, and the team was looking for snipers. I was the only obvious choice. Don’t worry. I’m not a spy or anything. Everything else you know is true.
I gave her a skeptical look, but I had to believe her when she said she had nothing to do with changing her record. It’s hard to trust the Germans. Opting to focus on the problem instead, I put my hands on my hips, and looked at her sternly. “So what’s the problem?”
She looked confused. “What do you mean, ‘what’s the problem’? I’ve never had to do this before. I was nervous in the training room with you backing me up for Christ’s sakes.”
“So the fuck what? You’re a trained professional. Just do the math and don’t forget to breathe. You don’t need me.”
“Are you sure? You said you’d always be…”
I reached my arms out and gently grabbed her shoulders, staring at her reassuringly.
“Helena. I understand your confidence has taken a hit since your late fiance, but you know you’re a great shot. Just focus. You’ll do fine.”
I gave her shoulders a squeeze, and smiled. She couldn’t afford distraction on the mission, especially with two of her teammates’ lives on the line.
She looked at the floor, sighed, and set her shoulders before straightening her posture, the confident demeanor I saw in the training room returning.