Santino tiptoed his way back to the gate, an effortless endeavor for a man whose sole purpose in life was to remain as much like a ghost as a man could without actually being dead.
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Who planned this operation?”
“We did,” I answered.
He didn’t say anything. All he did was continue to look passively at me.
“Okay, okay,” I relented, “I did. I planned it. So what?”
He raised an eyebrow at me knowingly. “And the one before that?”
I sighed. “Me.”
He threw me a smug grin. “Think about it, Hunter. You…” Our cellmate stirred again despite our hushed voices. The poor girl. I couldn’t begin to imagine what she had gone through. Santino turned his attention back to me. “Mind if we drop it for now?” He flicked his head towards the girl. “For her sake?”
“Yeah,” I answered distractedly. “Okay.”
I spent the next few hours trying to get some rest, but my mind kept wandering back to what Santino had tried to say and sleep never came. Thoughts of a Helena who never wanted a thing to do with me kept coming to mind, scenarios where she and Santino simply walked out of my life, not with each other, just… at the same time. That they would just leave me alone to deal with a life under Agrippina’s constant pursuit alone was disturbing. The idea kept invading my mind bit just when I felt sleep take a more permanent hold on me, gunfire erupted from within the cavern. It drifted into the small cell in muffled tones at first, the crisscrossing corridors breaking up the movement of the sound waves, before growing louder. I stood up and moved to the bars again, Santino joining me. Julia seemed unconscious, hiding beneath her blanket in the corner.
“Helena?” Santino asked.
I tried to concentrate on the gunfire. “I don’t think so. She’s only supposed to rescue us if we don’t check in after nine hours. Besides, it doesn’t sound like her P90.”
“Then, who?” Santino asked, perplexed.
“Well, if I had to guess, I’d say it was…”
I was interrupted by a very large figure rounding the corner to the corridor, moving towards us with an ominous slowness as dust billowed around him. He held a torch in one hand and a very large gun in the other, and his identity became instantly known. He was wearing his own set of night ops combat fatigues and his face was covered by a black balaclava, only a narrow slit for his eyes visible.
He looked between Santino and me before pulling off his mask, revealing the face of my favorite Frenchman. “Bonjour, mes ami,” our friend Jeanne Bordeaux said, nodding to each of us in turn. “Perhaps one day you will rescue me for a change, no?”
II
Mission Entry #2
Jacob Hunter
Valentia, Transalpine Gaul — April, 42 A.D.
The reason I ended my last entry so abruptly was because Santino, Helena and I had to take care of a little business.
Hostage negotiation, if you will.
The original plan called for Santino and me to infiltrate a band of thugs responsible for the death of an equestrian Roman family and the abduction of a young girl. Our insertion had gone smoothly, but when we arrived at their hideout, our cover was blown and we had to improvise. Jeanne Bordeaux, formerly of the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (say that ten times fast) and a former Praetorian squad member, came to the rescue.
When Helena was on supply run duty a few days ago, part of her orders had been to get in contact with him, tell him what we were planning, and ask if he’d help out. She reported that he said he’d think about it. I guess we were lucky he was a quick thinker, and I was happy to see him. He was another connection to our lost home and his mere presence was a reminder of better times.
When he arrived, Santino had joined him in clearing out the rest of the cave while I helped our charge, a seventeen year old girl named Julia. She’d been stripped naked by her kidnappers and all she had to cover herself with was a blanket I gave her. I was as careful and gentle as I could be with her, but she wouldn’t budge from her corner so I had to carry her out. Luckily, Santino and Bordeaux had done a good job clearing the cave complex. On the way out, I noticed the leader of the group, Madriviox, dead with a neat little hole through his forehead.
He got what he deserved.
We immediately returned to the tavern we’d left from. Helena is comforting and talking to the girl while Santino has run off with his barmaid again. Bordeaux is at the table with me, and with him here, we can move on to the next phase of my plan.
Until next time.
I put my pen between the pages and wrapped a rubber band around the small leather bound journal, capturing the pen within. Having spent a few years working at my college library, I knew it wasn’t the best thing for the binding, but I was lazy and it made finding my spot again just that much easier. Not to mention a pen. I dropped the book into a bag and turned my attention to the large man seated across from me.
To say the man was large was like calling the Himalayas a series of rolling hills. He was taller than me, significantly broader across the chest and shoulders and had the build of a professional wrestle. His sharp nose and angled chin gave him a look I always associated with the French, and his bright blue eyes, scruffy light brown hair and short facial stubble made him a pretty good looking guy.
He’d joined the Papal Praetorians after his wife had been killed in a terrorist attack outside the Vatican, something that still haunted him deeply, and was not something he discussed very often. It was a defining moment for him, an event that brought him into my circle of friends and subsequently to Ancient Rome. Once Claudius was defeated, he no longer had a reason to remain an active combatant, and made the decision to explore the territory he had once called home — France. While it was only Gaul these days, a territory that had very little in common with its modern equivalent, he had said it was where he felt he belonged.
Two years ago, Santino’s UAV, which was almost always active and broadcasting, had picked up a data package from him. He must have uploaded it to his computer and set it to idle transmission. When the UAV came into range by a stroke of pure luck, it had automatically connected and received the email. We had been on the run at the time, just passing through yet another random part of Europe, so we didn’t actually notice it until we were out of range again.
He hadn’t written much, just a simple message that he was happily married to a likewise widowed woman of German ancestry, which also means little in modern terms, and had bought a tavern near the one we were now in. It was why we chose to come to Valentia in the first place. He had finished by saying he was living a quiet life of relaxation which, for the first time in many years, was completely devoid of war. He had also written that his wife was pregnant and that they were expecting a child.
“Sorry, Jeanne,” I said, forgetting my manners. “The journal was Helena’s idea. A way to record what we’re doing. Just in case.”
“Not a problem, mon ami,” he said while sipping some wine. I always got a kick out of the fact that despite being perfectly fluent in both English and Latin, he always insisted on throwing out a few choice French words as well. He was a typical stubborn Frenchman. “Although, I am curious as to what it is you’re doing. Exactly.”
“We’ll get to that,” I reassured him, “but first, how have you been? Are you a proud father yet?”