“Fuck!”
“No,” Kwan replied. “No fuck. No look. No talk. That is the point.”
“Top?” Serris asked. “What if they talk to us?”
“You smile,” the First Sergeant answered. “Politely. And then you walk the fuck away. Fast. Understood?”
“Understood,” Serris said. “Fuck.”
“Now, as to the nature of the quarters,” Top continued, smiling. “That’s the second problem. Some of the girls are being moved out of their rooms. Some of you will be using those rooms. They are, for sure, not going to be moving all of their stuff out. So if one of you perverts goes and jacks off on their underwear, or even opens a fucking drawer, the same thing goes. Understood? Sound off!”
“Clear, First Sergeant!”
“Don’t try to game it, don’t try to get around it and damned sure don’t just fucking ignore me,” the First Sergeant said, tightly. “I’m starting to get a smell about this op. I don’t know who this guy is who runs this place but he’s connected. There’s a very strong smell of high brass and seriously deep black ops to this place. If you piss off the owner, you are going to be head down in shit, deeply head down in shit, faster than you can say ‘Condom.’ Now grab your shit and head up to the palace. This is going to be so much fucking fun I can’t stand it. The good news is some of us are going to be training in ‘positional defense’ here in the area. Others of us, and I will permit you fine young men to think on who that might primarily be, are going to be doing heavy duty mountain ops during our stay. Guess who’s going to be doing most of them?”
“This way, captain,” Nielson said as they entered the great room of the castle. It was a hell of a place, that was for sure. Big didn’t begin to cover it; the had a dome that was at least three stories high and the rug on the floor looked like an antique Persian. “I think I’d better take you to my… Anastasia!”
Guerrin froze and, frankly, stared. The women that had appeared out of a side door was… Beyond hot. If she was one of the harem girls, his problems had just gotten worse than he could possibly have imagined. She looked like she should be in the Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Edition.
“Captain J.P. Guerrin, Anastasia Rakovich,” Nielson said. “Anastasia is the Kildar’s housekeeping manager.”
“I run the house and his harem,” Anastasia said, taking J.P.’s hand. She had incredibly fine hands. “I am given to understand you were to be briefed on the latter. Welcome to the home of the Kildar, Captain Guerrin.”
“Thank you,” J.P. replied, tongue-tied.
“Anastasia, we’re going to have to quarter one of the platoons in the harem quarters,” Nielson said. “I’d like to move all the girls out into the other rooms in the house. For the time being, all of the girls are off-limits. If we had the beds to do it the other way around, and put them in purdah for the duration of the Rangers’ stay, I’d be happier. But we don’t.”
“It will be fine,” Anastasia said, easily. “I will begin moving the girls. I would suggest, however, that Katya’s room be placed off-limits.”
“Well, she’s not here to agree on its use so I can see that,” Nielson said.
“It is not that,” Anastasia said, exasperatedly. “The last time she went out of town she left some nasty suprises behind. I would guess this time they would be nastier.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Have a seat, captain,” Nielson said as they entered the office. “Coffee?”
After meeting Anastasia they’d headed straight to the colonel’s office. It was a windowless room on the first floor and looked pretty secure. Heavy, soundproofed, door and it would be hard to get a signal through the walls.
“Please, sir,” J.P. said, taking a seat. “Black, sir.”
Nielson poured two cups and handed one to Guerrin then sat down on the edge of his desk.
“Your stated mission was to engage in training with the Keldara,” Nielson said. “Obviously, the Keldara militia, who are called the Mountain Tigers by the way, is out of town. Your higher, those who ultimately tasked you, knew they were out of town. So why are you here?”
“To cover their backs?” Guerrin asked, taking a sip of the coffee. It was excellent, big surprise.
“There is that,” Nielson said, walking around the desk and touching a control on his keyboard. The computer flashed a map of the local area up on a white-washed wall. “This is our AO. As you’ll note, directly to our north curving to the east, is Chechnya. The Russians hold the low-lands. They’ve been unable to take or hold control of the highlands, the bit closest to us. The Chechens had been using this part of Georgia as their personal fiefdom, a secure rear area, to supply their forces and provide safe areas, notably in the Pansiki Gorge.” Nielson pointed it out with a laser pointer.
“Not far from here at all,” Guerrin mused.
“No, it’s not,” Nielson admitted. “And I’ll add that it’s simply crawling with Chechen mujaheddin. And muj from all over the world that didn’t want to get their balls blown off in Iraq. Fighting the Russians isn’t safe but it’s a damn sight safer than fighting Americans as the muj have started to notice. I’m not saying that the guys over there are cowards. Call them the wiser part. They’ve tried to hit us once and we handed them their heads. One team of twenty Keldara, straight off their first week on the range, took down a Chechen force of about two hundred.”
“Not bad,” Guerrin said.
“I think, at this point, the Keldara are probably close to the ability level of your Rangers,” the colonel mused. “I’m not sure who is better and I don’t think it matters. They are quite good. They’ve been running patrolling ops, shutting down Chechen movement in our AO, for the past nine months. This has made the Russians very happy because it has significantly reduced the supplies the Chechens are getting. It has made the American government happy because the Russians are happy and it’s an American driving it, even if it’s for his own reasons.
“The Keldara teams, twenty men per team, patrol on a cycle so it’s not day in and day out. But they go out for a week or so, do intensive patrolling, scouting and ambush ops then come back. So far, they’ve taken light to no casualties while killing over fifty Chechens and bringing back several tons of supplies. They’re good.”
“Got that, sir,” Guerrin said, nodding. “And based on the results, I’d say I agree. Not better than my company, you understand… ” he added with a grin.
“Understood,” Nielson said, smiling back and then becoming serious. “The following information is classified TS Codeword Ribbon Blade. Ribbon Blade is an Ultra Blue classification, you may not discuss it with anyone without authorization from the person informing you of your portion of the mission or someone with National Command Authority clearance. Do you understand this classification, captain?”
“National command authority level?” Guerrin said. “President, National Security Advisor… ”
“Secretary of Defense,” Nielson said, nodding. “They are the only three persons permitted to open up the compartment. No one else. The codeword itself is classed Top Secret as is its classification level. Nobody can ask you what you really did on this mission. Should your mission parameters change then you need to ensure that your men are made aware that the basic mission parameters can be considered open source but if there is a mission change it goes totally black. Are we clear?”