• 1-Who Dares Wins
• 2-Close Quarters Battle
• 3-Standoff
• 4-Rules of Engagement
• 5-Night Moves Pt. I

I haven’t dropped dead, nor given up! But my laptop seems to like
fucking with my head… This is a rewrite of my original chapter five before a
virus ate up my hard drive, so not only is this one NC-17, it will also take
you for the sharpest twist that would put any Six Flags rollercoaster to
shame! A shout out to all my readers and reviewers, I do this for you. As for
Cotton Blossom and casperrox23, I keep these soldiers in mind always to portray
them in a respectful and “politically correct” light. But if you feel that this
is insulting or “unpatriotic”, please hit your back button. Oh, yes, I despise
Mary Sues and this character IS NO ditzy-ass fangirl!

Chapter V: Night Moves,
Part I

~U.S. Army Headquarters, September 24 10:06 A.M.~

It would look incredibly ridiculous to the outsider, but Lise
considered it an act of kindness. When Grimes opened up his green umbrella and
handed it to her when she came out of her cell was mystified- until she walked
into the hangar. It was coming down cats and dogs through the Swiss cheese tin
roof, the men splashed between their sleeping stations sandbagging off as much
as they could to keep the floodwaters at bay. Richard and Pilla, frogwalking
lugged and stacked bulging sandbags to keep the weapons bays dry. All were
wrapped individually to avoid the fine, hot dust and sand particles from
jamming the delicate gears and moving parts that accumulated everywhere. Lise
gave up finding a seat at the tables retreating back to Grimes’ office for
coffee. Eventually Richard followed with two trays of watery eggs and
charcoaled toast, Lise spent the majority of her morning meal scraping off the
blackened layer only to toss them.

~U.S. Army Headquarters, September 24 1:47 P.M.~

Everyone had swallowed a bitter pill because of the weather, and
Lise did the smart thing by exiling herself to her room escaping the wet and
groans of a bunch of whiny men. It amazed her at how a turn in the climate can
change the attitude of the ‘toughest’ of guys. Randy, however, was very polite
as to returning her laptop personally. Though her Somalia files mysteriously
vanished from her hard drive. It was encouraging to hear from Busch how he
enjoyed rereading one of her post-Gulf stories on the SAS commando who wrote
about his role in its reformation in the 50’s. It was on the London
best-sellers list for 16 weeks. Lise flew all the way to Nottinghamshire to
interview this elusive British Brigadier who supposedly was a founding member
of the Special Air Services back in ’41. Virgil Jameson either dug himself into
trenches in Robin Hood’s playground after the Korean War or was a true blue
screwball each time he referred to JFK International as Idlewild Airport. On
the Red Eye back to the States, Lise figured out he was playing mind
games to evade her Scud Alley inquires. Nevertheless, he seemed satisfied when
the story ran in Time, and his live-in lover, Nanette, sent her a basket
of scones and jars of marmalade and clotted cream. Lise could taste them now,
warm and rolling off her tongue… but visions of noshing the sinfully decadent,
not to mention high-caloric teatime treat was replaced by images of the
previous night with Sanderson. Promises were made on that very cot without a
word being exchanged. But would he even remember her after he got back to
Bragg? Now there was a question not worth asking, but Lise knew Jeff would
berate her all the same even if she made the comment. So without sounding like
a Happy Days cliché Fonzi looking-out-for-little-Joanie moment, what
were Jeff’s intentions?

“I hate to say this, but you can get wrinkles like that,”
Sanderson pointed to her furrowed brow. Lise tilted her head back enough from
the windowpane to realize someone was speaking, but screamed and leapt back
five feet when she saw Jeff reclining at the foot of her cot. Holding back her
heart from crashing out of her ribcage, Jeff was unremarkably dispassionate at
Lise’s reaction.

“How the fuck do you do that?!” She demanded.

He shrugged. “Do
what?” He was getting under her skin, and God did it feel good. Lise turned
away, leaning against the wall watching the rain pitter-pat on the glass.

“The fuck do you want?” She mumbled.

“You.”

She rolled her
eyes. “Try again.”

“That is my objective.” Lise
sniggered, feeling the warm, worn creases of the saddle between her legs once
again.

“Y’know, there must’ve been some
major fuck-up on your psych examination during selection.” She sang. Lise
squatted down until she was eyelevel with Sanderson, making sure to tightly
pull her white cotton skirt over knees. “Did Congress light that hot of a fire
under Shy’s ass to just send the bodies out into the field? Just because of the
Iran thing?” Jeff just smiled and played with her hair.

“Your hair smells so nice…”

“Or was it the Vietnam POW thing?”

“Why don’t you just give up?” She
returned his impudent grin with a scowl. “Keeping up the immature act does get
tiring.”

“It would be too much to ask you for
a straight answer, wouldn’t it!” Lise clapped loudly right in Sanderson’s face.
“The greatest jackass of the age- and I have to be stuck with him!” Lise
tramped around like a lioness prowling the waterhole at feeding time. She
decided to resume her position at the window when something slid across the
concrete softly bumping her toes. Lise nudged the cardboard box with French
writing on it with her foot. “The hell is this?”

“My peace offering.” Sanderson dug
into his pockets and pulled out a pack of Benson & Hedges and his Zippo.
“God knows you don’t deserve it.” Lise was mesmerized, watching him tilt his
admirable nose the showpiece of his sharp-cut Germanic features, his eyes
rolling in the back of his skull before they cloin tin that peculiar fashion of
his. Jeff made love to the cancer stick. Tenderly his pale-pink mouth puckered
around the filtered butt, inhaling the longest drag as he held it between his
thumb and index finger. She briefly compared his smoking to something else he
had his mouth puckered around last night. The nicotine orgasm lasted between
three and seven seconds, the only explanation why soldiers went through
cigarettes and cigars like canteen water was not to emulate George C. Scott (or
Burgess Meredith for that matter) it was because of the extra jolt they so
desperately needed if they’ve been flying on autopilot for three days straight,
no sleep, firing a weapon. Out on that street, a luxury like a cigarette was
golden. So would Jeff give her the same treatment?

“Only one way to find out.” Lise
blinked.

“What?” Jeff crushed out the butt in
her ashtray and climbed up on the cot.

“You know what.” Deltas were not
mind readers, and who gave him permission to sit on her cot?! Besides, Jeff
didn’t know her that well either. He was only making assumptions that happened
to be right this time around by pure-ass luck. Lise hefted up the box and threw
it on the table.

“Listen to me you,” she yanked the
perforated strip, “don’t fall for me. You’ll only fuck up your life further.”

“Too late for that.” Lise wondered
whether or not he considered putting the chocolate in a cooler because the
wrappers were molded to the bars, outlining the Gold Coast logo mold and
were squishy. She was forced to peel the candy bar like a banana, to avoid
getting chocolate goop on her fingertips. Lise slid the partially-melted
confection across her tongue, feeling it dissolve and drizzle down her throat
all the while pretending Jeff wasn’t there staring at her. It was the only way
she could manage swallowing. This could only happen to her. Mogadishu was the
great copy she needed for an office with windows and maybe enough room
for a sofa to crash on, instead it was twisting into the biggest headache that
she didn’t need at this juncture of her life. “What are you thinking?” Jeff
asked airily.

“I’m thinking that the view from
here isn’t as cute as I thought it was.”

“Then why don’t you look at
something else? Look at me.” She nodded and tossed the crumpled wrapper into
the corner somewhere.

“On second thought, I might need a
closer look. As a matter of fact I’m gonna go play with the sharks!” One of the
benefits of his height was the length of his arms. Lise didn’t get two steps,
and Jeff didn’t have to push himself that far off the mattress to whirl her
into his lap. She could have used the excuse of not wanting to fall on her ass,
so Lise braced herself by latching onto his thighs. Making real human contact
was a blessing during assignments, and when Lise didn’t resist Jeff cradling the
back of her skull before he crushed houthouth over hers he was ecstatic. Lise’s
arms shook with tension, and when she tried to squeeze his thighs an indication
for him to ease up, instead of her knuckles flexing they flattened. Jeff smugly
smiled into the kiss, and she felt the delicious rumble up his chest vibrate
into her breasts. Dowdy olive T-shirts and camouflage pants weren’t telling on
this man. He pushed a hand up her white skirt and wormed his first two fingers
into her panties. Lise had to tear her mouth off of his, no longer caring she
had her hips swaying on Jeff’s hand, not only feeling him playing with her but
hearing it as well. She was so wet it was embarrassing!

Jeff noticed how she was mewling
quite nicely. He pulled his lips over his sharp teeth and suckled her nipples
through the sweater leaving two wet stains. “They’ll hear us…” she panted. Jeff
just grunted. “You’re such an animal…” The grunt that followed came from
somewhere deep within his chest. “I don’t tame animals in camouflage.” Jeff
disengaged himself from her chest and lay back on the cot, lacing fingers
behind his head.

“Why won’t you let this happen?”

“You know what I mean! No matter how
hard I try, but I still can’t figure you out!” She swiped the sweat off her
upper lip. “Are you an ‘us’ or a ‘them’?”

“Honey, I like to think I’m simply
‘me’. However, I’m still working on being ‘yours’.”

“Sanderson,” Lise huffed shaking her
head, “I think this was an accident waiting to happen. So here is what I
propose: if we do this then we break contact effective immediately. From
thereon I will return to my basement at CNN, and you will slog back to the
Stockade, Range 19, Camp Smokey, or wherever the hell you people are shelved
‘til the next mean ol’ terrorists threaten the red, white, and blue. Everyone
gets what they want.” She made a sound similar to that of a chipmunk getting
throttled when Jeff shoved his knee into her crotch and rocked it.

“And I would like to say that this
proposal doesn’t meet any of my standards for satisfaction, therefore am
rejecting it. Furthermore, I would also like to state that I don’t know where
or what the aforementioned locations you named are.” Lise let off an agonizing
scream of frustration and proceeded to rain blows on his head. Jeff laughed
this all off, not bothering to defend himself. Love taps really, she held back
on her punches expelling some of the foulest language in English, Russian, and
French. Growing up with three older brothers Lise never could dodge a good bout
of childish roughhousing. But she always held her own. This was incredibly
stimulating, and while the locale was hardly appropriate but Jeff was laying
down the groundwork, if and only if Lise came around. But that thought
had to wait since he just felt her pull up his T-shirt and cruelly pinch his
abdomen. “AHH- Ooh… new sweet spot!” Lise leapt to the end of the cot smashing
her back into the concrete wall.

“Fucking pervert!” She spat.

“But all the same, you came last
night.” Lise felt the hard dirt path come into contact with her ass once again.
Reflexively she pulled her knees to her chin.

“There is no need to go there!” Jeff
crawled over to her ripping the rumpled cheap top sheet from under them. Skin-to-skin,
and it was too hot for that shit anyway.

“I’d say there is plenty of need to
go there,” his hands magically transported themselves under her skirt, prying
apart her thighs.

“And get you written up? There’s no
way I could forgive myself…” She was smiling in spite of herself, and just when
he was about to get on top of her someone pounded on the door.

“LISE! You alive?!” Jeff and Lise
froze in place but Richard didn’t quit the pounding.

“Will you cut that out, Richard!”
She shouted in Jeff’s ear, Lise put a hand over his mouth to stifle any
protest, but he sucked on her fingers instead. They tasted like chocolate.
“What do you want?”

“The sat phone’s been ringing off
the hook.”

“Tell Stu he can kiss my ass!”

“It isn’t Stuart!”

“Well, who is it?!”

“It’s Tinsley! He wants to talk to
you!” Nigel? Only he could interrupt such precious moments… thank Gfor for small miracles. She shoved Jeff off of her.

“Thought he was in Kigali…” She said
to herself.

“What’s in Rwanda?” Jeff asked. She
twisted her mouth sidelong in a misshapen pucker.

“I don’t know, why don’t you tell
me?”

“Nothing doing. Unless…”

“I gotta take this one.” Lise found
her red flats under the cot and stepped into them.

“Can I see you naked tonight?”

“No,” Lise replied over her
shoulder. Her ribbed red keyhole sleeveless sweater needed ironing now thanks
to him. “In any case, the door will be locked.”

“Let me run something by you: me, a
locked steel door, and you on the other side of it. How excited are you?” Lise
pitied him and pecked Jeff on the mouth.

“Cold canteen cup bath, Sergeant.
Goodbye.”

* * *

Turning the rotating chair by the
ball of her foot, Lise sat in Grimes’ office trying to concentrate on P.G.
Wodehouse amid the din in a tent across the road. Colonel Matthews had politely
suggested that Lieutenant Beales take her and Richard for a drive down the
coast to tape drills, upon their return senior officers and Delta had vanished,
leaving the vast majority of Rangers to enjoy lunch on their own watching taped
episodes of M*A*S*H. Richard appeared munching on one of Grimes’ Drake’s
coffee cakes that was swapped for two apple-cinnamon Nutri Grain bars.
“What the hell are they going on about,” flurries of brown sugar and crumb
topping churned out between his words. Grimes just tapped embers from his cig
and pounded the Mac keys.

“It’s not the Rangers, COs, or XOs,
I could tell you that.” Lise remarked not looking up once from her reading.
Richard glanced at Grimes who didn’t even react then pulled up a metal folding
chair, shrieking across the concrete.

“Do tell. Please continue.”

“Well,” Lise closed the book over
her thumb, saving her place, “You know that Delta works a little bit
differently on deployment. First and foremost there are a smaller number of
guys- about 20 or so that I’ve seen here. Within that assault team, are several
smaller teams. Now, under the watchful eye of the General, they have to plan
out their assault tactics on whatever potential target sites that have been
mapped and listed.” Richard guffawed when his eyes slid over to Grimes who
stopped typing. “As we all know, hardliner Rangers such as Captain Steele has
probably busted a gasket in that tent over yonder about the seemingly
unhealthy, anti-team player attitude that is Delta so I thwhenwhen he comes
back we’d best leave him be for a bit. Y’see Rich, Captain Steele’s experience
in these meetings probably are along these lines: you sit down, take notes, ask
question to make sure you got things down correctly, and remember to salute on
your out.” The cig in Grimes’ mouth was clutched at the corner of his teeth
making him look like Harpo Marx as his brows lifted.

/That’s Cap’n Steele, all right.
/

color:black'>* * *

It wasn’t that Lise was naïve or
inexperienced… far from it. She just didn’t do the sex thing. Or the love
thing. But who said anything about love in the first place? Being in the heat
of combat does strange things to the ordinary civilian, you start having
regrets. Lise shuddered at the word. Regrets. She regretted what she was about
to do, choosing the good stuff she had at the moment over the great stuff she
could have indefinitely. But as she walked out into the main hangar, Delta was
nowhere to be seen. That certainly threw a monkey wrench into the works… then
again maybe not. Lise ran out onto the beach, she felt her feet scarcely skim
the scalding sand and found Richard lounging under the crude pergolas. “Rich!”

He set down the reflector under his
chin on his lap. “What?”

“Get on the sat phone! I need to
call the British Embassy!” If Delta were jacks-of-all-trades, then she was a
goddamned sorceress.

~U.S. Army Headquarters, September 24 4:59 P.M.~

Having just hung up from her personal call following her one to
the British Embassy, Lise wandereoundound so wrapped up in her troubles she
didn’t see anyone walking in her path until she slammed into him.

“Sorry!” Two big hands clapped her shoulders steadying her, Lise
meeting eyes with Gordon gnawing on a Snickers bar, clutching a loop of
det cord between his fingers. She made a point not to ask.

“Careful! Don’t know what you can run into out in the world…” How
true.

“Sorry Gary:p>

“Not a problem. What’s the matter?”

She shook her
head. “Nothing.” /Everything. / “Have you seen Jeff?” He thumbed over
his shoulder. “Thanks.” Lise circled around him stepping through swinging
plastic sheets. Something in Gary’s chest felt heavier, not exactly envy, not
quite fear but a melancholy that he was about to miss something. Under a canopy
she spotted Sanderson,kerikering over an oil drum filled with recycled water, naked
to the waist pouring water over his head from his canteen. Lise watched it
coolly drizzle down the back of his cranium, branching out on his broad back
into his pants. He dropped it to the sand and balanced the drum’s lid on the
mouththe the can and vigorously scrubbed something in it. “Jeff!”

“What is it, sweets?” He didn’t look
up once from his laundry. She stopped short unsure of his use of epithets when
there was no verbal consent on her behalf, just participation in clandestine
make out sessions. Sanderson wrung out his wadded T-shirt, grey soapy runoff
splashed into the shallow pool in the lid before plunging it back in.

“Jeff I…” As Lise got closer she
could see the rust tint the in the froth and a dark stain on his thigh she knew
wasn’t water. She wrung her hands momentarily then checked Jeff’s face it was
neutral.

“Geez. If you wanted to see me, you
didn’t have to dress up for the occasion.” She changed into a black silk halter
sundress with moon blossom prints.

“You’d be the last person I’d dress
up for.” Lise said slipping back into character. Sanderson doused the shirt
once more and pinned it to a nylon rope behind him with several articles of
clothing belonging to the other guys. One that caught her eye was a pair of
boxers that read ‘THIS END UP’ on the hem of the right pant leg.

“Well,” he drawled, “I’m just a
jeans and T-shirt kind of guy. Which is one of the reasons why I joined this
crowd.”

“Why did you enlist in the first
place, Sanderson?” Lise crossed her arms over her waist openly curious.

“I’ll tell you that over dinner some
time. I clean up pretty good, y’know.”

“Somehow I doubt that. But you plan
on taking a road trip up to Washington?” Sanderson produced a relatively clean
shirt from his ruck and pulled it over his head, Lise quirked an eyebrow
admiring the way his abs crunched and quickly pushed her nose up into the air
again when his head emerged from the hole.

“Thanks,” Jeff said rearranging his
dog tags under his shirt.

“‘Thanks?’ I didn’t say
anything.”

“That’s right. You didn’t say
anything.” There were deep green streaks on his shirt from the wet skin
beneath, but they would vanish in minutes from the triple digit heat. “But as
for your road trip comment, I was hoping you might come to North Carolina.”

She squinted in
derision. “Sorry, but Fort Bragg in autumn is sort of ugly. And none of my
ots wts will match barbed wire.”

“What I had in mind doesn’t inc
cl
clothing.”

“But I would like to eat at some
point.”

“Oh, it could include food if you
want to get creative about it.”

“Okay-”

“I was thinking something along the
lines of warm butterscotch.”

“This is the end of this
discussion!”

“But since you’re the choco freak,
hot fudge would be cool.” Lise looked around to see if anyone was within an
earshot of them. She pulled his arm in the direction of the beach.

“Can we take this someplace more
secluded, PLEASE?”

“Elise, do you have some sort of
hang up when a guy talks sex with you? Or is just me talking sex with
you?” Lise collapsed supporting herself on her thighs drained of all energy as
if she ran the New York City marathon.

“Look, I came here just to say
forget it.” Sanderson stared at her blankly. “It’s just not gonna work Jeff,
there are just too many obstacles and differences we are not gonna be able to
take on.” Feeling satisfied, Lise turned on her heel and was about to leave
when he said:

“So you’re… giving up?” He shrugged
his shoulders. Lise spun back around ready to tear him a new asshole.

“What exactly do you want from me,
Sanderson? Huh?” She threw her arms up.

“I made it very plain eer
er
today.”

“Yeah! Yeah, you did.” She pointed
at him. “And that was a mistake. This whole thing was a mistake, and I am to
blame because I didn’t take responsibility to stop it.”

“You seem to like that word,
‘responsible’- a lot.” Now what was he playing at? “That might be too strong of
a word,” he punctuated this with a wag of his finger. “‘Taking the blame for
shit that is not your fault in the first place’ might be better.”

“Now wait a minute-“ Lise charged at
him, Jeff clasped her wrists before she could do any real damage.

“No you wait a minute. This
has nothing to do with your family, you know it and I know it. You know why you
took this job? I’ll tell you why: it was your little way of giving everybody
the finger and saying ‘I’ve got my own mind, now everybody can go fuck
themselves.’” Lise attempted to interrupt when Jeff applied just enough
pressure on the inside of her wrists to quiet her and relinquished the grip.
“And the only reason why you push me, and every other man away is because
you’re scared to be alone. Just like me, just like everyone here. It’s called
being human.”

“You don’t know me Sanderson!” She
shouted twisting her arms away.

“No, Lise, no. You don’t know
me and you won’t gme ame a damn chance.” She grinned maliciously.

“I could imagine what it would be
like. I wouldn’t even be able to ask you how your day went without you blinking
twice before answering me. And should a terrorist put a bullet between your
pretty eyes, you know what your fellow stooges are going to tell me? ‘It was a
training accident.’ So you can take your chivalrous, unsung-hero-classified
bullshit and shove it up your ass. I’ve heard it one too many times, so forget
you Jeff. Forget this.”

“Why do you like running
away?” Sanderson asked the air. The crunching of sand and dirt paused as Lise
stood several feet and a world away from him.

“Why do llike being so
persistent?” She looked over her naked shoulder at him.

“Because somewhere down the road,
I’m going to get an answer.” Lise scoffed and promenaded back into the hangar.
“FUCK!” Sanderson fruitlessly kicked the dirt with his boot.

* * *