Pandora's Legion

8

“Interesting bunch of lads. I’m getting to know them better.”

Frank Leopole regarded Carolyn Padgett-Smith with renewed interest. In a few days his original skepticism had mutated into grudging admiration that now teetered on the verge of respect. “You mean they try to speak the Queen’s English around you?”

“Such as one can discern from American mercenaries!”

“Yes, they’re mercenaries,” Leopole conceded. “Hell, I’m a merc myself, since I fight for money.” He uttered a short male bark. Few strangers had ever seen Lieutenant Colonel Leopole actually laugh. “But then I did the same thing in the corps, when you think about it.”

She returned the smile. “One man’s mercenary is another’s soldier of fortune, I suppose.”

Leopole nodded. “Yes, ma’am, but the difference is damn… thin.” He waved a hand at Blue Team kicking a soccer ball around the hangar. Gunny Foyte had given them a half-hour respite after unpacking and stowing gear. “The name ‘mercenary’ still has negative connotations, but that’s just a word. It got a bad rap in the sixties when a lot of mercs were just drunks and gunslingers looking for a quick check. These men are entirely different.”

Padgett-Smith turned her attention to the SSI men, some without shirts, all visibly fit. “How so?”

“Well, they’re professionals to start with. Only one or two have no military experience, and those were police. Beyond that, they’re pretty smart as a group. Don’t let the clowns like Bosco and Breezy fool you, ma’am. These guys mostly have stock portfolios and they know what’s up and what’s down. If there’s any adrenaline junkies, I’m not aware of it. And it’s my job to know.”

“But aren’t some of them here for the excitement, the adventure? Like some of them say — for the action?”

“Oh, sure. Some of them, but not all. A lot of them would be happy if they never got shot at while others are looking to prove something to themselves. But I’d guess most of them are a lot like SWAT guys. They’re more into body building and physical challenge than guns and explosives. SSI lets them do those things without the tedious aspects of military life.” Chicken shit flashed on his mental screen, but Frank Leopole would never use that term around a lady.

The immunologist looked at some of White Team engaged in an arcane sort of male bonding. She had never seen anyone perform twenty-five one-armed push-ups before. That bald giant again; Ken something or other.

Leopole followed her gaze and read her mind. “It’s like this, Doctor. Where else can a young guy without experience get paid for parachuting or scuba diving or handling expensive equipment? Only in the military, and each of these men had enough of that environment. Admiral Derringer was right there to pick up the people he needed.” Leopole gave her a rare grin. “That’s why he’s an admiral and I was a light colonel!”

“I look forward to meeting him. Everyone seems to regard him well. Mr. Keegan especially…”

“Roger that. Terry’s a very capable young man, but still bitter inside. Guess I can’t blame him after the way the Navy treated him, but that was years ago. He should get over it and move on.”

Because Leopole had never been so open before, Padgett-Smith sensed an opportunity and took it. She was tempted to call him “Frank” but resisted it. “Colonel, I’d like to ask about my personal protection. I know you can’t assign me a bodyguard, and I wouldn’t want to be dependent anyway. Besides, my contract was written so that…”

“Yes, ma’am. I meant to handle that for you.” He rose, walked to his duffel bag, and came back with a green satchel. “This is for you, Doctor, if you can handle it.”

Padgett-Smith opened the satchel and withdrew a holstered Browning. She was aware that the American was watching her closely. She hesitated a moment, focusing on what Tony had told her. Keep three rules in mind, love. She turned away from the soccer game and drew the pistol. It was a Highpower, just like Tony’s. Check if it’s loaded. Keep it pointed safely. Finger off the trigger. With the muzzle pointed at the floor and her finger along the frame, she retracted the slide. It locked back on an empty magazine.

Damn! She berated herself. I should have dropped the magazine first.

She made a point of looking in the chamber, then felt with the tip of a small finger. Satisfied, she set the Browning down, muzzle toward the wall.

Leopole looked at her closely, as if examining something through one of her microscopes. “Nicely done, Doctor. You’ve had some training.”

“Well, not a lot, you know. But my brother-in-law was SAS.”

“I’ll try to get us a range session but that may not be possible. Anyway, you seem safe with firearms and I’ve seldom known a good shooter who wasn’t a good gun handler.”

He tapped the holster. “We’ll get you rigged up so you can carry this on a belt. When you wear it, keep it concealed at all times. The locals disapprove of women with guns.”

Leopole reached into his duffel and came up with a spare magazine and a box of fifty cartridges. “These are 124-grain hollowpoints. Best nine-mil ammo I know of. It’s not approved by the Geneva Convention but we’re not operating under their rules.” He paused, focusing his thoughts. Then he turned to her again. “Doctor, if you ever have to shoot, keep shooting until the threat goes away. That’s the best advice I can give you.”

He wondered whether he should deliver the final advice about the Last Bullet. Save it for yourself. He decided against it. Carolyn Padgett-Smith had already decided that she would not be taken alive.

Terry Keegan settled in the copilot’s seat of the Mi-17. The instructor, Captain Falak Mir, sat to his left; Eddie Marsh in the flight engineer’s seat behind them. “Terrific viz,” Keegan enthused, looking downward between the two instrument panels.

“Everybody says that,” Mir replied. He spoke fluent English but did not bother mentioning that he also had passable Russian. “Believe me, it helps to see beneath your feet when you are trying to maintain a hover on a four thousand-meter mountain.”

Keegan looked up from the glass panels. “Do you do that very often?”

Mir nodded. “We can, but that is fairly unusual. However, we have Alouette pilots with a thousand hours above six thousand meters. That is because our highest army positions are at six thousand.”

“Well, my hat’s off to you. I’m basically an antisubmarine guy. I get a nose bleed much over two hundred feet!”

Marsh interjected, leaning over Keegan’s shoulder. “Captain Mir, I know we’ll have some classroom instruction on systems and procedures, but what’s this helo like to fly?”

Mir rotated the control stick between his knees. “The cyclic is heavier than you are used to. That’s the Russian design philosophy— they do not want their pilots making abrupt control inputs at higher airspeeds. That might cause airframe stress. So the hydraulic reservoir dampens the motion.” He shrugged. “After a little experience you learn to anticipate more than normal.”

Marsh nodded, thinking ahead to the time he would sit in the left seat, contrary to American choppers with the command pilot on the right. “How’s the collective?”

Mir touched the control lever on the left side of Keegan’s seat. “Nothing unusual. It has a friction lock so you can adjust tension to your liking.”

The instructor ran practiced fingers across the right-hand instrument panel. “Engine gauges, fuel flow, flight instruments. Those are all metric, of course, but it goes without saying that you keep everything in the green. At higher altitudes you may pull more torque in the yellow, but not for long.” He grinned beneath his mustache. “We only have thirty-eight of these machines, and the two squadron commanders are rather jealous of them.”

He continued his explanation. “Autopilot, radio compass, radio altimeter, and communication panel. I understand from Major Khan that you expect to operate discreetly, so your Pakistani copilot can handle special communications.”

“The Mi-17 cruises at 240 kilometers, which is — what? About 130 knots? Vmax is only ten klicks more so I do not believe in pushing it. Your main performance advantage is in lifting. The Seventeen carries four tons of external load, which I imagine is far more than you will ever need. Mainly, you can hover at normal takeoff weight at four thousand meters.”

“The specs I saw said your range is about five hundred kilometers,” Keegan said.

“Figure 250 nautical and you should be safe.”

“Captain, I’m all for being safe!”

“Do you mind if I join you?”

Jeffrey Malten was pleasantly surprised to hear the dulcet voice of “the bug lady.” That’s how some of the operators had been referring to her. Weapons of mass destruction came in three flavors: chemical, biological, and nuclear, aka gas, bugs, and nukes.

“Why, no, ma’am. Not a bit.” Malten and a Red Team operator were finishing their stretching exercises when Padgett-Smith arrived. She wanted to maintain some sort of jogging routine but realized that a lone white female was bound to draw unwelcome attention. She pulled her warmup’s hood over her head and quickly finished her own routine. Malten introduced her to his partner.

“Dr. Smith, this is Jeremy Johnson.” The two shook hands.

“Mr. Johnson. How do you do?”

“Uh, just call me J. J., ma’am. Everybody else does.”

Malten nudged his friend. “Hey what’d the frogs call you, Le Double Jay?”

“Aw, knock it off, Malten.”

Padgett-Smith cocked her head. “The frogs?”

Johnson clearly was embarrassed at the attention. When he failed to respond, Malten explained. “J. J. did a stretch in the Foreign Legion.”

CPS straightened up, mouth slightly agape. “La Légion étrangére?”

Johnson nodded solemnly. “Oui, Madame Médecin. ‘Legio Pro Patria.’”

The ex-legionnaire and the immunologist immediately established a rapport. Malten listened with growing impatience as they chatted — he would have said jabbered — with growing Gallic glee.

Johnson finished, “Au combat, tu agis sans passion et sans haine, tu respectes les ennemis vaincus, tu n’abandonnes jamais ni tes morts, ni tes blessés, ni tes armes.”

“Bravo, mon vieux! Très bien!” Padgett-Smith exclaimed. She clapped her hands in appreciation.

Noting Malten’s consternation, Carolyn turned to him. “Mr. Johnson just recited the Legion’s code of honour. ‘To fight without passion or hate, to respect vanquished enemies… never to abandon your dead, nor ever to surrender your arms.’”

The former SEAL tried to appear unimpressed. He rattled off, “Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”

“What’n hell’s that?” Johnson asked.

“The Boy Scout laws.”

On the way back to the hangar the joggers passed a young dog. Happy to find company, the mongrel capered after them, yapping along the way. Johnson tried to shoo the animal away, and though it cringed and held back, it trailed them at a respectful distance. Finally Padgett-Smith stopped. She quickly made friends with the dog.

“He has a collar but no identification,” she said. Malten reached down to pat the animal, which tried to back away. “Jeffrey, I think he’s shy of men. He’s probably been abused, poor thing. You go ahead. I’ll see if he’ll come with me and maybe we can feed him.”

Malten stood up. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Doctor. He probably belongs to somebody who may not like us fooling with his mutt.”

“Well, then. You start out and I’ll keep you in sight. It’s just a short way.”

Malten exchanged glances with Johnson. Their faces read the tacit message: Women!

Outside the hangar, Padgett-Smith gave the stray dog some leftovers and water. Johnson kept her company; despite their different backgrounds, they found they enjoyed talking to one another.

“I still don’t know why, but I wanted to join the Legion ever since I was a kid,” Johnson began. “I took French in high school just so I’d have a jump on the language training. After that I spent a couple of years earning airfare and getting in shape. Besides, I wanted to travel some in Europe before enlisting. I signed on for one term, five years.” He rolled his eyes. “That was enough!”

“Why didn’t you re-enlist?”

“I’d seen and done everything I wanted to do. You know — got shot at and shot back. Besides, by then I was almost twenty-six and I wanted to start making some money.”

“Are you still in touch with any of them?”

“No, not really. Still, it was an interesting bunch of guys. I learned everything you’d expect about soldiering and even more about people. My best friend was a Pole. The others in my section included a Canadian, two Italians, one or two Germans, a Greek, and even a Samoan. The best soldier I ever knew was Croatian, Sergent-Chef Dukovac. He’d fit right into this group.”

“That’s an interesting observation. What made him the best soldier?”

“Oh, I don’t know exactly. It was just the whole package. He saw everything that happened, knew exactly what was going on, even in a nighttime firefight. Later somebody called it ‘situation awareness.’ Also, he took time to learn about his soldiers. Not everybody does. But he knew who could shoot straight, who could run the farthest, who was distracted and who was focused. And he could do anything the rest of us could, but better. Even though he was quite a bit older.”

“Where did you serve, if I may ask?”

“Mostly in Djibouti. Thirteenth Demi-Brigade. Terrible climate but we had some excitement now and then. I’m making notes for a book.”

She smiled. “Well, I know one or two publishers…”

“My dog!” The voice was harsh, grating, accented. Padgett-Smith and Johnson looked up to see an irate Pakistani NCO striding toward them. He was clearly agitated, exclaiming in high-decibel Urdu. He was also visibly curious as to what the hangar contained.

Johnson turned to the doctor. “You’d better get Major Khan.”

“Oh dear, he’s checking the shooting range with Frank Leopole.”

“Then get Omar. He speaks the lingo.”

Padgett-Smith disappeared through the partly open hangar door. When she returned with Omar Mohammed, the NCO was dragging the dog away.

“What happened?” Mohammed asked.

“Uh, the corporal says we stole his dog. That’s not true, but somebody saw us heading back here with the mutt.”

Dr. Omar Mohammed uttered an un-Muslim epithet. Then he went to find Frank Leopole before things turned worse.