This is translated version of Pax Americana( The original version had already had 15 chapter and if you want read it via google translate, just PM me). Because English is my native language so if there were any parts didnt sound right to you, just let me know and i would try to explain it.
KAYLE
South Japan Sea - 3:00 am
Kayle Wilson woke up when the helicopter entering the bad weather in the southern Japanese sea. The compartment began to shake, and the engine kept emitting scary sounds, making it easy to think it was about to explode. If a world apocalypse happened tomorrow, it must have started like this. When she was not able to know what the hell was going on, another shockwave came, this time seemingly more dangerous than the last, Kayle fell off from her chair, her head hitting the wall.
Ignoring the dizzying pain, she got up, tightened her seat belt and crouched down; Outside, the sea was dark but still and cold. A good sign nonetheless, in the worst case, the crew had to swim a long distance to the shore. The captain still had not sent out an emergency signal yet, and when the helicopter crashed into the water, it was probably too late. They had no lifeboats but no one actually needed it if the Black Hawk broke into pieces after the impact. There wouldn't be enough time to do anything else, she concluded, they had to get out of this place quick before the sea engulfed everything. Now Kayle only hope that the water down there wouldn't be too cold because she, in fact, wasn't a great swimmer to begin with.
"Hold on!" The captain's voice rang out on the radio. His was thịck and booming, smelling like two or three shots of Whiskey.
"Chris, we are going down too fast."
His co-pilot yelled in panic. He was a tall and muscular man but Kayle didn't know his name.
"Pay attention to the hydraulic system, Cooper" Chris shouted. "Harvey, Hold on. "
Harvey is the name of the machine gunner who just had celebrated his twentieth birthday month ago. A farm boy from Colorado with yellow teeth and cheeks full of acne. His face was now pale, desperately clinging to the protective belt like those who were shipwrecked, refusing to let go of even a small piece of wood.
The water splashes relentlessly on the window, and Kayle knew the helicopter was flying very low. Thirty feet at best. Emergency light automatically turn on, dark red and mournful like blood, sirens howl loudly, filling the air with it's sharp and creeping noise. When the undulating waves began to appear on the opaque glass door, she knew what was about to happen
Five more seconds, no more. Her instinct told her. A loud noise then burst and broken
Taking a deep breath, Kayle waited. She was no stranger to Death, a lonely and gloomy old man, not a decent person whatsoever. He reached his hand into the air, grabbed the heart of some pitiful person, then leisurely looked at his tropy as warm was slowly leaving it. Often, old men and women were deceitful prey, but lately he paid more attention to the youths and their lively activities in the heat of desert sun. It must be said that the god of death is eating and making, although there was some failures, but those weren't big problems anyways because Death always left an appointment when he departed, reminding people that sooner or later they would meet him again.
Like today, in rare occasion of kindness, he generously gave her another appointment.
The Black Hawk made a beautiful loop on the sea surface, the inertia force made her muscles tense, her chest ached and her ears nearly deaf. Everything happened within a few heartbeat, and when Kayle was able to regain control of her body, it was all over. Chris just had a spectacular comeback, like swollen eye and broken nose Marquez thrown the knock-out punch at Pacquiao before the bell of round six rang up
"We are saved!" Chris exclaimed happily. "16 feet! Lord have mercy. That was sixteen feet for sure"
Kayle didn't know if it was alcohol making him more excited than usual or not because she saw the other two people just sitting silently on their seat. This is probably the first time they stepped one foot into the grave, an experience that she would not call pleasant.
When the helicopter got a little higher, the rescue light and the siren also went out. The darkness poured into the cavity, greedily occupied all the large and small spaces, except Havey's face, melancholy and tired in the dim moonlight.
In the twilight, Kayle tried to find her luggage, which had disappeared during the last near death experience. Despite of being called luggage it was nothing but a collection of a few set of clothes, toothpaste and towels in the backpack with the Fort Bragg logo in the front, the result of being pulled out of bed at two in the morning. Finding it right now wasn't an easy task because cabin was a mess: mailers sent from homeland, wrapped in silver paper lied sprawlingly on the floor, some wooden crates looked like a mortar shells boxes was stacked on top of each other, forming a gray-green wall that blocked the passage to the cockpit.
"Great," she mumbled. "They called me up at two and put me on a cart."
Any leftover space is fully utilized, just took down the sub-bench and you would have room for some beer blocks. Someone that she guesses it must be Havey had came up with the idea of turning the helicopter's compartment into a work of art like what people saw at churches in Rome. The sexy black-haired Megan Fox in a leopard-colored bikini stood next to smoking Scarlett Johanson lying seductively on the beach with the three bold red words "Welcome to Malibu" in the background. And that is the only decent piece of art in this temple that Kayle could look at, the rest was just straight out vulgar and lacking of cloth. Men were born to be warriors as well as women born to satisfy warriors, Nietzsche was so sure of that and because the men believed , Kayle partly accepted it as long as they didn't except her to satisfy anyone of them.
It took about five minutes for Harvey to regain his composure, he wiped the sweat off his forehead with his hand, but his eyes were still absentmindedly looking at the land afar, where the city lights were only blurry spots in the mist. With a somewhat selfish feeling, she hoped this gloomy situation would last, at least until they arrived in Tokyo because countless times, she found that those eyes were glaring at her. It was a look that confused others, making them have a felling of they were naked.
"Havey, check the damage. You have two minutes. Are you okay, Major? "
"Still alive," she replied curtly. "The flight is not what I expected."
It might be a little bit impolite but Kayle had the authority to speak like that because after all, she was the one that had the highest rank here.
"Sorry about that," he laughed. "Usually, the weather is not so bad, but you know, God likes to do thing in his own way. I always believe that if we ... "
"I can't find my belongings, Captain" Kayle interrupted, groping for a while in the darkness eroding her patience, while her head was still hurt like hell after the unintentional impact with the floor.
The gunner overheard that and with strange enthusiasm, he took off his protective belt and gave her a hand. A few times, their hands clumsily touched each others and she was the one who immediately draw her back. Havey was smiling, Kayle didn't see his face clearly but she knews it. Eight months at Fort Bragg had made her became an expert on such matter. They would find every way to touch you from the dining room to the practice ground. Her training officers, teammates, guards, maintenance and protection workers, even the cooks, all of them. Men seemed to be obsessed with the idea of touching her butt or Kayle was the one thinking they were going to do so then got paranoid from it.
There was no way that everyone collude with each others just to do that she told herself.
"It's too dark in here," Havey complaint "I can't see a thing."
"Wait a minute" when he finished the sentence, the light was turned on. This time it wasn't red anymore but a cyan color. The machine gunner did not have much trouble in finding the backpack and when she was about to say thank you, that hideous glare of his appeared again. In the dim light, it looked even more disgusting.
"I guess got this one, Lieutenant" Havey said mischievously "Ten buck! No! It must be twenty. "
" Ten." Chris dismissedb ut weakly "Don't be greedy."
"I swear to god that you promise me twenty and Cooper can testify that. "
At first, she didn't understand what they were talking about but she guessed it had something to do with a bet. Copper insisted that as a true man, his superior should keep his word and Chris had to reluctantly agree to that. The atmosphere was disturbed by the excitement of the three of them and suddenly no one remembered that they had just escaped the jaw of death a few minute ago. The captain wanted to know what Havey was going to do with that money and he had also set out a rather ambiguous plan, full of possibilities if he were the winner.
"Straight to the club. There is a nice little place outside the base and the ticket is only three "Havey said," Then I would buy myself a Johnny Walker and some chip "
"It costs one hundred and fifty dollars," Copper snorted. "Not enough."
"No problem, I got two hundred dollar from another bet yesterday. Do you know Dickon? The handsome prick at Nanto base?"
"Yes" Chris nodded. "Rumors said he was son of somebody in the senate. Is it true?"
Descendants of big guy always received special treatments and in the military, the word "special" should always be understood in a negative way. Kayle was in this bloody bussiness long enough to know the hatred was real the U.S Army would be disturbed to find out how many people had joint its rank due to people like Dickon. There were thousands reasons for people to join the army. Some was pure patriotic, fighting to protect American values, something that Kayle had still failed to indentify.A a quarter was after adventure and free oversea travels, many consider soldering as a profession and there always were people who got their head shaved in oder to find a thing called equality.
Young people from blue colar families soon found it hard or impossible to join the upper middle class . It was the harsh truth even though the chorus of "An American Dream" was never get old. Guys like Harvey were excited with an idea battlefields were where they re-establish order that had long been turned upside down, where money, status becames meaningless, and just with a little bit of courgage and luck, they would have all the right to stand tall and strong with their head held high in front of those snobs . Luck, she wasn't so sure but kayle knew that they never lack of recklessness
During her time at the training camp, it was fortunate for Kayle because apart from being a woman, they did not pay attention to other things. It would have been worse if someone knew her father was Lieutenant General Ronald.
"He keep telling people that he was here to served his country, and how unfair it was if he sat at home watching his compatriots shed blood." Havey said, of course in a mocking tone. "That's right. Our Dickon is indeed a crusader, Mr. Dickon is willing to give up the villa by the lake to come here with us! Lying son of bitch! He came here just because the number of people that came to see his parents with his child in their bellies had been up to three. "
"How the hell you know that?" Surprised Cooper
"If you don't want others to know your little dirty secrets, don't have one then. Anyway, I gave him some money. I challenged him to date the Japanese baby at the grocery store within a week. "Havey told him " If I lose, I would have to do all his bidding in the next three month but on the bright side, I would get two hundred buck. Needless to say how angry that idiot got when the girl just simly ran off everytime he tried to approach. She didn't say to him a goddamn word and I won the bet. "
Kayle had to admit that the guy was bold. Chris assume that Harvey had done something.
"Did you cheat?"
"Can't say I did. I didn't collude with that girl if that is what you think. I didnt had to actually because I known she is a mute for a long time. "
Two pilots laughed. Kayle smiled as well, just a very light smirk but it was enough to please Havey. She wasnt a cold and distance type of person and has no intention to be one.
Ever since the day Louie left home with a few hundred bucks and decided to watch the world through the kitchen of Bobby Van's Steakhouse while outside, a bunch of tycoons, upjumped stock brokers and CEOs Goldman Sach was dinning with French wine and 200$ steak then whatever once belonged to him: his hunting rifle, his room, his responsibility and inheritance - her father insisted on naming him off his will- were all pushed to her.
"From now on, you are my son. Don't disappointed me like Louie."
Her father had said that after Louie was gone for about a week
To Kayle, his words were more like an order than a request. Until now she still wondered why she didn't have any resistance, even the smallest of objection to his strange decision. She should have tried to deny or join Louie on his way to New York. But no, all she did was silent and accepted her fate. Maybe it was because things happened so fast that she didn't have time to think, to react properly or maybe she was afraid her father would have a heart attack if she said no. The desertion of Louie was too much for him and one more time would be a critical blow. Although he always tried to act tough and hard outside, but once, she saw the lieutenant general sitting in front of the fireplace with Louie's hunting rifle in his hand. He used a towel to wipe the dust off the gun before carefully putting it back.
"Someday, maybe," her father said quietly as if he didn't want anyone to hear. "I will wait."
At a young age, Kayle keen to the idea that she would end up married a good-looking acongressman or general when growing up and in fact, she was raised to do that kind of thing. She went to a private school, had a best tutors that money could buy to make sure she knew the proper way to play piano and read Iliad fluently in three languages. Kayle dreamed of rallies in Boston, Carolina and garden parties where the living room was always full of laughter from the ladies, while men were busy discussing about voters and electoral college. Her mother had twenty-eight years of happiness with such a life and she obviously wanted to be like her.
Even after eight years had passed, she had still not stopped thinking about the day she stood in front of the mirror in the oversized hunting suit and that ugly stupid duck-head hat which hid aways beautiful gloden curls that was once her pride and lament :
"What the hell am I doing?"
Her father taught her everything he had taught Louie when he was ten: hunting, camping, arts of leadership, military tradition. There were some difficulties, but she was able to overcome eventually. Kayle shot very well, better than she thought. In the state-wide contest one year later, she won the final prize. This achievement prompted her to enter the name of the army sniper rifle, but her father frowned at the idea.
He managed to get her into West Point under the patronage of a colonel who owed him favors and one of those would explain why he was vice principal at the academy. That first step for Louie and now her has a leg in the Pentagon. It must be said that the plan was conducted with military precision, Lieutenant General Ronald had foreseen everything except for the stubbornness of his son. No, he didn't expect her to be that stubborn either. The prospect of sacrificing old life in exchange for thirty years sitting behind the desk, attending boring talks and waiting for endorsement from her father's powerful old friends made Kayle sick to the bone. No ! Thousands of times no. Father could force Kayle to give up her old life but she herself must be the person that choose the new ones.
Strangely, resisting at that time was so easy.
One day in late January when it was still cold and wet, people saw a Mercedes stopped in front of the gate of Fort Bragg, the home of US special forces. Kayle stepped out of the car with a puzzling joy, completely opp the general, sadly and tiredly trudging like a man who was about to stand before firring squad.
"I don't know what to say but wish you luck." She saw his cheeks flushed due to the cold. "But if there is something change your mind, you know you can give me a call. I ca..."
"No," Kayle interrupted him. She would not give up halfway then go asking for his help "Never"
After that, Kayle strode inside so six years later, she wished she had said "Yes".
"That was how you won two hundred dollars bet, so what ten dollars was for?"
Kayle asked unconcernedly, like when we accidentally heard an interesting story in a pub then invited that man a few more beers, hoping that they would tell us something even more interesting. However, she only receive a strange silence as their response. Suddenly all three of them held their breath as if she had just committed a sacrament.
Somehow, Kayle had a feeling that this bet had something to do with her. The soldiers' hoax with the commander is not unusual because she herself also spent ten dollars to guess the day Colonel Peterson divorce the wife that had been cuckolding him for years. Winning usually wasn't important when the fun here was never get caught.
"Lieutenant Chris?" She was waiting for an answer."Do you have something to say?"
"Well ..." he faltered. "It's merely about the mission."
" Mission? Well then, Whose mission is this? "
"Yours, Major" Chris replied hesitantly
Kayle leaned back in her chair, her legs crossed and then she gave Havey a sharp look that made his face turned pale again. Admittedly, intimidating subordinates had its own fun.
Chris took a breath and said:
"You know, Major, we don't have high ranking officer on our aircraft before. Usually, early flights like this one are only for the delivery of letters and parcels left over from the previous batch. So when I saw you at the airport, I told Harvey that you look like Demi Moore but he didn't think so. "
Many women wiould jump up with joy when people compared them to that once- famous movie star but Kayle only found this confusing more than ever because she could see for herself that Demi Moore and her didn't have anything in common, regardless it was the shape of their faces or hair colors. Demi Moore was green eyes brunette and she was a blondie.
"In A Few Good men. She played a naval lawyer who went to Gauntanamo to investigate the murder. I thought that you are going to save some private from the cell in Tokyo but It seem I was wrong, Madam. "
"And how you know that?"
She remembered that she had never mentioned the mission in Tokyo as well as who she was and where she came from. Pilots could only know each passenger name, destination but they rarely was provided with anything else than that.
"The badge on your packback, Madam."
Havey quickly jumped into the conversation and It took Kayle a few second to understand his vague explanation. The old backpack was some sort of her ID card now and it wasn't too hard to realize the number of military lawyers that were trained at Fort Bragg was nearly zero.
"Are you special force?" Cooper showed a surprised "Seal? No they don't allow female canidate so it must be Delta?"
"Specter," she replied.
It is quite a unfamiliar name to many but if they have been in Iraq or Afghanistan, they must have known this unit. During last years of Iraq War, the United States realized that it could not win the urban guerilla warfare the usual methods. The nearly-decade conflict was all about small engagements on dusty streets, house to house fighting in shabby suburban neighborhoods where U.S troop could get ambushed by insurgents as easy as politicans in Washington get ones for their own from protesters every time mortar shells knocked down some buildings. Because heavy weapons had became somewhat of obstacle, they turned attention to special forces.
SEAL and Delta were the first to enter this new bussiness, they fought alongside with companies of marine, conducting raids on enemy hideout at five o'clock when they was still busy for afternoon pray. No more homes were destroyed by bombs and artillery shells, casualties were also reduced, the generals were pleased at the result as American public were pleased at the prospect that their boy would go home soon. Everyone was happy except for Iraqis - of course they always found something to upset about. But soon battlefield commanders realized they were exhausting two most elite units of the United States Army. SEAL's main task was to eliminate valuable targets, not play cat and mouse all days with rebels and moreover, the losses had also began to appear, losses that could not replace easily. So the army needed a new task force capable of carrying the burden and that how Specter was created.
Spectre's early goal was to find and eliminate as many insurgents as possible, a glorious job, making everyone in the team thought of themselves as heroes in the first few months but that was only before the CIA took over. Missions began to get dirty, they often broke into other people's homes at midnight, dragged suspects out of bed and threw them onto trucks, sometimes she even received orders to arrest even women and children because there was some genius in the commanding staff thought "extreme methods" would succeed where breaking teeth and water boarding had failed . Under the protective wings of the intelligence department, Spectre was allowed to use all kinds of brutal methods as long as they get job done.
Although she was not directly involved in the interrogations, Kayle also heard some talk. CIA had a prison camp right in Iraq, a compound disguised as a fertilizer plant, surrounded by concrete walls and Specter personels defending them. Conditions of detention was so terrible that as long as prisoners still drew breathe, they would suffer from it. The press sniffed of something in the air but before they were able to came out with a conclusion or located the facility, CIA had already brunt everything down to the ground and transferred all prisoners to another place. The clever spy masters were very keen on maintaining black site like this as they gave Spectre so many front covers that she lost count. The last one was "La Fontaine", a nonprofit organization avocating for fresh water, which was a little bit ironic because at least twice, Spectre had tried to posion water sources.
Due to the involvement in torture, the Army quickly gave up the command of Spectre to CIA. A wise move indeed because when shit would finally hit the fan, they just need to rub their hands together and say "Specter is a unit under authority of CIA and we have nothing to do with it".
Well, the reckoning day did came, just sooner than they expected.
"Spectre in Japan? Boys, we will be heading to trouble soon." Said Chris, there was a sadness in his voice "War seem to be everywhere these day, even on this part of the globe"
This man was no doubt a veteran of the " Operation Iraqi Freedom" a somewhat fancy name for an American disasterous adventure.
"I don't mind fighting." Harvey declared "I'm ready, you know."
Kayle couldn't say she was ready. Right from the moment the holy warrior fell from the third-floor state to the ground with a penny-sized hole on her head, she knew she was never ready. Each time she pulled the trigger, every time blood hit the wall, carpet and curtains, a part of her died as well. They had taught her the most perfect way to kill but forgot to tell her how to live with it. After the runied and violent Iraq and a Afganishtan which was equally devastating, she just wanted to go to a peaceful place where she could spend the morning writing reports, having lunch in the cafeteria, walking around on city streets without fearing of the garbage bin on the corner suddenly exploded. Her father was right. Thirty years sitting behind the desk and waiting for favor wasn't a bad idea.
"It may not come to that. Specter was dissolved years ago and I'm just a training officer."
Kayle tried to reassure Chris but why did she have a feeling that she said that just to reassure herself? An urgent call from Tokyo, a hasty flight, the order is obscure. Something horrible was going on and worst of all, she had absolutely no idea what it was.
"The gate." Cooper said, "It can only be it."
Thinking back, this was more like a joke than something that should have been brought into an adult conversation. A bizarre object, from nowhere, suddenly appeared in Tokyo's most rhythmic area, a bloodbath between the JSDF and invaders riding dragons and knights in chainmail armor, a large scale counter attack ended with a crushing victory for the Japanese. Even when the smoke hadn't cleared and the people had still not stopped dying on the ruined streets of Syria, the media was still flooded with news about a far-east country and a golden age of exploration.
Kayle tend to continue the story but Chris interrupted.
"We have arrived at Tokyo, Major. Estimated landing time is 4:50 am."
Kayle glanced briefly through the window of the doorway, her heart pounding with excitement. Tokyo did not disappoint her a bit. It was gorgeous in colorful neon lights, separate residential areas were strung together by winding roads and skyscrapers stood tall and proud, challenging the October cold. A bustling city is just like her imagination of a girl from West Virginia. If Kayle, a major, an American confessed that she didn't know how a big city look like, people would laugh at her face. Before joining the army, the small town of Hasen was the closest thing to the urban light that she had ever got, then she only knew Bagdad, a city that was also famous for being crowded but people prefered to stay indoor during the daytime and not foolish enough to poked their heads out at night. In general, Kayle doesn't know anything about New York, Washington or Los Angeles except for what she got from magazines, movies and housing ads.
As they flew across the city center, Kayle asked Chris to lower the attitude so she could see the street below clearly. Chris happily followed and she was not hesitate to thank him with the most sincere attitude.
"Did you come to Tokyo the first time? Impressed? "Asked Chris.
She should have said this was the first time she saw a real city but only.
The gate Cooper mentioned was in the Ginza but she couldn't see it from here. Far west, between high-rise buildings, stood Tokyo Skytree, the second highest structure of the world magnificently sparkling in blue neon lights. She had seen the tower in the newspaper, but looking at the spectacle of architecture through a 6x9 photo frame and seeing it with bare eyes was a huge difference. It was so big and so tall that Tokyo's tallest buildings were just like dwarf fungi under a oak and so beautiful that Kayle could not find any words to describe.
Chris told her that many times, he wanted to circle that tower a few laps but fearing the air traffic coordinators would tear him apart so he gave up the idea.
"Will you go back to Okinawa now or stay here for a while?"
"We must return today, Major. Eight or nine o'clock in the morning if nothing new happen. The chooper need maintenance before taking off. "
"There is still enough time for breakfast. Do you wish to join me? "
"Is that an order?" His laugh was like a silver bell.
"It depends" She dipped her shoulder. "But you can temporarily consider it as an invitation. Now let's do a few laps around that thing, I'll take full responsibility. "
"Roger that." Chris and Cooper said in unison.
Screw whatever lied ahead. In the meantime, all Kayle wants was to enjoy the illusory scene in front of her.