Disclaimers in part I.

0735 Zulu/2135 Local
Camp Golf, Island of Hawaii

"Colonel, Major, welcome to Camp Golf, sirs," Major Lukas' adjutant yelled over the still slowing rotors of the helicopter.  "It's a five minute drive to our command post."  The young second lieutenant led Harm and Sturgis to a HMMVW, where a corporal sat in the driver's seat.

"I don't see how this will prepare us for Afghanistan in February," Harm noted.  "I've been there.  It's cold."  Well, not there exactly then, but Saudi Arabia got almost as cold and darned sure Iraq did, and he had been both of those places in February.

The younger officer, not yet in service seven full months, nodded.  "Yes, sir.  Maybe we should stop in Alaska and run an exercise on our way."

Harm and Sturgis traded looks.  It wasn't a bad idea.  Sturgis told the young man so.  "And I promise I won't tell anyone where the idea came from, Copras."

"Thank you, sir.  We're here."  He showed the two senior officers into the tent that served as the command post for Second Battalion.

"Colonel!  Thank you for coming out, sir!"  Major Lukas saluted, then reached out to shake Harm's hand.  "Major Yassin, good to see you."  He and Sturgis shook hands, and then it was all business.  "As you hopefully know, sir, my OPFOR had an unexpected four-hour head start because of inbound VIP traffic."

"Vice President Cheney," Harm nodded.

"Well, sir, I decided that the Blue force would come in under a different deployment plan than the one the OPFOR intelligence unit was provided with."  He laid out two sets of maps.  "This is what OPFOR is expecting," he pointed, "and this is what we've done."

Harm could tell that Sturgis was a bit more out of his submariner's depth than he was himself, so he spoke out loud as he reviewed the maps.  "You've taken Charlie and Delta companies and moved them laterally what, a click and a half so they're not facing OPFOR deployments directly.  You're hoping that Blue can go right through a couple of holes in coverage between Alpha and Bravo companies."

"Wait a minute," Sturgis lifted his hand toward the second map.  "You've switched Bravo and Charlie."

Lukas nodded.  "Yeah, we did that last night.  Bravo has been on Blue too often of late."

None of the three knew it, but Delta Company of First Battalion was at that moment moving up behind what had been the Charlie/Second – now Bravo/Second – positions to wreak some havoc with a far more nefarious purpose than anyone on the island except their own company commander knew.

=====

0805 Zulu/2205 Local
Colonel Waters' Quarters, Marine Corps Base Hawaii

Something isn't quite right, Mac thought as she said goodbye to the last of the party guests.  I feel lightheaded and woozy and it is way too hot in here.  "Happy holidays," she waved at the door with Waters standing behind her.

"Azaki, you don't look so good.  Come and sit down, and let me get you some juice."

She really couldn't argue, so she allowed Eugene to lead her to the sofa in his elegant living room before he went into the kitchen.

In the kitchen, the colonel tightened the top on a dark bottle that looked very much like that an infant's medication would come in, complete with a dropper top.  He smiled and reached for the pitcher of orange juice that had been in use at the impromptu bar – his specialty, mixed so well that people added the usual amount vodka to the concentrate/Everclear punch.  He debated for a moment after he poured out a small glass, wondering just how much affect the alcohol would have on his guest now that she had something else in her system.  He wanted her uninhibited, not comatose; the small glass of "juice" would be fine and also disarm any suspicions she might have.

"It's very warm in here," Mac said when he came back into the living room.

"Take off your scarf," he advised.  "I know, I know, it's against the rules of your religion.  But I'm guessing that common sense can sometimes overrule the rules."

Mac nodded wearily and accepted the glass of orange juice; she really did feel as though the flu had suddenly taken hold of her body.  "Thank you," she mumbled, downing the contents of the glass in two swallows and then whipping her head covering off.  "Give me a minute and I'll be ready to help you clean up."

Waters smiled at her.  He knew that wasn't the next thing on the agenda.  "Sure.  Just relax and I'll get started."

It's a shame he's a racist bastard, she thought as she lay on the couch.  He's really quite charming when he wants to be.  And then two shots worth of 180 proof alcohol from the spiked orange juice hit her system like a Sidewinder missile obliterating its target.  The cravings she had thought quieted since Mic and all the stress he had unintentionally dropped into her life disappeared back to Australia raised their ugly voices.  Maybe if she could just make it to the bathroom…

She pushed herself up slowly, fighting the intense faintness only to find that it gave way to a sense of euphoria.  It took all her will power to stay focused and not give in to the urges to run for the nearest bottle of liquor and drown herself in it.  Mac staggered down the hall, making it to the toilet just in time to lose the contents of her stomach.  She rinsed out her mouth, grateful that she maintained control enough to get  rid of the alcohol and…Rohypnol?  GHB?  Something else, surely, now that she could think more clearly after a moment's rest.

Which meant that Waters was planning something and expected her to be compliant.  It was Harm's worst nightmare come true, but at least she had some warning.  Maybe she could get away somehow before she got hurt any more – and before the siren song of alcohol overwhelmed her once again.

=====

0830 Zulu/2230 Local
Camp Golf, Island of Hawaii

Neither Sturgis nor Harm was unaccustomed to the idea of the "God Box"; submariners and aviators both rotated through various forms of battle exercises and had to live through After Action Reports that amounted to point-by-point second-guessing by the observers in the control room.  Even so, it was strange for the two Naval officers to be standing in the "God Box" of an infantry exercise, but they couldn't show their discomfort except in meaningful looks between them.

Harm at least had been on the ground and in more than one land battle of sorts, so he had a little more of an idea of exactly what was going on.  Or so he thought until a frantic voice came over the OPFOR communications network.

"Matilda Six, this is Joey Six, we are under attack.  Repeat, we are under attack!"

The battalion operations officer was serving as the OPFOR commander for the exercise.  He looked across the tent at Major Lukas, who shook his head in a gesture that clearly meant, "I'm not here for you to ask."

"Joey Six, this is Matilda Six Actual.  Say again!"

The response was first an unmistakable burst of automatic weapons fire, then a long scream before a different voice came on the line.  "Matilda Six, they're firing real bullets, sirs!"

Now Lukas did step in, seeking clarification from each of his other companies.  All proved to be just where they were supposed to be – which meant that Bravo Company was engaged with an unknown force equipped not with administrative sensor-based weapons but with live ammunition.  Controlled chaos ensued as Lukas mobilized his basically unarmed troops to deal with the situation.

Harm and Sturgis went with Lukas into the field; before the three men and their driver could get to the Bravo Company encampment, word came from the control room that the situation had been resolved – and that Lt. Col. Rutter would not be happy with what they would find, nor would Major Lukas or Major Yassin.

=====

0845 Zulu/2245 Local
Colonel Waters' Quarters, Marine Corps Base Hawaii

Mac had been able to play at near-incapacitation long enough to regain some of her equilibrium, but she could still feel the effects of both the alcohol and whatever else it was that the colonel had slipped into her last soft drink.  It wasn't too hard for her to just let the man get close.

"Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?"  He sat down on the couch beside her and slid his arm around her shoulder.  "I'm sure your husband has no clue."

"He knows," she mumbled weakly, only half-feigning.

Waters dropped his head down next to her ear and breathed lightly into it.  "And Rutter, ardent though I'm sure he is, must be a very clumsy lover."

Clumsy was not a word she associated with the few sexual skills she had thus far experienced with Harm.  With words, yes, but physically?  "Oh, I don't know.  He certainly knows how to please me."

"Then you must be a generous lover yourself." 

She felt his lips moving against her neck, and suddenly it was too much.  She elbowed him in his exposed stomach and pushed up and away from him.  Unfortunately, she didn't have her normal strength, so the move only startled him.  He rose from the sofa with a roar and grabbed her in one swift move.  He backhanded her with vicious force and the last thing she saw before the blackness claimed her was the colonel's angry, rapacious grin.

=====

0905 Zulu/2305 Local
Camp Golf, Island of Hawaii

The Marines who had fired on Bravo/Second apparently realized their error within moments of the first shots because when the Second Battalion CO and the two officers from Headquarters Company arrived, the miscreants were standing in a tight circle inside a perimeter of very angry men.  It made Harm's job relatively easy.

"What the hell were you doing?" he screamed at the first available officer inside the guards line.

"Colonel Rutter, sir, I don't exactly know, sir!" the second lieutenant, just as young as the man who had met them at the helo pad, barked back.

With the kind of icy precision that made both opposing counsel and their clients squirm and beg for mercy, Harm drilled his anger home.  "Lieutenant Farrow, I suggest that you get with the other platoon leaders here in your little circle and figure it out real quick, because I want an answer in three minutes or I'm coming after hide all the way up."

"Sir, yes, sir!"  The others had heard Harm's order and moved around in such a way that the four platoon commanders could stand together and talk.

Meanwhile, Major Lukas and Sturgis had been talking with the Bravo Company commander, who was pale and shaking with repressed fury.  "Colonel Rutter, sir, you'd better hear this," Connor Lukas called.

Harm's departure from the immediate area of the "captives" gave them a reprieve; the older officer noted with satisfaction that the four young men – God, were Sturgis and I ever THAT young? – relaxed just a little as they continued their discussion.  That boded well for their future as leaders.  "Yes, Major?"

"This is Captain Rowan, CO of Bravo Company.  And this," Lukas said, gesturing to an officer just stepping up after his 6 mile overland ride in a HMMVW, "is Captain Garcia-Rojas, CO of Charlie Company.  José, you're going to want to hear this, too.  Go on, Gary."

Captain Rowan nodded and began his report in rapid-fire mode.  "Sir, we had just settled in for the night when our reconnaissance patrol reported unusual noises from about a half-click behind us.  He said that whoever it was knew our tactics because they were evading the night vision lines of sight.  We mobilized and called the engagement, figuring it was one of our own Blue force units on a night strike.  The other side didn't respond verbally.  They started shooting.  I have sixteen dead men, two dead women, and twenty-one wounded and ready to be evacked from the two volleys those men in that circle over there fired before they dropped their weapons and surrendered.  They're from Delta/First, sir, and they say Captain Warren told them they were carrying blanks.  Sir."

"Where's Warren?" Harm and Major Lukas asked at the same time.  Lukas continued, "Medivac chopper are on the way, Gary."

Rowan nodded, then picked up with the answer to his superiors' question.  "They don't know, sir.  He didn't come ashore with them."

Harm motioned for Sturgis.  "Major Yassin, get on the horn and find me Captain Warren.  Use the Shore Patrol if you have to – Warren was a little late to the party at Waters' house, but he was there.  Major Lukas, call up the choppers – emergency evac, as many as we can get spun up.  This exercise is cancelled.  I want those platoon commanders with me."

All four officers around him snapped to attention and threw salutes before moving off to accomplish their assigned duties.  Harm paced.  It had to be related to the whole investigation if Warren were involved, and Warren wouldn't have acted without Waters' approval; furthermore, for ammunition to be live instead of blanks, someone in the regimental armory had to be involved, which meant…who in Dave Eisenstein's group had been at Waters' house on Thursday night?

He let that percolate through his brain as the four platoon commanders from Delta/First were brought forward, the nerves of the guards from Bravo/Second only slightly less on edge now than a few minutes before.  "Well?" he asked simply.

Farrow had obviously been elected spokesman.  "Colonel Rutter, sir, this is what we know.  Yesterday afternoon, Captain Warren called us in and told us that he had an assignment for us directly from the CO.  Colonel Waters apparently wanted to test a certain company of Second Bat, sir, to see if some deficiencies had been corrected.  Captain Warren said that the idea was to go completely outside their chain of command to pull a total surprise on them.  We were to come up to this position and gain the advantage with an administrative first assault.  We even had their tag frequency dialed in."

The Marine referred to the sensors each man – and woman, in the case of Bravo/Second – on the field wore during an exercise; the rifles each carried were supposed to be loaded with dummy rounds that gave the feel of a real live-fire shot but had no casing to travel the distance.  Instead, when the shooter pulled the trigger, a laser triggered the appropriate sensor on the target and determined on the master board if it was a kill, a severe injury, a slight injury, or a miss.

"Did you load your own weapons?"

The look 2nd Lt. Farrow gave Harm was what he had previously thought of as a patented Mac look; now he knew it was issued at the Marine Basic Officer's Course along with a set of BDUs and a rousing "oooh-rah!"  "Lt. Col. Rutter, have you ever fired a weapon that you didn't load yourself, sir?" he returned unnecessarily.

"No, Lieutenant, I never have," Harm admitted, truthfully.  "But you noticed nothing different at all about the ammunition."

"That's correct, sir.  As you know, the blanks are designed to be exactly the same weight as the real shot, and to achieve that, the jackets are identical."

Harm nodded.  "Who was your issuing weaps officer?"

The young platoon commander thought for a moment.  "First Lieutenant Melville, sir."

"Tall, red hair, thick Idaho/Montana accent?"

"That's him, sir."

Harm started listing the offenses with which he could now charge Colonel Eugene Waters as the first of the medivac choppers descended to the bivouac.  Sturgis came back from the communications tent looking as though someone had slipped him a particularly bitter pill.  "Major?"

"I found Warren.  He was with Waters."  The lawyer was so angry he forgot protocol.  "Warren says his men acted on their own and Waters backed him up.  No dice on the Provost Marshall, either – Waters is going to send them away if they come because you don't have the authority to have Warren arrested."

The two men hadn't been best friends for 20 years for nothing; Sturgis hadn't said everything because he couldn't say it safely.  The sinking feeling in Harm's stomach had nothing to do with 18 dead Marines and everything to do with his one beloved Marine; he tried to convey his concern in a casual yet studied glance at his friend.

Sturgis nodded and lowered his voice.  "Yes, sir, at Waters' house and it sounded like a blanket party in the background."

"I have to get back."  No one, seeing the look on their regimental executive officer's face, would dare to stand in his way.

=====

0940 Zulu/2340 Local
Colonel Waters' Quarters, Marine Corps Base Hawaii

Mac awoke to find herself stripped to her underwear with her arms lightly bound behind her back.  Her head hurt unmercifully, but what she could see of her body in the dim light of the room appeared to be unharmed.  Then she moved and every muscle in her body screamed in protest as hazy memories of the last…twenty three minutes…came back to her.

Waters had left her alone, she thought, when she passed out the first time.  She remembered hearing another voice when she came to three minutes later; it was a thick, smoke-roughened voice with a cultured accent, probably Georgia.  Waters had never said the other man's name that she could remember, but the other man had wanted a go at her right away; Waters told him he would have to wait his turn but if he wanted to teach the little bitch a lesson about behavior, he was welcome to grab a blanket.

Which, she agonized, he had done, and the blows he delivered, while painful and potentially deadly, left no marks on her at all.  She remembered that the phone rang, that Waters' livid voice rose exponentially in volume and that he said "Yassin" and "Rutter", so she had cried out as best she could while the other man beat her.  And she remembered that the two men had held her mouth open and poured straight vodka down her throat; not much had gone down, thankfully – they wound up wearing more than she swallowed because neither man would actually reach in to hold her tongue down after she bit down hard enough to draw blood from the CO.  Think, Marine.  How are you going to get yourself out of this without Harm?

"You're awake again," Gene Waters said as he came around the end of the couch and saw her eyes open.  "You know, you'd be much better off if you'd just share.  Selfishness is unbecoming of a lady."

Accent! she reminded herself before she spoke.  "Why are you doing this?"  The pain in her voice was real.

The man laughed.  "Because I can.  That's what power is all about, and in this unit, I am the power.  If I want something another officer has, I just take it.  And in your case, I'm taking away from two officers, which gives me more power and leverage.  And since I have power, I can be magnanimous and share the spoils with some of my friends."

"I'll call the police!"

The other man spoke this time, from somewhere behind her.  "No, you won't.  If you do, you'll ruin your husband's career, because we can prove that he's a spy for an Islamic terrorist group, and your precious Colonel Rutter's career because we can prove that he's committed adultery."  His laugh turned harsh.  "And do you really think that once we've proved your husband's connection to terrorism, the police will give you any credence at all?"

That was the trap, then.  These men had calculated everything out to the point that their criminal activities were so deeply covered in lies that they felt invulnerable.  They just hadn't counted on three determined undercover lawyers to blow it for them.

"Oh, and Azaki?"  Waters, again.

Mac groaned as she struggled to sit up.  She was going to face this with as much dignity as she could.  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a 9mm pistol on the lower shelf of the coffee table.  A plan began to form.  "What?"

"We can ruin their names even if the rest of the plan works and one of them winds up…well, dead."

=====

1040 Zulu/0040 Local
Headquarters, Third Marine Regiment, Marine Corps Base Hawaii – 15 December 2002

First Lieutenant Reginald Melville stood before three very angry senior officers in the conference room with a grin that some would describe as "s--t eating."  He had been dragged by the Military Police from an enjoyable encounter with a lovely young lady who thought him just divine to face Lt. Col. Rutter and Majors Yassin and Lukas, but he knew that nothing the three could do would affect him because Colonel Waters had his back.

"Does it bother you in the slightest that 19 Marines are dead?" Lukas shrieked.  One more woman had died in transit – a newly promoted sergeant who had just told him the day before that she was pregnant with her first child.  Connor dreaded talking to her husband more than anything else he had on his plate.

"Of course it does, sir," Reginald replied in his laconic, northwestern way.  "But it's hardly my fault if their carelessness and inattention put them in danger.  It seems to me that you bear a large part of that blame, with due respect, sir."

Sturgis had to hold the battalion commander in a full Nelson to keep him from launching at the younger man while Harm struggled to hold his own temper in check.  "Easy, guys," the submariner murmured to his two friends.

Harm found his voice first.  "Lieutenant Farrow, would you repeat your experience at the regimental armory this morning, please?"

Farrow, sitting with the other platoon commanders from Delta/First, stood to make his report.  He finished with damning words for the logistics and supply officer who had issued ammunition to his unit.  "We all went to the same Basic school, Melville.  That's where they taught us that we have to take responsibility for whatever happens on our watch.  I will have the deaths of 19 Marines on my conscience until the day I die, even though I had absolutely no way of knowing that the ammunition was rigged.  You should have that same guilt, even if the switch happened before you took the watch.  I don't think it did, however.  I think you pulled the switch between the time Second Bat was issued their gear from 0400 to 0500 and the time we arrived at 0800.  And given the staff on duty with you at the time, I don't think you had help."

That would get sorted out later, of course.  Harm asked each of the other platoon commanders from Delta/First to tell his story, but it was abundantly clear that Melville wasn't bothered in the least.  Furious but holding on by a thin, frayed thread, Harm finally spluttered, "Damn it, Melville!  Who put you up to this?  You're ruined anyway!"

"Oh, no, not at all, Colonel."  The tall redhead smiled innocently as he reached into his pocket and extracted a sheaf of 4x6" pictures.  "Major Yassin, you might want to take a look at these, sir.  I think you'll find them most interesting.  And helpful."

Sturgis knew what the pictures were, of course.  Harm had waxed eloquent about a couple of the shots, wanting copies for himself when the whole case was closed.  As he looked through them, he had to admit Harm was right, but that reaction had to stay hidden under the mask of the now conclusively cuckolded Major Yassin.  "I will deal with this later," he spat out at Harm in as vicious a tone as he could muster.  "Right now, the men are more important."

"I'm sure your wife," Melville nodded at Sturgis, "and your lover," he nodded at Harm, "would be thrilled to hear that she takes a backseat to the Marine Corps.  I wonder if she and Colonel Waters are having fun yet?"

"Get him out of here," the JAG lawyers snapped in unison, which evoked a rough bark of laughter from Major Lukas as he tried to figure out what had just happened.  The two MPs who had been standing unobtrusively against the wall took custody of the 1st lieutenant and escorted him out of the room.

"Where's the JAG?" Harm asked after a moment, wiping his hand down his face and snorting inside at the irony of that question in the circumstances.

"Waiting outside, Colonel," one of the platoon commanders answered quietly.  "He brought two legalmen with him, as well."

Harm nodded.  "Good.  Okay, the four of you and Captain Rowan need to make statements.  Use my office and the intel bay.  Major Lukas, please stay.  You too, Yassin."

When Harm and Sturgis were alone with Connor, the two men from JAG traded an eloquent look that spoke volumes.  Sturgis waved to Harm for the other man to begin, knowing that as soon as he had spoken his piece, Harm would be off to take care of Mac.

"Major Lukas, we have something to tell you that for the moment can go absolutely no further," Harm warned.  After the man nodded his acceptance of the terms, the JAG officer continued.  "Major Yassin, his wife, and I are all from JAG headquarters in Washington.  We're undercover to investigate the high incidence of race-based complaints within Third Marine since Colonel Waters took over.  We're all lawyers, but I'm also a designated Naval Aviator, Commander Harmon Rabb, Jr.  My nemesis over there is Commander Sturgis Turner, a submariner by training before he came up for air and decided law school was safer than the depths of the ocean."

Sturgis shrugged at the momentary flicker of betrayal that showed on Lukas' face and just waited for someone to speak further.

"What about Mrs…Turner?" Connor guessed.

Harm snorted in derisive answer. 

"Hardly," Sturgis managed around a good guffaw.  "Lt. Col. Mackenzie belongs to no one, although she and the commander are…close."

The Marine smiled as he realized something.  "As in, Marine Lt. Col. Sarah Mackenzie?"  Harm and Sturgis looked at Connor in surprise; the man's grin broadened and he sat back in his chair.  "Mac and I served together in Bosnia.  She and I were battalion intelligence officers in the same regiment.  Now that I think about it, I had this odd sense of déjà vu when I met Azaki, but I certainly couldn't place it with Mac."

"It's just too small a world," Sturgis commented.

"Well, small world or not, Commander Rabb, I think you'd better worry about what Lt. Melville said.  Waters has a reputation with the ladies that isn't as pure as the driven snow."

Harm paled; he had managed to put Mac's situation aside to deal with the immediate crisis but now it came at him full force.  "Blanket party," he muttered, and jumped up from his chair with such force that the table careened into Sturgis' stomach with an audible "thock."  "Sturgis, call the admiral!  I'm going after Waters!"

=====

1110 Zulu/0110 Local
Outside Colonel Waters' Quarters, Marine Corps Base Hawaii

"Lt. Col. Rutter, sir, you asked for a squad of Military Police to meet you here!"  The female gunnery sergeant in charge saluted Harm where the two stood in the parking lot of the Officers' Club.

Waters wouldn't know these MPs were here until Harm was good and ready for him to know.  "Yes, I did.  I want your people deployed around the house.  I have reason to believe that Captain Willard Warren is inside; he is wanted for questioning in a criminal incident earlier this evening.  I also believe that Azizah Yassin is being held inside against her will.  Anyone who comes out gets treated like a suspect until I say otherwise."

"Aye, sir!"

Ninety seconds later, twenty well-trained Marines had vanished into the lush vegetation around the house.

=====

1115 Zulu/0615 Local/0115 Hawaii
Admiral Chegwidden's Home, McLean, Virginia

AJ Chegwidden rarely slept past 0500.  When he did, it was either because he was ill, which was not the case this time, or because he had a day on which he could relax completely, which was the case this time.  Until the phone beside his bed rang and woke him from a deep sleep.  The combination of the early hour and the day of the week kicked in before he even picked up the received to give him an instinctive knot in his gut.

"Chegwidden."

"Admiral, it's Sturgis Turner, sir."

The normally unflappable commander sounded frantic to the trained ear of the JAG.  "Commander, tell me everything is okay," he demanded of his third senior attorney.

"I wish I could, sir.  It's bad."

"How bad?"  The knot tightened; it felt like the day Bud got hurt all over again.

"Twenty dead enlisted men and women, a capital murder, and seven federal hate crimes all directly connected to Waters, sir."

AJ's brain didn't even register the first part just yet.  "What aren't you telling me?"

In Hawaii, Sturgis swallowed audibly before he answered.  "We think he's holding Mac hostage."

"Oh, dear God."  A moment of silence before the first part hit the admiral.  "Twenty dead?  What the hell happened, Commander?"

Sturgis told him quickly, prompted occasionally by Major Lukas in the background.  "Harm and I told him who we are just before the commander left to find Col. Mackenzie, sir."

"I'm on my way out there, Sturgis.  This could be a scandal of the proportions of Tailhook."

"Yes, sir, I'm afraid it could.  I'm back on my regular cell, sir, so please feel free to use that to communicate.  We'll make sure you get picked up at the airport."

AJ grimaced.  "No need, Commander.  I know the Chief of Naval Air Operations and he owes me a few favors I'm about to call in."

=====

1120 Zulu/0120 Local
Colonel Waters' Quarters, Marine Corps Base Hawaii

Five men now stood around the spot where Mac lay on the floor of the living room writhing in what they took to be drug-induced ecstasy.  Certainly in the past thirty minutes, they had gotten enough GHB and alcohol into the woman to deaden the pain of Warren's regrettable but necessary lesson in submission.  Mac, however, was just in control enough to know that her only chance to get out without being raped or killed would come if the five men left the living room, and her choice of where to perform had everything to do with where that 9mm pistol was located.

"Do you suppose she's really out of it enough to feel no pain?" one among the men asked.  "And will she remember anything?"

"Doesn't really matter," Warren laughed, breathing heavily as he watched the lithe woman gyrate.  "What she does remember will be all good."

"Ooo rah, captain!"  The youngest member of the group pumped his fist a couple of times.

Waters laughed.  "Okay, men, we need to do a perimeter check before anything else goes down, because this might get a little noisy.  Outside, full sweep," he ordered.

Four sets of eyes gleamed at him as their owners exited the house.

Waters locked the door behind them, thereby leaving them to face an enraged Harmon Rabb, Jr., in the guise of Michael James Rutter, and the Military Police.  He should have locked himself out, too.

Inside the house, Mac reached out for the 9mm with every ounce of strength she possessed, but her endeavors to distract the leering men had sapped her to the barest of reserves and the gun fell heavily into her right hand just as Waters came back into the room.

"Well, Azaki," he said, towering over her.  "I got rid of them.  Tonight is just for us, and I'm going to make you forget you've ever had anyone else inside you."

Horrorstruck, Mac sensed time warp; the colonel stripped in the blink of an eye but her right arm moved up only with agonizing slowness.  He saw the gun as he lowered himself to the floor and reached across her nearly nude body to try to wrest the weapon from her.

With strength born of desperation, Mac held on to the pistol, even when he slapped her hard enough to make her head bounce off the sharp lower edge of the table beside her.  "You miserable slu – "