Chapter III

The trees rustled gently in the early-morning breeze, brightening sun slowly making its way through the leaves. Long shadows cast from the cabins kept the area cool, but that didn't matter as the men had just come back from their run. A few were huffing and puffing; they were the newest recruits into the cell. They didn't complain though having learned very fast not to complain, especially to the older men. Fear and pride drove the green boys on, wanting to show their mettle, and much too afraid to not do so. Around them, the others were talking amongst themselves and to the camp leader. Their voices were kept at mutters so they wouldn't travel, wondering why they were waiting to continue. The leader just knew that they were waiting for the Mistress, and didn't know how long she would be.

Jerome, a stately man of five foot ten with short-cropped black hair and large, dark eyes, glanced around, taking in the sight of his men. He was, of course, the leader of this group, and his job was to keep them in order and to run the drills. As well it was partially up to him to instil the passion and drive they needed for this work. The world called them terrorists, but they were really just fighting for their rights and freedoms. In future years, the world would see them as liberators. They were fighting for freedom with the blood of their veins. His men would not fail the General.

Over the sound of leaves brushing together and large branches creaking, there was the sound of an engine. It was barely discernible from the normal background noise of the forest, but Jerome could tell that it was getting closer. Nearly no one could get through the forest; there was a main road but it was makeshift and didn't lead to the camp. For those who were regulars at the camp, however, there was a trail of their own, snaked out through years of traversing the woods. It was possible for those who knew the forest and knew her well to get through.

While they were waiting for Mistress to arrive, Jerome ordered his men to sit at the pavilion and clean their weapons. A clean gun was a ready gun. Some of them grumbled; others went eagerly loving their guns perhaps a bit too much, but most were opinionless. They just did what they were told without question, because there was obviously a reason. Why did they need to know what it was? In the wind the white canvas over the hunched figures buckled and rippled, the metal supports into the ground trembling slightly. The men themselves tried to ignore the wind and set their minds on the task they were given.

As the sound of the engine got moderately louder, the camp leader walked the worn paths of his camp, hands clasped behind his back. Men had walked there so often that the area where the cabins were situated was almost completely worn down to dirt. A few blades of grass poked up here and there, but over time they too would be gone. It was a safe area here; no one usually wandered this deep into the woods, and if someone did, they were usually hunters. They were never any problem to take care of.

Around the cabins and along the thin trail to the target range the long green brush wavered in the breeze. The sun was rising higher, the shadows shortening. More heat shone into the camp, barely coming over the tips of the trees instead of alongside them. Still many of the leaves shone gold and dripped with the morning dew, but Jerome knew this place well. He knew the signs of the slowly moving sun, of the gently progressing day.

Gears were shifting down as the jeep slowed and bounced its way through the last bit of forest. By the guard hut at what they had designated the entrance of the camp, the front of a dark jeep came through, followed by the rest of the body. Legs in black jeans were hanging off the side, crossing and uncrossing in an annoyed manner. Jerome knew only one person that rode the jeep like that and walked over to greet the Mistress who was exiting from the passenger side like a civilised person. Helper, on the other hand, slid off the back, yammering angrily into a phone, unfazed by the rough ride from the base in Montreal to the camp. Instead she was alternating between speaking and shouting Russian and as she did so, looked quite incensed.

After greeting his female leader appropriately Jerome went to Helper and spread his arms welcomingly.

"Helper, 'ow wonderful it is to see you back," he said, a grin on his dirt- and greasepaint-smudged, but handsome face. She glanced up at him from her conversation which seemed to be totally engrossing her and waved him away. Turning her back on him, she continued to speak in the other language, giving orders and making demands. Jerome ignored the warm feeling filling him from the belly up at the sight of her, and also the slight twinge of pain at her rebuff. He returned to the Mistress, showing her the new boys, barely men, from afar. A thin-lipped smirk and she nodded.

The sound of boots and a military stomp sounded behind them, the crunching of sandy dirt approaching ever closer. There was the snap of a cellphone closing and the sharpness of someone standing at ready. Helper stood there, beside Mistress and Jerome, waiting. Jerome couldn't help but notice that her eyes were as cold and icy blue as always. A stark contrast to how her body could sometimes be. Shoving aside memory and need, he nodded to her. All he got in return was a little twitch of the eye.

"Well, I certainly hope that your men are ready," Mistress stated in a rather breathy voice. "Because if they aren't," her voice twisted and started down a path no one dared venture, "I will make them pay."

Jerome gave her a sweet smile. "My lady, they are of course ready." His voice was thick with a French accent, his green eyes twinkling happily. He knew he was amazingly lucky to have a man with ideas so similar to his Separatists joining with him so he knew to never displease the Mistress. The General's mind was fresh and brilliant; encompassing all those whom wanted freedom. He showed them how they could take it in each of their countries and have it for themselves. He helped them; they helped him.

He heard a snort and realised it was Helper. She looked at the men working at the pavilion with a critical eye, then stormed over. Her hands were clasped behind her back, as was habit from training; her black t-shirt tucked into her black jeans, boots tied up around her shins. Coming up beside a man, she took his weapon from him and checked it over, eyes narrowed, mouth in a slight sneer. Jerome watched patiently with Mistress who almost looked delighted as Helper randomly checked each of the men, smacking them around when they didn't meet the General's expectations. She was like a pet to the Mistress, Jerome thought, nothing more and nothing less. She had no true authority, but because she was petted and fed and doted on, she had a say in things. It would have sickened him, but he had got to try out that pet himself, so he really didn't care what she was, as long as he got some. Besides, if her life was for the Mistress, body guard and personal computer geek, then what did it matter if she was able to use her expertise to further Québec's agenda, even if she didn't have the rank to do so?

Reapproaching her leaders, Helper clasped her hands behind her back and looked at them with blank eyes.

"Most seem to be fine," she relented. "He wasn't lying, Mistress."

She smiled at her helper. "Good. I would so hate to have someone lie to me."

A bitter grin spread slowly across Helpers face, an eager sparkle for the kill reaching her eyes. "It would be a shame," she said, not sounding displeased by it one whit. "I mean, I wouldn't want to have to kill someone for you, Mistress."

"Oh of course not!" Mistress bantered back with an equally wicked smile. "Now, tell me who you were yelling at on the phone."

"I will later," she scowled, staring pointedly at Jerome. He raised his hands in a defensive gesture, not wanting any part of this. It was their business, not his.

Mistress looked around the camp, still smiling. "I will speak to Helper in your cabin. Take the men to the firing range. They must get their aim up. And then take them through the course; I don't want any of them to be jumpy. If they cannot kill in any circumstance then I don't want them here."

He nodded and went to his men, shouting for them to follow him, giving orders as they went. Helper's eyes went to Mistress's as Jerome strode to the path leading to the firing range and disappeared down it, swallowed by the trees. The gathering of men slowly filtered through, eventually disappearing with him. Mistress walked leisurely with her bodyguard towards the first cabin to the left of the entrance of the camp. It looked no different from the others outwardly, but they knew it was Jerome's even if it had no identifying markers. Mounting the wooden porch, it creaking underfoot, Helper frowned deeply.

"Incompetence. They can't even fix some bloody stairs so what the fuck makes them think they can fix a country?"

"We're betting on that incompetence," Mistress said with a smile that was much too sweet, "because if they were any smarter, they'd be asking more questions."

"Instead of merely accepting," Helper mulled with a thoughtful tone, voice drifting off as her finger went to her chin. She gazed up at the sky, tapping her chin a few times in consideration.

Opening the green metal door, Mistress's eyes settled into a cruel warmth. "Think of that later, Helper. You have a phone conversation to explain to me."

Why the fuck didn't you learn Russian, Helper thought to herself as she stepped forward and held the door open, hand near the hinges. Her leader went through and sat in the camp leader's worn black leather chair, the woman nearly camouflaging into it. The answer to Helper's question, of course, was that Mistress herself was pampered. She was quite skilled at her work, and loved what she did make no mistake, but there was much she didn't need to do herself. Although she enjoyed the kill, it wasn't her job to dirty her hands with someone else's blood, at least not directly. Her husband would have had a few things to say about that at least. She had other people to mete out her will; all she needed to do was say a few words. Men were indebted to her through her husband's words and through her "personal assistant's" body. It was amazing what allegiance men would swear just to sleep with someone, especially when already ensnared by the rhetoric of a man claiming to fight for them and only for them. Why should she do anything herself when she had others at her beck and call, to do them for her? Was it prudent for her to waste her own time learning other languages when it could be someone else's job? She had other things to worry about, like keeping the men in line. She was too feminine to do that on her own though; sometimes men had these funny ideas that they were stronger than she was, so Helper was her enforcer.

That's where all Helper's rights came from. She was the bodyguard, the thug, and the whore. She kept the control, so of course she would be treated differently. Plus, she had education, languages a part of that package, so she was a great help. When the men stepped over the line of authority, Helper beat them back and Mistress made their lives hell. It was a wonderful duo.

Twirling a blue pen in her fingers, a talent Helper hadn't been able to master herself, Mistress gave her a lazy look.

"Well? What's going on?"

Helper grabbed a solitary chair from a small round table and dragged it over the floorboards to the heavy desk. She sat backwards in it, arms resting on the back.

"The boys are getting edgy."

"Our Russian men?"

Giving a slight nod, Helper wondered how she could explain it without pissing Mistress off or blowing it out of proportion. The men were just trying to get more out of everything, calling a few bluffs that were frighteningly accurate, but guesses that were refuted nonetheless.

"Well?"

Helper raised an eyebrow. "They want to know why 'they aren't at the top of our list'."

Mistress scowled, tossing the pen down onto the desk as she leaned back in the swivel chair and crossed her legs.

"Tell them they are, damn it," she said after a moment.

"I did. They want more weapons. And more men."

"Then recruit more."

Not so sure of that, Helper asked slowly, "Don't you think, Mistress, with all due respect, ma'am," – another difference between the two women, Helper was always addressed as "sir" – "don't you think that er, someone should speak to The General? Taking men out of established areas could create ripples, disrupt things . . . Make people question."

Shifting her body weight and changing the angle of her hips in the seat, Mistress put her right elbow on the armrest. She smiled, batting her long eyelashes, full lips curving in an affectionate smile.

"Recruit more men. Beat them to near death if you have to, to get them to follow my husband. Give them weapons and send them off to Russia. I don't care if they die, I just want those motherfuckers to be mollified over there."

Lowering her arms, Helper ran her fingers idly along the bars making up the back of the chair. She thought for a moment. The faction of the KGB they dealt with was getting fidgety, and they were the closest thing to a government La Sangre de la Libertad worked with, so they wanted to keep them as happy as possible.

Mistress watched her soldier thinking. The consternation of the woman's face was almost amusing.

"What exactly was said on the phone?"

Her eyes lifted to the woman swathed in black, lounging in a black leather chair. It was so fitting.

"It's obvious we don't trust them," she said, eyes blank and nearly crossed, her voice in a monotone as she pulled up her conversation and paraphrased, "they need more men and more weapons, more money if possible. But the first two are most important." Her fingers curled around the bars of the chair as she leaned forward slightly. "They're questioning out intent; they say they need more."

It wasn't exactly the news Mistress wanted to hear, but she was glad she had someone who would tell the truth rather than brown-nose. A yes-man would get you killed while a truth-teller would let you fix a problem.

"Give them what they want," Mistress sighed, picking up the blue pen to fiddle with once more, "I already said that. More men, more weapons. Recruit them soon. We need these people."

"Yes, Mistress."

Even the bumpy ride couldn't stop Helper from doing her work. She didn't bother trying to tame her now wild hair: Jerome had wanted his "play time" and she hadn't a choice but to allow it and pretend to enjoy every damn moment. Instead, she just let the wind whip it into a bigger frenzy. Even though the front seat was more comfortable than sitting out the side in the back of the Jeep, it still wasn't the most pleasant of trips. It seemed though that Helper didn't even notice the bumps and jerks as they traversed wood. Her head was bowed, lips moving in silent thought as she typed on her laptop, balanced on her knees. It swayed and shifted, but after a few years of less-than-perfect locals, she had learned to deal with minor imperfections.

Although never from the men. If the men weren't as good as she wanted them to be, they felt her wrath. And sometimes, just sometimes, she drove them too hard. Eyes squinted hard at the flat monitor she dared it to give her information she wouldn't like. Pulling up a spreadsheet, she tried to determine where all the weapons were spread out. She needed to be able to filter some off for the blasted Russians. Mistress was right; if they weren't mollified there could be trouble. With a sigh, she came to the conclusion that only the base south had extra guns. She didn't know how eager the General would be to give up some of his precious arms, but there really wasn't a choice in the matter. And men . . . well, she'd just have to work on recruiting now, wouldn't she?

The Russians had good reason to be fidgety. La Sangre de la Libertad was using them, though they didn't know it. But they were wondering if they were as important as the General had made them out to be. The men sent over to fight for them seemed a little too vehement for people who weren't Russian, people who didn't understand the politics of their land. Perhaps it wasn't so much suspicion as curiosity. Helper tried to soothe them, saying that the General spoke for everyone fighting for their freedom for everyone battling their way to liberty, and so of course his men would fight passionately for them. It was their way. They were all brothers, struggling against the tyranny of Western and American thought, weren't they?

Though this was true, they still wanted something out of it. Wanted to know that they were really the General's "brothers". After all, if they needed men and weapons, their "friends" and "family" should be the first to help, right? So they made their demands, which were first met with anger, then heated compliance. Accusations were thrown back and forth, leaving both sides tense.

Could the Russians trust them now? But if they were really being used, wouldn't La Sangre de la Libertad be more eager for peace and to quickly give into every whim, to keep them on their side? They thought that they were now being paranoid, but nonetheless, they would be wary for some time to come. At least until the war with the USA. Once that started, well, even enemies would band up momentarily to defeat the wicked superpower. Until that time came though, they would wait for the extra guns and men to arrive, if they weren't just empty promises to keep them silent for just awhile longer.

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The squrrel comment was supposed to be an inside joke and suchness -.- And I don't know what was wrong with my spelling, but granted, this hasn't been edited near enough. I need a beta reader. Perhaps I should put that on its own.

Need a beta

There we go.