For all disclaimers: I know that very little actually happens in this part, but this is most certainly the calm before the storm. Things will get moving very soon, you'll just have to wait and see what I mean. See Chapter One for all other disclaimers.
Faith
Chapter Three
/January 4th 2001, northern Afghanistan/
Not at all to Matt's surprise, Anna and her Deltas had made short work of a group of attackers, even though they had been much more heavily armed than those after him and his, then made a fast turn and come running back to check of the troops they were "escorting" when radio contact couldn't be re-established. Xenia, covered in blood, fragments of human bodies hanging from her uniform and gear, had been the first to see them coming even as she'd tried to scrape her gear clean. She'd just paused and waved, at which the Delta's had slowed down to a steady trot. Clearly, clean sight of the distinctive Xenia was enough to reassure them that their allies were still alive.
With Mark and Paul checking to make sure all of the dead actually were dead while Xenia tried to clean her gear, Matt had made some attempt to point out to Xenia that she was bleeding from wounds in her arm and side. Her reaction had been to pause, glance at the wounds, say "Oh" and keep working. While he'd been mentally scratching his head, trying to work out a way to persuade Xenia she should let him check her injuries, Anna had arrived, which made things both more and less complicated. More, because of the sly smile she'd shot him, sure that no one but Xenia could see her. Less, because he was sure that Xenia would listen to her-or at least he hoped so.
"Hi, Matt, still not dead then? Good to see you again with everything attached. This place is funny that way, believe me. Xenia, your bleeding you mad bitch. Either stop and fix it or I will, you can't get infected wounds here and you know it" said Anna, glaring at Xenia, who just shrugged.
"Sterile needle and thread, dressing and a little time is all I need. You do it, though, all right? I have to get these bits of flesh and bone out of my rifle now or I'll have to get it serviced by the Armoury staff-and you know what they're like. "There's a time and there's a place!" Need anything?" asked Xenia, raising an eyebrow as she unstrapped her gear, weapons, body armour and pack, lowering them gently to the ground. That done, without blinking an eye, she pulled off the upper half of her bodysuit, leaving her wearing nothing above the waist but a bra which was barely decent.
"No, that's fine" replied Anna, pulling out a First Aid kit and going to work on Xenia's injuries. Matt opened his mouth to speak, closed it, opened it and closed it again. This time he couldn't find his voice at all, not while he was getting such a clear view of that particular part of Xenia's body. By the expressions of those people around him, nor could any other man nearby.
Xenia caught his eyes then, very slowly, licked her lips while tracing the fingers of one hand across her washboard-flat stomach, hip to hip, hard muscle rippling. Matt's mouth went as dry as a desert untouched by water for a century as he nearly swallowed his tongue. ...Melissa... Was she going to be doing this to him the whole time they were working together? He could see himself standing under an ice-cold shower more often than not while he was out here and near her...
Y
/That's why they call me the Romanoff Bitch, Matt/ Xenia thought, feeling the slight prick as Anna's deft hands efficiently and quickly closed her wounds, only the wound in her side really needing any sort of significant attention since the blade had twisted slightly as it cut in, creating a visible bloody gash. Anna tended and dressed all of her wounds with professional skill before withdrawing as she stepped back and away-towards Matt, a fact Xenia didn't miss. Any more than she missed the glance the dark woman shot at Matt.
She'd have to ask Matt just what had happened between him and Anna to get him under Anna's skin like this when she could get him alone privately. She'd never heard of /anybody/ getting Anna's attention like this, let alone keeping it for any real period of time. If she had to judge, Matt had had Anna's attention for years...
Of course, there were still rumours of Anna's long-lost brother and what had happened to him floating around, although all of the details differed depending on which version was in fashion that particular day. The only certain thing was that he /had/ existed, now he was dead-and that loss had nearly broken Anna once and for all. The fact she would never even /discuss/ the matter told the perceptive Xenia everything she needed to know.
Xenia quickly pulled her clothes back on, then retrieved her body armour, gear and weapons, shifting around slightly until they were all properly settled before turning to look at Matt. Unsurprisingly, as soon as she had her clothes back on he had recovered his voice. She wasn't sure if that disappointed her or not...
"What was /that/ all about? Those weren't Taliban or Al'Quaeda troops and don't try to tell me otherwise. I know they weren't just some desperate raiding party, either, simple intelligence says you don't attack groups of heavily armed uniformed men unless your going to die anyway, not when you have half-wrecked defenceless villages and scattered people all over the place. Anybody?" asked Matt, glancing around him.
Xenia shrugged, nodded at Anna and waved a hand at the battered dead bodies all around them. "We call them "Ferals", Matt, survivors of the first War who got /too/ used to it and never found a way to live without it. Men and women who lost everything they had in the killing fields, right down to their minds, people left with only savagery and sex to fill the hole where /they/ used to be" Xenia began, pausing to look closely at the ruined remains of what had to be the first one she'd shot.
"In American you would call them "Combat happy", I believe. Fighting and fucking are the only things which have meaning to them now. They'll fight anyone and everyone, rip you apart with their bare hands, drink your blood and eat the remains just to prove themselves alive. Most of them are Heroin addicts on top of that, meaning whatever was left of their minds and sanity is long gone. They're only dangerous in numbers, but they /will/ eat you raw if they catch you alive and alone. Taliban use them for cannon fodder, before you ask. Shoot first and die last is my only advice. Anything else?" asked Xenia, raising an elegant eyebrow.
Matt looked utterly disgusted-she couldn't blame him-before he spoke again. His question, though, wasn't what she'd expected.
"So, was it as bad as this or worse when you were first here?" he asked. Everyone who could hear the question stopped moving suddenly, wanting to hear the answer. She almost sighed. Well, it wasn't as though she hadn't been expecting this.
"Matt, when I was first here men were being found burnt alive inside truck and car tires, skinned, dismembered, boned and worse on a regular basis, so often that we stopped counting the bodies and the bits just to stop ourselves from screaming all night long. Trust me when I say this, don't ask" replied Xenia.
Matt didn't say another word for the rest of their patrol.
Y
"No, I don't know who they are or what they're doing here. I have links with Military Intelligence, though, so yes, I /will/ find out. I've know Matthew Ryan for a long time, but I'm not willing to play on that to get answers to questions I shouldn't have-and that's final. My way will take longer than espionage, but I'll get you results and you know it. All I need is time".
"Time is something we do not have a great deal of to spare, regardless of circumstances and individual. DoD Contacts and resources have determined for certain that it is not the Pentagon which ultimately gives the SOC their orders, they answer to the Director of the CIA and the Joint Chiefs directly, giving them carte blanche to do what must be done in the new "War on terror". That makes them particularly dangerous to /us, as you are well aware. This makes the facts simple: we need to know whether or not, absolutely, certainly and finally, SOC assets and resources are being deployed to Afghanistan as a result of intelligence concerning either the activities of Al'Quaeda, for counter-intelligence ops, or to investigate any evidence of external support received by the Taliban and Al'Quaeda.
So were clear, we have intel suggesting there is political pressure coming down from the Oversight Committee on the Armed Forces, via Senators who don't like even the notion of an effectively autonomous Black Ops intelligence-focused Special Forces unit with close links to the CIA being operational in the field. If this is the case, we may be able to make effective penetration. If not, we need you to tell us the facts for certain so we can deal with the situation as it presents itself. Take what time you need to get these facts to us, but don't /waste/ time. Understood?"
"Understood. I'll be in touch. Out".
Y
Back in camp after a long day under the hot sun, Xenia found a shaded wall to lean against out of the sun and shut out the world for a few minutes to get away from it all. As dusk began to fall, her sharp eyes noted dusky clouds starting to gather over the mountaintops, smaller and larger groups evidently moving towards convergence more and more as time went on.
In all honesty, she didn't know that much about the weather in Afghanistan, that had never been her area of expertise. But, she'd been all around the world, north and south of the Equator plenty of times, travelled to and over three continents by land, sea and air and-most importantly here-she'd seen and experienced rainstorms in South America in the worst imaginable conditions.
Her lips shifted into a trace of a smile as she recalled fighting her way through trees streaming thick spurts of water from huge leaves which could blind you any second, wading through mud which stuck to you in a way it took a high pressure hose to shift up to the waist. Dodging Quicksand and flash floods, riding improvised rafts over all-new shallow rivers created by monsoon rainstorms, tumbling down rapids and going over sudden waterfalls without even time to shriek before you were six feet under with a ton of water falling straight onto your head. Running for her life away from annoyed villagers who were shooting at her with bows and arrows carrying stone heads because she'd tried to buy a canoe without realising the villagers hadn't seen a white man or woman since the Spanish invasion over five hundred years earlier and had long, bad memories...
For all the madness, mayhem and bloodshed, she'd actually had the time of her life down there and was seriously considering buying a permanent home in a very little known part of the jungle, unknown because the owners made sure everyone forgot about it unless they could afford to remember. After going on a decade of high-order Mercenary action, Wetwork, Black Ops, killing missions, Espionage for whoever paid the most, she had more than enough put away to afford the price and more. The question was, would she rather Retire there or somewhere quieter, so far out of the way even the chance of her discovery was as remote as the chance of President Bush being honest? That, she still had to make a decision on.
She brought her mind back to the subject at hand, the clouds gathering over the mountains. Yes, she /did/ know all the signs, there was going to be a thunderstorm soon-a very big one. Good, this land was so humid at the best of times she'd been tempted to locate a secluded pool where she could go to cool off whenever she felt the need, but there were far too many good male trackers amongst the Americans and the Allied forces. She knew for a fact what would have happened and, quite simply, didn't need people fantasising about "the Russki bitch" any more than they already did. Let alone salivating over any inappropriate photographs of her...
The thunderstorm, when it came, would do a great deal to disperse the oppressive humidity and make it comfortable, for a while at least. Then it would be back to sweating like a pig and trying hard not to faint in the overwhelming heat under all the armour and gear you had to wear and carry, even without weapons, just to stay alive in this damned place. Well, she could live with that. Russians were bred to the cold, certainly, but they enjoyed the heat as much as anyone on earth when it came. She'd just have to take a little time off somewhere cool or simply downright cold for a while after all this was over.
In the meantime, she decided that it would be nice to stand around outside and enjoy the rain, warm though it would certainly be, when it came. The barrack structures were fine for her to retreat to when she needed some peace and quiet-or not.
She'd been getting...hints...from an SAS Sergeant who was tall, rangy and good looking in the same way a wolf was, hard-faced and firm-bodied with the compact, lean muscle that only came with years of hard physical labour-and not from pumping iron in a gym for six hours a day. She'd seen plenty of both in her time, more than enough to tell the difference, so she looked for more in her men if it was going to be more than a fling.
The SAS man had stone cold eyes and a ruthless manner which told her she was looking at a cold-blooded killer, but what had finally drawn her interest was the fact that, in combat and day to day, he moved like a dancer with quite remarkable physical grace. As she well knew, a man who moved like that did /everything/ like that. Homicidal tendencies and very likely a God in bed? After twenty-two years on the job he was over forty, but age didn't bother her. She was /more/ than tempted…
Then there was Matt? Well…
Y
Matt was beginning to suspect that, after less than two days, he was never going to get used to the overwhelming heat and humidity of this country. He'd thought New York and its long, hot summers was bad, when it got so hot and sticky that all you could do was lie inside with a glass of cool water, the air conditioning on full and all the windows wide open, but this? This was on a different scale of hot. It was out of the frying pan and head first into the fire with gas turned all the way up.
SOC body armour was full-body and extensive, designed and fitted to provide the maximum possible amount of protection while supplying the least amount of weight to enable speed, agility and reaction time to be as close as possible to the norm. It was also as well-filtered as possible, with perfectly placed padding and vents to allow air to circulate freely while allowing for the suit to be made airtight if necessary in an emergency. It didn't change the fact that the suit put you inside a pressure cooker which made you feel as though your head was going to explode if you wore it for too long, while the weaponry and gear caused such massive physical exertion when added to the armour that he wasn't sure he'd have survived trying to run for any real distance in full kit and armour in these conditions.
All of that combined had, once their orientation patrol session was over, led to Matt literally putting his entire head under a cold tap and staying in that position for at least five minutes. Then he'd grabbed a chilled bottle of water, dragged his shirt off over his head and stepped outside as the shadows of dusk began to fall, looking for and quickly finding a well-shaded area, where he collapsed in only his combat leggings and undone boots. Hard, rough stone wall behind him against his back, dusty concrete, stone and mud floor beneath his feet and backside and, if he was being honest, it felt like he was relaxing into soft cushions. That meant he was very tired, not at all to his surprise.
He heard the footsteps a moment before he registered the presence of the man, then glanced up to confirm what he believed. Tom Walker, SOC commanding officer for the whole of their operations in Afghanistan, was standing over him. He was holding a half-full bottle of water and was dressed just like Matt was, the hard muscularity of his arms and chest slick with sweat and rippling as he moved. Matt and he had worked out together in the past because they both worked for the SOC, even though they didn't socialise, so Matt knew Tom came by his powerful physique through honest hard effort over hours of time every day. Matt also knew that Tom took so much trouble to stay in top shape he'd hired a physical trainer to sculpt his body into the most impressive appearance possible, a fact which few people knew for a good reason since Tom actively discouraged any comment on his personal life. Matt found it all quite funny in reality, even a little silly, but he couldn't say that on the record to his superior officer.
"Mind if I join you, Matt?" asked Tom, raising the water bottle to his lips and taking a long swig. Matt just shook his head no, so Tom sat down clear of Matt and sighed in some relief.
"Bloody country, weathers worse than Death Valley on a bad day back in the States. Natives toddle along regardless in their turbans and sheepskins, smiling like they know some great secret to coping with it all rather than having to admit that they wing it and hope for the best just like the rest of us poor bastards. I'm surprised we haven't had rats at the food stores yet, myself, I know a lot of people have been in the Infirmary with heat exhaustion and bruises from passing out on the job. No SOC, though, so that's something" said Tom, swigging back more water before throwing back his head with a sigh.
"So, how did your orientation tour go? With Anna there, I'm sure you had plenty to think about. With Xenia too, I doubt you had time to think of much else. Just the skinny, Matt, I know your report will be on my desk tomorrow morning" asked Tom, shooting a sharp glance at Matt. Obviously, Matt reflected, Tom hadn't forgotten the "welcome" he'd received from both Anna and Xenia on literally his first night on the job here. Well, that was just tough. If Tom wanted to go digging about any history there, he could go through Personnel Files. Tom wasn't the only one who was protective of his privacy.
"Long story short, Anna and her Deltas split up with Xenia and us, which led to us being ambushed by a group of what Xenia and Anna call ferals while Anna and her team were jumped out of sight of us. No contest, Anna and her people just killed them all while Xenia went a little crazy on us with a pair of machetes and cut them into chunks to make sure they knew she was angry. Beyond that, it was fine, really just physical orientation and acclimatising. Any tips for that?" replied Matt, looking at Tom as he spoke.
"Just the usual one's, Matt. Don't even dare try and overdo it in these conditions, if you think you might sit down and rest, take five if you have to. Drink plenty of water, rationing here is only good when you have to make sure your not going to run out. Also, when it gets dark here, wrap up tight and sleep soundly for as long as you can manage, the temperature gets way down at night here and its only when it gets that way that its at all comfortable to try and flake out for any real length of time" said Tom, before pausing to take a breath.
"It takes time to get used to all of this and, understand me, you /cannot/ rush all of this under any circumstances here. You think the terrain is bad? It is, make a wrong step and you'll end up under a mountainside with a million tons of rock flattening you into a red smear where you'll never be found. But the weather? That can really kill you just by way of you thinking you can handle it. Even if you've been here before, make no mistake that this is your first time all over again. Learn fast and work hard, Matt, you get very few second chances here" said Tom, looking at Matt in such a way that Matt knew he was dead serious. Great pep talk Tom, he thought but again couldn't say aloud...
"As for the ferals...occupational hazard in this country in the same way rebels, guerrillas and terrorists are everywhere outside of the USA bar some bits of Europe. They survived the invasion and eventual retreat of the USSR, but someone forgot to tell them that this meant they could stop fighting so now they kill anything and everything they come across so they don't /have/ to think about anyone or anything else. Think of them all as having started off Psychotic and now not only being completely combat-happy but Heroin addicts rotting from the inside out as well. Their minds were the first thing to go, trust me on that. You see them? Shoot to kill and run like Hell the opposite direction, off a cliff if that's what it takes to avoid capture. The only thing worse than being killed by them is being captured by them, trust me on that" said Tom, swigging water again as Matt did the same.
"Its funny, but Xenia said almost exactly that when I asked her" said Matt, with a shrug. "Guess you just don't hear about things like that outside of the land they live in" her continued, licking his lips to moisturise them.
Tom snorted. "The Romanoff Bitch told you that? She was trying to scare you, so it had better not have worked-" he began, but was cut off by a new voice as someone appeared in front of them so suddenly that Matt was actually startled. Getting the drop on him was /not/ an easy thing to do.
"If she was trying to scare Matt, Thomas, she would have had him shaking like a leaf in a hurricane before she finished speaking. If you have ways of asserting your authority /without/ insulting your men's intelligence and my /real/ friends honesty, I suggest you employ them before she finds out about this with anyone else you might talk to. You can leave now, by the way" said the new arrival. Matt immediately recognised her voice, knowing who she was even before he looked up.
Anna. Who else would it have been? Special Forces soldiers wanted to grow up to be her, she probably wouldn't have disturbed the air around them getting close if she didn't want to. In any case, there had been a strong sense of animosity between Tom and her which hadn't been hard to pick up on just on first sight of them in each others presence.
He had to wonder just what Tom had done to piss off Anna, though. He /knew/ that doing something so stupid came /high/ on the list of bad ideas, so high that only a man as dense as Tom where women were concerned, particularly women like Anna, would be stupid enough to do something to set her off. He'd have to ask Anna some time...
Tom stood up slowly, glaring at Anna and snarling with curled lips, but he wasn't feeling suicidal enough to do something as stupid as throw a punch, apparently, so he just shot Anna the most contemptuous stare Matt had ever seen and stalked off. "Be careful about your friends, Matt" he shot off over his shoulder, even as he headed back towards the officers quarters.
Anna just watched him go, then sat down next to Matt, leaned her head on his shoulder and leaned her long body against him. Her skin was gleaming with sweat, which he couldn't help but notice made her t-shirt and combat trousers stick to her statuesque figure in all kinds of interesting ways, but it was obvious her dark skin was protecting her from the worst excesses of the climate in a way the overwhelmingly pale-skinned Caucasian other soldiers, including him, couldn't hope to match. The feel of her body against his side and arm felt very good indeed, as well. He'd almost forgotten just how curvy she was, in all the right ways and places.
"This brings back memories...can I ask you something, Matt?" she asked. He wasn't sure that he'd ever seen that particular expression on her face before as she spoke, almost one of longing...
Y
It was starting to rain by the time Xenia's wanderings around the camp led her to Anna and Matt's almost-intimate close embrace, Matt having one arm around Anna's shoulders while Anna leaned into his right side along her full length. She didn't doubt for a second that they were just comforting each other in a strange place in a strange world, but nine out of every ten people who saw Anna doing that with /anybody/ would have, at the very least, had a double-take to be sure of just what they were looking at. Besides which, the body language of both said they were far more than just comfortable in each others physical company. So comfortable, in fact, that Anna was almost purring, not that Matt appeared to have noticed.
She stopped, stood and simply stared at the two of them for a few seconds, until they both lazily shifted to look straight at her. Then Anna's lips drifted upwards into an almost sly smile.
"Feel like a swim, Xenia?" asked Anna, an almost bizarre question that Xenia wasn't quite sure how to answer. Matt tried to keep what he was thinking off of his face, but had nothing like Anna or Xenia's self-control and she knew that he knew something he wasn't going to let on about concerning Anna's question. That just made her more intrigued-and made her decision easy.
"Da, I would love to" she replied, wondering just what Anna had in mind and precisely what she was letting herself in for...
/End of Chapter Three. All Reviews welcomed./