Author's Chapter Notes:
Warnings: This chapter contains war and gruesome imagery, coarse language, and racial comments.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to their various owners, all others belong to me.
He did exactly as he had said for he had always been a man of his word. ('Integrity', his mother had told him, 'is all a man really has in this world.') He worked their backs to breaking, their fingers to the bone, and then he did it again until they knew the routine better than he himself did. PT, OC, PT again. They were the best, the fastest, the strongest that they had ever been. Nine weeks after the beginning, he looked them over with something like pride. These men, his men, each and every one of them a reflection of himself, and dammit if he didn't like what he saw.
"They sent you here for punishment. Today, I have given you a reward. Never in your life will you be able to bear the pride that you bear today. You came here as misfits, I have made you a team. Today, you are the best. I'm recommending each and every one of you for Elite."
The whoop had been loud, ten men standing together, each and every one of them bearing the ties of those who have endured great hardship together and survived to see the other side. They ate heartily, drank deeply, and slept the sleep of the exhausted. He lay awake in the night and listened to their breathing, his team, these wolves in human form, each thirsty for the blood and hungry for their flesh of their enemies.
He closed his eyes, and slept deeply himself.
OOO
The next day, he wakes, and travels the one hundred yards of hallway to the briefing room, one of the few rooms with telephone access still wired in, sat himself in the chair, propped his feet upon the desk and waited for the congratulations to begin. Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang, and he reached forward to bring it to his ear, balancing it easily between head and shoulder.
"Corian," he said, brightly.
"I don't believe it," the man laughed on the other end. "I never would have thought it."
He grinned broadly, chest swelling with the pride only the greatest of leaders had ever known, he thought.
"Yanno, you could have had just a little more faith in me, Major."
"Alright, so you proved me wrong, Jack. You can start packing your bags. I'm putting you up for another promotion. Even General Vreeland won't be able to argue your efficacy after this."
His heart sank, mind spun, he tried desperately to understand what he had just heard.
"What?"
"I said you're coming home, Jack. I expected you to be a little happier about this. Two months in that hellhole, aren't you ready to come home?"
"You… you sent me here to train them. I've trained them, and they're the best that they're ever going to be, and now you're telling me to come home? What's going to happen to them?"
"They're going back to their various departments, as was the plan all along. What is all this, aren't you happy?"
His jaw opened and closed, mind furiously searching for the words.
"No, no I'm not fucking happy. I've made them better than ever, and now you're telling me to come home? I'm not coming home, do you hear me, Corian? You let us do our fucking job!"
He slammed the phone back into the cradle.
OOO
They had not liked it, he thought some eighteen months later, no one was particularly pleased with his demand, and he thought perhaps the Major had been a little hurt by his refusal to return home. He would get over it one day, Jack thought, and leaned heavily into the building, taking a quick peek over the top of the wall. His forehead stung as several rifle rounds took off chunks of the mud brick wall before he had a chance to sink back into safety.
"Shit," he muttered, heart pounding. He loved firefights. There was no adrenaline rush like it, maybe except for night jumps (leaping into the dark abyss, eyes closed and arms open), he loved those, too.
"Captain, come in," It was Brandon on the radio (now a Specialist, he thought proudly). "You alright?"
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine, I need to get off this fucking roof!"
"You got bigger problems than that. You got five hostiles coming for your stairwell!"
He rummaged quickly in his jacket, found what he was searching for, pulled the pin, and tossed it behind him, waiting for the familiar concussive force, the beautiful splatter and thump of falling body parts.
"Not anymore they're not!" he yelled into the radio.
His ears rang after the explosion, but he could still hear the screams of victory from his men in the bunker, knew which voice screamed louder than the others. Soon, that voice came from the radio as well.
"Your stairwell's fucked, you're gonna have to rappel down, I'll cover you!" Ladue yelled.
"Got it," he replied.
Maybe he had been right, Jack thought, grabbing hammer and pin from the depths of his jacket, he carried everything on his person, but there was no use in being unprepared. He secured the rope, slid the carabineer into place and tied the rope around him. It was a quick rappel, quicker than it should have been his ankles reminded him at the bottom, but one way or another he was on the ground. He left the rope in place, narrowly missing two bullets that sank into the brick with plumes of smoke and dust. He sank lower to the ground, watched the red mist that flew from the attacking insurgent as his sniper took him out, one perfect shot to the heart later.
Ladue clapped him heavily onto the shoulder as he sank back behind the ruined wall with the others.
"So, I'm here… who brought the nachos?" The others laughed and Marcus took out two more on the roof.
"So what's the plan?" Brandon asked.
"Colonel says we secure the area until the Cavalry gets here, and then we blow all these motherfuckers away."
The others nodded, voiced their agreement… all but one. Jack looked to Nunez.
"What the hell do you have to say?" Jack snapped, caught the block of plastic explosive and the duffel of the others easily a moment later.
"Who the fuck says we have to wait for the Cavalry? We lay charges on the right side, that five-story's gonna collapse right on top of them. They'll be sitting ducks."
"Eleven of us, hundred and fifty of them… I say that makes the odds about 50/50." Ladue grinned.
"Yanno," Jack said softly, "I like the way he thinks.. You stay for cover fire, Marcus; Ladue, Wentworth, you come with us."
They all nodded their ascent.
"Coast is clear for the moment," Marcus said, after a cursory sweep with his scope.
Jack lost sight of the others within a moment, Nunez and Wentworth disappearing into the bowels of the abandoned building. Jack would lay his charges along the outside, Nunez along the interior. There was one man behind the corner. He never saw Ben coming, a moment later Jack watched his favorite K-bar slide through his throat with perfect smoothness, felt his cock harden at the first gorgeous sight of vertebra glinting through the wide open wound. Ben winked at him knowingly as he wiped the blade clean on his fatigues.
Pay attention, he snapped within his mind, wiring the fuses the way he tied his boots every morning: with the little thought borne of much practice. Ladue took out two more coming around the right side, the H&K P7 steady and easy in his hands as the nine-millimeter Parabellum cartridges tore perfect holes through their targets.
"You almost done?" he yelled.
"Finished," he replied, and Ladue fired three more times, taking down two more before they reached the bunker again. Nunez was already there, Wentworth collapsed beside him in a ball of sweat and wrenching breath.
"Slow ass, gringo, I been waitin' for you to do the honors." The Mexican tossed the detonator into his hands a moment later. He grinned in return, feeling the heft of each in his palms, the surge of joy in his heart at the knowledge that a moment later the entire thing would go up in a cloud of dust at his command.
"Wait a second," Ladue yelled, withdrawing his favorite Canon from his jacket. Jack grinned back at him, waited for his nod before he pressed the buttons together.
The silence seemed to stretch forever beneath the hot sun before the first explosion came. He felt the thud of it in his chest, then the next, and the next. He heard the camera whirring as Ladue stood to get a better view of the event. The eastern side of the building collapsed, the entire structure falling perfectly sideways as the foundation buckled. No bullets came now, only the echoing screams from inside the southern most building of the compound. A moment, later, he knew, they would begin running from the inside, like little cockroaches swarming out of a hole in the wall.
"Alright, boys!" he screamed, lifting his XM8 into his arms with great care. "Time for a little target practice!"
They came just as he expected, great droves of them, each one cut down only seconds after he exited.
"Got one!" Brandon yelled.
"Already got four!" Israel screamed. "Die, you bastards, die!"
The sand became wet with the gore, the bodies began to stack upon one another, they tripped as they exited the building, wallowing in the mud, screaming in terror as they watched their comrades go down. Jack laughed and laughed, cradling the assault rifle close to his chest as a child cradles a much-loved toy. This was his favorite toy, he thought. How could he ever want to go home? This place was heaven!
An hour later, the dust had settled, the last of the blood had leaked from the corpses and they filled their time picking through the remains. Ladue had a handful of gold teeth he'd popped out of those who still had heads left, to make a new ring with when he returned home, he said, and Israel collected an ear off of each, to leave his mark, he said.
"How's that for Jihad, motherfucker, huh?" he screamed into the shattered faces of his fallen enemies. "How you like the little Jew now, huh!? That's for Gaza, you motherfucker!"
"Here," Brandon said, nudging Jack's shoulder as he rounded the rubble on the left side. "Look what I found, Cappy."
A small cylindrical object hit Jack in the chest. He caught it a moment later, held it up in the sun to read the tiny font imprinted upon the side of the tube.
"I'll be damned," he whispered. "A Cuban cigar. Good find, kid." He clapped him on the shoulder. Brandon grinned in return, proud.
Jack seated himself upon a chunk of the brick wall, tore the end of the cigar off with his teeth, lit it with the American flag Zippo he'd stolen off that asshole Colonel during the trip out to Bahrain. He could hear the rumble of the tanks long before he ever saw them. Jack took a long draw off the Cuban, blew a couple of smoke rings before he clenched it between his teeth as the first hatch opened.
"What took you fuckers so long? We had to do all the work ourselves!"
OOO
That day, the triumph, the pure unadulterated fucking fun, oh, all that seemed so far away from him now. He couldn't even imagine it anymore. The memory seemed like a ghost, unreachable and transparent and how could he have ever been that happy, that healthy?
The prick sighed, seated in a chair a few feet away, wiping Jack's blood off the toe of his boot, off the blade of his knife.
"This is getting really old," he said again, and looked up at Jack. His skin was pale. His blood ran sluggishly, leaking down his face with saliva in a thin, red glaze. The flesh of his cheeks fluttered with each breath, the severed tissue rubbing together agonizingly.
"Bring in the next one," the prick said.
"There's only one left," the guard answered.
"No," Jack whispered, "No, no!"
The prick grinned at him, tossed his head at the guard. The little mouse looked sick, more terrified and tired than ever, but Jack felt no pity, only a seething hatred that burned and twisted in his heart. He wanted to rip him apart, he thought, tear him limb from limb, drink his fucking blood, cook him like a fucking steak.
He would have given anything to be blind, to be deaf as they pushed him through the doorway. He looked so weak, so weak, Jack thought, he could see the bruises beneath the blindfold, the bruises on his arms, could see dried blood around his mouth.
"Please don't look at me," Jack whispered. He could not stand it, could not stand the thought.
The prick heard him. The guards threw Ben at his feet, and Jack pulled them away as quick as he could.
"Oh, ladies and gentleman," the prick laughed, "I think we've got a winner! Take his blindfold off, Joe,"
They grabbed him by the throat, wrenched him off the ground, jerked the strip of black cloth from over his eyes. He tossed his head, wincing as the bright fluorescents tore into his vision. Blurry, confused, his eyes did not focus properly at first. A concussion, Jack thought with some small portion of his mind still working properly, not yet fuzzy with the loss of blood. Finally, those blue eyes focused weakly on his face, filled with the horror and disgust that he had never wanted to see in them.
"No," he whispered again.
"Jack," Ben said shakily, tears filling his eyes, "Jack!? Is that you?! Oh god, oh god, are you okay?" His head shook, eyes averting, as though if he did not see perhaps it would all go away. The prick grabbed him by the chin, forced his head forward, pried at an eye with his fingers.
"Look at him. Look at him! You see, you see, huh? What he did to himself? He's not okay, he's hurt real, real bad. I really did a number on him. He needs medical attention, kid, he needs help, and so do you. You been coughing up blood for hours they tell me, you're gonna bleed to death. You wanna go home, don't you? You wanna see your Mama again, huh? You tell us the fucking passwords. You hear me? You tell us the passwords, and you can both go home. You're US Soldiers boys, we don't wanna hurt you. You see what happened to your friends?" He wrenched his head sideways, and Ben screamed helplessly as he stared at the others, dead and piled together like forgotten garbage.
"No!" he screamed, "Oh god, oh Jesus fuck, no!"
"You tell us the passwords, you both can go home, this whole thing can be forgotten, like a bad dream."
"Don't listen to him," Jack whispered.
"Shut him the fuck up!" The prick yelled. The guard kicked him in the stomach, kicked him again and again; he coughed, wretched, puked up little but blood and bile.
"Oh god," Ben screamed again, "Stop it! Stop hurting him! Please, I'll fucking tell you, I'll tell you! Brandon set the locks on his system, I know the passwords! He told them to me!"
"Stop," the prick said, wrenched his head up by the chin. "What are the last two passwords?"
"The first one is….. Alpha Bravo 2745289…. The second is… Zulu Delta 14 Echo 27… 492."
Jack squeezed his eyes shut, tears tracking clean patches through the blood on his cheeks. The gunshot came a moment later. He could not bear to see the eyes, those blue clear eyes as the light, the life left them forever.
"Thanks, kid," the prick laughed.
"Oh god, baby, no, no, baby, no, please…. You fuck!" He screamed, felt his cheeks tear open wider as he did. "You stupid fuck!"
"Oh," the prick laughed again. "Did he mean something to you? Yanno, you shoulda spoke up, if I woulda known…" The prick was in front of him now. Jack opened his eyes, watched as though through a veil as he caught two handfuls of IV tubes, ripped them all from Jack's body with one swift jerk. He felt the flesh tear, but he barely noticed the pain now, "I would have left him alive… leave you a little company while you're bleeding out."
"You're dead," Jack whispered, "You're dead and you don't even fucking know it yet."
The prick grinned at him, reached forward and smacked the left side of his face roughly, the chunk he had taken out by accident when Jack's teeth had finally found his fingers, clenched down until he felt them grind down into bone. Those fingers were stitched shut now, and Jack snapped at them again, blood and spit flying from his mouth as he screamed, raved and wailed.
"You keep dreaming, boy… This time you won't have to wake up."