Aliza was a devout lover of music, she could enjoy almost any kind just as long as it met one incredibly important standard. The music had to be performed well. She'd been in her church choir as a kid, she'd heard classical in Carnegie Hall, she'd heard techno in in all the best clubs from Paris to Moscow, country music in Nashville, J-pop in Tokyo, jazz in New Orleans. She'd been exposed to all kinds of music, and she could honestly say that if the musicians were doing a good job, she would be having a good time.
Coffee house talent nights were, by their nature, not a sure thing when it came to good music. The odds varied from city to city of course. She and her friends had frequented the coffee houses of Paris, and she loved every minute of it. Of course Paris was a city of art and culture that loved it's poets, painters, and musicians. LS was a city where a nice set of breasts were often considered a strong substitute for actual talent. Not that you couldn't have both, Aliza thought with a small laugh as she caught her eyes in the rearview mirror.
But she did not have high hopes for this evening, but one of the friends that Tracey had made in rehab was playing tonight. And Tracey had asked her to come. Actual relationships involved things like this, or at least Aliza remembered that they did. In all honesty, she hadn't actually tried to date anyone since she graduated high school. She'd had a lot of sex, certainly, but those had all been one night stands and friends with benefits sorts of things.
Thus she found herself pulling up the drive of the De Santa estate to pick up her date. It was a nice enough house, one of dozens of other mcmansions that were built by the noveau wealthy before the real estate bubble popped and the US economy took a nosedive. She liked Spanish style well enough, but like most American mansions she'd been to, it lacked the personality of Isak's estate in Israel. It seemed less a home and more a symbol of wealth, but considering what she knew about Tracey's family, that shouldn't have been surprising.
She stepped out of her car, smoothed out her jacket, checked to make sure that her blades were securely concealed in their sheathes, and stepped up to the front door. Her highly sharpened senses caught the sound of screaming. Not distress, joy, or sex, she thought as her mind judged the tone and went down the mental list. Anger, definitely anger, it was muffled by the door, but she could still hear it. A man and a woman, likely Tracey's parents, were arguing rather heatedly. She hadn't intended to eavesdrop, but her training kicked in before she could raise her hand to the door bell. No intelligence gathering opportunity should be immediately overlooked, Ben's voice came from the recesses of her brain. So she listened.
The man's voice came first. "Oh yeah, I'm the bad guy, all I did was give you a big fancy house and a shit ton of money! All so you can go and bang my fucking proctologist!"
Then the woman's, even through the door Aliza could hear the hypocritical indignation. "It's not my fault you're a washed up psychopath who can't satisfy me anymore, that's why you go to your whores! Richard has magic hands, you could learn from him."
"Yeah, magic hands that've been up the asses of half the men in this fucking city. No thank you, I'll leave those lessons to him and his buddies down at the gay bar!"
"Would you guys shut the hell up already? My date is supposed to pick me up soon and I don't want you guys fucking embarrassing me." There was Tracey, apparently she hadn't been exaggerating about the home life.
"Is he the bastard who put those bruises on your neck the other night?" The male voice again, "I'm going to kill that little bastard when I get my hands on him."
"Daddy!" Deciding that she would hear no more of interest, Aliza pressed the doorbell.
"There's the little shit now, I'll teach him to hurt my daughter!"
The doors were flung open in front of her. The man who she assumed was Tracey's father was of average height and weight for a man his age, but he carried himself like he knew how to fight. He favored his right side, if he threw a punch, it would come from there, Aliza mentally noted. Flared nostrils, contracted pupils, stiff posture, his body language screamed anger as much as his voice had. The anger morphed to confusion. Instead of the rich pretty boy, such as Mark Ashford, he'd been expecting, he found Aliza. He looked around, probably assuming that Aliza was with another, more masculine, individual.
After a moment of this, Aliza smiled and extended her hand. "Hello, you must be Tracey's father, my name is Aliza Brennan. I'm your daughter's girlfriend. It's a pleasure to meet you." The man was thrown for a loop, that much was certain. Having knocked him off balance, she pressed her advantage.
"I'm supposed to pick up Tracey. We're going to a coffee shop to see one of her friends sing. Is she ready yet?" He was still trying to process what she'd just told him, he'd clearly been unaware that his daughter was bisexual. She stepped around him, inviting herself in.
The inside of the house was exactly what you'd expect after seeing the outside. Chandeliers, Spanish color accents, she caught sight of a living room with a more modern style of decoration through an adjacent door. A grand stairway with a wrought iron banister led up to a second floor. Her mind was in full psychoanalytic mode. The woman who had to be Tracey's mother stood off in the doorway that she assumed led to the kitchen.
It all made sense. The marriage had obviously long since fallen apart, she could tell from the bitterness in the eyes of the wife that it had been a long time since they were happy. The wife couldn't leave the husband because he held all the money, and everything was probably in his name. She'd already ruined her chances of a profitable divorce by cheating, so what she'd heard about probably wasn't the first time that the wife had cheated.
The husband refused to accept that his marriage had failed, thus he didn't leave his wife even if she cheated on him. Considering he didn't deny the whores comment, he was probably cheating as well. His overbearing defense of his daughter meant that he still cared about his family. And because of this, he refused to acknowledge the dysfunction. The fact that he was so surprised at the revelation of his daughter's sexual preferences confirmed what Tracey said about him being emotionally distant.
In less than five minutes she'd figured out the entire story. It was as stereotypical as the drama of rich people could get. Tracey stepped out of the kitchen, moving around her mother. She was dressed more modestly than she usually was, California winters were nothing like East Coast or Midwestern winters, but they had their cold nights. Tracey was a knockout in anything, and especially in nothing. She was more attractive dressing down in a white sweater and designer jeans than most girls were in their best club attire.
"Aliza!" Tracey grinned and flung her arms around her date. Aliza knew the whole thing was overdone for the benefit of Tracey's parents. The sudden French kiss caught her by surprise though. Still, she went along with it. She wasn't usually one for PDA, but if this was how Trace wanted to come out to her parents, then that was her choice.
"Nice to see you again too Trace, we should get going if we don't want to be late." Tracey nodded and bid her parents a terse farewell, then she was out the door. "It was nice meeting you." Aliza said, then made her exit quickly, not wanting to get caught up in the scene that was obviously seconds away from unfolding.
She slipped around the father once again and was out and in her car within ten seconds. Tracey was already in the passenger seat waiting for her. "Sorry about that, my parents can be so…" She paused, unsure what to say. Aliza saved her the trouble.
"Tense, don't worry about it. You warned me that your family wasn't exactly of the fifties sitcom variety." Aliza put the car in drive and set off. The drive was quick, mostly taken up by Tracey talking about her dance class. The coffee house wasn't far, it was one of those places that charged fifty bucks for a cup of five dollar coffee.
It was filled with the crowd that one would expect at a coffee house talent night. Starving artists, hipsters, wannabe screenwriters, wannabe singers, and a few amateur models. She bought them a couple of overpriced cups of coffee. They made conversation with the people Tracey knew and mainly tried to avoid hipsters trying to push whatever 'new truth' they'd discovered. It wasn't exactly Aliza's idea of a good time, but as was the give and take of a relationship.
The first few acts were about as good as she expected, that is, not very. A tone deaf singer who received more applause for her low cut top than her voice was up first. The second was a poet who ended his performance by tearing up his poem and throwing the pieces at the crowd like confetti. The third was a model who did some kind of interpretive dance, while she couldn't exactly interpret it, Aliza had to give her credit for her flexibility. Tracey's friend was the fourth act, a young blonde woman playing lead guitar for a small band. The song opened with a few organ notes, then the woman began to sing
Let us turn out thoughts today to Martin Luther King
Gloire A Dieu Refugee Camp, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Operation: Vengeful Missionary
"Overlord, we have visual confirmation."
"Roger Echo, you are clear to enact the solution."
At that moment, five Delta Force operators burst out of the back of a covered truck and each fired off a three round burst, killing four African men in military fatigues. The assembled crowd scattered in all directions. One of the operators moved forward and felt the warlord's neck with a gloved hand while one of his colleagues untied the captives the warlord had been about to execute. Six shots had caught the warlord center mass, the operator looked to his colleagues and gave a thumbs up.
"Livingston, Overlord, Livingston."
And recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the Earth.
Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together
In our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong.
Hotel Archambaunt, Paris, France, Operation: Magdalene
Mathias couldn't believe his luck as he stood on the balcony to his penthouse suite. First the Seal gets killed, leaving all of the money that he'd hidden with Mathias with no one to claim it, no one except Mathias of course. Twelve million American dollars just fell into his lap. Then his Arab clients come to him looking to hide huge deposits, meaning a huge percentage for him as a handling fee. He didn't know how those extremist lunatics had gotten their hands on so much money, he didn't care, they were making him richer than his wildest dreams.
Then he felt the third greatest thing that had happened to him this week lay her hands on his back. Apparently his Arab friends had sent her, he hadn't thought the Sauds had it in them. But in she'd came, and best of all, she'd slipped in without anyone seeing her, he could do whatever he wanted to her and no one would care. Then he felt the third greatest thing that had happened to him this week shove him over the balcony. He was too surprised to even scream before he hit the hard asphalt fifteen stories below.
We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead.
We are bound and we are bound.
Fifty thousand feet above Southern Syria, Operation: Fist of God
Mikel sat in the cockpit of his F-16 Fighting Falcon, cruising along at 391 miles per hour. His twin brother, Josif was his wingman tonight. They were both Yugoslavian by birth, but their birth parents had been killed in the war. They had been luckier than most orphaned by that atrocity, they'd been adopted as infants and grown up in a life of wealth in Israel. That was why, they both agreed, they needed to repay their adopted nation.
"Approaching target."
"Copy Leviathan, you are cleared hot."
"Confirmed, initiating attack vector. You ready Ziz?"
"Let's get this done Lev."
Approximately one minute later, an entire Hezbollah training camp was struck from the face of the earth in a ball of hellfire. Four hours later, Mikel and Josif were safe on Israeli soil.
There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist
There is a hunger in the center of the chest
There is a passage through the darkness and the mist
And though the body sleeps the heart will never rest
Twenty thousand feet over Chechnya, Operation: Woodsman
The Reaper drone cruised over its target 194 miles per hour. Its camera zoomed in on the small convoy of vehicles traveling along an old dirt road below, giving its pilots thousands of miles away a clear picture.
"Eyes on the objective."
"Engage at your discretion," the voice came over the radio.
"Master arm on, weapons hot."
"Three, two, one, rifle." A hellfire missile shot off the drone. "Time of flight, twelve seconds."
The missile caught the center vehicle, the explosion decimating it and damaging the other two vehicles.
"Good kill."
Shed a little light, oh Lord, so that we can see, just a little light, oh Lord.
Wanna stand it on up, stand it on up, oh Lord,
wanna walk it on down, shed a little light, oh Lord.
Can't get no light from the dollar bill, don't give me no light from a TV screen.
When I open my eyes I wanna drink my fill from the well on the hill,
do you know what I mean?
Coastal Region of Somalia, Operation: Maynard
The waves crashed against the beach. As one of the waves receded, five U.S. Navy Seals appeared out of the surf, fanning out as their training taught them. The next wave brought five more, and the third wave bringing the final five. The Seals were led by Lieutenant Commander Andrew Daniels. Further along the beach, a similar process was occurring, though the warriors emerging out of the surf over there were members of the elite British Special Boat Service, the naval counterparts of the more widely known Special Air Service. By the time it was done there were thirty five professional killers on the beach.
Their mission was simple, assault the compounds of four warlords who were backing piracy, and capture or kill them. Civilian casualties were to be avoided whenever possible. Any and all security forces employed by their primary targets were to be considered targets of opportunity. Local law enforcement and military were off limits. It was a standard in-and-out surgical strike, get in, kill the bad guys, get out, albeit on a larger than usual scale.
This was the kind of operation Andrew liked.
Shed a little light, oh Lord, so that we can see, just a little light, oh Lord.
Wanna stand it on up, stand it on up, oh Lord,
Wanna walk it on down, shed a little light, oh Lord.
There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist, there is a hunger in the center of the chest.
There is a passage through the darkness and the mist
And though the body sleeps the heart will never rest.
Beirut, Lebanon, Operation: Great Prostitute
Khalid Al Hadawi stepped out of the bombed out apartment building. Beirut had healed as a city, but a few scars of the old days still remained. He was a professional recruiter for a number of Jihadist groups. That meant he found burnt out teenagers willing to strap on suicide vests or climb into cars filled with explosives and blow themselves up in crowded marketplaces on the promise that their shitty lives would be replaced with glorious afterlives. He was on his way to a meeting with one of his colleagues, one who he particularly disliked. This colleague had performed one of the greatest coups in recent history, and he hadn't included Khalid or any of their top colleagues. The disrespect of one so young… it was almost too much to bear. The fact that he also hadn't shared the fruits of his labors with his brothers yet, should have been a death sentence, if only he weren't so damn good at what he did.
He checked all the usual places when he got to his car. The undercarriage, the backseat, under the front seats, the trunk, under the hood, all of the places a bomber would usually hide a deadly package. The one place he didn't check was the pouch on the back of the passenger seat. It was a common feature in most modern cars, but it was easy to forget if one didn't use it for anything. This lack of memory was fatal, as once he climbed into the driver's seat, an observer in a nearby alley sent a text message from a disposable cell phone. Khalid Al Hadawi died as his car went up in a ball of flame.
Oh, Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King
and recognize that there are ties between us.
All men and women living on the Earth, ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood.
The song reached its conclusion and the entire audience stood up and applauded.
Ok guys, I'm not sure about this. I've never been good at song fics, but I tend to visualize all my chapters and the song just seemed to fit. But still, I'm not sure about it.
By the way, Spikes, yeah, I like to bounce around. I grew up on Tom Clancy and am an ardent fan of Vince Flynn. I love the idea of a hundred different things happening at the same time on a global scale, which is the only way I can imagine espionage working. But Aliza gets more focus in the coming chapters.
So R&R people.
The song is Shed A Little Light by James Taylor.