Chapter 1 #2
“Copter? We’re goin’ on a helicopter?” The kid’s eyes went wider, then immediately reverted to their usual surly cast. “I ain’t leavin’ here.”
“Wanna bet?” Zach gagged Sammy with a handkerchief and lifted him over the shoulder of his non-shooting arm, though he could actually shoot just as well from either hand.
The kid squirmed and grunted stuff under his gag, but Zach had a firm hold.
He waited at the entrance of the cave, his heart pumping so loud it felt as if it might lunge out of his chest. But then, he heard the thwap, thwap, thwap of the Blackhawk’s propellers, followed by Cage’s cue, three short bird calls.
“We’ve only got two minutes to get out of here and into the copter, kid. So work with me, huh?”
With those words, he dashed for the hanging rope and harness about thirty feet away.
Out of his side vision, he saw Cage and Luke “Slick” Avenil off on either side of him and Sly in a crouch, rifle raised near the rappelling rope, ducking and firing at the tangos coming in on all three sides.
He and these three guys had suffered through Class 500 of BUD/S training together seven years ago; a SEAL might change teams or squads as ordered, but he always identified with his class number. The members were bonded for life.
The terrorists, still a considerable distance away, were firing at the copter and the other guys, not him, because presumably they saw that he was carrying the boy and had orders not to aim for him for fear of collateral damage.
..collateral in this case meaning Arsallah’s grandkid.
At one point, a bullet zinged a rock near Slick’s foot.
With a curse, Slick did a Ninja-style roll, landing on his feet.
Cage was crab-running toward the helo, urging him to hurry, “Go, go, go!”
Zach strapped a terrified Sammy into the harness and wrapped himself around him on the rope which was already being raised up to the copter.
Meanwhile, Cage, Sly and Slick were shooting off rapid rounds.
Just before they started ascending the rope, each of them lobbed a grenade in three different directions.
The helo took off by the time the explosions hit.
Sly had a thigh wound that would need care as soon as they landed, and Cage’s palms appeared raw from rappelling down the rope.
He must have forgotten his gloves, or else the action had worn through the Kevlar.
Other than that, they were in good shape.
They all sat on bench seats, breathing heavily, adrenaline almost popping out of their pores. Sammy sat on Zach’s lap, too stunned to protest...yet. Finally, when their heart rates were down to about a hundred beats a minute, each looked at the other, grinned, then said as one, “Hoo-yah!”
Zach took off Sammy’s gag, but not his hand and wrist restraints. Immediately, the brat launched into a tirade that involved fuck, shit, ass, snot, piss, bastard, hell, damn, cock, prick, and dick in a dozen combinations, both in English and his native tongue.
The guys continued to grin.
“Are you going to introduce us?” Sly asked.
“This is Samir Abdul Hassim Floyd. My son.” Zach exhaled on a loud whoosh. “You can call him Sammy. Or The Snot.”
“You sure ‘bout that, cher? I mean, that he’s yer son?” Cage was only looking out for his best interests, but Sammy didn’t see it that way and let loose with another volley of expletives.
Ignoring him, Zach said, “Pretty sure.”
“I already wired ahead to a nurse I know. She’ll do DNA tests for you right away so at least you’ll have that defense.” Slick knew more ways to avoid the law than a corporate lawyer.
Zach nodded.
“You do realize you’re in trouble from so many angles you’re gonna look like a target riddled with bullet holes by the time they’re done with you.” This was Sly’s astute opinion.
He nodded again. “For the past two years, I’ve been miserable, mooning over Britta,” he told them.
Britta was the one woman who hadn’t succumbed to his charms..
.and, yeah, he had plenty...and in the dead of the night, she was the one he fantasized about.
“But, man, I sure wish I was back there with her right now.”
Cage laughed. “Nah! You’d just be tradin’ one misery fer another.”
“I suppose so.” Zach sighed and glanced down at his personal, present-day misery.
His misery stuck his tongue out at him.
(Northumbria, 1017 AD)
Just call me Xena, Warrior Nun...
Britta Asadottir, far-famed Norse warrior woman, was a novice in St. Anne’s Abbey...a Saxon nunnery, for the love of Thor! And she blamed the world’s biggest fornicator, Zack-hairy the Pretty Boy.
Not that she had ever fornicated with the lout, or wanted to, but the man had ruined her life. If she ever got her hands on him, she would throttle him with glee.
Britta had met Zack-hairy at The Sanctuary, a women’s refuge in the Norselands, more than two winters past. He and his comrades had been there only a few sennights, helping to rid the country of the villain Steinolf, and beguiling the gunnas off every woman that crossed their paths.
The whole time, the godly handsome man had pursued Britta relentlessly, trying to lure her into his bed furs.
Which was strange in itself, because she was not known as Britta the Big for naught.
As tall and well-muscled as many men, she intimidated males who were e’er sensitive about being the stronger sex.
Not the rogue with the snake-slick tongue, however.
But then, Zack-hairy, his comrades-in-arms, and The Sanctuary’s mistress, Hilda Berdottir, had disappeared one day. Poof! Everyone surmised that the group had been caught in an avalanche which swept their bodies all the way to the fjord and then to the North Sea. A sad ending, to be sure.
The oddest thing, though, was that once the lout had gone, she’d developed the most intense yearning for him and the mating.
Thank the gods, she had not been so inclined when he had been here.
Otherwise, she would have been rutting with him like a boar in heat.
The scoundrel must have put a spell on her, because no longer had she been satisfied with serving as chief guard and archer for The Sanctuary.
Now that the danger of Steinolf was gone, and now that the lout had ignited these irksome fires in her loins, she had fooled herself into believing she could live safely outside the bounds of the fortress, perchance even find a man to douse those woman-fires.
A big mistake!
Her father and brothers had found her.
Her father, Jarl Eyvind Tunnisson, wanted.
..nay, needed...her back under his sadistic control again.
It turned out that one of his larger and more prosperous Norse estates, Everstead, in truth of law belonged to her.
..or it would once she wed, and then it would belong to her firstborn daughter.
On her death, if there were no issue, everything would go to St. Anne’s Abbey.
And so Britta took refuge here with the good nuns at the abbey. Her father was only biding his time.
Problems with her father were not new. Any woman’s virtue was forfeit in her father’s holdings.
He and her three brothers slaked their lust on anything wearing a gunna, regardless of age or beauty, regardless of consent.
As a result, there were dozens of Tunnisson bastards hither and yon, from the Norselands to Britain to Iceland and beyond.
It had been a huge embarrassment for her mother, a highborn lady, afore her death ten years ago.
Her father considered women chattel, good only for bedsport and the coin brought by prospective husbands. He had been enraged at Britta’s refusal to wed the various men he’d brought to her.
Her brothers had the same attitude toward women, and worse.
They were demented and cruel and had been from an early age.
When she was eight, Trond had skinned her favorite kitten, whilst still alive.
When she was twelve, Erland had held her down with a knife to her inner thigh, forcing her to spread and show his filthy friends her nether parts.
She had a scar there still where the knife had drawn blood.
But it had been Halvdan’s attempt to mount her himself which caused Britta to go to their ancient castellan and beg for instruction in the warrior arts.
From that day forward, Britta’s life path took a new direction.
No longer could she nurture the usual womanly dreams of home and hearth and family.
Taller than the average male, she began to develop muscles.
..not an attractive marriage package, as her father told her on many an occasion.
Men did not like having a wife towering over them, but they could live with that.
However, when said wife could best her mate in sword play, that was beyond acceptable, or so the many prospective husbands her father paraded before her said.
The final indignity had come when her father gave consent to a Danish karl for rape as an incentive to force her to bend to his will, a rape which she managed to evade.
Her jaw still ached on occasion, an eternal reminder of his rage that time.
..a fist to the chin that had knocked her senseless and no doubt jarred her jaw bone out of place.
It had been then that she had known she had to leave, her fighting skills not nearly enough to fight them all.
For years, she had moved from place to place in the Norselands, hiring out her fighting skills, until she’d found The Sanctuary, a special place for women.
She had been content there being the head archer until that lout Zack-hairy had stirred her blood.
When he’d left, without warning, she realized that she wanted so much more.
She wanted a man who loved her and children.
What a witless exercise in vanity!