Camp chaos, p.18
Camp Chaos, page 18
part #1 of The Unit Series
“Do I have to? You were right about not wanting to take them off. Delicious was definitely the right word to describe the sensation.”
He smiled. “I knew I should have made two pair.”
Hank walked into the cafeteria, a towel around her neck, fresh from the gym. The other team members were already seated, eating lunch.
“Look who finally showed up,” Turtle said.
“It’s the dress. Mike gets her off schedule because he’s got to play with his scissors,” Spud said, making a cutting motion with two fingers. “You’ll find out the day they send you to woo someone into the unit. I think he spent a week getting the suit he made me done. Wasn’t happy with this, wasn’t happy with that, wasn’t happy with the one I already had.”
“We’re going to have to talk to him about that,” Cloud said. “We can’t have him holding up the training schedule so he can make doll clothes for Hank.”
“Oh, eat shit,” Hank said. “I’m in love with the dress. And you know what they say: if the woman ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”
“Besides, Voice is the one who plays with dolls,” Spud said.
The others laughed while Voice turned red. What? Hank thought.
“Don’t pull that sexist shit on us, Hank” Cloud said. “You’ve got to haul your weight around here just like the rest of us.”
“Yeah, but the difference is, my weight is a hundred and seventeen – not a hundred eighty-five fucking pounds like yours.”
The rest of the guys laughed. “She’s got a point there, Cloud,” Turtle grinned.
“You know, with the way she talks, we ought to make her second duty assignment be unit chaplain.” The guys all laughed.
“Oh, funny, funny. Super duper fuckin’ funny,” she said.
“Especially since the only time I’ve heard her say ‘Praise the Lord’ is when I handed her the last dose of the CT prep,” Spud remarked.
They all laughed again, including Hank. “And I was sincere about that!” she said.
She settled into eating as the others continued to exchange jabs. Thinking, she interrupted with, “You know, everyone here knows I was FBI. What about the rest of you? Am I allowed to know?”
“Sure. Sometimes it’s even nice to find someone with a common frame of reference,” Crow said. “I’m former DEA.”
“As a pilot?”
“Believe it or not, DEA flies everything from small fixed wing aircraft to Citation jets. But I love flying that G550 the most. If I could have gotten a corporate job flying big wigs around in a 550 all the time I’d have probably stopped working for the DEA a lot sooner than I did by getting tapped for a death blow to be part of the unit.”
“I was in the Army. Ranger,” Turtle said. “That’s how I got tapped for sniper here. It’s going to be a pleasure working with someone who can shoot a lot better than I ever can.”
“If they’d given you a better rifle maybe you’d be able to shoot as well as I do. You know they just built that thing on an ordinary hunting rifle platform. Now my Sako is a sniper rifle. Was designed as one from the start.”
“The worst part of being in the unit for me,” Turtle continued, expressing the usual inter-department rivalry seen in the military, “is that I have to wear a friggin’ jarhead uniform.”
“When you’re used to substandard, I guess it’s just tough to get used to the best. Semper fi all the way,” Edge said.
“I take it, then, that you were a Marine.”
“I am still a Marine,” Edge said. “Once a Marine, always a Marine. Raiders.”
“That explains the hand-to-hand expertise.”
“And a lot of other expertise.”
“Like the ability to wash dishes because he can’t cook worth shit,” Turtle said. “You can’t boil water without burning it,” he added, getting everyone laughing.
“What about you, Cloud?”
“I must admit,” Cloud began, putting his hand on his chest, “I, too, am offended by having to wear a CUU rather than an ACU. Everyone knows ‘CUU’ stands for ‘crappy, ugly uniform.’”
“Ah, fuck you dog faces,” Edge said.
“Army aviation,” Cloud said. “I started out as a rotorhead, and went on to other things that fly.”
“I guess I’m the only civilian,” Voice said. “They recruited me out of Thor Computing.”
“Really? I thought the unit was completely composed of former military and government agents,” Hank said.
“The unit gets the talent it needs where we find it,” Spud said.
“So, they needed someone to write video games?”
“They needed someone who could program. Including simulations, which doing games gives you a lot of background for. And yes, I was with the games division.”
“So why did you give that up for here?”
“I could play the game, or I could be part of it. I figure when I retire I’ll be able to program some really realistic, exciting games as an independent game developer. In the meantime, I’ve got the challenge here of continually having to both do system upgrades and on-the-fly programming. Which reminds me, Hank, you won’t have to worry about spurious medical alerts anymore. I added a “suppress” function for the docs right away, so if they see you’re on a range when your biometrics start changing radically, they can just cancel the alert by saying, ‘Hal, suppress.’ In the meantime, there’s a learning routine I’ll be finishing that will tell the mainframes to learn whenever the docs suppress an alert that the biometrics they’re seeing are normal for that individual. See, stuff like that is, in my opinion, more interesting than writing games.”
“And what about you?” Hank asked, turning to Spud.
“Yeah, what about you?” Edge asked. “I don’t think any of us know what you did.”
Spud smiled. “I guess there’s an advantage to being the grand old man. Hank’s the first one who’s ever asked.”
“So what is it?” Hank asked.
“U.S. Secret Service. Presidential Protective Division.”
“For real?”
“For real. It’s part of the reason I don’t feel especially comfortable in a suit. Believe it or not, it can be damned boring at times. Hang around all day in a suit with an earpiece in your ear with a bullet-proof vest and a gun holstered under your jacket, pair of sunglasses, scanning the area around the President for a threat. Other times doing things I considered much more mundane. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Secret Service and I gave everything I had to it. But I just wanted a little more action. So, when the unit tapped me, I said ‘sure thing.’ I don’t regret a moment of my former service, and I don’t regret a moment of my service here. It’s all been good. The main difference between what I did there and what I do here is that in the Secret Service I did the kind of work I do here most of the time. Here, I do it all of the time.”
Hank regarded him a moment, an unidentifiable expression on her face. “For what it’s worth, Spud, I think you look great in a suit. At least in the one I’ve seen you in.”
He simply nodded at her in that “thanks” kind of way.
“You know, we’ve got to figure out how you should be cross-trained, Hank. So far, you’ve got just one job: sniper. Firearms expert, as it were,” Turtle said. “What sort of stuff did you do for the Bureau? We don’t generally get a lot in the way of details when we get the recommendations from the agencies we recruit from.”
“I did a lot of post-event investigation,” she said. “You can’t exactly arrest someone for a bank heist until after they do it. Some surveillance work, mostly in response to terrorist threats.” She grew silent, reflecting, remembering. “Sometimes, it was heart-breaking. One of my last cases was a kidnapping. Guy snatched a little girl from a mall. She was five. For a week, no one knew what happened to her.” She started to get a hollow look, a vacant stare. “They found her raped and mutilated body in an alley, stuffed in a garbage bag. We had to find the guy. I had to find him. Forensics got an ID on him. He was a known pedophile. We got the sonuvabitch. Believe it or not, hanging out at the same fucking mall, looking for another kid.” She shook herself out of the reverie.
“Guy like that needs to be taken out,” Spud said.
“Guy like that needs to be brought to justice, which is just what we did. His DNA was all over the girl. He’s never getting out of prison. Ever. I get my satisfaction knowing what his fellow roomies are doing to him right now. Even convicts don’t like that kind of guy, and they have a way of making them pay for what they did.” She sighed. “Sorry, guys, but I just can’t talk about this anymore. Think I’ll go take a shower.” She got up and headed off to her quarters.
Spud inhaled deeply, then pursed his lips and slowly blew the air from his lungs. “Shit, Hank,” he muttered. “You know, when Doc Andy had me tell her about what happened to her brother, she said she got into the Bureau so she could lock all the scumbags up. I had no idea she was talking about that kind of scumbag.”
The others’ faces all held the same vacant stare Hank’s had.
“Well. I think maybe we should tag her for intelligence and infiltrator,” Spud said. “Her Bureau work will fit in with intelligence, and we could use a woman for infiltrator. What do you all think?”
Everyone reached out and tapped their knuckles on the table.
“Ok. I’ll see if she agrees.”
14
Hank’s watch tapped her wrist. Checking it, she saw “QMASTR” and Mike’s photo on the face. Guess no one has to knock, either.
She tapped her watch to unlock the door, and Mike came in, her dress draped over his arm. “As promised, it’s done.”
“Is a crash day not a crash day for you as well?” she asked.
“Yes, it is. And ordinarily I’d be above deck finding some fun. But I really want to see how the guys react to the dress. And I’ve got Janet coming in to do your hair, nails, and make-up.”
“Oh, for real? I’m getting the whole works!”
“Yes, my dear woman, you are. I want my dress to be modeled by a truly stunning woman. Janet’s going to give you a manicure and a pedicure, then I’m going to get the dress on you and adjusted, though at this point it should just slip on like a glove. Then Janet’s going to give you just a hint of makeup. You have great skin, so you won’t get a lot – just a touch. I don’t want the dress to smudge the makeup, nor the makeup to get on the dress, so that’s why makeup will be last. Then Luigi has a little something special for you, too.” He held out the satin panties. “If you like, you can start getting in the mood by putting these on and then putting on a bathrobe.”
“I wish I had a whole dresser full of these,” she said. “I’d wear them every day.”
He laughed. “You know, after that remark I think every time I see you I’m going to chuckle, thinking of satin panties under cammie pants.”
She laughed as well. “What was that old military policy? Don’t ask, don’t tell? Tell you what: I’ll sashay past you from now on so you can get that picture in your head.” She disappeared into the bath.
Another tap on her wrist alerted her to Janet’s arrival as she emerged from the bath. Letting her in, Janet sat her down and commenced to work on her nails, applying fake nails to her fingers given Hank’s nails had been cut short to fit in with appearing to be male, and finishing by applying a glossy lipstick red polish.
“That would look strange along with cammies as well,” Mike observed.
“No one’s going to know my toes have nail polish. I’m not quite sure why you polished them.”
“You will,” Janet replied. She then took out a curling iron and proceeded to put just a bit more of a wave in the hair on the top of Hank’s head. Tousling it a bit, she said, “And that’s all you need here as well. How’s our time looking, Mike?”
“About forty-five minutes.”
“We’re time conscious about putting on a dress as well?” Hank asked.
“Yes, we are,” Mike replied. “We want to get you in front of the guys while they’re all in the cafeteria for lunch. Their reaction is going to be what tells me if I done good.” He took the dress from the garment bag and told her, “Stand up, turn around, and drop the bathrobe for me.”
As he’d done at the last fitting, he placed the gown over her head and let it fall onto her hips, then helped her get her arms through the straps. The dress only needed minor adjustments after being zipped, and once again she didn’t mind it at all when Mike smoothed the fabric over her buttocks and hips, down her sides, and a minor shift of the bodice. She noticed the bodice neatly hid the surgical scar near her left armpit as well.
“Don’t sit – it will crease the dress. You can come back and sit after the guys see you.”
“Ok, let’s get this protector on you so we don’t get makeup on the dress.” Janet applied just a hint of makeup, highlighting Hank’s cheekbones with a little blush. “You don’t need a lot of color.”
Then she picked up a lipstick brush and applied gloss to Hank’s lips. Seeing the color, Hank asked, “Is that going to be too dark for me?”
“Mike got your color perfectly,” Janet said. “I just matched the dress.”
“Let’s get the shoes on,” Mike said, “and then we can do the big reveal.” He checked his watch to determine where the men of the team were. “Timing is perfect. They’re all at the team table. Where’s Luigi?”
“Right outside the door,” Janet said.
Hank let him in.
He stood still for a moment, looking at her. “Oh, Sweetheart, now you’re makin’ my heart do more than pitty pat.” He came over with a velvet jewelry box in his hands. “Sorry, Sweetheart, but we’re gonna have you do without your watch right now.” Mike took the watch off and set it on her dining table. “Don’t worry – your bum ticker will still take care of you.”
He opened the box he held. “I did a little jewelry work for you,” he said. “First, we’re gonna put these on your ears,” taking out the studs she wore when not ‘above deck,’ and replacing them with the earrings he’d made, “an’ this goes where the watch was.” He put a bracelet on her wrist. “And then we put this around your neck.”
She went over to the mirror mounted on the door of the bath and looked. Draped around her neck was a necklace of red and white stones set in gold that hung down, ending in a pendant that hung down at the top of her breastbone. The earrings sported stones shaped similarly to the pendant, and her wrist wore a bracelet made to match the stones in the necklace.
“That’s a great-looking job for paste,” she said.
“Oh, Sweetheart, now you’re insultin’ me,” Luigi said. “This jewelry isn’t paste. It’s the real deal. Rubies and diamonds in gold.”
“You’re fucking me!” she exclaimed.
Wish I was, Mike thought.
“No, Sweetheart. If sometime you need to go undercover an’ this is what you need to look like, nobody’s gonna look close and say, ‘She’s a fake.’ You do that kind of mission and they have that thought? You’re dead.”
“Ok. Time to see what the guys think,” Mike said.
They walked down the hall, the stilettos making a tick, tick sound as she walked. Hearing her come to the door of the cafeteria, she heard Edge say, “Sounds like someone finally figured out that it’s lunch time.”
Turtle was sitting at the end of the table facing the door when she walked in. The others were all concentrating on their food. Turtle looked up and dropped his fork, his eyes agog. The others all turned to look for the cause of his reaction. Seeing her, they all stopped eating. Those who had food in their mouths choked it down and stared.
“What do you think, guys? Did Mike do a good job on my dress?” She walked forward toward the table as if she was walking down a fashion show runway, turned, letting the short brush train sweep the floor behind her, and walked back to the door. Looking back over her shoulder, she asked, “Well?”
Spud swallowed hard, cleared his throat, and said, “I think I may have seen someone dressed as nicely as that at one of the White House functions.” The others all nodded their affirmation.
Voice stood up, said, “I think I should go practice my Japanese,” and then made a hasty retreat from the cafeteria. What the hell? Practice his Japanese? Hank thought.
Turning back toward the door, she said, “I think I’ll go change out of this. I wouldn’t want to get anything on it. Save me some lunch, will ya?”
As she walked off, all the men got up hastily and went out to watch her as she walked down the hallway toward her quarters, hips swaying as she walked. “Phew!” Cloud said. “I sure hope I’ve got some lube in my quarters.”
Spud stood watching her as she got to the end of the corridor and the others went back to finish their lunches. She hesitated at the end of the corridor and looked back at him, then rounded the corner of the hallway to her quarters.
Spud swallowed hard again, then turned to go back into the cafeteria. Seeing Mike standing leaning up against the wall, having watched the men’s reactions, he cleared his throat and went back in.
“Yes, indeed,” Mike said to himself. “That’s the look I wanted.”
Hank walked into the gym, determined to get a little workout time, even if it was a crash day.
“Hey Spud,” she said in greeting, seeing he was there working out as well.
“Hey Hank.”
She started a series of tai chi exercises to get warmed up and limber before going to the exercises Mike had recommended in addition. Finishing her warmup, she remembered Voice’s reaction to the reveal of her dress.
“Hey, Spud, can I ask you something?”
“You’re part of the unit, Hank. At this point, you can ask me just about anything.”
“What the hell was Voice talking about when he dashed off and said he had to practice his Japanese?”
Spud was back to her, but she could see the back of his neck turn red. He stopped the exercise he was doing and turned to her.
“You’re aware of the special drawer in Doc Andy’s desk, right?”
