A Warrior's Return (11 page)

“Thank God!” I moaned closing my eyes
briefly.

Within moments I looked up to see Talaric at
the back of the plane being hauled in as I had been. Rafael was
strapped to Talaric’s front and it looked like Rafael was having
the time of his life.

The cable we had been blown upwards on was
unhooked and moments later I saw the dim undefined form of the SUV
falling through space toward the ocean below. I stood up and moved
to see whether Rafael was okay.

The back of the plane closed and I could
hear once again. For the first time I noticed the crew of the
plane. They were a menacing looking lot, but they seemed friendly
enough, except for a short blonde girl, who was glaring daggers at
me.

Her gaze kept going from Talaric to me and I
could guess as to why she had hostility towards me. She’d have to
get used to it. Talaric was mine.

Talaric spoke, “These are our new guests.”
He said indicating me and Rafael.

“I expect them to be treated with respect
and deference by all!” Talaric finished firmly giving the short
blonde a hard stare.

The blond gave an exaggerated shoulder shrug
and insolently saluted, “Aye aye Captain!”

I saw a muscle pulse in Talaric’s cheek, but
that was the only indication of his aggravation that showed.

“This is Evangelina and her son Rafael.”

Turning back to us he spread his hand to
indicate the assembled group.

“Allow me to present to you my band of
humble mercenaries.”

There were a series of snickers that Talaric
silenced with a stern glance. Talaric began pointing to them
individually.

A tall slim man with a mustache stepped
forward, “Ronan O’Malley, general procurement officer. Gifted with
the ability to survive just about anything and loves to blow stuff
up.”

O’Malley tipped his hat at me deferentially
and I nodded in return.

“Titus Orlandi, the muscle and often enough
the brains of the outfit. A good man to have in any fight!”

I could see that! The big black man that
made even Talaric look on the small side grinned big and made a
courtly bow to me. I sensed that while he may be a terror on the
battlefield that he also had a gentler inner nature. I instantly
liked him.

“Catherine Roberts, she goes by Cat and she
likes to shoot stuff. She’s our gunnery sergeant.”

The little blond still stared spitefully at
me. I did my best to ignore her. I’d dealt with girls like her
before. All they wanted was a fight, because they had to prove
something.

“Roger Goodman, we call him Sparky,
all-around tech guru and mechanic. He can fix anything.”

Sparky was on the shorter side and had the
dullest expression on his olive complexioned face, as I had ever
seen before on a man. Apparently there was more there than met the
eye.

“And flying this rusty bag of bolts is
Eleanor Rothfield.”

An attractive brunette poked her head out
from around a seat at the far end of the plane and waved at me with
a charming smile of welcome that forced me to give one in
return.

“She’s British and as stubborn as they come.
She can fly anything and she’s the best marksman of all of us.”

At those last words I saw Cat’s eyes narrow
slightly. She would bear watching closely. Cat had all the signs of
a backstabber.

Eleanor got up and walked back towards us.
There was grace to her step and a sense of style, even dressed
ready for battle, as they all were.

All of the crew were looking at Eleanor in
alarm, as she made her way past them toward me and Rafael. Even
Talaric looked alarmed.

Sparky was the first one to break, as he
stuttered out, “Eleanor the plane? It… you… we don’t have an auto
pilot function!”

She waved a hand away absently giving him a
big wink, which seemed at odds with her sophisticated
mannerisms.

“A good strap will do the ticket every
time.”

The plane was being held on course and in
the air by a strap!

She came to stop before me. Her eyes were
frankly appraising and she glanced over at Talaric and gave him a
big thumbs up and a wink that the rest of the crew didn’t see.

Talaric’s face flushed slightly at her
obvious unspoken statement, as to who I belonged to. Eleanor
surprisingly hugged me for a moment and then stepped back still
holding onto my arms.

“Welcome to the Saratoga. Named admittedly
for a low spot in the excellence of British history, but then I
suppose you don’t know what I’m talking about do you?”

I had to nod in agreement.

“No matter. Your here, you’re one of us, and
I do hope that you and I become great friends.”

I detected only genuine sincerity in her
eyes and I nodded, “I would like that very much.”

“Good! Now do you mind me calling you Eva
for short?”

“No I don’t mind.”

“Well Eva, how about this young chap we have
here?”

She let go of me and squatted down in front
of Rafael and asked in a conspiratorial tone, “Tell me Raffi have
you ever flown a plane before?”

Rafael’s eyes got as big as dinner plates,
as he shook his head no. “Would you care to learn? One can never
start too young these days.”

Rafael’s eyes darted up to me pleadingly and
I nodded, as I felt that he was in good hands.

Eleanor offered her hand to him and he took
it as she said, “Well then step lively there and I will show you
all there is to know about flying and in general surviving in the
world we find our unlucky souls to still be residing in.”

They made their way to the front of the
plane and were almost there when the plane started into an abrupt
dive. Eleanor seized the flight stick that the strap had slipped
off of and brought the nose of the old junker back up.

She called back to the rest of us, “I’ve got
it! No need for alarm!”

The group around me collectively groaned and
released their death grips from off whatever part of the plane that
they had grabbed a hold of in their moment of panic.

Eleanor’s voice came trailing back from the
front again, “Oh by the way, Sir, just where was it you wished to
be flying off to? You neglected to mention it, Sir.”

“Africa.” Came Talaric’s reply.

“Very well Sire, ten, four, on needing the
extra petrol reserves this time out. They do say the marsh flowers
of the Serengeti our lovely this time of year.”

Talaric shook his head, “I’m afraid not this
time Eleanor. Take us to Alexandria in Egypt and Eleanor?”

“Yes Sir?”

“Keep us on the low profile.”

“Right you are Sir! We’ll skip off the top
of every sand dune from Morocco to the Nile River.” And thus I was
introduced to the crew of the battered but proud Saratoga.

I was going to Africa. Surprises were never
in short supply in my new life it seemed.

We landed in the desert on a salt flat that
once was an inland sea. The old plane had felt like it would be
torn apart upon landing, but besides a few electrical shorts and
one fire, everything was fine, as fine as it could get with such an
old crate of a plane.

Talaric was leaving us behind at the plane
while he, Eleanor and Ronan traveled two days across the drifting
sand dunes before they slipped into any evidence of human
habitation. They’d be back in several days Talaric had said, but in
the meantime I was to take the benefit of the free time off by
training.

Firearms training.

I’d been at it all morning and I was
convinced that I was a hopeless failure at it. Cat had been set up
as my instructor and her frustration with me seemed somewhat
justified, even if her attitude towards me had me wanting to pull
her hair out and throw her in a tar pit.

The dust puffed up a good four feet to the
right of the target I had been aiming for. I lowered the 9mm pistol
disgusted with myself.

“You’re completely hopeless! I give up!” Cat
exclaimed before she strode away into the desert ostensibly to cool
off, which was an oxymoron given how hot it was.

I had never seen or experienced anything
like this desert before. I was used to endless green and more water
than one knew what to do with. There was neither of those items in
this hot desolate place.

Darn it!

I missed the target again! This time on the
opposite side of the target by four feet. One thing was for sure, I
wasn’t going to be of much help to anyone in a gunfight.

Titus stood leaning up against the shaded
side of the Saratoga’s rusty fuselage. Sweat rolled off of him even
standing in the shade as he was.

He watched Cat storm off leaving Eva to fend
for herself. Cat hadn’t really been interested in seriously
teaching Eva or she would have caught on to the fact that Eva
simply didn’t have any depth perception. Or perhaps she had and she
was tormenting the girl so that she would feel bad about herself.
That sounded more like Cat to him.

Titus glanced to his left, as Sparky arrived
to stand beside of him with two cases in his hands.

Sparky looked out at Eva for a moment and
then up at Titus and in his slight Middle Eastern accent said, “It
is time for an intervention I think, don’t you?”

Sparky walked away leaving the cases sitting
on the desert sand. Titus shook his head having to agree with the
little man on that point.

He didn’t relish having to go out into the
hot sun at the hottest part of the day, but such is life. He bent
down and grabbed a hold of both cases not even bothering to grab
them by the handles and strode purposefully out to the makeshift
firing range.

I went to pull the trigger and all that
sounded was a click. The gun was empty again. Well at least I could
load it. That was at least one thing I could reasonably manage to
do.

“Put that popgun down girl and don’t waste
no more time on it! It ain’t for you Miss Eva!”

I looked up surprised at the voice. Titus
loomed close out of seemingly nowhere all of a sudden. He could
move surprisingly quiet for such a big man. He set two cases on a
rusty barrel top and looked over at me.

“And it ain’t your fault neither! It just
is. Some people just can’t shoot at no tiny target and hope to hit
it. I should know because I can’t myself! Wasn’t always that way.
Just since I got my one eye messed up from an explosion a few years
back.”

He opened the first case and pulled out a
short rifle, only it didn’t have much of a stock on it for a
rifle.

“Peoples like you and me, we’ez got to go
for effect! Forget all that pretty target stuff!”

He loaded the short stubby weapon with seven
large plastic looking shells that I recognized as shotgun shells.
He handed the shotgun to me and then pointed out the safety
features and how it worked to me.

I turned towards the target and tried to
hold it up to sight down it like it was a rifle.

“Mercy no girl! That ain’t the way it’s done
sister! Hold it down low, that’s more like it. Now just point it at
that target and blow it to kingdom come.”

How did he expect me to hit anything by not
even aiming? But then I wasn’t hitting anything by aiming anyway.
Might as well try it, I pulled the trigger.

The gun did recoil some, but that wasn’t
what got my attention. The target paper was completely gone,
shredded into pieces and blowing across the sand dunes.

“Let that other old white piece of paper
have it!” Titus said with a chuckle.

I shucked the spent shell out and pulled the
trigger again with a similar result. I brought the gun in my arms
up to study in further detail.

It was simply made, perhaps even crude, but
I liked it. I fired it until it was empty.

“There you go! Now you getten the hang of it
Missy! Load it up again so you get the feel of it. Ain’t it fun to
blow stuff up?”

I nodded, openly smiling as all my
frustration melted away.

“Now dat gun, while it’s mighty nice up
close and personal, ain’t so good for distance. Try it. Aim for
that target way out there.”

I did and while I kicked up dust all around
the target I didn’t really hit anything on the target itself.

“See what I’ze mean! You want to use that
gun for up close. Distances is what these babies are for!”

Titus opened the second case and revealed
two odd looking larger pistols.

“I know, I know what’ze your gonna say,
‘Mister Titus I can’t hit anything I aim at with them small guns.
Am I right?”

I nodded at him appreciating beyond words
what he was doing for me.

“Well here is where you’re wrong. Look at
this.”

He held up a bullet that was remarkably
small.

“These bullets is tiny see and they’ze a lot
of them too. Chances are with so many of these here tiny bullets
flying around you’ll hit what you’re aiming at and then some. Wanna
try?”

Oh boy did I ever! I practically tore the
pistol out of his fingers causing him to laugh again.

“Now word of warning missy, as long as you
pull dat trigger those guns is gonna purr like a kitty cat.”

I brought a pistol up in either hand to
sight down. They were a little heavy, but I could manage it. I let
my breath out and squeezed the triggers simultaneously sweeping the
guns along the line of targets farther out as I did so.

Oh what a joy! There was hardly any kickback
and I watched as the sand around the targets and the targets
themselves were chewed to pieces.

The guns clicked empty and I knew a moment’s
remorse that the fun was over, but I had the satisfaction of
feeling confidence sweep through me.

I turned to Titus and with heartfelt
gratitude I said, “Thank you Titus! This means a lot to me!”

He matched my seriousness, as his usual
jovial mood took a backseat for a moment, “The ways I see’ze it is
the Captain done for all of us for a lot of years now. It’s nice to
see him doing something for his self for once. I’ze just glad to
help it along.”