Chapter Two

Are we having fun yet? …

Ian and his SEAL squad were flying in a C-130 over the night skies of northern Iraq. It would soon be daylight.

In the next fifteen minutes they would HALO jump into their insertion point, a small, flat area in the midst of a very hilly region. High-altitude, low-opening exercises always carried some measure of risk, especially in a mountainous region like this, but they were all experienced jumpers. Geek was the only one who hadn’t been “blooded,” but he’d been as well trained as any of them. A piece of cake!

Even so, there were eight collective sphincter muscles that were tight right now. The pucker factor was sky high. Some people likened it to riding a bucking horse in a rodeo. It took balls to get on the freakin’ horse, but then all a cowboy had to do was just hang on. In skydiving, it took a leap of faith to go out that door, but then the ride took over.

A superstitious lot, SEALs did the oddest things for good luck … odd to civilians, that is. Instead of a rabbit’s foot, Cage carried an alligator tooth in his pocket. Omar did this odd chanting thing under his breath. Pretty Boy ate oatmeal and only oatmeal the morning of a jump. JAM, of course, had a crucifix hanging from his neck, despite regulations that SEALs wear no jewelry, including dog tags; at the last minute he would stash it in his boot. Sly, who swore a blue streak on most occasions … effin this and effin that … abstained till his feet hit the ground. Slick chewed gum … spearmint only. Ian personally insisted that he always be the last guy off the stick.

They wore helmets, breathing masks, night-vision goggles, fingerless Kevlar gloves and jump suits, some of which would be discarded once they completed their insertion. Those items would be hidden from sight till the extraction a day or two from now when a chopper would come and lower rappeling ropes to them. Under their suits, they wore camouflage, and they would cammie up their faces, too.

The oxygen was needed because they would be free-falling through the atmosphere, starting at 25,000 feet and not opening their stealth chutes till they were at about 2,500 feet from the ground. The greatest advantage of HALOs was that they allowed the plane and the teams to pass below the enemy radar.

In full combat ruck, they each carried roughly seventy-five pounds of provisions, everything from top-of-the-line weapons to radio equipment to GPS (Global Positioning System) locators to NVGs (night-vision goggles) to MREs (meals ready to eat).

The noise of the engines precluded any conversation, so, they mostly communicated with hand signals or through headsets fixed to an inter-team channel. Two minutes before they hit the drop zone, the jump master mouthed and at the same time signaled by raising his arm, “Stand up.” Then, “Hook up.”

The eight of them hooked up to the static line, a cable running the length of the cargo bay. Some of them made the sign of the cross, even those who were not Catholic. They stood practically ass to belly, wanting to go out and land as close as possible to each other.

“Stand in the door!” was the next order. The whole stick shuffled forward and the point man, Cage, stood with palms on the outside edge of the open doorway, feet slightly apart, one foot a little behind the other, legs bent slightly. When the jump master yelled “Go,” Cage went out with a wild whoop, immediately followed by Pretty Boy, JAM, Geek, Omar, Sly, Slick and then Ian, who was always the tail.

The plane’s engine droned off into the distance. They were on their own now.

Belly dancing was not her thing …

After two years and nine different harems, Madrene knew, even if the various caliphs and sultans did not, that she was not cut out to be a houri. And, truth to tell, her belly button wouldn’t hold a jewel no matter what they tried.

Women of the harems were supposed to be sweet and beautiful and compliant, none of which described Madrene. And she certainly did not know how to dance, or want to learn, with or without a bloody ruby stuck in her navel. Yech! It was silly, really, and she’d told the eunuch teachers so, earning her the first of many switchings with an olive branch. At least those didn’t leave scars as Steinolf’s leather whips and rope ties had.

She should be insulted that she’d been discarded by one Arab potentate after another. Not so! Although being sold a sennight ago to this bedouin tribe in the Arab mountains after two years of swallowing sand in the Baghdad region was a bit of a blow to her pride. Especially since the men … and women … here smelled ripe betimes, like the back end of a camel, an animal she had come to loathe. Sheikh Fakhir’s large tribe did not follow the Norse practice of frequent bathing; in fact, she’d yet to see one of them set soap to skin. Not like the city Arabs who bathed and perfumed themselves daily, men and women alike. She was less than aromatic herself, being forced to follow the nomadic tribe’s practices.

“Tell me again how you came to be here,” demanded Zena, Fakhir’s fourteen-year-old third wife. Madrene was only his fourth concubine, which meant that Zena could order her about. The little half-brained maggot!

When she’d first arrived in this land, Madrene had been able to speak bits of the Arab language because of the trading she’d done as mistress of Norstead. After living here for two years, she’d become proficient. Thus, she was able to understand Zena’s words.

Right now, Zena … short and very plump … was admiring herself in a piece of polished brass that Fakhir had given her when she’d pleased him particularly well in his bed rugs. Madrene knew he was pleased because they all slept on rugs in the same tent, all seventeen of the family and workers, and everyone got to hear all of Fakhir’s grunts and Zena’s squeals of pleasure. Holy Frigg! You would think a pig was being stuck.

Instead of obeying Zena’s order, Madrene said, “I cannot understand how you can bear to have Fakhir slake his lust on you. What any man needs with three wives and four concubines is beyond my comprehension.”

“It is a sign of his wealth,” Zena said in her usual condescending manner. If she only knew how ridiculous she looked when she turned up that hooked nose of hers. “You envy me, that is why you speak so disparagingly of my husband.”

Oh, yea, I envy sharing bed furs with an old man who has seen at least fifty summers. A repulsive, hairy man who has stomach problems which cause him to break wind at the most inappropriate times. Like during prayers … or lovemaking … or riding his favorite camel. That was what Madrene thought, but she did not dare share those sentiments with Zena, who would report back to her beloved spouse. Fakhir was already angry with Madrene, feeling that he had been duped in his purchase of an accomplished concubine … her. Ha, ha, ha!

Zena picked up a date from a wooden bowl and popped it into her mouth. “Entertain me, or I will tell my husband that you displease me. He will have you beaten … or something.”

It was the “or something” that worried Madrene. While she pondered the threat, she continued to work the wooden churn which would eventually, after great strain to her arms, turn the camel’s milk into a loathsome form of butter. Better this than the curdled camel’s milk she’d made yesterday, which hung inside the tent in a large leather pouch. To the Arabs’ delight and her dismay, one camel, even without drinking any water, could produce five buckets of milk per day.

You’d never know that she was supposed to be a pampered concubine, not that the leisurely life mattered a whit to her. Madrene had run her father’s large farmstead for years, and milking a cow had always given her an earthy feeling of satisfaction. Milking a stubborn, spitting camel was a whole other matter!

“Did you hear me, you lazy wench?” Zena whined. “I want to be amused.”

Madrene gave Zena a sweeping look that clearly showed which one of them was the lazy wench. Zena totally mistook her survey, and preened as if Madrene had been admiring her.

Madrene sighed at the uselessness of insulting the silly girl. “I come from a noble family in the Norselands,” she said, even though she’d told Zena this story in one version or another several times before. “My holding was invaded and I was taken to your Arab lands.”

“Why did your family not come to rescue you?”

“They are all dead.”

“Ahhhh,” Zena said with as much honest sympathy as the empty-headed girl could garner.

“Toki the Trader sold me to Caliph Abdul Abba in the Baghdad marketplace.” An experience I would not want to repeat … ever.

“I have heard of him. Why would such an important caliph be interested in such as you?”

Zena’s incredulity should have been insulting, but Madrene was beyond caring about such trivial concerns. All she cared about was escaping, something she’d been unable to do thus far. Besides, her appearance probably was dreadful. Her blond hair hung in a single, disheveled braid down her back, not having been washed or combed since she’d left Baghdad. She wore an ankle-length, hooded gunna of coarse linen with a rope belt. She could hardly remember the times when she’d worn embroidered silk and jewels. Well, this garb was better than the transparent garments she’d been forced to wear before coming here. “To answer your question as to why any man of importance would want me, it could be because Toki, the traitor, told everyone in the slave mart that I was a Norse princess, accomplished in the bed arts.” Blather, blather, blather. Betimes my tongue outruns my good sense.

Zena’s little mouth formed a circle of surprise. She did not question Madrene’s lineage, having more interest in other matters … like sex. “Do you have such talents?”

“Hah! I never noticed any art in the bed furs of Karl, my former husband, and he is the only man with whom I ever coupled. To further enhance my desirability, Toki claimed I could do exquisite things with my mouth, whatever that meant. Needless to say, the bidding was enthusiastic.”

Zena frowned with confusion. “You said your former husband was the only man you have lain with. How can that be? Did the caliph not purchase you for his harem?”

“Yea, he did. The slimy weasel! As did the other seven caliphs and sultans who purchased me after that, including your husband, who brought me here.”

Zena’s dark eyes went wide at that number. Then she resumed frowning. “Does my husband know this?”

“He did not when he purchased me. He does now.” Madrene now knew how a man could holler and break wind at the same time.

“Why did those men not use your body? Are you diseased?”

Madrene smiled to herself in remembrance. She had never been one to believe in luck, but that was the only way she could describe all that she had escaped. Oh, her capture by Steinolf had been unlucky, but she had not suffered too badly these two years since. Except that she wanted her freedom. She wanted to return to Norstead. And she would do so … somehow, someday. Mayhap she should pray to the Christian Mary, mother of the One-God, and Freyja, the Norse goddess, to deliver her from this wretched land.

“Why are you smiling?” Zena whined. “Are you laughing at me?”

“Nay, I am not laughing at you.” Leastways, not on the outside. “And, nay, I am not diseased.”

“Then continue with your life story … and cover that smelly butter. It turns my stomach.”

I would like to give you a life story … one about a dimwitted maid being knocked over onto her fat buttocks. “That first night I was pampered in Abdul’s luxurious home. Abdul’s harem girls bathed and perfumed my body and forced me to wear a garment which was so sheer my nipples and nether hair were visible to one and all. I would have run away, but there were always guards about to make sure no one escaped from his harem.”

In fact, the same was true today. She could not even go to the bushes to relieve herself without Gadi the goatherder following after her. She glanced over to where he leaned against a tree watching her. He winked at her, and Madrene almost gagged. She feared, with good reason, that Fakhir would eventually tire of her and hand her over to the big man who made no secret of his lust for her. Gadi would take her; willing or not; she just knew he would.

“Go on, and stop daydreaming.”

Madrene made a face at Zena, who didn’t have the sense to know she was being mocked. “That first night, dressed in those sheer garments, I was led to an opulent room of marble walls, velvet cushions, soft carpets and low tables overladen with food. The room was filled with men only, except for the serving girls. The men reclined on rugs and ate whilst listening to music from a harpist behind the curtains. I was led in front of the men to sit at Abdul Abba’s feet, which was apparently a great honor.” If the men in my family, or in my troops, ever lay about on the rushes afore the hearth and demanded that girls on bended knee serve them food, they would have been laughed out of the hall.

Instead of being repulsed as Madrene was by that image, Zena sighed with yearning.

“Abdul fed me grapes and other delicacies like a lapdog, not allowing me to use my own hands. When he gave me a fig in honey sauce and it dripped down my chin, he and the other men thought that was a great jest. Abdul even drizzled some of it over each of my breasts; that, too, was considered a mirthsome feat.” Men and breasts! Really, what a fuss they make over bodily appendages.

The giggle that escaped Zena’s lips did not amuse Madrene. “And then what happened?”

“Later, they led me to Abdul’s bedchamber and disrobed me. There lay Abdul on his silken bed, naked as a newborn babe, with his dangly part … well, not dangling.” Whoo! What a sight that was. And hairy balls! I have ne’er seen the same before or after.

“Huh?”

Madrene rolled her eyes at the thick-headed girl. “His manpart was standing up like a knight’s lance. As small as Abdul was in stature, that part of him was … well, huge … if one was wont to be impressed by such things.” He, for one, certainly thought he was Allah’s gift to women.

“And then?”

“And then I pointed at it and said, ‘If you dare to put that thing in me, may the gods and goddesses frown down on you and turn your staff to butter.’”

Zena gasped at her temerity.

Madrene had been surprised at her own temerity at the time. She hadn’t planned to say what she did; the words just came to her in the moment. Luckily for her, as it turned out.

“Did Abdul’s guards smite you down?”

Hell and Valhalla! I am here, lackwit. “Nay. They were too appalled by what they saw. No sooner had I spoken than Abdul’s manpart wilted … like a lump of butter in the hot sun. And no matter what Abdul did … or what Abdul did to me … and no matter how his eunuchs beat me, they could not get his manpart to rise again. Day after day, night after night, they tried, but nothing happened. They swore I had put a spell on his dangly part … dooming him to eternal dangling … and that is why Abdul sold me to another caliph.”

Zena’s eyes were wide with wonder, and her lips turned up in a barely suppressed grin. Perhaps she was not as dumb as she appeared. “And the next caliph?”

Madrene shrugged. “Once I realized what men feared most, I had a powerful weapon in my hands. I began to develop a performance, perfecting it with each caliph or sultan to whom I was sold. Not only did I say the words, but I waggled my fingers in the direction of their manparts. Betimes I would hum as I said my curse. ‘Uhm, uhm, uhm!’ I even twirled about one time whilst cursing, but I tripped and did not try that again.”

“That is an amazing story,” Zena said, eyeing her with admiration for the first time. But then her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Did you do the same to my husband?”

“I did.” And, unlike Abdul, his was not huge.

“And did he wilt?”

Madrene nodded. Like a candle wick.

“But he has bedded me since you have come here.”

“I told him the curse only involved me, but if he forced me, it would wilt forevermore, with all women. ’Tis the same story I give them all.”

“And Fakhir believed you?”

“Listen, Zena, you are young, but there is one thing you will learn in time. When it comes to their manparts, men will believe anything.” I recall the time a dairy maid told Ragnor that dousing his staff in honey would make it grow thicker. He had every bee from hides around chasing after him.

“Aren’t you afraid I will tell my husband, and your sham will be over?”

“Nay, I am not. Because if you do, and if Fakhir takes me as his concubine, and if I please him, then it will be I who gets the trinkets, not you.”

Zena studied her for a long moment. “Mayhap I will wait before disclosing your secret.”

Smart girl!

Later that evening, after evading Gadi’s lusty hands on several occasions—he was getting bolder and bolder—Madrene found herself on her knees outside in the bushes where she was supposed to be taking care of her bodily needs. “Dear God … father of the Christ whom my grandmother worshiped … I beg you for your help. Two long years have I suffered. Please deliver me from this captivity.” It was a prayer Madrene had said on many an occasion, and she no longer had much hope. Still, she felt compelled to try.

But then, loud claps of thunder shook the skies and the earth trembled and quaked. The wind rose with a vengeance. Fakhir’s tribe was running hither and yon, screaming with dismay as the skies opened with loud explosions of sound … thunder and lightning as she’d never seen before.

This is your chance, a voice in Madrene’s head said.

She looked up at the roiling skies. Stunned, she whispered, “Thank you, God.” Then, lifting her robe up to her knees, she ran and ran, off into the hills. The skies continued to explode with light and sound. Madrene ran till she could run no more, a pain throbbing in her side, her breath coming in pants. For more than an hour she ran, even though she heard no one following her. They would eventually.

She saw a cave up ahead and knew she had to stop and rest. Settling into the darkened chamber, which was luckily empty of any wild animal, Madrene laid her head down to rest. She was not back home, not even close to Baghdad, where she might find a Norse longship willing to take her back to Norstead, but for the first time in three years, she felt safe.

A deep sleep overtook her then, and in her dreams she floated and floated and floated.

I’m fallin’ for you, baby …

The entire team landed flat on their feet, their legs acting as springs to absorb the shock.

They dropped, rolled over and got up quickly. Then they collapsed their stealth chutes, balled them up and ran at a crouch toward a nearby stand of bushes. Within minutes they removed their helmets and jumpsuits, buried them and their chutes under a pile of leaves and rocks, then cammied themselves up. Later, they would also put on black balaclava hoods with only their eyes showing, but the hoods were hot and not necessary yet. Some of them wore floppy hats. Others, like JAM and Omar, pulled their hair up under an olive drab, triangular bandana tied behind their heads. They all wore night-vision goggles, or NVGs, which wouldn’t be necessary much longer since the sun was starting to come up.

Pretty Boy carried state-of-the-art Motorola SATCOM radio equipment in his backpack. The satellite-based communication system, with its ability to encrypt messages, provided instant contact with anyone in the world, thanks to the Milstar satellite. Thus they were able to communicate with the chain of command at NavTel, at CentCom in Baghdad and SEAL headquarters in Coronado. In addition, for inter-team communication, each of them carried short-range Motorola radios with belt packs, lip mikes and ear pieces.

Each of them had infrared American flags on their sleeves which could only be seen with night-vision goggles. It was a good method for recognizing each other in the darkness of a covert operation.

All his men were geared up with a full loadout of weapons and ammunition. Many of them carried Colt M4 carbine rifles with all the bells and whistles of Special Operations Peculiar Modification (SOPMOD) accessories.

Ian had an assault rifle in a sling over one shoulder, a Beretta handgun in a low-slung holster on his thigh, and a K-Bar knife in his boot. They all carried two sets of flexible plastic handcuffs to secure their prisoners … a bit of optimism there. JAM, their sharpshooter, also carried an MK11 which could take a tango out at one thousand yards. And, of course, they all wore assault vests and hard body armor.

Ian looked over each of his men. Satisfied that they were as prepared as they were going to be, he said, “Okay, let’s party! Go, go, go!”

With those words and a directional signal from Geek, who had a compass and GPS in hand, they moved off silently toward their target zone five miles away, where they were to find the terrorists, take them by surprise, and capture and secure them for the extraction to Baghdad for interrogation. In the most successful military operation, no shot was fired. Ian could only hope that would be the case this time, but reality suggested that lethal force would be necessary.

They progressed in “leapfrog” movements, whereby two SEALs alternately covered each other’s advance … one crouched and covering his partner till he moved forward, and the second took his turn. Ian was up front, leading the way.

They were silent as shadows, barely discernible even to themselves. Every item of gear on their bodies had been taped down or padded. Not a sound could be heard. Not the crunch of their boots underfoot. Not the rustle of clothing. Not even breathing. SEALs were so attuned to each other that they even knew each other’s scent.

When they’d traveled about a half mile, Ian stopped and put up a halting hand. His men looked at him. “Some movement up that hill. I’ll go check,” he said softly into his throat mike. “Go ahead. I’ll catch up.” It was probably just a small animal, but just in case, he pulled the safety off his weapon, ready to fire if necessary.

“You sure I shouldn’t go?” his partner, Cage, asked.

Ian thought a moment. A squad leader really shouldn’t leave his men, but they were far from the target zone and unlikely to meet any tangos in this kind of terrain. “Okay, you stand watch down here. Don’t come up unless I direct you to.”

Cage nodded.

“JAM, you take over till I catch up.”

“Roger,” JAM replied.

When his other men were out of sight, gone about ten minutes, he spoke softly into his headset, “Any problems?”

“Negative,” someone answered. Sounded like Sly.

“Nothing here, either,” Cage said.

Ian crept up the hill slowly, hiding behind a bush every couple steps to inspect the area. Nothing. But wait. That looked like a cave up there. Into his mike, he whispered again, “Cave. Going in.”

“Watch your back,” Cage whispered back.

Stepping into the dimness of the silent cave, Ian made sure the safety was still released on his rifle. Too late he sensed a presence behind him at the cave opening. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a figure in a long robe with a rock raised high in two arms. A woman! Surprise … the enemy of any soldier … caused him to hesitate. A huge mistake. Pain hit him in the back of the head like a hammer to the skull, and he fell forward to the ground.

After that, there was only blackness.