Sandra Hill - [Vikings II 04] (10 page)

Doctor Fine-gold rolled his eyes, then got up and went to open the door. Leaning out, he chastised Chieftain MacLean. “Tsk-tsk-tsk! This is a medical facility, Master Chief. You can’t come barging in here disturbing the patients.”

“And my patience is sorely strained.” Ragnor grinned with satisfaction when the chieftain’s face turned nigh purple with rage or embarrassment or both. Still his leader blundered on, “It’s oh-nine-hundred, Magnusson, and you should be down on that beach ready to run. Why don’t you just ring out and save us all the trouble?”

After being here at Coronado for four days, Ragnor had learned that any SEAL trainee could ring out at any time, and six of them had done just that since his arrival. “Ringing out” meant quitting the program and returning to regular military duty. Ragnor had never been a quitter and he was not about to start now. And who knew what “regular military duty” entailed? Probably something equally distasteful.

Besides, it irritated the chieftain that he wouldn’t ring out. And Ragnor did so enjoy irritating the chief.

“We’re done for the day,” Doctor Fine-gold told the chieftain, “but I would appreciate you not barging into my office in the future, Master Chief MacLean.”

“Yeah, well, I never did have much use for shrinks,” the chieftain said. “What are you two doing in here anyhow?”

Ragnor brightened and picked up one of the blotch pictures and showed it to the chieftain, “We were just looking at a picture of you.”

“Huh?” the chieftain said, gawking at the two black globes with a tiny stem in the middle.

“I call it ‘Chieftain’s Manpart,’ ” Ragnor said, waving good-bye to the doctor, who was having trouble hiding a grin. Ragnor stepped around the gurgling chieftain, whose fists were clenched and whose forehead showed a throbbing vein.

“Ensign, you are going to run your butt off today, after which we are off to San Clemente Island for some land warfare lessons. I personally aim to shoot your balls off.”

Nag, nag, nag. Really, this chieftain is worse than my
sister Madrene.
A thought occurred to Ragnor then. “Are you married?”

“No, I’m not married … not that it’s any of your business.”

“Would you like to meet my sister Madrene?”

The chieftain closed his eyes and seemed to be counting. “Ensign, report for Gig Squad tonight.”

“Does that mean you have no interest in Madrene? You might like her. She is blond and buxom and …”
the worst shrew in the world.

“Did you hear me, Magnusson? Gig Squad. Tonight.”

Ragnor ignored the mention of Gig Squad. He’d been assigned that after-dinner punishment every single night he’d been here. All it involved was one hour of pushing-ups, jumping jacks, duck walks, squat leaps, and other silly games meant to wear down the muscles.

“You know, Ensign, I don’t think you
really
want to be a SEAL. It’s not enough to want it; you have to hunger for it.”

Oh, bloody hell. Another of his inspire-you sayings. He’s worse than Snorri the Sleep-Inducing Skald.
“That’s all right. I ate an apple a short time ago, so my hunger is appeased.”

The chieftain clenched his fists and growled something that sounded like “Friggin’ come-he-diane!” Ragnor understood the “friggin’ ” part since it was a common word here amongst sailors, but not the other term. No matter!

Smiling with seeming innocence at the chieftain, he asked, “Will Alison be running with us today?”

“That’s ‘Lieutenant MacLean’ to you, mister, and
you better not be harassing my sister,” the chieftain said through gritted teeth as they walked together toward the exercise arena.

“I can honestly tell you that I have never hair-assed anyone in my entire life. And I would definitely have no inclination to put hair on your sister’s bottom.”
I have other ideas for her bottom, but you don’t need to know that.

The chieftain continued to gurgle.

Which Ragnor took for a good sign.

Beware of ladies on the prowl …

“That dog is hopeless,” Alison said with a laugh.

“Sam is not hopeless. He just has ‘sit’ and ‘lie down’ mixed up,” Lillian said, also laughing.

She and Lillian had been trying to train the German shepherd puppy for the past two hours, to no avail. Sam, who was only six months old, just stared at them with his big ears pointing upward and his tongue lolling happily.

He did bark a lot, though, and that should be a plus. In fact, Alison had barely been able to sleep since his arrival because of all the barking down below. He barked at passing cars, even when they were one block over. He barked at his dreams when he was snoring away. He barked at moths. He barked at the beep of the microwave. He barked at everything. They hoped he could be trained eventually to bark only at strangers on the property.

She and Lillian had been diligent about locking doors and windows, spotlighting the front and back yards at night and generally watching their backs.
Those precautions along with the barking dog made them feel a little safer. Besides, Alison had had no Breather phone calls for the past three days, which they took as a good sign.

“I think I’ll go upstairs and take a bubble bath with a nice glass of cool wine and a good book,” Alison said.

“Sweetie, what is wrong with you?” Lillian shook her head. “It’s Saturday night. You’re young. You should be out, dating, meeting new people. Didn’t that detective call you?”

“He did, but I just didn’t feel up to all the small talk that goes into a new relationship. Not tonight.”

Lillian arched her eyebrows in question.

“If you must know, today is the anniversary of the day David was killed.” David had been her fiancé. He and other SEAL team members had been caught in a brutal bombing by terrorists they had been hunting down in Lebanon. Ian had been one of those team members … the only one to survive. It seemed like yesterday, but it had been five years ago. She swiped angrily at the tears that filled her eyes.

“Oh, my goodness!” Lillian stood and gave Alison a sympathetic hug. “Well, you are definitely not staying home tonight. We’ve got to do something to wipe out those memories.”

“Like?”

“Girls’ night out, honey.”

Oh, boy! Me and Lillian out on the town. I don’t like the sound of that.
“What did you have in mind?”

Lillian tapped her chin thoughtfully, then smiled mischievously. “The Wet and Wild.”

“Lillian! That dive hardly seems like your kind of place.”

“And what is my kind of place?” she asked with mock indignation.

“Well, for one thing, they play country music there.”

“I like country music. Well, some of it. It makes me smile.”

“Me, too,” Alison admitted. “But this bar has an archway you have to go through to enter. It sprays a fine mist of water on you so that—”

“—you have a wet T-shirt,” Lillian finished for her, smiling ear to ear.

“I’ve only been there once, and Ian about had a fit when he found out. It’s a civilian hangout, but some military guys go there, too.”

“Your brother is too uptight by half.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You know, I’ve been thinking that what I need in my life is one more big fling.”

Alison, who was down on her haunches petting the dog and only half listening, almost fell over. “What?”

“Really. Before menopause kicks in and my brain is muddied up by hot flashes, I want a meaningless, hot-as-sin affair. No strings. A mature stud. Yep, that’s what I want.”

“And you expect to find that at the Wet and Wild. Mrs. K., that bar is down and dirty. Not the Mature Ladies Singles Club.”

“Pfff! If I wanted that, I’d go to church.”

“Don’t be surprised if someone pinches your butt.”

“Do you think?” Lillian asked with exaggerated interest. “I haven’t had a good butt pinch in decades. Sweetie, don’t look shocked. At my age, any attention is a compliment.”

“I’m not sure about this.”

“Come on. It’s just the kind of place we need tonight. A beer. Some greasy food. A little lust and laughter.”

“Okaaay, but I’m not wearing a T-shirt.”

“Well, I am,” Lillian said.

When they prepared to leave the house a few hours later, Lillian was indeed wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the glittery logo “Still a Fox” tucked into a pair of tight blue jeans.

And Alison, who’d decided to throw caution—or perhaps her brain—to the wind, had opted to wear not a T-shirt but an even more outrageous white tank top tucked into her own tight black jeans. She even had cowboy boots on; they’d been an engagement gift from David, who’d had a wry sense of humor. Somehow, she knew David would approve of her wearing them tonight. Once he’d even made love to her wearing nothing but those expensive boots. “Wanna get down and dirty, baby?” he’d asked her more than once.

Oh, yeah!
“Are you ready?” she asked Lillian as she got into the passenger seat of her Mazda.

Lillian nodded with a mischievous grin. “And rarin’ to go.”

“The question is whether the world is ready for the two of us.”

Down and dirty, here we come!

Friends in low places …

“Hey, Mad Max, time to get down and dirty.”

Ragnor ignored the intrusive voice of one of his comrades—probably his swim partner Cage—as he lay splatted face down on his pallet, where he’d fallen fast asleep after a quick showering several hours ago. “Go away,” he mumbled.

They’d returned to the base from San Clemente Island, where they’d been engaged all day in “sneak and peek” or “escape and evade,” covert operations designed to teach them how to move about unseen in enemy territory. When they weren’t crawling about in the mud and brambles, they were doing “surf penetrations” for the same purpose. Their faces and arms had been “cammied up,” meaning camouflaged with greasepaint so they blended in with their surroundings. Down and dirty, for a certainty!

Before going out for that “field op,” they’d been taught hand-to-hand combat in a hall with padded walls and floor. Ragnor had taught the burly instructor a thing or two, including how to employ a proper garrote when a silent kill was required, or the proper way to engage an enemy head-on when a sword was not at hand. Really, these soldiers with all their fancy weapons did not know everything about war. To his surprise, they did not appreciate his input.

He’d missed dinner but did not care, with every muscle in his body screaming from the past three days’ exercises at San Clemente. War games, they called them. More like torture games, if you asked him.

And he was sick to death of the chieftain’s sayings, which were designed to be inspirational but were mostly just downright half-brained. Like his latest, “Pillage before you burn, boys … ha, ha, ha,” as if every good soldier didn’t already know that. He suspected it had been a bit of sarcasm on the chieftain’s part directed at him. He had not laughed.

Aside from the physical torture, he was in mental anguish as well. He just did not understand how another country could have so many advanced weapons, horseless vehicles that could travel across land or air, flameless lighting, running water, glasslike apparatuses that fit over the eyes enabling a soldier to see at night, and so many other marvels. Why had he never heard of this country before? He still was not sure that he hadn’t fallen into some after-death realm. He didn’t feel dead, but then, how would he know how dead felt?

He had survived more than one sennight in this new land, thanks to his comrades in SEALs who’d explained many things in hushed tones so the
chieftain would not overhear. And they covered for him when he blundered.

“C’mon, Max, the chicks are waiting for us.” It was Pretty Boy speaking. “Well, they’re waiting for
me
. Don’t know about you ugly ducklings.”

“You’re a swan, all right, Pretty Boy,” Flash remarked. “All feathers and no meat.”

Ragnor cracked his eyes open to slits to gaze at his wonderful, albeit lackwit, comrades.

“Hah! You’re just jealous of my pretty feathers. Besides, I got meat. And chicks know I got meat,” Pretty Boy countered, patting his groin for emphasis.

“We Cajuns are better than anyone at drawing chicks. We don’t need no pretty faces, either. All we gotta do is wink and drawl out, ‘Come here, darlin’.’ They melt every time,” Cage proclaimed. “
Laissez les bon temps rouler
. Let the good times roll, baby … Loo-zee-anna style.”

“I am not hungry.” Ragnor finally inserted himself into the bizarre conversation. “Besides, I am not overly fond of chicken. I much prefer boar … or shank of reindeer.”

Pretty Boy laughed. “You’ll like this kind of chick, my man.”

“We need a little B & B for our R & R,” Flash put in.

“They mean bootie call,” Sly explained, as if his words were any clearer. “Booze and Broads for our Rest and Respite.”

“A honky-tonk. A little music, a little dancing, a little beer,” Flash further explained. “And easy women.”

That got his attention. “Beer? Dost mean there will be mead available?” He rolled over and sat up on his pallet. He would give just about anything for a horn of mead.

“You betcha,” Flash said.

Even at night, sleeping time was not their own. Sometimes they were awakened by loud shouting, or banging of clubs on trash can lids, or whistles or bullhorns or weapons going off, just so they could be marched down to the ocean where they would sit in the surf for hours on end. Tonight they’d been given a rare night off, but Ragnor could not imagine that a drinking hall was what their leaders had in mind. “I cannot believe our chieftain and his cohorts in punishment would allow us to go to such a place. Do we have leave to depart the base?”

“No, we have a limited liberty, but what they don’t know can’t hurt us,” Flash answered, waggling his eyebrows with mischief.

“Well, mayhap I will go with you, then,” Ragnor agreed. “Where exactly are we going?”

“The Wet and Wild,” Flash announced with a big grin.

“Well, count me out,” Cody yelled from several pallets away. “I don’t need any she-done-me-wrong songs. I want good ol’ rock ’n roll.” Cody did a little dance that involved swiveling his hips and thrusting his pelvis in a suggestive manner. “I’m off to Rock ’n Suds. Besides, it’s deep in San Diego, where we’re sure to evade a Mac Attack.”