To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II) (49 page)

“I knew these Jews were acting bol
der than I gave them credit for.  They never would have had the balls to rebel on their own.  Perhaps in a few years, but not now.  I knew it had to have been instigated by someone else.  Fine.  In honor of your deeds as
Vani
, I will make sure the rest of this war is as devoid of bloodshed as I can help.  What’s done is done, however, that I cannot change.”

I no
dded.  “Just remember when you’re settling terms to be gentle.  I hate to break it to you, but from where I come from, Jews are still around to pester people, but Roman History is just a course taught in school.”

Vespasian lost his smile at that comment, so offering him an innocent smile of my own, I turned and left the
praetorium
.  I waved farewell to Gaius and Marcus after retrieving my weapons as Helena finished by giving them quick kisses on the cheeks in parting.  Together, my female companion and I marched definitely through the camp and out into the quiet, cold night.

It only took two steps before she had something to say.

“Attack Agrippina when she could have her entire Praetorian contingent with her?  Are you fucking crazy?!”  She was almost yelling.

“No, I’m not crazy,” I answered calmly.  “I’m opportunistic, not to mention verging on
desperate.  If Vespasian sent his army, the potential political ramifications may completely defeat the purpose of what we’re trying to accomplish.  We, on the other hand, can sneak in and take her without anyone being the wiser, and maybe even grab the orb in the process.”

“Jacob, you’re getting cocky again.  What if she’s expecting us?  Sets another trap?”

I let out a slow breath.  I wasn’t getting cocky.  Not this time, but how was I going to convince Helena that this plan had nothing to do with the over obsessed one we’d acted on months ago?

“
When we get back to the city, we’ll discuss it with everyone else, and only act on it if it’s agreed upon by all,” I said.  “Besides, Vespasian is obviously on our side.  If he wanted us dead, we would be.  Agrippina may be expecting us, but she won’t expect all of us.  We can do this, Helena.  We can get home.”

She didn’t look nearly so convinced, and she moved her hand down to her stomach, wincing at perhaps another stab of pai
n.  She still seemed very angry and I figured it was about time for another Jacob/Helena speaking hiatus.

“You’d better not be wrong this time,” she threatened, with a finality that told me that was going to be it for
the near future.

I sighed, condemning myself to the fate of silence that was sure to come.

“I’m not.”

X

Recon

Mission
Entry #10

Jacob Hunter

North of Caesarea, Judea - October, 42 A.D.

Pardon the handwriting as I’m writing this on horseback.  It wouldn’t have been a problem had we purchased those camels I’d wanted, but everyone overruled me on that one.  Something about them smelling and having a bad tendency to spit.

I argued that it was
llamas that spat, not camels, but no one listened.

Oh, well.

So, guess who we finally met?

Vespasian. 

Pretty cool, eh?  I love how plans come together in the end.  With the way things had been going, I wasn’t sure if we’d ever meet him.  Apparently, I wasn’t very good at plans.

As for Titus Flavius Vespasianus (his Latin name), the man was an enigma.   Easily the most confusing Roman I knew, he came o
ff like Santino at times but Vincent at others.  He was a tough read and it was to know what he was thinking, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t worth listening to.  In fact, he was the reason I was here.

It seems
Agrippina’s pissed off one man too many. No surprise, there.  Vespasian’s been done with her for a while now apparently, and has tasked us with capturing her and bringing her to justice.

I had to admit that g
oing after Agrippina felt great.  It was time for a little payback, and it felt especially good having Gaius and Marcus with us.  I guess it was just great to be working for someone again.  Working for ourselves for the past few years had its benefits, kept our own hours, the pay had been good, but it lacked fulfillment.  While we weren’t on Vespasian’s payroll, simply having him send us on a mission was a nice enough change of pace.  It felt more purposeful having someone like him making the decisions for once.

Everyone shared my sentiment.  Except for Helena.  She
’s never been a proponent of doing anything that put our lives in direct risk, but she’s been exceptionally cautious ever since Byzantium.  Whatever her reasons, it bothered me. In the past, her bad feelings tended to manifest themselves in real life.

But while I’ve
always trusted her judgment, we couldn’t stand down now.  Home was just a melon sized ball away.  If she had a bad feeling, then we’d take it into account and be more careful, but we weren’t giving up.  Everyone else was on board, and she hadn’t been willing to offer anything that could sway the others.

A
nd as always, it’s become a point of tension between us.  She stopped talking to me about four days ago, just after our conversation with Vespasian.  I swear.  One day I will figure out what make women tick.

At least that one.

But I digress.

There isn’t much else to
say right now.  No news on the orb, except that Vespasian believes Agrippina may have it on her, but I still don’t have a fucking clue how it works.

I’ll have to get back to you on that
someday.

Grea
t…  Santino’s radioing me.  Some kind of roadblock up ahead.  Just another snag to deal with.

I’ll try to write one more time before we hit Agrippina.  No promises though.

Don’t miss me.

I quickly bound my journal and tossed it in my bag.  Checking to make sure I looked as inconspicuous as possible, I signaled for everyone to hang back before double timing it to Santino’s position.

He was on forward recon today, scouting out the area a few hundred yards ahead of us.  His swim buddy, Wang, was adversely on rearguard, a few hundred yards behind us.  It
may have split up the swim pair, but it assigned them likeminded tasks to keep the rest of the group stable, at least as stable as this group could get.

Gaius and Marcus had joined us
after Vespasian had sent us the go ahead to leave.  They were now 10-9 and 10-10 respectfully.  Not only had they been integrated into our chain of command, and given call signs, but they were also given that which they’d always wanted.

The truth.

Now that the cat was out of the bag with Galba and Vespasian, we decided it was time to let our best friends in on our little secret, along with Madrina.  We told them everything during our first night on the road.  It wasn’t a surprise that they were initially shocked but quick to accept. In fact, since the truth had been Marcus’ guess all along, they’d even joked about it, Gaius grudgingly paying him some money as a result of the bet they’d had.  Madrina, however, had not taken it as well.

She’d known Bordeaux hadn’t been a simple Gaulic local, but there was no way she could have guessed where he truly came from.  She’d been pretty angry that night.  She stalked off almost immediately, giving none of us any time to explain.  Helena had gone to talk to her, but had come back a few minutes later, having little luck at consoling her.  Bordeaux, the big snuggly kitten that he was, however, managed to calm her down rather quickly, and she eventually came around.

Her main concern must have been the orb and what it represented.  Now that she knew what it was, it had to frighten her that her hulking meat slab of a man might choose to go home, instead of be with her.  I had no idea what Bordeaux would do, but I knew he wouldn’t leave her behind. He may even chose to stay with her.  It was his decision, but he’d have to deal with it later.

Gaius and Marcus, however, were an entirely different story.  They practically demanded we take them with us to the future.  I had no theor
etical problem with them coming, but I had no idea if they even could.  I hadn’t told them that, but it was just another thing we’d have to figure out later.

In the meantime, we decided now was the best time to get them more acquainted
with how we ply our trade.  So, we gave them some spare BDUs and boots, our extra com units, and even rifles.  Our supply cache had come with my SR-25, Helena’s M82 sniper rifle, a few shotguns, just in case we had to face Roman zombies I suppose, a number of assorted M4-A1 carbines, your standard run of the mill infantry weapons, and we still had McDougal’s G36.

Unfortunately, ammo was now at a serious premium.  Most of the 5.56
mm ammunition used in the G36, M4s, and HK416s, was practically gone thanks to the siege of Caesarea.  We only had enough for three full magazines each, barely one hundred rounds.  Everyone else fared slightly better.  Wang had plenty of .45 ACP ammo for his UMP, Bordeaux slightly less 7.62mm for his SAW, and Helena still had enough 6.65 for her P90 as well.  Unfortunately, she’d given most of her ammo for the DSR1 to Bordeaux, so she wouldn’t be doing much more sniper work with it.  At least she still had the M82, but she couldn’t lug that thing around everywhere.

The shotgun
s had plenty of ammunition as well since nobody had ever even used the damn things, but we had kept them well maintained.  We gave one to Madrina, as it had the easiest learning curve to operate, but we didn’t expect her to ever have to use it.

After rationing out the ammo, Santino managed to find an extra box of 5.56 in one of our crates, so we went through the very basics of rifle shooting with Gaius and Marcus.  Titus easily out shot them with the G36, but he’d had years of practice
under Vincent’s tutelage.  They did fairly well at medium ranges, each achieving close groupings at about fifty yards or so.  Shooting wasn’t a hard thing to learn, but it took a certain amount of skill and time to practice.  It didn’t hurt that they were consummate professionals, soldiers born and bred.  They wouldn’t give up or stop trying until they were more than competent with whatever weapon they were given.

It was that
same legion discipline that I respected more than anything else in this asinine and fucked up time period.

Each of us from the future also offered some skill set to help them fit in.  Santino taught them how to move, Helena how to shoot, Bordeaux how to best cope with explosive detonations, Wang some basic medical treatments, Vincent to use the com system, and I instructed them to simply not do anything stupid.

Despite the crash course in modern Spec Ops, the two Romans were in nirvana.  They were finally given the chance to prove to the rest of us that they could do everything we could.

I called out to the two of them as I passed by them.

“Remember, if this ends up in a firefight, short controlled bursts.  Conserve your ammo.”

Both men saluted in a more modern fashion than their chest pounding standard, another thing we’d showed them.  I hadn’t been sure if it was appropriate or not, but given the circumstances, I couldn’t care less.
  I returned their salute with an uninterested wave.

I nudged my beautiful Spanish horse in Santino’s direction, and we moved out in a trot.  It took me five minutes to reach him, but about twenty yards out he was emphatically signaling for me to
take cover.  Instinct took over and I swiftly swung my left leg over Felix’s back and dropped to the ground next to him.  In the same movement, I grabbed his reigns and gently tugged for him to fall into a sitting position.  Horses didn’t like lying on the ground, but they did if needed.  It just took a little coaxing.

Felix was a good horse though, very obedient, so he fell on his flank as though he did it all the time.  I patted his mane, fed him a carrot and told him to stay
.  I wasn’t sure if he’d listen, but I didn’t have much of a choice.  Leaving him behind, I bear crawled to the small sand dune separating Santino from whatever had his attention.

“What’s up?”  I asked him, pulling out my binoculars.  “A four star resort with
comped room service and a pool shaped like a palm tree with lots of hot ladies in bikinis?”

Santino looked at me.  “She hasn’t talked to you in four days, and already you’ve got ladies in bikinis on the brain?”

“I just want to see her in a bikini one of these days,” I said, peering through the lens.  “Not much in the sexy-ware department in the stores around here.”

“You’re pathetic.”

I glanced at him with a mock frown on my face.  “I’m so lonely.”

Santino
chuckled.

“But seriously,” I said, returning my attention to my binoculars, “what have we got?  Some kind of picket station?”

“That’s what I’d call it,” he replied, looking through his magnifiers as well.  “I’ve seen about thirty guards manning the post, all acting unprofessional and lazy.  Ten archers in the tower, ten guards on duty, with another ten milling about.  Stables around back with horses for each of them.”