Fan Fiction ❯ Operators ❯ Standoff ( Chapter 3 )

I'd like to thank Rhiana Larsen, LaLa, M, Chris, and Ann Rhodes for their confidence and reviews on FF.Net and Adultfanfiction.net. I'll tell you right now I'm unsure how to end this, but that's whole point of writing a story. Now on with the show!

Lise kicked the door in waking Jeanne from her nap on the front desk. She pounded up to the only working shower for a hundred miles in the Food Distribution Center. "What's with her?" She pointed to the stairs with a pencil. Richard shrugged.

"Don't ask." The van and personal effects were returned, but their work was a different story. If those Mad Max extra rejects just gave back her chain in the first place the incident by the humvees could have been avoided.

* * *

"Y'know Elise, for someone who resents the military as much as you do you certainly have interesting taste in jewelry." Sanderson dangled her chain from his long, broad fingers. /Grandpa!/ That Delta sonofabitch from the market was disrespecting the Colonel. AND he called her ' Elise' ! Lise resisted admring his impressive forearms, but that was an entirely different matter… She took a deep breath and without missing a beat she said: "Give me my shit back you wannabe North Carolina cracker!" Gordon immediately unthreaded the chain from Sanderson's hand and tossed it to her.

"Here you go." She caught it in her left hand and stalked to Grimes' office.

"Goddamn Delta! ' Dreaded D' my ass! Dreaded certainly… Arrogant bastard!" That among other colorful language echoed in the hangar until she slammed Grimes' door behind her.

"That went well." Busch said.

* * *

Lise stood under the lukewarm spray, the tiny golden links settled into the crevices in her crumpled fingertips. She memorized the inscription of her grandfather's old battalion so long ago, sitting in his lap toying with his chain. He paid no mind. She always assumed it was the first thing she ever read, reciting it in a sing-song voice playing in the doll corner of Miss Kroeger's kindergarten class. She was so impressed that Lise knew big words like, ' battalion' and ' airborne' . It wasn't like Miss Kroeger thought, growing up using GI speak was a part of the military family's way of life and it was Lise that had to assimilate when she first started school. Lise was trilingual, if you wanted to categorize her under ' unique' and not ' crazy' . Her mother Marina was born in Arkhangelsk and came to the United States when she was eight-and-a-half. Her grandparents were Ukrainian but because of their jobs they moved the family all over eastern bloc Europe. Her grandfather Aleksandr was an engineer with the Red Army, her grandmother Nadezhda was a teletype operator with the Soviet news agency TASS. For a while the family relocated to Bulgaria, and both her mother and Uncle Stanislav spoke passable Bulgarian. They were also fortunate enough not to have an accent when speaking English after settling into a predominantly Russian community in southern New Jersey, unlike their parents whose English was patchwork at best. After so many years, practically the entire family migrated to the Mid-Atlantic Sates and New England, it was a big, loud and meddlesome Russian family, and that was her mother's side alone! Lise's parents met attending Northwestern University, Evan Davies was, to say the least, charmed by Marina Deverenko's exotic Slavic beauty and the faint inflection in her speech. Her frequent slip-ups until this day were ' zis' , instead of saying ' this' . Her father's military family living scattered around the United Sates couldn't help but be a little suspicious, that was more of a reflex if anything. Lise was convinced that her paternal grandfather, Colonel Jonathan Davies developed a little crush on her mother as time passed. He always went out of his way for her, maybe it was because of her petite size, but Marina, like her daughter fooled everybody taking on a teaching position, running a household, and raising four children with a globetrotting husband jumping from a coup d'etat in Haiti to a governmental standoff in Nicaragua, then onto some sub-Saharan African nation where red flags waved and so-called ' freedom fighters' posed before a torched American embassy seemingly all in a month.

The wedding was an elaborate religious affair, at Saint George the Redeemer's Russian Orthodox Church in Baltimore, one that the Davies clan and extended family couldn't quite follow during the three hour service. But her father was delightfully inundated with these cultural intricacies, it was also where Lise and her older brothers were baptized under their Russian names: Fyodor, Ivan, Grigory, and Yelena. To everyone else they were Ted, Ian, Greg, and Elise, but those names would never be used at home. Lenochka was the nickname her mother would use when drying her tears and smoothing her hair.

It was a deadly mix, and after her father killed himself Lise withdrew more and more. She was frightened that it would begin to effect her professionally, and if this wasn't a telltale sign that she was starting to lose her grip maybe it was time for a holiday after all. On the other hand, some Kevlar sporting asshole wasn't about to poke fun at her, with or without the ripped biceps! Well, not exactly ripped… Sanderson was obviously someone who was health conscious and enjoyed bench pressing. Perhaps it was wise to pull her head out of the gutter and the water since it turned ice cold, having wasted her time and limited hot water supply thinking about that Delta. It was more than likely to be a diversionary tactic to prevent her from pressing the matter about returning their paperwork. He must have graduated top of his class from PSYOP school, because it was working. Lise disgustedly threw her chain across the stall, it smashed against the wall and clinked on the concrete floor, she felt guilty immediately and considered herself just as bad as Sanderson who toyed with it. Lise twisted the claw knob to shut off the water and listened to the inch deep water swirl down the rust-ringed drain, she unclasped her chain and whipped it from the catch loop. Wrapping herself in her white terry cloth robe and sliding into sandals she went to her little room and flipped the lid of her make up case open. Dropping her chain into the tray she snapped a red plastic coin purse open, dumping the contents on her bed. A tarnished pair of dog tags was tangled in another gold chain, Lise sat at the edge of the shabby mattress picking the steel beads from the Figaro links with her nails for nearly a half an hour. Finally twisting them free, Lise put her pendant on its original chain, she let it hang from her fingers a moment before putting it on. The Figaro men's chain was thick and sturdy, the way she resolved to be from now on if she were to go up against the big green wall again. Her hair would air dry and she chose her outfit carefully, a navy blue skirt suit, a hand painted carnation pink sleeveless silk blouse, white silk stockings and tan French heeled shoes.

Down the hall Richard was sashaying about packing his bags and reloading the truck at the same time. The only thing he was thinking about was getting back to his girlfriend Michelle Rosen, who worked in CNN's PR department, and ordering a happy family meal from Emperor Wang's Wizarding Wok as soon as he ran down the terminal at D.C. International. Who gave a shit about the tapes, they got Atto and that would be the ticket out of their basement office. It was not fun being the jokes of CNN because Lise had a hard-on for everything in camouflage, and she still worked the war desk. Did this logic make any sense? Only to her and rumor had it that she was as crazy as daddy and granddaddy. It had been a whirlwind year for Richard traveling around with Lise, the only cameraman willing to work with her and this was not their first assignment in Africa. When they were crossing the river between Kinshasa and Brazzaville the twin capitals of Zaire and the Congo, the jeep they had hired crashed into the filthy water when the rickety bridge they were on fell through the middle. And they along with their guides were unwittingly dumped in a mosquito breeding ground. Two days later they were airlifted to a hospital in Johannesburg for malaria, Richard spent the duration of their recovery jumping off the beds hallucinating that he was Batman and Lise pranced around thinking she was Ann Margaret in Viva Las Vegas. When Stu came to pick them up there was no way he could manage them onto a plane, it was hilarious and pathetic something Richard didn't want to repeat any time soon. Then the phone rang. He stopped dead in his tracks, unexpected phone calls were never a good omen.

Jeanne picked up. "Red Cross Relief Center, Mogadishu."

' Do you have a Miss Elise Davies and a Mr. Richard Kellner staying with you?' Stu asked.

"They are. Who is this?"

"CNN station manager."

"One moment please," she put her hand over the speaking end. "Richard!"

"Yes?" He sang from the top of the stairs.

"I think your boss wants to talk. Is Lise done in the bath?" Richard knocked on Lise's door.

"What?!" She snapped.

"Stu's on the phone." Lise opened the door.

"Jeanne! Put it on speaker!" Jeanne pushed a blinking yellow key, Lise and Richard trampled down the steps.

' Davies! At the risk of repeating myself, I think I should share this with you. Got an interesting wire from the Pentagon just a few hours ago and it reads: » With the authorization of the Department of Defense, Major General William F. Garrison is cordially inviting any CNN correspondents to spend a week with the 3rd Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment in Mogadishu, Somalia.« Did you get that?'

"Yeah."

' You taking it?'

She sighed massaging her temple. "What's the expiration date on that?"

' Refrigerate after opening.'

"Can I call you back in an hour?"

' Make it 15 minutes.' Stu cut the connection. Richard bristled having predicted Lise's response already.

"No, no and no."

"Richard…." But it was useless and she was exhausted.

"I'm sorry Lise, but no! We've been here four motherfucking months," he made a sweeping gesture spreading both hands out, "and I have had enough. This place is falling apart at the seams, and the only reason why you want to go back is because you can't wait to tear into Bruce Willis back there!" Sheepishly Lise poked her tongue around the inside of her cheek. True enough Sanderson was at the top of her hit list and they did have her trunk, and that would land her in a tight spot if word got out upon their return to Fort Bragg. Could she trust them to keep her secret? Should she trust them at all in the first place? If she ever needed some good advice it was now, but standing around listening to Richard's bitching ate up ten of her 15 minutes and she had to get back to Stu. There was no time to call her cousin. She hit redial and the British embassy helped her patch through to D.C.

"Stu? We're movin' out."

* * *

Captain Steele sat in his office embroiled in a staring contest with the pewter bulldog paperweight on his desk. He mentally ticked off the names of the most trustworthy men to ' baby-sit' Miss Davies: Eversmann, Kurth, Schmid, and above all, Grimes. For that Hippie cameraman Beales would be sufficient. He sat through the most awkward on-camera discussion with the other officers including the General with Miss Davies about Somalia's political climate and what they hoped to accomplish, soft-shoeing around sensitive matters such as missions. She had no business being here, and being female was incidental. No journalists should be allowed anywhere near a hot zone. During his Vietnam tours he watched his commanding officers waste their time directing authorized and unauthorized reporters tailing troops, pulling out their bodies, even teaching them how to fire weapons. That was insane! To phrase a term coined by his Rangers, it got Hollywood out there and civilians were strongly proscribed. There was one thing that Steele had going for him, the Deltas were sent back out, for the night at least. It was one thing with his chiefly adolescent Rangers being bowled over by Davies, they were on a short iron leash and knew better. But if any incident came to his attention, he would rise to the occasion, God-fearing man or not and tear them apart. Those cowboys on the other hand were a whole different kettle of fish, and something was definitely afoot between her and Sanderson. He caught her sidelong glares at the Delta Sergeant who was hovering over her deliberately, though she did not speak to him or any of his team as for as he knew. It would make for juicy gossip by the number of nurses who cared for her in the infirmary and Schmid who flapped his lips after being interrogated by friends when he was looking over Nelson. It was not even lights out and it spread like brushfire in 110° degree heat, and that's all he hoped it would amount to. ' Old Undersheets's' reputation didn't make things any better, Sanderson was 38, unmarried and still playing around. What a man did on his own time was their business, but if it spilled over on assignment he'd be forced to shut him down. It encouraged unprofessionalism, and worse yet the Rangers. He got up and opened his door. "Eversmann! Beales!" The Second Lieutenant and Staff Sergeant double timed it.

* * *

It was a shame Lise couldn't open the window, it was one of the clearest nights she'd ever seen in Mogadishu. Eversamann and Beales showed her and Richard back to their detention cell rooms, this time with cots that had mattresses and pillows. Richard was more pleased, but Lise knew they weren't rolling out the red carpet for her ' celebrity status' , she couldn't be sidetracked. The Rangers showed them how to put up the mosquito netting on their cots, poles roughly a yard in length was wired to each corner of the cot. Lise was taught well in advance but was kind enough to keep that to herself, she also gave them back the puke green net, she favored the white one she ripped off the Red Cross. Too bad she couldn't hang it from the ceiling as she did over there, it was pretty and gave her ideas how to redecorate her own bedroom. She sat on her bed barefoot, stripped off the stockings hours earlier and decided not to wear them again in this climate. The Deltas were not there when she returned, she couldn't help but look to their space directly to the left of the hangar's entrance, but Garrison pulled her aside before the interview and instructed her that she was under no circumstances to question the operators at any time. It threw him when she said that was one order she was more than happy to comply. It was well past lights out when she saw the headlights glide across the wall, she froze and listened. There was no noise save for the slamming of car doors and boots scraping sandy pavement.

Lise deftly padded from her room and opened the back door just enough for her to see through. Over a dozen men dressed in civilian clothes jumped out of jeeps and tarp covered flatbed trucks. There were no overhead lights, just a grimy yellow bulb above the door. Guys like them normally avoid women like her, but this was going to be a shootout. /Make no mistake Sergeant, the Colonel taught me well./ She shut the door softly behind her. Sanderson stood behind one of the flatbeds, he saw Lise but said nothing.

"Jeff?" Randy asked.

"Nothing." He slung the shotgun over his shoulder and followed him into the hangar.

* * *

~U.S. Army Headquarters, September 21 5:44 A.M.~

Lise was up well before anyone occupying the office bathroom, freshened up and dressed in her room. First up on the itinerary Eversmann would drive her out to tape drills and interview the men, then she would spend the afternoon at the shooting range. In about a half hour they would have P.T. and that would give her ample time to prepare a few notes. To combat the heat she wore a white polo shirt and and matching white denim mini. She briefly contemplated pulling out her favorite pair of white pumps, but the Keds would be more practical. Sitting at a card table by the truck, she scribbled in her notebook sipping coffee, Richard was in the truck setting up the camera and eating his breakfast, a mish-mash of eggs, hash browns, and toast. Schmid walked over to her. "Good morning, Schmid." Lise said without looking up.

"Morning ma'am." He said brightly. "Aren't you going to eat anything?" It was her turn to smile.

"I usually don't have anything in morning, thanks." Before she could pick up her pen a plate of buttered toast was dropped on the table. She was certain it wasn't Schmid, his arms were folded in front of him, Lise looked up and saw Gordon walk by. He smiled at her albeit apologetically and went to join his teammates.

"What Master Sergeant Gordon is trying to say in so many words, is that doesn't fly around here. And since you spent a better part of the day in the infirmary yesterday might I suggest that you'd better load up on the protein." It took her a solid moment to backtrack but she had been so frustrated by Sanderson she didn't even look at the others. And regretted it. What Scandanavian tree did that apple fall from?! Lise was seriously reconsidering the ' No Uniforms' clause in her dating contract- no that was immature and ridiculous. If she wanted reassurances she could go back home and look at all the conformist idiots sitting around the back porch swapping war stories glorifying violence, death, and U.S. global domination. No, she was just a healthy woman that wasn't dead from the waist down and really did take her sister-in-law's cruel criticisms to heart that she will be lonely and desperate for the remainder of her life because of her attitude. She shoved a triangle of bread in her mouth and chewed, it was good. The Rangers filed out for their daily torture on the sand and Lise didn't even notice.

Tossing her paper plate into a bin Lise walked into the empty office, even Grimes had to endure the five mile ' fun run' , the extent of any action he'd see, he griped the other night. She put her purse on Grimes' desk and rooted around for her cosmetics bag. Lise lined her lips and filled them in with a deep coral, then rubbed drops of lilac oil on the backs of her wrists and a little in her hair.

"So that's what that stuff is." The glass bottle ejected itself from Lise's hands and she fumbled for it. Luckily it landed on the ' IN' basket on Grimes' desk or it would have been a calamity being $45 dollars per seven ounces. Sanderson stood leaning on the doorframe and calmly drained his mug after having watched her undergo her whole beautifying ritual. He went for the pot on the file cabinet and Lise slowly backed away from the desk, clutching the perfume to her chest like a talisman. Not two minutes ago she walked down the corridor and entered the office quite alone making little noise, then somehow this HUGE asshole materializes out of thin air just in time to observe her applying lipstick. That was… disturbing. How he did that, she'd never find out- they don't exist- and all she did was stand there like a slack-jawed yokel looking at him refill his cup, mosey to the fridge and dump in the half-and-half. Lise wondered why he was still hanging around, but remembered that Deltas don't have a daily required physical fitness regimen as a group to avoid detection, instead each man is responsible for himself. Sanderson saw how her eyes drifted past him to the right of him and knew she was thinking about something, but would not make a retort. Lise did exactly what he'd anticipated shadowing her down the corridor, keeping a distance and walking light on his feet, she spun around and fiddled with her bag. "So, c'mon what is that?"

It took every scrap of restraint not to get into his face and say that she knew all about their mind games and how they would not work on her. It's what he wanted to hear and that would open the door to mind games. "The General has put me under orders not to speak with anyone in your unit."

"Said Little Red to the Big Bad Wolf." Lise stuck the white scrunchie between her teeth and pulled her hair in a pony tail to the top of her head. Sanderson grinned, there was something about the bare flesh of this woman's neck or maybe it was the way she gracefully raised her arms, tension outlining her supple back. He caught a serious vibe off her when she called him a ' wannabe North Carolina cracker' , true his was a subtle adopted drawl, Jeff was a Long Island native. But if he wanted to be honest with himself, he hadn't seen a real woman in a long while taking on assignments without adequately recharging his batteries in between. Lise could feel Sanderson studying her. Body language? Assessing the little she said? Thinking she might have nice legs? Real women have curves, her Cajun grandmother always said. And that's what men truly looked for when spotting a woman for the first time, they need something to hold onto especially at night when it got cold and uncertainty sneaks up on them.

/Men and women, dey out dere minds. You ain't supposed to like each other dat juss wastes time. You supposed to love each other. We ain't perfect, dat wasn't in His plan. We have faults and dat's why we love each other, to correct those faults, Chere./ The daughter of the New Orleans mayor, Elise-Marie Brissard met a nobody Army lieutenant from Cleveland on shore leave during a USO dance her family hosted. He took her for a twirl to the Tennessee Waltz, she curtsied and thanked him kindly then went to resume her place near the sisters from St. Ursula's Girls Conservatory. But he reached for her arm and said he wanted to marry her, she grinned and said she didn't court fools. The following Christmas she was merrily calling herself Mrs. Fool. No, she didn't like Lieutenant Johnathan Davies and his bland Midwestern ways but color in his cheeks would deepen when she was around. But all that color bled from his life when Lise was 13. There was one enemy that all the Colonel's training couldn't take out, cancer, and Grandmere left this world as she had come into it with quiet dignity. But Lise believed that Grandmere's kind was truly extinct when she died, in today's world women couldn't afford to be ladies, they were preyed upon, used, and discarded. Maybe the men here didn't do that, but she knew plenty in and out of uniform who did with no shame.

That's not to say strong women weren't easy targets. Her Aunt Flora, one of the Colonel's elder daughters was an Army nurse with talents in field surgery, she was in medical school when she was called up to Vietnam. It wouldn't be the first time she'd encounter SF, after all the Old Man was somewhere in the bush. What she didn't know was that one of his men- one of the worst- would be propositioning her nonstop. Yes, Brick MacKenzie whored. Yes, Brick Mackenzie drank. Yes, Brick MacKenzie had a flashpoint temper and loved to brawl. And yes, Brick MacKenzie was helplessly in love with Flora Davies. So it became legend how one disgustingly balmy day in Nha Trang, the Colonel picked the lowly Staff Sergeant up by the scruff of the neck and gave his consent. From that day forward Uncle Brick never picked up a drink, looked at another girl, and resolved to become a model officer all under the penalty of dishonorable discharge and a swift demise. Not only did they marry with few setbacks but Aunt Flora became a doctor, he gave her a beautiful home to put her practice in, and two sons to be proud of. Both her cousins Kyle and Luke were in the Navy, Kyle was in NCIS and Luke worked in the Internal Affairs Division. Before she came to Somalia, Lise spent a week in Fayetteville for Kyle's wedding, he married a high school music teacher named Brianne. During the post-reception party back at the house Uncle Brick cried his eyes out, he looked so sweet.

Ambition was also an intoxicating aphrodisiac, just ask Aunt Suzie. She, like her big sister was an Army nurse but determined to change the face and stereotypes of it. She was attending Cornell for her doctorate in nursing when she was called up. Then in Da Nang she met Marine Force Recon Captain Harold Wrentmore, a West Point grad. He like his father was fanatical about being a Marine, but Uncle Harry went that extra mile to become one of their more elite soldiers. He also was a fan of the 007 novels so he felt right at home in the MFR's intel branch. But he always made it clear that after his glory days were over his sights were set on Washington, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff wouldn't be the same without Lieutenant General Wrentmore. His biggest supporter throughout was Aunt Suzie and she did it all: wife, mother, and officer. Today, retired First Lieutenat Susan Davies-Wrentmore R.N., Ph.D is on the administrative staff of Bethesda Medical. Their son Martin was a Marine Captain in the JAG Corps, his dream was Attorney General while his younger sister Teena was taking a leave of absence from the Air Force to attend Stanford. Her dream was senator of North Carolina. Then there was the wild card, Uncle Rodney the oldest of the Colonel's foursome. He and Lise's father remained close until the very last day, and she had a pretty good idea why. The little she knew about Uncle Rodney's military career said enough. He spent the majority of his Vietnam tours stationed in West Germany, he dated then married the American consul's interpreter Mitzi Braun, they had no children. After he left the Army he became an agent in the CIA and made Frankfurt am Main his home. None of these made the Colonel happy. To make matters worse, Rodney would show up in Fort Bragg from time to time dressed in that same drab, grey three-piece suit chewing the fat with the other Old Men about the Atlanta Braves. But the Colonel wasn't stupid. The Colonel was never quite ready to retire and despite the fact that it was mainly staffed by NCO's he was more than welcome in Camp Mackall to kick around the Q Course wannabes. It was enough that that turncoat Beckwith was systematically undermining the entire SF philosophy (not to mention chain of command) by starting up his own rag tag band, but his own son? Candidates and enlisted men were vanishing, women from intel were lining up to voulnteer.

The world was changing and the armed forces had to change with it. The Colonel wasn't sure if he could cope with the post-Vietnam era, and the stigma that SF was branded with. Was the whole affair a mistake? He didn't like to think so, too many friends and good men didn't walk out of the jungle. It was the bureaucracy that was a bitch and should have been made to pay, and his son was one of their yes men, he just carried a sidearm and badge. The CIA and SF share the same genetic lineage, but like all aspects of a family tree they were supposed to branch out in separate directions. Both were established post-WW II growing out of the wartime Office of Stategic Services; CIA in '47 and SF (officially) in '54, though it was argued that the unit's roots could be traced back to the American Revolution. Ties were never fully severed and one way or another managed to clash. SF's purpose was to train foreign armies guerrilla warfare, the CIA's job, essentially, was to make sure the U.S.'s dirty laundry doesn't fly off the line and into the neighbor's yard. They didn't need all these suits running around asking annoying questions, SF had their own people. Professional frustration was the Davies' axiom for many generations, and was Sanderson given what he might know, about to use that as a personal attack? Lise had no choice.

She turned right around to see Sanderson patiently seated on one of the rolling chairs, his big arms folded one over the other on the backrest. "I'm going to be honest. Back at the market I thought you were cute, but then you opened your mouth and ruined it." He simply raised his nearly invisible blonde brows and finished his coffee. Jeff wouldn't argue with that, he was imperfect. But he had his opinions too.

"You know what," he put his cup down somewhere and got up, shoving his hands in his pockets, "my sentiments exactly."

~I'm driving in my car, I turn on the radio

I'm pulling you close, you just say no

You say you don't like it, but girl I know you're a liar

`Cause when we kiss, Fire

Late at night I'm takin' you home

I say I wanna stay, you say you wanna be alone

You say you don't love me, girl you can't hide your desire

`Cause when we kiss, Fire…~

Outside, Richard slammed the van's rear doors shut. "Yeah, me too man." Randy remarked, being married he knew all too well what women were like. He also knew his friend very well, and Jeff was hardly the relationships authority. Hoot just turned up the radio, this was not kosher. Jeff sidled out, unpolished combat boots scuffing the floor and dropped beside Busch. He propped his elbows up, hands clasped against his nose. A cloud crash and slam made Gordon and Wex flinch, Lise smashed the cup against the wall and closeted herself. As anticipated Gordon spoke up.

"I know she's not the the most agreeable person on the planet, but neither are you." Gordon pointed to Jeff with his pen. "Was that truly necessary?" Jeff reached under his folding chair and threw something on the table. It was a brown leather book thick with overuse, bits of paper were sticking out of it. It was tempting to say to Gordy, ' Back the fuck off, I saw her first' but if he wanted to make a play he wouldn't stop him. It was too late though, the news lady was hooked. Busch picked up the journal it looked vaguely familiar from when they rifled through her files.

"She's her own worst critic. Confront her with this and she will become more malleable, making things a helluva lot easier for us."

"Are you the new team psychologist?" Wex asked. Hoot laughed.

"Yes." Jeff paused intentionally. "That I am." Busch clapped him on the back. Everyone knew Sanderson was a Sean Connery fan, but he was no Sean Connery.

Lise sat on her bunk, head bowed on her knees. She didn't hear the radio playing until now. She panicked, they knew everything there was to know about her. The best part about being a journalist was keeping the mystery but being able to put the other person on the spot and watching them squirm. Now the tables were turned in the worst way, Sanderson was not about to put the brakes on and there would be no way to keep him at bay without the games. It's a good thing she was a quick study.

~...You had a hold on me, right from the start

A grip so tight I couldn't tear it apart

My nerves all jumpin' actin' like a fool

Well your kisses they burn but your heart stays cool

Romeo and Juliet, Samson and Delilah

Baby you can bet their love they didn't deny

Your words say split but your words they lie

`Cause when we kiss, Fire~

* * *

Fresh from the showers Eversmann put his jacket on and left the RBA on his cot. He rapped twice on Lise door. "Ma'am? Miss Davies?" He waited the obligatory one minute and tentatively opened the door. Lise sat in the same position since that morning with Sanderson, it perturbed the young Staff Sergeant but it wasn't his place to meddle. "Umm, Lise we're ready to roll?" She picked her head up, brilliantly smiling and eyes bloodshot.

"Let's get it on."

TBC