Praetorian Series [4] All Roads Lead to Rome (6 page)

“He is strong,” I said, reassuring her of what she already knew.

She nodded.  “Yes, but I don’t think he can come back from this on his own. He needs us.  He needs
me
.  He needs all of us, and he needs us now.  Agrippina has him wrapped around her pinky, and God only knows what she has planned for him.

“We’re his only hope,” I said, nodding my agreement.

She chuckled then, and I looked at her in surprise.  She covered her mouth in what I thought was a gesture meant to hide her amusement, but then her laughs turned to sudden coughs mixed with sobs.  She stifled them quickly and composed herself.

“I’m sorry,” she said, lowering her hand.  “It’s just that Jacob would have found that comment hilarious.”

“Why?”

Her tears returned then, and her lower lip quivered but she held it together.  “Just another of his endless movie references.”

I smiled but felt more like crying than laughing, so I pulled Helena in for another hug.  When I felt her tiny sobs slow only seconds later, I pulled away again and we looked each other in the eye before the both of us turned again to face the pair of graves.  I sniffled violently as my gaze fell upon the smaller of the two, and I found myself unable to stop from asking a question I wasn’t sure Helena wanted to hear.

“What was his name?”  I asked.

Helena sniffled again.  “We never decided on one.  Is it wrong to let a child die nameless?”

“Of course not, Helena.”

It was all I could say.  I wanted to say more but had no idea how else I could comfort her.  All I could do was look at her, noticing for the first time just how much older she looked now than she had when I’d first met her.  She was still beautiful, even with her hair that I had nearly sheered completely off little more than a month ago, but time and sorrow had finally taken hold of her.  Wrinkles around her eyes and mouth were so obvious to me now, as were the deep shadows under her eyes.  A small scar along her jawline that she’d received years ago while on the run with Jacob and John seemed more prominent as well, and a general look of fatigue bled through every pore on her face.

She looked a mess, even with those bright green eyes that seemed the last vestige of her once-happy life.  She didn’t appear anything like a woman on a mission to save the man she loved, but I supposed no one could look the part of the hero all the time.  Even so, her lips no longer quivered, the tears on her cheeks had dried, and I could see the muscles in her jaw working in barely restrained determination.

She wouldn’t let anything stop her from avenging Vincent and her son, and saving the man she loved.

I pulled my hand from her grasp and placed it upon her shoulder.  I looked at her, almost finding it humorous how I was the one comforting a woman who had no reason to fear anyone in the entire universe – this one or any other – but was happy that I could bring myself to act as that comforting presence, especially when, in reality, I was terrified.

“We’ll find him, Helena.  We’ll save him.”

II

Fugitives

April, 44 A.D.

Northern Gaul

Jacob Hunter

“Breathe… just breathe.  No need to hold your breath just yet.”

“But when I breathe, I can’t hold the rifle steady.”

“Doesn’t matter.  There are other things you need to take into account first.  Just keep the target in your field of vision for now.”

“But…”

“Do you want to learn this or not?”

“Of course I do, Jacob.”

“Then do what your told,” I ordered, unable to keep the edge out of my voice.  She’d been wanting to try this for weeks now, but I’d only given in today because a suitable opportunity for teaching had finally arisen.  But that didn’t mean that I had to like it, and I certainly didn’t have the patience for a recalcitrant student.  “Just keep your target within the scope but pay attention to the other stuff first.”

“What other…”

“Damn it, Agrippina, we’ve been over this.  First you have to…”

“I know, Jacob,” she said, turning her head so that she could stick her tongue out at me. “I just like to tease you.”

I growled in frustration, but reached out and gently gripped her head in my hand and twisted it so that she could look through the scope of my SR-25 sniper rifle again.  The two of us were located about six hundred meters out from our targets, situated on a low hill and buried well back behind a tree line, but with a clear sightline toward our target location below us.  We’d been here for about thirty minutes now, in a part of Ancient Gaul that I estimated had to be somewhere near modern day Paris, France.

Interestingly, I’d been to this part of the world before, in both ancient and modern times, and knew my way around fairly well.  The last time I had been here had only been a year ago, so this location was fresh in my memory, and I was confident I could guide us to northern Italy within the month.

But we were in no rush, and our trek south through Britain had seen Agrippina and me through too many tight spots for me to simply let her tag along anymore.  On day four of our journey, I’d known she would have to learn how to defend herself if we were going to make it to Rome alive.  It was just the two of us out here, no Special Ops friends to watch my back and no loyal Praetorians to escort her.  We were alone, just the two of us, and after we’d been attacked in Central Britain, Agrippina’s practice shooting had begun.

We’d started with small arms, using a spare 9 mm pistol.  It was a small firearm, perfect for Agrippina’s slight hands, and the kick from such a weapon was manageable even for an eleven year old girl, so I knew she wouldn’t have a problem using the gun once she’d had some basic training with it.

Ammunition wasn’t an issue; not for her pistol, my pistol, the spare M-4 I’d taken, and my SR-25.  Archer’s people had brought plenty of spare ammo with them, and while I was still amazed it even worked in our weapons, I’d taken as much as I could carry.  We couldn’t just burn through it, however, but we had enough that I was comfortable training Agrippina.

Luckily, she’d taken to it quite easily.

Pistol shooting wasn’t difficult.  It was just a matter of knowing how to aim properly, hold the weapon steady, and squeezing the trigger instead of pulling it.  Setting feet and arms appropriately were also important, but Agrippina had barely even needed the fundamentals before she’d been achieving neat groupings at a range of thirty meters – perfect for our needs.  She seemed to enjoy it too, and she hadn’t even blinked when she’d killed her first man with her new toy a few days after I’d given it to her.

I hadn’t blinked either.  Agrippina had been a killer for years already.  I didn’t know how many people she’d killed personally, but I knew it wasn’t something she concerned herself with.  Once, I may have looked down on such a personality trait, but today, I embraced it, knowing that it was one of the few things that would keep us alive as we drew closer to Rome.

But today was her first attempt at distance shooting, no easy task without any previous rifle experience.

“All right, smart ass,” I said, ignoring the smile on Agrippina’s face as I peered through my binoculars.  “Who are you targeting?”

“The one on the left.  Near the stream.”

“Perfect,” I said, shifting my aim.  “Now, what’s first?”

“Distance check.”

“Yep.  Best guess?”

“Five hundred and fifty meters?”

“Try six twenty five,” I corrected smugly.

“I am still getting used to these
meters
of yours.”

“Took me a while as well,” I said.  “Civilians from where I come from don’t use them either.  You’re doing well.  So, what’s next?”

“Wind.”

“And?”

“How can I tell?  There aren’t any leaves on the trees, no dirt blowing on the ground, nothing like you described before.”

“Tricky, isn’t it?  Well, I can tell that there isn’t much wind here, but that doesn’t mean the same conditions exist down there.  Do you see the grass?  Is it moving?”

It was mid-April, and spring was definitely upon us.  The snow had melted and nature was beginning its perennial rebirth, having survived the treacherous wintery months.

“It is quite muddy there, Jacob, but what little grass I see is barely moving.”

“Good, then let’s move on.”

“We have completed the ritual, have we not?”

I almost laughed, having never heard of what we were doing referred to as a “ritual” before, but I supposed it made sense.

“What about temperature and humidity?”

“Oh, indeed.  Cool but comfortable.  Heavy moisture.”

I glanced at my watch and checked the barometer function displayed there.  “Fifty one degrees.  I’ll accept cool but comfortable.  And yeah, the fog bank seems to have lifted, but it’s still pretty thick down there.  Adjust your scope as I taught you.”

She reached up and calibrated the appropriate dial on her scope, glancing at me as she did.  “I can only guess if I am adjusting this properly.”

I shrugged.  “We’re not shooting for points here, Agrippina.  If we were, I could have you go through a dozen calculations based around barometric pressure, altitude, temperature, humidity, and the like to zero in that scope perfectly, but in a firefight, you won’t have time for all that.  I learned it all once upon a time myself, but I’ve been shooting more on instinct than math ever since, and I’ve done pretty well for myself.  In lieu of a proper training regimen, you’re just going to have to learn it my way.”

“You won’t get mad if I miss?”

“Get mad if…” I started asking, wondering why she would think that I would, but then the look in her eyes caused me to stop, and then a I remembered the few times I had gotten very angry at her during her pistol training days.  I didn’t regret it, knowing it was the best method for disciplining, much like my father used to think, but decided that since sniper work was far more difficult than pistol shooting, that I should go easy on her.  “All right, I won’t get mad.  Just don’t waste our ammo.”

“I shall try,” she said.

All seemed ready for Agrippina’s first shot on my end, so I initiated phase two of our setup stage.

I turned back to her.  “Preparations for shot on target completed?”

“Yes.”

“Rifle loaded, safety off, round chambered?”

This step had already been accomplished long ago, but I decided to throw her a curve ball.

She hesitated for a second, and actually looked to ensure everything was in fact ready to go.  She quickly confirmed that all was ready well within my expected time frame.  I nodded, giving the rifle a quick visual inspection of my own, just to make sure she hadn’t broken something.  Everything seemed good to go.

I shifted my eyes to Agrippina.  “Remember what I said about the kick?”

“Yes.”

“Good.  Fire for effect when ready,” I said, giving her the prearranged order that I was allowing her to fire.

I placed my eyes behind my binoculars again and centered my view on Agrippina’s chosen target.  I waited patiently, back in sniper-mode and loving the feeling. It had been a
long
time since I’d had the opportunity to fall back into it, even if I was just playing spotter right now.  Heartbeats passed, each and every one a distinct moment in time to my heightened senses, and then I heard Agrippina take three deep breaths, just as I’d instructed her to do. 

She held her breath on the third breath, paused, then squeezed the trigger.

The sound from the rifle wasn’t exactly quiet, but I focused my attention intently, observing a slight puff of earth explode from behind and to the left of the target.  But it was close.  The target’s head lifted in disinterested confusion at what had happened to the ground, but then looked away. 

I turned to Agrippina and she peeked at me out of the corner of her eye.  “See where it hit?”  I asked.

“Behind and to the left.”

“Which means?”

“I turned the dial too much?”

“Look again.  Does the wind seem consistent or is it coming in bursts?”

“It appears consistent.”

“Then you’re right.  Dial it back a few clicks.”

“A few?”

“Just do it.”

To her credit, she didn’t let on like she was annoyed by my tutelage.  Instead, she simply did as she was told without comment or backtalk, and I had to admit that I appreciated the cold precision she’d dedicated toward learning my craft.  When she was finished, she again took three quick breaths, holding it on the third, and then squeezed the trigger. As before, I barely had to wait at all before the bullet made its way to its target, this time striking the target near its center mass.  As soon as confirmation that the target was hit processed in my mind, I dropped my binoculars to the dirt and rolled off Agrippina’s leg and onto my side, holding out my arms.

“Swap,” I ordered calmly, and Agrippina rolled away as well so that she could more easily hand me my rifle.

The exchange took only seconds, and the act of taking the rifle in my grip, shouldering it, and setting the barrel atop my go-bag for support lasted only a few more.  Once I was settled, I took in a quick breath and held it, my lungs long-since conditioned for impromptu moments exactly like this, and took quick aim and fired, adjusted my aim deftly, and in the same breath, fired again. 

To an outside observer of the remaining pair of targets below, it would have looked as though they’d been shot simultaneously, and I watched through my scope as they fell in tandem to the wet mud beneath them, only letting out my breath once they were on the ground.

“Still got it…” I murmured to myself with a smile.

Beside me, with the binoculars now pressed against her own eyes, Agrippina gasped.  “Incredible,” she breathed.  “You were so fast.  And they were moving.  But why didn’t you let me try?”

I continued my observation of the downed targets through my scope as I took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly.  “That was a nice shot you just made, but doing it three times in a row isn’t exactly easy.  Besides, hitting moving targets is another lesson completely.  One step at a time.”

“I can see that,” she said, her voice full of wonder as she finally tore her eyes away from her binoculars to stare at me.

I caught this movement in my peripheral vision and finally pulled away from my scope as well, having confirmed our targets were dead on impact.  I looked into Agrippina’s cold, sky-blue eyes, and waited for some kind of reaction from her or further compliment, but nothing came.  Instead, she simply stared at me unblinkingly, longingly, her intent as obvious as it always seemed to be.

She was relentless.

I pulled my eyes off of her despite the yearning I felt deep inside of me, and rolled away from her and onto my back, allowing the butt of my rifle to fall to the earth beside my head and the barrel to rise into the air.  I looked up into the sky, draped my forearm across my forehead, and tried to push away the burning desire I felt in the pit of my stomach.  Moments later, such a task seemed all but impossible as Agrippina loomed over me, her long, blond hair pulled back behind her ears, although a few strands hung near the side of her face to dangle just above my own.

An intense sensation of déjà vu overwhelmed me at the sight of her, as though I’d seen her above me like that a million times before, as though we’d been shooting together for years, but I couldn’t place where those thoughts came from.  Additional mental images came to me then too, scenes of a woman leaning over and kissing me, me playfully tugging her onto my stomach so that she could lay on me, and scenes that followed with us rolling together playfully, occasionally accompanied by a familiar male voice that sounded extremely annoyed at our antics.  The mental montage brought a smile to my face. That simple recollection of lost memories was one of the few things that allowed me to feel real happiness in recent days.  But like always, I could never hang on to those images long enough to understand them, and it certainly didn’t help that Agrippina seemed to misinterpret my smile as I watched her lean in toward me.  I knew what she was doing and reacted instantly, lowering the arm over my forehead to cover my face.