Savages Recruit (20 page)

Zora was pretty impressed, she wasn't entirely sure what the plan was, Savage had told her to go along with things and she was happy to do so. It wasn't as if it made much difference to her either way, she still didn't understand half the things the team said to one another when they slipped into military jargon.

“This mission is going to fail,” Anja muttered from the bunk next to Zora's. The young woman was clothed in a skin tight tank top that made the most of her pert bosom and shapely waist and the jeans she wore were almost tight enough to allow a casual onlooker to perform a cavity search at a glance. She was speaking softly to Archie, but Zora had decent enough hearing and she was particularly tuned into Anja. The woman had been scowling and pouting since Savage had been released from the medical ward and Zora was waiting for the outburst she just knew would be coming.

“Shut up, Anja,” Zora piped up. She'd dressed more conservatively, in a black hooded jumper and equally black jeans which were new, but already scuffed at the bottom because the jeans were longer than her legs were.

It was the opening Anja had been looking for. “You shut up, you little slut.” She turned towards Zora with aggressive vehemence that made Zora recoil. She remembered all too well what it felt like to be slugged by the tall blonde and she was not keen to repeat the experience. “She's fucking Savage, you know that?” Anja dropped the bombshell gleefully. “I heard them in the ward.”

Steve and Tank stopped what they were doing and looked up at Anja, saying nothing. The silent men did not appear surprised, though Zora was sure that the atmosphere had just gotten a lot more chilly. “That's right. He's going to take us into enemy territory and risk our lives on the slapper he's sleeping with,” Anja crowed.

A low growl emerged from Zora. It was one thing to be afraid of Anja, it was quite another to sit there as the bitch tore her and Savage down. “If you don't trust him, why don't you get yourself transferred?”

“I follow orders and do as I'm told, unlike some people,” Anja shot back.

“But you whine about it like a little girl,” Zora replied, a sneer firmly established on her face. The younger woman's constant hostility was coming to a head where Zora was concerned. Sooner or later, one of them was going to have to go – and Zora was certain it wouldn't be her.

“Anja, please.” Brian interjected from behind a pair of oversized yellow rimmed shades. He was stretched out on one of the bottom bunks and until he'd opened his mouth, Zora had thought he was sleeping. Always soft spoken, Brian was none the less the ranking officer in the room, at least, Zora was pretty sure he was. She hadn't been paying as much attention as she should have done to the badges and stars and stripes and whatnot, but Savage delegated everything to Brian and the others seemed to salute him an awful lot. At Brian's soft command,  Anja settled into a disgruntled silence.

As it turned out, the blonde was lucky Brian had spoken up when he did, for heavy footsteps crunched on the gravel outside the barracks, announcing the Captain's arrival. “Right,” Savage pushed the door open and poked his handsome head inside. “Let's go.”

That was it. That was the order that had them clambering off the bunks, gathering their packs and making their way out into the night toward the jeep that would transport them all to the air field. Zora had expected more fanfare, more standing to attention, more stirring speeches, but that obviously wasn't Savage's style.

She followed along, carried by the momentum of the others, hardly believing that they were off to foil a dastardly terrorist plot. This was the moment she had feared from the moment Savage had told her what was required of her, but it all seemed so very mundane that she hardly felt any fear at all. Yes, there was a certain bubbling of anxiety, but nothing like the paralyzing force she'd worried about.

In spite of the intimacies they'd so recently shared, Savage didn't shower her with attention as they rode towards the field. She didn't blame him, even a peck on the cheek would probably make Anja's silly head explode. Still Zora glanced at him often for reassurance. He was all business, entirely composed, and remarkably, showing no signs of the stress and tension that had pervaded the team in the barracks. In moments like these, it was easy to see how Savage had risen through the ranks. He still had a bandage across the bridge of his nose and there was a distinct black ring under his eye, but he was still a commanding presence. He too was in civilian clothing, wearing a checkered shirt tucked into a belted pair of blue jeans. His feet were shod in stylish, but functional boots. All he needed was a cowboy hat to complete the image, Zora thought, grinning to herself as she wondered how Savage would fare with a lasso.

He'd probably be quite good at it. He was good at everything else. She closed her eyes and imagined that her arms were tied behind her, bound at the wrists with rough rope. In her day dream, Savage was in front of her, entirely shirtless, his muscular torso tanned under the harsh southern sun. He held the end of the rope and pulled it between her thighs, rough pressure settling across her clit where the seam of her jeans just so happened to rub...

“Eyes open, soldier!” Savage nudged her back to reality. Her cowboy fantasies were cut abruptly short as they reached the airfield and drove up onto the tarmac next to a plane that seemed to Zora to be as big as an office block laying on its side. There were uniformed soldiers all around it, preparing it for take off. It sat placidly in the middle all the activity, indifferent to the puny humans working frantically to get it off the ground in time. It was large and rather rotund, built for carrying things long distances, not for quick maneuvers and aggressive missions. Viewed from certain angles, it was almost friendly looking with its snub nose and round belly.

“C-17 Globemaster III,” Archie beamed as they all clambered out of the truck. “These things are awesome.”

Zora tried to share some of his enthusiasm and she almost managed it, until she climbed up the ramp at the back of the plane and into the belly of the beast. The friendly image was entirely lost once she attained the interior of the plane. Unlike a commercial liner outfitted with plastic paneling and nice soft seats and opaque grilled lighting, the interior of the Globemaster was cavernous and Spartan in appearance. There were metal struts and grilles all over the show and in the middle of the plane were three late model automobiles in bland colors, two cars and one van strapped down quite nonchalantly as if they flew all the time. This was a functional plane. This was a plane meant to do things. This was not a plane that took you to a lovely holiday destination, this was a plane that tossed you out the back of it without bothering to land first.

Zora felt her heart begin to race. There was no going back now. Her stomach lurched up into her throat, her mouth was suddenly dry. The team were obediently taking their places, strapping themselves into the bench seats and harnesses along the side of the plane, but Zora stalled, looking wistfully at the large ramp that lead down onto the ground, safe, lovely ground.

“Come on,” Savage said, placing his hand on the back of her neck and steering her towards a spare seat. She wanted to scream and cry like a baby, but she was too embarrassed to do so in front of the team, especially in front of Anja, so she settled for merely wringing her hands and gnawing at her fingernails as Savage pressed her down into a seat next to Brian and strapped her in. “Relax, kid,” he winked at her. She gave him a weak smile. There was nothing to be relaxed about, nothing at all. She'd just been strapped into a flying warehouse.

When Savage sat next to her, she felt a little bit better. Between Savage and Brian she was as protected as she was going to get, but still the butterflies weren't going away. They grew worse as the tail of the aircraft was closed and the engines were warmed up. The noise of the massive engines as they began to turn was outrageous and she covered her ears, ignoring Anja's smirk as the walls of the plane vibrated.

It wasn't much better when the plane started trundling heavily towards the runway, quickly gathering speed. To Zora's credit, she resisted the urge to scream as the massive beast of a machine hurtled down the runway and took to the air with an uncomfortable, weightless lurch that made her stomach rise once more.

“You okay?” Savage almost yelled the words in her ear to be heard over the nose of the engines. She shook her head. She was not okay. She was not okay at all. She was going to be sick. She was going to pass out from panic and fear. The plane jolted roughly as it hit a patch of turbulence and even breathing became difficult for Zora. She clutched at Savage's arm tight enough to leave marks and whimpered, a small sound lost in the powerful droning of the plane.

Savage made some comforting noises, but she couldn't hear him as the plane battled through rough patches of air, bumping about like a boat on the high seas. Closing her eyes tightly, Zora prayed that she'd survive the flight. She was no longer worried about terrorists.

As the plane reached its cruising altitude, the turbulence lessened significantly and Zora was able to open her eyes and let go of Savage's arm. “See, you're fine,” Savage murmured against her ear, stroking her hair with comforting swipes of his large hand.

“If she can't handle take off, how's she going to handle the mission?” Anja's snide tones floated across the creaking metal.

“Anja!” Savage roared with a burst of anger that took everyone, including Zora, by surprise. “Shut your damn mouth. If I hear another word out of you before we land – I'll give you something else to occupy it.”

The look of confusion on his face as Tank burst into laughter, followed by Archie and Brian made it clear that Savage hadn't quite worked out how what he'd said would sound before he said it. Anja blushed bright red and even Zora snickered at the unintended innuendo.

“I meant a gag or something,” he explained halfheartedly, seeming to know all too well that nobody cared what he'd meant. Their version of events was far more interesting.

Giggling to herself, Zora snuggled up against his side, feeling much better. The plane was still vibrating with the ongoing hum of the engines, but she figured that was probably preferable to the engines not being on. “You liked that did you?” Savage looked down at her with a smirk on his face.

“It did paint quite a picture,” she grinned up at him.

“I would have thought it would make you jealous, not giggly like a school girl,” he said, tweaking her nose.

“Me? Jealous of Anja? Never,” Zora smiled. She had once been quite concerned about the pretty blonde, but she really didn't feel all that jealous of Anja anymore. She was quite certain Savage had never confessed feelings to Anja, and she was even more certain that Anja had never known what it was like to be taken by Savage's powerful body. Zora squirmed as she remembered what it had felt like to have him inside her, his thickness propelled by muscles hardened from years of daring deeds.

“Brat,” Savage rumbled comfortingly, tussling her hair. Zora smiled and dared to stretch her legs out in front of her. They'd been clenched during take off and even the simple act of straightening them released a lot of the tension she'd been holding in her body.

It was a long flight, over ten hours. At some point Zora stopped being afraid that the plane was going to drop out of the sky and managed to actually fall asleep, her head resting against Savage's shoulder. She didn't wake up until the plane began to descend for landing. The descent was not nearly as dramatic as take off had been, and before long, they were on the ground. Zora let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding as the tail of the plane opened in the disconcerting way it had and the incongruous scent of flowers and sunlight filtered into the interior.

They had departed the US in the depths of night, but it was day time where they'd landed. Savage helped her unstrap herself and Zora was soon emerging into a warm, sunny day in the middle of nowhere. She looked around in confusion, expecting a military air field, but they had landed at a small airstrip that was little more than a paved asphalt surface lacking the most basic of amenities. There were no terminals, no control towers, nothing. In the distance were some houses that indicated human inhabitants, but that was it.

“Where are we?” She turned to Savage, confusion written all over her face.

“Metaxades, it's a small village.”

“Metaxades? Sounds...”

“Greek, we're in Greece,” Savage grinned, looking like a small boy very much pleased with himself. He stretched in the sun, the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up and the light sheen of sweat on his muscular forearms made them gleam powerfully. Zora felt a low bolt of arousal shoot through her abdomen. Even when she was feeling utterly lost in a strange country, he was capable of distracting her with his mere existence.

“I thought it was Bulgarians we were after?” Her brows crumpled towards her nose.

“The border between Bulgaria and Greece is to the West,” Savage pointed in the general direction of the West, a motion that brought his muscles to Zora's attention once more.

Squinting her eyes, Zora could only see farm land and beyond that, a glistening river.  “I don't see a border.”

“The Nestos is the border. That's the river.”

“Oh. So we're going to have to swim for it?”

“Not quite,” Savage smiled. They were very much engaged in the mission now, and yet Savage was nothing like Zora had expected him to be. The build up to the mission had been fraught with terrible tension and utmost seriousness, but now the big man was entirely at ease. He clapped her on the back heartily and turned towards the rest of the team. “Are we ready?”

They weren't ready. Archie, Steve and Brian had gone for the vehicles. Everybody stood back as they were started and driven convoy style out of the plane, a sight that Zora still found rather strange and unsettling.

“Here's the plan,” Savage took a moment to brief Zora privately in simple words she'd understand. At one time she might have found it condescending, but now she was glad he dispensed with the military talk that tended to make her nervous and confused. “The crew will take the plane, we'll take the cars and drive across the border posing as tourists.”