The Protector
THE PROTECTOR
To Mother and Father;
to my Stash, my Knight,
and Mike, my Ranger Buddy,
the ultimate protector
Beer in hand, Jazz leaned back against the sticky wooden…
Vivi’s back hurt. It wasn’t easy to hunch with the…
Vivi didn’t want to be swayed by Lieutenant Zola Zeringue’s…
Jazz was a Cajun boy, brought up in the bayou…
Jazz caught the fleeting sadness in Vivi’s expression as she…
Vivi wondered what Jazz was thinking. He had shown neither…
Jazz wasn’t a male chauvinist. Far from it. His maman…
Vivi had picked this particular café because of its dim…
Whatever this GEM outfit was, their Intel was impressively detailed.
Vivi looked around the busy restaurant for her superior. As…
There was nothing wrong with acting like a fool once…
Jazz studied the woman. She was tall and blond, mid-thirties,…
Jazz examined the Dan Nhat in his lap, running his…
Conflict resolution, navy SEALs style. That was the team’s private…
Special operations was filled with missions on-the-fly. Shit happened and…
The distant low rumble of vehicles was heard first. Jazz…
The road was dusty and filled with potholes, and every…
Vivi looked at Jazz’s face in the dark. He was…
Vivi opened her eyes slowly. She’d just had the most…
“This is very unprofessional, you know,” Vivi commented as she…
Jazz had never hiked with a woman this long before.
In spite of her aversion to military talk and political…
Vivi burst into Juliana’s office without knocking, barely containing her…
Jazz glanced at Vivi several times as he drove. She…
“Come on,” Hawk said. “Let’s go.”
“Get out!”
“We can’t tell whether this is all there are,” Zone…
The room back at the compound wasn’t really that small,…
Beer in hand, Jazz leaned back against the sticky
wooden counter and surveyed his men and a bunch of other military outfits having their version of civilized fun. Who cared that half the guys here had dried blood on their clothes? Or that some had weapons out in the open?
After a week toting submachine guns and C-4 around in a hot jungle in Southeast Asia, his team had netted twenty-two kills without a single casualty. Twenty-two lives gone and three government hostages freed. They had disappeared back into the darkness when the expected “aid” had arrived to clean up. Such was the nature of covert operations. All the fighting and none of the glory. Now, as they relaxed in this little bar, it wasn’t easy putting back the thin veneer of humanity. Most of the boys didn’t even bother. Who cared in a noisy, flashy bar this side of civilization?
Jazz crossed his legs and took a long swig from his bottle. He was tired, but this was as good a place as any to hang out until their ride arrived. He and his team had just finished a bloody battle with a gang of drug lords who were holding some local officials hostage. The drug lords, however, were revered as rebels by the locals, and the government didn’t want to be the ones to get their own.
So let’s send in those crazy Americans, thought Jazz cyn
ically as he took another swig. Those stupid commandos would go in where no other governing body would. Operation Kum Quat. The little golden fruits. He had no idea why it was called that until he saw the “lords.” He shook his head and finished his beer, setting the bottle on the bar counter. A fresh ice-cold one appeared immediately, and he twisted the cap open.
He shook his head again, trying to clear the image of the two little boys with fat cigars in their mouths, carrying small Uzis like pros. They had been sitting on some sort of double throne, passing judgment on the captives when Jazz and his men surrounded their hideout.
Unfuckingbelievable
, Cucumber had whispered into his radio mouthpiece. Jazz couldn’t have agreed more. Here they were—eight SEALs, trained to operate in the deadliest of situations—and they had to deal with two kids who didn’t look older than ten or eleven. Except they weren’t two ordinary kids. One of them had pointed his weapon casually at the first prisoner, and before anyone could move, the captive was dead.
That was when Jazz put aside the thought that those were kids. Their operation was to extract the hostages, and one of them had just been eliminated. No time. The command had come over his helmet intercom and the battle began…
Jazz finished his second beer, looking around again to check on his men. Cucumber and Mink were relaxing by the piano. Crazy guys had their Hollywood sunglasses on. They had gone to D.C. to do some un-koshered favor for Hawk and his cousin Steve McMillan, and Steve’s girlfriend had given them to the boys later. They even got a pair for him. Hawk was talking to some chick in the corner. Of course, no surprise there; he was a chick magnet.
As if he knew he was being watched, Hawk turned his head to meet his eyes, a silent question between cocommanders. Jazz shrugged. Everything was A-OK. Hawk shrugged back and returned his attention to the female.
His other men were sitting quietly conversing by the door.
Two of them had volunteered not to drink tonight—their job was to sit by the entrance and to be alert for anything. They were in a strange land, after all, and not everyone was friendly to Westerners here, only to the almighty American Dollar.
There were other soldiers around, mostly Americans, and they had given Jazz and his men little attention since they’d strolled in separate small groups into the bar. Their mission was completed, they had no need to draw attention to themselves, except as regular military personnel out having a good time…with blood on their clothes.
Jazz downed his beer. Another one slid down the counter. He didn’t even glance at the bartender as he caught the beer bottle with one hand. What he needed was a good buzz. He wanted to wipe out the jungle scene in his head. Maybe they would have a few days of down time before the next job. Just…him and his dog, if possible.
“Yo, Jazz, we need some tunes!” Cucumber yelled out.
“Yeah, come over here and give us some of your blues, man!” Mink encouraged, waving his beer bottle in the air.
Jazz grinned. The two men looked ridiculous in their sunglasses as they executed a series of Blues Brothers moves. These were his brothers-in-arms, celebrating the fact that they were still alive. He uncrossed his leg and sauntered to the corner of the dark bar. The guy at the piano stood up, waving him the rights to the seat. Obviously, Cucumber and Mink had told him that Jazz was the entertainment tonight.
Jazz sat down and looked at the yellowed keys of the piano, automatically testing some chords. Someone at the bar liked music, obviously. The piano had been recently tuned.
He took another long swallow of beer and smacked his lips. A big smile surfaced as he glanced at the expectant faces of the men standing around the piano. Boys would be boys. And military boys, fresh from combat, the smell of jungle still in their hair and clothes, in need of a shave and a hot shower, always needed entertainment.
He cracked his fingers exaggeratedly and waggled his eyebrows. “Blues, eh?” he asked. “My specialty, as you know.”
Cucumber leaned a big arm on Mink’s shoulder and pretended to play a harmonica, giving the standard beginning chords of a blues tune. “That’s right, Jazz-man…we wanna hear the bluuuuueeeeeees…” he howled the last note out. Mink joined in.
Jazz repeated the beginning blue chords and sang without prompting. Blues had always been his favorite kind of music, right from the soul. The words came naturally.
“I was wearing a pair of white shoes,
I said, I was wearing a pair of white shoes…
Now they’re bloody black and sooooo uncool
You don’t track in the jungle in no white shoes
You stupid bloody fool…
Bloody black and sooooo uncool
And that’s why I’m siiinging the bluuuues…. yeah…”
Used to singing and making up silly songs from their years together in training and field work, Cucumber and Mink dutifully repeated the refrain and added their own dirtier versions, about women and white shoes, about drinking and white shoes, about anything and white shoes. None of them brought up the reason, which were what those kids in the jungle were wearing.
As Cucumber and Mink jived, heads bobbing to the rhythm, sunglasses sliding down their noses, a commotion in the far corner of the room caught Jazz’s attention. He continued pounding the keys as he gazed across the bar.
Two men had a woman cornered against the dirty wall. There was another man holding her arm, stopping her as she backed away. She shook her head vigorously, and the man who had her captive smacked the side of her head. She immediately stopped struggling, standing there passively as the other two men started touching her.
Jazz stopped playing. Pushed back his chair. Stood up.
As he approached the group, he noticed three other women cowering on a bench against the far wall. He hadn’t noticed them before since his back was to them and they sat out of sight behind the wooden bar. There was a doorway next to the bench, with a dirty flowery plastic curtain partially open. Every bar had such a side entrance. They led into dark hallways with small cubicles that contained nothing more than a mattress and an oil-lamp.
“What’s the matter, babe? Let me take care of you!” one of the two men crooned.
Jazz didn’t need an explanation of what was going on. It was always the same. Soldiers, professional or mercenaries, attracted certain types of businesses at the edge of civilization. There were always alcohol and gambling. And there were always women.
It was the uncivilized part of being a soldier that no one actually talked about. One could boast of how many kills one had gotten in the field. One could tell the story of all the blood and gore he’d seen. But other than among themselves, most soldiers left out the chapters and verses of the dirty fights and drinking bouts, the lack of humanity and manners, and the use of female flesh, when they went home. They were things soldiers just didn’t tell their girlfriends and wives.
Jazz walked around a table, passing Hawk and his girl nearby. Hawk made a gesture with two fingers, a secret signal to tell him he would back him, if needed. Jazz nodded slightly. Hawk seldom interfered with anything unless he had to, but he was usually the one to drop everything to help his buddies out.
Jazz stared at the two men wearing camouflage clothes, still oblivious to his approach. They weren’t SEALs and didn’t look as if they belonged to any special operations from any military branch. He could usually spot the highly trained ones, Americans or foreigners alike. He visually checked them for weapons, lengthening his strides now that he was nearer.
“Come on, baby, don’t be shy. See? GI give you money to buy pretty clothes.” The man, with a slurred speech, had an American accent.
It never failed to disgust Jazz, though, no matter how many times he’d witnessed it. Girls—barely women—being used by drunken men who had no right to touch them. Most of them caught in a life of poverty, sold by their parents, and unable to escape. From the beginning, he had been briefed about this horror, that some countries allowed this, and had been ordered not to interfere with the cultural aspects of any foreign countries unless directed by his superiors.
Most of the time, he had learned to ignore it. His unit consisted of men trained by Admiral Madison, commander of STAR Force, the “black operations” SEAL team, and they had never caroused with women too young for them, or Jazz would have something to say about that. But this week he had seen too many children playing grown-ups. He didn’t care about protocol anymore. Hell, he was going to break the arm of the asshole who cuffed that girl.
He was close enough to see the fear in the girl’s eyes as she stared at the two tall men groping her. She was also obviously afraid of the man who’d hit her—a local, probably one of the bar owners—lowering her eyes when he barked sharply at her again in her native tongue. He was small, slightly a bit over five feet tall, but he had a strong build and big fists.
One of the men—sleazebags, Jazz corrected as he noted the girl’s youth—reached out to touch the girl’s face, and she backed into the wall, shaking her head. The man holding her pulled her back, at the same time lifting his hand.
“I don’t think so.” Jazz easily grabbed the short man’s wrist. Despite his height disadvantage, the other man’s arm was hard and strong.
The little man’s beady eyes looked him over. “GI want this one, too?” He waved at the other three girls in the corner. “Lots of women, no need to fight!”
They were all too young to be women. One of them didn’t seem afraid as she posed in an incongruously adult manner
and smiled seductively up at him. Her eyes were bright and bold, studying Jazz’s body as if he was naked already. “GI, take me. Me number one,” she said in broken English, meaning she was the best. She glanced dismissively at the cowering girl between the two men, and added, “She number ten, no good, not know how to please GI.”
Jazz barely paid attention to the second girl. He had met many like her, young girls who had given themselves to prostitution, and had accepted the way of life as a means to buying material things. In spite of her age, there was nothing innocent or youthful about her attitude. In this world, she could take care of herself.
He was here to make sure the first girl wasn’t forced to do anything she didn’t want. Tears ran down her cheeks as she stood there, watching the two men and him.
“Listen man, we saw her first. You pick somebody else.”
“Yes, GI,” said the local man, tugging at the wrist Jazz still held. “No need to fight.”
Jazz released him. Leaning forward, he tipped up the girl’s face so she had to look at him. “Do you want to go with them?” he asked softly.
There was surprise and panic in her big brown eyes, and then she shook her head. She flinched away from the man holding her arm, expecting another blow, but Jazz had already warned him with his eyes. He straightened, turned to the two men.
“Sorry, boys. The young lady said no,” he informed them.
“This is none of your business, man. We’re paying extra for a cherry, so fuck off,” the bigger of the two said. He stepped forward and gave Jazz a push.
“No fight! No fight!” the diminutive owner yelled. “You fight, you get out.”
“Aww shit, Rob, just pay for another and let’s get some girlie action,” the other soldier said, his speech slurred from alcohol. “Don’t need no cherry, man. Let’s take that babe who’s all hot over there. And that other one.”
He gestured at the girl who had spoken up, and she imme
diately stood up and tugged at the hand of one her companions. Jazz was sickened at her eager smile as she almost ran to them, pulling along the very young girl. They reminded him of the kids from last night.
“Yes, yes, GI number one. My sister and me, number one, number one!”
The men waved dollar bills at the owner. The pimp nodded. “Pay inside and girl show you room,” he said. After they went through the curtained door, he turned to Jazz, a crafty look in his eyes. “You take this one?”
Jazz didn’t want to, but he knew the girl would be going with the next customer. In his heart he knew he couldn’t save her from her fate, but he was damned if he didn’t save her now. Tonight. Maybe even tomorrow, if he had enough money. A reprieve was a reprieve.
“Name the price,” he said.
The asking price for a virgin was higher but with the exchange rate as it was, every soldier was equivalent to a millionaire in these parts.
“Hawk?” he called softly, not wanting to cause any more attention than necessary. After last night’s bloody battle, he wanted to help a real child.
“Yeah.”
“Give me some money.”
Hawk stuffed some notes into his open hand. Jazz pulled out what he had in his breast pocket. There was enough to keep the girl out of sight for forty hours, at most, but he had to do this. Showing the cash he had, he lifted an inquiring eyebrow. “Two days,” he bargained.