Heart and Mind

This is a work of total fiction

We were approaching the last checkpoint and hopefully everything would work out just like the last time. Our contact was there as usual, greedy bastard, but hey what can you do, that's the price of doing business in this part of the world. Greg, my partner, stepped out of the car to do the usual 'handshake', this time the contact had asked for an extra five grand. Our package, a woman and two kids, was to be delivered to a nearby landing strip and we were already late.

They say patience is a great virtue in this business, but not everyone shares that sentiment. The woman was getting nervous which was understandable because if the soldiers found out who she was, well getting jailed for bribery would be the least of our problems. For security reasons we were not supposed to know the name of the 'package', but on this occasion they made an exception because of the urgency.

She, we'll call her Lucy, was the wife of a high level spy who had been killed a few weeks earlier and she had information, which he had given her before dying, which my superiors really wanted. Her two little girls didn't seem to care what was going on which was good because it was one less thing to worry about. Greg came back and the barrier was lifted.

'That idiot gets greedy every time I see him,' he said with disgust.

'Hey at least he doesn't bother to check what we are hauling anymore,' I replied.

'True because this one would be kind of hard to explain seeing that she's supposed to be dead,' he added with a laugh. The rest of the trip was silent punctuated with the kids asking 'are we there yet?' When we got to the strip, the pilot was waiting impatiently and when he saw us, you could see him visibly breathe a sigh of relief. We parked at the back of a shed and gathered the little belongings Lucy had.

As we approached the eight seat turboprop plane, a shot rang out followed by a scream. I turned around in time to see Greg fall, I ran towards him with my gun drawn. I screamed to Lucy to get into the plane while I helped Greg to his feet. The kids were hysterical and were crying at this point. Peter, the pilot had started the engines and had also seen Greg go down. I don't know how I got us into the plane, but by the time I secured the door, Peter was already taxing down the dirt runway.

Greg was starting to loose consciousness, and was loosing blood fast. The bullet had gone through the left side and it was a through and through so the only thing I could do was apply pressure and hope no major organ had been hit. As you can imagine I was covered in blood and no amount of dressing seemed to soak up the blood. I tried to keep him awake but he kept slipping in and out of consciousness, and by the time we landed he had stopped breathing. He hadn't said anything, just closed his eyes and let out a slow last breath.

**************

They call me Billy short for William and I come from a military family; granddad was a marine as was my dad. So as you can guess I decided to follow their footsteps straight from high school at seventeen. My dad was also special ops, what they call force recon, and had died when I was ten which left my mum to take care of me and my older sister Annie. They don't tell you how or where, they just bring you the body and some official piece of paper saying he died in the service of his country, and in his case a very hefty check which no one really explained to us kids.

My mum naturally wasn't happy with me joining because she wanted me to go to college, and didn't want me to end up dead, but my reason for joining was entirely different. I really did want to see the world, at least that's what I led myself to believe. I did see the world but not the way I expected. Right from the beginning they realized I was exceptional. Before you join they give you tests which they use to assign you after boot camp. Apparently I did really good and after boot camp was assigned to an intelligence unit.

I must have made quite an impression because two years in I was assigned to a covert ops team, which meant I reported to some shadow agency as they call them; I had crossed over to the dark side. The chain of command was always different depending on who was running the mission, but you had to get used to it. Once in while we lost a man which was sad but life had to go on and mum would light a candle every time I came back and usually would cry and hug me for a very long time. Technically I was still in the marines, but I seemed to spend less and less time with my original unit. When my enlistment ended, I wasn't even twenty one yet and I figured it was time to leave the killing to them and further my education.

Mum was happy to say the least but this was short lived. I had been home barely six month, and had even started applying to colleges, when I received a visitor. He had an offer, or more of a proposition, and it was kind of hard to pass up. Yes, I know, I was likely to end up dead, but this time I knew what I was getting into I hoped. His superiors had liked my work and wanted me to go and work for them; the pay was more than I could ever have made if I had reenlisted. And since I was no longer military, I would be playing under slightly different rules. I would find out soon enough what that meant.

Because of my military background, training was not as bad, at least the field portion the hard part were the languages. An accent could be the difference between life and death, and even though I could speak several languages, I required some 'polishing'. My 'graduation' was unceremonious because I was assigned my first mission that very day; what a buzz kill. I tried to reassure my mum but it didn't seem to work.

From that point on, I wasn't to talk about my work or where and when I came and went. But I promised to call her whenever I came back and swore her to secrecy because it was a breach of protocol. You see my superiors had to maintain deniability and if people knew who or what I did that would hard to maintain. The regulations were strict because first of all we didn't exactly report to any specific agency or boss; this made the deniability issue easy.

Regulations forbid field agents to be married, if they were or did, they were pulled from the field and given support roles. This was fine with me because I still wanted to explore the field; this turned out to be rather difficult no woman I knew would accept the secrecy and long absences. My first mission was an extraction and that was when I was first assigned to Greg. First impressions truly are important because he wasn't much to look at. We were about the same height 5'11 but he was a bit leaner and had the most deep blue eyes I'd ever seen.

We hit it off immediately because we were both quiet by nature and like typical guys conversation wasn't necessary unless we had something to say. We left for South East Asia to pick up our 'package'. The plan was to extract them to a boat off the coast of Thailand, but as expected nothing went as planned. There was a shoot out, the local cops got involved, the husband was killed, and by the time we got to the coast out pickup had already left. Fortunately there's always a back up and that was when I was really introduced to the world of covert ops.

Our backup was a submarine extraction, which in itself isn't unusual because I had been extracted this way a few times before, except this one was commanded by a woman. I'd heard about special ops 'boats' like this, but due to the secrecy surrounding them no one could confirm anything. Out package now consisted of a woman and two girls, they were settled in while we radioed our boss and told him of our situation. I figured he would be pissed since we lost the 'primary', but actually the woman was the intended package; I had to get used to this need-to-know shit.

I was exhausted and had not slept for the past two days. There's not much privacy in a sub but at that point I really didn't care and would have slept on the floor if I had to. I slept for a good six hours and didn't know what exactly woke me up but when I opened the privacy curtain, I was met by the younger of the two girls. She was just standing there and quite frankly I didn't know how she had found me. Since I didn't know her real name I decided to call her Aiko which means little love.

You see they were Japanese, but her dead dad was Chinese. I know that is a bit unusual when you consider their past histories, but love transcends all past cultural differences. Her bio said she was six years old and her sister seven. All of a sudden there was a commotion and when I stepped outside the quarters some of the crew were running around and when I asked what was up, they told me the young one was missing. I quickly told him that she was with me and to stop the search.

I took her to her mum who scolded her for giving her quite a scare, but thanked me for bringing her back. I told her not to worry too much because we were five hundred feet under water and there were not too many places for her to hide anyway. This was going to be an interesting two weeks. She took a shining to me, and this process was repeated almost daily but this time everyone knew where she was. They were both shy but her older sister whom I called Yumi was even shyer and the first few times Aiko hang out with me she wouldn't join us. But eventually she did.

They spoke fluent English thanks to private school and would draw pictures and ask me to judge them. When we landed in Hawaii, I was sad to see them go because I knew that was the last time I would ever see them. I'm not quite sure why but I decided to give Aiko my dad's dog tags which I wore for good luck. She had been interested in them since the first time we sat down to do some coloring. They wanted to stay but I had to take them aside and tell them that they were in a new place and didn't have to stay with me.

They reluctantly agreed but made me promise that I would visit and that was the last I saw them

****************************

That was fourteen years ago. Now as I watched them take Greg's body away I was angry because he had only three month left before he was to retire. He had hinted about meeting someone but when I tried to enquire, he would change the subject. My first instinct was to get back in the plane and go back to get who ever did this because I had an idea who was behind it. After debriefing I was given a month off to get my head together.

I called my mum and told her I would be coming home in a few days but she surprised me by telling me that I should go to my home, I had bought a house several years back, because she had a surprise for me. She wouldn't tell me what it was but knowing my mum I figured she had either rearranged or bought new furniture or had some landscaping work done. I decided to stick around and take care of Greg's business. His parents had died a while back which left his sister as his sole beneficiary.

A few days later, I got a package in the mail with an attorney's return address and inside were instructions on what Greg wanted me to do for him. There was an address that I was to visit, check up on a friend and deliver a package. That sounded easy but what it didn't say was who the friend was. I arrived around ten in the morning and when I knocked, a woman opened the door. She seemed to recognize me immediately even though I'd never met her. She stepped aside to let me in and that's when I saw it.

She was pregnant and I mean really pregnant my guess was she was almost about to pop. I didn't realize I was staring until I heard her giggle, 'I'm not due for another week so don't worry about me. Please have a seat I'll get you something to drink.' When I entered the living room, I realized why she had recognized me so easily. There were pictures of me and Greg in the various locations we'd been to.

'He really liked you,' she said surprising me.

'I'm sorry I didn't catch your name.'

'Oh forgive me I'm Lisa and yes he is the father.' As soon as she said that, I realized that she didn't know that he was dead and I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach because I didn't know how to tell her about his demise.

'Please sit because I have something to tell you.' I didn't have to say it because I could see tears welling up in her eyes.

'Oh my God, he's dead isn't he? How did he die? Was it painful? Did he suffer? Please tell me,' she asked with a bit of hysteria. I didn't know what to say so I just held her as she sobbed for her lover. 'He was so looking forward to the birth of his little angel,' she finally was able to say after calming down.

'I'm sure he would have been a wonderful father,' I tried to comfort her. And for the first time I had a good look at her and she was beautiful. Her brown hair was held in a neat bun and her green eyes seemed to stare right through you. I wiped away her tears and for the first time she smiled exposing a perfect set of milk white teeth.

'Please stay with me tonight,' she asked pleadingly, this took me off guard and quite frankly I didn't know what to say or do. 'Don't worry I wont bite,' she added while trying to liven the mood.

'Ok but I have to leave early in the morning,' I replied.

'That's fine with me.' And with that she opened up and told me how they met and despite his work, how they had made it work. The baby was the main reason he had decided to get out of the business after twenty years. We had lunch and I helped with the dinner which was refreshing because it had been several months since I had a home cooked meal.

That night I couldn't sleep mostly because I knew Lisa would be lonely and her baby would grow up without a dad. So I made up my mind to visit her more often and help out as much as I could. Of course there was the likelihood that things might develop between us and that concerned me because it would seem like we were cheating on Greg. I tried to brush it off because I was getting way ahead of myself and I didn't know her that well anyway.

Around midnight my door opened and in walked Lisa as quietly as she could, by instinct I sat up immediately which surprised her. She approached and sat on the bed. 'May I sleep with you? I just need someone to hold me, will you?' how the hell could I turn that down. I drew the sheets back and she slid under them and snuggled with her back to me. She wore a very thin sleeping gown which felt like she was naked.

She took my hand and placed it on her stomach and at that instant the baby kicked. It was the most intense feeling I'd ever felt, and for some reason I got an instant erection. At first I hoped she couldn't feel it seeing as her butt was sitting snug on my groin. I tried to pull back but she moved in even tighter causing my dick to push in her dress and since she didn't wear any panties I could also feel her wetness.

Every time I tried to pull back she would push down on my groin, and after a while I gave up and decided to enjoy her warmth. I felt guilty about it and decided to put an end to it. So I turned on the bedside lamp which made her turn and lay on her back.

'I can't do this, Greg was like a brother to me and he's been dead less than a week and here I'm about to have sex with his pregnant girlfriend. I'm sorry but it's not right.'

'I don't want you to have sex with me I just want to feel another body next to me. Is that such a bad thing? She asked with tears in her eyes. Now it was my turn to feel bad and I had to come up with a quick reassurance otherwise things would get a bit more emotional.

'No its not, it's just I've needs and it's been a while since I've been with a woman,' I replied with a bit of embarrassment. She sat up with a bit of difficulty and rested on the headboard, looked me in the eye pulled me to her and gave me a very soft and passionate kiss.

'Let me help you and in turn you can help me feel better,' she said after pulling back. I still had reservations and she saw the turmoil on my face.

'I'm sorry I can't.' The disappointment on her face was disheartening so I decided to try and compromise, 'I'll hold you but please don't …'

'Don't worry I understand,' she cut in. and with that we settled in and somehow I was able to sleep that night. When I woke up she was still snuggled up to me so I carefully disengaged and took a much needed piss. I quickly showered and by the time I was ready to go I woke her up and gave her the package. She looked sad but I reassured her that I would drop by in a few days to check on her. She only lived an hours from me.

I drove home with a heavy heart. I felt like I had betrayed Greg even though I didn't have sex with her. When I got home, there was a car on my driveway which looked different than my mum's or sister's at least as far as I knew. I unlocked the front door and was met by a sweet fragrance which I couldn't quite make out and there was also soft Japanese music playing.

I slowly made my way to the living room and I'd like to say that at this point, every time I came home there was always some new furniture or something that resembled furniture. You see my mum made it her objective to decorate my house and since I was seldom home; she pretty much experimented with every style you can think of. I didn't complain because for her that was the only way she felt close to me with all the traveling I did and she knew I would call and say thanks.

It had been almost three months since I'd been home so I was expecting something new, but what I saw made me stop dead on my tracks. There was no furniture, in fact all there was, was a small table about a foot high, floor mats kind of like the ones found in Japanese homes and some cushions. The walls were covered with beautiful Japanese art which was arranged around a family portrait taken two years before my dad died.

If this was my mum's surprise, well she had really outdone herself I liked it because it meant I didn't have to worry about moving anything around when I vacuumed. Then I heard a noise from the kitchen and as I was about to check it out, in walked this beautiful Japanese girl wearing only a shirt; my shirt. She was at most five feet maybe less, shoulder length black hair, black eyes and beautiful round face. I couldn't tell much about her bust size because my shirt was a few sizes bigger than her.

'Who are you?' I asked after realizing I'd been staring at her.

'Don't tell me you don't remember me Billy,' she replied. That was the second time someone had recognized me in less than 24 hours that I didn't know. I looked at her a bit closer, she did look familiar then she reached into her shirt. At first I thought she was going to pull it off, but she pulled out a silver chain with a set of dog tags. Shocked would be an understatement, and my first instinct was to grab her and ask where she got them.

'Where did you get this? No don't tell me Aiko gave them to you right?'

'Close, it's me Aiko well,' she replied with a smile.

'You are not supposed to be here, how did you find me?' I asked in a panic.

'When I turned eighteen I started looking for you, I know we are not supposed to be in contact but as long as your bosses don't know we'll be okay. Anyway I figured out that I could use the tags to track down your family. What I didn't expect was the help I got from your dads' former buddies. Long story short I was able to get your mum's number and when we met I told her why I was looking for you and she suggested I come here.'

'Wait a minute my mum sent you here? I don't believe this, you are the surprise she told me about when I called. How long have you been here?'

'About two months.'

'You did all the decorating?

'Yes your mum said you wouldn't mind since you are barely home, her words not mine.'

'Don't worry she's right. But I still don't understand, why me?' she blushed and her cheeks turned pink.