The Regiment Ch. 07: Op Tour Bonus

I think this is the end of the line for this series. I have lots more chapters sketched out but time is always short and I want to work out a few other ideas I have.

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Curtains were a luxury she didn't have in Kurdistan. As soon as the sun came up, bright-white sunlight streamed round the edges of the badly fitting blast proofing that filled the windows. Jen had never been able to decide whether this palace (small by Saddam's standards - but a palace none-the-less) had just never had them or whether they had been looted at some point in the past. In a country as hot as Iraq, it seemed unfortunate either way.

Considering the nature of the work most people in the secured perimeter were involved in, dawn was a pretty standard bedtime. The arrival of the sun lost them the advantages of night vision googles and thermal imagers that they enjoyed over the ISIS militants during the dark hours. One set of those goggles was worth tens of thousands of pounds - surely they could afford some fucking curtains?

Jen had only been asleep for a few hours but knew she could nap in the midday heat later, so rolled out of bed and took a long drink of water from the bottle by her bed, then brushed her teeth using the same water. She slept in a pair of yoga shorts and a loose t-shirt so she was nearly ready to start her day. She pulled the t-shirt off and fixed her hair back into a ponytail, using the enormous, gilt-edged mirror on one wall of the room. Why would you loot the curtains and leave that, she thought to herself? She appraised herself in the slightly dusty glass. This lifestyle suited her, she decided. She had been out in Erbil for the last 3 months. She was due to head home in another 5 weeks. A summer of sun and tough PT had her in pretty good shape. More of the same today, she thought.

She squeezed her curves into a sports bra, grabbed a towel and headed down to the gym. Any more modesty than that was unnecessary round here. In what had originally been Saddam's bowling alley, the lads had built a pretty comprehensive CV and weights area. Being underground, it was even cool enough to use when the A/C failed (which was often). A few guys were working there already, probably having just come off shift in the Ops Room. She waved to them in turn (everyone knew everyone here) but said nothing - this was a solemn room, for serious work. No one read Cosmo while on an exercise bike in this gym.

Stepping into the middle of the mats, Jen put in her headphones and did a thorough warm-up before rotating through different areas of her routine. She worked on the squat rack, did her deadlifts and pull-downs. Then she burned a few Ks on the treadmill, did some 500m sprints on the ergo and spent some time on the stair climber. She finished with a lengthy stretching session back on the matts.

Now sweating profusely, she focussed on controlling her breathing while she lay on her back, rotating her knee over to the side. She could see the guys in the gym were all following the movements of her butt as she did this. It didn't even phase her anymore as their eyes watched her toned legs stretch from side to side and her pert arse creased at the top of her thigh. As one of the few girls in the place, she had come to expect the attention. As one of girls charged with keeping the assaulters sexually satiated, she took it as a professional complement.

Jen loved being a girl in F Troop. She had been quickly moved out of the Army's mainstream units after a tryst with a senior officer had been made public, but she had found her niche when she had been offered the job of concubine to the SAS. That had been nearly a year ago and she had had a lot of fun, made some great friends and learned a LOT about herself. But she was starting to think she might have reached her limit of unlimited sex and unlimited credit cards. Out in Erbil she didn't even have that much sex - mostly she was a surrogate for the civilisation the men had left behind. She looked, talked and smelt like a piece of home as much as a piece of ass. She felt that her job was similar to that of a nurse, except that she diagnosed loneliness, anger and stress and treated them with chatting, flirting and the occasional blowjob.

She was still a soldier though. Once she was finished at the gym she went back to her room, pulled on some walking trousers and a t-shirt, then threaded the paddle-holster of her Sig 9mm pistol onto her belt. A set of ear defence, some sunglasses and a range bag completed her new ensemble. Suitably attired, she walked to the back of the palace where the Olympic-sized swimming pool had been. Now drained of water, one end was piled with earth, 20 feet high. It served as the pistol/check zero range for the Squadron. Taking advantage of the time, training and ammunition available here, Jen spent at least an hour a day running through her drills. This morning she felt particularly hot and tore up targets from arms-length to the far end of the pool.

After her morning routine she showered, ate breakfast and caught up with a few guys that had been out on a task the night before. Her general rule was that if the guys came off the helicopter and went straight to bed, she left them alone. If she found them drinking coffee on their own, or pounding the heavy bag in the gym, she interjected herself and started diagnosing problems. She solved everything this morning by listening, advising and empathising, though she did make a date to perform some pretty deviant sex acts for Tommy later in the week - she had a soft spot for Tommy.

The rest of the day, she spent reading, sunbathing or napping. At about 3pm, Lauren, the other girl from F Troop, slipped into her room. Jen was dozing in the heat of the afternoon and barely stirred as Lauren tugged down her shorts and thong before licking her to a lazy, sleepy orgasm. After Jen had gasped her way through her climax, Lauren crawled up next to her and they both fell asleep, Jen vaguely aware that her best friend smelled quite a lot like her pussy.

As the evening cooled, they stirred, as did the rest of the compound. In other rooms they could hear men waking up and prepping equipment, ready for whatever tasking they were on during the night. Jen and Lauren walked to the showers together then shared a cubicle to soap each other up. They left the shower-curtain open, as they had long since learned that the lads loved to be able to wander by and watch the two girls together. Jen barely even noticed the audience anymore as she knelt on the floor, water streaming down her arched back as she licked Lauren in return for her earlier orgasm.

Feeling much more alert, Jen got dressed again and walked to the Ops Room. When she wasn't performing her 'pastoral duties' her other task was to be the radio operator on the alternate net between 10pm and 2am. In preparation for this she had to attend the daily intelligence/operations brief. Tonight, however, as soon as she arrived in the Ops Room, the Squadron Commander and a man she didn't know pulled her aside. The Commander, a serious but surprisingly youthful major that she called 'Boss' like everyone else, introduced her to Will, an officer from the Reconnaissance Regiment.

"We've got a drama Jen, and you might be the solution." Started Will with a directness she was used to. He explained that a girl from Ops Troop was out of action and they needed someone to step up into her shoes and deploy on a tasking tonight. "There's no pressure, Jen" her Boss reassured her, "But if you do go, we'll have some of the lads on standby should there be any trouble." He gestured over his shoulder and Tommy nodded at her from the far side of the room.

"What's the job?" She asked, trying to keep her voice cool and steady.

"It's nothing pleasant, but we think you can handle it." Will said.

"Hmph." Jen stalled. "Fuck it, I'm in."

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Two hours later, Jen was fully briefed, comms were checked and weapons test fired. Will walked Jen to the Toyota Corolla, ubiquitous round here, that would help them blend in with the night-time traffic.

"We don't need you to take any unnecessary risks, but Alexei is Putin's man round here." Will said, recapping their conversation. "He is the FSB man who has been tasked with maintaining Russian influence in the area and he has a hand in all sorts of nefarious shit. Normally we handle the jihadis and MI6 deal with the Russians but they have been drawn into some nonsense across the border and have asked if we can help. In this case we can. If you can get that file from your phone, onto his, it will give us eyes and ears into everything that slippery-fucking-Russian is up to. How you do it is going to have to be played by ear, but I have heard you can think on your feet."

"Yebo, my bru!" Jen said, doing a terrible job with a South African accent. Will winced.

"I am sorry about the accent-thing. It's the best we can do at short notice. Most of the girls Alexei books are Eastern European and you could never pass yourself off as someone from his corner of the world. And you can't be British - he might find that a bit to convenient. But there are a surprising number of South African girls working the circuit. We have no reason to believe that Alexei has ever even met a 'Saffa' so even your shitty impression should convince him. Probably..."

"Lekker." She grunted in response. Jen thought spying should be a bit more professional than this but kept her opinion to herself.

They mounted up in the Toyota, Will driving and Jen in the front passenger seat. She heard the buzz from her earpiece as the helicopter carrying Tommy's quick reaction force reported that they were in the air. There was something very reassuring about that. Driving through the darkened streets of the City, Jen felt that she was in any other developing country. The Kurds kept the place functioning and it was reasonably safe. They had to pass through a half-dozen check points in the first 30 minutes of their drive. At each one, Jen kept quiet as Will bluffed his way through, pretending they were from one of the many NGOs in the area. Jen's outfit did not give them away, she was in jeans and a cotton shirt; even South African prostitutes did not travel around an Islamic country in stripper heels and mini-skirts.

Eventually they passed out of the City and into the urban/rural interface. The houses got further apart and the traffic on the roads all but disappeared. They were still about 40 minutes away from Alexei's compound when a Toyota Hiace waiting at a side-road pulled out dangerously close in front of them. One second. Will had no option but to stand on the brakes hard, bringing their car to an almost complete stop. Two seconds. Before he could steer round the blockage, a second car pulled out from some bushes behind them; they were blocked in. Three seconds. Will knew he had to ram the vehicle in front to open the road but he was still in too high a gear, having been caught unawares. Instead, he floored it in 4th gear and stalled the engine. Now they were blocked in and motionless. Four seconds. "Stand-by!" Will screamed into his radio.

As Jen pushed with her feet to straighten her body as much as possible in the seat, two men climbed out of the Hiace in front. Five seconds. Each was holding an AK and they moved with the arrogance of bullies that did not expect a fight from their victims. 'Maybe bandits, not jihadis' Jen had time to think as her hand slid over her straightened out stomach and seized the grip of her pistol. Jerking it clear of her jeans, she drove it straight in front of her, levelling the sights on the man walking towards her. She squeezed the trigger. Six seconds.

Her bullets smashed through the glass, showering fragments into her face. She ignored them and kept shooting. She felt and heard Will's pistol start blasting away at the man on his side of the vehicle. Seven seconds.

Silence.

She slipped down into the footwell of the car and changed magazine. Will was already out of his door and moving towards the car behind them. Jen was covering him in a flash. The driver's door was open and the glow of headlights illuminated a figure, holding another AK, running off through the scrubland, away from the road. Seemingly from nowhere, Tommy's helicopter came low over them, crabbing slightly sideways so one of the passengers could fire three or four shots that dropped the running figure into the dirt.

Jen moved forward to secure the Hiace, checking both of the well-perforated bodies were not presenting a threat any longer. Once it was obvious they were safe, Jen holstered her pistol and started unloading the AKs.

Shortly afterwards, Tommy and his team jogged out of the darkness from where their helicopter had unloaded them. The four of them, bearded and strapped with body armour and weapons were a fearsome sight, but from the way they regarded Jen, it was clear that she was the one commanding the respect. "Come on love," Tommy said kindly, "Let's get you on the helo and back to the Palace. You'll not be visiting Alexei in that." He gestured the two neat clusters of bullet holes in the windscreen of the Corolla.

"No, but I will get there just fine in that." She said, pointing to the car that had pulled up behind them, engine still idling.

"Are you sure?" Asked Will with a questioning look.

"Sure." Said Jen, jumping into the passenger seat. "Come on, pussy." She chided.

Leaving Tommy to load the bodies into the Hiace and do... something with them and the other car, Will and Jen drove the rest of the way to Alexei's without incident. As they were rounding the final few corners, Jen took her radio, earpiece and pistol and tucked them all into the glove compartment. Using the driver's mirror, she combed the shattered glass out of her hair and got her game face on (her game face being red lipstick and a touch more eye shadow).

"We're here." Said Will.

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Jen was shown into a bedroom by a burly Slavic man of few words who left her alone with barely a grunt. She sat on the edge of the bed sipping the wine she had been offered on arrival. The room was clean, tidy (perhaps obsessively so) and nicely furnished, with an imposing four-poster bed in the centre. The windows were covered with thick, expensive looking curtains. 'Show off' she thought to herself. She waited, alone, for a few minutes until the door opened and a man with slick, dark hair stepped in. Slick was the word for him. Not only was his hair slick, but so was his slimly fitting suit, tie, movements and even his voice as he introduced himself as Alexei in clear, but accented English.

He was handsome in an 'young-Andy-Garcia' kind of way, and he smelled exquisite; vanilla and spice. But his eyes were cold and he had a detached way of looking at her. His was the look of a hunter regarding a doe, or maybe a surgeon looking at an unconscious patient on an operating table. Jen felt a small shiver of fear up her back. She responded and introduced herself, using her real first name - it would keep everything simple later on. She did initially forget to do the South African accent so she had to slowly introduce it over the course of the sentence. She wasn't sure she was going to make much of a spy.

He asked her where she was from and they had a brief conversation about Cape Town. It turned out he had visited South Africa several times and knew the City. 'For fuck's sake,' thought Jen; she was going to kill Will when she got out of here. Luckily, she had been there on holiday once and had many 'Saffa' friends so she was able to hold her own while bluffing but it was another unpleasant reminder of how half-cocked this whole scheme was.

"Your agency has told you my preferences? Yes?" Alexei asked, coolly getting down to business.

"Err, not exactly. I picked this up last minute." Jen answered, 100% truthfully.

"Not to worry." He said drily. "All I require of you is 100% obedience. As long as you do absolutely everything I say, exactly when I say it, you will please me and we will have no problems."

"Oookay," replied Jen, "what if I do not want to do something? Are you going to punish me?" Jen didn't mind things getting a little rough, but this guy sounded like a total control freak - she needed to know how much-wriggle room she had.

"Fear not, my little one," he said patronisingly "I am definitely going to punish you. Even if you meet me every command. It is in your endurance of punishment that you will please me. If there is something you do not wish to do, then I suggest you leave now. Once we get started, I will have little mercy."

'For fuck's sake' Jen thought again. This guy was Christian Grey-ski, Russian pervert and secret agent. Jen had no desire to turn her tender flesh over to this sociopath, but at the same time she knew that she could hardly complete the objective if she didn't. She barely even hesitated. 'Fuck it' she said once more in her head.

Jen stood up from the bed, walked towards Alexei, fixing him with her eyes and leaned in to kiss his cheek. "Don't be gentle." She whispered.

He actually smiled at that. "Do not worry little one. I never am." And with that he grabbed her shirt in both hands and ripped it open, scattering buttons onto the floor. Suitably surprised, Jen stepped backward but he was already moving forward. Alexei gripped her by the neck and pushed her back to the window. He grabbed one of the curtain tie-backs; made of soft, silky rope, deep red in colour. Using her throat to steer her, he brought them to the corner of the four-poster bed and pushed her against the upright. Releasing his grip on her, he quickly made a larks-head knot which he slipped her wrists through then showed his strength by pulling her upwards and looping the other end over the top of the bed post. When the rope took her weight, Jen found that she could stand, but only on tiptoes. She hung there, breathing hard.

Alexei, completely un-ruffled by the exertion, stepped back to admire her. He pursed his lips as he took her in from head to toe. By pulling her to her full height, he made her stomach completely concave, while her bra-covered breasts were thrust forwards. Jen felt like she was a lot at an auction. When he had finished appraising her, he took off his suit jacket and hung it on a hanger on the back of the door. He then undid his cufflinks and rolled his sleeves up a few turns. Strong looking forearms showed from under the brilliant white cotton. He reached into his trouser pocket and produced a knife that clicked loudly as it opened.

Jen stared at it, sure that if her South African accent had not been convincing, she was about to find out. But mercifully (!?) he used its razor-sharpness to slice though each strap of her bra and then tug it from her body. With a slight bounce, her tits came free. This held his attention for a long moment. He placed the knife away and then gently cupped each breast simultaneously, pushing them up and together- nipples prominent. Then her leant his head forward and bit her, hard, leaving teeth-marks on the soft skin of her breast. Jen yelped in surprise and pain. Alexei straightened up, retrieved his knife and removed her shirt with a few more, precise cuts.

"You are different, Jen." Alexei said, stepping back again. "Most girls are terrified of me, or are so coked up they are incapable of fear. You are capable of it, you show it in your eyes sometimes, but you choose not to give in to it. This is very rare. And with such rare beauty as well..." He trailed off. "Because you are different, I will treat you differently. My aim will be to take you with me on this journey. Hopefully I can teach you about yourself."

'Great,' thought Jen, 50-Shades-of-Grey-Goose was taking a shine to her. Did this mean he was going to go easier or harder on her? She had a partial answer when he grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around. She watched from the corner of her eye as he pulled the flex out of the phone and made himself a whip, a few feet long. 'Shit.' Thought Jen.