The Last Roman (The Praetorian Series - Book I)

  VII

  Claudius

  Rome, Italy

  October, 37 AD

  In all honesty, the two weeks turned out to be one of the most relaxing fortnights of my life.

  The food provided was better, we were given cleaner and more comfortable sleeping accommodations, the Praetorians were much more casual around us, and we were invited to dine with Caligula himself on a few occasions. It was also the only time I could remember ever having a two week furlough without the risk of being spontaneously summoned by the Navy. The longest leave I’d ever had since the war began, the time recovering from my wounds notwithstanding, was five days, and that was to pay my respects after my mother’s passing, and included travel time.

  The best part though, was that we were finally allowed full access to the entire city of Rome and at the start of every day, Helena and I would go for a morning jog. We took it easy at first, rehabilitating her leg and ankle with walks and light jogs. Helena still had a bit of a limp, even by the end of the second week, but she was getting stronger. By the end of the first week, while not quick, she was nimble enough that she and I could sneak away from our Praetorian escorts.

  Once away from their watchful eyes, we’d wander around the city for a few hours every morning, becoming as familiar with its narrow corridors and back alleys as its residents became with us. Wearing our combat boots, shorts that hung above the knees and loose shirts, we stood out like a sore thumb.

  Over the course of a few days, I noticed a few women gathering together on a street corner, giggling and pointing as I ran by. Their numbers grew as the days went on, and I always made sure to smile as goofy a smile I could and wave. Some of them were fairly attractive, and if not for my overly protective and combative swim buddy, I may have made a pass at one or two of them. As we made our way around their corner, Helena would always glare at me, quite the hypocrite since she didn’t have a problem with any of the guys who ogled her, of which there were, of course, many.

  Vanity aside, our runs were really just a good way to pass the time. With little else to do after our daily calisthenics, Helena and I would head to those public baths I’d been dreaming about earlier, but we always kept our distance from each other, hoping to avoid any inevitable awkwardness. After a scrub down with scented oils, and a quick dip in warm water followed by cool water, we’d rendezvous at the entrance and head back to our small building.

  The rest of the team would be there, but not for long. We spent plenty of time in each other’s company throughout the day, but everyone went out to explore the city at one point or another. Generally, we all made it a point to gather for lunch, dinner, and Latin 101, but other than that, the day was ours. After dinner, Helena and I would head out and admire the sights again, continuing our exploration. I always brought my camera along and took pictures that would have had historians back home drooling all over themselves.

  Occasionally, Santino would join us - “chaperoning” as he put it.

  The truth is, despite his antics, charm, and pleasing disposition, Santino didn’t really fit in. Surprise, surprise. Most people could only take him in small doses, but I loved being around him. We jelled wonderfully.

  Besides, Wang wasn’t really in the mood for jokes yet, Vincent had to remain distant from the rest of us, and while Bordeaux had a good sense of humor, Santino didn’t dare cross the big Frenchman. That left just Helena and me, which was fine by me.

  Helena, on the other hand, was as uptight as they came around people like him, which only gave us the openings we needed to really piss her off. It didn’t take her too long before she realized it was all in good fun, and began a practice of slugging me in the arm to deal with her annoyances. Girls always thought it was cute to punch guys in the arm, but I never understood what was so fun about it. I didn’t mind too much, as long as she stayed away from my face.

  Her childish antics notwithstanding, on the twelfth day of our vacation, I finally found the nerve to tell her my “nurse” story. I was starting to feel like I could truly trust her, and even though I’d been hesitant before, it was a story I’d been longing to get off my chest since the day it ended between the nurse and I. So, as we sat on the Capitoline Hill, with the Temple of Jupiter behind us and the Tiber River running south in front of us, I recounted my sad story.

  With my first words, stating bluntly that the nurse who’d taken care of me happened to be very attractive, Helena rolled her eyes and turned away. We were seated on a low wall, with our feet dangling beneath us, a thirty foot drop below that. She used her position to kick my knee.

  But not that hard.

  “If this is going to be one of those ‘wild romps in the nurses’ ward’ stories,” she said in annoyance, “I’d rather not hear it. I’ve had enough of that from Santino.”

  “It isn’t,” I said quietly, but she folded her arms in doubt anyway.

  When I began the story, her interest level seemed low, but as the story slowly developed, just as it had in my head back on the HMS Triumph, her attention started to grow. Her look of disinterest quickly softened, to be replaced by one of concern, and something else I couldn’t quite place. She seemed surprised at how close I’d grown with the nurse, and almost shocked at the revelation that I’d thought about proposing.

  As I completed the story, just as the nurse and I had failed to find words as we parted, Helena and I couldn’t find any as well. But again, just like the nurse, it was Helena who spoke first.

  “What was her name?”

  It took me a moment to answer. “Cassandra.”

  Helena paused a moment, giving me a chance to recover from the very personal story. She took my hand in her own and gave it a slight squeeze. “If it’s worth anything, Jacob, I think you handled the situation as well as anyone could have. It couldn’t have been easy.”

  “Thanks,” I managed softly.

  “Sounds as if we both come from depressing love lives,” she commented distractedly. She looked regretful for a moment before fixing her attention back on me. “I think it’s good that you told me. Thanks.”

  “Want to know the worst part?” I asked with a frown.

  “What’s that?” She asked, genuine concern in her voice.

  “She looked exactly like you.”

  She reeled back slightly, releasing my hand, and stared into the best puppy dog eyes I could muster. I almost felt bad using her memory that I resembled her late fiancé, but it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. My lips must have cracked a bit, because her eyes quickly narrowed, and she looked very angry.

  “Wait a second,” she started.

  I started to chuckle. I had a horrible poker face. “I’m kidding. She looked nothing like you. She was blond, five and a half feet tall, and you get much cuter when you’re angry.”

  It felt so good to have the story off my chest that I couldn’t help but laugh. The rage in her eyes only made me laugh harder, but it faltered when I saw her eyes still ablaze in fury a minute later.

  Settling down, I apologized. “Look, Helena, I’m sorry. It was a bad joke. I didn’t mean to bring it up again.”

  Her mouth twitched, and her look softened, a smile spreading across her own face.

  “You’re so gullible, Lieutenant,” she said slyly.

  It took me a minute before I smiled as well. “Oh… oh, you’re good.”

  After that night, the two of us never hesitated if either one of us needed to talk.

  As for the team as a whole, we spent our nights going through our gear and cataloging it. Needless to say, there was a lot of it, much more than we originally thought. If the situation called for it, we could spend most of our lives working as a private mercenary group, and never need to pick up a shield and sword. We’d be pretty expensive too.

  I was also very pleased to find at least some of the Future Force Warrior gear I thought I’d never see again hidden in one of the containers. While we all still had our eyepiec
es and computer systems, the only other gear we brought with us was on our backs. While the traditional BDUs we found were nice, the other clothing item we discovered inside was a godsend.

  There was no official name for what they were, as far as I knew, but I liked to call them combat assault fatigues. Both pants and jacket sets had numerous pockets festooned over them, and were camouflaged in multicam, useful in almost any terrain environment. We also found duplicate pairs, colored and patterned in dark gray and black, meant for night operations. Because its defensive abilities required tight contact with the skin, each set seemed specifically sized for each of us, with a left over set for McDougal.

  Along the shins, calves, thighs, hamstrings, groin, outer forearms and upper arms were thin pads that jutted out an inch from the clothing. Inside the pads was a polyethylene type gel that had a most unique property. In its normal state, the gel felt soft and squishy, like a stress ball, but when struck by a sudden and forceful impact, it instantaneously became as hard as titanium. The gel then liquidized a heartbeat later, ready for another impact, and it could take the repeated hardening and softening transition over and over again. Additional protective measures the outfit provided were small thin strips of a very light and flexible Kevlar-like material that ran vertically down the pants and horizontally along the jacket. For creature comfort, they were water resistant and additionally equipped with an internal A/C and heating system to keep the body comfortable in any weather condition

  During the war in Iraq, the polyethylene substance was hoped to be the next evolution of the bullet proof vest, but early testing indicated it wasn’t effective enough to risk the lives of troops. A few years later, when advancements were made in its base properties, the gel finally lived up to its potential. It had been a groundbreaking development for soldiers, having saved thousands of lives since its implementation.

  I only had one problem with it. If it was so soft and flexible, I never understood why the entire pants and jacket set wasn’t completely smothered in the stuff. Leave it to the military brass to cut corners. Even the helmets supplied in the containers were the old school versions that were notorious for being anything but bullet proof. At least they had the decency to cover the groin, but any impact to that region wouldn’t end well anyway.

  Sometimes I really wondered who was running the military.

  Other than the combat fatigues, there was little other advanced equipment within the containers. We were still supplied with electronic equipment like night vision, flashlights, and the means to charge their batteries, but I guess the papacy didn’t want to make its new soldiers too reliant on technology, something I was completely at ease with. A soldier was only as good as his training, instincts and determination. To rely on technology was a recipe for disaster.

  So the days went.

  Thankfully, two weeks to the day after Caligula set his time table, he sent us a message, indicating his three assassins were required. That morning, the six of us spent two hours prepping the team assigned on the mission.

  Bordeaux gathered a large amount of C-4, at least thirty bricks, enough to bring down the Colosseum, had it been built already. Vincent borrowed Santino’s UAV for aerial recon, and Helena grabbed the “Light Fifty” from storage. All three packed their night ops combat fatigues, tents and survival gear.

  As they completed their preparations, Helena pulled me aside, a frustrated look on her face.

  “Jacob, there’s something I really need to tell you.”

  I groaned. Usually, when women “really” needed to tell me something, I ended up spending a long night cleaning up tissues.

  Holding my hands in the air, I feigned innocence. “You know, if this is one of those, ‘I may die tomorrow, so we should be together tonight’ speeches, you really should know that tomorrow is now, and we kinda missed our chance last night. I mean, I could try and get it over within the two minutes we have, but I think that would kinda ruin the moment.”

  Surprisingly, Helena’s look wasn’t the one of annoyed anger I expected, but instead, she wore a smile that could make even the most womanizing of men’s hearts think twice about her. I was ready for any reaction except that one. To make matters worse, she took a step closer, bringing her mouth just to the side of my ear and dropped her voice to a seductive whisper

  “My, my, Lieutenant, aren’t you the naughty one. Maybe you had better hope I don’t make it back, or I may make you put your money where your mouth is.”

  I sighed, surprised at how easily I shrugged off my embarrassment. I really was getting used to her. “So, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

  Backing away and ignoring her little performance, she cut right to the point. “I’ve never killed anyone with the fifty. I’ve never even fired it in the field.”

  “What?!” I practically yelled the word, enticing the rest of the team to turn in our direction. Throwing them a smile, I grabbed Helena by the arm and pulled her away from the group. “But your record said you had confirmed kills with it. Dozens.”

  She sighed. “My government tweaked my record a bit. They just wanted one of their own on the team and they knew the Pope wanted a female, and that the team was looking for snipers. I was the only obvious choice. Don’t worry. I’m not a spy or anything. Everything else you know is true.

  I gave her a skeptical look, but I had to believe her when she said she had nothing to do with changing her record. It’s hard to trust the Germans. Opting to focus on the problem instead, I put my hands on my hips, and looked at her sternly. “So what’s the problem?”

  She looked confused. “What do you mean, ‘what’s the problem’? I’ve never had to do this before. I was nervous in the training room with you backing me up for Christ’s sakes.”

  “So the fuck what? You’re a trained professional. Just do the math and don’t forget to breathe. You don’t need me.”

  “Are you sure? You said you’d always be…”

  I reached my arms out and gently grabbed her shoulders, staring at her reassuringly.

  “Helena. I understand your confidence has taken a hit since your late fiancé, but you know you’re a great shot. Just focus. You’ll do fine.”

  I gave her shoulders a squeeze, and smiled. She couldn’t afford distraction on the mission, especially with two of her teammates’ lives on the line.

  She looked at the floor, sighed, and set her shoulders before straightening her posture, the confident demeanor I saw in the training room returning.

  She looked up at me. “Thanks. I’m not sure where I’d be without you.”

  “Probably not in ancient Rome, for one.”

  She hit me on the arm, but it was playful. “Very funny. Anyway…” She said, glancing toward the rest of the team, none of whom were paying us any attention. “…thank you. Your confidence means a lot.”

  Nervously, she leaned up on her toes, and kissed me lightly on the cheek. Her kiss lingered just long enough to seem suggestive, more than the peck a mother would offer her son. As she pulled away, she looked sheepishly at the floor, before heading back toward the rest of the team looking over her shoulder briefly to smile at me.

  I reached up and rubbed my cheek, ironically, on the same side of my face she had punched weeks ago. I wasn’t exactly sure how to respond.

  What was that for? She can’t actually like me. I’m not that lucky. I’m just some guy that resembled some other guy, who she probably didn’t want to think about. Still rubbing my cheek, my head shaking involuntarily, I turned to follow her. Vincent was giving some last minute orders when he noticed me.

  “Hunter. Nice of you to join us. We’re ready to head out, but there are a few points I need to go over first.” He turned back toward the group. “First off, while we’re gone, Hunter’s in charge. Wang,” Vincent looked over at the man who had been brimming with confidence and cockiness just a few weeks ago, but no longer, “I’m sorry, but you’re in n
o shape to take over.”

  Wang had been steadily improving since McDougal’s funeral. His sense of humor had returned, and considering how many goofballs were already in the group, he had slowly started fitting in again. He and Santino had formed an allied front against me and my music tastes, and their taunting made me miss my temporally lost mp3 player more and more.

  But Wang knew he wasn’t fully there yet, so he accepted Vincent’s decision with a small nod.

  “And Santino,” Vincent said, directing his attention to the biggest goofball of them all, “sorry, but placing you in command…”

  Helena interrupted. “…would be about as responsible as giving America’s nuclear launch codes to a toddler.”

  Vincent’s shoulders slumped. “Basically.”

  Santino was shocked, but not out of embarrassment. “Strauss? Was that a joke? A real, honest to God joke? I can’t believe it. There may be hope for you, yet.”

  She looked him square in the eyes, pausing dramatically. “It wasn’t a joke.”

  Santino hesitated. A look of genuine hurt creeping onto his face this time.

  Helena smiled. “Just kidding.”

  Santino’s own smile returned, although slower than normal, realizing he had just been played. He offered a mock bow. “How quickly the grasshopper becomes the master.”

  I laughed alongside everyone else, secretly happy because I knew Helena’s jokes were a good sign. She’d taken my advice to heart and her confidence had reappeared.

  Vincent cut off the laughter quickly. "All right people. Before we move out, there’s one last thing. Hunter, apparently one of Caligula’s closest advisers has some information regarding how we got here. I informed the emperor that I would send someone over to talk to him and try and figure this out. God knows, if anyone can, it’s you. Work on it while we’re gone. We should be back in about three weeks.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ll hold down the fort,” I said, before giving our modest accommodations a sour look. I shrugged. “Good luck.”