She laughed. “Men. You’re all such lazy pigs.”
“Can’t fault that logic,” I declared
Helena moved into the room and sat on the edge of her bunk. She placed her meal in between our beds and waited as it cooked in its self-heating pouch. Like the flickering of a fire, the magnesium ignited water boiling within generally had a hypnotic property to it, but I ignored it, and turned towards Helena.
“So how did the mission go? Really?”
She shifted uneasily. “Do you always know when something’s wrong with people?”
I shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of insecure girlfriends.”
“I bet you have,” she said, retrieving her cooked meal. It smelled like the chicken with salsa entree, my favorite. She ate quietly, but quickly. What she had to say must have been important, but she needed her nourishment. I could understand why she didn’t want to be distracted. Finished, she placed the rest of the MRE’s contents in a pack, took a sip of water from her CamelBak, folded her hands in her lap, and looked me square in the eyes.
“I’m… sorry I didn’t tell you this before, and please try to forgive me, but I think there’s something else you should know.”
“Oh, this should be good,” I said, sitting on my bed, propping myself up with my hands behind me.
“Adminius was my first and only assassination. In fact, he was the first man I’ve ever shot in cold blood…” she paused, “and up until that day in Syria, I had never even killed another human being before. I’m sorry.”
She had to be joking. She was too good a shot to not have had years of practice. Every sniper knew shooting immaterial targets was completely different from shooting real people. It’s not just something you can pick up in a day. I had to call her bluff.
“Yah right, Strauss. Next thing you’re going to tell me is that you were never even in the military.”
She just looked at me, her expression completely deadpan. There was nothing amusing in her eyes.
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked tentatively. “There’s no way… you couldn’t…you’ve been in for years. Killed dozens of targets.”
Her eyes continued to stare right through me.
I reclined onto my back, and started laughing. There was no other reaction I could think of. We’d gone into combat with a completely green rookie covering our backs, and still managed to survive. The situation was nothing, if not funny. I thought I was going to start crying from the laughter when my inappropriate reaction must have struck a cord with her.
“This isn’t funny, Jacob. I was given my commission eight months before I came to Rome, and thrown into an accelerated basic and then KSK training program. My government knew they wouldn’t be able to get one of their own on the team, unless they could offer something no one else could. The Pope was only taking the most select people. That’s where I came in, a female who was also a good enough shot that they could mold me into a sniper, something no one else wanted to offer. They even shipped me off to the States to participate in one of your sniper schools. I don’t know why they did it all, since our identities will never be leaked to the public, but that’s what the Pope wanted, and that’s what he got.
“When the GS9 agents came to my home and offered me the opportunity, I leapt at it. Like I told you, it was the first chance I had to get away from my life. I’m so sorry. I was forced to secrecy, but considering where we are, I felt the need to come clean. Everything else we’ve talked about is completely true. My father, hunting, Oxford, the Olympics, my fiance. Everything.”
Her speech left me with little else to do except stare at the ceiling, unsure how to respond. How could I trust her now when she had been so blatantly lying to me for so long? She was a stranger now, someone who’d broke the bonds of brotherhood and was someone I couldn’t trust or rely on. I rolled onto my side and faced away from her.
“What do you want me to say?” I asked. “I forgive you? You didn’t do anything wrong? How can I do that? Any reason I may have had to trust you is gone.”
It’s been my experience with women that they generally do things in unexpected and unpredictable ways. Many a time in a conversation, a woman will do something crazy. One comment will lead to reaction A, while a seemingly identical comment will result in reaction B, and at the end of the talk a completely different comment ends up eliciting reaction A again. It was completely insane, and was pretty much the main reason I’d given up trying to understand women long ago. It was why, with my back turned away from Helena, that I was completely unprepared for her unwarranted attack.
Her body check rolled me off the bunk, throwing me against the wall, and forcing me onto my back once again. She followed it up by leaping over my body and situating herself in the door frame, straddling me as she sat on my stomach. She then grabbed my head in both hands and pulled me close, as she in turn leaned in, her face inches away from mine.
She stared at me, her eyes glistening like a cool beverage on a warm summer day. I tried to look away, but she pulled me even closer. With nothing else to do, I stared up at her and waited for what she had to say. I saw sadness there in her eyes, real sadness, the kind I had never seen there before, and my heart sank. It wasn’t fair of me to tell her I couldn’t trust her. Accelerated training or not, she’d still taken an oath. An oath she was now breaking. To make matters worse, her breaking of orders was nothing when compared to her emotionally sheltered life. To learn to trust me the way she did, only to have me turn my back on her now, must be devastating. I was already regretting my flip words.
A minute passed, ever second of silence devastating.
“Jacob,” she whispered. “Please, you have to trust me. You…” she paused, choking back tears, “…you’re the only person I trust. There’s no one else.”
I felt her lower my head back towards the floor, but the pain in her voice was more than enough to keep my eyes connected with hers. Her words were a plea for help from a girl, no, a person who’d lost control of her life. It sounded more familiar than I cared to admit, but it was true. She was lost here in ancient Rome and needed to hang on to whatever felt familiar. I felt the same way, only I was too proud to admit it.
She hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d been under orders and it wasn’t fair of me to ridicule and berate her for it. She was right. I needed her more than I thought, and I wasn’t about to throw that away now.
“Helena, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so flippant. I…” I tried to find the right words, “… I want to trust you. I hope you can forgive me.”
Her green eyes continued to stare, but I felt her entire demeanor change as she let more of her weight sit on me.
“I can,” she assured in a whisper. “Thank you.”
With those words she brought her face closer to mine, hesitating only slightly at first, her wonderfully full lips puckering ever so slightly.
This was it.
The moment in all the movies where the hero finally scored, and got the girl.
It had to be.
Boy, it was my lucky day.
As our heads came together, my mouth centimeters from hers, so close I could feel her breath on my lips and the heat radiating off her cheeks, I heard the most annoyingly ill-timed commotion I had ever heard. It sounded like someone had broken down our front door and were pillaging our home.
I looked up at Helena as she strained her head towards the door, trying to see what was happening. Gently, I placed my left hand alongside her cheek, shifting her face back towards mine.
She smiled as she looked down at me, and my mind went blank. I could only think of one thing to say. It was the most cliche line I had ever heard.
“Rain check?”
***
We recovered from the moment and rushed to the adjoining room to see numerous Roman Praetorians cramping our building, with plenty more outside. Helena and I had our side arms at the ready, but lowered them when we saw the recognizable faces of our new friends. I noticed Gaius near the door, and offered him a friendly nod. He returned it imperceptibly, but I saw a look of worry on his stone hard face.
