The marriage gets off to a rocky start…

James and Olivia were soon off the plane, and unsurprisingly Bob was there to greet them. He walked them with their luggage back to his car, and he drove them home while making small talk about their trip, and what had gone on while they were gone. Which was to say, not too much happened.

Olivia‘s father Jack was in about the same condition, it had helped to have the right meds and to have a live in nurse to care for him and make sure he ate right, as well as making sure Jack took the meds he needed when he needed them.

The paperwork on the house sale was moving along, about as fast as closing could, but no matter, and the newlyweds had been fully moved into their new house.

They then spent their first night in their new home, after having only had a tour of it before leaving for their honeymoon, and it was as nice as they had thought it was at first glance. And while the four post bed didn’t look so massive in what was a properly gigantic master bedroom, it was still pretty large, and when they settled in they fucked till about midnight, with James only finally stopping as he had work the next morning.

“Work? I thought you were on PTO?” Olivia asked in complaint, lying naked with her new husband.

“It isn’t the full time job, it is the army,” he replied softly, even hesitantly. “I got a call from the brass, this morning before you woke up. I had let my CO know of my intentions, and I intended to start the paperwork this week to retire, but he wants me to come in to talk about it.”

“Is that normal?” She asked, having never experienced anything like this before, “I mean that happens right?”

James just laid there for a long minute, unsure what to say. He didn’t want to hurt Olivia, but he had given his word to be honest, and he had meant it. And she noticed his hesitation.

“James…baby,” she continued. “Why gives, what aren’t you telling me?”

“I have to do one more mission, at very least,” he replied, and seeing her nearly immediate panic he quickly continued. “My part of it is supposed to be just training and leadership of it they say, but I don’t know much yet, I am driving in this morning to find out more.”

“You said at least,” Olivia replied in a dour tone, obviously unhappy with what he said. “What do you mean one more, at least?”

“Baby I don’t have a regular kind of a job with the military,” he replied. “I’m not a regular guy who just walks away and works at Home Depot or something. I have a security clearance, I have been places I can’t talk about, I have seen things and done things I can’t talk about. They spent millions training me, and they don’t let go easy…and I signed a contract.”

“Doing the job I did meant I made more money, but it also presents some hurdles to leaving,” James continued. “So I get to go train some younger operators for something important, something in a place I have spent a lot of time and with a language I speak.”

“And then another one after that?” She asked, not letting that part of what he said go. Not for a fucking moment.

“Possibly yes, that isn’t assured,” he replied. “It depends on factors that are as of yet uncertain. But they did say I am not leading them into combat, they need me for what I know, not for what I can do…”

“So fuck my life I guess,” Olivia replied. “Yesterday at this time we were talking about retirement and children, now I get to think about you going back into whatever goddamned hell hole that gave you the scars…”

“I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t,” James replied. “Right now I don’t know much, but when I do know I won’t be able to talk about it much at all. When I get settled at the training base I might be able to get you out there for a few days if you want to come visit…if you want to come that is.”

He expected to be sent to Fort Bragg, that was a base his unit often trained at. He could get her into the base and housed with him there, but she would likely be bored out of her mind. A young woman at 19 years old wasn’t going to enjoy a big army base.

Olivia **** a smile, this wasn’t his fault and she knew it. It didn’t mean she was going to like it, but she loved him, and she considered that his mind needed to be right for what he had to do. He was after all leaving a job he had been at for like thirty five years for her, some slack was in order.

But she had lost her mom, and her dad was dying, and James was headed back to the army in some unknown capacity. Fuck that right in the ass.

“Can you tell me when it will be, when you know more?” She asked, hoping for something.

“Yeah baby, that I can do,” James replied. “I will tell you all I can, I give you my word on it. And I don’t have to fly to Fort Bragg today, I just have to drive to the joint reserve base in Fort Worth, I will be back after lunch.”

Olivia laid her head on his chest and fought back some tears, she hated this. She wanted him to be done with combat at some point in the distant fucking past.

James slept well enough, it wasn’t anything new to him to get called in like this, but Olivia barely slept at all. She had no idea how to process that James was going to leave for a while, and that she wouldn’t know where he was, when he was coming home or if he was even coming home at all.

When his alarm went off he stirred to being awake, and when he opened his eyes he saw how tired his new wife was, as beautiful as she was, Olivia looked very tired. She was lying there looking at him as he slept.

He forgot how young she was at 19, she had lost a lot, and she could be not be blamed for having some separation anxiety.

“Hey there baby,” he said softly to Olivia, drawing a tired smile from her. “You hungry?”

She shook her head no, her eyes barely open. James got up to shower, and when he got back, she was softly snoring. He smiled and finished getting ready, breaking out his ACU, the combat uniform the Army used at the time.

He wasn’t headed to combat, and spec-ops guys didn’t tend to wear it anyway, but he was headed to the base to talk business on base. And not being told to wear a dress uniform this would do.

Not long after, James was in his car and headed for the NAS JRB, hoping to find a way to make this right to his new wife, to set her mind at ease.

The guards at the gate were as respectful as ever, with James showing his military ID, getting a quick salute and a fast track through the normal red tape to get into a military facility. The tattoo on his arm also showed he was not just a Major, but a Green Beret at that.

Soon he pulled up to the administration office he was told to be at, twenty minutes early as was his practice, and soon was taken to see the officer who called him in.

It was another Major, and two full bird Colonels, along with a Captain who was there seemingly as assistant to one of the others.

Also, there was a man his age he didn’t know in a suit, wearing a decent suit with no visible ID. He looked like a company man to James, a spook, someone from the CIA.

As it happens, nobody in HR or administration was there for the meeting, not that he had expected them. They were in a large conference room with a very large TV screen in it.

Surprisingly they spent no time on his retirement process, that was just paperwork. They were there to talk business, but they did talk retirement first.

“So we are sorry to see you go Major,” one of the Colonels said. “But we aren’t going to do it quite like you requested, not quite.”

The officer in front of him showed James his retirement paperwork, “this way isn’t the best way for you Major, we can give you a much better exit than this.”

At that he handed the paperwork to the lower officer in the room, who promptly shredded it, and the man in the suit handed him a folder.

“You have every right to retire Major, you earned it,” the Colonel continued. “And I don’t mean for you to jump out of anymore airplanes or helicopters. But if you can give me two missions instead of just one, and I mean quarterback them all the way to the goal line from the command center, which will be stateside…I can give you a ‘mandatory retirement’ package instead, compliments of some friends on Capital Hill.”

At this they handed him a new set of retirement documents.

James kept his mouth shut, he knew well enough that when they wanted to know what he thought they would ask him.

“You will get a bump to full retirement percentage, and a hazard bonus of a full years pay at your current rank…for active duty in imminent danger I should add,” the Colonel continued. “As compensation for being asked to leave the service before full retirement. How does that sound?”

They had shredded his official retirement papers, a federal crime, but he wasn’t a normal soldier. This was something they could do, just make official retirement paperwork not have happened, and just sort of magic his service time to get his full percentage. And to throw a year’s pay in? All good there.

“It sounds good Colonel,” James replied. “While I regret not being able to complete my service time, I understand this is a younger man’s game, thank you for looking out for me sir.”

“Now on to business cowboy,” the Colonel replied, this man was in SOCOM, he worked with the CIA as much as the DoD, he knew who James was. “We need you to go to Langley, we have trouble in Ukraine, I believe you have done some work there, yes?”

After the 2014 invasion of Crimea, James and his team were a part of a group that started teaching Ukrainians how to fight. How to resist, how to use the USA’s combined arms doctrine instead of the old Soviet doctrine, and it had been a big job, one that had outlasted the time he had to give it.

But the work he had done had born fruit, the Ukrainian regular military had improved greatly, and his team had taught some regular military on how to train their civilians to resist if needed.

For the sake of what was needed, James spoke Russian and Ukrainian, could read and write both languages and knew the territory. He understood why he might be of value.

“Yes sir, three trips, 2014, 2016, and 2017,” he replied.

“Indeed,” the man in the suit replied, looking around the room quickly. “A number of classified operations, all successful…we need another.”

“But I am to be in Virginia?” James replied.

“You will be in Langley, Major, your team is already in place in theater,” the officer replied. “Our boys are near Malniv under the watchful eye of a patriot battery.” The Colonel continued, “they are nowhere near the action just yet, but we are sending them in, and we need your expertise.”

The television lit up, and a map of Ukraine was seen, “it seems Ivan has some bad intentions, the war isn’t going well and it seems they are planning to rig an old power plant to blow.”

The map closes in on a section of Ukraine North of Kyiv, near Belarus.

“Chernobyl…” James said quietly. “Fuck.”

“Indeed cowboy, that is the one,” the Colonel replied. “Objective one, the Ukrainians are going to secure the power station, and you are going to guide our friends at Langley in helping out with real time intel. Our teams will be nearby in case needed, but that is highly unlikely.”

“We need someone who knows the languages and the land, and more importantly the people on Ukraine’s side running the operation.”

“Our secondary objective is a snatch and grab of the Russian general who is leading the mission for Russia,” the officer continued. “We expect a high degree of success on both objectives.”

“So we are sending our boys near the power station?” James asked.

The Colonel nodded his head yes, “if that becomes needed, yes. There is risk involved, and not just the radiation, but this is of the highest importance possible. If the station blows, and radiation is released, we could see NATO invoke article V, we could see unpredictable escalation. That needs to be avoided.”

“At this time the secondary objective is not near the power station, he isn’t anywhere close to the exclusion zone for that matter, so our boys shouldn’t see any rads at all.”

“What is our time window?” James asked.

“We need to be on the ground near the objective in two days, and the mission needs to be carried out within two weeks, based on available intel on Russian activity.”

“You will have two twelve man ODA’s, the very best we have, and they are already in country and training. From the day of, we will have overwatch in place on our part, and the F16’s sent to Ukraine will be available to cover evac via chopper if needed, but the plan of the day is to walk back to ground transport, as to lessen visibility and the possibility of losses.”

“Understand this, we are trying to limit the possibility of a single loss of our forces there. We will be going without any ID, and leaving nothing behind to ID our involvement,” the man in the suit added. “The USA will not be officially involved in this action, it has to be completely covert.”

“But it is imperative that the station not be damaged Major, preventing an outbreak of a wider war is of the highest importance.”

James understood what the man meant. Preventing WW3 meant more than any of their lives, and if they calculated that sending him in would prevent that wider war, the brass would not hesitate to do it.

If they calculated sending him into the new safe confinement at Chernobyl in just a swimsuit they would order that as well, whatever was needed.

And to keep Olivia safe, he would not hesitate to go.

“You need to be in Langley in two days, and it is a day of travel, so we will need you moving tomorrow. I can put you on a transport if you desire, or if you are bringing…company you are welcome to fly commercial.”

‘Bringing company’, eh? They had been watching him, they knew he was newly married.

‘Fuck,’ James thought, his new wife was not going to take this well at all. But he had ****, they call, he gets on a plane. That had been the job for decades, but now he was on the way out. And he wouldn’t be kicking in the door. He wouldn’t even be in the same country as the action, and maybe she would enjoy some time in Virginia, perhaps sight seeing in Washington D.C.

James was given a case with some information on the mission and his ID for Langley, and dismissed. He did have one request for the mysterious man in the suit who seemed to be in charge.

“Can I ask one favor sir?” He asked, hoping not to offend. “I just got married, I was hoping for one…indulgence to smooth things over with her…”

Olivia woke up tired, and still upset. She had a strong cup of coffee then drove to her dad’s apartment to check on him. She planned to see him every day, she would do all she could to pull that off.

She parked nearby in James‘s garage, as the lease was going to be paid up for a while, and she cared more about her new Mustang not getting door dings than her old Hyundai. She then walked to her father Jack’s apartment, her home up until very recently.

Olivia walked to the front door and used her key, thinking nothing of it, having done it a thousand times before.

She walked in and the place looked great. The live in nurse Claudia had cleaned the place up nicely, and had what smelled like incense burning, and it smelled quite good. Also some soft music was playing, it sounded eastern, maybe Claudia was into the alternative healing stuff Olivia had read about.

Olivia hadn’t slept much and had a headache, so she went trying to be too loud, quietly moving through the apartment, and she heard moaning. She hoped her father wasn’t in pain, and he wasn’t. As she slowly turned the corner to her dad’s room, what she saw shocked her.

She saw her father lying back on the bed, with Claudia naked and riding him, her big and muscular ass gently rising and lowering on him. They were fucking.

Olivia only looked for a moment, but saw that Claudia was leaned over and kissing her father Jack, and that his hands were dug in on Claudia’s ass pretty firmly.

She leaned back into the hall and took a long breath. Her dad was an adult, her mom had been gone a while…people had needs. Maybe this was good for him?

It still hurt, her mom hasn’t been gone all that long, but she couldn’t hold it against her dad, he was dying, and soon.

Still, fuck.

She closed her eyes, but now she heard clearly enough what was happening, moaning and kissing, the sounds of sex.

Whatever the case she quietly left the apartment, not wanting to intrude on her dad’s sex life anymore than she wanted her dad intruding on her own.

She texted Bob and asked if they could talk, and he invited her over for coffee, it was a short drive.

Bob invited Olivia in with a smile as he always seemed to have on his face, taking her to his kitchen where Gigi was making coffee for them. After she was done, Bob’s younger wife excused herself, headed out to do some shopping. This was a private conversation, Gigi could see the red in Olivia‘s eyes, she gave them some space.

“So why does he have to go back?” Olivia asked, “hasn’t he done enough? I don’t want him getting hurt again…he told me about getting hit by a hand grenade. That is keeping me up, I’m having trouble sleeping just thinking it might happen again. I saw what looked like bullet scars on his body…”

“I didn’t sleep last night, I didn’t want to sleep away a minute of him being with me, in case he doesn’t come back…I don’t know what to do, I can’t lose James like I’m losing everyone else.”

Bob took a long breath, “darling…I’m sorry. James is who he is, he is a soldier, and the toughest man I have ever met.” He replied, “I’m not joking when I say James is more likely to walk away form any injury than any other person I have ever met or even heard about.”

“He has been hurt before…many times, shot, stabbed, he has been in three choppers that went down, and has bailed out of a number of jets that were shot down.” Bob continued, unsure if this would help or hurt. “But he has saved a lot of lives with what he has done, including mine.”

Olivia pressed for detailed and Bob gave her just a few.

“We were headed into Bosnia, and the helicopter I was in was hit and went down hard. It was ugly business, only a few survivors,” Bob said while absentmindedly stirring his coffee. “The other choppers circled back but came under fire, and had to head back after taking heavy damage. They had taken most of the survivors, but the chopper was mangled and on fire, and I was stuck. They took the other survivors but had to go, saving me meant risking the other two choppers, so they left.”

“James wouldn’t leave, he jumped out of the chopper he was in as it lifted off, and he stayed behind alone, and got me out,” Bob continued. “And he carried me for around twenty miles, far enough away that we could hide for a few days while he stabilized me where I could walk. Then we beat feet to the Adriatic Sea, where James stole a boat and sailed us to Italy.”

“I am only here because of him, I owe him my life, in the most literal sense.” Bob continued. “And even more, he introduced me to Giselle, at a Presidential ball way back in the day.”

Olivia then asked more about the injury, but Bob wouldn’t say much about it.

“The Bosnian mission was declassified, I can talk about it,” Bob replied. “I can’t talk about more recent work, and that is cowboy’s story to tell if he chooses to.”

“I just want to understand how a person can survive a hand grenade like that.” She replied, “all the scars…how can someone walk away from that.”

Bob took a long drink of his coffee, “you are trying to get me into trouble here, this isn’t public information, never repeat a word of it, please.”

Olivia nodded yes, “of course not Bob…”

“So, you are correct…people don’t walk away from that, and neither did James. His team carried him to a chopper, and what they did to keep him alive is the stuff of legend darling.”

There was a long pause, as Bob considered his words carefully.

“I saw the video, thankfully you won’t ever be able to, James dove on a grenade, and when it went off it launched him into the low ceiling above, eight feet up. He broke the ceiling tiles above, then cowboy fell back to the ground.,” he said softly. “The number of humans who could survive that is so small as not really to exist. A corpsman on the team held James’s internal organs together as they made for the chopper, and kept him alive on the chopper ride to a field hospital.”

“A young man held cowboy’s heart in his hand and kept it beating, two others held pressure on wounds, and held arteries to keep him from bleeding out,” Bob continued. “A lesser man would have died, and if it were not for the legend that James is, the actual living legend, they probably would not have done what they did to save him.”

“Living legend?” Olivia asked, not sure how you got that.

“Olivia won the Medal of Honor, and probably could have won another one. He has numerous purple hearts, and nearly every medal and ribbon a soldier can earn,” Bob answered. “He is among the most decorated US serviceman in our history. History will remember him when we are gone.”

“He has met Presidents, kings and queens, and danced with First Ladies,” Bob continued. “He is not just well known, he is beloved…and not just by you and me darling.”

“Ok so the assholes who hurt him,” Olivia replied in an angry tone. “What happened with them, did they fucking get away?”

Olivia was obviously tired and on edge, her eyes red with emotion, but right now she looked angry. Angry at the people who had nearly killed her new husband.

Bob was quiet for a long moment, “no darling, they did not. The objective was to extract a person alive, but failing that, the person in question was not to be alive when they left.”

“There is video you can’t see, but a C-130 Specter gunship was orbiting overhead, and after our boys made it to the choppers with Olivia, that plane blew the building to hell.”

“The gunship didn’t leave a brick of that building standing.” He said, in that moment showing that he shared her anger, “none of the people who did that to cowboy lived to see the choppers fly away, and there was nothing left when the fire was gone to show that people had even been there.”

Bob remembered the video, clenching his fist as the C-130 Specter did a lot more than blow up the building. They knew men were down, so the crew of the gunship kept raining fire on the building till it was a smoking hole in the ground.

“We’ll fuck them then…they can all burn in hell,” she said before drinking more of her coffee. “So is he going back to a place like that?”

“Darling…I just don’t know, I’m not active duty, I am not read in on anything he is doing,” Bob replied. “But I can tell you that James now has limitations to what he can do, age related, injury related…his eyesight isn’t what it used to be either. Physically he is in great shape, but not good enough to be able to go in with the teams at this point.”

“I can’t say for sure, but I suspect what they need him for is what he knows of the place they are sending a team, and for his leadership,” Bob continued. “They don’t need him to kick the door in anymore…”

When she finished her coffee she drove back to their new house, and was happy to find James was already home again, with him waiting for her in the living room.

He could see how emotional she was, how poorly she was taking it, so he just gave her a big hug when she ran to him, and she hugged him with strength that surprised him.

“You ok baby?” he asked with a warm smile.

It took her a moment to answer, “no…” she said, her voice cracking and near crying again.

“I saw my dad fucking his nurse…giving it to her,” she said in an irritated tone. “Mom is gone for six months and he dives cock first into that hussy…”

“And I just don’t know what to do with you going back to doing things for the army,” she continued. “I didn’t sleep last night, I don’t want to miss anymore time with you, I don’t know how much time we have left…”

She leaned into him and lost it, she cried hard, the ‘ugly cry’. James gave her a minute, just holding her.

“About that,” he finally replied, seeing her eyes come up to meet hers, she seemed afraid of what he would say, he tried to comfort her with a smile. “I do have to go, and I have to leave tomorrow, but I am not going any farther than Langley.”

“Langley,” she replied. “You mean here in the USA right? I have heard of Langley.”

“Yes baby, Langley, Virginia.” He replied, kissing her on the forehead softly. “I will do my part from in the USA, they need planning and technical help, and if you want to you can come with me.”

“That is if you want to, it isn’t like Langley is the most…”

“I’m coming along,” she interrupted.

“Ok well, it’s just that you might not enjoy it, Langley isn’t really a place people go to…” he tried to continue, but she cut him off again.

“I’m fucking going,” she interjected. “You go, I go baby.”

Olivia smiled and wiped away some tears, “if I can go, I’m going with you, wherever you go…forever. Wherever they send you, if I can go I will be there.”

“Well I figured we were just gone for a week, and your dad…” he replied, but she cut him off.

“I’m fucking going, ok?” She replied, “my dad is well enough to fuck his nurse, I am gonna check on him, but we are staying in the same bed…I’m saying with you, and you are staying with me.”

“You can’t go in the building I will be working in, but we can stay at a nice hotel in Bethesda,” he replied. “We can have breakfast together, dinner after I’m done, and spend the night together. Maybe if I’m lucky I can score better accommodations, I will know tomorrow.”

“What would I do during the day?” Olivia asked, “there is no way for me to go where you are working? And I don’t care about the accommodations, I am going for the company.”

“When I say Langley, I mean the CIA baby,” he replied. “No civilian can go into that without a security clearance, but you will be right by Washington DC, and I will have someone with you to keep you safe…just in case.”

“Well I always wanted to see Washington DC,” she replied happily, which was true enough. But she was far more happy to know James wasn’t going to war again.

They spent much of the rest of the day together, enjoying the company and the time before the trip to come. Olivia went back to see her dad, calling ahead this time.

When she got into her dad’s apartment, he looked well, his color was better than it had been. She didn’t love her dad hooking up with his live in nurse so quickly, seeming to move on from her mom, but she saw him smiling and not seeming to be in pain.

Olivia saw a knowing glance between her father Jack and his nurse Claudia, now seeing what she had not before. It was ok, if it helped her dad through his illness, even if it just gave him comfort, it was ok.

In truth Claudia had been a stripper and had fucked for money, but now was a nurse who believed in holistic healing. And she believed in the healing power of sex, which was good for Jack.

Olivia pretended not to have seen what she had seen earlier. She then had a nice visit with her father, catching up on how he was feeling, and letting him know she was going with James to Virginia the next day.

Jack understood, he knew what James had done for a living for a long time, he was used to his friend needing to travel on short notice. But usually it was overseas.

“Just to Virginia?” Jack asked, his voice sounding better than it had.

“Yep, just to Virginia,” she replied. “I will be hanging out in DC while he works, but I want to be there with him…”

Jack understood, he was happier for his daughter than she was for him. His fling with Claudia would be brief, her marriage to James could be lasting.

James used the time he had on his hands to get ready for the trip, arranging for some things for their trip to come. He hoped to help it be a special trip for his new wife, something good to remember.

As they packed, James packed his suits and suggested Olivia pack a nice dress or two, as you never know who you will meet in D.C.

The next morning when they were headed to the airport they were driven by a government car, Bob wasn’t the one to do it this time, but Olivia wasn’t surprised.

Their flight was pleasant enough, not a long flight, they flew into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, and the only bad thing was how busy it was. It took a long time to get their luggage, and the figured it would take even longer to find a taxi to where they were headed, but another government car picked them up instead.