Cliche

After two more love sessions that night, each as tender and fulfilling as the first time we had made love eight days earlier, I asked "Is there any reason to wait?"

"None that I can think of?" she chuckled.

Four days later, after we got our blood tests and marriage license, we had a justice of the peace come to our facility and got married, with Rock as the best man and Thanh as the maid of honor. So ended a less than two week actual courtship. We retired early from the party thrown after we said our "I dos" and found out that, impossibly, the sex was even better as a fully committed couple than it had been before our nuptials.

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

The next eighteen months my life was ideal – and I changed. I changed for the better. Being in a loving relationship for the first time in my life made me much more mellow – except when I was on "adventures" to free victims of human trafficking. I no longer got in fights, never had a chip on my shoulder, and never had a scowl on my face; I smiled all of the time.

About six months after our wedding ceremony Bridget and I went to Aruba for ten days on a delayed honeymoon. If there is a heaven it could not be better than our ten days in Aruba. We surfed, paddleboarded, scuba dived, worked out, danced, ate wonderful meals, swam, took long walks on the beach, and had loving sex that could not be topped.

At about the eighteen month point of our marriage, while Bridget, Rock, me, and six other operatives were out on an "adventure" we came to realize that the traffickers we were seeking were also members of a Mexican drug cartel. In scoping out their base of operation in a mountain area of New Mexico we made a stupid decision. While Bridget was ultimately in charge, we all participated in the decision so she wasn't to blame for what happened. We split up, one three person group, all the rest of us individually.

As I was maneuvering into position near an odd building with a helicopter outside of it too late I noticed a flash-bang grenade bouncing only a couple of meters away from me. When it exploded I was rendered unconscious. The next thing I knew I was tied to a chair probably in the building that I was reconnoitering and several guys who looked like they came from a casting call for drug gang members were in the room. My helmet and distinctive jersey, which had ballistic, cooling, and antiseptic properties all at the same time, had been removed.

One of the gang members – wearing my jersey and helmet – spoke in Spanish. While certainly not close to fluent, by that time I had picked up enough Spanish while working at Traffic Stop so that I understood the language pretty well even though I had difficulty speaking more than the few phrases important to rescuing trafficking victims. I pretended not to understand, so he spoke in English.

Holding up my credentials he asked "What are you doing here Bronson Jenkins?" Obviously when on adventures we didn't use credentials with our real names.

"I don't know – you apparently tied me up so you must know why I'm here, not me," I sarcastically replied.

He smacked me across the face. "What are you doing in this area, asshole?"

"I was just out hunting," I smirked.

"Hunting for what?"

"Whatever I could find that would help put food on the table for my three kids," I replied.

"In high tech equipment like this?" he snickered pointing to my jersey and helmet which he was now wearing, "and with weapons like this?" he continued pointing to my AKM with GP-25 -40 mm underbarrel grenade launcher, Desert Eagle .50 AE, and Strider SMF knife (the most expensive knife in the world designed for special forces and one the Mexicans had certainly never seen before), laid out on the floor next to me.

"You never know what type of bad animals you might run into," I sneered, getting me another slap across the mouth.

The next fifteen minutes of interrogation were not pleasant, punctuated by constant blows and threats. However it was clear that for some reason they were not going to kill me then – certainly not until they knew what I was really up to.

When done with the initial interrogation the leader (who the others called Alejandro), who was the largest of the four in the room, and the one wearing my jersey and helmet and handling my credentials, in Spanish told three other gang members to watch me carefully as he took the helicopter to a meet with another drug cartel, and that he'd be back within twenty four hours. "Give him minimum water and no food and let him go to the bathroom only if all three of you have guns trained on him. I'll find out what he's up to when I get back."

A few minutes later I heard a loud explosion. I heard a couple of Jeeps start up, loud yelling by at least a dozen different voices, and about ten minutes after that automatic weapons fire, including what I'm sure was one or more M2 Browning .50 caliber machine guns, as well as grenade explosions. The firing stopped after about ten minutes more, and I heard the jeeps return.

From the frantic conversations that I overheard in the next half hour it appears that the helicopter blew up and some unknown operatives were at the crash site. The Mexicans engaged in a firefight with the operatives and lost about half a dozen men before the unknown operatives took off. Someone mentioned that they had helmets just like mine.

With the leader apparently dead in the helicopter explosion a guy who looked like Poncho Villa assumed command. They decided that they were going to move me. That was good news because it was unlikely that they would make a mistake in our present setting, but that they would be much more likely to in transit. They put a bag over my head and with my arms plastic-cuffed behind my back and some sort of loose home-made shackles on my ankles, and led me to what I assumed was a large SUV. They even seat-belted me in – which ended up as their undoing.

As we bumped along I sensed one guy in the back seat with me, and from the voices I heard that was confirmed – along with two guys in the front seat. These were obviously the three that had been guarding me in the room. After about an hour there was no more conversation, and I swear that the guy next to me was snoring. I took a chance and given my inherent and practiced flexibility was able to move my arms under my feet so that my cuffed hands were in front of me.

That accomplished I removed my hood, confirmed that the guy next to me was sleeping, and was thrilled that he had my Strider SMF knife in his belt. I removed the knife carefully before he noticed, and as he woke up stabbed him in the throat, stabbed the guy in the front passenger seat in the brain stem, and with my seat belt still on raked the knife over the shoulder and face of the driver.

While my raking did not kill the driver of course it caused him to lose control and crash off the road. I think that we barrel-rolled two and a half times before landing on the roof a good fifty meters from the roadway.

I was a little dazed, but now really injured badly. The two guys I had stabbed were obviously dead – the driver had been saved by the airbag, but was groaning and only semi-conscious.

Since my seatbelt appeared to be stuck I cut it off of me, crawled out of the upside down back door, went over to the driver, and finished him off. Then I went searching the vehicle for my other weapons. I found my Desert Eagle in the front passenger's belt, but my AKM was nowhere to be found. Therefore I took the AK-47 from the back seat passenger, took the driver's hat and long sleeve shirt, retrieved a liter bottle of club soda from the front seat, removed any money from the three gang members' pocket's (only about $75 US and 700 pesos) and took off away from the road toward the nearest mountain. I didn't want another vehicle full of gang members finding me.

It was a long, hard, three days before I found a part of civilization that I could trust. Once I did find it I called Traffic Stop using a pay phone since my cell phone (fortunately completely encrypted) had been taken by the cartel members. Corey answered "Jamison Electronics," the cover name we most often used.

I got out "Corey, this is Bertil – I need someone to pick me up in this little mountain town in New Mexico..." before he started screaming.

"Bertil – what the fuck – are you alive?"

"Of course I'm alive..." I got out before I heard Corey screaming at Thanh to get Bridget.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked when Corey finally got back on the phone.

"Man, we thought that you were dead," he almost sobbed.

"No, I was captured – why did you assume that I was dead?"

"Because there was a helicopter..." and that's all he got out before Bridget obviously ripped the phone from him.

"Bertil, Bertil, is that really you?" she sobbed. It was the first time that I ever heard her actually cry.

"Yeah it's me – why did you think that I was dead?"

"One of the charred bodies in the helicopter wreck had your helmet and what remained of your jersey on, and we found your charred credentials in the wreckage too. Before we could get a DNA sample we came under heavy machine gun fire from Brownings mounted on Jeeps and had to take off," she continued sobbing.

"Was anyone hurt or killed?"

"None of our group was killed but Jake and Austen suffered serious upper body injuries and they're still in the hospital but will ultimately be OK," she continued but seemingly getting even more hysterical. "Where are you and are you OK?"

"Yes, I'm OK; put Corey back on the line and I'll tell him my exact coordinates which I got from the Post Office in the little town I'm in. I'll need a helicopter to get me out in view of the terrain though."

"Oh Darling, I love you!" she moaned before handing the phone to Corey.

I gave Corey the relevant information and three hours later a helicopter landed in a park on the outskirts of the little town and Bridget came bounding out and almost knocked me over when she jumped on me with tears streaming down her cheeks as I hugged her tight and kissed her neck.

By the time that we got back to Traffic Stop both Bridget and I were emotionally drained, and I was pretty well physically weary too because of the hardships and lack of sleep in my three day on foot escapade. However, before I could shower and go to sleep I had to greet each and every one of the people at Traffic Stop, hug them, talk with them, and receive their well-wishes. I thought that Rock was going to break my ribs he hugged me so hard as he lifted me off the floor, and I do believe even his eyes were misty.

Bridget showered with me and lovingly washed me completely. It was obvious that I was too wasted for sex, but she snuggled her naked body against mine and I quickly fell asleep happy, warm, and content.

The next day Bridget showed me my ¾ burned up credentials – which clearly did legibly have the name "Jenkins" on them and the blond hair part of my photograph – photos of the charred body with my helmet on and with a small portion of my jersey somehow still intact, and the other bodies and helicopter parts strewn over a wide area.

"Why did the helicopter explode?" I asked.

"We don't really know – although Rock and Jeremy both swear that they saw what looked suspiciously like the exhaust of a rocket in the air below the helicopter just before it blew up," she continued.

"Who would have or shoot a missile at it?" I pondered.

"The only thing we can think of is a rival cartel. We wounded and captured the first gang member to come on the scene – before the Jeeps with machine guns arrived – and from our interrogation of him we understand that their local leader Alejandro was going to a pow wow with another cartel that they had been skirmishing with," she continued.

"Alejandro was the guy who was wearing my helmet and jersey and who took my credentials," I gasped.

"Well, apparently he was the target. Unfortunately with our arrival on the scene I think that they will think that our mysterious organization blew up the copter, not their rivals, which is too bad because it would have been great to have them kill each other off. Now we have to do it," she snickered.

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

The next few days we got back into a routine and planned a raid on the two whorehouses in Mexico where the captured prisoner told us the trafficking victims were at – before he was executed. Bridget seemed even more anxious to please me not just in bed, but in every way, and Rock seemed to go out of his way to be nice to me, not normal for him; our relationship was normally based upon macho bonding and practical jokes.

I sensed that something wasn't exactly right.

About a week after I returned, after an intense sex session with Bridget where she rode me cowgirl and almost ripped my dick off she was so active, yet inexplicably had small tears in her eyes, as we cuddled in post-coital bliss I turned her face toward mine and in the dim moonlight shining through the skylight in our bedroom said "OK Bridget – come clean. Something is really bothering you and you need to get it off your chest."

"I...I...can't," she mumbled breaking eye contact.

I lifted her chin more and re-established eye contact. "Yes you can; you must; something is eating away at you."

"You'll divorce me...and then I'd die," she said before she broke down in tears.

When she finally regained her composure I again made eye contact and said "I will NOT divorce you. Tell me."

After a delay during which she tried to break eye contact again but I wouldn't let her she mumbled "You have to understand that I was sure that you were dead; I felt more emotionally ravaged than at any other time in my life by a factor of ten; I was a wreck, and so was Rock. We were crying and consoling each other the night we got back from seeing what we thought was your body – and lay down together. I really don't know how it happened next, but at some point we fucked; I was actually hallucinating that it was you. When we woke up the next morning and realized what we had done we were both mortified..." and then she dissolved into tears so that I couldn't understand anything else.

It was like a mule had kicked me in the gut. I really didn't know how to react. I lay there for the longest time with Bridget sobbing into my shoulder. She was so emotionally drained that after sobbing "I love you," "don't leave me," "please forgive me," about twenty times each she more passed out than fell asleep.

I lay awake for the longest time, just staring at the moon through the skylight before I too passed out more than fell asleep, emotionally drained.

When I finally broke out of my comatose state – it was more that than waking up from a deep sleep – Bridget had a scared look on her face. I avoided the gorilla in the room and carried on a strained innocuous conversation with her before stumbling to breakfast. It was clear that Rock was extremely uncomfortable as he glanced over at us, and everyone could sense that something was really amiss.

Just before the day's planning session started I told Bridget "I need to get my head on straight – I'm going into Tucson and spending a couple of nights in a hotel there, then I'll be back."

Bridget's lip started to quiver, but it was clear that she was cried out. "I love you more than life itself," she mumbled.

"I love you too," I replied trying – likely unsuccessfully – to smile.

Just before I got into one of the Traffic Stop cars to drive to Tucson Corey came up to me. Corey is one of the most honest people I ever met in my life. He grabbed my arm and made intense eye contact. "When Bridget – the strongest woman I have ever known – came back from the last excursion I feared for her life. She was the most distraught person I have ever seen, and Rock – although trying to maintain a façade of strength – was comatose on his feet. Bridget told me this morning what happened. It was because she was devastated by the loss of your love that anything happened."

I obviously had a forlorn look on my face. He stared at me a few seconds more, squeezed my arm, and said "Don't do anything stupid," then left.

I was like an automaton the first day and night in Tucson. I was not emotionally equipped for something like this – nothing in my past prepared me for it. It was my first love, my first true friendship with a guy, and not something I could get out of by beating the shit out of someone.

The second day I got a call on my cellphone from Rock. I wasn't going to answer it – but then realized I had to talk to him at some time.

I barely said hello when with his voice cracking he blurted out so quickly I almost couldn't understand him "You've got to forgive us, it was like we were in an altered state from our grief; it wasn't something that we wanted, understood, or anything else, and for Christ's sake she called out your name the entire time. Come back and kick the shit out of me; break every bone in my body; but don't you dare give up on her."

I swear that "give up on her" was delivered with tears. The concept of Rock crying was so foreign to me that I was stunned. I didn't even realize that he had terminated the call for about thirty seconds afterword.

That night I had an epiphany. About 3 a. m. I left the hotel, drove back to Traffic Stop, woke up both Bridget and Rock – well actually I just got them out of their beds since it didn't look like either of them was actually asleep. Neither of them said anything as I led them into the conference room.

"Bridget – Rock – I've thought long and hard about it. I understand, I don't blame you, and to the extent that I need to forgive you I do. However, next time get a DNA sample no matter what – because if I arise from the grave again I will shoot both of you," I said, the "shoot both of you" delivered with as straight a face as I could.

After a few seconds where they were dumbfounded I broke into a laugh, hugged them both at the same time; they smiled and sighed even if they didn't laugh with me. When we got back to our room I fucked Bridget doggy while simultaneously inserting the lubricated butt plug that I had purchased in Tucson into her ass. She orgasmed the hardest that I had ever seen her when I pulled out the butt plug at the same time that I ejaculated into her.

Within three days everything was back to normal; there was no tension or angst any place in Traffic Stop. I loved Bridget as much as any man could love a woman and there is no doubt in my mind that my love was reciprocated.

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

We had our most detailed plan of attack in the history of Traffic Stop in association with the two Mexican whorehouses that we were going to liberate trafficking victims from. Every operative – except Jake, who was still recovering from his wounds – was active, and every computer and administrative agent was heavily involved too. We were almost certain that there would be casualties, and it was dangerous if the police arrived too since we had no right to be in Mexico and we sure didn't want to kill innocent cops (whether or not they would be innocent or in collaboration with the traffickers/drug cartel, we didn't know).

I tried to talk Bridget into sitting this adventure out, and just running it from the command post at Traffic Stop. She got a scowl on her face and then punched me in the gut, the first time that she had ever hit me except in practice sparring sessions. "Fuck NO!" she sneered. I didn't bring it up again.

We hit the first whorehouse in the middle of the night. We got lucky because we really caught them off guard, and used only suppressed gunfire and knives to dispatch the dozen traffickers that were there. We rescued twenty one victims, ten from the U. S., two from Canada, one from Vietnam, and eight from Mexico. There were actually twenty two women there, but one Mexican woman swore that she was there voluntarily, did not want to return to her family or go anyplace else, and asked us to let her stay. We – foolishly it turns out – agreed.