Violence Warning/Disclaimer: This story depicts scenes of violence and/or their aftermath. Readers who are disturbed by or sensitive to this type of depiction may wish to read something other than this story.
Sexual Violence Warning/Disclaimer: This story depicts a lot of scenes of sexual violence and/or their aftermath. This may disturb some readers and anyone who is sensitive to this particular issue may wish to read something other than this story.
Love/Sex Warning/Disclaimer: There are blatant discussions, references and description of sexual relations between consenting adults. You must be over the age of 18 and it must not be a crime to read material of this nature at your present location. Some of the scenes depicted are explicit. If this bothers you, you should find other reading material.
Language Warning: The language is representative of street language. Therefore is quite vulgar. You must be over the age of 18 and it must not be a crime to read material of this nature at your present location. If this bothers you, you should find other reading material.
Note: This is intended to a work of fan fiction. Any similarity to real life person past or present is purely coincidental.
My thanks to my beta reader Katia, Jennifer, Dawn and Amy for their wonderful help in writing this piece.
Summary: The wars years of Noel from the winter of 1970 to the end of 1972, then her years with the Thai army and her years as a guerilla in the Philippines. This is not a pretty story. If the violence of war or the dark side of a tortured woman offends your sensibilities, this is not the story to read. It does have a happier ending than Dee's Song.
My name is Noël and I was dead inside. For two days after the phone call from my uncle, I stayed drunk. Then I got sober. I had a job to do. In my rage, I developed a mission in my mind. They wanted war they were going to get. Fini was back and she wanted blood. My new mission in life was to kill every fucking redneck on the planet.
Hate was driving me hard. Rage was the only thing I had left. I was hunting rednecks and there were plenty of those in the military. So, I had to stay in the military. I got sober and became a toe-the-mark soldier on the job. After hours, I sought out rednecks.
I needed a bankroll for my war. So my first stop was a bank in Merridian, Mississippi. I walk in with a gun and out with eight thousand and change. Newspaper accounts were that an unknown male about 16 years of age with dark hair wearing sunglasses robbed the bank. He stood about 6' 2" and had a slender build. That was two days before I left for overseas.
Like most GI's going overseas, I was given a week's leave, which I took. Normally, people would spend it home. I had no home, so I said I wanted to see some of Asia before I went to work there.
I took a commercial flight to Seattle, where I hopped a C141 to Alaska, then a DC10 out of Alaska going to Korea. I then took a C130 to Taiwan and then a C141 to Clark AFB in the Philippines. I talked to no one the entire thirty-eight hours of the trip. I acquired no targets or showed any hostile intent. I was on a weapons-gathering mission.
In Korea, I bought a katana from a World War II veteran for a hundred bucks. There was no problem getting it on the military flights, it was only a souvenir. On Clark at the Negrito Village on base, I purchased an aluminum blowgun and two Filipino machetes called bolos. I also purchased some lessons on how to make darts for the gun and how to use it.
In the Philippines I acquired my first target. I was having a drink in a bar in Angeles City, when a guy from Mississippi offered to buy me a drink. I refused and asked to be left alone. Then, he told his buddies, "she must be a dyke". Then, he said the magic words, "Let's get out of here. Nothing but colored pussy and dykes in this bar."
I finished my drink and then left to reacquire my target. He and his buddies were going to the next bar. I went to a Sari-Sari store across the road and bought a San Miguel beer and an order of pandesals, which were a small roll they made locally. I watched the front entrance of the bar carefully. His friends had obviously found some colored pussy they liked, because he came out alone.
I walked over and asked, "You ditch your buddy's finally?"
He smiled and replied, "Yeah, you interested in some action?"
I winked and motioned for him to follow me between the buildings. Once in the alley, I crushed his larynx with a single blow. I didn't want any noise. He was choking to death. I wanted him to die slow and painfully, so I swept him to the ground and sat on him. If anyone passed by they'd think I was riding him.
I held his hands to the ground as he thrashed about trying to get some air. He must have been getting some air, because it took him several minutes to die. Before he died, I whispered in his ear the last thing he would hear, "Her name was Dee."
I removed his wallet, his watch and a valuable looking gold ring. He had twenty-seven bucks. I kept that for the war chest. Then, I threw the wallet in a fire drum. I dropped the watch accidentally in front of a street thief who took advantage of my clumsiness. The ring I gave to a twelve-year-old girl who was trying to earn some money as a street whore. I followed her when she sold it to a vendor to make sure she got a good deal. The guy was lucky; he gave her a good deal.
My second beautification project was two guys who raped a fourteen-year-old dependent of a black Air Force couple. They walked because the girl was too afraid to ID them. They told her all sorts of degrading things, but the worst was that all nigger bitches were whores and only good for screwing. So I decided justice needed some help.
Besides raping young black girls, their hobby was tag teaming Filipino prostitutes and roughing them up a bit. They paid extra to the mama-sans so they could pretty much do anything that wasn't permanent. The girls didn't like it, but the mama-sans did.
They were in a hotel in Angeles City, when I found them. I put a fast acting poison on the blow gun darts. The locks on the hotel were a joke and I easily picked them. It was a hooker hotel so they really weren't worried about security.
They had a young girl tied to the bed and were whipping her with their belts. I slipped through the door and hit the one furthest away with a dart right in the eye. This took him out action while the poison did its job. The one closest to me was introduced to my katana as it separated his head and part of his shoulder from the rest of his body.
I released the girl and told her not to go back to her parents because they would blame her for what happened here. I gave her a thousand pesos and what was in their pockets to start a new life.
I was in Thailand for three days, when I was approach by a guy who was dressed as an Army lieutenant. I knew immediately, he was a phony. He was wearing a navy ribbon and his unit patch was a unit that hadn't existed since Korea.
As he approached me, I was changing the bandages on a wounded soldier. I wasn't in the mood for talk. "Hello, Noël, my name is John Smith. I'm looking for a medic for my unit and you seem to be the perfect candidate."
Without looking up, I asked lackadaisically, "CIA or MI?"
Without missing a beat, he asked, "What do you mean?"
This guy was well rehearsed anyway, so I decided on just a direct confrontation by saying, "Stop playing games. You're testing me. The signs are like neon. You wanted to know if I was stupid enough to fall for the phony uni. So you are either CIA or MI. Which is it?"
I could hear his head rattling as he shook it and as he said, "Can we talk privately, Fini?"
I sighed sarcastically, "Let me finish here, Lt. Smith."
We sat in the basement storage room. It was the place I took my breaks and dinner. I could read here and not be bothered. I wanted to get this over with and said, "Start talking."
He smiled and said, "I have to sweep this room. We didn't know about it. You're good at losing your tags."
As he scanned the room with a device that detected electronic devices, I stated, "So, you're the guys that have been following me. I thought it was the queer patrol."
He nodded and said, "We've been interested in you since the judge sentenced you. We had a difficult time checking you out. It seems everyone is more afraid of you than us."
I had to chuckle, "They know that you can't do anything stateside and I will."
He finished his scan and smiled then asked, "Do you know why I want to talk to you?"
I shrugged and answered, "I imagine it's to recruit me for some job. So, let's save some time. I'm interested."
He laughed and replied, "You don't waste time. You don't even know what we want you to do, yet."
I casually said, "You want me to do what I do best. You want me to kill."
I could tell by his expression that he was impressed with my reasoning, so he queried, "How do you know that's what the job is?"
I shrugged and stated the obvious "You called me Fini."
I was sent to Langley Air Force Base for training. I arrived and joined eleven other recruits. We were all given code names; mine was Fini. Who said the CIA didn't have a sense of humor? I was now an officer and a gentleman. When I took the job I was promoted to O-2. It really didn't matter since none of us wore rank. It was just a pay grade.
There were three women and nine men. We were greeted by a marine drill instructor. His code name was Sgt. Fury, like in the comic book. We were at attention when he introduced himself, "My name is Sgt. Fury. Your name is printed on the duffel bag being given to you right now. Forget who you were. You are now CIA cadets for special operations. We lose twenty-five to fifty percent of all candidates to death or injury. So look around. Who will be the first casualty?"
He pointed at me and yelled, "You the tall black haired bitch, why aren't you looking?"
I answered with volume, "Because I want to decide who they are without prejudgment, sir."
I could tell that answer pleased him, but he had to take me down a couple pegs. It was his job, so he said, "Ahhh, we have a smart ass. Are you a smart ass or a bad ass, Fini?"
I raised an eyebrow and replied, "A smart bad ass, Sir."
Because of the giggles in the ranks, I got fifty pushups. It was a piece of cake since I always kept in shape.
The first day was dedicated to seeing what kind of shape we were in. We picked up our duffel bags and ran two miles to the barracks. We were given fifteen minutes to change into a uniform out of the duffel bag and square away our areas.
Inside my bag was five uniforms, three issues of underwear including bras, six issues of socks and three pair of shoes. I stripped down to my skin and changed into the issued items. I noticed that the other two women tried to get a modicum of privacy with a blanket. A few of the guys were leering at my form. I really didn't give a shit. Let them drool. They'd pump the weasel tonight because their dreams were the only place where they would be able to touch my bod.
I hung up my unis and put my stuff in the footlockers and locked it. I made my bed and was out the door with two minutes to spare and before anyone else. Only three others made the fifteen-minute time limit. The ones that didn't make the time limit owed Sgt. Fury fifty push-ups.
Our next stop was the chow hall, we ran there and found out we would run everywhere. We would have thirty minutes to get our food and eat. After we finished everything on the plate we could go for seconds. Sgt. Fury said, "We don't care what you take as long as you eat it."
I got my food and four glasses of water. I also spotted some mineral packets like distance runners used, so I took two of them. When I started eating, I poured both packets in one of my glasses of water and drank it. I finished my meal and all the water. I knew with all the running, I needed to be hydrated.
The first day was physical testing. How many push-ups and pull-ups we could do; how far could we run; how fast could we run, and many more tests. A guy named Winston and I tested the highest. Winston was black and a couple of rednecks commented it figured that a nigger would get top score. I looked at the two sons of bitches and called up Fini before asking them, "What did you say?"
The two of them were brave together and responded, "I said it figgered that a nigger could run like an animal."
I gave him my best Fini smile and questioned, "Are you calling me a nigger?"
Sgt. Fury didn't say a thing, just watched the encounter. The two rednecks looked at each other and nodded. As they started for me I round housed both of them coming in. The second one didn't get the full blow, because a lot of the blow of absorbed by the first guy, but the blow did knock him backwards. So I finished him with a backhand blow to the temple.
As the two assholes lay unconscious on the ground, Sgt. Fury came forward and stated, "You have some skill, I see."
I smiled and walked away. Medics were called forward to care for them. The first guy had a broken jaw and would be leaving us. Winston came over to me and said, "Thanks, but I could have handled it."
I looked at him and replied, "I didn't do it for you."
That night Sgt. Fury announced that I was going to be the squad leader. I moved my footlocker to the front bunk and moved my other stuff. I made my new bed and turned out the lights. I said, "Get some sleep. You'll need it."
We trained in sniper techniques, electronic espionage, weapons, hand-to-hand combat, concealment techniques, and survival techniques. The training was a breeze for me. Only three incidents are worth mentioning.
The first was the training accident that killed the second redneck. We were practicing hand-to-hand and he didn't pull a sidekick and broke one of my ribs. So, I didn't pull a roundhouse blow to his temple, which cracked his skull and spilled his brain. I hid the injury so I wouldn't be sent to the hospital.
The second incident occurred on the obstacle course. I had qualified already and was trying to set a new record, when I saw Mary was struggling with the wall. So I picked her up and climbed the wall with her on my back. When we finished the course, Mary kissed me on the cheek. It was the best I felt in long time. She might have been able to get through to me if she had tried and my life might have been different, but she didn't.
The third incident was the survival test. We divided in three man teams. I selected the teams. I took the two women. The object of the exercise was to kill the other two teams. We were issued plastic bullets and protective equipment and rations for one day. Then we were driven into the woods, a three-day walk from anywhere.
I took my team and double timed to the retrieval point and set up an ambush. We had plenty of fresh water and fish from a nearby stream. The first day, I chanced a smoke hut to smoke the fish. I figured that they would be looking around for the other teams for a bit before they decided on a plan.
I had planned this since I heard about the survival test. I collected the rations and we lived off of smoked fish for the first two days. Finally, Team B came in with only one live member, they had met Team C obviously. The two "dead" members went straight to the pick-up benches and waited. It looked like the live member planned an ambush himself. He walked right into Wanda, who took him out.
An hour later a member of Team C, who was dead, walked through our area. He was a clumsy attempt at a decoy. He walked to the pick-up area and sat on a bench. We waited for forty more minutes when I heard them. They were circling us. They knew where we were, so I moved and hoped the others would.
I heard a commotion and some gunfire to my left. I crept toward it. Mary and Wanda had been "killed", but they had taken out one of Team C, the other one was "finishing" a "wounded" Mary. It was a simple shot and the game was over.
I graduated top of the class and totally alone. Everyone else had family and friends at the graduation. Of course they didn't know it was for the CIA. They were told it was Special Forces training. Only two people congratulated me, Sgt. Fury took aside and told me to trust no one, which went without saying. The other person was John Smith, who had a job for me. That night I started documenting everything I did.
My first assignment was a Cong colonel, who was North Viet Nam's liaison with the Khmer Rouge. My best shot at him was at a small village in the heart of Cambodia, where he had a girlfriend. He only had two guards with him and when a guy is using his second head, he isn't using his brains.
When I got there he hadn't arrived yet. So I spent two days hiding in a bush by the village latrine trench. I spent Easter, 1971 eating cold k-rations lying by a latrine trench. I picked the trench, because everybody had to relieve themselves.
The day the colonel arrived in a jeep with two guards, I got two pieces of luck. My first piece of luck was their jeep barely made it and it needed parts, so one of the guards got sent on foot to get help. I circled him and took him out. I hid the body two miles from where I killed him.
My second piece of luck was that the colonel after two hours in the hut with his girlfriend had to relieve himself and he didn't bring his guard. As he took a leak, I stuck my katana up his ass. Then I decapitated him. I was supposed to send a message and I thought that would do it.
After that it was assignment after assignment. By the end of 1972, I had 42 confirmed kills and was one of the CIA's top infiltration agents. Unfortunately, the Senate started investigating all the CIA's black ops. There was already a huge bounty on my head in Cambodia and Laos. Now, I had the Senate on me. It was decided that I should lay low for a while.
They sent me the Philippines for R and R. I was getting tired of the killing. It was weighing heavy on me. To top it off, I got a letter from Walker who found Dee's diary, when he was cleaning out the house. He was moving. He couldn't stand living there anymore. He sold the house and was moving to Chicago. He sent it to me.
I read her thoughts and how she felt about me. Then, the rage changed to grief and I cried for three days. After that I lost my edge. I wanted to live again. All those missions were on automatic pilot. Now, I was alive again.
I was downtown in Angeles City trying to figure out what was going on. I saw a commotion. A young Filipino girl was swinging a rattan chair at some GI's who had another girl pinned to the ground. I was about to walk away when I saw the girl get disarmed. I was in my Marine major's uniform, so I walked over and yelled, "Attention!"
All five of them froze and jumped to their feet. I looked at them and asked calmly, "What the fuck is going on here?"
One of the men started to say something, but I said, "Quiet in the ranks."
I walked over to the chair wielder and lost my heart. She was a foot shorter than me and weighed less than a hundred pounds. She had soft brown eyes and dark brown skin and to this day I remember what she wore. I still have the outfit as a keepsake. She wore a silly lemon yellow tank top with white polka dots and blue-velvet colored bellbottoms with white polka dots. She wore brown platform shoes. It was the silliest outfit I had ever seen. She was very defensive as I approached her and she didn't speak a word of English. So I used my limited Tagalog.
I held out my hands in a sign of surrender, "Hello, are you and your friend okay?"
She relaxed a bit and replied, "Yes."
"What happened here?"
She started talking too fast and I held up my hand and asked, "Could you slow down? I know only a little Tagalog."
She put down the chair in a gesture of trust, "These men thought my sister was a bar girl. We're good girls. We work in rattan shop. We make chairs. We don't have sex. They tried to force her."
I nodded and stated, "I understand."
I looked at the man who had had the girl pinned and asked, "Let's hear your story."
He swallowed hard and spoke loudly and clearly, "Ma'am the whore took our money and refused to give us service. We were trying to get our money back is all."
I went back to the girl who was making it hard for me to stay impartial. I told her in Tagalog, "They say she has their money and they want it back. Is this true?"
She looked at her sister and answered, "I don't know."
She said some things to her sister in a language I didn't know. I found out later that it was Ilacono, a mountain dialect. Suddenly she hits the girl and takes something from her and hands me some pesos and says, "I'm sorry she took the money and tried to run. We are behind on our rent and she was trying to get it. I am sorry for my sister."
I smiled my best smile and said, "It's alright, wait here while I straighten this out."
I handed them the money and told them, "Watch out who you proposition; we're guests in this country. They're factory girls. They have fathers with bolos. Get lost."
They set personal best times getting out of there. I went back to the girls. I needed to know the older one and I didn't know why. I told her, "They will not bother you again. There will be no trouble. Tell your sister they could have called her a thief and put her in jail. Now let's discuss your problems. Let me buy you and sister dinner."
We were eating dinner at the Village Pub. They had great tacos with real beef not dog. I found out that they were from Pangasinan Province and that the Hucks were active there. The Hucks were communist rebels. They had come to Angeles City to make money to send home. They had too many girls and not enough boys in their Barrio (a communal farm).
They had sent their money home to pay the local army for protection from the Hucks. If they didn't get the rent money tonight then they would be thrown out of their apartment and they still needed one hundred pesos (eight dollars) to pay the local army. Cecilia, the oldest girl, was about to go and be a bar girl to make some quick money. I had been banking my O-4 and hazardous duty pay for two years. I had money. So pulled out five hundred pesos and gave it to her and said, "Don't send any of that home. I will take care of the Army. Give me two days. Meet me here in two days."
"How will you take care of the Army? What do you want for this money?"
"My soul back. Give me two days, what can it hurt?"
I called Smith. It was the first time I had ever initiated contact. He was very surprised. I said, "This is Fini."
"What can I do for you?"
"I want a letter of introduction from the CIA and Ferdinand Marcos."
"Easy enough, but why?"
"That's personal."
"No, I mean why should I do it."
"You live at 408 Converse St. in Middlebrook, Texas. Your wife's name is Anna and you have two sons, Steven Jr. and Matthew. You name is not John Smith, Steven."
"You'll have them tomorrow. It's a dangerous game you're playing, but I know you. You'd kill me, but not my family."
"How do you know that?"
"They innocents," he said as he hung up.
The next day I took a jeep and went to Pangasinan. I went and saw the military commander in the area. I showed him my letter of recommendations and said, "You will stop charging the villages for protection."
His eyes went wide and asked, "Why would I do that?"
I gave him my most evil smirk and said, "To live."
One of his men made a move forward; he died before he hit the floor with a knife through his left eye. I looked hard at the commander with my steel blue eyes and smiled my best smile. He pissed his pants and I knew we had a deal.
That night I met Cecilia and her sister in the Village Pub, this time we had the worst pizza I ever ate. I passed her the letter from the Army commander promising protection at no cost to the villagers. She looked at me and then the letter and shrugged, "I can't read."
I was taken aback, I blushed for the first time I could remember and apologized by saying, "I'm sorry. I didn't know. What it says is that your village will be protected from now on for free."
She rewarded me with the warmest smile I ever saw. I thought Dee could smile, but Cecilia would light a room with her smile. Then, she asked, "How did you do this?"
Not knowing how much to tell her, I deadpanned, "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse."
She cocked her head in a gesture with which I became very familiar, it meant she had a question, "Why are you doing this?"
I evaded the question by answering, "I don't know."
Her reply indicated she wouldn't let me evade her, "I think you do. I think you like me."
I more than liked her, but I had to free myself from the CIA, before I could tell her how much I loved her, so I went for honestly by saying, "I'm not worthy yet. I have something I have to do before I talk to you about this."
I tried to reassure her by saying, "I've made arrangements for a hundred pesos a week to be given to you. If something should happen to me you would get my insurance."
That told her that I wasn't saying everything, so she asked, "Why?"
I shot for evasion again and responded, "I don't know."
She shook her head and refused the answer, "I think you do know."
I needed to avoid this topic for now, so I begged her, "Can we let it go for now?"
She decided to indulge me by saying, "You helped me and now I want to know how I can help you."
Relieved to be off the hook for the time being, I said, "You can help me by being patient and being my friend. I don't have many friends."
She exposed herself to me by stating, "I am your friend. There is something about you that scares me, because I could love you. But why would you love me? You are beautiful and I am ugly."
I couldn't believe my ears. Here was the most exotic beauty I had ever met and she thought she was ugly. At first I thought it was just modesty. I came to find out she believed it. It took me a long time to convince her otherwise. I told her, "You are not ugly. You are more beautiful than me. You are beautiful outside and inside. Inside I am really ugly. Could you love another woman?"
She grabbed my hand and sent a shock up my arm, while she replied, "I don't know if I am a lesbian, but I know I could love you. Why would you love me? I have this ugly dark skin and I am tall and skinny."
I had to laugh at 5' 2", she was tall for a Filipina, but at 6' 2+" I tower over her. I guess she realized my thoughts and said, "You are the tallest woman I have ever seen. Is that why you cut your hair like a man? Because you are tall, you think you have to be a man?"
She thought I wanted to be a man. I chuckled, "No, I am all woman, who loves women. I have always been this way. I know no other way."
She tilted her head to the side again and questioned, "Why do you cut off all your hair? You must have beautiful hair."
I replied honestly, "I'm in the jungle a lot. It's easier like this."
She pursed her lips and said confidently, "I think it would be better if you let it grow. I think it would make you feel better about yourself."
I shrugged my shoulders and agreed, "Then I will let it grow. For you I will do anything."
The next day I met with John Smith and told him, "I want out."
He smirked, "So you found love and someone to take Dee's place. Now you want out. You have to know it's not that easy."
I gave him my best Fini stare and didn't say a word until he looked away and said, "God, you're good and that's the problem. You are too good to lose. They won't let you out."
"I'll make a deal. You need someone to train the Thais to stand against the Khmer Rouge. You can give me an Honorable Discharge and I'll join the Thai army as a mercenary and train them. I'll even train their secret police in espionage."
I could see the wheels turning in his head. Finally he said, "That is an intriguing idea, but your enlistment has another three years. How can we discharge you without raising a red flag?"
I smiled and he winced, because he knew that meant I had the answer.
She was a cute platinum blonde with blue eyes and was only four inches shorter than me. She was with MI and cruised the gay bars to catch homosexuals. So, I offered to buy her a drink. She smiled and said yes. When I offered to rent a room for us to roll in the hay, she arrested me.
That was my deal, I got my honorable discharge. They didn't want to go to an open court where I could bring out our illegal operations in Laos and Cambodia. So they gave me my honorable discharge with no mention of the reason why I discharged. For the next two years, I was paid quite handsomely by the Thai government to train and lead their troops. But that is another story.
Prolog:
As you have probably guessed Cecilia and I became life partners, we were together for twenty years, before she died. I mourn her still. John Smith and I became life long friends, we've helped each other out a hundred times over the years. He helped me get Cecilia into the United States.
On a funny note, the MI officer who snagged so many lesbians over the years was thrown out for a relationship with an enlisted man. It's against regulations for an officer to fraternize with an enlisted man. Those pesky regulations can discriminate against anyone.
Fini