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The camp Commander, Tafar Rasulon, never was a heavy sleeper. It may have had something to do with the fact that his father died when he was young and that he was raised by his mother who moved around a lot to find work. It seemed like he always slept with one eye open watching for his mother. In the camp’s barracks, he slept on a single bed in his own private room and he was relatively certain that he just heard a noise outside his door that he kept unlocked. Outside his room in the main barracks, his soldiers slept on standard military bunk beds, and each one of them was disciplined enough to know that you don’t make noise at 2:00 A.M. Tonight, the barracks was only partially filled because some of the troops were on assignments in Iran and Chechnya.
The noise came again as Tafar searched his mind wondering if any of his soldiers might be holding a grudge against him. No one came to mind.
By this time, the intruder was now standing inside his office. From the corner of his eye, Tafar saw someone in a camouflage uniform coming toward him. Unless the intruder started shooting in the next few seconds, they were about to die. Tafar has his hand under his pillow holding the large knife that never leaves his side. He jumped up and took a swipe at the intruder who was expecting as much and quickly blocked the swing of Tafar’s knife with their own. The spark from the metal on metal clash was seen in the dark room.
“Tafar, it’s me,” a soft feminine voice said.
He jumped out of the bed still raging and pinned the intruder against the wall with his hand on her arm holding her knife as he held his own knife against her neck before he realized what she said.
“Ella, you foolish woman, I could have killed you."
The lights came on in the barracks and one of the men came running in with his rifle pointed to see what the problem was.
“It’s okay,” Tafar said, “Go back to sleep.”
Ella Mamedov removed her camouflage baseball cap and long locks of raven black hair fell out and covered her shoulders.
“We were able to leave Chechnya early, and I wanted to surprise you, darling.”
“Surprise me, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”
She walked into the offices’ private bathroom and showered before she crawled into the bed with Tafar.
She loved everything about Tafar. He was the strongest and bravest soldier that she had ever seen. Everything about him was big, from the long dark mustache on his face to the ever-present knife that he carried. Despite no formal education, he was a brilliant military planner and strategist. Two years ago they were living day to day on limited income as military trainers and soldiers for hire. Today they were in command of a small well-financed and well-equipped elite militia.
She fell in love with him the moment she first saw him. She was only seventeen at the time, and worked at her parent’s small bakery in the rural village of Ismailly, Azerbaijan. On that day, some Azerbaijani soldiers tried to intimidate her father and steal some goods. Tafar, who was formerly in the Azerbaijani National Army, was self-employed as a freelance mercenary. On that particular day, he just happened to be in the neighborhood and walked into the store amid the ruckus. Never one to pass up a fight or an opportunity to harass some young soldiers, Tafar simply told them to pay their bill, leave the store, and no harm would come to them. The menacingly confident stare from his cold dark eyes made it clear to the three men that he was anything but to be taken lightly. The three soldiers had their rifles strapped on their shoulders, and Tafar had his pistol and long knife on his belt ready to use. He leaned back against the door blocking it in a cool and confident way that told the three soldiers that there was little question that this man would surely bring death to one of them that day. Tafar stood there calmly and stared down the three soldiers for fifteen seconds that seemed like an eternity, before the three soldiers paid for their goods and left. She never saw a man so brave and willing to help people in need. While he was seven years her elder at the time, he continued to frequent the shop where he was always welcome. A year later their relationship grew and she went from baking bread with her family to helping Tafar train new recruits at an Alqaeda training camp in Afghanistan.
Under Tafar’s tutelage, she would soon become the most fearsome female soldier in Afghanistan. After the Alqaeda money started drying up, Tafar and Ella returned to Azerbaijan and began working together as a lethal team of assassins. In the underworld of the mercenary network of Eurasia, word soon spread that it would have be much more pleasurable to let Ella kill you during the set up than to face Tafar’s big knife.
While most of the work they did was in other countries, they maintained an apartment in Ismailly to stay close to Ella’s family.
Tafar lost his beloved mother shortly after he entered the national army. Those that knew him would say that the early loss of his parents was what helped shaped him into the killer he became. Tafar held absolutely no value for human life until he met Ella, then he valued at least one person. Rather than her making him soft, he hardened her to become a cold-blooded killer like himself. They made barely enough money as mercenaries to make a modest living, and Tafar’s uncle, who thought that Tafar was still in the Azerbaijani army, would send him money on a regular basis.
Their lives changed the day that Tariq Amin called. The Saudi billionaire was looking for a small military presence in Eastern Europe from which to launch attacks against the infidels in both the east and west. Tafar had no religious or political affiliation with anything, but if there was one thing he knew about, it was military skills. He responded to an underground ad that Amin had circulated in Baku, Azerbaijan, and Tafar and Amin hit it off immediately. There was nothing that Tafar could not accomplish militarily, and there was nothing that Amin’s deep pockets could not pay for. Tafar was like a kid in a candy store.
Within a week, Amin bought Tafar a two hundred acre reservation in the mountains of Ismailly where he and Ella set up a paramilitary camp. This camp made the Alqaeda camps in Afghanistan look like Girl Scout camps. Tafar would spend months searching every bar and back alley in Azerbaijan looking for the disgruntled soldiers and underprivileged young men who wanted to move up to the next level. Rather than bring in outside mercenaries that couldn’t be trusted over the long haul, Tafar elected to stick with Azerbaijani nationals that he could train the way he wanted. Before long, he had twenty-five good men, a well-stocked base camp and armory, and a constant supply of money to keep them running efficiently.
As they held each other on the small bed in the barracks, Tafar said, “I have to leave for Georgia in a few hours, I’ll try not to wake you. Make sure you drill the men in the morning and have them fill the fuel tanks and pick up the supplies.”
“But I was planning on sleeping in, can’t Max do it?”
“No, because when I’m away, he’s the officer in charge, and you’re the next in command under him, so these duties are yours.”
“If I knew this was going to happen, I wouldn’t have hurried back from Chechnya,” Ella said.
Seeing her disappointment, Tafar said, “I’ll tell you what, Max won’t be here until mid-morning, if you’re not too weary to travel, why don’t you come with me to Tbilisi. I could use some help monitoring our activities there and you can finally get to meet my uncle. We’ll leave here well before Max gets back in the morning.
Ella hugged him and said, “I thought you’d never ask.” She pulled away for a minute and asked, ”You don’t think that Tariq will mind?”
“No, I’m his highest ranking officer, and I will take anyone on any mission that I choose.”
“And you’re not worried about what Max might say?”
“Hah, he knows that if he did anything to jeopardize our status in Tariq’s organization, he’ll be found hung on a pole down on the main road.”
“Come, darling, let’s get some sleep.”
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