In Which Sarge Addresses the Purpose of It All

Cpl.,

Berlin: the thump from the bass from the underground club beneath us is like blinking neon through a window and still Smitty is wiring and re-wiring the communications devices for tomorrow as if he were surrounded by a still sea.

Riga is half a memory of fog and double-cross, but the information is in the houndstooth coat.

The information is in the houndstooth coat.

I told you once that I only felt truly alive in Africa, but amidst the curving streets of these old and cobbled cities I feel myself come alive again in the intrigues of our world. It has been years since my training in the wilds of the Canadian Rockies, but I feel myself almost as eager now, as if, even in this profession of corrupted souls and the teeming morass of amoralism, I have some dirtied scrap of idealism left. I hold it carelessly in my hand, it is the thing that might, one day, undo me or save the bones of my thoughts. Perhaps yet, it will do some good for the things we try so hard to believe in.

In Riga the churches, topped with their odd, almost rustic vanes, made a key for which only the morning fog could trace and everywhere there seemed to be the suggestion of a shadow that might undo me, undo all of us really, for Reynolds, Hyland, Comstock and Dawes were there as well. I felt the weight of leadership press upon me while everything else around me floated on the breath of Riga's morning, and truly I wondered if the double-agent LaStrue had flipped us again. Only in this game do the cheaters get to re-join the table; we, you and I, know that it is the innocent who are most likely to die. But let us not speak of that for now.

Still, near the Cats' House in the Old City there was the street vendor with the one leg and I, on my own, wondering idly if I still was a commander of men or if I was so soon to be undone, asked idly for directions to the nearest tram, little did I know the carnival of flesh that awaited me in that terrible basement I was led into.

I shot my way out, human cargo about me and with me, and the words of the fool Nesberait still echoing, I shot my way through a backyard's garden and found the boat and we were off to Stockholm, scarred, half-men with secrets that have driven them half-mad and made them wanted by too much of the world stared at the white caps of the waves and maybe found a few moments of tranquility in the contesting rhythms of the sea and the boat. By early evening we were at the safe house in Berlin. Only Reynolds is still to be heard from, Comstock and Dawes are to Nice and from there I will rendovous with them in Cairo, but Reynolds' work is of a more sensitive nature, or so I hear from the gossip that passes for information here. I wonder if he will not be meeting up with Nwargo?

Hyland has just cursed under his breath, the bass thumps on and I stare at the ceiling while I write to you, the computer perched on my knees. Sometimes I wonder what this is all about, but then I remember the next thing that must be done, and I know it must be done. What bigger picture can we form in this world of next moments?

I know soon you will be back in Berlin. I leave this letter for you, and when you see it, know that I too, who am now in Cairo, loved this little octagon of a room too, know that I too wondered if I would be able to sleep through the heartbeat of our neighbors. I hope you appreciate the Russian tea I stocked, in Riga it was cheap and of exceptional quality. Take care to add the milk first.

with best regards,

Sarge