Ranger - The Bear

Sarge,

I believed this channel had been compromised. Until last month, I feared the worst for Corporal. I received of all things a telephone message from him. From what I could understand, he was headed in the direction of Georgia. I was not certain what business he had there. I had begin to fear that the stranger he met on the train to Berlin was less than a chance meeting.

I am in Seattle. Close to home, though with the recent American election all hell has broken loose here. One team of operatives has left for Guantanamo Bay to retrieve a few special friends. Another small group is monitoring market changes. A large group of traders seem to be shorting an essential market, resetting it at will. Mercerier's fingerprints are all over it. My group has been hard at work with dive training and cold environment weather amphibious landings. The locks here seemed an ideal place to train. We hope to be able to assist you in the near future.

The Moscow Roll you recommended was brilliant. Reminds me of my grandmother's Farina rolls which I have never been able to successfully replicate. I am told she always left out a key ingredient in the recipe. I have enclosed the information our office here was able to retrieve on Fu Shan - it is sparse, but I have hope you will be able to make some use of it.

If nothing else, remember fondly my first day of training, with your soundless blade at my throat, and Calrissian emerging from the bushes with his words of wisdom for me - "knives never run out of ammunition."

leges barbarorum,

Ranger

In Which Sarge Pleads Mercy From Dark Clouds...

Ranger,

Abdul was screaming, an endless wail of suffering that connected him horribly to a distant past of jealous gods and the harsh duties of desperate faiths. Africa hangs on to these gods even as it puts up cell towers and hunts those animals to extinction that once made this land sheer wonder even to those who would be Caesars. The rain fell in thick sheets, tearing at trees and pummeling the tall grass. I had carved a place in the mud for myself and set up a field of fire hoping to ride the storm into the morning, hoping it would not come to shooting, for if my place was discovered my final battle would be an empty gesture prelude to the cyniade pill. I felt for its vial and caressed it as one would a sad lover. I was wet through and my clothes clung to me like paste. Calrissian's incursion team lay dead like breadcrumbs for the last six miles or so. I had not liked radioing that one in, and had argued against their inclusion. I know Medicine Man has contacts in too many places not to connect the dots, for his shadow is long and his claws are sharp. I imagined that their bodies must be flung and buried by the consuming jungle and idly to myself I sang grimly a song from my youth:

When the green dark forest was too silent to be real
And many are the dead men too silent to be real.

But the morning came and with it birds' song and some strands of sun. The rain had past and Medicine Man had left me once again, a plaything for an old cat seemed my destiny. Was I to be killed by such a man? Even after all this?

I endeavor most to get my dog back, and then perhaps to kill Medicine Man. But before that, I think we should meet, as you are so close, and we should decide what it is that we are up against. What it is we must do. Perhaps the dead will rest easier, as Hamlet supposed, if there is vengeance. I know this, that Medicine Man deserves nothing so good as hell.

I will make my way north over the next few days. I will check in on Cody and perhaps make a few contacts and set myself up for future operations. This land, scarred as it is, acts as a deranged New Lanark of sorts for that dark figure. I am beginning to understand the local predisposition not to name him.

You will receive this from the man with three birds and one eye. Please pay him beyond the normal price as he once did a favor for me. We must not forget our friends of the longest nights.

with best wishes and anticipation at meeting an old friend after so long again,

I remain

yours,

Sarge

In Which Sarge is Full of the Sorrow and the Pity...

Cpl.,

The days are numb. Barely measurable. I have been in an opiate haze for weeks now. A trap. Canucks, but I remember killing that bastard dealer with my own hands while around me howled Cody and where is Cody I wondered and then I didn't wonder but I slept and it was the needle that made me sleep and I saw that they wanted to make me slave to it.

After awhile I drooled and nodded my head. Some dead-end hotel in Sydney, yellowed walls and urine stains against the walls near the steps where they would take me out to some sessions with somebody I only knew as "the Medicine Man," he wore white corduroy suits and spoke Spanish to me as if he wanted to hide his English or French accent. I noticed this only at the end, but automatically answered him for weeks. In the room, the television on constantly, Australian talk shows are the worst, the hussies from Townsville or Cairns going on about some bloke who, surprise! turned out to not be fixable. He was hurt and I felt so sorry for him turns mighty quickly into he hurt me, he's selfish. Ah, daytime tv, in the end they did not have to feed me the needle to make me take it. I reached for it and it soothed me and blanketed me in release from this ugly truth of cinderblock and cockroach.

And they tried to make me talk.

I told them everything I knew about Canadian history, I told them over and over again that I didn't care, I still loved the Queen, still thought of her as part of Canada. Sentimental I said, sentimental but proud.

And there was torture. Withdrawal, the television turned to maximum volume, myself strapped down. Other things not so nice as even that but perhaps sometimes easier to endure. And where was Cody? I figured him dead and thought about how we should not become attached to the living who are not like us.

We kill them more surely than the enemy, I thought. I wept as they beat me with knotted rope and as they poured sand into my pried open mouth, but I wept for Cody. And they laughed and did not know they were not the cause of my suffering.

In this way I controlled the meaning of the torture and waited for the next fix and when it came, I knew the Medicine Man was close and I would talk to him in Spanish soon. He would be kind and fatherly, then angry and terrible. He showed me his pen made from bone. "Tanzania," he said by way of explanation. "I know," I answered, but it was just to acknowledge Tanzania. "No, Ghana," he said. "Impossible," I said, and then he had me beaten.

The jungle would unfold for me in their tortures and again I was running in my mind, Nwargo there, constantly telling me this way, that way, the trees there are dangerous! We must hide here until dark!" And then the Medicine Man asking me about Ottawa, about Calrissian. About Ranger. About Smitty. About the others.

About you.

"Where are your comrades now?" He would ask. I would not answer.

"They believe you a helpless addict. They want to kill you. They know you will talk!" And he would laugh and laugh, then stop and slap me.

"Come now, argument like this is useless."

Silence.

They broke my nose and broke it again. I never hoped for death. Only to see Cody, and walk him on the ocean's edge where arguments and sentimentalities gain the proper perspective of being nothingness itself. I dreamed of shipwrecks and those dreams saved my life. I thought of the waves and Cody, with the gulls crying their song to the end of the world and the beginning of the water.

"Come now, good Sargeant," he would continue, "you do not have to work for us, but we will not let you go." And he would lean over and peer into my face, so that we were centimetres apart, and I -- tied down -- would think about tearing out an eye with my teeth and he would laugh again.

"But you are a professional," he would finish, reading my thoughts into his argument. "You...are a professional."

The odd assortment of dead things he always had there, and photographs. They showed me Ahmet. They showed me a shattered body in Talinn. "He did not make it," Medicine Man said, "we found him in a closet. He was still alive, his ribs on the left side shattered like clam shells when they break. He could not stop screaming."

Ahmet's death was simpler, and he did not comment on it. But they had blown up the picture and it greeted me at the hotel room they stowed me in. Sometimes I would talk to the dead body in the night. Not out loud of course, biting my lips to know where my tongue was, then I would talk to Ahmet, and tell him how sorry I was.

They claimed they had killed Nwargo. Described his death. Traced it for me. But nothing could convince me of it, as they said they had gotten him in Egypt, but I did not let on and allowed myself to weep for Cody then: the one time I cried.

Medicine Man carved a map on my arm with a knife, of the Ministergarten. He laughed and told me how it was so simple when their man told them everything they needed. How could I hope to fight them, when they knew exactly when we were going to punch. I finally talked, I said,

"Tell that to Aglionby."

He slapped me. It was my turn to laugh.

Then I was silent.

They did not trust me with needles, obviously, and when I dosed myself with the heroin it was always powder, but as I began to dream more often of killing Medicine Man I found I could not make myself and they began to force me to take it. Torture was increased. The truth was more desperately needed by them as the time wiled away, and I was a tougher nut to crack than they had thought.

Medicine Man would say, "The Maple Leaf is crumbling even now. Don't you know how we despise you?" Silence.

The Medicine Man would say, "Guards, saltwater." And I would choke and he would intone over me the whole time, "This is the Maple Leaf that has made you thus. This is the water that spills from the Maple Leaf. And it will rain forever." And this would go on for hours, his voice soothing so that I didn't wonder if the guards hated him too. But they were always silent.

One night I was dreaming. Sweating. The heroin had not been given to me in a day and a half. Medince Man was gone apparently. Sam stood over my bed. He was talking but his words bent and fell, darker clouds in the darkness. He was gesturing and it felt like we were below the ocean. Echoing and crashing.

He shook me.

"For Christsake, boy-o!"

A guard stood crumpled against a dresser, a trail of blood running from his neck. The door was open and outside I saw another lump as my eyes adjusted to the light. I needed to throw up and get more blankets. Sam pulled me up.

"Nwargo's dead," I said in a monotone. I know not why.

"Nwargo's not dead you idiot, but we will be!" He hissed at me. "Come on!"

He helped carry me out as I staggered and threw up on the corpse of the guard right outside the door. He was one of the ones who had been most cruel to me when we were with Medicine Man.

One more brilliant gift I received that night: Cody ran up to me, I fell into a heap, crying, laughing, ecstatic, suddenly not sick. I began to run.

"That's better now!"

Cody ran beside me, and then we were in a van, then a helicopter, flying low over the outskirts of Sydney, where the lights stop. And then a car, driving now, Cody asleep against my leg.

I am at a safehouse now and Sam tells me I must back to Africa quickly. Cody will come with me. I will keep my job at the restaurant, Sam says, for when I need it, for Australia is still hot.

Two mornings later, we raided an orphanage and killed three French bomb makers and one of their propaganda experts. The orphanage had been used for making bomb parts because the children's hands, so nimble and small, could fit certain parts together without as great risk of blowing themselves up. Those missing hands, feet or eyes, were kept for cleaning and record-keeping. It was a terrible sight to see, and sticking the knife into Fourait, the bombmaker, not the sabateur, I had said to him, "please sir, I want some more." And I put the knife in deeper. I felt I had finally returned.

So it is to be Africa again. I know not why. I shall see Nwargo soon though, and that fills me with happiness. He will meet Cody and we will play chess. Never let Nwargo take a bishop if you can help it.

Be careful of yourself. I only wish we could have killed Medicine Man. I wonder often, as I prepare for Africa, who he is.

with best wishes,

Sarge

Rehab

Sweat dripped from my brow as I trotted down the jungle path with Nwargo on my back. As I jogged, he murmured, “ Regain your endurance you must, for the race is long.”

We stopped in a clearing and I collapsed into a heap. Nwargo hobbled around on his bad leg, stopping periodically to flex his toes and stare at his leg as if his force of will would cause it to heal faster.

The monks have been good to us. An old favor repaid. Brother Soleto (as he calls himself now) joined the monastery after watching his squad die on that long campaign in Cambodia. He and his fellow monks have been excellent hosts.

The malaria had passed and only the haunting memories of the nightmares remained. Reading my mind Brother Soleto had asked me when I would turn away from the path of violence and destruction. I smiled at his happiness, but also at his naivety. But was it naivety to follow the Cross as I follow the Maple Leaf? He would die for Jesus just as I would for Canada. I could only nod, clutch his hand and reply, “Some day, there will be rest. But the enemies are too many at the moment.” “The only enemies are those within yourself” he countered.

His words found their mark. I flinched, then laughed, “You sound like a Buddhist monk, my friend, not a Catholic one!” I moved away, clapping him on his shoulder as I passed him.

Physical exhaustion clears the head and brings peace of mind. General Calrissian taught us this. So was it that I had carried Nwargo on my back to this place in the jungle.

Standing on my head, I watched Nwargo’s muscular arms pull his chin above the low-lying branch. He bobbed up and down while murmuring something in his native tongue.

“What are you saying?”

“Eh? Ah, it is a prayer to the God asking him to protect my wives and children while I am away.”

“Do you think He will?”

Nwargo shook his head, “Your head is full of spiders!” and let himself fall from the branch. His bad leg buckled, but he caught himself. He hobbled over to me and squatted in front of me waving a finger in my face, “My friend. Everywhere are ghosts. We must honor the God. You can kill a ghost? The God can kill a ghost.”

Nwargo always was practical. I had no response. He rolled his eyes at me, “You make too many ghosts, and they haunt you.” He cocked his head to the side while maintaining eye contact. He grunted and left towards the monastery, leaving me standing on my head in the jungle.

I left the monastery to escape the questioning then brought it back upon myself here. Brother Soleto was right. The enemy was within. I cut myself. Blood ran down my finger. I watched it form a drop then hit the ground. Another drop formed and fell. Another drop formed and fell. Another drop formed and fell.

“What are you doing?”

Nwargo’s voice shocked me out of my trance. He took my knife and sliced off one of my sleeves, binding the cloth around my finger. He put my knife back in my sheath. “If you want to punish yourself, carry me back to the monastery!”

In my cell Brother Soleto looked at my finger with pity then looked at me. “You still think of her?”

I nodded.

“You loved her?”

I nodded.

“Let her go.”

I closed my eyes and saw her. Had she seen what I was? Had she seen what I would become? The truth was that I ran from her, not she from me.

“Stop.”

“Ubi pus, ibi evacua.”

I put my knife on the table with the handle towards him, and spread my arms, “Evacuas.”

He took the knife and left. As he left he spoke tenderly, “The past cannot be changed, but do not abandon hope for the future.” His tone became firm, “Matins are at three. I will see you there.”

I went. I couldn’t sleep anyway.

Ranger - The Reindeer

Sarge,

It is cold. The last few weeks the weather has been as low as -31 below. Bitter, though not entirely unexpected here. When I am out for prolonged periods, I check my heart rate and systolic pressure, thinking of Corporal and our cold-weather training. Winter is a time of death.

The cabin near Rogers Pass is quiet at this time of year. It does not appear anyone has been here in some time. It was amusing to find the map of the London Underground still here, your knife holding it to the back of the cabin door. I had entirely forgotten that night, your absurd scheming and laughter. How long has it been since we lived our own lives.

I have been able to check in briefly with Calrissian. I was uncertain about what was happening in Ottawa, and frankly, I believe he is as well. He advised me to disappear for a while, and that he would be in contact. I could not bear the though of deserting my post and so I will wait for death here, or on whatever assignment I receive next. As for now, there is something to be said for bow-hunting caribou rather than facing another human being through a rifle sight.

I hear the sounds of howitzers in the background, clearing the mountain paths.

And before I forget. Toynbee. I was able to make it to Vancouver and the downtown eastside. He was there, though it was some time ago. I checked in at his favourite hotel where I learned about a recent murder. Unfortunately, one of many there. The murder was reported in the local news, but a few key pieces of evidence were omitted. Presumably, the police needed to hold a few details back to identify the murderer, but I can imagine the army was not entirely pleased with what was found. After a few friendly drinks, and some time with a hostess (I eschewed her brand of hospitality, and unfortunately our conversation was not as interesting as I would have wished), a witness confided in me that the corpse was found with a devil’s brigade patch reading “Das Dicke Ende kommt noch.” Toynbee was always an excellent student of history, if not German.

In my present circumstance, I have no way of knowing whether the assassination was rogue or per orders. Only the wolves speak to me here.

I did learn one other thing from Ottawa, though it is now common knowledge. Segoline Royal’s comments in January were not well received, and belie the nature of the ties between the French government and Quebec’s sovereignty movement. I believe we may all be reunited in Bordeaux at some time in the near future.

Ranger

In Which Sarge Calls Down the Rain and it is Snow Snow Snow...

Cpl.,

What is left? I had taken a coffee cup from Aglionby's sink, dried it and threw some bullets in it; the cup sat at my feet and I leaned against the wall, looking out at the slow traffic of the holiday. I thought about Nwargo in Africa, I thought stupidly, "it's warmer there" and let my thoughts wander across the landscape of the last few months and then further back toward thoughts I need hardly describe. Idly I looked at the colors that drifted by under the window, from even just five floors up, people are reduced to the colors they wear and a few identifying features. "What tells me who I must kill?" I thought. Aglionby didn't have an answer for that.

I didn't either.

I started to get hungry from the boredom. I didn't dare leave the window and I could feel an old hunger return. It creeped up from my blood into my thoughts, and then it was in my pores. I was sweating, the corpse was beginning to smell. I knew Aglionby had a few faults, it was an idle thought.

Still people walked by to their relatives, to their friends, for meals together, for opening presents; Aglionby smelled. If there was a clock it would have counted the hours but there were only the shadows falling into the apartment, now longer. I thought about her smiling at that judge, he was a good man. I was happy for her.

Out the window nothing changed. I could feel the urge, I could smell it past the corpse. I knew he had some. I knew it was here, in the apartment where I had killed him. I needed to look out the window, to focus. I had seen it on his arms. The winters are long here, his assignment had undoubtedly bored him and the women, if they don't challenge, don't long interest. From his file, he must have never learned this about women; he must have been going out of his mind. There was nothing about tracks in his file though, it must have been a recent development: something to make the nights go away.

Let me tell you something about the thing that enslaves you, it is always interesting. It's never the same old thing. I thought about her and what had happened after dinner with the judge. I looked away from the window, appraising the room. Aglionby was sprawled out, there was a shelf with a jar, house keys splayed next to it with a keychain from the Space Needle. Fate with its obvious sense of humor, a tracing of our weaknesses like laughing at a man tripping over a rock. I looked in the jar: nothing: some change. A pencil. I settled back against the wall, looking out across the street. Nothing. The weak sun of afternoon was already beginning to fade, in an hour there would be no light, and then what?

I sat there for a few minutes trying to clear my mind. Suddenly I was exhausted. I wished Nwargo was here and looked at the corpse on the bed. His boots were Russian, there was a backpack in a corner near the bed: the eternal student. I looked in the bag, I had been trying not to because I knew what I would find there. Nobody would stop me. I tried to fool myself. I looked out the window, but wouldn't they have come by now? By now they must have had some idea that if I was anywhere, I was here. Aglionby had been dead for some hours now. Would they dare wait for night?

With my talent for escape?

I found the stuff I needed to fix, but not the stuff itself. I knew where to look for that too.

I started with his pants pockets. Nothing. The usual things. Gingerly I rolled him over a little, the bed was streaked and puddled with blood; I found his breast pocket. The baggie hadn't let the blood in but it was greasy, I was shaking and it was hard to open it right. Everything smeared. I felt sick. I looked out the window. Nothing. My hands were shaking. I thought of Greenville, the Sinoe River, my last fix and the corpses there. They had floated like logs, colors of their shattered bodies and torn clothing muted by the river. When a thing is a corpse that is all that it looks like, but you know that. I didn't want the junk, but I had the fever. I was bored and scared, the last month had shattered me. What was this betrayal by Ottawa? What had happened to those villages in the Sahel? Her smile and the judge. The endless watchfulness, the double-crossing and wondering who knew what? I told the Spanish captain that I would come to Tallinn and that was it, he would say I was in Helsinki or that I had told him Helsinki but he guessed Minsk. What kindness there can be in this! But my hands were shaking, I didn't want to be who I was anymore. I didn't want this accumulation of lies and truth so that it hardly mattered anymore if this were Greenville or Tallinn, New York or Tokyo. I wanted it all to mean something, and if it couldn't, then it couldn't matter anymore. Ottawa left me out in the cold? Calrissian, who had recruited me years ago? I wanted a reason. I wanted payback.

The junk was bubbling. I let it bubble. I dropped the spoon and immediately cursed at myself. "Fool!" I said out loud. I leaned back against the wall, without even that to distract me now. My victory over the junk meant nothing to me, a noble but meaningless gesture. I would probably still die before the next sunrise. But I refused to die a slave and I refused to die with my belly up to the French pursuit. I found a stick of gum from God knows when in one of my pockets and stuck it in my mouth, waiting for them to appear.

Undoubtedly they would be shadows. Clouds obscured the slipping sun and the snow began, ever so gently, to fall. The snow caught the light from windows and streetlights that slowly blinked on, awakening to the night. I only felt my tears then, when I thought that I loved this earth more than anything. It is good that we can still feel this way, Cpl.

It is late, I must conclude for now before I bore you completely, but you must indulge me to continue with my narrative when I am next continuing this present journey. There is a morning train, and I will try and continue it then, but I know you wait in Berlin for news of me. You have found some of that news here.

Barking like a dog? Quick thinking Cpl., it has saved me once or twice as well. Indeed, man's best friend!

without further delay,

I remain,

Sarge

Building Snowmen

I brought Alan and Henry to the ridge overlooking Kukes in the early afternoon. They took out binoculars and mumbled to each other while scoping out the city. The wind pushed ice floes across the narrow lake and carried banks of clouds crashing into the mountain ridge, periodically obscuring the view of the snowy valley below us. Alan turned and barked, “Wait for us here.” Henry tossed me a bottle of Vodka, “Stay and watch our packs. We’ll be back in the morning.” I grinned and opened the bottle, taking a long pull to their satisfaction.

Down the narrow ridge they set off, the setting sun illuminating their way.

There was no cover on their path to Kukes. Completely exposed, they were confident that they were safe. They had believed my ruse and their voices chided me inside my head, telling jokes of finding a frozen drunkard upon their return up the ridge: “Take one fifth of vodka and mix with one Macedonian. Allow to chill overnight. Serve in a frosted glass.”

Hubris tainted their judgment and they never looked behind to notice that a mountain sheep followed.

If they had been careless regarding me, they proved their abilities infiltrating this city of smugglers. As dusk approached they grew bolder and moved more quickly through the blocks of prefabricated buildings. They approached a dimly illuminated doorway where an old man with a newspaper smoked on an upturned paint drum. As I concealed myself in a pile of scrap metal opposite the courtyard, they handed him something. The old man disappeared inside, closing the door behind him. The two waited outside nervously, aware they were being observed and obviously uncomfortable about it.

A hand grasped my shoulder. I wheeled and snapped the offender’s neck before I realized it was an old woman wrapped in a shawl. The scrap tumbled and betrayed my location. The two were no longer in the doorway.

I barked like a dog.

There was no movement.

The babushka’s shawl smelled of piss, brown coal, and onions. I wrapped it around my head and hobbled over to the door where moments ago my quarry had waited.

The snow beneath my feet announced, “Here he comes!” In plain view I stopped and doubled over with a consumptive cough, supporting myself with her walking stick.

I knocked at the door. The old man’s narrowed eyes peered through the crack. I mumbled something and began coughing again. The door opened wider and the walking stick crushed his trachea then sent the other guard’s pistol flying. His cry was cut off with an uppercut.

No alarm sounded in the dim hallway. I followed my ears to a closed door where a heated discussion was underway. As I pressed my ear to the door, the latch failed and I fell into the middle of the room.

The room was silent. “Borka?” Henry’s confused expression mirrored his voice. Alan was not curious why his mountain guide suddenly appeared on the floor and used the distraction to grab a canister on the table and draw his pistol. Gunfire erupted in the room as I somersaulted away. Alan darted into the hallway but crumpled, still clutching the canister. Henry was screaming. There was a shot, then silence.

I entered the room and ensured that all parties to the prior negotiation were reunited at the bargaining table, joints placed at festive angles.

The canister contained Polonium.

For whom? For what?

All assembled carried multiple passports: Albanian, U.S., Russian, English, French, Serbian, German, Turkish – a United Nations of dead smugglers.

There was no time to investigate further and there were still two travelers waiting to be escorted to their destination…

The snow and Bill’s ankle had forced the two men to descend into the village. Everyone in the village knew of the two foreigners and where they were staying. Now I knew as well. I recruited a young boy to take the canister to the guests and tell them it was a gift from Borka. He dutifully marched off to the house.

At night I set the house ablaze. A steady wind caused the fire to spread beyond my intended target. The village alarm was sounded and people rushed to and fro trying to extinguish the blaze. Bill limped out into the street. I emerged from hiding to engage him and a bullet grazed my left shoulder. I retreated back into the shadows. Gene lay down an excellent cover fire while Bill limped to take up position. Gene then appeared, covered in soot, but Bill’s cover fire hindered my movement. I was pinned down. They would maneuver themselves until they had a clear shot at me. Hastily, I scraped a pile of snow together; returned fire then put my jacket and hat on my snow-doppelgaenger. Shivering, I moved back and watched bullets pierce my jacket. Gene approached cautiously. Before he could discover the ruse, I shot him. He lay groaning for a moment, then there was a flash and I was knocked back.

My ears rang as I scrambled to my feet and hid once again in the shadows. I had the advantage of mobility over Bill and I began scrambling in a half circle to put the fire between him and me as to give me a better shot.

Bill leaned against the wall and drank. His head darted left and right, peering into the shadows, searching for me.

He yelled into the night, “Who are you?”

“Canada.” I whispered into his ear as I cut his throat.

I am making my way back to Berlin as I write. The recovered canister is in my possession, although I do not know what to do with it. General Calrissian has been notified, but no orders as to its future have been given.

Stop by for Christmas Dinner if you can. It would be good to see you again, and Smitty is cooking goose.

Cpl.

In Which Sarge Traces the Bullet...

Cpl.,

Again Estonia: the old sow of a country full of guns and the smell of its occupiers, from the Swedes and the Poles to the Nazis and the Soviets. I made it into Virtsu looking over my shoulder and I knew Tallinn was next. Tallinn of the dreams and the doubts, a fog in my imagination out of which I could conjure the wonders and the terrors of what I have known. It is in the oddest places that we stash our hopes and fears, and while there is little anymore of faith, what faith there is, why does it end up where it does?

From Virtsu, its corrupted shores slick with industrial ooze and the sky above coughing with smoke, I took an afternoon train to Tallinn so I could get in before the shadows I feared, before they might meld with the night. Cpl., I tell you now, I did not want to be there but we go where the trail is. And it is the only way, after all, nobody wants to be where we end up, but we want to be the ones who go there. Ranger himself ends up in the jungles of one continent and you and I in the sewers of another. This whole time though, I feel weighted down by the oppression of a conscience that doubts I can be the tool of a righteous cause. I long now for the relative stability of my life in Africa, where Nwargo was always sure to take measure of my moods and find ways of placating me. I am over the edge here and of course, SHE is here. Well, she had to be somewhere but I thought I would be safe in Riga. That somehow in this desperate scramble, the one place I wouldn't end up was that place I dream of when I don't dream of Africa. Fate mocks however, and I'm sure the sound most of us will hear at our deaths is a soft rustle of laughter: here I am, in Tallinn.

I avoided Tallinn, looked for anywhere else I could make my way to the truth, but that time is over. The old city, the dignified port with it's twisting and cobbled roads, the undercurrent everywhere of the idea that anything here could happen. All the nations come to Tallinn, though they would like to pretend they are of other, larger, more sophisticated locales - when the fights break out at the bars near the wharves the business of nations is settled there; Tallinn itself is concerned with larger matters, and right now there are a lot of guns in Tallinn. Where there are guns, there is money, and where there are both, there are the French Separatists.

This is where the deals go down, and where I thought I might be happy one day.

Those days are no more, but there it is. From Riga I knew it would be to Tallinn because everybody there wanted to pretend it wasn't so. The informants were saying the Black Sea and the agents who sell are still insisting on Moscow. Moscow? That haunt of overripe discos and the paunches of 30 year old billionaires retreating into the infantile antics of the supremely pampered with their private armies like so many Tybalts and not a Mercutio among them? I have nothing but disgust for anybody who could convince me there is anything of value for me there at all. In the back of their voices I found the whisperings of Tallinn that, in their chatter, they desperately tried to mask, but finally, one night, by a fountain in Riga I found the one person who told me that what I heard was not my own fears and hesitancies in those whispers, but the almost indistinguishable sound of truth. To hesitate any longer, the informant said, meant discovery of my actual identity with those who could bring death. I had trusted this particular informant for years though he had never given me much in the way of usable information. I cultivated the relationship out of respect and out of hope, and now there was the pay-off, he knew I had no friends now anywhere near: he was it. No place that was not out in the cold, and he knew too the Canadians and the French both, being himself a lonely Spaniard. He is a captain of a freightor that knows its way too well around places like Vladivostick, Murmansk and the Orkneys, and of course he, like me, knows the fever of Africa.

He told me Calrissian was being filled with doubts by some of the politicos at Ottawa, particularly one, meanwhile the French are angry I disrupted the pipelines they had established in Chad that stretched out through Sierra Leone, the Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia and are working hard to pay their respects. Now, was the time, he advised, to enter into the den of the lions. It was how I found myself on a train trying to pretend it was the most natural thing in the world to look for death, and also, that it was the most natural thing in the world for a Commando, battle-tested as I was, to be tracing my tears onto the begrimed windows of a slow-moving train.

With all this information of the Spanish captain's to digest, I thought instead of an afternoon not so long ago really, spent wandering the shores and then the forests just outside Tallinn with her. I fell into sentimental reveries of what might have been, these last few weeks on the edge of my thoughts like so many darker clouds that the fog of my reverie kept momentarily at bay. Perhaps I allowed myself, in that brief moment, to grieve for the self that was lost to this calling, to this training, and finally to my own weaknesses which drive me and push me more than they should.

I never got used to the plosive sounds of the Russian-made rails though, and along the way I was finally jarred from my wandering thoughts, and now I am here in Tallinn, already the whisperings I am hearing tell me this is where I needed to be all the time. Slowly I feel the confidence of the professional, doing what he must do, returning to me. It has been a busy evening.

Tell Calrissian this, though he won't believe you yet, there is a mole. Deep and trusted, a comfortable mole but one not complacent. Tell him I am in Asia if you can. I know it is risky to you, but we risk for each other my friend. And the favor I ask now might well save both of us.

If you don't hear from me in the next week, make sure what I have enclosed here makes it to Nwargo, who besides you, is my most trusted confidant. Tell also, to Ranger, that Mercerier has a weakness for rare editions of Molière and the French Symbolists, especially Verlaine.

Wasn't it Verlaine who wrote of the autumn song? It is winter now, and my heart must steel itself, for the buffeting of fate has begun, and though I progress well and have some optimism, I know too the furies are about: my own, and theirs. My misgivings keep me in a state of sleeplessness, and I fear what mistakes in judgment I have already made.

All about us the clocks are against us, but we have been in tighter spots, and if the time for zeroes is now, the game has been a good one, and I think more than fair to me.

Cpl., I remain

your most trusting servant,

Sarge

In Which Sarge Berates the Unknown and Asks What Is It?...

Cpl.,

Was Calrissian behind the debacle that has become Klaipėda? Hardly was Newfield's body cold, guts like torn snakes mixing marrow and sinew from the carved out hollow of his belly, my own ammunition expended and the awful silence and beauty of the world suddenly like a living postcard surrounding me, Newfield's face curiously preserved, his eyes registering nothing until I shut them that I wondered and I ask again: was Calrissian behind this? It was hours later then, the sun almost up, the night a hallucination of violence, despair and rage. What was I to make of this, that was deeper than failure yet not so artistic that it could be called tradgey? Closing his eyes to the rising sun, it was the final gesture of that night of blind swords.

How could "The Carpenter" know the watchword was "Tuesday" and where was Halliday when the noise went down? The weeks of silence have been difficult but I don't know who to trust and I won't lie, I skipped out of Kretinga and hid out in Petersburg for a week before making a trip to Prague to see about the latest from Mercerier. I am afraid he is somewhere in Mexico right now and has already been to Quebec twice this month. Armed with that knowledge I know I must continue to Riga once again, where the demons are and the dangers of the flesh are equal to those of the job. Still, I think the laundering operation has been compromised and if everything runs through Riga and we push there, well...it's only a matter of time before they make a real mistake and we can shake somebody higher on the tree than even Mercerier. The Canuck menace runs hard through the veins of Canada, and the terror that they can bring to bare is awesome to contemplate, but in Riga, in Riga I think we can make something happen.

But who can I trust?

When the longshoreman calling himself Pyotr suddenly ran off leaving Newfield and I alone on the empty piers surrounded by the warehouses of this Baltic waystation, right away it was obvious, but my pleas for back-up yielded only static, and though my guns made souls that night, and my knife marked one more, I could not save that rookie of Banff. That same night, in a fury, I burned four of their delis and though I knew that my lack of subtlety would let them know they had taken the field, I would not give them those platforms and over the following week, though half of Klaipėda sought to erase me, I killed four of the owners who had collaborated so baldly in their infernal schemes. I wanted to make the soft underbelly of the complicit clench and taste fear and pain the way Newfield had. I did not hear him die, the sheer number of guns made a cacophony drowning out that solemn moment, I knew only that suddenly instead of being pinned from the north, I was surrounded, and it was then that I simply chose a warehouse and began to run, several bullets grazed me and I have two new scars, one of which should fade, I used a flash grenade as a diversion and if I hadn't had that? I don't know, but thankfully, somehow, I stumbled upon a platform where I set up a nice field of fire, gained an opportunity to withdraw and since then have seen too much of Eastern Europe with the idea that I was mere minutes away from ambush and death, and from which side?

Am I betrayed from within? Where are Halliday and Stewart? Why has Calrissian tried to call me home through Tallinn when he knows that a strong push now might weaken them to the point of desperation? It's all his people there and none of my own contacts. Perhaps I am paranoid, but the way things stand, I cannot afford to trust him, nor anyone. I have ignored the signs and the commands. I am, as they say, off the grid and it is lonely here. I have grown a beard, my hair is long and I try to look American, wear Nikes and t-shirts that advertise places that don't exist; I take pictures of buildings and eat McDonald's. If I see Halliday and it doesn't look good, do I fire? What if he was drawn away by a feint from some other source? What don't I know? These are trying days my friend. I know you must also dance with the possibilities of betrayal and even now take up a job that offers little in the way of accomplishing what we must accomplish, but I know too a mole lurks, and I know also that what happened at Klaipėda was no slip on our part, but something more sinister. For one needle now I would beg the world, but it is easier to withstand the torment, because I know that if I was to taste bliss, I would be hunted down in a minute. I know if Calrissian or anybody near him is the mole, every supplier of the sweet elixer from Petersburg to Berlin down to Athens has my specifications and promises of rewards if I'm turned in. That they would die like me, like rats, I am sure they are blind to that!

Take care my friend, I am to Riga and there I will begin to make sense of this. That I will see her? Well, if we are to make the Canucks taste fear and desperation, we must make our own plunges, we must be desperate ourselves. Not all my demons come from the sharp edge of the needle...some are sharper than even that, and go much further than the vein!

with regards and brotherhood I am

yours,

Sarge

In Which Sarge Fears the Shadows...

Cpl.,?

Cpl.? Where are you? The days are dreamscapes of half-lived lives and dead children in mounds of acorns and pinecones. I sleep and wake with no sense of where I am or what borders separate dreams and wakefulness. Neither seems reality to me, but in both I find some necessity of experience. It has been almost two weeks since I have heard from you.

I am in Eastern Europe, Lithuania; I left Nwargo standing on a camouflaged airstrip in the cursed country of Nigeria. I am on my own, or rather, should I say, I head a team of five, and we are first to Lithuania to clean out a den of Frenchies who run a string of delis that launder most of the French separatist money from Asia. Everything comes through Honshu in Japan, across Vladivastock into the whole of Russia and everything ends up here on the heel of the Baltic in Klaipėda, with all of us around it, offering up bribes in broken German to a bunch of longshoremen. The rich go to Nida, just down the coast, everyone else is here, and the Frenchies have an easy time of with the laundering because everybody's looking in Grand Caymans and Isle of Man. From here it's up to Estonia and then across to Ukraine. At some point I will be in St. Petersburg. Perhaps we can meet there?

Stewart and Halliday are with me, you might remember them from that odd excursion in Patagonia, and I have a few newbies from the Academy. One shows promise, this kid Newfield. He's from Banff, and his instincts have been honed for Eastern Europe through his wandering the lonely Rockies near his home. We trained him at the base at Prince Edward's Island to get him a little out of his element and he seems quite able to adapt to new environments. He's smart, and he knows politics. Already he asks about Calrissian in ways causing me to wonder where he gets his gossip.

Your silence on that point is sore indeed. I wonder what it is in Berlin that keeps you from the pen, the ink and the ingenious methods of delivery I have come to expect.

During the day I work in a haze, cognizant, but in the motions of the work, the laying of the groundwork I half-exist in hallucinations of what might be. I have some sense that things can go wrong easily, and in my dealings with the network here, I can see why. I will be talking to a contact, say in the neighborhood of Eglė, and suddenly his voice loses meaning and I hear what must be his thoughts, terrible things full of prophesy and foreboding. I can barely listen. And then he is back, talking about where a drop must be made and yet I look at him and I feel he knows what I have felt, and in his look I see confirmation of that truth. And at night, the dreams, they are so clean and clear, a sight like that after you have just come out of a fog, the edges of things sharp so that it almost hurts, and in the dreams there are earthquakes and lovers, some dead and come back and in the distance there are wails and screams from the broken cities that seem to be African and European, with Canadian touches, like a bar in Montreal I used to go to lies broken apart in the middle of some avenue, or a newspaper cluttered and in pieces among the rubble of all this. And everywhere the screaming and people, some living, some dead, reaching out to touch me, the only reality among the smolderings and yet I feel myself a projection onto this new vision of somewhere and nowhere. I wake up in the quiet, the engines from the harbor the slightest vibration in the room, the window open with a cold breeze and I wonder what Calrissian is plotting and how I am involved. I wonder that I haven't heard from you? I think about Nwargo's worried face the day I left and Newfield's questions, almost impertinent, as if he knows he will never have to impress me to jump rank. Impulsively I get up and wander to the kitchen, the old woman, Liudvika, is already up and complaining about her rheumatism in the changing weather of this suddenly colder autumn.

It is the last absurdity, but everything seems like it's working. The speed with which I have set up this operation makes me nervous, much could go wrong, yet, I must say, it seems foolproof, and I think we can get most of the French operatives alive. From there we can take the operation to Estonia. I have some hope, but in this deepest night, it seems there are gears pushing the clocks in undiscoverable ways. The first bird of morning is outside, I hear him rather than see him, the shadows the trees have made against my curtains in the night with the moon are fading, replaced by their more stubborn realities.

I must go and make sure the safehouse in Kretinga is ready. If all goes well, that house will see us forward.

in anticipation of your correspondance,

I remain,

Sarge

In Which Sarge Argues that the Immortal Soul is the Ethical Soul

Cpl.,

As I scratch these hurried lines, I am in one of those trucks you only see in Africa, more rigging than rig, kept alive because it needs to be alive more than anything else, and we are looking through powerful binoculars at what must be Mercerier's camp. A Gaulic face, a circle of shadow under the large desert sun, suggests we have gotten lucky, and yet I must write, your last letter so disturbed me.

We swung back north on a hunch, I had noticed a hidden room in a storefront in Bokoro (you will recall, this is where MacFendrich got his, the poor bastard, with his "Birds of the World" guide always to be found in a random pocket - one bullet was actually stopped by that most civil of books, it was the 16 other bullets that ripped him to shreds - his face was bloody oatmeal), well, there was a nervous man there with a satellite phone and a copy of a 1974 National Geographic (a great article in there about the Phoenicians by the way), and so Nwargo grabbed him and immediately spoke in some language that was completely unknown to me. I couldn't pick up anything, but Nwargo was angry and the man shrank back and began to talk in a desperate ramble, I went over and smacked him to quiet him down and Nwargo pointed in his face. The man hurriedly began to make a map, drawing it right on a table, and we have him bound with us now.

The map has led us here.

I am nervous Cpl., we have a chance here, I shake with anticipation, or perhaps a stronger pull sways me. My mouth is dry, my pulse echoes in my retinas and I want to feel needle breaking skin, and then I want to kill Mercerier.

He is there. We will move against him soon. There is nothing here for me but the action. Nwargo too is nervous, he looks at me and looks away quickly. I know he does not trust me completely, how could he? I radiate addiction and I hold four grenades in a belt across my chest. I have a gun holstered and a rifle next to me as I write this. None of these things can give me relief. Mercerier is there, I must move soon. Yet this stillness seems an eternity behind me and an eternity in front of me. The sun trips over infinate stairs as it makes its way across the wide sky just north of the equator, I must wait. Nwargo looks over again and begins to pace. Somewhere a bullet's flight away, Mercerier looks through some papers, or perhaps receives some information from somebody somewhere. Perhaps I am a bullet's flight away.

That is the difference between Mercerier and I: I know I am always a bullet's flight away. His confidence must betray him sometime! It is only in consistency that we can measure what we are, heroes of moments rarely are heroes of years. We must fight every minute, but how I long to slip into bliss for at least mere hours occasionally. To be lost in the pleasure that feeds me, sustains me, starves me with absence when I need it most. I must leave it with the past, I am in agonies, for just a few grains of the pure stuff to make this time something not defined by this empty stretch of desert, I am afraid of what I would sacrifice.

But the mission is all. I write, I am distracted enough. As we make our way toward night, I will let this mission mean everything.

Nwargo approaches, we must make final arrangements.

I will be in touch directly. If what you say about Calrissian is true, there is a mole. And one who's lair is deep.

If they pursue me, you know you become that much more vulnerable. Try to distance yourself from me for now, and see if you cannot get some little closer to Calrissian.

I will make inquiries from others when this is over.

Sarge

Autumn is the Fall

Dear Sarge,

It was good to hear from you. It’s been a long time since we wrote. I was a little confused after what General Calrissian did. I mean, I’ll admit it to you that I wondered if what the Commission said could be true. I wrestled with it for quite some time.

I was in Skopje waiting for a contact before heading to Orhid. I was in a park playing chess with an old man. He spoke of the old days in that wistful way that citizens of the former Eastern Block speak of the old regime while the gypsies sold watermelons at the crossing and children played on the statues honoring the partisans from the War -- when it hit me.

You couldn’t have done it. You were in Kirkuk when the whole thing went down. McKinzey was with you.

The fact that McKinzey hasn’t been seen since Operation Blind Salamander is… disturbing. Could there be a mole in the Commandos? It’s happened before.

I was so preoccupied that the old man took my rook and put me in check. His toothless smile and little cackle made me want to smack that cigarette filled with cheap Kazak tobacco out of his hand.

Some of the younger men in their blue jogging suits shared his amusement. “Take his knight” one advised.

His knight? But then my bishop would be exposed! Hmm.

I stared out across the park at the men fishing in the Vardar River, wondering if the fish were biting.

Fishing.

Bait the line. Spread the net. Catch the man.

But why you as the fall man? Are you the bait?

You are the bait. You are the exposed bishop. I took the knight. I lost my bishop, but I won the game.

A thousand possible combinations.

Could I have afforded to keep my bishop and still win?

I cannot leave my post here. I am sending you a package to Dar-el-Salam. It will be with the crippled cumin salesman who smokes the clove cigarettes. Ask him for 100g of cumin and a cigarette. He will ask if you would like a glass of water. Take the water, but ask if you may have a slice of cucumber in it before you drink it. He will ask you if you want to buy a crate of clementines. Buy them. The package will be inside. You will know what to do.

Be safe. And watch your back.

Cpl.

Nostalgia

Back in Berlin. General Calrissian is tense about something. It makes me wish we were still working together. You always seemed to read him better than I.

It makes me miss the Academy. Memories of that day when Calrissian showed up at our front door one day after school wearing his uniform. I was told to take the dog for a walk. When I came back, Calrissian was sitting in the kitchen, my mother was crying on my father’s shoulder. My father looked at me and smiled. He placed his calloused hands on my shoulder. “Son, Uranium City is no place for a child. You’re gonna be a man soon. Now the General here says there’s a military academy you’ve won a scholarship to where they can get you a great education. With an education, you don’t gotta be a miner like your pop. Make us proud son.” My mother hugged me. I didn’t understand that it would be the last time I would see my father. Isn’t it always that way?

Mom later told me that my father knew he had leukemia from excessive radiation exposure in the mines, that he had sent my application to that “military academy.”

Two months later, the letter that my father was in the hospital with influenza. Two days later the news that he had developed pneumonia. A hurried leave granted home only to be greeted at the bus stop by my neighbor. Silence. Stomach heavy, I entered the home with the shades drawn. My mother looked up and ran to embrace me, stumbling on the upturned edge of the carpet. A sickening crunch we are all now too familiar with. Her sobs mixing with her cries of pain, clutching her wrist, my father dead in their bed, the neighbors rushing to help her up, the dog barking, the priest, the candles.

The Academy was my new home. The discipline of chess. Reading Plato. Ten kilometer hikes with 15 kilo packs.

Remember when we stayed up all night breaking down and reassembling our rifles, just so we’d get the record time?

Simpler times. I used to laugh about the old Commandos. I used to think they had grown soft. When Carling urged restraint in ethics class, I could sometimes not contain my rage… How many times was I forced to do push ups in class until I collapsed?

Remember the time I sang “O Canada” to the tune of “Oh Tannenbaum” at the Christmas party? They made me run barefoot through the snow. You brought me leftovers from the buffet that night as I lay shivering and hungry in my bunk.

Listen to me! Now I’m the sentimental one!

Berlin does that to me.

Oh, thanks for the tea. It’s excellent.

Peace.