In Which Sarge Considers Those Things We Call Eternal...

Cpl.,

Thought you would like a picture of Cody! Truly a wonderful companion; today he was awake with the birds and we went to watch the sun perch itself on the horizon of the waters and then lift itself heaven-ward for it's daily arc. Cody chased after birds, sticks and once or twice, I believe, some creatures unseen by me who call the water and this beach their home. Often, in these moments, I almost forget who I am, but the day had other plans for me than oblivion, today I killed men.

And Cody proved himself as a true companion. I wonder though, with what eyes will he see the next sunrise? His sweetness sustains me now, truly he is a remarkable dog.

Before I narrate the strange events of the past hours, I want to ask if you got the tape I put in the last letter? As well, have you made it to Cairo?

I know we have been out of contact, but it has been delicious to imagine your surprise in Cairo, running into Smitty with that bit of knowledge and that English curry I told him to make special for you. I remember the last time we were together with Smitty and he made it and you kept yelling it tastes like mud, it tastes like mud! Well, it was Upper Guinea....It was mud! And all the more English for it. I think that was the last time we saw Neverensky alive. I remember he told us then that he was to Erdenet the following week.

Smitty, though, is eager to help you descend upon those who would presume to attack you, ignore his grumblings. A cobra's death I know you have prepared for them. It is not often I can giftwrap comradeship to my friends and death to our enemies so neatly like that, but sometimes our methods fall into place. It is not always Freetown after all.

Do you remember those lost mercenaries from Zambia, playing Russian roulette during the thunderstorm there? And then that Irishman, who insisted you shoot the whiskey bottle placed on his head and we were all rotted out from the fatigue and the death that simply meant an end to the trash and apocalyptic visions of hell, where children wondered limbless as clouds. I was blind for a week on that ratgut they called whiskey. I remember dimly making a trap with a belt I had pulled off some dead West Side Boy, and everything spinning, the rain coming and going, Christ, it must have been mid-May and my hand trembling while I'm setting the soon to be pinless grenade and never really sure if it's thunder or an explosion from far off, closer the sound is sharper and you can tell but everywhere was mud and then we were eating whatever we could find except we didn't often eat, that ratgut twisted up the insides so and I wondered if that shadow I had heard about, this Aglionby, would ever appear. There was so much to be had in Freetown, everything was there, if it were to be bottled it would be the ultimate weapon, the one that you would call Plague and if loosed, the one that would tear the trees from the earth and make the water run black with blood, and is there anything the Separtists wouldn't do for such a weapon? Libet, his lieutenant was there too, and the stories of what he did to the tendons, eyes and intestines of those who fell into his web horrifies me still.

Aglionby and Libet both dead now, just a few years later. By my hand. Aglionby a burnt human shield and Libet's blood soiling the softly falling snow of Tallinn. Freetown follows us like the perfumed hand of Guilt, it's sickly sweet smell of late spring that hung in the air between offensives and sometimes dwelt just above the smells of the pulsing earth haunts me still; it is the stain that won't wash, and yet I can still, only now, talk to the corners of that time. The flower of evil that was Western Africa continues to hypnotize in these dark moments, the clouds that breathe in and out over the ocean and the coasts as we make our way in a motorized raft to the submarine through the upset waters. You told jokes about sky gods and the beginning of time and then turned serious, "we are all the children of Africa," you said. Behind us Freetown lay smoking in the insistant rain that followed us and I could not speak except to say, "will the submarine take us south or north?" And you said it was taking us north, the ocean spray and the rain mixing and warm to the skin and though I felt an emptiness and a warmth from the equitorial weather, I shivered and idly blamed it on the night before.

I have wandered from my path, having meant to describe the events today, and I will relate them to you now.

After Cody and I had explored the coast and spent time admiring the leaping blue of the ocean, so light the color seems to have fallen from the sky with the morning sun, I found myself nearing the time to leave for my shift. Too soon I had to go and told Cody to come on. Cody stopped just shy of me and started barking. I looked around, there was nothing there. Cody gave a growl, barked again and then came running the rest of the way, but far from being relaxed by the early morning idyll, he was upset and edgy. I began to feel the same way. I examined the beach and looked for positions of cover, but the beach was empty and toward where he was barking I could see or notice nothing out of the ordinary. I wondered if he was just resisting the idea of being locked in all day.

It was perfect out, so instead of locking Cody up I told him to jump in the pick-up and we drove into Newcastle. The restaurant is really more a diner, with great light and the same people everyday. I am to wait here, according to Ottawa and report once weekly on any suspicious activities. They assure me something is happening, but mostly I feel like a target, bait to attract something. And after today I wonder if I can think anything else about this assignment?

The owner here suspects nothing about me save that I am a good fellow. Sam, an old man with three ex-wives to support and seven children, all, according to him, welschers, deadbeats, sluts and hoons, has taken a liking to me, and calls me "a fine boy" to everybody who comes in.

"Hey! You got the new guy as your waiter!" he exclaims to some of the regulars, "he's a fine boy, no yobbo this one!" And he laughs. He lived most of his life in Hong Kong but came home, he says, "to die." We were talking about various places in Hong Kong we both knew before the lunch rush. I told him I had travelled there as a student, he believes I'm from Tamworth, but I told him I did a year as a student in Toronto in case my accent slips. Cody was outside, tied up in the shade of the building and I would wonder over occasionally with leftovers from people's dishes as the morning wore on toward the noontime. Cody was about as happy as it's possible to be for most of the morning. I figured we could run it all off later.

The lunch rush started. The usual nonsense: this guy wanted the special without tomatoes and these people look at their watch and hrrumph after about thirty seconds, meanwhile they didn't order until my third time to their table and this son of a bitch wants everything whole wheat with double onion, no pickle and can he substitute spinich for lettuce and can he get his coffee half/caf like it's a fucking coffee joint and when I get a chance could I bring him some water Without ice? Asking like I'm some five year old that made a doodie in a urinal. But I smiled all the time, even when that woman wanted two chocolate milks and a milkshake.

I pretended I was serving those I had killed as a commando, as if it might take the edge off of some of my sins. I know that's sick Cpl., but it seems right to wish all our lives seemed different. I find myself wishing that very much tonight.

The lunch rush was reaching it's peak, it was about half past twelve, and over the din I heard Cody barking up a storm, the patrons were looking on as well. Three men and a woman who had been near Cody tried to melt away and came to the door of the restaurant. Two of the men were in suits, the third looked like a dock worker or a construction worker, the woman was a pure vision. Her spring skirt floated flirtaciously in the breeze and her thin sweater couldn't keep the chill of an icecube at the equator off. Her necklace looked like the kind of thing a grandma gives, unaware, or all too aware, that it will cause men to act as fools in the presence of her beloved. She flashed me a smile and asked whose dog it was out there? Her hair was straight and black, it fell like a waterfall, catching and tricking the light of the sun.

Cody barked again, straining his leash. I remembered then that he had woken me briefly a couple nights before, barking at the night. I had arisen quickly and looked out a little, and fell right back asleep, ascribing his barking to a far off siren I couldn't make out or to an animal near the house. He was barking again.

"Like the dog, Jill?" one of the men asked, and they laughed. She continued to look at me.

"That old fella?" I asked pointing toward Cody. None of them laughed. A few of the people around me did and I was immediately on my guard.

"He's a good dog," I said going on, "but he chases everything. Always barking he is. Sorry about that."

I left his name off, wondering if they already knew it. Soon enough they sat down.

I watched them surreptitiously while grabbing soup, traying drinks and just generally running around as the lunch rush exhausted itself and began to wane. They were still there talking, one of the guys in the suit seemed to be the kind of boss, if such a relationship existed. I thought of things I meant to include in my report. I wasn't worried yet, but something about them didn't jive. And Cody never barked. Except when he was chasing the waves and the gulls, and then it was the joy of the chase and of being dog vs. the elements. Cody, like us, loves best the fight he knows he cannot win. Yet he had barked at them. And then barked at them again.

The woman was trouble if ever a woman was trouble. Eve-trouble. Joan of Arc-trouble. The kind of woman private eyes go back to their offices to discover smoking in their best chair trouble. Tallinn seemed very far away and I kept trying to pull it back over me like a blanket, as something that might keep the monsters at bay.

As they paid I made sure to wander out and calm Cody as they left. Once he tried to bark, his chest rose, "calm, Cody!" I said under my breath, and he was calm and exhaled in a kind of half-huff. I fed him somebody's left-over fish patty and patted him, "soon," I said.

And I wondered what I had just meant.

I watched the four of them make their way down the street as I walked back to the restaurant and finished the shift without further incident. What did I really have to say about them? Well, to me the most damning thing was that Cody had barked at them every opportunity he had. For Ottawa, I figured, the most damning thing about them would be that they hadn't laughed at a bad joke that a few other had, or perhaps, I would argue, they didn't understand the language here, the way it's spoken. Perhaps they didn't know I'd just made a penis joke. "Yes," they would reply, "perhaps they were outsiders. Simply outsiders trying to fake their way though. Perhaps," Ottawa might continue, "and so what then? Lots of people try to pretend to be from somewhere else when they travel. Don't want to show weakness. Natural human trait." Well, they wanted anything unusual, I thought this was unusual, and a year ago I would have trusted them to trust me.

But not anymore.

Cpl., it was at this moment I realized how alone we are right now. Atomized, with only our faith and our companions to sustain us.

Cody and I made our way home in the gathering darkness, the breeze still soft, the air still light. Driving along the ocean I no longer felt abandoned. Everything runs toward the great water, and it joins us all, and Cody stuck his head out the side and caught the wind, tinged as it was with the delicious tastes of earth and sea. I pulled up at the house.

Before I even could stop Cody had jumped from the truck and tore off after something. I heard a gunshot. And then a few of its brothers.

From beneath my seat I grabbed my knife and dove out. I pulled my gun from a calf holster and wondered from where to take cover. I heard my patio window smash as a bullet flew low over the pick-up. I could hear Cody barking and knew I had to protect him as he knew the same for me.

I had six shots and nothing else save the knife. I might need to scavenge and I cursed myself out for not preparing better for this eventuality. I saw a shadow move and shot toward the bulk. The man fell hard to the sand but I didn't move. There was too much open ground and I was behind a tire of the truck knowing if they had grenades I could be very quickly dead.

I knew it was the four from the lunch rush. They don't wait long, I thought.

Cody came running back to me, twice bullets tore the sand mere inches from him. I fired three times to give him cover. He then settled up against me. I noticed he was cut across his flank. "A graze wound or from a knife?" I thought. "Here in this abandoned place," I quoted to myself, "he felt finally a friend to this earth." Cody looked up at me, he was steady-true. I patted him on his head and hoped we would have more days chasing gulls. "Why do they think I'm here," I found myself thinking. Seconds stretched out into years, crouched behind that old pick-up.

Then I saw one of them, the construction worker. He charged at me and let fly a stick bomb and as he did I fired into his torso. With Cody at my heels I ran toward the house, and dove through the shattered patio window. Bullets tore into the house and the explosion shook the foundations when the truck exploded. I threw Cody into a room and shut the door and emerged with a shotgun I took from a hiding place under one of the kitchen floorboards. It all seemed one motion again, and I felt the joy of battle well up within me. I shot the other suit as he was rushing the house, mistaking my brief absence for hiding out and knew now the woman was left. Somehow she had gotten around to behind me and my first sense of her was a punch to the kidney and I deflected her knife into my tricep as I turned around to face her, flinging her knife into some rushes a few yards away. Blood flowed down my arm and pain welled up. She looked beautiful and a little surprised she hadn't killed me yet.

Her gun was already out but I knocked it aside before it played a tune. Why hadn't she killed me from further away? Why didn't they use a sniper's rifle? Why hadn't they killed me as I slept two nights ago?

I asked her these questions in a rush as I pinned her down. Our struggle made a fingerprint of itself in the sand up near the charred truck, the frazzled corpses and the shattered house. From another world I could hear Cody beside himself in struggle with the shut door.

"Vas faire foutre a la cache," she replied and brought her leg around and plunged a knife into my side with her shoe. With great sadness I put a knife in her throat and we lay embraced a moment in a cruel approximation of love. She tried to spit at me, but she aspirated blood instead. I wondered if I would serve her too, sometime, somewhere. Her pale face caught none of the old moon's rise. I untangled myself slowly and could hear Cody throwing himself at the door again and again and barking and whining furiously all the while.

I went in the house to let him out. He barked furiously at me and then began to lick my bloody hands. I knew it was his way of apologizing, but he had nothing to apologize for. Memories, jumbled and cut up raced across my brain as I looked down at Cody and then went quickly to wash my hands clean. Silence fell around us, but I could no longer trust it. Not yet.

We would spend the night somewhere else but already I knew I could never give up this house on the ocean where the night sky traces eternity across small points of light while the waves trace the earth and make calm chorus for our bleeding opera.

"Her name was Jill," I said against the silence then, as I stepped out and came face to face with my job.

Today I killed men, Cpl., and one hell of a woman. Cody looked down at her then, silent, panting slightly. We had much work to do before the moon was down.

I hope you are well. Certainly you are missed now my friend. I pray that I don't dream tonight. Cody already sleeps: an exhausted pile slumped up against a locked door. I wonder how pleased Ottawa will be with the report I have sent them?

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 Chippewa

Corporal,

A few bruised ribs. I am fortunate that is all. The doctor gave me some pain pills and a wrap. I won’t need the pills. They dull the senses, and I can enjoy the pain more without them. The fact that it hurts to draw breath only reminds me that I am alive. And what it is I have to do.

I woke up this morning in the cabin. I had been out past twilight last night, checking traps and gathering fuel and kindling for the fire. I would not have missed it last night. I was getting ready to prepare a breakfast at daybreak, dried meat and the fried dough the cowboys call hush puppies, when I saw it. A dreamcatcher on the table. Saulteurs. I have no idea how they made it past the spring gun, which I dutifully check every evening. It will kill a man, and is at least a good first warning against anything larger. But there it was in the middle of the table, as if to mock me.

It was time for me to leave. I grabbed my pack and started down from the pass, east. There is still much snow to traverse here, but there are certain parts of the mountain I know. I stuck to them. Unfortunately, it was not enough. It was only about 40 minutes later that I saw tracks in the snow. Some of the strangest snow-shoes I have ever seen, and moving quickly. They were here. I know this path better in the spring. In the warm months, the foot-path is well worn from hikers, with deer-paths intersecting here and there, twigs and brush pushed aside slightly by those lithe animals. A rappelling wall here. Stone remnants of an old cabin deep in the woods, which I think the children must still try to find while telling stories of the witch who once lived there. An old lodge which long ago burned down at the hand of some drunken teenagers never to be rebuilt. And nearby a large field which hides two World War I era camp bunkers. And then the river. If I could only make it to the river.

I was on the move for the better part of the day before I saw the water. What I found there disturbed me more than anything. Two birch bark canoes. Then I heard a voice telling me to stand still. I felt my adrenaline surge, and time slowed down in that instant enough for me to see three areas around me which provided good concealment. I could only assume that they were all taken. The air was from the Southwest, carried a smell of pine, and it was three hours to sunset. The voice I heard came from near the bank of the river, near the canoes. I heard birds. Strange. These men had either been in wait for sometime, which I considered unlikely, or been able to move without notice. I did not recognize the voice, but thought on it for a few moments. Male, deep breaths, confident, unwinded. I considered my sidearm but decided instead to avoid the fight. I was outnumbered and I judged that my pursuers had already had more violent options available. So I sat down and slowly unstrapped my pack.

“We just want to talk.” So I listened. They described in detail the murder of Deseilligny, their contacts with the Quebeckers and then mentioned a name I had not heard in a long time. Grimpeur. I believed him dead, though I have heard others tell stories of him from time to time. For me he is like the Ojibwa’s Wendigo. His legends persist, at odd intervals, but have always seemed too attenuated to be grounded in reality. They had no information other than what I already knew, but took great pleasure in repeating it to me.

When it was over one of the men walked out of the cover. His skin was rough and deeply pigmented. His hair was a coarse, long tangle of black and gray. I had no recollection of seeing him before. He carried a simple rifle and when he approached I stood slowly. He swung the butt end around into my ribs, then pushed me down, knocking the wind out of me. A few well placed kicks kept me gasping for air as the light wavered and the sun seemed to set instantly around me. “Tell Sarge to come home” was the last thing I heard. I remember thinking that last comment meant that I was being spared.

I don’t know how the Mountie found me but he was able to have me med-evacuated to a regional hospital. A poor unfortunate hiker, we made small talk about my A-frame tent and his days in the scouts using those tents. I must have taken quite a fall, he thought. It was not very intelligent to be hiking alone so far in the hills. I demurred.

My time in the hospital was brief but eventful. The doctor thought it was strange that an unidentified hiker received a manila folder containing a new case file within 24 hours of arrival, but I told him that was the nature of my practice. I have a new passport and am on my way to France. Operation Vercingetorix.

Bon Chance,

Ranger

Despair

I sat naked and sprawled out in front of the mirror, flaccid penis in one hand, empty revolver in the other.

Lazily I lifted the revolver and took aim at my image. The hammer slammed down on the empty chamber firing would be shots at my face and chest. I modeled in front of the mirror, placing the gun under my chin, at my temple, in my mouth.

The fevers were coming back. It took tremendous effort to breathe. The whole room stank of sweat and the miasma of illness pervaded the room. It was hard to move, hard to keep my eyes open. I focused on the crucifix in the corner. In the flickering candlelight something had caught my attention. I struggled out of my chair and shuffled closer to the crucifix, staring upward into the corner where it hung. Jesus was missing.

I was spun around and Jesus shook me by the shoulders, screaming in my face, his crown of thorns pushing into my forehead, bloody spit flying off of his lips: “You fool, I died for your sins!”

I sat bolt upright in the soaked bed. The room was dark, silent except for my panting. My hands searched for the pitcher of water. I tried to drink, but my throat felt tight. I collapsed back into bed, but the sweat had cooled, making the bed insufferable. I shuffled to the door. I pressed my face hard against the wood. The bedsheet wrapped tightly around me I wandered into the hallway. When I again emerged from the haze and noticed my surroundings, I found myself in the chapel.

I slowly remembered where I was, and the events that had brought me to this Brazilian monastery. My thoughts turned to Nwargo. I hoped he was well. It was an odd thought since I had just seen him two days ago, sitting up in bed, complaining about how his eggs had been prepared. My head slumped forward against the pew.

A gentle hand awoke me. My eyes refused to focus. I couldn’t stop shivering. Cold. My teeth chattered and I shook so violently, I thought my bones would snap.

Sunlight filtering through the small, high window of my cell woke me. Your letter, Ranger, was next to a fresh pitcher of water.

I agree that it is unlike Sarge to act in such a manner as to betray his comrades. To contemplate his betrayal causes a black hole of despair with no hope of escaping. I cannot think of it. He cannot have betrayed us. If he has betrayed us, then there is no Canada worth fighting for, and I should die. Still, I cannot place any trust in him for the moment. Going to Cairo as he suggested would have been foolhardy. Caution dictated calling upon a few favors and hiding Nwargo and myself here in Brazil while he recovers.

The peace of the monastery is seductive. I will do my best to enjoy it before the fevers come again.

-Cpl

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 Makes a Digression After a Long Walk Past the Shipwrecks...

Cpl.,

Immediately after I received your communication I was in touch with Smitty and Morebeeck, the Dutchman, they both assured me a medical team was there within hours, yet my confusion at the turn of events deeply troubled me. I called to Cody who was chasing blue tongued lizards and skinks, he bounded over to me and we took a walk along the shores of the great ocean.

The waves pounded the shoreline, the sky was a sheet of grey. The wind whipped at my windbreaker and Cody dashed in and out of breaking water, barking sometimes at the gulls. I thought about the oddities of your message. A GPS? Not the dossier on Boigny and his bases of operation? The list of his spies throughout the neighborhood? On how many fronts do the Canucks sneak? Too soon my questions had to take a backseat to my responsibilities here. My shift at the restaurant was due to begin.

I called to Cody and we returned to the house. The rain came as I changed and windowpanes rattled as if all the dead sailors were pleading entrance from the elements. The ocean roared.

Today I moved through the shift as if in a dream. Once I went to a table with their order, but I looked at them all stupidly. They looked back at me, wondering what I was doing with their food by just holding it there. I had no idea who had ordered what. Less than fifteen minutes and it seemed like they had ordered last year. Do I offend the woman by giving her the steak? Or will it be more offensive to guess she had the salad? One thing I've learned in my short while as a waiter is this, if you don't act like their eating is exactly why you exist, they will treat you as if you had just rolled around in shit. Meanwhile, I was thinking about you and Nwargo. I could not bring myself away from fears and questions about what was going on in Africa. I wondered frequently if when I next addressed you I would be addressing a corpse.

Not a pleasant thought amigo.

But a letter is an act of faith, and Cody's joy at my return buoyed my spirits. I decided I would try to lift your spirits as well. Along with this missive that only offers puzzlement and worry, I add some music. It is a woefully inadequate consolation unless you consider my complete faith in your abilities otherwise to extricate yourself from the position given you. And you and I have both learned to take what we can get. Remember that night we spent humming old Beatles songs in Jagat? The cold seemed to be alive, breathing frost through the uninsulated windows and doorways, the lame barman sang the choruses of "She Loves You" and "Let it Be" with us; sometimes I believe the reward of this job lies in the memories and the memories lie in the songs.

Take my advice, if you would, and get Nwargo to Cairo for treatment and then let him disappear again. Use any doctors there he suggests, I don't believe we want to trust any of our own right now. Meanwhile, I will try and set up a new line of communication so that we may continue to communicate with Nwargo. I believe I will refrain from informing Ottawa of any of this. If you believe I double-crossed you, think back to what happened the next morning in Jagat. Sometimes the rosy fingers of dawn streak blood.

The Playlist to accompany this missive:

Side A:
1. Tokyo Witch - Beach House
They play this song at the restaurant a lot. One of the college girls who works there sings along with it sometimes.
2. (I'm) Stranded - the Saints
3. No More Heroes - the Stranglers
4. It's a Man's Man's Man's World - James Brown
When Murrow aced Fourquais in Calgary she swears she was humming this song.
5. Spellbound - Siouxie and the Banshees
6. Step into the Realm - the Roots
When I was in Paris, my next door neighbor would play this song every morning. The walls would shake. He was a good kid, eventually I had him do a few errands for the Maple Leaf. Nothing major.
7. Rose Rouge - St. Germain
8. I'm On My Way - Mahilia Jackson
During the worst days at Freetown I would catch myself singing this over and over again. The piano swirls; looking out over the Atlantic from Freetown one can see where the hurricanes are born.
9. Eye of the Tiger - Survivor
10. The Sniper Song - Naked Raygun
11. B.O.B. - Outkast

Side B:
12. Solitary Man - Neil Diamond
Another one from Tallinn.
13. Dirty Boots - Sonic Youth
Our lives have been built out of mud. Let others have the illusion that their lives are potentially of a purity. The world is too dirty for us to fool ourselves of any nonsense.
14. Fire and Rain - James Taylor
15. Mad World - Gary Jules
When the chorus at Notre Dame sang this at McAlpern's funeral, I think all of Montreal teared up. He was a good man, Calrissian insists his was a careless death, but you, Ranger and I know better.
16. You Gonna Wreck My Life - Howlin' Wolf
17. Going Underground - the Jam
18. Who Knows - Marion Black
This is on many of my tapes for long trips.
19. The Glamorous Life - Sheila E.
20. Some Velvet Morning - Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood
Well, another Tallinn song.
21. Life During Wartime - the Talking Heads
22. The Pin in the Night - Nathan Johnson
We don't see a lot of movies, I know, the damn life, but I saw this movie Brick, the soundtrack seemed one for our own lives. Full of sudden pitfalls and tempo changes and then moments of unadorned beauty, sometimes not in that order.
23. Africa - Toto
24. Keep on Loving You - Reo Speedwagon
Sometimes the Maple Leaf seems a symbol of contradiction and unmet ideals bordering on the lost, and then, there's that moment, for me it is often found when I cross the Lions' Gate Bridge at dawn, just in from God knows where and happy finally, for the light of dawn, when I feel this is not a sacrifice we make, but an honour. Vancouver stretches out then, like a string of pearls hung on the morning.

There is work to be done I know Cpl., but there are roads to travel, and now more than ever, we cannot lose our way in a fog of despair. Know, that even without the GPS, Boigny was closing fast on Nwargo. The prize is real, and they know that.

with thanks for your continued good health and Nwargo's good fortune,

Sarge

A Slight Misunderstanding

Africa.

It is always unsettling to be in Africa. In Europe, I can disappear into a crowd of homeless. Here, I am exposed, my movements remembered for days by villagers amused to see a white man making his way through their country. Slogging through the humidity one also carries the burden not only of the past but also the present. It would be too easy to blame the stain of slavery and imperialism on our forefathers’ hands, for I often wonder if our generation is any better. The leash is still present, only invisible. Oh, to be sure we no longer sally our troops from a fort or keep warships in their ports, but let them make their own toilet paper? Let them refine their own oil? Let them roast their own coffee? Ha!

Julius Caesar led his army to Africa. While leaving the boat, he fell His superstitious troops feared a bad omen.. On his knees, Caesar clutched the ground and cried out, “Africa, I seize thee!”

I found Nwargo holed up in a ruin on the banks of Lake Buyo. Nwargo seemed confused when I lifted him into the air with a hug exclaiming, “Nwargo, I seize thee!”

Nwargo’s eyebrows came together, “Did they follow you?”

My heart sank as I realized I had compromised his position.

Nwargo’s stern eyes pierced my ego. “Boigny’s men. They are following you?”

I told him I hadn’t noticed anything unusual. Although I spoke the truth, there was no reconciliation. Disappointed at my carelessness, he turned his head to towards the lake. “Tell me my friend, what brings you here?”

“Sarge told me you were in danger.”

He wheeled. “What?”

Each word fell from my lips more slowly as if not to speak them would prevent our situation from becoming more hopeless. “Sarge told me you were in danger. He wanted me to give you this.” As if in a nightmare, I produced the unopened package from the hydrant in Berlin, terrified by the thought of what might lie within.

I looked up from the package to see a rather nasty knife in Nwargo’s hand. He did not smile. “Open it.”

“Nwargo…” I implored.

“Open it!”

I surrendered to despair. If Nwargo struck, then so be it. I opened the package. A GPS tracking device. My hands shook. My knees gave way. I could not breathe, nor did I want to. Let Nwargo kill me. Let me die by his honest hand. But Nwargo instead picked up the device and inspected it.

“This is very bad.”

I lay on the floor, stunned. “Sarge wanted me to bring this package to you.”

Nwargo squatted with his back to the wall. His lips were pursed. “Sarge would not do this, I do not think.”

“They know where we are.”

“They will not come until night.” He kicked my boot. “You have until then to overcome despair.”

“Can we cross the lake?”

“My friend, it is maybe 10 kilometers or more and we have no boat. There are crocodiles. If you like, save time and go to the crocodiles now.”

As dusk settled, the mosquitoes threatened to blot out the rising moon. There was no movement on the perimeter. We waited.

Nwargo told me of this place, an old French trading post, his activities here, and of his wives. He was, as usual, cheerful in the face of uncertainty. His whispers and the fifty caliber machine gun that he had brought with him to this former trading post offered me great reassurance that we would be alright.

They were well-trained. Shadows moving among shadows using the limited cover provided by the terrain. We waited and let them approach. Nwargo fired a flair into the air as the first of the slithering made it to the post. The tracer rounds from the fifty caliber danced to their targets. For a brief moment, I thought of catching lightning bugs on warm summer evenings. I love tracer rounds.

Fire erupted from the bush surrounding the perimeter, bringing me back to the present peril. An amplified French voice shouted to hold fire. “Please, Corporal let us discuss the hopeless nature of your position.” I replied with a salvo into the bush, and they responded with mortar fire. Nwargo smiled, “Crocodile food,” set the charges in the post, and clapped me on the shoulder. A tremendous force slammed me into the wall. Dust filled my eyes and lungs. An unseen hand grabbed my collar and started dragging my convulsing body towards the lake. Another mortar hit the post and sent us both sprawling. Nwargo grimaced and motioned to his leg trapped under a fallen beam. A third mortar hit the post. My ears rang. Nwargo struggled to keep his eyes open. “Keep breathing” I whispered into his ear before I disappeared into the brush with his rifle.

Fire once. Change position. The flairs and burning post illuminated the field of fire. Three fell before they realized we were not finished.

They fired into the brush. Mortars fell randomly. I had unsettled them. Through the scope I scanned the perimeter. A flash from a mussel guided my aim.

The amplified voice boomed out, “Please Corporal, this is ridiculous. Let us discus things like civilized men. We want your Nwargo.” I continued to creep through the perimeter. They no longer tried to cross over to the smoldering post.

No one fired. I crept through the jungle.

“Corporal, you are a reasonable man. We will let you live. Give us Nwargo and walk away.”

I edged closer.

“Corporal, Canada is far away. Nwargo cannot be worth this trouble.”

I spotted a mortar team. They peered out towards the fort, unaware I observed them. A voice over their radio issued commands. Their surprise was short-lived. I took the radio into my hand, “Canada protects Nwargo.”

“Ah, Corporal, good evening. I am afraid you are mistaken. Only you are protecting Nwargo. Give him to us, will you not?”

Dropping the radio, I quickly blended back into the jungle. Moments later, the mortar fire began focusing on the position of the fallen mortar team.

I used the explosions to cover my rapid advance.

The voice revealed himself, “My friend, there is no need to sacrifice yourself.” I saw him with the megaphone in his hand. A difficult angle to the shot. “You carried the GPS to him. Now give him to us.” My shot took him in the left shoulder. The soldiers with him lost their discipline and began firing randomly into the jungle. The voice sprayed blood as he tried to shout commands. After two more died, their moral broke and they began to break away.

It was quiet. I waited. The voice slumped forward. I rushed back to Nwargo. His breathing was fast and shallow. I moved him to a more comfortable place and did what I could using an old medic kit. In the morning, Nwargo’s eyes struggled open. He forced a smile. I smiled back, “We will feed the crocodiles another day my friend. Rest now.”

I did not recognize the soldier with the French accent. I have his hands and his papers. Nwargo needs medical attention. There are many questions and I hesitate to send anything to HQ. Nwargo I can trust… for now, at least.

In Which Sarge Begins A New Assignment and Mistakes are Made...

Cpl.,

They are all the same. It's my third day now, my second lunch rush went fine; once I forgot to put in an order, but I blamed it on the cooks and though many of the people were rude, short and boorish, I did see Adelaide again, she's the woman who named herself after the city where she found Jesus. Just like last time, she ordered the scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes. And just like last time, she read the Bible and suddenly got up and ran to the bathroom, her large skirt brushing the tables and the annoyed patrons who looked up at her, slightly disgusted. I hated them, but, in this outfit, I am powerless to act. Here, I serve.

"Found Jesus." What an odd phrase. It seems we look all over the world for some sign of somebody other than ourselves, but we keep tripping over the bodies we left behind. Newcastle does not offer any amazing possibilities for redemption, but after the scars of Yalova, I hope it will be fruitful. I could not help Nwargo in the end, but I trust you are, though your silence pains me and fills me with odd dreams, sometimes of Africa, other times of the Canadian Rockies, with the heartbreakingly clear sky that unveils itself slowly and crookedly over the proud peaks of our land. There where we found another kind of calling and another willing master. Sometimes I wake up sweating, but here, the Pacific Ocean is a short walk away and I do feel oddly at peace. The flitting images of the bound mercenary in the Tallinn closet, of Ahmet in Yalova, his blood mingling with the softly churning hot springs in the Turkish bathhouse, they turn into my window with a final gasp, this window which overlooks two trees, a rough barked apple and a eucalyptus, and then the beach and the water, it brings some peace. I have a small house, but with this mission the leadership seems to have warmed to me a little, it is well situated.

The Australians are an odd bunch, and here, in Newcastle, just like in England, there is a lot of coal and all kinds of international corporations hover: their regional offices in to make some more millions. If they rub shoulders with those who rain severed arms and broken dreams like those we hunt, well, in the end, I don't think they care, as long as Newcastle remains with its coal. I actually live in the suburb of Stockton to the north, and where I walk I pass the shells of shipwrecks, ours are not the only unfortunate days, and I imagine the last desperate moments as well as the optimistic first moments, when the ships left harbor expecting to find at the end of their destination, other piers. I have acquired a dog, Cody, he is a mutt, short and stubby, mottled brown and white and uncommonly cheerful. I believe he has some herding blood in him. We are here, him and I, in an attempt to pick up the scent of a trail gone cold, and to dig out information on a plot of apocalyptic overtones. In short, we do what we usually do.

In order to do that, I have adopted the guise of waiter. I must go now, I'm working a split shift and just dropped in to quickly walk Cody and look for news of you. The surf is beautiful, Cody chased after gulls and we watched a front move out across the ocean, kicking back winds that have gathered all the surfers into the long rows that trail down the beaches just to the north of my beach. I will write more of my escape from Yalova and my first days here soon.

always warmest,

Sarge

In Which Sarge Describes the Doublecross and Ahmet is Murdered...

Cpl.,

I am stuck in Yalova. Nwargo begs for help, everyday his position becomes more helpless, and I am friendless in Yalova. Ahmet is dead.

Will you go to Africa? You have everything required if you have been to the Ministergarten as I trust you have. Oh yes the day is dark and the hydrofoil does not move with the seas high and choppy. The weather, gray as it is, mocks the idea of human progress. I stay in Yalova with the rain and Ahmet's ghost; we worry together about Nwargo, that friend of mine who I miss so deeply now and the junk is close at hand again and the dens are full of the gullible and the possessed and I joined them in the deepest part of the night that swirled and ran on into abstract visions that approximated hell and ran over me like clouds lit from behind by the moon until I fell into a doorway senseless. Daylight brought dogs running out into the mud, scrawny and ill-fed, they barked and ran alongside me like the beggars in Falaba during that fighting there, what was it? Ten years ago now? The scars still seem to trace nightmares and I remember you said, when we lay there in the city famous for its resistance to slavery, that we were slaves to our sense of right and we both laughed and laughed and then you found us that palm wine that almost killed us and we toasted Sengbe Pieh. When we woke up the bodies and the dogs there...and I tried to shoot one and you stayed my shot and insisted that nature has a deeper idea of what life is than we ever can and the whole time I wanted the junk and we drank palm wine and shot at anybody who looked RUF so that the refugees might find some semblance of survival. Amid the madness were Mercerier and Villarceau (dead now, one of Ranger's) and the city disappeared so that even now nobody knows if it is a city or not anymore.

I know that Ahmet died nobly and that I think of the past to leave this pain of my heart that weighs as only sin and loss can weigh, but is this arrogance? Was it simply fate? How was he killed in those baths? The open eyes stared into the steam and the blood mingled with the waters and then joined them, disappearing back into the earth. His wounds were small, two expert plunges of a thin knife, slightly flexible, which made splinters of his right lung and his liver, but how was he identified and who set up that meeting with me only not to show? Why was I spared?

Night came as his murder became the ritual of the survivors (the identification, the wailing, the muttered and shocked plans for burial) until I fled, taking comfort in the meeting of a woman who called herself Asena. The night terrors and the old desires seemed lost in the moment's comfort, but like always, the illusion gave way to the unyielding hours and we looked at each other across the void of darkness until finally she broke the silence and bridged the distance with a caress. How I wished it had been enough! She claimed she knew of Ahmet, and that knowledge that he was helping an outsider had angered some of the locals who felt they could make no better deal than the Canuck's. Asena's skin was soft and her manner yielding but afterwards, thoughts turned north to Tallinn and I could not stay, though I knew the streets of Yalova ran with intrigues, jealousies and death. Where the Canucks are, after all, there is always discord.

Out in the silent night, I felt once again the tug of addiction and the skin puckered up, dying for the juice and Yalova was rotton with possibilities. The night ended with my defeat and morning found me penitant and sleeping in a broken doorway, that dreamless warm sleep that ended with a shopkeeper swiping at me with a broom and dogs barking, the sun still pink and soft against the morning star and the gray dawn. At the hydrofoil's pier I found a bathroom and the mirror showed the roadmap of last night's ravages; I looked broken and old. I washed my face and begged forgiveness of Ahmet until I realized I was weeping into running water thinking of that ribbon of blood that traced the distance between life and death. Youth has no place in this dangerous game. But time is up, and storms roll in with Franco-threats. The Canucks know I am here and they know what a prize I am for them. I have liberated a bicycle from some unfortunate however, and hopefully soon I will be far enough removed that before they realize I know what they know of me being here, I will have found some method of extricating myself from this hellish detour that has only been defeat and despair. What doorway that is not called home can soothe this soul? Soon the downpour outside must end and I will push to Bursa. We can make no more of the events of the last few days: what has been, has been; of this place, let me say that I when I think of it, I will mourn Ahmet and praise the kindness of that pseudonymous lover. Of other events, I have told you, enough is said for now. Remember Falaba, remember that there it was not always you saving me, and it was not always me verging on the lost. Do this and I will find my way.

And I will apologize to Nwargo for Yalova.

Help Nwargo!

always,

Sarge

In Which Sarge Prepares Once Again for Night...

Ranger: As the crow divines

Sarge, Cpl.,

I write to you from a pub in the hinterlands. I have but one question today. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

My return flight home was uneventful. But on my return to base I am afraid something went horribly wrong. After parting ways with my unit, I found myself in a cab on my way into the Toronto city center. It was late at night and I had just started to relax after seeing the bilingual highway signs, when I noted the driver sweating profusely. When I asked to stop off at the Queen’s Quay briefly, he pretended not to hear me until I made it perfectly clear that I was not making a request. From there things only got worse. He took me down to the docks, but the moment the car stopped, I heard the crash of metal on metal.

I was able to get away from the car in a confused few seconds, and to hide myself fairly well. I can’t say as much for the cab driver. Since Guiana, it has become clear to me that someone has managed to track my movements, living a parallel life. I was at first unsure of whether it was one or more of Mercerier’s men, but I have slowly come to the realization that their involvement is unlikely. That left two possibilities, one of which was only revealed to me last week. My suspicions regarding who killed Deseilligny have been largely confirmed. The papers I discovered and sent back to Calrissian confirmed a base of operations in Nunavut which Mercerier and his men have also been surveiling with great interest. I will not say more before I know where the balance of power lies. The Metis cab driver was a little too obvious a touch, I think.

Compounding my frustration, I am not sure why we have not been told of this new treachery. I note that the two of you have not written in some time and can only assume you are alive and well. I did not want to believe Ottawa was involved, but learned yesterday that my apartment was turned over by someone from the Military Police Branch. After all, the state possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. But how sloppy, sending an errand boy. It would explain the urgency of the post I have received since Mexico.

I will follow up on Toynbee, but make no plans to return home until after the fog has lifted. There is still hope.

Tempus fugit,

Ranger

Ranger: Through the fire

Sarge,

We settled on a method of attack on what we thought was a long-dormant but well-fortified base of operations for Mercerier. Heraclitus would have been proud.

A few nights ago after the commercial district closed for the night, the piñata shop went dark, though only temporarily. Within the hour, the small fire Heath lit in an adjacent storefront was completely out of control. Given the rush hour traffic jams, and the sorry state of affairs here, it was another 18 minutes before Oaxaca’s bravest were able to arrive. They were greeted by our merry band, outfitted as we were with Oaxacan fire department uniforms and a squad vehicle. The engine company prepared its attack on the fire as we suited up to enter the buildings to search for any civilians. Of course, we knew where a few could be found.

In an effort to keep up appearances, we first entered the taco stand where the grease fire was reported as starting. Working our way quickly to the back of the store with our polehooks and axes, we avoided the engine company which now had two lines hooked up and a good stream pouring into the kitchen. The fire was clearly hot, we felt some of the molten metal conduit pelt our coats as we made our way through the restaurant. At the direction of one of the chiefs, Ramirez used his rabbit tool to force entry on another door to the kitchen before continuing on with us. In the back of the restaurant, in a prep room, we located a heavyset old woman slumped next to a pot of mole sauce. She was still breathing when we found her and apparently had not seen Heath in the restaurant earlier. We were able to pull her out through the back of the restaurant and administer oxygen. We then handed her over to some paramedics. It was unfortunate, Heath should have cleared the area. All things come into being and pass away through strife. I longed for the feeling of administering salvation untainted by the fact that we created the peril.

Finding one civilian on our primary search, we had a strong pretext to search the piñata shop. We found one man just inside the rear entrance of the shop, preparing for a different type of firefight. He initially looked relieved when he saw the firefighters at the back door, until we turned the axes and polehooks on him. Dragging his body through the rear vestibule, we immediately came upon another door. The smoke had descended the better part of the distance to the floor at this point, and we were relatively low, but it was clear the door was steel. Not knowing the conditions behind the door, I had Ramirez try to pry it open.

It was clear the fire had spread to nearby buildings by this point. After a minute or two, Ramirez was able to get the door ajar two or three inches and then open. The room was filled with thick black smoke, which immediately began pumping out from the door. We entered the room blind and moving quickly before I realized Wilson had come across three men who had grabbed him. I approached them and held my hand up, trying to continue our ruse, and to figure out exactly what they were trying to do. At that moment I saw a flicker of concern in his eyes. And then the grenade. He and I rolled for cover, evading the phosphorous. Souls became fire that day. It is a pleasing thing to see the fruition of so many years of training in your men.

Apparently one of Mercerier’s men had avoided the white heat as well. The room burst into flames all around as the brick wall dividing the shop from an attached store started to crumble on top of us. I saw an orange glow and the flash of tracers piercing the smoke. I heard Ramirez start screaming after the first few rounds. After a few moments of silence, the man stepped out of the smoke near me and I brought him down. You cannot step into the same fire twice. Ramirez next emerged flashing me a big thumbs up and a ridiculous smile. He threw the bodies onto the fire.

After that, the building seemed clear. We made our way into the basement where we were able to procure a laptop, some weapons and several documents. We also discovered a passage leading away from the building at which point we decided to leave, perhaps having lost the elements of surprise and mass. We returned to the squad truck, purportedly to refill our air tanks, waiting to make sure no one left through the rear door, until the rear door itself no longer remained.

We then detonated the squad vehicle from a safe distance and our contact, claiming to be a member of APPO placed a phone call to take responsibility for the fire and the attack on four members of the Oaxacan fire department and their vehicle. What a desolate place this is to be able so easily to cover one's tracks.

It is disheartening to leave Ramirez behind, but perhaps some day he will serve a further purpose. He is a hammer where our profession is the scalpel. I have orders to return to Canada where I am reassured some word regarding Deseilligny’s death awaits.

Happy New Year,

Ranger

In Which Sarge Examines the Spring within the Spring...

Cpl.,

Is love simply ambition? An idea of what life should be when in fact we are fighting the familiar night sweats and mundanities of our true lives? Unexpectedly I must call off my return to Tallinn though I know there she remains. Perhaps the words we never speak are the thoughts we use when we have nothing else left: the things that remind us to live so that we may tell one more story.

Nwargo has been in contact and the red schoolhouse has a broken window. It looks like hell to pay but the chase is everything. I think Plato was wrong and that meaning and reality don't come from The Ideal but rather, simply, from time and the inability of anything to retain form and structure infinately. Flux is meaning. Our desire to create permanance is philosophy. The idea of perfection is, of course, pure philosophy.

I remember that in Commando school, when we took the philosophy class, Wilmot complained about the utility of the thing and the instructor just smiled. I understand that smile now, the smile of a man who has had to kill without meaning and must find solace in the weak light of tomorrow. You were particularly skilled in that class and it has always impressed me, so forgive me these broken thoughts; here, in Moscow, the sun has been down for a long time now.

I must leave questions of loyalty, betrayal and double-cross to you and Ranger for the moment. It's a twin-prop plane and a hydrofoil to my first destination, then it's another plane. At my first stop, there are famous hot springs I have read about. I have discovered that the elders found in towns with hot springs are usually kind and welcoming souls.

with best wishes to you and Berlin,

Sarge

In Which Sarge Addresses Ranger from the Despised Town of Moscow...

Ranger,

As always, it was excellent to hear from you. Let me assure you that I continue to wrestle my demons rather than surrender to them. Your information about the photographs is alarming, on the other hand, clarity will emerge in its time.

I have left Tallinn, though I return briefly sometime in the next several days. Sadly I heeded Yuri Dolgoruki when he pleaded so long ago, "come with me, brother, to Moscow," and I am holed up here at the moment . I suppose when one stays in Eastern Europe long enough, one invariably ends up among the bloated wealth and staggering impoverishment of Moscow, which are revealed in both respects most often through the town's banality. At least it is easy to disappear here. If somebody were to search for me, I could walk right by them and they would miss me, as they would undoubtedly be hunched over a map trying to understand the metro system. I would be right under their noses however, I am staying in the Zamoskvorechye neighborhood, hoping that I might pick up something among the expats that wander around bloviating on about trips to the Greek Isles and shopping excursions to New York and Paris.

I wonder still, what happened to that man I left unconscious. I want him to live, I think, so that my act of mercy has meaning. So often it is cruelty that decides fate, random or otherwise.

Moscow is, of course, very cold right now. I think I shall ice skate tonight, it is one of the small pleasures of this town that it is quite easy to acquire a pair of skates and forget everything else for awhile.

with best wishes,

Sarge

Ranger: The Cricket

Sarge,

Ramirez and Wilson ate dinner at L’Echalote tonight. I watched them dine through the scope of my VEC-91. I presume whatever they had surpasses the chapulines Ramirez foisted on me this afternoon. The lime helped anyway. I do not think the restaurant itself is privy to the Jacobin plot, but it is crawling with the affluent, decadent Francophiles remaining here in this otherwise impoverished state.

Wilson used the occasion, outside of my direct oversight, to enjoy a glass of Sancerre. I wished he had not. Ramirez, in his usual manner, downed one shot after another. I cannot fathom why they would ever wish to dull their senses in this manner when combat awaits. A time or two I saw a waitress edge in too close. At first, I ached for something to happen, to close my fist and make it all disappear, but the meal passed without incident. They tell me the food was fantastic.

They were able to bring me some chocolate mousse, which I will confess having a certain weakness for. It compares well with the mousse we long ago enjoyed on the Rive Gauche while posing as Sorbonne students. I can recall the dimly lit basement café and the thick distressed wood platter holding a cornucopia of cheeses like it was yesterday. One of your last missives troubles me. Master of escape indeed. My arms have told tales in the past, but only when burn-marked by spent bullet casings. That problem is easily solved. Death awaits us all, there is no need to join him in his Milgram experiment.

The evening did provide us with some information. We followed a small party of Francophones to a commercial district that had emptied at the close of the business week. We conducted some surveillance on the property. Having studied Jomini, I will not risk a direct assault without knowing what danger awaits. I am certain the innocent storefront masks a stronghold. Pinata sales? There are no children here.

I have also carefully reviewed Corporal’s last communiqué. I believe the photos he received were not the photos I sent. Verify the watermark and watch the mails. I received some unclear communications from home. I have a feeling there is something, a truth which is being withheld. The body I saw was riddled with rot and decay. I have sent him home, though notably missing the teeth necessary to make a dental identification, as was clear in the pictures.

I recall one of Toynbee’s favourite haunts back home. When I return, I will pay a visit.

Your brother in arms,

Ranger

In Which Sarge Describes the Shadows He Saw That Night...

Cpl.,

When I left you last, I was chewing gum, holed up in the junior efficiency apartment of Aglionby, the French money launderer and saboteur who, as you might remember, was behind the failed explosions at Harbour Grace a few years back. I was in Tallinn with the snow just starting to fall. Earlier I had found a few bottles and some lighter fluid, as I said, Aglionby was not naive. With those two bottles beneath the window I also had a rifle and a coffee cup half-full of bullets, and I was digging through them, feeling their cool smoothness roll across my fingers, waiting for the shadows to become men; I also had my knife but I wished for more. The shadows would form up, I knew, it was just a matter of time. I figured seven to twelve men, probably locals, former army, led, perhaps, by a worthwhile kill or two.

Time passes slowly but goes quickly, one of those contradictions we get used to until we're leaned up against a scarred wall in the Balkans wondering where the death is. I didn't dare turn on a light, the darkness grew and the street emptied. I looked out the window and tried to listen for signs of a gathering. Would they give me the night? Twilight is brief this time of year, this far north. Then I thought about it, there was absolutely no movement and hadn't been for the last four or five minutes. From one end of the street I could see construction signs set up, blinking a slow beat against the reflecting snow. Odd.

Odd and disturbing. I chanced a closer look, trying not to silouette myself in the window. Everything I did was slow. I rolled under the window, silently thanking Aglionby's professionalism; he had chosen a stone construction, one of the few in Tallinn. There was only one accessible entrance into the building, and I had a good vantage point of anyone trying to enter. There were only eight apartments spread across the six floors. This fifth floor shared an apartment but it had been empty since I first made my entrance there earlier in the day.

I knew they would make an appearance, and if I was kept busy it would only take a few of them to make my life miserable. At this point in the game I stopped thinking of death and fate, I thought of my training, back in Banff and then across the globe, instinct took over and I felt as smooth as the bullet I earlier rubbed between my fingers. I thought about what I must do. The time was now, soon there would only be the essence of things; I had that clarity of vision one only seems to find in combat. It is the opposite of the junk, but it is its equal at least. Both highs sometime play for keeps, I could not let this night be that play: that double zero. The wheel was turning now.

I finally saw movement, two men, so where were the others? I waited. Why let them know they were right yet? I wanted to instill some doubt that I was, in fact, at Aglionby's before I revealed myself. My rifle was ready, Aglionby's body filled the air with stink and with the radiators coming on, the smell almost doubled, there was also the stink of my near-failure to accompany it: the twisted spoon lay under an end table. The apartment smelled like some Moscow den of iniquity; down the street the men's movements were slow and deliberate. Always covering each other, always keeping to the shadows. I saw another pair of men on the near side of the street coming from the other end; they were covering the other group and they were good. Everybody was covering everybody else and I leaned against the wall under a picture of some saint and just waited. They set up zones of fire and made hand gestures at each other. I understood that they too, were also waiting. The sky was dark, the snow, heavier now, fell around them in great swirls.

An SUV pulled up directly in front of the building, undoubtedly plated. The time for subtlety was over on both sides and it was time to even the odds on mine. Carefully I selected a target, the most exposed, the easiest; they would come out of the shadows with his death. It was quick. My bullet returned ten others and the apartment exploded with sound; a bullet slammed into the corpse with a thud and Aglionby jerked a danse macabre as two others followed. With Aglionby, two dead. Automatic fire cut through the night. Christmases along the avenue were being ruined, the apartment disintegrated around me, Aglionby lay there, torn up by bullets. I stayed low, the window was gone. I had another good shot and took it. He had gotten careless and it cost him. Was it time to move yet? This celebration of birth had turned into a feast of death, I readied one of the molotovs.

With the window gone the toss was easy, and with the explosion the street seemed to dance in the night. I fired into the explosion and the building seemed to shake with return fire but at least no RPGs. Perhaps they had some insane idea they would take me alive, but my cyanide pill allayed any fears of that. It was kill or be killed, the kind of fight that brings out tooth and claw. I would use the last molotov to cover my escape, I hoped to ignite one of the parked cars. I fired randomly a few bullets and rolling again under the window, looked above and saw where my aim must be true. While I was looking I thought about the syringe that I had discarded when I threw the spoon to the floor. Had that been less than an hour ago? Well less. Quickly I tried to see if I could find the syringe in the gathering night, an occasional bullet crashed into the walls around me. They thought they had me now.

There it was, among the splinters of glass, rock and wood, a broken lamp next to it.

I would fill it with bleach, one last weapon for hand to hand if it came to that, then I would throw the molotov, grab the corpse and push my way into the hall wishing for a prayer. There had been better plans but in Tallinn I always ended up clawing to survive. Briefly I thought of her face, I thought of the last time, afterwards. The light on the ceiling from outside.

They put spotlights outside trying to blind me and illuminate me. They felt comfortable waiting, after all, I would run out of bullets first and then they had me every way. I let myself sweat for a second.

Then I fired a couple blind shots to give them something to think about and picked my way to Aglionby's sink. They didn't bother responding. I was a little worried about that, but I wanted to let them know it wasn't time to get any wild ideas about the front door just yet. My hands were shaking as I worked the bleach from below the sink into the syringe. To a junkie, bleach is the closest thing, sometimes, to a hospital as there is to get. Otherwise it's blue. Had that been us? Her? I leaned back up against the wall for just a second, gathering myself, the next two minutes would determine whether I ever saw the sun again. Perhaps I prayed, a brief vision of the Virgin surrounded by bloody penitents full of fool games begging for a worthwhile life somewhere done in stained glass and then I let fly with the bottle toward an old Zapor and fired into the car with five bullets and made a run for it. I heard the car explode and then screaming, bullets ripped the apartment in an onslaught and there was crashing and falling around me as I grabbed the bleeding lump of Aglionby that was to be my shield when I forced my way into the hall and stairwell.

What kind of shield was that? I just hoped if Aglionby had to stop a bullet there might be bone between me and it. He would stop a knife well if there were someone waiting right inside the stair doors, which I thought there might be. I kicked the door out with one kick, and moved crouched into the hall listening to the bullets whine about the apartment breaking what was broken yet again and again. It was like Africa.

The hall was empty, broken lights flickered, from above I could hear a man yelling and cursing his luck, but there would be no ambulance, a few bribes had seen to that. The yelling stopped, as if he too understood that now, and there were whimpers mixed with curses and pleas in the clumsy Estonian of Tallinn, polluted as it is by its many visiters. By the time I reached the door to the stairwell, there was silence, Aglionby was slick against me, my sweat mingled with his caked blood and I readied the rifle and held the body a little away from me, crouching beneath the stiffening body so that my face and chest lay nestled against the ribs and pelvis of the man I had killed. The building was silent. I knew they were in the stairwell, and they knew I knew it. But I had no choice, with the other ones on the street waiting for me like a second team. I thought of those servants I had read about years ago in some history class; they would gather from the river the dishes the masters threw into it after eating so they could do it all again the next day. It struck me as funny and I let myself laugh as I pushed the corpse up against the door, twisted the knob and more fell into the stair case.

Immediately two shots, from above and below, rang out. I felt the reverberation as Aglionby's face was obliterated and there was a second, a second I exploited for all it was worth, as I clutched the body and jumped over the stairwell at the man below me who perhaps only saw a leaping, headless corpse before Aglionby and I fell onto him and I put my knife into the mercenary's gut although I think his back was already broken. I rolled off the corpses and picked up my rifle which had fallen when I reached for my knife and shot down and then up; in my adrenalin I squeezed off seven or eight rounds which irritated me. But I killed another and could hear the man above me wailing, that made five down, perhaps seven more, perhaps only two more, which would mean the building was clear but I wasn't counting on it. The stairwell was quiet, but I was still on the third floor, with all kinds of opportunities to meet a careless death. I only had a few bullets left at this point but I didn't want to reach for the dead man's gun, from where he was, if the man above was only badly wounded, he could put one in me if I moved toward the gun. I edged my way down. There was silence.

Then I was on the second floor, with the second team waiting below and maybe a man moving behind me from above, unless the wounded man was the only one there. There was no door here, just a short hall leading to an apartment. My veins pushed adrenalin through my body and I fought to think through the rush. In the early evening I fought the endless night. They wouldn't wait in the lobby when they could wait outside with grenades. There was no need to be subtle now.

At that moment, for some reason, I thought of the time Ranger and I had first confronted Deseilligny. He must have been on my mind because of the last communique I'd had with Ranger, but I remembered it had been in Ulan Bator, we thought we'd flagged down one of the many unmarked taxis and instead Ulan Bator had its first known drive-by. It had been a joke even among enemies. I had laughed about it once, a year or so later with Deseilligny when we called each other names in that Freetown hardware store, and I laughed now. What absurdity, this! If Death waited, I would have stories for it; above I heard the squawk of a radio go unanswered, outside they must have been marking the living and the dead which perhaps meant that nobody had checked in. Or it meant that someone had and they were trying to decoy me. Regardless, I had to get to the street now and I was out of brilliant ideas. Through the lobby there was no hope, through the second floor living room window offered perhaps even less. Silence settled in like a jeer. They had me alright, but perhaps there would be something in the second floor apartment. It was a better bet than the lobby. I picked the lock and moved in.

Now, I was a shadow.

Nobody wanted to give away anything, I looked out into the street. The apartment had been empty, from the look of it, somebody was visiting mother in the country for Christmas. I was happy there were no terrified locals to give away my position. A few things had gone right now, I could count on no more. The shadows and the night had fully bled into each other now, the falling snow picked up a few tendrils of ambient light and then I heard the slightest echo of a sound from the front door I had closed behind me. A jiggling of tumblers already unlocked. I readied my knife and moved toward the noise, becoming the man's fate. As he slowly entered I brought him down with a knee and a hand to the mouth. I pressed my face close to his, creating the odd intimacy between vanquished and vanquisher.

"Tell me," I whispered, "and you will die from lightning, otherwise, it will be the cat and the mouse."

"How many of you?"

Slowly I started to remove my hand from his mouth, my knee reached up under his throat.

"Eight. Eight! Please I want to live! Please!" A local.

More than willing to kill for a new car, or a trip to the Black Sea resorts, but I took pity.

"Who?"

"What? I don't..."

"Oh, come on," I took my knife out, "Who?" The whisper now perilously soft.

"I do not know, a man. A man with red hair! A very thin man! Very tall!" He spoke Estonian with a kirderanniku accent, from further to the north and east. A sailor's son maybe.

He continued in a sigh, "10,000 kroons." It was still silent outside, I felt his jacket vibrate, still I was rooted to the spot.

It couldn't be.

Toynbee?

"Answer it," I told him.

He spoke softly into the radio. Would he chance a distress code? He checked in, said he was still looking through the apartments on the third floor. There was a short curse and the radio broke off. I told him I had to hurt him, that I would let him live and knocked him out with a cuff to the head. Quickly I secured him with a sheet and a pillowcase and grabbed the radio. I threw him in a closet next to the front door. Nobody else was in the building, I had perhaps two minutes before they would realize I was no longer in the building but I needed to get the prize. Where was the prize waiting? One of them would know. Clearly they would send the least important into the building.

I ran to the roof. The wind had picked up since the morning. The spotlights shone up past me and I jumped from one roof to another, until I felt the radio vibrate, I found a drainpipe and slipped to the street down past where they waited for me. I began to double back, it was my only chance. The explosions surprised me. They brought bigger toys than I expected and I wondered idly if my prisoner had lived and if so, how much of him had? I never found out.

I spotted them quickly now and took aim, I would have to kill one and hope the other lived. I shot for the head first but it went wide, the next bullet traced into one of the men's guts and before the other could fire I had put one in his left knee and his gun had flown from his hands. A lucky shot. Cautiously I advanced with my knife drawn, my adrenalin pounding so that my heart felt bathed in powerlines.

There they were, a lump of shadows against the snow covered ground. One groaned, he was tough I could tell, the other convulsed. It is never pretty, but the ugliness of pain always surprises me. I had tossed my rifle away, it was empty, and my right arm hung loose with the knife, I advanced slowly. They were both still now, having seen me or heard me.

"Tell me," I said, "where can I thank your employer for his gift of bullets?" The one I had shot in the belly laughed derisively, I recognized he was Libet, one of Mercerier's foot soldiers, I put my knife into his throat, cutting his laugh short.

"Now tell me," I repeated to the one still alive, "where can I find your employer?"

"Aller se faire voir chez les grecs," he said, and lunged at me with a knife of his own. I turned him aside but my knife caught in a strap of his pack and flew off and he came back at me with curses. Without thinking, I reached into my pocket as he jumped from his one good leg at me and I plunged the syringe into his neck and pushed in the bleach as I knocked him aside. He lay quickly dead, and the snow fell heavier, already beginning to cover them as I made my way down the street with the sound of sirens from far away approaching closer.

This is how I came to leave Tallinn with the idea Toynbee might be the mole. I have no proof save perhaps the voice of a man alive or dead, I do not know. I must go back briefly to Tallinn to see her, and I will make then some final disruptions of the French shell game here, but then I must clear my name. I wonder what Ottawa thinks of all this? It used to be that I knew things like that.

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

Smitty does have talent with the goose, it's good to hear he's finally started to move on; Cordula affected him greatly and her death was truly a sad one. As for the photographs, turn your eyes away from Deseilligny’s remains, perhaps there is something that eludes us there in the periphery. Or perhaps we are missing something in its absence. Deseilligny truly had no equal as a fighter, his willingness to claw, bite and tear during hand to hand combat made him a nightmare, and a worthy enemy.

I am tired now, Cpl., and must close my eyes a bit. Once again I finish a missive on a train. Perhaps in years to come, instead of dreaming about the faces of the dead and the scars of the earth, I will dream of trains.

with best wishes in the new year,

Sarge

A Home for Christmas

Dear Sarge,

You missed quite a Christmas dinner. Smitty has as much talent with the stove as he does with communications equipment. Apparently, he has a new friend, Ulrike, who helped him prepare the meal. She is rather tall and of a fair complexion. Tolstoy would say she “was a handsome woman.”

We told her I was an exchange student from the University of Toronto studying prostitution management.

The two made goose with Rotkohl and Kloesse. Bless her heart, she made the Kloesse from scratch with Semmelwuerfel in the middle. And the gravy? I’d kill for that gravy. Then again, I’d kill for a lot of things. In fact, I have.

Does all of the death around us dehumanize us? Are we monsters or heroes? I asked this to Smitty, and he handed me a beer and some photos from Ranger.

Ranger has sent me photos of Deseilligny’s remains. Other than making them wallet size I am not sure what he expects me to say. It is difficult to interpret the photos without being there. There is a definite lack of insect infestation on the body. This leads me to believe that 1) the body is extremely fresh, 2) it has been somehow preserved (i.e. embalming) or 3) Deseilligny is as distasteful in death as he was in life.

It would be advisable to send the remains to HQ if possible. If not, a dental casting may help positively identify the remains. If I remember correctly, a cast was made from Tomaszewicz’s midsection after being bitten by Deseilligny.

Ottawa is quiet at the moment. The red snow falls loudly on the tundra. The young colt carries many fleas.

Be safe.

Cpl.

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