It was time to part company with Nwargo. His leg was better and he was becoming antsy, always worrying about his children, his wives, and his cattle. I was never sure in which order.
Neither of us had any idea who could be after him, but we agreed that the leak was severe and needed to be patched.
Our isolation within Soleto’s monastery had been complete. No communications had arrived for me. Nwargo had received no missives from abroad. Nwargo and I agreed upon a code to avoid further misleading communiqués.
As Nwargo boarded the boat to Africa, I was torn between my sorrow seeing him go and my desire to find Sarge. In essence, I agreed with Nwargo: it was unlikely Sarge had betrayed us, but a lingering doubt persisted. It was essential that doubt not be allowed to fester, lest mistrust poison my mind.
***
Nwargo and I had roamed the favellas of Recife, listening to whispers, searching for unglazed eyes which might hold information. It was not long before the gangs that rule here heard of the odd couple and investigated. They were young, intoxicated, and heavily armed. In a word, dangerous. Nwargo and I explained that we were migrant farmers looking for work in the sugarcane fields. As proof we showed them our machetes.
“We were hoping to help harvest the fields of Nascimento.”
The most sober of them took renewed interest in hearing the gun-runner’s name. He chuckled, “I doubt Nascimento needs help with the harvest.”
They all laughed. One of the more intoxicated tossed his gun aside and a machete was handed to him. “Little man, I will feed you to my dog!”
Nwargo said nothing and saluted his opponent with his machete. The drunk youth towered over Nwargo’s squat frame. Nwargo easily parried the first few poorly-placed blows. The crowd laughed and heckled. The youth grew impatient and his blows became more desperate as Nwargo danced before him. The youth roared. Nwargo sidestepped the blow and brought his machete down on the youth’s arm. The roar became a scream of pain and the youth crumpled. The crowd pressed forward, straining to see the severed limb.
The arm was bent in the middle. Not severed, but broken. The youth writhed on the ground, clutching his arm. Nwargo kicked the machete out of the youth’s limp hand. “Boy, next time, I use the sharp edge.” Nwargo glared at the crowd, and with a flick of his wrist, turned the blade so the sharp edge was the striking edge.
“You wish to find work with Nascimento? Come with us.”
We followed.
Nascimento stared at us. His remaining hair had grayed and his belly had grown since I had seen him last. There was no recognition in his face. His basso voice boomed. “Eh? you are looking for work? You want to harvest ‘cane?” His mouth split into a toothy grin.
“We wish to harvest special ‘cane.”
Nascimento’s smile disappeared and his eyes scanned us with renewed interest. “What can I help you with?”
“We are looking for a friend.”
“Hmm. And why should I know where he is when his… friends do not?”
“He admires the quality of the ‘cane you sell around the world. Perhaps he has bought some recently?”
Nascimento stroked his chin. “You are not police. Mercenaries?” He tapped his upper lip absentmindedly, then spoke with finality. “I do not disclose to whom I am shipping.” He motioned to his bodyguards to take us away.
Nwargo spoke. “We seek the Pink Mamba.”
Nascimento pursed his lips. “He died in Sierra Leone.”
No hint of recognition of who we were crossed his face. “We have heard otherwise,” I offered.
“If he lives, he has not made any purchases of late.”
“When did he make his last purchase?”
“It was long ago in Freetown. Perhaps you should look there.”
I frowned. Nwargo shifted uneasily now.
Nascimento smiled at our discomfort. “I could arrange passage... if not to Freetown, then perhaps some other destination?”
“We lost our passports to pickpockets.”
A great bass laugh filled the hall. “Yes! Of course. We can replace them for a fee.”
***
Now I stood on the dock, watching Nwargo disappear on the horizon.
Alone again.
My ship left in two days. I was headed back to Berlin. Smitty might have useful information.
Showing posts with label leaving Nwargo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label leaving Nwargo. Show all posts
30 June 2007
31 October 2006
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
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
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