Skala Kallonis
And now, suddenly, I am well again.
I can beat him when we sprint into the sea.
Vengeance – which Jack had very proudly presented, back to me, to my absolute delight, as being just part of the comprehensive arsenal he’d smuggled along with us from Hungary – is snatching tins off the top of his tumble down walls.
I am healed, fit, tanned, and as whole as I have ever felt. Time has come. Time to leave. Time to complete our mission. Time to travel back into our own, personal, war-zone.
Yanni comes and perches his athletic, and not unattractive, frame on the corner of our table. Just like he has done, roughly every hour, of every evening, over the last few weeks. “One for the road?” he asks the same question every time he squats there, usually with a cheeky twinkle in his eyes, but it’s clear from his current demeanour that he’s noticed things have taken a serious turn tonight.
I glance at Khristos’ latest gift – a little pot of fresh Oregano, so carefully and painstakingly gathered – which perches proudly next to my almost finished lager bottle.
Jack forces himself to smile next to me. “One for the road,” he agrees, sadly.
I have to admit, I agree with his tone.
I don’t want to go...
~~~~~
London
Shaz Manjeethra stirred. She could hear quiet movements in her apartment. Someone opening and closing the fridge door. The rattle of a teaspoon.
She looked at the bedside clock, its digits glowing red in the darkness. Four twenty-two a.m...
“Richard?” she mumbled sleepily.
The door to her bedroom opened, and Major Charles gently poked his head around it. “Didn’t mean to wake you,” he apologised.
He looked tired and serious.
“Busy night?” she asked carefully.
He wandered over, clutching a mug of steaming cocoa, and sat on the edge of the bed next to her. “Good news,” he said. “Your friend has finally reappeared. Fit and well by all accounts.”
Shaz pushed herself up into a sitting position. “Really?” she asked, tugging at the straps of her tangled nightie.
Sentinel nodded, then looked serious again.
“I suspect there’s more,” she said carefully, her excitement at the news fading as she examined his expression.
“Always,” he said simply.
“Another mission?” she asked.
“I couldn’t possibly say,” he replied.
“You never can,” she countered, and reached over to commandeer his mug for herself. “Thanks for letting me know... about Nick. I’ve been worried.”
“I know you have,” he said kindly and wandered back out to the kitchen to make himself another drink.
~~~~~
Skala Kallonis
Jack sighed deeply as he rode the motorbike back toward his little villa. It stood there in front of him, a bright patch of welcoming sanctuary at the top of its gentle slope. He couldn’t remember it ever looking so well tended. Bedecked in carefully trimmed flowers, with clean windows, and neatly organised furniture, it looked like a real home and, for the first time, not just a place to hide. It had been Nick’s influence. He knew that.
He’d been down to the village to call in. He wasn’t going to fire up his cellphone here.
He pulled off the road, and steered the vehicle into the largish, freestanding, wooden barn he used as a garage, parked up, and strode across the open grass to the veranda.
“They’re not wasting any time,” he reported as brightly as he could muster.
Nick looked up at him from one of the wicker chairs. Coal black eyes piercing. Uneasy. Questioning. Cutting into him.
“Deuce is coming here to meet us,” he continued quickly.
“Here?” Nick grunted suspiciously. Only the locals, Nick and Jack knew about this safe haven. Jack wanted to keep it that way. Nick understood this. Only people he could trust would ever know about it. That was his rule.
“I’ve arranged to meet him near the airport in Mytilene,” he explained. “He won’t find out where this place is.”
Nick nodded and seemed to relax slightly.
Jack lifted the cellphone. “Ace just told me that he’s already on his way, and will be here later this afternoon.”
“I’d better go and get myself sorted out then,” said Nick flatly. “Make sure he recognises me.”
Jack smiled ruefully. “You better had,” he said.
~~~~~
London
Greere glanced across, from the Top Secret PSO Mission Instruction he was preparing for the base commander in Cyprus, to the spare terminal set up in the corner of the office. He wasn’t sure why he kept looking across at it. He knew it wouldn’t refresh again for anywhere between eighteen and thirty-six hours.
The final bug, buried in Ebrahimi’s skin, showed as a steady red dot, static in the midst of the screen’s satellite image of chaotic dwellings near the Tomb of Sultan Agha in the southwest outskirts of Herat. Frozen at its last known location.
For all of the tracer’s tiny dimensions, it was a very smart device. Having waited patiently for many weeks, highly shielded, and eating bare micro-watts of energy, it had now seen its specific key-code and its own instructions to begin reporting its location to its masters. This was its most discrete protocol – one random outbound ping and a less than one-second sweep for command updates per forty-eight hour window. The rest of the time it would lie completely dormant. Conserving its strength for when it needed to signal more frequently.
Sentinel had agreed that they activate it as soon as he heard that Tin and Mercury had made contact. Greere and Ellard had waited, with increasing concern, for much of the previous evening until the satellite had finally, after midnight, swept eastward far enough for the device to receive its wake-up call.
“They’re almost home,” Ellard had observed calmly.
“Almost but not quite,” Greere had agreed. “I’ll see if Sentinel thinks he can find a way to get the nearby border posts put on high alert.”
A series of nondescript interagency and military bulletins had been posted and propagated across Europe throughout the night, while Greere and Ellard worked on transit options for Tin and Mercury, and the Lakatut to Tawraghudi stretch of border between Turkmenistan and Afghanistan was now feverishly working to prepare itself for anything ranging from a suicide bomb attack to herds of fleeing refugees. Ebrahimi, at least, would not be able to cross easily. Greere very much suspected, and hoped, that Nagpal was with him and was therefore equally stuck.
It would be so much better for him, if his assets could deal with both of them at the same time.
No loose ends.
No need for him to get his hands dirty.
He turned his attention back to the briefing document. Ellard was already on a plane with the initial instructions for his truant operatives, and Greere wanted to get this finalised before his subordinate landed. Ellard would now be out of the country for at least a day and a half – enough time for him to make a very quick trip over the Channel... He reviewed the final sentences:
“Issue Packages with one times (1) combat-issue ruggedised Encrypted Mobile Terminal and code ‘Hotel-Mike-Zulu-Four-Niner’.” An EMT was a notepad sized computer, with secure comms capabilities, built into a heavy duty protective casing. Tin and Mercury would need this device, with the code he had provided, and their personal ID keys to access their own specific Mission Instructions and to communicate with him during the mission. “Be advised: The Packages do not require to know, nor should be advised, of the content of this MI. Expect Packages to request, and then ensure they are issued with, limited UO equipment according to local discretion. Probability of asset repatriation is low. Issue Requisition Reference UKA-9744-353...” Greere carefully checked the long reference number against the anonymous one he’d selected from the agency’s small batch of pre-allocated numbers. He strongly suspected that this was the last anyone in the West would see of this Urban Operations equipment and weaponry. “Deliver the packages to Kilo-Alpha-Foxtrot soonest. One way. Local commanders at KAF to be instructed that no further assistance will be required either before, during, or after the mission. Packages are self extracting.”
Greere smiled to himself.
He would get them to Kandahar.
Then they were on their own.
~~~~~
Mytilene, Lesvos
We are sitting at one of the many cafe’s which are scattered along the sea road in front of Mytilene Airport. The airport itself is little more than a single runway, roughly pasted onto the edge of the island. It is just big enough to cope with the relatively small herds of tourists who flow backwards and forwards across its threshold. Across the narrow straights in front of us, we can just make out the sea-mist veiled, green-brown mass of the Turkish mainland.
It’s mid-afternoon, the heat of the day, and I’m feeling quietly pleased that I’ve shaved my hair back down to stubble. Jack has done the same, and I glance across at him. He looks stern and tense. We’re dressed in jeans and androgynous, loose fitting, cotton shirts.
He turns his head and, following his gaze, I spy Deuce making his way along the footpath on the other side of the road. He has a rucksack slung over one shoulder, and seems more interested in ogling the sunbathers scattered along the narrow strip of shingle than in looking for the cafe. With his white hair and sun-starved pale skin he looks like a stick of alabaster amongst the surrounding tans.
“He’d make a good vampire,” I mutter to Jack.
He huffs, “Zombie, more like.”
Whatever species of the walking dead he might be, he glances toward the cafe, then picks his way amongst the traffic to cross over, and makes his way up to our table. We’re to one side. Away from the sparse scattering of other patrons. Deuce pulls out a chair, sits on it wordlessly, and examines us with a questioning scowl plastered over his face.
I’m suddenly nervous that I look different to him.
“Had a nice holiday?” he asks stonily.
I relax slightly. He’s only jealous.
Jack ignores the question. “Do you want anything to drink?” he offers carefully.
“Beer,” Deuce instructs, and Jack gestures toward a hovering waitress who rushes over.
Deuce, somewhat disturbingly, licks at his lips as he scrutinises the waitress. I can’t be sure whether his action is at the thought of her, or the promise of a cold drink.
“You are to be back here at oh-nine-hundred, tomorrow morning,” he says bluntly.
There’s not going to be any chitchat then.
“Wear these uniforms,” he pushes the rucksack over to by my chair. “No weapons. Only pack essentials.” He watches as I eye the rucksack suspiciously. “It’s okay,” he sneers. “This one isn’t going to blow up.”
Jack prickles defensively. “We didn’t know the last one would either,” he mutters.
“Bully for you,” Deuce says, contemptuously. “There’s a flight from here to Cyprus,” he continues, rooting into the inside pocket of his unnecessary and obviously over-warm jacket, and then handing over a pair of tickets. “Be on it and then, when you arrive on the island, make your own way across to the British military base. Tin, you’ve been to BFC before – yes?” Jack nods. “Your onward transfer has been arranged from there, and you will be issued with equipment and more detailed orders on arrival.”
“Where are we going?” asks Jack.
“Your favourite place,” says Deuce with another sneer.
Jack grimaces, “Afghanistan?” he asks.
Deuce nods unpleasantly, then glances across, as the attractive young waitress approaches us again with his drink balanced on a small tray. “I think I’ll stay here until my flight back. I’ve got a couple of hours to kill,” he announces. “You two can get moving. You’ve had enough R&R already.”
The waitress puts the drink on the table in front of him with a friendly smile, and I watch as he leers into her unintentionally proffered cleavage, and then after her withdrawing figure.
“Any other instructions?” Jack asks carefully.
Deuce looks at him coldly. “Yes,” he says. “Order me another beer, and then pay the bill before you f*ck off.”
~~~~~
Ellard waited until Tin and Mercury had vanished, then downed his beer quickly and carefully made his way back to the airport. His flight back was tomorrow, not today. In the mean time he would use a hire car to complete his local investigations, then have himself a night on the town and, in the morning, check that his recently absent charges actually turned up for their flight.
He waited patiently while an ageing attendant completed the usual bundle of car hire forms. “Are there any good hotels, here in Mytilene?” he asked the man. “Close to the centre? Good for evening entertainment?” Ellard winked conspiratorially.
The man nodded, and paused his form filling to grab a couple of fliers from the nearby stack. He prodded at one of them with a smile. “This place is usually full of entertainment,” he said knowingly, and returned to his forms.
Ellard grunted his thanks and rooted out his PDA.
The tracer in the rucksack was still blinking its telltale signal faithfully onto the tiny screen.
He watched for a while, as it wound its way back and forth, climbing into the mountains behind the city and making its way toward the interior of the island.
Part Five: Closure
Favours Returned
Soho, London
It had been late evening, by the time the charter flight had landed at London’s Heathrow Airport, but Greere had still demanded that Ellard make his way over to The Olde Oak pub in Soho to update him. Ellard was tired, after having had a long night of his own the previous evening, and was less than enamoured at having to make the detour. He hadn’t had much sleep, except for on the plane. A couple of rather overweight, but adventurously demanding, middle-aged women had provided entertaining distraction for the majority of his afternoon and night in Mytilene, to the extent that he’d nearly not made it back to the airport to distantly observe Tin and Mercury, properly attired in their fresh, clean, No. 5 Desert Combat Dress, head through Security to board the plane to Cyprus.
Spring was well under way, but British temperatures, especially late evening, remained unusually chilly. It was far too cold for sitting at the few tables laid out in the narrow street in front of the pub, and all but the smokers were tucked inside behind The Olde Oak’s black painted, eighteenth century, swing doors. Ellard pushed through them and searched around the loudly chattering throng for his boss.
Greere was over at the bar. Engaged in what looked, uncomfortably, like a rather animated and intimate conversation with some short-haired, blonde boy. Ellard found it hard to tell nowadays but, to him, the youth didn’t look old enough to be in there. Greere obviously knew differently, or didn’t care. Ellard watched distastefully for a moment, as his superior officer reached across the bar, and brushed the boy’s fingers with his own ageing and podgy digits.
‘I’m surrounded by f*cking gays,’ Ellard thought miserably to himself.
He discretely made his way around, to the opposite side of the intruding U-shaped bar, in a way that made it look like he hadn’t noticed where Greere was sitting. Finding a space at the counter, he made as if to order himself a drink, and surreptitiously watched as his boss extricated himself from his flirting and hurried round to him.
“Oh, there you are,” said Ellard, pretending surprise. “Do you want a drink? Where are you sitting?”
Greere avoided the question. “You’re not staying,” he growled. “Let’s step outside.”
Clearly his boss wanted a little personal space. Ellard pasted an expression of mock-disappointment onto his face. “Oh,” he said, unsurprised at Greere’s dismissive tone. “Okay.”
Stepping out into the cold air again, they took a few steps along the narrow back street to where they could talk. The chill was bitter, and only served to make Ellard feel even more annoyed.
“So?” Greere asked bluntly.
Ellard tugged at his jacket collar, trying to stop the frigid breeze from crawling under it. “I drove out to Tin’s place this morning after they left. It’s well hidden but not much to speak of.” He had helped himself to a good look around inside.
“Small?” asked Greere.
“Tiny. Lounge, kitchen, bathroom,” Ellard looked pointedly at his boss, “...one bedroom...” Greere seemed unaffected. “A couple of smaller outbuildings, more like large sheds. I scouted round but didn’t want to risk disturbing too much. We can find it again if we need to.” Ellard elected not to mention the various, more expensive looking items he’d personally noted for his own interest.
“Good,” said Greere. “We’ll need to search it properly, and clean it up after the mission.”
Ellard smiled. “Not expecting them to return?” he asked nastily.
“It’s unlikely, don’t you think?” said Greere dismissively. “Anyway, it’s time for you to get yourself off home. Things will likely be busy for a few days. Best you get yourself a good rest while you can.”
Ellard wondered why Greere didn’t just end his lecture with the words, ‘old man’ but elected to bite his tongue, and watched in sullen silence as his boss scurried enthusiastically back to the door of the pub and disappeared inside.
~~~~~
Midair, 200 km southwest of Kandahar Airbase
My dreams are back. They’ve popped into my head, in much the same way as work related nightmares used to creep into my psyche at the end of warm summer holidays. The tunnel is the same as before, and I can see you and Lizzie there, standing at the end, still smiling and waving back at me. Seeing you again makes me feel guilty for what has happened in Lesvos, but you seem unconcerned – supportive even. That makes me feel a bit better. It’s in keeping with your wonderful character that you should not begrudge me what little pleasures I might find in this otherwise bereft existence.
Why are you alone though? Where has Dad gone? He said he’d see me again soon?
Now it’s only the two of you, standing there. Just too far away from me. Just too close.
Something else is different too... What’s all that noise? The tunnel should be peaceful, silent, devoid of all noise but it roars incessantly like some raging beast. Growling to itself. I can even feel its vibrations running across my body: rumbling, angry, deep oscillations which stir at my guts...
“Nick?”
And I can hear a voice.
“Nick?”
My eyes blink open and my head jerks upright from my chest. Two familiar green pools of reassurance, sitting beneath fawn-brown, angled brows, stare carefully back at me.
“Nick, we’re nearly there,” Jack shouts over the engine noise. “You need to stay awake now. This is still a ‘hot’ LZ, despite all of the good progress being made here. There’s a significant risk from insurgent ground fire.”
“Ummm,” I grunt and stare, bleary-eyed, around the cavernous shadowy green interior of the C-130 Hercules. The sparse load-bay crew is scurrying around, pulling on flak jackets, and checking the lashings on the pallets. We are a small insignificance amongst them.
“Flak jackets?” I mumble.
“Yep,” he says.
“And ours?” I ask.
He grabs hard with both hands onto the narrow metal armrests of his flight seat, and nods to me that I should probably do the same. “Frequent fliers only,” he informs me with a rueful smile. “Maybe next time.”
~~~~~
London
‘KAF confirms Packages delivered intact and in transit to final destination. Materiel Requisition completed (attached). No issues or incidents during delivery. Mission complete. NFU. Ends.’
Greere scanned the mission update report, and inventory, that had just been posted by the Base Commander in Cyprus, nodded, and assigned the entire Mission Instruction document, including this update, to the ‘deep archive’. He couldn’t just delete it, which was a shame, but he could have it encrypted, and classified so comprehensively, that it would be decades before it ever surfaced again.
‘This action cannot be undone. Are you sure?’ said the warning box on his screen but Greere didn’t even read it.
He clicked ‘YES’.
~~~~~