by Michael Todd
Hall stared at him as he traced a thick finger around the edge of his broad chin. “Sabotage? I’m surprised you succeeded, Wallace,” he said. “After what happened last time, I wasn’t sure you still had it in you to pull through on an actually difficult mission. That’s why this one was supposed to be easy. Sabotage…interesting.”
He said nothing. The man’s behavior was hard to read. He seemed almost miffed, as though he had somehow expected him to fail. That was nonsensical, however.
“Well, in any event,” Hall went on, smiling now, and his tone grew brighter and warmer. “I’m glad that you did succeed.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“May I ask, though,” the Director continued, “who was the saboteur?” He looked directly at Wallace’s impassive face.
“Richard Flemm, the Brit,” said Wallace. His brow furrowed. “I…ah, don’t recall what his supposed noble rank was.”
Hall’s nostrils flared. “Oh,” he said. “That’s what we expected, actually. But I wanted to hear your side of the story.”
“What will happen to the bastard, sir?” Wallace asked.
“Nothing,” Hall replied.
Wallace’s eyes came back into focus and he actually met the director’s gaze. “He tried to get my entire team killed,” he stated.
Hall shrugged. “He’s already left, Wallace,” he explained. “And there would be repercussions for holding a foreign diplomat as a prisoner at this point. Yes, there are anti-espionage laws, but we’re in a delicate situation here. We can’t risk pissing off our allies, the Brits. That’s politics, my friend.”
“Are we even certain,” Wallace began and gritted his teeth as he spoke, “that he was actually a representative of the British government? There’s no reason why the UK would try to sabotage our mission, I think. He might have been…I don’t know, an impostor, a plant sent by some hostile third party—”
“Don’t worry about it, Wallace,” Hall said calmly. “I’ll handle the political stuff. You keep being an excellent soldier. In other words, keep doing exactly what I tell you to do. No less, no more.”
“Yes, sir.”
Soon, Wallace was dismissed. He could have gone straight to bed as he very much wanted—and needed—to do, but there was something else that ought to be taken care of first. Aade Graf would leave tonight in about half an hour. That meant he had a little more time to talk to her.
He found her in the far corner of the mess hall, where she sipped a cup of coffee and watched the troops. Probably criticizing their behavior in her head, he decided, and yet she had a faint smile on her face. Her few bags were already packed and sat at her feet.
“Is this seat taken?” Wallace asked.
Graf looked up at him. “No,” she said, “but I was preparing to leave. I must catch a helicopter soon.”
“May I walk you to it, then?” he asked. It occurred to him that she might think he was trying to ask her on a date whereas he merely wanted to ask her opinion on something.
“Of course,” she replied. She finished her coffee, tossed the cup in the trash, and the two of them headed slowly outside toward the helipads.
“All things considered,” Graf said as they walked, “I am pleased with what I saw. Minor issues of unprofessional behavior notwithstanding, you were able to pull through even in an extremely difficult situation—one far worse than I had expected. When my countrymen arrive and construct a German base to complement the American one, I can only hope that we have soldiers as capable as you to man it.”
“Thank you, Ambassador,” Wallace replied. Coming from a goddamn German, that seemed like quite a compliment. “I similarly wish I had superiors as capable as you.”
“Thank you.” He’d taken one of her bags, so with her free hand, she opened the door and held it for him. They stepped out into the desert night. “Before I depart, let me give you a warning.”
He nodded. The chances were, whatever she was about to say was about what he’d wanted to ask, anyway.
“I have considered everything that happened,” Graf went on. “My…theory has developed. Flemm was very prepared. He was not an amateur, and he had intelligence. Real intelligence, I mean, in the sense of—”
“Intel,” Wallace finished for her. “Information. Espionage shit.”
“Yes. Flemm knew how to disable the Stallions very quickly with only very limited time to work on them. As your mechanic James said, they were supposed to be…how did she say…idiot-proof. It is possible that he knew all about them ahead of time. Perhaps the true source of the problem—by which I mean that the person or persons who hired Flemm—is internal.”
Wallace frowned. “That would make a certain amount of logical sense,” he admitted. “But why? Why the hell would one of our own people do that?”
Graf shrugged. They approached a chopper that was already prepared for takeoff, its propellers spinning at low speed, and stopped a fair distance away from it so that they could still hear one another speak. “I don’t know. But if that were the case,” she continued, “it would be all about gaining power over this place. A failed mission that resulted in an international incident could be used as an argument for more resources and more control. It would scare competitors off. There is always someone who benefits from chaos. Who here, Sergeant Wallace, would benefit from chaos?”
He did not answer. As Graf herself had said when they’d first met, anything he had to say, right now, would not be the sort of talk that befitted a good soldier.
“Goodbye, Sergeant Wallace.” She smiled faintly, took her second bag from him, and headed toward the chopper.
“Goodbye, Ambassador Graf,” he said.
The German diplomat’s words were profoundly ominous, Wallace knew, and she was probably right. But he couldn’t devote further thought to them right then. Maybe in the morning. He returned to his room for the first time in what seemed like ages.
There were no more responsibilities today. Finally. He powered down his exoskeleton and removed his braces and apparatus. He used his arms to lift his still-mostly-useless legs and lay down in a nice comfortable position on his bed. Wallace smiled. He was, at the end of the day, a simple man with simple pleasures, and now, it was time for the simplest pleasure of them all.
Sleep.
Epilogue
The room seemed fairly large, but it was hard to say exactly how big due to it being pitch-dark. Aside, that is, from a single cone of yellow light which fell from a hanging lamp around the spot where the man sat tied to a chair. There was still a rather painful electric burn around his left armpit.
He was bound to some sort of folding metal chair, cheap and uncomfortable but sturdy enough, or he’d have managed to break it by now. His legs were lashed to the chair’s legs at the ankles, and his wrists were locked together by a zip tie behind him. A length of rope around his chest bound his arms to his sides as well as the back of the chair. The ends of the tied rope trailed against his stomach. They seemed to almost mock him—they were right there, he could see them, and could strategize how to undo the rope. But his hands would not budge and he couldn’t bend far enough to attack the knot with his teeth. He was basically fucked.
Behind him, a door opened. In the square of dim light that appeared on the far wall, he could vaguely see the silhouette of a large form. The door closed, the square of light disappeared, and heavy footsteps moved toward his back, slow and deliberate. They paused directly behind him and he could hear the intruder’s breathing. Then they moved to his left and around in front of him. The outline of this person created a darker shadow within the general blackness. They stood just outside the circle of light.
“Yeah, it was all a cock-up, weren’t it?” the man in the chair said. He used his natural Cockney accent now. There was no point in faking anything. “Surely not my fault, though. Look at how much that German cunt interfered.”
“Richard,” the dark shape said, “I’m very disappointed.” The voice was calm but had an edge like a razor shar
pened against rocks. Richard Flemm—not his real name but he used it all the time these days—had heard voices like that before. The tone was dangerous. It suggested that the person speaking was so angry they had gone past the tantrum zone and were now prepared to do something cold and ruthless.
“You had perfect intel, Richard,” the owner of the frigid voice went on. “I had it passed on to you in that park in England well before you even boarded the plane. You had plenty of time to study it. Every detail you might need.”
Flemm said nothing. He’d wait until this individual was done ripping him before he spoke in his own defense.
“You had a perfect plan, even,” the shadowed man continued. “It absolutely could not have failed except through your personal incompetence. How could you fuck this up, Richard? You may well have ruined everything. Why did you do this to me, Richard?”
Flemm cleared his throat. He was terrified, of course, and he wanted to seem at least slightly scared so the man knew he was taking this seriously—but not too scared. “I apologize, sir,” he said. “Some things could o’ been handled better, I’ll confess, yes, sir.”
The man standing in the shadows did not respond.
“Not to worry, though,” Flemm went on. “It’s not like all is bloody lost. No one ever found out that I weren’t really a royal. The Yanks couldn’t even keep straight what my rank and title were supposed to be. They’ll accept the official explanation and there won’t be no further inquiries, no, sir.”
“Hmm,” the other replied. Uncomfortable silence set in.
Flemm felt a bead of sweat roll down his brow. “And like I said,” he continued when the strain and dread grew within him, “it weren’t my fault. I was told the place would be dangerous, but it’s a bloody live combat zone there. You practically sent me to the front line of a war, sir. No warning it was that violent. Or about how capable that cunt Wallace would be. He don’t seem like much at first, but the man is a force of nature. Natural berserker once something gets him riled up, only ʼe’s got it under control, see, so there’s no stopping him once he starts, particularly with that bloody robot suit of his, sir.”
“When I hired you,” the other said, “I was under the impression that you were capable of handling anything.” He leaned forward.
Flemm had never actually seen the who’d brought him on for this job. He did now. His new employer was both very tall and very broad, beefy and powerful-looking, with a shaved head and a confident bearing. He glared at Flemm with his small, glistening eyes.
“Don’t worry, though, Richard,” Terry Hall said. “I’ll make sure you don’t end up in over your head ever again.”
Even with his instincts and all his experience, Flemm had never considered that the suave but dictatorial director was the mastermind behind his failed mission. He swallowed.
As he did so, Hall’s hand shot out, clamped around his neck, and gripped his Adam’s apple. His eyes bulged as the fingers dug in and tore through skin and flesh. They squeezed and ground before the hand jerked back as fast as it had attacked. Richard Flemm’s throat was no longer part of him. Instead, it lay bleeding in Hall’s big, open hand.
The man’s eyes bulged and he tried to scream in pain, but only a faint gurgling sound emerged. Waves of blood spilled down over his chest, and he stiffened, drooling, before he grew still and silent and glassy-eyed.
Hall tossed the Adam’s apple aside. He looked at the dead body.
“I understand, Richard,” he said. “Truly, I do.” He cracked his knuckles, not yet bothered by the need to wipe the blood off his hands. “You may have been right.” He sighed and looked into the dark corner of the empty room.
The tension of frustration boiled through him despite his extreme self-discipline. “Maybe,” he said to himself, “Wallace will be even more of a problem than I thought.”
Nobody’s Fool
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Author Notes - Michael Anderle
January 20, 2019
THANK YOU for not only reading this story but these Author Notes as well.
(I think I’ve been good with always opening with “thank you.” If not, I need to edit the other Author Notes!)
RANDOM (sometimes) THOUGHTS?
For most of my life, I’ve been in the United States. One time in high school, I took a church trip up to Canada and during college, I went down for a weekend in Monterrey, Mexico. So, I didn’t have a lot of personal experience to draw upon when talking about other cities.
Well, except smaller towns in Texas.
As I work here in Bangkok for the last few days and go out to get the flavor of the city, I get an— energy?—from going around. I’m pretty sure this energy is different depending on where in the city you stay for a while.
Or at least, that is how it feels in Los Angeles and Orange County (just south of Los Angeles.)
I wonder what section of Bangkok I am in (We are staying on the river, opposite side of main city), since the energy here is a bit laid back. Not the same feel as, say, Singapore. It flows from those who work here in the hotel to those we meet on small back alleys (lots of those) when we take shortcuts walking from the Golden Palace to River City. (Editor’s note: You are in Khlong San, Mike. Yes, more laid back. We stayed there last time for a while.)
Is this the general feel of Bangkok as a whole, or just the areas I frequent? Is this Thailand? One of the nice aspects is they don’t push stuff on you. If you want to look, great. If you just want to browse, no one is pushy (for the most part).
Everyone just lets you be.
It makes me want to learn more about the people here and what makes them tick. Is it their Buddhist background or something else?
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
One of the interesting (at least to me) aspects of my life is the ability to work from anywhere and at any time. In the future, I hope to re-read my own Author Notes and remember my life as a diary entry.
Bangkok (doh!)
Just a note that walking from the Golden Palace to River City via back alleys, small streets, and congested alleys past small engine repair shops with mounds of old clutches is a great way to get 12,000 steps.
The random vendor shopping area with packed stalls and narrow walkways (which people on scooters still drive on) was interesting.
But the stores must have been more of a wholesale kind of market as it was a LOT of the same or similar stuff.
Next door to the Millennium Hilton is another (much smaller) set of shops down an alley (or two) and they were pretty varied (including at least four nail places, shoes, jeans, shirts, electronics (2), etc.)
Plus a 7-11. These stores are all over the place. We see more of them than Starbucks in the USA.
If you come to Bangkok, find one. I got three pieces of candy, a Slurpee, two Cokes, and a bag of chips for just a little more money than one (1) Coke out of my fridge in the room.
Holy Snackees, Batman. They are expensive in the hotel, and WAY cheaper on the street.
If I was adventurous with my food (which I am not) I could have eaten for just a bit over $2.00 US a day.
$5.00 US and I could eat pretty well—if I was adventurous.
Clothes are pretty cheap, too. At least in the back alleys.
I didn’t feel threatened, but there were plenty of warnings for pickpockets.
The river (which we see every day here at the hotel, it is out our window) is rather cool. Even the small slice of boats going up and down the river and the different designs are interesting.
Like the little mosquito boats. They have a Chevy (or similar) big block in the back with a long pipe out the back w/ the propeller attached to the end. They are loud, they are fast, and it would make any USA muscle car guy sit up and take notice as they scream past on the water.
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Michael Anderle
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Other Zoo Books
BIRTH OF HEAVY METAL
He Was Not Prepared (1)
She Is His Witness (2)
APOCALYPSE PAUSED
Fight for Life and Death (1)
Get Rich or Die Trying (2)
Big Assed Global Kegger (3)
Ambassadors and Scorpions (4)
SOLDIERS OF FAME AND FORTUNE
Nobody’s Fool (1)
Nobody Lives Forever (2)
Nobody Drinks That Much (3)
Nobody Remembers But Us (4)
Ghost Walking (5)
Ghost Talking (6)
Ghost Brawling (7)
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