Chameleon

by E. R. Torre

  “These are your instructions,” the young man said.

  Captain Elliot approached a panel on the wall. He inserted the flash drive into a slot and the panel’s screen came alive.

  “Use your RMS access code.”

  Captain Elliot typed in his access code and information appeared on the monitor.

  “Verify the code,” the Captain told Michael.

  “Project Onyx. 90112.”

  The verification codes were proper. Captain Elliot read his new instructions. His eyes grew wide.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s your next destination as well as where you are to surface,” Michael said. “You were quite correct, Captain. We are only a few miles from our destination. I want to get to shore no later than 1730 hours. You will pick me up exactly twelve hours afterwards, unless, of course, I send word for an earlier pick up.”

  Captain Elliot shook his head.

  “This is madness,” he said. “The only thing out here is—”

  “I’m well aware of what’s out here, Captain,” Michael said.

  Captain Elliot drew a sharp breath.

  “All right,” the Captain said. As painful as it was, he and his crew’s role in this mission was little more than being chauffeurs for Michael and his mission.

  And whatever the other “special” passenger’s mission –if any– was.

  “We’ll…we’ll be there at the appointed time,” Captain Elliot finally said. “Might I ask a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “The sun sets in this part of the world at approximately 1820 hours. Is it wise to pursue...to pursue whatever it is you’re after while there is still light outside?”

  The young man smiled but said nothing. A dull anger grew within Captain Elliot. Michael was playing a child’s game: You can ask any question you want but there was no guarantee you would receive answers.

  “Very well,” the Captain said. He took a step back, toward the door. “I’ll be getting back—”

  “Wait,” the young man said.

  Captain Elliot stopped. From within the backpack and stuffed underneath some of his compact equipment, the young man produced a small envelope. He walked to the Captain’s side.

  “The Royal Navy demands subservience,” Michael said. “And this is…this is a most unusual mission. Believe me, I am sympathetic.”

  Michael held the small envelope out.

  “Perhaps we could help each other.”

  Captain Elliot stared at the envelope. It was addressed and stamped. With a start, Captain Elliot realized what the young man wanted him to do.

  “This is against regulations.”

  “The hell with regulations,” Michael said. For the first time since meeting him, the young man’s voice held emotion. He opened the envelope and removed the letter.

  “Read it,” he said. “No codes, no reveals. No microdots or invisible ink or any other SIS bullshit.”

  “I can’t do this.”

  “Of course you can,” Michael said.

  The young man remained before Captain Elliot with letter in hand. He said nothing more but pleaded his case with his eyes. After a few moments, Captain Elliot relented. He took the letter and read it. When he was done, he folded it and stuffed it back into the envelope.

  “Addressed to your mother,” Captain Elliot said.

  “We haven’t been on the greatest of terms,” the young man said. “Our duty as officers is to Queen and Country. Personal issues are often lost in the wash. This particular mission snuck up on me. I could not refuse the call, but I don’t want to leave things as they are back home. Especially if I were to not make it.”

  “I sympathize,” Captain Elliot said. “I truly do. But even if you didn’t return, I couldn’t send this. It is against protocol.”

  “So is telling you the details of my mission,” Michael replied.

  The implication hung heavy in the air.

  Send my letter and I’ll satisfy your curiosity.

  “This is nonsense,” the Captain said after a few seconds. “In all these years of service, I have yet to lose a member of my crew. What makes you think that’s a possibility?”

  “We do not choose our missions, Captain. There are missions that take months of careful planning. The ones that consider and reconsider even the tiniest of details. Those missions have the highest likelihood of success and the lowest likelihood of…tragedy. Then there are the other missions, those executed in haste, usually because the window of opportunity is open only for so long. Unfortunately, by their very nature those missions have a higher likelihood of failure.”

  “What you’re asking me to do could get me court-martialed.”

  Michael said nothing. The anger within Captain Elliot grew. How dare this young man try to play with his emotions and sense of duty in this way. He wanted to be done with this, to head back to the bridge. Fuck Michael and fuck whatever it was he and his superiors at SIS were up to.

  But Michael’s letter remained in the Captain’s hand. Despite his anger, despite his desire to follow protocol, he still held it.

  “I offer you clarity, Captain,” Michael said. “You won’t have to stumble in the dark. All I need is for you to put that letter in a mailbox, should I not make it.”

  “And if you do make it?”

  “You rip the letter up and we forget we ever had this conversation,” Michael said. “From where I sit, you get the better part of the trade.”

  The Captain’s eyes danced between the letter and Michael. The SIS agent was right. If Michael’s mission was a success, this entire incident would be irrelevant. No harm, no foul. And even if something bad did happen to the young man and Captain Elliot did send the letter, he had to admit its contents were innocuous. If he should drop it into a mailbox when he got back to London, who would know?

  Very slowly, the Captain folded the envelope and pocketed it.

  “Thank you,” Michael said. The young man’s eyes turned away. In that moment, he looked much older than his age.

  “You will make it through the mission,” Captain Elliot insisted. “Afterwards, we’ll share a bottle of Slivovitz, Mister Jennings.”

  The young man smiled.

  “Jennings is my mother’s maiden name, not mine,” he said. “As for the Slivovitz, I’d be delighted to share a small cup. I don’t think my system can handle more than one.”

  Michael held out his hand and Captain Elliot shook it. The handshake was firm and impersonal, just like the first time. The young man’s smile was gone. Perhaps, Captain Elliot thought, it had never really been there to begin with.

  “We will be surfacing at 1700 hours,” the young man said. “Sharp.”

  “Yes sir,” Captain Elliot replied.

  Michael sat back on the bed. He said:

  “You wanted information, Captain,” Michael said. “Go ahead. Ask your question.”

  Captain Elliot made sure the door leading out of the room was locked. This was about as private as they would get. The Captain leaned close to the S.I.S. agent. His voice was a whisper.

  “I have only one question,” Captain Elliot said.

  “I figured as much,” Michael replied.

  Captain Elliot frowned and said:

  “Why is British intelligence infiltrating a U.S. military base?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BAD PENNY MILITARY BASE,

  1735 HOURS

  Steve Cibos carried a rifle that, in the early evening gloom, was indistinguishable from the many models readily available to soldiers in the various branches of the U.S. armed forces. His pace was unhurried, his manner casual. He walked this path hundreds of times before and had yet to tire of it. Though it was part of his job to patrol the shoreline, he found the walk allowed him to clear his mind before beginning the second part of his shift.

  Steve wore standard black patrol fatigues accented with white embellishment and labels. Smoke rose lazily from a cigarette he cradled between the fingers of his right h
and. He took another deep pull before pausing a moment to stare out at the sea.

  The waves gently lapped against the shore some twenty feet away. It was a big difference from the month before, when a tropical wave, not quite a tropical storm, skirted to the south of Bad Penny. The night was filled with howling wind and heavy rain while the coast was battered by dangerous surf. For a while, it felt like the end of the world. All the result of a tropical wave.

  Steve grinned. If that’s what a strong tropical wave was capable of, he’d hate to face a hurricane. Like everyone else, he was just as shocked about the pandemonium left behind in New Orleans after Katrina. It was hard to believe one very strong storm could knock civilization on its collective ass.

  The MP tossed his now spent cigarette into the water. He stood there, watching the waves for a few moments and enjoying the calm. Though he didn’t really want to, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out another cigarette.

  Bastard things, he thought as he lit it up and took a long pull. One of these days I’ll give you up. For good.

  Nonetheless, he lost himself in the pleasant buzz of nicotine and enjoyed the moment. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky and the water looked so damn inviting. This was the life, even if he was stuck in the fucking military.

  Steve finished his second cigarette of the afternoon and dropped it to the ground. In a single, lazy motion, he stepped on it and crushed it underfoot. His eyes drifted back up to the blue sky and his solitary thoughts as he continued his walk, out and away.

  This was just as well for the young man hiding in the bush a few feet away. Had he wanted to, he could have reached out and grabbed the crushed cigarette. As it was, he was glad his mission hadn’t derailed in its first few minutes.

  Michael wiped water from his wet hair and stole a glance at his watch. As was usually the case, his schedule and reality had already clashed, though as of yet he wasn’t running behind all that much.

  Still, the delay was a problem. He only had so much daylight left to find what he was looking for and leave, preferably without having to use any of the very real bullets in his handgun.

  When he was sure the M.P. was sufficiently far away, Michael got to his knees and silently wandered off into the jungle, in the same general direction the M.P. had originally come from.

  In the early evening hours, as the sun was just beginning to set, if you looked across the street you could see a few buildings evenly spaced and spread out over a distance of a half-mile, five on one side and six on the other. The buildings were separated by a narrow paved road. If you weren’t looking closely enough, the town would appear to be like any other very small town in the United States.

  But only if you weren’t looking closely enough.

  Three of the buildings, a cluster in the town’s center, were shaped like drab concrete blocks and rose up two floors each. They were free of any flourishes or signs and all were painted a dull gray. There were no signs indicating specific stores or sales or any of the usual attempts to draw clients in. To the south was a black and silver warehouse and next to it was a lean two story building that had a pair of beat up gas pumps sitting before it. This small gas station, like the other buildings around it, bore no corporate logo.

  Further down the south side of the town and past a dense tropical forest was a small two story control tower, on the top of which protruded a series of antennae and satellite dishes. Next to the tower was another smaller building and another, more modern, gas pump. Immediately south of this was a large, square, concrete landing pad. Had this been Any Small Town, U.S.A., you might expect a single propeller crop duster parked in the grass and an old man sitting in a wicker chair, sucking on his pipe or cradling a glass of lemonade while enjoying the early evening breeze. Instead, in the middle of the landing pad and taking up that space like a burly tank was a gray MH-60R Sea Hawk multi-mission helicopter.

  The presence of this helicopter, perhaps more than anything else, would dispel any remaining notions one might have that this was an ordinary small town. Now alerted to this inconsistency, a more thorough inspection by the viewer would reveal that all the vehicles in this town were far from ordinary. There were at least five Humvees and an equal number of M939 transportation trucks, all painted in a familiar camouflage green, parked under trees and difficult for the casual observer to spot.

  Not that casual observers existed in any quantity around here.

  Fishermen from the nearest islands some seventy five miles away knew to avoid Bad Penny, even though there were no explicit warnings posted along her beaches. From time to time a single Cyclon Class Patrol Boat skirted along her waters, discouraging the locals from coming too close to the chain of islands, of which Bad Penny was but one. The military presence was low key and rarely overwhelming, which was in line with the fact that the islands were primarily used for military training.

  At least that was the description offered by the U.S. Armed Forces.

  The young man delivered to this island via the British submarine Avenger, however, knew this wasn’t quite the case. He had made his way to the island’s southern outer edge and, now dressed in camouflage gear, lay nearly invisible within a wild bush. In his hands was a pair of compact binoculars. Through them, he surveyed the Bad Penny’s air base as the day slowly wound down. Though his breathing was even and his outward appearance calm, his mind raced. The British agent known as Michael hoped to make it to the center of the base and find his target well before sunset. He had already failed in this endeavor, and the weight of the missed deadline was a concern.

  Time was running out.

  Samantha Aron’s eyes fluttered open as the dying rays of the sun broke through the window. She winced and turned to get away. Anything to continue sleeping. Even in her present hazy state of mind, she knew this was the wrong thing to do, yet she felt so damned comfortable in bed.

  “I know what you’re thinking and you can’t stay there forever,” a formless voiced called out to her. “You’d better get up.”

  Samantha dismissively waved her hand and the bothersome voice offered a genial laugh.

  “Seriously, you better get up,” the voice insisted. “They’re waiting for you.”

  “Let them,” she said.

  “They have you on such a quick turnaround…” the voice persisted.

  Samantha moaned at that thought.

  “…and you have people and supplies to fly out—”

  Samantha jerked into a sitting position. Her eyes shot down to her wristwatch.

  “It’s nearly six thirty!” she said. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  Warren Bligh emerged from the bathroom. He was completely nude and incredibly striking to Samantha’s eyes. She could look at him for hours, but unfortunately –very, very unfortunately– she didn’t have the time. Warren caught her stare and smiled. He removed the toothbrush from his mouth.

  “I’ve been trying to get you up for the past half hour,” he said. “If I knew all it took was to show myself off—”

  Samantha jumped out of bed, equally nude.

  “I needed the sleep,” she explained as she rushed past him and into the bathroom.

  Before closing the door, however, she took a few seconds to admire her lover’s back side. Her gaze lingered.

  “Did I really say I needed sleep?” she said and shook her head before closing the door on her lover.

  He was left with nowhere to spit out the foamy toothpaste.

  Dressed in her slick black flight outfit, Samantha burst through the door leading out of her cabin. Though most of the staff and officers in Bad Penny were stationed in the barracks, certain officers with specialized skills, including pilots, were allowed to reside in one of the ten small private cabins in the military town. These cabins were the last remnants of a failed golf course and surrounding community that was never completed. Facing foreclosure and bankruptcy, the U.S. Government instead swooped in and took over the island while the cabins were still in relatively good sh
ape.

  Today, they were crawling with bugs and were small by the standards of your average home owner, but they afforded privacy, something which was in very limited supply within the armed forces.

  A cigarette dangled out of Samantha’s mouth and a small duffel bag swung against her side as she stepped into the early evening dusk. She was in the process of slipping on her flight jacket, something which proved considerably harder to do with the duffel bag in the way, when a voice called her back to the cabin door.

  “You’re leaving without as much as a goodbye?” Warren said.

  Samantha stopped in her tracks and spun around. A warm smile appeared on her face and she couldn’t help but giggle. Warren was standing at the door, toothbrush still in hand. He hadn’t dressed yet, which Samantha really appreciated. Then again, he still had the foamy toothpaste on the side of his mouth. It was the high cost of being exiled from your own bathroom.

  “When I get back, the first thing I’ll do is teach you how to properly clean up after brushing your teeth,” she said. She walked back up the stairs leading to the cabin door.

  “Before or after you teach me how to dress?” he replied.

  “For you, that knowledge is completely useless,” Samantha said. “I’d go so far as to say it should be forbidden.”

  She wiped the toothpaste from the side of Warren’s mouth and embraced her lover. They kissed, gently, twice.

  “I’ll miss you,” Samantha said.

  “So will I,” Warren replied.

  They kissed once more. A series of catcalls interrupted their embrace. A pair of Marines walking down the street and toward the Mess Hall further south paused in their tracks to watch the show. Warren extended his right hand and flipped them the bird.

  The Marines laughed and continued their walk. Samantha, too, managed a laugh.

  “How very rude of you.”

  “What, this finger?” Warren said. He tried, but utterly failed, to look innocent. “Why it’s quickly becoming Bad Penny’s unofficial greeting.”

  “You don’t say?”