Commandos

by Madlen Namro

  * * * *

  David stepped out of the prefecture building and accepted Victor’s invitation to his car.

  “Now, will you tell me what this is all about?” David was getting slightly anxious and studied Victor’s expression closely.

  “I’m a friend of Levi’s.”

  “You have brightened.

  “That too.”

  “That too? growing stronger.

  “The president ordered me to gather up all Levi’s commandos on Tenerife and inform you of your new assignment. Levi has all the details you need to know.”

  “And how do I know you are who you say you are? It may all be just a childish prank for all I know.” David started to regain his natural scepticism.

  “I bet you ran a search on me before you left the building, didn’t you?” Victor’s eyes were now piercing the commando.

  “How’d you know that?”

  “Well, I am a tracker.”

  This kind of confession was enough to give anyone a stutter. David swallowed heavily and had to clear his throat before he could speak again.

  “That explains why I found nothing on the database.”

  “You’re going to have to take my word on this or you could ask me a question that only a friend of Levi’s would know the answer too. I don’t mind.”

  “All right.” David paused for a moment. “If you want a message from him?” David’s face

  I don’t understand.” His curiosity was me to believe you, tell me what Levi is wearing on a chain around his neck.”

  An image of Jo flashed before Victor’s eyes for a second.

  “The access codes to Jo’s memorial disc. Actually, that’s what he used to wear before they destroyed them in prison.”

  “Levi was in prison?” This seemed to be a day of shocking news.

  “Yes, but I’m sure he’d rather tell you about that himself. He’ll be waiting for you on the island.”

  David looked at the architectonic documents in his hand. He got deeply involved in the city’s redevelopment and did not wish to leave Cairo just yet. On the other hand, he missed his friends and would really love to see them again. And there was of course the direct order from the president, hardly something a soldier could ignore.

  “Okay, I’ll pack my stuff. I’ll meet you at the airport.”

  Victor reached into his pocket and produced a plane ticket which he handed over to David.

  “Unfortunately, you’ll be flying alone. I’m leaving for Japan in a few hours.” He looked at David and added, “To get Alec.”

  “That moron!” David was shocked to find out Alec had also been selected for the mission.

  A moment later both men burst out laughing. David had to admit that he was pleased to have met Victor, even though he did give him a bit of a startle at the beginning. After he got out of the car and the tracker sped off, the commando remained there for quite a while, thinking about all that he’d found out that day. He promised himself to return one day with his son. For the first time in his life he felt that he’d found a place he could honestly call home.

  * * * * Kaminsky stepped into the laboratory and shouted a few commands to his assistants before descending to his secret command room. Alexander was supposed to be already waiting for him and his co-operators would join them in a few minutes. Unfortunately, nobody had shown up yet. Irritated by his son’s absence, Kaminsky started scratching himself all-over. Every time something didn’t go according to his plans, he was overwhelmed by one of his many compulsive behaviours.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Kaminsky yelled when Alexander burst in, dragging Laura behind him, bound, her clothes torn in several places. He clutched her in his arms, with his body strangely close to hers.

  “Father, I caught her trying to escape!” He reached up to wipe away the sweat beading heavily on his forehead.

  Laura could not hold back her tears. This had been her last, desperate attempt to free herself from these people. Kaminsky calmly walked up and reached out to stop the tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “Laura, darling, why would you run away from your master, your saviour?”

  His fist shot out without warning and hit her face with enough strength for Alexander standing behind her to lose his balance and stagger backwards.

  “Lock her up in the back. She needs time to think things through,” Kaminsky ordered, and Alexander pushed the woman out of the room.

  “Ungrateful wench!” The caliph vented his fury in the empty room rubbing painfully at his fist. It really had been a strong punch.

  Several minutes later, the co-operators begun to turn up. Without a word, he waved them to their seats at the table. The room grew silent. Only Alexander was still absent. Kaminsky sat at the top of the table and waited patiently, planning new attacks, fuelling his own sense of mission, hoping to soon rid the world of capitalists.

  When Alexander finally returned and took his seat at the table, his father got up and started pacing around the room, behind their backs.

  “I’ve had enough of your clumsy attacks! While you’re destroying cities, the damned UN sits comfortably in their basses and laughs at us. It’s time to get rid of them once and for all. We’re going to launch an assault on the largest military bases, for now the ones on Earth.”

  The men twitched uneasily. His newest plan surprised them. They were used to capturing civilian cities, placing explosives in public places, poisoning innocent people, but none of it involved attacking the military bases directly. They knew it would not be easy.

  “We have to prepare. There can be no mistakes. It’s time to activate our best men and teach them how to conquer the world! No more will the United Nations spit in our faces. We will not be governed by this league of mediocrity. The poverty, sickness and war are all of their making. They are genetically incapable of ruling the world. Now it is our time to step up. We’re going to take over everything. That’s why my son, Alexander, will start a fire of black smoke tonight to symbolise our near victory, and you will all bathe in money and luxury!”

  The men needed to hear no more. Wealth and power were the two things they desired most in this world, the only motivation they’d ever needed.

  * * * *

  The sun had already set, but Jo continued towards the fishing boats. She felt like sailing out with them that night. She’d spent many days aimlessly wandering around the island, trying to analyse the overwhelming feeling of déjà vu. She constantly got the feeling that she’d been in those places before, but she knew psychology well enough not to attribute any supernatural meaning to it. Déjà vu was nothing else than an echo of forgotten experiences. But if that was the case, it would mean she’d really already been here.

  She also realised that she would have to experience some sort of a strong shock to force the memories back into her mind. Maybe her subconscious was trying to protect her from remembering something that had made her wipe her memory in the first place. She had been worrying about all this for weeks now and had slowly begun to give in to various fears she’d never felt before. She’d always believed that she was not easily scared, but now every deep shadow or rustle of leaves hastened her heartbeat. She was beginning to completely lose her self-esteem.

  Whenever the fear took over, when the pain and sense of emptiness were too much to bear, she would always drop everything and drive her jeep to the beach, among the tall dunes where she’d found a perfect spot for meditation and to practice her relaxation techniques. There she could regain control over her shaken psyche and rebuild her selfconfidence. Afterwards she would feel rested and fall asleep immediately to dreams of happiness. Last night, in her dreams, she’d met Victor who had managed to find her in her seclusion. His imaginary presence had given her a strange sense of security.

  When she reached the fishing boat, the crewmen greeted her with friendly smiles and handed her oilskins. Apparently it was going to rain soon and the wind was getting stronger.

  The weather did not discourage
Jo. Waves brushed against the sides of the boat as it slowly sailed away from the shore. Fuerteventura seemed to become so small that she felt as if she could close her hand around it if she wished to. Wind was blowing through her hair and the fishing boat began to lean more and more violently. The crewmen were almost all below deck seeking to hide from the intensifying rain and the ominous darkness of the clouds above, but despite all that, Jo continued to hold the tiny island in her hand. The fishermen called out to her, but she did not hear. Soaking wet and shivering, she ignored everything and everyone around her with her eyes fixed on the sea’s combers. In an instant, a wave of memories overwhelmed her. She remembered a secluded island. She saw Kaminsky’s face and herself drowning in the ocean. She trembled at the image of her own body, livid, carried off by the waves. She’d needed all the strength she could muster to make her way back to the surface and after making sure Kaminsky had already started rowing towards the shore, to swim to the nearest island.

  At this moment she once more felt the cold and desperation of that fateful night. Before she could shake off the trauma, new images flooded her mind. She was sitting at a campfire, her head pounding with incomprehensible gibberish. It took her a while to understand a sensible sentence in the maddening mumble. I must make a sacrifice for the good of mankind. Her alleged death must have been a result of these words. After all this time, Jo eventually remembered everything about her past. She leant overboard and threw up, shocked by the gravity of the memories.

  The rain stopped as she collapsed to the deck and snuggled into the ship’s railing. She was in shock, soaked and cold. Tears of helpless rage ran down her cheeks and it took her a while to realise that what she noticed in the distance was in fact a column of black smoke rising from a nearby island. Smoke shall free the nations, smoke will point the way. The memory of Kaminsky’s words struck her with almost physical force and she immediately realised that terrorists were about to attack once more. Soon. * * * *

  Levi and David embraced each other when the latter arrived on Tenerife. After dinner, they sat in the Sun City base and Levi briefed his commando on their new assignment.

  At first, David seemed slightly thrown off balance. He’d not expected it to be such a big deal. For at least two years the council had continuously searched the world for any trace of Kaminsky and were never able to locate him. They did have suspicions and some leads pointing to the caliph’s most likely hideouts, but never anything definitive. Before any decisions could be made, they needed to wait for Victor and the rest of the commandos. David listened attentively when Levi summarised his traumatic experiences of his exile and then he shared his newly discovered passion for urban planning with the commodore.

  Hours passed slowly, as if their impatience had somehow halted the clock’s hands. David tried to find out more about Jo, Alec and Victor. As for Alec, he already felt dejected at the though of working with him again. As for Jo, Levi admitted that he had spent most of the morning trying to locate her on the island, so far without luck. They left the canteen and walked to the computer room, David suggesting a search of the databases for any clue that might point them to Jo’s whereabouts. Levi’s hopes were raised as the commando was one of the best computer specialists he’d ever met in his life.

  Two hours later, David uneasily admitted that there was virtually no data on Jo in any of the systems he’d managed to access. He would not be able to do anything more using the hardware he had. He now remembered that while still in Cairo, he had managed to track down all the commandos except Jo. Desperate, they decided to split up and turn to more traditional methods – ask around.

  Levi felt guilty as Victor was about to arrive with Alec any time now and they had nothing to show for the time they’d spent. He had promised his friend he would get Jo to the assembly place and brief her and Levi made a habit of always keeping his promises.

  * * * *

  Japan was a country that had always fascinated Victor, especially in his student years. He remembered winters when temperatures plummeted below minus fifty Celsius and beautiful times spent at one of the aikido schools in the north.

  Victor had spent years practising his combat skills. He specialised in budo, a combination of judo, karate, kyuodu, kendo and a number of other martial arts. The art required him to work on his mind as intensively as on his body.

  He plunged into his memories of Japan, allowing a faint smile to cross his face. When he arrived in Kyoto, he was shocked by the extent to which this formerly beautiful and technologically advanced country had been affected by terrorist attacks and the greenhouse effect.

  The city, once housing over a hundred beautiful temples and pagodas, now mourned the destruction of the Emperor’s Palace. On the day when over a thousand statues of the Buddhist goddess of mercy were robbed and the temple of Sanjunsangen-do levelled in the process, the residents had begun to fully feel their own powerlessness in the face of the barbarity of terrorist attacks.

  Victor recalled a small house in the Takao district, where he used to rent a flat, and its owner, a spiritually burnout collector of tacky memorabilia. Wait a second, Victor thought while strolling down one of the city’s streets. How did that go? That Motoori Noringana’s poem I used to have framed on the wall of my apartment? He tested his memory and tried to recite it in his mind.

  Blessed islands of Japan,

  Should a stranger enquire

  Into your soul Yamato, say

  Breathing air light up by the rising sun

  A cherry tree blossoms, wild and beautiful.

  Pleased to be able to recall it after all those years,

  Victor turned towards the ecology centre to locate Alec. When he got there, a man informed him that Alec

  would be spending the evening at the recently reopened

  samurai school. He took down the address and went on his

  way. He was not sure what to expect from the meeting. On

  the one hand Alec was without a doubt a good soldier, a

  professional, but on the other Victor could not forget the

  way the commando had treated Jo and later Diana. He was

  surprised to find out that Alec had frequented Zen schools

  and now also attended a samurai school. It turned out he

  was focussed on constantly improving himself, aiming to

  excel.

  But to become a fearless samurai, one needed more

  than just the physical skills. A samurai’s most important

  commitment was to the warrior code. Victor doubted a man

  like commando Ross would ever be capable of

  unquestioning loyalty and obedience. He had no honour as

  clearly shown by his attitude to women and colleagues. The tracker’s mind drifted once more to his school

  memories. As one of the five best students he was awarded

  a scholarship to attend classes taught by a true master.

  From his classes he remembered that samurais were

  followers of the type of Buddhism known as Zen. He now

  realised that Alec’s studies of Zen were supposed to allow

  him to become a samurai.

  Victor stopped in front of the school and glanced at the Japanese adage painted across it: a man’s word is stronger than iron, and immediately realised that there was only one man who would see it fitting to place those words above his

  door. Akira.

  He walked inside and caught the intensive scent of

  incense, a truly comforting sensation. He heard voices from

  somewhere at the back of the building. He walked towards

  a glass door and gazed through the pane. Gathered in a

  circle, a group of men were reciting a poem, one that had

  always accompanied samurais wherever they met: “Colours are marvellous, yet they fade. None can linger

  eternally in this world. Set out today to climb the highest

  peaks of life’s illusions and there will be no more dre
ams

  or intoxication.”

  Leading the recitation was Akira, Victor’s old

  schoolmate. When he spotted the tracker behind the door,

  he excused his students and left the room to welcome him. “Victor! I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” They embraced each other in a friendly welcome. “I’m surprised to see you teaching here. You’ve always

  been a man of poetry… and a samurai school?”

  “One does not rule out the other, my friend. You know

  that an uncut diamond doesn’t glitter.” Akira laughed as he

  quoted the proverb. “What are you doing here, Victor? You

  always wanted to become a commando. I didn’t expect you

  in a place like this.”

  “I am… a commando… in a way.” His friend’s surprise

  amused Victor. “But I’m here to find somebody.” “So, any luck with that?” Akira, cheerful as always,

  grinned merrily, showing off his silver teeth. Victor pointed

  at Alec sitting on the other side of the door, cross-legged

  with his eyes closed.

  “He’s a commando; I’m teaching him,” Akira said. “Yes, I know.” Victor smiled. “Could you do me a

  favour?” He leant over to the shorter man and whispered

  his plan to him. Moments later Akira grinned again. “Sure thing, my dear Victor. You can take over there!

  Ha! Ha!” He pointed to the changing rooms. When Victor

  was gone, Akira stepped back into the room and informed

  his students, “My friends, we have a visitor today, an old

  friend, one of the best warriors in the world.” Everyone’s

  curiosity was immediately aroused by this introduction. “A

  man who cannot be beaten!”

  “Everyone can be beaten,” Alec murmured.