The Fifth Battalion

by Michael Priv

  “Nice tits,” I added. “No, wait, I’m not supposed to say such things aloud to a lady, right? It’s all coming back to me now.” “Have you suffered brain damage?” Jane asked. “Welcome back anyway,” she patted my face with her warm hand.

  “He’s always been rude like that,” Bill butted in. “Yes, rude and unrefined. Unlike me!”

  “Droog!” I yelled. “Long time no see!” “Yo, Gra ch, you crazy bastard! Good to see you, too! And don’t you give Grom any crap about his pussy, either, you hear?” Bill leaned over me, grinning. The familiar Bill’s smell of a good aftershave, coffee and cognac reached my nostrils. Wearing his favorite brown sports coat and a dress shirt unbuttoned on top and no tie, Bill perhaps could pass for a distinguished professor, although he didn’t sound like one. Boy, was I happy to see Bill right now.

  “I’m a woman, you two!” Jane was still beaming but sounded wounded now. “I was born a woman, married, two grown kids.” “ Is that so, Grom? Drop your panties and present the evidence!” Bill threw his head back, laughing, pleased with his joke—in bad taste, kind of dumb and leaving a lot to be desired in other ways but good-natured as usual.

  “Next time bring your birth certificate, Grom, don’t forget,” I concurred. “Bill, call me Norman, okay?”

  Bill signified his agreement with a grunt. Having removed the IV, Jane was taking my blood pressure and other vitals. “Perverts like you give extraterrestrials everywhere a bad name,” she stated in an accusing tone of voice. “Drop my panties! Wouldn’t you two like that, hmm?”

  Actually, what I would really like was to call Linda and said so. “You can do better than that, kid,” Bill assured me. “You can go home. Go see her. We’ll brief you first so we’re all tracking, but it’s not gonna be much of a briefing, I’m afraid. We don’t know much.”

  “You can get up now, Norm, slowly,” Jane said. Feeling a little woozy but generally okay, with Jane’s help I walked slowly to the arm chair I knew so well. Jane took her seat at the desk and Bill pulled up a chair.

  “Anything to drink, anyone?” Jane asked like a good hostess. “Cognac, please,” Bill replied.

  “Whiskey and soda for me,” I ventured. Then I caught myself, remembering that I quit drinking. “No, wait. I’ll have a beer.” “So rry, no cognac or beer,” Jane replied.

  “What do you have? Gin?” Bill asked.

  “Perrier.”

  “Perrier and what else?” Bill shook his head. “Norm, do you believe this crap?”

  “Only Perrier,” Jane explained with a charming look on her face. “Nothing else.”

  “I’ll have a Perrier, but don’t expect a good Yelp review,” I assured her. “ I double that motion. That’s sick! What kind of a psychiatric office are you running here?” Bill measured Jane up and down with indignation. “Completely unprofessional!”

  “Tell me more about the frustration you feel,” Jane replied, exaggerating her professional interest just a tad. This felt great —all this, the horsing around, being a soldier again, having my old buddies at my side and my freshly re-acquired memory. Now I knew. I couldn’t wipe a silly grin off my face. It seemed to have stuck there forever.

  “Okay, Norm, so here is the situation,” Jane was all business now. “We don’t know what the hell is going on.”

  “That’s the situation? You don’t know what the situation is?” “Th e situation is that the mantis sign went out in classifieds all over the place. You know?” Bill looked at me questioningly, probably testing my freshly-restored memory.

  “I know. The new and improved escape attempt.”

  “That’s the fact we do know,” Bill agreed, satisfied with my reply. “Somebody must’ve found the Guards’ spaceship. We need their transport to blow this crazy 7-Eleven, as you know, because the locals are still pathologically incapable of producing an operational space craft that we could steal from them. So, yeah, the escape attempt, the space transport. The messages seem to indicate that somebody finally found the damn jalopy.”

  Right. It was all coming back to me. Our usual stumbling block. To escape, we needed to lay our hands on an operational spaceship. On this particulate planet that meant a choice of one, the Guards’ transport, so take your pick. The Guards hid it well.

  This planet was still Stone Age. We couldn’t expect anything operational coming out of any local efforts for a very long time. We needed a propulsion system that wouldn’t require a freight train of fuel just to take off. We needed an impenetrable hull made of polymer armor yet to be invented here. Scientists here on P-3 had discovered nuclear fission—halleluiah, but what have they done with it? They have been using it to boil water. Need anybody say more?

  “However,” Jane took over, “none of us seem to know where the Guards’ spaceship is. Whoever found it is not talking. We don’t know why, although tonight I’m meeting with somebody, who supposedly knows something.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “You’re better off not knowing,” Jane replied. “Security protocol,” she added. “Need-toknow basis.”

  Bill nodded vigorously, sipping on his Perrier and making disgusted faces. “ Furthermore, the CO is apparently leading the charge this time, trying to pinpoint the whereabouts of the transport, but…” Bill’s suddenly sour facial expression signified doubt bordering on troubled disdain.

  “You are not doubting Brell, are you?” I asked. General Brell, was above reproach. Why did I think that? Because I knew Brell. Jane shook her head, “Brell is Brell. He’s the mensch.” Everyone went quiet for a minute, reminiscing. “Remember the boots?” Jane asked with a snicker.

  “I knew it !” Bill leaned back, shaking his head, and slapping his knee. “Of course, the boots! I knew somebody would bring it up.” The affectione on his face completely nullified his attempt at cynicism.

  I fondly remembered the ancient lore about Brell, consisting of several anecdotes of various degree of improbability. The “boots” one was highly probable, however, as it featured the guy we all knew and was kind of corroborated by Brell himself at an all-base muster. As the legend went, already here on Earth, one of our guys, Shon, pulled a daytime barracks sentry duty which included floor mopping. Late morning, with the night crew asleep and the day crews all gone to work, Shon started mopping the floor as he was supposed to, when he heard the shuffle and footsteps of many feet at the entrance behind his back. “Hey, assholes, take off your boots!” Shon yelled without looking and heard Brell’s voice, “Okay, assholes, you heard the man in charge, take your boots off!”

  Terrified, Shon whipped around to witness the unlikely sight of Brell and about a dozen officers, a surprise inspection, all taking their boots off. “I didn’t mean you, General, Sir!” the poor guy shouted.

  “Oh, you only meant them?” Brell asked. “Why? Because their socks match?” Needless to say, this incident stuck to Shon like a wet leaf to a bare ass, especially after Brell’s announcement at the next all-base muster, where General praised Shon for the responsibility and pride Shon took in performing his assigned floor-mopping duty.

  We all laughed but then went serious again.

  “Yeah, I don’t know.” Bill said, scratching the back of his head.

  Jane chimed in with her own doubts , “We simply don’t know what’s going on. Some of our guys have disappeared. Somebody supposedly knows the transport’s location but isn’t talking, probably for a good reason. Things seem different this time.”

  Bill seemed dubious. “Brell took himself off the scene centuries ago. He disappeared, right? We haven’t heard a peep from him. So why is he jumping up and down now? We simply don’t know who is on whose side at this point. That includes the CO. So, yeah, I doubt Brell.”

  Jane sipped Perrier thoughtfully, fiddling with her necklace that I liked so much. “Possibly we are dealing with a completely different setup now. The forces, alliances are organized differently, new allegiances possibly.”

  “A new player or players on the scene?” I asked. “ W
here would they come from? We’re marooned here on P-3 with the Guards and the local inmates. That’s it. So where would new players come from?” Bill shook his head, looking surprisingly thoughtful for once. “Yeah. So General Brell disappeared a long time ago, right?” Bill glanced at me.

  I shrugged. No idea when he ran the show last. I was too preoccupied with myself to notice. Definitely long ago. “We don’t know why,” Jane added , “but our assumption had always been that he knew what he was doing, and it wouldn’t be anything dishonorable.”

  “I never had any assumptions,” Bill disagreed. “Honor is a relative concept. For all I know, Brell could’ve been contained somewhere by the Guards or he might have even ditched us and escaped from P-3 already. Hm-m? He could’ve been blowing his backpay on hookers and beer for some lifetimes without us.”

  “Come on, you know Brell. Honor is not a relative concept to him. It’s all very simple to Brell,” Jane insisted.

  “You haven’t seen him for a while. He may have changed,” Bill insisted.

  “And it’s important why?” I asked.

  Jane explained patiently, “Would be good to find Brell, especially under current circumstances. He would help up sort things out.” I had to agree. “Okay, what else?” I asked. “Not enough data here, so what’s the point chewing on it?”

  “The Priests,” Bill stated. The annihilation of the Advance Battalion derailed the entire invasion, which made our CO, Brell, a wanted criminal. A small cohort of Brell’s staff and closest officers had been hiding and protecting him. For reasons lost in antiquity they called themselves the Priests. As his staff officers, the Priests swore allegiance to the General long before we landed here. Priests maintained that the entire invasion was a politically-motivated setup and Brell was framed—and he well could’ve been. Brell, a full general, a prominent member of the High Assembly, was relegated to leading a small advance contingent to an insignificant planet. He must’ve pissed off a wide variety of all kinds of important people to merit such an enormous kick in the pants. Right or wrong, Brell was in hot water. Fear of Justice, among other things, kept him out of circulation and marooned here on Earth, which could’ve been the original intention of whomever orchestrated this atrocity. Priests thought so and indeed that was a possibility. The top brass back home might’ve wanted to get rid of Brell, so they invented the nonexistent invasion of a faraway planet, unbeknownst to us occupied by the enemy, setting him up and sacrificing two thousand troops.

  Or, possibly that was not what happened at all. The P-3 Guards kept low profile, as they were supposed to, and so the mission planners on Baltizor might not have genuinely been unaware of their existence and thus walked us into a trap.

  “What about the Priests?” I asked. “No idea what they’ re up to. They faded into the wallpaper maybe a hundred years or more. The suspicion is that they are up to no good, looking at how suddenly and thoroughly they all disappeared,” Bill shrugged.

  “ So, what are you guys briefing me on? You don’t know shit.” “Well, not much strategic data, that’s true,” Jane agreed.

  “I think we should lay low, as I’ve been saying for a while now. Jane disagrees.” Bill pointed an accusing finger.

  “How do you lay low?” I asked. “I’m already under surveillance.” “Exactly my point,” Jane nodded energetically. “It’s too late now.”

  “We don’t know what we are up against. We should all disappear for a couple of months,” Bill insisted.

  “Overruled. Not okay. And won’t work,” Jane stated. “Any more ideas?”

  Bill leaned back in his chair and shook his head.

  “Okay. What else do you have for me?” I asked. I had to get going. “Your briefing sucks, by the way.”

  “How about a secret stash right here in this office? Can we brief you on that?” Bill grinned. “You may need it,” Jane flashed a concerned frown. She explained, “Right here, in my office, left of my desk, in the wall. Remove the paneling, there is a niche in the wall covered by a piece of drywall hanging on two screws.”

  “You got a spare passport there, a thousand in cash, a couple of frag grenades and a loaded Beretta 9-millimiter,” Bill concluded. My mouth hung open. “What?! Why?”

  “We don’t leave our own behind, you know that,” Jane smiled. “You’d do the same for us. You wanna see it?” I just nodded, too touched for words. Jane showed me how to remove the paneling and the two screws the drywall was hanging on. The nestling place inside the wall contained a small, beat-up metal lunch box—my emergency kit, and also a stash of assorted weapons.

  “Thanks for everything, guys. I mean it.” I started getting up. “That’s not all,” Bill gestured me to sit back down. “Got a valuable contact for you. Who knows, you may need it.” “Yeah?” I was interested.

  “You know him. Eugene, the Russian restaurant owner on Fulton and Masonic, BistroZhiguli.” I remembered Eugene, the restaurant owner, a balding middleaged Russian, pleasant and chubby, given to melodrama like most Russians. Bill got Eugene to hire me a couple times to clean up his computers. I met his wife and two young sons, his house keeper and three other household employees.

  “Yeah? What about Eugene?”

  “Remember him? Remember his cook? Remember a customer dining with a group of ass-kissers when we were there?” “A what?”

  “Think back. Look at it all now that you got your brains back. Just look. What do you think?”

  “Holy shit! The Mafia! How did you know?”

  “Same way you just did. The cook walks out wearing a shoulder holster under his two-thousand-dollar blazer. Did you see how he held himself? He was packing under-arm. Only an idiot could’ve missed it.”

  “ I missed it,” I confessed apologetically.

  “Like I said…” Bill started.

  “ Hey, now I remember that customer, too! A party of five, a real serious old dude surrounded by ass-kissers, like you said, each the size of a Clydesdale, all wearing very expensive suits and watches,” I remembered. “And gold rings.”

  “ And gold chains,” Bill added.

  I nodded eagerly.

  “And?” Bill prompted me.

  “All packing shoulder holsters—ri-i-ight!” I concluded my observations.

  Bill chuckled with satisfaction. “Exactly. Each of them armed. Not a usual dinner crowd. You may need a mob connection.” “Does he know you know?” I asked.

  “Yes, he does. I told him. He just laughed and told me I should’ve been a fantasy writer and I could do better than Narnia.” “Crazy! What did you say?” Jane asked, fascinated by the story. “I said that things being not what they seemed was the best fantasy plot and that someday I may have the need for his services.” “Yes, you are crazy. How come he didn’t kill you?” I asked. “Don’t be silly. Just because I suspected somebody carrying a gun? That’s not a crime.”

  “Crazy anyway. And you got me involved, too. I didn’t even know.” “Thank me later,” Bill shrugged. “ Here’s Eugene’s black phone number,” he groped around for something to write on, getting a pen from his breast pocket. “Jane?”

  Jane pushed her yellow pad toward him. Bill scribbled a number on the yellow pad, tore off the sheet and handed it to me. “Memorize the number and destroy the paper.” Bill tore several blank pages from the pad and handed them to Jane. She threw them into the shredder.

  I committed the number Bill wrote to memory. Jane shredded the paper.

  “What’s a black phone?” Jane asked. “Eugene bragged about owning one of the first so -called “black” phones in the United States. Black phones apparently don’t register on any scanning equipment, can’t be found on the Ethernet to eavesdrop on, and don’t leave any paper trail such as monthly bills or records,” I explained.

  “Ye t another reason to believe that Eugene is a mob figure.” Jane just nodded.

  “Thanks, Bill.” I didn’t know what to do with all the gratitude I felt, so I just shook his hand.

  “You’re welcome.
Watch your back, kid,” Bill slapped me on the back. “This back right here.”

  “That’s the point,” Jane agreed. “Let’s keep in mind that things may not be as they seem.”

  “You guys sure know how to bring a guy up to speed. Thanks again. Good to be back.”

  “Yeah, let’s do it again sometime, only next time I’m buying,” Bill got up, stretching. “Life’s too short for Perrier.”

  PART TWO

  BECOMING

  7 Way back when, a couple of days ago, Bill said I needed to get a life, a boat to float. Now that I knew the scoop, I had to agree. I was the only one who could supply the purpose and content to my life that made any sense to me. Nobody else was going to do it for me. Somehow, that thought made me feel good. I could possibly make my endless existence fun. Could I?

  For no good reason I suddenly loved San Francisco —the fog, the traffic, the claustrophobic feeling—all of it. I used to hate it but not anymore. Not for a good twenty minutes now. Not since I regained my eternity. This was huge! The brisk walk felt good, too.

  Ah! There we go again, same Yellow Cab number 3415 parked half a block away. Surveillance. I was sure now that I got my brain back, as Bill put it. I had been kicking around too long to miss the fact that somebody was “tending the sheep,” as we used to call shadowing a suspect in my old cop days in Colchester. The Romans called it Camulodunium—a nice enough town back then, long time ago. And that crazy redhead girlfriend I had at the time, what was her name? A barrel of laughs. Anyway…

  Yeah, the cab. Trouble? Hey, you bastards, bring it on! They did. Or somebody did.

  A Crown Vic swerved my way from nowhere, startling me, as I headed down Pacific for my Rabbit. W hat the...? A tough-looking white guy of about thirty-five emerged from the front passenger’s seat of the large car, black and bristling with antennas, to my left and beaconed to me. Mediocre gray suit, neat unimaginative haircut done mostly with a #3 buzzer attachment, it seemed, except the sides were cut much shorter—the proverbial “Fed” as good as tattooed in large, cheerful letters across the guy’s forehead. He wore a parody of a smile—I immediately christened him “Smiley”—he kind of stretched his lips uncertainly, as if testing if the muscles still worked. They didn’t work all that well. Clearly, he needed more practice. His eyes kept drilling me intensely. His stare glued to my face. He beaconed to me again with that strange smile.