Commandos

by Madlen Namro

  “Yeah, yeah. What I don’t understand is why we should be bothered?” Alec was growing impatient.

  “Every evening, Kaminsky would build a fire on the island, a symbol of the new tomorrow. Somehow, every time it threw up a characteristic streak of smoke.” She pointed to the horizon. The men followed her hand and saw the trail of smoke clearly in the distance. “Just like that.”

  They all froze, bewildered.

  “You think it’s possible that Kaminsky is on Lanzarotte right now?” Alec broke the silence.

  “He might be.” Victor nodded. “It is listed as one of his possible hideouts, but we’ll need a co-operator to confirm this before we do anything.”

  “I’ll look into it,” said David. “I’ll pass myself off as one of them and break into their database. Once I’m in, I’ll be able to move around freely. I might get confirmation from someone.”

  “Yes, do it.” Alec frowned. “We can’t base our engagement strategy on some smoke line in the sky.”

  “All right,” said Levi. “David, try to get a confirmation and in the mean time we’ll take another look into Kaminsky’s files. You never know, something might occur to us.”

  Unexpectedly, Victor reached out and grabbed the folder from Levi’s hands. Everyone froze in surprise.

  “Victor? Listen, I know you well enough. I know there’s something you want to tell me.” Levi glanced at the file. “You don’t want me to read the file, that’s obvious. When I was in Washington, they also didn’t let me anywhere near Kaminsky’s files.” He was beginning to see a pattern. “Do you mind telling me why?”

  Victor swallowed heavily and fixed his eyes on his friend. The commodore stepped closer. His voice was harsh when he repeated his question in the sudden silence of the room.

  “Why?”

  * * * *

  “Why waste time reading,” Victor said calmly. “We must reach Alexander as fast as possible. He’s now the only link to Kaminsky we have. One North American base has already been destroyed. We may soon find ourselves completely defenceless. There’s no time,” he stressed.

  “Oh cut the crap, why don’t you,” Levi snarled and reached for the file. “I’m sure I’ll be done reading by the time Kaminsky levels the entire world.”

  Victor stood motionless as the silence around them thickened. The commandos gazed at him in astonishment. How could he so openly oppose a commanding officer? But the tracker knew he could speak his mind. Firstly because he was not directly subject to the commodore’s command, even though his age and experience made him a better candidate for the team’s leader, but also because they were friends. Victor did not wish to add another burden to Levi’s already strained shoulders. For a moment, he thought the commodore would let it go, but the cold determination in the older man’s eyes convinced him he would not be able to postpone the conversation any longer. The commodore needed to be told the truth and Victor could not allow him to read the file unprepared because he would then be bound to misinterpret them. It was far from certain that the woman living with Kaminsky was in fact Levi’s daughter.

  “All right, but before something I have to tell difficulty, breaking the awkward silence. He was painfully aware of the responsibility he was about to take upon himself. The fact that he had kept the information from Levi did not help either.

  “Let’s hear it then,” the commodore answered rather acridly. He was now really expecting the worst.

  The commandos sat, but Levi remained upright in the centre of the room and kept his eyes on Victor as he walked heavily to the window.

  “Sixteen years ago Kaminsky was strolling down the streets of Ankara in former Turkey when he noticed a child begging on the sidewalk. She was around eight, maybe nine years old at the time. He took the girl in and started raising her as his own.”

  “Good for him, what of it?” the commodore replied restlessly.

  “Several years later, while updating Kaminsky’s files, the Defence Council came across a description of the girl, almost a grown woman by then.”

  The commandos exchanged intrigued glances and looked back at Victor who seemed strangely unwilling to you read the file, there is you,” Victor whispered with look Levi in the eyes. He had always respected his friend and knew that once the truth came out, the commodore would hold a grievance against him for keeping it to himself. Possibly for good reason.

  “Keep going.” Levi was beginning to sense where this was going. “Just tell me!” he yelled.

  “When I studied the files I found out a few things about her.”

  Levi marched up to Victor and now stood face to face with him.

  “Just bloody tell me!”

  “Around twenty-four years old, long, brown hair, pale skin, slim, probably British, her mother is dead.” He paused for a moment. “And her name is Laura.”

  Victor finally gathered the courage to look at the commodore and saw tears in his eyes. Was it because he’d finally found his daughter or because of the horrific position she was in?

  “I began to suspect it could be…” He swallowed the last words.

  “My little Laura.” Levi collapsed to the sofa, feeling his legs giving away beneath him.

  None of the commandos as much as blinked, staring with eyes wide open.

  “But there’s more, Charles.” The tracker approached his friend and continued painfully, “She is most likely Kaminsky’s lover.”

  Levi jumped to his feet and dashed towards Victor and the two started struggling.

  “That’s not true!” he cried, jerking at the tracker’s shirt.

  The commandos rushed in to try to pull them apart.

  “It can’t be!” The pain in his voice was overwhelming. “How could you do this to me; how could you hide something like this from me!”

  Separated by the commandos, the two men now stood a pace from each other. Victor put his shirt straight and wiped blood off his lips. He had not struck back. He couldn’t. He knew very well how much his friend was going through so he’d let him vent his fury.

  Jo helped Victor clear his face of blood. She knew he’d not even tried to fight. She was glad he’d turned out to be so forgiving. A tracker’s fist was a deadly weapon.

  “I’ve only recently started suspecting it, Charles, besides it’s not certain that this Laura is your daughter at all.” Victor tried to give Levi at least a glimpse of hope.

  “You’re a tracker. If it weren’t her, you would have told me in the first place.” He was heartbroken. “I’m really disappointed in you.”

  Levi left the room, slamming the door behind him and walked straight towards the tavern. He wanted to drown this sadness in alcohol. On the one hand, he was happy to have at least found out where his daughter was, but, on the other, finding out who she was with was too much for him to take. He felt the need to fight, be it against the Defence Council, Victor or whoever else. He just needed someone to focus his fury on.

  The commandos looked at Victor, puzzled by the whole event. They would not have suspected Levi of such a strong desire to find his daughter. After all, he had not even mentioned her much for a long time. Alec finally broke the silence.

  “That’s how great friendships end.” He seemed amused. “There’s no deadlier weapon than secrets.”

  “Yeah, you’d know about that, wouldn’t you?” Jo retorted and Alec immediately became sullen as he realised that it had indeed been because of secrets that he’d lost the love of his life.

  The commandos returned to their work and Victor went down to the tavern. He sat at Levi’s table and they both drank in silence. The commodore understood that his friend was just trying to protect him, but they had once sworn to tell each other everything and today one of them had broken that promise. Still, he was happy not to be alone that night and he let Victor fill the glasses until nothing else mattered anymore.

  * * * *

  David began tracking down the co-operators, hoping that, if nothing else, he could at least fish out some of Kaminsky’s
lower ranking officers from the net. Time was his biggest concern. Alec and Jo went back to their rooms, leaving David to his computers.

  As soon as he knew no one was watching, the commando produced a micro-disc from his pocket and installed a virtual programme he’d written himself. The software allowed him to connect to several networks at the same time using only one wireless module. In less than forty minutes he’d managed to crack the internet tunnel’s security codes and gain access.

  “Here we go,” he muttered to himself. Once he reached the first virtual gate, breaking code after code, he could begin working towards the secure websites used by the terrorists. He doubled his effort, encouraged by his initial success.

  Meanwhile, Victor was accompanying Levi in the bar, helping him drown his sorrows in alcohol, and Jo locked herself in her room. She turned on a small lamp and decided to meditate a bit. She needed to clear her mind and gather strength. She knew David. Before dawn he would already know the exact location of Alexander and they would already be on the way to him. She was glad to be back in the force, in the field. She felt overwhelmed, however, by the difficulty and gravity of the task at hand, and she also had to deal, somehow, with the issues between Alec and Victor. Their animosities could fast become a threat to the mission’s success, and now this story with Victor and Kaminsky, not to mention Levi’s daughter.

  Six years ago, while she was trapped on the island with Kaminsky, he’d never mentioned his family. She’d tried to ask about them several times, but his standard answer would be, “My dear, there are things you’d better not concern your pretty head with. Whether I have a wife or children is truly of no consequence to you, Joanna.”

  Just the memory of his voice made her feel uneasy. She made herself a cup of strong, green tea, spread out her mat and decided to sit for a while in the lotus pose. She stripped down to her underwear and reached into the closet for an old Japanese kimono, a present from her father she never parted with. She pinned up her hair and sat on the mat. Some incense would be nice, she thought. When she was a child, her mother would often light it. Among other qualities, it was said to be a potent painkiller. But at that moment, mental pain was what Jo most feared. She needed to pull herself together. She closed her eyes. She knew with overwhelming certainty that she would never be able to deal with her problems unless she managed to employ the relaxation techniques. She’d felt safe on her island, in her little home and she’d managed to achieve a lot through months of hard work on herself. She could not let that go to waste. She relaxed her muscles and tried to suppress her thoughts. Her breathing grew gradually slower. Finally only moments away from achieving the desired state of mental tranquillity, she heard a faint knock at the door.

  * * * *

  Victor was growing angry with himself. He felt that he’d let the commodore down and it took him a few minutes, swearing at himself silently, before he gathered up the courage to speak.

  “I’m really sorry. I knew how hard it was for you not to have contact with your daughter. I should have told you about those files.”

  “What’s done is done. I know I shouldn’t build up any hopes anyway. You were right. It may not be her after all,” Levi answered before drinking down another shot of alcohol.

  Victor did not drink that much himself, feigning most of the rounds. He kept thinking about the difficult times that were still ahead of them. First they needed to reach Alexander and it would not be a walk in the park. The terrorists had high-tech satellite jamming equipment at their disposal and normal means of localisation were bound to fail, but he was certain they could do it. That would not be the hardest part of it all, though. He would have to use Alexander to get him to the caliph, possibly even confront him in person. Kaminsky most likely thought Victor was still in prison.

  “Kaminsky and my mother used to spend days together in the lab. I don’t know much about him really, I was too busy studying; I had my own problems. I was never close to my stepfather,” he tried to explain his ignorance when it came to the caliph. “Wasn’t too close with mother in those days either, to be honest. She was never around. We were raised by a babysitter and two housemaids. It wasn’t after Kaminsky had left her that we became more of a family again. Still, she hardly ever spoke of her husband, probably because of Alexander. He was living with us then.”

  “What’s he like?” Levi was already drunk, but still capable of holding a conversation.

  “Alexander?”

  “Yes.”

  “He always stuck close to me. I was a bit older so I took care of him. He wasn’t particularly bright to be frank. At least, he never did well at school. He never really had an opinion on anything. He liked flashy clothes and girls. Actually, he’d always had a thing for a certain kind of woman.”

  “Whores?”

  “If you want to use that word, yes. He was attracted to whores, but I think it was just a sexual substitute for him. He seemed unable to fall in love with anyone. He had this image of a perfect woman in his head. None of the ones he met could even come close. Just like me to some extent I suppose…”

  “I’d never think you liked whores. Actually, I got an impression there was something between you and Jo.”

  Victor smiled.

  “I’ve always had trouble with difficult affairs. Once I even thought I was really in love, but she dumped me. Broke my heart, that one… After that no woman could really satisfy me. To make it worse, I’ve always been rather shy when it comes to those things. Eventually I gave up on love, took Alex’s advice and started going after women of … easy virtue. At least until my trip to Kyoto.”

  “The masters looked down on it?” Levi asked curiously.

  “Not really. They just showed me a path to selfimprovement. After that, I began to realise sex can be just as pleasant with a decent girl. Or could be if they hadn’t told me to stay away from women altogether.”

  “You’re telling me you had none?” The commodore was amazed.

  “Yes. My Japanese master believed that only a person whose heart had been broken at least once was ever capable of finding a true love. Anything that happens between those two is little more than meaningless play, so I started building my own hierarchy of values. I analysed my own desires and came out with a pretty definite idea of a woman I could ever truly love. It took me many years to find her,” he said, thinking of Jo.

  “Victor… With Jo…” He leant over to his friend. “…It’s rather complicated…”

  “I figured as much.” He took a bite of bread and a sip of water. “I really care for her, Charles.”

  “You’re a tracker; she’s a captain; you’d spend a lot of time apart.” He looked into Victor’s eyes. “And then there’s Alec. He’ll do whatever he can to win her back. You need to fight for her, never give up.” His thoughts drifted to his own memories for a moment. “But you can take my word for it. True love is always difficult.”

  “You mean your wife?”

  “She was the daughter of an English aristocrat. My father-in-law never accepted our marriage. For him I was just a simple soldier. Maybe he was right. You know we eventually split up.”

  “Have you loved anyone since then?”

  “No. There is a kind of love which makes you bet allin. I changed my entire life for my wife, became a commodore, became a somebody… It wasn’t enough.” He sighed and took a swig straight from the bottle.

  Deep in thought, they sat there for a few more hours until Levi had had enough and Victor escorted him to his room.

  * * * *

  “What do you want?” Jo asked Alec as soon as she saw him standing in her doorway.

  “I want to talk,” he said confidently.

  “What about?” She could not believe his nerve.

  “Can I come in?” For a moment, she saw genuine sadness in his eyes, so she stepped aside to let him in.

  “I see you’ve been meditating.”

  “I was, until you interrupted me,” she answered coldly.

  “You wouldn
’t be saying that if it was Victor at the door,” he said, his voice rising slightly.

  Jo shrugged, irritated and walked to the table to pour some tea. Alec followed her closely.

  “I’m sorry,” he touched her hair with his lips. “I’ve missed you so much. We haven’t had a chance to talk because of all this…”

  “Say what you came to say and leave. We’re on a mission.” She pushed him away gently, not wanting to agitate him. She knew how violent he could become and she didn’t want him to lose his temper.

  “Jo…” He turned her to face him and reached up with his right hand to remove her hairclip while his left moved to gently stroke her cheek. “I still love you. I’ll prove it to you…” He suddenly pulled her to him and started kissing her.

  Jo barely managed to free herself.

  “Stop that! Have you forgotten about your dream lover, now your wife? You have a child for goodness’ sake!” His behaviour really put her on edge.

  Alec tried to move closer again.

  “Just tell me one thing. When I kissed you just now, did you feel anything?” He fixed his eyes on her, visibly waiting for an incentive.

  The woman’s thoughts went back to that fateful day when she had returned home to find him in bed with Diana. She shivered and immediately wished to erase that horrid memory. She suddenly remembered Victor and it made her feel strong and confident again.

  “Alec…” She looked him in the eyes. “Let’s get this straight once and for all… I don’t love you.” She put as much force into the statement as she could.

  “No!” he cried. “I don’t believe it. You’ve no idea what you’re saying! We had something that happens only once in a lifetime. We can’t just give up on it! No one will ever love you as much as I do!”

  “Stop.” She paced around the room nervously, scared by his outburst. “You should leave now.” She motioned towards the door.

  “I’m not going anywhere! Not until you’ve heard what I came to say.” He dashed towards her and locked her in his arms.

  “Let go of me!”