Commandos (13 page)

115 encompass the deep concentration required when confronting an enemy. Commandos, with their military training behind them, were not oblivious to the art of yoga which has always been strongly and directly tied with Zen philosophy.

Some say it was on the strength of those very moral disciplines and meditation techniques that Kyoto, a city in the western part of the island of Honshu, had managed to survive when most other parts of the country had not.

Exiled to the city for a year now, Alec had been charged by the prefecture to eliminate the damage caused by sulphur hexafluoride and perfluorocarbon, gases once used industrially as heat conductors.

He was the head of a special group charged with establishing why the agreement on the reduction of greenhouse gases emission, ratified in 1997 and again in 2070, had been breached right here in Kyoto.

In his hands, he held two reports he’d been reading for several hours now. These and similar documents had been his only read for many months. Now and again, he would look back over a photo album compiled by ecologists.

Human mutations, peaking numbers of tumour cases, accelerated aging processes, constant reduction of the number of plant-life species, photochemical smog and the growing areas of barren landmass – he was genuinely shaken with each consecutive page he’d read. He did expect the situation to be grim, but this grim! He took a sip of tea. It was bitter, enough to make his tongue go numb. How can they drink this shit? Alec got up and walked to the cabinet which served as his alcohol stash. He grabbed a bottle, drew a swig and quenched the intolerable tea aftertaste. The sake filled his chest with warmth, forcing his nostrils open and brightening up his eyes. He caught himself staring into the distance, thinking of Jo again. He was curious about where she was, how she was doing. He could not help wondering where she’d ended up. His thoughts were fast becoming obsessive. What had she been up to while he’d been buried here in documents on gas emissions, climate shifts and temperature anomalies? And the others, where had they been sent? The questions were like an itch beyond the scratching reach of his arm. Unable to answer them, as always, he returned to his reading.

In some parts of the world, Japan included, the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were so high that entire cities and their surrounding areas had been deserted. Extreme weather phenomena were an annoyance to the local populations and the armies struggling against the enemy.

It had almost been a full year since he’d last thought of Levi and David, so why now? A hunch? That night, as he was trying to fight off the exhaustion and fall asleep, his thoughts drifted back to the past once more, he was tormented by the overwhelming realisation that he’d never managed to reach that deep level of inner equilibrium he kept hearing about and no amount of time spent in Zen schools studying the teachings of Buddha could ever change that.

He stopped reading for a moment and closed his eyes, trying once more to abate, looking for the path to inner metamorphosis. The heart of the Buddhist way was the desire for liberated wisdom, one that would give meaning to reality. To achieve that, one needed to cast off the burden of everyday problems and whatever had brought them about.

He took the lesson to heart and, once more, decided to forget about the past and get down to work.
He’d found strength in the realisation that he could fulfil his ambitions by helping others, as he’d managed to do so far. He had spent a lot of time among ecologists.
Mental pain comes from attachment – he pondered. Attachment which can take on many forms, greed, anger, jealousy and lust being some of the most evident. As he’d learnt suffering to the fullest, he understood that attachment is a snake shading its skin. To get a fresh start, he would have to free himself from the memory of Jo completely, but at the same time, there was nothing he desired more than to find her and amaze her with his newly discovered dignity. Although they’d been brutally separated and explicitly forbidden to seek contact, there wasn’t a moment he wouldn’t subconsciously think of a scheme to seek her out. He opened his eyes, slightly comforted at that last thought and returned to work.
Nuclear power engineering – the perfect solution – yet for the last two centuries, invariably opposed by the general public. He anxiously browsed through the report. Supercritical blocks, erected on a mass scale in the last century, were intended to allow fuel to be burnt in elevated pressure and temperature, which was to lead to a reduction in the gas emission of up to fifteen percent. The side effect, however, was that they led to some unexpected anomalies in the greenhouse effect. Alec stopped reading. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes. The information overload was starting to get to him.
He got up and left the room through a low doorway which forced him to lean forward. The austere interior, with only a mattress in the centre and a small table in one of the corners, was as close as he could get to imitating his bedroom on Atlantis. He picked a house on the outskirts, away from the urban uproar. He’d never liked Japan. It seemed like his exile had been chosen purposefully to spite him. Finding common ground with the Japanese had always been beyond him, their minds were attuned to different patterns, paradoxically simple despite all the hightech advances their country was famous for.
He felt the cold night breeze on his face. Rain beaded on the window panes forming tiny streams flowing downwards. He watched the watery streaks as memories of his past life took hold of him once more. He decided to put off the work until tomorrow. He was going to head into the field in the morning to collect some soil samples. He was carrying on the fight, but not the kind he’d wish for.
He missed actual combat. He was not tailored for the life he had been forced to lead here, in Japan. He wanted to fight for the world, but in a different way and with a woman at his side, a woman who had become his obsession, whose images haunted him and boomeranged back at him every time he closed his eyes. To fight, truly fight, he needed motivation. He needed Jo.

* * * *

For over six months of his stay on Earth, Commodore Charles Levi had been working in the archives of the Central Intelligence Agency. He’d always liked Langley, a picturesque town in Virginia and was happy to accept the decision delegating him to a post there.

He’d settled down in the very centre of the town, within walking distance of all the important government buildings and not too far from the New State base established some 159 kilometres in the direction of Washington. His apartment was rather spacious, temptingly luxurious, but Levi hardly had the time to take advantage of the privilege to use the advanced household technologies.

His initial assignment was somewhat dull. He was commissioned to sort out the terrorist database, or rather supplement it with his expertise which was far more extensive that that of chartered archivists. He could not but smile when reading about the pioneering initiatives of the agency in espionage, field analyses and research. He had been glad, some twenty years before, to hear that the CIA was to be finally closed down. It could not hold against the public outcry. It had been concluded that the agency had not been efficient in the fulfilment of its tasks, a counterproductive institution that was virtually nothing more than a money sink, growing more and more costly to sustain, while virtually helpless against the terrorist threat.

The famed CIA, armed with satellites and state-of-theart computers, with an annual budget of fifty million dollars, had failed to make a single significant advance in the struggle against terrorism.

Levi was looking through the files on computerised databanks. He tried to analyse the genesis of the CIA’s downfall. In his research, he stumbled into an archive documenting the development of nuclear weaponry by countries threatened with terrorist attacks by weapons of mass destruction.

The terrorist elite, trained in Afghanistan and connected with Al-Qaeda, had been decimated and Osama Bin Laden disappeared without a trace. A new group was formed of volunteers recruited during the American war in Iraq. Soon, a network of local terrorist groups surfaced, stronger than ever.

Within a few years, its structure was crystallised enough for the emergence of the caliph. A new, charismatic leader emerged in the Near East, a man able to unite all the Muslims under one banner. In 2050-2070 he took on the role of the people’s spiritual leader, from which there was only a step to political leadership. At that time the whole Islamic world was in turmoil. News of ethnic conflicts, revolts and coups filled the front pages of newspapers. During the 2086 Olympics, all Muslim competitors united under one flag. The event paralysed the world. 2095 was a year of fear and disbelief.

The struggle between terrorists and the West was fast becoming an everyday reality. The assailants did not hesitate to use biological weapons, even small nuclear bombs. The secret service was everywhere, invigilating everyone indiscriminately. The world was slowly consumed by chaos as terrorists continued their march towards establishing an independent state stretching from the near east and Far East, and parts of Africa, slowly taking over more and more territory, encircling the old continent.

When America, occupied with its own problems, lost interest, particular countries began to arm themselves with weapons of mass destruction in a hope of creating at least an illusion of security. Government agents, although highly trained, were surprisingly inept when it came to destroying the enemy’s nuclear installations. In 2100, the leaders of particular countries turned to the last resort available to them and established a new, common state under the name of the United Nations. They decided to join forces and together make a stand against the enemy. Soon, the first space bases were set up. A new army of trackers was created to replace the CIA and other state agencies. It was comprised of people fluent in Persian, able to infiltrate enemy territory, to make contact with the locals and recruit spies.

In 2138, the terrorists elected a new caliph. This time, to the astonishment of the world, a Russian by the name of Kaminsky, whose file Levi was regrettably not able to locate in the archives. The commodore already knew far more about the man than even his direct superiors might expect, but it was always a good idea to learn more.

Before he’d had time to really get down to his research on Kaminsky, he was transferred to the cadet school at the Washington NASA office.

At first, the new task was much more to his liking, as he was teaching again. He worked with orbital utility technicians.

After a while, however, this assignment became unbearably tedious
remaining days of
and Levi begun to count off the his torment and daydreamed about

returning to the Luna.

In his opinion, the whole thing with Jo should not have happened in the first place. The mistake they’d made was negligible and the punishment disproportionately harsh. The stripping of their badges and the compulsory transfer to civilian services made it worse, each of them ending up in a different part of the world. After all these months it still got to him. He was angry with himself. Each time he saw a new group of young students looking up to him, the images of his commandos and their faces clouded his vision. His thoughts were with them, wherever they were.

* * * *

Being a tracker is a loner’s job. It’s a job for someone who finds pleasure in long hours of searching for fallaciously unimportant traces, studying files of future marks or rescue mission targets. One who can use his countless, seemingly almost supernatural talents and extensive expertise to swiftly and efficiently find whatever needs finding at the time. A tracker is the elite of the elite, the president’s righthand man and a secret agent of double rank. He is a warrior, ready to kill to save his life or execute an order. He is absolutely reliable. He embodies agility, sneaks in, analyses and attacks from behind, never to be as much as seen. Trackers are given missions no one else could or would perform. There are only a handful. It takes hard work and determination to become one of the elite.

Before he gained the president’s absolute trust, Victor had been through a lot in his life and his ascent to the highest military ranks had been somewhat extraordinary.

His actual background remained a secret. He’d only revealed it to the president and Levi. Released from prison, where he’d spent eight years wrongfully charged with accessory in acts of terror, he made it through the most challenging intelligence training imaginable. He was ready to take on a new personality whenever his mission demanded it; a person who would hesitate in the face of any change in his life was now a man capable of anything he desired.

He would guide commando units into any place in the world, fast and discretely, whenever the Defence Council demanded. At the slightest gesture of the president, he would kill or rescue people against even the most unfavourable odds. He was among the few operatives who flew onboard a Russian Mi-25 helicopter over Anjuman Pass towards the Panjshir Valley to the north-east of Kabul, where he secretly passed into Afghan territory and began the recruitment of spies for the United Nations Military. He established contacts, gathered information and supervised air strikes. In those days, he would always carry a briefcase of five million dollars in cash, necessary to bribe Afghan terrorists and to buy information from whoever was selling.

Impeccably shaven, wearing his favourite, slightly frayed jeans and suede, military style jacket with dozens of pockets and with closely cropped hair, Victor walked confidently into the sessions-chamber at Atlantis. The gathered senators had already been waiting for a while.

Ever since Levi had been sent back to Earth, he’d only been given one assignment not even vaguely related to terrorists. He had simply transported some secret piece of weaponry from Atlantis to another base, Exlibris. After that he’d had nothing to do apart from waiting in space, quartered in Levi’s cabin. He tried searching for details of Jo, David and Alec’s whereabouts, but it seemed all the particulars had been deeply classified. He’d made no attempts to contact anyone and didn’t sniff around. He remained discrete as always. Even so, a lot of new intel on Kaminsky had reached his ears.