The Soldier

In the week since the theft of the chip, Willie and Logan had gotten absolutely nowhere in terms of finding anything helpful. The few shreds of information on the ’net pointed to America, but without anything concrete, he couldn’t see moving forward.

Logan found himself walking rather aimlessly on a foggy London evening simply trying to clear his head. This night his stroll took him into Hyde Park, one of the jewels of the London park system, and at least so far one that was still properly maintained. He generally liked getting away from the city, he found the solitude and the expanse of trees refreshing.

He walked along one of the paths in the park, listening to the soft sounds of dew dripping from the trees. He approached a bench and sat down, closed his eyes and took in the silence, until the silence was interrupted by the sound of a woman’s voice, was it a scream, or something else? He stood up and looked around trying to identify the source. Then he held up his hand, palm out, fingers outstretched.

Sgt. Maj. Marcus Logan held up a hand, palm out, fingers outstretched and his platoon came to a quiet halt. The scream had come from somewhere up ahead, from one of the buildings in T’krit in the Republic of Iraq. The men looked at their commander expectantly.

Logan pointed at Lt. Jamison and indicated a building across the street, pointing twice to tell Jamison to take his squad and set up covering fire. Jamison nodded to acknowledge the command, then tapped the nearest man on the shoulder. Logan and the remaining troopers kept an eye out for any of the Iraqi rebels that had once again drawn the western world into the Middle Eastern nation.

Logan motioned his men forward with the intention of finding the source of the scream. The soldiers were moving slowly, crouched low and hugging the walls of the buildings when suddenly the air was split by an Earth-shattering explosion from a rocket-propelled grenade.

“Take cover,” Logan yelled as his men flung themselves to the ground.

Logan carefully raised his head and peered down the street, trying to determine where the attacking Iraqis were concealed. He cautiously waved his men forward, only to have to duck back down behind walls as machine gun fires splattered down the dirt road.

“Johnson, McKenzie, Smith, report,” he yelled.

“This is Johnson, sir, Smith is with me but McKenzie is down. Took a couple to the chest and head, it’s bad sir.”

Logan again peered out into the street. Seeing and hearing nothing, he ran back to the where his men were. Smith was holding McKenzie while he tried to staunch the blood that was flowing freely from the bullet wounds in his chest.

Logan activated the comm unit built into the collar of his uniform.

“Team Orange to base, need emergency evac at my location.”

“Never mind, sir.”

Logan looked over at McKenzie and sighed deeply. Logan hated to lose a man, even though he knew it was part of the war.

Logan heard another scream, but couldn’t quite pin down the source.

“Corporal Smith, did you hear that?”

Logan sat still for a moment, listening.

“Yes, I did, although I don’t have any idea where it came from”

“Neither do I,” Logan said.

The scream repeated, and Logan immediately focused in on it. He ran towards the sound, which was coming from a bush about a kilometer across the park. He ran low, as if he were trying to avoid enemy fire, but there were no bullets, no explosions.

Finally, he saw the source of the screams. A man and a woman rolling around on the ground, mostly nude, and completely hidden from view by the shrubbery. The man was on top of the woman, thrusting himself against her and covering her mouth with his hands.

“Don’t scream, love, someone will hear you,” he said.

As he began to move quickly in to grab the man, Logan wondered why he was on patrol with no weapons, not even his knife. But he wasn’t worried, he knew he could handle some two-bit Iraqi rapist with his bare hands. Logan was so intent on saving the woman that he completely ignored the small voice in his brain that was trying to point out how odd it was that he completely understood Arabic.

He quickly reached the brush. He reached down and grabbed the man by his hair and yanked him off of the woman, who immediately screamed even louder than before.

“Help, police!”

Logan jerked the man upright, pulling his face close to his.

“What’s the matter, piss-ant, not getting enough at home,” he snarled.

“Look, mate, I don’t know what your problem is, but me and Molly were just having a little tumble here in the park. We didn’t think anyone would mind.”

The young man from London’s south side was shaking in the face of the enraged man who was a good head taller than he was.

As Logan stared into the youth’s eyes it finally began to dawn on him that he wasn’t seeing the usual, rapid expression of fundamentalist zeal he normally saw when he was face to face with a militant.

Suddenly Logan was stunned by a blow to the back of his head. He cursed himself for not paying attention as he tumbled to the ground.

He looked up to see the young woman standing over him with the branch that she had broken over his head. But it wasn’t an Iraqi female he was looking at, but a fairly attractive, blonde-haired girl of about 20.

“You just stay or all smash you again.”

Logan looked around. All of a sudden, he wasn’t in Tikrit. He saw brushes and trees. Then it came back to him. He was in a park in London. He put one hand on the knot that was beginning to form on his head. He held up his other hand to ward off the enraged woman, who obviously was not opposed to the attentions of her lover.

“Wait, I don’t, I’m so sorry,” Logan said, stammering as he tried to pull his brain together. Then the sound of a siren drifted into his conscious. He looked around and gauged the distance to the nearest heavy growth in the park.

“My apologies, to both of you,” Logan said.

He then rolled to his left and regained his feet and sprinted for the bushes as quickly as his still shaky legs would carry him. As he expected, the young couple were more interested in getting dressed and getting out of the park themselves.

“That lad will probably have quite a story to tell about how he fought me off,” Logan said quietly to himself.

Logan walked into his apartment, and tossed his keys onto the bar. The incident in the park was worrisome, he thought the flashbacks were under control. And he just didn’t understand why Robinson had dismissed out of hand information Logan was confident was valid. He flopped down in his recliner and rubbed his eyes, trying to organize the available intel -- a strategy that had always served him well in the military.

Item 1: It could not have been an inside job, he was sure of that. He prided himself on his ability to judge a man. Logan was confident that neither Larry nor any of the other scientists could possibly be involved in the chip’s disappearance.

Item 2: The AI was clearly compromised. Only a handful of people anywhere in the world could have pulled off that level of hacking. This was one piece of information that was troubling as there was no indication that anyone in America actually had the ability to hack the security system. This could only mean that America had aligned herself with an outside entity to carry off the theft -- an even more troubling piece of information.

“Maybe I really am grasping at straws,” Logan said when he realized he had sat for a full 15 minutes and was unable to come up with an Item 3. Only then did he notice flashing message indicator on his computer monitor.

He walked over to his desk and sat down. The message was from his new friend. He started typing

MQLogan: I truly didn’t expect to hear from you again.

Winter: This ‘Hero on a Crusade’ thing of you intrigues me. Still interested in America I assume?

MQLogan: Yes, I am. What happened to you the other night?

Winter: What do you think? Face to face meetings are completely out of the question. Are you OK with that?

MQLogan: Guess I have to be as I need your help. The authorities refuse to consider that America is behind all of this. So that leaves you. How can you help me?

Winter: I can tell you I know someone who made the trip.

MQLogan: How did they do it?

Winter: They stowed away on one of the cargo freighters.

MQLogan: We’ve considered that route. Everyone says it’s impossible.

Winter: Difficult, but not impossible.

MQLogan: Than how?

Winter: Can’t tell you because they didn’t tell me.

MQLogan: Than what good does this bit of information do me?

Winter: Well, it tells you that it is not completely impossible, and it tells the direction in which you should concentrate your efforts. And that’s all I can tell you and you won’t be hearing from me again.

MQLogan: No, wait. I need to know more specific information.

But all Logan got in response was the message indicating that Winter was no longer on line.

“Damn,” Logan said, smashing his hands on his desk.

Moments later, Willie’s chat icon opened up.

MQLogan: Have you found anything?

MQLogan: Only a tidbit. Our secretive friend the Winter says it’s been done, though he wouldn’t or perhaps couldn’t provide details.

There was a few seconds delay.

BoomBoom: There is a regular freighter run from Southampton to the South Carolina docking bay every other week.

MQLogan: That’s fine, but how do we get on?

BoomBoom: We’ll need forged papers and someone to plant orders in the shipping company’s computer.

MQLogan: Can you pull that off?

BoomBoom: No, I’m really just an amateur.

MQLogan: Well, a bloody good one. But I assume you know someone.

BoomBoom: Perhaps.

MQLogan: When can I meet this someone?

BoomBoom: I’ll see what I can set up.

MQLogan: Fine. Let me know.

Logan and David walked up to Willie’s apartment. It only took Willie a few moments to appear in response to the door chime.

“Do come in, ’gents,” he said amiably.

The two men walked inside and Willie closed the door behind them. He ushered them into his living room. Someone who had been sitting in the easy chair stood up to greet the newcomers.

Logan’s eyebrow arched up in surprise. The young woman was petite, maybe a meter and a half tall, and probably didn’t weigh more than 65 Kilograms soaking wet. She had head full of auburn hair and amazing brown eyes.

“Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Ms. Caitlin Anderson,” Willie said.

Logan immediately walked over to greet the young woman.

“Marcus Logan, very pleased to meet you,” he said suavely as he took the offered hand, lifted it to his mouth and bestowed a very gentlemanly kiss.

“My, My, but aren’t we the gallant one,” The young woman said with just a trace of a Scottish brogue as she extracted her hand from Logan’s grasp.

“And this is David Spano, mechanic and general fix-it man extraordinaire.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Spano,” Anderson said.

David shook her hand firmly.

“Call me David.”

“Caity, here, knows her way around computer systems better than anyone I’ve ever worked with,” Willie said.

Logan looked at her, then glanced questioningly at Willie.

“Are you sure she can be trusted?”

Anderson immediately reached for her purse.

“I don’t need this, Willie,” she said. “Let me know when you have some real work for me.”

“No, wait, please,” Logan said as he reached for her arm as she started for the door. A fraction of a second later he was laying on the floor looking up at Anderson, who had her foot on his throat.

“A word of advice, Mr. Logan,” she said, her Scottish accent becoming more pronounced. “Do not ever touch me like that again without prior invitation.”

“Noted,” Logan said from the floor.

She extended her hand. Logan took hold and she helped him up. He noted that she didn’t seem to need to exert herself to lift him from the floor.

“Well,” Willie said, “Now that the introductions are over with, let’s talk business, shall we?”

He motioned towards the chairs, which were arranged around a small table that held a flask of brandy. Anderson and the three men sat down.

“So, what’s the job?” she asked as Willie poured brandy into her glass.

Without spilling a drop, Willie’s eyes moved and met Logan’s. He then handed the glass to Caity.

“We need forged documents and matching travel orders uploaded into the British Longshoreman’s Union computers.”

Anderson took a sip without missing a beat. The only indication that she even heard what Logan said was an almost imperceptible upward movement of her left eyebrow.

“Going on holiday are we?”

“Something like that,” Logan said.

“I suspect actually nothing at all like that. Wouldn’t it be easier than to just book passage on Cunard?”

Logan chuckled. “That would be easier yes, but I’m afraid it’s been quite some time since either the Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary or the King Phillip sailed to where we need to go.”

“And where might that be?”

Logan took a deep breath. “The United States.”

Anderson’s glass stopped midway to her lips for a moment, then she sipped and put the glass down.

“I suppose you already know that’s impossible,” she said. “Now why don’t you tell me why you are going to attempt it?”

We think the Yanks have stolen something and pinned it on our friend Logan here,” Willie said.

“Something? Can you be a bit more specific?”

Logan took a sip of brandy and looked Anderson in the eye. She returned his gaze evenly, a small smile playing across her lips.

“A computer chip, Ms. Anderson,” he said.

“My friends call me Caity,” she said.

“Caity it is.”

The computer expert sipped some more brandy as she digested the information.

“And why is this chip important?”

“It’s part of a new computer defense network, that’s all I know of it,” Logan said. “And my thought is that the American’s will try to reverse engineer the thing, determine how to get around it and make England vulnerable to attack.”

“So you’ve decided to go after it to clear your name while at the same time preserving the motherland’s security,” Caity said.

“Something like that,” Logan replied.

“And how do you plan to pay for my services?”

“That’s a good question,” Logan said. “Frankly one I don’t have an answer for at the moment.

“But rest assured, the security of England is at stake. ”

“That’s assuming the American’s would want to attack us, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Logan said. “But it’s a risk I’m not willing to take. Are you?”

Logan looked at the young woman, trying to gauge her reaction.

“So I should do this for God, King and Country, is that it?”

“Something like that,” Logan said.

Caity looked at Logan, Willie and David in turn, appearing to Logan as if she were thinking the idea over.

“I’ll need some time to think about it,” she said finally.

Logan looked at Willie and David who both nodded almost imperceptibly.

“How much time?”

“Just a day or two should be sufficient,” she said, “I generally make decisions very quickly.”

“All right, then, a day or two,” Logan said.