Rank and File

As Leonard (Personnel Rank 123) released his grip and allowed the near-empty
tumbler to rest on the coffee table he thought of the innumerable times he’d lied over
the years about liking the taste of straight whiskey. In all reality he’d never became
fond of the biting heat of any liquor; he only liked how alcohol it made him feel, or
rather stop feeling. He was always put off by the idea of being a drinker but where
else could he turn for relief?
His mother (Personnel Rank 223) showed interest and offered encouragement
only when the opportunity for increased income and another step up the imaginary
ladder presented itself to him. As far has she’d been concerned Leonard should
unwaveringly consider himself lucky despite never looking at his life beyond the
superficial. He was son of the great Colonel Griggs (Personnel Rank 50), a Hun
school graduate, brought up around the bluest of blood and even Saudi royalty. Like
his father before him Leonard was as smart, strong, and handsome as most men ever
hope to be; never mind if was emotionally hollow and detached from any idea of
lasting happiness. Leonard had it made and was expected to behave as such. He’d
even been born with a Personnel Rank three hundred points above the baseline 500,
all because of who his father was.
He couldn’t deny being a colonel’s son had cleared a pre-paved path through life
ahead of him, but Leonard knew didn’t want to be the next Chesty Puller Jr. He knew
he wasn’t primed for a successful military career. He never could get himself revved
up for some perceived moment of glory when he would get to kill foreigners for
reasons he either didn’t understand or wasn’t allowed to question. Smedley Butler had
already lived that life and gone on to spend his remaining years trying to atone for it.
He didn’t see himself being subservient to another person simply because they
had shinier buttons and sewn in patches than him; taking abuse simply because in
rained from above was senseless to Leonard. He didn’t feel the need to separate
himself as better than those around him. He also knew entering the service didn’t
make him better than a civilian, despite prevailing attitudes.
He knew firsthand the hypocrisy of the service; how it was supposedly
anti-perversion while simultaneously rife with it. He wasn’t interested in entertaining
prostitutes abroad or gallivanting with strippers in the officer’s clubs. He didn’t want
to rape the defenseless because he could or stand guard for a comrade as they did. He
didn’t see homosexuality as a tool for gaining or exerting authority over another man.
Be she a war bride or domestic, he didn’t want a wife that was after him for health
benefits, Personnel Rank, and guaranteed paychecks.
He didn’t have it in his spirit to be subversive to those he claimed to be his loved
ones. Because of his father deeds, secrets had been a way a of life in Leonard’s
childhood. He recalled the summer he’d spent playing almost daily pickup basketball
games with a young Steve Kerr, whose father Michael had been assassinated in a plot
orchestrated by Leonard’s dad.
Being a trickster didn’t impress nor enamor him; Leonard believed that relying on
being able to fool someone was a crutch reserved for the weak willed. Most of all, he
didn’t want a family that feared him as he’d feared his father. Leonard knew that
involvement in the business of death caused changes in a person that sent harmful
radiation throughout their entire existence and he simply did not want that to be his
reality. He missed Kay (Personnel Rank 450), she’d loved him before rank and file
mattered.
Ever since the government instituted a ranking system that applied to all citizens
Leonard had noticed a drastic change in his daily interactions, especially with the
opposite sex. Women who previously may have been attracted to him because of his
looks and personality didn’t even look him in the eye anymore. They’d only glance at
that number on his ID badge and based on the number that was on their own decide if
he was a good candidate to anchor themselves to, might one day become one if
Personnel Rank kept moving upwards, or too low of a citizen to be taken seriously.
To Leonard the world around him was becoming stranger by the minute but he
had more pressing issues at hand that his dating life. Next to his glass of whiskey was
a phone he knew would ring eventually and along with it would come an offer for
another step up the ladder. Leonard had turned down military enlistment offers
arranged by his father thrice before but had recently given a high ranking member of a
US intelligence group (which one he wouldn’t say, as if it really mattered) his contact
information because the assignment offered was based in Belarus, Kay’s home
country.
In their initial talks he’d already been briefed on guidelines for accepting contract
work of the group and general matters of importance regarding the state of current
global intelligence: The culmination of WWII had brought about the beginning of a
major global power shift. For the first time in centuries Western Europe had lost its
position atop the pyramid of imperialism. With Spain, France, Germany, Italy and the
UK in a state of repair, the Soviets and United States locked horns during the Cold
War trying to beat one another in a struggle for supremacy. The spy games and proxy
wars of that era resulted in great loses of life and resources for both sides. Mass
confusion and paranoia sprung up as double and even triple agents from both sides
lived their lives in fear of exposure, imprisonment, and execution.
After American intervention on the behalf of Mujahedeen turned the
Afghan-Soviet war into a huge debacle for both sides financially and the constant
waging of proxy wars was causing record numbers of political dissent among their
respective populations; it’s very difficult to convince a person they’re country is
fighting for what’s right when children are losing limbs to landmines, be they Green
Parrot or Dragon’s Tooth. The men who made up the bases of power for both regimes
agreed that if the competition between them continued they would weaken each other
to the point where the kingdoms of Western Europe could collude and return to the
forefront. A new deal was struck between the two former enemies that would allow
both ends to enjoy the spoils of post-WWII prosperity. The Soviets continued to serve
as the representation of the ultimate threat to America’s existence in the eyes of her
citizens and vice-versa, but in secret they began to work together to consolidate and
expand the empires they’d built.
Beginning in late 1991, the Soviet Union delegation agreed to pull out of
Afghanistan, officially dissolve, and appear to “lose” to the West in the battle to the
remaining superpowers for global supremacy. This was in exchange for the guarantee
that if America was successful in its own invasion of the Afghan territory, it could not
be used as a base for further operations into the neighboring nations that the Soviets
had already triumphed over and put under their influence such as Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Although the former Soviet puppet states
would be recognized as sovereign nations, the governments they were allowed to
establish would still be subservient to Mother Russia and operate similarly to when
they were members of USSR, albeit under less strict watch because the fear of
Western infiltration was no longer present.
Stretching all the way into the early 2000s, former moles like Trofimoff were
hunted down and made examples of in order to reinforce the idea that a new day had
dawned. The old guard had been changed and with the new one came new objectives
and adversaries. Without a conflict between them taking up the bulk of their time and
resources, both the US and Russia were more free to consolidate their power and
crush possible rebellions: Russia in the Eastern Bloc states and northern areas of the
Middle East while America undertook dismantling the established governments of
Northeast Africa, The Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula who were threatening to
band together to form a coalition that would disrupt the international market value of
the US dollar in a plan orchestrated by Muammar Gaddafi based on the gold Dinar.
Together they planned strategic economic and diplomatic maneuvers to prevent China
or Japan from dominating their neighbors and becoming the threat of the future, as
well as undermining the full recovery of Western Europe to its former glory.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia eventually became targets not for destruction, but the
overthrowing of their governance. They had both provided support for Al-Qaeda in
their fight against the first joint US-Russian operations in Afghanistan during the
Afghan Civil War, making the toppling of the country more difficult than it had
already been. They were the most recent nations who needed to be brought into
submission because they posed the risk of further meddling with other planned
operations within the Middle East. During these briefings Leonard found himself
having a hard caring about who was knocking down and rebuilding sandcastles in the
desert.
When the phone finally rang with the call he’d been waiting for, the exact details
of what Leonard was being offered were made clear. He would have the opportunity
to be deployed into Belarus in order to help oversee the installation of a revamped
telecommunication infrastructure within the country. It was being funded by Russia as
part of a treaty they had signed back in the year 2000 which had peacefully bound the
economy and government of Belarus to the Rus. America had agree to help foment
this advancement by providing contract workers in exchange for Russia helping to
intercept and eliminate armed Chechens who were traveling from the Northern
Caucus mountains to varies points of contention in order to help the Islamic rebels
they considered Muslim brothers stave off US infiltration.
After he’d graduated from his secondary academy, Leonard had trained to
become a civilian electrician despite his father constantly reminding him that the
military could offer him more money and a higher Personnel Rank when he
completed his certification. He’d had experience with both the fiber optics to be laid
and the in-line phones that were to be replaced. He’d also received training in leading
clandestine operations not only in his military education, but at home from his father.
He would need this training because he would also be directing squads of mercenaries
on secondary missions to root out and eliminate anti-Russian terrorist groups that
were organizing in the Crimean Peninsula.
Although the United States brass officially condemned Russia’s invasion of this
part of southern Ukraine, the U.S. would send no military aid and were secretly
committed not only to allowing Russia to absorb the straying former soviet satellite,
but with helping their cause. On a schedule of alternating weeks, Leonard would fly
into various cities on the peninsula and gain the trust of known insurgents resisting the
Russian takeover by posing as an American agent sent to help them. After gathering
information about their co-conspirators he would then pass this information on to
death squads made up of US-trained international assassins with no official ties to the
country. These squadrons were made up of Haitian nationals (mostly orphans)
recruited at a young age and trained on the island for use in clandestine wet work.
If his cover was blown by the separatists, Leonard was to commit suicide by way
of a self-administered injection of TTX hidden inside a crucifix around his neck.
Famously known as pufferfish toxin, TTX was produced in bulk by farming the
bacteria found on the surface of the fish and provided to various government agents so
in the event they were captured they could die a quicker, less painful death instead of
facing torture. More importantly, suicide prevented enemies of the state from
discovering valuable or potentially damaging information, in Leonard’s case his death
would remove any concrete evidence of Pro-Russian meddling by the US. Operatives
dying by TTX was considered a much better alternative to the cyanide pills of the old
days.
In exchange for his cooperation Leonard would be granted stock in the newly
established private telecom companies in Belarus that would pay huge dividends for
the rest of his life. Money was enough to entice him into leaving his home every day
for work, but the demand Leonard requested in order to risk his life was for Kay to be
his envoy in Belarus. His would-be handlers were concerned about her speaking only
Russian instead of both Russian and Belarusian, but Leonard remained adamant and
they acquiesced. They hadn’t spoken in some time but when Leonard told Kay he
needed her help in order to accept a lucrative job offer in her home country she agreed
as long as Leonard understood it would be as a friend helping a friend, nothing more.
Leonard had always heard her speak fondly of her homeland yet always believed
her idyllic view of the country was skewed by time and childhood optimism. When
the landed in Minsk and took a cab to the apartment the communications company
had provided, he was awestruck. Leonard had mentally prepared himself for the grey,
dreary picture of Eastern European society he’d come to believe was all there was in
this part of the world but Minsk was absolutely beautiful. Full of color, gorgeous
architecture, and milling with happy people; the area seemed like a utopia where
around every corner was a scene fit for a Hummel figurine.
He’d never seen Kay so delighted, as soon as their bags hit the apartment floor
she was dragging Leonard outside by the hand. She half-walked, half-ran around the
city bright-eyed and twirling to take it all in. She had elementary memories of her
mother-tongue and soon was stopping locals to hold conversations in Russian blended
with what little Belarusian she remembered. His supervisory role was nearly made
unnecessary by the local engineers who only required occasional help with
troubleshooting that could most often be handled by satellite phone. The left Leonard
with much free time on his hands and that first week there was filled with exploring
the capitols shops and restaurants with a giddy Kay in tow. While she’d insisted they
sleep in separate rooms, some nights they’d come home too spent to do anything but
remove their shoes and curl up on the sofa together. Leonard lived for those nights.
His first day in the Ukraine provided Leonard with a more stereotypical image of
a former USSR nation. The surroundings held some of the beauty Minsk boasted but
Leonard felt his presence as an outsider was far more unwelcome. Despite Yalta
having the calming demeanor of being a seaside resort locale, there was the
overwhelming patina of evaporated former glory. Once the site of one of the most
important conferences in European history and the birthplace of US-Soviet
collaboration, Yalta was now in a state of economic and political flux without the
monetary support of wealthy tourists or the allure of geopolitical significance.
In Belarus it was obvious that he was a foreigner but this was met with the
presumption that Kay had married abroad and seen as an opportunity for the locals to
demonstrate the best the nation had to offer. The curious eyes that were soon coupled
with smiles and invitations in Belarus turned colder in the Ukraine and were paired
only with disapproving frowns. Leonard was glad Kay wasn’t here to feel the
uneasiness he felt as he was driven by an informant to meet the first of many
Ukrainian separatist militia leaders.
The tension in Crimea between ethnic Ukrainians and Russians had permeated
throughout the region with its root derived from the Holodomor, the equivalent of the
Holocaust for Ukrainians. Even though Crimea was officially part of the Ukraine,
native Ukrainians found themselves as the minority group. According to Maksym, the
first pro-separatist leader Leonard was introduced to, Ukrainians in the Crimea were
looked at and treated as second-class citizens as opposed to the Russians. Anger over
perceived economic and social advantages afforded to their Russian counterparts had
led men like Maksym into organizing efforts to use force in order to drive them back
into Russia so Crimean resources would benefit only Ukrainians who they felt were
its rightful owners.
As Leonard listen to Maksym explain his position on the drive to his cell’s
headquarters he couldn’t help but feel he’d this argument before; one group felt
subjugated by another and was planning a violent reprisal. A life lost in pursuit of a
better life was the most maddening occurrence Leonard could think of. Whether he
was successful in his mission or not Leonard knew there would always be people
around the world willing to kill and die for what amounted to a nibble from someone
else’s piece of the pie. As he looked into Maksym’s eyes he thought about trying to
convert him away from this way of thinking. He searched as deep into them as he
could but all he found was black. Maksym’s had a killer’s eyes, Leonard had seen
them enough growing up around his father and found them unmistakable. He knew
nothing would stop Maksym save for someone else with the same intentions getting
the best of him. He was just another in a long line of malevolent men he would have
to face in the coming months.
Maksym and his followers had also enlisted the aid of Circassian rebels who, like
the Chechens, had their own historical vendetta against the Russian state. The
Circassians also shared the Chechen’s Sunni Islam faith, which Maksym had
convinced them was a target of the Kremlin in order to further radicalized them.
Maksym had studied and put into the practice the art of controlling the hearts of men.
A sound mind would never think to do the things Maksym expected from his
constituents, but a frenzied mind full of hate and confusion was a malleable as warm
clay…
“Papa, I’m scared.” Leonard looked down at his grandson (Personnel Rank
Awaiting Approval From Citizen For Public Display) gripping his knee, his little
knuckles had turned white. “I don’t like this story, it’s too scary; can you tell me a
happy one?” Leonard looked into his eyes, there was nothing there but the gleam of
hope and light. He looked out the window; Kay was out in the garden with his
granddaughters, giggling as they tended to the flowers. He looked at his left arm, the
scars from the cigarette burns had faded to the point that even he could barely find
them anymore. He stroked the fine hairs of his grandson’s head, struggled a bit to rise
out of his chair, and went to have a look in the mirror. In his own eyes Leonard saw
exhaustion and the same stubborn little twinkle. He thought to himself that maybe it
was time for him to concern himself with things that were more important than wars
games. He began to stroke the AA chip in his pocket with his forefingers and thumbs,
as had become a habit of his when in deep thought. Leonard stopped stroking the coin,
put on a silly face and spun to face his grandson. “Did I ever tell you about the time
your grandma tried to teach me to ice-skate?”