Five Years: Hail to Their Ghosts that Remain

“Hey, Walter, do you have a minute?” asked Max, rubbing his neck as he hovered in the doorway.
“Sure, come in,” grinned Walter, straightening in his chair, “Beer?”
“Uh, sure, thanks,” Max shrugged, taking it gratefully and looking for a place to sit.
“Use Adrian’s chair, he won’t mind.”
Max grabbed the hard-cushioned chair, sat down, and frowned at how stiff it was.
“Adrian doesn’t believe in comfort,” Walter smirked.
“You’re telling me,” said Max, adjusting the cushion’s.
“Just make sure you set it back to its original setting, otherwise I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Max nodded his head before taking a swig of beer as Walter watched him closely. It was hard to reconcile the gangly, young man before him with the nervous brawler that was ready to take on three Russians last night. Daniel was fond of him, said he had spunk and a good dosage of decency and compassion. Didn’t think things through though and often flew by the seat of his pants which made Walter wonder how Sebastian hadn’t killed him yet.
“Walter?”
“Hm?” said Walter, blinking, “Yes, sorry.”
“I was wondering…you served during the war, right?”
“Yeah.”
“The entire war?”
“The entire thing. I was mostly in Ukraine and Afghanistan although I saw some action in the Czech Republic and Iraq, why?”
“Well…Dan said I should talk to you,” said Max, looking down at his beer, “After last night I need help and I don’t want to ask Sebastian and Celestyn. They were so upset.”
“I think they were more upset about the Russians and Blazej.”
“Probably, but I don’t want to bring it up with them. It doesn’t seem right. And Anatoli will probably stab him if I bother him.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just want to understand what they’ve been through and, put last night in context. I mean I like them, all three of them, even though they can be difficult to get along with sometimes,” Max admitted, “Well, Celestyn only gets snippy when he’s hungry or when Anatoli’s tweaking him, so it’s really just Sebastian and Anatoli.”
Walter smirked as Max thought it over, trying to figure out who really was the worst.
“I think Sebastian might be grumpier than Anatoli, but Anatoli is meaner.”
“I can see that.”
“And he hates Sebastian, but he’s nice to me. Well, as nice as he can be, but I think that’s just to annoy Sebastian.”
“Sebastian is a hard man to get along with, let alone genuinely like.”
“It’s mostly for show though,” said Max defensively, “He’s not really that bad. I’ve seen him be downright gentle with Celestyn.”
“They go a long way back.”
Max looked down and picked at the beer label.
“I wasn’t at Konin,” Walter gently pressed.
“I know. I did some research on it. Actually, I was using Ambrogio’s login to see what data he had access to, but he told me if I didn’t stop he was going to prosecute me and I really didn’t want to be tried for espionage.”
“Understandable. But what were you using Ambrogio’s login for, exactly?”
“Well, I figured he’d have access to all the top secret information. You know, the stuff not included in those short bios they sent us. But it was kind of useless. All of Celestyn’s information was in Polish.”
“You got that far into our database?”
“Yeah, you have access to everything if you’re signed in as Ambrogio.”
“Don’t you need his fingerprint?”
“Not if you know how to trick the computer into thinking you have his…finger.”
Walter stared at him incredulously.
“It’s really not that complicated.”
“What were you hoping to find?”
Max shifted in his chair and ran a hand through his hair.
“I just…they don’t teach us about the war, not really. You think it’s simple, you know? Good guys on one side, bad guys on the other, but Celestyn and Sebastian aren’t bad. Difficult, but not bad. And Anatoli.”
He thought it over for a second.
“Morally grey, but I don’t think of him as a bad person.”
Walter nodded his head understandably as Max scratched the back of his head in great irritation, making his already wild hair untameable.
“If they had done the stuff Dmitri and Anatoli accused Sebastian of doing, you wouldn’t forgive them, you know?”
“Well, they did,” said Walter.
“I guess, but I don’t know.”
Max slumped in his chair and sighed.
“The eastern front was horrific. It has always been a bad front, doesn’t matter what war is it,” Walter said, “There’s a lot of bad blood and ancient rivalries that always get stirred up with each new war. I didn’t serve in Poland, but I can’t imagine it being less bloody than Ukraine.”
“What is it like? Fighting.”
Walter sighed as he thought it over.
“Well, it’s different for everyone. Some people enjoy it. Some people can’t handle it. Most people find a primal part of themselves that can function while being terrified and are glad when it’s all over,” he took a swig of beer before continuing, pulling back the once stagnant memories, “The first time you realize someone is shooting at you is always a shock. They try to prepare you for that, but there’s no way to truly simulate that first firefight, the feeling of bullets whizzing by, the sharp gunfire, the hellish nightmare that is air support and artillery fire. During the war, they returned to gas and pathogens, whole areas had to be cleared, populations quarantined. Used to call them the concentration camps mark 2 because no one ever came out alive.”
Max’s face fell.
“No one wanted to use the bomb, not after the North Korean fiasco, you see, so they found other ways to break each other. I don’t know if you heard about Los Angeles, they covered it up the best they could for a long time, but that was a Chinese pathogen. Spread all along the coast of California, made it into Oregon and Washington.”
“I remember it vaguely. Couldn’t go West for a long time.”
“Yah, I think they cleared it five years ago, maybe four. That was nothing compared to what happened to China’s north eastern province though.”
Max furrowed his eyebrows.
“They don’t talk about it officially, but the pathogen that we dropped in Vladivostok spread west, all the way to Beijing. That combined with the radiation from the Koreas and the northern province was wiped out. It’s actually one of the reasons they didn’t let us assist Japan during the crisis. They thought we had dropped the pathogen in a preemptive strike, like the Russians did in Eastern Europe, and we were going to use Japan as a jumping off point.”
Walter shook his head as Max took a long and sharp swig of beer, making a face as he did so.
“It’s funny how life works. I was in South Korea up until the last day before the Northern Koreans dropped the bomb. I missed it by mere hours.”
“Where were you deployed after that?”
“Czech-German border. The poles had stabilized their position along the German-Polish border and we were supposed to deter the Russians from making any more progress. If they did, we would meet them.”
“Wouldn’t that have sparked nuclear war.”
Walter nodded sardonically.
“It’s why we started a second front in the Middle East. That’s where I lost my first soldier. In Iraq. That’s what makes or breaks you, that first lost. If you can pull away and focus, you’ll be fine. It’s when you can’t, when you get stuck…and you go through that with every battle. You get used to the gunfire and the chaos, but the loss. You’re scared of getting stuck and you’re scared of not even noticing. My worst fear was of it becoming too easy. You need to focus and move on, but it needs to hit you, it needs to hurt. If it doesn’t…you got to get out as soon as possible. You’re a danger when you don’t care.”
Max nodded his head.
“I saw some of that in Ukraine, on both sides. They would send their men out to be butchered and it didn’t faze them. They went on planning the next doomed attack after the next doomed attack, like they were on autopilot, trapped in a never ending loop, an inescapable Hell. The worst part is how easy it is to fall into that trap. To just go through the motions, never registering what was being sacrificed, equating survival with sacrifice.”
“Do you think Celestyn went through that in Konin?” asked Max, his face softening.
“I don’t know,” Walter answered truthfully, “I imagine it’s likely. When you’re trapped like that, with no hope for relief, knowing you can’t leave. There was a raid I was on in Ukraine and we were caught in a village, had to take cover where we could find it, and I didn’t think we’d get out. Everything changes when you’re convinced you’re already dead.”
Max looked down at his beer.
“It’s funny, but I think about that raid often. It’s weird what sticks with you. I had seen plenty of men die by then, plenty of kids too. Learned how to deal with it,” said Walter, staring off at the wall behind Max, “Kept moving, worry about it later, but this kid…Ivan was his name and he was fifteen and he had wanted to be a toy maker before the war. He had had a younger sister, but she had been killed by the Russians. He was a scavenger for the insurgents I was working with.”
“Scavenger?”
“He collected parts from the broken mechanical soldiers the Russians used and he and a few others used the parts to make armor and special weapons for the insurgents. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t. It was a common practice on the Eastern front,” explained Walter before taking a swig of beer, “We were going to raid the town, our intelligence telling us the Russians had left, but our intelligence was bad or it was a trap. I never figured it out, not that it mattered. We were pinned down and we had to fight our way out. You didn’t surrender. I went in with, I think fifteen guys. I got out with five.”
Max’s face softened.
“We had to leave the dead and the wounded, including Ivan. He was caught in a blast and it ripped his stomach open. I can still see him lying out on that road, choking. There was nothing we could do, but I can’t forget him. I don’t know why.”
He glanced at Max and suddenly felt sheepish.
“I’m sorry, Max, I got lost for a second.”
“No, it’s ok. I wanted to know.”
“There are a lot of unhealed wounds, Max, and not just with the three crazies.”
Max smirked faintly.
“The war was…brutal and you don’t move on from something like that easily, and to add Japan and Indonesia to it. It’s amazing how quickly we tried to pretend that we could return to the way things used to be, but you can’t go through something like that and pretend everything’s fine. We haven’t learned.”
“I vaguely remember being aware of what was going on, but I was young,” Max admitted, “And I learned about it at school, but that’s the same. We didn’t even talk about the Eastern front in class.”
“American schools usually don’t,” Walter sniffed humorlessly.
“I wish I could talk to them about it, but I don’t….I don’t think I’ve earned that right yet.”
“They’ll open up when they feel comfortable around you,” said Walter, “If they feel comfortable.”
Max nodded his head with a half frown.
“Just be there for them, Max, and make sure they don’t kill each other.”
Max smiled faintly, “I’m more worried that they’re going to kill me.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. After all, Sebastian needs his guinea pig.”
Max made a face and Walter laughed.
“And you should filter through whatever Anatoli or Dmitri tells you. From what I gathered from last night and my own research, they have a particular axe to grind with our two crazies.”
“I know, and it goes both ways,” Max admitted.
“They’re also testing you,” said Walter and Max looked up surprised.
“All of them?”
“Anatoli for sure. I don’t know if Sebastian and Celestyn have already made their mind up on you.”
“Testing me? Testing me how? I don’t really know anything.”
“He’s testing your entire character.”
Max furrowed his eyebrows.
“Celestyn did it to me when we first met. It’s something they do. It’s hard to explain and you don’t know notice until you’ve reviewed the conversation later on, but they prick and prod, looking for your defenses, trying to assess how easily you’ll crumble when they find the weak spot.”
“For what purpose?”
“For whatever long term game, they’re playing.”
Max faintly smiled, as if he thought Walter was joking.
“I’m not suggesting the cold war has returned, but there is a lot at stake here and there are invisible hierarchies being created. If Anatoli approaches you, it’s because he’s trying to figure out where you fit and how he can use you. It may be a benevolent habit, but just be aware of it.”
“Yeah, ok,” said Max, rubbing the back of his neck and he thought it over, “And thanks, Walter. Sorry for making you relive bad memories.”
“No, that wasn’t you.”
“Well, I better get going. Sebastian expected me to be in the lab five minutes ago,” said Max, handing Walter the partially finished the beer.
“If he gives you any trouble, send him to me.”.
“You sure you want to deal with an irritated Sebastian?” asked Max, uncertainly.
“I assure I can handle him.”
“I don’t know.”
Walter stared at him incredulously.
“I mean you’re a tough guy, but Sebastian’s crazy and I always put my money on the crazy guy.”
Walter ran his tongue over his teeth as he stared Max down, not sure if he should be insulted or not.
“Sebastian wasn’t special ops.”
“That’s why he’s scary. We don’t know what the hell he was and, don’t forget he served with the Poles for a period and we know how crazy they are,” said Max earnestly, “Although don’t tell Celestyn I said that. He thinks it’s an unfair stereotype.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” said Walter dryly.
Max flashed an appreciative grin and walking out of the room.
Walter finished his beer before rising to throw it in the recycling bin, muttering to himself, “Crazy, pfft. I could kick Sebastian’s ass if I wanted to.”