Traveller Manifesto
5. London Today

London – Today.

“What now?” asked General Connor with teeth gritted in thinly veiled irritation. His square jaw was thrust forward aggressively and he looked more dangerous than angry.

General Sir Gerald Humphrey took a deliberately slow sip of his scotch and shrugged. “Well, Hunter has had his say, it seems. What we have to evaluate is, can we still conduct our training and testing programmes in 11th Century Giolgrave?”

General Connor looked up as if not believing what he had heard. “With the media having the field day that they have? Not to mention the politicians running for cover. God damn it Gerald! It looks like we’re screwed. But I’ll be damned if this means we can’t make a go of it. We’ve come too far and made too much of an investment to simply push this aside. The benefits of the 11th Century training camp are innumerable. It’s too damned convenient.”

General Humphrey looked across at the American with a frown but refused to be drawn. Responding angrily to General Connor never achieved anything productive. “My dear sir, this is only a bump in the road. We have to concentrate on the objective.”

General Connor took a breath and then gave a grim smile as he replied, “You’re beginning to sound sanctimonious. If you have an idea, just come out with it. What do you have in mind? How do you suggest we salvage this fiasco now that we’ve lost our link to Giolgrave and their hunters?”

The British General nodded slowly and gathered his thoughts. “Please humour me, but let’s think of this from the beginning. We still have access to Aengland of a thousand years into the past. The Giolgrave Village hunters have shown themselves to possess the perfect reconnaissance skills, but let’s remember that they are skills that they’ve only recently taught to the now-retired Mike Hurley, to Senior Sergeant Steven Morris and, of course, to Hunter himself. Add to that our plans to establish a training and, more importantly, a test location there. Now, our friend and potential go-between, Michael Hunter, has opted to leave, suspecting he has sabotaged our plans.”

The American watched his British counterpart closely. Knowing him well enough to recognise he was up to something, General Connor simply nodded and took a sip of his bourbon. The private room in the Ministry of Defence was arguably one of the most secure locations outside of the Pentagon and was quintessentially English, having been a meeting place for the powerful since the three British armed services were headquartered there in 1951. Extensive refurbishment had dramatically increased the security of the sanctuary, now reserved exclusively for the most senior ranks.

The waiters had been dismissed. General Humphrey ensured they were alone.

“Now, I suggest all is not lost,” he continued with a satisfied smile. “We can’t use Hunter, even if we catch him and use inducements to ensure his cooperation. He’s SAS! We know that won’t work.”

At this, General Connor gave a slow nod.

“I suggest we forget Giolgrave altogether. While the villagers know us, there are a set of monitoring options in place that will make any interference with the world’s favourite village impractical. And I’m forced to concede that we can’t set up the camp as planned. All we need is for one of the locals to discover us, or have one of our troops blunder into the field of view of any of the historians’ bloody cameras and the game will be up. It’s just too unwieldy.”

“But you’re suggesting the mission can continue,” replied General Connor with a grunt of approval.

“Yes, of course,” confirmed General Humphrey. “We can still achieve many of the mission objectives. We just have to think a little laterally.”

“What are your thoughts on accessing the Transporter?” asked the American. He leaned back into the satin smooth leather and passed his eye over the regimental flags that decorated the walls. Some were from the Napoleonic wars, some from even earlier. General Humphrey knew his American counterpart was impressed at the displays of martial prowess that stretched back to a time well before the establishment of the American Republic. There were relics from the War of the Roses and even the Crusades. In pride of place, the battered and bloodied Saxon armour, clothing and weapons from one of the original Travellers, Sergeant Andy Poxon of the British SAS, were displayed in a specially sealed cabinet.

General Humphrey gave a huff of confirmation. “Access to the Transporter? That I can manage! The most important thing is to revise our programme to allow us to achieve our key objectives. Hunter can still be useful.”

General Connor tilted back his head and thrust out his jaw as if to object, but instead grunted, “Go on.”

“You are aware, aren’t you, that Hunter was chipped when he received his medical attention after the Battle of Giolgrave?” continued General Humphrey as he took a final sip of his excellent scotch. He was gratified to hear the sharp intake of breath and looked up to replace his colleague staring at him in surprise.

“What chip? What’re yours designed to do?” asked the American.

The British officer smiled as he replied, “Yes, we’re aware of your chip technology and have been for some time.”

General Connor gave a bark of derisive laughter, but the Englishman would not be drawn. “It was always assumed that Hunter’s pack allowed the medical evacuation team to track him for Tatae’s medical emergency. It was, in fact, also due to their tracking of Hunter’s chip, inserted as part of the treatment he received after the Battle of Giolgrave. You see, we assumed that he would return, even temporarily, and the ability to track him via the military spec chip was just too valuable an option. We’ve developed the chip to make it easier to track our troops, especially if taken as POW’s. If we can track them, we can replace and rescue them.”

“Do we know the details of this?” asked General Connor with a touch of righteous indignation.

General Humphrey answered with a bark of laughter. “We have the blueprints of your latest generation chip and have made our own changes, so we hope not. It’s in the testing phase with our Special Forces, so isn’t used with the majority of our troops. Yet.” He looked across with a smile and exclaimed, “You have to remember that your lads don’t have all of the best toys, you know.”

The American looked furious and General Humphrey knew that the usual investigation would seek to identify any security lapse, even if it was between friends. “Were all of the Saxon Travellers chipped?” he asked.

“No, of course not. Only Hunter, as he was slated to return. We considered the exercise so worthwhile that we’ve also chipped the Byzantium Travellers,” explained General Humphrey.

“So, you suggest we can track him?” confirmed General Connor quietly. General Humphrey knew that his counterpart would have the American Travellers from Saxon Traveller carefully examined, just in case. It would not do to have Kitchener and Anderson implanted with British military tracking hardware.

“Yes, track him, replace him, in fact make the whole thing a training operation that can encompass a few of our priority objectives,” confirmed General Humphrey.

General Connor paused a moment as he thought, “Not all,” he reiterated.

“But enough to make the exercise worthwhile,” continued General Humphrey.

“Technically he’s an Australian foreign national,” countered the American.

“He’s a military asset who’s been under the command of the Her Majesty’s Military and has gone AWOL,” replied General Humphrey curtly. “You don’t think I’d just sit back and let him run off with his little bitch, do you?”

General Connor only nodded and grunted. “It could work,” he conceded as he finished off his bourbon with a flourish.