In total, it took about ten minutes to get my commanding officer, Captain William Edwards, to decide that he didn't like me. I was genuinely surprised that he took ten minutes; usually it only took ten seconds for anyone to label me as a freak or a psychopath. I found that the real reason he didn't seem to like me was because I was always correcting him. People didn't like to be told they're wrong, including myself, but when you spend time around me, you're almost guaranteed to be wrong or partially wrong at least ninety-five percent of the time.
My commanding officer was an intelligent man but he had a very bad tendency of believing that what he said was gospel. Everyone said the same about me, but the only difference was that I right about whatever I was talking about. I had corrected him on numerous occasions on subjects ranging from geography to weapons and strategic maneuvers. He hated every single time I opened my mouth. I could tell because his muscles would tense, his blood pleasure would go up slightly and his heartbeat would increase. There was always a vein visible on his forehead when he was angry or stressed and sometimes he got very clammy and sweaty. He thought he was a master of hiding his emotions and, to most of the soldiers, he was, but to me he was like a child's picture book.
As infuriated as he would get with me, he never lost his temper. The desire to tell me off and put me in my place was always evident on his face. His eyes were always burning with rage whenever I started to correct him or suggest something else, but he always allowed me to do it because he knew whatever I had to say was something worth putting out on the table. Usually what I said was the only thing worth putting out in the open. He didn't like me, but he couldn't deny my brilliance.
"Cooper, are you in there?" another soldier called from outside my tent. Currently we were moving through Afghanistan to join with another troop, but we had to stop and make camp to, hopefully, outlast a horrible storm that would soon be passing through. I thought it was a waste of time, but all of the other soldiers seemed unwilling to push forward. Normally this would have annoyed me. When I was working, nothing stopped me and nothing got in my way. I never allowed even the worst circumstances to yield my progress and it was a personal pet peeve of mine to see other people using stupid excuses to get out of their work.
However this time, I wasn't too upset over the fact that we were now stuck without any way to continue making progress because I was exactly where I needed to be. In my original plans, I believed I would have to fake my death or something else completely over the top and dramatic to get away from my troop without being sent home, but now I had the perfect position. Things never truly went this well for me, even when I had a carefully outlined plan, so it was almost alarming that the troop stopped to make camp for a few days in a spot not even one kilometer from where John was last spotted.
Over the next few days, I would venture out into the storms and search for any sort of evidence that would prove that John was not dead and any clues that the doctor might have left behind in the hope that I would come looking for him. The horrendous weather that was coming was both an advantage and a disadvantage because it did keep me in the area I needed to be in, but it also made searching for evidence that much more difficult. I was always up for a challenge, but I had a limited time frame and I couldn't be sure that John would be kept alive forever. I had to find him as soon as I possibly could. There wasn't any time to waste and I would have to make my disappearance convincing. Now that I was where I needed to be, I couldn't keep traveling with this troop. My captain had grown reliant on me and making a convincing disappearance would be tricky because of his constant watch on me.
If my reputation for being the best at what I did held true, I wouldn't have too much of an issue with it. As long as I could get away from the captain and the troop for a while without being followed, I would be in great shape.
"Cooper? You in there? The Sarg wants a word with you. He's worried about falling behind schedule and a possible ambush on us while we're stuck here. He was going on and on about some boring shit that I wasn't paying attention to, but he seems like he really needs to talk to you. Ever since you got here, he doesn't want to do anything without your input, since you seem to be right about everything," the soldier called again. If I wasn't mistaken, which I never was, the soldier was Daniel Anderson. Even if he wasn't the same Anderson that I had to deal with in London, he acted the same and it was like Anderson somehow followed me everywhere, like a plague that was destined to drop my IQ dangerously low. "Cooper? Are you in there?"
Anderson, turn away, you're putting me off. He was absolutely everywhere.
While normally I would have started in on telling Anderson off straight away, this time, I ignored him. Out of the entire troop, Daniel Anderson annoyed me the most and yet he was always the one to come around me. I was always cruel to him, always short with him and I always shouted abuse at him when he was especially annoying, but he never got the hint. Nothing I did kept him away. However, I did find the slightest bit of comfort in his behavior. While he was as annoying as Lestrade's sniffer dog with an even lower IQ, the fact that he always hung around, even when I was nothing but abusive towards him, reminded me so much of my lost friend. There were times that I treated John like a dog, but he never left me. He never told me that he hated me and even when he did leave, he always came back because he knew I never meant it. With Anderson, I did mean it, but the fact that he never gave up reminded me of John.
"If you don't answer me, I'm coming in!" Anderson finally roared, clearly annoyed with my ignoring him. I had hoped that he would just leave, believing I wasn't in my tent. I had to get away from the camp unnoticed because I needed to start my real mission. I would accomplish nothing if I were stuck sitting around camp discussing battle strategies and traveling time with some of the higher ups. It was completely ridiculous that the entire troop had become so reliant on me. I didn't even put any effort into helping them improve and even though I was an asshole, people seemed to think I walked on water.
I even attempted to keep a low profile and not draw attention to myself… That failed miserably. I had only been in this troop for a week and four days and suddenly I was running it just because I made the mistake of giving the captain some suggestions. I couldn't help it. There was no way to turn my cleverness off and on. When someone said or did something obviously stupid and especially if it involved me, I spoke up and while insulting whomever it happened to be, I fixed their mistakes. That was just what I did. John called me a show off all the time and he was one-hundred percent accurate.
"Don't!" I shouted, making sure that my voice cracked and then I added a rather painful sounding cough just for good measure. "Tell him I'm under the weather and I just need some time to sleep and relax!"
"Oh… Well, how sick are you?" Daniel asked and he started to move the flap of the entrance to my tent so he could probably poke his head in to see if I was all right.
"I said don't come in!" His hand withdrew almost immediately, which was a good thing because the next thing I would have done was hit and/or kick him. "I've violently puked three times in the last two hours and I just need to stay away from people right now! I already saw the doctor, he gave me some meds and told me to go back to my tent and sleep!" This, of course, was a lie, but Daniel would believe anything. He was gullible. Everything about this man was identical to Anderson. He was even completed with an unattractive face and an annoying, kind of squeaky, mouse-like voice. "Please just tell the Sarg that I can't come in right now and that I will talk to him after dinner!" Sarg was a very unsophisticated nickname for the Captain Edwards. It was a little odd that he even allowed it because he wasn't a sergeant at all. He was a captain by rank. However, if I went around calling him something else, I would draw even more attention to myself, not that it truly mattered anymore. Everyone in the troop knew me by name and rank. Stanly Cooper had become a name in this troop and a few other troops that had gotten into contact with us, like Sherlock Holmes was a name that spread around the world.
"All right, all right, I'll tell him, but you better not skip out on dinner! He seems determined to talk to you!" Daniel was persistent; I'd give him that.
"Yes, Daniel, thank you for your input," I said sarcastically, coughing again just to convince him that I was sick and to maybe make him think that I was contagious. No one wanted to catch a stomach flu virus, especially in the middle of a warzone with a storm only hours away from hitting. There was a grunt of displeasure from the other side of the entrance to my tent followed by boots sliding across the Earth.
I sat on my makeshift bed for an additional five minutes, just incase Daniel came back. I couldn't let him see me sneaking off, especially after I told him how sick I was. Thankfully my tent was off to the side and away from the cluster of tents that the other troops inhabited, but it was closer to the tents that the higher ups, including the captain, slept in. They liked to keep me close by, but if they were in a meeting, they wouldn't notice me slip away. If I didn't find what I was looking for today, I just needed to make sure that I was back before dinner. I couldn't disappear completely until I was sure I had a lead. Stranding myself in the middle of nowhere with no leads and no reason was the dumbest thing I could do in my situation.
Once I was sure there was no one around my tent, thanks to the use of my senses, I stood from my makeshift bed and pulled my military jacket on. I couldn't take a big sack with me because if I didn't come back and someone came snooping, they might come to the conclusion that I ran away. That was very doubtful, since all of these troops were dangerous incompetent, but definitely plausible. I was forced to travel lightly, so I stuck my moleskin with all of my research and notes inside my jacket along with a map that I had been using to plot out where John had disappeared. It was littered with notes as well. I managed to fit a few packets of dried army-issued food into the coat's pockets as well. Other than that, I left everything in my tent, so if I didn't come back and someone came in, it would appear that I just disappeared. They would assume that I was killed in the storm or taken as a prisoner of war and everything would be fine. My false identity of Stanly Cooper would be dead and no one would ever hear from him again. I didn't bring anything of value with me anyway. Everything was left in 221B Baker Street.
When I left my tent, I didn't see anyone close by. Most of the soldiers were holed up in their tents, wanting to be curled up in the warmth of their blankets before the storm hit. Other soldiers were sitting under a massive canopy that was set up for the purpose of a makeshift dining hall, gambling, playing games and talking, anything to pass the empty amount of wasted time. I could hear a few people talking in the tent closest to me, which happened to be bigger than the rest because it was the captain's tent. He held meetings there and I was supposed to be attending that meeting as Stanly Cooper. Oh well.
There were more pressing matters to attend to, though, so I quietly snuck past the tent and out of the camp boundaries. No one took notice to me. I doubted that anyone even saw me. They were all too distracted by writing letters to their families, gossiping and gambling with money they didn't really have. Most of the human population was unaware of ninety percent of their surroundings. For me, it was really just too easy to take full and complete advantage of everyone else's ignorance. I saw nothing wrong with it.
Currently our camp was set up in Western Afghanistan, ten kilometers outside of a small city that went by the name of Anar Darreh. According to my research and the course I had plotted out on the map that was hidden inside of my coat, John disappeared while travelling to Anar Darreh and the last place he was spotted was around nine kilometers west of the city. That was how I knew we were in the right place. Every night I spent tracking the course of my troop's progression to make sure that I knew exactly where we were at all times. As stated, I was more accurate in this than the captain… Pathetic really, but I was definitely used to outshining everyone, even "professionals".
I left my map tucked away inside my coat for safekeeping. It was really more of a backup because I had the map memorized, like a virtual 3D landscape stretched out across the empty space in front of my eyes. I knew exactly where I was going, but I didn't have much time before the storm set in. A storm wouldn't stop me, but it would definitely slow me down. Even I had limits. I wasn't Superman.
Pirates were cooler than super heroes anyway.
"I'm on my way John, just hold on. Will you do this for me please? –SH"