"What are you doing here?"

"Sergeant Major Rawlins sent me. He indicated you might be returning to the estate today and I don't believe he trusted you to drive yourself." The narrow room Actor had been ushered into was dark. Garrison sat in a plain hard-backed chair at a simple table, in the dim light he could see two similar chairs pushed back against the opposite wall. There was one gooseneck style lamp on the table. If the light had been shining in his commander's face, the con man thought, he might have thought he'd walked in on an interrogation session. Of course, in that case, Garrison would have been tied to the chair rather than just sitting on it. "What are you doing here? We thought you were on assignment."

The Warden leaned back in the chair and stretched. "I am."

"Doing what?" Actor indicated the contraption sitting in front of the younger man with a wave of his hand. "Playing some sort of a game?"

"It's actually an exercise in logic…and after working with you four," the Lieutenant laughed, " occasionally they like to see if I still have any."

Garrison's second moved to stand behind him so he could view the device. It appeared to be some sort of board game that made use of colored marbles. Sitting at an angle the glass spheres dropped from a holding trough at the top down into a series of columns. Several narrow strips of wood sat next to the Warden's hand, and there was an empty box waiting off to the side. The board appeared to be full.

Actor took a step back and reached a long arm out to capture one of the chairs sitting along the wall. He pulled it forward and settled onto it next to the Lieutenant. "What is the point of this… exercise?"

Garrison rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and yawned. They'd taken his watch away from him and there weren't any windows in the room. As near as he could figure he'd been at this now for over thirty-six hours. "Well, that depends on the color of the light they turn on." He raised his chin towards the darkened glass that made up most of the upper portion of the wall they were facing. There was another desk and at least two other people just visible through the smoked glass. "But the point is to clear the board. You can only do that if the colors touch each other some how."

A red light came on in the other room and Garrison explained as he went into action. "Sometimes they want the board cleared as fast as you can." He picked up one of the strips of wood that Actor noted, had slots that allowed it to fit onto the board, and placed it just above a set of three green marbles that were nested together. The strip of wood held the rest of the glass baubles in place as he removed the ones he had singled out. Three green marbles were tossed into the box on the table and the retaining strip of wood was removed. The glass clicked together as the remaining globes settled into a new pattern. After a moment of study another selection was made and the marbles, clear this time, were removed in the same manner, but a gathering of four yellows that had formed up were also removed from the left-hand side. Selections were made quickly and the sound of glass nicking up against glass was almost constant. In fairly short order Garrison stopped and leaned back away from the board.

"Why have you stopped?"

The Warden waved his hand towards the board. "No more color matches."

A tinny voice came through the speaker mounted on the wall above the glass. "What's your count Lieutenant Garrison?"

Garrison frowned at the board for a moment before answering. "Seventeen."

"Is that good?" Actor asked.

"Not very…" Along with keeping track of his numbers, there was a guy over there with a stop-watch writing down the time it took him to finish each board. Actor was a distraction and had slowed him down. But they tossed in distractions sometimes, like adding sounds, or flipping the lights on and off... Garrison ran his fingers through the box that held the marbles, mixing them up before he poured them into the holder at the top of the board. They dropped down into the columns filling the board again.

After a moment a yellow light flipped on behind the glass. "And…sometimes they want you to clear as much of the board as possible."

For this round Garrison sat back and took a little longer to consider his moves. Actor had some difficulty following the action, but to his eye, his commander still moved with self-assured determination and the board was cleared again in short order.

Without waiting for the query Garrison called out 'Three,' before setting up again. He glanced at the Italian's puzzled expression and then looked back at the people dimly outlined in the other room. "Can we take it a bit slower this time so I can explain it to him?" He could see the two confer before one reached out and picked up a phone. He took advantage of the reprieve to stand up and get in a good stretch. Craig knew he'd get the okay, they'd let the Italian into the testing room, after all, but the two soldiers on the other side of the glass still had to get that permission and he was going to make the best use he could of the break.

"How long have you been at this?" Actor asked as the Warden paced the room while they waited. Garrison had been called away from the mansion three days ago. Sometimes that meant he was on a solo mission over on the continent. Sometimes it meant there were people to debrief or information to evaluated. And now this, exercise in logic, he thought.

"That depends on what day it is…and what time."

The con man checked his watch. "It's two-fifteen, on the twelfth." He smiled as he looked up. "Would you like me to tell you the month?"

Garrison laughed. "No. I'm not in that bad a shape yet," but he yawned as he said it. "That means it's been about forty-three hours."

"What is the point to keeping you at this for so long?!" Actor asked, incensed. With the stress that the planning and execution of their group missions placed on the young man standing in front of him, and the ones he undertook on his own, the Italian could see no reason to subject him to additional pressure when he was safely back here in England.

"The point," Garrison said as he took the chair next to his second again. "Is to see if I can still make sensible decisions, under pressure, when I'm tired. And in this division they run anyone who leads a unit through it at least a couple of times a year. Besides, I haven't been locked up in here the whole time..." Short rations and canteens of water were slipped through a communicating drawer in the table and he was allowed out to the head when it was absolutely necessary.

"Colonel Reynolds says to take your time, Lieutenant."

Garrison gave the man in the other room a nod and then leaned forward. "Alright, there's three objectives to this. One, to come as close to clearing the board as you can, like we did last time. Two, to get as much off, as fast as you can. And, three, to find the biggest collections where ever they appear and take them out as fast as you can."

"But the last two are the same…"

"Not really." The Warden inserted the holding stick and removed two of the marbles, when he removed the barrier and the board settled a patch of yellow that covered close to twenty percent of the board appeared.

"So you would remove those?"

"Not yet." The barrier went in again and, this time, three pieces were removed. When the board reset itself the patch of yellow was noticeably larger. "Now we take them." The barrier went in again and the patch of yellow was removed. When the board reset blue seemed to be prominent. Again, there were one or two moves before the patch grew. This time Garrison pointed out what he was looking for. "You see this one? There's no way we can hook that up with anything, so we don't have to bother with it. These two that are one position off-set up here," he pointed up to the right. "By taking these two down here," and he indicated the last two pieces setting side-by-side at the very bottom of the board. "We can line them up," Garrison put the second barrier in place and removed a line of four, " and doing that lets the whole thing shift down…and now the patch can be removed." Instead of just placing one barrier in and removing the blue section the second barrier was, again, put into the board. The Warden smiled, "But you have to take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself." Without Actor noticing a patch of green had developed in the upper left corner.

"It's like chess, then… you have to think ahead." Actor watched as Garrison created pools of color and cleared the board. "But how does this apply to what we are doing out in the field?"

The Warden thought for a moment. "I think this is more about what's going to happen when we invade the continent than it is about what we do on our missions now. Trying to get everything off the board; that's long range thinking and strategy. Going as fast as you can might be more like setting up a diversion."

"And eliminating large groupings?"

The Lieutenant rubbed at the back of his neck as he searched for a good explanation. "That's just plain terrorizing your opponent so you have a good chance of their lines breaking when you hit them conventionally." He thought a moment. "And there's actually a fourth, to gather as much of the same color together and get some part of it to touch the bottom of the board... but they don't do that to you very often"

Garrison added three or four solid metal spheres from the drawer of the table to the box and poured its contents into the frame and watched the patterns form.

"What are those?"

"Land mines…. Collaborators…. Equipment failures." The younger man shrugged. " They represent a monkey-wrench in the works, that's for sure."

The light they got was a yellow one. Garrison turned on Actor. "Do you want to give it a try?"

Actor accepted the challenge, and studied the board, but still checked his move with the Warden before he made it. They took the time to discuss what he was going to do and how it was going to affect things. Garrison pointed out pairings that would be disrupted, and ones that could be remade later. Actor inserted the barrier, removed his selection, and watched the new patterns form. After the first few moves he was operating on his own. Garrison sat back and watched a pool of color grow as the con man removed a pair here and another one there. Just as the patched started to gain impressive size one of the metal balls reached the bottom. The Lieutenant plucked it out and dropped it back in the drawer. Without a barrier holding things back the board shifted, destroying the Italian's planned 'brilliant' move.

"What happened?!" Actor turned on his commander. "What have you done to me?"

Garrison smiled. "Best laid plans, Actor... Frustrating, isn't it? Besides, that was a yellow light," he reminded the Italian con man. "You were supposed to be clearing the whole board, not just setting up impressive moves." He tipped his head toward the board. "Go on. Get back to it."

"You sabotaged me!" the older man grumbled, but he was hooked, and he turned back to study the board. "I don't believe I saw you dealing with any of those."

"That's because they didn't send me any for the boards you saw me do…." He leaned an elbow on the table as he watched Actor map out his next move. "They have to be taken out as soon as they reach the bottom of the board. And watch out, because the better you get, the more they send through this little drawer here."

"And what, may I ask, is the point? Assuming there is one?" Actor asked, still a bit disgruntled over the disruption of his plans.

Garrison rested his chin on his fist. "To see how long it takes before you decide the only thing left is a suicide mission." He laughed at the look Actor shot him along his shoulder. "But that's only my own interpretation." He shrugged, "and I'm tired."

"Do they do this with all officers and group leaders?"

The Warden closed his eyes. "Nope. Only us." He was lulled by the sound of the glass hitting together, the occasional sound of metal being tossed into the drawer, and Actor hemming and hawing, and cursing under his breath. He drifted until the room fell silent again. Opening his eyes he surveyed the board. 'Hey, not bad!"

"What's the count, sir?"

"Twenty-two."

Actor gave a snort of disgust.

Garrison emptied the board, dropping the last metal ball in the drawer and listening as it rolled towards the people in the other room. He didn't hear anything roll back. He swirled the marbles around in their box and poured them into the top of the board. The two men watched them settle and waited for the light. Yellow again. Good, that meant there was all the time in the world to plan the moves.

The Warden shoved his chair back until it was against the wall and then he turned it so he could prop his feet up on the one that was already back there. "You're on your own." He told the Italian con man as he slouched down, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes.

"Me?" Actor turned on the younger man. He thought he understood a bit about the exercise. "This is about troop movement and losses. I'll never have to make these types of decisions!"

"The duration and six months, remember?" Opening an eye he smiled at the stunned look on the con man's face. "You're the one who set yourself up as my second, Actor. Rawlins sent you down here, and Reynolds let you in. So, you just never know what your future may hold….."

AN*** My grandfather 'invented' a version of this board game for us when we were kids, (that would be back in the late 50's, not to give myself away) along with another he called WhaaHoo! Might be why I like digital 'match 3' games so much now...