I didn’t remember whether any mention had been made by Richard about the Chevy having positraction. I learned that it did when Mary took off to head for the store. I watched the back end of the car disappear up Lobos Marinos until she took the corner heading north on South Ola Vista. She’d turned on the full-throated quality stereo in the rig and Herb Alpert and Tijuana Brass blasted out through her open windows. I looked down at the two short marks her chirping rear tires made on the concrete. Although she hadn’t wound the engine up to anything close to its maximum rpm she also hadn’t held much back. I was creating a new monster in the household without having had any warning. Bozo stared back at me from the thin green strip of grass that ran between the curb and the sidewalk as if his mind was thinking the same thing mine was.
The Tijuana Brass had been played at every morning gathering of my Basic Class at Quantico by Major Kramer, our battalion commander, and an enemy to me. I’d loved the Brass every morning but hated him, not having an understanding at the time that many of the military commanders I’d serve under were more like him than I’d have ever believed before serving. Before my wife had driven away I’d have never believed that the Herb Alpert stuff would always remind me of Kramer whenever I heard it played.
I wanted to get back inside to review the rest of the tape, as well as get out to the library to find out more about Dorothy Kilgallen. Aside from that, or in addition to it, I wanted to pull the artifact down and test it some more. The garage was filled with stuff like old cans of acetone, hydrogen peroxide (the twenty percent stuff not the two percent sold commercially), and more. The object looked like it had scuff marks and scrapes all over its surface, so did that mean it was something that could be pieced out or have small parts cut, sawed, or even torched off to test and examine further?
I walked back into the house and slowly made my way upstairs, the last two steps taking almost fifteen seconds to negotiate. I looked over at the bed Mary and I slept in. There were only the angled stairs attached to the side of a wall that extended up to four feet above the edge of the open-air bedroom, as the movie actor’s agent had described it. I noted that Mary had left my running outfit laid out and ready on the bedspread. I almost laughed at her optimism but knew inside myself that I wasn’t going anywhere except back to bed. Even Mary running around South Coast Shopping Center up in Santa Ana with Nancy, Mike Manning’s girlfriend, and Alice, my new secretary, sounded like it was well beyond my capability.
I couldn’t even remember lying back on the bed when I awoke, staring at the beautiful wooden ceiling. I checked my Seiko and was surprised to see that I’d been down for four hours. There were no sounds in the house so I presumed my wife and her collection of friends and Julie weren’t back from South Coast yet. It was one in the afternoon. There was no way I was going out for a run and I’d already thought to pull myself off the beach patrol. I went downstairs to reheat the half-filled pot of coffee Mary had brewed in the early hours after getting up. I wasn’t in pain, despite the fifty, or so, small bruises all over my back, arms, and legs. The bush I’d landed in had provided a life-saving cushion for my landing but that assistance hadn’t been provided without a cost. The main problem I was having, and Doctor Forsch let me know in no uncertain terms, was lassitude. I was tired even after taking a four-hour nap.
Forsch knew that I was a go-getter, always on the move. Unfortunately, that enthusiasm also came at a cost, a cost my lungs couldn’t yet bear. I was tired because not enough oxygen was being processed through my lungs to provide sufficient energy to do much of anything but sit or lie around.
I drank down a full cup of coffee, having heated it only to a tepid state so I could down the whole thing. Even though I believed the doctor about why I was sleepy all the time, I couldn’t help taking an age-old fix for that, not that it could work in my condition.
Kilgallen loomed up in my thoughts as I reflected for the first time since the fire that once again I was still here on the planet and healthy, or reasonably so. The rest of the tape I didn’t want to listen to held what? Kilgallen had been assassinated. I presumed that the rest of the tape was nothing more or less than a detailed list of who else had paid the ultimate political price for some violation or other. I just could not summon up the energy to take any more negative information into a damaged system that was already flooded with negative stuff. The CIA offer, agreed upon and concluded by the cash, seemed to be the only beacon of positive sunlight up ahead. I felt like I had to almost literally be pulled from the entire combination of circumstances I was involved with. The new police chief was a symbol of life’s strange new direction and, as with the first encounter I’d had with actual combat, I wanted to simply run away from him, the department, and most of the rest of my life in San Clemente.
Maybe I’d have the time and isolation to haul the artifact down from the hollowed-out heater in the garage and perform some experiments. I pushed the thought away. It was dangerous to do much of anything with that piece of some other dimension, or wherever. No tape, no artifact, no beach patrol, or much of anything else. I could still drive, however, and the pain medication Forsch had given me was a good reason to see Paul once again, if not for continued therapy then at least for trying to come to terms with the fact that I wanted to take some of the pills but had no pain. I knew the danger of such thinking and I also knew that if I was going to handle that kind of thinking myself, I would already have done so. The pills would already have been flushed down the drain instead of being buttoned into the pocket of the shirt I was wearing. Since Forsch handed me the full bottle there’d been no necessity in telling Mary I had them. I knew that was another indicator that I needed to talk to someone and I had only Paul for such a conversation, at least the way I saw it.
I drank a second full cup of the strong coffee, the first one having had no effect at all. I was still sleepy but not too sleepy to hear the strange melodious ringing sound of the doorbell. The old apartment had no doorbell, at least not one that ever worked. People coming by either knocked or simply came right in. Lobos Marinos was a whole lot more upscale in making me feel that such informality was a thing of the past.
I opened the door. A tall man stood before me, a big smile on his face and his right hand extended.
“Tony Herbert here,” he said and then walked right past me. I’d been so shocked I hadn’t extended my hand to shake his, not that he’d given me time.
Two other men moved around me and entered the living room. Both were technicians I noted, both wearing belts and carrying electronic equipment of some type or other.
“Go to work,” Herbert instructed them before turning back to me.
“They’re installing the listening devices required by the service. From now on all telephone calls coming into or going out of this place will be received and recorded at a distant location.”
“What the hell,” I breathed out. I was supposed to meet Herbert, my control officer, later on, according to Richard, but here he was.
“My wife’s not going to like this,” I said, wondering if my being so tired was causing me to offer almost no resistance to the man or this intrusion whatsoever.
“Your wife’s not going to know,” Herbert replied the same genuine but still strange smile playing across his facial features. “At least she won’t know unless she says something she shouldn’t.”
“My wife hasn’t signed aboard with the CIA or any other intelligence agency that I know of,” I replied, rather forcefully, not liking the direction things were taking right from the get-go.
“Hell, you haven’t signed aboard either, for that matter, but you’re aboard nevertheless,” Herbert said. “The paperwork will follow. Just the way it is.”
“Do I get to hear whatever’s said?” I asked, wanting to sit down but deciding that I wouldn’t let the big healthy guy in front of me see any weakness.
“Sure, they’ll leave a portal and show you how to use it any time you want.” Herbert laughed out loud when he said the words. “You can plug that cheap tape recorder you bought into the system and listen away but, having a bit more experience than you I’ll assure you that the listening will be boring as hell, or at least we all hope it will be.”
“You don’t trust me or my family?” I asked, in shock, not that the agency was going to listen to whatever was said but that Herbert knew all about the tape deck.
How could he or anyone in the agency have any idea about the existence of that machine, or, and the thought was a bit scary, about the tapes and what was on them?
“Welcome to the CIA, not that that’s important right now. I’m here about the plan.”
“What plan?” I asked, knowing I was sounding a bit dull and stupid.
“You just moved in,” Herbert replied, looking all around him. “You rent here and signed a lease, I presume before we could get together?”
I nodded, again dumbly.
“We’ll buy that out when your move is imminent, but we’ll get into that later. There’s also Charm School in New Jersey to schedule in, things whether you want to take your wife and daughter or have them precede you to your new place of residence.”
“New place of residence,” I murmured, still in shock. I’d been contemplating change and relieving myself of some of the problems I was shouldering but I was beginning to wonder about just how many new problems I would be replacing the old ones with. “Why can’t we just stay here?”
“No airport,” Herbert said, moving me toward the couch.
I knew I probably was as pale as a corpse. I wasn’t lightheaded but I also wasn’t myself.
“Airport?” I asked, sitting down and looking up at the elegant tall man standing in front of me.
“We’ve got to have you right close to a joint-use airport where civilian and military planes can land and take off without much incidence of observation and with plenty of runway. That’s not here.”
“Incidence,” I repeated, continuing to try to catch up with what the man was saying.
“You’ll need to get in and out from time to time,” Herbert replied, even though I hadn’t asked a question.
“The runway? That’s long because if you need to go someplace really fast then the kind of aircraft you’ll be in might need a considerable distance to take off or onto.”
My thoughts unavoidably turned to the kinds of planes that might fit into the classification Herbert was talking about but I couldn’t come up with a single model. It would have to take research since I wasn’t going to reveal anything to the man in front of me who’d taken over my new house and likely almost the entirety of my life for a twenty-thousand-dollar deposit.
“How do you feel, and how did it go with the cowboy up at the department?”
“I’m tired but okay, ”I replied, ignoring the part of his questioning that dealt with Gary Brown and the police department.
Without realizing it, I patted the pocket that held the bottle of pills Forsch had given me.
“Get rid of those, when you need something like them they’ll be provided and by a real doctor, not some small town backwoods hick.”
I jerked my hand down, embarrassed, and shocked. How could he know about the pills and how could he assume that I was thinking about taking some of them when I didn’t need to be taking them?
“Where?” I asked, trying to get away from any attention being paid to my consuming the pills.
“Where what?” Herbert replied, not meeting my eyes, instead continuing to examine everything he could see piled up in our living room
“Where are we moving to?” I said, becoming a little irritated that the man in front of me could know so much he shouldn’t have been able to know but at the same time act like a country bumpkin when it came to filling me in on what was going on.
“Albuquerque,” he finally replied, lowering his voice, as if there was anyone except his technicians to overhear us. “Ever heard of the place?”
“New Mexico,” I answered, again not understanding the direction of our conversation as Herbert had to know full well that I was likely well-schooled in geography and the culture I was living in.
The two men who had accompanied Herbert through the front door came out of the dining area they’d disappeared into earlier.
“Done here,” the leading man said, heading for the front door.
“Com check?” Herbert asked.
“Five by five,” the man replied, then went outside, followed by the second man.
“Okay,” Herbert said, turning to look at me, leaning back on the couch, and trying to breathe normally despite the growing anxiety I was feeling about having committed myself and my family to an outfit that seemed more like it was closer to being a part of the artifact’s existence rather than that of my species. “I’ll meet you at zero seven hundred on Saturday at Galloways, your favorite hangout and we’ll go over the paperwork and the other stuff, like the timing of all this.”
“The restaurant isn’t soundproof, or any of that,” I replied.
How in hell were we supposed to talk about such stuff inside a public restaurant I couldn’t fathom.
“Limo,” he said. “I’ll bring one of those leftover limos from the estate,” Herbert went on, his voice having grown softer. “All a bit much for you in your current condition but you’ll be back up to speed in no time. You’ll still be here to get your medal, not that you need any more of those. There are no medals in working with the agency, by the way, so you don’t have to be concerned about that kind of stuff anymore.”
I looked up at him and remembered hearing about him when he’d appeared on a television talk show. He had four Silver Stars, and then some. His expression and the look in his eyes told me that he knew all about the combined gift and curse of having such decorations.
“Saturday,” he said, before turning and going through the door without closing it behind him.
I got up and followed him out, stopping before I got to the car, now parked in my driveway, that they’d come in. I noted that, unlike service vehicles or even the police, they didn’t park at the curb to avoid being on private property. The CIA was different, and I’d have to get used to it.
“What about the first and last rent I’ve paid on this place?” I asked, more to put Herbert on the defensive rather than to seek compensation.
Herbert turned before getting into the back seat of the Chevy, which I recognized as being a four-door Impala, not unlike the two-door Caprice my wife was now driving but a whole lot cheaper and less plush.
“The agency will make you whole, as it will always do, but you may be both surprised and disappointed in how it goes about doing that.”
He got inside the Chevy and the car pulled out onto Lobos Marinos. There was no waving by anyone or any of that. Herbert had been social but the surprise meeting had been anything but. I turned to re-enter the house, the fact that everything was now being recorded changing the homey feel the place had had up until Herbert and the agency showed up. Bozo snaked around me as I closed the door, and took up his place atop the couch side table as if the new house was just like the old apartment, different but his to occupy and command.
“You should be the one in the CIA,” I said to the cat, making no move to pet him. Both of us knew that our close relationship had nothing to do with cuddles and cooing. It was a relationship not unlike what I hoped to build with the agency. Herbert had said nothing about what I could or could not tell my wife, other than it might be best not to tell her about the recording devices or how they worked, not that I knew myself.
I went upstairs and pulled out a pair of trousers and a long-sleeved shirt from a nearby packing box. The weather outside was warm, sunny, and inviting but I remained cold to the core. I knew it was my lung’s circulation of air but it didn’t feel that way.
The drive to Dana Point was without incident, although I knew along the way that I was going to have a hard time accommodating the fact that Mary was driving around in the Caprice while I was left to play second fiddle with the Volks.
I had to smile at the temerity she had in taking the car over, and doing so when I was at my weakest.
Paul’s car was parked right out in front of Straight Ahead. I pulled into the back side lot and went into the south side entrance, as always, but stopped once I got inside. I pulled the pill bottle out and held it clutched in my right hand as I went toward his office. I heard him talking on the phone as I stopped at his open door. He hung up the phone in mid-sentence, his eyes staring into my own as he sat back in his chair.
I leaned over his desk and set the pill bottle on the open area on the top of the desk in front of him before sitting down.
“What are those?” he asked, his whole presence remaining like it was when and after I’d confronted him about his meeting with my wife. Everything had changed between us and our patient/therapist relationship as well.
“50 one hundred milligram Demerol tablets,” I said, taking a deep breath.
“I was in the San Clemente fire and just got out of the hospital. They gave me those pills for the pain since I burned the lining of my esophagus and lungs, but I’ve had no pain.”
“You were in the fire and got hurt?” Paul asked, with a relaxing smile, realizing I wasn’t there to reprise the incident with my wife. “Why am I not surprised?” He leaned forward and picked up the bottle to examine it more closely.
“They’re all there,” I assured him. “I wanted to take some for a variety of reasons but haven’t.”
“Haven’t,” Paul said, looking back at me seriously, revolving the pill bottle in his hand. “That would pre-suppose you might be intending to take one or more of them in the future.”
“That’s why you have them,” I replied. “I’m here because I don’t understand why I want to take them. I’m not that weak. I’m not in pain, or any of that.”
“You want to escape from wherever you are,” he replied, putting the bottle down and leaning back again. “It’s why fully half the people who come here for substance abuse are here for that very reason.”
“What do I do?” I asked, feeling a bit like I did when I was in front of Herbert.
I didn’t want to admit that I hadn’t told my wife and I hadn’t followed up when Herbert revealed what he knew, or part of what he knew.
“You just did it,” Paul said, with a laugh. “You quit without starting, which is amazing. Now the job becomes how you remain that way since the option of this kind of temporary escape is just now occurring to you. You were in the hospital with these injuries?
“Yes,” I replied, wondering where Paul was going with the conversation.
“They gave you Demerol for the pain then?”
I nodded, beginning to understand.
“It took you back to the hospitals after you were shot. You escaped back then and that’s what’s triggered your ending up in front of me.”
I realized that I wasn’t done with Paul, not because he was anything near perfect but because he was all I had for such things. I knew my wife, the great counselor and loving woman that she was, would just be angry with me for even considering taking hard drugs to escape anything in my life. I needed to get what I could from Paul because it wasn’t likely I was going to find anybody like him in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
We were leaving a life we’d come to know to go to another we knew nothing about and I had to prepare us for the significant changes ahead. Much more important than escaping from anything I had to plunge myself into the coming change and get my wife’s support in doing so.
I got up and walked to the door. “I’ll be back on Tuesday, just like before,” I said, and then pointing at the pill bottle. “Do whatever it is with stuff like that patients give you.”
Paul laughed out loud, grabbing the bottle. “You’re the first patient to ever give me a supply like this, but I’m not really surprised about that.”
Jim Strauss and I worked together for many years during the period that this story covers and I have to admit I did a lot of the stuff with him just as he reports in the story. I didn’t have direct contact with the artifact but did know that some strange stuff was coming out of the nuclear plant and out from the Western White House. Jim and I used to run out to the plant almost every day together for years and I did work as a lifeguard when he was running the beach patrol. He also brought me into the life insurance business that I’m still in with Mass Mutual today! Mary, Julie, Michael and even the cat are just as he mentions and whom he treasures to this very day. We still talk all the time and laugh a bit about some of the antics of that interesting old time when we were together. I even married Alice, his secretary and we are still married to this day.
Thanks Bob, for being one of the ‘real’ people left to have been a player in those old days and also for the verification that a whole lot of this.
story really took place as some of it seems so bizarre now, in retrospect. Your assistance in those days and ever since has even without parallel.
Tom Thorkelson and Chuck Bartok are here regularly too although Gularte is out there somewhere but not chiming in, at least yet. Not everyone writes, as you know.
Thanks, and maybe the greatest thing I did in your life was to introduce you to Alice, my secretary of the time and your wife through all these years!
Semper fi, my great friend,
Jim
Great to hear from you, Bob.
I visit with your daughter Katie occasionally on Facebook. You and Jim were special to me during those days. It is fun reflecting on that time. Maybe sometime in the future, we can hook up again. I have visited Jim a few times in Lake Geneva and of course, we talk frequently.
well that was really interesting and great writing you pull people in you’ve got such a unique style it amazes me I’m sorry I didn’t read it until today but I have been completely consumed with anger and frustration at our former president and the way the courts are kissing his ass now I know there’s nothing I can do about it but it just bugs me I truly hate the man and I don’t use that word often but comes on the TV I change the channel I’ve stopped watching a lot of new shows or at least the time I spend with them on in the background I don’t know if it helps because you can’t avoid that worthless motherfucker wherever you go but I’m sorry you didn’t get to go through the Kilgallon tape for us that would’ve been very interesting the story about how you’re being on boarded in your new position is fascinating I have a question is this because you’re a field agent or if I were there is like a computer analyst or photographic analyst or some such position in Langley would it be more of a regular corporate environment regular paycheck etc. just curious great stuff Jim we need to talk soon
Thanks Richard for the usual interesting stuff you put up on here when you are not chasing windmills
on your trusty steed. No, compensation for real field agents was not standard, in that there was no direct
pay check. I think it’s still classified some how compensation was not only distributed but calculated.
There were shell companies and different ‘draw downs’ from cards owned by God knows who at that time.
I don’t know what they do now but protecting identities for real field personnel has probably gotten even
more difficult that it was back then, as technology and sleuthing capability has increased so much.
Semper fi, and thanks, my friend,
Jim
When Mary returns the first of many uncomfortable conversations are about to happen! My wife only asked I not take her to a particular northern city, well yes we ended up there much to her chagrin! We ended up making friends for life everywhere we went, the one bonus of moving about frequently.
You did two amazing things with the meds, quit before you started and went to speak to Paul to sort it out. I was given a pint of morphine to manage the ravages of radiation therapy. I never touched it, I like you was not willing to trade a future of dependancy and withdrawl for temporary relief of discomfort. I know exactly how hard that decision was to make, to knowingly deny immediate relief, for longer term success.
There is no option to push back, not if you want to move forward. My wife had a hard time coming to terms with my postings not being optional if I was to continue my career. I was told the same thing, “the Force did not hire your wife!”
Your writing has brought back so many memories about descisions made in the moment that i can only now start to understand the inputs and stress they caused.
Please keep up the great work! I am ever hopeful that you were able to bring some sense of closure to the dwarfs about thier work and emotional connection to the fate of the marines. There are still a few files that haunt me as we couldn’t bring them through to prosecution though we know the suspect.
Knowing and proving are often separated by emotion alone, the temptation to merge the two is always disastrous.
“Maintiens Le Droit” and be “Deas Gu Cath”
Cheers
Jamie
Thanks for that great posting on here James. I always look forward to what you may be writing and I can’t thank you enough for being
so personal and open about what it is you write…whether opinions about my work or the integration into your opinions with your
own life experience. Thanks so very much.
Semper fi,
Jim
Mr. Strauss, Sir,
When I read the part about the guys setting up the listening devices in your home I felt violated. I really can’t begin to imagine the intensity of that feeling you must have experienced. Also, I am in no way trained as a writer, but your ending to this chapter seems brilliant. Starting where you write – “I realized that I wasn’t done with Paul” – for me, just puts an ideal finishing touch on this chapter and has me leaning into your next chapter.
The listening devices became an issue a little later on in the story but you are right about
feeling violated. In truth, however, combat PTSD does have some good effects on one’s future, and one of them
is that you almost never feel violated again in life. The violations at ever level that took place in the heat
of battle are there forever. Thanks for ‘leaning it’ as that’s quite a compliment.
Semiper fi,
Jim
Wow, tough situation you find yourself in @ the end of this chapter. You know too much to end your relationship with the “company “ & if you tried how would you deal with the tapes & artifact in your possession. How will your wife react to the latest revelations & how much of it will you reveal to her? Much to reveal in the coming chapters. Keep them coming.
Good move w/the pain killers. I have been prescribed them in the past but didn’t take them. My friend’s son was assaulted & was prescribed oxy & became addicted eventually taking an overdose that killed him.
So sorry to hear about your friend’s son. Such a tough way to lose a child, but then there’s no easy way.
Thanks for the great supportive and contemplative comment. The complexity of it all didn’t seem to strike me
that way when I was all happening.
Semper fi,
Jim
Mysteries, mysteries, how they do abound. LT is it possible that Agatha Christie was your Mom?
Thanks, Joe, for the comparison. Love Chritie’s work, of course. Much appreciate the comment…
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim,
Life seems to come to you at warp speed.
Now compliments of the CIA.
Thanks for another great chapter of the goings on in your yo-yo life.
Keep ’em coming!
THE WALTER DUKE. Thanks Walter and yes, it was ruching at me at flank speed during those halcyon days and nights.
Semper fi,
Jim
There are no medals in working with the agency, but the way, so you don’t
*by the way,
I remained cold to the core. I knew it was my lunch circulation of air but it didn’t feel that way.
*it was my lack of
Thanks, as usual, for the help here Don! Without my online editors I’d be deeply in syntax hell….
Semper fi,
Jim
Love it, starting a new life in a new place, can’t wait to start reading the next chapter! Keep up the great work !!
Thank you for the support and the compliment!
Semper fi,
Jim
Some of the more difficult decisions are determined by circumstances we believe are beyond our ability but yet know they must be made. Strength of character will determine the outcome, took me decades to realize what I had all along!
Well done LT.
Living inside the life is so much less complex than reliving on into a future when experience and time allow for much
more contemplation when it comes to those old decisions made int he heat of things.
Thanks for the nice compliment and the depth of your writing here…
Semper fi,
Jim
I’ve been reading your online work since somewhere near the Git-Go, seems like a few years ago. Never disappointed, always a great read! Ever looking forward to the next chapter.
Keep ‘em flyin’ , Leatherneck!!
An old swabby,…
Can’t thank you enough David…and I shall continue to endeavor to persevere..
Semper fi,
Jim
Lt. Colonel Anthony B. Herbert .US Army Retired. Most decorated soldier of the Korean War . A native of Herminie Pennsylvania five miles from where I grew up and yes I knew who he was . Strangely the VFW Post there is not named after him. Early on during the Vietnam War he was a polarizing figure among the local veterans due to his gung ho attitude towards the war . Then when it made the news that he was being screwed over by the Army due to his revelations of war crimes and the cover up by his superiors, the Vietnam Vets and the few who weren’t behind him originally, suddenly got his back one hundred percent. I can’t say this is one of my more enjoyable chapters for the memories it brings up from all those years ago of what small town life was like during the Vietnam War and how divisive it was.
Chuck, I am sorry to have brought up discomforting memories like this. I have never seen anywhere that Tony was with the CIA nor why
or how he became a control officer in field operations. Unfortunately, the personal information that passes between agents int eh field and those bridging the gap with the home office isn’t personal, at least not very personal. Tony did love the first part of the first manuscript I wrote of 30 Days and did refer me to his publisher of the time…but the publisher came back and wanted all reference to racial problems removed from the text and I couldn’t or wouldn’t do that. I also thought art the publisher wasn’t exactly with Toney’s detractors and did not see Tony as the hero he really was. I liked everything about the man, although I was soon to move beyond having a regular control officer in the agency. Thanks for personalizing your own knowledge of the man and writing the truth on here.
Semper fi,
Jim
I would have have to reread Tonys book Soldier to see if he mentions being recruited by the CIA. But it was either mentioned there or in a series of articles written in our local newspaper the Greensburg Tribune Review , which I still have somewhere ; when the story broke about his case against his superiors . My younger sisters father and mother in law grew up with Tony and his family as did my best friends father and his family . None of them ever had anything negative to say about the Herbert Family . If you drove through the town of Herminie today you would find it quite unremarkable like all Western Pennsylvania coal mining towns except for two other facts , the first being it is also the hometown of the “Homicide Hunter” Joe Kenda and for a while it was in the Guinness Book Of World Records for having the most bars per capita which the residents take a perverse pleasure in acknowledging ! LOL
Like most of the control officers in the agency who dealt with actual field agents, I don’t think Tony ever served any time in the field at all.
I wrote once about Hillman, one of my former control agents, and violating all the rules and taking him on an actual mission. He almost got himself and the rest of us killed. Not exactly like that Robert Redford movie would have one believe! Anyway, thanks for the great background material and putting git up on here!
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
I will be leaving for vacation this weekend , but if I can get into my attic at my other house this afternoon I will look for Tonys book Soldier and take it with me for another reread . That should clear up any mysteries surrounding his involvement with the “Company” Strange though that his difficulties with the Army didn’t preclude his employment with the “Company” did it ?
Not strange at all, now that I know what I know…as it’s not about what you know or what you’ve done in the agency or outside of it.
It’s about what they need and what you may provide to get it.
There are total sins but most are evened and overlooked or noted only they might effect the mission.
Tony was also an impressive man in many other ways.
Semper fi,
Jim
Now I know I have to dig out his book and reread in light of what this chapter has revealed about Tony to me . There were things that he wrote about when I read them just seemed to me that he was doing something that was “off the books” for the Army and now I realize that maybe he was already in some kind of arrangement with the Company . It’s very likely at the time he wrote the book he had to portray the activities he related in such a way that made it look as if they were Army sanctioned activities . But who knows ? He is gone and those who gave him the orders are most likely gone too and if there is any paper trail none of us will ever see it .
You are one smart, clever and class act Mr. Bolam, and I have much enjoyed, and continue to enjoy, the part in my life you have
chosen to give yourself. Thank you!
Semper fi,
Jim
I found the book and found the passage where Tony got involved with the Company and it started in 1965 during the crisis in the Dominican Republic and blossomed so to speak from there . According to him he was doing things for the State Department , the Pentagon , the Army , Navy and Marine Corps all at the same time ! These things pertained to the Middle East and Africa . So what a tangled web we weave huh ?
Thanks for the confirmation, Charles, as sometimes it’s probably pretty easy to think I’m making all this up.
Yes, he was agency all right, as I lived it with him, although I don’t think he remained in the control officer position for
very long as I had moved on into direct White House work.
Most people would never understand just how many people the agency employs.
Or how difficult it is for field agents to know anybody else, or even other field agents.
Thanks for that research and help.
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
Very interesting, you live a life filled with adventure and danger. I love this part of your life. Thank you for sharing. I tried to send you some money but it kept saying that my email was not accepted.
James, thank you very much. This is an expensive undertaking which I never knew was going to be that way but I’ve had a lot of help from people like you. The email address is antaresproductions@charter.net or antaresproductions@gmail.com for PayPal. Thanks for that thought and also for whatever you might want to do financially. Much appreciate the compliment you are paying me in considering this as well as wbout what you’ve written about the work.
Semper fi,
Jim
The writing advice I have been given suggests I simplify and remove vague and unusual word…what the hell is “lassitude”? Most aircraft that are underpowered or not designed for eventual carrier landings make up for weight restrictions, heat, humidity and altitude with runway….in the military parlance, Air Force! But I guess you have learned that….
I wonder if the CIA isn’t even more unworldly that the artifact?
I feel cheated!
The CIA is truly ‘alien’ sometimes, but much of that is determined by the mission and by the people implementing that mission.
But then, by association, you have learned that, I presume…
Thanks, Colonel, and my great friend…
Semper fi,
Jim
Oh but what a tangled web you have been woven into!!! You may feel tired and sluggish, but things around you are moving at light speed!! I can’t even think about how this is going to turn out and can only wait until the next chapter, Semper fi sir and keep on a keeping on!!
Thank you most sincerely Bob, as comments like your very own here help me to smile and then keep on writing away.
Semper fi
Jim
Wow, Jim! When your plot deepens, you don’t just go for a leisurely swim – you dive off some mile-high cliff! And I believe it had that effect on you, also. Can’t wait to see the effect on your wife! Here you two have found a nifty home, and survived an historical fire – and now you get to trek off into a dry, arid climate away from your Eden!
Going to be a difficult week waiting to learn Mary’s reaction – and that of Bozo! Reminds me of my dad’s getting orders to the Philippines after less than a year in Coronado back in ’56.
Adventures are a-coming!
Craig, my friend, tumult is the only word that seems to fit, and I was trying to make my family fit into the ever-changing framework of my life’s pursuit…and I didn’t know what that pursuit really was!
Thanks for the great comment and the keeping on keeping on for all of us on here.
Semper fi, my friend
Jim
From one deep mystery to another level which I wonder if you can control. The invasion upon the family must cause great concern as they should not be involved. Still the nature of the ” beast ” has hit them as well. So much left to understand by all now involved wither they wish to or not seems beyond control.
Family is often denied, by both the military and the intelligence services. One of the old expressions int he when Marine enlisted guys brought up the difficulties their wives were going through was “if the Corps thought you needed a wife it would have issued you one.” The family is always involved and the less you tell the family about the work the more likely you are to end up with none.
Semper fi, and great comment.
Jim
James, Bozo the CIA cat. That fits. Definitely a unique culture. We shall learn more as you report your experiences.
I’m amazed you want to experiment with the artifact.
Some minor editing suggestions follow:
Even Mary running around South Coast Shopping Center up in Santa Ana, with Mary, Nancy (Mike Manning’s girlfriend, and Alice, my new secretary sounded like it was well beyond my capability.
Two instances of “Mary” Seems the second is unnecessary.
Drop comma after “Ana”
Close parenthesis after “girlfriend”
Add comma after “secretary”
Even Mary running around South Coast Shopping Center up in Santa Ana with Nancy (Mike Manning’s girlfriend) and Alice, my new secretary, sounded like it was well beyond my capability.
ALTERNATIVELY could use parentheses around (my new secretary) to match rest of sentence.
Even Mary running around South Coast Shopping Center up in Santa Ana with Nancy (Mike Manning’s girlfriend) and Alice (my new secretary) sounded like it was well beyond my capability.
ALTERNATIVELY Don’t use parentheses. Instead use commas.
Even Mary running around South Coast Shopping Center up in Santa Ana with Nancy, Mike Manning’s girlfriend, and Alice, my new secretary, sounded like it was well beyond my capability.
I couldn’t even remember laying back on the bed
“lying” instead of “laying”
I couldn’t even remember lying back on the bed
sufficient energy to do much of anything but sit or lay around
“lie” rather than “lay”
sufficient energy to do much of anything but sit or lie around
leave a portal and show you how to use it any time you want,”
Seems period after “want” is better.
leave a portal and show you how to use it any time you want.”
kind of aircraft you’ll be in might take a considerable distance to get off or onto
Maybe reword to “takeoff or land”
kind of aircraft you’ll be in might take a considerable distance to take off or land.
as if there was anyone except for his technicians
Maybe drop “for”
as if there was anyone except his technicians
paperwork and the other stuff, like the time of all this
Maybe “timing” instead of “time”
paperwork and the other stuff, like the timing of all this
The restaurant isn’t soundproof
Open quotes
“The restaurant isn’t soundproof
no medals in working with the agency, but the way
“by” instead of “but”
no medals in working with the agency, by the way
I knew it was my lunch circulation of air
/I’m thinking there should be another word instead of “lunch” but I’m not coming up with it. My guess is it has to do with lack of respiratory efficiency./
Blessings & Be Well
Experimenting with the artifact wasn’t anything other than a base visceral need. Not rational nor smart, but unavoidable at the time.
I believe the super collider running today, called CERN in Europe, was causal in funding the need for it and also the understanding that, so far,
we know so little about how the universe is organized or operated. Thanks of rite meaning fun help all along the way here.
Semper fi,
Jim
incidence of observation… I have a feeling that terminology may apply to many more things in your future with your new job !!
Now off to New Mexico for who knows what !!??
Good chapter James, keep ’em coming 😉
Semper Fi
I do continue on, as this last chapter was my 54th without a break and I am still all over producing more.
Semper fi, and thanks for the compliments….
Jim