Wing proceeded out to the busy street from the alley we’d been huddled in and ran toward the closest taxi, brilliant red.
I stared at the door of the taxi and was stunned as I backed into the building wall on the other side of which was the room of cages I’d slept or been unconscious in. My head still hurt terribly but everything I’d lost in memory came rushing back. I was in Hong Kong and not in Seoul where I was supposed and promised to be delivered to. The writing on the side of the cab was in Mandarin and not in Hangul, the alphabetical lettering system used in Korea and there were no red cabs in Seoul that I’d seen.

“Taxi waiting,” Wong yelled into my right ear and I shook my head, trying to get myself together.

What was I doing in Hong Kong? I should have guessed when I saw the Marlboro man advertisement occupying the entire end of the downtown runway, but I had not. There was no one to question as Wing Wong gave every appearance of being the destitute street person he was, which also included me as I examined just how bad a shape my clothing was in. There would be no getting credit to go to the only hotel I knew, which was the Regent on the harbor. I needed cash and there was only one place I knew I might get it. I allowed Wing to take me by the arm and almost literally drag me to the bright red machine.

“Where we go?” Wong asked, shoving me into the back seat before getting in and slamming the door.

“U.S. Embassy,” I whispered out, hoping against hope I was right, or the cage I’d stayed the night in would likely be much more comfortable than what the police might do with a foreign vagrant and thief without any identification.

“My cow dash khan,” Wing instructed the driver.

“Where the hell is that?” I asked, not comprehending the meaning of what Wing said at all.

“Meigo dashe guan,” means American embassy in Mandarin,” Wing said, speaking to me like I was some sort of damaged young student.

The taxi took off in first gear, the two side open windows blowing wafting outside air into the interior, but not sufficient enough to quell or lessen the penetrating harshness of the gangi all the drivers smoked when not driving. The mix of hashish, tobacco, and whatever else they used to cut the mix was simply awful, sometimes so bad that clothing worn during a ride had to be thrown away rather than simply cleaned or laundered.

I had been a Marine and still was a Marine Officer, no matter what circumstance had befallen me. There was only one place I could go for help that reached into my very core. The United States Marine Corps and there was one place where the presence of that organization would be very evident and located on what was to be treated as American soil…and that meant my only hope was to get to the Marine detachment located at the embassy. The ride was awful, the gangi smoke smell adding to the headache that wouldn’t moderate, the driver all over the road, and the air filled with moisture and dust both somehow present together.

The car finally stopped and Wing jumped out to talk to the driver. I moved slower but once on my feet the sight of the two Marine guards, dressed in their special duty blues, brought fiber back into my muscles, mind, and soul. I straightened up and headed for the gate where the two men stood, as if in wait of my arrival.

I stopped and gripped the black vertical bars with both hands, stared into one of the Marine’s eyes, and said only two words.

“Detachment commander,” I said the words cold and hard, not in question but also not without directed power.

I brought my hands down to my sides and stood close to the position of attention but not as stiff. I was a commander and not in front of the men to be commanded.
 
The corporal of the two took a few seconds to take me in, but no matter my disheveled appearance and unappointed arrival made a decision.

“Yes, sir,” he said, turning and heading back into the facility behind him.
The other Marine stared straight ahead, knowing I was in front of him but seeming not to notice. The corporal returned seconds later, telling me he’d done some running to get to where he needed to get and still make it back so quickly.

“Staff Sergeant Norman, the detachment commander is en route sir,” the corporal said, returning to his former position next to the other Marine.

I waited, my head killing me, but I made no move to rub it or do anything else except hold my position. I was not prey and I had no intention of being taken for that.

“Jesus Christ,” I heard a voice from behind a stand of nearby tall bushes exclaim. “Get him inside, he’s one of us.”

“Understood staff sergeant,” the corporal replied racing toward the locked double gates that protected the external part of the embassy grounds.

I waited for the corporal to approach without moving, expecting to be frisked and searched but the corporal made no move to do that, instead motioning me to follow him.

“Corporal, the taxi is waiting for cash payment and I have nothing. He brought me here because he believed he’d be paid when I got here. Can you manage that somehow and also give him a tip? I’ll make your fund good just as soon as I get my stuff back, and my wingman, a local is out there too, and I need him held out here until I return for him.” I’d almost smiled at my usage of the word wing to describe Wing but didn’t. It was not a smiling situation I was in.

“Aye aye, sir,” the corporal answered, without asking anything or saying another word, until turning to the private with him. “Raid the cash drawer change and take care of the cab. Make sure you get a chit from the driver and then bring the local out there to me.”

The private took off back toward the building without responding to the corporal in any way. A tall staff sergeant stepped from behind the bushes and quickly walked up to me.

“What in hell happened to you?” he asked when he stood before me.

“You know me?” I asked, in surprise.

“I was at detachment Seoul as deputy but now have the command here, which is kind of lucky for you. I remember you as being a rather difficult sort there. Tell me your story while we get inside. You need a shower, clothing and God knows what else. You smell like a cheap marijuana cigarette.”
I abruptly stopped walking and turned around.

“I can’t get cleaned up here or go inside,” I said. “I’ve got to get to the Regent. I can’t really remember much but I think my stuff might all be there if I can get there. I need more money to pay for the taxi. Can you do that and I’ll have it back in less than an hour.”

“You can use the staff car and driver if you need it,” Sergeant Norman offered, waving his hand toward a black sedan parked nearby.

I knew that staff car and I was sure I’d remember the man who’d given me whatever he’d given me. I felt like I was inside a lion’s den and if the lion figured that out then I might get a whole lot worse than some sleeping potion.

“Just the financial help,” I said, heading for the gate.

The embassy was not a busy place at that hour of very early morning which meant I had to make sure the taxi didn’t leave without me.

“I’ll be right back, sir,” the staff sergeant replied,

He did not comment on my refusal of the staff car thereby making me feel a bit better about being able to get out of there and somehow recover myself at the Regent if indeed I was checked into that hotel. It was a long shot, although my memory of some things was returning. I thought through the pain. I hadn’t been rolled and assaulted as I’d suspected earlier. No, I’d partied with a group of businessmen who had taken me up and down Nathan Street, the main road in and around the downtown area of Kowloon. I could remember drinking the bad white wine and the crazy fireworks and even a parade of oversized monster-like creatures that had taken a special interest in the only American working in and out of the passing parade creatures. Whatever drug I’d been given hadn’t been given to me for disablement or to make me pass out. No, the drug had turned me into a party animal and I had done all of that into the night. The staff sergeant appeared once more coming out of the bushes like we were having some sort of amateur clandestine adventure.

“Here’s seven hundred Hong Kong, which is about two hundred dollars,” he said, pushing the pile of bills into my right hand which I’d brought up for that purpose. “If you can have it back sometime today I’d be most appreciative.”

“Thanks sergeant,” I said sincerely, wanting to shake his hand in gratitude but couldn’t because his hand was occupied in saluting me. I nodded to accept the salute, turned, and moved as quickly as I could through the gates and out toward where the taxi sat, still waiting.”

Wing surprised me by opening the passenger door from the inside.

“I thought that Marine took you into the embassy,” I said, getting in beside him while pushing a couple of the Hong Kong hundreds into his chest. “Pay the driver,” I instructed.

“I have Aikido training, so he could not take me,” Wing said, handing one of the hundreds to the driver and pocketing the other.

“The Marine had a .45 Colt,” I replied, shaking my head which was beginning to clear and no longer beating like a drum from the valley of my past.

“Where?” Wing said, changing the idiotic subject.

“Regent Hotel,” I replied.

“The flagship of the island,” Wing breathed out, before yelling the hotel’s name up to toward where the driver sat.

“Nguyen and Kingsley,” I said to myself, as the taxi took off.

“Never been to flagship before never get in either.”

“You will this time,” I said, watching the glitter of Nathan Road passing by, hoping that my friends would show up there as well as all my things

The turn into the Regent was like turning into a different world. The fountain was Las Vegas, the décor more Mediterranean while the walkways were terrazzo tile old Mexico. Giant glass doors stood closed to the lobby, each door guarded by a tall Asian man, like they were twins, which they may well have been.

“He’s paid enough,” Wing said, following me out the door an attendant had been standing by to open instead of waiting for his door to be opened.

“Follow me,” I said.

“I follow,” Wing replied, causing me to glance back at him briefly, our roles now totally reversed from when I’d stood waiting to get the taxi outside the cage house.

I walked up to the door, expecting to be questioned, but the attendant didn’t delay in slowly opening the huge heavy glass thing.

“Welcome home,” he said, as I expected, now having learned that likely all the five-star hotels used the same expression for their returning guests.

How the man knew I was a returning guest I could not understand but it made me feel like there was a great chance that I was a guest of the place.

Once inside I walked straight to the front desk which had no customers standing in front of it. The young lady smiled and waited without saying anything. The place was all class.

“I’m a guest but I need my room number and a key,” I said, not embarrassed but still deeply worried. “I lost my identity papers last night, as well.”

The woman looked at me closely for a few seconds before responding.

“Your passport is here where we keep it from check-in, so you still have that,” she began. “Your room is on the seventh floor, which has no numbers as the suites are in the guest’s names as if you own. An attendant will take you to your attendant.”

“What?” I said, “My attendant has an attendant?” I asked, my head still feeling like it wasn’t working right.

“No, sir,” the woman replied with a big genuine smile. “Your room has an attendant outside your door at all hours of the day and night. And your friends are waiting in the restaurant for your return when you come down from your room…after freshening up a bit.”

“I have a friend with me here,” I said, motioning to where Wing stood nearby, shivering from the air conditioning which was comfortable to me but not to him, totally unused to such a luxury.

“He is your guest to do with what you please, as he is of no consequence to our establishment.” The woman’s smile had disappeared as fast it had appeared earlier. Her disapproval of everything Wing evidenced was cold and clear.

A uniformed man appeared nearby and bowed. I presumed him to be our attendant or at least mine.

I turned to accompany him, checking to make sure Wing was following.

“I follow,” Wing said, although he pronounced the word in such a fashion it made him sound that he was accompanying more than following.

The elevators were similar to those all over Asia, as I was discovering. They dinged a musical note at each floor as the elevator passed. At first, I found the sounds annoying but then got used to them and found them somehow calming and pleasing. I wondered by no elevators in the U.S. were built with that feature as part of them.

We got out of the elevator and the attendant motioned us toward the end of the hall where another man wearing the same cream-colored uniform but also wearing a bellman’s hat was standing.

As we approached our elevator attendant faded back down the hall. The new attendant pointed at a brass plate that was fastened to the wall next to the door. The plate had my name carved into its surface. I stared. I could not have been more impressed, almost to the point of embarrassment. What was going on? My memory had returned enough for me to remember a small room down near the bottom of the elevator shafts not what had to lay beyond the door I was standing in front of about to enter a room that bore my name in brass on the wall next to it.

“You Taipan,” Wing whispered, more to himself than to me or the attendant.

The attendant opened the door, and I stepped inside. The room was not a room it was a series of rooms with the biggest in front of me. That room was bigger than the entire floor plan of my Albuquerque home and the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, each sealed one next to the other by some fantastic glue held the entire spread out below with the main city of Hong Kong on the other side of the water.

The attendant spoke from behind me.

“Mr. Burns will see you Here in an hour from now,” he said.

“Mr. Burns?” I asked.

“Robert Burns, the Regents owner,” the attendant said, bowing when he said the name.

“I see,” was all I could get out.

The attendant backed to the door and then exited the room closing it behind him. When the latch quietly caught I turned to look over at Wing, standing and gawking out the expansive windows.

“You are the Taipan, for certain,” he said, without turning.

I knew that the word meant about the same in China as that of the president or great leader in the U.S. culture.

“I’m not taipan or The Taipan, Wing,” I said to him

“Maybe not if you going to see Mr. Burns, no…but Mr. Burns coming to see you. You Taipan.”

I knew there was no arguing with the man or his logic. He’d helped me through a difficult period, and I owed him and part of that owing was to not treat him like he was ignorant, a vagrant, or a penniless hobo, all of those things which he certainly was.

Moving to stand next to Wing and hypnotically stare through the amazingly large and clear glass was more mesmerizing than hypnotic. I pulled myself away physically and turned toward the door. It opened as if by magic and my room attendant stepped across the threshold and stopped.

“Mr. Burns would accept an audience now,” he said as if he’d been raised to speak a British rendition of formal English, which he probably had.

How was I to say no to such a man? Even though I hadn’t stripped showered, cleaned myself up, and gathered my friends back to me I could not turn the man away, not standing in such a room after what I’d been through.

Without a response from me being immediately forthcoming, a medium height medium build Caucasian man walked through the door. His hair was completely white even though his years didn’t indicate he was old enough for such a color. My room attendant once more backed out and then closed the door.

Burns walked towards me with his right hand out and a big smile on his face, while Wing moved quickly to the side of the huge room, like Nguyen might have done in his place.

I held out my hand and he took it, gripping it firmly but not too firmly.

“You’ve gotten yourself an unkind Hong Kong welcome, I see,” the man said, dropping his hand along with his smile.

“I had a hard night,” I offered.

“They sent you to do a ticklish job for me and your kind, so I wonder…well, in looking at you, when you might be up to it?”

My brain was back up to full speed with my memory of the night before coming in breaking waves. Immediately, no matter the furnishing of a fabulous room and warm welcome, I didn’t want to admit anything, particularly the fact that I had no idea at all why I was in Hong Kong or what the ‘ticklish’ job might be. Somehow, any communication I had with Herbert had been severed, and I badly needed to know what it was I was supposed to do and what assets I could bring to bear to do it. I needed time, and Burns was right, I had to get cleaned up, rejoin my friends, and get on the phone with Herbert. I wasn’t about to accept any instructions from a super-wealthy businessman I’d never met or even heard of.

“A pleasure meeting you,” I replied, trying to think of what I might say not to screw things up that I knew nothing about. “Is there some individual I’m to encounter when we meet again later today?”

“Yes, good guess, it’s an old acquaintance of yours, or at least I was led to believe that. The name’s Werner Erhard.”

I stood motionless, a bit transfixed by the unreality of my current circumstance, and then my thoughts sent my mind rushing back in time. I was not an acquaintance of the originator of the cultish structured following called EST, but I knew him. I’d met Erhard years before when I was a part of the Western White House crew but not supposedly because of my connection to the people I worked among there.

One day, following a shift on the beach patrol I’d been approached by San Clemente lifeguard close friends, Bob Elwell and Steve Bro. The association of lifeguards, a loosely held-together outfit at the time, wanted to support this new movement of EST that was transforming people’s lives. They invited me to a meeting which I agreed to attend. When they took me along, which I found strange until later after the meeting, I realized they’d taken me to ensure that I went. The meeting turned out to be a huge one with at least three hundred people present inside the Anaheim Convention Center.

The meeting had started with a motivational speaker with a misshapen head. He began by indicating that he’d backed into a spinning plane propeller as a child but been saved by miraculously God-provided surgeons. Aside from the appearance of his head, which he used to his advantage, he was a gifted motivational speaker and I was impressed. The presentation was intended to sell the audience on attending a full-scale seminar about the life-changing effects of gaining ‘Estian’ control over life for a fee of only six hundred dollars. He encouraged questions to be asked at any time by the raising of a questioner’s hand, whereby an attendant would get his immediate attention.

I sat with my lifeguard friends, displeased at being brought to a sales seminar without my knowledge or approval. The presenter drew a huge circle on his giant chalkboard and then made a small pie shape coming out from the center of the circle. He claimed this slice to be all those things that “you know you know,” like two and two are four, and so on. Next, he drew a larger slice and said that was all the things you know you don’t know, like quantum theory and more. Finally, he took his chalk and drew a circular line from the edge of the second slice to come back up to the top. “These are the things don’t know that you don’t know, and that is what you’ll learn from joining the seminar.”

I raised my hand, and being the only questioner, an attendant came right to me. He caught the presenter’s attention.

“We have a question,” the man said into his microphone and then pointed at me.

“You forgot the pie shape of those things you know that you don’t want to know like seeing a headless person from a car accident or…” but I got no further before he interrupted me.

“Please can we have only serious questions?” the man asked the audience as two attendants quickly grabbed my arms and ushered me to the hall at the back of the giant room.

I pulled my arms loose and the attendants stepped back and waited while another man approached.

“Can you come with me?” he asked. “You won’t be sorry if you meet the man waiting to see you,” he followed up with, motioning toward a nearby doorway with the door hanging open.

Grudgingly, I entered what turned out to be a small office, with a television monitor mounted on the wall. The monitor was showing the presentation going on in the big room I’d just been pulled from. A tall distinguished man stood behind the desk, leaning forward and extending his right hand. The man’s face was wedge-shaped, his nose fine and long, but his penetrating eyes projected power and also a strange but seemingly well-meaning spirit behind them.
I took his hand but remained standing, as did he.

“You come recommended by a friend of yours and you didn’t disappoint out there with the neophytes,” the man said, a small smile forming on his lips as he said the last word.

“You’re ejecting me from the meeting?” I asked, wondering why I was seeing this man instead of simply being ushered to the building’s exit.

“Inducted not ejected,” the man said, with a genuine laugh as he sat down and waved me to the only chair in front of his desk. I wondered, as I took the seat if he ever saw more than one person at a time.

“What you asked as a question out there’s never been asked before but it was as germane as all get out. I need men like you who think outside of and even beyond the box, and this isn’t your first example of that I’m sure.”

“I have a job,” I replied and then waited for whatever might come next.

“We’ll see. That’s it. You can go back to the meeting or home or wherever. Don’t forget the offer and you’ll figure out how to find me if you want to.” The man stood up and I followed suit.

When I was in the hall with the two men once again accompanying me, I asked only one question of them.

“Who was that?”

“Werner Erhard, the leader, the genius and creator of EST, the greatest organization on earth.”

My mind jerked back into the present in recalling those words, and Robert Burns still stood before me. I’d never gotten hold of Erhard as my life simply hadn’t been headed in any direction that might dovetail with what I saw as a cult, not a movement nor any kind of normal organization.

“Okay, Mr. Burns, here’s what’s got to happen, after I get cleaned up. I have to reach the man who sent me here, then meet with my friends having breakfast, take care of Wing Wong here, and get him clothes, money, a job and someplace okay to stay, and then we don’t have a lot of time to meet again and decide what it is I am likely to be doing.

I looked down at my wrist to see what the time was, but my Seiko was gone, along with my other personal stuff.

“They took my watch, my wallet, my Mont Blanc pen but at least your hotel saved my passport. Thank you.”

Robert Burns smiled, his eyes twinkling. “We’ll take care of the watch, the wallet, and the pen. You go do all those other things. I already know you’re on a very tight schedule with your project back in the States. I’ll see you back here in an hour.” He pointed at Wing Wong and then pointed at the door.
Wing rushed to the closed door and waited.

Burns turned and walked towards the closed door to the suite. The door opened before him, with Wing following closely, as if by magic. They both walked through the opening, Wing only briefly glancing back. My attendant closed it behind them without so much as the locking mechanism making the slightest of sounds.

I wondered if I would ever see Wing again, what Herbert was going to tell me when I got him on the phone, but most of all what it was that had reconnected me with a man who I’d only had a few words with eight years before. I needed badly to talk to my wife, but that would have to wait until I knew whatever it was that I was supposed to do. I also knew it would be damned difficult to say no when stuck in a hotel holding my only means of identification, money, or anything else, despite Burns’ promise and solid and powerful position in Hong Kong.

I also didn’t understand why Burns had mentioned money. I hadn’t indicated that I had two thousand U.S. on me and some Hong Kong dollars as well when I’d been drugged. There was something between Burns, Erhard, the embassy contact, and maybe even Wing, and I had no clue what it might be, or if it was even linked together.

Stripping and climbing into the thankfully sumptuous and wonderfully hot shower, my mind revolved around a sentence used by the famous science fiction author Robert Heinlein. As with the title of one of his greatest novels, I was truly a ‘stranger in a strange land.’

I dried off and changed into my only remaining outfit, my blue suit going back to what I’d worn at the Western White House. It reminded me of a suspicion I’d had when exiting from Erhard’s office so long ago. He’d known about my connection to Nixon. Burns had to know about my connection to the Agency. Was it something Burns wanted from Erhard or something Erhard wanted from him and why did the Agency care? I got dressed and promised myself that I would not get separated from Nguyen and Kingsly again until I got back to the continental USA.

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