I made it to the parking lot but had to turn back as Kingsley had my keys and I’d left no instructions for any of the staff or my men, much less the four new quasi-agents for the insurance operation. One of those agents was quite something I’d briefly heard. Joan Ryan. It was being said that she was a female version of me, which didn’t make me feel more manly at all.
Once back inside, there was nowhere to hide or run, which is what I wanted to do because Allen Weh was standing halfway down the hall, thinking, in shape, languid in style, with one foot up behind him pressed into the wall. He looked at me and waited, making no move to do anything but that. He was an impressive man, but dangerous as all get out as far as I was concerned.
“And….,” I began, but didn’t get to say any more.
“Learjet 55 cost on the used market is just under a million for a good one. We bout two for your purpose and funded by God only knows whom,” he said, a toothpick sticking out of one of his gold incisor crowns, which would have been very weird looking on anybody else but not him.
“Great,” I replied, noncommittally, not wanting to give him anything.
“We need a Challenger, however, and they tell me that the funding authority is not set up to provide the cost of that or the crew or the maintenance, much less the hangar to keep it in.” Weh took his toothpick out, twisted it, and then set it back in between two of his upper front teeth. “If we have to evacuate a patient or patients long range and from difficult airport facilities, then we need the size and power to do that. The Lears are just not that tough. We need short take-off and landing capability of under three thousand feet, hard landing capability, range beyond three thousand miles, and altitude above forty thousand. That’s about twelve million.”
“I suppose you’re going to tell me why we need this thing for International SOS?” I asked, even though I didn’t want to. I was getting the distinct impression that Weh was using his association with me and the Agency to his own advantage.
“Office,” he said, moving off the wall and walking to my office doorway.
Once inside the room, I closed the door and stood, as Weh sat in my swivel chair.
“Is this one of those power moves businesspeople use to intimidate lesser players?” I asked.
“Nah, I’m just relaxing and wondering what it’s like to be you,” he replied, stretching out his arms and looking around.
I had to sigh, and then relax. Kris Anderson would have been so much easier and more comfortable to encounter rather than what was sitting in my chair, but you have to play the hand you’re dealt.
“How big is the Challenger?” I asked, sitting in one of the straight-back subordinate seats.
“Oh, twenty tons or so,” Weh answered, clasping his hands behind his neck and leaning back.
“You didn’t come to see me to requisition a jet. You’d have sent a piece of paper. What’s on your mind, and how do you want to insidiously insert yourself into this? Spell it out, as I’ll find out anyway. You wouldn’t be sitting here if you didn’t need me to pull it off.”
“Okay,” Weh replied, with a big smile, as he leaned forward and put his elbows down on the desktop, like he did in his own office. “I want to be able to haul some stuff, not just bring patients back for treatment.” He stared at me, his eyes unblinking. My eyes are unblinking.
I let him win. I closed my own eyes and stretched my arms out. “No to drugs, guns, or anything else that comes across as contraband. This whole effort will die before it’s born.”
“Not any of that,” Weh replied. “You know what the biggest killer on earth is and has been since time began for us on this planet? Disease. I want to haul medicine to heal the sick, to vaccinate the unprotected.”
I stood up. “Mother Teresa? You? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Weh got out of my chair. “Maybe you don’t know it, but there’s big money in medicine. Distilled water alone, as well as catheters, needles, syringes, and all the stuff that goes with those things, including what you put them in”
I stared at the man in front of me. He was an American businessman through and through and a long way from being the super-patriot he made himself out to be for the nation or the Marine Corps…and now his new shadow boss is the CIA. There was no way that either the Marine Corps or the DEA or any other branch of the government would be able to interfere with CIA supremacy and control.
“I don’t know that much about aircraft,” I began, “but I can tell you right here and now that twelve million won’t be found acceptable and might just get you cashiered as the furnisher of aircraft for the SOS project. I do happen to know, however, from having a friend who’s a pilot (I deliberately left Kris Anderson’s name out of the discussion) that the Beechcraft King Air 360 his dad flew had the same three thousand mile range and carries a payload of more than the Challenger, that plane purpose-built for passengers. The King Air version we’d want is about three million or a bit less. We can probably sell that.”
“The King Air,” Weh mused, sitting back down in my swivel chair, rubbing his chin with his right hand, as he considered. “That might work, although there’s no cargo door.”
The Challenger doesn’t have one either,” I guessed more than I really knew. As far as I could tell from my limited knowledge, no private aircraft had any rear cargo doors. Such a construct in the back of a fuselage would take a lot more space than private jets or props had room for.
“Okay, I’ll invoice for it today,” Weh said, which made me cringe. The man was making sure that I was the one requesting the plane purchase instead of him. It would then be on me with whatever the plane’s purpose and usage turned out to be.
“Fine, then the agreement we’ve had about using the planes needs to be modified,” I said back, as there was no point is saying no and then not being able to do the job, even with the added strangeness of hauling cargo on the side.
“What changes to the agreement?” Weh asked, leaning forward, ever the financial and business negotiator.
“I and whoever I say can fly in the planes at any time we feel we have just cause to do so. The fuel, maintenance, crew costs, and more are all ours, so that appears most reasonable to me, or you can simply keep the Lear Jets and pack whatever you can into them…and that’s only if Tony Herbert gets clearance for the invoice you’re submitting.”
“That’s not fair,” Weh stated, rising to his feet. “The Lears can only hold a quarter to half a ton of cargo, but that’s only if the passengers have no luggage or anything else.”
“So, we have a deal then, if Herbert makes it happen. You can argue your case directly to him if you want to,” I added, as I knew that was the last thing Weh wanted to do.
“No, the King Air will work.”
“Are we done here?” I asked him. “Can you get out of my chair, and I’ll reach you at your office after I talk to Herbert?”
“I’d rather listen,” Weh said, not moving.
“No,” I repeated in a more direct way.
Weh finally got up and walked to the door to the office before turning.
“You know, the DIA isn’t like this at all. Everything’s out in the open to those of us with proper clearance and a need to know. This cloak-and-dagger stuff is less effective and also creates a whole sea of bad faith to paddle around on.”
“I’m glad you understand,” I replied, wanting to tell him that I wasn’t into giving CIA therapy or grade school instructions, but I remained silent until he finally closed the door behind him.
I dialed the number and waited. I entered my own identification number on the number pad and waited. I looked at my watch, finally setting the phone down and hitting the speaker button.
My stacked pinon wood pile was right next to the custom fireplace I’d built into my half of the building for the officers of Banker’s Life of Iowa, now The Principal Financial Group. I turned on the gas after placing about half a dozen pieces, criss-crossed Boy Scout style. The built-in gas pipe was a godsend. Turn the gas on under the wood, hit the igniter, and wait five minutes to have a roaring small fire. Turn the gas off and replace the igniter, and safety was observed to the point where my oversized fire extinguisher, standing near the corner to the right of the doo,r would never be used, or at least had not been.
The fire burned down just a bit from its initial flare-up and settled in, allowing me to sit in my chair close enough not to be driven away by the radiant heat. It was calming, relaxing, and warm mentally as well as physically. I wondered what would have been different if I’d just sat out the big storm in the office, calling home to say I’d be late to a wife who’d totally understand. But that was water under the bridge now.
“Herbert,” Tony intoned from the microphone lying on my desk.
I turned to pick it up as Weh opened the office door and stuck his head in.
I frowned at him and waited to respond to Tony while Weh caught my expression and backed out, closing the door once again. Whatever the man was planning, I felt had only marginal things to do with transporting medical supplies and equipment, but I wasn’t going to spend the time it would take to find out, and then to what end.
It was big enough to cause a normally quiet man, such as Weh certainly was, to pace up and down the hall outside my office, waiting for the decision on a plane he hadn’t bothered to complain about. It seemed all wrong, and I knew whatever was wrong about it was going to go down on my watch.
I gave Tony the rundown about what Weh wanted without bringing in the first demand for a Challenger. I did indicate that he wanted to transport medical supplies and equipment and that might be a problem as additional stuff being loaded and unloaded might detract from the actual medical care being given to some either real or phony soul appearing to need immediate emergency care and having that provided by a staff of well-trained or well-acting individuals who might be permitted into almost any country and exited the same with, mostly without the need for identity or passport checks and notations.
“Do you trust him?” Herbert asked when I was done.
“Yes, and no,” I replied, truthfully.
“More yes than no?” he came back, surprising me. He was actually considering an approval on no more than my word, and that didn’t make me feel too secure.
“He’s about your age and a bird colonel, very young. He’s served in the Nam like you, although without the big decorations for valor. He’s got several purple hearts, though, like you ought to have but don’t care about. So, you’re telling me that on top of being a war hero, rather exceptional intelligence agent, family man, and businessman, that he’s a rather normal American male who wants more power and money.”
I breathed in and out deeply. Herbert had a way of including stuff I was either incapable of knowing or willing to just blow by to get to what I thought was the crux of the problem or matter.
“He wants the same things you’re chasing,”
“No,” I said forcefully and immediately. “
“You don’t want those two things?” Herbert asked, but his question seemed to be couched with some sort of super-innocent tone, like he was setting me up.
“I want less power and more money, and that’s entirely different from him.”
“I suppose you are a bit overloaded at present, but not with real power. More or less, you’re still an errand boy, like you were back at the Western White House,” Tony responded, surprising me, while noting that there was nothing accusatory or putting me down in his tone of voice. I wasn’t aware that my time at the Nixon estate was open for analysis, even by the CIA, but I now understand that it, and likely everything else in my life, was either always on the table or just beneath it.
“So, you’re going to approve the invoice he’s sure to submit either this day or tomorrow?” I asked, more reserved than I possibly meant.
“It’s your call, as it’s your combination of missions. I advise you to proceed, but you have to run the thing your own way. That’s the bit of power you’ve been entrusted with.”
I understood and had quickly adjusted to and used the power of being the team leader, or mission commander, or whatever title the leaders were using for people in my position serving in the field. They wanted things their way and they preferred they be done in certain ways too, but they had developed good sense to come to understand that they were not and likely never would be on site of where the mission was being conducted or how it might be truly accomplished when it was a success. I wondered what a completely shattered mission would look like and what the results of it would be for someone in my position, but information like that was never ever discussed.
“I’m going to hang up now,” Herbert said, surprising me again.
“You always just hang up without saying goodbye anyway,” I responded, but the line had gone dead.
I got up from the desk, my back well-heated from the fire. On my first day in the office on a winter day I’d worn my expensive cashmere sport jacket.
I was now careful about the fire. I’d sat with my back to the fire that morning, not realizing just how good an insulator cashmere was. When I stood up an hour later, the coat fell into pieces, its back not melted but sort of baked, and then when over-backed, turning to chunks of some ash material.
When I walked over to the door, Weh just outside must have heard my footfalls because the door was flung open, slightly bruising my outstretched hand.
I pulled back, and Weh stepped inside the office and carefully closed the door in Pat’s face.
I shook my head, the hot-headed woman would let go on me after Weh was gone I knew. I massaged my wounded hand.
“What did he say?” Weh demanded.
“Do we have a deal if he approves, which isn’t the final approval either,” I replied.
“You are whatever they call you, and you get to make that decision. We all know that. We’ve got a deal as long as the exigencies of the business do not outweigh the need for you to have an aircraft for unlimited periods of time. Three days is max, no matter what.”
I stuck out my hand, and Weh promptly took it. He squeezed my damaged hand tightly, making me wince.
You need to get back in training he said, and I’ll go get the invoice,” and then he was gone, his solid leather Johnston and Murphy shoes clicking on the tiles in the hall and he went. I preferred Alan Edmonds from Port Washington in Wisconsin, but there was no talking to the Johnston and Murphy guys. It was like the Packers and the Bears. No fan of one could ever change to be a fan of the other.
Pat walked in through the door I’d left open. I took my seat and looked up.
“What?” I said in response to her frowning and quizzical expression, all negative by a long shot.
“I don’t like or trust that man,” she said.
“He’s coming back with an invoice. We have one of those new-fangled fax machines, I noticed. Fax that to Washington and don’t read what it says or is for.
“Oh, I never read those,” she said, her voice turning from that of purring Elvira to over-sweetened maple syrup.
“That’s very loyal of you,” I replied, like I hadn’t gotten anything from the whole phony exchange. The woman was an investigating rumor machine. The only good thing was that everyone she might have rumored to have full top secret clearance, even the insurance only guys. I had half an office of fakes, just like I had half a medical evacuation company that was fakes. Probably, the only real people all the way would be the UFO-oriented gatherers, since they did appear to actually be stuff to gather, at least if the last chunk was any indication, and my knowledge and experience with the artifact also supported that.
I reached for the phone and dialed Kris Anderson’s number.
“Yellow,” he answered on the first ring. I wasn’t sure why he felt that was a funny way to answer a phone, although it was certainly strangely so, but I gave him no redirection on that.
“When would it be possible to go up? What with the snow and ice, I’m sure it’s unlikely soon, but I’d love to get into the air.” I waited, with baited breath, was I going to get a break or not?
“We wear heavy clothing, that’s all. I won’t even have to put the propane tanks in a tub of ice. No, the temperature differential in winter is much better than in summer. That’s not the problem we face.”
I waited, but he said nothing more. Finally, I had to ask. “What’s the problem?
The problem is having a ground crew in this kind of rough, cold environment. People won’t come out to crew in this kind of weather, not unless you pay them, and we don’t have a budget for that. We’d need at least ten people for a balloon the size of mine.
“I’ll call you back,” I said, and hung up.
“Pat,” I said into the receiver after punching the button to access her line.
“Yes,” she answered, in her usual reserved, tired, and ‘you’re not going to pull one over on me’ kind of tone.
“Who’ve we got around. I need a balloon crew. I’ve for certain got Nash, Nguyen, Quincy, and Kingsley, but I need six more. Who’s around and who can get into winter gear fast enough to get to Anderson’s Vineyards pretty quickly? If we fly this afternoon, then we probably can only stay in the air a few hours, which ought to be enough.”
“Enough for what?” Pat asked.
“It doesn’t matter. Round up who’s here in the agency and see what we can put together.
I put down the phone, but it immediately rang until I picked it up again.
“Herbert,” Tony said, before going on. “We’ve got a problem,” he said.
“They didn’t approve the plane?” I asked, dreading going back over to Weh’s office ot give him the news.
“No, the planes are approved. I’ve got to get you to London by tomorrow, and half the nation’s airlines shut down for the weather, and many haven’t come back up yet.”
“Me, to London? What the hell for?” I asked, my mind roiling. I had nothing going on in London and couldn’t think of anything, if I had something that couldn’t wait.
“There’s a ticklish task that has to be accomplished, and you got the nod as possibly being able to handle this one in total silence and with no international incident, news, or violence, like you did on Mallorca.”
“Are you insane?” I asked. “People died on that mission. I was a fumbling fool and barely got out with my life.”
“Well, that isn’t what went into the report,” Tony replied, his voice dropping to nearly a whisper.
I tried to think about what might have gone into the report, but after action reports were not only not written by the people involved, although they might be interviewed, it was kept highly secret from the people who performed the mission unless parts of what they did were subject to punishment in one form or another.
“What is it?” I asked, giving up.
“Margaret Thatcher,” Tony said, his voice almost too quiet to hear.
“Thatcher?” the Prime Minister over there? What in hell could be her ticklish problem?
“Well, it’s not her. It’s her husband. There’s been an indiscretion.”
“So what?” I said. This happens all the time. Husband screw around, so what’s the big deal? Another British scandal, and the tabloids in London will have a field day with it.”
“We need Thatcher where she is at this time so that can’t happen, and it’s more ticklish than that anyway.”
“Okay, so you can’t tell me even over a secure line. I got that. What about logistics? How in hell am I supposed to get from Albuquerque to London when commercial air isn’t flying?
“The King Air was paid for in cash at three point nine million dollars. It’s being flown down from Denver right this minute. You climb aboard the aircraft at like six in the morning and you arrive in London the next evening since it takes about 16 hours flight time, an hour for refueling, and then the time differential.
“Hell, use military, if you want this job done, it’s much faster,” I replied
“Pay attention here, this is going to be the first medical evacuation of the new company, so there should not be identity problems or records of much of anything other than that somebody had to be evacuated.”
“So, who’s being evacuated?” I asked, afraid of what he might say.
“I’m sure you’ve got somebody there who can play that role. Fly them in a crew, and then the team will go to work to make them fit the situation and be evacuated.”
“The King Air is on the way? How in hell do you do stuff like that? I said, in disbelief. Weh had given the paperwork to Pat only an hour before.
“You’re not the only genius on staff, you know,” Herbert replied and then hung up, once more leaving me with a phone dangling in my hand.
“Who do we have?” I punched in Pat’s tab on the phone and asked her who we had for crew, my wanting to go ballooning no matter what. My wife would be mad, and God only knew what Weh would say, but he’d bought into the agreement. Before Pat could say anything, Weh entered my office. I was sitting in my chair, so he didn’t bother to sit down.
“Who are these people? I just gave you the document and the planes on the way from Denver, and you’re going to be on the manifest to travel to London, which the plane can’t reach without refueling. This is beyond the pale. You’re scaring me. I’m not sure about all this. You buy a three and a half million-dollar plane, crew it, fuel it, and then have it in flight to here in an hour? What in hell do you have to say?”
“You want to go ballooning?” I asked, my voice level and calm, as if this course of events was commented to me, which it truly was becoming.
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