I was not encountered by anyone from either the embassy or any of the people I’d met earlier in the country, which was a blessing as my recovery from the cough syrup I’d taken before and during the flights over had taken the wind out of me, as well as my need or even ability to socialize. I sat in an economy seat near the right side of the fuselage, the other two seats on either side of me empty. The Korean Airlines flight was unaccountably empty, as the flights I’d taken before were usually filled with families having children who were undisciplined and wild. I sat back in the center seat, which, with the side bars pulled up, had become the single large seat for me to sprawl out in. Sleep would not come easily for this flight, as I’d been in the throes of codeine withdrawal before. Sleep would come with either nightmares or wierd unsettling dreams.

Why had I been selected to return to Korea without notice? I knew the answer, but didn’t like what I knew. Nobody else could have done what I had to do. I was expected, and I was the principal in the establishment of the new medical program. I was the one and only, and that meant, despite my undercover role with the Agency, I was a target everywhere, including at the Agency itself. There was nothing to be done for it, however, except push hard for my inclusion in the next class to go through training. I reflected on the written requirement in the contract stating that no Korean nationals could be included in the plan and visibly shook my head. Hospitals and doctors in Korea, under their form of newly established national health, didn’t check citizenship before administering care, and I doubted the government could check every person who received care at any of the Korean facilities or the practitioners who worked for and around them. Certainly, BCBS of the National Capital Area would not be providing any information to anybody about treatment or even the cost of such treatment unless it was some sort of annual report about resulting numbers.

The plane landed in L.A. and was not going on to Albuquerque, even though the Kirtland runway, shared by the commercial lines, was more than long enough. There were simply not enough passengers headed there. I got off the big plane to walk half a mile in order to get to the smaller commuter plane. It was a DE Havilland something or other and had two propellers instead of jets. The flight was only eight hundred miles though so it wouldn’t take that much time and inaide of the cabin was actually nicer than the bigger jet, as there was only one seat on each side of the single aisle.

By the time I arrived in Albuquerque, I was a physical and mental mess, but I knew that the next mission was just over the horizon, and inexorably coming at me like the rising of the sun in early morning. I hadn’t wanted to go to Korea, probably having something to do with why I adjusted myself with the cough syrup. I’d not spoken to Mary before landing, so there was no one waiting to pick me up. Nguyen and Kingsley were probably home with their wives or using the insurance offices to do other stuff I was unaware of. I knew nothing about whether Quincy had begun opening the small branch offices required by the Los Alamos tech area were being acquired and opened I knew nothing about.

I got my bag from the carousel and headed for a nearby telephone bank. I could take a cab home, which would be quicker, but also be more fuel for the fire I would face when I finally tied up with my wife again. She’d been mad as hell at being forced to acquire the codeine, and I knew that her anger was not easily assuaged. She was also unaware that I was going to have to depart for Florida and get hold of the stuff I’d need for that mission, and that would cause trouble, too. My calling her for help in getting home was required, and taking any drugs or drinking was going to lessen the pain of our coming encounter.

The call went much smoother than I’d assumed.

“Hello,” Mary answered following the first ring.

“Hi, I’m back and down at the airport here,” I started to say, but she cut me off.

“Just be out front at the baggage area, and I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes,” she said, and then hung up.

I began preparing myself for the ride home, as it was going to be nothing like our short exchange over the phone. Once out at the curb, I placed my Hartmann leather suitcase down and sat on one corner of it. There was no one around. The flight had been small and only half filled at that, possibly with ten passengers. I hadn’t bothered to count. I was beat but ready for the coming confrontation.

The green Mercedes 240D rounded the curve and headed straight for me. It could be no one else. The car was distinctive and sounded that way as well, its anciently designed diesel very effective but never quiet.

The car pulled up, and I hustled the suitcase into the back seat. The trunk had been spacious for such things, but I’d added an extra twenty-gallon diesel fuel tank to give the Mercedes a one-way ability to move about 1200 miles non-stop. My wife’s comment about not stopping to go to the bathroom had been humous but I hadn’t laughed at the time. In fact, in thinking about it, I was a bit embarrassed. Of course, one would have to stop, and of course, refueling would take only minutes, so my whole exercise was one of mechanics and idiocy thrown together, only to be noted by my very intelligent and amazingly good-looking spouse.

The pick-up was in silence and, surprisingly, so was the ride home. Only upon hitting the driveway did Mary say anything.

She turned the key off in the ignition, and the 240D sputtered a few times before quitting. Mary turned to look at me.

I met her gaxe but weakly, I knew.

“If you try to get on another plane with that stuff in you, I’m calling Tony,” was all she said before climbing out of the driver’s seat and walking into the front door of our house.

She had a point. I had to get myself back in shape and quickly, not just for her but for all of us. As long as I was the one picked for critical operations by the Agency, I didn’t want to lose that status.

I dragged my Hartmann and briefcase into the house, wanting only one thing, and that was the bed in our master bedroom. The house didn’t really have a master anything, as it was small, but it was well designed and very comfortable to live in.

“When do you leave for Miami?” Mary asked, talking through the open door to the kitchen.

“The day after tomorrow,” I responded, not actually having a travel plan but wanting to make the preparatory trip as soon as possible. The key focus had to be on a boat that could be depended upon, was large enough, but still fast enough to get us out of trouble in a hurry.

“Well, okay then, we have to get ready for that,” Mary said, leaving me wondering and rather stupefied. She had every right to be angry, frustrated, and upset with me, but was giving me none of that. Relief flooded through me, and I began to breathe easier.

“I think I should go with you, though,” she said then, changing everything.

Taking civilians, and my wife, perfectly fit the definition of that word, was strictly prohibited in the Agency’s teachings and principles. I hadn’t been to training, so I had no written confirmation, but Tony had no reason to lie to me about that. All field missions were potentially dangerous if not deadly, at least in potential, and agents in the field with family and or friends were likely to try to keep them from harm rather than accomplish the mission. That sounded cold when I first heard it, but in my heart, knew it to be true.

“I’ll talk to Tony,” I said, not wanting to redirect the conversation back to my previous mission-related conduct. I realized that forcing her to buy the codeine for me had shaken her faith in me, and I would have to earn it back, but it could not be earned at the expense of either the mission results or her safety.

We ate dinner in silence and then retired, me to bed and her to watch television from the living room couch. I knew when I finally nodded off that the fix to my situation was going to take time and performance.

My call to Tony in the morning had nothing in it about her request. There was no point. Such a request would be immediately denied, and my own stability would be placed in question. The Agency had microphones everywhere but in our bathrooms and bedrooms, so I presumed that any review of the tapes would have her question somewhere recorded. I had no idea how those tapes were reviewed or if they were situational, where only some cause would demand that they be listened to. I hoped for the latter, of course.

The Air Force cargo plane would depart later in the day, giving me even less time than I had considered. The denial and the moving up of the departure would only add to the flames of fire I was already in for, although it was starting as a deep freeze instead. Mary and I weren’t really talking, not like before.

The conversation with Tony went well in only one area, and that was financial. The budget for the mission was set for four and a half million dollars, not to include the boat or the weaponry. That was the largest budget for a mission, by far, that I had ever been trusted with, and the equipment was the most powerful. I’d had the support in being able to call in those who had large weapons, even right up to a nuclear submarine, but never a .50 caliber Browning machine gun as part of the mission inventory.

I simply listened to Tony about the wire transfer of funds to a bank that wasn’t my own and to an account I now had that I hadn’t signed up for called The Fair Winds. I smiled at the name, reminding my own use of rock and roll song lyrics to name missions when down in the valley. There would be full use of the funds as I directed, but full accountability when the mission was completed, just like it was for missions with significantly smaller budgets. The trust was impressive, and I wasn’t going to say anything to disturb this new big step in my career. I was glad I’d decided not to tell Tony about Mary’s demand.

I was also likely going in on the Starlifter, a long way from one of Allen Weh’s planes. Faster, and it could carry very large loads if necessary. I immediately thought about a vehicle to take along instead of going through the process of renting one using a fake identification. I was always working with faux identity papers, so that somewhere along the line, someone would figure out that I was not who I claimed to be, and the mission and my identity would be blown sky high. Even the mission and potentially the end of a career. Some non-descript form of Jeep would be fine, since there would likely be no need to race around anywhere, since the action was to take place on an island that apparently had no roads. The only map I’d found, not having received National Reconnaissance Organization information yet, showed the island in question, called colloquially Murder Island but in reality having no name at all, was only fourteen acres in size. How the air strip for drug planes was built I was yet to figure out.

I got off the phone, informed the office that I would be gone for the next three days, and then called Nguyen and Kingsley. Quincy was off opening the new offices with John Nash and even David White in for consultation. I knew White wanted an office because he’d served as the head of a group medical office previously and loved the international plan for U.S. citizens living abroad. Nash wanted action, but I didn’t want him on this mission as he was as yet untested at all when it came to trust. There was evidently a huge supply of drugs stored on the island in the three Quonsit Hut buildings, and everyone on the mission had to be totally clear about how not one gram or ounce of it was to leave the island in their or our possession. I trusted Nash, but this ran deeper than that; everyone’s career and even life could depend upon keeping that particular situation under total scrutiny and tight control.

Nguyen and Kingsley were all in. Nguyen was flying in almost immediately, while Kingsley was fortunately local. Forty thousand in mission money would go to them, which I’d have to come up with a special excuse for. My comfort and safety would not be enough to justify such a significant outlay. Neither man had asked for anything, and I wasn’t about to discuss the mission over unsecured phone lines. With both men, I didn’t have to.

When I got home, I could tell that my wife was ‘loaded for bear,’ as she hummed and did unnecessary housework, waiting for her moment to strike. The hit came at lunch in the kitchen.

“I understand,” she began, swallowing a bite of a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, “that I can’t go on the mission, so forget about asking Tony. Since you mentioned that the mission was to take place on an island off the tip of Florida, I’ve decided that I’ll go to Miami to wait for your return instead of staying here, in case you need me.”

I was once again flabbergasted by another of her clever ploys. I also knew that if the mission went south, Miami could become a hostile playground, so to speak. I stayed silent, considering. The mission came first, but I was nothing without my wife and family. The danger would be infinitely tiny, although still there.

“Alright, but you fly in commercial, Nash comes back to take care of the kids along with Becky while you’re gone, and you wait doing nothing until I get back to Miami to pick you up. And, please, don’t confuse the real mission with this preparatory one, as that will be different and you are definitely not going down there for that part.

“I want to fly on that plane you’ll be on,” she complained, not letting on her likely glee that I’d given in, in a way.

“No, we don’t fly on the same plane for this,” I said, finality in my tone.

“Why not?” she asked.

“For the same reason, the president and the vice-president never fly on the same plane.”

` “Oh,” she whispered, while the potential of danger sank into her thought process.

I had no reason to think that anyone involved could reach out and take down such a plane, but then Marlowe was still out there, and he’d pulled off some pretty astounding feats that nobody had expected either…and he might not be pacified, in Colombia or done yet with the cartels.

“Book your flight, and then let me know the hotel,” I said, hoping to end that part of our discussion.

“That’s easy. I’ll stay at the Flamingo. I’ve heard so many things about it, and I like its color.”

“Not to mention its five-star price,” I added, unnecessarily, although a bit stung because her expenses could not be paid out of mission money. That kind of thing was very closely watched over, I knew.

“Fine,” I said, with a shrug and sigh. I’d won but also lost a good deal in my sparring with her, which wasn’t uncommon. And, as usual, in our exchanges, I felt I was not as smart as I thought I was. To get into the Flamingo meant she’d already checked it out and had her fallback position ready when I walked into the house. I was playing her by not telling Tony, but she played right back and, in her way, won.

I finished lunch and called Nash to let him know his assignment. He wasn’t too pleasant about becoming a babysitter while the rest of us were off to the mission or its surroundings.

I packed up for the trip, hauling out my trusty Colt .45, accurized by “Clark” Shreveport, La.” was printed deep onto the side of the slide. I required both Kingsley and Nguyen to carry .45’s as well, although neither man cared for the weapon. I told them it was an ammunition thing, like in the Nam. Carrying a Thompson was cool, and the highly vaunted but poorly performing AK-47 as well, but ammunition was a problem. The U.S. did not resupply .45 ammo in large amounts and provided none of the 7.62X33 AK ammo. In truth, I wanted them to have the same close-in stopping power that .45 provided if necessary.

Once packed up, I met with Mary again. She’d already booked her flights based on the three days of the mission. If something happened that didn’t cause hospitalization, then the five-star priced room would be a haven with plenty of supplies and the ability to have care, if not more security than a normal hotel might provide. She was excited, and that was a much better place than she’d been in before. It was always amazing to me to see that so many people surrounding a mission perimeter were so excited. I knew I had been when I first heard about the Murder Island mission, but now that it was a reality, I was all nuts and bolts and analytical about the details. My worry was all about what I did not know yet. The players, the cartel or cartels using the island, why was the place not simply bombed into oblivion, or all the supply flights and delivery flights not interdicted? A from the sea Marine Corps-style landing was called for, which meant that something in the formula wasn’t quite right, but I was as yet not to be informed about what that was.

I drove myself to the airport after saying goodbye to the kids and letting the office know once more that I would be gone for a few days. Pat told me to “enjoy the weather down there,” so I knew she had missed nothing. Another reason, I knew, was that I did not know more. People were fiendishly good at finding stuff out and then talking about it.

The plane was on the tarmac as I expected it to be. My request to purchase a vehicle and have it aboard had been denied.

Questions that had no good answers had been shot out like semi-auto rounds out of a gun: “Where are you going to keep it? Why have something that leaves your imprint upon it between the preparation part of this mission and the mission itself? What about registration, and then what to do with it when the mission is over? We’re not sending a cargo plane to pick up a stupid vehicle.” I had good answers for those questions, but I knew I would be saying them to deaf ears. I secured the money for Nguyen and Kingsley, and that had to be enough. Renting a car was not that difficult, and I’d never been faced with identity paper problems before. Tony hadn’t bothered to state that, but I understood.

Nguyen and Kingsley were already aboard when I arrived. Mack was waiting at the ramp. I parked the Rover inside the facility and locked it before climbing into the vast cargo hold, there to carry only a very few people. I was glad the thousands of dollars in expense wasn’t going against my budget, although I still had no idea why the budget was so high.

There was no discussion as the ramp was raised while the plane taxied to the takeoff area. There was no delay. Civilian commercial traffic was held up for the Starlifter to take off. Take off it did, the sound of all four powerful engines choked to the max. The giant plane, almost totally empty, used less than half the runway, I was sure, although windows were nonexistent inside the hold.

When we landed, a bit less than four hours later, we offloaded and got a cab to the Hertz rental car operation at the airport, only to find that the entire rental car set of companies had been moved five miles away. We took a cab. By the time we got there, it was approaching dusk. There was nobody at the Hertz desk. We waited for a while and then went a few doors down. The place was called American International Rent a Car. None of us had ever heard of it.

“Perfect,” I said, wondering how long the rundown operation in front of us could last in the tremendously competitive car rental business.

There was an attendant and no other customers.

“We need a four-wheel drive of some size and power,” I said to the rather ugly and unkempt man behind the counter wearing a strange American flag shirt with the stripes and a weird eagle beak above them. I was as unkempt as the man.

“Just what would you gents be up to?” the man asked, to my surprise.

“We want a vehicle,” I restated, as gently as I could, “not any trouble.”

“Too funny,” the man laughed out. “A white commander with two gooks as his outfit,” he went on, looking like tears would soon roll down his cheeks. Kingsley and Nguyen said nothing and remained still, just staring.

“Do you have the vehicle, or should we try another place?” I said, my anger being forced down. I felt like the guy had to be a Vietnam Vet, but not a combat one, or he wouldn’t have risked anything against such an unknown group in front of him. Unless he was well armed. I thought. But why would he be looking for a fight? The mission was about to go south from before its beginning.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small handful of bills. I carefuly peeled two one hundred dollar bills I’d taken of my own cash from my stash at home and laid them on the counter.

“That’s your tip for helping us in our time of need,” I said, no expression in my voice at all. The three of us waited.

The man changed like he was some sort of circus freak. He smiled, nodded, and even bowed.

“I apologize for the gook comment,” he said, picking up the bills. “Got a brand spanking new Suburban just in. “It’s all yours for fifty bucks a day and change. How long do you want it?

“Two weeks,” I replied, as he pushed a piece of paper across the country.

“License is all I need,” the man said, acting as he should have from the beginning.

I reached into my sports coat pocket and pulled out my driver’s license, and made a mistake.

“Packing here, are you, and straight from the airport, I imagine,” the man said.

I simply stared, regret in my expression. Kingsley and Nguyen both stepped about three feet sideways in the short silence that followed.

“I meant nothing,” the man said, holding out his hands in front of him and backing away slightly.

“Who were you with in the Nam?” I asked, staring into his blinking brown eyes.

“The Big Red One,” the man replied.

I took the scraggly pen and signed the form after writing some of the information he needed to complete the rental, and should have been filling in.

“Here’s a credit card for the guarantee and thanks for your service,” I said, trying to soiund like I meant it.

“Should have known,” the man breathed out, running the card through his machine.

“Better,” I replied, putting the card in my pocket with the phony license.

“Should have known better,” I smiled back at the man’s rather contrite expression.

When we got out to the big black suburban, Kinglsey commented.

“That was a cool way to handle that.”

“No, it really wasn’t. We have to do better. There’s no way that man will forget us, and we want to be forgotten.