I continued to stare at the man, wanting to ask how he’d come to be in my room through a locked door. As I prepared to recover myself from the shock and get back into the real world again, the bathroom door opened, and a rough looking man stepped out.

“Oh, sorry, had to go,” the man said, and then went to stand next to McCain.

I didn’t sigh or shake my head, although I thought of doing both. The CIA was treating me as if I was a body undergoing autopsy. The body has no identity left in its being, its only value is to demonstrate its presence and be available for whatever parts may be needed elsewhere. McCain smiled at the man’s entry as if breaking into hotel rooms and using the bathrooms was some form of acceptable etiquette.

“This is Richard Marcinko, former Seal Team Six leader of the Navy Seals and a Nam vet like we are. Now he writes very popular novels about his experiences. He’s the reason we’re here.”

I stood in place, wondering about the question the captain had asked as I entered the room. He hadn’t implied that he was either approving of some plan to go get POWs from North Vietnam.

I played back this question, examining each word for potential intent or commitment, “They tell me that you’re willing to go back and save some prisoners still being held in the North.”

It wasn’t a question so I was not wrong or impolite to not answer it. There was implied consent, however, and the wonder I was left with about whom ‘they’ might be. I waited, checking out Macinko. He looked a lot more like the real deal coming from a war than I did. His short growth of facial hair, mustache, and jet black hair pulled into a ponytail gave his rough exterior an aggressive macho presentation that I could never equal. He was a Seal Team Member and that meant, I knew, that the former Navy ‘frogmen’ of WWII didn’t do much combat, and what good would a bunch of physically and wildly trained tall white and black men in great shape do if landed in some foreign country? Having studied anthropology I knew full well that without indigenous assets working in a foreign country that was not at full-on war required locals to front the work.

“Hello,” I said to the supposed superman. He nodded, but no hands were shaken, making me have to hold back a smile. He was probably too tough to have such innocent and peace-making contact.

The bed was right to the side of us but nobody made any move to sit down.

“One of your old friends in the White House recommended you, based on your war record and then the things you’ve done since,” McCain said. “Tell him your plan, Richard.”

I moved to sit on the bed and looked up at both men. I knew whatever was coming was going to be good. I thought about reading the book First Blood by David Morrell, a man who’d never gone to war, much less down into the jungles of Vietnam.

“Rambo…give me a break,” I breathed out, but not loud enough for either man before me to hear.

The last thing I wanted to hear was that kind of “Oh gee, they cut his hair so he killed a bunch of cops in their own known forest and backyard and then was forgiven because the nation needs such trained killers so badly,” crap.

“That war is supposed to be over,” Marcinko began, looking a bit Italian with his slick hair and rather expressive hand movements. “But there are still almost two thousand American soldiers, Marines, and flyboys still left over there. The North and South melded but they didn’t let a whole bunch of guys come home for reasons we won’t go into. I, and the guy who recommended you, know where those prisoners are being held and we want you to lead the team to go get them, and what do you say to that?” He ended his fervent speech by throwing both of his hands into the air.

I instinctively wanted to clap but held myself back. It was a great speech and well delivered but was based upon pure nonsense.

I looked over at McCain, who was frowning. I waited and finally, he spoke one line.

“What do you suppose these prisoners might report?” he asked.

“What are you talking about.? You’re the key to our getting the funding for the mission, and this man is the man to lead it.

I watched the exchange, but McCain’s words bothered me. What would the prisoners report? stuck in my mind, and not in a good place. What could returning prisoners possibly report on that might be at the very top of the captain’s mind?

“Are you in?” Marcinko asked, pointing his right index finger directly at me.

“I have to talk to my wife, as she put me back together the last time I went to that place.”

“Right, you have to talk to your wife,” Marcinko smirked, turning to McCain.

“This is what you brought me?” he asked.

I stood up from the bed and moved toward the nightstand.

“I have a question at this point,” I said, putting one hand on the top of the bureau.

“Right,” Marcinko said.

“You came into my room uninvited, and you somehow got inside without any trouble without a key. And now you insult me inside my room, and that’s after likely knowing what my background really is.”

“The question?” McCain asked, almost with a sigh, like he was sorry he ever hooked up with whatever this mission was supposed to be.

I also realized that neither man was CIA and that the mission wasn’t a CIA-sanctioned one.

I pulled open the drawer slowly.

“How do you expect to get out of this room alive or in one piece?” I asked very softly, Junior having risen from the grave I generally kept him deeply buried in. I casually slipped my hand inside the drawer and left it there, relief pouring through my body and a steady even, and flat state running through my mind. I turned all of my attention to the two men before me, not blinking and no longer breathing.

“He has a gun in that drawer?” Marcinko asked of McCain.

“I don’t know, we didn’t search the room.” He looked back at me.

“I don’t believe it,” Maricinko said, but I could hear a small tremor in his voice.

“I eased the .45 out and gently let my hand fall to my right upper thigh, easing away from the bed.

“It’s probably a dummy of some sort,” Marcinko intoned, his voice filled with doubt

In the silence that followed, I snapped the safety off. The click sounded like the breaking of a dried wooden stick.

“Can we leave?” McCain suddenly asked, his eyes again giving me the thousand-yard stare. I got the feeling that he didn’t care if he lived or died but might have responsibilities. I knew the feeling well and then thought of my responsibilities and my family.

“Affirmative captain,” I said, but still making no moves whatsoever.

“We’re leaving just like that, because of this?” Marcinko asked, as John McCain took him by the arm and started moving him toward the door.

“We’re not leaving,” McCain replied, getting Marcinko to the door and opening it. “I’m saving your life.”

The door closed and I could hear no more. I collapsed on the bed, putting the Colt back on safe and thinking about how the airport in Albuquerque didn’t have detectors but they did at the one in Washington. One of my Marine semi-friends from Camp Pendleton, lived on G Street so I could store the Colt with him and have the necessary equipment for my returns to D.C. It had served me well in getting rid of Marcinko and McCain. I’d come to the city to set up or surpervise the new office and I had to spend a few hours getting the medical policy converted to a more dedicated document with no telltales left behind. I wondered if that was stealing from the insurance company but if it was then it was the venial sin of my association with the Agency so far. Mortal sins seemed to be more my kind of thing.

I put the Colt back in the drawer, trying to get my mind right. Would I have shot Marcinko if he had not been backed down? I knew I would have and I shuddered at the thought. My life would be over and my family’s with it. I could have weapons around, had to have them around, but I was still going to have to work harder to prevent Junior from being called back into service. Paul was history, however, and I wasn’t likely to find another counselor like him.

There was a knock at the door. I jumped up and answered it. The door opened and a beautiful woman in hotel uniform stood before me.

“Here’s the envelope,” she said very sweetly. “You have a lot of paperwork to do tonight?”

It seemed an odd question, but I let it go.

“Yes, I’ve got to cut and paste this whole document together to get it to a business meeting in the morning,” I replied, telling her the truth.

“I could help you because I’m really good at that sort of stuff and you may need some tools if you don’t have them.”

“Tools?” I asked, kind of dumbfounded.

“Cut and paste, like in scissors and tape and glue or quite possibly staples?” she replied.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Anita Mason,” she replied.

“Wait,” I told her and walked over to the hotel phone I pushed the button for the front desk. When it answered I asked if a woman named Anita Mason worked for the hotel and that she looked like a movie star.

“Yes, you can let her in the door,” the man said.

“Why would you help me, and don’t you work for the hotel?”

“They might not approve, that’s true,” she said with an enigmatic smile, “but my shift’s up in fifteen minutes and I could use some extra cash.”

I could read the truth in her eyes. She was right, I needed her experience and the help, and yes, the tools.

“Two hours for two hundred dollars cash,” I finally said.

“I’ll be back in fifteen minutes,” she replied.

I closed the door and opened the sealed envelope the file was in I started reading the policy like I had never done in selling it. Anita was right, I’d never get it done and then get any sleep by the morning if I worked alone, but was I guying into another fake player or worse by hiring her? It might be a mistake, I thought, but not as big a mistake as shooting Marcinko would have been. My mind still toyed with the idea the man was a phony. Why else would he face into the wind as he did? A combat veteran never walks into fire unarmed, and even if armed, seeks to avoid the combat if at all possible. If the man was real then why had he not simply walked out through the door? I would likely never know the answer to that one.

I closed the drawer, wondering whether Herbert might call me out for threatening Marcinko’s life but was pretty sure he wouldn’t. However, I had come to have the meeting with McCain I didn’t think it was CIA-related.

Anita came back. She was no less beautiful in flats and pants than she had been in uniform. I asked her if we should keep the door open while we worked.

“I don’t really want other staff to see me in here,” she replied.

We went to work, and the job took a full two hours to complete. When I was done Anita took her two hundred and headed for the door, telling me to take the document back to the front desk and they’ll have it copied to look much better.

When she was gone, I breathed easier, not because so much beauty had left the room but because she’d talked endlessly while we worked about how she was looking for the perfect man in Washington to marry. The details this positive angel would have to have about her perspective target husband were endless. It was strange to have spent two full hours in a room with a beautiful woman I didn’t know and never said more than a dozen words to.
I followed Anita’s instructions when I checked out the following morning. I hadn’t been given a timeline for my stay in D.C. but, following my confrontation with McCain and Marcinko, I wanted to get back to my wife and regain full control of whatever was left of my sanity. There would be no point in telling her what happened, however, not that I could see.

The copy looked almost professional when I sat and looked through it. I called the ambassador to let him know that I’d be coming a bit early for the meeting. There was a cab waiting out front. The ambassador wasn’t in but it didn’t matter. It was either sitting at the Willard and waiting or getting to the office where I’d have secure communications, assuming that the CIA had installed encrypted equipment. I had to make sure that Herbert was aware of what had happened in the room with McCain and also to assure myself that I hadn’t blown a CIA mission I was unaware was one. If they wanted me to go back to the Nam I didn’t see how I could avoid it, even though I felt at my very foundations that this time I would die there.

The ride to the office was over in minutes, the taxi drivers in Washington proved to be fast and efficient, if not a bit pricey. The .45 was in my bag so I’d have to drop that off at Dennis Morgan’s place on “G” Street if he would only answer the phone.

I walked up to the front doors of the building only to find them locked. I put both hands against the glass to cut the glare and saw an attendant at the counter, realizing that the offices were going in much faster than I would ever have anticipated. The ambassador was proving to be a wonder, and I was relieved. I simply didn’t have the time or experience to start, staff, and build an insurance office. It was one thing to take over an existing office, like my Banker’s office but not to build one from scratch.

The guard came to the glass doors and pushed one open.

“Electronic locks, sir, and how can I help you?”

“Thanks,” I replied, “I’m here to see the ambassador upstairs.”

“Do you have a pass?” the guard asked.

“I don’t need a pass,” I replied. “I’m the man. That man. You need to call upstairs, or I’ll be soon dealing with someone else.”

“Oh, if that’s the way it is…come on in. I understand who and what you are, sir.”

I walked through the door he held open.

“What’s your name?” I asked, surprised.

“Morty,” he said, which made sense since his name tag that I hadn’t noticed read ‘Morris’ in small letters.

Morty directed me to walk through a detector. I looked at him for a few seconds, and then walked around it and waited.

“Clear,” he said, not missing a beat.

“Military?” I asked over my shoulder, headed for the elevators.

“Marines,” Morty answered, confirming my suspicion. He looked and talked like a Marine.

“We’ll talk later,” I said, making a mental note that I might just have a source inside who was of similar mind and blood. “Give me your cell,” I instructed.“

You have your own?” Morty asked, holding out his hand.

I complied while we waited while Morty entered his name into my contacts.

Once on the elevator, I checked out his entry. It read “Staff Sergeant,” and there was no retired written. The Agency was going full out in developing my idea for the company and likely now everything else. I didn’t know whether to be happy or afraid. It was all happening too fast, and I wasn’t yet fully stable mentally. The confrontation had thrown me and my inability to keep Junior buried bothered me a lot. I would have to talk to Mary. She was all I had.

Once reaching the floor the doors opened and a similar but less active scene greeted me. A woman walked out of the bedlam and smiled.

“Follow me,” she said. I didn’t say ‘anywhere’ but I thought it with a smile.

So many women in D.C. resembled Anita Mason it was unreal.

She led me to a side conference room. I opened the door and entered. Music was being played and the strains of one of my favorite songs came through.

“Stand by Me,” was being played through the ceiling-mounted speakers. The lyrics seemed so appropriate. The room was about one-third filled as I walked to the front and the conversation, and then the music, died off. The ambassador was sitting in the front row and next to him was Tony Herbert.

I wouldn’t have to call Herbert about the good news, but the bad was that he wasn’t showing up for no reason at all.

The ambassador stood up and held out his left hand. I pulled the file from my bag and gave it to him.

“I’ll have this reproduced for everyone and then we can go over the details here. Do you want to introduce yourself while this is done?”

“No, it can wait until everyone has a hard copy for a few minutes,” I replied.

“I’ll talk to Tony in private if you don’t mind.”

“Not a problem,” the ambassador said, turning to address the group while handing the file off to the woman who’d welcomed me.

Tony and I headed for a small office off to one side of the room. He followed me in and closed the door

“Whatever you did, and I have some kind of idea about what it was, blew the minds of both men you met in your room,” he said, shaking his head.

My heart sank. McCain and Marcinko were part of an Agency mission. I’d read it all wrong because I knew I’d wanted to read it all wrong.

“Yes,’ I answered, even though Herbert hadn’t asked a question.

“Both are convinced that you are the man for the job,” Herbert went on, ignoring both the tone of my voice and going into any detail about what I’d done.

“Marcinko will come to Albuquerque and meet with you there, so as soon as you’re done here there’s a plane waiting at National. A King Air. You’ll be there in about four hours from takeoff. Marcinko may ride with you, I don’t know that. McCain seems oddly reticent about the mission but that’s not my problem. He did say he would never meet with you privately again. I don’t know that that’s about either, but I also don’t care.”

“What King Air are you talking about, realizing that I’d heard that name before but never seen one before.

“Allen Weh sent it,” Herbert replied. “The guy in your building you don’t like.”

“How in hell would you know whether I like him or not?” I asked, exasperated.

“That’s what he said,” Herbert laughed. “You do sort of wear your heart on your sleeve, I mean, for a secret agent and all that stuff. I’m out of here. Call me when you’ve made your decision from home.”

Herbert walked out the door, shutting it behind him. I breathed in and out deeply. I walked over to the phone and called my wife, not bothering to check and see whether the phones were encrypted or not. She answered on the second ring as if she was waiting for the phone to ring.

“I’ll be home this afternoon,” I said, without even saying hello.

“And…” she replied as if somehow knowing I wasn’t calling to let her know I was coming at all.

“They’re calling me back to rescue some POWs,” I got out.

“You’re not calling me for my permission, are you,” she replied after a few seconds, unable to keep the slight break in her voice hidden.

“I will lay it all out to you when I get there later today,” I said, a resolve growing inside of me. “I am in fact, after letting you know everything, going to let you make the decision.”

Mary hung up the phone, saying nothing, not even goodbye.