There was no point in asking my wife anything or filling her in about the potential mission. She would say no and very forcefully, at that. Then she would worry that I might overrule her and do it anyway. I would not. I was never going to step into the jungles of Vietnam and that was written into my core. I’d left so many boys, their remains returned in aluminum boxes, not to mention a few pieces of myself, both physical and mental. Bits of the jungle floor had worked their way into my wounds, only to fester and work their way out through the passing years. To have them pop out of a small swelled ‘pimple’ kind of structure on my stomach or hip revolted me, not because of the festering pain but because when the piece was pried out I knew what it was and where it had come from.

The plane was waiting inside a big building, both of its turbine engines running and props turning when I got to the private part of the National Airport. There was no getting the approval or inspection of anyone to access and then board the King Air. The steps gaped open as I’d seen before on small high-quality and expensive private aircraft. Once I was aboard, I took a seat, as there was nobody else on the flight, until Marcinko came through the opening.
I didn’t sigh when I saw him, my disappointment being deeper than that.

A three- or four-hour flight with the man I had been ready to kill was a bit much, but the stairs retracted and the door automatically closed and sealed itself.

The powerful but substantial small plane launched itself into the air, seeming to be totally off the ground in seconds. Marcinko sat directly across from me, and neither of us belted in. There was no attendant, and the crew area was sheltered with a canvas hanging to provide privacy.

“The wind is blowing down from the canyon,” Marcinko offered when we were off the ground and climbing. “The wind coming down from that canyon lifted this thing right off the ground without much of any help from the plane itself.”

I looked over at him, finally. He was exactly as I remembered from our failure of a meeting. I knew I was stuck with him for several hours but also wondered why he’d bothered. I was almost certain that McCain would have informed him about his close call in the room.

“You’re the right man for the job,” he finally said speaking to me directly and personally for the first time.

I thought for almost a full minute before responding.

“Why?” was all I could think to say.

“The room, how you acted, you’re the real deal and I haven’t met very many of those before.”

I was taken by surprise. How could this man, the first leader of the famous Seal Team Six, and surrounded by veterans, active and retired, not have met many veterans like me before?

“Why?” I asked again.

“This is going to be a special ingress and then egress and it needs special combat seasoned Marines. You are all of that, and maybe the only person who might be able to pull this off.”

“Richard, you are banking on McCain to support this with his obvious fame and coming political power. I didn’t sense in our meeting that he was fully behind the project. The CIA obviously approved the mission but where’s the beef if the funding isn’t there? This mission would have to have a budget of around twelve million by my estimate.”

“See what I mean, who else would already have a price tag on it? You’re the first to mention the cost.”

“Have you thought about why McCain might not want to support the project,” I said, “And may seed to kill it?”

“What are you talking about? Marcinko asked.

I noted that he wasn’t at all like he’d been in the room. He’d been performing for McCain, not me.

“You picked up on something I missed,” Marcinko said bringing one hand up to massage his short beard. “Tell me,” He said after almost a full minute.

“He was there for five years,” I began, gauging the man before me.

He wasn’t a combat veteran, that much I guessed, but he was a smooth operator capable of changing his appearance and presentation like an octopus. I was impressed, wondering under the skin what the man was really made of and all about.

“I got that,” Marcinko replied.

“He was tortured for most of that period from time to time,” I went on.

“Yeah, okay,” he replied, when I stopped talking, wondering whether the man next to me might be able so understand and accept what I was about to aay.

“Humans cannot endure true brutal and graphic torture for any length of time at all,” I began.

“Our Seals all go through days of torture-resistant training,” Marcinko replied.

“Please, don’t go there;” I said with a sigh in my tone of delivery. “Let’s just say that no man on earth can resist that kind of ongoing and now evident torture.”

“And so?” Marcinko replied.

“He was there that long,” I said, a sigh in my tone of delivery. “He is known for never having talked or broken, and that’s not possible. Is it also possible that he does not want some of the guys who knew he had to have broken, or witnessed it come back and tell that kind of a story?”

“Jesus Christ, what kind of mind do you have?” Marcinko said, shaking his head. “Could that be possible?”

I said no more, having liked McCain but also understanding that he could never have been ‘name and serial number’ movie and television material. Everyone breaks under physical torture at some point although I knew full well that the public had its belief system built by people who only wished about being in combat but never experienced the awful reality of it. The public would continue to buy into the belief system that people could resist or lie successfully under serious physical torture when there was no chance of that at all.

The rest of the flight was spent talking back and forth. I’d been wrong about the man, as far as his not being combat tested. Post-traumatic stress bled out of the man like a high fever sweating attack. At one point he asked me whether I was really prepared to shoot him in the hotel room in front of McCain and the world. His unique way of almost always including the ‘rest of the world’ in his near non-stop dialogue was interesting as were his stories about his time with the Navy Seals as their first commanding officer.

“Of course not,” I replied quickly, lying and then becoming embarrassed about the incident.

“You’re not fully back yet are you?” he asked, the statement not seeming to make much sense in light of what we were talking about.

I wanted to ask him ‘back from what’ but didn’t as the expression on his face told me all I needed to know.

“In the land of the round eyes, you don’t really need to carry that side arm everywhere you go.” Marcinko said, “Not having availability can often take care of or prevent a terminal error and you should consider it.”

The man, for all his expressive talking and acting, was looking inside me and seeing things I not only didn’t want him to see but didn’t want to see myself.

“Coming in hot high and dry, gentlemen,” a deep voice said from the front of the plane.

I turned away from Marcinko to see one of the flight crew sticking half his body through the center opening of the canvas shroud that gave a sense of privacy to both sections of the small aircraft. He pulled back in before I could say anything.

Marcinko was in his seat pulling his seat belt tight. He looked over at me and smiled.

“He meant you should belt in as those three words mean there’s a whole lot less lift available to keep the aircraft in the air when we get close to the ground. Probably windy as hell too.” The plane veered as I got the two sections of my belt clipped together.

I looked out of the giant round window next to my seat as the plane veered sharply the other way. After a series of even more violent movements, the plane’s tires hit the tarmac and we were down. Marcinko and I both had remained silent for the last few minutes of the flight.

The taxi into the big B-36 tire-supported hanger took only a couple of minutes. As we deplaned, I saw my new Range Rover sitting nearby. My wife stepped out. Someone had been kind enough to call her. Maybe Allen Weh’s flight operation was better than I thought.

“That your wife?” Marcinko asked.

“That’s Mary,” I replied, both of us naturally walking toward the car carrying our small bags.

I thought about the .45 inside my own. I knew Marcinko was right in what he concluded about having it always nearby. The experience inside the Willard hotel room had shaken me. I wasn’t as dependable or totally self-controlled as I’d presumed. The automatic needed to be retired to its place in my home, and left there unless needed.

“Can I hitch a ride to my hotel?” Marcinko said as Mary came around the front of the car to greet us. “My God, she’s beautiful,” he whispered.

I smiled but said nothing. Every time another man said those same words about my wife it made me feel warm inside. I was the man with her and not them.

“Can I talk to her about the mission on the way, Marcinko asked, not waiting for me to agree to give him the ride. He opened the rear passenger door and tossed his bag inside.

“She’s her own woman so you can do whatever you please but it might be a painful discussion for you,” I warned. Mary walked up and hugged me lightly.

In public, we never held hands or anywhere else for that matter. A slight hug was all she was ever willing to do.

“I’m Richard Marcinko,” he said, not waiting for me to introduce him.

“Hello,” she replied before opening the front passenger door and slipping up onto the seat.

“Where are you staying, Mr. Marcinko?” she asked, with a big welcoming smile, not having missed his inviting himself along.

“The Hyatt,” he replied and got into the back seat.

The drive started in silence as I drove the Rover off the tarmac and onto the road system toward Albuquerque’s downtown area.

“The nation needs to get into Vietnam and get some prisoner’s of war out and your husband’s been selected to lead the mission. It’s a huge honor that’s being offered.”

Mary said, nothing, instead turning to look at the side of my face. I stared straight ahead and said nothing but I was waiting for what I knew had to be coming.

“Mary?” Marcinko asked, leaning forward into the cleft between the luxurious leather seats.

“How far is Vietnam from here?” Mary quietly asked, staring straight ahead like me, her expression fixed and hard, as I seldom saw it.

“About eight thousand miles or so,” Marcinko said, “why do you ask?”

“And how much does it cost to fly there?” She asked, all warmth gone from her voice.

“Hell, I don’t know, maybe a couple thousand dollars, or so,” Marcinko replied, his exasperation becoming evident.

“Then you can save about a thousand dollars because he won’t need to have a ticket home.”

“The danger can be buffered and minimized as the war’s over,” Marcinko replied, not getting the same message I’d gotten from her words and attitude.

“I meant that he won’t be returning to me if he does come back.”

“Oh,” was all Marcinko could manage to say, leaning slowly back.

“Has he made the decision already and this the way you’ve chosen to tell me about that decision?” Mary’s voice went lower, a tone she seldom took and one I called the danger zone without ever mentioning it.

“He said that you would decide, but I didn’t really believe him.”

“You believe him now?”

“That true?” Marcinko asked, and I knew he was talking to me.

“You’re talking to the decision maker and it’s not me,” I replied, as my wife’s expression went from stony cold, her lips forming a small smile.

“You two are certainly different,” Marcinko said as I pulled the Rover into the Hyatt parking lot, steering for the covering extending out from the front lobby.

I smiled along with Mary at that. The rescue mission was a dead issue and a load seemed to lift from my shoulders as Marcinko jumped out and closed the door behind him. Until that very moment I knew that I might have gone back and I also knew it would be a disaster as I was not Junior anymore. I was a mix of Junior and my recovered self and those two entities were like oil and water.

Marcinko didn’t say thank you or goodbye, instead merely turning and waving back over his shoulder as he went inside. I had the feeling that I’d never see the man again. I also had the feeling that McCain would kill any attempt Marcinko made to get any POWs out, if there were any left over there, which didn’t seem logical this long after the war ended.

Mary and I talked all the way home and I could tell that my relief at getting out of such a potentially horrid situation was also relief for her. I had to reassure her about ten times that I would not go back on her decision. It was afternoon when we pulled into the driveway. I could hear the kitchen phone ringing from inside the garage. I ran and caught it.

“I have to go to the office,” I told Mary who simply nodded and asked me what I wanted for dinner.

In the car, I breathed the high desert air that blew through the Rover’s wide-open windows. Things had returned to normal.

At the office, it took only a few minutes to rediscover that what was normal in my life could only be loosely defined.

Pat caught me as I came through the outer door.

“The FBI is here,” she whispered, sounding worried and like she was now my best friend and looking out for me.

“Where?” I asked, my tone light and unworried while turning back to see ith the chase vehicle was still parked in the lot, which it was.

“They want you to go to Mr. Weh’s office right now,” Pat replied, before turning and heading into the Bankers Life offices.

I could not for the life of me figure out why the FBI was with Allen Weh, and if they were, what that might have to do with me.

When I stepped through the door into Charter Services there was no one inside. I walked through the empty hall until I got to Weh’s office. The door was closed. Taking a page from Pat’s ‘book’ I didn’t bother knocking.

Two clone-like men sat next to one another on Weh’s Taos bench couch.

Weh sat behind his desk, a look of ferocity emanating out through his angry facial expression.

“Apparently, for whatever ridiculous reason in the world, you have to verify my very existence for me to renew my top-secret clearance.”

I looked back at the agents and both men nodded, almost in unison.

I turned back to look down at Weh.

“Thanks for the plane ride back from D.C.” I said, “and calling my wife to pick me up.”

“Jesus Christ, that was you, and I never called your wife or anybody else to pick you up. We’re a charter air operation not some sort of livery service.”

The whole mess of whatever was transpiring was beginning to escape me. Who had hired Charter Air and not bothered to inform them that I would be a passenger? Who was paying the tab? What kind of Top-Secret clearance was Weh being renewed for and why were the same FBI agents that were following me when I was in town now doing that investigation?

“What do you agents want? I said, giving my full attention to them

“Just need to confirm that you work close to the operation here, and this service is used to fly very important political figures to different places.”

“You guys follow me everywhere and you don’t know all of that yet? I asked in a tone that was made to sound like I was insulting them. “Let’s make a deal. You stop following and I’ll confirm whatever you want. I work with these people next door to my own offices. They are not real, and neither is my office set up,” telling them the real truth but knowing it would not be taken that way.

One of the agents took a sheaf of papers from a folder at his side and got up.

“Those are two different departments so we can’t do that deal, but if you’ll sign here, we’ll get out of your hair, and we’re special agents, not agents.”

I wanted to laugh as the first director of the FBI must have when he made all his agents ‘special agents’, thereby completely diluting the meaning of the word special. I signed the document the special agent held out. Both special agents walked out of Weh’s office and disappeared.

“Who the hell are you, really?” Weh asked, getting up and closing his office door.

We stood toe to toe. He looked at me aggressively, making me miss my Colt but remembering the great advice Marcinko had given me. Weh was taller by far and in that willowy lean good shape that only people who worked out every single day could be in. But he was a Marine Colonel and not a real combatant. He was not a predator and didn’t recognize the one standing in front of him only a few feet away.

“Who are you, really?” I countered, turning slightly to the side and angling my body slightly in case we were going to engage.

Weh backed up to his closed door. “I know those moves,” he said, his tone going from expressing anger to one of expressing a calmness. He put up his hands and held them palm out to me.

“We’re fine here, you agree?” I nodded but did not relax my body.

There was a knock on the door, very light. I recognized Pat’s form of trying to be polite and nice. It was amazing to see just how a few thousand dollars could change a person’s orientation. Weh opened the door and proved me to be correct.

“There’s a man here to see you,” she said directly, “in your office.”

“What now?” I whispered to myself more than the two people in front of me.

“We’ll talk later, and I’ll tell you everything,” l lied, then stepped through the door and went back down the hall. The outer door was still open. I looked out into the back lot to see that the FBI chase vehicle was gone. I replayed the special agent’s conversation in my mind from when I signed. He was telling me that he had no power to end the surveillance but that it was informally over, and then he proved it.

I got to my office and found a young man with a great growth of pure blond hair covering the top of his head. He got up from one of the chairs and held out his hand with a big smile.

“I’m Kris Anderson and we meet to go up in the morning from the fiesta field at four-thirty a.m. tomorrow morning.”

“Up in what?” I asked, taking the man’s hand and shaking it, and then I remembered.

“Up in a balloon?” I asked, and he laughed. I sighed. The first real good news of the day was finally being delivered.