I ran through the open garage and on into the house through the kitchen door. The living room was to my right and Marcinko was sitting on the couch that faced me and the television set angled to his right. Mary stood talking to him but had not seated herself.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him, at a loss.

Mary retreated into the hall towards the master bedroom.

“Filling your wife in on the training schedule as you weren’t here, and apparently she had no idea about it.”

I looked toward the hall, but no smoke seemed to be coming out from it. She was going to be upset that Marcinko was the first to tell her but there was nothing to be done about that. It was important to me that I get the man out of my house and on his way, however. No matter what the man’s background and writing and all of it, he was a force of disturbance in my little universe.

I walked over to the library wall and hunted for a book. It took only a couple of minutes to find what I was looking for. I pulled the small think book from the stack and carried it with me into the living room.

“Training starts tomorrow at ten hundred hours,” Marcinko said, with a big smile, as if the training was going to be some sort of entertaining cakewalk.

Marcinko had been a Navy Seal so he should have known better, but I said nothing.

I walked over and handed him the book.

“Sun Tzu,” Marcinko read from the title. “The Art of War,” he went on, flipping the book over. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Memorize, or at least read it through by training tomorrow,” I instructed. “You are about to become a trainee again, not a team leader, so get used to it.”

“Got it,” Marcinko said, putting the book down in front of him on the coffee table, as Mary walked back into the room.

“You know,” Marcinko immediately commented, “I’ve never seen any woman look as good in a miniskirt as you, and this is the second time I’ve seen you in one.”

I looked over at Mary but astonishingly she just smiled.

“You two want coffee or something stronger?” she asked, walking toward the kitchen, her short but loose skirt sort of fluffing as she went.

“Very nice,” Marcinko said to me.

I just frowned.

“Are we done here?” I asked him.

“But she’s getting us something to drink,” Marcinko complained.

“Tomorrow morning,” I said, “and you need to start reading now.”

“Alright, alright it’s not my fault you married a beautiful woman,” he replied, getting up with some difficulty from the Taos bench couch, which was much deeper than a regular couch.

I went to the front door and held it open.

“Next time, call me,” I told him as he walked by.

“You weren’t around,” he replied with as laugh.

“Find me or get yourself a new trainer.”

“Fine,” he finished and walked out the Spanish gate and toward his car.

I waited for him to drive away before going back inside.

Mary had never left the kitchen, instead having seated herself and was drinking a Manhattan cocktail she’d made for herself.

“Look, I’m sorry about that,” I began, but she waved her right hand.

“He was fine,” she said, “but it would have been nice if you’d shared this training thing with me first.”

“They’re flying me home before Christmas and then back two days after to finish,” I lied.

The Agency might pick up the fuel cost but the plan had nothing to do with the leaders of that agency. I wasn’t sure just how far I would push mission finance but I knew I was getting close to some limit.

“I’m sorry he treats you that way,” I offered but she just laughed.

“None of your business. He’s a cad and a lowlife but at least he compliments me as opposed to you.”

I nodded, a little in shock. When I was complimentary about her sexy appearance I usually got yelled at. I realized once again that I was a long way from understanding women and the one I was married to.

I mixed myself a rum and coke and went to spend time with Bozo, a creature I had a better understanding of who was laying with Julie in her bedroom. I stopped at the open doorway, very aware of the sign she’d made that read “No adults allowed, and this means you Dad!”

Before she was 13 she was my best friend of all, but on that date, I had become a ‘persona non grata’ and, although I was hurt, I understood.
Bozo came out, reacting to my presence at the door, and walked into the living room where the television was on. He first went to the Taos bench where he usually curled up but instead of jumping up he sniffed and backed away.

“You don’t like him any better than I do,” I whispered to the barely tame creature, as he headed to the TV and sat to stare at the moving pictures on the screen.

Marcinko had left his scent on the bench and in my life, and his presence would be with me for some time I knew. That he was a pawn that Mary was toying with he’d likely never be aware of but I would always be.

I sat down next to the cat. Mary was in a strange mood, Julie was unavailable and Michael was nowhere to be found. It was Bozo and I.

“So, what do you think?” I asked a creature who could not speak or understand the language.

Bozo looked over and up at me there right next to him.

“That’s what I thought,” I murmured.

Bozo stood up, turned, and pushed his head against the outside of my left thigh. I crossed my legs and made a lap, which he promptly crawled into and curled up in.

Bozo had never done such a thing since our coming together years earlier in San Clemente and his attention and presence made me feel relaxed and warm all over. I didn’t understand everyone around me, sometimes not even my wife but Bozo and I understood one another almost automatically. One predator huddled up with another of the same breed and kind.

I excused myself although Mary was on the phone and when she was on the phone all you got was a wave and then an accusation later that she hadn’t been informed of any leaving.

The drive to the base didn’t take long. Montgomery is a few blocks down to Tramway. Tramway west for three miles and then the four more down Central to and then onto Truman to the Main Gate, the only one open twenty-four hours a day. The training center was in the expanse of desert down from the Monzano Mountain peak which is also the repository of nuclear weapons manufactured at Los Alamos and transported down for distribution around the entire world to American bases and fleets.

The training center was nearing completion I saw as I pulled up to the center gate. A deadly sign was attached to the rather flimsy-looking chain link fence surrounding the area: “Entering the facility without permission may result in death.” Ominous, to say the least, I thought but didn’t doubt the truth of it. The security was more related to nuclear storage than to any training being done there.

I pulled up to the gatehouse and waited. Two Air Force enlisted types approached. The one with chevrons up and down his arms carried a folder in one hand and a pen in the other.

“State your business, sir,” he said, as the other airman walked around the Rover checking for whatever he could see from the outside.

I pulled out my Marine I.D. card, wondering if the DEERS system still carried me as active duty which I certainly by now as not.

“Thank you, sir,” the man said, handing the card back.

“Your capacity at the center would be…” he began, before stopping to wait for some reply.

“Training officer,” I said.

“What unit?” he asked, opening his folder and coming up with a short list to review.

I had no answer for the man as I hadn’t yet been told a name for the operation much less a until designation, so I simply looked at him and remained quiet.

The Rover idled away as the other airman came around to join his associate.

“Alright,” the chevrons said, “what outfit are you with then?”
I could tell he figured I was somebody, being that the Rover was such an expensive vehicle and likely very uncommon to even come onto the base at all, but he couldn’t place me.

I looked at him some more, certain that revealing my CIA attachment would be a mistake. I had no idea of any classification of the mission, particularly when any such formal secrecy wouldn’t seem to fit with the fully backed but privately originated operation that was organized.

Chevrons didn’t seem the least put off by my failure to answer his questions as if that happened to him at the gate all the time.

“Can you at least give me a name?” he asked a tone of exasperation in his voice.

“Marcinko,” I replied, for no good reason other than the man’s name was on my tongue with the same kind of taste I’d gotten from his conduct and attitude ever since I’d been introduced to him.

“Oh, you’re with them,” Chevrons said, exhaling in relief.

“Them?” I asked, “Is that some kind of new unit designation?”

“The Puerto Rico Operation,” he replied, reading from his list. “Zero one zero four three five eight, team leader,” it says here.

“Like it says on my I.D. card?” I countered.

“There was no reference at that initial juncture,” the sergeant replied, waving for his associate to open the gate.

I drove slowly through, satisfied that the guards were indeed first class and doing the job they were supposed to do. Not Marine Guards but maybe the next best thing.

The training complex wasn’t a real complex at all. It was a series of large tents, and inside those giant tents, each about four times the size of Kris Anderson’s AX-11 balloon were more tents. Each tent was connected to a generator, with natural gas tanks and water tanks nearby. I walked among them thinking of myself as being part of one of those old movies where the French Foreign Legion fought the natives out in the Sahara.

I opened one of the inner tent flaps and was surprised. Six troopers sat on six cots facing inward as if ordered to do so until relieved. One of the troopers looked up and then all snapped to positions of attention.

“Sir,” was all the one said, very loudly.

“Stand at ease,” I ordered, automatically. “Does anyone here know me?” I asked my surprise at being recognized as a Sir.

There was no answer.

“How do you know I’m a Sir if none of you know me?” I asked.

“We were told to wait until you made your appearance as our team leader Sir,” the same man said.

I noticed that none of the troopers wore any rank or other designators. I was befuddled as I stood among them. None of them were Marines. I was to train Army troopers, not Marines, which seemed pretty bizarre.

“I see,” was all I could think to say until something occurred to me.

“There are only six of you?” I asked in amazement.

“Oh no, sir, there are ten more shelters like this one and six more for supplies, a galley, bathroom facilities, and more.”

“Sixty men,” I breathed out. “Why so many?” I said to myself, not meaning to ask the spokesperson.

“They said the losses could be very heavy,” he replied, not breaking a bit from his serious tone or expression while I wanted to laugh.

I’d walked in out of the cold without being briefed by Marcinko or Herbert. Just how many POWs could still be in some secret camp in what used to be North Vietnam and why would their rescue possibly cost the lives of many of the men gathered to go in and get them?

Marcinko walked through the tent flap, snapping it back into place as he entered.

“You’re early, sir,” he said, saluting as only the army and air force did indoors when reporting to a superior officer. Marcinko had been Navy so I took the salute as being more of his obnoxious and insubordinate behavior and did not return it.

“Can we talk?” I asked Marcinko.

He nodded and headed back out of the tent and I followed.

Once the flap was closed I confronted him.

“Is this supposed to be some sort of real-life version of Mission Impossible where the Secretary is damn sure going to disavow any knowledge of it or your very existence? Are you stark raving mad, and who’s paying for all of this?”

“Soon-to-be senator McCain put this all together for us,” Marcinko said, his tone being one of meekness for the first time since I’d met him.

“I’m going to pick up my assistant, or adjutant or aide, or whatever we might want to call him,” I replied. “He’ll make more sense out of this rolling nightmare mess than anyone here, I’m damned sure. And did you read the book I gave you?”

“Partially, and you have an aide?” Marcinko said. “Nobody told me and I’m the team leader. What’s his name and where’s he from?”

“Ben Kingsley,” I replied, heading for my Range Rover.

“The movie actor,” Marcinko yelled after me.

“Makes all the sense in the world,” I yelled back, getting in, turning the Rover around, and heading for the gate.

I drove to the Spearmint Plaza, hoping that Kingsley, at least, would be ready to go and prepared to help me. I wanted a driver, errand boy, and confidant who wasn’t Marcinko nor one of the nearly crazed recruits for the mission.
The Rover pulled up to the gas station and I left it running as I prepared to go inside, but I didn’t have to. Kingsley came through the door, wearing boots, heavy Levi trousers, a thick plaid long-sleeve shirt, and carrying a medium-sized backpack.

I got back into my seat as he climbed into the passenger side after tossing his backpack into the back.

“Please remove yourself,” he said, in his Indian accent.

“What?” I asked, not understanding.

“Step outside the vehicle,” he said, pointing toward the front of the station entrance a woman stepped out of, no doubt Ben’s wife.

The darkly attractive woman ran at me until we made contact. Her hug was so tight I almost couldn’t breathe.

“My husband thanks you,” she said into my left ear before releasing me and running back inside.

I stumbled back into the Rover and pulled away.

“Her husband thanks me?” I asked, glancing over at Ben.

“Yes, I thank you,” he replied matter-of-factly as if any of the exchange made sense.

“What about her?” I said, mystified.

“The hug, that was her thanks, very uncommon, even in my country, and never with another man like that in my marriage.”

“Oh,” was all I could manage, as the hug had been the deepest of my life yet in some sort of non-sexual way.

While we drove, I tried to fill Ben in on the mission and what was to be expected of him. While we proceeded to the big Interchange of freeways in the lower center of Albuquerque, Ben noted that the fuel gauge was only on a quarter. I realized that I had intended to fill up the tank at Ben’s station, but the hug had thrown my brain into a tizzy. I took the first exit off the I40 north-south freeway and pulled into a Shell station. I climbed out of the vehicle and started pumping the premium gasoline the Range Rover required. Ben went around the car and got into the driver’s seat. I peered through the window above the fuel pipe and wondered what the man was doing but let it go. The Rover was an uncommon vehicle, and many men wanted to explore its idiosyncrasies personally. I went in and paid for the fuel and came back out. The Rover drank gasoline like there was no tomorrow. Ten miles to the gallon unless off-road, as in chasing balloons, and then it was more like six.

When I came out of the gas station business area the passenger door to the Rover was open, and the V8 was idling with Kingsley behind the wheel pointing toward the passenger seat. Our eyes met, and he smiled. I got his message and climbed in. Kingsley was to be my driver, and he was taking over.

“You bring your papers as you’re about to enter an American Top Secret facility for the first time in your life,” I said, as Ben gently headed the Rover toward a freeway onramp.

“I ride with you,” he replied, his eyes never leaving the road in front of us.

Somehow it made me feel good to have Ben’s total confidence that I could handle any problems that might come along or appear.

After I reviewed the mission, with Ben, as I understood it, and my place in it, I fielded unending questions from the perceptive man, all of them about John McCain and his service before, during, and following the Vietnam War.

When we arrived at the base Wyoming gate, security was much less than it had been at the main Truman gate, and with only my I.D. flashed across Ben’s chest we were waved through. I knew the inner gate to the nuclear grounds would likely be more difficult to negotiate but that concern went away as soon as we pulled up. The same sergeant was manning the booth with the same enlisted assistant. The sergeant’s expression was one of resignation as Ben automatically stopped the Rover to allow the man to approach.

“Puerto…” the sergeant said, with a faint smile crossing his facial features.

“Rico,” I said, joining the sergeant by getting and then responding to his humorous code word invention.

Ben eased the Rover through the opening as the sergeant’s assistant wheeled the double gates open.

“I don’t understand,” Kingsley said, with a frown knitting across his normally smooth brow.

“It’s a kids’ game thing in America,” I replied, as we pulled up to the series of inner tents and Kingsley stopped the vehicle. “In swimming pools for generations, the word “Marco” has been yelled from one side of a pool to the other side. One player is designated as ‘It’ and must yell Marco with his or her eyes closed. The other players in the pool must all respond with the word “Polo” in a verbal reply. It’s an honor game with the person yelling Marco having to echolocate another player, and then tagging to replace him or herself as ‘I.’ It’s truly an honor game and fun when the players have integrity.”

“Oh,” Ben replied, turning the ignition off and waiting for me to tell him what to do.

“Today will be a classroom day,” I said, “and I hope the big tent has plenty of folding chairs. No working out. That part, the physical part will be up to Marcinko. He was the Navy Seal and there’s little doubt he won’t torture the recruits for this mission.”

“What will you teach them on this first day of training?” Kingsley asked.

“Today, their first day will mimic their first day in combat, or in approaching combat as they are inserted and move across and through the jungle. The jungle of the north is not as thick as that of the south, and I have no idea what the Puerto Rican jungle’s going to be like, but the rules of engagement and survival will be the same. How to get through the first two hours on the ground and do so unwounded and alive,”

“I see,” was all Ben replied.

I headed toward the same smaller tent I’d been inside the day before. Before I could pull the flap back and enter one of the troopers came out and immediately assumed the position of attention.

“At ease, trooper,” I ordered and let the man assume a relaxed position. I told him my plan and that I needed the others assembled to form a classroom situation. I also informed him to let the others know that henceforth neither I nor Marcinko would require saluting or coming to attention when we approached. I would be Jim and Marcinko would be Richard.

“Thank you…Jim,” the trooper replied, his hesitation on calling me by my first name fully evident in his glottal stopping hesitation.

“Go,” I said to him.

Wisely, the trooper turned and re-entered the tent he’d come out of, and in seconds the other five men were pouring through the flap opening, no doubt running forth to spread the word.

I turned to Ben and waited since it would take a few minutes for everyone to gather inside the big tent.

“What are your thoughts?” I asked, for some reason wanting to have a cigarette with the man for some sort of attachment. I’d never liked the taste nor the coughing, but I enjoyed the dramatic delays smoking gave a person, as the cigarette has to be occasionally and optionally puffed on.

Kingsley didn’t reply immediately, looking around to take the whole place in.

“You asked a whole lot about McCain, so what was your point or intent on concentrating on him?” I asked.

“According to you, Jim, the captain, soon to be a senator, doesn’t want the mission to proceed but is fully backing it.”

“That’s my take on things,” I replied, wondering what the clever and sensitive Indian was getting at.

“But he’s backing all of this with funding and personnel and his seeming support.”

“Seeming?” I asked.

“He apparently needs the mission to be performed for his reputation as a combatant and POW supporter, but also, according to you he would like the mission to fail, or so I gather.”

I looked down at the shorter man and stared into his unfathomably deep dark eyes but didn’t say anything. I knew he had more to say.

“You want to know?” he unaccountably asked.

I wanted to say, “Know what?” but I didn’t, instead simply staring into his unblinking eyes.

“He would initiate and support the mission while assuring that it fails, quite possibly if not likely.”

I took in a deep breath without intending to do so.

“How might he do that?” I finally said, as it appeared he wasn’t going to go on.

“With a telephone,” Kingsley said, this time his voice dropping to a whisper as he finally began to look around us, although nobody was in sight anywhere, everyone having been gathered by the six troopers to meet for the first training class.

“Telephone,” I mused inaudibly to myself, my mind racing around ways to fit that device into Ben’s presentation.

“Oh my God,” I whispered, again more to myself than Kingsley.

“He calls and warns them the team is coming.”