I drove to Kris Anderson’s winery and looked around. The place seemed dead with no cars around or even a pick-up. There were plenty of collections of heavy earth-moving equipment surrounding the huge warehouse where I presumed most of the winery was run, wine was stored, and whatever else the wineries needed. I went to the only door that wasn’t one of those huge giant garage door things. I opened the door and the place was chaos. Everyone seemed to be yelling at everyone.

A tall skinny man with a ridiculous twirled end mustache approached me.

“Who are you? I am the sommelier, but no one listens to me. You cannot make Cabernet with sugar and spice.”
I stood there in shock as he turned and walked away in disgust, his white outfit making him look like he should be working in an emergency room.

Oak barrels, beautifully held together with brass straps were being rolled across the floor. There were racks of them going up almost a hundred feet I realized staring in wonder. What wine was stored in oak I wondered but had no idea.

I yelled at one of the workers, using Kris Anderson’s name. He pointed toward another door that was one leading into an interior office complex.

I didn’t knock, just wanting to get inside and away from the bedlam. Once the door closed everything was quiet. I felt relief.

“Your agents came to visit,” Kris said stepping out of a small office-like place inside the strange internal structure.

“I’m sorry I didn’t give you a warning,” I replied. “I thought they be here later in the day.

“They are something else,” Kris said. “Where do you find people like them in Albuquerque? It’s like they’re aliens or something.

I was happy the two agents had not emanated any malice and Kris, and no doubt his wife, found them to be attractive, bright, and normal insurance agents.

I closed the door behind me. A good-looking secretary exited just before I did that.

“Nice looking assistant, or whatever,” I said offhandedly but immediately wishing I’d said nothing.

“Yes, she’s qualified but that’s not why I hired her.”

A tanker of wine from California came in and Kris had to see to the pumping of it into his much huger tanks. I learned that using half of the wine from out of state or less would still allow the wine produced to be called a New Mexico wine, which seemed strange.

I just looked at him, wishing the conversation was going in a different direction.

He broke away to continue our short conversation about his new secretary.

“I hired her because she said she’d do anything to get the job,” Kris said.

I again just looked at him, not finding any kind of comfortable place to take the discussion.

“You want to know what happened?” Kris asked.

I nodded but said nothing again.

“I don’t know what she meant by ‘anything,’ and I don’t intend to. By saying that I think she meant she would ‘ride for the brand’ no matter what, and I badly need that. You saw just how screwed up everyone is in the winery proper. That’s what I’m forced to hire to make it at this level.”

I sat shocked. I would never have hired a woman who said what his secretary was said to have said in an interview. There were sexual connotations there that could quickly lead back to the boss no longer being the boss, to say the least. But I was learning to respect Kris, and he was nobody’s fool. Quite possibly, the story was just a story and might never have happened, or he was asking me to gauge some effect that I wasn’t about to give him. There was nothing I wanted to say so I remained silent. I’d been drawn back to the winery by the mysterious nature of Kris coming to me and introduction ballooning in my life in a way I knew almost no one else could have. Then there was the insurance sale, where he was helping me again for no good reason I could figure out. Ballooning was no more dangerous than walking on a path in a park, ordinarily but then Kris wasn’t by any means a normal balloonist. I wondered how the Bankers Life underwriting team would handle that most assuredly, the multi-billion-dollar insurance company wasn’t about to take on risks that it knew should not, even for the CIA.

We made an appointment for the following Saturday to continue my training in the AX-11 monster balloon. I was overjoyed that the invitation had come from him and not because I was begging, which I would have been if he hadn’t brought it up first. I also decided that the penetrating questions I had about why he’d somehow come upon the idea of coming to my office and befriending me could wait. Kris was a winemaker and a balloonist and neither a spy nor an asset of the company, or at least so I suspected.

Kris owned several huge Caterpillar earth-moving machines. He wanted me to drive one but I said no to that, as I could just see myself destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of grape vines or even the warehouse itself. Instead, I stood behind him in his cushioned chair while he played at digging and moving some huge amounts of dirt from one place to another and then back I could tell he just loved the work and I kind of enjoyed the feeling of power, not unlike that of ballooning that the functioning machinery gave me.

I thanked Kris and promised I’d be at the field at four in the morning on Saturday. Except for the slight dizziness the moving bouncing Caterpillar had given me I felt like floating back to the office along the Rio Grande Boulevard.

When I got back to the office Pat was waiting, evidently having somehow known I was in the parking lot without having any window or door to look through and see me. I shook my head as she guided me back to her desk in the clerical area. I looked up toward a new fixture above the wall in front of her desk. It was a television set but it wasn’t broadcasting any program. It was a split screen divided up into eight rectangles, each about the size of a cigar box. My car filled up most of the right lower corner box. I nodded to myself but said nothing. The office was rapidly becoming more secure than the bank we did business at and there was nothing to be done for it.

“What is it? I asked tiredly, in a tone that gave away the fact that I realized the best part of my day was past.

“Allen Weh’s upset with you and the electric company,” she said.

I detected a slight smile on her face but she got rid of it as soon as she noticed that I was noticing.

“What in hell do I have to do with the electric company, much less with it and Weh?”

Pat held out a piece of paper and I accepted it.

“What now?” I whispered to myself as I examined what turned out to be the electric bill for the past month.

“Well?” I asked, fingering the paper but not making heads or tails out of what was on it.

“The amount,” Pat said, not looking up, instead making believe she was doing some paperwork in front of her.

I looked at the total in the bottom right corner of the bill and let out a long sigh. The bill to Bankers Life was almost eleven hundred dollars. My home electric bill, for a residence of about the same size up on the mountainside, was about a hundred dollars. The office only had lights, computers, fax machines, and now the television set and VCR machines that were constantly on. The bill simply could not be for more than a few hundred more than my home one. I looked up at Pat, whose head was still down, hiding her face.

“Get them on the phone?” I said to Pat, then leaning back against the wall the T.V. was attached to and waited while she dialed. It took a good five minutes to get through recordings and staff to find someone in billing.

Pat held out the phone when she had someone on the line that might be the right person, or maybe not.

“What’s going on with Bankers Life on Rio Grande?” I asked, expecting a run-around.

“This is Sam Huddleston in compliance and there’s a strange problem,” a deep voice man declared.

I waited, once more following the Thorkelson-Bartok rule of not answering if there’s no question asked.

“Are you Banker’s Life?” the voice asked, after a delay.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I replied, with a laugh. “Banker’s Life is a seven-billion-dollar company. It does not have its own voice.”

“Very funny,” Sam Huddleston said. “What’s not so funny is that you have a huge electric bill but the the room where the meters and equipment are remains locked all the time and the doors and walls are armored.”

“What’s the problem?” I asked. “Mr . Weh of Charter Services owns the building and therefore has the keys.”

“He won’t talk to us and he won’t let us in,” Huddleston replied.

“What’s that to me?” I asked, still never having been asked who I was or being told what the problem driving the short discussion might be about.

“It would appear that Charter Services is not receiving a bill at all,” Huddleston finally revealed.

“How’s that possible?” I inquired.

“That’s what we would like to know by checking meters,” Huddleston came back. “That place has all kinds of heavy copper wiring entering into the walls.”

My mind finally caught up to the substance of the conversation. All the electrical lines were being run through only one meter, the Banker’s Life meter and that meant Mr. Weh had structured the electrical high-security area to be just that as it was his intention. He probably hadn’t thought about the fact that someone at the electric company might pick up on the fact that a business address and operating business at that address was using no electricity. Over several months that amounted to thousands of dollars being stolen from Bankers Life and a huge insurance company wasn’t going to be very forgiving when it found out and the armored electric area opened in some manner or other. The result was going to be inevitable unless action was taken immediately.

I walked away from Pat’s desk, dropped the bill, and headed over to Charter Services. As usual, there was almost one around. Alan’s secretary asked what I wanted but I ignored her, walked straight into Weh’s office, and closed the door before I noticed he was with someone.

I opened the door and pointed at the open space.

“He’s got a meeting right now,” I said, as pleasantly as I could, holding the door open against the springs of the automatic closer.

Both men looked at me. Alan read my expression and motioned for his visitor to go.

I closed the door and began my little presentation.

“You’ve been playing with the electrical connections and the power company’s figured it out. You forgot that the way things are set up today checks and double-checks with those who have the capability, the electric company might pick up on the fact that your office isn’t using any power and therefore you’re not getting a bill. You should have thought of that.”

Weh stood up, leaned forward, and put both hands on his desk.

“So?” he said, trying to sound like he didn’t give a damn about the situation at all, but I read his facial expression and body language. He was worried to the bone.

“I can save you, as they’re right outside and about to seek a warrant or injunction to get into the electrical room. Even that action would reach out and touch you at CIA headquarters in D.C. and you know it.”

Weh sat down and let out a long sigh.

“And, so?” he said again.

“Banker’s Life doesn’t care what the power bill is,” I said, speaking to the Colonel in front of me like he was a student. “Management back there only cares that there’s enough premium coming in the door to pay the bills and commissions of its people, and any more is pure gravy.”

“Yeah?” Alan replied, color starting to come back into his face.

“I’ll take care of the electrical people and continue to pay the whole bill but I want to know what you’re up to over here all the time, no more ridiculous bills, and I want to know about the Frankenstein or whatever it is you’re doing in the basement that’s eating up all this juice. Finally, you have to buy a million-dollar life policy, whole life, on you and half a million on your wife.”

“So, I’m supposed to owe you and then be reporting to you, as well?” Alan said, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t much care for that arrangement.”

“I’m not forcing you to do anything but make a decision. You want the black dark hand to play, which might cost you the career in D.C. you so love, your family, and possibly your freedom much less Charter Services…particularly now that you’ve glommed onto the Agency to help pay the bills? Or do you want goodness and light, with the mild annoyance that you have to bring me in out of the cold on what you’re doing all the time and you have to send a plane for me if I need it once in awhile?”

“Shit,” Alan said, almost in a whisper.

“Pay the bill and get those creeps out of my building. The only problem I can see is that you can’t know yet what’s going on down there,” he pointed at the floor. “It’s classified and although I know you have the clearance you don’t have anything like a need to know.”

I shrugged. I knew he was right, and I sensed he wasn’t lying to me, just as I sensed that he knew I would go along without that information. What choice did I have? The Agency was no doubt choosing Charter to be the medical evacuation concern for the plan as it had chartered planes twice.

“King Air, if you have an emergency, not the coming large aisle jets,” Weh said, obviously buoyed up by my agreement. “The Agency gets billed for fuel and not secret flights they don’t know about. Find another way to do a Hawaiian vacation.”

“Your King Airs are limited to sixteen hundred miles in range, hardly Hawaii vacation aircraft,” I mentioned, turning to leave his office.

“Small point,” Weh replied.

I left and went back to Pat’s desk.

“Just expense the electrical bills like always and ignore the rest. I’ll go out and talk to the electrical people.

“That’s a Banker’s Life payment, not something you should have any say or control over,” Pat shot back, stopping me in my tracks.

“Do you want to go back?” I asked softly, looking her straight in the eyes, my own not blinking, my head tilting slightly back and forth, like a tiger in the bush sizing up prey.

Her mouth opened slightly, and I saw and felt that she was going to ask back where, but she stopped.

“No,” she murmured and bent back down as if I was no longer right in front of her.

“Here,” she whispered, pushing some papers across the desk without looking up.
I grabbed the sheaf and went to the outside door where Huddleston waited with the big PNB truck parked across the lot.

“We’re partners and he’s not doing anything wrong here,” I said. “He’s just put it all through one meter for convenience or whatever.”

“I’m supposed to buy into that?” the man asked back, almost too quickly, like he was expecting to be lied to.

I breathed in and out deeply, trying to settle myself down. I was dealing with rural people in a rural place, not D.C. or California.

“I have a question for you to ask yourself before I go back inside,” I said, “and here it is: ‘Why is my truck parked in a private parking lot without the permission of the lot’s owners?’”

I turned and went back through the door to stand in the hall and wait for the truck to leave.

I read quickly through the papers which were flimsy faxes. It was the immigration stuff for Kingsley and his wife. I read the note from Tony Herbert on the cover page. The faxes would serve to cover the couple until hard-copy green cards could be produced, which would require eight photos of each of them.

“Eight photos?” I asked myself in wonder. But I knew the immigration department was by and large inscrutable so there was no sense asking. That the approvals had come so fast was what surprised me, until I read on.

“I presume you have some purpose for these two in whatever arcane plan you have for the training of the team. The initial training will be at the new counter-terrorism center on Kirkland Air Base. I know it’s between Thanksgiving and Christmas and I’m sorry but TET, the Vietnam holiday is in January this year and we want to do a sort of Pearl Harbor thing. The training starts now.”

I dropped my hands to my sides. Thanksgiving had come and gone in a heated rush, with nobody there except Mary, Julie, Michael, Bozo, and me. My wife didn’t want another ‘abandonment party,’ as she called it. The Agency, I knew wasn’t big on holiday celebrations or time off for holidays, unless it was something like taking advantage of the fact that Vietnam would likely have security down or damaged because of its only giant holiday. My celebration of Christmas with the family would be ignored or laughed at. The Agency had missions, not holidays. How was I going to sell the training phase to Mary?

I went back out to my car without returning to my office, happy when I saw the PNM truck was gone. Utility companies in New Mexico could only enter private property without owner approval in an emergency. Both Huddleston and I had known that. I wondered how long it would take in the future to get electrical service turned on, though, if it went down for some reason or another.

The drive to the Spearmint Plaza took twenty minutes, and my mind raced, trying to come up with a believable lie to tell my wife. I hadn’t forgotten her comment too. Richard Marcinko about getting a one-way ticket. Mary was a powerful force in nature and in my life in every way. There was no way I was going to be able to sell her on the fact that I was likely to be in Puerto Rico for that holiday.

I pulled into the station and took the fax with me, leaving the cover letter on the seat.

Ben was behind the counter, as always, with nobody else there, customers or his wife. He smiled broadly but said nothing as I walked in and put the papers down.

“You will need to go to some passport place and have eight photos taken of each of you,” I said, as Ben leaned down to view the faint print that was on the flimsy paper’s surface. He looked up when he’d scanned the papers for a good five minutes, while I walked over and got a Coke out of the cooler.

I turned around and ran right into the man. Ben had come around the counter. He grabbed me in a tight hug, my hand out holding the coke, my other trying to pry him loose.

“God has sent you in His kindness,” he breathed out, tears in his eyes.

I finally got loose, hoping Ben’s wife wasn’t around.

“Your wife can run the shop without you?” I asked once Ben was back behind the counter. I sniffed the air. I knew I would get home and smell like curry which would require that I have an explanation. Mary’s nose was fully equal to a basset hound’s olfactory ability.

“I’m going to need you to be my assistant on some things for the next few weeks. Get the photos quickly and then take them to the Banker’s Life Office and have Pat send them off. You are about to travel and you need credible and real identification.”

“What am I doing and where are we going?” Kingsley asked.

“What I say and where I take you,” was all I replied. “Get the green cards and then get ready. I’ll be back in a few days to get you.”

“My wife will want to thank you,” Ben replied.

I sighed. The combination of curry and perfume might just get me killed by my wife and I wasn’t ready to deal with that. I went outside, tossed the empty Coke can, and drove home. I had no lie to cover the coming training fiasco. I turned on the radio and listened for rock and roll guidance.
There was a brief silence to the point that I wondered if the radio was on the blink, but then a song began, the volume turned up as I’d tried to hear.
“When the night has come and the land is dark, and the moon is the only light we’ll see, no, I won’t be afraid, no, I won’t be afraid, just as long as you stand by me…”

The song played on to the finish and I knew the lyrics had reached me, as I decided to tell my wife everything and then let her stand by me, which she always had. I had no right to doubt her. I was in a tough place and I needed her at my side.

Making a quick stop at the office, I filled in Pat about the Kingsleys coming in and the photo exercise they needed her help with. I didn’t bother to answer any of her questions. I then barged back into Weh’s office, this time with nobody but Alan in it.

“I’ll need the King Air the day before Christmas and two days after to run back and forth to Puerto Rico. I have training down there but have to come home for Christmas.”

“Jesus Christ,” Weh said, consulting a small book he kept in his top drawer. “That’s twenty-seven hundred miles one way. A refueling in Florida and more. It’s going to cost you in fuel. And that’s one. You get three trips a year like this and then that’s it.”

“Oh, okay,” I shot back over my shoulder. “That means I get three next year.” As I made my way down the hall Weh was shouting.

“Fiscal year not annual.”

I went back to Pat and told her to send the two new agents to do the paperwork on Alan and his wife. It was my usual sale, I realized, and neither Tom Thorkelson nor Chuck Bartok, my insurance and life mentors, would approve if they knew.

I drove home, only to find a car in my driveway. My heart sank. It was Marcinko, the cad, and womanizer, inside alone with my wife. I rushed in through the garage, afraid for his life.