Christmas loomed ahead, as I returned to the office after once more assigning the class to attend a combat training course encouraged by the Army for its more exotic special forces units. After reviewing the content of the course, I could see no place for me to do anything but stand around as the Army Rangers did the mostly physical aspects of the training which included things that seemed idiotic to me. Shotgun training, knife fighting, and identification friend or foe stuff made no sense at all to me, not in working through and surviving combat down in the very interior of a triple canopy jungle environment. A great part of my program was going to be dedicated to working with jungle life, both fauna and flora, and what to expect of those things in those areas that were already known but seldom studied by would-be combatants. The fact that my supposed totally independent leadership was being violated by other decision-makers for the training seemed to raise no eyebrows anywhere. Everyone apparently wanted what McCain wanted, to be identified with the effort but not be a real part of it, and particularly not go on that mission.

I pulled the Range Rover into the parking lot and saw the Air Force limo immediately, the only good news being that it wasn’t Marcinko’s car.

“Who the hell now?” I asked no one under my breath, as I walked toward the office door. Pulling it open I didn’t have to step inside as Tony Herbert’s body filled most of the narrow hallways, his expressive facial features emitting a gentle smile, which didn’t make me feel good at all. What was the man doing in Albuquerque and at my office waiting for my return from the base? Why hadn’t he come to the base, I wondered, but also knew, before even greeting him, that I probably didn’t want to know.

Herbert turned and headed up the hall toward my office and I had no choice but to follow. Once inside he was waiting for me to pass him and then closed the door before sitting down in one of the straight-backed guest chairs.

“You had these things made to make anyone sitting in front of you uncomfortable, didn’t you?” he said, making what he and I both knew was nonsense conversation before he got to whatever important reason had brought him to me in person instead of simply calling like he normally would.

I sat behind the desk and leaned forward to brace my elbows atop the wooden surface without responding. There was no point in making small talk. Whatever had brought my control officer in person was important and no bantering was going to make whatever the message, order. or instruction was going to be forthcoming.

“We’ve run into a slight glitch,” Herbert began, pursing his lips before proceeding with delivering whatever the bad news was.

“The Christmas before and after flights have been approved and arranged so you don’t have to call anybody or do that, but the arrangements don’t include you accompanying the men.”

I waited again, knowing there had to be more coming while holding myself back from assuming the worst.

“Korea,” Herbert said, pausing slightly before going on. “We need you to fly there, settle things down, and then fly back. Total of three days and two nights if everything goes as planned.”

I waited but in studying Herbert I realized he was waiting too, and was better at it than I was.

“What’s the problem?” I finally asked, not truly understanding why he was making me ask instead of just informing me.

Korea’s five big hospitals all are part of an association, not that they call it that,” Herbert replied, his response recited like he was reading it out of a book. “If they allow direct billing of claims like your plan has as its key motivating foundation, then all of Asia will buy in and open up for us, but they are refusing because they can’t conceive of how it would work without some of the guarantee recommended hospitals, clinics, and centers would get their money.”

“And this requires my presence there in person?” I asked, nearly incredulous at the supposed necessity.

“Ah, well, yes,” Herbert said, obviously uncomfortable. “What do we tell them to make that happen, their decision to proceed I mean, and then how do we get the information to them in a form they will believe? They have no trust in the government here to pay them after what happened on that dam project before.”

“Oh, the dam project,” I replied, saying the words in a tone of deliberate sarcasm.

“Yes, Kissinger’s thing,” Herbert said, before looking into my eyes. “Oh, you don’t know about that.”

“Aren’t I supposed to go to Charm School or training at some point?” I asked, changing the subject.

The mention of Kissinger’s name had thrown me and I didn’t want to veer off from the subject, at least until a later time. I didn’t want to go to Korea and needed a good reason to say no. Herbert wasn’t uncomfortable with my being sent to Korea, I knew, he was uncomfortable because of dates. If I could not be on the flight with the men from the Puerto Rican jungle for Christmas it meant that my trip to Korea might very well mean I wouldn’t be home for Christmas at all…and that wasn’t going to fly in my household whatsoever.

Herbert waited for my response, slightly squirming in his chair.

“Aside from logistics,” I began, looking down at my desk and thinking, “What argument would I use to convince them if even the U.S. government’s guarantee is not acceptable?”

“That’s why I’m here,” Herbert replied, finally seeming to relax in the deliberately uncomfortable chair. That the chair had been selected by Pat and not me,

I knew wouldn’t matter to him nor was the information necessary for any other reason, although his discomfort did make me smile inside.

I waited but he didn’t go on.

“Well?” I asked, in frustration.

“Well, what?” he replied. “This is what you do.”

“This isn’t a script from Star Trek and I’m not Captain Kirk,” I said, exasperation influencing the tone of every word.

“What do we do, the whole project rests on this?”

Herbert replied with a smile as if he knew for certain I would come up with a solution to the problem without any trouble whatsoever.

I leaned back in the chair and interlaced my hands behind my head, staring up at the ceiling. Breathing in and out deeply several times I tried to shed my anger and frustration with the way the CIA went about everything that seemed or actually did touch me.

“Blue Cross Blue Shield is the most respected health care organization in this country. It has companies and offices in all fifty states. They aren’t international although our company will change that, but probably only because the Agency is going to pay the claims while the outrageous expenses envisioned for this will be paid by the revenues.

“Yes?” Herbert encouraged, as he left the one-word question hanging in the air between us.

“So, forget the government,” I said. “Many countries don’t respect the USA, but they all respect Blue Cross and its new brother Blue Shield. Their problem is likely that they won’t admit to not trusting the United States to cover the bills if they aren’t paid. The CIA must give our company a slug of cash to hold in reserve of potential claim payments and then we have BCBS of the National Capital Area give them the records of how the plan has worked so well in this country.”

I tipped my chair and body forward while going back to resting my chin on the clasped knuckles of both hands.

“There are no records like that because we just started the company,” Herbert replied, shaking his head slowly.
“Tony,” I said, shaking my head before staring into his eyes. “We’re going to lie and then produce the fake accounting necessary to allay their fears by having Arthur Anderson confirm everything unless I’m wrong about that firm being entirely in the Agency’s pocket.”

Tony stood up and began to pace back and forth from one side of my office to the other before finally speaking again.

“You astound me,” Herbert finally said on about his sixth pass in front of me. “Are there any rules you aren’t afraid of breaking? Do you assume that an institution like Arthur Anderson would get that low to falsify such financial records? You assume the Agency will agree to this plan, or whatever you the hell you call it? If you would propose than then execute such a mission then what is there on this planet you won’t do?”

I waited for Tony to stop pacing and sit back down. Once settled, he waited for me to say something which I knew because of the way he was looking at me, like I was more of a dangerous viper about to strike than the former officer and now agent I was.

“We both know I’m a trainee who hasn’t even been through basic training. I’m nobody, at least not yet.” I stopped talking and waited for the depth of my comment to be understood and then the next logical conclusion was made.

Herbert sat for seconds thinking, before whispering out his conclusion.

“My mission,” he said, his voice so quiet I almost couldn’t hear it.

I picked up my phone receiver, hit one of the unlit buttons, and then held it out. I was going to ask him if he wanted to make the call but then realized it wasn’t required. I just waited with the instrument outstretched.

“I could be fired for just mentioning what you said, much less requesting that the Agency act upon it,” he replied, his voice returning to normal. “Hell, I’d fire me for asking any of that.”

I continued to hold the handset out toward him, my facial expression as deadpan as I could make it.

“I need the office,” Herbert said, his expression one more of resignation than displeasure, as he took the handset roughly from my hand.

I left the office as he dialed, quietly closing the door to await whatever results he was likely to receive.

My office wasn’t soundproof so I could hear him talking, for long periods he had to be listening without speaking. I heard the receiver hit the base of the phone and opened the door.

“How do you do it?” he asked, sitting in my chair.

I took one of the ‘torture’ chairs and sat facing him, my back ramrod straight as the shape of the chair required unless one was a contortionist.

“They’ll do it,” Herbert said, taking a pack of cigarettes from his side pocket and working at getting one out of it after hard tamping it on the surface of my desk.

I didn’t bother to tell him that the entire office was a non-smoking environment simply because I knew it wouldn’t do any good.

“I’ll fly to D.C. to make sure it’s done correctly, quickly, and very silently,” Herbert said, lighting his cigarette and blowing the first puff of smoke directly at me. “One question, the answer I have to report back with, and one instruction they have for you as part of the deal.”

“The question?” I asked, mystified.

“They think your plan, or my plan now, is brilliant, but how is it you know anything about Arthur Anderson?”

The straight-back chair felt almost comfortable compared to facing the expression on Herbert’s face.

“I don’t know anything about the accounting firm, except for its name and the fact that Nixon’s chief of staff once said that if they ever needed to cover some numbers up then that firm needed to be called it. I just pulled it out of the air.”

“Nixon’s Chief of Staff?” Tony replied, his voice stronger and higher than normal.

“How in hell did you get to overhear any president’s chief of staff and him in particular?” Herbert asked, making a visible effort to control himself. “How in hell are they going to believe such an answer if I tell them?”

“You don’t have a proper background on me?” I asked, in a hushed and surprised tone.

“That’s what they do,” Herbert replied, puffing and blowing his smoke around until it seemed to fill the office like a faint fog, “not what I do.  They’ll have that background, whatever it is so that’ll fly. No wonder you’re some sort of fair-haired angel back there. You worked with that whole scandalous mess, no doubt having something to do with why they didn’t all end up spending life in a federal penitentiary.” He stared at me as if there was some question he’d asked that I needed to answer but I had none.

“What’s the one instruction? I asked, more out of wanting to change the subject than to find out what it was.

“You fly immediately to Seoul and present this to them there in person, while I make it all come true back here. While you’re there, the people who know strange things in the home office think you might meet with a troublesome person from your past who is about to do something that will cause worldwide trouble unless he accepts our deal instead of the one he’s considering.”

“Who’s the man, if he’s a man, and what if he won’t go along with what I propose, as well as what’s the budget, what’s the team composed of, and what toys will be provided?”

“I have to admit, you seem to catch on pretty fast,” Herbert replied. He put out the stub of his cigarette in my ashtray that was never used for that purpose.

“Well?” I asked since it didn’t seem that he was going to be as forthcoming as I’d hoped.

“Ah, yes,” Herbert finally said, leaning back in my chair to light up another of his foul-smelling smokes. “There’s a Starlifter at the airport waiting for you. It’ll fly you directly to Seoul. You’ll arrive about the same time as you leave on such a direct flight, do your thing with educating the hospitals there with the data, see the man discussed, make the deal, and be back here before almost any time has passed at all. I’ll have to back you up if need be. I have a funny feeling though, coming to know you, they won’t need it. They’ll simply believe you, which I don’t understand because I don’t believe you at all.”

“I flew home on a Starlifter,” I replied. “They don’t fly that far unrefueled so where does it stop and what kind of time does that add to the trip? What’s that going to do with getting the team to Puerto Rico and continuing the training there?”

“Ferry range of the C-141 is just about that distance and then they’ll make sure only to burn a few miles of the reserves,” Herbert said, smiling for the first time, and blowing out more smoke, as he contemplated my obvious fear in using any of the plane’s reserves to do anything but get out of or down from an emergency. “Go home and pack your best suit or wear it since you’ll be back here in three days, give or take, and none the worse for wear. You can have a tux and a real suit made there and shipped home as an extra benefit. The 141 is sitting there waiting for you. Nguyen and Kingsley, your shadows, are already aboard, hence why they’re not with you right now.”

“Marcinko’s running them through the desert survival and rope climbing courses while you’re gone,” Herbert replied, as if it was perfectly logical to train the team in desert and mountain arts when they were about to embark on a combat tour inside the rare but brutal triple canopy jungle environment they’d be moving and possibly fighting inside.

I’d be back in three days if everything went as planned, although I was beginning to understand that it was very likely no CIA operations went down the way they were planned to go down back in the analysis section at Langley. The fact that team leaders of such expeditions were given such carte blanche to demand whatever they felt they needed to accomplish the mission was nothing more or less than a tacit admission that the analysis personnel knew that.

I left without saying anything to Herbert, not even goodbye, which he didn’t seem to mind at all as he surveyed my small world, puffing away on one cigarette after another while sitting in my chair. It would take days and nights of leaving the windows open after he was gone, I knew.

The Rover waited in the parking lot, one of the few places I could be alone in a world where I seemed to be surrounded by children playing.

“Bad children,” I said to myself, turning on the radio to take my mind off everything, at least until I was home.

Linda Ronstadt, when she was still with the group called The Stone Poneys, was midway through her signature first major hit. I smiled out the open window into the wind at the irony of its lyrics: “You cry and moan and say it will work out, but honey child I’ve got my doubts. You can’t see the forest for the trees.”

Mary was unexpectedly accommodating and able to get me out of the house and on my way in less than an hour. I wanted to arrive in Seoul at a reasonable hour since the flight was almost exactly twelve hours long and the time change of sixteen hours would mean I’d land in the early afternoon.

The plane was waiting, just as Herbert had arranged, with Mack aboard to oversee things. It was good to see him again and find Nguyen and Kingsley waiting, as well. We’d have plenty of time to plan and consider what had to be done when we landed at Kimpo airport. The climb out of Albuquerque was steep, with the Starlifter heading straight into the Sandia mountain range because of the desert winds. Once at altitude, it seemed louder than it had when I’d been aboard the one I flew in coming back from Vietnam.

“We’re at the maximum, not cruise speed, and at forty-one thousand feet to be above the countervailing jet stream winds,” Mack said after I mentioned the difference to him.

The flight was long, boring,g and uncomfortable in almost every way. There was no food, no drink, and a bathroom so spartan that most outhouses I’d seen looked more inviting. Once we arrived on the ground in Korea I grabbed my pack and got off the plane as fast as I could, noticing that it was later in the day than I’d planned. The Starlifter had been a bit slower than advertised. I realized, looking at the end of the runway to see a giant wall covered with the image of an American cowboy sitting on his horse smoking a cigarette. It was the same image I’d seen at the end of the runway when I’d stopped in Hong Kong on my earlier trip.

An embassy staff car waited. The staff officer sent to pick us up indicated that he’d come back for my associates after the short trip to get me checked into the hotel. I was about to object when he handed me a small bottle of clear liquid.

“Drink this down and you’ll be ready to do. The adjustment to time and from the flight needs to be countered for you to perform your mission objective.”

I sat inside the car thinking for a few seconds. Why and how had the staff employee known about my mission or anything? It was a strange welcome to Korea, but I didn’t object. I was tired, as my time was around two or three in the morning and the flight had been arduous, with the noise so bad that I couldn’t fill in Nguyen or Kingsley about anything. I’d have to get them up to speed at the hotel.

The staff car took off as I downed the tasteless liquid meant to help me adjust, seeing the Marlboro Man on his horse once more and wondering how it could have been made to resemble the one in Hong Kong so closely.

My left eye opened but not because I opened it. An oriental face peered into my brain before the lid snapped down from my head and my body recoiling backward. I opened both eyes and stared at my assailant. Only his upper torso was visible through a large opening in the cage door.

“What the hell?” I whispered to him as I took in my surroundings.

I was inside what appeared to be a small rectangular cage made of chicken wire. A door of the wire was half open with a young oriental man, the man who had no doubt raised my one eyelid to awaken me, standing, one hand outstretched to hold onto the door of my enclosure.

“Where am I and who are you?” I asked, my head suddenly feeling like it wanted to explode. I massaged it with both hands as I sat staring into the man’s dark inscrutable eyes.

“Hong Kong and I am Wing Wong,” the man said with a huge smile consuming almost his entire face. “So happy to make your acquaintance here.”

“What kind of name is that? I asked, trying to get rid of the agonizing pain in my head while coming to terms with being in Hong Kong when I knew I was supposed to be in Seoul, Korea while trying to let fear of how I came to be in my situation overwhelm everything else.

“It means ‘glory of the king,’ Wong replied with great good cheer. “In Mandarin but in Cantonese it’s pronounced as Wang.”

I dropped my hands and worked at getting a grip on what might have caused me to be in the situation I was in, and also just what that situation might be.

“You are Tom Taylor, and probably an American,” Wong said, his eyes moving down to view what was in his other hand, which was my belt.

“Nobody but you has anything here. This buckle with your name on it is probably Sterling Silver. We can get almost five hundred Hong Kong dollars for it which is enough for some food.”

“That’s the name of the place where the artists made the buckle, not mine,” I murmured as Wong’s words hit me like thrown bricks. I searched myself and then the rag-covered wire under where I was sitting. Wong’s words rang true. I had nothing. No wallet, no Seiko watch, no money, and no passport. I tried to get control of my emotions and think, although the pain in my head was excruciating.

“I was robbed,” I finally got out, my tone one of shock more than fear.

“During the night I awakened you to assure you that you were not dead so something else might have your cage. I asked you if you knew where you were and you answered, ‘I’ve come on hard times,’ so I think you were right.”

“That’s a line from some movie,” I whispered back, as I made my way to the sharper edge of the wire cage, I’d spent part of a night unconscious inside. I climbed down from the horrid imprisoning space, noting that there was an open padlock dangling from a hinge halfway up what passed for a door. I wondered if I’d been locked in during the night

“I’d like my belt,” I said, finally standing up straight, trying not to move my agonized head around too much, and holding out my right hand toward where Wong stood.

With a look of regret on his face, Wong handed over the belt and waited expectantly as I looped it around my waist.

“What is all this?” I asked him, waving one hand around toward all the other stacked cages in the large warehouse kind of space.
“Cage room, like all over Hong Kong,” Wing Wong replied, smiling once more as if the collection of human-filled giant bird cages was some sort of compliment to the culture. “For people like you and me, who have nothing.”

I massaged my head with one hand as I tried to think my way through the nightmare I had somehow fallen into and couldn’t awaken from.

“I need a cab,” I finally said. There was one place in Hong Kong I knew and it might be my only way of surfacing at all. I knew I looked like hell in every way and told Wong that simply because I also knew any self-respecting cab driver would no doubt fail to take me anywhere without cash up front…and maybe not even then.

“Oh no, the cab will take us anywhere you want us to go because it is obvious you are American, and although you have nothing like me, you must be very wealthy in other ways.”

I stared back at the much shorter but ever-cheerful man.

“Why are you talking about us, as I’m traveling alone,” I said, once again looking around the room, where other street people were climbing from their cages. I presumed it to be morning outside although I could not remember anything other than being on a C-141 Starlifter cargo plane. Somehow that fantastic modern plane had flown down a rabbit hole and landed me in Alice’s underground wonderland. I shook my head at the thought, although the sharp pain of it stopped me from doing more than giving it a jerk.

“You need cab?” Wong asked, his voice going low and gentle.

“Yes,” I answered, getting his meaning. I needed Wong to find and get me in a cab without paying upfront and I was clueless in understanding or speaking any words in Cantonese, Mandarin, or any of the other local languages.

“Us,” I said, pointing first at his chest and then my own. In truth, I didn’t care where Wong ended up or went, as my thoughts of simple survival were coming close to overwhelming any other emotion I might have.

“I got you in the cage, and up top so nobody could urinate down on you at night, so I go with you until you are safe,” Wong said, his facial features going serious.

I knew the man had a point. In whatever state I’d been in during the night I’d had to be helpless as a baby and maybe just as vulnerable. From the pain beating like a beacon from somewhere down in the middle of my brain, I figured that a drug had been involved but could not conjure up anyone who might be a suspect. I nodded at the man, although even doing that hurt.

“Follow,” Wong said, turning his back and walking away.

I followed.