I waited for some response from Herbert, the receiver glued to my ear. That Warner Erhard didn’t trust the Agency to keep its word was self-evident but the single word I’d used to indicate to Herbert that there was a whole lot more use Erhard could be than simply landing him legally back in the USA with a substantial extortion check and leaving him to worry himself to death the one day the CIA would eventually extract a price for such an action.

“Your mission is over,” Herbert finally returned with, “so leave that to others in the future.”

“The mission’s over when I’m back in Albuquerque and Erhard’s no longer under my control, protection delivery, and payment.” I’d spoken the words quietly, looking around.

The phone was by no means secure, I knew, but the likelihood of anyone listening in was slight unless such listening might be done because it had to be terminally dull to sit up in a tower where almost no planes landed or took off unless they were empty or fully loaded tankers. Our Starlifter didn’t come close to resembling any of the KC-135s in the US Air Force inventory so its place on the tarmac refueling would get every bit of anyone’s attention higher up in the tower.

“The single word you gave me wasn’t definitive. He could mean anything in using it,” Herbert added, avoiding the issue of providing an active agent working to succeed on an assigned mission.

When he’d told me earlier that mission leaders, which I was although I’d not been designated formally as one, got what they needed to do whatever they thought best and pay the investigative price later…if there was to be one, I’d believed him, although the current conversation seemed to negate the substance of what he’d said.

“What is it that you want?” he finally said after a moment when I didn’t respond at all to his wavering comments.

“He needs to be declared an asset of the United States and then treated as valuable assets are treated,” I replied, having no idea of how such assets were treated.

I’d heard of the special designation only because Nguyen had received it to take care of the monumental and unfixable problems he’d run into when the promises made to him about his home and citizenship for his family had been denied earlier.

There was another silence from Herbert’s end. This was the close part of the sale and both Thorkelson and Bartok from my insurance training came to my mind as I waited, unable to say a word even though I so badly wanted to.

“I’ll notify the home office,” Herbert said, breathing out the words as if they were being squeezed out of him.

“And you’ll tell him when I bring him to the phone,” I finished, not phrasing the statement as a question.

After Erhard had mentioned the one word earlier, he informed me about the nuclear enrichment facility being built in China under French supervision and engineering. The Chinese already had the bomb, but its versions were atomic and not hydrogen. The French plant would be based upon American technology given to the French to allow them and the British to build their own highly enriched plutonium weapons. Whether the CIA already knew that information or wouldn’t matter but I had the feeling it didn’t.

“You realize that I asked for more confirmation so that such a difficultly conferred benefit might not be withdrawn at a later date?” Herbert intoned, as if reading the instructions for making a person a national asset was printed in some manual I knew could not possibly exist.

I didn’t know what to say so I just waited. I was about as aware that such a ‘benefit’ could be withdrawn as I was about what actually becoming an asset of the United States really entailed.

“I’ll be right back,” I finally said, dangling the receiver down at the end of its cord.

I got back to the Jeep and sped away toward the Starlifter. Erhard stood by the angled mass of the cargo jet’s giant lowered loading ramp. I motioned for him to join me, shaking my head when he went to pick up his bag. He caught my vague denial without missing a beat or step and joined me, climbing uncomfortably into the back of the vehicle, which wasn’t built for the creature comfort of any passengers.

“You’ll be flying out of Kirkland commercial when we get there,” I informed him, “this is just a refueling puddle stop.”

The driver took off and returned me and my charge to the tower base once more.

“CIA central control wants to talk to you,” I informed Erhard, dialing up the correct number after getting an outside line again.

When Herbert came on the line I handed the phone to Erhard without commenting. Erhard listened to Herbert talk for a good ten minutes while I stood only feet away, bored stiff until he began talking into the receiver.

“The Chinese are building a nuclear plant of the latest American design,” Erhard intoned as if he were having a normal and relaxed conversation about nothing with some friends. “It’s the French who have the plans and are going to perform the construction and initial operation just across the border between Kowloon and the rest of the mainland.”

I didn’t know much about the internal operation of a nuclear plant except for what I’d learned about the one at San Onofre in San Clemente, but I did know that the American plants could produce near weapons-graded enrichment uranium which then could be brought to critical after spending only a little time inside containers being spun in a centrifuge. That the French might be allowing such a technology transfer and then the implementation of it was a major violation of NATO and allied treaty agreements and the Chinese, possessing much better plans than what their scientists had come up with would be vaulted years into the future when it came to building small enough (although hugely powerful) devices that could be fit onto the nose of intercontinental missiles. The Russians had gotten ahead in the space race only because their weapons were so inefficient that they had to be monstrous in size, which was why the Russians built missiles of great size that eventually led them out into space quite successfully.

There was no question that if the information Erhard had so briefly discussed could be confirmed then making him an asset of the U.S. government was a cheap price for the CIA and even the country to pay. Erhard held out the phone toward me and when I grabbed the receiver he walked back over the Jeep and got in, this time into the front passenger seat. The man was brilliant but also a colossal prick. I smiled to myself as Herbert informed me that the famed EST creator was an asset, which I’d assumed immediately upon hearing Erhard’s comments. At least the Jeep ride would be short and made on smooth tarmac.

I was about to hang up without saying goodbye, abiding by the tradition set by Herbert not long after we met, but the man didn’t stop talking when he was done with the Erhard asset situation.

“You’re enrolled in the University of New Mexico direct Ph.D. program as of right now. The Agency sees fit to require that you become proficient in the anthropology sub-discipline of cultures.”

“Ethnology,” I mouthed automatically giving the study of culture its proper scholastic title.

My tone was flat and analytical, but my mind was racing. I’d never applied for the program and didn’t even know there was such a thing as a Ph.D direct program (without first gaining a master’s designation), plus I could see no way that I’d have the time or the money to pursue such a lengthy and expensive addition to my lowly baccalaureate in sociology and anthropology from the university in New York.

“I never applied for the program, was accepted, or paid a dollar,” I said, more in exasperation than disbelief. I was rapidly learning that there was little if anything, the CIA could not do when it came to manipulating just about everything of government or private institutional procedure.

“Henry Harpending and Louis Draper will be your guides, tutors and special representatives so reach out to the university and make yourself someone acceptable. It’s a two-year commitment you’ve made and the forty-four thousand has already been advanced to the university. Don’t make the Agency do a charge back to your accounts of such a large size,” Herbert recited like he was reading the material. “Oh, and those two are husband and wife. No idea why their names don’t seem to fit together.”

I knew where the campus was located on Central Avenue, not that far frm the Air Force base but I’d never visited it. I had to get with my wife as quickly as I could to figure out whether what I was being offered was the gift of a lifetime or simply a set up to expose me to even more danger.

After Herbert hung up, I called my wife. There’d been no time or even thought about calling ahead to ether the office or my wife so there’d be no one waiting when the plane arrived in Albuquerque. Mary picked up on the first ring, which was uncommon. I told her we’d be landing in about two hours and she seemed okay with that. The phone wasn’t secure and although what Herbert had gotten from Erhard had been of the highest clearance level nothing was classified yet. Still, I didn’t want to say anything about my situation that might get back to the Agency. I hung up knowing she’d be there at Kirtland waiting.

The landing at Kirkland in Albuquerque went without incident, our approach into the vortex of a powerful headwind making the Starlifter bounce and twist a bit but lowering the relative landing speed to only a few miles per hour. The giant plane touched down and stopped dead after only a few seconds. Normally, I knew, that planes coming into any international airport in the U.S. had to offload passengers and luggage and have them and their stuff transported over to the main passenger terminal to go through customs and immigration control.

There was no one waiting. The big cargo plane wasn’t large compared to the giant hangar raised on Boeing B-36 bomber wheels. The Starlifter taxied right inside the hangar’s enormous and wide-open sliding doors before coming to a stop. The turbines spooled down along with the cargo hatch lowering itself to the concrete floor.

We all needed no instruction or direction to gather our things and file down the ramp and out of the back of the plane. The giant hangar doors were slowly closing but their movement didn’t affect the amount of light much at all as the New Mexico sunburned right through the thousands of glass panes built into those doors and walls mounted into and above them. Erhard was flying out commercial, so the Jeep was gone, off to take him the mile or so distance to the passenger terminal. There had been no goodbyes or any of that. Whomever Erhard would be assigned to for debriefing, which might take days or more, and then operational control of, would likely be unknown to me. Herbert was a control officer but only worked with actual field agents of the agency, not quasi-informant assets like Erhard had to be considered. I could only guess but I was also almost certain that the man had traded for much-improved security for himself and his family for a long period of uncomfortable and demanding social restraints on his actions, movements, and public expression.
I watched the Jeep disappear into the desert air radiating up from the heating concrete tarmac, making the vehicle first levitate and then be hazy twisting and gone.

The man had been so unusual, and I tried to establish a place for him in my mind. The only thing that came to mind was a creature that might have been the result of mixing Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Marion in a giant petri dish to arrive at a single being. I wondered briefly about how damaged I must be to be able to come up with such a Frankenstein-like invention.

Through the strange atmospheric phenomenon, my Range Rover appeared, heading straight for the hangar. It was coming at the building fast, not like my wife’s normal driving at all, which was another anomaly since she didn’t normally choose to drive the vehicle if she could avoid it.

The truck suddenly stopped just as it got inside the hangar and the mystery of its uncommon movements and speed were resolved as Marcinko steped out onto the concrete floor.

I stood frozen in shock. My Range Rover had had to have been at home. Marcinko was driving it after bringing it from my home. The conclusion was rather inescapable. My wife, when I’d been on the phone with her hadn’t mentioned one word about the obnoxious man being there, and I knew full well that she understood my difficult relationship with the man…and the fact that she hadn’t minded his out of place and marginally lurid compliment about her was beginning to weigh heavily upon my mind.

Marcinko left the driver’s door hanging open and the V8 running as he stepped toward me, his gait confident, his smile a knowing one as he had to realize that I was not happy about the developing situation. However, he was there, my wife likely at home and I needed not only the car but to understand what was going on. I breathed in and out slowly and steadily, watching Marcinko approach. Kingsley and Nguyen were nowhere to be seen, having gone into their normal defensive positions, no doubt when they saw who was arriving in my Range Rover. I was unarmed, the .45 from Korea inside my Hartmann suitcase, nearby but not easily accessible. The Range Rover contained three weapons, a micro taser for non-lethal use, a .22 magnum derringer for concealed and likely non-lethal use, and then the hot-loaded Smith and Wesson 44 Magnum with tungsten penetrator rods encased in lead. Marcinko brought all the weaponry to the forefront of my mind in an instant.

“I stopped in to see if you were back from your travels,” Marcinko offered, not putting his arm forward to shake hands.

I responded with the same inaction. We stood facing one another only a short distance apart. There were questions I wanted answers to in the worst way but decided they could wait. I turned to the huge cavern of open air, only occupied by the normal monstrous aircraft but the thing not appearing nearly so large when captured by the size of the unusual nature of the building’s interior size.

“We’re going to the insurance office,” I said out toward the plane although no one was visible to talk to. “Load up the luggage into the back of the Rover.”

“I presume you’ll be driving,” Marcinko said, before turning and heading for the passenger side of the vehicle.

Appearing out of nowhere, Nguyen and Kingsley grabbed their bags which had been offloaded down the ramp, probably by Mack although I hadn’t noticed, and headed for the back of the Rover.

I climbed into the truck and waited until everyone else was inside with the doors closed. Neither Kingsley nor Nguyen had said a word, which I knew meant that they were mentally preparing themselves for anything that might happen.

I drove out of the hangar into the hot sun, my idea of thanking Mack and the crew for the flights had faded completely from my mind. I glanced over at Marcinko, noting that he’d adapted to New Mexico strangely, by wearing Levi jeans, a long-sleeved white shirt, and sporting a felt or beaver cowboy had. His boots were no doubt Lucchese or one of the expensive brands. That New Mexico wasn’t Texas or cowboy country hadn’t occurred to him.

I drove directly to the office, guiding the Rover at a slower pace than I normally would have, my mind moving at rate of speed well beyond that of the Rover’s sedate pace. Once arriving in the parking lot I indicated that Nguyen and Kingsley were to get out and wait there until Marcinko and I returned. Marcinko said nothing, although I expected either some objection or his wanting to know where we were going.

“I’m making a short trip out to Nine Mile Hill, I said to Kingsley when he approached my open window. “We’ll be back in less than an hour, so don’t worry.” I knew that he and Nguyen both had to have reservations about my being alone with Marcinko after what had taken place at the base training center. There was also the matter of getting ready and then leaving for the jungle terrain of Puerto Rico to consider and implement for the entire operational team along with the break for Christmas.

I pulled out onto Rio Grande Boulevard and headed toward the Interstate freeway. Once there I took the onramp heading us across the river and up the start of what was informally called ‘Nine Mile Hill,’ as the long uphill drive was all of that and a bit more.

“You want to fill me in?” Marcinko asked when all the windows in the Rover were up and our speed climbed to just under a hundred miles an hour.

“I need to show you something so you’ll understand better,” I replied, turning on the radio and tuning it into the only station that still played rock and roll from the sixties and seventies.

“Born to lose, I get help losing you,” came from the multiple speakers, as Ray Charles began singing one of his classical but oh so meaningful songs skyrocketing him to international fame. I smiled at the lyrics as they filled the Rover.

A few miles up the freeway we came to an unmarked offramp. I pulled off the highway and took to the two-lane road toward a construct that caused many people to wonder how it had come to be a few miles off the road all by itself and rising hundreds of feet in the air. Ostensibly, it was a giant receiving dish for communications and orientation used by NASA for the moon flights. Herbert indicated when we’d driven past it many weeks before, that it was CIA-operated, although he hadn’t mentioned what the dish was used for.

I pulled off the pavement and onto a dirt, or more likely packed sand, road that squirreled its way down into an arroyo that was bottomed with deeper loose sand. The Rover had no trouble navigating that arroyo, however. A few minutes later the narrow canyon expanded and was half filled with old, abandoned cars, appliances, and other large chunks of metallic junk. I stopped the Rover near an old green on-green rusted fifty-seven Ford, the former roadable vehicle anything but that as it sat lonely down in the sand covered with bullet holes.

I got out of the truck and reached under the front seat. pulled a lever that opened a compartment built into the seat (at the expense of disconnecting the seat heater) and released the .44 Magnum into my left hand. The special butt of the lethal-looking four-inch barreled revolver could not be disguised. I leaned slightly down and pulled a small plastic box off the butt where it had been attached using a very thin string. Quickly, I cracked open the box and took out two plastic plugs which I placed quickly but carefully into my ear canals. I stood up straight, stepped forward to the front of the still-idling vehicle, and smiled over at Marcinko. I loved to stand next to him, both of us coming to lean against the front grill of the Rover.

Marcinko only noticed the magnum when I brought it up, not pointing the barrel at him but at the Ford sitting out in front of us ten to fifteen yards away.

I held the Smith and Wesson outward, extending my hand while also taking note of Marcinko’s exact position next to me. Close but not too close I decided before I pulled the trigger of the magnum three times, each explosion caused the overloaded and short barrel of the weapon to produce blasts of fire about three feet in diameter and cause my ears to feel pain even though the canals were fully stuffed with soft waxed cotton

I turned to face Marcinko, taking the magnum and placing it gently behind me onto the hood of the Rover. I removed the wax plugs from my ears, watching Marcinko come to a vertical position after hunching over from the impact upon him of the fire and sound of the weapon’s blasts. His hands were clutched over his ears and I understood. He wouldn’t lose his eardrums but his head was going to ring for three or four days I knew from my own experience.

Slowly, Marcinko turned to face me, letting his hands fall to his sides, his facial expression one of violation, shock, and surprise. He would want to know the answers to two questions I understood even with nothing yet being spoken. But there was another matter to deal with first.

“You’re bleeding,” I said, looking over at his left shoulder after examining his face and the rest of what I could see. The growing small spot of blood on his shoulder appeared to be his only injury, other than to his ears and subsequent hearing interference. I pointed at his shoulder, considering it merely good fortune that he’d chosen such a vibrant white shirt to wear earlier in the day.

“What the hell,” Marcinko blurted out, his voice more like a yell because of his temporarily degraded ability to hear. He grabbed his shoulder and put pressure on the wound.

“Spalling, it’s called in artillery,” I said to him, suddenly feeling like I should be smoking a cigarette like the Marlboro Man on one of the many road signs erected around the nation and at the end of the runway in Hong Kong of course. It was a Marlboro moment. I wanted to laugh but did not.

“What?” was all Marcinko could manage to say.

“If you stand right next to a hot-loaded, revolver with too much powder loading the cartridges is to reach the maximum safe cubic pressure of the chambers then when the round is ignited and the powder explodes, the small space between the revolving cylinder and the contact with the barrel that the bullet is propelled will leak. Not only gas is leaked, but also tiny bits of lead as well. The lead led out to the sides in front of the chamber is called the ‘spalling’ of that substance. The bits are very tiny but they’re moving very fast, and hence the penetration of your shirt and skin, but not much else. You’ll be fine once the bleeding stops although you’ll likely need a new shirt.”

“Why?” Marcinko asked, in his overly loud voice.

I picked up the magnum, walked to the Rover’s open door, and gently tossed it into the back seat. I’d need to reload it and attach another box of earplugs before replacing it in its ‘lair’ within the cushion of the front seat.

Marcinko came to the passenger door, opening it with the hand he was using to put pressure on his wound. I waited for him to begin climbing in before answering.

“If you’re going to cause or attempt to cause an explosion in my family then spalling is about the mildest injury you’re going to receive.  Let’s go.  That wonderful beautiful woman I’m married to, and both of us truly appreciate, will likely be more than accommodating in putting a bandage on that shoulder.  She’s used to that sort of thing.”