The call to my control officer wasn’t a pleasant one, as Herbert didn’t want to discuss my using the CIA-backed American Express card for the purchase of school texts. Almost seven hundred dollars for three books, written in South Africa and printed in Italy, were things he had not only no interest in but, without really saying it, thought was a waste of money along with the entire postgraduate education ‘nonsense’ he would like to have described it as. When I told him that anthropology was a Latin word meaning the study of man, his only response had been ‘what about women?’ In truth, the core Latin word ‘anthros’ was derived from the phrase human being, but I ignored that. He was making a statement that told me he didn’t have an advanced degree and thought less of those who did. We didn’t go into it, but I’d met enough people along the way to know that most thought the word doctor should be dedicated to the medical profession alone.

“Rumor has it that you somehow got yourself injured again,” Herbert threw in, the comment seeming to come out of nowhere.

The handset went silent as he waited, and I scrambled to think about how to respond without revealing too much. My left hand went unconsciously to rest against the bandages under my shirt covering the healing wound opening.

“Rumor?” I asked back, stalling for time.

“Yes, the rumor coming from the emergency room at Lovelace Medical Center, or was that a social visit on your part?”

“Is this a single-side band conversation?” I asked. Single Side Band was a form or radio transmission, which unlike regular AM, or amplitude modulation, used an upper and lower transmission without a carrier wave driving it. In the intelligence world it was used as I was using it. If Tony said it was single then nobody was recording the line at his end or monitoring our conversation.”

“We’re in clear air here,” Tony replied, the tone of his voice changing from social and half-bored to one of business attentiveness and interest.

“At the airport, when McCain flew in to announce the end of the rescue mission, Marcinko showed up and accidentally elbowed me in the stomach. That opened a little bit of one of my old incisions, and I had to have a couple of stitches sewn in. I’m just fine, though, as it was surface. Showy but of no consequence.”

“We’re your two knights of the round table present?” Herbert asked back.

“Yes,” I replied, wanting to get away from discussing the incident.

“Did Marcinko have a life insurance policy that you sold him too?”

“He’s not dead,” I answered, surprised about how quickly Herbert was concluding that Nguyen and Kingsley might end someone’s life on the spot if they hurt me. “But yes, he has a policy, too.”

“My, aren’t you the great salesman,” Herbert laughed, uncharacteristically. “That alone probably saved his life, as you would be too busy to handle the death claim.”

“The rumor, as you put it, reached you pretty fast,” I noted, pensively. “Is there any way you can kill the recording reaching into the house?”

“The need for the strange services you supply outweighs the need to enter that into your personnel file, if that’s what you mean, and besides, except for this little side-action we need to discuss, your sedentary schoolboy lifestyle right now shouldn’t involve too much physical activity.”

“Side-action?” I asked, not letting that part of his comment slide by unnoticed.

“It’s about a hundred miles from Sandia National Laboratories, by the Kirkland airport there to Los Alamos,” Herbert replied, making so sense at all as far as I could ascertain.

I waited silently for more.

“Your Rover is too obvious a vehicle, so I want you to use that Mercedes you got for your wife,” Herbert went on, still avoiding telling me what the mission was.

“Yes,” I answered, accepting what was becoming evidently clear, that my control officer was toying with me because he was submerging the information about my injury from the CIA files.

There’s an off-the-books auto repair shop located on Juan Tabo not far from where you live,” Herbert said, his one one of matter-of-factness despite how bizarre the subject was becoming. He pronounced Juan Tabo as Jewen Table, as well. “Take the car in and have the rear springs replaced to allow for the carrying of a heavier load in the trunk. The car’ll drive a little bit less smoothly, but it’s serve our purposes better, since we bought the thing anyway.”

“I presume I’m supposed to do that straight away and, along with my classroom supplies, pay with the Amex card?”

“The textbooks aren’t part of the mission,” Herbert replied.

“Since it’s a mission, as so stated just now by you, then what is part of the mission is my decision until the mission’s over, if I’m remembering this all correctly without ever going off to charm school and getting any real training.”

“Whatever,” Herbert said, his tone growing less comfortable in using the one word. “They’ll do the Benz in short order once you get it there, so you can wait. With your two knights in the back seat, drive to Sandia Labs and they’ll place the load to be delivered in your trunk. Proceed up to the labs and find Tech Area Twenty-Two. They’ll be waiting for you. All you have to do is show up, sit in the Mercedes, and they’ll unload the thing and send you on your way. Mission over and accomplished.”

“That’s it?” I asked, surprised. “If it’s that simple, then why don’t you just call UPS or one of those delivery services?”

“Did you understand what I said?” Herbert asked back, ignoring my question, “but that’s a good point. In fact, leave your knights back at the castle and take your wife along as good cover.”

“Okay, so what’s going to be in the trunk, since you can’t just ship whatever it is in any standard way, and didn’t you tell me yourself that under no circumstances are friends or family ever to be involved or included in a mission?”
“My end is encrypted and secure. but your own isn’t,” Herbert replied.

“No,” I answered, instead of discussing what could or could not be discussed in a line that was only half secure. I wasn’t willing to go to the office or to the base in order to have a completely secure conversation as I knew that whatever was being transported wasn’t something that anyone was going to likely reveal anyway. Herbert could have hinted what the package was but would not, which meant he could not.

“No, what?” Herbert asked, his voice indicating real surprise.

“The knights and I’ll handle the visit. Let’s leave Mary’s need to shop in Santa Fe out of it.”

“I understand and agree,” Herbert replied, his tone changing again. He’d gotten the fact that, by mentioning the shopping, I would indeed include my wife, but didn’t want that known to anyone who might be listening in. The Agency wanted the innocent cover of a civilian vehicle being driven by a ‘normal’ looking couple while visiting what was becoming the atomic national monument.

“When?” I asked, not having any idea about what Mary might be up to as far as her own plans for the day, or even the days ahead.

“Now,” Herbert said, “and when you get back, you need to take the Rover in and have a car cellular phone installed. Yes, that goes on the card too.”

“Name of the shop?” I asked, in resignation. I wanted to get to the college and purchase the books, register for classes, see what arrangements had been made but little alluded to about attending those classes and meeting the professors. How the time was going to work out was going to be problematic at best since the Agency seemed to have a never-ending list of ‘chores’ that only I seemed either qualified or experienced enough to handle. Not truly experienced, however, as somehow my experience as believed to be that by the Agency wasn’t truly real as far as I was concerned.

“Amos Pipe and Muffler Shop,” Herbert said. “Call me when you’re ready to get on the road from home.”

The phone went dead, as was Herbert’s and now my own custom. I hung the receiver up and looked over to where my wife stood talking to Marcinko, both Nguyen and Kingsley standing nearby but still a bit distant near one of the giant B-36 bomber wheels.

Marcinko seemed fully animated, which I was sure was caused by his potential selection to be the leader of the new Vietnam delegation. I motioned for both Nguyen and Kingsley to join me.

In less than a couple of minutes I was able to reveal the new mission and add a few changes of my own. I wanted the Rover to proceed me to Los Alamos with both men in it. The Rover would be stationed near the old guard house kept as a museum-like memorial to what existed as an entry point to the labs during the war.

“I’ll be in the ‘Two Four Zero,” once I get home, get that car and get it modified with heavier springs. Mary and I’ll drive to Los Alamos hauling something from Sandia Labs that’s to remain a mystery and dropping off at Echo Area twenty-two. You follow us at a distance and then wait while we dump the load at the tech area. Once I get home, I’ll prepare two MAC-10’s in forty-five caliber with twenty-round magazines. Those don’t operate in semi-auto or single fire so exercise care if it becomes necessary to use them. I’m not too worried about the trip back into Santa Fe or subsequently to home, but the trip out there is problematic. The subtle secrecy is a bit much. Mary’s supposed to accompany me in order to make the visit up there look like a tourist visit. I don’t know how long it’ll take Amos to replace the rear springs or how the damn thing will drive as Mercedes is pretty precise in its engineering of there vehicles. There, that’s all of it.”

“Don’t bring her,” Kingsley said when I was done. “Just say you’ll bring her. How is anyone to know?

“I’m trying to follow orders,” I replied, understanding exactly where Ben was coming from even before he went on.
“MAC-10 full autos in that caliber are serious weapons. They fire from open bolts, so the operation is simple, but the cyclic rate of fire makes them more or less just very hard-hitting and very terminal single-burst weapons. If this is that serious then your wife has no place being with us whatsoever.

I inhaled deeply, as I saw Nguyen’s head bob up and down once. They were right, I knew. What had I been thinking? It was now my mission which, subject to later criticism, was mine to implement from beginning to end. Herbert’s rules no longer applied and would certainly mean nothing at all if things went down a road into ‘Troub-city” or violence.

“Okay,” I answered, weakly. Ben was thinking clearly, and I was not.

“I will drive the Two Four Zero, as you have suffered trauma, plus we will be rising more than two thousand feet in elevation into much thinner air. I also presume you have additional magazines for the MACs.

I was surprised that my son’s name for the Mercedes, the numbers written on the back of the trunk on raised silver emblems, had caught on so easily with me and the men who were more than my friends.

“Yes,” I agreed, tacitly handing the team leader responsibilities and authority over to Kingsley.

“What of her?” Ben asked, looking over toward where my wife and Marcinko were carrying on a spirited conversation.

I shook my head. No matter what obnoxious things the man said or did he seemed to be still quite popular with Mary, and, I also had to admit to myself, strangely acceptable to me. He was impossible to truly understand but there seemed to be no evil in either his intent or real presentation. He would certainly serve better in the role he was being assigned than I would and for that I was grateful. If sent to Vietnam there would have been no effective way for me to say no unless it was to resign and lose just about everything we’d accumulated since becoming part of the CIA ‘family.’

“We head for home, drop her off, and transport the Benz to Amos Pipe and Muffler shop where they’re supposedly waiting. Tell nothing of the mission to Mary as it’s not necessary and might just add too much worry to her list of rather considerable worries since she’s married to what she’s married to.”

“Where are the weapons stored?” Kingsley asked.

“In the garage in a safe so I should be able to get them into the Mercedes without notice,” I replied, to what was another of Ben’s timely and intelligent questions I hadn’t thought to consider.

“Will we need to find a place along the way to cycle them?”

Cycling meant test-firing them to make sure they performed as they were designed to do when called upon.

“No, as I don’t think we’ll reach critical mass on this mission. The Agency isn’t stupid. If there was real risk, then there are a million other more secure ways to transport whatever it is they want transported.”

“Unless they don’t want anyone transporting to know that something’s being transported,” Kingsley replied. “They trust you completely, as well as Mary, although probably not us, so there it is.”

My mind went back to the single word Erhard had used to get the attention of everyone just before his being accepted into the asset program. Nuclear had been that word. What package could be small enough to fit into the trunk of a 1979 Mercedes 240D yet require heavy-duty springs to not have the rear end sink to the ground under transport? Something weighing at least five or six hundred pounds, in my opinion. A quarter ton or a bit larger bank safe might handle the weight issue, but it would not fit into the trunk and still have it close securely, which, although it hadn’t been mentioned, had to be a part of the mission.

“Nuclear,” I whispered to myself. A one megaton nuclear device could easily be built as something about the size of a large wastebasket. Manzano Mountain, not far across the airfield from where Sandia Labs were located, was the nuclear weapons storage facility for the Strategic Air Command. The weapon would have been transported by tunnel to Sandia, and then awaiting delivery there in the trunk of our Mercedes. Only a very few humans would be in the know at all. Ignorance was the very best security anything concealable could have. However, if the ignorance was penetrated then the security, even that of what I was supplying against Agency recommendations, was a mere nothing against forces that might be assembled and brought to bear by any outside force wanting such a high-value target device.

“Let’s leave for the line of departure,” I said to both men, going back to my Marine officer jargon from training so many years back. For some reason, both men understood. I walked to where my wife and Marcinko were engaged, but he immediately excused himself and headed deeper into the hangar where Mack was standing, having come out of the shadows now that McCain was gone.

“What was that all about?” I could not restrain myself from asking Mary.

“I told him, in the only kind of roundabout way that a man like him can understand, that if he hurt you again, I was going to shoot him personally with my .45 Colt automatic,” she replied, looking back to where Marcinko stood with Mack.

“You don’t have a .45,” I informed her.

“Like the placement of your weapons is some kind of big secret in our house. Do you suppose there’s maybe one nook or cranny that doesn’t have some exotic instrument of death hidden in its confines?”

There was no point in arguing with her. I filled her in about what Kingsley, I and Nguyen were planning with respect to the transport of some laboratory junk from one lab to another without mentioning what the material transported might be or the fact that Herbert had asked that she be a part of that transfer.
My wife was anything but stupid and long experienced in dealing with my prevaricating brush-blocking around or by salient but potentially vital facts, however.

“This is one of those ‘boys will be boys’ moments?” she asked.

I could tell from her expression that she knew I wasn’t telling her something, but I could also tell she wasn’t going to push the issue. Possibly, her exchange with Marcinko had been enough for her, although there was no real way for me to tell unless I revealed more than I wanted to reveal.
Dropping Mary at home and then getting down to Amos on Juan Tabo proved to be faster and easier than I’d at first thought. Amos had been paid an undisclosed amount by Herbert or some other Agency functionary. I didn’t even ask the cost, although it must have been a lot because the new double springs were on in less than an hour, and Amos most cheerfully said that he’d be waiting to replace the hard springs with the factory ones when we got back from wherever we were going. There were no questions asked or potential answers given about what strange thing we might be doing that would call for such an odd arrangement.

The drive to took only minutes as the afternoon traffic of workers going home hadn’t yet begun. Both vehicles, Kingsley driving the Mercedes and Nguyen the Rover, passed right through Sandia’s rather tight security without any problems at all. The only odd part was when they took the Benz inside but would not let any of us see what they were doing as far as loading the vehicle was concerned. The car did sag a bit in the rear, however, which told me that even with the much stronger springs, the load inside the trunk had to be over six hundred pounds. Beyond the springs being changed, I hoped that the trip up to Los Alamos wouldn’t cause any other structural damage to Mary’s beloved Mercedes.

Once out of Sandia and on the freeway toward Santa Fe, Kingsley asked me if we were going to look in the trunk before we delivered the load. I told him that we wouldn’t because of trust. The Agency was trusting me to do exactly as ordered and was trusting me to the point that it didn’t appear any special attempt had been made to modify the trunk latch or lock.

“You trust them that much?” Kingsley asked, surprise in the tone of his voice.

“Not at all,” I replied, sitting in the passenger seat with the windows rolled up. The Mercedes was twice as quiet as the Rover. “They lie to me all the time, but their trust in me is what’s vital and, apparently I have that trust, and I’m going to work at keeping it.”

“But you do lie to them too,” Kingsley pointed out after a minute or so.

“Yes, it’s complicated. I’ve figured out that if the mission is executed with success then all the stuff that it took to accomplish the mission, however different from what is reported, is made to be acceptable. When it’s the other way around and they are risking our lives, well, they don’t generally realize they’re doing that at all, so they find their lies nearly as acceptable in the telling as they are in the receiving.”

“Only you can figure that out, I guess,” Kingsley replied, after thinking about what I’d said for several minutes.

We reached the La Bajada Pass portion of the trip up to Santa Fe when I realized we might have a problem. The little four-cylinder diesel engine powering the Mercedes began to labor as the car climbed into ever higher altitudes, which meant less air pressure getting to its normally aspirated engine, plus the incline was very steep. By the time we got to the top and headed down toward Santa Fe proper, we were only doing forty miles per hour in second gear.

“We made it,” Kingsley happily said to me, a big smile spread across his face.

“Yes,” I agreed, although I didn’t smile because I knew the hill climb up into Los Alamos from the base where the San Ildefonso tribe lived was steeper than the freeway leading up into Santa Fe. “Will we be able to climb up into Los Alamos is my concern now. It’s not like we can unload whatever our package is and put it into the back of the Rover. No instructions had been given to me by either Herbert or the scientists at the Sandia lab about what to do if there was trouble along the way.”

“Trust,” I said to myself, “there can be too much trust.”

Kingsley glanced over at me, the Benz once again going over seventy miles per hour as the road angled marginally downward all the rest of the way into Santa Fe.

“So, what’s the plan?” Kingsley asked, his voice sounding fully confident that I would have one readily at hand.

“You know,” I mused to myself more than to Ben, “The San Ildefonso tribe make very expensive pottery that many of the tourists who visit Santa Fe drive all the way out to them to purchase.”

“So?” Kingsley asked, sounding surprised.

“They had nothing to make pottery with because the clay on their reservation isn’t the kind that can be properly fired without some other additive.
That additive is horse manure. All those tourists are paying big bucks for horse crap and don’t know it.”

“Your point?”

“We may need an additive just like what the natives here are using so effectively and secretly.”

“As if what we’re carrying in the trunk isn’t secret enough and likely much more dangerous than horse manure,” Kingsley replied, his voice low and serious.

“There’s a reason they chose to deliver the package in this way so lets try to make the best of it without knowing what that reason is,” I said, wondering if I had enough faith to back up what I was saying without simply pulling into Santa Fe, calling Herbert, and bailing out on the delivery as well as my career.