I stopped at the edge of the parking lot, the dust and debris from the departing CH-53 helicopter downdraft settling around me. Marcinko stood in front of me, looking like some kind of imitation Marlin Brando kind of Harley guy, his hair in a bun at the back of his head, unshaven and wearing riding leathers that had seen much better days. I was, for some reason, reminded of the Blue Oyster gay bar from the series of Police Story movies. I tried not to shrug, thinking that at least those movie scripts had been hilarious, and Marcinko was more of sorry sorry-seeming horror thing, and like most horror creatures just kept reappearing.

I looked up, but there was no image left to see of the chopper as it had climbed so high and so fast that it was gone, except for very distant droning. Would it be back in the morning and what kind of mess did isolating the hotel’s main parking lot cause the Princeville, not to mention the possible expense?I brought my eyes down to stare at the supposed war hero, the supposed brilliant creator of Seal Team Six, but in present reality, a sort of well-off vagrant in front of me.

“What?” I asked, resting my bag on the asphalt. I was tired and needed rest, but the words of the old poem by Whitman I’d memorized in high school came right at me: “…I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep…”

“What, what?” Marcinko shot back, spreading his hands out from his sides in mock or maybe real innocence.

“Why are you here?” I asked, knowing he would have an immediate and logical response, but wanting to hear him tell it.

“Because I volunteered, and the fact that I like your wife and even you. Besides, the Agency had no one else on hand to come.”

“My wife, I believe,” I answered, truthfully. I picked up my bag and walked around the man, heading for the opulent front opening of the resort that would allow me access to the main lobby.

Marcinko fell in beside me and walked along about ten feet off to my left side.

“I might have mentioned what you were doing over on Oahu,” he said. His tone was apologetic.

I sighed to myself again, wondering why God kept sending the man into my life to always make it more difficult when he showed up.

“I’m leaving now since you’re here,” Marcinko said, his voice flat and level until he added another sentence. “You can take over where I left off.”

“Take over where he left off,’ was a suggestive comment and an off-color and strange one to make, but right in keeping with the high-performance but low-class man Marcinko appeared to be. I had no doubts about my wife, particularly when it involved handling a man like Marcinko, but I did have doubts about him.

The statement he’d made, or the admission, about his telling my wife what he knew about the ‘broken arrow’ or the downed nuclear weapon off the coast of Oahu. Marcinko most likely had no idea about the second part of the mission, although informing Mary about the first part was going to make it much more difficult to get her support in doing the second dive. There was not much I could lie about concerning the first dive, and whether that was good news, Marcinko’s revelation, or bad news would have to wait until I was in front of her. Why Marcinko was told anything surprised me, as to my knowledge, he wasn’t CIA, at least not fully aboard as an agent, and also, he had proven once again that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Mary had zero security clearance, and certainly not top secret, with this mission had to be. That I discussed top secret information with her, I believed to be beside the point as she’d proven her confidentiality time and time again…but Marcinko couldn’t know that.

I walked into the lobby, leaving Marcinko to go it alone to wherever he was bound. We hadn’t said any departure words, although he had mentioned room 4600, the suite where my family was ensconced, so I didn’t have to stop at the front desk to identify myself and have her called.

In the elevator, I thought about the mission that wasn’t yet a declared mission, like the last one where it only became a sort of mission with the cover or addition of training, of which there’d been very little. With my degree of SCBA training I knew I wouldn’t be able to dive at most resorts, much less with a class of real NAUI or PADI students and instructors.

I was sorry that I’d left Nguyen and Kingsley to wait for my return on the following day. I had to reach Herbert as soon as I was able to calm my wife to the point where the mission could even proceed. Both men needed money, as neither was in a position to simply globe-trot around with financial affairs left to the wives left behind. The Agency hadn’t and wouldn’t consider having their families ensconced at the resort like mine was, which in this circumstance was a good thing. I had no idea of a budget, but ten thousand dollars for each seemed like it wasn’t only right but possible. The entire series of dives, if there was to be a second, and I firmly believed there would be, the only caveat being my being a part of it, which would be linked to the money for Nguyen and Kingsley. My head spun with the traps that lay ahead to be avoided, as well as the ones behind that might come back, even if avoided, like hangovers.The door opened as I approached the room at the end of the hallway. Most rooms had only three numbers in American hotels. Why were there four? Mary stepped out and closed the door behind her. Her facial expression could best be described as glacial. I put down my bag and stepped toward her although

I made no move to hug or kiss her. It was readily apparent that such activity wasn’t going to he part of our coming back together.

She stood before and crossed her arms.

“Tell me,” was all she said, her voice dangerous, her expression flat and vaguely menacing.

“This isn’t a good place,” I replied, my voice even lower than her own, as I briefly looked around, although there wasn’t a soul in sight or making any sounds from nearby rooms.

“Good as any,” she replied. “Your nemesis informed me at the poolside with twenty guests nearby.”

“Idiot,” I breathed out, too quietly for her to pick up what I’d said. I breathed deeply and relaxed, wondering if my heart was throwing PVCs. Another thing I had to discuss with Hitachi before I went down again, if I went down again.

Why had the three UDT divers suffered from serious heart problems while my reaction was so mild in comparison…at least so far.

I could delay no longer, so I launched into a full-blown explanation about what I was doing, had done, and why it had been a mistake to have her and the kids come to a place even as distant as Kauai was from Oahu. I didn’t mention the liquid breathing part of the dive or anything else about the physical difficulties or depth I’d been down to. I finished my presentation while she stood unmoving in front of me. I was done, but she wasn’t, I knew.

“You came here to take us home, or are we staying so we can make believe we were on a real vacation despite there being a bomb about to blow us all sky high?”

She was kidding in some cold Irish version of her sense of humor, but I couldn’t respond with any of that.

“I’m staying for a couple of days, but you’re going back tomorrow morning, as early as a flight can be booked. It was a mistake to have you come, and there are the kids to think about.”

“He stands like a statue, becomes part of the machine, feeling all the bumpers, always playing clean,” Mary said, saying the lyrics from Elton John’s Pinball Wizard song slowly from memory, not smiling when she was done. “Is that you in all this? Why else would they want you? Aren’t you doing enough? If this continues, we won’t have a life at all. That macho moron who keeps showing up in our life’s beginning to look better and better. At least he’s around. I note that he left when he heard you were coming. No bombs for that guy. Your department. The CIA’s pinball wizard, deaf, dumb, and blind.”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked, being as sincere as I could.

“You’re going back down, I already figured that out,” Mary said, not putting it out as a question. “We’re going home, of course, as that’s the rational thing to do, and you’re correct, it was a mistake to have us here, no matter how small or large a menace that thing out there in the ocean is.” With that, she turned, used the key in her hand to unlock the door, and went inside.

I waited to see if she would let it close and lock, leaving me in the corridor alone, but the door didn’t close. I was still allowed to be with her and the kids, no matter what the lies or vague deceptions I used to at least somewhat hide what I was doing.

I dropped my bag and settled onto the end of one of the couches set in the middle of a living room bigger than half our house in Albuquerque. I looked around at what I could see. The Agency had pulled every string it had or spent a ton to make sure that my wife and children were opulently cared for, just another factor tied into the critical nature of the missions I was serving on. It was an excellent gesture, and I didn’t want to bring up the subject with Mary until we were more relaxed together, but I wanted the three of them on a plane home before I went back into the water. I didn’t know what the mission would entail, as the Navy certainly had to have JIM armored suits available to it at Pearl or even the Makai Deep Ocean Research facility run by the University of Hawaii. The place was almost totally idyllic, located out at the end of a pier not far from Makapuu and Sandy Beaches near Bellows Air Force Base. I’d felt near naked and exposed at depth during the first dive, wearing nothing but my swimsuit and the equipment required. I came to understand why I was so nakedly attired when I was fully involved on the bottom but this second dive would not be a ‘feel one’s way around’ kind of thing It couldn’t be if it was a recovery dive as the heavy duty lifting stuff needed wasn’t likely to be very kind or forgiving if any of it made contact with something as vulnerable and tender as a human being.

“My dad was on his Pearl Harbor cruise,” I said, deliberately changing the subject that hadn’t been broached yet. “I’m thinking of going up to Aiea and visiting them if that’s alright with you.”

“I presume we’re leaving tomorrow, given what Richard said and you confirmed, so that leaves us today and this evening. I’d rather walk on hot coals than go up there. They have no use whatever for the kids or even you.”

“That leaves you as the popular one,” I replied, trying to lighten things up a bit.

“For one reason and one reason only, just like Richard and some others like them,” she said, her voice clipped and hard, although I would have preferred that when she mentioned Marcinko that she wouldn’t call him by his first name. It seemed too personal to me, but there was nothing I would say to her about it, not under the circumstances. I’d given Marcinko an advantage, unbeknownst to me at the time, of not filling Mary in about the situation first.

“Can we go to lunch, since your parents are on Oahu and it would take all day just to get there, rent a car, and get back since it’s not likely they would pick us up or even put us up overnight without prior notification and all. Besides, ‘those people’ probably want you at some atrocious time like four in the morning to fly over there. Your father has his issues, which you can’t see at all. He was on that Kakui Coast Guard ship at Pearl Harbor during the attack. The only gun was rusted out when they uncovered it to fire. The West Point lieutenant paid for that failure in maintenance with his career, but it was your dad who allowed the mistake. He’s never forgotten that. Notice they live on Oahu in a place overlooking where the event took place. He runs a catamaran and goes to the harbor every day on cruises. He denies to this day that he was ever in Pearl during the attack. He’s as damaged as you are.”

“I don’t deny I was in that valley in that place at that time,” I replied defensively, “And we aren’t living overlooking it in Vietnam.”

“You’re doing what you are doing because of what happened to you and you can no more stop than he can, or even recognize that fact, and then there’s the idiotic humor the military toys with all the time, like your dad serving later on after the war aboard that same ship and the Marines trying to send you back to the A Shau Valley from the hospital,” she got out before finishing with a question that had nothing to do with the depth of conversation we’d just had.

“We want to go to Bubba’s Burgers in Hanalei.”

“Supposed to be a good place to eat?” I asked, trying to cover the shock I felt from what she’d just said about my father and me.

“Don’t know, the kids want the hat they sell,” Mary replied, mystifying me a bit. She read the questionable expression on my face and went on. “The hat says that they cheat tourists, drunks, and attorneys.”

I smiled for the first time since coming back together with her. The smile faded as I thought about where we were. It’d been a long time since I’d been on Kauai and visiting the town of Hanalei. The place was named in the song by Peter, Paul, and Mary called Puff the Magic Dragon, which always took me straight back to the A Shau Valley. I’d come to accept that the sounds, sights, and effects of the rotary cannon aircraft called that by everyone in the country would remain with me for the rest of my life. Mary was right, as usual, the big war had changed my father forever, and my ‘little’ war by comparison, had done the same thing to me, but in different ways.

I called Herbert from the room, getting connected to him after only a few seconds, even though he was staying at the bachelor officer’s quarters at Hickam on Oahu.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at the facility, finally,” he said before I could say a word.

“Fine,” I replied. I left Kingsley and Nguyen there to await my return tomorrow morning. Tell them I want to be picked up at the Princeville Airport and not in the parking lot of the hotel, and get twenty thousand in cash to pay Kingsley and Nguyen ten apiece since they are vital to this new mission.”

“Vital, how?” Herbert asked.

I didn’t answer, instead just waiting until he got the message. It was my mission, so I got to distribute the funds for a budget I knew nothing about, as far as amounts or anything else. After the mission, I would have to account for the cash distribution, but not before it was over, and the importance of the mission had grown on me as I’d come to understand that the people around me were all scared to death. I had no such fear as I’d been with the weapon and come to understand a good deal about the ornate procedures involved with arming and detonating the device. Despite the damage to it I’d observed in my semi-blind state, I didn’t think there was any likelihood of an accidental ignition of the thing. I was more worried about the potential damage to my body from the liquid breathing substance.

After almost a full minute, Herbert spoke again.

“This is the most screwed up mission I’ve ever been a part of, and that’s saying something. It all has to do with you, even the part where I’m here instead of at Langley. That’s never done, but here I am, trapped in this building, not even able to go to the beach.”

I had no idea about what normal procedures were for a field control officer, but I was learning. His job was even more structured than my own. At least during a mission, I was running free of almost all constraints, while he probably never enjoyed that at all in what he was doing.

The burgers at Bubba’s were outstanding, but they were out of hats. It was rumored by some of the people waiting in line that the owner of the place was being sued by some local attorneys about what was sewn into the hats about them, but I couldn’t figure out what might be the cause for such a suit. My wife had kicked my thoughts about my parents to the forefront of my mind. I would visit them when the mission was over, even if it meant spending more time without my family on the island. I needed some resolution with them. Losing their other son had likely done nothing but burn the war experiences deeper into both of them. I had the great fortune of having experienced Paul, my therapist, and what he’d been able to do for me. My good work for the day, to endemnify myself according to his instructions, was getting ten grand to Kingsley and Nguyen, even though there was also some self-serving going on with that. The partially selfish element inherent in my forced good works for other people never left my mind.

I went down at seven, before sunset, which was uncommon for me. I’d never gotten into the pool or the ocean, merely sitting and watching as Mary and the kids had a wonderful time doing both. The pool was magnificent, and although the beach area had a coral reef that reached nearly to the edge of the lapping water, Mary and the kids needed only the sandy bottom for a few feet out from the shore. They were not ‘water dogs’ like me, although Mike was fast becoming one.

Mary and the kids flew out from Lahaina at seven, but I was already at Princeville’s Emelia Earhart Airport at five, waiting for the CH-53 to clear the dust, dirt, and brush from that expanse of tarmac when it came in. The little upstairs restaurant named for her was already open and serving at that time, so having a cup of Kona coffee got me started, even though I’d been instructed to go NPO before the dive (non-per-ortho, or nothing by mouth). I reminded myself that it was my mission, no matter how illogical some things I might do might be.

The place was more populated with personnel than it had been before the first dive, but it made no difference. Herbert was there, but just as sidelined as Kingsley and Nguyen. Once more, Kingsley approached me before the real work of dive preparation began.

“We have the money,” he whispered, “but is this a bad omen?”

I laughed out loud for the first time since I’d been back to the islands.

“I sure as hell hope not,” was my response, as I looked over at Herbert in thanks. He shook his head gently in reply. I knew he was unhappy with being left out of so much, but there was nothing I could do about it.

The dive preparations began as before, without much talk or fanfare at all. Everyone was dead serious, mostly about what they did not know Hitachi had introduced me to the parameters of the rather straightforward mission, which had turned out to be not a mission of extraction but another mission of confirmation. The bomb was unaccountably armed. It could not be physically disturbed in that state, not with the measure of safety, its placement so close to the center of Oahu’s tourist area was located anyway. The bomb had to be reached once more, the code received once mor,e and then another code transmitted to disarm the bomb when it was ready, whatever that meant.

“What happened to the three UDT Frogs who had heart problems?” I asked in the middle of Hitachi’s mission presentation.

The woman stopped what she was talking and put down her clipboard for the first time. We stared at one another.

“Telling you that information might have discouraging results for the mission,” she finally said, obviously uncomfortable in discussing the subject. ]

“It’s my mission, once again,” I reminded her, wondering if she knew just how much latitude and control were conferred once a mission was assigned and underway.

“You can’t understand, but I know you don’t trust anybody right now.”

“I trust them,” I said, pointing to where Kingsley lounged on a big, overstuffed chair that seemed as out of place as he and Nguyen were. The Montagnard stood with his back planted against the concrete wall, no expression on his face except one of close attention to everything going on in front of and around him.

Hitachi motioned toward both men and then retreated to the door she’d entered through earlier. Both men looked quizzically at me, but followed her when I nodded my approval. Whatever she had to trust them with would be divulged as soon as she wasn’t around. They were gone only a few minutes before returning to resume their original positions, like they hadn’t made a strange exit and entrance at all. I made no effort to grill them and let the subject pass with her as she continued to teach me how to plug and play the electronic box that would accompany me down to the bottom. When we took a break, Kingsley eased over to me and whispered in my right ear.

“You don’t need the data. You’re cleared for the dive.”

I looked into his eyes, as impenetrable as Nguyen’s, and thought for just a few seconds. Whatever the information was that I was seeking would be worse for me to know than not to know, for the success of the mission and my survival. I say it in his eyes. I couldn’t fathom what that could be, but I knew I had to let it go. There was nobody to replace me on the dive, either physically for some reason or other, or because of the hyper secrecy of the entire series of events.

Commander Doris came into the facility as it was cleared of all non-essential personnel, which included Herbert but not Kingsley and Nguyen. I knew from his departing expression that I would hear about that sometime in the future, but once again had no real control over the pre-planned sequence of events. The trip out to the tender was as before, but the weather had kicked up a bit, resulting in sex to eight-foot swells instead of the smaller stuff from before. I enjoyed the life-giving sea air, spray, and the waves, but wondered what that would mean concerning the umbilical I was going to be attached to. I looked back at Kingsley and Nguyen. I knew they felt like they had no role in anything that was going on, but their real role was as vital to me and my mindset as was that of Mary.

I climbed out of the boat and onto the side-mounted staircase, the UDT guy meeting me halfway down to help, letting me know that the good news was that this time I’d get to wear a wetsuit for the dive. Why that was good news, I wondered about, but finished the climb and got ready for whatever was going to happen at the bottom this time.

The Beginning |