I waited for Quincy to come to me across the parking lot.  That he was here at all was evidence that something in my logical equation of what had happened earlier was wrong.  Men did not come back to confess to trying to kill you or be a part of such an action.  Men did not have much of hope of convincing someone like me that they’d been innocent or had nothing to do with it.  Finally, such men did not have people like Tony Herbert forcing me to face them and listen to what they had to say.  But here I was.

I turned and went inside, not bothering to access any of the firearms I had available inside my Range Rover.  Whatever had happened and why was no longer a thing of violence, to be resolved by bloody vengeance or retribution

Once inside the entrance through the parking lot door, I stopped and turned.

“Will you lay off the frightened lemming ‘I’m about to die’ routine?” I said, as forcefully as I could, before continuing down the hall to my office.

Once there, I didn’t wait, instead turning my back and moving some chunks of pinion into the fireplace behind my desk.  I wasn’t cold, but I needed the warmth of a tribal fire.  Quincy sat down in front of my desk, silent, to wait.  The telephone receiver with Tony waiting on the the end lay there between us.

My unspoken relief was palpable inside the brick office.  The fire started with a crackling sound as the fuel-suffused log caught and then began igniting the other logs I‘d thrown around it.  It wasn’t a Boy Scout fire, but it was good enough. If the man behind me was true blue, then my life was returned to me, except for the fact that a foreign presence had inserted itself and potentially had me in its crosshairs even though the first attempt at taking me out had failed.

The fire burned behind me as I sat down in my swivel chair, speaking more into the receiver lying flat on the desk top than to the shivering caricature of a man in front of me.

“Stop,” I said to Quincy.  “I’m not going to hurt  you, and neither is anyone in the CIA.”

I picked up the receiver and held it to my ear.  “Please tell him that he’s okay and that he’s going to be fine,” I said to Herbert whom I knew had to be listening intently.  I held the black handset out toward Quincy.

I couldn’t hear what was said by Herbert to Quincy but the man’s reaction was all I needed.  He almost physically collapsed in front of me.  All he could say was ‘thank you’ over and over again, before placing the handset atop the table once more.

“You’re one of us,” I said, pretty certain I was telling the truth.  “I’m duy bound to protect you, not hurt you.”

Quincey stopped shivering for the first time since coming in from the parking lot.

“You’re in a bad way,” I said.  “Come home with me and be part of Christmas Eve.  I’ve got to assemble a train, European and very ornate, and I  need all the help I can get.”

“Is any of this real?”  Quincy asked.

“Tony’s still live on the line,” I replied, pushing the receiver toward him across the desk.

“Okay, okay, I’ll come,” Quincy said, surprising me.

“I have three cats, Bozo, Tigger, and Phoebe, plus Michael. A baby boy and Julie, a precocious, smart-as-a-whip, young lady. My daughter.”

“After all that has happened, you’re trusting me with your family?”

“Well?” I asked, ignoring the question, which was a very good one that I had no rational answer for.

“When?” Quincy asked.

“Ten tonight,” I replied.

“What am I supposed to do in the meantime?” he asked, causing both of us to laugh.  It was evident that the man had no family, but with the delay in answering, I knew he also could not admit that, not to somebody unknown to him and also of questionable background.

I didn’t reply after laughing with him.

Quincy got out of the chair and headed for the door.

“Address?” I asked him before he got through the door.

“You’re serious.”  He said, with no more humor appearing in his delivery.

I wrote down my home address.

“Be there in an hour, and we’ll go to work on the train and other stuff.  “You’re staying at the hotel in Uptown, so it’s first class, and we’ll meet again on Christmas day.”

Quincy walked out of the office, appearing a bit in shock, holding the slip of paper that had my home address printed on it.  I waited until he was out the door before picking up the telephone receiver again.

“You still there?” I asked into the microphone.

“How do you do it?” Herbert asked back.

“Do what? I said, in wonder.

“You took that guy and made him a member of your family in less than ten minutes.  He’s all aboard.  I don’t even know him that well.  How can you trust him, even though he’s Agency, to be with you and your family on Christmas Eve?”

“He’s one of us, certified by you.  I don’t know what happened out in the desert, but I intend on finding out.  I can’t do this kind of work without trust. Real trust, like I have in you.  I’m bringing him in closer in order to allow him to realize that trust in me and my family is in his best interest.  Obviously, he hasn’t done an effective job of building family trust so I’m giving him a bit of that this night,  and tomorrow.”

“I understand, although it’s a little more than a bit of trust,” Herbert replied, softly.  “I’m simply amazed at how you go about doing this.  What happens if he’s not quite right with you and your wonderful wife and family?”

I went silent.  Herbert was sometimes spot on in his thinking and in the honesty of his presentation.
“Then, the Agency and I will miss him,” I said quietly and truthfully.

Seconds went by without either one of us saying anything.  I waited for him to speak first.  It took almost a full minute.

“I don’t think we’ll ever be spending Christmas Eve together.”

I put the phone down on the desk.  I had to think.  His statement was both a compliment and a slight insult. I tried to make sense of what he’d said, and I waited for more, but the line, although live, gave me back nothing.

I was concerned.  If Quincy came to my home, assembled the complex toy train with me in the night, but proved to be a threat and had to be removed because of that, then what might that mean in terms of my relationship with Herbert or the Agency itself, especially since even though we were on a secure and encrypted line, that didn’t mean nobody would ever hear our conversation.

I sat there thinking.  I was taken back to my dream of what happened down in the valley.

Was I being used by the people I trusted the most, dragging in the people I truly loved, and then subverting them into a system of good or evil disorder that I was unaware of?  I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say in response.

I pressed the receiver to my ear, but there was only silence.  Tony was there but not saying anything at all.

         “You’re better at this than I am,” Herbert finally whispered, which scared me more than satisfying me before the line went dead

         I went home.  I was committed.  Either Quincy would show up or not.  I had a steam locomotive engine with over a hundred and fifty parts that had to be assembled and running by Christmas morning, which wasn’t that far off into the night.

         The tree was lit, the internal lights of the house all on everywhere, but Michael, Juli,e and Mary were already tucked in for the night.  The locomotive model was laid out on the kitchen table, with little bags of parts all around it. I checked on all three of them.  Mike and Jules had fallen into the slumber of Morpheus, but Mary awakened and smiled when I went in to see her.

         “All you have to do is put the train together and everything will be alright,” she said, slipping right back into sleep.

I went back out to the dining room, which was really an extension of the living room, and cleared the long table there.  The kitchen table was too small to work on.  I moved all the locomotive boxes, bags, and parts.  Sitting up at the end of the table in the night with nothing but the train set, I paused to consider my situation.

I heard a single knock on the door connecting the garage to the kitchen.  Just one soft knock.  Paranoid thoughts raced back and forth through my brain.  I got up from the table but hesitated before heading into the bedroom and opening my inventory of weaponry stored there.

It was a single knock at the door, not repeated.  I hadn’t heard the garage door open to let anybody in there, but then, if an enemy was on the other side of the door, I would already have been toast. I left my inventory without selecting anything, walked over, and opened the door.  Quincy stepped inside.

“Merry Christmas,” he said, quietly, moving past me with a canvas sack hanging down in one hand and a brown paper bag tucked up under his arm in the other.

I was surprised.  I’d been by no means certain that the man would show up at my home again, not really, but there he was, big as life itself.

“Small tools for small jobs,” he said, putting the canvas bag down at my feet before standing back up and opening the brown paper bag.  He pulled a liter of Bacardi Rum out of the narrow bag.

“Lubrication for the tools,” he murmured, stepping past me and into the dining room where the parts of the locomotive and train set were laid out.

The Peter Lorrie look-alike sat down at the table.

“Got glasses?” he asked, as I joined him there, dumbfounded but totally at ease.

Quincy was real, one of us, one of me…I could feel it emanate from his presence in my home.  His courage in coming was shocking to me.

“Why are you here?” I asked, as if my invitation made earlier invitation had never been made.

“To build the bridge over the river Kwai from the movie, or the toy locomotive in real life, I think, like you asked.  Are you in with me on this?”

The man was sitting in my dining room with my children and wife sleeping in nearby bedrooms.   I could not have been more ‘in’ with the man, only now truly thinking about how poorly I’d vetted him.

I got up and went to the stereo and put on one of my favorite Christmas records, and started the thing.    “We three kings of Orient are;
bearing gifts we traverse afar, field and fountain, moor and mountain,
following yonder star…” began to play.  It was one of my favorite Christmas hymns.

I went into the kitchen, got out two glasses and a giant glass bottle of Coca Cola, filled the glasses with ice, and went back to join Quincy, who was peering down at all the pieces to the locomotive, but with enthusiasm rather than apprehension.

I opened the Bacardi bottle, poured generous portions in each glass, and then filled the remaining space with Coke without asking Quincy if he wanted any in his drink.

“I’ll tell you why you’re here,” I said, taking a small gulp of my drink before setting it down and looking across the distance between us. “You’re here because I checked you out.  You’re one of us, Agency all the way, and for the last ten years.  You’re an analyst, but have been through the analyst portion of the school.  You’ve never worked in the field before, but here you are, with a story to tell. Whatever happened out there in the desert, your part, is going to be discussed this Christmas Eve right here, while we build this train, and you leave here unharmed in any way.  You wouldn’t be in my home right now if you were a threat, but before we begin, I want to congratulate you on the courage it took to come, knowing somewhat the background I have and the provocation I might consider motivational about taking action.”

 Quincy drank deeply and then pulled the instructions for assembly of the train across the table to him before commenting again.

“Do you read Chinese?’ he asked, staring down at the lengthy instructions and diagrams.

“La Shi,” I replied, remembering the Chinese word for shit.

“His name’s Phil Marlow,” Quincy replied,

“Who?” I asked him, picking up a plastic bag of pieces that were all tiny metal levers and wheels.

 “The UFO guy, the man who had to piece of a UFO vessel you were supposed to see and pick up.”

I stopped looking down at the package. Instead, looking over into Quincy’s opaque eyes.

“That’s all real?” I asked, surprised.  “Your real name’s not really Quincy, is it?’

 “No, I took the name from the detective in an old television series.  I really liked Jack Klugman, the actor who played him.”

“Well,” I said, taking another drink from my glass.

“Paul.  My real name’s Paul, and I’d rather not be sent home in disgrace for what happened.”

“This Paul Marlow was the first contact to begin making this whole UFO operation real.  He had me sent to him by you and then took his shots at me.  You ran as soon as the first round impacted; evidently, your hearing is better than mine.  You were frightened and fled.  Do I have that all about right?”

“Exactly, and I’m so sorry I ran, leaving you with nothing on your own out there.  I hate that I did that.”

“You’re alive, and I’m alive, so drink from that glass and celebrate the result.  If you’d stayed, at least one of us would not be part of this conversation. You did the right thing.”

“If I’d gone to the whole school for field agents, I’d have known better,” he continued until I held up one hand.

“No, you’d simply be dead.  Combat experience cannot be trained; it can only be discussed in such terms as not to alienate the audience who, if they get the truth, won’t go at all.  I don’t suppose there’s any way to trace this Phil Marlow creature?”

When I drove off, I just sped away, not going anywhere except away from that place.  After getting myself under control, I came across a Jeep parked out there in the middle of nowhere.  I got the license plate.  That’s how I know he’s really named Phil Marlow.  I can give you that plate number.”

I stared at the man.  Paul was no dummy.  I watched him search through his pockets to come up with a small yellow ‘Post-it’ piece of paper.

“Here’s the New Mexico plate.  I ran him through the home office.  He’s a drug dealer or was.  No military experience and no firearms training are evident.  However, he vacationed recently on an island called Mallorca in the Mediterranean Sea.”

I went still, holding the piece of paper in my hand.  It was precious, and the information that went with it was satisfying because it told me that it was the island mafia who’d sent him. It was her, the deadly mother who’d killed her husband and was now taking vengeance for the loss of her beloved son.  It was something that could be handled if Tony came in to do the Agency’s part.

“What will you do to him?” Paul asked.

“I can’t really say,” I said, “but I can draw you a mind picture of a setting right back where he set up to kill me.  I’ll go there with a pick and shovel and dig the day through.  I’ll get three fifty-pound bags of powdered lye and two fifty-gallon plastic bottles of water.  I’ll get him and take him there anesthetized and tied up.  I’ll wake him and empty the first bag of lye into the hole.  Then I’ll toss him in.  From up top, I’ll offer him a question.”

 “What question?” Paul asked, his eyes big and round.

“As I pour the other two bags of lye down onto his struggling body, I’ll ask him about the water,” I replied, drinking more Bacardi and Coke.

 “What’s the question?” Paul said, his voice nearly a whisper.

 “Do you want me to fill the hole with dirt and let you suffocate, which will take most of the day, or do you want me to fill the hole and then pour the water onto the ground above.  In hours, the water will activate the lye, and you’ll be dissolved alive totally by nightfall.  Your choice.”

“Oh my God,” Paul whispered.  I’m not sure I can work with someone like you.”

“You’re in my home on Christmas Eve, building my son’s train with me.  After what you’ve heard, do you really think you have anything to do with that decision? They sent you to the field, and here you are.  The elements you will have to deal with, like being shot at, among other things, are best represented by hearing stuff like what I just told you.

Paul grabbed a bag of parts and opened it.  I went to work with him

“Paul, in the jungle, a baby deer grouses about for food.  An eight-hundred-pound tiger rears up nearby.  They stare at one another.  Does the deer live or die?

“I don’t know,” Paul replied, giving as much attention as he could to the assembly of the inscrutable Chinese locomotive.

“He will live if the tiger isn’t hungry, and I’m not hungry tonight.”

“I’ll have another drink if it’s okay with you,” he said, not looking at me. “I was prepared for UFOs even though I don’t really believe in them.  I was prepared to open life insurance satellite offices, not that I know anything about life insurance.  I was prepared to handle the finances, real estate acquisitions, leases, and all of that.”

I waited, but he said nothing more.

“You didn’t finish what you were saying, did you?” I asked, tentatively.

“I wasn’t ready for you, or anything like what’s happened so far,” he replied, as we both went to work to make my son’s Christmas morning special.

The vinyl record stopped being played and audibly dropped down to be followed by another.  Another hymn began to burst forth from the big Sansui speakers, “O holy night, the stars are brightly shining, it is the night of the dear Saviour’s birth; Long lay the world in sin and error pining, ’till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.  A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn…”

“It’s like you’re playing this music with a plan,” Paul said.  “Like the three kings of orient are you, me, and Herbert, and then Oh Holy night, and ‘a thrill of hope,’ and all that.”

“You got that, you feel that, and you are now a part of it. I don’t think it’s possible to go back to analysis once you’ve been out in the field.  You wouldn’t be here tonight if you had a family, if you had enough people who cared.  You want that, then you’ve got a good bit of that right here,” I said, assembling some pieces of the locomotive with a magnifying glass and Reddit clear glue.