THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Six, Chapter XXIII

I tried to get to sleep, which I nearly accomplished until my wife poked me in the side.

“What is it?” I asked, my tone one of irritation.

“You mentioned something, and I wanted to discuss it before you nod off, as it may be important as to whether you continue on this ‘mission’ or whatever the hell it really is.”

I breathed in and out deeply, trying not to show that I didn’t care what she’d come up with; I really wasn’t interested.

“And don’t give me any more of your meaningful sighs, either.

“What is it?” I asked, turning over to face her, but noticing the moon showing itself outside the closed window where we’d left the curtains open. It was in the phase just following the first quarter, called the waning gibbous period. A week from this night, the moon would be full, and that might have some importance on the mission. I filed the data away in my head and waited patiently for what Mary had to say.

“Tony, your control officer, and I don’t really know what that means, said you were to evaluate and understand what the main talent is that the Agency finds you inordinately valuable for.”

“Something like that,” I answered, trying not to sigh again.

“Did you do that?” she continued.

“I just want to go to sleep,” I replied, truthfully.

“Do it now,” Mary ordered, and I knew right away that there would be no sleep for me until she was satisfied. When Mary bit into a bone, and that bone got gnawed until it was only little pieces on the floor, or in my mind.

“Well,” I began, trying to figure out where she was going. “How would I go about figuring that out. I don’t know what’s in their minds. In fact, outside of some names, I don’t know those people making all the decisions at all.”

“Besides the point,” Mary said.

“Give me a hint then, for Christ’s sake,” I replied in exasperation.

“The missions,” she said, almost whispering. “Hawaii and the bomb, China and the plant, the artifact, Los Alamos, the UFO offices…all of it. What do they have in common?”

“Physics?” I asked, not getting what she was trying to tell me.

“Yes, well done,” Mary replied, “Now, what kind of physics?”

I lay there, looking at the soon-to-be gibbous moon, trying to be awake enough to at least satisfy her so I could get back to sleep.

My mind suddenly came fully awake, and I sat up before getting out of the bed naked and starting to pace back and forth across the space between the bottom of the bed and the dresser holding the darkened television screen.

“Nuclear,” I said, stopping next to her side and looking down into the eyes I could not see in the dim light but knew were staring back up at me.

Things suddenly began to fall into place. Pieces of a puzzle I could not put together. Three ships of the U.S. Navy and the monster expense of getting them on station and then keeping them there, almost at my command. A letter of Marque not issued since the Revolutionary War. A nearly unlimited budget. All my requests, no matter how ridiculous, were instantly honored, including an unheard-of ride in an SR-71 spy plane.

I sat at the bottom of the bed naked.

“You want to get under the covers,” my wife said, tossing a blanket at me. “Someone might see you.”

I laughed, “like in the dark? What’s so bad about my body, anyway?” I finished, but pulled the blanket over my nakedness.

“You haven’t looked at your scars in the mirror lately, have you?”

I went silent, hurt by her comment and now glad it was dark, and she could not read my expression. I got back onto my side of the bed and curled up, sleep being a long way from taking me into the night.

“I didn’t mean what you thought I meant,” Mary said, her voice a whisper. You know I love your scars, it’s just that other people haven’t always felt that way.”

I was relieved. Mary didn’t have a mean bone in her body unless she was truly crossed, at which point her Irish would leap out, or worse, do a slow, never-ending burn.

“Thank you,” I murmured.

I waited until I heard the soft snickering that was her form of snoring, and then I got up, blanket wrapped around me. I slipped outside to sit on the patio and think. What was I getting into, and why was nobody telling me? My wife had to figure it out, although the details were well beyond her simply because she didn’t have, and couldn’t have, all the data. Whatever was about to go down, though, needed her as far from where the action would be as possible, and as quickly as possible.

Mary slept while I considered. Suddenly, the revelation of Rosley’s attendance on the preliminary mission visit was of little consequence. Whatever was really going down was way beyond local marital discord over ‘another woman,’ and I had to focus. There was only one thing to focus on, and that could only be accomplished on a secure site. There would be no boat trip for me in the morning or for Mary either.

Rosely could, indeed, make the trip with Kingsley, who’d proven himself more than capable of handling the boat, although we had not experienced any rough water while taking our little trip all inside the interior canal area, or inland waterway, as it was locally referred to. That call I could easily make without creating trouble with my wife. I went to sleep thinking about the unwritten but very necessary rule about not taking or letting close any family or friends. Not only could it screw up the mission, but people unexpectedly died or were badly wounded on missions all the time. I had been thinking about Mary meeting Rosley unexpectedly and not about the mission. My wife had to think it through, and thank God I had a wife who could think it through for me. Even so, her vague comment about my appearance had bitten deep. I would wear one of my many “T” shirts whenever I was in a situation to be bare-chested, even at home.

Being a wounded war hero simply sucked most of the time, and that was without the mental side effects ever present. The new DSM IV manual on mental illness now defines what was once called shell shock with the four letters PTSD. They’d made the malady even less understandable than it had been. Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I fell into sleep, wondering just what the syndrome was and if I had it.

The morning went more smoothly than I would have thought the night before. There was no way I was going to any government office to try to find a secure phone. My trust level with the Agency and Tony was at an all-time low. I called Kingsley from the lobby, and there was no problem. The mission was not likely to kick off for a few days, so drawing the photos I’d taken into my possession and viewing them wasn’t vital. I could wait until the team was assembled at home. The Letter of Marque and the immunity document for Kohler’s was a different matter, but dependent on the phone call, once I was clear.

United flew us in economy, but that was okay. Halfway through the three-hour flight, my wife poked me.

“What?” I said, trying to play everything out in my mind, not to mention that I hadn’t sold a life police in a while, and money could get tight unless I invaded mission funding, which was never done, not without a rumored horrid reaction.

“What about the woman?” Mary said, her tone level was about the same as if she was talking about the weather, which was clear and fine outside the plane but instantly about to turn stormy inside.

“Who told you about her?” I asked, using the same idiotic delaying tactic of every husband caught by his wife in a tryst.

“Ben Kingsley, when he came to get us, and you were dragging our gear down to the lobby.

“Why in hell would he do that?” talking more to myself than her, and wondering all the time where I was supposed to go with the situation.

“I simply asked him if the team was assembled to make the boat trip I was no longer invited aboard, and he told me they were.”

“That explains nothing,” I noted, wishing I had a better explanation for my decision about Rosley than the weak one I had yet to divulge.

“I followed up, innocently enough, with an inquiry about who the rest of the team was,” Mary went on, her voice very quiet and low, like mine when I was seriously disturbed with some offending guy in the field.

“And?” I said, and then waited, knowing she was baiting me, but I could do nothing about it except play it out.

“He said himself, Nguyen, and the woman,” she replied, with a fake smile.

“Joan,” I volunteered.

“Yes, the same Joan Rosley Ryan who’s taken the insurance office by storm, that one.”

“And who told you that?” I asked, now beginning to be awed and wondering if the intelligence agent should have been her, and my position changed to house husband.

“Pat Bowman, your secretary or the office manager or whatever she really is.”

“You’ve been talking to Pat?” I asked, becoming astounded.

“Of course, all the time, and to Joan too,” she replied. “She’s like a teenager, and I wonder if she’s fit for the work, or whatever else you are doing with her, or to do the job.”

There was no point in talking anymore on the plane, and I didn’t because she didn’t pursue it either. I sat the remainder of the flight looking out the window, getting up to use the bathroom for long periods of time and reading the sales brochure in the pocket of the seat in front of me Never take your family or friends, I kept telling myself, now having a full understanding of not only how things could go south in seconds but why so many field personnel were single or divorced. The trust expected of a spouse was simply too much. I did not have a believable career, even for my wife to consider, and being as Irish as she was, she didn’t have automatic trust built into her system either. Mary had forced me to show her the artifact, too, before she would believe it, and then was the motive force for making me get rid of it (her words).

Once on the ground, I called the office and got Nash on the line.

“Come pick us up at the airport, United,” I instructed.

“Why am I not with you in what you’re doing?” Nash replied, as if ignoring my request. “I’m a pilot, for Christ’s sake.”

The fact that he was a back-seater in a Phantom during the war did not make him a pilot, but there was no point in beating the man down and not getting a ride home.

“Get here,” I ordered, “Mary’s with me,” I added to motivate him more, as Mary was beloved by most macho men, and Nash was all of that. I was quietly uncomfortable about his pilot comment, however. It seemed awfully coincidental with the fact that we’d engaged in a rental plane and had trouble with the pilot. If John was referencing that, then what was his source? I could not imagine it would be anyone on the team. The only potential weak link might be Joan, and I didn’t want to think that way. She’d talked to Mary and not told me, and I didn’t like that, but that wasn’t a mission violation. Mary and Rosley. Mary, who thought I was sleeping with Rosley, and Rosley wanted to, I knew. And then me between these two powerful, brilliant female forces. The mission might be dangerous but I was beginning to believe it would be less dangerous than what I was facing at home.

We sat waiting for Nash to show, looking out the grand expanse of windows to watch airplanes come and go. When we’d dated so many years before, we used to go to airports to sit in the car, neck and watch the airplanes, hoping someday to fly on one of them.

“Whom would have thought,” I murmured to myself.

A brand new, bright, and sparkling polished aluminum Lear landed, throwing up little puffs of gray air from each of its two back wheels. The jet slowed and eased its way slowly toward the private sector of the airport reserved for small private planes. When it stopped, the door side of the craft was facing us. I watched intently, wondering if it was a new Charter aircraft, but then I was shocked to my foundations.

Two men and a woman came down the steps. I could not make out who they were, but there was little question about the woman doing a dancing twirl once out of the Lear. Rosley Ryan. It had to be, but how could it be? The Lear would have had to travel the sixteen hundred miles to Miami and then back. There was no time for that.

Nash came striding up behind me. I turned. He was wearing his big, foolish cowboy hat and the boots with raised heels, like his six-foot-four height wasn’t enough.

“Hey partner,” he said, as his introduction, swallowing my right hand in his own, but not foolish enough to squeeze too hard. He knew me, although I would not have charged him an inordinate ‘amount’ for such an act. The Marcinkos and Nashes of the world gave away the fact that they were buffs, or wannabes, without predation experience. The overpressure handshake was one of the tells.

“Let’s get to the car,” I said, grabbing our bags, as I would not reduce John to being our personal servant. “We’ve got to get through the base and over to the tarmac as the team just arrived on that distant Lear.”

“I’m not part of the team,” Nash commented, irritating me, but I didn’t respond. “I hope you’re driving the Rover,” I said, but he didn’t respond either

When we exited the baggage claim area, even though we had nothing but carry-ons, the white Rover was there, parked at a meter. I was always amazed that Albuquerque had the only International Airport I’d ever visited that still had parking meters out in front of it at the curb.

We piled in and headed for the base, John using his retired Navy I.D. to get through the gate. Once we were out on the tarmac, we rolled toward the Lear. It was them, standing and waiting as they knew somehow that we’d be coming. I jumped out while John disembarked to rearrange the interior to accommodate three more of us and luggage, since they had more than carry-on.

“What the hell,” I said to Kingsley, as he handed me a thick envelope that was at least eight and a half by eleven and the Amex card.

“God, I forgot I gave you the card for the photos,” I breathed out, always afraid to lose the thin wafer. In the Agency, losing the card, well, an agent would be better off losing his gun. The gun could be replaced without anyone knowing.

“How much was the tab?” I asked, laughing at the likely ridiculously low price for a couple of thirty-five-millimeter rolls.

“Twenty-seven, six hundred and thirty-two dollars,” Kingsley said, not a shred of a smile on his face.

I froze in place, my hand still on my wallet.

“You said to get here as quickly as possible, and hopefully even beat you in, so we chartered the Lear. That’s a wonderful plane, so fast and quiet and all,” he continued, looking back at the business jet or rich man’s toy. “No doubt, the budget size you mentioned should swallow that without notice.”

I could not talk. Suddenly, the load I was going to attack Tony with on the office secured line evaporated into the thin desert air. Now, I would be begging not to be shot or fired or worse. I sucked in the thin air and secured my wallet in my back pocket. I could show nothing of displeasure, and I knew that.

“Hello Joan Rosley Ryan,” my wife’s voice said from behind me.

I couldn’t even sigh. All I could do was turn and stare, my wife hugging her closely while looking over Rosley’s left shoulder straight into my eyes. Could anything more disastrous happen in such a short period of time?

“We have to get six people into this Rover, so you can ride on my lap unless you want to cuddle up with one of these men,” Mary said, disengaging herself and looking at me intently. My mouth almost sagged open. Joan was going to ride in my wife’s lap, and my wife thought she was sleeping with me. Was someone going to die, I wondered. If someone was, I wanted it to be me.

“Can’t she ride in the back?” I asked weakly, knowing that Mary was loaded with bear and would have covered that kind of safety out already.

“She’s not luggage,” Mary said, opening the door to get in and waving Joan to her. “No, she’s precious cargo and deserves to be treated like family. Close family.” Both women laughed, but I could barely breathe. Getting to the office after dropping Mary at home was going to be a huge relief.

“You have to use the secure phone at the office,” Mary said, “so, John, please take us there. Pat, Joan, and I can tell a story, as they say in Hawaii, where Jim was born. Do you know that when he dies, he wants to be cremated, and his ashes strewn into the huge breaking waves of Sandy Beach?”

“Oh, then you’ll want that too?” Joan innocently asked.

It was like a bad screenplay, and I was a method actor of the lowest order, without one decent line.

“No, I don’t like the big waves and rough water, so I’ll be going into Sunset Beach on the other side of the island.”

Nobody said a word as John pulled us out to go back through the base and onto the freeway to reach the Rio Grande, where the office was. I sat stiff, not turning around, afraid to breathe or say anything at all.

“Are you uncomfortable, Mary?” Joan asked.

“No, you actually feel warm, soft, and quite comforting.”

I shuddered. Mary had said, comforting, not comfortable. The office wasn’t far, but it seemed to be half the state away. The situation behind my seat is like an unexploded bomb about to go off at any second.

We arrived at the office and unloaded. I made sure not to help Rosley get off Mary’s lap and out of the car. Things were bad enough without me touching Rosely in any way.

I walked into the office and ran right into Pat.

“Mary’s with you, that’s great,” she said, wafting by me to greet Mary and Joan, who were almost arm in arm coming through the entrance.

“Oh, look, I think Mary and Joan might become best friends,” Pat oozed out, and I knew my goose was cooked in every direction. “We’ll use the conference room to talk girl talk.”

“Get me Tony, before you go into your session,” I said, my tone flat and my feeling a bit desolate. The no family or friends on mission rule is still playing across my mind like I could see the letters of the phrase in neon.

I stepped into my office, unlocked the single locked desk drawer, and flipped a switch. Whatever was said in the conference room would be secretly recorded. I had to know, as I was on such shaky ground. I trusted my wife completely, Pat pretty much, and even Rosley to a degree, but there was no time to take chances.

I sat down, pushed the red button on the phone, and picked up the receiver. Tony came on instantly.

“Talk to me, Tony,’’ I said, my voice a bit tight.

“Let me have it,” Tony replied, in his usual direct fashion, of speaking that was not necessarily doing.

“The team leased a Lear to return from Florida for twenty-five grand on the card, or so,” I said, and waited.

“That it?” he asked, and there was another silence.

“No, that’s not it,” I replied, pulling the handset away from my head and staring at it.

“The budget will cover the charge, although you should get prior approval for that amount in the future.”

That was it. That much money and not even a complaint. It all fits.

“My wife figured out what it is I am most valued for in the Agency,” I said. “I told you not to take her,” Tony replied, no humor at all in his tone.

“And you were so very right, and I was way too thick-headed.” There was no way around that truth. I had to give the devil his due.

“Are you ready yet?” Tony asked.

“Ready for what?” I asked, baiting him.

“Do you want me to hang up?” He asked.

“Like you always do?” I replied.

“I’m a busy man, trying to put the atoms together to make molecules without the damn things exploding.”

My mind raced. Another bomb. This one is not likely armed or unarmed but quite likely in the hands of anybody else…and anybody else with such a device was an enemy.

“Do you need more, because I can’t give you more yet. The only question I have for you is, are you all in?”

I held the phone again. What choice was there, really?

“I’m all in,” I said, my voice almost a whisper.

Tony hung up, and I put the receiver down. I looked at my secret locked door and thought about how inconsequential what was being said in the conference room really was next to what I was going to try to deal with. There was no point in listening, so I got up to get some bad coffee from the main part of the office and wait for my wife to be done with the women and ready to dispense some real pain to me.