by Sam Winston
Bainbridge went soft if he ever went soft. Leaning against the jamb. “You bet your ass he was a friend of mine. A fighting man never had a better ally than that individual right there.” Tilting his head down and raising his eyebrows to indicate. “Angler, we called him.”
Weller had his feet on the floor now, and even in the chiaroscuro of the hard hallway light and the blackness of his cell he could see the sentiment written upon the general’s face. A softness. A softness permissible here perhaps because it was home and perhaps because the mingling of light and dark concealed it some but a softness nonetheless. Undeniable. The tough sentiment of an old soldier. “That’s interesting to hear,” Weller said. “I always understood he didn’t like the military all that much.”
“Au contraire.” Straightening up. “He loved the military. He loved every man in it. What he didn’t care for was how the U. S. government ran the operation. He didn’t trust the government to handle anything that important.”
Weller was up and sliding into the fatigues. The lamp still switched off in the room and Bainbridge still blocking most of what light came in from the hallway. He was having trouble finding the buttons or snaps or whatever they were, trouble even determining what they were, at the same time listening to Bainbridge talk and studying the picture of the last president on the wall. That little bit of light finding it and bouncing off and making it gleam like an icon. “But that doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “He was Commander In Chief.”
“And he still was, even after he’d outsourced the whole business to people who knew what they were doing. He was always in charge. Don’t you forget it. He never did.”
“I’ll bet he didn’t.” Looking at the figure standing hip-deep in the trout steam, braced against the moving water with every bit of his fractionally restored strength. The rising sun like a halo and his ghastly face dark under the shadow of a longbilled cap. Still intent. Still pursuing the old pleasures. Still angling.
* * *
Bainbridge said they’d eat at the officers’ mess. The jeep was out in the circular drive but they didn’t get in. They ran instead. Five miles or so to the Pentagon with the jeep rolling alongside them in case Weller should falter. A driver behind the wheel who may or may not have been the same driver as before. Old man Bainbridge remarking on this and that the whole way and hardly breaking a sweat. They ran down the hill from the observatory and into Georgetown and then made a little side trip through the old university with its endless red brick barracks. Morning drills under way on broad lawns trimmed crewcut short. They passed by with the general utterly anonymous and they stopped in the middle of the Key Bridge so Weller could catch his breath. Not quite halfway to the Pentagon. Weller doubled over gasping and the driver stopping to offer him a bottle of water and Bainbridge saying what did he tell him last night, eh? About how the most important equipment he’d have would be himself? Saying Weller probably understood now what he’d meant by that. Saying he bet Weller was a fast learner. Weller ashamed of himself and not looking up. Bainbridge shaking his head and helping him into the back seat and getting him arranged with his head down between his knees. Giving the driver orders to go on without him. He’d be right along.
Weller had recovered when Bainbridge arrived. Sitting on a bench in front of the building, cooling his heels and finishing up his bottle of water, watching a small army of men mowing the enormous lawns. They weren’t the automatons he’d seen everywhere else. Just ordinary men with ball caps and sunglasses and overalls not that much different from his own. Each one wearing headphones against the small engine roar. All of them working quickly and carefully.
Bainbridge slowed to a trot when he spied him on the bench and he came up steadily but he didn’t stop. Saying, “Take a look at those boys with the lawnmowers if you want to understand the beauty of the military. It’s the one place left where a man can rise up from humble beginnings.” Still talking as he went past, and Weller having to get up and keep pace if he wanted to hear.
“Every single one of those recruits came in from the outside. Straight from the Zone. They found their way here and they enlisted because they had a dream, and if they keep their noses clean that dream will come true. They’ll be Management. Just like me. Do you know anyplace else where that can happen?”
“No sir, I don’t.”
“Damn straight you don’t. Because there isn’t anyplace. Nobody’s born into Black Rose, son.”
“So I see.”
“A man can still work his way in and work his way up.” Arriving at the main entrance and taking a thick white towel from a soldier waiting there for him and waving Weller through in his wake. “God bless Black Rose,” he said as he took off across the lobby, and the soldier at the door said, “Amen to that, sir.” Coming to attention and saluting for a second time. Apparently just because it pleased him to be able to do it.
* * *
The Pentagon had seventeen miles of hallway, conference rooms of every size and description, and offices almost literally without number. Target ranges and running ovals and weight rooms. A pair of competition swimming pools in the basement and an obstacle course spread over the open central pentangle in five wedges of ever-increasing impossibility. The motor pool was linked by a secure underground tunnel to the old Ronald Reagan International Airport, where most of the runways were still functional and a glass-walled museum housed the last lumbering twin-rotor Chinook helicopter in the whole world. Better than seventy-five years old but still in working order, its belly full of empty drums stenciled all over with the word NAPALM for verisimilitude. Jellied gasoline. Airborne destroyer of worlds.
“Now then,” said Bainbridge when the tour was over. Standing at ease, stiff as an ironing board. “I’m only here to facilitate. You’re in charge.”
“In charge of what.”
“In charge of preparing yourself. I’ll be with you every step of the way, son, but exactly where we go is up to you.”
Weller said he’d always thought they’d just give him a set of keys and a tent or something and send him on his way. Some road maps and some food and what have you. But that run down from the house this morning had opened his eyes a little.
Bainbridge smiled. “Good thinking,” he said. “So take all the time you need. It’s your call. We’re billing the bank a fortune every day you’re on board, plus the bonus when you turn the car in, so I don’t care how long it takes.” Lifting his eyebrows and giving Weller a look. “The longer the better, actually.”
Weller said, “You get a bonus when I deliver?”
“You bet. That was the lesson of Vietnam, and the lesson of Iraq too. You promise to fight, but you don’t promise to win. Not if you’re smart. Winning costs extra, if you can do it at all.”
Weller said he guessed he understood now. Why Bainbridge took such a personal interest. The general had a lot of duties, but the most pressing of all were financial.
It wasn’t just that, the old man said. Sure, he had something of the mercenary about him. That’s what they were, after all. Mercenaries. But Weller’s case was different. There was the little girl. It just about broke your heart, didn’t it?
Weller nodded.
Bainbridge said he’d seen Weller with that photograph he’d brought. The way he’d looked at it.
Weller smiled.
Plus there was the adventure, he said. One man against the world. Against the unknown. “I’d go down there with you if I could. It’d be just like the old days.”
Weller saw that he meant it. Anyone could have seen that.
“I wouldn’t mind crossing swords with Marlowe again, either.”
“Marlowe. You know him?”
“Knew him.” Turning away then, heading toward the showers and changing the subject. Saying Weller had a hard decision to make, didn’t he. He’d have to balance preparing for what he kept calling the mission against getting back home to that little girl of his. Saying he couldn’t offer any particular counsel on that one. His own chi
ldren were grown and scattered. Two sons and two daughters and neither of the boys had had the least interest in the organization that had always meant so much to their old man. Which was just as well. As he’d said, you didn’t get born into Black Rose. They’d have had to endure the same hard time as everyone else. He wasn’t sure they’d have withstood it.
* * *
There were satellite phones with big screens in the communications room. The officer on duty showed him how to work one and located the number and helped him call Penny’s suite at the hospital. The satellite phone there was mounted alongside the door and the camera over it was aimed down at the table as if for some kind of commercial function. A consultation maybe.
Penny looked good. Her mother looked good. The sight of the two of them made him heartsick but he tried not to show it. The weird and troubling miracle of their disembodied presence was harder to endure than the still photograph on his little writing desk, the urge to reach out and touch their images stronger. Penny leapt from her chair at the table and ran toward the phone and got so close that she disappeared from view on his end. First going out of focus and then dropping out of the frame entirely. Her father saying, “Hey, hey, back up a little bit, all right? I can’t see you.” His daughter coming back into focus and walking backwards. Returning slowly to her chair, one step at a time, leading with her little butt. Looking disappointed but recovering.
He asked her how she was doing and she said fine but why was he wearing that uniform. She didn’t like it. Plus how come his hair was all wet. He smiled to reassure her and said he was staying with some soldiers who were giving him a hand and he’d just gotten out of the shower was how come. He’d just gotten out of the shower and he’d been in a hurry to come talk with her and her mother. Thinking while he was saying it how fine it was that she’d noticed. She’d noticed what he was wearing and that his hair was wet. It seemed like a good development.
Penny said if he was in such a hurry to talk with them, then he should just finish up what he was doing and come on home. Her mother laughed but there was sadness in it. He laughed too and said that he thought that was a good idea. A first-rate idea. He’d come on home just as soon as he could.
* * *
A month would pass before he was ready to move on south. A month spent in the weight room and on the road and at the target range. A month spent studying under tough men who’d devoted their lives to tough jobs. And a month spent chowing down on the healthiest diet he’d ever eaten, dishes absolutely unknown where he’d come from, in quantities beyond his imagination. Banquets, one after another.
Above all, it was a month of being torn in multiple directions. To stay or to go, to keep improving himself or to be tested, to persevere or to risk everything. He let himself call the hospital no more than every third day, because it was too difficult to see Liz and Penny for a moment and then to stop seeing them. Each time he pushed the button that ended the call he thought he might die. Some of the soldiers said that to toughen himself he shouldn’t call at all, and others counseled that he should call every single day if it hurt all that much because the pain would keep him sharp. But they didn’t know what they were talking about. They weren’t Henry Weller. They weren’t Liz’s husband and they weren’t Penny’s father and they didn’t know. So he called every third day. It was the compromise that pained him the least.
Toward the beginning of the fourth week he noticed a definite change in Penny. Her eyes didn’t seem to have that swimming quality they’d always possessed. Not so much anyhow. There was more purpose to their movement. It couldn’t be his imagination. She had a stack of crayon drawings she’d been making, some kind of therapy her mother said, and she was showing them to him one by one. Pointing out details. This one showed the view out the window and the next one was a portrait of one of the nurses and the one after that was their house back in Connecticut. What she could convey of it. Some of the details were more imaginary than real and all of them were colorful. He marveled as she chirped on in her high voice. Not only over what she’d drawn, but over her mere presence. The breaths she took. After she ran out of pictures she disappeared into the other room on some errand and he asked Liz if she’d seen what he was seeing. Was their daughter actually improving?
She said she was. Most of this had happened in the last couple of days. A corner Penny had turned. She’d gone crazy waiting for his call. And had he noticed the other thing? Had he noticed that she’d grown three or four inches?
No, he hadn’t. Blame it on the television. The lack of any context.
Trust her, she had. She’d grown three or four inches and she was filling out some and getting stronger than she’d ever been in spite of being indoors all day out of the sun and the fresh air. Lying in bed half the time, hooked up to an IV. But getting stronger. As Liz leaned toward the camera he couldn’t help noticing that she was looking stronger too. There was more color in her cheeks. Her hair was glossier. A little bit more meat on her bones unless he missed his guess. Half of him wanted to run back to her and the other half wanted to put it off as long as possible. Let her keep on eating whatever it was they were feeding her in New York. Build up her strength for whatever lay ahead. The rest of their lives.
* * *
Liz and Penny weren’t the only ones getting stronger. “I must say you’re looking fit, my boy,” Bainbridge said as he joined Weller in the mess one morning. Finished with their run and out of the showers and stoking up for the day.
“You think so?”
“By all means.”
“I’m giving myself another week,” Weller said.
Bainbridge nodded. “Suit yourself. May I add that you’re doing nicely with that .38 special.”
“I guess. Thanks.” Reaching for more toast. “Honestly, what do you think are the odds that I’ll need it?”
“They’d better be slim. If there’s any serious shooting to be done, you’re going to be outnumbered and outgunned. Marlowe’ll have guard towers, snipers, the whole nine yards. Then again, maybe not. Nobody’s done any recon down there in years. He might have given up on all that stuff. He might have put a welcome mat outside the front door. Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Right.”
“My money’s on the middle ground, though.” Starting to tick ideas off on his fingers. “Tripwires. Listening posts. A handful of men on the roof, lightly armed but well trained and wound up tighter than ticks.”
“That’s how you’d do it.”
“That’s exactly how I’d do it.”
“But you’re old-fashioned.”
“Marlowe’s old-fashioned. Plus he’s got to be getting a little complacent by now. Put yourself in his shoes. His men haven’t taken a shot at anything more upright than a black bear since you were in short pants. Never mind the manpower it would take to mount a full watch twenty-four hours a day on a facility like that. My hunch is he’s gotten a little bored, and found some better things to do with his men.”
“But it’s just a hunch.”
“A solid gold, forty-year, five-star hunch. They don’t come much better.”
“How well did you know him, anyhow?”
Bainbridge was suddenly captivated by his oatmeal. “Well enough.”
“What does that mean?”
Bainbridge looked up. “What it means is that he was my friend. We went to the Naval Academy together, and the minute the shit hit the fan we both got hustled off to Iraq. I hated it. I hated the heat and the sand and the wind. I hated the noise worst of all. We lived in house trailers stacked up inside a big warehouse on an airfield in Qatar—can you picture that?—and the noise in that place never stopped. Generators going night and day. Lights everywhere that wouldn’t go off. The work wasn’t bad, son, but the living conditions were hell.”
“Right.”
“The thing was, Marlowe couldn’t get enough of it. He just thrived on that stuff. Some men do. I’ve spent a lot of years trying to figure out why that is, what traits might make a
man go one way or the other. It would be useful to know that kind of thing, especially with an all-volunteer outfit. If you could figure that out, you’d have something.”
“So?”
“I still don’t have a clue. I’ll tell you one thing, though. I always thought that when I went one way and Marlowe went the other, he took the tougher road.”
“Maybe your road would have been harder for him.”
“That’s a lovely idea, buddy, but it doesn’t wash. I went looking for a great big desk to hide behind, and he went after the dirtiest work a person could get his hands on. Five years later where were we? I was back in Washington on the way to my second star, and he was flying top-secret missions for SEAL Team Six. In case you don’t know, that means he was one tough sonofabitch. As hard as they come.”
“Is that so.”
“The stuff of legends. Marlowe may have reported to a desk jockey up the chain of command, a desk jockey like me, but he was never that man’s inferior. Not for one minute.”
“It sounds like he knew it.”
“You bet your ass he knew it. They all do,” said Bainbridge. “And the problem is, so do we.”
“So what happened?”
“Afghanistan happened. By which I mean Pakistan. He was one of the boys who went over the border in a couple of choppers and took out that fellow bin Laden. Remember him? Remember bin Laden?”
“It rings a bell.”
“Jesus. People always say that the victors write the history books, but there aren’t any history books anymore and there isn’t any history either. Nobody remembers anything. This bin Laden was a very big deal. A major terrorist, a major target. Numero uno. There were parties in the streets when we got him.”
“When Marlowe got him.”
“Right.”
