The Mercenary Option

by Dick Couch

Not wanting to fall back asleep, she rose and walked to the closet. There she slipped into one of Garrett’s long-sleeved rugby shirts. It dropped to just above her knees. She retrieved a glass of juice from the fridge and stepped out onto the balcony to survey the morning. Gulls wheeled overhead and dived through a light mist rising off Glorietta Bay. The sun was not yet up and the Coronado Bay Bridge arched against the growing light like a cardboard cutout. She caught a glimpse of Garrett as he trotted south along the Strand bicycle path. Like everything else, he ran smoothly and with a great deal of control. She watched until he passed from view behind the Naval Amphibious Base, then returned to the apartment.

  It was large for a studio, with good storage closets, and incredibly neat and clean. Neat and clean not because of a good housekeeper or some special effort for her visit; Garrett Walker was simply a very well-ordered person. He took care of his space and his personal effects much as he had taken care of his military equipment and his men. Judy had never thought of herself as a slob, but when Garrett visited her in San Francisco, she spent several evenings preparing for his arrival. Still, there was a notable difference between a good cleaning and living clean. Sometimes she felt she was spending the night in a model home.

  The furnishings were spartan but comfortable. A stereo system along one wall of the living area was compact and expensive, and there was no TV. He kept a ceremonial uniform in his closet, pressed and in a garment bag, and there were two gray canvas bags of field gear nestled on the floor of a small storage bay. Otherwise, there was no evidence that he had been a Navy SEAL—no plaques, no photos, no display cases with colorful, ribboned decorations. In her own apartment, she had mounted her diplomas from Cal Tech and her graduation certificate from the FBI Academy. There were scattered framed photos of her parents, one of her receiving an award from the Director and several candid photos with her and other members of the Special Investigations Team. Garrett had nothing like that. She had once asked him why there were no memorabilia about. “It was a hard door to close,” he told her, “and I need to focus on the future.” Judy also sensed that he was not the kind of man who needed reminders to tell him who he was or where he had been. She knew being a Navy SEAL meant a great deal to him. She also felt he was a man who could open doors as well as close them, no matter how difficult they were.

  Garrett returned in less than an hour, time enough for her to fold the bedding and put away the futon. Judy had already showered and was curled up on the sofa with the Sunday edition of the San Diego Union. She was dressed in shorts, sneakers, and a striped blouse. She had thought of timing her shower for when he arrived, but decided against it. It was not that she didn’t want more of him, but she had learned that he was not one to lie about making love after the sun was up. For Garrett Walker, sex was part of a romantic evening—the intimacy that follows a nice dinner, a good wine, and soft conversation. He had surprised her one afternoon, but for the most part they were evening lovers. He was out of the shower, shaved, and dressed in less than ten minutes. She pulled the front page, editorial, sports, and travel sections and rose to meet him.

  “Ready?”

  “You bet.”

  It took them close to a half hour to walk the length of Pomona Avenue, east across the island. Garrett favored a small coffee shop, an older, locally owned establishment. He refused to defect to the local Starbucks. Judy found a table out front by the sidewalk while Garrett went inside for coffee and scones. When he returned, the sun had just peeked over the row of condos along the east side of Bayview Avenue and chased away the light morning chill. They positioned the chairs to take best advantage of the warmth and camped around their warm mugs.

  “Life is good.”

  He returned her smile and reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “Life is good.”

  Coronado is a delightful pancake of an island, or near island, that forms the western arm of San Diego Bay and keeps downtown San Diego from becoming an ocean-front city without a harbor. A thin strand of sand, at places just wide enough for Highway 75, connects Coronado to the border community of Imperial Beach. The huge North Island Naval Air Base anchors one end of the community, and the Naval Amphibious Base the other. Coronado is a wealthy community, but unlike La Jolla and Del Mar, people don’t show their wealth. Any flash seen on the streets of Coronado usually suggests a guest at the Hotel del Coronado.

  Coronado is a Navy town and home to a great number of sailors and military retirees. The population can jump dramatically when all three aircraft carriers are tied up at North Island. This morning, the outside tables were occupied by locals, most of them older couples. Judy easily caught Garrett’s reaction as three very fit, tanned young men in shorts and T-shirts jogged passed them on the sidewalk, noting the brief, dark cloud that passed over his rugged features.

  “Still hurts a little, doesn’t it?” She had learned that straight talk never offended him.

  He gave her a lopsided grin. “Yeah, it does. Teaching combat shooting to others only goes so far.”

  “It’s really important for you to be in the middle of the action, isn’t it—to be in the field and carry a rifle.” He raised his eyebrows and gave her a neutral stare. “I know what it means to be a field agent and to do field work,” she continued. “Most of it is routine gumshoe work, but there’s always the prospect of some action. I suppose it’s not like SEAL work, where you’re always in the action.”

  Garrett was silent a moment before he replied. “It is important—the action part—but it’s not just the action. Quite a few SEALs spend their whole career training for a fight and never fire a shot in anger. I’ve been lucky, or depending on how you look at it, unlucky. If I were still in and never saw action again, I’d have seen more of it than most.” He measured her, carefully framing his words. “It’s not the prospect of combat I miss, although I admit that it is a rush; it’s the team thing. I really miss being with a team—showing the new men the way things are done, challenging the older guys to take their game to the next level. It’s taking the best of a bunch of good men and making it collectively better. That’s what it’s about; that’s what it’s always been about.” He sipped thoughtfully on his coffee, then gave her a generous smile. “Y’know, I never saw it as clearly as I do now, but that’s how it is.”

  “So the shooting training just won’t do?” She seldom got this far under the surface with him and wanted to keep him talking.

  “I don’t think so. It’s been a good transition, but I need something more. I’ve already started to look around.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s not the easiest thing in the world.” He now looked a little puzzled, unsure of himself. It made her want to touch him. “I mean, my résumé is not terribly inviting—college dropout, medically retired from the Navy, proficient with an automatic weapon. There’s not a lot in the want ads for a guy like me.”

  “You said that you’ve been looking around. Found anything?”

  He rolled a corner of a scone into his mouth. “Every once in a while I get a call from one of those corporate security consultants—typically guys responsible for the safety of U.S. citizens working in the Middle East, Russia, or South America. Some say they have contracts with third-world countries for special military training. But so far, nothing’s come along that seems very interesting.”

  “You mean, nothing where you could be on your own or where you could be in charge.”

  He looked at her and smiled warmly. She was getting to know him, what he was thinking, and he found that pleasantly disturbing.

  “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

  Sunday afternoon, September 1,

  San Francisco

  Steven Fagan had only carry-on luggage, so he went directly from the gate to the passenger pickup area. Lon came slashing across two lanes of traffic, oblivious to the drivers who had to slam on their brakes to keep from hitting her. She bounced the right front wheel up onto the curb, then back into the street, bringing the car to a halt. Steven s
tood well back until the BMW came to a complete stop before the terminal. His wife was the most caring, understanding person he knew, but she drove like a maniac. Not unlike many Asian-born Americans, she didn’t really drive a car; she aimed it. Sometimes he would ask to drive when she met him, even though he knew it offended her. She was very proud of her driving skills. He tossed his overnight bag in back and got in.

  “Hello, chérie, welcome home.”

  “Hi, honey.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, quickly fumbling for his seat belt. She shot forward into the traffic, fighting her way onto the freeway and heading north from San Francisco International on Highway 101.

  “So how did it go? Was Ambassador Simpson pleased with your efforts?”

  “I think so. It’ll take him some time to get through the material, but he seemed satisfied with what I had to tell him.” He started to show her the bonus check but refrained, not wanting her to take her eyes from the road. “He gave me a bonus of twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  “Twenty-five big ones!” Lon watched a lot of gangster movies on TV. “He must have really liked your work.”

  “Perhaps,” he replied. “But I’m not so sure that was the reason for the bonus. In any case, he’s a very wealthy man.”

  “Does he have another job for you?” she asked cautiously. Sensing that he was concerned, she slowed the car to just over the legal limit and eased into the right-hand lane. Cars on the freeway shot past them. Lon knew only that he had been doing research on establishing some kind of an illegal, international force. He had not directly told her about any future involvement, but she knew in general terms what he did at the CIA. She also knew when he was troubled, and he was troubled. Perhaps reflective was a better word than troubled. She had sensed an anxiety building in him for several months but assumed that it would end with the completion of the project. That did not seem to now be the case.

  “I’m not sure. He may not have anything more for me, and if he does, I’m not entirely sure it’s something I want to do—we want to do,” he quickly added.

  “So, he may offer you another contract, but if he does, you are not sure if you want to take it?”

  Steven nodded but said nothing. They headed north for Marin County while Lon talked about her garden and about a bond issue that would extend the jogging trails along the canal through Larkspur. All the while, she drove quite sensibly. After they crossed the Golden Gate, she turned off the freeway before they reached the Larkspur exit.

  “We’re not going home?”

  She smiled. “It’s early yet. Let’s take a walk in the woods.”

  Muir Woods is always crowded in the summer, but less so during the weekdays. Lon took his arm, and they strolled along the paved walkway with the rest of the tourists, then took one of the side trails that branched off along a small stream. Steven had shed his coat and tie, but the slacks and loafers precluded any serious trekking. They found a crude log bench, one strategically placed a few steps from the trail to allow visitors a quiet place to enjoy the forest. Once seated, he picked up a twig and began to section it, flipping pieces into the feeder stream that gurgled just below them. They sat for some time before he spoke.

  “When all this began, I thought it would be only a consulting contract,” he began, “a study for dealing directly with isolated problem spots in the world. But the proposal, in many ways, has become an extension or evolution of the work I was doing at Langley. Ambassador Simpson—it’s Joe now—asked me for a plan to develop a small, mobile force that could be used as an intervention force in problem spots around the world. This…this intervention force would be privately funded and have a charter to operate freely and use whatever means possible. Some of the work would be paramilitary in nature and some of it pure direct action. Much of it would involve covert activity. There could also be a measure of disinformation and subversion.” Steven spoke of this with no distaste; these were the tools of his trade.

  “A mercenary force?” she said, raising her eyebrows.

  “That’s right.”

  “Wow! You mean a small army where the good guys can be just as bad as the bad guys?” Lon also liked the old westerns. “Like in The Magnificent Seven?”

  Steven smiled. “Well, sort of. A great deal of the work I did for Simpson was to study the issues; I examined why our foreign policy has been so ineffective in dealing with these ethnic and religious flash points around the globe. And why the terrorist cells always seem to elude us.” He paused and tossed the rest of the twig into the current. “Two things have become clear to me during the last few months. First, there is no end to these problems in the world. There is no end to thuggish dictators who will support terrorists like al Qaeda to protect their corrupt regimes. Or to keep democratic reforms out. If left unchecked, they will continue to cause instability and suffering, abroad and occasionally here at home. The second is that America usually lacks the will to intervene in a timely and efficient manner. If our past efforts are any indication, we only exacerbate the problem.”

  “Exacerbate?”

  “We get involved and make things worse.”

  “Oh. So this Mr. Simpson may ask you to form a posse of good guys and go about the world to make bad things right? Like the Seven Samurai?”

  Fagan nodded.

  “Can you do this?”

  “Yes. At least I think so. And that’s part of what troubles me,” he said sadly. “Over the past few months, I’ve come to believe that I may be one of the only people who can.”

  After a while, Lon spoke quietly. “Can it be so bad a thing, that there is this evil in the world and that you can do something about it?” Steven shrugged. Lon was silent for a moment, then continued. “In Laos, our people lived for centuries under the old ways, and we followed the teaching of Lord Buddha. When the French came, they brought change, but it was gentle change. They brought their religion, but Catholics and Buddhists can live in harmony, as did my father and mother. After Dien Bien Phu, things changed. The Viet Minh came and murdered all who opposed them. Three or four of them with guns could subject a whole village of peasants.” She lowered her head. “In my village they came at night. They murdered our village chief, my father, and my mother. They hung them in the village center for all to see—for me to see. After that, they were feared and obeyed. Then came the Pathet Lao in my country and Pol Pot in Cambodia, and they murdered half the population.” She shrugged. “By then the Americans were tired of Southeast Asia and Vietnam. But the killing did not stop. There is always talk about reparations for the six million Jews killed in Europe. Huge funds were collected for the victims at the World Trade Center. No one seems concerned about my father and mother or the millions of Cambodians who were killed.” She gave him a wan smile. “I know Americans do not always care about the suffering in the jungles and the rice fields—places far from the TV cameras—but things may have been different if the good guys had come.”

  Steven regarded her. She seldom spoke out like this, yet he knew she was telling the truth. He leaned forward with his forearms on his knees, and Lon sensed in him a measure of resignation. “Making a difference will be dangerous. And perhaps costly. It will not bring about slaughter as you knew it in Southeast Asia,” he managed, “but people will die, perhaps innocent people. And once I begin this, there will be no turning back; I’ll have to see it through.”

  “Is there no other way?” she asked. He shook his head in resignation. “Then tell me this, my husband, why does it have to be you? Is this what you want?”

  She was not belligerent or antagonistic, but she did need to understand why it had to be him. She knew her husband was a special man with special talents. And as always, she spoke from the heart. All she wanted to know was why he, or why he and this very rich stranger, had to do this alone.

  Steven shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said simply. “It would seem that a country like ours, so rich and so powerful and so secure, could find the means—and the moral authority—to act decis
ively. It’s just not the way it is.”

  “So to protect the freedom and the lives of others, you and Mr. Simpson must act alone?” Like most naturalized American citizens, Lon was very knowledgeable about liberty and freedom. Fagan again shrugged. “So, as I understand it, the work that you will do, you won’t worry too much about politics or the law or individual rights, will you?”

  Steven smiled weakly. Lon had a way of going right to the core of the matter, cutting through all the ambiguities. She might have, he thought, even added morality to the list of things he didn’t have to worry about. But it wasn’t necessary. He already had.

  They were silent for a very long time, then Lon continued. “America is a very strange and wonderful land, and not all of it is good or as it should be. Yet I think it is very important for the world to have a nation like America. America makes all other nations behave just a little better. Evil people, like terrorists and outlaws, will never be able to have it their own way as long as there is a place like America. Yet if America cannot stop these bad people, then you must. If you and Mr. Simpson can do something to stop evil things in the world, what choice do you have?”

  She placed a hand on his thigh, and he turned to look at her. Her large eyes were clear and firm, and only a little sad. Yet she was very composed and serene. Lon was a Buddhist and an Asian, and that allowed her a perspective few Occidentals understand. She saw life in terms of cycles of suffering, and believed that the travails of this life help one to prepare for the ordeals of the next. And like most Buddhists, she was something of a fatalist. She felt that much of life is preordained and the path you travel is your destiny. One could only meet one’s fate with dignity and a pure spirit.

  Steven Fagan loved and cherished his wife very much, and while he respected her faith, he did not share it. He couldn’t; he was a covert operator and a paramilitary specialist. For him, life was a series of events and outcomes that could be influenced and, more importantly, manipulated. People are free to choose, he believed, but with skill and understanding, many of those choices can be orchestrated and exploited. This conviction did not make him a candidate for a strong religious belief, but it did make him keenly aware of the responsibility that went along with his trade. The ability to change the course of lives and nations was normally the province of political and religious leaders. That he could also do this, without their consent or even their knowledge, made Steven Fagan a very cautious and humble man. He was neither a zealot, nor was he ambitious; he was simply a professional, and he fully understood the reach of his power.