The intensity of Dunbar’s eyes distracted Mark enough that he didn’t even notice that the older gentleman had switched to German. He merely nodded and responded, “Ja, Ich versteche.” Yes, I understand.
“Good,” Dunbar continued in English. He then removed a piece of paper from the inside of his vest and slid it across the table. “Here are the financial particulars of the job compared to what you’re making now. It’s not the main reason why anyone joins the Family, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. If you accept my invitation, you’ll learn more as you need to know it.”
Mark looked down at the paper. The next words he heard came out of his own mouth, and yet he was surprised to hear them. It was as if someone else had said the words and he was hearing them for the first time along with Dunbar. “I’m in.”
“That’s the kind of decisiveness I’m looking for,” Dunbar said in a low whisper, but loud enough for Mark to hear. “The process starts right now. See the tall gentleman in the blue shirt waiting patiently on the other side of the chow hall?”
Mark turned his head sideways until he could see the man in his peripheral vision. Then he turned back to Dunbar and nodded ever so slightly.
“I see him.”
“His name is Doc. Go talk to him. Maybe we’ll talk later—maybe not,” Dunbar said as he wiped his mouth with a napkin, picked up his tray and satellite phone, and walked away in the opposite direction.
What followed would be the most intense six hours of Mark’s life that didn’t involve gunfire, sex, or booze.
Three
Doc started by asking Mark about his earliest memories, leaving no stone unturned right up to the moment when they met in the chow hall. Then he whizzed back and forth over the timeline and hammered him with rapid-fire questions that Mark was sure he already knew the answers to. After that, he varied the pace of questioning and asked the same questions in slightly different ways, so as to evaluate Mark’s honesty as well as his demeanor, mental stamina, and patience. He occasionally threw in embarrassing, deeply personal questions. Just keeping up with the barrage of interrogation was an exercise in intellectual gymnastics, but Mark had been around enough to know that eventually his actual answers would be less important than his ability to take the heat. He also knew that the ordeal would eventually end, and that he would never hear the specifics of how well or poorly he performed. He would just get a yes or a no.
“Stay right here. I’ll be back,” Doc said in a soft voice. He opened the door, walked down the hall, and entered another room on the opposite side of the hall. Dunbar was there, with his satellite phone to his ear and his eyes on two laptop computers sitting on the table in front of him. Doc could not see what he was doing but waited patiently for him to finish his call and look up.
“Talk to me. Abridged version please,” said Dunbar.
“He’s all set. No surprises. Raised by a single adoptive mother, Agnes Landry from Watertown, New York. Parents unknown. They never turned up and he never looked for them. Uneventful childhood and upbringing. Much more sociable and charming than I expected from someone with so few friends growing up. Not a single high school teacher could remember having him in class, and it was next to impossible to find anyone in his hometown with more than a fuzzy recollection of him. Good grades but not great. Naturally flies under the radar. No picture in his high school yearbook. He is listed as “camera shy” which means he didn’t care to be included. Growing up, he spent nights and weekends training in the basement of a Catholic church—they called it the dungeon—with a priest friend of his adoptive mother, Father Peck.”
Dunbar raised his eyebrows.
“No, nothing like that. The priest taught him wrestling, judo, and some other mixed martial arts. Rough as hell but not abusive. Never played any team sports. When he wasn’t busy training in the dungeon, he was volunteering with Agnes at various churches, charities, orphanages, soup kitchens, etc., mostly in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where there’s a largely Latino population. That’s where he learned Spanish. Never had much time to be a kid.”
“Sounds like he was raised by Mother Teresa.”
“Not really. Agnes was a nun at one time early in her life, left it behind when she adopted him, and never explained why but never stopped acting like one. A career German teacher in a Catholic school. She also taught him German at home. He has near native fluency in Spanish and German. Physically, he is in excellent shape. No disqualifying preconditions. Social drinker with no detectable bad habits. He’s 5’10”, about 195, and I think he has a high tolerance for pain.”
“What gives you that impression?”
“Downplayed battlefield injuries he’s received over the past few years. Stuff some troops would get Purple Hearts for. Spent the better part of ten years getting knocked around by the priest in the dungeon. He’s tough but not sadistic. I like him. Gets a bit jolted by collateral damage, but that won’t be an issue in his new line of business, assuming he makes it. I have no concerns and I think he has an excellent chance of making it through qual. Green light.”
Without another word, Dunbar stood up and made his way down the hall to the room where a man was waiting patiently to hear about an opportunity that had not existed when he awoke that morning. When he threw open the door, a startled Mark Landry instinctively leapt to his feet.
“Pack your shit, Son. You’re leaving the sandbox today.”
From that day forward a small group of unknown—and largely unknowable—men and women had become his surrogate family. Now, eight years later, Mark was turning slowly into his hometown’s cemetery to say goodbye to the only other family he had ever known.
Four
Dunbar was the founder and head of the Tactical Training Unit (TTU), which was sometimes alternatively referred to as the Battle Training Unit (BTU) or the Intelligence Focus Group (IFG), and occasionally as the Battle Administration Detachment (BAD). The name changed frequently and without notice in order to avoid unnecessary oversight from the bean counters, congressional committees in D.C., crusading journalists, or foreign spies. Dunbar and his band of operators, uninterested in keeping up with the name changes, simply referred to themselves as “the Family.” As an unwritten rule, the few outsiders familiar with the organization knew to stick with whatever its official name was at the time. “The Family” was for Family members only.
Besides Dunbar, Doc was the most influential and high-profile member of the organization. He was the first person all new Family members spoke with at length, and debriefing with Doc was mandatory after every mission, whether or not any shots had been fired. He knew everything there was to know about each operator and was equally concerned with mission accomplishment and their personal welfare. In short, he made sure nobody was wound too tight for living. If they were, he’d talk them off the ledge and help them get their heads on straight. It was Doc who first broke the news about Agnes Landry’s death to Mark.
He had delivered the message a week earlier on a small U.S. Navy vessel somewhere in the Mediterranean. Mark had just completed a search-and-destroy mission in eastern Ukraine with his frequent mission partner Billy, a boisterous good ol’ boy from Oklahoma City. Over the previous three years, they had successfully completed similar missions across Europe without detection or incident, and this one had been no different. It didn’t hurt that their target, a Russian arms dealer on the verge of selling chemical weapons to al-Qaeda terrorists, was also an arrogant—and ultimately predictable—drunken idiot. Mark had shot him in the head twice with a suppressed Bulgarian Makarov 9mm as he soaked in a local prostitute’s tub. Mark and Billy were out of the country before the body was even discovered.
After debriefing the operations folks on the details of the mission, Doc asked Mark if he could have a private word with him in the next conference room after he wrapped up. Mark spent a few minutes in small talk with Billy, who was about to take leave to spend some time with family in Oklahoma. They parted with a hug, and Mark pulled him tight.
“
Don’t go cheating on me.”
“Later, man. I’m catching a ride off this thing in thirty minutes. Don’t call me unless World War Three breaks out,” replied Billy.
Mark smiled back and nodded. “Go, before I cry,” he added sarcastically.
Mark was heading to his quarters for some much-needed sleep when he remembered that Doc wanted to speak with him about something. He knocked twice on Doc’s door as he entered and plopped down in the nearest seat.
“What’s up?”
“There’s something I need to tell you, Mark.”
Doc’s change in tone and demeanor from the briefing room got Mark’s attention immediately. Since he had no family besides Agnes Landry, who was well into her eighties and very frail the last time he saw her, he assumed it must have something to do with her.
“Agnes?” he asked.
“I’m sorry. She passed away just over a week ago in her home. We briefly considered pulling you from the field, but—”
“No, that’s fine. She never would have wanted that.” Mark bowed his head, exhaled deeply, and paused for a few seconds before asking.
“How?”
“She fell, Mark. She fell down the stairs. I spoke to the local authorities myself and the autopsy report suggests she died instantly. She didn’t suffer. I’m sorry, Mark. We all are. We know how much she meant to you,” said Doc before stepping out of the room.
Mark said nothing as he stood up and walked to the small porthole that passed for a window. He just stared into the darkness and grudgingly accepted the fact that the only person who ever loved him, the only person willing to take him in and care for him and raise him, was now with the God she lived to serve. He closed his eyes and compartmentalized the grief with the help of several deep breaths. There would be time to grieve later.
When Doc returned, Mark was back in the chair flipping through his own personnel file, which had been left out on the desk. Doc snatched the file out of his hands and playfully smacked him on the top of his head with it. “Just because it has your name on it doesn’t make it yours.”
Mark shrugged his shoulders and looked away as Doc continued.
“It’s time for some career counseling, Mark.” The change in tone was a not-so-subtle hint that they were getting back to business. Mark sat up a little straighter and remade eye contact.
“You’re still a young man but you’ve already got your twenty years. If you wanted, you could retire today and ride off into the sunset. Between your pension and all the money you’ve socked away over the years, you could have a pretty comfortable retirement. Or you could get a job in the private sector, barely work, and still probably make yourself a small fortune.” Doc paused and waited for a reaction.
Mark ignored the comment about his personal finances. Obviously, the Family kept tabs on its people. That would include how much money he had and where he kept it. He paused briefly to search for the right words. They never came, so he decided to just cut to the chase.
“Are you trying to get rid of me, Doc?”
“Not in the least. You have a home with us as long as you’d like. Operations, training, admin—you name it.” Seeing Mark wince as he mentioned training and admin, he pointed to the thick file sitting on the desk in front of him. “I’m just saying, with a record like yours, you can pretty much call your shots and pick your spots.”
Mark’s reaction to the compliments was to look away and fidget in his seat. Doc grabbed the file, opened it on his lap, and thumbed through it slowly, even though he knew most of it by heart.
“Stellar evaluations covering eight years in the Family. Almost no time off unless I forced you to take it. Great peer reviews from team missions. Multiple one-man missions. Awards, decorations, no disciplinary or security issues. A model operator.”
Mark interrupted. “The same can be said about every other Family member.”
“Normally that would be true,” Doc replied. “But your file contains something that no other member in the history of the Family has ever had in their file.”
Mark thought hard for a few seconds, furled his brow, and looked at Doc sideways. “What’s that?”
Doc removed a single sheet of thick, heavy paper from the folder. He held it in front of his face with two fingers and peered at Mark over the top of it. Mark maintained eye contact for a second before dropping his eyes to the lavish seal that adorned the top of the page: the official seal of the President of the United States.
“Berlin,” said Doc.
Mark had not seen the letter since the day it was delivered. It contained numerous typed paragraphs praising his courageous service, followed by several sentences elegantly written in the Commander-in-Chief’s own hand. Mark nodded and Doc dropped the paper back into the file.
“You are on leave as of right now. Take as much time off as you want or need, but don’t even think of coming back to work for at least a month. The rest of the Family has everything covered. Hell, take a few months if you want it. You’ve earned it.”
Mark returned to his quarters on the bottom deck of the ship without making eye contact with anyone he passed on the way. He had much to think about, but the first order of business would be to go home and pay his final respects to Agnes Landry. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Five
When he finished his prayer, Mark opened his eyes just in time to notice a police cruiser approaching out of the corner of his right eye. He ignored it and kissed his hand before bending down and placing it gently atop Agnes Landry’s tombstone. After a few solemn seconds he whispered aloud.
“Goodbye, Agnes. Thank you. I love you.”
He let go of the stone and stood up straight. As he did, he heard the soft sound of footsteps approaching from behind. He didn’t turn around until he heard the voice.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said as he slowly turned to face the speaker.
Five feet away stood a female police officer with deep brown eyes, dark brown skin, full lips, dark black hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, hands on her hips, and a half-smile on her face that could melt a glacier. Mark looked her in the eyes and half-smiled back. Then he pointed with his chin to the mobile camera that was pinned to the center of her pressed uniform, between her badge and nameplate.
“Is that thing on?”
“No.”
“Prove it.”
Officer Luci Alvarez’s smooth face broke into a wide grin and then a beaming ear-to-ear smile straight out of a toothpaste commercial. She stepped forward, clasped both of Mark’s hands in hers, and kissed him softly on the side of his clean-shaven face. With interwoven fingers, they firmly embraced and kissed each other’s cheeks several times before backing off like two kids at a church dance, afraid of being observed by a chaperone.
“I was wondering when you were going to show up,” she said first.
“Don’t say that. I got here as soon as I could.”
“I know that,” she said as she slapped his shoulder. “I’m just saying it’s good to see you.”
“I wish I could have been here sooner. And I’m sorry I didn’t let you know when I was coming.”
“Spare me. I had low expectations to begin with. Two calls in two years—actually, one call and one drunken voicemail from God knows where. Physically showing up is a huge improvement.”
He pondered the drunken voicemail for a second.
Serbia? No, couldn’t have been. Chechnya? Maybe Vienna or somewhere in Romania? Wherever it was, it had to have been before Berlin. Whatever. Doesn’t matter.
“How’d you know I was in town?”
“You passed my cruiser next to the gas station across the street from the airport. Didn’t you see me sitting there, or have you forgotten about all that ‘situational awareness’ you used to always preach about?” she said, exaggerating the military term for effect.
“I just assumed whoever was in the cruiser was sleeping or playing with their smartphone. A band of gypsies c
arrying kidnapped children could have pranced by that cruiser and I doubt anyone would have noticed,” he deadpanned.
“Yeah, well, I noticed a suspicious looking middle-aged white male with Virginia plates and followed you here.”
“Since when is thirty-nine considered middle-aged?” he asked, feigning insult as best he could but knowing she could read him like a book.
“Since now,” she said.
A gravelly voice broke in, talking through the tiny speaker attached to the front of her right shoulder.
“Control to 307.”
Luci held up a finger with one hand, tilted her head toward her shoulder, and reached with the other hand to push the talk button on the side of the radio.
“307,” she answered.
“Proceed to 39 Main Street and speak with the owner about some new graffiti on the side of the building. Sounds like it’s more of the same. Investigate and file a report, please.”
“Received,” she answered.
She turned her attention back to Mark, who spoke before she could.
“What time are you off? Stop by the house later if you want. I’ll be there.”
“8 p.m., but who knows these days. Depends on a few things. I’ll try.”
“Just stop by. I’m much more fun than chasing teens with spray paint,” he offered sarcastically.
“Very funny. Goodbye for now. Glad you’re home,” she said as she grabbed him firmly around the bicep and squeezed. “Maybe you’ll see me later. Maybe you won’t.”
He watched her walk away briskly and didn’t take his eyes off her cruiser until it disappeared over the far hill of the cemetery. Then he turned to the tombstone one last time.
Wrong Town: A Mark Landry Novel Page 2
