The Opening Chase

by Cap Daniels

  I noticed he hadn’t mentioned the nose art. “So, who’s Katerina?”

  “Look down there. That’s Jekyll Island.”

  I took in the scenery of the barrier islands and noticed several yachts scattered around an old building standing majestically against the lush green landscape.

  Had he intentionally ignored my question about Katerina?

  “What’s that place, Coach?”

  “That’s the Jekyll Island Club Hotel. That’s where we’ll be staying tonight. The prime rib will melt in your mouth.”

  We kept descending and the runway came clearly into view beneath our left wing. I felt the landing gear come down and heard the noise of the engine noticeably change. We rolled gently to the left in a giant U-turn and rolled out precisely aligned with the runway. The runway was a lot shorter than the one back at Athens, and I remember thinking that we might not be able to stop, but that was a wasted thought.

  We touched the runway so gently I could barely tell when we stopped flying and started rolling. Soon the nose of the airplane filled the sky again and I was left, just as before, blind to the world in front of me. Little did I know I had spent most of my life in exactly that condition: blind to the world in front of me.

  4

  Gentlemen

  As we climbed out of the Mustang, three old guys who looked a lot like Dr. Richter pulled up in some sort of stretched version of a golf cart with several rows of seats.

  Dr. Richter smiled a broad, brilliant grin as he embraced each of the old guys in turn. They patted backs, shook hands, and even playfully threw some pulled punches into each other’s guts. For their ages, they certainly appeared to have kept themselves in great shape. I stood silently by the wing and watched this geriatric reunion. I was growing accustomed to not having a clue what was going on around me, so whatever this was didn’t surprise me a bit.

  With the hugs, shakes, and fake punches complete, Dr. Richter turned to me and gestured with his open hand, “Gentlemen, meet Chase Fulton.”

  They looked at me and frowned thoughtfully, looking me up and down as if I were to be sold at auction any minute.

  The seemingly oldest of the bunch approached me and stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Fulton. I’m Ace. This is Beater, and that decrepit old fart over there is Tuner.”

  He pointed at Dr. Richter. “Clearly, you already know Rocket.”

  Did he just call Dr. Richter, “Rocket”?

  I cleared my throat. “It’s nice to meet you . . . uh, gentlemen.”

  The man who had introduced himself as Ace stared into my eyes as if he were looking into my soul, then he turned to Dr. Richter. “He doesn’t know why he’s here, does he, Rocket?”

  Dr. Richter smiled. “No, not yet.”

  Ace, Tuner, and Beater erupted in laughter and plopped down in the golf cart. Dr. Richter put his arm around me and led me to the rear seat.

  “What the hell’s going on, Coach?”

  “All in due time, my boy . . . all in due time.”

  We tore out across the manicured lawn of the palatial grounds of the Jekyll Island Club like drunken frat boys. I knew the weekend certainly wasn’t going to be boring with these guys. We came to a screeching halt on a marbled patio behind the hotel, and the five of us poured out of the cart and into patio chairs that had to be a hundred years old. A waiter appeared with glasses, a bottle of something that looked like it probably cost more than Dr. Richter’s microbus, and an elegantly carved wooden box of cigars. He began to pour glasses of whatever was in the bottle when Beater said, “Just leave it and get outta here.”

  The man obeyed.

  Ace glared at Beater. “What’s wrong with you, Beater? He’s just doing his job. Give him a break.”

  Beater growled, “I’ll give him a break. I’ll break his scrawny neck if he don’t leave us alone.”

  The four old friends roared with laughter.

  I didn’t know what kind of boys’ club I’d stumbled into, but I had to admit that these guys were still full of life.

  Ace seemed to be the leader of the pack, or at least the most civilized at the moment. He opened the wooden box of cigars and looked inside, inspecting the contents. He pulled out five dark brown cigars and handed one to each of us. I was about to smoke the first cigar of my life, and I thought I was in pretty good company for my inaugural smoke.

  Each man sniffed his cigar and then looked at it as if to inspect it for flaws. Not wanting to appear a novice, I did the same. It smelled divine and looked flawless to me, but what did I know? They reached into their pockets and withdrew cigar punches. Of course I didn’t have one. I closely watched each man puncture the round end of his cigar with the tool.

  Dr. Richter, a.k.a. Rocket, leaned in close to my ear and handed me his punch. “Hold your cigar in your left hand and the punch in your right. Press the cigar to the punch firmly while twisting the cigar, letting the blade cut into the leaf.”

  I did as he directed, and the tool slid easily into the dark brown tobacco. I withdrew the punch and admired the perfect hole I’d created. The scars on my wrist and hand reminded me of a time only months earlier when I would’ve had neither the strength nor dexterity to accomplish such a simple task. Thankfully, the months of almost unbearable physical therapy and my determination to be whole again had given me a hand that, except for the lingering scars, almost looked and felt normal.

  Lighters were produced and flames ignited the ends of the cigars. Clouds of white, aromatic smoke filled the air. Of course, I didn’t have a lighter either, so Beater slid his across the table. I held the cigar in my fingertips and rolled the tip into the flame, trying to emulate the actions of my new friends. As I inhaled my first draw, my lungs convulsed and I couldn’t hold back the cough that instantly branded me a novice.

  The old guys chuckled, but I was undaunted. I continued my quest for fire and finally managed to get my cigar lit without throwing up. After surviving the awkwardness of the first draw, I began to enjoy my first cigar.

  I could get used to this.

  I was out of my element, to say the least, but I was recognizing that this was more than a social getaway. I was on the verge of something, but I had no idea how big that something was.

  Ace, the spokesman for the group, said, “So, Rocket tells us you’re one hell of a psychologist.”

  “Well, I’m not a psychologist yet. I haven’t graduated. For now, I’m just a student of psychology.”

  Ace smiled. “So, you think you’re only a psychologist after some stuffy, academic asshole hands you a piece of rolled up parchment with a nice little ribbon around it? All that means is that you sat still for a few years, wrote a few papers, and paid your tuition. Psychology is about understanding why the human mind makes us do stupid shit, and Rocket says you’re one of the best he’s ever seen at predicting when people are about to do stupid shit. Is that true?”

  “Rocket said that about me?”

  Beater pointed at Dr. Richter, caught his breath, and roared, “The kid called him Rocket. I love that shit!”

  I was reaching my limit of just watching and listening, so after another coughing fit—this one less dramatic than the first—I said, “What’s all this about? Who are you people, and why don’t you have real names?”

  Silence.

  There’s nothing quite as deafening as pure silence. Even the birds seemed to shut up and tremble a little. Everyone looked at Ace. He took a long draw from his cigar then poured himself several fingers of whatever was in the bottle. I looked at Dr. Richter, but he looked down at his feet.

  Ace broke the silence. “I’m going to tell you a story about a man who you believe was named James Alan Fulton.”

  That was my father’s name. What does this old guy know about my father?

  I felt a tear form in the corner of my eye, and I bit my lip to keep that tear from escaping. I don’t know if I was sad or furious, but I decided to hold my tongue, at least for the moment.

  Ace continued.
“The man you know as James Alan Fulton, your father, was not a missionary. He was not an American aid worker. He was not a humanitarian. What he was, Chase, was a cold-blooded, ice-water-in-his-veins, communist-killing hero. He was the original badass, son. He and your mother were agents of the U.S. government . . . among other things. They traveled the world under the guise of missionaries and humanitarian aid workers in impoverished regions, gathering intelligence, and killing enemies of democracy. They were heroes, plain and simple. You believe they died at the hands of guerillas in Panama, and you’re partially correct. They died in Panama all right, but it wasn’t at the hands of guerillas. It was at the hands of assassins who’d been pursuing them for a decade. Son, your family was killed by people who hate freedom and everything that the United States holds dear. Now, I know this isn’t easy to hear, and I know you don’t believe a word of it yet, but you’ll soon understand, and you’ll soon believe. My name is . . . hell, I have no idea what my name is. I’ve been Ace for so many years I can’t remember who I really am, but I’ll never forget what I am. Like your mother and father, I am a tool, an agent of democracy, a guardian of freedom, and a relic of the Cold War. I’m an old, dying, dried-up ghost, but what I am, and what these gentlemen you’re smoking with truly are, can’t die. We’re washed up and done, but what drives us can never be allowed to die. What keeps us alive and what keeps America alive must be protected. You see, son, you’re the next generation of what we were. You and people like you are the reason that normal, selfish, greedy people can sleep at night. You’re part of us. You’re the next generation of the best of us. The way you understand the human mind is what will make it possible for children to play baseball and families to go on picnics and pay their taxes, and all that Yankee-Doodle Dandy shit we all take for granted. You’re one of us. You’re special, and you’re different. You’re going to be a Yankee-Doodle badass just like your daddy was . . . and your mother, too. Let’s not forget about her.”

  My head was spinning and I had a billion questions, but I couldn’t make my mouth say a word. I turned to Dr. Richter and looked into his eyes with angst and anger, confusion and wonder.

  “You knew my father?”

  They all nodded.

  Ace said, “Yes, son, we all knew your father—and your mother as well. They were good people. They were dangerous, deadly people, and they loved you to your rotten little core. You’re a lot like your father. You’re strong, brilliant, determined, and badass. You just don’t know it yet.”

  I turned to Dr. Richter again and he returned my gaze with a solemn, determined look that made my blood run cold. I had just stepped into a world I hadn’t known existed. These old geezers were spies or CIA agents. They were the real deal, and my parents had been part of whatever they were.

  Everything was confusing and screwed up and perfectly clear all at the same time. I put my cigar back in my mouth and shut up. My heart was pounding, but I sat in silence, tasting the tobacco smoke and trying to keep my mind from exploding.

  Just as I was swallowing a mouthful of cigar smoke and trying to figure out what I was supposed to do next, Ace said, “So, you’re probably asking yourself what you’re supposed to do next. That’s the reasonable question. What you should do now is relax, enjoy your cigar, and have a glass of very good, very old scotch with us. There’s no need to talk. There’s no need to even think right now. Just enjoy, and breathe.”

  So, that’s what I did. I tried not to think, and I enjoyed the cigar and the scotch.

  5

  What’s in a Name?

  No one spoke a word for what seemed like an eternity. I didn’t know if I was supposed to break the silence or just wait. Patience isn’t a quality that most twenty-somethings possess, and I was no exception. I simply couldn’t wait any longer, so through a cloud of wafting white smoke, I said, “What’s with the nicknames?”

  Ace lifted his chin, and through his bifocals, looked at me with an amused frown. “Of all of the questions that must be swarming around in that head of yours, the first question out of your mouth is about our nicknames. Now that’s interesting.”

  I didn’t think it was particularly interesting. It was, in fact, a delaying tactic on my part. I wanted anyone other than me to talk while my brain whirled out of control. In retrospect, I suppose my decision to question their names was a significant psychological indication of how my mind worked. I was curious about their nicknames, and I did want to know what they meant, but the names weren’t as important to me as most of the other questions I had. I could listen to the story of their nicknames while still sorting and sifting the bevy of information my mind was processing.

  Ace took another long draw from his cigar and washed it down with a mouthful of scotch. He looked around at the collection of characters at the table and cleared his throat. “Well, let’s start with Rocket Richter over there. You see, back in the early days of high-speed flight testing that ultimately led to the immortalization of Chuck Yeager, somebody had to be the first maniac to volunteer to strap himself to a ten-thousand-pound bottle rocket and go for a ride. Enter Rocket Richter.”

  I started to see my beloved professor through a whole new lens. “Are you telling me that you were really the first guy to break the sound barrier?” I asked.

  Dr. Richter turned to his old friends and chuckled. The others joined in, and it soon turned into a mighty crescendo of belly laughs.

  “Hell no, he didn’t break the sound barrier,” said Beater. “He barely broke the speed of smell. It was the worst crash anyone had ever survived. That damned rocket went about sixty feet, shit its pants, and fell out of the sky with good ol’ Rocket Richter riding it like a rodeo cowboy. The Nevada desert looked like the Dust Bowl when all the pieces finally stopped moving. Ol’ Rocket there came wading out of the mayhem burnt to a crisp and wanting to know if there was another one he could ride since he was already dirty.”

  The laughter grew, and Dr. Richter shook his head.

  Ace went to work trying to regain control. “So, that’s how your teacher became Rocket a long time before you were born, Mr. Fulton.”

  “What a great story,” I said. “What about you? How did you become Ace?”

  “Ah, my story isn’t nearly as exciting as Rocket’s. I just shot down a few Germans over Europe a few decades ago. You know, when you shoot down five krauts, they call you an Ace.”

  Beater shook his head. “That’s kind of how the story goes, kid, but it ain’t the whole story. Ace is right. When you shoot down five bad guys, they do call you Ace, but when you shoot down five Germans on your very first day in combat, they call you The Ace. Boy, sitting in front of you is the by God Ace of Aces. Don’t let him get away with being modest. He was the baddest fighter pilot in the sky—before he got old, of course.”

  I looked at Ace, trying to imagine that old man as a fighter pilot.

  He winked at me as a halo of billowing smoke encircled his head. “Ah, I just got lucky . . . a lot,” he said.

  Ace surveyed his glass as he swirled the liquor into a tiny tornado. “Now Beater over there, his story is a little less glamorous. He just likes to beat the hell out of people who get in the way. He was the heavyweight champion for three years running while he was supposed to be studying at the Naval Academy about a hundred years ago. After they finally kicked him out—or graduated him, whatever they do up there at Annapolis—he found out he was pretty good at getting people to talk when they thought they didn’t want to talk. It never took long for a prisoner to spill his guts after Beater’s fists showed up. Most of the intel that turned out to mean anything during the Cold War was extracted from captured agents by none other than our friend Beater. He never wrecked any rockets or shot down any Germans, but he sure did his part to save the world one black eye and one busted lip at a time.”

  It was clear that Beater had once been quite brute. He still carried well over two hundred pounds, and most of it was in his shoulders, chest, and arms. He was surprisingly trim at the waist. I
caught myself looking at his huge hands, imagining them hurtling through the air at my head. I was pretty sure that I’d talk, too.

  Beater looked embarrassed. “Ah, they’ve got it all wrong, kid. I’m just a big teddy bear. I wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Ace smiled. “So, now I guess we’re down to Tuner . . . good ol’ Tuner. You’ve probably noticed he doesn’t say much. He just listens. That’s what he’s always done—listen. Tuner learned about fifty years ago that under water, German submarines don’t sound like American submarines. In fact, he figured out that German subs don’t even sound like other German subs. To those ears, every sub sounds different, so he started cataloging how each one sounded. All of a sudden . . . well, maybe not all of a sudden, but soon thereafter, we had a catalog of every German submarine’s unique acoustic signature. He decided that if subs were so easy to distinguish by the way they sound, maybe everything else in the world sounded pretty unique, too. Our friend Tuner is the father of acoustic signature identification. He wrote the book—hell, he wrote all of the books on the subject and taught a few thousand people how to listen with purpose. Thanks to him and his magic ears, our navy, and a few other services, within seconds we can now detect, classify, and identify almost any sound made on the planet. Son, you’re in the company of greatness, and you didn’t even know it. You just thought we were a bunch of old guys. Well, maybe you were right. We are a bunch of old guys, but we got to be old guys by learning to stay alive when people around us were dying. Now it’s your turn to learn those skills and hopefully, one day, become an old guy yourself.”

  I was in awe. I never expected that the outrageous bunch of nicknames being thrown around would be historically significant. I thought these were old drinking buddies. I had no idea.

  “So, let’s go have some lunch and see if we can find a boat that nobody’s using for the afternoon,” Dr. Richter said.