Second Thoughts and Last Chances
By
Latikia
Edited by
The Old Fart
Copyright © 2007,
2008
Chapter 3
The passing of time was no longer a blur to me, the way it had been just instants before. Time was moving, and fairly fast, but now it was more like a movie put on fast forward rather than the vapor trail it had been. And my memories were returning, no longer events to be observed, but actual pieces of myself and my life; just a trickle at first, but as one moment made itself known it was quickly followed by another, and another…faster and faster and faster, until the trickle was a flow, the flow a stream and the stream a torrent.
‘You know who he is?’ the dark figure asked me only moments after I relived Carlie’s death.
I looked closely at the pale skinned figure leaning over the sink, staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
Tall, pale, shoulder length snow white hair, lanky and muscular, but not bulky…I knew him. I recognized that face; the cold, dead pale gray eyes and the stony features that showed no emotion of any kind. He still looked vaguely like the red haired kid who’d gone off to college, but now the image was much more like the ghostly figure at my right side. Much, much more.
“He’s me.” I said. “He looks like you, but he’s me.”
‘Is it any wonder he looks like me? This was the day I was born.’
“I don’t remember that.”
‘No reason you should. Until a few years ago you had no idea I even existed.’
“So what, exactly, are you?” I asked dully.
‘You tell me.’
I tried to care enough to think it thru, but couldn’t care or be bothered. The pale figure nodded sadly, compassionately.
‘I’m what you were, emotionally, before Carlie died. I’m your hope, your love, passion, curiosity, trust, your faith in yourself and other people.’
I snorted half-heartedly. “Pull the other one. I never had much of those kinds of feelings in the first place.”
His translucent features thinned, growing chilly and callous. ‘I am what you were, as well as what you’ve become since then. He,’ the pale figure pointed at the dark image on my left, ‘has changed the both of us.’
‘Thanks so very fuckin’ much for remembering I’m here.’ he snarled, causing tendrils of flame to erupt from mouth and eyes.
“When did he show up?”
‘Later. We’re getting there.
Frames moved past.
‘And
this guy? Who is he?’
“Harve Lattimor. He was responsible for Carlie’s death. I killed him.”
‘Eventually.’ the dark figure corrected me as we watched my final moments with Harve roll by.
I shrugged absently. “Eventually.” I agreed, taking note of the fact that the sound of my own voice had become just as dull and emotionless as that of the young man we were watching.
The Reader’s Digest version of The Slow-Painful Death of Harve Lattimor played out before me. I think had I been able to feel anything other than the endless agonies and death of my embryonic family, that I’d have been moved to tears and probably puked my imaginary insides out.
‘I’m particularly proud of this bit here.’ the dark me enthused gleefully as the mnemonic me shoved a burning branch into Harve’s anal passage with workman-like precision.
‘This is where he is born. Indifferent, arrogant, cold, heartless, cruel, barbarous, merciless, unfeeling, uncaring, angry, furious, powerful and self-righteous…he is all the things you wished you could have been, things you learned from your father, your brother and your sister, Vickie Carter…and from Harve as well. Your mother, Granddad, eventually Izzy and then Carlie showed you more positive aspects of yourself. You’d have been a much different person, if she hadn’t died.’
“If.” I muttered. The most profoundly pointless word in the English language.
The images moved on, unconcerned with my musings.
The Army, boot camp, my mother’s funeral…and Izzy returned for a brief, tear streaked cameo.
Years of lectures, training and constant emotional hell followed, alone by my own choosing, with only work, reading and running for company. And then came that day.
‘The third pivotal event.’ the pale figure narrated.
The balcony sniper…shot in the head by an older, bigger, colder, more deadly version of myself…the nut-job in the police station…shot in the head by a more calculating, disinterested and lethal version of the boy I’d been.
My introduction to Lt. Col. Erickson…the firing range beneath CID headquarters and the pig…shot in the head by a less agreeable and more precise killer than I’d been with the deer.
Desert Storm and Saudi Arabia…the heat, the blinding sun, the bone chilling nights…and the Ghost…the attack on the Kuwait border and the slaughter of the mortar squad…more shots to the head by a man who no longer cared about living…the letter from my father about Izzy’s impending marriage.
The Mission…the General…the duel in the dunes, and my suicidal assault on the Iraqi compound…broadcasting the agony and horror locked up in my mind, driving men insane and killing those who didn’t kill themselves, or each other, without a second thought.
Wounded and in more pain than any one human being should ever have to endure…walking thru the night…sleeping thru the day…and talking to the voices in my head…
“They were you two.” I accused heatedly, with more raw emotion in my heart and voice than I’d felt in eons.
‘Your mind was on the edge of snapping. You were ready to give up, lie down and die. But your will…your desire to continue, no matter what, is incredibly strong. So your mind did snap. And the two of us, up till then no more than facets of your personality, broke free. He drove you on, overriding your desire to quit, and I provided the faces, the voices, the memories of the people most likely to compel your survival. We didn’t want to die, and the only way to keep that from happening was to make you want to live.’
‘And there was only one thing that could make you want to go on, even with the pain.’ the dark figure said, almost reverently.
“Izzy.” I whispered.
‘You’ve loved her since you were old enough to know what love was.’
“But why? She hated me from the moment I was born.”
‘Don’t remind
‘People, especially young children, aren’t the most rational of creatures. You loved her. It didn’t seem to matter that she despised you. The truly strange thing is that once your talent emerged, her feelings for you changed. You’d buried your feelings for her years before, but then something about you started pulling her to you. Your talent found those buried feelings and desires and acted on them. We don’t understand it any more than you do. But the attraction was mutual…unwanted on a conscious level, but apparently inescapable. So we used it. And it worked. Reminding you of your love for your sister gave you a reason to fight on, a purpose, a goal.’
The desert went rushing past my eyes…finding the allied
outpost…handing over my prisoners…being evac’d to
Walter Reed…Captain Rossi and Colonel DeBerg…a letter to Izzy trying to ease both our troubled minds…Auggie, Walt , David and Tim…the woman with post-partum…and Lilly. Brown haired, bright brown eyes filled with sorrow and stars and a smile that reminded me there was a reason for the existence of two sexes.
‘Pivotal event number
four. And your first real step back onto
the path.’
Re-learning to feel the pain of other people…re-learning to care enough that I was willing to ease their pain…learning not to hate my talent, but to use it.
Dr. Wills, Mr. Jones and my introduction to the CIA…Alex the undercover agent and friend Ivan, the diplomat/spy/murderer…and blasting a dying tree with all the pain, anger and fury I’d been collecting.
Peg Driscoll…little Peggy…so very much like me, yet so completely different.
‘You learned a lot from her; about people in general, but about yourself more than anything else. You learned how to reason out a problem, how to use your talent in a positive way, how to do what you didn’t think was possible.’
“Our abilities are so similar, both of our minds fragmented…how is it I didn’t end up more like her?”
‘You’re similar, but not the same. Her trauma occurred much earlier in life, and it was much more profound than yours. She wasn’t as well prepared for what happened to her…or maybe you were just lucky.’
“Or maybe her mind fragmented before her talent showed up and that stunted the ability.”
‘Perhaps. Just another of the many things that we may never know for sure.’
Me and Peggy in the shower…the two of us rolling around on the mats…creating an emotional ring for the first time…kissing Lilly for the first time…sensing the attraction and love she felt for me…feeling something similar growing within myself.
Returning home…my father, so much older and smaller…and my painful reunion with Izzy…the shock and sorrow of discovering what her life had become.
Forgiveness…and spanking…pain, domination and sex…a dream of death…then death for real…killing and more killing…rejection and a drunken tantrum in the snow…and meeting the darkness.
‘I thought I was going to be stuck in your head, no more than an afterthought, for the rest of your pathetic existence. You have no idea how hard I had to push to get free.’ he gloated.
“You aren’t free. Any more than I am.” I reminded him.
His pitch black face frowned and flames sputtered. ‘Maybe not. But at least I don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not.’
“Which I suppose means that I am?”
‘Fuckin’-A it does.’
“And what, pray tell, am I pretending to be?”
There was a long drawn out pause. I looked from the darkness to the ghostly figure and back. Both of them stared at me, the darkness with scorn, and the pale image with sorrow and pity.
‘Human.’
I shook my head. “This is an old argument. You’re not a god…and neither am I, no matter what extra abilities I might have.”
‘He’s right…this is an old argument and we won’t get anywhere re-hashing it now. Let it drop. There’s still a lot more you need to remember and there isn’t much time left.’ the semi-transparent me said decisively.
The darkness snarled and flared, but turned away to face the still speeding images before us.
Returning to DC with Izzy…introducing her to Lilly and Peggy…taking away Lilly’s suicide inspiring pain over her lost children…skipping down the Mall hand in hand with Peggy...getting hit by the car, having already killed the driver…fighting the second assassin…being kidnapped…more killing…escape to the CIA…the ranch…sex and bonding…interrogating Anya…killing the CIA director…crushing Rossi’s mind…dinner party at the ranch…putting a man permanently asleep…burning a boy to ashes…blood and bullets in the snow…coming a hair’s breadth from dying…duel in the halls of Congress…going to Dover…giving the President a woodie via network TV…Charlie shot and smoked…back to the ranch and…babies?!
“I have children?”
‘Yes, but wait and you’ll see for yourself.’
Creation of numbers one thru five and the killing of the FBI director…back to the hospital…Billy-Bob…the President and medals…sending the preacher to his own personal hell…release from the Army…working for the CIA…returning to school…and taking care of three pregnant women.
It still makes me laugh to remember how much money we spent, on maternity clothes, baby clothes, baby furniture and blankets, toys, converting one of the bedrooms into a nursery. What did I care what it cost? They were happy, which made me happy…that’s all I cared about.
Lilly handled her pregnancy like a seasoned trooper, which of course she was, having already given birth twice. Izzy didn’t have much trouble at all, apart from morning sickness. In fact, up till the final two months it was hard to tell that she was even carrying a child. Peggy wasn’t so lucky. Being so small and petite she ballooned up early and suffered just about every sort of ache and pain it was possible to have.
And me, being me…I spent as much time with them at the ranch as I could, when I wasn’t at school or learning the ropes at the CIA. When I was with them we were linked, with me suffering right along with them, taking away as much of their discomfort as I could manage, rubbing backs and feet, massaging shoulders and legs and constantly feeding them reassurance of my love and affection, mountains of orgasm inducing sparks, and whenever possible, all the sex they could handle.
It’s hard to believe just how horny three pregnant women can get. Needless to say, I didn’t have much in the way of free time for the next eight months.
They went into labor at almost the same time.
Dr. Wills had arranged for a military med-evac chopper to be on stand-by and as soon as Peggy’s water broke, I was on the phone calling it in. Moments later, Izzy’s broke, followed quickly by Lilly.
It was as if the babies were determined to be born together. I figured, why not? They’d probably been conceived within minutes of each other during Peggy’s little lust inspired orgy.
I had all their travel bags set by the front door and was carrying Peggy down the stairs, with Lilly and Izzy waddling slowly behind us, when the chopper arrived. Fortunately for all of us it was a calm night, no snow storm howling outside. The medics emerged and rushed the house, litters in hand. Lilly and Izzy were loaded and hauled out to the helicopter, with me, Peggy cradled in my arms, pulling tail-end-Charlie.
Lilly hates riding in helicopters at the best of times, and this wasn’t even close to the best, so I stayed linked with all three, but focused my efforts on keeping her calm and relaxed.
We arrived at
I proceeded to terrorize the staff, from techs to nurses and doctors, all the way up to the on-duty chief of operations. At which point it was decided the best solution to all our problems would be to put all three girls into one birthing room and me along with them.
I smiled, agreed that it was a particularly wise decision, and then released my grip on the throat of the naval Captain who was running the joint. Whereupon I was escorted to the birthing room by four rather large Marines with silly grins on their faces, gowned up and led inside by the floor’s chief nurse, who was surprisingly delighted to see me. Apparently the girls hadn’t been too happy at my being kept away and were extremely vocal about expressing their displeasure. I also gathered that Peggy was less than gentle with her use of her own abilities…sharing her discomfort rather liberally with those who weren’t inclined to do what she wanted.
I moved from table to table, wiping brows, holding hands, easing pain and generally sharing in the festive atmosphere.
I was roundly cursed, threatened with emasculation and punched more than once before the doctors arrived and the girls put on something resembling their best behavior.
Lilly’s baby showed up first, just before six. Rose Blacktower came into the world quietly and with a minimum of fuss, a full head of raven black hair, and weighing in at seven pounds, six ounces.
As soon as Rose had drawn her first breath to start squalling, Izzy delivered her daughter. Isabelle Marie Blacktower, named for our mother, had as much dark hair as her slightly older sister, but weighed nine pounds even.
Peggy had trouble dilating fully. Ultrasound showed that the baby had turned and was out of position. There was no choice but to do a cesarean. She resisted, complaining that she wouldn’t be able to wear a bikini in the summer, and that I’d think she was hideously ugly and deformed. I had to remind my swollen sweetie that I had many more, and uglier, scars, and she still loved me. I promised that, if necessary, I’d kiss her scar each and every day for the rest of our lives.
That did the trick. The doctor did the surgery and Patricia Blacktower joined the family, with as much dark hair as her sisters, but weighing only five pounds ten ounces.
The babies were cleaned up and rushed out, while the mommies were stitched back together, cleaned up and moved to their room, a big semi private that I’d coerced from the Navy Captain while I still had my hand around his neck.
I was waiting there when they were wheeled in, ready with kisses and hugs, feeding them strength, love, admiration, appreciation and the immense pride I could barely keep inside. They were exhausted and it wasn’t long before all three were fast asleep.
I went down the hall and around the corner to the nursery and stood at the window, searching for the three new arrivals. They were easy to spot, lying side by side, and except for the difference in size, looked very much like peas in a pod.
I don’t care what anyone says…newborns are not beautiful or cute or adorable. They’re ugly little things, every single one looks like a bad mix of ET, Winston Churchill and a couple cans of thirty weight oil. Fortunately for them, not a one had inherited my lack of pigmentation…but they still weren’t much to look at. But I had more to go on than just looks. I could feel my babies. They felt beautiful. So pure and unspoiled, knowing only that they needed and wanted. And they knew I was there, watching them, loving them, happy and grateful that they’d come. They kicked their legs and waved their arms and my heart felt like it was going to explode.
“Don’t you worry, my little darlings. Daddy’s here. He’ll always be here for you.” I promised softly. Then, as I had with my big girls, I linked with my tiny ones and very carefully let them feel how much they were loved and cared for…and felt them relax, contented and warm, slowly drifting off to sleep.
Do newborns dream? Are their untutored minds even capable of imagination, of dreaming, at that early stage?
I think so, but I’d be hard pressed to prove it in any tangible fashion. All I have to base my opinion on are a few hundred hours of being linked with my daughters while they slept, monitoring their rest, keeping them at ease, at peace, feeling safe, protected and loved. Always loved.
For the first few weeks after we took them home I spent almost as much time with the babies as I did with their mothers, which was no easy trick, since the girls acted as if the infants were attached to them most of the time. Not far from the truth really. It seemed that no matter where I looked there was a topless woman with a little baby busily slurping away.
Eventually they forgave me for what I’d done to them (their words, not mine), and I was slowly welcomed back into their good graces and affections, especially when they discovered that I spent most of my nights sitting up with one or more of the babies, rocking them, pacing the floor with them on my shoulder, or more often than not just laying on the bed with all three of them asleep on my chest.
Late in April the girls decided they’d had enough of breast feeding, and so began the transition to bottles. The unpleasant transition to bottles. The babies were not pleased and they resisted. I spent even more time with them, feeding, changing diapers and calming unhappy little feelings. They felt rejected.
I could sympathize.
One morning in early May I sat my girls down in the nursery, put their daughters in their arms and explained to them how the babies were feeling.
The tears started flowing almost immediately. From all six of them. I did the first thing that crossed my mind, and linked mothers and daughters together.
The babies stopped crying first, sensing and greedily taking in their mother’s love. And gradually, almost imperceptibly, they returned that love with their own.
The bottle battle passed into humorous memory.
I asked Peggy, out of the hearing of the other two girls, why she hadn’t linked with Patricia before (we began calling her Tinkerbelle early on, because she was so much smaller than her sisters, but the similarity in the names Tinkerbelle and Isabelle got to be too much and we all just started calling Patricia ‘Tink’). Peggy told me that she’d been afraid of accidentally hurting or frightening her daughter, perhaps scarring her for life. We worked together for about a week, getting mother and daughter more comfortable with one another and Peggy more confident in her own abilities.
That summer Izzy applied for and accepted a teaching
position at the
Peggy applied to the University, planning on a degree in Veterinary medicine.
She and Izzy started classes the same week, leaving the care of the babies primarily in Lilly’s hands.
I’d never seen or felt her so happy. Lilly was born to be a mother, taking to it like a duck to water. I helped out when I could, but most of the time it seemed as if I were only getting the way.
So I concentrated more and more on my own schooling and, of course, work.
In October, following another one of Peggy’s inspirational lust orgies, Lilly announced joyfully that she was pregnant again. Izzy and Peggy had gone and had their tubes tied, both deciding that one child was all they were prepared to have.
And on
When we brought AJ home, his sisters, who were just learning to walk, dropped their toys, struggled to their feet and awkwardly toddled over to his crib, demanding to see their new brother. I picked all three up in my arms, (we’d become quite proficient at the three of them using my right forearm as a bench, my left taking on the role of seatbelt) and held them over the crib so they could get a good look. They cooed, laughed, blew bubbles from their spit and drooled on his blankets.
Not the kind of welcome home I’d have looked forward to, but it seemed to make AJ smile a lot. Or it might have been gas.
I doted on my son, but no more, I think, than I did with his sisters. Early on I sat the babies down together and linked them, so they’d get to know one another better, and be aware of the feelings they all had in common. I never wanted my babies to go thru the kind of childhood I had. I was determined that, one way or another, they’d learn to love and care for one another.
The images stopped moving; not fast, not slow…not at all.
‘Freeze frame…close up on the big pale young man with the shoulder length white hair, neatly trimmed goatee, three cute little dark haired girls standing before him and a four month old baby boy cradled in his arms…notice the smile on his lips, the faint glint of fire in his soft gray eyes…this young man is happy – he doesn’t realize that from this point on his life will start to fall apart…and he won’t see it coming till it’s almost too late.’ the pale figure declaimed.
“Wha…?” I started to ask…and then the frozen image before my eyes warped, the center tried to move to the outside, the edges shifted to opposite sides and counter corners and when the laws of physics could no longer hold, it shattered into a billion tiny jagged fragments that made a bee-line for my nerves and brain. The movie was over…no more standing back and watching my life play out before me…the walls around my memories fell completely, the veils dropped and years of suppressed recollections, exact and complete in every detail, came out and swallowed me.
I remembered it all…
1991 had been a fast and busy year for me, and not just professionally. I rounded up three moles fairly quickly after I’d started working full time for Dr. Wills. It wasn’t hard, and that was probably a mistake on my part; not making what I did appear to be more difficult than it really was. I was young, though, and eager to prove myself…and they just made it so damn easy! No sooner would I step out of the elevators, coming face to face with yet another department I’d never heard of, when I’d start feeling that something was off kilter. I’d have the department head take me around, introducing their people and explaining what they did…and BAM! It was as if they had lain across the middle of the corridor with a sign around their neck proclaiming to the world “I’m a Spy; please arrest me at your earliest convenience.”
So I did. Arrest them, I mean. I wanted to do things the right way though, by which I mean turning the bastards over to the proper authorities for trial. I’d taken my girl’s words to heart and had decided to cut as far back on the use of my talent as possible, while still allowing me to perform my job.
The problem was, I was the proper authority. At least I was the first level of authority. Dr. Wills made that quite clear.
“Son, you find ‘em, you take care of ‘em. It has to work that way. Either that or we’ve got to request the FBI and Justice Department step in and start an investigation. That’s what we’re trying to avoid, remember?”
So I began to…not lie, really…but to leave out certain details of my daily work when I talked to the girls.
They were all busy with redecorating the Ranch, legally changing their names, getting bank accounts and credit cards, new driver’s licenses and just generally being pregnant. I really didn’t think they needed, or wanted, to be bothered with the nuances of my day to day occupational tribulations.
So I turned the first one, killed the second and turned the third. I never said a word to my sweet, gentle, loving girls about any of them.
In 1992 I located and nabbed four more spies, and following the conversion of number three in September, who just happened to be in the employ of one of our country’s staunchest allies, I received my first formal invitation to a foreign embassy.
Dr. Wills got quite a laugh when I showed him the engraved and embossed envelope and its contents.
“Looks like you’ve finally made the big time, son.”
When I asked him whether or not I should ignore the invitation, he looked at me as if I were out of my mind.
“Ike, you never, ever pass up an opportunity to size up your enemies.”
“Doctor, these people aren’t our enemies, they’re our friends.” I objected.
He shook his head and smiled sadly. “Would friends be planting spies in our government’s security agencies?” he asked me.
I frowned for a brief instant and then took a quick mental step forward. “How many do we have in their government?”
His smile grew fond and wider than it had been. “Ike, it’s a sad comment on the world we live in, but the cold undiluted truth is that people can have friends, governments cannot.” He raised the envelope and wiggled it slightly between his fingertips. “This government has been our ally for more than a hundred years now. Before that they conspired and aided a nation we were at war with, and prior to that we fought two separate wars with them. We’ve been many things to each other over the years, but friends…that we’ve never been.”
“What do you think they want with me? I mean, why the invitation?”
He leaned back in his chair and smirked. “Well, let me see now…didn’t you just finish digging out a deeply entrenched mole that just happened to belong to these folks?”
I nodded. Then it hit me. “They want to size me up.”
Dr. Wills raised one eyebrow.
“How do they even know it was me who got him?” I wondered aloud.
The older man across from me was silent and trying very hard to clamp down on the silly-assed grin that was on the verge of breaking loose across his lips.
I curled my upper lip at him and growled slightly. “Either they have another mole in here or you ratted me out!” I said accusingly.
He lifted his hands to shoulder height in mock surrender. “I wouldn’t do that, even to teach you as important a lesson as this one. No, this is all our friend’s doing.”
“How much danger would I be in, if I agreed to go?”
He stared at me long and hard, all trace of humor gone from his face and eyes.
“Ike, my boy, you’re a spy hunter. No one likes having their spies found, and everyone hates having them turned into double agents. How much danger do you think you’d be in if you went?”
I returned his humorless expression with one of my own…for about ten seconds.
“Not much.” I admitted, smiling.
His own grin returned and he nodded approvingly at me. “That’s my boy.” he said proudly.
So I went to the embassy and met the Ambassador, their ‘chief of station’, and several members of the diplomatic staff.
In a way it was all very surreal, in that I knew why they wanted to meet with me, and they knew that I knew why they wanted to meet with me, and they knew why I was willing to meet with them. If I thought about it for more than five seconds at a time I started to get a headache.
The Ambassador, Sir Malcolm Rhys-Jones, and I hit it off right away for some unfathomable reason. Part of it, I think, was due to my unusual appearance, which reminded him of a young son of his who’d been born an albino and died very, very young from blood related complications. The rest…I’m just not positive. We were about forty years apart in age, and had only one thing in common that I was aware of. Sir Malcolm had attended Sandhurst, fought in the Korean War as a young officer and been a military advisor to the South Vietnamese Army during the late 50’s and early 60’s before moving on to serve as Ambassador to West Germany, France and finally the U.S.
It was hard not to like the old walrus, an animal he resembled more than a little. With his shaved and tanned bald head, thick white moustache and the massively muscled upper body he’d developed hauling around his crippled legs with a pair of forearm braced aluminum crutches, he was nearly as unique looking an individual as I am.
Sir Malcolm had a brash and blustering manner about him, but I could tell from the first it hid a razor sharp mind, keen powers of observation, and a bone deep optimism that the man could not keep under wraps.
As we settled down in his spacious office for our little tête-à-tête, his assistant, Richards, scurried about with a silent grace and lack of wasted motion, putting away Sir Malcolm’s crutches and pouring drinks, which he then passed out to the three of us.
“You are much younger than I would have expected, Mr. Blacktower.” Ian Finch, the man I’d decided was their ‘chief of station’, said lazily after taking a sip of his drink. The man had been watching me carefully ever since I’d set foot inside the embassy. He was a tall man, thin as a rail, with a thick head of sandy red hair, pinched lips and cold green eyes.
I smiled slightly and took a sip from the glass in my hand. Peppered vodka. Very good peppered vodka.
“How old should I be, Mr. Finch?” I linked with the man immediately, just to keep tabs on where he was going with his routine.
“Would you say it was common practice within the CIA to promote someone of your years to Deputy Director?”
“I very much doubt it. And I’m not a Deputy Director, more like a Deputy-Deputy Director.”
“Even so…” he pushed.
I let my features go slack as I shrugged. “I’m a special case, Mr. Finch.”
“Quite right.” Sir Malcolm broke
in, giving Finch a tolerant scowl. “I
understand you’ve been rather busy of late; attending
“You’re very well informed, Sir Malcolm.” I smiled and raised my glass to the man behind the large ornate old desk. “Yes, very busy. I find my babies to be the most interesting and rewarding of my endeavors though.”
“Do you really? I find that unusual, if you will forgive the observation, as most young men in government service with ambition tend to neglect their personal lives in favor of…climbing the ladder, as it were.”
I nodded my head in understanding. “I’ve noticed the very same thing. I suppose my saving grace in that respect would be that I have no ambition.”
Sir Malcolm raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Blacktower, I can not begin to tell you how many times I’ve heard those exact words pass the lips of ambitious young men.”
“Oh, I don’t mean that I have no ambitions at all. Far from it. I just have none as far as my work with the CIA is concerned. I will never be the Director of the CIA, or any of the other Intelligence branches, and I’m glad of it. One of these days, hopefully far in the future, when Dr. Wills decides he’s ready to retire I’ll take over for him. And that is as far as I’ll ever advance within the government.”
“You don’t desire advancement?” Finch asked skeptically.
“Nope. Gentlemen, let me be very clear about this; I’m good at what I do, maybe the best in the world. But what I’m not is a career civil servant or a wannabe politician. I do what I do for the CIA because Dr. Wills asked me to. And because they provide me with money sufficient to provide for my family as well as permitting me to pursue my other interests.”
“That is the extent of your motivation?” Sir Malcolm asked.
“Yep.”
The old man’s bushy moustache twitched. “You are a most interesting young fellow, Mr. Blacktower.”
“Ike, Sir Malcolm. My name is Ike. My father is Mr. Blacktower.”
His moustache twitched even more as a full fledged smile emerged beneath it. “Quite right…Ike. A most interesting and refreshing young fellow.”
He set his drink down on the desk top and hunched forward, putting both heavy forearms down to support his weight.
“You spent some time in
“You spent some time in
“Medal of Honor.”
“Victoria Cross.”
“Two wounds, one above the hip, one near the neck.”
“Multiple wounds, the worst was the lost left leg.”
“You would have made an excellent Intelligence officer.” he said with a rumbling chuckle.
I smiled slightly and shook my head. “No, I’m afraid I would have made a very bad officer of any kind. I was a very good analyst, and a reasonably good shot, but that’s about the extent of my military skills. But I’m pretty handy with a copy of ‘Who’s Who’.”
“You are far too modest.” he objected.
“Possibly. My girls tell me that all the time. I prefer to think of myself as realistic. I’m well aware of my limitations; command of any kind is one of them.”
“Perhaps. Command can be taught. Bravery, on the other hand cannot.”
“I wouldn’t know. The only brave things I’ve ever done were more out of necessity than design. And not one of those things took place while I was in combat.”
“You don’t believe you deserved the Medal of Honor?” Finch inquired.
“No. I refused it at first, but the President wouldn’t take no for an answer. He informed me that the Pentagon and Congress had declared me a hero, and by God I was going to be a hero. I told him Congress could declare me a duck, but it wouldn’t make me one.”
Sir Malcolm burst out with a full-blown belly laugh that rattled the glass next to him on the desk.
“Well said…wish I’d had that kind of wit when I was given the bloody VC.”
“Where is your medal now, Mr. Blacktower? Hanging in a presentation frame over the mantel?” Finch queried smarmily.
I shrugged slightly. “I have no idea where it is Mr. Finch. I gave it to one of my girls right after the ceremony and haven’t seen hide nor hair of it since.”
Finch nodded his acceptance and lifted his drink to his lips, but stopped as if hit by a sudden thought.
“You’ve mentioned ‘my girls’ several times. If you don’t mind my asking, what is your relationship with your girls?”
I cocked one eyebrow and cast a sideways glance at the man.
“I don’t mind your asking.” I told him, and then tossed back the remainder of the vodka in my glass.
Richards stepped up beside my chair and took the empty glass from my hand with practiced ease. With a subtle gesture, combining silent movements of his eyes and hand, he inquired whether or not I’d like a refill. Interesting man. I shook my head very slightly and he bowed just as slightly and backed away.
“Mr. Blacktower?” Finch prodded by voice inflection.
“Yes, Mr. Finch?” I asked innocently, brushing back some of the long hair on the right side of my face.
“Your girls?”
“I said I didn’t mind your asking. I never said I’d answer.”
Sir Malcolm’s moustache twitched near the corners of his mouth.
Finch’s eyes narrowed fractionally and his lips thinned into non-existence.
“Lilly is quite lovely.” he said flatly.
“All my girls are beautiful.” I said softly, shifting just
enough in my chair so that I was able to fact Sir Malcolm and Finch at the same
time. “Of course, the young lady you
visit in
Finch flinched. Based on his reaction and emotions, I was fairly certain that Finch’s wife there in DC was unaware of Miss Yvonne Rutledge.
“Mr. Finch, the second dumbest thing anyone could ever do would be to attack my family.”
“And the first?” he asked obligingly, quickly regaining his composure. You don’t get to be a spy-master if you can’t control your body language and emotions.
“Threatening them to my face.” Finch eyed me calmly, not a muscle twitch or eye blink in sight. “Stay far-far away from my family, Mr. Finch. I won’t care if you think you’re doing your duty or not.” I said evenly.
“Is that a threat, Mr. Blacktower?”
I smiled. “Not a threat and not a suggestion. Think of it as…fair warning. Feel free to pass it along to your other diplomatic counterparts.”
“Gentlemen, please,” Sir Malcolm interjected, clearly enjoying our exchange, “There’s no need to be uncivilized about this.”
“Sir Malcolm, this young pup fancies himself an American James Bond.”
I laughed softly. “Do you see yourself as ‘M’, Mr. Finch?”
Finch’s emotions took an abrupt turn as his tight facial features relaxed and he broke into a pleasant smile.
“Touché, Mr. Blacktower.”
I looked away from Finch and focused on Sir Malcolm. The old man leaned back and smiled happily at me.
“Are we done with the ‘Good Cop, Bad Cop’ routine yet?” I asked cheerfully.
“No offense intended Ike, I assure you.”
“None taken.”
“Why in the world would a young fellow like you want to waste his talents being a CIA agent? You should be in the State Department.” Sir Malcolm made it sound like a royal pronouncement.
“I’m not an agent or a spy-master, Sir Malcolm. I’m a spy-hunter.”
“Counter-espionage at least.” Finch kidded.
I shrugged. “I suppose you could call it that if you like. I prefer spy-hunter. It more accurately describes what I do.”
“How would like to come work for my government?” Sir Malcolm asked out of the blue.
I blinked a couple of times.
“Are you asking me to?” I countered.
“Yes.”
I sat there in a bit of a daze. To say the offer was unexpected would have been a serious understatement.
“Why? You must have people of your own who do that sort of work.”
“We do. In fact we have several branches that do nothing but ‘that sort of work’.”
I shook my head. Something didn’t ring quite true about any of it.
“I have no reason to be loyal to your government. I’m not even a citizen of your country.”
“That is easily remedied Ike. Simplest thing in the world actually.”
“What are you offering?” I asked, curious as to what he’d say.
“Citizenship, effective immediately, diplomatic passport, two hundred thousand pounds salary, with guaranteed annual pay rises. We’ll put you in charge of all our counter-espionage programs, and minimal Parliamentary oversight restrictions. After your first year of service you’ll be knighted by the Queen and after three additional years of service you’ll be made a Peer of the Realm with an hereditary title and seat in the House of Lords.”
I sat back, raised my eyebrows and whistled softly.
Nice offer. Much nicer than what Dr. Wills had tossed my way.
Too nice. Too much. Too…just too damn too!
Shit, I was only twenty-five years old. There was no way in hell any government was going to offer me a deal like this for my services. The idea was, just on the face of it, fuckin’ idiotic! So what were they after? What did they really hope to gain?
Me?
Hardly. Or was I being overly modest, like the girls were always telling me?
What could they actually know about me? They might suspect, but there was no way they could really know…was there?
These men were in the spying business, so they undoubtedly had contacts and sources I didn’t. I’d be safe in assuming that they knew at least a little about the spies I’d already caught. So they knew I was good at what I did.
But that wasn’t why they’d made me this offer.
I linked with Sir Malcolm. He was amused, curious and worried. Odd combination. Finch, on the other hand, was disturbed and curious. I think Sir Malcolm’s offer had caught him by surprise.
Okay, so the offer wasn’t a fake…not completely. But it was something more. A test? Yeah, that made sense. But what was being tested? My loyalty? My greed? My stated lack of ambition?
Probably all of the above.
They hadn’t said I’d be given unlimited access to classified information. That was a negative. Being in charge of any publicly recognized organization would limit, if not put and end to, my doing what I did best. And I had more than enough problems about my age and lack of experience in the CIA. How much worse would it be if I were to be put in charge of a foreign agency?
Completely unworkable.
And I was pretty sure my peculiar lifestyle wouldn’t go over well there.
So what was it they really wanted here?
There was too much money and too much honor and glory; too much promise and too little substance. It looked to me like the offer was designed to appeal to your typical young, stupid, vain and ambitious low level civil servant. Jeezus…I hoped they weren’t this obvious when recruiting their stay at home spies.
They obviously wanted me out of their way. Why? Well, that was apparent…even to me. I was interfering with business as usual. And that was one of the reasons I’d agreed to take Dr. Wills’ offer in the first place.
I nodded to myself.
“A very generous offer, Sir Malcolm. Far too generous. Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Are you quite sure?” the old man asked, pleased for some reason, but hiding it well.
Finch didn’t hide his reaction nearly as well. He couldn’t believe I’d turned the ambassador down.
“Quite sure.” I confirmed.
The old man smiled at me, winked and nodded approvingly. He reminded me for an instant right then of Dr. Wills.
“Well then, enough of that.” Richards appeared immediately, Sir Malcolm’s crutches in hand. “Dinner should be ready I think. My wife is looking forward to meeting you.”
I had to admire the man’s politeness. But it made me wonder…would I have to be on the look out for SAS hit squads now?
We were seated in the Ambassador’s private suite after dinner drinking brandy and talking; just Sir Malcolm, his wife Margaret, Ian Finch and his wife Marie.
Margaret was a tall, stately woman, with professionally styled graying black hair and lively brown eyes. I would have guessed she was four or five years younger than Sir Malcolm, if my reading of ‘Who’s Who’ hadn’t told me she was two years his senior. She carried herself with an uneven sort of dignity, half natural and half forced. Looking into her eyes I could feel the pain she lived with. Upon first meeting the woman I was struck by how much she reminded me of my mother, even though the two were nothing alike.
Finch’s wife was a whole other story.
Marie was somewhere between Finch’s age and my own. Almost as tall and thin as Finch himself, she had long flowing blond hair and watery brown blood-shot eyes, hatchet face, complete with an annoyingly upper-crust, high pitched voice and a sharp tongue that the woman was either unwilling or unable to control.
“Malcolm tells me you hunt spies for the CIA, Ike. Do you enjoy that sort of work?” Margaret asked as Sir Malcolm lit her cigarette.
“Not really, ma’am. But I am good at it, and it pays the bills. I think of it as my job, nothing more.”
“Seems a pity to spend your life doing something you don’t enjoy. What do you enjoy?”
I relaxed in the high leather wing-back chair and smiled. “I enjoy spending time with my girls, with my children, reading and learning. I recently obtained my Bachelors degree in Psychology and I’ll start work on my Masters a few months from now.”
“Do you dye your hair, Mr. Blacktower? It’s such a becoming look on you.” Marie interjected.
Marie had been flirting with me all night, and hadn’t bothered to be even a little discrete about it.
No wonder Finch spent so much time in
I’m not convinced that I kept from scowling. “No ma’am, I don’t dye it. Before my first wife was killed it was red. It turned white the day after, or so I was told.”
Margaret frowned in Marie’s direction and discretely tapped the fingers of her left hand against the knuckles of her husband’s, which lay directly beneath. Sir Malcolm shot a harsh look at Marie for a moment.
“Ike if it wouldn’t be giving away professional secrets, how does one go about hunting spies?” Margaret inquired politely.
“Well, I’m not sure I’m the best qualified person to answer that question. Mr. Finch or Sir Malcolm could probably explain it better than I can.”
Sir Malcolm harrumphed just like I’d always imagined an elderly man with a bushy moustache from his country would. I came very close to laughing like a delighted child.
“Ike, if either Ian or I could do such a thing, I would never have made you that offer.”
I smiled gently. “If I were to tell you what I do, you wouldn’t believe me.”
Margaret smiled warmly at me, and from the corner of my eye I saw Finch clamp a hand down hard on his wife’s shoulder.
“Alright. Every day, I take a walk thru different sections and departments of the CIA building, and I watch the people who work there. From time to time I’ll stop walking and start a conversation. Doesn’t matter who I talk to, mostly I’m trying to get an idea about what they do and how they do it. While we talk I look into their eyes and I can tell if they’re lying to me…about anything. The ones who lie, I’ll come back and talk to again. I’ll also talk to their colleagues, supervisors and directors. The more lying there is, especially about foolish things, the more closely I’ll look into their lives and activities.”
I shrugged offhandedly. “That’s the way I do it.”
“No private detectives, wire taps, phone record checks, no searching for paper trails or off-shore accounts? You simply talk to them?” Finch’s tone was derisive.
“I did say you wouldn’t believe me.” I reminded the man.
“How on earth do you expect to get a conviction with out any corroborating evidence?” Sir Malcolm asked me.
“It’s not my job to get a conviction.” I explained. “My job is to find them and get them to
confess. They always confess, so that
isn’t much of a problem.”
“Their solicitors allow them to confess? I was under the impression that in
“Yes, that would be the case…if they’d been arrested by the FBI or a police officer. But I’m not a cop, so there are no lawyers and no Miranda rights. They talk to me, I talk to them and they confess. Simple. And I can tell if they lie, so once I have a confession the only question left to answer is what to do with them. At first I left that up to Dr. Wills, since I work for him. But lately he’s been dropping the decision back into my lap. All part of my training, I suppose.”
“You don’t arrest your suspected spies?” Finch was stunned.
“Not legally, no. As I said before, I’m not a cop. I’m a spy-hunter.”
“And they always confess?” Margaret asked.
“Yes ma’am. Always.”
“You torture them?” Marie finally broke back into the conversation, wincing as Finch gripped her shoulder tighter.
“Not like you mean.”
“Then how?” The woman just wouldn’t let it go.
I eased forward, sitting on the front edge of the chair and stared hard into her greedy, blood-shot eyes.
“Would you like me to show you?” I rasped, feeling the flames rising behind my eyes.
“Oh yes! Please!” she husked, a thin sheen of sweat broke out across her forehead and her upper chest.
I looked up at Finch, who simply gave me a Gallic shrug, using hands and shoulders in concert.
I turned my head towards Sir Malcolm and Margaret.
“Go right ahead, dear boy. You’ve roused my curiosity.” Sir Malcolm insisted.
I got to my feet, took the requisite number of steps and sat down on the ottoman in front of Marie Finch.
I held out my right hand, palm up and fingers extended. “Give me your hand.” I commanded the woman.
She eagerly placed her clammy hand in mine; grinning in what I’m sure she thought was a seductive manner.
I linked with the woman and was repulsed by the sudden rush of unbridled lust. Riding the crest of that lust were competing emotions of greed, disappointment, resentment and bitterness. The woman was a mess, and it had taken quite a while for her to get to where she was that night.
I started out by draining her emotions and then forced layers of trust mixed with admiration and love back in to take their place. Her watery eyes cleared slightly and became more focused.
I painted a smile on. “Alright Marie, tell me about yourself…”
An hour later, Finch escorted Marie out, helping her back to their quarters. Once he put her to bed I had a feeling he’d be paying a call on Yvonne.
I shut the door behind the retreating pair and returned to my seat across from Sir Malcolm and his wife.
“How in the world did you get her to tell you those things? Hypnosis?” Margaret was urgent with her questions.
“No, not hypnosis, not drugs and as you saw, no torture. It’s just something I can do.”
Sir Malcolm shifted uncomfortably next to his wife. His eyes were glassy and seemed to me to be looking into the past.
“Knew a girl once,” he began softly, “during my time in the Vietnamese Highlands. What was her name? Tran…no, Thuy (he pronounced it ‘Twee’). Thuy Fan she said her name was. Yes…fascinating young woman. She claimed to be able to tell if a person was lying. Said she could read the truth in their eyes. The local ARVN commander would bring her with them while making their rounds looking for VC infiltrators. He swore she was never wrong.”
“Do you know what happened to her?” I wondered.
Sir Malcolm forcibly pulled himself back from the past and
shook his head. “Last I remember hearing
was that they’d been ambushed. Major Tieu was killed and Thuy Fan was badly wounded. There was a story going around at the time
that she had a high ranking lover and that he’d smuggled her out of the country
just before
“What do they mean Malcolm?” Margaret was surprised. I suppose that after all these years it came as a bit of a pleasant shock to discover that there was a story you hadn’t heard before.
He turned his head and gazed lovingly at the woman sitting next to him. “Haven’t the foggiest. Not Vietnamese, that much I know. Thuy did say that her father was a Chinese soldier, so could well be Chinese. Haven’t thought about Thuy Fan or her bai long for years. Curious, eh?”
Yes…wasn’t it just.
Margaret Rhys-Jones escorted me downstairs, as Sir Malcolm had fallen sound asleep after finishing his fourth brandy of the evening.
I glanced down at the woman who held my arm, wondering what she’d looked like in her youth. She was close to Izzy’s height even then. She’d probably been even taller as a young woman, with long, silky, glossy black hair. Probably quite the babe in the 1950s and 60s, Margaret was still in very good shape and moved with an easy grace.
“One of my girls,” I began carefully, “Lilly, lost two children not long after they were born. We met in the hospital. I was there waiting to be released from the army, but Lilly was there because she’d tried to commit suicide. She felt a tremendous amount of guilt over losing her children.”
Margaret looked up at me and frowned slightly. “Her husband?”
I shook my head. “He blamed her. Told her it was all her fault.”
“Bastard!” the elegant woman at my side swore with real feeling.
“Yeah, well…I helped her get rid of the pain she carried. Helped her to see that it wasn’t her fault.”
“How?” she asked simply.
“The same way I could help you. If you’ll let me.”
We stopped half way down the formal stairway and the woman craned her neck to look up into my eyes. She raised one hand and touched my cheek.
“Your skin is so much like my son’s.” she whispered. Her fingers pulled away and brushed the hair next to my face. “His hair was the very same color.”
I nodded. “But not the eyes.”
“No. His were pink.”
She took hold of my arm and we continued back down. “For such a large man, you have a most gentle nature. You give off an aura of understanding and sensitivity that one rarely sees in men.”
I chuckled. “My girls have said similar things. But only when they aren’t angry with me for doing, or saying, something unforgivably masculine.”
She nodded her understanding and gave me a quick smile.
“I should apologize for Malcolm and Ian’s little game. I trust you understand they meant no offense.”
I don’t know why it should have surprised me that Sir Malcolm’s wife would have known about that earlier bit of business, but it did.
“No need to apologize. I imagine they concocted it together with Dr. Wills. He probably figured that it would be to my advantage for people he trusted make the first play. This way word will get ‘round that I’m not for sale, and it’ll be believed. I could tell people the same thing till I was blue in the face and no one would listen to a word I said. But if Sir Malcolm and Mr. Finch tell them...”
“Beautiful, sensitive and clever. Are your girls younger or older?”
I knew what she was asking. “They’re all four years older than I am.”
She sighed wistfully. “Which means you are also a talented lover. Young man, is there anything you don’t excel at?”
“Many things. But I try not to let on. Maintaining the illusion of perfection is a full time job.” I said, sighing theatrically.
When we reached the bottom of the staircase, Margaret Rhys-Jones released my arm and turned to face me.
“Could you help me?” Her words were hopeful and pleading.
“Yes.” I took her hand in mine and walked her over to one of the large settees that were scattered around the walls and we sat down side by side. “It’s going to hurt some, but it won’t last, I promise. This is one of the things I enjoy most and do best.”
Margaret smiled confidently up at me as I put my arm around her frail shoulders and held her snugly against my side.
When I got home that night the girls gathered around, wanting to know how things had gone.
“You are not going to believe what happened to me today…”