That message duly sent and received, he settled into forwarding the task of securing the tranquility of his mercurial and sensitive wife, until he could figure out how to proceed with his principal appointed task – that of an ex-Colonel working in questionable collaboration with a likewise rogue ex-General, to subdue dangerous windmills. No doubt thankless work.
XXVIII
Idyllic Days
The return to a sex life was sweet and satisfying – that supple back, top to bottom, warm, wet kisses…Felicia would be the more-than perfect wife, in particular for a proud and prestigious top-flight Air Force officer in full enjoyment of his super-active potentiating war zone command posting. Now? He loved her more than he’d ever loved anyone.
But, he’d changed, and he recognized the rigors of his situation, no stranger either to the mounting price of his more straight-arrow estrangement from the military’s latter-day re-purposing.
Still, he savored the handful of sweet days until the dispatch regarding his first, brief ‘FIB’ wild goose chase arrived, and two weeks hence, the date of the fateful first radio interview with General Montmoracy, heralding, by bitter steps, misfortune and certain loss – neither his desire.
The idyllic days of a Florida spring floated by like a lazy cloud of a rare dream at the little compound on the quiet, swampy Gulf-side edge of town. They two of them wore their slippers until noon, quaffed lemonade, then strawberries and cheesecake by day, sipped gin in the screened porch by moonlight, walked to Bailey’s on the Boardwalk for coconut-flavored ice cream every placid and sun-drenched afternoon, exchanging banal pleasantries over fences with neighbors all the way up to Main. And once or twice, he rowed them, in his good little boat, she in her sun-bonnet and sleeveless, out to the sand reef past the breakers to see the bright-colored myriad of little fish darting and mingling in the rolling clear as glass inter-tide. They smiled hand in hand, drawing love from the One Great Heart that surely nurtured and protected them on those fleeting days from the ever-present larger world beyond. All just as they remembered.
That is, until the dread, purloined master list arrived and, for them both, broke the spell.
It was huge. 1,149 loose, thick pages of undifferentiated small black print, names upon names, divided by department. The double-sealed, thrice-bound package weighed 19 pounds.
What to do with it? What to do with it? He quickly hid it under their bed. Then, thinking, he yelled to Felicia, who was in the shower, that he was going to the hardware store – he didn’t say why. Regretting, he retrieved and shouldered the whole loosed bundle and trundled it out to his Dodge Caravan.
Parking in the hardware store lot, he ran the armload, protecting it against a rising wind, across the street to the city library, where he could spread it out on an empty table. His blood pressure must have spiked when, one minute after his arrival, Peleg Johnson made a beeline over from the stacks and asked what he was doing.
“Tax stuff,” he answered. “What brings you here?”
“Modern art. They have a surprisingly good collection.”
“Do you paint?” Colonel Alva looked askance, protecting the sheaves from view. “Dabble in it. You must have a hell of a lot of tax problems.”
“I wouldn’t say that. Did the new generator work out?”
“Naw. I had to send it back. They always send the wrong part, it seems like.”
“I know what you mean. Nobody reads anything anymore.”
“You got that right. Hey, if you need any help going through all of … that…”
“No, I think I got a bead on it. Show me some of that modern art collection sometime, will you?”
“Sure.”
Silence.
“Look. It’s nice to run into you, but I’m in kind of a hurry. On a tight schedule these days.”
“OK. I understand. See ya.”
“See ya.”
In private again, Colonel Alva Crystal thought for a minute, trying to remember the “clue” he’d been given. “Ah, that’s it,” he finally said to himself. “’Spreads fear! How could I have forgotten that?”
“Spreads fear. Spreads fear, hmmm, spreads fear.” He started to rifle through the sea of names from top to bottom on page 1, still not catching the drift.
Then he remembered that the listing was broken down into sections, or departments, and decided that his quarry, if such existed, might most likely be a head, or sub-head, of a division, department, whatever, having been at the agency a while to stand out in former agent Fred Geselle’s memory.
It was just an educated hunch. But he could always go back and start plowing through the vast mountain of names from the top if it didn’t pan out. So, he started back through, only looking at the top two names, occasionally three or four, the head and assistant or named assistants of each of the 47 departments, divisions, or sections, muttering repeatedly, “spreads fear, spreads fear, spreads fear, hmmm…, hmmmm…” as he went.
On page 416, the second name from the top in Section 15 caught his attention: “’Fred Spear’. ‘Spreads Fear’. – Fred Spear – that’s it! That’s got to be the man – at least, you’d think!” he exulted. “
Fred Spear! Fred Spear! Who is Fred Spear? ‘Vice Agency Chief, Department of International Liaisons’. Department’s not quite right-sounding, but that could be deception. A man with such a handle has got to be the perpetrator Geselle fingered, because it fits uniquely with the provided clue,– if, that is, the theorized operation can be proven to exist. Spreads fear – Fred Spear, that’s a clever clue!”
He quickly Googled the name at a nearby computer – nothing.
XXIX
Falls The Hammer
Driving home, ex-Colonel Alva Crystal encountered Felicia out in the yard, staring holes in him as he pulled up. Wisely, he left the big loose bundle of papers in the car, stuffed under the seat.
“Where were you?” Felicia fairly wailed, her arms lifted and hands flailing resignedly at her sides.
“I told you I was going to the hardware store.”
“You did? And for what?”
“Why are you asking? I needed some new drill bits. Remember? I broke off the two I had drilling into the beams putting up your clock.”
“You didn’t tell me you were going,” she said. “Besides, why did it take you two and a half hours? I was beside myself here.”
The Colonel looked at his watch. “Oh, my gosh…” He had completely lost track of the time.
“And you know what, you’re lying to me.”
He looked at her, perplexed, pleading, then looked down, in remorse.
“When I came out here to look for you, I saw Peleg Johnson coming home,” she said, “and he told me he saw you in the library doing some tax stuff.”
“Well, that, too.”
“Tax work in May? We sent it in two months ago. Alva Crystal, you are up to something. Something no good, I surmise. And I’m not going to stand for it.”
“Felicia, please…”
“No, Sir. I don’t know what it is. But you’re walking a fine line now. I won’t be lied to.” With tears and sighs, she then sent Ludmilla home early and served bagels and cream cheese for supper.
The next day, she took the Caravan to the hairdresser’s and, trying to put her over-sized purse under the seat, discovered the evidence.
In the meantime, Colonel Crystal quietly called Mr. Giselle to ask for more on Fred Spear.
“I can’t help you any further,” came the stony reply. “Why? I want to live.” Then a click and a dial tone.
* * *
Felicia reminded him twice in the next day of that purely imagined episode of him mail-ordering an emerald ring for another woman, and he realized again that she would never accept his denial, that he had never seen the ring in question and there was no other woman. But he refrained from asking if she was off her meds again. This time, it brought him to sighs and really, close to tears. Was the thankless path he had chosen worth it? Why not just play along?
Navigating Very Thin Ice
Over the next few days, nothing was said of the dust-up and the situation seemed to return to a tentative normal.
Alva Crystal had conferred sparingly with ex-General Montmoracy, by email and phone, about strategy and the content of their message, and when the day and time of their first radio interview foray was set, a way forward presented itself.
This first interview, shoehorned in before the Ed Tidrick on-air date pre-set, was to be with Rick Lafferty, a former state assistant attorney general in Pennsylvania, on the highly-rated Truth Digger Ratio Network – which promised to be a downhill sort of warmup interview, friendly to their point of view. And the time, 1:30 p.m. Eastern, coincided nicely with Felicia’s daily afternoon nap.
So, at 1:28, Alva, carrying his cell-phone, slipped out the back way and walked over to sit on the ornate stone bench next to the iron-mesh fence that ran across the back of the lot.
The three-way interview, to go to some thirty-five-hundred true-blue internet subscribers, went smoothly, with Alva letting Montmoracy make the initial points, coming in himself to add emphasis and occasional details. Rick Lafferty, sounding a bit incredulous of what he was hearing from the two high-caliber guests, high-ranking ex-military men, trashing the modus operandi and raison-d’être of the sainted and sacrosanct U.S. Department of Defense – that it was blatantly, violently imperialistic, rather than justifiably providing for the common defense, as required in the Constitution. “So, what are you two top-level Air Force commanders, in the field not all that long ago, telling us? Let me see if I’ve got this right – if Marine General Smedley S. Butler, in the ‘30s, was correct about the U.S. military being at the command of a plutocratic elite, with an agenda at odds with that of the American people, and manipulative of public opinion – and he was – then it is unworthy of the public’s sacrifice or even tolerance. You suggest that our military attacks and kills essentially indiscriminately, often where it shouldn’t even be in the first place, by international law, and, for that, receives uncritical bravo treatment from the American and western press to make it look like they are winning, and should always win – regardless. The truth and the real objectives, even the identity of the terrorist ‘allies’ – are concealed, because that could make people angry and support could plummet. Is that about it?”
“That is it – practically to the letter, affirmed the ex-General. “And we have the recent experience of the Middle Eastern wars and their gross misrepresentation to the home front to amply illustrate that tragic conclusion. Because commanders in the field either are fooled, don’t really care, sadly, or because they can’t comment, just go along. We, on the other hand, can tell about that particular disastrous misadventure.”
“That’s pretty much it,” ex-Colonel Alva Crystal agreed. “A thousand true anecdotes we know affirm it.
“OK. So, then, what should folks do, if they seriously agree with you and want to really do something positive?”
“Well, they should probably, first off, stop using that knee-jerk phrase, ‘support our troops’ as a catch-all for blind obedience. Especially when our wars of recent decades have mainly brought grief and largely foolish, crippling expense and not improved our conditions or anyone’s, except perhaps big investors and arms industry workers who don’t produce anything but death machines.
“There’s no reason I can see why any of us should support the elimination of whole families of uninvolved innocents just trying to live their lives in the Middle East going forward, or anywhere, for that matter, or destroy their homes or homelands – regardless of what they believe. There are instances in the thousands of all that, documented or credibly alleged by eye-witnesses.
“Why can’t we just go home where we belong and leave them to deal with all that among themselves, far removed from our meddling? That’s our core message. “OK, I get it – do we actually believe what we believe, or don’t we believe what we preach?” The interviewer laughs. “All persons created equal. A decent respect for the opinions of all mankind. Or are we mere charlatans, preachy pirates all in modern dress?”
“The public needs to be better informed, that there exists more than a single rational point of view in the world, so they can discern and decide for themselves and an objectively better way of looking at things that doesn’t involve violence as a first resort, that’s for sure,” Montmoracy interjected.
“Which used to be what we called ‘democracy’,” Colonel Alva added, “whether a discerning public was ever permitted to wisely decide these matters for itself or not. It was an ideal worth maintaining.” The end of the hour arrived, and Rick Lafferty’s tone changed subtly, seeming to avoid taking ownership of remarks he perceived to be controversial, and likely condemning of himself by association in the minds of some. He ended it by saying simply, “Well. all right! And thank you to our two guests, Colonel Alva Crystal, Air Force, retired, and ex-General A.F. Montmoracy, Air Force, also retired, for presenting an interesting and thoughtful alternative point of view for us to chew on. No time for call-in questions today. The time has gone by much too fast. Good-bye for now. I hope to see y’ all back here tomorrow!”
At that instant, Colonel Alva glanced up to behold Felicia standing balefully before him, scowling, hands on hips.
XXXI
Roosting Chickens
“Your uncle – this man,” Felicia droned to Colby, pointing straight at Colonel Crystal, her husband. “This man has thanked the U.S. military that lifted him up into a man – and set him up for life as a respected figure – he gave all of that up, and what did he do? This Colonel Crystal, your glorious, illustrious uncle, Colby, thanked this wonderful country that gave him everything he ever had with… scorn! With total disrespect! With nitpicking lies and vitriol, and…”
At this point, she just shook her head and, tears welling, flounced away.
Colby’s eyes met Colonel Alva’s, looking alarmed; then Alva lurched to catch up with his wife before her dismay exploded into something much worse, possibly even dangerous.
She turned all spiky cold resistance when he reached her and elbowed him surprisingly painfully below the ribs.
He sighed and let her go and slunk away to his hammock.
* * *
In the first days, she didn’t come back from wherever it was that she went.
About noon the very next day after his wife’s departure, Colonel Crystal received the first phone call he had gotten from his sister, Margaret, in years.
Margaret didn’t waste words. “You really made a mash of things again, didn’t you, Alvie?” she said, scorn and vinegar dripping from her mouth, too. “Mom would sure be proud of you. And now, you’re going to lose that southern fried little twinkie of yours, too, mark my words.”
“Margaret! Butt out!”
“Oh, no, I’m not even going to butt in. But I don’t appreciate the head-job you’ve done on Colby.”
“What?”
“I asked him to come home and help me, because I hadn’t seen him, or scarcely even heard from him, in months; in fact, since he headed down there to try to help you sort out your… follies. Well, I guess it was beyond him, you were. So, are you going to let him come home?” Now, she was shouting.
“What? I didn’t…”
“Look, bro – you had it all handed to you, compliments of the United States Air Force. And now you trashed all that. I feel so frickin’ sorry for you!”
XXXII
Bummer Dreams
Felicia was all packed up and gone back to her mother in Charlotte two days after the blow-up. She spoke a single word in a syllable-and-a-half when she left: “G’-bye.”
* * *
Colonel Alva slept fitfully or not at all for days. He received not a word from Charlotte.
Once when he had finally drifted off sometime after the second day, he dreamed he was back in Iraq, flying solo on a bombing run, and suddenly found himself on the ground, injured amidst the wreckage of
his plane, with blue smoke pouring out and out and out, endlessly – but somehow, that didn’t affect him.
A kind Iraqi family, a soft, quiet man exuding good and his tender wife, two little boys and their sister, still a cooing, laughing babe in arms, showed up amid all the billowing smoke, in rags head to foot. Together, they bore him to their home, where they fed and attended to his needs and a local doctor arrived to patch him up.
In the middle of this more-than-heartening occurrence, a huge bomb landed directly on the house, pulverizing its occupants with an earth-shatterin thunder-boom following an enormous blinding blue-white flash of light. And only he seemed to remain amid the endless plumes of smoke. Before his eyes recovered focus, he began to see figures moving – at first, he clearly recognized individual soldiers and airmen he knew who had perished, and then, long-dead members of his family going back to his earliest childhood and toddler days, all swirling unseeing around him. Except for one uncle, his favorite, who he’d lost at 7 or 8, who came and knelt in front of him just as he remembered, and spoke three muffled words: “This is Valhalla” before vanishing.
He awoke, shaken as usual, bitter and aching in his gut, and vowed audibly: “Never again. Never. Never. Never. Never again. Never.”
XXXIII
The Vow
Stumbling out of bed, Colonel Alva made a solemn vow to the universe: Whatever he could do toward promoting knowledge and adherence to the list, to the notion of Defense Only it led to, he would do, come what may. The potential charge of “selling out” had suddenly come to carry a different meaning, no longer meaning fellows or peers: Selling out who? Selling out what? He vowed not to betray or suspend or dismiss or sell out his conscience, ever again.
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