THE PRICE SHE'LL PAY: For the secret she never knew she had...

by Cara Charles

  - Charles Larsen”

  Mac and Iain smiled.

  Iain admired Charles Larsen.“That’s a man I’d like to meet. He’d be in his nineties if he were alive.”

  “Were we ever like Charles? I’ll bet intell was hard for him,” Mac said.

  “Hard for most of them, I think. They were all innocent and idealistic like Charles. The boomer generation gave re-birth to idealism. Look at Sam and Elise Larsen. They carried on this love.”

  Iain scanned more documents and found one from the War Office. “Here’s a letter from Ike, on his personal stationery.” Iain read it aloud for Mac.

  “10 November 1944

  TO THE SSO:

  Charles Larsen is from the Heartland of America. He is a proud son of Danish immigrants who had loved America so much they created a small town and took part in local government. Charles’s father, Peter Larsen became the beloved Howard County Sheriff then County Judge until his passing.

  Judge Peter Larsen was a friend of my father’s and mine. Peter was a good man, a Danish immigrant who became a true American. I’ve known Charles since he was a boy. He grew into a good man, like his father.

  Judge Larsen died from kidney failure when Charles was nineteen, on the day he was graduating from Business College. Charles lost his mother a few years later at age 25, just before shipping out to Ridgewell. He is very close to his older brothers and sisters.

  Charles promised his father he would honor the family name and make something of himself and love America.

  Charles Larsen will be a great asset to our team.

  I highly recommend Charles for any classified intelligence assignment he chooses. I encourage you to persuade him to join the Intelligence group immediately after he’s had a long deserved rest.

  Let’s give him a chance to follow his dream of becoming a doctor.

  If that doesn’t work out for him, contact him to join us.

  -- Eisenhower”

  Iain continued, “His idealism was challenged here. I can feel it. He may have accompanied Ike to view the atrocities. Ike also knew Charles wanted out of active duty, in spite of their association. It’s here in Ike’s own hand. Charles’s dream was stronger than further duty. When an idealist is disillusioned, he finds a new cause then digs in to right a wrong. The things they were doing for American interests became increasingly raw post war, all too soon the lessons of the war were lost. The lines between right and wrong blended every year. They’d hate our current life.”

  Mac said, “I wonder if Charles ever knew his college papers were here. When a student like Charles writes from the heart, they never expect their personal papers would be in a file to be used against them one day.”

  “Here’s another paper entitled “The Two Americas,” Iain scanned the document. “This is where his idealism is turned, Mac. Charles’s disillusionment began to bloom in Washington D.C. when he saw how African-Americans were so brutally mistreated, he wrote. Quote…

  “I’d never been amongst any people of color before. Nebraska was Little Denmark with a little of Germany and Poland thrown in. I’d gotten a reputation amongst my fraternity brothers for being the first to silence anyone who would say a racial slur. D.C. is still the South I’ve learned, but in spite of the disgraceful racial hatred culture of the South, I refuse to stand by and allow this disrespect of these brave American people of African, Asian, Latin or Native American decent who volunteered to die abroad for the very liberties we are denying them at home.”

  “Wow, Charles really embodies the ideal of America,” Mac said admiration growing for this young man.

  “He really does. Here’s another composition. Charles wrote…”

  “I’ve gotten to know Otis, the night janitor who cleans the offices of my floor in the Treasury building. With quiet dignity Otis attends to his duties, never looking up from his work except to find he wasn’t alone some nights. I’d be there doing my homework using my typewriter. I smiled and introduced myself. We told stories of our childhood. I told him my father’s story. We bonded over our mutual struggles.

  It was Otis who insisted he share his meager but tasty meals with me. In turn, I would bring him Bean Soup from the Senate Cafeteria in my thermos. It touched me that Otis trusted me enough to share his food with me every time we worked together.

  Soon, knowing Otis helped me bridge the shyness of the other night workers. After breaking their reserve and truly enjoying their company, it was easier to get to know the servers in the buffet lines, the bus drivers, the doormen, the conductors, and cabdrivers. They were shocked at first that I was taking an interest in them as friends.

  I have learned so much from their approach to life. They made the most of life when they could, and they laughed a lot. They reminded me of my father. Once they got to know me through Otis and grew to trust me, we laughed like old friends. They taught me how to have fun in spite of hard times or a heavy heart.

  We’d make a party of it. We shared our food on Tuesday and Thursday nights. We’d have a nice buffet and good times. Soon they invited me over on the weekends to hear jazz.

  Do I love jazz! I have a new set of friends to laugh with. I feel as close to them as if they were my own family, sometimes closer.

  While typing government documents I learned about racial policies that I wished I’d never known about. FDR, a man I admired since I was fifteen, is too slow to improve segregation. Mrs. Roosevelt pushes her husband and his cabinet hard to change injustice and is a source of irritation to the F.B.I. especially, J. Edgar Hoover. But in spite of these powerful men, the newspapers and the people love her. She is making progress in race relations.

  From Otis and his friends, I’ve learned how hard life is if you are a man or woman of color and from my typing assignments, how much longer they would have to endure. In FDR’s town the District was still the South, still just a step above slavery and Jim Crow. On weekends I take buses to Otis’s side of town to visit. I am shocked and sashamed at the differences I find.

  When I finally earned vacation, I said I wanted to visit the Civil War battlegrounds to get Otis to come with me. Otis hadn’t seen his mother in twenty years. That is how I got him to visit his mother. Otis would have refused the money, otherwise.

  Their reunion is one I’ll never forget. Life in the South was as foreign as any poor country. People were living in shacks, they had no running water or indoor facilities. Many had no shoes.

  I wanted to see the school he went to. They had a few books, but nothing basically. I watched Otis look at the ground when white men and white women would walk by him. I asked him if this was normal and he said it was always done this way.

  ‘Best not to act too uppity,’ he said. ‘Best to watch your feet instead of watching them twist in the wind from a tree top.’

  While we were there I helped his family cut down a cousin who had been lynched by the KKK. I wanted to do something about his senseless killing. Otis forced me to ‘let it be or else we’d all be killed, especially me.’

  This was America? I learned there were two Americas that day.

  America of the whites and the America the people of color are allowed to live in. I hope in my lifetime something significant changes, because this is not the America we idealize, or the America that should exist under FDR or any President. Why are we so slow to evolve as human beings?

  Now I understand the fount from which Mrs. Eleanor draws.

  -- Charles Larsen”

  “So that’s our scar Mac, and he hasn’t even been to war yet.” Iain looked at Mac.

  “I’m proud of him already. I need a few zz’s before we land,” Mac yawned and closed his eyes. He was out of practice with the adrenalin rush.

  Iain read on.

  Charles steadily made career progress. He’d gotten a new job with the Treasury Department as an agent and was close to graduating from GWU. In early 1944 Charles was about to be drafted. He found this out from a girlfriend, so he enlisted and was taken in as an officer.r />
  Charles, a part-time pre-med student at George Washington University reluctantly made a successful career out of the service. Charles had almost three years of pre-med under his belt by the time he was drafted. In addition to his science aptitude Charles was a gifted mathematician. During basic and pilot training, the Army aptitude tests said Charles had reliability skills. The Army surprised him and made him a navigator after flight school graduation instead of a pilot.

  Charles flew in D-Day with his crew, who made it home safely after V-E Day. Charles was one of a handful of navigators to receive the Silver Oak Leaf Cluster War Medal for missions flown above the required number of thirty-five. Thirty-five missions were documented, but Charles had letters in his file from his 8th Army Air Corps, 381st, 534 Bombing Squadron in Ridgewell, England, saying Charles had volunteered for many extra missions, which included flying General Eisenhower until war’s end. Charles also received the DFC. Eisenhower honored Charles by choosing him as his personal navigator. Charles finished the war at General Eisenhower’s side.

  Charles attended USC on the G.I. bill, finishing his pre-med degree in Zoology. He graduated with honors. Many G.I.s tried to get into medical school. Charles received only one medical school interview back at George Washington University, his former university. Charles took the train back to D.C., and had his interview. Because he hadn’t had any previous experience in medicine, not a father, or an uncle to give him this experience they said, he was not offered a slot in the freshman class. Charles had performed well for these professors, yet it made no difference and it broke his spirit. He didn’t know he was being groomed to come back into the service.

  Discouraged, broken, and confused Charles came back to L.A. to paint houses with his brother Henry. He could have gone back to USC Masters program in film directing, his other love, but he was so angry, he didn’t attend his own graduation. He was discouraged for a long time. Then, he met a spitfire of a younger woman from Santa Barbara, a runway model for a high-end department store. A young woman that made him laugh, made him feel passion and joy again. He fell in love.

  Charles re-joined the new Air Force, and they married on the way to his new assignment in Albuquerque.

  The new Air Force had been recruiting many WWII vets, young seasoned officers who had had their post-war career hopes dashed after college graduation. Charles could go back in without loss of time out for school and at his former rank and fly bombers as a navigator in the new Strategic Air Command. They promised him a future intelligence slot, knowing German because of Pre-Med. They sent him to language school at Syracuse University for two years to learn Russian. They tested him in SAC. He was restless and they knew it. So into intelligence he went. He was assigned to the furthermost outpost in Japan. Within a year, away from his family who were still stateside, he was finally ready for his assignment, commander of the most sensitive satellite surveillance post in the Far East, the Air Force Special Project Organization. They kept him for an unusual double tour of eight years.

  Years later, Charles became a new father to Sam and ten years later to Elise.

  Charles’s file then became impersonal. Listing of assignments and missions Charles flew as a navigator. After separation, he consulted with Langley and the new NSA, in a middle management position, yet he held the highest security clearance, which restricted him from free travel. Iain knew that was the give-away, the security clearance. When files became vague Iain knew there was much to hide. Those files he would leave alone. He wouldn’t call in favors to light up his trail.

  Iain looked out the window at the clouds and closed his eyes. The drone of the engines lulled him into an alpha state. Trained to coordinate obscure details, Iain waited as the information found footing and revealed the pathway.

  By design, Charles Larsen had made sure no one in the future, including people with access to his history, people like Iain would ever know what secret he and a trusted psychiatrist friend were forced to lock deep inside his young daughter, Elise.

  CHAPTER SIX — OUT OF THE MOUTH OF BABES

  DECADES EARLIER

  THE BRILLIANT CALIFORNIA WINTER MORNING started off with four year old Elise excitedly waking her Daddy.

  “Look out the window, Daddy,” Elise said, bright with joy.

  Elise ran outside and waited for him to come to the picture window. She hopped on the Moss boys’ new Christmas bike and rode around the driveway, as if she’d been riding without training wheels for months. Charles and Sam ran out the front door as she rode down the street. Charles and Sam cheered her on.

  “She’s been working hard on this secret for you, Dad. Watch out for traffic!” Sam yelled.

  “Go Ellie! Wow honey. It’s time for you to have your own big bike. Right dear?”

  His wife joined them in her robe as Elise rode up the driveway to them.

  “I’m ready for a big girl’s bike now, right Mommy?”

  “Lovely darling. Yes, you can have a big girl’s bike. Mommy’s cold. I’ll watch from the window.”

  “Let’s get breakfast and be at the bike store when it opens.” Charles says.

  “Oh Daddy, thank you. Sammie said I’m not too little anymore.”

  “No you aren’t, circus girl!” Sam said. Elise jumped into Sam’s arms and he rumpled her hair.

  Charles carried her in to make her strawberry pancakes.

  ON THE WAY out the door, an hour later, Charles received a call from Brad Moss to meet him at their office near LAX. A courier would be there in an hour. Charles would take four year old Elise to the office like he always did. They’d explore the downtown bike stores that would have a bigger selection of bikes after the meeting with Brad.

  TO PASS the time waiting on the courier, Charles took Elise to the roof where the satellite and incinerator were. She liked to watch the planes take off and land from LAX.

  Brad called to Charles, “the courier has arrived from Indian Wells.” They went back inside.

  In the Courier’s briefcase, handcuffed to his wrist were two ‘EYES ONLY’ envelopes for Charles and Brad from the Indian Wells office of former President Eisenhower.

  The courier, a Captain was a former full back for Notre Dame and his two M.P. escorts with side arms drawn meant, the pouch was hot. The Captain handed each man an envelope with an instruction sheet to be read simultaneously.

  As per instructions, they read the coded sequences to each other. Inside the pouch, there was a letter to Charles in Ike’s handwriting. It was to be opened later in private, then immediately destroyed.

  The Captain nodded as Charles caught his eye while Brad was busy reading. Charles looked up to make sure Brad hadn’t seen him retrieve it. Brad smiled, not masking anything. Charles wondered if he had the same letter. Charles and Brad read their classified material.

  On the roof, they incinerated the letters immediately after reading, under the watchful eye of the serious courier and his escorts.

  The Captain holstered his side arm and saluted the men and left with his flanking M.P.s.

  INSIDE, Elise had been drawing and coloring on her yellow legal pad at her father’s desk. She’d drawn remarkably accurate pictures of a Green and Silver Schwinn bicycle from a magazine ad. With multiple versions of her drawings, she’d run to show him each one upon completion, beaming with pride.

  Brad commented, “Remarkable likeness. She has a gift. Nice work, Ellie!”

  “Looks that way. Great job, honey,” Charles said, ready to refocus again.

  “Thank you so much,” Elise imitated her mother. She curtsied and ran to her empty pad.

  Charles was preoccupied with the new map projection he had just put up on the wall. He said to Elise, “draw Daddy something big, my big bike rider. By the time you finish your big picture, we’ll be ready to go get that new Green bike for my incredibly smart, sweet little girl.”

  Charles said this with the intent her new assignment would limit the interruptions so he and Brad could concentrate. Charles succeeded.


  CHAPTER SEVEN -- OH, MY SWEET DARLING

  ON THE DRIVE to the bike store Elise was leaning on her Daddy watching the odometer turn.

  “You made some very nice drawings today, honey.”

  “I’ve got the big one to show you. Look Daddy.”

  Elise ceremoniously turned back the page on the legal pad. Connected by scotch tape, she unfolded panoramic pages of the map they’d projected on the wall, draping it across their laps.

  It took Charles a minute to take his eyes off the traffic. When he glanced at it and it registered, Charles’s smile dropped off his face. He pulled over to the side of the road, shoved the car into park before it had completely stopped and with such aggression, Elise knew she’d done something very wrong.

  Charles was shaking and it terrified her.

  “What is this, honey?” he asked smiling, trying to keep the shock out of his voice, as he gently took the map from her.

  Elise noticed immediately. She was very good at reading him, and was shaking now. She wouldn’t look at him. She took the map from him and tried to fold up the pages, but he stopped her and unfolded them.

  “These are hiding places for Eve. I’m sure I didn’t get anything wrong. Did I Daddy? Did I get something wrong?” Elise closed her eyes then, opened them and scanned her drawing. “Everything is correct.”

  “Yes it is. Tell me more.” Charles was dumfounded. It was a perfect copy.

  “Oh Daddy. It’s a long story. I just want to go and get my new bike now, please? I’ll tell you her story after my bath. I want to tell it to Sam and Mommy, too.”

  Charles could feel sweat forming on his lip, “Well honey. I’m sorry, but you can’t because what is on this map is a secret only for officers. Little children aren’t allowed into Daddy’s office if they can remember grown-up government secrets. Sam can’t come in because he can read and remember these very important secrets. I didn’t know you could read. I had no idea you were listening. I had no idea you can remember what you see in such detail and draw it so accurately. If this map were discovered to have left the office, the President and President Eisenhower would send Daddy to jail. So let’s keep this story, this important secret story, and this secret map just between us only, please? You don’t want the Presidents to be mad at Daddy, do you?”