The Jake Fonko Series: Books 1 - 3

by B. Hesse Pflingger

  “I can’t tell you all the details, but I helped out a Chinese trader in Cambodia, and that was how he repaid me.”

  “In Cambodia? Interesting. What’s his name?”

  “Actually, he’s from Hong Kong. I only know him as Mr. Poon.”

  Evanston’s eyes narrowed to laser-beams and creases cleaved his forehead. “Did you say ‘Mr. Poon from Hong Kong’?”

  “That’s what he told me. You act like you’ve heard of him. There must be a thousand traders in Hong Kong named Poon.”

  “That may be, but there’s only one Mr. Poon of Hong Kong. When he walks down the street in Wanchai, the triads cross over to the other side! He’s the only one who’d be doing that level of business in Cambodia these days. Jake, how could you get tangled up with that barracuda?”

  “Gee, I don’t know. He seemed like a nice enough guy to me. What’s the problem?”

  Evanston eased back in his chair and took generous gulp from his glass. “I guess I’ve never told you much about what I do. I’m a specialist in international law. What that means is, I advise people from overseas—businessmen, politicians and so forth—on legal matters here in the States. The American legal system is a puzzle to foreigners. Hell, it’s a puzzle to Americans too, that’s why we have so many lawyers. I’m pretty good at it, if I do say so, and the people I advise are happy to pay proud fees. They do big business here, you see, and as healthy as my fees are, they’re just drops in some rather vast buckets. One of my clients had a go-around with Poon and came out a bit bruised, that’s all. I’d be on Poon’s side if he hired me, but the other guy did. It’s neither here nor there. I was just surprised you knew him, that’s all. Damn small world we live in,” he reflected and took another sip. “Is that all the money you brought back?”

  The way he said it made me think he knew it wasn’t. Actually, I needed some legal advice about that check Sonarr gave me. “No. Also, my, er, last employer gave me a government check by way of, um, severance pay. However, there’s a little mistake on the check. Somebody slipped an extra zero in, in such a way that the amount is ten times what it ought to be. I’ve been wondering what to do about it. I mean, will the Feds come after me if I cash it?”

  Evanston shifted into confidential mode and leaned forward toward me. “My line of work involves a lot of, shall we say, gray areas, Jake. It helps to have connections in all kinds of places, Jake. All kinds of places. You can’t operate without them. Someday I’ll tell you what I did during the War—World War Two, I mean—but not right now. Suffice it to say that I’ve friends in places that would surprise you. Recently one of those friends passed some interesting intelligence to me, an item about you. Your last assignment was with the CIA, wasn’t it?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss it, but let’s say that if it had been, it would have been a temporary assignment, only for a couple of months. Officially I was Army up until I got RIF’d a couple weeks ago.”

  “Well, however it happened, according to my source, you’ve got a jockstrap award sitting in the vault at CIA headquarters in Langley.”

  “Your source is out of his gourd. I never competed for the CIA in any sports.”

  Evanston smiled. “The CIA gives jockstrap awards for deep cover covert operations. It means the man was decorated for something so Top Secret that it can’t ever be made public. So the Agency joke is that the only place you can wear the medal is on your jockstrap.”

  Brother! The joke had gone too far. When the CIA covers up a disaster as horrendous as my Phnom Penh gig, they really go whole hog. Evanston continued, “Now, I have no idea what it was all about, nor do I want to know. I have no business knowing, nor does anyone else. But I do know something about how certain Federal agencies operate, and if one of them issued you a check, you can rest assured there’ll be no trouble about it, no matter how big it is.” He went on to suggest that he open an account for me with his personal banker and we’d find some way to put my boodle to profitable use. He also broached the topic of where I’d be living once I settled in. It was all quite matter-of-fact and man-to-man, with no undertones of putting a deadline on the length of my stay. America was in a deep recession, he told me, and real estate was cheap. I told him I’d enjoy living down by the beach, maybe Malibu. He thought I could probably pick up a decent beachfront property and still have a lot left over.

  “Evanston, we two never got along very well before,” I remarked. “I thought you were ready to kill me a few years back. I seem more welcome now than I used to be. Did something change?”

  “Phoebe and I were pretty damned disgusted when you got expelled from UCLA for streaking Dana Wehrli’s engagement shower, that’s true,” he mused. “Well, the follies of youth. It takes a while to find out what kind of man a boy will turn out to be. From where I sit now, it appears that was no more than a misguided expression of the same vigorous spirit that made you a top-notch Ranger. Your DSC brought me around to seeing it in that perspective, but your mother has certain priorities that demand heavy symbolic content. Hell, let’s put it plainly. She’s a social climbing snob who must constantly make the right impression on a pretty empty-headed crowd, none of whom would know a LRRP from her own left tit. So she took longer to come around. When I hinted that you’d been a secret agent, that got her over the hurdle. She’s been flying ever since. She loves you, in her own way—but sometimes we have to help her along.”

  “Isn’t a little chancy, giving Mom ideas about secret missions? I heard her blabbing about it over the phone this morning. I must be a household word all the way from Palos Verdes to Santa Barbara by now.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Who’d ever take that gaggle of biddies seriously? To hear their prattle, you’d think the last ten years’ worth of Nobel Prize winners were born and raised by the members of her canasta club.”

  “Evanston, thanks for clearing the air. You’re okay.”

  “Likewise, Jake. Welcome home.”

  Thus commenced the reconversion of Jake Fonko, former Ranger, CIA super-agent and marathon MIA, to civilian life. I’d never imagined it would be so tough. Returning stateside from my 1970 Nam tour, I was on track for OCS and a secure military career, programmed and aimed down a path it pleased me to follow. This time I came back as nothing, at least nothing official. I belonged nowhere in particular, had no schedule in my life. I had all the time in the world, and cash in my pocket, and absolutely nothing that I had to do. Something you’ve always dreamed about? Then maybe you never tried it for longer than a two week vacation. If you’ve been fired or laid off, or forced into early retirement, you’ll understand what I’m saying. Most of us pass our lives wired into some sort of pyramid—a corporation, the government, the military. We’re programmed to grind our way up an ever-narrowing path toward the pinnacle, and getting knocked off en route comes as a shock. The money in my kit freed me from pyramids, even from liberated me from having to scrape up my daily wherewithal. It may sound ideal, but it takes some getting used to. Most people aren’t aware how much other people’s decisions dictate the routine of their lives—jobs, wives, kids, mortgages and all the rest. Not everyone can deal with total freedom from that, and I can’t say I found it smooth going at first.

  Evanston ran me down to his bank to set up an account with my cash and my check. Then we went to his broker, who was doubtful about the stock market so put my excess into blue chip bonds paying 10% and also reiterated Evanston’s advice that the current slump had created a buyer’s market in real estate. The next order of business was wheels—a basic life necessity in Los Angeles. I spent a few days in the local dealerships, sorting through muscle cars and import sports models, then figured, what the hell, and bought a new Corvette—Milia Migli red, the only convertible in stock—right off the lot. I’d always wanted one, and writing the check didn’t put a noticeable dent in my bank balance. I liked the feeling of that.

  Then came the matter of rounding up a p
lace of my own. Evanston ‘s banker called it right about real estate—renting made no sense at all. The economy still struggled from the 1973 oil shock and the general slump, with prices down and over-extended sellers anxious to unload. I cruised the coast from Balboa to Santa Barbara, checking out surf, vibes and multiple-listings, and finally fixed on a pad in—where else?—Malibu. It fronted onto the beach, and you entered the garage at the rear from Malibu Road, about a half mile north of Malibu Plaza. A never-quite-made-it screenwriter and his burnt-out graphic artist wife had decided to fold their Hollywood hand and resume the New York City advertising careers from which they’d fled. Sunny California had fallen short of their fantasies, as so often happens. I held no fantasies about L.A., just felt at home with the beach, the weather and the freedom of the place. I knocked their asking price down a couple rungs with an offer of spot cash, and faster than it takes to tell, I was proud lord and master of a two-story pile of redwood planks and picture windows, with three bedrooms, a cozy living room sporting a Swedish steel fireplace, a teakwood deck hanging out over the sand, and a spacious upstairs lanai/balcony suitable for appreciating seaside sunsets over gin and tonics. I took possession a month later, and a couple weeks of chasing down furniture and household paraphernalia settled me in, ready to receive callers at Chez Fonko.

  Now came the real challenge—what to do with myself. Southern California abounded in defense companies, but post-war hiring was slack and the inquiries I made resulted in nothing promising. Sarge had suggested I go into business as a free-lance military advisor/personal aide, doing jobs similar to what I’d done for Poon in Cambodia—a sort of gentleman mercenary. However, the How-To Book for setting up in that line of work has yet to be written, and I doubted that hanging a shingle, “Have M-16 and C4, Will Travel,” would bring clients storming in. The first couple months I scanned the classifieds in Soldier of Fortune, magazine, which had just started up and purported to speak to guys in my profession. Half those ads must have been phonies, put there to fill up the space—at least, a lot of my queries went unanswered. A couple hinted at definite dirty work, maybe running drugs, and I let those lie. Ditto the ads seeking fulltime bodyguards. For a lark I answered one that seemed to be assembling a guerilla strike force, target unspecified. Recruiting began with a screening meeting, attended by yours truly, plus a collection of hardcases, war-lovers and semi-psychos such as I hadn’t seen since Nam. They sat around telling lies and comparing weapons, testosterone so thick in the air that you needed foul weather gear. Not work a well-to-do warrior like myself would undertake, whatever the specific assignment might be. And anyhow, the pay would have been lousy. It confirmed the rule of thumb that you’ll never find a good job in the want ads.

  At least I had time to look up old friends. A few guys from my LRRP unit lived in California, and bonds among buddies who survived something like that stay tight forever. My return sparked a roundelay of parties and drinking bouts, where we caught up on everybody’s whereabouts and whatevers. We’d always been straight with each other (in our kind of missions you couldn’t settle for anything less), and I felt uncomfortable having to cover up my recent past. Most of them knew I’d made captain, and I couldn’t very well explain why I’d been discharged as a sergeant. I waffled in such a way that they soon caught on that my lip had to stay zipped, and let it go at that.

  I’d seen little of the surfing gang the last seven years, but a few phone calls mustered the troops. We broke out our boards and spent a weekend reviving our skills on the rollers in my front yard, swilling down beer and steaks and three-alarm chili, partying ‘til dawn with half my neighborhood there on my deck, and catching up on things. Not that I have an excessive need to play “Can You Top This?” but thanks to the Top Secret nature of my abortive CIA mission and the relative dullness of my prior Army duties, they had by far the better stories to tell. “D.D.” now piloted corporate Lear Jet charters and was much in demand, owing to his skill and his reputation for safety. The latter resulted from his legendary wipeout in Wiamea Bay that earned him his nickname, turned his hair prematurely white, and made him the most safety-conscious young pilot in the country (he’d won awards for it).

  “Wild Blue Under” had surrendered to his destiny. Big, strong and fearless, he’d never hesitated to challenge the toughest wave of the day. Trouble was, he couldn’t surf worth shit and invariably wound up submerged. Finally taking the hint, he got certified in SCUBA and now worked oil rigs, treasure hunts, salvage operations and other projects requiring prolonged total immersion. Eddie “The Flying Bagel” Lipschitz leaned on his uncle with the casting agency for a break into the movie biz and wound up scouting locations for Universal. He’d been all over the world and then some on Studio money, and had taken to listing himself in screen credits as Edward LeGrande, can’t say that I blame him. Through his Hollywood connections he filled out the ranks of our parties with troops of assorted aspiring starlets, production assistants and thrill-seeking party dolls—MAWs (“Model/ Actress/Whatever”). Not quite Bangkok, but wild enough by California standards.

  Dana Wehrli, they told me, tried her hand at film acting but didn’t have it. Instead she’d gotten into television documentaries. She now lived up in Topanga Canyon, married to a stockbroker, no kids. Good for Dana, I suppose, but that news depressed me more than I’d expected. I had to admit to harboring hopes of rekindling our relationship, which despite all had yielded more good moments than bad. I still intended to call her to say hello but obviously had no reason to rush it.

  Ditto on looking up Soh Soon, the daughter of Mr. Poon, who last I heard was slated to enter UCLA as an electrical engineering student. I’d fallen hard for that woman, and she’d returned my affection with interest. An odd pairing? A LRRP and a Khmer Rouge jungle fighter have a lot in common, and we’d shared a rare chemistry during our escape from Phnom Penh and our nearly fatal chopper flight to Bangkok. Besides which she was gorgeous and a lively bedmate, and her father was filthy rich to boot. So why had she so stupidly tried to rip me off the night we tenderly kissed goodbye? What a stab in the back! No harm done, because I’d stashed my diamonds out of her reach, but I dreaded facing her. What could she say? What could I say?

  I took out a license to carry a concealed weapon (I’d brought back Clyde Driffter’s Israeli .357 Desert Eagle), though I rarely did. Evanston arranged some club memberships for me, where I could play a little golf and tennis, and make contacts. A few assignments came out of that, matters of escorting Los Angeles businessmen on overseas trips. What with OPEC and the oil crisis, my clients feared that rag-headed bomb-throwers lurked in every shadow outside our national boundaries, and my job was to Grease Them First. Americans must be more terrified of foreigners than any other nationality—ironic, when you consider that the US itself actually is a dangerous place, compared to most other countries. Maybe all the violence and crime and terrorism featured by our mass media keeps the population scared out of their wits. Whatever, the pay was adequate, and the work was easy. Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol doctrine dictated avoiding trouble in preference to dealing with it, a philosophy I’ve found useful throughout life. I simply steered my clients well out of harm’s way, and consequently those trips passed absolutely uneventfully. Through Evanston it came back to me that a couple clients wondered if I was overcharging, since I never seemed to do anything. After hearing that, I made sure to pack my Israeli .357 Desert Eagle conspicuously (and the loaded clip stowed in my luggage). I’d tell a few strategic horror stories, point out potential assassins (usually, black market money changers or bargain-basement pimps who happened to be hanging around) and go through routines of ridiculously heavy-handed maneuvers to shake imaginary pursuers and tails. Once I’d polished my act, rave reviews followed quickly. Always leave your customers satisfied. If they want to feel a little adrenalin flowing, hey, I’m here to entertain you. The trouble was, it wasn’t steady work. My bank balance slipped backwards more regularly than it crept forwards.
<
br />   Weeks turned into months. Earning my way through life took on a sudden priority when my 1975 income taxes fell due. The W-2 form for that CIA check put me into a painful tax bracket, and settling the bill (nothing had been withheld) socked my investments but good. Being burdened by neither house nor car payments, my cost of living was fairly low—my biggest expense was the damned insurance on my Corvette—even so, by the end of 1976 my resources looked all too finite.

  The US in general remained in a sour mood, spillovers from losing the war and Watergate. It’s not beneficial for any country to (1) lose a costly and divisive war, and (2) have its chief executive frog-marched out of office. Markets remained in the dumps. Inflation ramped inexorably up, especially the price of gas. The presidential election came down to temporary president Gerald Ford versus a peanut farmer and former governor of Georgia, Jimmy (seriously, now) Carter. Thanks to the national media’s relentless portrayal of Ford (Yale Law degree, Eagle Scout and Collegiate All-Star center for the U. Mich Wolverines) as a bumbling dummy, Carter eked into office. “I will never lie to you,” he avowed on national TV. As things turned out, a little lying would have been an improvement: you can deal with crooks, but you can’t fight stupid.

  “Wild Blue Under” got involved in a treasure-hunting expedition in the Caribbean, which brought me four months of work riding shotgun with the crew on a converted coastal steamer. They’d homed in on a sunken Spanish treasure ship, and had found enough trinkets to hint at a major haul. The smell of copious loose gold naturally drew suspicious and possibly evil-intentioned callers, and I had the job of keeping them mannerly. I rounded up a batch of automatic weapons and some Czech bazookas, then set up a target float about a hundred yards off toward the open sea. The ship’s radar gave us early warning of incoming vessels. If any approached unannounced within a quarter-mile a couple of us went out on the bridge deck and took a little target practice. Rocket explosions and bursts of full-auto have a way of generating instant respect. Boats with legitimate business immediately raised us on the radio. Most others didn’t hang around long. The few that lingered picked up speed after I whooshed an RPG across their sterns. Such confrontations happened rarely, providing many empty hours that I could devote to honing my SCUBA skills. Before long I was drawing extra pay as an assistant diver.