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Authors: Edward Lee

BOOK: Operator B
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There might not be any good afternoons ever again,
 he thought.
His eyes lanced into the MP’s gaze. “Tell security to have Briefing Room One prepped and swept ASAP. And open this goddamn gate.”
“Yes, sir!”
The MP shot a nod at the gate guard. The electric bolt snapped open, then Rainier brushed past, rushing into the west entrance as if trying to evade an augury of doom.
CHAPTER 3
In spite of the certainty of his retirement, Wentz felt funny in civilian clothes. He always had, as though high-alt flight suits had become as much a part of him as his skin. He felt funny driving cars, too, cautious to the point of paranoia—like a senior citizen behind the wheel. He remembered when he’d made the initial test flights of the B-2 bomber at Edward’s Palmdale range, how natural it had felt on the stick of a prototype aircraft that cost nearly a billion dollars. But, somehow, driving a $20,000 station wagon felt daunting.
One thing that
did
feel right today, though, was the fact that his fourteen-year-old son, Pete, sat right next to him. Things would be different now. Now Wentz would actually get to be a father to his son. Today, they were on their way to Camden Yard, Yankees versus the Orioles.
“I couldn’t do math either, Pete,” Wentz was saying. “I hated it—algebra, trig, geometry. But I worked my tail off, hung in there, and made it. You’ve got to get those math grades up—C’s won’t cut it. Not if you want to get into a good—”
“I aced the final, Dad,” Pete told him. “I got a ninety-nine.”
Wentz was taken aback. “You’re kidding me? A
ninety-nine?
”
Shit, I never got a ninety-nine on an algebra test in my life!
 
“Yeah, so I’ll get a B for the course. A’s in everything else.”
Wentz slapped the wheel.
That’s my boy!
“Hey, that’s great, Pete! Now you’ll make the honor roll! Outstanding! Buddy, we are
celebrating
 this weekend! The Yankees game tonight, King’s Dominion tomorrow, crabbing on the bay all day Sunday, and…you know what? I think maybe we’ll do a little dirt-bike shopping once school lets out for the summer. How’s that sound?”
“Thanks, Dad,” Pete said but it was a glum response, despondent. The boy seemed miles away.
Wentz glanced over. “Hey, partner, what’s wrong? You look like somebody shot your dog…and you don’t even
have
 a dog.”
“Well…Mom said…”
Wentz smirked. “What? What did your mother say?”
“She said you might be bluffing.”
“Bluffing about what?”
Pete shrugged morosely.“About retiring from the Air Force.”
Damn it!
Wentz ground his teeth, then pulled the station wagon over to the shoulder and skidded to a stop. He looked right at his son. “Pete, when I told you and Mom that I’m leaving the Air Force, I meant it.”
“Really?”
“Really, Pete. Look, I know it’s been tough on you and your mother. Half the time I wasn’t around—no wonder she divorced me. But we’ve been talking about it for months, and it’s settled. On Monday I retire, your mother and I get back together, and we’ll be a family again.”
“Yeah, but you said that a bunch of times in the past, and then it never happened.”
Shit,
 Wentz thought. Nothing he could say could make it right. Even the truth was an excuse. “Yeah, but that’s because stuff came up at the last minute that I had to do for the Air Force. You know, stuff I’m not allowed to talk about.”
“Secret stuff.”
“Yeah. That’s why I was never around very much. I
had
 to do it, Pete. When you’re in the service you have to obey orders.”
“I know.”
When Wentz glimpsed his own face in the windshield’s reflection, the basest impulse urged him to punch it, to just put his fist right through the safety glass. In one second he saw all of his regret—and all of his arrogance disguised as service.
This is my son, for Christ’s sake, and I’m snow-jobbing him. I’m making excuses.
When Pete was four, he’d almost died from pneumonia; Wentz was flying a classified recon op over North Korea. When Pete had hit his first home run in Little League, Wentz was flying at 100,000 feet testing new fuel-tank seals in an SR-71. And when Pete had been sent home from school for fighting, when he’d most needed a father’s counsel and discipline, Wentz had been joyriding a YF-22 Advanced Tactical Fighter over the White Sides Mountain Test Reservation.
Some fucking father,
he thought.
Always passing the buck to Joyce, always too busy playing Big Bad Top Secret Flyboy.
“
I’m telling you, Pete, that stuff in the past—it changes now. Your mother’s giving me one more shot, and it’s no jive this time. We’re patching things up, getting back together, and it’s going to work out.”
For the first time since he’d gotten in the car, Pete looked genuinely enthused.
“And you’ll move back to the house?”
“No, I’m going to pitch a tent in the back yard.
Of course
 I’m moving back to the house! I’ve got my stuff all packed, got the mover lined up. It’s a done deal.”
Pete’s eyes widened on Wentz. “You promise?”
“Roger that, buddy-bro,” Wentz said with no hesitation. “You can count on it.” He pulled the car back onto the road. “And there’s nothing in the world that’ll make me break that promise. Now let’s go watch the Yankees kick some tail.”
««—»»
The office stood dark. Beneath a wan lamp, the folder lay open on the desk.
The leader sheet on the right read:
_______________________________
TOP SECRET
EYES ONLY - RESTRICTED:
OFFICER EVALUATION REPORT (OER)
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY, MARINE CORP BRANCH.
Subject: FARRINGTON, WILLARD, E.
Grade: 0-7/DOB 13 FEB 48. SERVICE #220-76-1455
Spouse: (DECEASED)
Children: ONE (F/ADOPTED)
Other Living Relatives: NONE
DE: DETACHMENT 4,
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
AERIAL INTELLIGENCE COMMAND
FORT BELVOIR, VIRGINIA.
DUPLICATION OF THE ENCLOSED IS PUNISHABLE BY DEATH VIA AIR FORCE REGULATION 200-2 AND U.S.C. 797 OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT.
TOP SECRET
_______________________________
A personnel photograph was fastened to the left side of the folder, and staring up from its glossy surface was the face of General Willard Farrington.
A hand closed the folder. A sputter was heard. Bold typeface on the folder’s manila cover read:
OPERATOR
“
A
”
It was General Rainier’s hand which closed the MILPERS folder, and it was his voice which muttered, “God
damn,
” a moment later.
Another officer—a major—sat in the room, submerged in darkness. He was a Tekna/Byman liaison field agent; hence his name was classified.
“Jesus,” Rainier said. “Who would’ve thought something like this would happen?”
“It all went so well for so long, sir,” the Major responded. “Perhaps we took the circumstances for granted.”
Rainier looked up testily. “Yeah, I guess we did. The guy’s been doing it for more than ten years without a hitch.”
“Yes, sir, but remember the retrieval time table. We don’t have another ten years. We don’t even have ten months.”
“And you’re telling me there’s no alternate?”
A slight crack in the Major’s voice betrayed his nervousness. “N-no, sir. Given the highly critical criterion, not to mention the most recent Presidential amendments to AR 200-2, it was deemed too sensitive a risk to have a fully briefed and fully trained alternate on line.”
Rainier strummed his fingers on the desk. “I’ve never heard anything so reckless and ill-advised in my life. Matters like this should never be disclosed to these ludicrous temporary occupants of the White House.”
“You can be sure, though, sir, that the President
hasn’t
 been briefed on the QSR4 data.”
“Thank God.”
It was just a figure of speech, of course. General Rainier didn’t actually believe in God. From where he sat, the lone desk lamp projected the shadow of Rainier’s head onto the wall. It looked like a halo, and here was Rainier, the angel with no God. Instead his shrine was the Pentagon, and his church the most restricted warrens of the NSA. Technology—and death—were the only gods he could trust. He was probably the most powerful man in the United States’ military, but it was all unofficial: an angel of might but with no wings. Only the jaded halo.
“And we do have a contingency, sir,” the Major added as if to offer some consolation. “No one prepared, but at least—”
“You have someone in mind is what you’re saying.”
“Affirmative, sir.”
The chair creaked when Rainier leaned back. He spoke with his eyes closed, struggling against a headache. “He’s the best we’ve got?”
The Major stepped forward into the smudge of light and picked up the MILPERS folder labeled OPERATOR
“
A
”
. He inserted it into the feed slot of a Gressen automatic paper-pulverizer.
“He is now, sir.”
The machine whined for a split instant, then disgorged its powder into a burn bag.
Presto—gone,
 Rainier thought. He wondered how many real lives he’d disposed of just as efficiently.
Next, the Major set down a second folder, this one labeled:
OPERATOR
“
B
”
General Rainier opened the folder to glance down at a personnel photo of a lean-faced, hard-eyed white male in his forties.
“The candidate’s name is Jack Wentz,” the Major augmented. “He was promoted to general O-7 two days ago. He’s been Top Secret/SI with eleven suffixes for more than twenty years, and he’s our senior restricted test pilot. He’s also got more black flying hours than any man in the world.”
Rainier appraised the face in the photo as if calculating an ancient arcana. His fingers continued to strum the desk, and he wondered how angels felt when they struck down innocents with their swords in the name of God.
“Get him,” Rainier said.
CHAPTER 4
Something scrabbled in the box, a chittering noise. There was something alive inside.

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