Exfiltration

When we were working behind the Curtain all those years, often the trickiest part was getting out.  The reports would end with the resolution of the mission--we get the dingus, whatever it was--and then there would be some boilerplate language about returning to the designated extraction point.  All the Pencils cared about was that assets went in and assets came out.  Qualitative questions were, by and large, left unanswered.
It was rarely the case that we would finish a job, wash up at the safe house and catch the next plane out.  That kind of stuff only happens never.

When the curtain came down on a job we left with whatever we had on us and whatever we were wearing.  If we couldn't cool out the mark and their soldiers--often, literally soldiers--we would be forced to take whatever transpo was available and lam it to the frontier.

And we couldn't ever go the most direct way:  that would be too easy.  No, we had to take the roads less-travelled, or never travelled.  What I would have given for planes, trains, or automobiles.  It's so I can't even look at another mule.

Assets in, assets out.

We would try for a car when we left the action area, but we would have to switch as soon as possible right after.  We'd start home in the President's limo, but it wouldn't be very many miles before we would start the inevitable trading down that ended up in fishing boats or mule trains.

Not for everyone of course:  the Inside group got to travel inside.  They had covers with legends behind them.  That bitch Cinnamon would just have to get as far as the nearest fashion center and she could resurface her model cover, take a room at the Ritz and catch a first class out of my league.

For much of the time that I was active, there was enough of a cabaret culture that Rollin could get a gig doing his act.  The "World Tour" legend had whiskers on it even then, but you have to remember that this was a time without a lot of entertainment options, so even the magic and quick-change shtick could always play somewhere.

Barney had a business to get back to and Phelps..., well, I never did know what his cover was.  But he would always be coming up to me with the same tough luck look on his face that he would use on marks and I knew right away for the Dramamine.

They were always going to come up with some sort of legend for me, but never seemed to get around to it.  There's not a lonelier feeling in the world than to be stuck on a fishing trawler in the Indian Ocean wearing one of Rollin's nose and mustache rigs when the spirit gum gives out.  Lots of questions become very important very quickly and I am hopeless at the Slavic languages.  Put the wrong amount of phlegm in the wrong place and you can quickly become fish food.

I think the worst was probably the time I carried Briggs on to an old DC-3 cargo plane.

He was hidden inside a large metal suitcase and I walked it out to the plane along with Rollin and that bitch Cinnamon.  The pilot was one of ours, but we had no grease with border security.  We had papers for 3 and that's what we had to go with.  Once we were wheels up, we were home, or so I was told.

Sure enough, wheels up and we let Briggs out of the box.  He goes up front for words with our new best friend and he comes back and sits next to me.

"Re-routed," he says.

"Where?" says I.

"Does it matter? he says. 

There were four on the plane and visas for 3.  Somebody was walking and he gave me three guesses.

The pilot showed up with a parachute.

Thing is, I hadn't jumped, not even in the service.

I went through just after Korea and they didn't see the need to give wanna-be grease monkeys anything more than the drilling and the most basic of basic training.  We learned who to salute and when to duck and cover, and that was about it before they rushed us off to mechanic's school.  I could fix the DC-3 much easier than I could jump out of it.

But that's what I had to do.

There was no point putting up a fuss.  Too much risk for Rollin and that bitch Cinnamon and Briggs had to be seen getting off the plane for some reason I still don't understand.  And besides, he could turn into such a bitchy little girl if you didn't do things his way.

They would try and drop me close, he said.  Just out of reach of the capital's air defenses, he said.  No more than a two-day walk, he said.

Turns out, he's not to be trusted.

I think the thing that made it hardest was that I still had to carry that metal case.  Sure, it was empty, but it made free-fall a bear trying to keep hold of it.  I ended up cartwheeling through the pre-dawn sky like the drive wheel on a steam locomotive.

I tore a couple of muscles in my shoulder as a result of that little stunt.  I didn't find out about the injury until we got home and I could see my own doctor.  That was a long walk home.