An Installment on a Long-Paid Debt

The last time I saw Jim Phelps, I was cuffed to my hospital bed. Before that, was when he met me for coffee.

His phone message had said that he wanted to get together to talk about the road ahead.

I remember being excited because, near the end, I was only used occasionally. I don't know whether they were trying to cut costs, or what, but I went from being a regular to being more of a day player. I remember thinking that he wanted to talk about the future one-on-one that had to mean something.

It meant something alright.

He wanted to talk about the road ahead because there wasn't going to be one.

We sat down, we shot the shit and then he very awkwardly got to the point: he wanted me to talk to the Separators.

These were the guys who debriefed you prior to parking you on the disabled list.

These were the guys who ordered your sheet cake.

On my good days, I consider myself lucky that he sent me there. The alternative was to wake up one morning staring down the barrels of a dozen assault rifles and ending the day in Federal prison.

In those days it was a coin toss if you were going to get a cake or end up in the F.B.I. Counter-espionage trophy case.

I got the easy way out, the soft landing full of hard rocks.

They went through my cover identities with the finest of fine-toothed combs. If I was coming off the field, then all of the different versions of me had to be shut down as well.

You used to hear about how prisoners would be released back into the world with a new suit, a cardboard suitcase and fifty bucks: that's about what I got.

I got a clean record, a credit history, a passport and a phone number.

It was a do-over, a mulligan, a chance to be a civilian after a career spent being everything else.

I could go anywhere, do anything except have any contact with any of my former lives.

I suppose it made good strategic sense, but it was exactly the same as telling a successful criminal that he was forbidden from engaging in any of the activities that made him successful. And we know how well that works out.

Even before the after-taste of frosting was gone, I was broke, living under a bridge and carrying my clean papers and my few worldlies around in a surplus duffel bag that doubled as my pillow.

I looked for work.

I was always looking for work.

The most I was allowed to say about my work history was that I had been in the army and, in those days, that meant something very different. In those days, it meant I was on the verge of snapping, of going berserk, of killing myself and a whole lot of others.

I couldn't go near my old lives, my old worlds, my old jobs. Whole categories of employment were suddenly off-limits.

“The world is your oyster,” they said to me.

It was true, as far as it went, but I was the grain of sand that was never destined to become a pearl.

For the first ten years, I was mostly getting odd jobs as a mechanic. I was working in shops that couldn't afford all of the right equipment and so they used me to hoist the heavy parts into position and hold them steady until they could be bolted in. Just like working for Phelps, I was the human jack-stand.

It was only when desperate that I was allowed to work on the engines. I was a pretty good mechanic in an ocean of very good mechanics, but, as a jack-stand, I was in a class by myself.

This was not the retirement I had imagined.

The more time I spent cleaning grease out from under my nails, the more I resented living a leftover life. Someone else had decided that the rest of my story was to be written with the few words left un-redacted on my resume.

And now, that someone was sitting across the table from me trying to extract another payment on a long-satisfied debt.

No more cake for me; I'd more than had my fill.

“Haven't we started already?” I said.

The question seemed to catch him off-guard.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Near as I can figure it, you've been playing me right the way along.... Since you put me out to pasture, for all I know.”

“Don't flatter yourself,” he said.

“Don't get me wrong, I am flattered that you got the old crew together on my account.”

“Not quite,” he said. “I mean, we're not all back together, are we?”

“Barney?” I asked.

“Barney,” he said.

“I wondered when he was going to show up. Couldn't figure why you were holding him back.”

“I think you know the answer to that,” he said. “I think you know better than anyone why he's not here.”

“I haven't seen him in years, how's he doing?”

“Nobody has,” he said icily.

“Has what?” I was feeling playful.

“Nobody has seen Barney in years.”

“Nobody? I'd have bet money that he was one asset that you'd have trouble letting go of.”

“When did you last see him?”

“As you know, under the terms of my separation, I am forbidden from interacting with any current or former operators.”

“When did you last see Barney?” he asked again.

“Well, I guess that would have been just before you and I met for coffee to discuss my future.”

“Nothing since then?”

“That would be illegal,” I said.

“But you two were very close, surely you couldn't walk away from that?”

“We weren't close. We were professional.” It was my turn to be icy.

Phelps chose a different tack.

“The both of you did extraordinary work for us.”

“The both of us?”

“Sure, you were a team.”

“Like Mutt & Jeff?”

“Sure,” he said.

“Laurel and Hardy? Abbott and Costello?”

“Can't have one without the other; absolutely.”

“But you kept him,” I said. “You kept him and you let me go.”

“I was following orders; the Secretary.”

“That's bullshit,” I said. “I'm embarrassed for you at such an answer. You only took the orders you made them give you.”

“You don't know--.”

“You would be surprised at what I know,” I cut him off. “Amazing what you can pick up when people treat you like a paperweight.”

“I'm not interested in your self-esteem,” he said. “I am, however, interested in Barney.”

“If you, with all your resources at your disposal, can't find him then there must be a good reason for that. Perhaps he doesn't want to found.”

“Or perhaps he's dead,” he countered.

“Could be, I don't know,” I answered quickly. Too quickly? I couldn't tell and, now I couldn't take it back.

“He couldn't still be operational,” I said. “Surely, he's long-since had his sheet cake and been released into the wild.”

After a long pause, Phelps finally said, “At the time of his disappearance, Barney was still operational.”

“When did you lose track of him?”

Phelps looked at me for a long time.

I had seen that look before.

“Let's take a break,” he said. “Do you want to take a break? Something to eat? I can have something sent in. Whatever you want....”

This meant something.

He was regrouping, getting ready to throw a change-up.

“I'm cool,” I said. “Maybe a coffee?”

I knew the call-back would not be lost on him.