Pink Elephants

Time for a reality check. 

Phelps may have gone to get more of his miserable excuse for coffee, but he was coming back and he'd be bringing his best moves.

The company—Barney's company—going public....

Something about them going public, but what...?

I tried to figure out what, if any, plays I might have left.

They'd had a hold of me long enough that they had probably burned down my whole life and sifted through the ashes looking for whatever it was that they thought I had.

Barney....

I tried to force him from my thoughts. If they were going to step up their game, I needed not be thinking about him.

Pink elephants.

I focused on the sour, oily taste in my mouth and how shitty the coffee was.

Anger makes a great fence to hide behind, especially in an interrogation.

You want to know about launch codes? Fuck you. I'm still pissed they cancelled that show with with Diahann Carroll—the one where she played a nurse: I loved that show. Loved it and they fucking cancelled it. Details are everything. Remember everything, embrace your anger. Lloyd Nolan, he was in that. He was great in “Guadalcanal Diary” and they cancelled that show like it was nothing.

Of course, it's not sustainable: nothing is. You can't keep skating around indefinitely. Sooner or later, you either have to shoot or give up the puck.

When the door opened, I noticed a slight sucking sound like there might be a pressure differential between my side and the outside.

Pressure.

No wonder all my joints ached.

That also explained why I was only getting Phelps in small doses.

I thought I was just acutely aware of my old broken body. Oh it was old and broken, true enough, but he was seeing to it that it felt worse than normal by turning up the air pressure in the room.

I was sitting in a chair and feeling the weight of my weight on each vertebrae, my hips, knees and ankles. I could only imagine how it was affecting Phelps as he walked through the space and moved between the different atmospheres.

The Melmac cup hit the table and I noticed what I thought was a sleight tremor in Phelps' hand.

His dead shark eyes were still sharp and probing, but maybe, just maybe, there might be some gaps in his armor beginning to open.

I took a sip of the still-miserable coffee and thought about Diahann Carroll and Lloyd Nolan.

“Tell me about this,” Phelps said and dropped a photo on the table.

Fuck.

He had a photo.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I think we can both agree it is a picture of Barney,” he said pointing to Barney.

“And...?”

“And I think we both know who that is,” he said pointing to me.

“Who?”

“It's you,” he said tapping his finger on the picture of my head for emphasis. “Isn't it?”

I winced with each tap, each strike of phalanges against Formica knowing what it must be like for him to feel it in every joint and each connective tissue up to his shoulder.

We'd done jobs involving pressure chambers, but not a lot. You can really get at people when you start squeezing them like a tube of toothpaste.

My joints were aching now, but given time, and no pressure change, that would pass. Change pressure too quickly in either direction and you can kill a guy: learned that the hard way.

We did a Lost Weekend on an Albanian VIP who was on the fence about switching sides. This was back in the good old days.

The play was we were going to make him think he had blacked out and was now an old man with no memory of the last forty years.

We built a whole thing—our idea of what 2005 would look like—so much we got wrong as it turned out. We sold the mark a whole story about how his side had turned on him, sold him for medical experiments, or some such bullshit. That was why he couldn't remember anything. Anyway, we played this inside a giant pressure chamber which meant we were in and out of it all the time. It was the whole thing for keeping the mark off-balance. Paris would make him look like an old man and the environmentals could suggest a future, but to make him feel like an old man we had to make him hurt all over like I do now, every day.

We changed the pressure on him all the time and, because of the play, we were changing it on ourselves as well.

As it dragged on—fucker wouldn't break for shit—we were all sore, tired and slightly nauseous all the time.

After four or five days, I was asking why we didn't just drug the son of a bitch, stick him in a box and take him home.

Oh no, said Phelps. Couldn't run the risk that the Albanians find out we had him. We were more vulnerable in transit than we were sitting in a warehouse in the middle of Tirana. That's what he said, anyway.

A week of feeling like my insides were being squeezed by a garden roller and I was ready to surrender.

It took that long for them to even make the touch and then it took more time before the mark came across with the goods.

Phelps made the call to start the end game: the last act where we conviced the mark that he was dying. They turned up the pressure on him which meant more pressure on all of us.

Without breaking character, we had to convince him that he was better off coming to our side in an environment that made you feel as though all the ligaments and cartilage that held your limbs together was melting away and the only thing keeping you on your feet, and off the floor, was a skin suit that didn't fit well anymore. Every step forward was an act of will and staying with the scene was a triumph of concentration.

Anyway, I never did get the whole story. One of the day players said they saw Phelps monkeying with pressures and Phelps blamed him right back. Whoever did it, the air got turned way up and, before the mark could say the magic words, he started bleeding into his brain and he stroked out. No time at all he goes from being a high-value asset to being a paperweight.

I don't even know why I am telling you this. Haven't thought about it in years.... Don't know what made me think of that....

What?

No.

What was I talking about?

I remember.... No.... Shut up.

I am really going to need a nap after this.

Phelps had just come back with the coffee, the miserable shitty coffee, and he was doing his best to put the stink eye on me.

“Did he ever take you there?” Phelps asked.

“Where? Did who ever take me where?”

“Barney. Did Barney ever take you to the plant?”

“What plant? Collier Electronics? No, never. I always assumed it wasn't ever really a thing.”

“They made stuff,” said Phelps. “You know they made things. Remember the year Barney gave us all tape recorders?”

He did. They were little reel-to-reel machines about the size of a small Michener novel.

“I don't know what you think might have gone on when you sent us on those shit jobs, but we were never that close,” I said. “I mean it's not as though he named his first-born after me.”

“Second,” Phelps said.

Wait, what? How did...?

He must have seen a tell, because he answered my question without me asking.

“We keep close tabs on our assets..., all of them.”

I don't know why he did it.

Maybe Barney felt sorry for all the shitty coffee and worse assignments. Maybe it was his way of paying me back for not getting to be an inside guy like he was. Who's got time to worry about why? Anyway, it wasn't like it was anything. Like all the jobs we did together, and even those shitty tape recorders, it worked just long enough to get the idea across.

It was late one night, or early one morning, I don't remember. We'd just finished working on some bullshit car job. If we weren't crawling around in shit, we were wrenching on some kind of car: make it run, make it not run; make secret compartments... We even replaced all the--. Not important.

So we're digging grease out from under so we can knock off and he goes all funny.

He steps back from the sink and, at first, I don't think anything. But then I get a real weird vibe.

I couldn't believe it, but right in that instant I remember thinking he was going to pull on me. Like he'd gotten the call and they told him that, after the car was done, he was sanctioned to clean up more than his hands.

As quick as it came up, I dismissed it. Ridiculous.

No way Barney's going to take me out. Not after the shit we'd been through.

I kept working on cleaning my hands as my eyes quickly scanned for anything I could use as a weapon.

There was an old oil can in the sink and I made sure to get as much soap into it as I could. If I worked it right, it just might buy me enough time to find some cover.

No way they send Barney for me. No way.

“Willy?”

His voice broke the tension just like someone had changed the channel.

I turned around to face him, but before I did, I pulled the oil can over to the right side of the sink.

“What's up?” I said trying to remain casual as ever as I kept my hand inside the bowl of the sink close to the oil can.

“Listen, man,” he said. “I just want you to know how much working with you means to me.”

He was uncomfortable.

My hand moved closer to the oil can.

“Willy, man, we have been through the shit. And all along the way you were right there, man. Right there.”

And I was.

There were stories.... We just couldn't tell anyone.

“Ain't nobody gonna thank us; not you, not me. So, I'm thinking maybe we take care of each other.”

I could feel the oily film as my fingers wrapped around the can.

There was a fifty-five gallon barrel about a dozen feet to my left. I figured I'd have enough time to reach it and take cover before he could get his gun on me.

Barney's hand went to the zipper on his cover-alls.

“This is for you,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” My tone was intended to throw him off.

The top of the can was just below the edge of the sink.

Twelve feet. I could make it. No problem.

“You gonna take care of me?” I raised my voice even more.

By now, I had rehearsed my choreography in my head several times.

My eyes were riveted on his hand as it reappeared from inside his overalls.

I could feel the coiled tension in my left arm.

All I needed to see was a suggestion of a gun and our relationship would go to a whole different level.

The envelope threw me. I was not expecting that.

Barney must have gotten wise to the look on my face.

“It's an envelope. Man, you do know what an envelope is? What do you think? Like I was gonna pull on you?”

My expression must have told him exactly what I thought.

“Naw, man. No way. After our history? Take you out? Not gonna happen.”

“Besides,” he said smiling, “I couldn't hold a gun big enough to take you out.”

“What's with the paper?” was about all I could squeak out.

“Like I said, I wanna say thank you for watching my back all these years.”

I went looking for something to wipe off my hands.

“You wrote me some kind of love letter?”

“Kinda. Closest you're gonna get, that's for damn sure. You were going to throw that, weren't you?”

“Throw what?” I said.

“Don't kid a kidder, man.... The oil can.”

“Naw.... What? You mean this thing? I would never....”

“Sure,” he said.

“So what's in the envelope? You finally apologizing for all that shitty coffee?”

“What you talking about 'shitty'? You always dug my coffee.”

“I'm a good soldier,” I said.

He just looked at me.

“And like any solder,” I continued, “I had to be ready to take one for the good of the team.”

“I ain't got shit to say I'm sorry about.”

“So what's with the paper?”

“Listen, I don't want to make too much out of this. It's just that you and me burned a lot of time together—time we'll never get paid for. It took what it took to get the job done.

“That's right,” I said.

“We said a lot of things....”

Shit, this was getting serious.

“Am I going to need a Kleenex before this is over,” I asked.

“Shut up,” he said. “I know you think I did all the talking and never listened to anything you had to say--.”

“'Barney's a genius. Pay attention to Barney, he's a genius.'”

“Truth is, you and I started out at the same place: nowhere. We come from there. Nowhere is in our blood and we had to make something happen or that's where we were going to end up: nowhere. This thing of ours changed us, made us real citizens.”

“Some more than others,” I said.

“Fuck you, 'some more than others'. Can you keep your mouth closed another minute? I'm almost done.”

I shrugged my shoulders and went back to wiping my hands.

“So, you know how they set me up with my cover?” Barney asked. “I get this front company and all the props that go with it? All fake, right?”

“It's a cover story: of course it's fake.”

“I could see how you might think that,” he said.

“What the--? I could never understand half the shit that comes out of your mouth.”

“Everything they gave me to fool the bad guys was more than good enough to fool the bankers.”

He shot me another of his sideways grins.

“I cashed in,” he continued, “but not in the way you think. I took their front company and gave it a back.”

“Huh?” was the best I could do.

“The corner pocket guys gave me a shell company and it's a real thing now. There's a lot more to it than just letterhead and a few business cards.”

“Are you crazy?” I said. “There's like a thousand ways this can go sideways on you.”

“Naw, man. I got this covered.”

“So what, you're like making real money from a fake business?”

“That's just it,” said Barney. “It's not fake, anymore.”

“So, you've got a real fake company, so what's that got to do with me?”

“Not much now, but could mean a lot in the future.”

“Would you stop trying to hustle me and tell me what this is about?”

“Collier Electronics—the fake company—is about to come to market with some real products. Shit nobody's seen before”

“And?” I was really getting impatient.

“And I want you to have a piece of the action.”

He pushed the envelope into my hands.

“What are you talking about?” I said as I quickly scanned the contents.

“Forty percent,” he said.

“Forty percent of what?”

“Not much right now, but it goes like I think, it could be forty percent of a pretty big deal.”

“This breaks and the bosses will be all over you.”

“That's just it,” he said. “They can't burn me without burning themselves. How they gonna explain to Mike Wallace that they're making remote control vehicles without saying why they're pissed at me.”

He had a point.

Holding people to account is work best left to those with nothing, or with nothing to lose. For everyone else, there is no justice: it's just too damn expensive.

I looked again at the letter Barney had handed me.

The paper had a rich feel to it. It was stiff like fine sandpaper. It was almost like the watercolor paper they had us use back in art school.

There was richness to the fine lines and deep purple and gold used in the Collier Electronics logo and an elegance to the selection of fonts used in the letterhead. Instinctively, I ran my thumb over the notary's stamp in the lower right corner.

Everything about it said it was the real deal. I owned forty percent of the business.

“Is this your idea of a joke?” I said.

“What's your problem, man?”

“It's some kind of a test, right? A loyalty thing?”

“You're crazy, man,” said Barney sliding further into the vibe that I had seen him use on marks, women and anyone else he wanted to fuck.

“It's no joke.”

“Why you wanna give up your thing to me? Doesn't make sense: you go to work on this, make it go just to turn around and give me half? Nobody does that,” I said.

“First of all, I thought you could read. It's not half, it's forty percent and, second, I don't give a fuck about anybody else and what they do. I'm doing this.”

“Why?”

Barney turned away from me and swept the shop with his arm.

“Take a look around,” he said. “You know as well as I that, of all the places we've worked, this is one of the best. And that ain't saying much.”

Couldn't argue that.

“How easy you think it would be for them to cut us off if the thing goes sideways.?”

“Phelps would never do that.” I didn't really believe that even as the words were coming out of my mouth.

Barney just looked at me.

“Yeah..., okay,” I said.

“What's the first thing they tell you at the Farm?”

“You're on your own.”

“Damn straight,” he said. “Point is, as long as I been doing this, I knew you had my back and that's worth something to me. You made this thing possible.”

“What thing,” I asked.

“The future; my future. And, I figure it's worth paying you for you and your part. 'For services services rendered,' as white folks say.”

“Look, this is very cool,” I said. “But all you're really doing is putting me in the shit right along with you. They come for you on this thing, no way they don't look at me.”

“Not every rock has got shit under it. You take this how you want. I meant what I said. You can't handle that, that's on you.”

We finished cleaning up the job site and pretty much said nothing more about anything until we got to the safe house.

Our work kits, IDs and other equipment turned over to the Cleaners from the Interest Section, we picked up our travel kits and headed for the rallying point.

As we were walking out to yet another in a long series of panel trucks, Barney noticed I was hanging back and he came over to me.

“What?” he said.

“Just to you,” I said.

Barney turned and walked back to the truck.

Instinctively, I put my hand on his shoulder.

That instant of connection was all it took. It was what bound us together, he knew he could depend on me at the end and why I was in the fix I was now and, most of all, why, before picking up my bag and stepping in behind him, I said, “Thank you.”

I had forgotten about that letter, the whole incident really, until they started asking me all those questions about Barney.

So this was about my shares? My stake in Barney's company?

And patents, there was that whole thing about patents.

Ownership....

Was it Barney's company, or did it belong to the Government? Or to me and the Government?

And why would they be taking an interest in this after all these years?

The only thing that made any sense was Barney must have come up with something important, something more valuable that a piece of home stereo equipment....

And then I understood.

Barney was a genius. Like the best minds in business, he created something I didn't even know I needed until he told me about it.

Or. more precisely, until Phelps, in his ham-fisted way, reminded me about it.

Phelps may have been responsible for the box I found myself in, but, more than four decades earlier, Barney had gifted me with a way out.

They didn't want Barney, they wanted the company.

Still not sure who “they” are, but we'll know soon enough.

That's the funny thing about our business, if you listen carefully, in between the lies, you can learn a lot about what you're up against.

Threats are a huge tell. “Unless you do 'A' we're going to do 'B' to you and your whole 'C'.

Nobody wants to get to 'B': it's messy and all it ever does is increase the odds you get caught. And, if you do get caught, then a whole lot more people get involved.

It's hardest to remember in the heat of the thing—whatever it is—but one of the first lessons they teach you in Interrogation is that if the guys on the other side of the table were willing to run the risk of fucking you up, they wouldn't threaten, they'd just do it.

At this level, interrogation is purely a theatrical device, a show played for an audience on the other side of the world.

Answer, don't answer: it doesn't matter. Nobody gives up anything in the box that is ever worth a damn.

And you know that going in. It's an understanding among professionals who know their business.

I remember and old Looney Tunes cartoon about a sheepdog and a wolf who walk to work together, punch the same timeclock and then spend their work day in battle over a flock of sheep until the whistle blows at five o'clock and they stop, clock out, and go home.

It's like that. Some days you're the wolf and some days you're the sheepdog.

This time I had the wolf card, but you never know, it could change again just like that.

“Have you found it?” I asked before he had a chance to settle.

“Found what?” he said.

“Barney's letter,” I said. The question obviously threw him.

“No,” he said after a while.

“No?” I repeated. “That must be very frustrating for you,” I added. “Someone with your track record brought in on this only to roll snake eyes.”

“Where is it?”

“Why?”

“'Why?' They want it. You have something they want, it's my job to get it for them. Where is it?”

“Why? Why is it your job? Why you and not a room full of lawyers? Don't get me wrong—the whole nostalgia thing is working for me—but there are easier ways to go after a piece of paper than all of this.”

“Would a simpler way have made you give it up?”

“Probably not,” I said.

“So, here we are,” said Phelps.

“Here we are,” I repeated.

“What tipped you?” he asked.

“Too many questions about the business,” I answered honestly.

Phelps thought for a moment before acknowledging the point.

“You're right, bad tradecraft,” he said.

“You're saying that the Great Jim Phelps made a mistake? And is admitting it?”

“I've made plenty of mistakes.”

“Just never admitted them. It's a whole lot easier to have a perfect record when your fuck-ups are taken out by their own people and never seen again.”

You could see the muscles in his cheek tighten.

Just a little bit more....

“Collateral damage: just the cost of doing business. Deliver the job, no matter the cost, no matter the assets.”

“Is that what this is all about, the assets?”

“I got the jobs and did the jobs,” he said. “We saved lives and prevented loss of a lot more. Success costs,” he said.

“Whose success?”

“Mine..., us..., the IMF.”

“Well, you anyway,” I said.

“The country is safer today because of the work we did back then,” he said as if reciting a travel brochure.

“A lot can change in fifty years.”

“That's not true,” he said. “Not much changes, really changes. It evolves, each step built on the one before and the moves we made when things were really raw have been foundational to the successes that followed.”

“Successes? What's your definition of success, shooting wars in Asia? The War on Terror, the War on Drugs, the War on Privacy?”

“We helped take down the Soviet Union,” said Phelps.

“And how's that been working out for you?”

“We're not here to discuss current events,” Phelps said trying to take back control of the situation.

“Somehow, I think we are,” I said. “Four decades I am in the weeds and worthless to anyone and then, out of nowhere, I'm this year's girl.”

“I wouldn't say that,” said Phelps, as a note of caution leaked into his voice.

“Really? What would you say?” I said. “If I'm wrong then why are we even talking?”

“Where's the letter?”

Fucker!

“Do you even care what happened to Barney?”

“Of course I care,” he lied defensively. “But that doesn't change the fact that I have been given a job to do.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Tell me about Barney,” said Phelps. “I understand that you were the last one to see him alive.”

I know that I flinched. I didn't want to, but I flinched just the same.

“Barney played you, played everyone and ended up with something real. He took your smoke and mirrors and made something, something he could put his name on, pin his future to.”

Even as I said that, I knew that I had given too much away. I was talking about Barney's successes, but I was also talking about their grimy refraction in my my own biography.

“Wasn't much of a future though, was it?” said Phelps.

“He came to me because he could feel you breathing down his neck. He saw the smoke beginning to roll back in and he didn't want to go back.”

“Me?” said Phelps.

“That's what he said. He figured you guys were on to him and about to wrap him up for fraud, or whatever.”

“So, what, disappearing was the better choice?”

“I'm not saying he was right, but he thought it was a better choice for him and his family.”

“To become a Federal fugitive?”

“He made sure his family was taken care of. Plus they had me looking out for them.”

“Yeah,” said Phelps. You haven't exactly been the poster child for stability, have you?”

“I did okay until your guys caught up with me”

“We must have different definitions,” he said.

“Fuck you.”

“What's it worth to you?” I asked.

“Whatever someone will pay.”

“How much?”

“How much what?” he asked.

How much are you willing to pay?”

“You don't have it,” he said.

“Then what am I doing here?”

“Staying out of the way,” he said.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“How do I know what?”

“That I don't have it.”

“Because,” he said, “ we have searched everything you have ever even thought of and it's not there. It's not anywhere.”

“You don't believe that, or you wouldn't be talking to me like this. Just buying time so you can step into my life doesn't take anywhere near as long as I have been here. You're not convinced it's gone or you would have turned me over.”

“Let's say I have some doubts,” Phelps said feeling more in control of the situation.

“So, what happens now?” I asked.

“Good question.”

Phelps took a long time pretending to look through his papers.

“We both know he gave you the company,” he said finally.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“It took us a long time to work it out, but, for some reason, Barney gave you a huge piece of his business.”

“What would I want with a piece of business that never made anything?”

“It didn't have to,” said Phelps.

“The only thing I ever knew was he had a post office box, some letterhead and a box of business cards.”

“It was a paper tiger alright,” said Phelps, “With real teeth.”

“Look, Barney talked to me a couple of times over the years about ways to put some meat on that bare bones cover you set him up with, but that's all I ever thought it was: talk. After all this time, what could possibly be left that you would have an interest in?”

“You'd be surprised,” Phelps said. “You'd be very surprised.”

“Oh, I don't know,” I said. “Try me.”

He wasn't going to tell me.

But, if I figured it out....

During the time we worked together, Barney made a lot of stuff. He made simulators, he made tools; we rigged vehicles and stole stuff, he made movies and he made drugs.

He made a lot of drugs: drugs to take out a mark, knock out a witness, drugs to create hallucinations and antidotes to counteract drugs we may have been given by the other side. Drugs to convince medical professionals that we were having heart attacks, even made a drug to convince a guy that he had super powers. (Later, it turned out that that last one was straight up coke.)

Hand-in-hand with the drugs, we'd often as not rig a location with a lot of remote-controlled stuff.

We'd get the target high on some sort of home-brewed drug and then, to push him over the edge, we'd go all Haunted Mansion on him. Pictures would fall, tables would rise and the voices of the long-dead would be heard wailing and moaning.

Those spook shows were a lot of fun when we'd do them for work, but I remember when we tried to do one for Barney's kids' Halloween, it just felt wrong.

We set it all up and then, at the last minute, wouldn't you know it, we got called in on a job on the other side of the world.

I'm getting all set to apologize to the kids when I see Barney's got “the look”

He got this queer look in his eye when he figured out how to do whatever it was that Phelps would come up with.

Next thing I know, instead of taking all of the stuff we had borrowed back to the office, he was sending me out with a shopping list of things he needed for our new job.

We ended up working through the night and, when we had finished, we stumbled on to the transport headed for parts unknown with all of our work tools and one extra case that made it possible for Barney to keep his promise to his kids from the other side of the world.

Remote control....

Could that be it?

The more I thought about it, the more certain I became.

Barney had figured out how to have real-time remote control long before satellites and the Internet. That was a neat trick.

Still is....

That was more than forty years ago.

Lots had changed.

Why would they still be interested in that technology? Who would still be interested?

And then I remembered something I had read about patents and Collier Electronics....

Where was that?

In my mind, I retraced everything that had happened since I left the house to take my dog for a walk.

I was sitting at a table and.... The cellphone; I remember looking up Collier Electronics on the cellphone.

If I was right, Barney had patents and they were what we were playing for.

The game was now more interesting. I had a real hand, only I couldn't look at it. I had to bet, and I didn't know what I had.

Something to do with remote control was all I knew and I wouldn't have known that much if Phelps hadn't over-played his hand.

What, I wondered, was the high-percentage play?

You play cards, right? Course you do, gotta do something to pass the time when you're on the road. Much poker? Oh, you really should, it's the best to keep you on your toes when the nights are quiet and your contact is late.

I've had the best hand in this game, had to. No other reason I was still alive. Phelps' only play was to convince me to fold. And, if I did, I'd lose much more than the pot.

Gotta make him commit his chips.

“Remotes,” I said.

“What?” Phelps was pretending he hadn't heard me, but I could see his jaw tighten for just a moment.

“Remotes,” I repeated. “This is about remote-controlled systems.”

“I have no idea what it's about,” Phelps said. “They want their company back and they told me to get it.”

“Who is 'they'?” I asked.

“Our boss,” he said.

“'Our'? Not mine, he's not my boss. I haven't had a boss in a very long time.”

“Doesn't have to be that way,” he said. “I can get you back in; work it so you can get career status and a full pension, bennies too.”

“You can do that? Would be nice to be able to sleep at night.”

“Secretary gave me lots of discretion on this,” he replied feeling a tug on his fishing line.

“Helluva a thing getting old,” Phelps said. “Like an old house: everything seems to go to shit all at once.”

He was right about that.

“I don't get how Barney's forty year-old work could be of any use. What would they want it for?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Phelps said.

“That's bullshit,” I said. “You don't go into a thing not knowing all the whys. Your plans are based on what makes people make the choices they do. You told us that all the time: 'Why is the key question. Always.'”

“Not this time,” he said. “Sometimes 'because' is a complete sentence.”

“Maybe,” I said. “If you're twelve. Neither of us has been twelve for a very long time.”

“I suppose not,” he said.

“This 'only following orders' bullshit might fly with civilian oversight, but I know better.”

“You don't know shit,” he said.

I wasn't certain, but it seemed like he might be getting angry.

“You know why, don't you?” I said throwing in a continuation bet. “You would have to, otherwise all of this wouldn't make any sense. We'd be handling this in a lawyer's office. The Secretary would not reach out to you on something like this. You're too expensive and this has too many moving parts. You don't call in an airstrike to take out a splinter. You don't dust off the Great Jim Phelps for what could just as easily handled by threatening me with prison and burying me in court cases. Unless....”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you're lying....”

“Why would I lie?” He seemed genuinely hurt.

“Because it's what you do....”

“If you've got something to say, you should just say it.”

Phelps fell silent for a full minute before he understood.

“No,” he said. “I would never do that.”

“It's the only way any of this makes sense,” I said.

“I don't know what you think you know, but you don't know,” he said.

“It'll become true if the right people believe it. You know that better than most.”

“You are forgetting where you are,” he said. “These people, the people responsible for all this, already know the truth.”

“So, it is true” I said.

“Well, what if it is? You said so yourself, there's not much of a percentage in doing what you're told. We don't exactly have the best track record when it comes to keeping promises.”

“This is not what we signed up for. We volunteered to be janitors—to go in after hours and clean up other people's messes: no promises, no handshakes, no pats on the back.

“I was very good at my job—one of maybe three in the world who could operate at that level and--.”

His voice trailed off.

“What are they after?” I asked after an awkward silence.

Phelps snapped back into focus. You could see the gameface that I had known all those years ago.

“Who?” he asked.

The gears were turning and I knew he was trying to figure out what I knew and how to respond.

“The client,” I said.

“They want the company,” he said.

“The remote control patents, right.”

And then it hit me: drones.

“What I don't understand is why you don't just go down to the patent office, look up what you need and send them a bill. Why go to all of this trouble?”

“They don't want to know how to make them. Christ, my grandson could build me a drone with his homework,” Phelps said.

“So, not the technology? What do you get with the patent that you can't get with a copy of the patent?”

And then it was my turn to fall silent.

“Exactly,” he said.

“Never did like the damn things myself,” I said. “Sneaky way to run a war.”

“And soon, everybody will have them.”

“So, Barney came up with the idea?”

“Not the whole thing, just the concept and a critical piece that makes them work.”

“Why didn't you just come to me about this? We could have done a deal.”

“No.”

“Why not?” I said. “I got no feelings for those sheetcake motherfuckers.”

“Like you said, we're soldiers, we follow orders. The client doesn't want a partner.”

“Okay, so what happens if I don't play ball? You can't kill me and you can't really trust anything that is the product of torture.”

“I don't need torture,” said Phelps. “All I really need is your signature.”

He pulled a carefully folded piece of paper from his pocket.

“What's that?”

“An understanding,” he said. “You grant us power of attorney and we leave Barney's kids, his whole family just as we found them.”

“You found them?”

“Yes. It wasn't easy, but we found them. How do you think we knew about you and your interest?”

“And you've got their piece?”

“Yes,” Phelps said. “Your signature and we can be in court Monday morning.”

“Court? Of course, why take them down one by one when you can ground all the drones with one court order?”

“Strange, don't you think?” said Phelps. “We can take out a twenty-first century weapon system with one from ancient China? Sign here, please.”

He was indicating a signature block on the document. He handed me his pen. It was heavy—brass probably—and it made a beautiful bold line across the page.

What other choice did I have?

I watched as he inspected my signature and then folded the piece of paper and replaced it in his pocket.

“So, I get to see my dog now?”

“I don't think so, Willy.”

“All due respect,” I said, “but you don't get to make that call.”

I pursed my lips and made a comical kissing noise. In an instant, it was answered by a low woof.

Phelps first looked in the direction of the sound and then at me.

And then he looked in the direction of the shaft of light that sliced into the room from where the walls had split open.

Jim Phelps sank into his chair as the team rushed into the room and placed him under arrest.

For the first time, he really looked old, tired and broken.

I was busy trying to keep my dog from burying his nose in my crotch. He was normally very dismissive, but reunions were always very exciting.

The ex-fil team pulled Phelps to his feet and slid a pair of flex-cuffs over his wrists.

They were leading him out of the room when I stopped them.

“Oh, and Jim?”

It seemed to take a great deal of effort for him to raise his eyes to meet mine.

“Yes?” he said.

“My name is not Willy.”