And the most inexplicable telephone call of all:
“Chief, you’d better send a lot of tow trucks out to the main highway right away. It’s a nightmare. All traffic has stopped.”
“What? Why?”
“No one knows. The car engines just suddenly went dead.”
It was a night they would never forget.
Chapter Sixteen
How long is this assignment going to take? Robert wondered, as he strapped himself into his first-class seat on the Swissair flight. As the plane rushed down the runway, its huge Rolls-Royce engines hungrily swallowing the night air, Robert relaxed and closed his eyes. Was it really just a few years ago that I took this same flight with Susan to London? No. It was more like a lifetime ago.
The plane touched down at Heathrow at six twenty-nine p.m., on schedule. Robert made his way out of the maze, and took a taxi into the sprawling city. He passed a hundred familiar landmarks, and he could hear Susan’s voice, excitedly commenting about them. In those golden days it had never mattered where they were. It was simply enough that they were together. They brought their own happiness with them, their own special excitement in each other. Theirs was the marriage that would have a happy ending.
Almost.
Their problems had started innocently enough with an overseas call from Admiral Whittaker while Robert and Susan were travelling in Thailand. It had been six months since Robert had been discharged from the Navy, and he had not talked to the Admiral in all that time. The call, reaching them at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, was a surprise.
“Robert? Admiral Whittaker.”
“Admiral! It’s good to hear your voice.”
“It hasn’t been easy tracking you down. What have you been up to?”
“Not very much. Just taking it easy. Having a long honeymoon.”
“How is Susan? It is Susan, isn’t it?”
“Yes. She’s fine, thank you.”
“How soon can you get back to Washington?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It hasn’t been announced yet, but I’ve been given a new assignment, Robert. They’ve made me Director of 17th District Naval Intelligence. I’d like you to come aboard.”
Robert was taken aback. “Naval Intelligence? Admiral, I don’t know anything about …”
“You can learn. You would be doing an important service– for your country, Robert. Will you come and discuss it with me?”
“Well …”
“Good. I’ll expect you in my office Monday morning at 0900. Say hello to Susan for me.”
Robert repeated the conversation to Susan.
“Naval Intelligence? That sounds so exciting.”
“Maybe,” Robert said doubtfully. “I have no idea what’s involved.”
“You must find out.”
He studied her for a moment. “You want me to take it, don’t you?”
She put her arms around him. “I want you to do whatever you want to do. I think you’re ready to go back to work. I’ve noticed in the last few weeks how restless you’ve become.”
“I think you’re trying to get rid of me,” Robert teased. “The honeymoon is over.”
Susan put her lips close to his. “Never. Did I ever tell you how crazy I am about you, sailor? Let me show you …”
Thinking about it later – too late – Robert decided that that was the beginning of the end of their marriage. The offer had seemed wonderful at the time, and he had gone back to Washington to meet with Admiral Whittaker.
“This job requires brains, courage and initiative, Robert. You have all three. Our country has become a target for every little tin-horn dictatorship that can breed a terrorist group or build a chemical weapons factory. Half a dozen of those countries are working on atomic bombs at this moment, so that they can hold us at ransom. My job is to build an intelligence network to find out exactly what they’re up to and to try to stop them. I want you to help me.”
In the end, Robert had accepted the job with Naval Intelligence, and to his surprise, he found that he enjoyed it and had a natural aptitude for it. Susan found an attractive apartment in Rosslyn, Virginia, not far from where Robert worked, and busied herself furnishing it. Robert was sent to the Farm, the CIA training ground for secret service agents.
Located in a heavily guarded compound in the Virginia countryside, the Farm occupies twenty square miles, most of it covered in tall pine forest, with the central buildings in a ten-acre cleared area two miles from the front gate. A network of dirt roads branches off through the woods, with locked swinging barricades, and “No Entry” signs posted. At a small airfield, unmarked aircraft arrive and depart several times a day. The Farm has a deceptively bucolic setting, with leafy trees, deer running in the fields, and small buildings innocently scattered around the extensive grounds. Inside the compound, however, it is a different world.
Robert had expected to train with other Navy personnel, but to his surprise, the trainees were a mixture of CIA inductees and marines, and Army, Navy and Air Force personnel. Each student was assigned a number and housed in a dormitory-like room in one of several spartan two-storey brick buildings. At the Bachelor Officer Quarters, where Robert stayed, each man had his own room, and shared the bathroom with another. The Mess Hall was across the road from the BOQ cluster.
On the day Robert arrived, he was escorted to an auditorium with thirty other newcomers. A tall, powerfully built black Colonel in Air Force uniform addressed the group. He appeared to be in his middle fifties, and he gave the impression of quick, cold intelligence. He spoke clearly and crisply, with no wasted words.