Chapter 24: Spy Trick

WE WERE ON THE ROAD—or in the air—every week until Thanksgiving. We covered all of Western Europe, finishing with West Germany. There were still two consulates in northern Germany that we had to travel to. We’d not yet made it to Dusseldorf or to Hamburg.

The best part of the trip the week before Thanksgiving was getting together with my sister, Naomi. We spent two days in Frankfurt and she came over from Wiesbaden.

“What is my little brother doing flying around with a black passport?” Naomi demanded. “And where are your other wives?”

Naomi had a tendency to jump to conclusions on minimal evidence. She could be quite judgmental.

“Anna and Patricia are in London with our two children, Toni and Alex,” I said. “Ronda and I have been appointed to install new equipment in embassies and consulates as part of my alternative service.”

“They finally gave you your CO status? Good. I’m glad. I’ve always felt bad about not supporting you. But I couldn’t. Not just because of my career. We had different fathers,” she said. I looked at her in alarm. “No, I don’t mean literally. But the man who raised you is a very different man from the one I knew. I can’t ... I just...”

“Naomi, what is it? You look really upset. I didn’t mean to bring up anything unsettling.”

“It’s just ... I still can’t think of our father without seeing the gun he held to my head.”

“What?!”

I could have swallowed a fly with my mouth open like that. I wouldn’t have noticed. My father? Hold a gun to my sister’s head? What the hell?

“You don’t know anything about it, do you? I don’t know all the details, but Dad used to run around with his brother Lewis, a real slimeball. I was only five, so I don’t know what the issue was, but Lewis convinced Dad that he had to show he was the boss. He got a gun and threatened to kill the whole family if Mom didn’t take him back.”

“Shit! I only found out we had an Uncle Lewis when Dad needed an affidavit to prove his birth in the US. Lewis died in prison a year and a half ago. I met our cousin, Noreen, last fall.”

“Is she anything other than a beauty queen now?” Naomi laughed.

“She’s beautiful, but um...”

“See, that’s something else we don’t have in common. Deborah and I remember Noreen as ‘the pretty one.’ She was going to become Miss America. She was going to be Barbie in real life.”

“Well, I don’t know how well she did with that. She’s been married three times. Says her older brother and sister are like her father.”

“Why was he in prison?”

“He tried to rape Noreen when she was sixteen.”

“You see? See what a crappy family we come from. Deborah got married to a soldier as soon as she was out of high school. I didn’t want anything to do with a man. I left the day after graduation and joined the Air Force. But look at you and Kat. Great artists, going to college, working for the government,” Naomi said.

“You know we still love and miss you,” I said.

“Yeah. You were the best thing about living at home. I’m sure I was gone before Kat really remembers much. There’s six years between you and me and another six before Kat.”

“Do you remember having to take me to school with you when you were in sixth grade?”

“Yeah. That was not long after Kat was born. She had to be taken to the doctor for something.”

“Is that why I had to go with you? I didn’t associate it. But I always remembered Mr. Hess. He used a big paddle on a kid who kept wandering around the class.”

“Oh, God! Yes. Everyone was afraid of Mr. Hess. Sixth grade math.”

“I had him in sixth grade, too. He still had the paddle hanging next to the blackboard, but I never saw him use it again.”

“Different world.”

“So, Mom just got back together to save the family from being killed by Dad?” I asked.

“That’s the way I interpreted it, but I’m sure there was more. It was like a conditional acceptance. She made Dad promise all sorts of things, including not seeing his brother anymore, stopping drinking, and getting rid of all the guns in the house. She made it clear that he was a guest in her house and he needed to toe the line or she’d bring charges against him and he’d never see his family again.”

“Well, I guess he was a better man for it,” I sighed.

“It’s a good thing you visited me when you did,” Naomi said, changing the subject and taking a long drink of her dark German beer. I followed suit. “I finished my degree and I’ve been accepted to officer training school. I’m moving back to Lackland over Christmas and start classes in January.”

“That’s cool! You might get to be a pilot yet. You could be flying me around Europe and the Middle East.” I told her about my pilots and the plane we were using.

“I could probably fly that with a little training. I’ve got a private pilot’s license, but mostly I help move helicopters back and forth from base to base when they’re repaired. The Air Force will never put a woman in the cockpit. We’re too delicate and weak. The helicopters, though, only require one official pilot, so I get stick time going along as a mechanic-observer.”

I looked at my sister. Two words I would never use to describe her were ‘delicate’ and ‘weak.’ She was heavier than when I’d last seen her, but it looked like she was really solid. I had no doubt that if we were in a wrestling match, I’d lose.

“I guess that proves the oxymoron,” I said.

“What?”

“Military Intelligence. Two words that get put together that are seemingly incompatible. If they were smart, they’d have you flying.”

“Thank you, little brother. I’ll stick with my training to fly and maybe when I retire from the Air Force, I’ll manage to snag a job as a commercial pilot.”

We’d gotten together early in the afternoon and Ronda joined us for dinner. She’d taken the plane to Brussels and back to deliver a dispatch.

I thought about that. Our family was in London. I was with my sister in Frankfurt. I had a sister in Japan and one in Minneapolis. Our parents lived in Illinois. We had a home and business in Ontario. And Ronda had taken our plane to Brussels for the day. I wondered when I was finally going to get the feeling of sophistication I thought I should have after flying all over the world. I still felt like a small town hick.

We got back to London about the same time Adrienne got to town. We’d planned this pretty well. Ronda and I had been in the air for four weeks and only home on weekends. We’d have three days in the office before Thanksgiving and then have a long weekend off.

First, though, I had a date with the mother of my children. Saturday was Patricia’s twenty-fourth birthday. We celebrated in the time-honored way of finding places to photograph her and then spending the afternoon in the darkroom together.

True to form, Adrienne declined the opportunity to stay with us, and insisted that she would stay in a hotel like a good pet. Fortunately, she’d chosen a hotel that was practically next door to our flat.

Toni was excited to see Aunt Addie and wanted to show her everything about London.

“This is my room, Aunt Addie. You can use my WC if you want to. And I’ll take you to school, too! We learn so much! It’s hard to keep it all in my head,” Toni said.

Adrienne shot a look of surprise at me. Since arriving in London just two and a half months ago, Toni’s vocabulary and sentence structure had improved remarkably. Patricia said that while she liked Miss Lisa in Antioch, the school tended to talk down to the children and Toni was ready to move much faster. The American School in London provided an education compatible with the system in the US, but far more aggressive in its instruction.

“I can’t paint as good as Aunt Kat yet,” Toni continued, showing Adrienne her newest pictures. “Can I paint you, Aunt Addie?”

“Of course you can, Miss Toni. We can do it this week while Daddy and Mom Ronda are at work. If Mom Anna and Mom Patricia say it’s okay,” she quickly added. She glanced at Anna and blushed a little.

We’d seen the opening of The Bacchae in the West End the first of November. I’d even managed time that weekend to get to the theatre for some photos. I had set up my darkroom in the small study in the apartment, which was exactly where Jane had once had hers. We all decided to see the show again during the Sunday matinee. Old Auntie agreed to watch the children. We met Peter and Jane at the theatre and Adrienne immediately zeroed in on Jane’s growing tummy.

“Please tell me you are really pregnant,” Adrienne said. “Are you happy?”

“I’m thrilled!” Jane said. “And yes, I don’t think I could get any more pregnant than I am. Though the doctor says I should expect the feeling to multiply in the coming weeks. We’re at seventeen weeks now and I’m already thinking it’s time for delivery.”

“Just wait,” Patricia laughed. “You’ll be sitting with your legs crossed before long for fear the baby will just slide out. But he’ll have his own schedule and won’t budge a minute before he’s ready.”

“We’ll probably go up to Plympford after the holidays and I’ll spend the last trimester sequestered there. My clients are already reacting in surprise when I lug my equipment in to take their photos,” Jane said.

We were ushered into the theatre and took our seats. Just before the curtain, Kathleen and Damien joined us. The show had improved since Stratford—even since it opened here in London. I won’t say it got rave reviews, but it was favorably received and Damien was confident they’d close out the year in the theatre.

Of course, The P Pirates had left after their initial two-week engagement, during which they had carefully auditioned and rehearsed musicians to take their place. I thought that was good. These girls brought a different energy to the performance than the rock group. I’d say they were more a part of the ensemble than separate performers.

And the dynamic between Dora and Eugene as Pentheus and Dionysus was incredible. Devon was listed under both names in the program as playing Pentheus. The Weird Sisters, of course, were everything they’d been in Stratford and then some. Dionysus openly seduces the three of them in the first act. But he did the same number on Dora in in the second act, transforming her on stage as he seduces Pentheus. Revealing Pentheus changed into a female version of himself was more dramatic than I’d imagined when I saw the show in Stratford. She still had fine breasts!

“Isn’t she phenomenal?” Peter asked. “The best of all worlds. Beautiful woman on top and all man below!”

“I thought you were enamored with Eugene,” I laughed.

“Well, I’m not so traditional as to be monogamous,” he confessed.

We went to dinner with Kathleen, Damien, Eugene, Dora, Peter, Jane, and my family after the performance. The theatre didn’t do an evening performance on Sunday. Damien determined that the return on investment was not high enough to justify the strain on the actors and musicians. As it was, they had a matinee and evening performance on Saturday, so they were bringing in a good house for six performances a week.

When Dora saw me, she rushed to me and gave me a big kiss. Well, she looked like a million bucks, so I didn’t resist too much.

“You are my hero. You found me just when I needed something more than drag shows and gave me to Damien and Eugene. I am so thankful to you, my one-time roommate.”

“My friend, you’ve always deserved this recognition. I just happened to be near the opportunity.”

“Just as you were for Anita,” Adrienne said, slipping her hand through my arm to pull me away from Dora.

“How is our sweetheart doing?” Damien asked. “I only regret I didn’t have the right place to keep her. She was just itching to stretch her wings.”

“She flew the right direction,” Adrienne said. “The studio put her under contract immediately and has her working in couple of short projects. The big one, however, will start filming in the spring with the plan being to release before the year-end so they qualify for the 1974 awards. She will be great as Delia.”

“Is that what they’ve named the girlfriend?” I asked.

“It’s a little up in the air. The placeholder names are Sam and Delia. There are some who think it’s too blatant,” Adrienne answered.

“It does sound like Samson and Delilah,” I said. “I’m sure Brent and Bert will come up with something more suited. Development is coming along well?”

“They are working hard, master. They will attempt to begin filming by May and, of course, will want you to come to LA as soon as possible after your break starts. They are also looking for more exciting ideas from the world-traveling team of spies.”

“We really aren’t spies,” I objected.

“Tell her about the new watch idea,” Ronda prompted.

“Okay. So, we travel all over the world and we have to make phone calls to other places. But I never know exactly when I can make the call, because what time is it now in Tokyo? I’d have to get a map out and count the time zones away from Greenwich mean time. Which would be easy, except that it’s tomorrow there. So, Spy Boy needs a watch he can speak to and say, ‘Time in Tokyo.’ The watch changes time to Tokyo time. It should automatically update when he flies from London to Germany, for example, because he’s in another time zone.”

Adrienne took notes and we eventually went home to bed. Or my wives went home to bed. I went to Adrienne’s hotel and to bed.

We had a lot of briefings the first three days of the week. We’d been gone for the better part of a month and the Deputy Chief of Mission wanted a report on what we’d been doing. Of course, Mr. Martin wanted a report, and wanted to discuss our responsibilities with Mr. Abbey. It seemed there was some debate in the embassy over whether our plane was a waste of resources. Mr. Martin reminded him that the plane was not an embassy resource so he had no business speculating about whether it was a waste.

Then Robert Brice, the Assistant Minister of Security, wanted a briefing about what we’d observed regarding the security at the various embassies. He’d recently been assigned to a task force reviewing embassy security and its implications. He wanted to know if the photography systems I’d installed prior to this fall could be retrofitted with the locking device. I discussed it with the team in Boston and they assured me they’d investigate and come up with another solution.

Everyone, it seemed, wanted to see the photos I’d taken so far on my European tour. I’d carefully separated out my personal photos from the State Department photos by the simple expedient of carrying two cameras with me now. I had a plane on which I could pack just about anything I wanted to bring. I’d purchased a new Nikon F2 before we left for Europe and it became my personal camera while the old Nikon was now owned by the State Department.

Of course, Thanksgiving is not a holiday in the UK but the embassy celebrated both American and British holidays. We had great fun having Peter and Jane join us for Thanksgiving dinner. Patricia and Anna took charge of the kitchen, though Ronda and I were right in there cooking, too. Old Auntie was invited to sit with the family for our feast.

We all got time with Adrienne and loved having her with us. I promised I’d make time to come to LA as soon as my spring stint was over. Adrienne promised to return for Alex’s birthday in February.

Then Ronda and I were in the air again.

I’d taken the precaution of checking with my boss about whether I was permitted to meet with Brother Hector Costas while I was in Greece before I contacted Hector. It took a couple of tries to track him down, but I was joyfully invited to meet with him. We compared notes and locations before deciding to meet in Thessaloniki, where the consulate was.

Ronda and I took off Monday for the long trip to Athens. Our pilots filed the flight plan and we left Monday mid-morning with equipment for Athens and Thessaloniki. It was a six-hour flight. Nancy served us a nice lunch and took food up to the pilots, then came to sit with us. Or to lean on the wall next to us. She’d configured the airplane for us specifically so we wouldn’t need to have people sitting across from us. We suggested we move back to the couch seat, which was not used for takeoff or landing, but was a comfortable meeting area with two regular seats across from it.

It soon became obvious what was on Nancy’s mind. She thought this was a good time to have a little personal time together since we were traveling so far and only had two visits to make. And she’d figured out in South America that the way into our bed was through Ronda, not me. She zeroed in on my partner with kisses and offered caresses. Well, it wasn’t the first time we’d been with Nancy. We all made out a little, but didn’t get too involved until after we arrived in Athens. An embassy car took us with the equipment to the embassy, and then off to our hotel where we were on our own for the night.

The pilots had everything locked up tight and went to a hotel nearer to the airport.

I thought of Nancy a little like Beth’s sister, Valerie. Val had been a stewardess on Pan Am before she retired to get married and have a baby, which, if I had computed correctly, should have arrived this past fall. But in her flying days, Valerie had been a party girl. The phrase ‘coffee, tea, or me’ was written for her. Nancy would have been a party girl if she’d been on a commercial airline. As it was, we were her only passengers and she’d already gotten bored with the pilots.

We ordered room service for our dinner and were delighted with the array of food that was delivered, along with a bottle of robust red wine. As we ate, we continued to get cozy and we all seemed to loosen or lose items of clothing before we were finished eating.

I hadn’t seen Nancy naked in several months. She wasn’t much, if any, older than we were. I’d turned twenty-four in September, Patricia the day Adrienne arrived, and Anna would turn twenty-four just after we got home from this trip. Ronda was the youngest of us and wouldn’t turn twenty-four until February eleventh, a week before Alex’s first birthday.

Nancy was about five-three and was slim as most stewardesses were. She had short brown hair and nice mouthful breasts. Her bush was trimmed, but not shaved. It gave a nice accent to the shape of her hips. Once her clothes dropped so did the rest of her inhibitions. We had a raucous roll in the hay with the three of us trading places often. In one of her favorite moves, Ronda got Nancy to ride her face while I plowed the stewardess from behind. Nancy and I both got off and Nancy stayed in position long enough to make sure Ronda took flight on her tongue.

We collected the equipment from the embassy loading dock and took it to the new passport center where we met our students. We had four to train and they were excited to have the equipment that would make their jobs easier.

After training, Ronda and I met with the ambassador to get his photo and to deliver the envelope sent by the State Department. He invited us to an early dinner, which we enjoyed. We had even better food than our hotel served. The ambassador was very interested in news from the West, but had a report he wanted to give us.

“Greece is a hotbed of unrest,” the ambassador said. “The monarchy was officially eliminated this summer. The country has been ruled by a military junta since 1967. We would not normally have continued relations with a country under a military dictatorship, but frankly, it is all that has kept the country from falling to the communists. Unrest is abundant. There was an uprising just last month that resulted in bloodshed as the army marched onto a college campus to put down the demonstration. Frankly, I don’t give the junta much longer, but I’m very cautious about who I say that to. I’m saying it to you rather than writing out a formal document. Once you are back in England, I’m asking you to contact your superiors in the State Department and give them this report.”

We listened to the ambassador for more than an hour and then he questioned us on what he had said. This was a new level of being a courier. I was hoping we could remember everything. When we got back to our room, we were a little slow getting started with Nancy and she was worried. We finally decided we’d need to go through everything on the flight in the morning.