certainly what separated these passengers, from any of the other half million international travelers flying over the world's oceans at that moment. These passengers didn't want to be here, weren't looking forward to the destination, and nobody had a guaranteed return ticket.
I sometimes envy guys like Howser; they have somebody to come home to, somebody who wants them home. For some odd reason, Bian and the photograph of her beloved fiance, Major Mark Kemble, popped to mind.
My gut instincts said that Bian's seemingly illogical enthusiasm for this mission had something to do with him, mixed, perhaps, with a lingering feeling of injustice over her father and Vietnam, a war lost, ultimately, because America lost faith in the cause. These are powerful furies to carry in your heart and your mind--love and ghosts, the living and the dead, the man she loved today, and a war that stole her chance to love her father.
In the words of Tennessee Williams, the heart is the most stubborn organ. About women, that sounds about right. About men, he definitely overlooked a more stubborn organ.
Which opened the question of what motives placed me on this plane, headed off as I was to do something my instincts said was foolhardy, my legal judgment said was wrong, and in my professional judgment, bordered on suicidal.
I recalled my father's favorite admonition: Never let your dick write a check. Good advice, Pop--but like most good advice, the devil is in the details.
In truth, Bian Tran had made a strong impression on me. Were I completely honest, I was a little smitten by her, and maybe a wee bit jealous of Major Mark Kemble. Indeed, this was a unique and spellbinding woman, a personified American dream. Arriving on our shores as a young child, impoverished, confused, homesick, and bereaved by the recent death of her father, she mastered a new language, absorbed a new culture, worked hard, marched through four years at that uniquely American institution, West Point, and, I suspected, were I to check her military file, her officer efficiency reports would be uniformly sterling.
In short, this was an intellectually gifted, forceful, driven lady. Also, as has been my experience with other immigrant children, I suspected that Bian Tran was a little hyperpatriotic regarding the ideals of her adopted land, inebriated by her sense of duty and, maybe, by her willingness to sacrifice for those she loved. It's interesting. Over 10 percent of American soldiers in Iraq weren't even U.S. citizens, just hungry young people trying to earn the dream.
Those of us born with the silver spoon of citizenry in our lips, I think, tend to be more convinced that we deserve our American birthright, particularly its fruits and indulgences over its labors and burdens. I did not think, though, that Bian was a mindless fanatic; in fact, I was sure that something else, something more--perhaps love, perhaps guilt, perhaps both--was driving her. I would have to keep an eye on that.
Also I didn't trust Phyllis. Well, I didn't trust the CIA. In my months in this job, I had found these were good people, patriotic, courageous, and enormously talented, who nearly always do what they think is best for the Republic. The problem is, they do it behind a curtain of smoke and mirrors; this isn't always a temptation to good judgment, or worse, good results.
Anyway, Captain Howser recognized a pal at the front of the plane and excused himself. This apparently required an exchange of seats, as, shortly afterward, a man, large and burly, with the stripes and diamond of a first sergeant on his collar lumbered down the aisle toward me. The name patch on his chest read Jackson, and he looked at me and said, "You mind, Colonel?"
"If you have a photo album, I mind a lot."
He laughed. "Divorced. Twice. How about I tell you what complete bitches they were?" Whereupon he fell into the seat and stretched out.
On his left shoulder, I observed the patch of the First Infantry Division--his current unit of assignment--and on his right shoulder, that of the Third Armored Division, a unit he served with in a previous war, or on a previous tour in this war. He was a combat veteran several times over with that weary, deromanticized, been-there-donethat look of somebody who was too tired to talk about it.
He said to me, "You're JAG." His eyes moved to my shoulder where there was no unit patch. "Where you assigned in Iraq?"