Bill did not get the joke. “Begging your pardon, but it's Murphy, sir.”
“My apologies, Ensign Murphy.” Rob rolled his eyes at the man's back as he followed him toward the building.
The ensign escorted the commander to the metro level of the Pentagon, which housed the food court. They arrived at Harry's Tap Room at precisely fourteen-thirty hours. The captain dismissed Bill with instructions to retrieve the commander in an hour to take him back to the airport so that he could catch his seventeen-thirty flight back home.
Rob shook the captain's hand vigorously. He had no idea what this meeting was about, but it was good to see his old friend. “Good afternoon, sir. It's great to see you.”
“You, too,” Benny said, smiling widely. “Let's drop the formality just for lunch, shall we?” he added.
Rob was pleased to hear that their relationship hadn't changed from its first-name basis. “If you're game, I'm game.”
He had time enough to notice that Benny had one-third of a glass of what looked like iced tea in front of him before a young woman stood at the table dressed in a pair of black slacks and a blue oxford shirt with her first name embroidered across the pocket. “Welcome to Harry's Tap Room. My name is Tiffany and I'll be your server this afternoon. Can I get your drink order, sir?”
Rob estimated that she was in her early twenties and about five foot eight. She had shoulder-length blonde hair. Her blue eyes sparkled as she patiently smiled at him. Rob thought of Karina Yevstafyava, the Russian exchange student that he and Carol had hosted and become friends with so many years ago. She had been there with them on that Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The three of them had spent the evening watching the events unfold on television. Brushing those thoughts aside, he made himself focus on the more pleasant memories of their time together as a family. This served to dull whatever unpleasant memories he was harboring after his visit to the memorial. “I'd like water with lemon, please.”
Tiffany wrote on her black pad. “Can I interest you gentlemen in an appetizer? The Point Judith calamari is very good.”
Benny looked at Rob questioningly. “It's on me.”
Rob picked up the menu that was waiting on the table in front of him and opened it. He looked from it to the captain and then answered, “I wouldn't care for any, thanks.”
“Okay,” Tiffany said, still smiling. “Do you guys know what you want to order, or do you need a minute?”
Rob flipped a page in the menu, and then looked up at Benny. “Do you know what you want?”
Benny nodded. “Yeah, I had a minute before you sat down.”
Rob looked up at Tiffany and smiled. “I'll have what he's having.”
“We'll have the roasted red pepper and crab soup to start and the chipotle barbecue chicken breast.” He turned back to the inside cover. “And go ahead and bring us the crispy shrimp appetizer as well.”
Rob's eyes narrowed. “What about my diet?”
Benny looked slyly at Rob. “Have you started it yet?”
“Of course”—he tried to keep a straight face, but couldn't help a smile—“not. But I was gonna start today.”
“Then, you'll start tomorrow.” Benny gave Rob a knowing smile.
“Alright,” Tiffany said. “More tea, sir?” she asked Benny.
“Please.”
“Doesn't she look like Karina?” Rob asked, watching the young woman walk away.
Benny glanced her way as she ducked into the waitress station. “I don't remember. I only met her once at your Christmas party.” Looking back, he noticed Rob's unbroken stare. “Watch it, pal. Carol would get jealous if she were here.”
Rob laughed. “She'd be lookin' too. Karina's like a daughter to us.”
Benny continued to regard Rob with some amusement.
“Both of us,” Rob reiterated.
It took about ten minutes for their appetizer to arrive, and in another five the soup was delivered. The entrees quickly followed. They spent the next thirty minutes reminiscing about old times and catching up on each other while they ate. Benny did the lion's share of the talking, since he was in the more interesting field of weapons development. Rob was more than a little interested in what the Navy was working on in terms of hardware. But it soon became clear that they weren't anywhere near the subject of why the captain had ordered Rob to Washington. Unless it was to critique the lunch they had been served, which Rob found to be excellent.
Benny paid the check and thanked Tiffany with a thirty percent tip for her attentive service. He then checked his watch while Rob sneaked a peak at his own. It was nearly fifteen thirty hours. The ensign would be back to whisk Rob off to the airport at any moment.
Rob took the initiative. “Well, thanks very much for lunch, Cap.” Then he gave Benny a serious look. “But I'm sure this isn’t what you brought me up here for.”
Benny returned his stare, but was silent for a moment as if he was searching for the right words. Finally, he spoke. “Yeah. I'm sorry about all this, Rob, but this wasn't something I could do without looking you in the eye.”
“You have my full attention.”
“I need to ask you to participate in a … program.”
“A program?”
Benny drained the last of his tea and shook his head. “Now, you must understand that it is completely voluntary. You have to be comfortable with saying no on this one. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain stopped and forced himself to smile just a bit. “I have recommended that you be the subject”—he looked right and left, exaggerating the movement, then lowered his voice even though the dining room was nearly empty—“of an experiment involving genetic engineering.”
Rob's eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” The captain didn't want to say the words again.
“I'm not sure that I did.” Rob studied the captain. “Did you just say genetic—?”
“Engineering. Yes, I did.”
Rob's face grew into a wide smile as he leaned back in his chair. “This is a joke, right? I'm being punked.” He looked around the room, expecting to see someone jump from behind a plant with a camera. “I’m being punked, aren’t I?”
Benny stared stone-faced at Rob, saying nothing.
Seeing the captain's expression, Rob began to laugh uncomfortably. “What?”
Benny's expression hadn't changed. And he still said nothing.
Rob leaned forward, his voice nearly a whisper. “Captain, you aren't serious.” It wasn't a question. Rob simply couldn't believe what he had heard the man say.
Benny was being as vague as possible. He figured the less Rob knew about the project, the less likely he would be to accept the assignment.
“That's all I can tell you for now, Rob.” Benny’s expression softened a bit. “Now, I know it's not much to go on and I also know that you might have some moral convictions about this that you may need to talk over with your wife.”
“My wife?” Never in his twenty-three years in the Navy had anyone ever advised Rob to discuss an assignment with anyone, especially Carol.
Bill entered the restaurant and came into Benny’s field of view. The captain picked up his napkin, gave his mouth one last wipe, and stood up.
Rob immediately followed suit, unsure whether the ranks were still dropped or not.
“You have until the end of the week to decide,” Benny smiled warmly. “Just email me yes or no by Friday.” With that, the captain extended his hand. “Have a safe flight home, Rob,” he added as he strode past.
As he saw the captain approach, Bill opened the door and stood aside as he strode out of the restaurant without so much as a nod. Seeing the captain leave, Tiffany came to the table to collect the remaining dishes. Rob hadn't moved. He didn't turn to watch Benny leave, and he hadn't seen Bill come in and silently walk up behind him. He looked at the young woman, still confused. “What just happened?”
Tiffany stood there silently.
F
rom behind him, Bill said matter-of-factly, “He does that to me all the time.”
* * * * *
ROB THOUGHT ABOUT his bizarre experience with the captain for the entire hour-long trip back to the airport. While waiting for his flight, he nearly missed his boarding call as he contemplated the events. He played the conversation in his head from beginning to end over and over during the four-hour flight.
None of it made any sense.
Throughout the entire encounter, Benny had seemed to be his old self. Unchanged from the last time the two had seen each other. And then, bam! His entire demeanor changed in the blink of an eye. He became so cryptic and unclear that Rob had half-considered he could be showing early signs of dementia.
Genetic engineering? And he seemed serious. Rob thought a moment. No, he didn't seem serious … he was serious.
He walked to the main entrance of Charleston International Airport where Carol was waiting in the car at the curb to pick him up. The only conclusion he had reached so far was that he was not going to discuss the conversation, at least the genetic engineering part, with his wife.
He climbed into the car and saw the welcome sight of C. C. and Christian asleep in the back. The boy was still clutching his Gameboy and C. C. held her favorite stuffed animal, a penguin named Opus.
Rob slid into the passenger seat and leaned over to give Carol a kiss.
“How was your flight?” she asked while snaking her way into traffic.
“Confusing,” Rob answered honestly.
“Confusing?” Carol repeated the word with a smile. She cocked her head to one side. “Confusing?”
He returned her look. “Perplexing? Disorienting? How 'bout consternating?”
“Okay, mister thesaurus. How 'bout a deeper explanation than words that mean the same thing as confusing?”
Rob recalled the highlights of the conversation again, but he really wanted to let it go until morning. His brain was in need of a rest. “I don't know. Benny was …”
“Confusing?” Carol finished his thought for him after he paused.
“Yeah. He was fine through most of lunch but towards the end, he just … I don't know.”
“Is he alright?” Carol was concerned. She had known Benny Walsh for fifteen years. Rob had introduced him to her after they were engaged. “He's not sick, is he?”
“No,” Rob answered, too quickly. “At least I don't think so.”
“You don't think so?” Her concern was growing.
“I'm sorry, Button.” He didn’t how to answer her. “Like I said, I don't know. At first he was fine and then … pppphhhhtttt.” He made a raspberry.
Carol was silent as they drove through an intersection. She forced herself take Rob's words at face value. She knew he wouldn't be deliberately evasive, so she turned her questions to the more practical. “Well, did he give you an assignment?”
Rob grimaced. “Well, yes and no.” He felt bad. Every other time he had found himself in a similar conversation with her, he had been able to, at the very least, give her the news that he would be leaving. He'd be flying out on this date and returning on or about that date. But this time, Benny really hadn’t given Rob anything to go on.
Carol looked at him with a straight face. “Rob, you're beginning to annoy me.”
“I'm sorry, Button.” He placed his hands on his knees and stared through the windshield. “I'm really not doing it on purpose.”
She couldn't help but smile. He always had a way of relieving her stress even as he continued to be a pain in the butt. “Well, which is it, Hun … yes or no?”
“Okay.” Rob was trying to remember the conversation word for word. “This is what he said. He has recommended me”—he jabbed his thumb at himself, although Carol was too busy merging into traffic to notice—“to be the subject of a … project.”
Comfortable with her position on the road, she glanced over at him. “Was that it?”
Rob held his hands up in frustration. “Well, yeah, that … and that I have until Friday to give him a yes or no answer.”
Carol was looking from the road to Rob and back again. “He said he wants you to be in some kind of project and you have until Friday to tell him yea or nay?”
“Yup,” Rob said, slapping his knees.
Carol turned her full attention back to driving. She was less concerned about the situation, but still wasn't satisfied. “Well, where is this project? Is it overseas?”
“He didn't say.”
“When does it start?”
“He didn't tell me.”
“How long is it supposed to last?”
“I don't know,” Rob replied with a nervous laugh.
Carol’s brows furrowed. “Well, how the heck are you supposed to make a decision based on that?”
Rob pursed his lips and shook his head. “See what I mean?”
“Uh huh,” she replied.
“There is one other thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. He said that I should talk about it with you.” I thought we weren’t gonna discuss it with her.
“With me?” Carol was mystified. She had long ago accepted the fact that there were certain things that a husband in the military couldn't tell his wife. Even though, on a few occasions, Rob had confided in her some things that would probably cost him his career if the Navy ever found out.
“I know,” Rob said in frustration.
There was a long silence as they continued down I-26 to Summerville and home. They were both deep in thought. Neither was sure where to go next. They didn't speak until Carol turned onto their street.
“I guess what you have to do is ask yourself whether Benny would ask you to do anything that would place you in danger—and a project doesn't sound like it will—or if he would ask you to break your moral or ethical convictions.”
There was the term Rob wanted to avoid using in front of Carol. Moral convictions. Benny had mentioned the same. But what moral convictions had he been talking about?
She pulled into their driveway, switched off the engine, and looked him in the eye. Then, as if she had been reading his mind, she said, “If there's anything that you”—she took a breath and continued—“that you can't tell me about this, then maybe you should call and make an appointment with Associate Pastor Wallace.”
“Pastor Wallace?” At first Rob didn't recognize the name. “You mean Brother Phil?”
Carol nodded.
Brother Phil was the associate pastor of Summerville Christian Assembly, where they were members. The idea threw Rob for a loop. They had been attending the church since they moved to Summerville nine years before. At first, they had only joined because they found out that the church had a good international missions program and that it had a sister church in Russia. Later, they had come to enjoy the staff at SCA, especially Brother Phil, who played along with Rob on the church softball team. But that was about all the contact he’d had with the man, apart from the occasional “hey” as they went to and from church on Sundays.
Briefly, Rob considered telling Carol that there was nothing in the world he couldn't talk to her about. But he quickly dismissed that idea, because they both would have known it was a lie. No, he realized Carol was being a good military wife. She knew instinctively that there was something he wasn't telling her, and she trusted Phil Wallace to give Rob some godly insight to help him make this decision.
He got out and opened the back door where C. C. was asleep. He picked her up, taking care not to drop Opus, as Carol retrieved Christian from the other side. He looked over the car at her in the darkened driveway. “Would you mind giving the church a call for me in the morning, Button?”
She smiled at him. “It'll cost ya,” she joked.
12 Kingsley's Legacy
7 July 2010
1225 hours
SENATOR MARGARET Kingsley, the three-term Democrat from the state of Wyoming and Chairperson of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sat across the white linen-
clad table from Captain Benny Walsh in the dining room of the Sou'Wester restaurant in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on Maryland Avenue in Washington, D.C. She was born in Georgetown, British Guiana in 1952, but her parents had immigrated to the Unites States when she was still an infant. Eventually, they settled in Casper, Wyoming, where her parents took whatever work they could get from the Catholic Ministries there. Her father, a taxidermist, soon opened up his own shop to service the locals and out-of-towners who hunted Wyoming's fare.
The senator graduated from Natrona County High School in 1969, where she had earned a track and field scholarship to the University of Wyoming at Laramie. There she earned her bachelor's degree in political science. Upon returning to Casper, she found work in the mayor's office as county clerk and eventually worked her way up to county commissioner before her bid for the senate eleven years ago. A serious, uncomplicated woman and extremely to-the-point, she demanded much from her subordinates. And they were well rewarded for their efforts.
She was wearing a gray business suit and a pink blouse, which accented her medium brown skin nicely. But her complexion was also beginning to show some signs of the stress she found herself under. She wore her black hair short and her ears and hands were distinctly devoid of jewelry. She would have sworn that she had turned her cell phone off for the lunch engagement, but she said when it rang, “The show must go on.”
“I don't care about any of that, Tom. That wasn't in the deal,” she said, her frustration growing. Noticing that her staffer, Keri Wadsworth, was scribbling notes furiously in an attempt to keep up with the one-sided conversation, the senator put her hand on the girl's steno pad to stop her.
Keri wasn't what most people would consider attractive. Rather plain with her mousy brown hair pulled back tightly in a bun, she was slightly on the short and heavy side. Benny guessed that she was in her mid-twenties. Her dark, almost black eyes stood out even behind the horn-rimmed glasses she wore. She had on a black pants suit with a plain white blouse, completing her drab appearance. It reminded Benny of a nun's habit. But the thing Benny found most annoying about the young woman was her habit of looking down when she spoke.
When Kingsley received the call, Benny stopped eating the sautéed red snapper he had ordered. The food was delicious, but he considered it rude to eat while she was talking on the phone.