Chapter 21

James didn’t know how to shop anymore, but it was easier when it wasn’t his money. The exhilaration he felt being back on American soil had rapidly deteriorated into anxiety as he wandered through the streets of Miami. It was so different from Honduras, which he should have expected, but more so, it was different than he remembered. A lot changes in two years, James thought to himself as he shifted his new Government Issue smartphone in his pocket. He’d had a smart phone in his old life, an iPhone that he primarily used to watch porn and check his Facebook. The mini-computer they’d handed him along with a new passport, driver’s license and credit cards was a far cry from that. They’d given him a brief demonstration of its ability to scan dusted fingerprints and the facial and iris recognition software it had that allowed it to identify a person using only its camera and a satellite uplink. James had joked about the gadget coming from “Q Branch,” but the response was resoundingly that they’d all grown tired of James Bond jokes long ago. Besides, they told him, things like this were standard issue now.

The most puzzling thing about his new identity was that it wasn’t new at all. The driver’s license and passport both bore the name James Carter, complete with his real birthdate and the address he’d lived in alone prior to joining the agency. Deep Throat explained that in this new age of facial recognition software and DNA testing, it wasn’t simply easier to provide the real James Carter with a reason to travel to Spain than it was to fabricate an identity for him, but doing the latter would be nearly impossible. Based on how he’d just learned how to do that with his cell phone, he took it at face value – infiltrating every existing database on the planet to match his face up to a new name did sound rather daunting. Deep Throat had closed his briefing with one final remark, “no one in their thirties has ever gone by the name Jimmy.” James had considered bringing up the man who shared his name and had once held the American presidency, but decided it against it. Jimmy Carter probably wasn’t too popular a president among these black ops types.

After purchasing three suits and having them hurriedly tailor them to his dimensions, James bought luggage and enough shirts, socks and underwear to keep him from doing laundry for at least a week or so. He then bought a few pairs of slacks, a single pair of jeans, an HP Laptop computer and the crown jewel of his abuse of what he’d been told was an “unlimited mission oriented expense account” – a three thousand dollar Omega watch. He was aware that Daniel Craig’s James Bond wore one, but that wasn’t what drew him to it. It was meant to be a reminder of Ramon and Honduras. A reminder that anyone could be the enemy. A reminder to keep his head in the game.

From there, he went straight to the airport. His concerns about the pistol, now safely tucked into a concealed carry shoulder holster he purchased, vanished when he was promptly removed from line by a pleasant enough young woman wearing a United Airlines uniform.

“Right this way, Mr. Carter,” was all she said as she stepped off toward the security gates. She led him through an unmarked door to the right of the painfully long lines of tourists removing their shoes and belts and down a hallway that led to the gates. She opened the door for him and handed him a plane ticket.

“Thank you ma’am,” he nodded to her.

“Any time, have a good flight!” She smiled the broad customer service smile of a woman who’d been in this line of work long enough not to think anything was strange about sneaking government officials past security. James sat down near his gate, but skipping the pleasantries of waiting in line after line had bought him two hours he didn’t expect to have. He looked at his new watch, it was slim and light and he’d already checked to make sure it was still there a number of times. His suit was supremely comfortable, something he was unaware formal attire could be. His briefcase was the only bag he hadn’t opted to check because he’d kept his new laptop inside it. He removed it, booted it up and logged onto the free wireless internet. He had an email to write.

Disgusting, he thought to himself as an overweight soldier passed him in his seat. The uniform was the product of another, skinnier time in the soldier's life, now it strained to keep its shape like a fat girl's legs in fishnets - stretching, squeezing through the weak points in fabric. The idea that the man could be an imposter crossed James' mind as he passed - it's more common a practice than most realize and the airport is ripe with possibility. Posers hoping for a flight upgrade or maybe just a sideways glance and nod from a real warrior as he passed by. James had never been a real warrior anyway: never saw combat in his near seven years in the Corps (despite his best efforts to find it) and the weight of that guilt bore down on him as much today as it did when he was still pinning chevrons to his collar. What had he done for his country? Buried heroes, broke family's hearts with a knock and a grim expression, and accepted thanks on behalf of the real warriors, elsewhere in the world, fighting and dying for a notion all in uniform accepted as their role in a world too large to fully comprehend, but that they all called "freedom." James didn't see that concept as a cynical or unpatriotic one. He knew the war in Iraq wasn't keeping a surge of terrorists from invading America's borders. He knew the real answer was more nuanced than that, accepting that there were intelligent, capable and wise Americans with merited reasons why the war was wrong, some that even he would agree with, but such knowledge did nothing to alter his fierce willingness to kill another man, or die himself, in the shade of his flag. That's what made it HIS flag. He rested his hand on the pistol tucked into his side.

"You're not doing what you wanted. This isn't what a recruiter promised you," Major Timmons explained to James during yet another rejection for a transfer to a combat unit, "but you're doing what your country asked of you. So few people do that. It isn't firefights that make Marines heroes to America, it's that we'll do whatever is asked of us, be it jumping on a grenade or handing a grieving mother a flag, we few are whatever America needs us to be. I'm a Major with a bachelor’s degree, and my MBA. I have hundreds of Marines at my command, active and reserve, and I'd wrap my hands in duct tape and crawl down the streets of Boston if my country needed the pebbles picked up. You don't like what you're doing, I get it, but that's why it's called service. You're here to serve, and you're doing a good job of it." He lectured informally, even permitting James (then Sergeant Carter) to sit for the speech. James had heard it before, and he knew there was truth to it, but the truth didn't help him face his family when they introduced him as a hero, it didn't ease the pain of being thanked by grieving widows as he passed them a folded flag.

Too many funerals to count. Most were for older Vets, men and women that had the chance to lead full lives, save the short interruption of their service many years back. Unfortunately, most isn't all. He figured about three funerals a week for the better part of his near four year assignment. Multiplied together made for just north of a ton. James had been at the door with Major Timmons and watched the life drain from a mother's eyes before the Major had a chance to say a word. When one of his Lance Corporals hung himself, James spoke at his memorial about the struggles of service, and knowing Shawn Nettles, like him, had never gotten to fight, he meant it. A walking imposter, wearing the costume of a hero and accepting the praise while those earning it slept in holes on the other side of the world. Nettles killed himself so his family could have his life insurance money, some called it cowardice, but secretly, James admired his sacrifice in a way. He found a way to be the hero. Shame is a heavy cross to bear. Maybe that soldier was a fake, but who was James to judge that, he thought to himself. Even now, he had no idea what he was doing; just following orders and hoping for his chance one more time, he guessed. That soldier sure was fat though.

James returned his attention to the laptop. Despite the incredibly slow connection speed (coming from a man who’d spend the past two years in the third world) he managed to create the account and open a new e-mail all before deciding completely on what exactly to write. He wondered if Eve would even be checking, then worried for a few moments that she’d already tried and given up. It had only been a few days since he’d seen her, but it was already beginning to feel like a lifetime.

Still traveling. I’ll write again soon. Don’t forget me.

He didn’t dare include any details that could feasibly be sitting unchecked in the ether of the internet. He hoped using public wi-fi and a laptop he’d purchased in cash would limit the agency’s ability to track his use, but wasn’t about to take any chances. All he could do now was wait and hope she hadn’t already forgotten. Then again, maybe it would have been best for her if she had. Maybe she was wrapping up her interviews and getting ready to head back to Massachusetts. She could patch things up with her boyfriend and have the American dream… the dream James had promised himself he’d kill to protect. Seemed like someone ought to be able to have it, he thought, and no one deserved it more than her. The idea brought him no solace, as he sat by himself in a suit that cost more than his first car, wearing a watch that would have cost a month’s salary back in the Marines, waiting to travel to Europe to help foil an evil plot to attack his beloved country. Somehow, he thought, Ian Fleming would approve of his dress, his destination, his mission, but the nagging fear that the route he was on couldn’t lead to a happy ending for him was ever present. Old spies don’t retire to the Berkshires to cuddle with the women they love. They become Deep Throat; angry and disillusioned, pulling triggers until the day comes that they’re finally killed by the enemy or the lifestyle. A worn out hammer in a world with no shortage of nails. There was no happy ending to this story. Then James thought again about the bodies, white and bloated, that kept surfacing around his small motor boat in Roatan Island and had a sad realization. How many stories really do have a happy ending? He supposed he didn’t know.

When his flight was boarding, James looked down at his seat assignment for the first time; first class, he thought. He’d never flown anything but coach before, but seeing as he had a two hour flight north followed by a six hour flight across the Atlantic, he was relieved to know he’d at least be able to get some sleep on the plane. Like a nervous tick, he patted at his pistol quickly, ensuring it was still there. Throughout his time in the Marines and working for the agency, he’d been around guns of all sorts in all sorts of places, but wearing a concealed nine millimeter pistol onto a commercial airline was a first for him. It made him a bit nervous, as though he was doing something wrong. He carried no official identification beyond his normal looking passport and Connecticut driver’s license. If he were to get caught, he couldn’t explain that he actually works for a third party agency contracted out by the federal government to acquire information through means that weren’t always legal. Somehow he doubted there was a customer service hotline for secret agents getting busted for carrying a pistol through a security checkpoint.

Fortunately, no one gave him so much as a second look after he passed the ticket counter and boarded the plane. He took his seat, one by the aisle with an elderly woman to his right at the window. He smiled at her and she smiled back. James immediately wished he’d thought to buy headphones for the flight, if for no other reason than to pretend he couldn’t hear anyone around him when they decided to spark up a conversation somewhere over the ocean. As a last resort, he asked one of the flight attendants for a copy of the Wall Street Journal when she passed by. Knowing his new position meant not having to read newspapers from cover to cover anymore, it was still a habit. Reading the paper brought him a sense of familiarity, as though the entire world hadn’t just been flipped onto its head. James scanned the headlines on the cover of the paper, then sat back and closes his eyes for a minute. The world hadn’t been turned on its head, he thought to himself, it’s still spinning like it always was. He watched obese parents dragging their pudgy kids, sorority girls taking selfies as they boarded the plane, elderly women being ignored as they struggled with their luggage. Maybe Deep Throat had been right about America in some ways. These weren’t the people he was so passionate about protecting, this wasn’t the America he pictured in his mind the nights he dug holes in Africa to sleep in or the times he wished to be anywhere but Honduras… but then again, these were Americans and this was America.

Maybe it was just an ideal they fought for, not a reality. Maybe he was just a tool, a hammer built to hit nails, and had he been born in any other nation on Earth, maybe he’d have been their hammer instead. The idea was unsettling. James was a patriot. He always had been, even when it wasn’t fashionable to consider himself so, but was it possible that his patriotism wasn’t born out of a passion for the greatest country on the face of the earth… was it really nothing more than a home-team bias? James shook off the thought. He didn’t have to like every individual that made up his country to know he was playing for the right team. His mission was to protect the American way of life, to provide every American with a set of options, of freedoms, to pursue whatever they liked. For most though, it seemed like what these Americans wanted to pursue was a new pair of Nikes, another double whopper, and God help him, yet another reality show. It had never occurred to him before that he saw America as a nation full of people just like him, but having been gone for so long, he felt nothing more in common with the herds of crap consuming gawkers passing him by now as he had with the Honduran thugs that had put him in the hospital. For a brief, terrifying moment, James wondered if he actually belonged anywhere.

His existential crisis was interrupted by the flight attendant requesting that everyone turn off their electronic devices. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and held the button at the top until the screen went black. The old lady to his right produced her own and did the same. James leaned his head back onto the seat once again and closed his eyes. After the past few days of getting sleep whenever he could, wherever he could, he was almost looking forward to spending the rest of the afternoon and evening in this comfortable chair, but first thing’s first, he thought as he raised his hand to get the flight attendant’s attention. She quickly walked down the aisle to see what he needed.

“I’ll have a vodka and ginger ale, please.” His body tensed slightly, remembering suddenly how much better it was about to feel once he’d had a drink or two. She smiled, nodded and murmured something about being right back. James glanced down at his dark grey suit; he’d left the sport coat buttoned to ensure no one would get a glimpse of his pistol or holster as he sat. The material was light, but warm and despite the humidity in Miami and the uncomfortable positions he’d been sitting in all day, the creases were still crisp and there was hardly a wrinkle to be seen. The flight attendant returned with his drink and as he took a long sip from the small plastic cup he thought to himself, if I weren’t pretty sure I was going to die, this could be a great job.