Splashdown Ch. 05

Kathy's jaw dropped open. I had playfully slam dunked her repartee with one of my own. She loved it even though mortified. There was a lot going on here. I still had no idea what she actually wanted me to do for her.

I just stood there while she just looked at me. This was a poignant moment, only I was so out of whack I couldn't figure it for what it was. I decided to inquire, "If you aren't going to ask me the question, let's go eat."

Kathy quickly gathered herself, "The scar."

"What?"

"Your scar. That nasty looking scar about three inches below your collar bone on your right side. You've always promised to tell me what it was. I've asked about it before at company get-togethers and pool parties or picnicking with you and Peggy with friends at the beach." She tilted her head to the side explaining, "Places where I see the scar."

"Is it out of line that I remove my shirt at your company get-togethers?"

She looked confused before remembering her actual words. Kathy broke out in hearty laughter that was music to my ears. "It's a little unusual but no more so than your wearing suits to our beach parties."

"Tell you what Kath, let's grab lunch to go, and take it to the beach. If we find a spot private enough, I'll tell you about the scar."

"Oh Gary, I didn't mean it to be seductive." She was apologetic.

"No, I need privacy because it's kinda covered by the official secrets act."

She stared at me.

"I'm serious, but the scar is not official, nor an official secret. Since there's also a bearing with Peggy it's cogent for you to know."

Kathy wasn't sure if I was serious or setting her up for a laugh. As a result she kept looking at me silently. Until she had looked at me for way too long. Then her eyes popped open realizing my missive about the Official Secrets Act was not a joke.

We went to a great take-out place for some drinks, grapes, and sandwiches. We found a semi-secluded place. Florida has a lot of beaches! And I told her the story.

* * * * *

I looked around at the blanket full of us and our lunch spread. Our sandwiches were gone, though our drinks were still half full, the grapes were beginning to make their contribution and were still plentiful. There sat Kathy, her long legs under her off to one side, looking at me trying to contain a smile that she was about to receive her prize. Her eyes wide with anticipation gazed at me warmly.

"You know Kath, the conditions we are enjoying here on the beach are about as different as they could possibly be from where I was in the story I'm about to relay. And that's a very good thing."

I looked at her, forced a smile, and gave her a disclaimer of sorts, "I'm always ill at ease telling the story. I guess maybe that says good things about me. I certainly didn't come out a hero. In fact, I think it makes me look pretty bad, especially when compared to others in the story who are just so darn competent."

I gathered myself. I sighed; I had promised to do this after all.

"The guys I had traveled with had some theories about whether the group we ran into were bandits, or didn't understand who we were, or a number of other possibilities. It doesn't matter at this point, nor for the story. Unknown to us a group had seen us and decided to dispatch us quietly. The mission failed as originally scripted, but we pulled it out in the end."

That was my intro to set the mood. I really hated to tell the story. I hated putting my vulnerability on display. Kathy's lips parted slightly as she began to imagine scenes that might link the little teases I just gave her. I love an intelligent woman.

"We were in a country with a lot of thick foliage. I mean thick. There wasn't just foliage a little way off the walking path, rather the path was carved out of the foliage.

"Also, I am an analyst, not an operator. Sometimes I'm part of a mission because I need to see something for myself to complete the analysis. Sometimes I get to plan the basics of an operation, especially if the mission is to get me in to see something and get me back out to report. This was one of those. I go over the mission basics with the operators who will carry it out. They invariably change some of what I plan, which makes perfect sense. I give them a mostly finished product and they hone and polish it into a truly functional piece. As they're the ones carrying it out, it needs to be finished with their particular skills in mind.

"I've never had an ego about this, but I have some personal pride. I'm told my plans don't require many changes and that other folks have theirs torn up in front of them by way of instructing them not to overstep their bounds. So, my plans are respected more than many, from analysts much my senior. The operators don't cringe when they're assigned to one of my schemes.

"It changes a bit when the plan involves me going along. I do my best for the mission runners, then give it to them to run. The main takeaway is that I'm not Rambo and I know it. I've been in fist fights, I can hold my own, I don't like to back down, but I'm not an operator! I don't have any kind of training or skill on their level. If there's a question in the field, they'll ask me about the objective, then THEY decide what happens and how. It may have been my plan initially, but once it begins, I'm largely along for the ride. And I get that.

"On this trip getting in was its own challenge. There wasn't anything complicated about what we were doing, it was just grueling to do. When we reached the target site, I was supposed to look something over and take some pictures, while the other guys did what they were supposed to do, which was going to be icing on the cake. The main objective though was my taking a look at "something", so I had to go on the trip.

"On the way in I was bringing up the rear as I was most likely to give us away if I was up front. On the way out I am valuable because then I have the knowledge we went in to collect, so I travel mid-line being protected. Getting out you need someone good at the rear: sneaking in not so much. That wasn't the case this time and bit us hard. We were very close to our destination and on a little trail that let us travel faster through the dense foliage.

"There was quick motion behind me. I turned and there was a guy jumping out of the brush. I crouched for some reason, I guess trying to get in a stance to tackle him. I felt an impact high in my chest. Turns out it was a knife, one of those big Randall style ones. It was meant for my kidney, but the guy was sloppy and quite slow. I'd turned around and crouched and he used a long parabolic swing that was nothing like the push and twist of the textbook."

Kathy's jaw dropped lower and lower with each new line I uttered. It simply hung slack at my casual description of being stabbed in the chest.

"I didn't realize I had a knife in my chest, just a searing pain. Somehow, I didn't yell out. My predicament still made enough noise that the guys ahead turned to look back, just as other attackers came out of the foliage. If they were the regular guards there would have been no need for them to be quiet, hence the mystery about who these guys were.

"I had something in my chest and reached up to grab the guys arm, which I did with my right arm. But the guy now had both his arms on whatever he had stabbed me with and was pushing. He was able to push it in more, but my position and leverage made my right arm able to slow its progress. Luckily it was too high in my chest to hit a major blood vessel or collapse a lung so if I had to be stabbed, this location was about the best break I could have had. I didn't know that then though.

"The guy having two arms forward there was no way to punch him in the ribs with one hand hard enough to make a difference. My sidearm was on my right, but I couldn't take that hand away from holding his knife back. My left couldn't reach it. The guy put his strength into his arms and the knife went deeper."

Kathy had leaned forward and had much of her weight resting on her arms now. I wasn't sure if that was a sympathetic reaction to my story telling or if she was engrossed. Perhaps I had a second career as an audio book reader.

"Then it occurred to me that I could reach his face with my left arm. I could tear off his ear, but I didn't think that would stop his attack. So, I reached my left around and jammed my thumb into his eye socket. His attack immediately slowed, and he let go of the knife. I grabbed him with my right hand so he couldn't escape and kept pushing my left thumb in. We toppled towards him as he began to fall backwards. I realized I was going to fall on him if we kept going, as he was trying to push away from me. I kept pushing my thumb until I ground the nerve at the back of his eye socket after I had popped the orb."

Kathy didn't flinch at my savagery to any degree greater than the part where I had been stabbed. I thought that was good. And rather what I hoped to find in an astronaut.

"As my foe recoiled, without thinking about it I just pulled the knife out of my chest and turned it around in my hand, I'm not sure how I did it. There are actual techniques for that, but I've never practiced them and don't know which I technically used.

"I kept pushing the guy back until I simply fell on him with all my weight, with both my arms behind the knife, jamming it through his neck, embedding it in his spine until I felt it snap. It was over.

"Actually, it was all shockingly fast."

Without realizing it Kathy sat back on her legs, apparently relieved I was safe. She was breathing hard; I think she'd been holding her breath.

"Kath, it wasn't just fear at losing my own life. Sure, I felt fear initially, I was losing! Then all my thoughts began to center on Peg. That bastard was going to keep me from seeing Peg again! I got stronger and fierce. When I thought of her pain at losing me and never knowing what happened or why: my attacker didn't have a chance. He was as good as dead that second. That's when I thumbed his eye.

"All of our guys won. More on that in a second. I was wounded and finding my group was a priority. We were on a slim walking trail with extremely dense foliage that towered over our heads. I couldn't see any of them! Then very quickly two of my guys were to me and evaluating me. I had no idea where they had disappeared to or where they had emerged from.

"One put a pressure pack on my wound as we moved down the trail again. They're professionals and worked on me as we traveled. In short order all the guys were reemerging from the dense thicket. Apparently each one had pulled his assailant into the foliage to deal with him. I was a noob, a rookie who fought where I was attacked instead of making the combat take place where I wanted. The operators, both guys and gals, are a quantum leap ahead of me in combat and tactical combat strategy. I'm a strategy guy. I will never be their equal in their world and really have no desire to be.

"There were no sirens, we had been attacked, and one of us was injured: the one least tough and savvy enough to deal with completing a mission when wounded. So, we aborted."

I knew Kathy could see my shame, there was no way to hide it even if I had wanted to.

"We knew there were people in the brush, so we took a preplanned escape route that meant we had to go back a different route. On the way we found an unknown trail under the jungle canopy that led to a side gate we didn't know about. It wasn't long and I was game to check it, at least we could go back with some intel. The unknown trail and gate led to the very structure I went there to see! Knowledge of that trail alone was worth the trip and the condition of the road told me what we needed to know about what sort of vehicles were using it. And that told me what they were and weren't carrying into the base, which was what we wanted to know in the first place! By happenstance it was a very successful mission.

"Boy though, crossing that unknown road where we would be exposed was harrowing! Remember, I didn't have time to think when I was attacked, except that I had to get back to Peggy. She just couldn't be left to suffer alone like that. The rest was all just sort done in the moment. But crossing that unknown road was different, not knowing if there were guards or cameras, if alarms would be tripped, especially when I was a bit weak from loss of blood, was not fun. I was over thinking that one big time: how to cross, fast or slow, that sort of thing, when two of the operators grabbed me under my arms lifting me, and just carried me across. They loved that I was laughing at myself by the time we reached the other side."

I was smiling as I told of the interlude, though Kathy was more enthralled than enraptured by my story. I thought that a little odd. Frankly, it isn't that good of a story.

I continued my tale, "At the end, back at the emergency LZ, the chopper was picked up as it landed, an advanced enemy element rushed forward out of the base. The bad guys didn't know we were there, though why else would a chopper be landing, right? There was a fire fight. You want to talk about feeling inadequate around other men? And let me say I've had the pleasure of working with a number of bad ass women that I would feel the same way around in the same conditions.

"They had their carbines and were making short work of the attackers. I had a handgun and a stab injury on my strong side. I ended up drawing and holding the thing in my strong hand, using my support arm for, well, support. If my injury was any worse, I would've had to use my weak arm alone. Anyway, the guys did the work and smiled to see I was game and ready for the fight, if not really in it.

It was very quick, a spasm of action. We got on the chopper and left, where I threw up from the adrenaline high. They actually laughed with me and sat beside me at the open door. They never made me feel inadequate.

"That's when I was able to tell them what I had seen on the road, the type of tracks, and what it meant. They needed to know because I didn't know how bad the knife wound was. Someone had to be able to report the intel.

"The guys had always liked working with me, I was confident but not cocky. I wasn't intimidated by them, nor trying to prove I was their equal in the physical stuff. And I put the mission first. I was also the cause for the abort, but I had just pulled the fat out of the fire with the info anyway. Our mission wasn't a failure, it was a larger success than hoped for. There would be no need for a return trip against a now wiser target.

"The two guys who had gotten to me first back on the original trail told the others what I had done to the guy who fought me, while I still had a knife in me. They hooted and hollered and made good natured if macabre jokes. They all started using the two finger "eyes on you" gesture to me because of the eye gouge. It kinda stuck.

"The story spread, and I have a lot more credibility where I work now. But it was just a fluke. I actually felt bad about it, I didn't like getting taken unawares that easily. One of the guys who is a student of the game told me that what all the practice and training is really for is reducing your reaction time once you're in the furball. You just act, you don't lose time thinking because you've thought it out and practiced it previously. That way you've done all you can to make the inevitable flukes break your way. Hopefully it's enough that you get to go home.

"He told me the real good guys let their training and body do the work while they keep their clear mind on the mission. In other words, fight towards the objective not away while keeping the ability to instantly improvise. He told me a lot of what I did was a lot like that, and I should be proud. He also told me the guy who attacked me was clearly not well trained and had made a real mess, making a "hole full of hamburger" where he got me, but that with rehab and a refill of blood I would eventually be fine. I felt very validated on that helo trip back.

"Yet my primary thought was making it back to Peggy. My mission was over. I had proven myself as a planner. And I got to see that in-country when things went, um, "tits up" I could handle myself. I felt validated as a person and a man. This part is very important. While I knew those things, I couldn't fully feel them yet. My mission wasn't over, because my mission was getting back to Peggy! I couldn't feel anything without her.

"They all wanted to see me as a kindred spirit. Yet all I thought about was Peggy, the reason I succeeded, the reason I could not die was Peggy." I looked deeply into Kathy's eyes, thrilled to verify she understood.

I shrugged, "I made it back to Peg. My drive to come home to her became a way of resetting the emotional table when circumstances threatened to take the upper hand.

"The operators all said I did really well. But I'm not cut out to be one of them, it was all adrenaline and emotion for me, that's bad in their world. I killed to get back to Peg, not for combative one-ups-manship. Peg was really all I thought of."

I stopped. I really didn't know what else to say. I was just quiet now. Not even pensive just sort of done for a while.

"Kath, like a Tootsie Pop I didn't know how many licks it takes to get to my chewy center. But Kathy, my core is that chewy center. You can answer nine out of ten questions about me extrapolating from that story. I haven't told it much. Just at the debriefings, and to Peggy." I was quiet again.

Kathy looked at me with deep understanding eyes. Oh, you could see straight into her soul through those wondrous eyes. What a beautiful view!

Kathy's head tilted slightly in thought as she briefly chewed on the corner of her mouth. Then she spoke to me, "And now, even with what Peggy has done, you are still "fighting towards the objective" of her and not thinking of escape. I think I understand what those guys were trying to tell you, Gary. That's a credit to you."

I heard Kathy's voice catch as she saw my face. My thinking had reset and for a moment my thoughts of Peggy came back faster than my defenses.

I asked Kathy in absolute dismay, "Why wouldn't Peggy even voice an objection about her injection prior to launch? Just raise her hand and ask if there was another way, Kath? Why did she sell me so cheap? Why don't I mean anywhere near as much to her as she means to me?"

I looked at Kathy pointedly, "Peggy knows that story, Kath! She knows how much she is part of me and yet she couldn't even ask questions about what her procedures might mean to me. There are only a few possible answers to those questions, Kathy. How in hell didn't I see it this clearly before?" I let my voice go low, "The answer is I don't want to see it, Kath. I fear that might be a theme."

Kathy looked at me in a haunted way, "You love Peggy so much and she..." Kathy rose to her knees kneeling over me, hugging me for all she was worth. She gave me an alternate answer, "You didn't see it because you were protecting her!" That struck me like a smart clarifying slap.

Kathy was crying and hugging me tightly in a nurturing way. We weren't doing anything obscene and we were only hugging. Still it felt like this was a very private moment for such a wide-open space. I could never completely forget who my employer was or what trouble an errant moment with a camera present could cause them and me. In that way I killed two birds with one stone by telling Kathy we should pack up and head home.

Kathy stared at me all the way back. Kathy saw what I saw: that Peg's commitment to me was not commensurate with my commitment to her. I knew that, yet I had never thought it was so out of balance. What Peg manifested towards me since she won her flight had been there prior, it wasn't something new.