Follow Focus
34
Another Premiere
THE NEXT WEEK, as Patricia and Anna got settled into the routine of getting Toni to school and working with our house staff, Ronda and I joined Robert on our trip to Nairobi in Kenya. We received a packet from a courier on Sunday morning and were in the air by noon. It was a six-hour flight and Nancy got us settled and fed. We declined drinks and she locked the liquor cabinet.
“We have to make sure we aren’t serving alcohol when we are actually in any of the countries that forbid it,” she explained. “Because we are an ambassadorial aircraft, inspections are pretty cursory, but we’ll make sure alcohol is always locked up.”
“Most of the trips I’m with you on will be to dry countries,” Robert said. “Some of West Africa is pretty liberal, but any of the Muslim states will be non-alcohol regions.”
“I don’t really care that much,” I said. “I’m not that big a drinker.”
“Same here,” Ronda said. “Sometimes it’s nice to have a drink when we’re doing a courier round that hits half a dozen countries. I have a feeling we’ll have a few of those in the coming months.”
“Especially when you start traveling to the other side of the Indian subcontinent,” Robert said. “You might all need to carry your courier bags on those trips.”
“We’re going to try to spread the trips out some,” I said. “Next week, I’ll train our official new passport techs in Muscat. We won’t be traveling unless we receive a packet from the courier on Sunday.”
“Which is likely,” Ronda agreed. “But it may only require one of us to make a delivery.”
“The following week, though, we’ll be leaving on a two-week circuit to mostly West Africa. Five countries. Maybe six, depending on what we hear regarding Ethiopia. We were supposed to go to Addis Ababa this week, but with the overthrow of Haile Selassie the embassy flagged us away,” I said. “They think things will have stabilized in a few weeks.”
“I won’t be with you for that one,” Robert said. “Most of the trip will be outside my region.”
“Yes, but the next week, we’ll be headed up to Jeddah and Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. I know you’ll want to be with us then.”
“Absolutely. I can’t believe this, but we’re considering a mandate to have all chanceries fenced or walled in. When you look at it, our houses in the neighborhood we live in are better defended than the embassy is. I’ll be looking at possible sites for a new chancery in Muscat and finding an architect,” Robert said.
We arrived in Nairobi and found our way to the hotel we’d booked.
We installed the equipment on Monday and trained our two technicians, then had a meeting with the ambassador. After photos, we had dinner with the deputy chief of mission who gave us considerably more insight into the situation in East Africa. It looked to me like we wouldn’t be landing in Ethiopia or in Somalia this fall. That could create problems for us. Flying to Nairobi was at the absolute limit of our little plane’s range. We had counted on using Addis Ababa for refueling on our way to West Africa. Now it was looking like we’d need to make Khartoum our refueling stop, which was just as far as Nairobi.
“Just because you aren’t installing sensitive equipment and training operators in Addis Ababa doesn’t mean you can’t land there for refueling,” the deputy told us. “According to the packet you delivered to us today, we are not changing any diplomatic status with Ethiopia since the overthrow of the emperor. We were told to encourage the Kenyans to adopt a similar stance and not to renew hostilities along the border. That might or might not work. It’s an opportunistic government.”
“I thought the normal position of the US was to not support military coups,” Ronda said.
“That all depends. This coup is not expected to last. The emperor is under house arrest, but the line has not been purged. You know that Emperor Selassie traces his lineage directly from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba? The longest ruling lineage in history. The real issue is whether Ethiopia will continue to be a Christian nation or if it will become an Islamic nation. There is a strong support within the leadership of the coup to join the Arab League. If that happens, the line of Haile Selassie will come to an end.”
We had a long flight from Kenya to Sana’a, Yemen. Ronda and I compared notes and composed a document recounting the deputy’s assessment of the situation in Ethiopia. After training in Yemen and getting our equipment set up in the embassy, we returned to Muscat, delivered our courier package to the waiting Washington courier, and went home to our family.
The next week, I trained the embassy wives in Muscat and Ronda took off on a courier run that lasted two days and went to seven cities. It was hard to concentrate while she was off alone. Well, with Luke, Jay, and Nancy. But still…
The wives were ambassador Wells’s wife Erin, Anna, Patricia, and Joanne Brice, Robert’s wife. I emphasized that there always needed to be two people on duty when the equipment was in use and made Mrs. Wells the keeper of the key. It seemed reasonable since she lived upstairs. Space in the chancery was at a premium, so the setup remained in Ronda’s and my office. The two of us shared a desk and weren’t there all the time anyway. We kept our desk cleared and locked.
The training went well, and they decided the consular section would offer passport and visa services only one day a week. They agreed that Tuesday would be the best day. They were all surprised, though, when I gave them the instructions on disabling the equipment.
“Why isn’t there a disabling switch on the bindery?” Joanne asked.
“The critical pieces in the passport are the photo and the information template. You could figure out a way to bind them into a book if you didn’t have the bindery. The bindery, though, is a commercial piece of equipment that could be used for a hundred different kinds of binding. You could buy a binding machine from the manufacturer and do that process just as well as with this one.”
“Isn’t the photo just a Polaroid?” Anna asked. “Couldn’t you just get a camera and take the picture?”
“This has a dual lens and a special film type. The film is not available commercially—only through the State Department or directly from Polaroid. If you just clicked a picture without a template inserted, you would just have a picture of the person without having the information that makes it a passport.”
What I didn’t mention was that Polaroid had begun filling back orders for the equipment from other national governments. Our two-year exclusive had expired. Of course, the template was different for each country, the covers were embossed with their country design, and they used different colors. I still was concerned about what a country needed to counterfeit a passport from another country. It seemed that a template and cover might be all that was needed.
“You’re so different when you’re teaching this photography stuff,” Patricia sighed that evening.
“Different?”
“Than when you are in the studio taking art pictures. We all got our pictures taken and an ID printed, but you didn’t spend time posing us or touching us.”
“I think that would probably get me fired,” I laughed. “This is my job. I don’t fool around on it.”
“Isn’t studio photography your job, too?” Anna asked. “What are the differences?”
“Well, I’m working for the government. The embassy handbook is a lot like the military in that an officer is not allowed to engage in any romantic or sexual liaison with an enlisted woman. I suppose it goes the other way, too, if the officer is a woman. The handbook just says to keep all sexual and romantic advances out of the workplace. I suppose people get around it by leaving the workplace and then getting involved. It’s happened to Ronda and me.”
“And how is that different from the studio?” Anna persisted.
“Well, if I’d managed to stick to my principles when I first started, it would be a lot the same. When I started, it was no sex in the studio, in the broadest sense. I didn’t touch models or date them, no matter how they were dressed or undressed. Then, when we started doing the senior portraits for our class, that silly rumor got started that I could make a girl come without even touching her. And then it was okay to touch her when I was posing her. And then it was more like that I could make a girl come without having sex. It just all got out of control.”
“I know we helped,” Patricia said. “I certainly broke the no sex in the studio taboo.”
“Plenty of others figured out that the darkroom wasn’t the studio, and the props closet wasn’t the studio, and that ‘sex’ meant strictly intercourse, so oral wasn’t sex in the studio,” I sighed. “When I go back into photography after this assignment with the State Department is over, I probably need to rethink exactly what I’m comfortable with and what I shouldn’t be doing. You know, I have all the sex I want at home. I love you both and I love Ronda.”
“And we’ve all participated,” Anna said. “We’ve encouraged the process. But Nate, you get such amazing photos when you make that connection. I really don’t mind fucking you after you’ve been turned on by a photo session.”
“Ditto that,” Patricia laughed. “In fact, I don’t mind fucking you after Anna gets you turned on.”
Anna had been playing with my cock for the past ten minutes and I was certainly ready for action. Patricia took her by surprise, though, when she swung a leg over me and captured my cock in her own warm pussy.
On Sunday, Ronda and I headed out on a long training run to West Africa. We stopped for refueling and to take photos of the embassy staff in Addis Ababa. We delivered a courier packet to the ambassador, took his photo, and returned to the plane. We didn’t leave any equipment, but we were told we might need to return in the spring to do more ID photos at the other installations in Ethiopia.
Then we were off to Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Upper Volta. On the way back, we stopped in the Central Africa Republic and again in Addis Ababa. We’d succeeded in making eight installations in two weeks. We arrived back on Friday, October twenty-fifth. Though the office was closed, we had to go in and transfer a ton of dispatches to the courier waiting there.
We only had time to confirm our next trip and pick up Robert before we were off again on Sunday. We went first to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and trained at the embassy on Monday morning before taking off for a cross-country flight to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia on the opposite coast. We had a consulate there and it looked to me like there were more employees there than at the embassy.
“We have a lot of Americans here,” the consul general said. “This is the heart of the Saudi Oil industry and every American oil company is sending people here for exploration, drilling, building ports, and shipping crude. Like every oil port in the world, the workers here are busy drinking, carousing, and whoring. I spend half my time trying to keep them from getting their heads cut off for violating a sheik’s sister or daughter. We have a fair share of lost and expired passports. Many visa requests. This will be welcome technology for our consulate.”
From there it was a fairly short hop up to Kuwait City. The Ambassador here was one of the senior guys on the Arabian Peninsula. We had a good chat, took pictures, trained his staff, and headed for the airport. The crew was happy to make the trip back to Muscat that night and we got in before midnight.
I thought Ronda and I would slip quietly up the stairs after we’d said goodnight to Robert and the driver took him on to his own house. That was not to be. Patricia was up, pacing the floor with Alex in her arms.
“She’s got a fever,” Patricia said. “We talked to a doctor recommended by the embassy. He said the symptoms were of very early stage measles. We all got the vaccine before we went to London last year, but I don’t think any of us got the second booster before we came here. What will we do, Nate?”
“We’ll follow all the directions the doctor gave us. And we’d better all get that second booster.” I took Alex and rocked her in my arms. She whimpered a little and went to sleep.
“Anna, Toni, Alex, and I all got it this morning. It’s called a post-exposure vaccine. The doctor said it was likely that she was exposed just a couple of days ago and the vaccine would minimize symptoms. Other than that, she’s getting baby aspirin to keep the fever down and the doctor gave us a list of foods that are high in vitamin A. Otherwise, we just hold her and comfort her.”
“Nate and I had better get the booster now, too,” Ronda said. “We don’t need the whole family down sick. You poor sweetheart. You must have been worried sick all day. I’m sorry we weren’t here.”
“I love you,” Patricia said as she snuggled into Ronda’s arms. “Anna is sleeping with Toni. She’s been so worried.”
We’d really been remarkably lucky with illness in our family. The only major problem we’d had outside of a few sniffles was when my appendix nearly burst. Well, at least we were in a country that had a pretty good health system. Who knows what kind of good-intentioned missionary doctor we’d have gotten if we were someplace in Africa.
Friday morning, we went to the doctor out in the American neighborhood at the airport. He gave Ronda and me the vaccine and looked at Alex again. He said she was already showing signs of improvement and wasn’t developing the typical rash. He examined Toni and pronounced her in good health. She was far more concerned about her sister.
Sunday morning at the embassy, we found out the disease had propagated in the school and half a dozen children were infected. Of course, Patricia and Alex often rode to the school with the children in the embassy van, so Alex could have been exposed by anyone in the school as Patricia volunteered in the classroom. That would have been Wednesday, and Anna was involved with passport photos at the chancery with Erin that day.
Monday, we received a telex from Mr. Martin directing us to spend the week in Muscat and to go to the doctor for more vaccines. The telex included a list of vaccinations we were apparently supposed to have had before we left the US this year. The whole family returned to the doctor on Tuesday for a fresh round of shots. Who knew we needed a plague and yellow fever immunization? None of us were particularly happy about that, but the State Department Foreign Service had additional vaccine requirements for both Africa and Asia.
The good news was that Alex got a clean bill of health and none of the rest of us were showing any signs of having contracted measles. As we were leaving the office, we saw Robert, Joanne, and their two kids. He’d received the same directive.
Normally, we’d have tried to make another short run during the week, perhaps to Iran. Since we were forced into staying in the office, we spent the time going over the list of countries yet to cover and the inventory of equipment we had available.
After discussing it with the family, we decided to make another long Africa trip. The tradeoff was to either spend three weeks knocking off the rest of the West African nations, or spend six weeks doing out and back missions.
Thursday, we got a call from Mr. Martin just before the office closed. We put the call on the speaker device in the conference room so Ronda and I could both hear him and speak to him.
“You two have been very busy,” he said. “No one expected you to cover eight countries in two weeks.”
“It was exhausting, but we think we can cover the rest of Africa in two more tours,” I said.
“The report you sent indicates three weeks out for the next tour,” he said. “Is that doable?”
“We’ve talked to the crew for our plane and they agree that it will be much easier on all of us to load up and do as many countries as possible in small hops. Otherwise, we have a four thousand mile trip to the nearest target every week,” Ronda said.
“And then you’ll come back and cover the rest of the Arabian Peninsula?”
“We only have three countries left on the peninsula before we have to start moving eastward,” I said.
“Okay. I’ll approve it, but it seems it will be hard on your family. Why don’t you plan on a three-week break back in the US when you complete that one. Come home for the holidays,” he said. I looked a question at Ronda.
“Do we have available time off for that?” she asked.
“Not exactly. We keep having a backlog of military passports. I’d like you to do an installation at Oakland, Travis, and Lewis while you are here. It will still be State Department personnel you’ll be training, not military. But it will be at military installations. I trust you won’t have a problem with that.”
“No, sir. I think it is within our purview,” I said.
“Good. In return, you get the rest of the time off. Plan on returning to Oman New Year’s week. Josie can make arrangements for your travel.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You don’t think he knew about this, do you?” I asked, holding the official invitation in my hand.
We’d talked to Adrienne earlier in the week and she affirmed that an invitation to the world premiere of Saigon Summit was on the way. Ronda and I sat at the desk in our office and marked things on the calendar. The premiere was on Friday the thirteenth. I’m sure they could have found a date that was less ominous. We figured that we could fly to LA the day before the premiere, then be up in Oakland and Travis on Monday and Tuesday. We’d have to fly to Seattle then and go down to Fort Lewis before catching a flight back to Chicago. We would have most of two weeks with the family over Christmas before we had to return to Oman. And this time, while we were gone, Patricia and Anna and the girls would have parents and grandparents to entertain them.
The family greeted the news enthusiastically. It made the next four weeks seem less impossible. And when we looked at the calendar, we found we could lay over in London for a couple of days to visit Jane and Peter.
The crew was happy about the arrangement, too. They would have the month off as soon as we finished these last long runs. We took off on Sunday, and after refueling in Ethiopia, got to Leopoldville in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This was a strange area as far as I was concerned. The capital of the Congo Republic, Brazzaville, was directly across the river. The official language of both countries was French. But it would be easier for us to skip Brazzaville when we finished in Leopoldville and fly to Gabon than to get ground transportation across the river. We’d pick up Brazzaville on the way back.
As soon as we were finished in Leopoldville, we flew to Gabon, then Equatorial Guinea. We’d train in Abidjan, The Ivory Coast on Friday and spend the weekend in Liberia, where the national language was English. No surprise there. Liberia was an American colony, populated by former slaves shipped back to Africa before the Civil War.
I had to stop and wonder about American—maybe all of European—mentality. Way back when, we thought it was just fine to kidnap Africans and enslave them to work on plantations in the New World. Then we thought it was just as much our right to colonize an area of Africa already inhabited by natives and ship the unwanted slaves back to Africa. After all, it was all Africa, right? What difference did it make as to where in Africa they came from or how many generations they’d lived in America?
And these places we were visiting were all former colonies of some European country. They came in, stripped the land of its resources, set up governments of white men to rule over the black natives, because it was somehow ‘their right.’ I was more convinced than ever that apartheid in South Africa, Rhodesia, Angola and other areas of Africa needed to be destroyed.
Then, maybe I’d start working to destroy the suppression of Native Americans, too.
From Liberia, we went to Sierra Leone, Guinea, Senegal, and Mali. By that time, we were all about exhausted from the trip, but after the weekend in Mali, we went to Cameroon, and finally to Brazzaville. Wednesday, we all got up early and headed to the airport for the marathon journey home by way of Ethiopia. After twelve hours of flight time, we finally made it home, tumbled into bed with our loved ones, and made a very untraditional Thanksgiving Dinner the next day.
We spent the weekend packing for our vacation in the US. On Sunday, Ronda and I went to the office to transfer courier packets and confirm all our travel reservations to London and back to the US. We found the embassy to be scurrying about to arrange for an official visit of the Sultan to the US in January. I understood the ambassador would overlap his time in the US with ours. I didn’t expect to be called on for anything in that regard, though.
We took off with Robert on Monday and visited the embassy in Bahrain, then in Qatar, and finally in our neighbors, the UAE. Everything went smoothly, and we were back home on Thursday night to get everything assembled for our flight to London on Friday.
It was wonderful to see Peter, Jane, and James in London. Jane’s apartment was still vacant and Old Auntie was thrilled to see Toni and Alex.
I held James and just stared in amazement at how much the nine-month-old had grown. He was pulling himself up to a stand and scooting all over the floor. What was really wonderful was to see him crawl over to Peter and chant, “Dadadada.” Peter was truly a fine father.
Jane perched on my knee and kissed my ear.
“Okay?” she whispered.
“Yeah. It’s really beautiful. You aren’t cut out are you?”
“Oh, no. He has his special times with me. Won’t go to sleep at night unless I’m there to give him cuddles.”
“Good.”
“We’re still planning to see you this summer, love. Won’t it be nice to see a little sister for him?”
“I can’t resist you, Jane.”
“Good. That’s all I want.”
We had a lovely long weekend and then headed to the airport and the trip to Chicago.
Dad picked us up at O’Hare Tuesday afternoon, driving our Suburban that we’d left with him. He had it all serviced and clean. Our six and Dad with our luggage, barely fit in the Chevy. By the time we got to Camp Otterbein, the turkey Dad left in the oven was done. Mom had made a bunch of side dishes. We all enjoyed a proper Thanksgiving dinner and collapsed in bed.
The next day was filled with holiday cheer as two little girls attempted to commandeer all of Gamma and Gampa’s time. Dad took them on hikes, gave them rides on the tractor, and taught them how to identify trees. Usually, one of us went with them so Dad didn’t get overwhelmed. Time was filled with a lot of laughter.
“This place is so great, Mom. I hope they let you stay here for a while,” I said.
“They seem pleased with our work so far,” she said. “The camping commission has final say, but they are excited about the coming season. And we have nearly every weekend after the holidays booked with retreats. I don’t see a move happening this year.”
“I’m glad. I can’t remember seeing Dad so happy and engaged. You know, I love him, but I always thought he was really reserved and kind of subservient to everyone.”
“It was our agreement, after the trouble. I know you’re aware of things that happened before your birth, because you’ve talked to Naomi. I won’t go into them again. I’m glad his bastard brother is dead. I know that’s unchristian of me, but I can’t help it. But we’re in a place now where we don’t have to maintain the tight reins that we once did. You’re right that he seems happy. I am, too. I just hope it lasts.”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“Little things I notice. He has trouble bending over sometimes. After a day with the children, I’ll need to rub his back with liniment. Of course, we go through that all summer when he’s working on the trails and maintenance,” Mom said. “And I see him… He stands out in the fire circle sometimes and just stares at the cross. He never used to be that spiritual. I tell myself that’s good. He’s truly entered into a servant of the Lord phase. I just hope that’s all it is and my imagination is running away with me.”
That was sobering. Dad had been cancer free for four years now as far as the doctors could tell. He was… almost sixty, I reminded myself. Somehow, sixty didn’t seem so old to me now as it did when I was a teen.
We packed up the family on Thursday and Anna and Patricia dropped Ronda and me back at O’Hare before taking the kidlets to Tenbrook to visit more grandparents. We had long hugs and kisses at the gate and then Ronda and I boarded our plane to Los Angeles. Fortunately, all the equipment I’d need for the installations and training was being drop-shipped to the three bases.
We did have our formal wear, though. Sort of. My tux still resided in Adrienne’s closet. Ronda intended to shop for a new gown as soon as she could get Adrienne to take her.
“Oh, my master and my mistress. How happy your Fifi is to see you!” Adrienne said when she met us at the airport.
“We are just as happy to see you, Fifi,” I said, kissing her thoroughly. I was replaced by Ronda, who wanted to make sure Adrienne knew she was just as enthused about being here.
“Shopping!” Ronda exclaimed. From that point on, I was a passenger. My wife had given my mistress an order. In all our time working together, I had never countermanded Ronda’s order. I wasn’t about to start now. We got our bags locked in the back of Adrienne’s Mercedes, and I huddled behind the seats with the two women up front. Fortunately, it was too chilly to have the roof off or I wouldn’t have had room in the back to stretch out. Also, Adrienne drove like a Formula 1 driver getting to Rodeo Drive.
It wasn’t so bad, though, seeing my girls having such a good time. Ronda got a lovely gown to wear to the premiere and then talked Adrienne into getting a new gown, too. We packed everything into the Mercedes and managed to get to Adrienne’s apartment, where Samuel took charge of unloading everything. As soon as the car was empty, and put away, a limo showed up.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t have the limo pick you up at the airport, Master,” Adrienne said. “I was so excited to have you and Miss Ronda visiting that I selfishly wanted to be at the airport to pick you up in my car.”
“Oh, Fifi. I’ll have to decide on a fitting punishment. After I get feeling back in my arms and legs. Perhaps you will give me a backrub later tonight.”
“Whatever you wish, Master.”
“Hey, don’t I get a say-so in this?” Ronda asked. “I thought it was very sweet of Adrienne to pick us up and take us shopping.”
“Oh, no! I have caused a conflict between my master and my mistress! Please punish Fifi!”
Ronda was so taken aback by the display that she wrapped her arms around Adrienne protectively and actually growled at me. I just chuckled as we got in the limo to go to dinner.
Dinner was at Frank’s mansion and Ronda was soon overwhelmed by the private grandeur. We’d been in a lot of embassy residences and very few held a candle to Frank’s place. I think possibly only London and Prague compared.
There were a couple dozen guests, many whom I’d met, all known by Adrienne, and none known by Ronda.
“How go the adventures, Nate?” Frank asked.
“It’s up in the air, touch down, train, and get back in the air,” I said. “If it wasn’t for having my partner Ronda with me, I would no doubt be buried in a desert somewhere in North Africa.”
“So, you travel with Nate, Ronda?” Steven asked. I made sure Ronda knew he was the director of Saigon Summit.
“We were hired as a team. I train the technicians on how to set up the information for the passport or visa and Nate trains them on the equipment operation. We are both diplomatic couriers as well,” Ronda told him.
“Isn’t it… um… unusual to have a female courier?”
“There are officially four of us in the service right now. Sadly, I’ve never met the other three. Ours is a kind of hybrid service. If there is something going to a site where we’re training and installing, then we carry it. The supplies we carry, though, are government confidential and therefore officially require a courier to handle them. And sometimes, while Nate is troubleshooting equipment or process problems, I get sent out on a quick circuit with packets for several different embassies. I have a plane, so if we aren’t en route to a training destination, I can take it for a dedicated courier run.”
“Hmm. We should have expanded our research and had you in to give us fine points, as well,” Steven laughed.
“Nate and I discussed ideas that he handed on to you. And, of course, we talked them over with Adrienne when we could,” Ronda laughed.
“Well, we might have taken a few liberties with how things were portrayed, but I think we got the right mix of fact and fiction in the movie. Can’t wait to hear what you think.”
“Nate!” I heard, just before being slammed into by Anita. Her kiss was deep and sincere. “Ronda!” she repeated the gesture with my wife. Then she glanced at Adrienne and blushed. “Hi, Adrienne,” she said shyly. Adrienne pulled her into a hug.
“Are you managing to keep working?” Adrienne asked. I had a feeling the question was more to enlighten me than because Adrienne didn’t already know.
“So much work I’ve hardly had time to have a life,” she giggled. Then she pulled a man standing just behind her to the front. I recognized her leading man in the movie. “Nate, you remember Dan Argos, don’t you? You gave me some valuable advice regarding him.”
“I think the advice I gave was not to sleep with your leading man,” I laughed. “Sorry, Dan.”
“Well, the movie wrapped up and we realized he wasn’t my leading man anymore. So now, he’s my boyfriend. We’re being careful not to be cast opposite each other again,” Anita said.
“So far, it works well,” Dan said as I shook his hand and made introductions to Ronda.
“We have different agents in the same agency and they know not to send us both to the same audition,” Anita said. “I think I love LA.”
I was relieved. I was worried that Anita might want to pick up with me again as she had the last time I was in LA. It was apparent, though, that she’d found a match in Dan. I kind of thought they’d be all over each other during the movie if I hadn’t passed Fran’s caution on to Anita. It didn’t surprise me that the first opportunity they had after shooting ended, they’d get together. There was good chemistry there.
Of course, we talked to several people. Bert and Brent, the writers, wanted more ideas and information about where we went. We couldn’t really give them any details about most places. Our last trip to Africa had covered eleven nations in less than three weeks. Ronda had some interesting perspectives on how repetitive it got and how one airport looked the same as another after a while.
Eventually, we got back to Adrienne’s apartment and Ronda watched while I punished Adrienne with her paddle. The whole time, Ronda had her hands in her own pussy and was panting as she watched. When I landed a final stroke across Adrienne’s pussy lips, both girls came.
The next day was a spa day, and we met others associated with the film as we were all pampered, massaged, coifed, manicured, and dressed before the premiere. We arrived at the downtown theatre and took our stroll on the red carpet. Adrienne still insisted on her collar and leash when we walked. We made quite a spectacle with the three of us on the way to the show.
And the movie… There would certainly be no question about it not being about me! The whole thing was a little violent and featured a fistfight, abduction, guns being fired, and a war zone surrounding the action. Dan was incredibly fit and when he lost his shirt, he became an instant heartthrob for women who were dragged to the action thriller by husbands and boyfriends.
Dan was also extremely well-groomed. He had short hair, piercing eyes, and smooth skin. Having photographed him, I could only imagine that he shaved multiple times a day when in production. When he went through the chase, his beard became a shadow and then stubble. I had the uncharitable thought that I hoped he shaved before he went down on Anita.
And Anita was certainly showing her acting chops. She was every bit Dan’s equal when it came to her character. It was a shock to the audience when she was exposed as a villain who was setting Dan up, rather than the loving girlfriend she appeared to be.
In the final sequence, the coded communication device was saved by Dan, at the expense of leaving Anita behind to the mercy of rebels arriving on the scene. Dan then plants an explosive in the device and leaves it behind. The last we see of it is Drake, snatching the device up just before it explodes.
Wow!
There was a lot of applause and it looked like there would be a sequel featuring America’s new action spy.
There was a party after the showing, this time at another Hollywood Hills mansion. I didn’t know who it belonged to. The atmosphere was considerably wilder than the parties at Frank’s house. I didn’t think most of the people at the party even had anything to do with the movie.
About the third time Ronda or Adrienne had been propositioned, right in front of me, I called a halt to our evening and our limo took us back to Adrienne’s apartment.
We got to rest up on Saturday and just enjoy a peaceful day with our mistress.
“Why don’t you come visit us in Oman, Adrienne?” Ronda said.
“Could I do that?” she asked.
“Yes! First of all, Anna and Patricia would love to see you, as would Toni. You wouldn’t believe how much Alex has grown. You could even travel with us on one of our trips,” Ronda said.
Adrienne looked at me and I nodded my head.
“I would so love to come and visit you. Let’s figure out when would be good.”
There was really only a small window of time that would make sense for Adrienne to visit. As soon as we got back to Oman, we’d be doing another two-week trip to Africa to finish that up. Then we’d be off to Iran and Afghanistan. This would be the last trip that was really fairly close to our home base. We decided Adrienne would arrive while we were still in Africa and have that time with Patricia and Anna. The next week, she would join us on the Near East trip. Then we’d all have a week at home in Muscat before she left for LA and Ronda and I took off for Nepal.
Sunday afternoon, Ronda and I flew to San Francisco. We had our instructions and I immediately regretted following them. We were supposed to catch a military bus outside marked ‘Oakland ORD.’ It looked like an old school bus that had been painted olive drab. Once we boarded, there were a few hoots from guys when they saw Ronda. We got our gear into a seat and I sat on the aisle of the uncomfortable bus with Ronda next to the window. We waited twenty minutes for two more guys to come out of the airport. They checked in with the driver and then went to their seats. They both gave an appreciative look at Ronda as they passed.
“I feel like a hamburger with all the fixings,” she whispered to me.
“I don’t think anyone will try anything,” I said. “Soldiers are supposed to be fairly disciplined.”
“Sound off when I read your name so I’m sure we don’t have anyone AWOL already,” the driver said standing in the aisle. “Private Ryan Goldman.”
“Yo!” a guy yelled from the back of the bus. That seemed to be the appropriate response as each person he called answered the same. Most were privates. There was a sergeant among them. I thought the driver was a sergeant, too.
“Senior Foreign Service Specialist May!” he continued.
“Yo!” Ronda answered.
“And Senior Foreign Service Specialist Hart!” he finished.
“Yo!” I responded.
“While we are en route, Sergeant Connely will give you instructions.”
The bus started up and wound its way out of the airport to head for the bridge.
Sergeant Connely stood in the aisle just behind Ronda and me. We’d loaded the front seat with our gear and sat right behind it.
“Listen up, Mosquito Wings. You all thought you were in the army for the past six months. That was just basic training. Today you enter the army. You’ll be inprocessed at Oakland ORD. When you arrive, keep your gear with you and your papers in hand. If you have not yet organized your papers, God help you. You will render up your relocation package. The intake NCO will open the package and review your orders. He will collect your unit personnel records group as well as a current SGLI form. You will receive back all other records, such as medical, dental, and on-the-job training records. After you receive your medical and dental records, you will take them to the medical and dental clinic at your earliest convenience. Your earliest convenience will be at 0700 tomorrow morning. Do not be late. After your inprocessing this afternoon, you will be billeted in one of the housing units to await your deployment. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” the men chorused.
“We have with us on this bus, two Senior Foreign Service Specialists. You should be honored and keep language on this bus limited to what is acceptable in polite society. For those of you who do not recognize this rank, these two individuals are members of the United States State Department Foreign Service, and are stationed in Muscat, Oman. That is a part of the world where you should all pray you are never sent. When you address them, you should assume they have a star on their shoulders. Some of you will be seeing them again.”
“Yes, Sergeant!”
Well, that put everyone in their place, I guess. We just rode quietly across the Oakland Bay Bridge and got to the base in what reminded me of the part of town where I’d reported to the Selective Service Intake Center in Chicago. It was depressing just to look at it.
“Sir, Ma’am. If you’ll just remain seated, when the soldiers are off the bus, I’ll transport you to your hotel,” the driver said.
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
I couldn’t help but stare out the window at the guys filing into the main entrance of the base with their single duffle bag in one hand and their papers in the other.
This was the last look Tony had at freedom. He’d shipped out from here to Vietnam with my brother-in-law. He’d come back in a casket and was buried in Tenbrook. If we could believe the news reports, all US combat troops had been withdrawn from Vietnam over a year ago and none of these guys would be headed there. Most had probably requested their next assignment. They’d be going to Japan, Korea, or somewhere else in the East. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, trying to banish the images refreshed by the movie we’d just celebrated the premiere of.
Our training session the next day went smoothly. We were conducted to a training room where the equipment had been delivered and met two men being trained on the entire process. Both had been working in the traditional process, filling out the information on a form and taking a Polaroid photo. Then, the information and photo were sent to the regional processing center and a week or so later, a passport for the soldier would arrive. I guess that was why Tony and John had been at Oakland for three weeks before they shipped out.
“It hardly looks like you have enough business here to keep you operating,” I said when I’d gone through everything.
“No sir. We’ve been stationed here doing it the old fashioned way for a year. This equipment will accompany us when we’re transferred to another deployment depot. Probably Fort Bliss according to the boss.”
“Where’s that?” Ronda asked.
“El Paso, Texas.”
“Wow! Good luck down there. When we were there, it was damned hot,” I said.
“Looking forward to it, sir.”
A car was waiting for us when we finished at noon. I asked the driver if he could drive through an In-N-Out burger place on the way to Travis so we could eat. He looked at us a little strangely, as if eating in a military vehicle was unheard of, but he drove through and we got our lunch. We ate on the way to Travis Air Force Base.
The word from our trainees there was that they, too, would be leaving California. Apparently, relocation from Travis Air Force Base had died down almost as completely as from the Oakland Base.
“The boss says we’re headed to Fort Benning,” one of the guys said. “That’s in Georgia. Hoping they give us tropics pay.”
“I think the tropics are a long way south of there,” I said. “We live right on the Tropic of Cancer in Oman. When we left, the temperatures were moderate, in the mid-eighties. They’ll be one-ten by summer.”
“Crap. I’ll take Georgia,” he laughed.
We spent the night in a San Francisco Airport hotel and flew out to Seattle the next day. Unfortunately, we couldn’t start training until Wednesday, so we spent Tuesday night in another airport hotel.
On, Wednesday, we were picked up by a State Department car and shuttled out to Fort Lewis south of Tacoma. This was definitely a busy base with an airbase right next door. We trained four people there with two units. Two of the trainees would take equipment to McChord Air Force Base.
“We’re not through in Vietnam,” one of our trainees said. “We’ll have planes flying in and out for the next few months, as the evacuation begins.”
“You think South Vietnam will fall?” I asked.
“No doubt about it in my mind, sir. Officially, they keep saying a peace is in negotiation. I don’t believe it the way we’re gearing up at the airbase.”
Ronda and I were taken back to the Seattle airport and managed to get a flight out yet that evening. That got us into Chicago around one in the morning.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
