Below are several chapters of Relevant, the first book in Peter Zaccagnino’s military fiction series. You can read Relevant in its entirety by purchasing your copy from Amazon today. Just click here to do so.
PROLOGUE
BEIRUT, LEBANON
OCTOBER 1983
There was no evidence that the nineteen-ton yellow Mercedes-Benz stake bed truck had even been there at all. Like everything else that morning, it had been reduced to a screaming, grotesque version of its former self, ripped apart on a molecular level and melted into the piles of twisted metal, concrete, and corpses that now replaced the barracks. The wails of the dying crushed beneath four stories of concrete pierced the black air and created a harmony that sounded like some terrible perversion of the muezzin’s call to prayer. In that final agony, your life doesn’t flash before your eyes, your future does. Everything that should have been hangs there in the dark flesh behind your paralyzed eyelids, taunting you.
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA, U.S.A.
Abbott Mazuski carefully ran his manicured hand over the tape player, his finger hovering over the play button, not yet pushing down. Abruptly, he turned his attention to the newest batch of recruits. He adjusted the temples of his wire-rimmed glasses to fit more precisely over his ears and nose, then cleared his throat. “This is the tape that has authorized your actions.”
Mazuski pushed play. A man’s voice, clear and considered, unfurled with the tape, “A workaround like this will keep the tinpots at bay.”
A low, gruff voice responded, “And ensure our liberty, peace, and prosperity. And for our friends in the community of democratic nations, Mr. President.” The gruff voice belonged to Abbott Mazuski.
“It’s a go.”
Mazuski swiftly pushed down on the stop button and ejected the tape, immediately moving it into the pocket of his starched white shirt. “President Ford curtailed the CIA’s ability to assassinate with impunity. Our current Commander in Chief takes a broader interpretation on Executive Order 11905, but international law and diplomacy makes certain mission objectives unsavory. That’s where you come in. You are not part of the foreign intelligence community. You and your missions officially do not exist. If you are expecting medals and glory, you will be disappointed. If you expect to protect and serve this great nation against the most insidious threats with humility and focus, welcome.”
The four recruits focused on their instructor and his message. Their attention grasped each consonant and braced at each breath between his words. They were the dictionary definition of concentration.
Mazuski coughed. He reached into his pants pocket and procured a lozenge. As methodically as he executed every action, he unwrapped the lozenge and placed it on his tongue. Then, folding the wrapper into perfect eighths, he disposed of it in the nearby wastebasket.
“Any questions?”
CHAPTER 1
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A.
DECEMBER 2001
Chris Hodge was kicking a hornet’s nest. He accepted that the conventional stance amongst the faculty and students at MIT was doveish, to say the least. Though unfashionable, Hodge’s analysis of the probability of foreign policy challenges stemming from the radicalization of Muslim populations had to be presented. To Hodge, it was simple: there were facts and there were emotions. The emotional appeal to peace and equality, while at its core a just one, was not tenable. It lacked universality. Hodge believed that to operate based upon anything other than the facts as they are, not as one would wish them to be, was a fool’s errand. And Hodge refused to play the part of the fool. Surprisingly, his professors and classmates treated him less as a pariah and more as a curiosity. While they rarely conceded to Hodge’s arguments, they did extend a measure of respect for his perspectives, which Hodge appreciated. Hodge knew that the gods of wisdom would not enchant his audience today, but even if it was a losing battle, he would not sanitize his message.
The auditorium smelled like chalk dust seasoned with the faint burning smell of a furnace a half century past its prime. Hodge stood in front of the podium and surveyed the classroom. The room’s ascending rows of seats were half-filled by the faculty of MIT’s political science department, graduating seniors in the department, and a handful of other interested parties. Bodies moved in their seats in bored anticipation. Academicians carried on quiet conversations. A professor’s vinyl coat rubbed against the knees of her colleagues as she squeezed through to a center seat in the third row. Hodge began his defense, “In this contextual analysis of just war and counterterrorism framed within traditional war theory, this paper seeks to extrapolate the effects of Islamic radicalization, not as a pretext, but as a sociological underpinning of the United States’ current Middle East engagements. I argue herein that there is differential violence inherent in these present conflicts that does not exist outside of these particular religious and cultural norms and any war theory employed at the governmental and policy levels must therefore combine both soft and hard power exercises in the context of any ground war to eradicate this growing threat.”
Hodge continued his thesis defense for fifteen minutes, drawing a handful of examples from the United States’ past entanglements in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and Libya, the continuing Israel-Palestine challenge, and the history of Islam’s bloody initial expansion through military conquest of subjected peoples in Jerusalem, among the Berber people of North Africa, and in Spain. He ignored the occasional eye rolls and sneers, and the loud groan from Mirele Sofer, the most ardent leftist amongst Hodge’s graduating class. Her behavior was unprofessional, but Hodge knew better than to sink to the level of his opponents, especially ones to whom he was attracted. He knew that reason would always win. Of course, human nature being what it is, reason usually won after the die had already been cast.
With his defense presented, he prepared for questions. Richard Sales, former Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Legislative Affairs under two Democratic administrations, opened the floor up to questions from the audience. Hands shot up. Hodge smiled. He appreciated the bit of celebrity that his unorthodox positions afforded him on campus. To him, none of his classmates were enemies, just amusing rivals who hopefully would one day realize the grave consequences of inaction in the face of the statistically significant growth of terrorism. Whether they would admit so publicly once their academic reputations had been established, well, Hodge understood that reputations were funny things.
Hodge chose Mirele to be the first Kalashnikov in his personal execution by rhetorical firing squad. She had acid on her tongue and a special hatred for everything he stood for. Hodge appreciated a worthy battle and couldn’t deny the strange magnetism between them. Hodge was no stranger to female attention, but, like most of his peers, all of his on-campus relationships had been casual. Most of his classmates’ only long-term bonds were to their studies. Hodge was no exception. Still, to say that the thought of approaching Mirele after a particularly contentious argument for a continued debate over a bottle of wine hadn’t crossed Chris Hodge’s mind would be an outright lie. Hodge was the furthest thing from the crass vulgarity of a college “bro,” but he did share their wisdom in one respect: the only thing better than sex with someone you love is sex with someone you despise.
Her words came out like .50 caliber rounds, “So you view Islam as an exogenous threat unrelated to other precepts underlying conflict or radicalization, such as underdevelopment and poverty. How do you see the current problem of Islamic radicalization as distinct from other holy wars like the Crusades or any other war fought on the bases of hardline ideologies?”
No, Mirele never disappointed in serving counterpoints to Hodge’s points. In his own mind, Hodge’s arguments were airtight, and while on an instinctual level he understood that one can see things from an entirely different perspective, he found it surprising that people often did. Sentiment versus reason. Sofer versus Hodge. It was almost a game to him. “It’s an excellent question. First, regarding your mention of the Crusades, I question whether you have internalized a false narrative of these events as predicated on imperialism and Christian chauvinism. That narrative is inaccurate. Within one century after the rise of Islam, two-thirds of Christendom had been wrested from Christian control by violent means. Islamic attacks continued against Christian territories through the eleventh century. The Crusades are to be understood as the first series of counterattacks from a population under consistent threat of forced conversion, political upheaval, violence, and murder. Now, addressing whether Islamic terrorism in its present form is distinct—”
Mirele cut him off, “So you find the radicalization of a tiny minority of the contemporary Muslim population as distinct from the murder of every Muslim woman and child on the Temple Mount in 1099?”
“The Christian communities of the Middle East were destroyed one year after Muhammad’s death. The entirety of the Jewish and Christian population of the Arabian Peninsula were involuntarily expelled, converted, or killed. Perhaps you view that as an inconvenient narrative for public discourse, but it is a factual narrative nevertheless. Now, if I may respond to your initial inquiry: research into the subject does differentiate the violence of Islam in this current era and other ideological wars—for example, the Viet Cong—along several sociological normative lines. Modern warfare has changed. Islamic radicalization and the terrorist trend may simply run concurrent with that change, but it may be something else altogether. Only time will tell.” Hodge hoped that Mirele Sofer and her contemporaries were correct, that he had misjudged the facts, that America and the West would not have to face a near-unstoppable menace from Islamic radicals, but Hodge knew enough to not confuse hope with logic and evidence. The use of terrorism by Islamic populations had steadily increased after World War II, but remained marginal. After 1979, there had been a statistically significant acceleration in instances of terrorism. Furthermore, by then the nature of terrorism had shifted from seizing aircrafts and kidnapping for ransom to unleashing carnage intent on inflicting maximum casualties. After 1983, the ever-present challenge had solidified. The Lebanese Civil War had unleashed—to devastating effect—the favorite weapon in the modern terrorist’s arsenal, the suicide bomb.
With his friend and fellow hawk Spencer Miller away at an academic conference in Madrid, Hodge assumed he was a minority of one in the auditorium, but he was mistaken. There was one man, perhaps a product of a bygone era, who shared Hodge’s views. Hearing all that he had needed to hear, the man rose from a center seat in the back of the lecture hall and exited, leaving as silently as he had entered.
CHAPTER 2
MOGADISHU, SOMALIA
DECEMBER 2001
Guuce Duale was not the most religious Muslim, but he made it a habit to attend the masjid for Friday prayers every week with his five-year-old son Sharmaarke and his older brother Erasto. His wife Jamilah stayed at home. Once, Guuce had asked his imam about why women were not permitted to enter the masjid. The imam quoted a hadith wherein the Prophet said, “I know that you women love to pray with me, but praying in your inner rooms is better for you than praying in your house, and praying in your house is better for you than praying in your courtyard, and praying in your courtyard is better for you than praying in your local mosque, and praying in your local mosque is better for you than praying in my mosque.” Guuce Duale and his wife sought to be good Muslims, but neither was familiar with any of the hadiths. While Guuce could recite some parts of the Qur’an from memory, he had left the madrasa at a young age to provide for the family that took him in after his mother died in childbirth and his father died overseas. The loving couple, trusting their imam to have a better conception of Islam than they, followed his dictates.
The imam walked up the golden steps of the minbar to deliver the first of his sermons. He recited a prayer in Arabic and began his lecture in Somali, “Atheism and liberalism. Two of the most prominent trends in the world today. These are Western trends, but they are not limited to the West. These trends have taken root in the Muslim world, among the ummah, even here in Somalia, in Mogadishu. Both of these trends are completely incompatible with Islam, with the Sharia. It is foolishness. Do you know that in the West there is an idea that mankind was not created from Allah, but that they, that all of us, were once monkeys? That over millions of years we became men from monkeys? This theory is called evolution. This is foolishness. Some have even gone so far as to say that if enough monkeys were given enough time and enough typewriters, they would be able to create every chapter and every verse from the Qur’an. It is evil, is it not, my brothers? The Qur’an addresses this foolishness in Surah Al-Baqarah, chapter 2, verse 135.” The imam switched to Arabic, before translating the verse into Somali for the few worshippers who did not understand the message in its original language, “‘O you who believe! Seek help in patience and the prayer. Truly, Allah is with the patient ones.’ We need patience, brothers. The foolishness of the West is its liberal ideas that claim their world became free after what they call ‘the Enlightenment,’ which was their rejection of Allah. But their world is not free, it is a world built on foolishness and lies. The prophet, peace be upon him, said in the hadith that ‘A wise man is the one who calls himself to account and refrains from doing evil deeds and does noble deeds to benefit him after death; and the foolish person is the one who subdues himself to his temptations and desires and seeks from Allah the fulfillment of his vain desires.’ Brothers, I ask you today to reject the vain desires and foolishness of the West, the foolishness that seeks to claim that Allah is an invention of man and man is but a monkey.”
Guuce Duale tried to listen to the khutbah, but his mind drifted. He respected the imam’s flawless command of Arabic and his impeccable memory for delivering the verses of the Qur’an. Sharmaarke had started his education at the madrasa, financed by the Americans in exchange for travel and information about some of the warlords and extremists in the area. While he agreed with the imam that the Americans and the West seemed to have an excess in their desire to separate themselves from Allah, his own experiences made him skeptical of painting with too broad a brush. There were plenty of problems in Mogadishu, and while some were the effect of the legacy of outside control from the Italians, the British, the French, and the Americans—not to mention the Somali land stolen by the Kenyans and the Ethiopians—most of the problems for him or anyone else came down to the choice to do good deeds rather than foolish ones. Yes, to believe that we were created from monkeys was stupid, but the actions of those who were so misguided was hardly his concern. Allah knows best and He makes those who He wills follow a straight path. Guuce hoped to follow a straight path, one free of error and just in his dealings.
The second khutbah of the day was on the topic of how to increase one’s faith in Allah. Guuce Duale found this to be of far more practical interest. The imam’s message was simple: Strive to increase your good actions and decrease your evil actions and you will be rewarded with more emaan, with the gift of faith.
After the second khutbah, Guuce, Erasto, and Sharmaarke performed their midday prayers in perfect unison with the hundreds of other men in the masjid. With their outside devotion to Allah complete for the day, Erasto returned home with Sharmaarke, while Guuce headed towards the park with Cabdi and Abdullahi. These cousins had raised Guuce and Erasto as if they were their own kin, despite them having no bond beyond their belonging to the same tribe, faith, and nation. As a close friend of Cabdi and Abdullahi, Guuce and Erasto’s father had instructed them to take care of his children should a terrible fate befall him. Honorable men that they were, Cabdi and Abdullahi upheld his father’s wishes. They were like uncles to Guuce and his older brother.
It was one hundred and two degrees outside, a hot day even by the standards of a city only a couple hundred kilometers north of the Equator. When the men reached the litter-infested park adjacent to the dusty and bullet-ridden Dhagaxtuur Monument, Guuce and Cabdi sat down opposite each other. They began to create the board for shax, their favorite game. Cabdi grabbed a nearby stick, while Guuce used the tip of his sneaker to draw his half of the board. “Always an innovator,” Cabdi quipped.
“And innovation is of Shaytan, you know,” Guuce replied. “Perhaps it is not Allah, but Shaytan who has granted me four victories to your zero this last week.”
“Perhaps that is so,” Abdullahi interjected as he threw his collection of decades-old Coca-Cola and Fanta bottle caps onto the ground. The men used these artifacts as their game pieces.
Guuce and Cabdi began digging small holes into the ground to complete the setup of the board. When it was finished, the board, with its squares inside squares, resembled an abstract artist’s conception of a sniper scope. The men squatted near each other and started the game.
“We could play layli goobalay.” Guuce Duale had a smirk on his face. It was his fifth victory in a row. “Or sing children’s songs, the songs your wife used to sing to me when I was young. I do not want you to be discouraged, my friend.”
“I shall play you next.” Abdullahi crouched down next to Cabdi. His opponent may have changed, but Guuce was unstoppable in this ancient tactical game. With ease, he earned his sixth victory in a row.
CHAPTER 3
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A.
JANUARY 2002
Landmark was an anomaly amidst the meat market of Downtown Boston’s bar scene, a place with more than a touch of class. Its proprietor John Howell was a Yankee to the core, with ancestry that he could trace back to the first pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, although Howell was hardly a snob. His ebullient personality and friendly disposition were evident to all, but he upheld certain standards. Landmark never got too loud, the bar’s patrons never got too disorderly, and despite how it hurt his bottom line, Howell always ensured that unlike most of the other bars in his area, ID was always checked, not just after news of a recent raid from Boston’s Finest made the rounds. John took pride in his establishment and was a regular behind the bar. In his way, he embodied both the best of America’s egalitarian instinct and his forbearers’ British politeness.
Tonight, Landmark was filled with familiar faces. Most of the bar’s clientele skewed older and more established than the ambitious but still youthfully reckless BC, BU, Tufts, Harvard, and MIT students who often used alcohol to mask their inept social skills. John preferred it that way.
It had been six months since John had to deal with any of the typical challenges that faced the proprietor of a nighttime establishment, and even then the incident was relatively minor. A graduate student from BU had started a shouting match with his girlfriend. He gave her a push. Derek Bradford, the U.S. Army combat veteran who was one of the men John had hired to encourage Landmark’s sophisticated environment both intellectually and physically, had little patience for men like that. Without a second thought, Bradford grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and threw him outside. John didn’t expect that an incident of that sort was in the cards tonight, but he did have an uneasy feeling that he couldn’t shake. Maybe it was the stranger at the end of the bar. The stranger had arrived two hours ago, ordered a glass of pinot grigio, and was still nursing it two hours later. John observed that he’d barely had a few sips. Perhaps he was an alcoholic, walking the tightrope between sobriety and returning to the chaos of a life out of control. The stranger did seem rather stiff for an alkie, former or current. Maybe he had just left his spouse. Maybe he had lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Maybe he was just a loon. Whatever it was, something about his demeanor made John uneasy. His mother wasn’t a religious woman by any means. She and his father attended their Episcopalian church not to grow closer to any Lord or savior, but as a way of maintaining an active social calendar. Still, one thing that John’s mother always told him as a boy was that he had a sixth sense. Bull. That’s all it was. John tried to reassure himself, but still the feeling lingered throughout the night, rising every time he glanced at the too-composed-to-be-real man who sat at the end of the bar.
John’s discomfort had him wondering if it was too late to call Bradford in for an impromptu shift. As he was just about to shake off his misgivings about inconveniencing Bradford, Chris Hodge entered Landmark, his arm around an attractive young woman with unruly dark curls and playful cat-eye glasses sunk low on the bridge of her nose. John now felt at ease. Hodge had been a welcome presence since his first visit five months ago when he came in on his twenty-first birthday with his then girlfriend Shannon, a spitfire if ever there was one, and his friend Spencer. Despite Spencer’s decade as a Marine and crew chief on a CH-46 Echo during Operation El Dorado Canyon, he played the perfect clown to Hodge’s straight man.
In their conversations, Hodge relayed that he’d been a champion shot on MIT’s rifle team. John was comforted by the knowledge that Hodge would volunteer himself to handle any unwelcome disturbances.
Hodge and Spencer had enrolled in John’s course. While Spencer Miller generally eschewed his family’s privilege with their penchant for monogrammed shirts and feigned empathy, he seemed to inherit his father’s predilection for fine wine. Spencer was frankly shocked that the blue bloods didn’t disown him when he enlisted in the Marine Corps as a fresh-faced eighteen year old. As a teenager, he and his friends at the prestigious Groton School would drive into Boston on the weekends and raid Newbury Comics to snag the latest Ramones and Misfits albums. After Groton, Spencer found the perfect punk rock middle finger to his parents’ effete lifestyle: he enlisted.
“A ‘91 Margaux for the grad and his friend?” John procured a bottle of his finest for Hodge, holding it out like a proper sommelier to show his friend the label. Hodge nodded and John deftly opened the Margaux and poured a soupçon of wine into a stemmed, wide-bowled Bordeaux glass. He offered it to Hodge, who lifted the glass to his nose and closed his eyes, swirling the glass counterclockwise to allow oxygen to react with the tannins and release hidden aromas. John smiled. How rare it was to find a young person who preferred to savor a bouquet of a fine Margaux over slamming bottles of Brubakers until he was incoherent. Perhaps there was hope for humanity after all.
After Hodge delicately swirled the glass and took a sip, John poured him and his companion a full glass of the Margaux. “It only took you three and a half years, Chris. In a hurry to get out of this town?”
Hodge flashed his trademark half-smile, his lips turned upwards and his jaw relaxed. “More bang for my buck.”
Hodge enjoyed the repartee with John, and while he was as moderate in his drinking as he was in all his habits, he did try to make a regular stop at Landmark when the mood struck. The ambience suited him, and the owner and his staff possessed a rare element of class. For Hodge, it was the type of bar that suited a man of his caliber, one who was destined for the ivory tower of academia, but Landmark was also a throwback. The bar had standards and Hodge appreciated that.
“Duty calls,” John remarked, heading towards another patron.
“Your personal sommelier seems to have a penchant for you, Chris Hodge. I’ve heard close quarters in a wine cellar can make for a surprisingly romantic evening. Is it true?” Mirele asked, once John was out of earshot.
“Oh, Mirele, a gentleman never tells,” Hodge said, a glib smile on his face.
“He’s cute.” Mirele jabbed her finger on Hodge’s chest a few times as she drove home her point, “And probably not a reactionary neocon who just wants to bomb every Muslim into the Stone Age.”
“John’s a good backup.” Hodge smiled.
“You know this isn’t a date. You’re not going to be my boyfriend.”
“Roger, captain.” Hodge mock saluted Mirele, a trait he had picked up from Spencer. “Thank you, but I’m already aware that although opposites attract, they don’t last.”
“It’s just a shame.” Mirele tsk-tsk-tsk’d. “You’re charming and attractive, but your politics are to the right of Genghis Khan. Why? You’re not some ignorant hillbilly who masturbates to Fox News.” She paused. “Wait. I assume you don’t masturbate to Fox News. Do you masturbate to Fox News, Chris Hodge?” Mirele gave Hodge an impish grin. She was a woman who knew how to eat men alive, but Hodge was ready for a challenge tonight.
“I do. Daily.” Hodge was surprised that a woman from Israel would be so naïve about politics, especially about the points he had raised in his thesis. “You’re from Israel.”
“I am.”
“Your country knows how to handle Islamic extremists. Ariel Sharon is—”
“Don’t talk to me about Sharon. The settlements and aggression will get us all killed eventually. You can’t piss off over a billion people and expect Mossad and the Army to take care of the fallout. The house of cards will fall. Can’t you see that?”
“Will you answer a simple question for me?” Hodge asked, a half-smile on his face.
“Alright. Sure. But I have to say I’m disappointed that’s the only type of question you have, Chris Hodge.”
Hodge ignored her bait. “What would happen if terrorism wasn’t addressed?”
“Terrorism is being addressed, albeit in an indiscriminate fashion that harms innocent Muslims.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” Hodge’s entire premise for his argument about Islam was based on an inconvenient truth. It was expected that defenders like Mirele, with their politically naïve, doveish, borderline-pacifistic chokehold on the topic, would evade as their first instinct.
“There would be an increase at first from the lack of a military response and then a dramatic decrease once the Muslim world understands that Israel, the United States, and Europe have developed tolerance for Islam.”
“You’ve been in Boston too long. Tell me, would that be before or after Israel is wiped off the map?”
“There are solutions. If Muslims don’t feel like they’re under siege, then there wouldn’t be these terrorist attacks. By the way, in case you aren’t aware, Muslims are far from the only people to commit acts of terrorism.”
Hodge laughed. “I thought you were an intellectual equal. Your argument is reductive.”
“You’re not Israeli. You’re not even Jewish. What gives you the nerve to even comment on this situation?”
“So you have to be Jewish to comment on this situation? We’re all citizens of the world. And if you were intellectually honest, you would admit that the Democratic Party doesn’t have Israel’s back. I can’t fathom how they garner Jewish voters.”
“Uhh, maybe because we’re an oppressed people and we don’t want other disenfranchised people to continue to be systemically oppressed.”
“You are aware that I attended MIT as the son of a single mother who makes less than one year’s tuition, right?”
“Yeah, but you’re a white male. You don’t have barriers in place to your success.” Hodge scoffed. “No, you don’t,” Mirele continued, “The entire system is designed to allow people like you to succeed. It’s not equal.”
“Nothing is equal. Skill isn’t divvied up equally at birth. Work ethic isn’t divvied up equally at birth. Outcomes can’t be equalized. It’s foolhardy to even attempt it and history shows how dangerous that can be.”
“Look, we have a responsibility to work towards equality, Chris Hodge, whether you believe so or not.” Mirele kissed Hodge on the cheek. “Do me a favor.”
“What’s the favor?”
Mirele whispered in Hodge’s ear, “Don’t tell anyone I’m really a Marxist until after my term as Prime Minister is finished. Could you do that for me, Chris Hodge?”
“Sure, if Israel still exists after you’re done leading her,” Hodge retorted. “Look Mirele, not only shouldn’t we try to equalize outcomes, but we can’t. Social engineering doesn’t work. You’re too sharp to not realize that people aren’t equal. Everyone isn’t born with the same talents. It’s the Marxist in you that won’t admit it and tries to go against nature.”
“Right. The Marxist in me. I go against nature. Right, Chris Hodge,” she bristled.
“If I mention how Islam has a foundation of murderous conquests, rape, and pillage since the 7th century, then I’m scorned for living in the past. If a Muslim mentions baseless claims about the Jews or the Crusades, then it’s perfectly acceptable—courageous even. A Muslim can say whatever he wants and we have to bow to his perspective, but an infidel speaking the truth is politically unacceptable.”
Mirele drank the rest of her Margaux in one gulp. “You know we’re going to hook up, right?”
“Are we now?”
“No, not now, Chris Hodge. Tonight, you better hope Bill O’Reilly’s makeup artists do a good job.” With that said, Mirele left. Enamored of her combination of beauty and sass, Hodge hadn’t noticed the man at the end of the bar, but the man at the end of the bar had been waiting for just this moment. With the lady gone and the bartender having to attend to other business, the eye could now chase its rabbit. The stranger slowly rose from his stool, leaving his barely touched pinot grigio behind as he approached Hodge.
“I knew your father.” The stranger slid Hodge a dirt-stained and cracked black and white photograph of two smiling young men in combat fatigues standing in a jungle. Hodge stared at the photograph. The same blond hair. The same ice blue eyes. The same mesomorphic physique. Hodge wondered what this man was doing with a photograph of his dead father, presumably from his service as a Marine during the Vietnam War.
The stranger coughed. “When my lungs were intact.” Before Hodge could even think of a suitable reaction, the stranger left the bar.
“Hey. Hey, Chris. Hodge,” John remarked, panic in his voice. Hodge turned to John. “Was that guy giving you any trouble? I had a strange feeling about him all night.”
“No. Everything’s fine. Don’t worry. Thank you for the Margaux.”
“Hey, you sure you’re alright, Chris?”
Hodge left the bar without answer or explanation of any sort. His father had always been an enigma. Christopher Hodge, Sr. had died in the Beirut barracks bombing when his son had just turned four years old. Hodge the elder always seemed a vague presence to Hodge the younger, rarely home, always away on military operations. The only clear memory he had of his father was the airplane that he had brought back with him one day after a few months away in some far-off location. He played with it every day until his older brother Dennis broke it in a jealous rage. Weeks later, his father was dead.
Now, some strange man had given him a photograph of his father in a military uniform and claimed to have known him. Why? A cold gale from the Atlantic blasted Hodge in the face as he turned the photograph over. Written on the back were instructions in neat cursive: “Let’s take a walk. Congress and Farnsworth.”
It was three days into the new year, but downtown Boston was still lit up for the Yuletide season. It was six o’clock on a Saturday night, the time of the great line shift. Happy families heading into the city from the suburbs were being replaced by the mixture of students and townies seeking to drown themselves in cheap liquor and cheaper sex. Abbott Mazuski waited on the corner of Congress and Farnsworth on this unseasonably cold night, shivering in his camel cashmere bouclé topcoat. Though his posture betrayed a man whose life was lived in shadow, Mazuski stood confidently. The prospect of learning more was too alluring to resist. To lose one’s father at the age of four is to live with permanent mystery. Mazuski had considered all the variables that would bring these two men to the corner of Congress and Farnsworth that night. Of all the combinations of variables, this outcome was assured. Chris Hodge could not abide a variable of permanent mystery. He would, with high probability, always act to reveal hidden truths. He would choose action over passivity if given the chance. He would come.
Only ten minutes. Hodge arrived at the corner of Congress and Farnsworth. He was greeted by an identification card that Mazuski flashed in his face, too quickly for Hodge to ascertain which agency he was associated with, if any, or if the ID was even valid.
Mazuski coughed. It was a dry hacking cough, a common occurrence for him for the last couple of years. He had been diagnosed with small cell undifferentiated carcinoma of the lung one year ago and was continuing to undergo chemotherapy and radiation therapy, which transformed his naturally slim figure into a sickly, almost grotesque physique.
“I’d like to borrow your brain for some analytical work, Chris,” Mazuski said in a low voice after his coughing fit had reached its conclusion. He began to stroll up Congress Street, motioning for Hodge to follow him.
“My brain for some analytical work?” Hodge had entertained the idea of entering the intelligence community. He had applied to positions at the NSA and the FBI and had received letters in the mail stating that his candidacy had been rejected. Hodge wondered if those letters were a ruse. Could this caricature of a spook be recruiting him for work in the IC? “What does that have to do with my father? Did you know him?” Hodge was spitting venom as he handed the worn photograph back to Mazuski.
Mazuski looked wistfully at the photo. He had enjoyed serving in Vietnam. There was a peace in the battlefield that civilian life, even throughout his service in the Central Intelligence Agency, could not offer him. There, the objective was simple: kill the Viet Cong and their allies. He had been an O-5 in the United States Marine Corps and relished the opportunity to lead his men from the front. Most of his men were exceptional warriors, though they lacked the strategic mindset or power to alter events outside of a rice paddy or some other malaria-ridden hellhole of a landscape. When President Nixon cowed to the demands of the peace and love generation, Mazuski had become a warrior without a battlefield. In one short month, he changed that situation, transitioning to strategic control over global conflict, but in an altogether different capacity. His new allies were masters of tradecraft, not war. Deception was ammunition. It was an adjustment, but Mazuski knew that even if his base inclination was more suited to the life of a Marine than an intelligence officer, his demeanor suited his new role just fine.
“Who are you?” Hodge asked. His rage had begun to manifest. His father’s ruddy Scotch-Irish complexion came to the forefront, partly in response to this baffling situation and partly due to the sub-freezing temperature.
“Those were better times,” Mazuski remarked, as he handed the photograph back to Hodge, his mind on the jungles of Vietnam and the men with whom he served.
“What do you know about my father? About his death? About Lebanon?”
Mazuski grinned. That same temperament. A true line-animal if ever there was one. “Deep down you must have known you’d follow in his footsteps. Intelligence is the highest calling.”
“How did you find me?” After the words came out of his mouth, Hodge balked at the ignorance of his statement. Apparently, Mazuski did too; he laughed in response, setting off another coughing fit. Hodge knew that whoever this shadowy stranger was, he was somehow connected to the intelligence community. Finding people is their bread and butter and Hodge wasn’t exactly a tinfoil hat-type living off the grid. Hodge knew that even if he were, he could be found. That’s just what these people do. “I’m not following. I’m not a military guy. I didn’t apply for this,” Hodge continued, hoping to trigger a clue as to the stranger’s intentions.
“We’ve followed your progress.”
“My progress as an academic?”
Mazuski laughed again. He hated to laugh because invariably it led to a coughing fit, but there was a distinct humor to the situation. He wondered if he was wrong about the boy. The boy fluent in Italian, Spanish, French, and Russian with working proficiency in Arabic. The boy who quarterbacked The Aquinas School for Boys to the NJISAA Prep “A” championship. The boy who shot a 396 in the NCAA Rifle Championship. The boy with 68 hours already logged flying. He couldn’t possibly be this dense, could he? But family was a touchy subject. All logic gives way to emotion where family is concerned, Mazuski supposed. When Mazuski’s flurry of laughs and coughs had reached their denouement, he began to search for the right words. He knew that reeling Hodge in would require a delicate touch. His voice softened, adopting a fatherly tone, “You do know that you can’t save the world writing policy papers from an ivory tower, don’t you, Chris?”
Hodge stared at the photograph. He could see the resemblance between this man and the man in the photo, and he knew without a doubt that the other man in the picture was his father. His mind obsessed on the thought, desperate for even a hint as to his father’s military life and the enigmatic way in which he died. “You worked with him? You were in Vietnam together?”
“Your father was a good man, a good soldier, a patriot.”
“What the hell happened to him?” Hodge asked through gritted teeth.
“I won’t put you in harm’s way.” Not this time. Not again, Mazuski thought to himself. Once again, his cough sputtered out, weak, dry, and ever present.
“Harm’s way? Two weeks after graduation and I get some spy novel spook recruitment speech and a bunch of bullshit about my dad? My brain for some analytical work? Just tell me what the hell you want.” The weather was too cold, the crowds too boisterous, and the neighborhood too charming for this conversation. The odd juxtaposition added to the fraying of Hodge’s nerves at this intrusion into his life. It was supposed to be so simple: Pursue his Ph.D. in the fall, trek through the Yukon with Spencer and his girlfriend for a month or so, and in his spare time brush up on his chess and do some freelance software development for a professor’s startup. Hodge knew that those plans would have to be delayed, if not altogether abandoned, now that this new catalyst for some as-yet-unknown objective had emerged.
Mazuski knew that he had to ante up or risk a clusterfuck in this situation. He always preferred that objectives be met in the simplest way whenever possible. “We’re looking for a Ph.D. that can win a barfight. You’re smart, you’re capable, and this runs in your blood. I need an answer.” Even that singular sentence had strained his lungs. Mazuski began to cough again, this time producing a thick mucus, which he wiped up with a handkerchief that he had stored in his coat’s pocket.
“I want answers,” Hodge demanded.
“I need an answer.”
“You haven’t told me a damn thing about him.”
Mazuski smiled. The boy had fire in his belly. That was a good thing. “He didn’t think twice. Honor. Commitment. A true Marine.”
The men reached the corner of Congress and East Service Road. Without notice, Mazuski broke ways with Hodge, turning down Service. Hodge watched with bewilderment as Mazuski’s silhouette disappeared into the darkness. He took another look at the photograph, placed it into his pocket, and then went on his way.
Want to continue reading Relevant, the first entry in author Pete Zaccagnino’s thriller book series? You can purchase your copy in print or on Kindle from Amazon by clicking here.