Читать книгу The Day John Fitzgerald Kennedy Past - Welby Thomas Cox Jr. - Страница 8

This one has a pool and Mother-In-Law suite, where a man named Michael Flynt sat pondering, Mick as he was called, lost to the morning noises descending upon him, a stir of the all familiar...the quilt work of every happy home. The morning paper, with local news folded by newsboys who wrapped the paper with a rubber band and pitched it on the porch.

Mick stirred the coffee and pursed his lips to blow across the top of his china cup, sending the steam toward his Golden Retriever (Finn) who sat on his haunches eager for some command (go capture a platoon, Finn). Mick stirred again, and the large pet wagged his big tail and gazed lovingly at his master, a kind man who loved dogs and little people, and from all appearances he was gentle and tentative...but looks are deceiving.

Today Mick has secrets on his mind and he was wondering why people were consumed by secrets...and what do they mean?

He did not notice as his wife petted Finn and slipped him a doggie biscuit, Mick had something on his mind...so did his wife. Mick did not notice that she had not dressed for breakfast he had to get to his office; the secret he pondered was still there at lunch.

When Mick came home he sat alone outside in his garden continuing to think of the secret. He believed it was the law of nature for men with secrets to be drawn to each other, not because they have a need to gossip, but because they need company of others with secrets... the fellow afflicted. A respite from the other life...and its contrast in living among the ordinary people who do not keep secrets as a profession or duty or a business fixed to one's existence.

Mick knew about the need to draw together, "the code of the west” to seek mutual solace over the guilt and the depression. That is why he liked it here in the garden, he had time to think...time to become an old man but he did not have time to notice the sounds coming from the master bedroom.

It was not unusual for men in the intelligence service to retire early. A pension plan had been approved by some committee with a statement that this appropriation was necessary because of the dangerous lives led by these dedicated and fearless government employees and the transient nature of the assignments.

But Mick's retirement wasn't exactly voluntary; there was that business in Coral Gables, causing visits to the polygraph machine. And from three levels of specialist he heard the term, "Stress Fatigue." Two were CIA staff psychiatrists, the other a cleared contractor in from the outside world...the place Mick Flynn found to be strange and ordinary.

They called it semi-retirement a semantic kindness. They set him up in a teaching post and paid him a retainer to recruit likely students as Junior Officer Trainees. In a college for women, this was a comic thrust even Mick could appreciate in a bitter and self-punishing way...as if he were still on their side...watching himself from a distance.

IS THIS THE WAY OLD SPIES GO AWAY? Do we just begin to spy on ourselves? Battered and beaten into submission at the mercy of our own personal bereavement.