Gordon Kent - Night Trap

“Should I write that down?” Peretz had said. He had made this joke several times, pretending that Alan had said something so important it should be kept for posterity. “Jeez, I wish I had pen and paper. Maybe I can just commit it to memory. Now, how did it go? ‘HUMINT’s a dying craft.’ Boy, that’s really beautifully put.”

“Okay, you don’t agree.”

“Not me, sonny. It’s folks like the KGB—sorry, the SVRR. You think they have seven hundred thousand employees because they believe HUMINT’s a dead issue?”

“And look where they are. They lost. It’s over.”

“Communism lost, so HUMINT’s a dead issue. I think I missed a logical connection there someplace. Does your mind always work that way?”

Alan repeated to him some of the wisdom that he had learned in intelligence school, and Peretz laughed out loud at him. “Oh, to be young again!” he said. “Look, Al—” He had taken to calling him “Al,” a name he had hardly heard since high school. “—satellites are wonderful, spy planes are superb, NSA is the greatest organization of its kind in the world. But without the guy on the spot, they’re just fodder for the bean-counters. You need both, SIGINT and HUMINT. Americans love technology; for one thing, it’s expensive, and we trust things that cost a lot. Anything as cheap as a spy is immediately suspect to us. But you can really get hurt by old-fashioned human intelligence. How do you think the Soviets got the atomic bomb?”

“Forgive me, but I think your example says it all. That was more than forty years ago.” Alan chuckled; he knew Peretz well enough by then to be able to say, “Come on— spies? ”

“Al, right now you’re in love with your computer and your radar. That’s fine. But I keep trying to tell you, you’re an intelligence officer. Be intelligent .” Peretz saw his skepticism. He sighed. “My greatest fear is, somebody’s going to plant an agent on me and I’ll be the unwitting means for some two-bit country to learn something that will hurt us—South Africa. France. Israel. One of the Arab states. You think I’m living in the past. Wrong end of the stick, chum: I’m living in the future. You wait until low-tech countries start going after our shit. You’ll see how important HUMINT is, in spades.” He shrugged. “Okay, so you need to grow up some. Come on, I’ll buy you a slider while you’re aging.”

They worked late together one day, running the new template through its paces. Alan knew he was good at it, had even proposed an improvement that Peretz fastened on to. Now, pleased with themselves, at ease with each other, they sipped cold coffee in the intelligence spaces, feet up.

“You know this is my last tour,” Peretz said.

Alan tried to think of a politic thing to say.

“Your dad told you I’m out, didn’t he?”

“Yes, sir.”

Peretz began to play with his fingers. “I could give you a lot of reasons why. They’re on my fitreps, right? But, between you and me—let me tell you this, because I see in you another … guy who might have to make the same choices. I wouldn’t make the sacriflce . You understand what I mean?” He made a face, sighed. “I wouldn’t make the sacrifice. Of my doubts, of my jokes, of my family. Of myself. What I mean is, if you stay in—there’s a cost.” He shrugged. “I didn’t want to pay it.” He looked at Alan. “You sure you want to pay it?”

He wasn’t sure at all. He didn’t yet know Peretz well enough to say what he really feared: I’m only here until I prove something to my dad.

The last morning, Alan went to say goodbye. They were anchored in the Bay of Naples. Alan was excited, mostly about the imminent meeting with his girl, an imminence of sex that was so powerful he was sure he smelled of it. Sailors and women, oh boy—it was all true!

“I’m on my way, sir.”

“Hey, it’s been good. Your dad’s a lucky guy. Listen—” He held Alan’s arm. “Stay in touch. I mean that.”

“I will.”

And he would. His father wouldn’t approve, but he would stay in touch with Peretz.

Alan ran his father down in the squadron ready room. They shook hands, neither moving to an embrace because other men were nearby. The distance that had opened between them had not been closed, and Alan found himself dodging the suggestion that they get together in Naples.

He would think later of the time thrown away, time they might have had together, valuable only when it was too late.

It was a day of the kind they make tourist brochures about, the bay deep blue and sparkling with the sun; toward Capri, the water looked greener, and the boats heading for the island trailed crisp, white wakes. In the other direction, Vesuvius seemed unthreatening behind a thick rim of beachfront development.

Petty Officer First Class Sheldon Bonner was not impressed. He liked Vesuvius well enough—enjoyed checking it out each time a sea tour brought him here—but “See Naples and Die” sounded stupid to him. The volcano looked a little dimmer today, he thought—more smog, more people down along the bay, more cruddy towns. But what he liked about Vesuvius was its lurking menace, and one day, he was sure, it would crack open again and pour ash and lava down on all the crud, and the bay would be cleansed and the air would be clear again. That would be worth seeing.

“Hey, Boner.”

A body joined him in the line. He didn’t even look back to see who it was. He grunted.

“Hey, Boner, gonna get some?”

“What else do you think we visit this shithole for?”

“Great pussy here, huh, Boner?”

“So-so.”

“You’re a fucking cynic, you know that, Boner? Your old lady know you got such high standards in pussy?”

Bonner carried on these conversations without thinking. Most talk, he had found, was done on autopilot. Men lived their real lives someplace else, hustling each other about what great sex they had, or what bad sex they had, how drunk they were last night, how they were mistreated, misunderstood, ripped off by the system; inside, they were thinking about other things entirely. He, for example, was thinking about money.

The line lurched forward and a speaker boomed out, “Boat away.” He gave his name, started down the ladder. Below, a boat was just moving away from the ship, the water opening between them a deeper, blackening blue. He descended into shade and felt cold.

Another boat nudged up and men began to file aboard. Bonner followed, clutching his toilet kit.

“You been this place before?” the E2 next to him said. Bonner remembered him from the hangar deck, a kid just out of high school.

“Lots.”

“It true they got a guy with a humongous prick at Pompeii?”

“Depends what your standard of comparison is.”

The kid laughed and turned red. He started to tell Bonner how he and his buddies were going to rent a car and drive to Pompeii and see the porn. Bonner tuned out. It was no good telling them that the train was a lot cheaper and easier. It was no good telling them the porn was stupid. It was no good telling them anything. They were young. Let them get ripped off by the Italian car rental agency, screwed by every gas station and trattoria; let them pay some ancient Guinea a hundred times what he was worth to be told a lot of bullshit about Pompeii. They were young and stupid—and in three to five years, they’d be out of the Navy or they’d be on their way to passing him by. They’d be headed for chief, and he’d still be a POI.

Sheldon Bonner, POl-For-Life. He thought of it as a title. He’d been busted twice, come back both times to POI, knew now he would never rise beyond it. The hotshots got their promotions on the backs of people like him, who made them look good. Were they grateful? Not a chance. They got the promotion, changed the uniform, hung out with their own kind and laughed at him behind his back. He knew. He’d had buddies who’d done that.