Chapter 1.
A
diplomat's life can hardly be termed happy. Agent Echo was neither
free to pursue his own happiness, nor free to grouse about it.
“We
don't get paid to be happy,” his Chief of Station had chided him.
“We get paid to serve the President's agenda.”
“No
need to snipe at me,” he had mentally retorted. Verbally, he had
given the diplomatic equivalent of “three bags full, sir.”
Now,
here he sat, a prisoner of the tropical heat with nothing to break
the monotony of the air conditioner but a Reader's Digest.
It
fell open to the story of the now aging Blackbird program. As he
glanced across the printed page, he felt disgruntled and angry.
Usually he would have been contented with water fountain scuttlebutt,
but now his mind turned upon the hue and cry that the recent spy
Philby had generated. A perverse pride reared its head, and he
reflected, “I could do better.”
As
he continued to read, a natural fear of prison deterred practical
application of his talents until he recalled that the Readers' Digest
was a Catholic publication. “Hmm,” he pondered, “Does the
Vatican actually know
about the SR-71 Blackbird?” The story presented itself as a good
way to test the temperature of the waters. He selected an unofficial
letterhead, and put it in the typewriter.
“His
Holiness the Pope,” it began. He felt a kind of catharsis at this
avenue of release. His diplomatic juices flowed, as he finally found
himself free to choose his own words. God always came before
“Country” in the phrase “For God and Country,” and his
Catholic soul had never felt so free.
(Part one of sequel at World Wide Tent.)
(Part one of sequel at World Wide Tent.)
