Mako

By Clabe Taylor

Mako Sloane is a CIA legend, but his dizzying rise to stardom in Moscow is matched by his precipitous fall from grace after he discovers a secret that vested interests in both Russia and the U.S. want to keep quiet. Ten years after Mako's mysterious disappearance, investigative reporter Max Crandall is writing Sloane's unauthorized biography. Max's research inadvertently dredges up ghosts from the past, and he finds himself the target of a manhunt as unidentified operatives try to derail his project. Max lures Mako out of self-imposed exile, and the two discover the truth behind a bizarre conspiracy that threatens to send the world spiraling into a superpower confrontation of unprecedented proportions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Salvo Press
• Release date: Mar 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781627934244

Book preview

Chapter 1

November 2001

South of Mazari-i-Sharif

Afghanistan

Tahir walked over the barren, rocky ground leading a small, underfed white stallion by a frayed rope. The little stud had haired up in the cool temperatures of the Afghan autumn, and his coat was dull and scraggly. His hooves were unshod and in desperate need of trimming. They were cracked and uneven, but he wasn’t lame like so many of the horses that got used so hard in that inhospitable country. The horse’s halter had been fashioned from discarded yellow and orange packing string and had already rubbed the top of his nose raw.

Tahir had been delighted to find the string among the dozens of cardboard boxes which had arrived two days ago in the airlift for General Abdul Rashid Dostum’s anti-Taliban force. Many of the boxes had burst open upon landing in the rough Afghan terrain despite their apparent slow descent on state-of-the-art cargo parachutes, and the Northern Alliance fighters had scavenged everything possible. Tahir hoped the American would be pleased with his choice of horseflesh and his skill at weaving the halter. The game of Buzkashi would be starting within the hour, and the American needed to get to know his new horse. It would be unthinkable to enter the competition without at least first putting the horse through its paces.

This American was an odd one, Tahir thought to himself, as he caught sight of Mako Sloane’s tall, lanky figure in animated conversation with the general. The man’s knowledge of guerilla warfare tactics and his ability to resupply their poorly equipped fighting force had done wonders to raise the morale of the alliance and turn the tide of battle. Once the enemy was located, the American would speak a few words into a hand-held radio, and within a few minutes airplanes would appear and drop bombs on the unsuspecting Taliban forces. It seemed miraculous, and the men worshipped Sloane and gladly looked the other way at his drinking and whoring, as long as he stayed away from their women.

The Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Pathans in the alliance spoke reverently of the American’s equestrian abilities and were amazed at how quickly he had picked up the nuances of Buzkashi. They all agreed that he could play even better if he didn’t smoke a bowl of hashish before each game. Tahir was unable to deter Mako Sloane from this inexplicable vice, but the men respected him as a warrior too much to even mention his drug and alcohol use, much less offer him unsolicited advice. All thoughts of morally enlightening the offending American had disappeared two weeks ago during an audacious attack on a Taliban position that turned into vicious hand-to-hand fighting. Five Northern Alliance fighters had seen Mako Sloane disembowel the Taliban commander with his foot-long Dagestani kinzhal, a gift from his Russian son that he proudly wore in a leather scabbard hanging from his belt.

Tahir led the stallion to Sloane’s tent and waited there patiently for his return. He was Uzbek as was the general, but he spoke Russian with Sloane. In fact, Sloane’s fluent Russian had startled many of the Northern Alliance fighters who mistook him for a Russian at first and bristled at the thought of taking orders from a member of that hated race. That was their only common language, though, and soon all the older fighters, who had fought the Russians during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, were speaking in heavily accented Russian and calling Sloane ‘tovarishch,’comrade.

It was a warm day for November, and Sloane wore only a coarse, brown wool sweater and an old faded pair of Wrangler jeans over his boots. A Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association cap covered his hair, cropped short and still mostly blond despite his fifty years. A sprinkling of gray was evident in his full beard, which he had grown for his present assignment.

Mako saw Tahir waiting for him with a horse on a lead rope. The stallion watched warily as Sloane approached and began to walk in a slow circle around him. He examined the ill-bred creature and smiled to himself. This little stud would barely qualify as dog-food quality back in West Texas, but he had no doubt put in many years of loyal service to his owners here in Afghanistan.

He took the lead rope gently in his left hand and stroked the stallion’s forehead slowly. After just a few seconds, the horse visibly relaxed and let out a long sigh. He gave it up, and Mako began stroking him on the neck, working his way patiently down to the stallion’s legs. He took his time, but after a few minutes the stallion willingly allowed Mako to lift his hooves and pick out a few stray pebbles with a pocket knife. The horse would be considered a pony on his uncle’s ranch, and he hoped the little stud had enough pluck to carry him around the Buzkashi field. He outweighed most of his Uzbek and Tajik colleagues by at least thirty pounds, and that would be a definite handicap for his little mount.

Sloane loved the wildness of Buzkashi and its lack of rules. Although the game bore a theoretical resemblance to polo, Mako doubted any members of the Great Meadow Polo Club outside of Washington D.C. would be playing today. Naturally, he preferred it that way.

Mako noticed immediately that the homemade string halter was rubbing a raw spot on the stallion’s nose. He handed the lead rope to Tahir, turned without saying a word, and walked into his canvas tent and began rummaging around in his olive green duffel bag. He hadn’t allowed himself many luxuries on this assignment, but he had brought along a hackamore with a woven rawhide bosal and horsehair reins. Mako carried the hackamore back to the little horse and quietly removed the string halter. He praised Tahir’s workmanship, but replaced the string halter with the hackamore. Tahir had already saddled the beast, and Mako adjusted the stirrups to accommodate his long legs.

He led the horse to an open area where Tahir had removed most of the rocks and slowly mounted the little stallion. The horse flared his nostrils and began to breathe hard. He probably hadn’t been ridden in a while and sure enough, he started to crow hop around the open area as soon as Mako threw his leg over the horse’s back. A group of Uzbeks, friends of Tahir, gathered around for the show, shouting encouragement to Sloane both in Russian and their native tongue. Mako had spent several years breaking two-year-old quarter horses on his uncle’s ranch near Sweetwater, Texas and had ridden in the bareback competition at a rodeo in San Angelo when he was only sixteen. This little stallion probably didn’t weigh over 800 pounds. It had no hope of unseating an old Texas cowboy, over-the-hill he might have been. It took no more than thirty seconds for the attitude adjustment, and Sloane had the little stud loping calm, easy circles to the appreciative applause of the Uzbek and Tajik onlookers.

Riders for the game of Buzkashi had begun to assemble, milling around on horseback in the field that had been cleared the previous day in preparation for the game. The headless carcass of a goat was brought to the center of the field, and the teams gathered around, jostling for the best starting position. The players wore several layers of thick clothing, heavy boots and hats to protect themselves from the whips and crops of their competitors. It was a violent game, and any tactic was acceptable short of tripping another man’s horse.

Mako realized at once that his horse was a Buzkashi veteran. He could stop and turn on a dime and was relatively light in the mouth for a horse that was ridden by these heavy-handed tribesmen.

The unmistakable sound of approaching helicopters disrupted preparations for the game and caused the milling crowd of horsemen to scatter. Fifty mounted Afghan warriors galloped in every direction seeking the nearest tree, gulley, or boulder for cover. The sound of whirling helicopter blades still held terror for many of these veterans of Soviet MI-24 helicopter raids. The source of the menacing sound, though, was not a Russian helicopter. Sloane immediately recognized the sound of a pair of UH-60 Black Hawks approaching low and fast.

Crazy bastards, Mako thought. They have no idea how trigger-happy these tribesmen are. Why didn’t they radio me in advance?

Sloane galloped around the perimeter of the camp shouting at the top of his lungs in Russian. Dryuzya! "Friends!" The Afghan fighters themselves then picked up the refrain and began warning each other not to fire on the approaching aircraft.

That’s one disaster averted, thought Mako, pulling up his little stallion, whose sides were heaving from the gallop around the camp. Unannounced guests are never good news in this part of the country, and Sloane didn’t like the look of this. The two helicopters landed in the middle of the Buzkashi field, stirring up opaque clouds of dust and throwing pebbles and small rocks at random. The doors opened and several civilians wearing holsters and side arms hopped down to the ground ducking instinctively to avoid the choppers’ blades. They were followed by eight or ten heavily armed, uniformed U.S. Marines.

Sloane rode up slowly on his little white stallion. He recognized the civilians as employees of the CIA station in Islamabad. This isn’t making any sense, thought Sloane as he sized up the situation. He looked around and saw a ring of Afghan fighters encircle the helicopters and the small group of Americans. They weren’t able to discern the intentions of the armed newcomers but were taking no chances. Besides, their match had been interrupted, and they resented the intrusion.

Is that you, Sloane? asked one of the civilians, an older man with graying, thin hair and about thirty extra pounds around his soft middle. His clothes were fresh from the dry cleaners, and his trousers still showed a marked crease down the middle of his leg. Mako recognized the CIA station chief from Pakistan.

Jesus, he continued. I wouldn’t have recognized you except for your blue eyes! You’ve gone native, haven’t you?

What brings you out of your plush office in Islamabad? asked Sloane sarcastically.

Believe me, Sloane, this wasn’t my idea. I’m not a fan of third-world paramilitary operations. This is your world, not mine. You’re right; I’d rather be back at my office in the embassy.

Well, let’s hear it, said Sloane. You’re interrupting some entertainment. A game of polo Afghan-style, with a dead goat instead of a ball. You’re welcome to stay and watch.

Listen, this is going to be a bit awkward for me, the visiting CIA official said apologetically. We’re going to miss you around here, Sloane, he said, but I’ve got my orders."

Wish I could say the same, offered Mako, but what the fuck are you talking about?

Sloane, announced the CIA station chief excitedly, I have orders to take you into custody and transport you to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. I’m placing you under arrest.

Mako stared at the older man without saying a word. He nudged his little mount forward until he looked straight down at his visitor, who had begun to back up nervously. The stallion farted ostentatiously as Mako touched his flanks with a spur to move him into the body of the station chief.

Let me give you some advice, suggested Mako. Keep your voice down and smile. Look around you. You’re making my friends nervous. How long do you think you’d last if I gave the word?

The official followed Mako’s suggestion and looked around. He and his men were surrounded by at least 500 heavily armed Northern Alliance fighters who were fiercely loyal to Mako Sloane. They had all taken several belligerent steps toward the Americans in response to Mako’s own approach toward the U.S. Embassy official. The Marines held their assault rifles at the ready but were moving steadily back toward the cover of the two helicopters. Mako bumped the official with the shoulder of his horse.

Now you listen to me. You’ve got about thirty seconds to tell me what this is all about. Talk!

Mako, you remember me. We met last month in Islamabad after the World Trade Center bombings. I’ve got nothing but respect for what you are accomplishing out here. Hell, you’re a living legend in this business. But I have orders to detain you and bring you to Islamabad for questioning.

Let me see the orders, demanded Sloane as he continued to bully and push the official back as his little horse side-passed obediently in response to the light touch of Mako’s spur.

You know there are no written orders for this kind of thing, but you also know I wouldn’t try to arrest you if this didn’t come from the top. I’ve got no quarrel with you.

And what are your orders if I refuse to come with you? asked Mako with a meaningful look around him.

The official shrugged his shoulders. Hell, I can just tell you what they told me. I’m to inform you that your team is already in custody in Islamabad. If you refuse to come with me, your team will be transferred to a detention center that’s being set up in Guantanamo, Cuba and will be held indefinitely, or until you turn yourself in. Naturally, I never said this to you. Get in the helicopter, Sloane. This thing is way above our pay grade.

Chapter 2

Washington D.C.

September 2009—May 2010

I had reached an impasse in my research. Five years of studying the man’s life, and I still couldn’t answer the basic question. Was he dead or alive? What kind of biography would that be? I can just see my publisher’s reaction when I submit the manuscript.

So, Max, you’ve written the definitive biography on this Mako Sloane character, but you don’t know if he’s still alive or not. Am I understanding that correctly?

Word would get around, and I would be a laughing stock in journalistic circles, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t be able to show my face at the press club.

I had combed the obituaries from the Washington Post and New York Times since 2001 meticulously, painstakingly…ad nauseam. I had interviewed every person on record that allegedly knew Sloane, and I had traveled to three continents following up leads, trying to answer that question. Nothing, zilch.

It was generally assumed that Mako Sloane had been killed in Afghanistan in late 2001 on a secret mission to prepare the way politically for the ‘horse soldiers,’ the joint CIA/Special Forces units which played a key role in driving out the Taliban in the aftermath of 9/11. It was only an assumption. In reality, the name Mako Sloane seemed to have been expunged from the public record. He had become a ‘non-person,’ like some sort of ‘enemy of the people’ in Stalin times. Nobody among my government contacts wanted to talk about the subject. I knew they were afraid of something and stonewalling.

Over the years I had developed sources in almost every government agency that existed, and I ran them like clandestine assets, which they were, really. My most recent recruitment was a clerk in the Department of Justice with access to almost any document or electronic correspondence created there. He needed money, and I agreed to pay him for any information on Mako Sloane he came across. I swore him to secrecy with dire warnings of official retribution if he were caught. I even bought an inexpensive cell phone for $29.95 complete with a rechargeable phone card to be used solely for communication with my new source: in case my published phone numbers were being tapped. It was a poor man’s version of covert encrypted communications equipment. The phone would do in a pinch, but I had scant hopes of actually learning anything useful from my ‘friend.’

I carried my new cell phone around with me on the outside chance that my Justice Department source would call, but two months passed without hearing a peep out of him. When the phone rang on Thanksgiving night shortly after midnight, I was astounded. Suspecting that it was a wrong number or a telemarketing recording, I nonetheless answered the call, Max here.

Can you meet me at our place in one hour? I recognized the voice of my intrepid Justice Department clerk.

Our place was a Hot Shoppes restaurant on Columbia Pike in Arlington which stayed open all night. I agreed at once and crawled out of bed in my Capitol Hill condominium, groggily splashing cold water in my face to wake up. I wondered what the hell this could be about. Just in case my needy friend had something important, I quickly threw some cash in an envelope and walked out to the quiet street below to my car.

I hate to drink coffee at Hot Shoppes at 1:30 in the morning. At that hour the place exudes hopelessness and existential suburban despair. The coffee leaves a lot to be desired too. I was hoping for something a bit more uplifting from my new friend than his choice of venue. He walked in the door looking like he needed to make a run for the men’s room. He carried a small briefcase and made a beeline for my table as soon as he saw me. The envelope with money was lying on his side of the table as he sat down. He put the briefcase under the table as we had planned when we last met some two months ago.

Is that the money? he said, motioning to the envelope with a discreet nod of his head.

Of course, I always keep my word, I said. I hope you do too.

Just look in the briefcase. I’ve got to go. I’m really not cut out for this sort of thing. His head swiveled from side to side during the entire ninety seconds he sat at my table. He looked like he had just robbed a bank or was there for a major drug purchase. I wanted to get out of there as badly as he did. People were starting to stare. He scooped up the envelope, turned, and almost ran out of the restaurant, tripping over the briefcase as he hurried away from the table. Had I not been so annoyed with his antics, I might have smiled.

When I returned home, I opened the faux leather briefcase and looked inside at a single sheet of paper. My chagrin at having been duped by the low-level Justice Department bureaucrat turned to astonishment as I read a ruling from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals dated April 2004 denying bail to a federal inmate named Mako Sloane.

This was a bombshell. It changed everything. Mako Sloane was still alive? Were the rumors of his death in Afghanistan merely a disinformation campaign by the U.S. government, for which Sloane had outlived his usefulness? Had Sloane finally gone too far and come out on the short end of a cost/benefit analysis? I needed answers to these questions, and my journalistic sleuthing went into high gear.

I was spinning my wheels, though, and another six months passed without an additional nugget of information. It was as if the original DOJ document had been an aberration or simply an oversight on the part of the bureaucrat tasked with expunging all traces of Sloane from the official record. I began to suspect that even if Sloane had been released from prison, it would have been part of an elaborate negotiation process which offered his freedom in return for his ‘disappearance.’

I could easily imagine Sloane living in a thatched hut on a deserted beach in Central America, surfing those big swells during the day that originated in storms down by Easter Island and sipping dark rum at night, like some kind of modern-day Humphrey Bogart or Ernest Hemingway. I remembered reading how Sloane had taken up surfing in Nicaragua after the Sandinista revolution along with several high-ranking FSLN leaders who became bored with the mundane job of governing the country. A photograph of Sloane getting barreled on a glassy, head-high wave at Popoyo Beach on the Pacific Coast west of Managua with a platoon of Sandinista bodyguards on the beach armed with AK-47s and RPGs had caused a sensation when it arrived at CIA Headquarters. I was told that President Reagan himself had an enlargement of the photo framed and hung in the Oval Office. Reagan recognized ‘balls’ and a good photo op when he saw them.

I suppose my intrepid DOJ source’s sudden influx of cash had been inspirational and had fueled his greed for easy money. My dedicated phone line rang again late one balmy night in May.

Let’s do it again, a familiar voice said.

It was pretty much a repeat performance of our meeting at Hot Shoppes some six months before. The same embarrassing nervousness, fearful rubber-necking, and awkward departure. When I got back to my Capitol Hill condominium, I had the same irresistible impulse to shout ‘Eureka!’ as I opened yet another faux-leather briefcase and pulled out yet another single document. This time it was a classified email, a request to the CIA for name traces on a certain Sean O’Keefe, identified in the memorandum as an Irish national incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, a low security correctional institution and medical facility. An attachment to the name-trace request contained a list of individuals with possible ties to Sean O’Keefe. The list of names included Mako Sloane.

I’m a pretty decent journalist and will go almost anywhere and do almost anything for a story. I guess in that respect I’m not much different from many of my colleagues. Obtaining access to Sean O’Keefe became the primary goal in my life. Without him, I was really at loose ends on how to continue my project.

The Bureau of Prisons is a huge bureaucracy with its own rules and procedures. If you keep a low profile and fill out the right forms, the plodding, unimaginative bureaucracy will eventually get around to you. It took six weeks and a few innocent ruses, but one day I found a letter in my mailbox from the BOP granting me visitation rights to Sean O’Keefe. I flew to DFW Airport on a Saturday, when visitation hours lasted all day, and drove a rented car over to Forth Worth and the prison. I arrived just as the guards opened the entrance gate to visitors.

Except for the double row of razor wire and the uniformed staff, the prison could have passed for an old-fashioned college campus: the way they looked fifty years ago. On second thought, with its austere off-white buildings with red tile roofs and neatly manicured lawns, the place had more the look of a home for wards of the state: maybe an orphanage, a school for the blind, or a mental hospital.

The security procedures were strict, and the attitude of the staff was perfunctory at best. Courtesy toward the visitors was a concept conspicuously absent. The visitors were treated with suspicion and condescension. I passed through a metal detector and was frisked by a guard who looked like he should have been on the other side of the razor wire. With his shaved head and long goatee, he looked like a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, which I had written about in a series of articles on white supremacy. We were led into a large room with chairs arranged in rows and told to sit and wait. One of the doors led to an outside fenced-in area where inmates and their visitors could sit at tables and talk. I could see the recreation yard in the distance and saw inmates playing basketball and a version of handball against a concrete wall. Life goes on wherever you wind up, I thought to myself.

O’Keefe was surprised to come to visitation that Saturday morning and find a complete stranger waiting to talk with him. Who the fuck are you? he asked in a thick brogue.

O’Keefe turned out to be a 73-year-old Irishman on the downhill slope of a 20-year sentence for arms trafficking. Besides the IRA, his customers had included some sinister groups in Serbia, disreputable African warlords, and Mexican drug traffickers, most of them by now doing hard time in U.S. high security federal prisons. O’Keefe claimed to be a master at his craft and said he’d be free if not his weakness for Irish whiskey and friendly, talkative whores with a social conscience. It took several visits for O’Keefe to open up to me, and before I dared to begin the line of questioning that would determine whether or not O’Keefe had any connection to Sloane.

I stayed in Fort Worth at an extended-stay motel located south of Interstate 20 and used my free time between visits to organize my notes and write. I bought day passes at a local YMCA by Hulen Mall and played racquetball with some of the club members to keep in shape. On my third visit with O’Keefe I decided to bring up the subject of my research and see what his reaction would be. We sat outside basking in the warm May sun, and I offered Sean a cigarette. As I leaned over to light it, Sean surprised me by asking, Max, what are you really interested in? You don’t seem to know shit about the arms trade.

I was taken aback but welcomed the opening. Very astute, Sean. I scurried in my own mind for an answer not contrived. I decided on the truth. I’m actually writing the biography of a former CIA officer named Mako Sloane. I think you might know him. I looked at O’Keefe intensely to judge his reaction.

He didn’t bat an eye and even chuckled. I should have known. Sure, I knew Mako. We spent eight months together in neighboring cells at Seagoville…solitary confinement. Never saw his face, though. But when two people come from our background, you don’t need to sit face-to-face to know one another. We had a lot in common, you know, the world of espionage, third-world wars of national liberation, international intrigue. We used to talk for hours. He’s a good man. What do you want to know?

I knew this was exactly opposite of what the CIA or FBI intended when they persuaded the detention center staff to put Sloane in ‘the hole.’ The Bureau of Prisons, staffed by sadist hacks and moronic administrators, according to O’Keefe, is a world unto itself. Once in the system, an inmate was subject only to BOP rules, and even the CIA had limited influence.

That was all water under the bridge. I was ecstatic. I had struck the mother lode of investigative reporting.

Chapter 3

Monterey, California

March 1969

Mako Sloane turned his pale yellow 1964 Volvo 544 on to Highway 68 from Salinas toward Monterey. He could barely keep a smile off his face as the lettuce fields and the emerald green hills of the Salinas Valley in early spring gave way to the coastal hills of the Central California coast cascading toward the Pacific Ocean. It was cool. So cool, in fact, that Mako stopped his Volvo, which he always like to think of as his ersatz 1948 Ford, and slipped a light sweater over his broad shoulders.

Unlike many of his fellow soldiers, Sloane had gained weight during basic training, and the strenuous exercise had augmented his already impressive physique, partially inherited from his athletic father and partially derived from hard physical labor working cattle and training horses on his uncle’s West Texas ranch. Standing slightly over six feet, with his short blond hair, Mako looked like the All-American boy, perhaps a disadvantage in those days of counterculture, acid rock, and Vietnam war protests in California.

Mako’s parents had decided, when he was thirteen years old, that life with them in the suburbs of Washington D.C. was having a deleterious effect on their young son. At first, the antics of the rambunctious youth had amused them, but later, after several cases of alleged sexual impropriety, one in Sunday School class with Alice, the young girl next door, and the other in the women’s dressing room in Lord & Taylor’s with Alice’s mother, Mako’s parents decided to ship him off to live with his uncle who owned a 3,500 acre cattle ranch near Sweetwater, Texas.

It was hoped that life in that bucolic, West Texas setting would provide alternate amusements for Mako, who in addition to an abnormal obsession with sex, at least for such a young boy, had also developed a taste for alcohol, marijuana, and the mind-altering drugs which were coming into vogue on the East Coast in the mid 1960s. The final straw for his parents came when his mother walked casually into his bedroom one Saturday evening and found Mako, tripping on LSD, completely naked, standing at his easel, and painting a scene depicting the Second Coming of Christ. That disturbing image, nonetheless, might have passed with the usual two-week grounding and forfeiture of his weekly allowance, had it not been for Alice’s presence on her knees in front of young Mako. Hurried phone calls were made, and Mako and his father began a three day drive to Sweetwater the following week.

In fact, once in Texas, Mako took to ranch life like a fish to water and spent hours each day horseback, virtually living in the bunkhouse with ‘Rabbit,’ the ranch foreman who was the acknowledged expert on horses in all of Nolan County, Texas. Whether it was information on ‘Old Sorrel,’ the foundation quarter horse sire from the King Ranch, or stories about John Solomon Rarey, one of the first documented horse whisperers, old Rabbit kept Mako spellbound with insights into horse psychology and training methods. Unfortunately for Mako’s parents, Rabbit had a weakness for Old Crow and Mexican whores, but there too, he gave Mako the opportunity to experience life in all its richness and bounty and called young Mako’s attention to the historical, linguistic, and cultural ties that bound Texas to Mexico, something that Mako would never have learned in the 9th grade Social Studies class at Sweetwater High School.

In fact, it was Mako’s precocious romance with Conchita Mendoza, the daughter of his Uncle Clay’s Mexican maid, and his close friendship with the other Mexican ranch hands, that gave the first indication of Mako’s extraordinary linguistic abilities. By the time Mako turned 14 and began studying Spanish at school, his fluency and near native pronunciation was the talk of Sweetwater. Uncle Clay began using him as his interpreter and took him on several cattle-buying forays into the Mexican state of Coahuila in the northern part of the country.

Regrettably, when he was 17, Mako unambiguously demonstrated that his familiarity with so many facets of adult life was not matched by an equal level of social maturity or sense of civic responsibility. On the return leg of a cattle-buying trip to Mexico, Uncle Clay’s Chevy pickup was searched at the Del Rio border crossing, and a five-pound packet of high-grade marijuana was found taped to the truck’s chassis. At first, Mako tried to plead ignorance, but once he saw that anything less than a full confession would bring on a catastrophic reckoning at the hands of his uncle, the lad manfully took responsibility for his unsuccessful and poorly thought-out attempt to introduce Mexican contraband into the United States. Mako spent that night behind bars in Del Rio, Texas.

Following lengthy consultations between Uncle Clay, Mako’s father, and the best criminal attorney money could buy in Sweetwater, Texas, the solemn decision was made that Mako would accept the judge’s offer of enlisting in the U.S. Army instead of the less appealing prospect of doing five to seven years in prison for felony drug trafficking.

Mako slowed his Volvo and exited on to Del Monte Avenue and slowly made his way toward downtown Monterey, looking for signs of the Defense Language Institute. He passed the Naval Postgraduate School on his left and caught his first glimpse of the ocean off Del Monte beach.

The boy always seemed to land on his feet, and instead of being designated to the infantry, or another combat arms unit and being sent to Vietnam, as the judge had probably hoped, Mako had aced the military language aptitude test and had been assigned to DLI to attend the 47-week Russian course. At the end of the day, Mako was astute enough to realize that he would rather conjugate Russian verbs in Monterey, California than train for jungle warfare at Fort Polk, Louisiana.

After a thorough reconnaissance of the Presidio of Monterey, Mako parked his car and walked across the street to Company C, a large two-story, modern building that resembled more a college dormitory than an army barracks. Just before he entered the building, Mako turned around and gazed down the hill toward Monterey Bay. With the cool sea breeze slapping him in