In Their Own Words - Ghost Ship
Harm Mac Bud Harriet Mark Falcon
Mark Falcon
By Packrat (packing@gte.net)
Well, I got it.
The notebook from Vietnam with the potentially damaging list of names is in my pocket. I'm not sure whether the Colonel will put it in a file, pass it on up the chain of command, or destroy it, but it doesn't matter. The Americans won't get it, and it can't cause Mother Russia any harm: that's all that matters. Of course, the mission would have been even cleaner if I'd been able to take out Lieutenant Commander Rabb, who actually got a look at it, but he's not an easy man to kill. I wouldn't have wanted to kill the divine Sarah, either, and she was in that compartment when Rabb found the book, too.
It's good to just sit back and enjoy the flight. The vodka doesn't hurt, although I wouldn't mind a glass of bourbon -- and if some of my fellow officers find that treasonable, we can talk about their preference for rice wine or African beer. We are all shaped by what is familiar to us, and I spent a lot of time outside of the USSR when I was young.
I wonder whether schizophrenics realize that they have more than one personality? I'm sure spies do. I wasn't much more than five when my family left Russia, and past eighteen when I returned. That's a long time pretend to be an American. My parents were very strict with me, too. Once a week, and once a week only, we spoke Russian at the dinner table and talked about our patriotic duty to protect our country by spying on the unsuspecting Americans. Even if I spent most of my time being a normal American teenager in Houston, doing things like riding bikes and collecting coins and ogling girls, I knew that I was a soldier in the armies of the USSR. What I did, things like making drops now and then for my dad, was valuable at the time; and what I was learning to do, be a full-grown and skilled spy for my country, was intensely important to me. Today, after having been trained and active for many years, the job is even more important. We have to protect Russia against the rest of the world, which would take advantage of our current problems. We will be great again -- it's only a matter of time -- but we must be vigilant against those who would destroy us in the meantime.
It was absurdly easy to deceive those two Naval officers, even though I do not believe that either one of them is stupid. We had been watching the *Hornet* ever since the skeleton was found in the void. We knew JAG officers would show up, and since the Alameda PD had bowed out of the investigation, it was really easy to persuade them that I was a homicide detective. Even if they'd called and checked up on "my" name, they'd have found out that there was a Mark Falcon working for Alameda. So, all I had to do was be pleasant and helpful, and keep what they were doing under close surveillance -- piece of cake! Rabb was too wrapped up in his own emotional problems to pay close attention, and Sarah MacKenzie is too used to the idea that anyone who says they are a police officer is working toward justice. Besides, I was careful not to be too interested in their investigation, so they didn't realize what I was looking for. That Rabb found the book first didn't make me happy, but situations like that can always be handled. He was in such bad shape that it was simple to get possession of the book, and Sarah was so concerned about Rabb's condition that it was even easier to keep it. "No problem, folks. Just come down to the central station when you want to pick it up." I don't see either of them as idiots: they did some pretty clever deducing to find out things I knew going into the situation, but I did have the advantage of more complete knowledge and I also didn't have to play by the rules.
I've got to wonder about what Rabb saw, though. Ghosts? Come on! And yet, he found the book, partly with the aid of those old tapes of his father, and he insisted that he'd followed a figure in a naval aviator's jacket to that particular compartment. It was a little weird. Even weirder was the fact that he knew how to get us out before we got cooked by that fire, and from what he said afterward, he was following the ghost again. I guess I should be grateful to whoever or whatever it was -- it saved my hide, too.
I missed my dinner date with Sarah, which is a pity. What a beautiful woman she is, sexy and smart, too. I wish we could have gotten better acquainted, even if it might have caused problems for me. Oh, well. I've given up a lot more to serve my country. We're on the glide path into Moscow right now. I'll be glad to hand this thing over and be done with it.
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Thanks to Packrat for the beta
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Disclaimer: While based on the JAG episode, this is for entertainment purposes only and no profit is being made.