One of our assignments in my writing course was to write in a voice you don’t usually use (first person versus third). This was my entry.
PINE GAP
Picture a sailor. Now picture him as a little speck in the desert, as far from the ocean as you can possibly get. That was me, fifteen years a Navy man, standing in the sun-baked Outback.
My career was typical navy: commissioned after Annapolis, served on destroyers and cruisers mostly, always Signals Intelligence. Got all my promotions when I was supposed to, committed to full career after my first tour.
Then for the last five years of my service, they stuck me in Pine Gap.
Pre-departure briefing confirmed the little bits that the internet had, Pine Gap was a National Security Agency listening post in the middle of the Australian Outback, set up as a joint operation to monitor comms traffic out of China and Russia.
Being seconded to the NSA was meant to be in recognition of my service and my abilities. But honestly, once you’re at Pine Gap, it feels like you’re being punished. The end of the first year is the hardest. You look back at your crappy year and realise you’ve got another four staring you in the face.
Oddly, being seconded to a civilian agency doesn’t relieve you of your military protocols. We still kept our uniforms spit and polish, saluted our superiors, and looked down on the civilians we hoped soon to be.
Mostly I can’t talk about what I did there; you don’t have the clearance. Anyway, it was pretty compartmentalised. We could’ve caught the biggest secrets of our worst enemies, and I’d’ve never known. We just gathered the intel. Processing the data happened back stateside.
The one thing I can tell you about Pine Gap that’s not a secret is that it’s hot. I mean, “Pine” makes you think of shady forest, mountains, cool breezes. Nope, that’s not Pine Gap. Temperature there is at the other end of the thermometer. Changing the numbers from Fahrenheit to Celsius may make it look reasonable on paper, but it’s still hot as Hell.
Man, I hate shaving in the desert. I’ve never nicked myself so much as when I first arrived at Pine Gap. The sea air kept your skin hydrated, smooth. The heat of the Outback just leathers your skin. You learn to stock up on Nivea whenever they get a new shipment at the PX.
Moisturising routines are your neck’s best friend.
Because of the oppressive heat, you tend to stay inside a lot. The Armed Forces Network is a blessing, especially around the Super Bowl and March Madness. Best TV Channel in the world. But you get so tired of those stupid Operational Security ads. “I’m Dee Snyder from Quiet Riot. When me and the boys are off-base we practice OpSec. You should too.” Every freakin’ commercial break. And like he’s ever served. Have you seen his hair?
Anyway, last week, almost four years and nine months into an uneventful tour, I get notice that I’m being transferred back stateside. That’s not unusual. When you’re completing your last tour, they often give you a desk job back home for the final few months. Helps you set up your retirement.
Mine wasn’t just any desk though, I was going to be in the NSA processing centre at Fort Meade, being one of the intel quants me and my buddies used to bitch about. I wondered what I’d be saying about them once I had to decipher the crap they sent me from Pine Gap.
There’s an extra level of security clearance needed to work inside Fort Meade, but I’d always passed previous checks, and working at Pine Gap should add to your credentials. God knows I hadn’t had any opportunity to get into trouble out there.
So, what went wrong? Funny you should ask.
I had three weeks’ leave before reporting to Fort Meade, and I took it. I mean, I’ve lived in the worst part of Australia, why shouldn’t I see the best?
Flying Qantas from Alice Springs to the Great Barrier Reef is probably fine, if your pilot’s any good. Ours wasn’t.
OK, wait, back up.
First, I have to say, flying hungover is a stupid idea. The pressure change in the cabin induces the worst hangover you’ve ever experienced. My eyeballs ached, my teeth ached, everything above the shoulders was screaming for water, darkness, and quiet. The turboprops flying out of Alice are anything but quiet. They have an incessant whine far worse than your typical passenger jet.
In spite of all that, I was upholding naval tradition, working the flight attendant, Kat, as hard as I could. She was a pretty thing, with short, bobbed black hair on perfect cream skin — How do you maintain skin like that in a desert? I didn’t know but maybe I could convince her to show me her moisturising routines — all smiles, flirty touches. Man, she was hot.
Except for the freakin’ hangover, this was a great start to my vacation.
Then we landed. Or bounced. Three times, the plane’s wheels hit the runway, three times we bounced back up. The second time, the nose pushed hard to starboard and I feared we’d cartwheel down the runway. The pilot fought it back around, then added one more bounce for good measure.
An old biddy seated beside me smiled and said, “We almost rolled there, didn’t we?”
What could I say? She was probably mostly dead inside anyway. Me, I had something to live for. When Kat was near, there was a whiff of sex in the air. I just needed to keep my sites on her, focus on the object, complete the mission.
If I was going to talk to Kat, it had to be inside the plane. Mackay’s one of those small regional airports in Queensland that ferries tourists to the reef. No frills. They drag a gantry up so you can deplane directly onto the tarmac. You could tell from the vapour rising off the asphalt that blistering heat would force a quick march from plane to terminal. No way I could handle waiting for Kat to finish her duties and come down the gantry.
Once the props stopped spinning, they popped the hatch. Oh man, an ocean’s worth of humidity flooded the cabin, slapping everyone. You could actually see the moisture rolling down the aisle, see people wincing as it hit them, right before it engulfed you, too.
I’ve heard of extreme humidity, and I’ve lived on the sea. I’ve never experienced anything like this body-slam from the air. I fought to catch my breath. The humidity drove the hangover up a notch or ten. If I hadn’t before, now I certainly looked like crap, and I felt more than a little defeated.
Still, I kept to my game plan, waiting to deplane last, hoping to exchange a few more words with Kat, at least get her number, maybe start clean on a better day. As I approached, Kat and the other attendant exchanged conspiratorial smiles. Then it was just me and Kat.
“You,” Kat was almost laughing. “Need a change of clothes.”
“And a shower,” I agreed. “Where would you recommend…?”
“My place.”
That grin, those eyes, her hand tracing circles on my thighs — man, what a magical taxi ride. The world could’ve ended, collapsed all around me, I wouldn’t have noticed. I wasn’t paying attention to anything beyond her face, her body, the little brass buttons on her white uniform blouse. I was a male again, wanted, desired, needed, not just another uniform in front of a computer screen.
Look, how much detail do I have to give you about what happened next? Oh. Ok.
Well, I was a sailor on leave, and she was cute and willing. We…uh, did it…twice, no, maybe three times? First in the shower, that one’s crystal clear. Amazing. Then in her bed…twice, I think. Maybe not. Everything got kinda fuzzy fast. Then I guess I must’ve slept.
When I woke up, everything was wrong. She was nowhere. I was — naked! — curled up against some smelly-ass boarded-up doorway and your cops were poking me with truncheons. Thought I was gonna get pepper sprayed for sure.
And that’s how I got here.
No, I don’t know where her place is. Or her. Or my clothes.
Yes, I’m taking this seriously. No, you don’t need to show me that dossier again. Yes, I retained what I’ve read. Her name is Katrina Oblavska and she’s a suspected Russian operative. I got it.
No, I don’t know where my military ID is. No, my security clearance card, either.
Yes, I do understand how much shit I’m in. Yeah, maybe I should’ve listened to Dee Snyder.
Is that all, sir?
