Place of Bones by Larry Johns

you will be, too.” I hoped my smile robbed the remark of its possible sting. It appeared to.
    “Right, sir,” he said cheerfully. Then he added, “The Chink said we’re headed for Makanza. That so, sir?”
    I nodded. “Close to there.” I briefly told him about Camp-One. He made no comment at first, just stared over at the trees. At length he said, “Someone told me about that place, up in Angola. I thought it was a load of balls.”
    “Well,” I said, “It isn’t. And it isn’t up in Angola, it’s down.”
    He laughed. “Where I come from, sir, everywhere’s up...” He talked about his home then, about beaches and stuff like that. Then he came back with, “We gonna get another officer, sir?”
    I said, “Probably. If I can get the man I want...”
    The convoy slid to a standstill at Bomongo sixteen minutes after midnight, and it took all night just to disembark the truck.
     
     

FIVE
     
    Conrad Mitchell had mixed feelings about the man who ran his Africa desk. Nothing specific, just mixed. The man had departed Mitchell’s office ten minutes ago but the musky smell of his aftershave lotion remained to taint the air. He had also left behind his inch-thick report on current happening on the Dark Continent. Mitchell wished he could pin Lee Barclay down; was it aftershave lotion? Or was it perfume. He sniffed the air and wrinkled his retrousse nose. Aftershave, then. Let’s be charitable. There was a huge vase of flowers, mostly roses, over by the window and Mitchell had enjoyed the occasional whiff of their scent all day. Now there was nothing in the air but that damned perfume!  Mitchell could not understand why a man of Barclay’s age wore the stuff. Did he like it? Did his wife like it? Did he think she liked it? Surely to God, Mitchell mused as he placed the file under the three others he had to wade through, surely to God Mary-Lou Barclay was too old to be turned on - the current “in” phrase - by anything ! 
    Conrad Barclay sank back into his expansive leather swivel chair, clasped his hands over his also expansive stomach, his crew cut head resting on the soft, adjustable pad. He would remain thus for a full five minutes, clearing his mind in readiness for the task ahead. He had been head of the CIA for over eight years. He had seen - suffered, was the way he put it - the end of one presidential administration; the full term of another, and the start, the very rough, very shaky beginnings of a third.
    Good golfers impressed Mitchell, so did bona fide war heroes. He respected the physically handicapped and the aged and he admired imaginative - not to be confused with surrealistic - artists. He loathed drunks and homosexuals and drug-pushers and snobs; inverse or the other kind. Strangely enough, he understood, and had certain sympathy for, prostitutes and some kinds of criminals. He would go well out of his way to pat a dog, whilst he did his level best, when behind the wheel of his “Olds," to buzz cats to distraction. So-called academics and call-them-what-you-like politicians left him stone cold. The latter came, and they went
    The first thing Mitchell did when he opened his eyes was look at the huge “Old Glory” that adorned one complete wall of his barn-sized office. Its design, the sheer beauty of its construction and color scheme - bold, forthright, daring, significant - never failed to enthrall him. He could almost hear the drums and the bugles...
    Iwo Jima!
    That name sang again in his mind as the memories - he was there that day - flooded through him in palpable waves. And the men...Ah! The men!  He sighed. Would we ever see their like again? Viet Nam saw its fair share. But, criminally, their memory was tainted...he sniffed...like the air in that goddam office! He rose up and strode to the nearest window and latched it open another notch. Smelly aftershave lotion for a sixty years old man! Hell’s teeth! Mitchell resumed his place at the desk. Aftershave gunge had been