Tet Offensive

Col. George Olsen hadn’t changed much in the five years since Lou saw him last. Even sitting in a New York diner, his bearing gave him away to the observant as a career military man; the aviators he insisted on wearing certainly didn’t help matters.

Luca Aragno took a wry look at his former commanding officer, then puffed on his cigarette and said:

“You seem disappointed. Is it the hair?”

Olsen grit his teeth, and behind his dark frames Luca could still see his eyes involuntarily glance at his long, black ponytail. It made a stark contrast with the Colonel’s close-cropped, Ivy League cut - in fact, the full gray in his once salt-and-pepper hair was one of the few things that had changed about the man.

“You developed quite the lip on you, Lieutenant. I see discharge has sent you to seed.”

Lou tried to keep the barb from showing on his face with a nonchalant wave of his arm, leaving it resting on the booth they sat in. He let his eyes lazily track across the room, speaking as he did so:

“And I see your work for the Company has done wonders for your conversation skills, George. Man of your rank should go to more of those fancy Corps Balls, sharpen up a bit. I’m sure your wife would appreciate you breaking out the old Dress Blues; man, those are one thing I mi-“

Olsen’s voice turned as deadly as his gaze, and Luca hated his reflexive urge to stand at attention.

“One more word out of you, Aragno, and I’ll have you-”

Now it was Lou’s voice that sharpened.

“You’ll what, Olsen? Court-martial me?”

Hearing the rising tone in his voice, Lou forced himself to take another drag and calm down. The tense air between them had begun to attract the attention of their fellow diners, and he plastered on his previous slightly-mocking, slightly resigned grin.

“I think we’re both well past that at this point, don’t you agree?”

Olsen seemed to pick up on the interested stares from the other booths and began to mechanically eat the steak and eggs he ordered. Luca quirked his eyebrow at the depressingly thoughtless choice of meal, but rather than comment simply ashed out his cigarette and ate his own (Continental-style) in silence.

 After a few minutes and the heat had died, Lou took sip of coffee and stared back at the older man.

“Alright Colonel. Let’s cut to the chase here-why did you contact me? It can’t be about what you asked me the last time we spoke to each other.”

The imperative aspect of his last statement was not lost on George Olsen. He laughed, and actually removed his sunglasses, disarming Lou. Olsen leaned forward, cupping his hands in front of him and stared back at Luca with hard, dark eyes.

“No; if you were too much the fool to sign on back in the Corps, I can’t imagine you’ve wised up since you ended up back in this…”

Olsen stopped and took a moment to look out the windows at the wind-swept streets of the City. A look of profound disgust crept across his face.

“Glorified shithole. I could swear I had better times in the outhouse at Khe Sanh.”

Luca’s smile widened, and he re-lit his Lucky Strike.

“Now come on, Olsen. I don’t seem to ever recall you or any of your Top Brass buddies frequenting any of those outhouses. But perhaps I missed you in between dodging mortar strikes. Maybe Toro caught you though, I’ll have to ask when I get home.”

At the mention of his roommate’s name, George’s face grew still. Luca pressed on, his own features quiet and controlled:

“Let me lay this out for you in no uncertain terms, Sir: as I see it, guarding drug dealers and squabbling over street corners isn’t much different than what I was doing working for Uncle Sam in the first place.”

An awkward silence ensued, until finally it was interrupted by the crackling of a television being turned on. Dan Rather’s grainy visage appeared, and the caption read:

COX FIRED: BORK ACTING ATT. GENERAL

Luca shook his head and drank more coffee, while Olsen stared at the screen, his face looking cut from granite. With ponderous solemnity, he declaimed:

“It’s because of unpatriotic cowards like you that great men like him are being dragged through the streets.”

Returning his gaze to the screen, Lou saw President Nixon’s long face filling the frame. He had to resist the urge to burst out laughing. He put out his finished Strike.

“Sure, you got me, I put G. G. Liddy up to it in fact. My Nonno was actually a communist-anarchist operative back in the Old Country, and I inherited his agent provocateur nature. Are we done?”

Pulling out another cigarette along with some bills, Lou stood up. He spoke around the unlit end as he counted.

“Well, it’s been fun George. Don’t worry about it, breakfast is on me. You can handle the tip though.”

He stopped as the Colonel turned back to him. The dark hairs on the nape of his neck stood up at the uncharacteristic grin on the man’s face.

It was the same grin he gave him before he’d sent them to the Cambodian border.

“Before you go, Aragno. Take a look at this.”

Lou muttered about how it was about time as Olsen pulled a manila folder from under the table. He placed it in front of him and leaned back in his booth. Lou picked it up, and the cigarette fell from his lips.

Olsen’s grin widened as Luca eyes flitted and widened rapidly behind his glasses.

Finally, Lou looked up with true hate filling his face.

“You know Olsen, you might be as bland as the cuisine in whatever flyover state you hail from, but I forgot you can be a real bastard at times.”

Now it was Olsen’s turn to shrug and stand up. At some point during their discussion the check had appeared, and he added a meager tip to the pile of cash on the table. Then he stopped, chuckled, and threw down some extra.

“What the hell; I’m in a good mood.” His grin had not left his face as he put his arm on Lou’s shoulder, but the grip was anything but avuncular.

“Don’t care either way what you do with this; Trujillo had his time in the sun and that time’s past. The Company would appreciate cleaning up some of the mess he and the SIM left, but we can live with it. After all, it’s not our problem.”

He chuckled as he moved past Luca to the glass door of the diner. The Colonel’s voice drifted back as he left, haunting Lou through time as well as space:

“You can tell…Toro, was it? About this as well when you see him. I’m sure he’d be very disappointed if he learned from someone else.”

The door swung closed behind him, and Lou slumped back down into the booth. The folder fell from his fingers and spread open on the floor. Black-and-white photos and files struck through with dark lines revealed a dossier.

Sighing, he leaned back and waved at a passing waitress.

“Hi Miss, I’m sorry, I’m actually going to need more coffee.”

She smiled politely, watching him rub his temples.

“Sure, hun. Be right with ya.”

Lou raised a hand a looked up, haggard and apologetic:

“Also, one more thing. Do you have a pay phone I could use?”