Fonko's Errand Go Boom: Jake Fonko, #3

By B. Hesse Pflingger

BELFAST, 1982. When an old surfing buddy refers ex-Army Ranger Jake Fonko to a cutting-edge car manufacturer in need of his unique skills, Jake ships off to Belfast. But protecting the manufacturer's local factory from the Irish Troubles turns out to be no small matter.

As the civil war escalates, Jake's mission soon becomes far simpler: survive. And to escape Northern Ireland alive, Jake must become a double-agent for both sides—an explosive situation that will push his extensive training to its limits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: B. Hesse Pflingger
• Release date: Aug 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386463054

Book preview

The Bait

Travel not with a ruthless man, lest he weigh you down with calamity. That’s from the Good Book. I ran across it in something I was reading recently, and it took me back to my gig in Belfast, Northern Ireland, at a time when ruthless men and calamity were gluts on the market. I wound up turning ruthless myself, and calamities, oh my! That’s the reason why, for years if a stranger asked around in Malibu about me, he’d not find anyone who admitted to having ever heard of me. Not because I was the town outcast. Lord knows this town will tolerate just about anything short of voting Republican. When I returned from Northern Ireland my continued health and existence required a cloak of anonymity, and my Malibu friends and neighbors were happy to oblige. Because they—a legion of theys—were looking for me, and if they found me… talk about ruthless! Talk about calamities!

Whatever was I thinking when I threw in with all sides in a lose-lose-lose-lose situation?

Once you’re established here, Malibu is a small town. Well, a small town full of Hollywood millionaires and other well-heeled beach bums, anyhow. You find the big spreads up in the hills and canyons. The places lining the shore are densely packed, not a problem when you have the whole Pacific Ocean for your front yard. Back then life in the village centered around Malibu Plaza, at the intersections of Coast Highway, Malibu Road and Cross Creek Road. The Plaza had just about everything you needed for daily living, if you didn’t worry overmuch about price. The Malibu Theater there was remarkable for the fact that you often found in the audience the same people who were on the screen.

Like the time Dana Wehrli and I were exiting a flick, and there was Barbra Streisand crawling in under the turnstile. Hey, Barbra, I said. If a check from your agent is hung up in the mail, I’ll spring for a ticket.

Oh, hi Jake, she said as she stood up, safely in. Thanks, but it’s not that. I’m not here for the movie. I just wanted to check out somebody in the credits. The box office guy said it was okay.

We left when it said The End. You’ve probably missed the producers and directors, but you’ll see the rest of them.

You gotta check everything out in this town, can’t trust half what people tell you. Catch you later, Jake, Dana. She barged in against the outgoing stream of movie-goers.

Dana and I had gotten back to… well, dating, anyhow. While I ministered to the dying Shah and dodged homicidal revolutionaries in Iran she’d split from her stockbroker husband and gone out on her own: bought a condo unit in Santa Monica, found a job. We’d been hot and heavy back in my surf rat days, but things never stay the same. After mixing it up with women like Soh Soon and Rachel Millstein, it seemed something went lacking with Dana—substance, bottom, hard to put a name to it. Dana was still a good old gal pal, and the passage of a few years had juiced her blonde beach bunny beauty, but she was no longer the object of my fondest desires. Not that any other woman was just then.

Anyhow. It was late summer, that night we saw Streisand crawling under the turnstile, and the coastal chill had yet to set in. The air was balmy, the sea salt smell was invigorating, a great night for a stroll back home along Malibu Road. Dana couldn’t get it through her pretty blonde head about my line of work, so I was trying again to explain it. It’s kind of like being a private eye, I said. Somebody has a problem, so they hire me to solve it.

Is it like when you were a soldier in Nam?

Not really. They had us in uniforms, put us out in the jungle, and we shot at guys in other uniforms. Who were shooting at us.

That Nam business was so, like, awful, she said. "All those protests and riots and sit-ins et cetera. They had UCLA shut down half the time. Some of those protesters, I don’t think they paid any attention to hygiene, even the girls. The Black Power people were creepy-scary. Everybody was so nasty about the sororities."

Life can get brutal, I know, I agreed. So anyhow, sometimes it’s just a day or two bodyguarding a businessman, or delivering something valuable, or talking to people, or getting some information. And sometimes it’s for longer.

Is it like being a spy? Are you a spook like James Bond?

Nobody is a spook like James Bond. I couldn’t legally tell her about the Cambodia misadventure, but I recounted my Iran gig. She was appalled.

You killed somebody? You beat those two guys up? Jake, violence is not the answer!

That depends on the question, I didn’t say. But, Whirlybird, it was them or me.

So? You ever try talking to people? Communication is important. I bet you could have worked it out. For a couple semesters she’d minored in communication at UCLA.

But I couldn’t even speak their language.

That doesn’t mean you should just go around killing everybody.

Good old Whirlybird. Best not to tell her what Emil Grotesqcu did about the female Revolutionary Guard; her sense of humor didn’t go in that direction. Dana’s heart was always in the right place, but her head occasionally wandered off the reservation.

But she was always up for a good time. And gorgeous in the California Girl template. She’d been a postcard-pretty picture on a surfboard, suitable for framing; not in Jericho Poppler’s league technically but she kept up with the gang on the easy stuff. But you see what I meant about lacking something? Life would have to hit her in the face a few more times before she’d get it. How’s your new job working out? I asked, changing the subject to something she could be cogent about. You’re a production assistant with KABC? What do you do, actually?

I’m still on probation, so it’s about seeing how well I fit in, she said. I’m a gofer right now—running errands, arranging for things, getting things in place for shoots, tasks like that. They say I have a good voice, and I can read well and remember lines, so I’m hoping to get out in front of the camera. It’s good. I’m learning a lot about the broadcasting business. They didn’t tell you much useful in those communication courses I took, at least not in-a-real-job useful.

The situation was made for her. Somewhere in the vast reaches of TV Land a weather-babe slot cried out for Dana Wehrli.

To bring the saga up to date after my return from Iran: As Book Two recounted, I survived that adventure intact and financially flush. Which was good, because assignments like that come only rarely. I needed extended R and R after those harrowing months in Tehran. Maintaining four identities, juggling seven spy agencies and dodging assassins and Islamic Revolutionaries isn’t as easy as it sounds. So I spent pleasant hours on my surfboard, partied and hung out, networked to keep my availability visible. And of course stayed in shape and kept my combat skills keen. The SAVAK SIG Sauer I brought back turned out more useful than the .357 Desert Eagle I took off Clyde Driffter. That .357 is an awesome piece of pocket artillery, but the SIG was lethal enough, more easily concealed and came with a silencer. I still packed the Desert Eagle for show, but I carried the SIG when there was a chance I might have to use it. The Philip Patek wristwatch and the Montblanc pen I salvaged from Gianni Franco’s kit wound up in my souvenir drawer. A $100,000 timepiece on my arm is an unnecessary distraction in my line of work, and away from a desk an expensive fountain pen gives more trouble than it’s worth. Except for Hollywood parties, celebrity gigs and affairs of state, a combat-grade digital watch and a ballpoint pen did the job better.

So the months flowed by. I picked up short-term jobs here and there, but bided a lot of time. Malaise was the catchphrase as America entered 1980. Economy down, inflation up, Misery Index rising. Gas prices nearing escape velocity. Jimmy Carter doofusing along. In April he finally got tough about the hostages: he severed relations with Iran and imposed sanctions. And then launched Operation Eagle Claw, his half-assed hostage rescue expedition.

In June somebody called The Unabomber sent the president of United Airlines a package that blew up when he opened it, severely injuring him. They called me, but there wasn’t much help I could offer them. In July the Shah died, eight months after the treatment for his cancer that caused so much trouble. I sent a condolence note to Princess Ashraf in Paris. In August a terrorist bombing at the railway station in Bologna, Italy, killed 85 people and wounded more than 200. That boosted the bodyguarding side of my services, providing some easy work and first-class trips to Europe. In December a nutcase offed John Lennon on the street in front of his apartment building in New York City, an incident that goosed Hollywood paranoia and added a few celebs to my client list.

Ronald Reagan, ex-actor and former governor of California, ran for president with the slogan, Are you better off than you were four years ago? A no-brainer question. He beat Jimmy I will never lie to you Carter handily. And, right after his inauguration in January 1981, Iran released the hostages.

Terrorism continued in 1981; seems holdovers from the ‘60s revolution still nursed dreams of improving the world through mayhem. Radicals bombed the US Air Base in Ramstein in August, and in December the Italian Red Brigades kidnapped Brigadier General James Dozier. By that time the word was out that yours truly was an expert in thwarting terrorists, so I played a minor role in setting up his rescue. You’ll never meet a scummier bunch of thugs than the Italian Red Brigades, let me tell you. Well, they were the scummiest bunch that I’d met up ‘til then, anyhow.

In the fall Lt. Colonel Oliver North contacted me about joining a covert op with the Contras, a force of patriot guerillas fighting to overthrow the revolutionary Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The job involved training, arms smuggling, logistics, combat support, the usual dirty war menu. I didn’t like the smell of it—the operation sounded mostly illegal, the pay was nothing to speak of, and the CIA would be spearheading it. That last bit sealed the deal—count me out.

1982 rolled in and rolled along, and while sporadic assignments covered expenses, my financial cushion was deflating. And frankly, I’d been inactive for too long. In a hyped-up society like America’s, boredom becomes a burden, sometimes a dangerous one. One July evening my phone rang. It was my old surf buddy, D. D., a.k.a. Dexter Flynn.

I haven’t said much about D.D. yet; he didn’t figure into my previous adventures. He was the boss surfer in our gang, very athletic, had a lot of finesse. He’d start higher on the face and ride the curl further than most you’d see around Malibu. So he had a lot of confidence in his abilities, which got him into the situation that earned his nickname. Which is an interesting story.

The four of us had talked our folks into giving us, as our high school graduation presents, a trip to Waimea Bay, on the north shore of Oahu Island, Hawaii. What Mecca is to Muslims, Waimea Bay is to surfers. The big waves—50 footers are not unknown—come with winter storms in the North Pacific. We collected our presents early, during Winter Break. As the days advanced toward departure we kept tabs with people we knew on Oahu. The forecast was SURF’S UP, and we were totally stoked when we arrived. We arranged a ride up from Honolulu to the north coast, with gear to camp out on the beach. Then we saw those waves. Big waves? They were Holy Shit Oh Dear waves. So towering that even very few locals were out riding them. The word was, be patient, they were already calming down.

The next couple days we probed other, quieter beaches. The surfing was fine, the water warmer than southern California’s. We made the pilgrimage to Banzai Pipeline at Ehukai Beach Park up the road, mainstay of surfing flicks and site of more surfing deaths than anywhere else in the world. An inspiring sight, but though we fancied ourselves gonzo surfers, suicidal we were not. Follow me! Eddie Lipshitz yelled, and he sprinted down into the water lapping the sand. We chased the backwash out to calf-depth. Now we can say we hit the surf at Banzai, Eddie declared, and we left it at that.

Toward the end of our week the rollers in Waimea had slackened to ten, fifteen, maybe twenty feet at most. Sort. . . of… doable. And we might never be here again. So out we paddled, with about every other surf rat on the island. We tried some mini-monster waves, which wasn’t so bad, and pretty soon we were having the time of our lives (usually with spectacular wipeouts). The problem was the horde of other guys out there, practically knee to knee. Dex (as we called him then) looked around and saw good looking rollers over to the left, with nobody cluttering them up, so he lay down and paddled off. The locals started yelling at him, but he paid them no attention. He’d spotted some killer surf.

If he only knew. One of the locals asked me if I was with him. I said yes. You better go get him. The reason nobody’s over there, he said, there’s reefs where the crests fall. It’s high tide now, so they’re down enough they don’t show up on the surface, but get rolled under a breaker and you’ll find ‘em. It’s Russian roulette to surf that side, only with worse odds.

By then Dex was not only out of earshot, but he’d mounted his board and was screaming down a steep face. The locals just gritted their teeth and stared. He was looking pretty good, too, until he wasn’t—he couldn’t keep it going and fell to his board just as the curl crashed over him. He disappeared beneath a raging white froth, and the locals chorused in loud lament, Oh, shit!

After what seemed like the rest of the day, what should suddenly pop up out of the foam but Dex. He stood up on his board, rode it to the beach. The locals chorused a loud cheer, Oh, shit!

Our gang rode the next wave in, picked up our boards and dashed over to where Dex had put ashore. He was sitting there looking dazed. What happened? Dex said nothing. Dex, you have blood running out your ear, Eddie Lipschitz exclaimed. Dex just stared and said nothing. He was like that for ten minutes, causing us great concern. Would we have to air-freight him back to LA? Then adrenaline and nervous energy overload erupted: he started talking and wouldn’t shut up.

Damned if I know what happened, he said. "I could feel I was losing it, so I dropped to the board and clamped on like a scared abalone. Next thing I knew I’d surfaced in soup I could ride,