The Thin Line

By Joe Bob Newman

Jason and Lenee have a storybook wedding and marriage. Then the 1969 Army draft looms and Jason joins the CIA to beat the draft. On one of his jobs, he meets Andrea, a beautiful Russian double agent. At first, he doesn’t trust her, then she falls for Jason and switches sides in the cold war. Jason teeters on the brink of love and hate as Lenee, his wife, makes a terrible mistake. The thin line between love and hate haunts Jason. He must make a painful choice between the two women. Suddenly, Andrea disappears, the Russians, Germans, and Americans are all looking for her, but it is up to Jason to find her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joe Bob Newman
• Release date: Jan 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005451455

Joe Bob Newman

I have been writing mystery and fiction books since 1982. I have never considered having any published until now. My career has been in writing technical documents for the defense industry. By profession I am a mechanical engineer, P.E. I have six grand children.. During the summer months, I spend a lot of time in the mountains of New Mexico. Watching wildlife and observing the ecology. i also enjoy riding my 4-wheeler. I built a cabin by myself, just above a stream filled with trout, perhaps i should say am building, I have been working on it for twenty years and it is still not finished, but it is livable, it has electricity, running water and a septic system. With that, I am happy to live there in the summer months and for a week or two in the winter, but I have found that I am not much of a "snow" person.I do hope you read and enjoy my books as much as I enjoyed writing them! Thanks for visiting my page.Joe Bob Newman

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The Thin Line

JOE BOB NEWMAN

The Thin Line

Copyright 2022 © Joe Bob Newman

Cover Design by: Laura Shinn

Published by: Smashwords

License Notes:

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the above copyright owner.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

This Book was written, edited and published in the USA !

The Thin Line

Also by Joe Bob Newman:

The Craft (Science Fiction)

When Time Stood Still (Science Fiction)

Phantom Canyon (Western)

The Executive (Action/Romance)

The Rig (Action/Romance)

Cabin Fever (Action/Romance)

Cabin Cruiser (Action/Romance)

One for the heart (Action/Romance)

Lady Texas Ranger (History/Action)

Mystic Moon Man (Action/Adventure)

The Alamo (History)

Texas Football: The Lone Star of Texas (Sports)

In The Dark of The Night (Suspense)

Bad Decision (Action/Suspense)

The Old Bull (Action/Romance)

CIA The Slave Traders (Action)

A Really Bad Day (Mystery)

Tennessee Kyle (Western)

When the Reaper Calls (Suspense)

The Craft II - A New Beginning (Science Fiction)

The Cravings of an Old Man (Fiction)

Lost Highway (Science Fiction)

After the Reaper Calls (Suspense)

The Boys of Texas (Historical/Fiction)

Lady in the Lake (Murder Mystery)

Rags to Riches (Drama)

Texas Tales (Short Stories)

The Time Tunnel (Science Fiction)

The Gold Mine (Action)

Benghazi (Historical Fiction)

The Thin Line

It was March 15, 1969, when we got married. We didn’t have to get married, we wanted to. No one would sign for us as we were under age. So we ran off to Mexico and got married in Acuna. Acuna is also known as Boy’s Town, not a good place for a young. pretty girl to walk around in. In fact, it is quite dangerous, but we didn’t know that at the time. Young girls just disappear, never to be seen again!

It cost me twenty-five dollars, plus five for the wedding ring. We came back so very happy, but no one wanted to believe us. As our marriage license was in Spanish, no one could read it, so it wasn’t any help. Eventually, we would get married in the United States with her mothers blessing. I kept saying our names over and over, Jason and Lenee Hodges, how romantic.

The first time that I remember her calling me baby was a full week into our marriage. We were in bed, she was being seductive and she said, Baby, I really want to get you that ring. She was referring to a silver wedding ring that she wanted to buy me.

While in Mexico, I had bought Lenee a cheap gold ring for her to wear. When I say cheap, it cost a whopping five dollars. Almost immediately it tarnished her finger. She wanted to get me a real ring. However, I had other plans, I wanted to get her a real wedding ring. Later, I would find one with five diamonds that looked beautiful, just as she did. I knew that she would look fabulous with the real ring on, so I bought it to give it to her later. Fortunately, I was able to pay the ring off in a month without Lenee ever knowing how much it cost.

Smiling at her, I used her seductiveness against her and really took advantage of her that night. That night wasn’t too different from any other night. We were a passionate couple!

There was no question that we both loved each other deeply and it would always be a question of who took advantage of whom. Almost two months later we found out that she was pregnant. I will always be certain that it was that night that she got pregnant.

Anyway, several weeks later, I presented her with a proper wedding ring. It had five real diamonds in it. It wasn’t long after that until she presented me with my own wedding ring. It was just a small silver band, but it reached all the way around my heart. Love had both of us in its grasp. We loved each other more than seemed possible.

We grew up a lot that year, Lenee was seventeen and I was nineteen, we were both just kids. We always laughed and said that we went through puberty together. Lenee was one of the prettiest girls that I had dated, I won’t say that had anything to do with why we got married though. The truth is, we got married on a dare, but it was okay, like I said, we loved each other deeply.

Lenee was a junior in high school and I was a sophomore at the local junior college, majoring in Engineering. I was working part time at a hardware store and we lived mostly on love and the few groceries that we could afford. We ate a lot of pinto beans, cornbread, and macaroni and cheese, not necessarily at the same meal. It was a little rough eating pinto beans for breakfast, but we did it. We ran out of food one week and her aunt invited us over for dinner one night. The next night we just went hungry, living on love can be tough. You learn a lot about life when you are flat broke! It seemed that we were too proud or ornery to ask our parents for help.

When I got paid the next day, we made certain that we had a week’s worth of food purchased before even the bills were paid. I say the bills, we had one bill, our rent house. It was fifty dollars a month and included water, electricity, sewer with trash pick-up. We lived at 503 North Avenue A, in Midland, Texas. It was a small wooden house that looked at least a hundred years old. The rent house had bus terminal type furniture. All the furniture had shiny metal legs and washable vinyl seats. The kitchen table wasn’t much more than a card table. There was a stove, refrigerator and a sink in the kitchen, not much else. Surprising us, inside the stove was several pots and pans. In the cabinet there were glasses and bowls but no plates. We used plastic silver wear and paper plates, we made do with anything else that we needed. It was my opinion that the house must have once been a bus station. It had one bedroom and it looked more like an office space than a bedroom. Needless to say, it was quiet small.

The beds mattress was pretty bad and my parents helped us replace it. As I am sure you understand, a good bed is important for newly weds. Showers were nice, but we didn’t have a shower curtain. We spent a lot of time wiping water up off the linoleum floor. That was the only time the floor got cleaned. Neither of us was really into cleaning the place up! The house had an old washer and dryer. They moaned and groaned but did wash and dry our clothes, saving us some money.

We hadn’t been married long when we had a crisis. We had to get insurance on our car, only we couldn’t afford it, so Lenee had to get a job. She wound up getting a part time job at a fish place and we began eating fried fish most every night. Apparently the restaurant manager felt sorry for Lenee and let her bring left overs home that would have normally been thrown out. We both felt, God bless that man!

Lenee ran the counter and the cash register. She was smart and kept things organized, which seemed to be a big deal with the manager. However, he didn’t increase her pay over it. Maybe the free fish was supposed to be our pay! She had worked there nearly six weeks when she was given a fifteen cent raise. That actually meant a lot to us.

That was also about the same time that we found out that she was pregnant. She wanted to name the baby, if it was a boy, Jason Hodges Junior, after me. I didn’t like the sound of that name, so I was pulling for a girl. Days seemed to go by rapidly. I was going to college and she was finishing her junior year of high school. She was doing well, I wasn’t!

Lenee was six months pregnant when I flunked out of college. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, but I lost my school exemption and I was suddenly available to be drafted by the Army. When my 1-A draft status showed up in the mail, I nearly panicked. I was working full time at the Midland Hardware Store and we were living the good life. My beautiful wife was pregnant and I was as happy as I could be. I was making two dollars an hour and Lenee was making a dollar-ninety-five. So much for equal wages! Bread and hamburger meat were three loaves or pounds for a dollar. Not bad by today’s standards. That wound up feeding us for a week with the fried fish that was coming in. I stopped one day at a road side stand and bought ten Pecos cantaloupes for a dollar and thought that was expensive, but they were big and ripe. Pecos grows the best cantaloupes in the world. If you have never had one, you should try them.

One night, Lenee and I sat down and reviewed my options. I could join one of the services or I could hope for the best and try to get back into college. I didn’t particularly like either option. I didn’t necessarily feel that I was college material and being in the service would mean being gone for long periods of time, I really didn’t like that option either. Being home with Lenee was what I wanted! One problem that we had was, there wasn’t enough income to pay for my college. I didn’t want to ask my parents for help.

This was the beginning of the Vietnam War and no one wanted to go. The draft was taking everyone that they could. We could all tell that the war was about to become quite large and deadly. I called my dad, he suggested me joining the Navy, as he had been in the Navy. I figured that was a wasted call and I began looking at other government jobs which came with deferments. One agency kept coming up, the Central Intelligence Agency or the CIA, also know as the Company. I knew absolutely nothing about the CIA so I looked it up in the encyclopedia. There wasn’t much information about it, but I did uncover a phone number for their main office in Langley Virginia. As this was also the height of the Arab-Israeli war, they were hiring people right and left and each male got a free pass from having to go into the military service. It seemed like a lot of cloak and dagger stuff and sounded very exciting to a twenty year old ex-student. They promised that I could finish college and I was looking forward to that, whenever it would be!

I called the number and I was sent a packet to review, and an air line voucher to fly to Washington, D.C. I filled out all the paperwork, filed for a passport and scheduled my flight for the next Monday morning. For some reason, I had a sense of urgency! The draft was bearing down on me! I could have been drafted by the Army any day.

While I was gone to DC, Lenee turned eight months pregnant, she could barely walk and couldn’t get up by herself after lying down. She quit her fried fish job and spent most of her time in her newly purchased recliner. She had not received another raise, and I was now making two-dollars and thirty-five cents at the hardware store.

My interview with the CIA Human Resources Department went very well. They explained what all the CIA did and made certain that I understood that it might involve some travel. This went right over my head. It all sounded wonderful to me and the HR lady went over the CIA"s mission and that their goal was to protect the United States from all external enemies. This all sounded wonderful to me. She went on to explain the difference between the FBI and the CIA. Working for the government sounded really cool, and the draft deferment really fit my needs. I was ready to sign on the dotted line! The Company seemed like the perfect job, sometimes I might get to carry a gun, that sounded exciting and I couldn’t wait to start.

On Thursday night, I came home and was greeted by, Fix me something to eat, I’m hungry, I haven’t eaten anything at all today. You do know that I am eating for the two of us. Lenee was a little bit grumpy, I smiled back at her and nodded.

I looked in the nearly bare refrigerator and then fixed her bacon, eggs and buttered toast. I had to fix her a second helping. I thought that perhaps she had eaten too much, but was afraid to say so. Sure enough, in an hour she was having stomach pains and was certain that the baby was coming. I did my best to pamper her and take care of her all night long. The baby didn’t come that night, thank goodness, but she did spend a lot of time hanging over the toilet.

With very little sleep, the next morning I escaped to the hardware store. Rather than eat my lunch, I slept for an hour at noon and was grumpy the rest of the day. If I thought that I was grumpy, I had another thing coming. I went home to true grumpiness. There were many cross words between us, but I mostly backed down to my very pregnant wife. There was no question, she ruled the house, I just lived there.

I did get a smile out of her when I told her just how beautiful she looked being pregnant! It wasn’t a lie, she looked so lovely as she was being so miserable. I did my best to keep her smiling, but most of my attempts failed miserably.

I didn’t hear anything from the CIA for a month and a half and every day that I got the mail out of the mailbox, I dreaded finding that I had been drafted. February 15, 1970 was a special day for both of us. Lenee went into labor and I got a very thick, eight and a half by eleven envelope from the CIA. As it was so big, I figured that it wasn’t a rejection letter, but I didn’t get to open it, I had to take Lenee to the hospital. Her water had broken, and we both had panicked. It was a very fast, stop light running, ride to the hospital in my Dodge Dart.

Little Sarah Lynn Hodges was born at two a.m. on the sixteenth of February. She was a beautiful little girl with short, light brown hair. I checked her over when I held her and couldn’t find anything wrong with her, except for her pinched off umbilical cord. I had never seen one before and it scared me. At first, I thought that she would have to live her life with it! Sarah weighed just over seven pounds and was pronounced healthy by everyone who saw her.

Later that morning, I went home and even though I was worn out, I had to open the envelope, and read the letter. It basically said that I had been accepted for service into the CIA and that I was to report to CIA headquarters in Langley Virginia in two weeks. It also went on and told me what to bring, and what not to bring. It had a phone number for me to call if I accepted their offer or had any questions. There also was a voucher for my trip from Midland to Dulles Airport. It even included a rental car! My base salary was nine hundred dollars a month. More money than I thought was legal! The checks would come to Lenee and she would deposit them in the bank. It never occurred to me that I was really trusting her with our money.

I showered and went to bed, but now I couldn’t sleep, I wondered what I had gotten myself in to. I did wind up going to sleep and woke up at six, and went back to the hospital. Lenee’s breasts were swollen, such that they looked like two footballs. She grabbed me by the shirt and pulled my face down to hers, she looked at her painful breasts and yelled, You did this to me, it is your fault.

My first question was, Are they going to stay that way? I was truly excited.

A nurse brought the baby in and she began to nurse, it seemed to bring some relief to Lenee. I volunteered to do my part, but she screamed back at me, Don’t touch me!

Needless to say, I didn’t touch her for several days. I did hold my daughter and played with her tiny fingers. She would open her eyes for a few seconds and look up at me. It was quite nice, and suddenly, she smiled at me. I was in love with my baby daughter. My mother told me that it was probably just gas. I had no idea what she meant.

Both our parents were coming to the hospital every day and as Grandma’s do, they nearly fought over who was going to hold the baby. My mother seemed to take charge and gave orders to everyone but Lenee. In this world, there was no question who was boss, Lenee was!

On the fourth day of Sarah’s life, I got to take mother and daughter home with me. I had plenty of help. Lenee’s mother moved in with us and helped take care of Lenee and Sarah. I was never sure where Carletta slept, but I was demoted to sleeping on a vinyl love seat. I had a tiny pillow and a small blanket. It made for a terrible back ache.

A week later, Lenee was up and moving normally, she was rather slowly beginning to get her slim figure back. Lenee had once had an awesome figure, and there was no question that she wanted it back. It was simply amazing to me how quickly her stomach went back to being normal. There was very little loose skin. If you wanted to get on her good side, all you had to say was, Your figure looks awesome.

A week after that,