The Hardest Thing

deliberately or otherwise. If the former, why not just send him off on a Mediterranean cruise? If the latter, the kid
would have to be a damn fool to hit the road with a mean-looking motherfucker like Major D Stagg. They knew how to flatter me, that’s for sure—but they also wanted what only the USMC could give them. Absolute security.
    The letter ended with an itinerary. Rendezvous 1100 Tuesday at Penn Station where subject would be handed over. Bring minimum luggage. Proceed by foot to car rental on 37th and 8th, where a vehicle was booked in my name. Transport subject north out of town, avoiding main roads and toll booths, heading toward New Hampshire. Journey to take three days, staying overnights in motels of my choice, as cheap and anonymous as possible. Arrive in vicinity of White Mountain National Forest on Saturday, book into motel and await further instructions, pending ultimate return of subject to New York City “or alternative destination.” Enclosed in the envelope was a brand-new cell phone.
    “Welcome to the twenty-first century, Stagg,” I said to myself. A cell phone, a weapon and ten grand; hey, what was to stop me from setting off to Vegas, buying the best ass the city could provide and either drinking myself to death or blowing my brains out?
    That good old Marine Corps training, that’s what—and the instinctive delight in a mission. For the first time since landing on American soil I felt like I had a purpose in life. I wouldn’t let them down. Maybe, if things went well, I might get another job. Might start dressing in smart suits like Enrico Ferrari, might even taste a piece of that prime Italian sausage. Okay, it was likely to be on the wrong side of the law—but look where playing by the rules had got me. Twelve years of impeccable
service, until they asked and I told. Fuck that. Fuck any idea of going back to the military now that they’d changed the rules of engagement. It was enough for me that they threw me out once; I wasn’t going to give them a second chance. I’d been one of the good guys all my life, wherever my country needed me most. To hell with duty. Now I was looking after number one.
    Or so I thought.
    At the end of the itinerary, in block capitals, the words
    MAXIMUM SECURITY OPERATION
ABSOLUTE SECRECY AT ALL TIMES PARAMOUNT.
    Not a problem. When you’ve lived your entire adult life in a state of absolute secrecy, it’s second nature. You don’t think in terms of “truth” and “lies.” You think about expediency, operational security, all the bullshit that they used to justify the fact that they didn’t like queers. And I lapped it up. From school to the Naval Academy and into the Corps at the age of 21, I never had to think for myself. I followed orders, I did what I was told to do and I thought what I was told to think. I was as efficient as that weapon lying in my lap—each part carefully designed by its makers to do a specific job. A gun is used for killing and wounding; if you want sweet music, get a clarinet. Dan Stagg was the same: a well-oiled machine with no ideas about right and wrong, good and evil. Black was black, white was white and I was not much interested in grey. There was plenty of ass to be had, both military and civilian, for the Few and the Proud. I was just one of the guys—one of the
many, many guys—who “didn’t have time for chicks,” “didn’t want to get involved”; sex with men was just good clean fun, an extension of what we did in the gym and on the sports field. If someone had called me queer, I’d have busted their chops.
    And then I met Will.
    Will was not part of the plan.
    I was meant to keep rising through the ranks, touring the world’s combat zones, killing people for the greater good, fucking asses and mouths and sucking the occasional cock if I was drunk enough—and then retire and spend my pension on hustlers. Maybe raise horses. Or just shoot myself. Fuck knows.
    What I was not meant to do was fall in love.
    We met in 2006. I was 31, Will was 25, I was a captain, he was a corporal, and we were stationed in Iraq, trying to “keep the peace” in the aftermath of Fallujah. It was a shitty posting, and even officers like me, brainwashed since high school, wondered what the fuck we were doing there. The locals hated our guts, other military personnel in the region resented us, and we wanted to get out ASAP. Our days were spent on pointless patrols of the ruined suburbs. Our nights too often ended in