Free The Rendition by Albert Ashforth Page A

with my business partner occasionally drop into Smith’s for lunch, almost never for breakfast.
    â€œWhen did you get in?” I asked.
    Without looking up, he said, “Yesterday, late afternoon. Flew up from McGuire on a Cessna 35A, real comfortable. Stayed the night in the Saranac Inn. Nice place.”
    â€œI was surprised to hear from you.” When Shenlee asked why, I said, “I’m retired.”
    â€œWho told you that, Klear? Who ever said you were retired?”
    â€œI decided to retire. Bought into a business. It was a personal decision. Anything wrong with that?”
    Ignoring my question, he went back to reading for a minute, then said, “You were in the Balkans. That wasn’t so long ago.” He fixed me with an accusing stare.
    â€œSure. I was there—let’s see—five times in all. The first time, as Irecall, I was on vacation—saw the sights, went to the beach, that sort of thing.”
    â€œWhere in the Balkans? If I may ask.”
    â€œCroatia, mostly.”
    â€œSplit’s in Croatia, right?” When I nodded, he said, “I hear they have quite a few nude beaches there, with nice lookin’ babes strollin’ around.”
    â€œI wouldn’t know.”
    â€œI’ll bet. And you were involved in the Milosevic rendition. The best renditions are the ones that no one knows are renditions. What did you do on that one?”
    As Shenlee polished his glasses with a napkin, I said, “I was part of an eight-man team. We waited around in Bosnia till Special Ops got things organized.”
    â€œWhere in Bosnia?”
    â€œOn Eagle Base. You know it?”
    Shenlee put his glasses back on. “Sure. Near Tuzla. Okay, what I’m most interested in is this other thing—this Kosovo rendition last year. March, am I correct?” When I nodded, he said, “From what I’m reading here, things didn’t go so well on that one.”
    â€œThey could have gone better,” I said, taking a last bite from my plate of toast and trying to be noncommittal.
    Shenlee pointed to something in one of his folders. “It says here your partners in Kosovo were Angel and Scott.”
    â€œWe could’ve used another guy over there.”
    Shenlee looked irritated. “How’s Scotty doing? Has he settled down?”
    â€œHe’s doing fine, Jerry. He’s married again and he says he’s never been happier.”
    â€œI’m sure.” At that moment Jerry and I were thinking the same thing. One of my two partners on the Kosovo operation, Larry Scott, had been fired from the Company years before when the details of his private life became fodder for a supermarket tabloid. He’d had two girlfriends, one of them a fellow Company employee, both of whomhe’d made pregnant, a circumstance that didn’t go down well with his wife, who at the time was also pregnant.
    But the fact was, Larry had been a fine and dependable operations officer, the kind of low-maintenance operative who’s hard to replace. Once the smoke from the tabloid affair cleared, he found he was still in demand, which I suppose was fine with Larry since by that time he had so many mouths to feed.
    Shenlee said, “So what happened? That op sounded like a piece of cake.”
    â€œWe flew into Skopje, stayed the first night at the Alexander. We originally thought Nadaj was down in Macedonia, somewhere in the hills in the Albanian sector. Scotty had arranged for a van in Skopje and for Nadaj to be extracted with a chopper out of Kosovo.”
    Shenlee nodded. “What went wrong?”
    I resisted the urge to say “Everything.” Instead I said, “I landed in the military hospital in Camp Bondsteel, Jerry. From there I was medevaced to the military hospital in Landstuhl. It was nearly three weeks before I was well enough to fly back to the States. I spent nearly three weeks as an outpatient at Walter