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There’s an aspect of me that’s useful for other people to know: I tend to get what I want. I don’t much care what I have to do to achieve that, though it’s usually enough to fake an interest, flash a charming smile, and tell people what they want to hear. I noticed my skills in manipulation when I was still quite young, and those skills served me well. If I was a better man, it may have bothered me how much I used other people for my own benefit. But truth to be told, I never really gave much thought to things like that. At least, not until I met Tom Bishop.
The first time I met Tom I thought of him as overly confident, idealistic, and someone with an attitude. He was also, for the first time in a long while, someone I wanted to get to know better. He was fascinating; at first glance he looked like the typical surfer from his home, California, but looks can be deceiving. He was actually a talented sniper who volunteered to serve in Vietnam. A few days later I described him to his captain as a hell of an ad for Boy Scouts. What else can you say when someone survives a failed tactical mission unharmed while saving their friend in the process? When I watched him carry his injured brother-in-arms to safety, I knew what I could use to my advantage: Tom Bishop was loyal to a fault. If I got him to trust me, he would be mine forever. Lucky for me, he looked like someone who trusted easily.
Indeed, getting him to trust me didn’t take long at all. The tactics were pretty routine, something I’ve done dozens of times before. I spoke to his classmates, his teachers, his mother, and learned his strengths but especially his weaknesses. The “coincidental” meeting I arranged with him in West Germany only worked because he was still too young and naive to realize there were no coincidences when it came to my work. Bringing Sandy along to play my wife was a genius move. Thanks to her, I saw the small sparkle of jealousy in Tom’s gaze behind the startled friendliness, and it was exactly the reaction I was hoping for. Later, when Tom opened up to me and told me how he wanted to go home and I said it’d be alright and the choice was his, all it required from me to change his mind was a charming smile and some well-placed words. Like I said, routine.
Training Tom made it quickly apparent why he made such a good Boy Scout. Not only was he eager to learn but he learned fast. Like a naive pup, he was enthusiastic, in some ways very innocent, curious as all hell - and fiercely, blindly loyal. I shaped him like wax, made him exactly how I wanted him to be. He was my design and I was damn proud of my creation. Even better, he found me as fascinating as I found him, which was both amusing and convenient. At times, during a lunch break or when we met for breakfast, he asked so many questions about me it felt like we were on a date. One day I tested the waters, calling him a liar after he told some random girl that he was straight. He didn’t correct me or challenge me. Later that day we had sex for the first time. It became easier after that to manipulate him. Perhaps too easy.
My training transformed Tom from a naive wide-eyed puppy into a clever, fox-hunting driving dog. But when he asked me for one more piece of advice, and I told him to “send flowers” if he ever had to choose between saving himself or someone else, he looked disappointed. Maybe he believed he’d gotten to know me, holding out hope there was something more in me than the manipulation tactics and the tough exterior. I guess Boy Scouts were idealistic like that. No matter how much time and effort I poured into Tom’s training, I apparently couldn’t rid him from his biggest weakness: loyalty. After what happened to that guy in East Germany I hoped Tom would understand not everyone deserved his trust. But he was too blinded by guilt to discuss it rationally. I know Tom always felt responsible for that death, no matter how much he blamed me for it.
Despite all our fighting, despite our fundamental differences, we were always drawn to each other. Hell, by the time we met in Beirut our bantering had turned into not-so-subtle flirting. Tom had just met Elizabeth, but the flirting made me feel better than I cared to admit. I’ll always remember the breakfast when Tom handed me that goddamn flask as a birthday gift. I didn’t know how he managed to figure out my real birthday and the fact that I didn’t know made me both proud and a little scared of him. That was when it became apparent Tom had seen the walls I’d built around myself. He knocked them down without a second thought. I have met thousands of people in my life, cared for a few of them, loved even fewer, but Tom was the first one I was starting to see myself getting attached to. In the end it mattered very little. When Tom talked about Elizabeth, he tried to make it sound like there was nothing serious going on between them, that she was merely an asset to him. He sounded like he was reading a script I had written - and he wasn’t very convincing. Sure, Elizabeth was useful but she was also a threat. However, while trying to get her to back off I managed to look like a jealous, possessive boyfriend. Tom didn’t much appreciate me trying to control his private affairs.
I can always take pride in the fact that Tom would’ve never gotten as far as he did as quickly as he did if it wasn’t for me. But it bothered Tom when he realized how much he resembled me. He said it himself the last time I met him: “I am not ending up like you.” Sure, he was done with me but I think more than that he was done with the kind of life he was leading. Me, Elizabeth, and all the shit that went down in Beirut gave him a glimpse of where my training had led him. He didn’t like what he saw. It’s not often I’m the one left behind, and it’s even more rare that I care, but losing Tom hurt. I felt deep disappointment but I don’t know if I was disappointed in him, in myself, or in our job. Maybe it was a combination of it all. Either way, it’s only fitting that Tom, or rather his absence and my devotion to him, was what finally made me see how my 30 years of service mattered very little to my employer. I scolded Tom for being too loyal while being blind to how I had dedicated my life to an agency that, in the end, was willing to do very little for me. The agency would have rather let Tom stay in that rotten Chinese prison to die a horrendous, lonely death. I always knew my job was a game and I considered myself talented in it. I just didn’t quite realize how they were playing me.
But I got the last, if bitter, laugh. I drained my life savings, burned every bridge I’d built and became a fugitive on the last day of my employment. I can’t ever go home again but I never cared for settling down anyway. The only thing I care about anymore is finding Tom, the only half-decent thing in my life. I know my former employer will send their best bloodhounds after me; they’ll try to stop me, and they’ll do anything to get their hands on Tom before I find him. But there’s something they should know about me by now: I tend to get what I want.