Ghosts on the Base

I've spent the past two days on your base in Den Helder. As I write this, I'm sitting on a bunk in the Officer's Quarters on the 13^th deck, overlooking the construction of the new building. Beyond that is the water. It is grey and blue and the wind is picking up. I went for a run and I saw three of your Submarines and I remembered talking to you when you were on Watch one evening and I remembered you telling me that you wanted to bring me aboard. I remember the fantasy we shared. 

I am here because your Navy and Marine Corps requested my support in putting together an assessments plan for their Deployment. It was such a difficult decision to say "yes." I like and trust the guys I'm working with and I'm giving them my best analytical work. But I knew that I would have to spend time in an environment which was, everywhere I looked, a reminder of you.

Everywhere I look I see men in the blue jumpsuits you used to wear with the beret at the angle I used to love. In the Cafeteria, I see the submariner group with the Dolfins on their chests and it makes me hurt and die a little more. I both wanted and feared this. I long for the man I remember. I long for the time I knew you as you were. When I look in the mirror, I see the hollowed out pieces where you used to be. It is difficult to work and give your navy support when I know what they've taken from me. I can only do it because I like and trust these particular men and because this is a field where I can excel intellectually even when I become overwhelmingly sad.

The irony about my current work space is that it is the desk and chair where Mac used to sit. It made me a little sick to be there. His name and e-mail address are on the whiteboard in his priggish girly handwriting. Mac was not the evil genius or author of my pain. But he pulled the trigger on you. He ratted you out to your Company when you spent time with me, and they talked to you and put you back in line.

I've learned a lot more about your organization in my time here. It wasn't my intent when I arrived, but I know more now than I did before. I know now that I never had enough leverage to get you out if you weren't willing to come. All I had was enough information to blow Mac's cover sky-high and now he is working some open-source job in the Hague where he can't cause too much trouble (I learned this last month from someone else who saw it happen). When your company "talked to" you, they reminded you of everything you would lose if you ditched them to be with me. They showed you all the perks of being part of the secret brotherhood. They welcomed you back into the fold and made you one of them again when you decided you would stay away from me after all.

I have never had anything to offer you except my love. It is all I have ever offered. It is all that I can offer you. It is not something which has ever diminished with time. I wish to god that it would fade because the pain of being separated from you or feeling your betrayal when I feel such a desire for your well-being and such a longing for to be with you, is hell. I used to fight this feeling, try to kill it, because I knew it was killing me. But after all this time it is still there, bright and true as the first day I met you.

Last night, John talked about his experiences with men in your line of work: how they create double and triple lives and how your company reins them back: reminds them that they have a life and home back in the Netherlands. The irony (in my opinion) was that your home life was never where your heart was. Your sons had your heart (certainly) but home, for you, was always the cover. I knew you. I loved you. I got to see the real Sjors. You loved me more than you had ever loved anyone and I made you happy. And that wasn't part of their plan.

I do not think that the men you work with and for have any comprehension of what that love was. I don't think that anyone whose job is so covert and who must hide and double-hide himself from the world can be sufficiently emotionally naked and intellectually unguarded enough to trust someone enough to love like that.

John told me that your decision to re-enter their ranks and recommit and be a good little soldier was a pressured decision but that it was your decision. It was John's opinion that you could have gotten out if you were willing to pay the price: and that, if you had loved me enough, you would have done so. You would be with me now. He believes that you were weak and that you did not love me enough and, ergo: that you are unworthy of my action and love and that I should forget you. He says that there is no distinction between you and your organization now. You are "the Company". He buys into one of the three assumptions I wrote about you. But if he is right and you were a coward - if you destroyed the man you were with me then it means the man you are now is my enemy.

I blew Mac's cover (or he blew it himself) after he'd been working in the field (albeit with marginal competence) for 10 years. That gives me some level of satisfaction. I don't really wish him ill, but I know the impact that his actions had on you. I know the impact that they had on our relationship, and I despise him for his cowardice and his weakness. I don't think that the loss of his talents was mourned by any of your colleagues.

I don't know if I did you any favors by not blowing your cover. I kept your name off the criminal complaint and I received quite a lot of push-back from my folks for using a pseudonym for you when I talked about the situation. I thought I was protecting you. But if I can't do anything for you in any real sense, maybe I should have made it impossible for you to work in a field that you felt, at one time, was ethically questionable.

My work ends today and I leave from Schiphol tomorrow at 1400. 

If you are here in the Netherlands now, I ask that you meet me in Schiphol before I fly out tomorrow. I want to see you. I want to talk in person. The men you work for must know that the only real threat I pose at this point is only to your cover and that I can chose to blow that any time I wish anyway. Against your colleagues I only have my unflagging determination to ensure that they suffer for what they've done. But this determination will not be enhanced nor diminished by seeing you. I want to have a real conversation. I want to see you. Tell them they should give me that. They owe me much more than that.