The Trans-Carpathian Mountains are not a place of beauty, at least if your not a Stephen King fan or you enjoy jagged peaks, ragged pine forests and fog enshrouded swampland. But here in the newly renovated halls of Castle Destro, it's easy to forget the landscape outside, especially after I'm led into a beautifully landscaped atrium by my hosts for a mid-afternoon tea-time. Its hard to imagine that just ten years ago one was a prolific arms dealer and the other was one of the worlds most wanted terrorists.

The Baroness Anastasia DeCobray, who even in her fifties retains an aura of severe beauty looks the same as the old file photo I pulled out of her FBI file, except for a few wisps of grey hair on her temples. Lord James McCullen Destro, who seems to have long since abandoned the silver and gold battle masks, looks more like a retired country squire than anything else, his broad features easily wearing a self confident smile.

Baroness: I trust your trip wasn't too dreadful? We do our bests to keep the roads in order around here, but the government is quite disgustingly corrupt; any penny we try and put towards road development tends to get siphoned off into someone's new summer home on the Baltic.

Destro: My wife is a bit harsh on the local government, I'm afraid; the dreadful winters we have up here are more to blame than someone raiding the fisc to pay for a mistress or two. But in any case, I suspect our friend didn't travel all the way up here to talk about road conditions in the Trans-Carpathian Mountain region.

The Baroness looks me with a steely blue eyed gaze, and Destros smile fades slightly as he takes on a more serious expression. I suddenly remember the file I'd read on both of the, and I become uncomfortably aware that I'm setting in a room with two people who have a combined body count that runs into the hundreds.

Baroness: I know you told us what you were writing about in our phone conversations. but would you mind telling us again? And would you mind if we record this interview as well? She waves to indicate a pair of surveillance cameras mounted in the ceiling, as well as several carefully placed directional microphones.

"No problem, of course. But to restate my purposes for the interview; I'm putting together an oral history of the members of the now decommissioned US Special Forces unit known as GI JOE and their main adversary, the Terrorist Organization COBRA, after the fighting between them ceased in the early 1990's. Uhh… nothing said in these interviews will be used against the interviewees, and…all interview transcripts are subject to approval of the client prior to publishing."

Destro and the Baroness look at each other, and burst out laughing.

Baroness: If you're an intelligence agent. You're a much better actor than I would give the CIA credit for turning out.

Destro: Quite; you'll have to forgive our paranoia, my friend. We're rather enjoying our quiet re-retirement (chuckles) and I have no desire to wind up in that insufferable prison your government maintains in Cuba for the rest of my years.

Baroness: So, where do you wish to start?

If you could just tell me what the two of you have been up too since your "Re-retirement"

Destro: Ah, I see. I'm afraid you won't be to impressed my friend. We haven't been leading columns of Demon Tanks and Nullifiers into every world wide hotspot we can find, if that's what your looking for; I decommissioned almost all of my old forces not long after the fall of Cobra Island, when I was sure I wouldn't have to worry about Cobra Commander coming to give my new home the same treatment he did the old one.

Destro waves at the two uniformed and armed Iron Grenadiers guarding the door,

So nothing too exciting then, but we have been keeping busy in other ways…

The former arms dealer smiles broadly and looks at Baroness.

You mean your children?

Baroness: (laughs) I suppose it is so terribly clichéd isn't it? Settling down, having a few kids, and living life anew? Well, cliché or not, that's what's happened. Phillip and Mary…

Destro: They're both away and preparatory school in France right now, otherwise I'm quite sure they'd be even more eager to talk to you than you are to us, just to find out what it was their parents were getting up too in their pasts.

You haven't told them?

Baroness: As little as possible. They know a few stories, but thank god we still haven't got our own Wikipedia pages yet (rolls her eyes)

Destro: We're not trying to shut them out, by any means, but we try and keep things to a minimum. We both firmly believe that it's more important they know who we are now than who we were in the past. Especially when…when the past is as checkered as ours is.

Baroness: It's…every day, I think about all the lives I've managed to wreck, all the people I'd killed; all of them in some form of combat or another, mind you, but still…especially when Destro told me…told me the truth about what had happened to my brother and I realized I'd just wasted half my life playing avenging terrorist for no reason.

Destro: That's the worst I have to deal with, well, the waste of it all. In my youth I was too obsessed with arms sales and profit margins to see the long run, and when I finally did, it was almost too late.

"Have either of you tried to make amends?"

Destro: No. I never saw the point in it. The world is fast forgetting us, my friend. Anything we do to try and help the people whose lives we shattered in our pasts will only reopen all the old wounds and shatter them anew, rending apart whatever healing those we've hurt have managed to do for themselves.

There's a long silence, and then I ask my final question:

"Do either of you have any idea about the status of the man known as Cobra Commander?"

Destro: No. And I hope he's quite dead. The man was nothing but a misery, enough to make this Bin Laden fellow look like Florence Nightingale.