by P A Duncan
“Was there a question about prior arrests?”
She swallowed a spoonful of mousse and said, “He answered no, and the recruiter noted a criminal background check came back clean.”
“It’ll be interesting to see if it still is.”
“I already planned to check. Surely you know that.”
“Of course. What else?”
“He passed the aptitude test with a high score. His physical two days later showed everything normal, maybe underweight for his age. Mental exam, no anomalies.”
“Seems like a picture perfect recruit. How long was he in the Army?”
“The initial three years, and he re-upped. However, he took an early out after the Gulf War. Right now, this is one-dimensional. I’m really hoping to get more out of the Army buddy.”
“I’ll go with you to interview him.”
“The last time you worked with a recruit, he lowered the flag.”
That was The Directorate’s slang for washing out of their training program.
He gave her a modest smile.
“To some, I’m intimidating. I will mention a couple of things that caught my eye. The recruiter noted his interest in the Rangers, but the recruiter talked him into gunnery. That slot would have kept him from admission to Ranger training for some time. Recruiters tend to bend the truth if they need bodies to make their quota.”
Mai scraped as much of the mousse from the bowl as she could, leaving it almost clean. Alexei smiled as he imagined her licking the last remnants.
“I wonder if Carroll knew that or if he were angry when he found out the truth,” Mai said.
“A topic to discuss with the buddy. How long after enlistment did he leave for basic and where was it?”
“Only a few days after the acceptance came through. Fort Benning, Georgia.”
“What does that tell you?”
“He didn’t need time for protracted goodbyes. Few, if any, personal relationships, limited family. Noted in the questionnaire was father and mother, living but divorced. Father lives in New York, mother in Florida. Perhaps not the best relationships with either since he left so quickly.”
“Also not much of a life to put in order before he left.”
Mai held up the empty bowl. “That was yummy. Is there any more?”
“There might be, when you finish briefing me.”
“It’s a slave-driver you are, Bukharin.”
“I enjoy our repartee. Please continue.”
“Carroll and more than 300 recruits from all over the country arrived on the same day at Fort Benning. I read his company, battalion, regiment, and brigade assignments, but they’re not front and center in my memory right now.”
“Not needed for now.”
“Having gone through British Army basic, I understand the concept of breaking down the individual and rebuilding him or her as part of an efficient fighting team. I was, however, a bit of a trial to the sergeants.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“I knew I wasn’t going to be staying in the BA.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“My motivation was different from someone who knows he’ll be stuck for several years.”
“Still, the point eludes me.”
“What I’m trying to get through that Slavic skull of yours is that the tedium of bureaucracy, particularly military bureaucracy, is a font of juicy information. The U.S. military, much like the British and, I daresay, the Russian, has a form or report for everything. The file contained copies of progress reports, lots of copies of lots of progress reports.”
“Good little spy that you are, you read them all.”
“I did. They’re stunningly boring but helpful in refining my profile of Carroll.”
“How did he do that first day of basic?”
“Why?” she asked, frowning.
“That first day can make or break you, depending on how well the recruit handles being yelled at, called names, and made to do silly things.”
“Not to mention the grueling, capricious, arbitrary physical regimen. He did well according to the reports, showed ‘enthusiasm.’”
“Would you say he’s adaptive?”
Mai nodded, and Alexei gave a dismissive shrug.
“I doubt there are few Americans who could handle Soviet Army basic training,” he said.
“Sometimes, your chauvinism about Mother Russia astounds me; however, back on topic. There’s a fine line between adapting and inculcation. The ability to adapt could also make someone vulnerable to the persuasiveness of political movements on one end of the scale and brainwashing on the other.”
Alexei grinned at her. “I taught you rather well, didn’t I?”
“You know, I was going to find a way to express my appreciation for the chocolate mousse, but my inclination is waning.”
“Oh, please continue,” he said, making a zipping motion over his lips.
“As I read on through the progress reports, I found notes from a sergeant, who made several patrols through the barracks. Each time he did so, he saw Carroll’s sleep was uneasy.”
“Adrenaline, excitement, or fear?”
“No way to tell, but as his training progressed, subsequent reports praised him consistently, noted his eagerness to learn new skills.”
A pager on her desk chimed, and she left the sofa to check it. “Former Sergeant Marcellus Block does know John Thomas Carroll,” Mai said, “and the instructors are willing to let me talk to him in the morning.”
“In that case, I suggest we forego further discussion so you can thank me for the chocolate mousse.”
She gave him an eye roll worthy of Natalia.
35
A Little Too Rambo
Directorate Training Facility
Somewhere in rural Virginia
Marcellus Block wondered if he should knock on the door before he entered. He decided he’d spent too much time on the inner debate. He opened the door and went inside the conference room.
A tall man leaned against one wall of the windowless room, his arms crossed over his chest. He had white hair long enough to pull back into a short ponytail and empty blue eyes.
A woman sat at the table, a file folder before her. Her posture was casual, one arm resting on the table, the other slung over the back of the chair next to her. Her reddish hair was French-braided, and her brown eyes were discerning—and as empty as the man’s.
Shit, he thought. He cleared his throat and said, “Good morning. I was told to report here.”
“Marcellus Block?” the woman asked.
“Yes, and you are?”
“Have a seat,” the woman said. She smiled, and it almost made it to her eyes.
Block sat and used the fact the table hid his movements to wipe his sweaty palms on his trousers. “And you are?” he tried again.
The woman straightened in her chair and opened the file, her eyes on the papers inside. “You have no need to know who we are,” she said, “because this conversation will have never taken place.”
“Okay.”
She looked at him with an expression he read easily: Do not fuck with me.
“I know thus far in your training and from your time in the Army, your instinct would be to dodge my questions or be dissembling in your answers. That won’t bode well.”
“Meaning what?” he asked, thankful for the mustache hiding the sweat beading on his upper lip.
“Meaning,” the man said, “a word from us, and you’re done.”
The woman smiled at Marcellus, a bit on the sly side, as if to say pay no attention to him. Block trusted her no more than the man.
“Okay, sure,” Block said. “The head instructor said you had some questions about an Army buddy, Jay Carroll.”
The woman took a pen from her pocket and made a note on a sheet of paper in the file. “Yes. Are you in touch with him now?”
“No. I haven’t seen him since we both left the Army.”
“Are you certai
n? No postcards, no phone calls, no emails?”
“No, none.”
“Does that surprise you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Well, we were battle buds, saw action together, and that’s a bond, but I think we both wanted to put that behind us.”
“It had nothing to do with your race?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She smiled again. “Did Sgt. Carroll have no interest in maintaining a friendship with you because you’re black and he’s white?”
“He wasn’t like that, not with any of the brothers. When we were stationed in Fort Riley, there was a black soldier Carroll didn’t know who came back to base drunk. A couple of cracker soldiers who’d given me some racist shit decided to teach ‘the nigger a lesson,’ meaning they decided to beat the crap out of the guy. They got a good start on it, but here comes Jay. He’d been running around base for extra PT when he saw what was happening. Waded right in, started screaming for the MPs, put himself between the crackers and the brother. Got a broken nose for it.”
“You know this for certain?”
“Yeah, I knew the brother, and we all saw the broken nose.”
“Why do you think you haven’t heard from Carroll?”
“Some of us went to the Gulf, dealt with the shit, and came back not caring. Others, well, it hit them a little harder.”
“Was Carroll one of those?”
“Yeah. He was less easy-going when he got back, more dead serious, but, you know, his Bradley was the lead tank. He saw a lot more shit than those of us behind him did.”
“Did you meet him on the first day of Basic?”
“Yeah. He had the lower bunk. Me, the upper.”
“I understand your drill sergeant noted Carroll’s sleep that first night was uneasy. Is that true?”
“How do you know that?”
“You’re here to answer questions, Mr. Block,” said the man, his accent showing a hint of Eastern Europe, “not ask them.”
“Is that true?” the woman asked again.
“Yeah. He tossed and turned a lot, which meant every time he did, the whole bunk shook, so my sleep was uneasy, too. He apologized the next morning. Said he was too excited to sleep.”
“Not afraid?”
“Look, if there was a soldier who loved basic training, it was Jay Carroll. He was into everything about it.”
“How did the rest of your training unit feel about that?”
“Some of them thought he was a suck-up at first, but he’d join the rest of the COHORT in the evenings and was a real personable guy. The first to step up and help someone who was having trouble with the manuals or field-stripping his weapon. Oh, uh, I assume you know what a COHORT is.”
“Other than an allusion to the Roman Army?” the woman said, with another of those furtive smiles. “Yes, I’m aware it’s an Army program created to improve stability among troops. The men you start basic with, you stay with for three years.”
“Yeah, Cohesion Operational Readiness and Training—COHORT. They explained they came up with it after Vietnam, where new guys coming into a unit as replacements didn’t fit in well. Their casualty rates were high. What they didn’t tell us was there were guys in your COHORT you just got fucking tired of. Sorry.”
“No problem. Was Carroll one of them, someone you got fucking tired of?”
“For me? No. Like I said, he was okay. There were a couple of his buddies nobody much liked.”
“Who were they?”
“Jerry something and Lamont, uh…”
“Gerald Parker and Lamar Duval?”
“Look, lady, if you already know this stuff, why are you interrogating me?” Block looked at the man. “Yeah, I know you’re asking the questions, but this is getting weird.”
“I was simply jogging your memory,” the woman said.
Her tone had changed, from encouraging to something chillier.
“Yeah,” said Block, “those were the guys. Parker because he was, like, ancient, in his thirties. Because of that, they made him unit leader, but dude couldn’t lead the way down the yellow brick road. And Duval was constantly on sick call with some kinda injury. A pulled muscle, rope burns, a twisted ankle. Always something, but them and Jay were tight. Jay once said he had only sisters and that Parker was like an older brother to him. The other turn-off was they always were talking politics.”
“What kind of politics?”
“Not the kind I was interested in, so I tuned them out.”
“White supremacy?”
“Never heard them talk about that. Mostly it was how the government was coming to take your guns.”
“Carroll agreed with them?”
“I don’t know how much he agreed, but he definitely listened to their ranting and raving.”
“I understand Carroll was quite the marksman,” the woman said.
“Oh, yeah, man. Dude could pick a flea off a tick at a hundred yards. We called him Top Gun. It was way obvious he’d done plenty of shooting before the Army, and he said his grandfather taught him and took him shooting when he was a kid. He was amazing with anything that shot—handguns, rifles, the Bradley. If it shot, Jay was good with it. He broke all kinds of records for accuracy during basic and at Fort Riley. Whenever some congressman or some such showed up, they’d trot Jay out to show them what the Bradley could do.”
“How did he handle the physical regimen during basic training?”
“Like me, he was a skinny dude when he got to Benning, but he filled out, like most of us. After hours, though, he’d put stones in a rucksack and jog around base.”
“Why?”
“Jay was set on the Rangers, and he wanted to be in top physical shape.”
“Was he ever disciplined for anything?”
“Jay? Like I said, gung-ho. The sergeants were always saying, ‘The rest of you sorry-ass shits need to be more like Carroll. He’s highly motivated and does what we tell him without question.’ Jay was, like, a model soldier.”
“Just what every general wants,” the woman said.
“Yeah. Hoo-ah!”
That seemed to genuinely amuse her. “Mr. Block, you’re aware of what happened recently in Killeen, Texas?”
“Sure. Everyone knows about that. What’s that got to do with Jay?”
“To end the siege, the FBI used National Guard M2 Bradley Armored Fighting Vehicles, modified to fire tear gas instead of rounds.”
“Yeah. Saw that on TV.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“What do you mean?”
“The same armored, troop-carrying vehicle you and John Carroll commanded during Operation Desert Storm being used against civilians in this country. How did you feel about that?”
“That maybe the FBI went a little too Rambo.”
“What do you think John Carroll thought of that?”
“I have no idea.”
“Based on what you do know about him, speculate.”
“I don’t feel comfortable doing that. He and I, we never talked politics.”
“What did you and he discuss?”
“Hot women.”
Finally, a smile that lit up her eyes. “But he listened to Parker and Duval’s opinions, right? What were they likely to have said about it?”
“They would have been furious because, like I said, that’s all they raged on and on about. The government coming in like an army to confiscate guns.”
She made some more notes in the file and looked up at him again. “As the Bradley gunner, you, like him, would have a certain amount of autonomous authority, correct?”
“Yeah. It’s up to the gunner when to fire and which weapons system on the Bradley to use. After assessing the tactical situation, of course.”
“I imagine that’s a little heady for a small town kid like Carroll.”
“He was a few years older than the rest of us. We were fresh out of high school, but he’d done some college and was clo
se to three years older. But, yeah, it was kick-ass to be in charge of this bad-ass machine.”
Block grinned as memories came back. “When we were over in the Gulf, each of us decided to come up with a theme song for our Bradleys, and we’d roll with that song blasting from our boom boxes. Mine was ‘War’ by Edwin Starr. Jay’s was ‘Bad Company’ by, well, Bad Company.”
“I’m partial to Deep Purple’s ‘Time to Kill’ myself,” the woman said and did an abrupt shift. “Things changed once you got to Fort Riley after basic. For Carroll, I mean. The reports weren’t as glowing.”
“It’s a new group of non-coms and officers, and now it’s the ‘real’ Army not basic. Yeah, a couple of the sarges asked me why he was so solitary and why he kept himself apart. I knew he was hoping for the Rangers and was just, you know, developing the mindset.”
“Did you tell them that?”
“Yeah. They asked because some other guys in the COHORT bitched to them about Jay, questioned his unit loyalty.”
“I would think for someone to say that about a member of his own unit means it’s either true or…” She lifted an eyebrow.
“Or they’re lazy asses who didn’t like getting shown up and jealous he was a model soldier who got passes to go off base as a reward. This was their way to get back at him.”
“They wanted him to live down to their standard?”
“You ever been in the military?” Block asked, expecting to hear no.
“Why, yes,” she replied. “British Army basic training. Flight training with the RAF.”
“Oh. Well, then, you understand uniformity is the key in a military hierarchy. Officers may go nuts over a by-the-book soldier and wish for more like him, but the sergeants know the hardest soldier to keep in line is a know-it-all.”
“Is that what Carroll was?”
“In one sense. I mean, he bothered to learn the manuals and not just enough to pass the tests. He knew them, cover to cover, back and forth. When we had questions, whether it was about rules of engagement or a weapons system, if we went to him, we got the right and practical answer. Yeah, he was aware he knew some of the stuff better than the officers, but he also understood chain of command. Let me tell you, when we got to the Gulf, the guys who’d complained about him being too gung-ho were the first to go to him for help.”