Sweepers

by P. T. Deutermann

  Galantz stood up behind the light. So, Jackie boy. what’s it going to be?

  Jack looked from Galantz to his father and then back again.

  “You were gonna shoot me?”

  That’s right, Jack. But now your father’s made a more interesting offer.

  All along, I’ve wanted him to live with the knowledge that Id taken everything of value to him. But maybe I ought to let you decide, Jack You said you were ready to do him Are you, Jackie boy?

  Karen, holding Train’s arm with her left hand, gripped it twice, trying to alert him that she was going to do something. Train was staring at Jack, but then he was looking sideways at her, trying not to attract Galantz’s attention. She felt with her thumb over the smooth plastic surface of the disrupter, searching for the big round button. She found it and pushed it once. She felt a tiny vibration, which stopped after two seconds. Then she moved her thumb over to the sharp, smaller button and began to extract the disrupter from her pocket.

  C’mon, Jack We have an offer on the table. His life for yours. This is even better. You choose him he dies knowing you did it. Or you could choose yourseii,’Jack. Make him live with it. What do you think Jack?

  Life been that good for you?

  Karen tried very hard to move her arm without showing movement, but it took supreme concentration, and that damned pulsing light was driving her nuts. Jack kept looking at his father, then at Galantz. His hands moved.

  Hey, Jackie, not thinking about making a move here, Jack? Did you forget something? I’ve got your gun, Jack.

  Galantz held up both hands, Karen’s Colt in his right and Jack’s bulky automatic in the other hand. The red light glinted off the goggled mask he was wearing.

  Karen had the disrupter just about out of her pocket as Galantz pointed the .45 over at Jack. Then she screamed and pulled hard on Train’s arm, spinning him around, away from the disrupter, which she raised and pointed right at Galantz’s face and his light-intensifying nightvision goggles.

  NO-0-0-O! the voice box squalled, the guns starting to swing around, and then there was that terrible ripping blast of light. Karen closed her eyes at the last possible instant, and then Train was pulling Karen and himself flat onto the concrete as there came a barrage of gunfire, the blasts from Galantz’s two guns hammering against their brains in the confined space, the whine and howl of bullets smacking stone and . wood and concrete, and even the furnace. Karen tried to melt into the concrete floor with each blast, every shot punctuated by a high keening noise from the steps.

  Then came a sudden silence, followed by the sound of the trapdoor opening and banging shut. She realized that the strobe light had stopped and that the room was in total darkness. She couldn’t hear anything after the intense hammering of the gunfire in the enclosed space.

  Train rolled off her and they clutched each other on the concrete, coughing in all the smoke. They heard a moan from the direction of where Jack had been standing, and an ominous gurgling noise coming from where Sherman had been. As the strobe light died, Karen realized the generator had been hit, its smooth puttering sound replaced by a distinct knocking sound. She wanted to call out, but she was afraid to. Her ears hurt from all the gunfire.

  Train was signaling her with his hands to move with him, away from where they had been when the strobe light had last been on. The smoke was very strong, but she realized it wasn’t gunsmoke. It was -something else.

  Then they both found out precisely what: There was a bright orange glare accompanied by a whoomping noise from behind them as the generator burst into flames. But at least now they could see.

  Sherman was down on the floor, both his hands to his head, and there was a shiny black pool of blood around his hands and head. Jack was slumped against the wall, his eyes open. He was holding his stomach and breathing through his moutfi’ There was a pool of blood expanding beneath his legs. Karen crawled first to Sherman, then turned to check Jack. Train ran for the steps and tested the trapdoor, but it was either blocked or locked.’He had to jump down off the steps because of the bank of dense oily smoke that was accumulating along the ceiling of the basement. The diesel-oil fire in the furnace was gathering strength.

  “Karen, we’ve got to bust out of here somehow,” Train shouted. “See if you can shut the furnace door, stop the smoke, while I look for something to break through the trapdoor!

  Karen, bending low to stay out of the choking band of smoke swirling across the ceiling, got as close as she could to the furnace door, but the fuel fire inside was getting very hot. The generator’s carry handle blocked the furnace door, and the fire was making a roaring noise now as it sucked the oxygen out of the basement.

  “I can’t get near it,” she called. “The door’s blocked.”

  Jack slid over on his side with a low groan. Karen was horrified to see how much blood there was on the floor, under both men. She heard a crash from the other end of the basement. Train came back into view, holding a timber from the wreckage of the collapsed flooring at the other end.

  “We’ve got to get them out of here,” she shouted over the noise from the fire.

  “We gotta get us out of here,” he shouted back. “Help steady this table.”

  She joined him at the table where the computer had been set up. Train swept everything off the table onto the floor in one big crash and then got up on the table. Using a fourby-four, he began battering the floorboards above his head.

  She held the table with one hand and his leg with the other as he became a human pile driver, smashing the four-by-four into the rotten flooring up above, choking and coughing in the writhing cloud of smoke that was banking up against the ceiling. Then he was through, and the hole widened as the smoke shot up through the hole into the room above.

  The ftimace box and the ducting began to shake as the airflow reversed, feeding fresh oxygen to the burning diesel fuel. When he had the hole big enough, Train turned around and grabbed Karen, and in one great swing he thrust her through the hole in the ceiling, shoving her hips and then her legs up until she was’able to roll out on the floor above.

  “Get outside and call for help,” he shouted as he got down off the table. “You can’t lift us out of here!” She nodded and ran outside to the porch.

  Down in the basement, Train dragged Sherman and then Jack away from the fire and closer to the hole. His hands became sticky with blood, and he wondered if either of them was going to ‘survive this. Then there was a face in the hole, but it was quickly withdrawn as the stream of smoke immediately blinded the man. A minute later, there was a crash of timbers above the trapdoor, and then it burst open and several men in vests came tumbling down the stairs.

  “Head wound!” Train yelled to the first one to reach him, pointing at Sherman. “Gut wound on the other guy.”

  “We -got ‘em,” someone yelled. And then there was a general commotion as everyone tried to help. Train saw Karen briefly at the top of the steps before someone topside grabbed her and took her out of there. He helped carry Sherman up the stone steps, through the hallway, and out onto the front porch and into a blaze of headlights, radio chatter, and blue flashers littering the side of Slade Hill. A helicopter was hovering over the trees east of the house, shining a large spotlight at something on the ground. Several men were gathered in the vicinity of the spotlighted area. Karen ran to meet Train as the first signs of the fire appeared in the front window sockets of the old house. He embraced her, but then, to his surprise, she was pulling back, looking behind him.

  Mcnair materialized out of the darkness.

  “Well?” she said. “Did you get him?”

  Mcnair looked over his shoulder at the crowd of police and FBI agents milling around the house. A small fire engine was trying to get up the hill below them, but it appeared to have become stuck. He turned to face them.

  “Get who?” he replied.

  Train stepped forward. “You know goddamn well who,” he said. “Just what-“

  But Mcnair had hi
s hand up, signifying silence. “This would be a really good time,” he said, “for you two to walk down that hill and get in that Explorer and get the hell out of here. A really good time. The commander here will explain it to you. We’re all done up here. But you two might have a loose end or two to work out.” He turned back to Karen and gave her a slip of paper. “The guy at the other end of that number will be expecting your call. He did a little computer work for your boss. The thing you should know about him is that he can undo anything -that he’s done.”

  Train started to object again, but Mcnair only pointed down the hill.

  Karen touched his arm. “We’ll be knee-deep in cops all night, answering questions she said. “Let’s just get out of here. There are some things I have to tell you.”

  Mcnair nodded at her and walked back into the darkness.

  MONDAY On Monday morning, Train signed Karen through the Pentagon security checkpoint. They walked in silence through the corridors, along with a steady stream of civilians. Train had to remember not to hold her hand as they walked down the A-ring, heading toward the escalators to the fourth floor.

  “You still think this will work?” he asked. Sunday had been a day of rest and recuperation, and planning.

  “It had better work,” she said grimly. “If Sherman makes it, I want to be able to tell him why they were so hot to force him out of the Navy.”

  Captain Pennington was waiting for Karen when they arrived at the Ill offices. “The admiral wants to see you, Karen, as soon as you get in.”

  “But not me?” Train asked innocently. The other officers were keeping their heads down.

  Pennington frowned at him. “I think you are going to be reassigned back to the Navy Yard, Mr. von Rensel. I’m not privy to all that went down this past ‘weekend, but there’s been something of a shit storm going on up front since I got in, and your name was featured often and rudely.”

  “Oh my.” Train sighed. “And I was beginning to like it here.

  Karen was not amused. “I’m not going to see anybody until I’ve had a chance to get into my PC. There’s an archive report I want to see.”

  “Um, well,” Pennington began, but Karen walked past him to her cubicle.

  Train went to his and turned on his PC.

  He could hear Pennington trying to talk to. Karen, but she was answering in monosyllables while she booted up her own machine. When Train was sure Pennington was fully engaged, he got on the phone and called the NIS database administrator.

  “What is it now, von Rensel?”

  “I need you guys to get into the JAG archive database.”

  “JAG? We don’t normally target specific-“

  “I know,” Train interrupted, keeping an eye on Pennington, who was starting to get worked up. Karen was supposed to stall him long enough for Train to make this one phone call. “But this one should be easy. I need you guys to pull up a specific investigation file.” He gave the administrator the cite number.

  “What the hell, von Rensel. Aren’t you right there in JAG?”

  “I am, but I need an external query. And then I need you to attach the report and E-mail it to me at this address, and I need this done ASAP, like anytime in the next ten minutes, if that’s humanly possible.”

  “Ten minutes! That’s ridiculous! That’s-“

  Train cut him off. “Two people have been murdered,” he said. “An admiral has been shot in the head, and his son has been shot in the stomach, and my car’s been burned up with me in it, and I think, you should really do this thing, and now would be really nice, okay?”

  “Holy shit, why didn’t you say so?”

  “I just did. Here’s the E-mail address. And this is a real fire, okay?

  Get that thing over here right now.”

  “Coming at you.” Train hung up. Pennington was stomping off across the office to his cubicle. Karen watched him go, and then looked over her shoulder at Train, who gave her the thumbs-up signal. She turned around and kept going on her PC. Train stood up and rearranged the privacy panel on his cubicle so that no one standing next to Karen’s desk could see him across the room, He heard-Pennington call one of the other commanders into his cubicle for a short conference, after which he came out and started telling the rest of the people in the office that there was going to be an urgent all-hands meeting across the way in the main conference room in five minutes. Nobody would even look at Karen or Train as the commander shepherded everyone else out of the office.

  Pennington remained in the entrance to his cubicle, looking meaningfully at Karen, but she ignored him. Train ducked back into his own cubicle and waited for the E-mail banner.

  Five minutes later, the office door burst open and Admiral Carpenter stormed in, followed by a worried-looking Mccarty. Train watched through a crack between the privacy panels, but he kept out of sight, resisting the urge to shake his PC monitor to make the E-mail arrive faster.

  Carpenter went directly to Karen’s cubicle.

  “Commander Lawrence, I am not amused,” he said.

  “When I summon a staff officer, they damned well come to see me, not the other way around!”

  Karen stood up respectfully and pointed down at her screen, where a large red ACCESS DENIED banner was displayed. “I want to see that investigation report,” she said.

  “I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not talking to anybody until I’ve seen that investigation report.”

  “What god damned report?” Carpenter shouted. “Pennington, out! “

  An astonished Captain Pennington backed out of the office, giving Mccarty a “what the hell?” look. He got a nervous shrug in return. He closed the door behind him forcefully. Karen hadn’t budged.

  “You know what report, Admiral,” she said. “The JAG investigation on the loss of the SEAL back there in Vietnam.

  The one you told Mr. von Rensel you had seen, where . Sherman was adjudged to have done the right thing when he abandoned that man back there on the river.”

  Carpenter started to say something but then faltered.

  Train tapped his monitor with his fingers. C’mon, C’mon, he thought. She couldn’t hold this guy off forever.

  “Sherman told us, Admiral. Before he was shot up there on that hill. He admitted seeing the SEAL. That’s not quite the story he told us before, but he admitted it to Galantz.

  He also said that he did tell his bosses back there in Vietnam that he had seen the SEAL on the night of the incident, that they knew he had been left behind.”

  “That’s not what the investigation says,” Carpenter declared.

  An E-mail notice bloomed across Train’s screen, and he quickly switched screens to the communications program.

  One message-from NIS-file attached. He accepted the message and then ordered the attached file copied for retransmission and forwarding. The system asked for the forwarding addresses. Train consulted the OPNAV directory and then sat down to type them out.

  “Then let me see it, Admiral.”

  “It’s classified. You’re not cleared.”

  “It was over twenty years ago, Admiral. And after what 1, ve been through, I am more than cleared. In fact, I feel like telling the whole world about my fun weekend. Then everyone will be cleared.”

  Carpenter stared at her, but then his expression changed.

  “All right, Commander. Since you insist. Captain Mccarty will remove the lock.”

  Karen got up, and Mccarty slid into her chair. After a minute on the keyboard, he got back up. “Call it up,” he said.

  Karen sat back down and accessed the archive system.

  This time, the file appeared on screen. Carpenter just stood there, looking as if this was just an enormous waste of time, the beginnings of a triumphant expression on his face: the admiral humoring the commander.

  Karen began to scan the investigation report as fast as she could scroll through it. The basic letter report, followed by the appendices: the appointing order, the interview list, the findings of fact, th
e findings of opinion, the substantiatin documents. She was looking for two things: the Swift boat division commander’s statement and the all-important reviewing authority’s first endorsement.

  There. The Divcom’s statement. Interview with Sherman.

  The mining ambush. Subsequent actions to extract the boat from the kill zone. Damage to the boat. Injuries to personnel. A brief mention of the skipper thinking that he had seen the SEAL by the riverbank at the time of the engagement.

  As Galantz had charged, and as Sherman had admitted.

  Carpenter was looking at the screen over her shoulder.

  “Well,” he said. “I guess it does say that So what?”

  “That’s only part of it, Admiral,” she replied. “Now I want to see the final endorsement. Because whoever approved this investigation essentially covered up the fact that Galantz had been left behind.”

  Carpenter stood back and took a deep breath, his eyes flitting from side to side for an instant. But then he gestured to Mccarty, as if to say, Beats me. Karen scrolled down through the document to the final section.

  The final endorsement appeared on the screen. The reviewing authority, Commander Naval Forces, Vietnam. The major conclusion: concurring in findings of facts and opinions, with the exception that the COMNAVFORV did not concur that the SEAL had been at the rendezvous. That in the heat of an engagement, the skipper could not have seen the face of a man as mines were exploding and. heavy machine-gun fire laid down on the banks of the river. That the SEAL had, in all probability, never made it to the rendezvous. That the division commander was directed to take no further action with regard to the SEAL.

  Carpenter again read over her shoulder. “Well,” he said, “I’m not sure that’s what I would have recommended.

  Seems kind of coldhearted. But I guess that’s what they recommended, whoever they. were. Are we finished here, Commander?”

  “Just about, Admiral,” Karen said. “I just want to see who signed this thing out.”

  Carpenter again stood back. “I’m not sure why that Id be of interest, after so long a time. Most likely some’s who are long gone.”