Nothing but the best.
Kertzman suppressed a smile.
Radford's tanned face was smooth and void of scar or blemish; the face of a movie star, an actor. The perfect man for the job.
Radford leaned forward placidly, lifted a hand.
"We are not here to assign blame, General," he added, smiling faintly. "We are here to ask the necessary questions. Now, please, do not think we are going to point a finger at the Army for this ... fiasco. At the moment, we only want to know if there was any American intelligence or military personnel involved in this situation at St. Matthew's or the professor's house."
Brigadier General Tessler shifted, calming, but he still punctuated his words with knifing gestures of his hand. "I can certainly understand why someone suspected the Army of involvement in this. But the rumors are unsubstantiated. Yes, Sims and Myrick were from Special Operations, six months out of Intelligence. But I want it in the minutes that I have personally completed my own investigation and confirmed that they were not working on any 'off the boards' assignment. They were discharged! Out! I want to make that perfectly clear." He lowered his hand, looked steadily around the table.
Radford nodded. "Thank you, General. You have, indeed, made that perfectly clear. Now let's get on with the agenda."
Kertzman scanned the room, noting faces from Naval Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Army, Federal Bureau of Investigations, and National Security Agency. Not surprisingly, everyone present was a heavyweight, a deputy director of respective special operations or holding a similar high command. All were long-term career men and Kertzman figured that they were all eager to handle the situation in ways favorable to their long-term careers.
"So," continued Radford, "has everyone read the reports?"
Nods all around, low murmurs.
"Gentlemen," he added, "we still have a few questions that need answers. We've all seen the ballistics reports, witness reports. We've read the cases made by police. I assume you've all read the homicide report of the men killed at the professor's home, the autopsy reports. All three of them are ex-military. I might add, our ex-military, with no significant clearance. The Agency doesn't know them, never worked with them. The only thing compromising our integrity is the presence of Sims and Myrick, who were killed in the basement of the college. Their security clearances were favored, at least red line. They had access to a lot of information, a lot of people. The DCI wants to know if they were really working in the private sector and just got themselves killed or if this was some kind of renegade government operation."
Radford hesitated before continuing.
"You were all asked to investigate your departments for any possibility of an unsupervised operation." He tapped his pencil on the table. "Did anybody find anything?"
Kertzman watched as heads shook and a few empty hands were raised to signify empty findings.
"I see." Radford gazed about the table. "Well, that's what preliminary inquiries through the NSA have deduced. They say that we had no active agents involved. But there is a final question we have to ask." Wearily, Radford leaned back. "There is some concern about the missing woman, her father, and another student. For the record, gentlemen, all foreign agencies have denied any official or unofficial involvement with any of them. Germans, Soviets, Chinese, whoever. But we all know that doesn't mean anything. They would deny it, anyway. At least, if they had any brains, they'd deny it. But because Sims and Myrick died at the college we have to check these things out. So I asked each of you to try and determine if this woman, her father, or the student have any involvement with any American or foreign intelligence service."
Radford scanned the faces at the table.
"Well?" He tapped the pencil again.
Silence.
"I want you to all realize," he added after a moment, raising his eyebrows expressively, "that there are some very significant people who are extremely ... interested ... in this situation. As always, heads may be on the line. There are rumors circulating about some type of rogue military operation. But nothing provable, and there's probably nothing there. In fact, it looks to me like some private interest wanted the professor dead, and another private interest wanted him alive.
“There's no evidence to indicate that it's any of our people, or that the government is even involved. Instead, it looks to me like this was a simple situation of deadly force which resulted in the deaths of three men at the townhouse. Then Sims and Myrick met their long overdue destiny at the seminary. But since they've already been discharged, I have to believe that they were freelancing. That's what the evidence indicates. They took a job, knew the risks. Their decision. Both of them lived on the edge. It was bound to happen sooner or later. And because they were freelancing, the NSA is not responsible. At least, not directly. I can't speak for the DCI but I'm going to recommend that he give the Bureau free rein to investigate this thing on a civilian level. That's where it started. That's where it should stay."
Radford leaned forward in his chair, elbows on the table.
"So," he continued, "let me summarize. As far as I can determine from your findings, the three missing persons are not ours. None of our active people were involved in any sanctioned or nonsanctioned government operation. Whatever this is belongs to the private sector. And I can tell the DCI that the intelligence community has been cleared."
Everyone nodded. Radford shuffled the reports, preparing. "Good. Is there anything else we need to cover?"
No one in the room seemed eager to offer counsel.
"Mr. Kertzman?" Radford said quietly, acknowledging his presence for the first time. "I don't know how any of this falls under your jurisdiction in Defense. I don't even know why I was instructed to allow you to sit in on the committee. But for the record I'll give you the opportunity to contribute. Do you have anything to add?"
Radford seemed ready to leave.
Kertzman leaned forward, face impassive.
"Well," he began slowly, eyes scanning the faces of everyone present, "I think you've got a cluster and that somebody's lying."
Radford stared at him for a moment as if he wasn't sure, exactly, what Kertzman had said.
Kertzman understood the absurdity of his statement.
Of course somebody was lying. Somebody was always lying. Lying was expected for senior supervisors of intelligence operations, even required, and no one would be present in the room if they were not both accomplished and silently dedicated to the unannounced necessity of the art. That was the nature of the business and it was considered rude, asinine, and even somewhat bizarre to point it out. To do so broke ranks, in a manner, and injected an unsettling anticipation of honesty into a discussion that was both dangerous and vaguely insulting. But Kertzman didn't really care how they felt about him. They didn't have any authority over him; he didn't have to maintain relationships. He belonged to the Pentagon's Department of Civilian Investigation and he could subpoena what he needed from them whether they liked him or not.
"Why do you say that?" Radford offered, finally.
Kertzman laughed gruffly. "Let's look at it. Number one, we've got three dead marines and two Army intelligence agents—"
"Ex—Army intelligence agents," General Tessler interrupted.
Kertzman stared a moment, nodded.
"Alright," he continued, "we have two of the Army's ex-intelligence agents. Six months out. Dead at a seminary. We have three ex-marines, dead at the townhouse of a seventy-two-year-old archeology professor who also worked at the seminary."
Kertzman leafed through two autopsy reports in front of him.
"Myrick," he added dryly, "the one police found in the hallway of the basement, was killed with a knife." He read from the page: "Respiratory function of subject was terminated by the vertical insertion of a double-edged tool between the first and second cervical vertebrae, severing the medulla from the involuntary respiratory section of spinal nerve clusters."
Kertzman folded the report, looked around
the room. "That, boys, is not an easy thing to do. Not if it's done on someone like Myrick, who weighed two-sixty."
Kertzman leaned back, his considerable bulk obscuring the chair. Gazing about at the Chosen, the Beautiful, he felt seriously out of place.
Even in general appearance, no one else in the room would begin to compare to him. Six inches over six feet, Kertzman was imposingly massive with a thick gorilla chest and a truck-tire gut, a striking contrast to the trimmed, lean career men surrounding him who sported tailored suits. But Kertzman had never known success with clothes. His arms, for one thing, presented a problem with off-the-rack coats. They were heavy, muscular, and long with the overlarge forearms of a mechanic – forearms enormously developed and which left a viewer with the disturbing impression of primitive, brutal strength. His face, so unlike the handsome countenances surrounding him, was broad and intimidating, the unsightly mug of a Depression-era street fighter; the faintly scarred face had seen a fair number of bar fights and hard times in youth but had weathered the worst and reflected a deep, thick-skinned toughness from the abuse.
Beneath his low, broad brow, Kertzman's blue eyes studied the room with a lion's awareness. Though the eyes could easily appear deadly in the wrong light, their ability to threaten was most often hidden behind a bland and sleepy demeanor, moving with a focus that shifted easily, quickly, from one man to the next, concealing an almost invisible keenness of thought, discerning. That his brutish, bar-fighter face revealed none of the intellect that had led him through the bloodbath of Vietnam, police work, and the FBI to the secret corridors of the Pentagon and continually served to Kertzman's tactical credit. Never in a hurry to reveal his thoughts, he took advantage of the fact that his face often led people to perceive him as slow-witted or easily misled.
Kertzman saw that everyone was staring at him. He decided to take them along.
"Like I said, Myrick weighed two-sixty," he continued. "He was strong. Real strong. But somebody killed him in the blink of an eye with a fancy knife trick and then sent Sims into the Great Beyond with a broken neck. Now what's wrong with this picture?" Kertzman stared around him. "Anybody want to take a shot?"
No answer.
"Well, then, I'll tell you," Kertzman added. "In the real world you don't kill people like Sims and Myrick like that. You kill flunkey sentries like that. But Sims and Myrick were a lot better than that. They were hard to kill. Both of ‘em were Special Forces. Paratroopers." He hesitated. "If you've been there, you'll know that means somethin'. They were cross-trained in intelligence and urban survival, covert operations, the works. Six months out and still fresh. They weren't fighters. They couldn't even spell fight. They were killers. They were two very capable, very dangerous men, but they were killed in a matter of seconds by someone who knew the game a whole lot better than they did."
Radford shifted, appearing disinterested. "So what's your point?"
Kertzman snorted, contemptuous. "What's my point? My point is that whoever did this was a professional, and a good one. This knife trick isn't even something we teach to SEALs. I thought it was real interesting, so I talked to a few people. It's a technique used by the Mossad."
"The Israeli Secret Service," added Radford.
"Yeah," Kertzman continued. "Israel. We don't use it because it's considered..." He thumbed through the pages of a cheap, weather-beaten pocket notebook. "'.. .too narrow a technique.' That means there's too much room for error. It's too chancy. Too easy to miss, have the knife deflected by bone. Then it doesn't kill quick and you've got a sentry screaming his head off and alerting everybody in the camp. We teach other things with the knife to our elite boys, but not this. As far as I can tell, it's strictly Israel. They like the knife, use a lot of techniques that no one else touches."
Kertzman waited, folded the notebook.
Radford's face was concentrated.
"So," he added, "it looks like we got somebody using a fancy Israeli knife technique on one of our ex-Special Ops personnel." Kertzman studied the faces surrounding him. "Well, that certainly adds a new spin to things, doesn't it? And what about the three marines that were discharged from RECON, the ones found in the professor's home? Three men, all of 'em with specialized training in a marine fast-attack unit, all cut down with a high-tech weapon."
Radford tapped his pencil absently on the desk, stared at Kertzman. "So?"
"So!" Kertzman repeated. "So I'm saying that the same guy did 'em all! He did the guys at the professor's house and the two guys at the seminary. And this wasn't the work of some old geezer professor or a security guard, either. Or even a cop. It's the work of a professional. And not some idiot Mafia hitman or a terrorist. This was the work of a real heavyweight. Somebody who might have millions of dollars' worth of training. Somebody who knows how to play the game."
Radford slightly stared off, focusing slowly on Kertzman as he spoke.
"Alright," he submitted. "I'm not an idiot, Kertzman. None of us are. I agree that whoever did this is probably real good at killing people. But we aren't here, exactly, to find out who, specifically, did it. That's the Bureau's job. Or the police department's. We're here to find out if this fiasco was part of some kind of governmental action gone awry. We're here to find out if anyone can verify an active federal agent's involvement."
Kertzman shifted, focused on Radford.
"Whoever did this was active," he said quietly.
Radford paused in vague astonishment. "How can you say that, Kertzman?"
"Because whoever did this couldn't have gained this level of proficiency if he hadn't seen extensive, and I mean extensive combat experience. I know. I've been there, and combat ain't easy. It's chaos. It's confusion and fear and everything but efficiency. Almost nobody is really efficient at combat. Nobody. They're crazy if they are. A normal guy doesn't do very well in a situation where people are trying to blow his brains out. It ain't natural. The natural thing is to get out. That's the only thing I ever wanted to do."
"A lot of our inactive personnel have combat experience, Kertzman," countered Radford. "They're all dangerous."
"Not like this," Kertzman continued, unfazed. "Whoever did this is beyond that. He's either the luckiest guy on earth or he's trained to be something that's way beyond a normal field operative. And I'm puttin' my money on training. In the old days we called it brainwashing. Nowadays they call it conditioning. Training. We spend millions of dollars making people like this, and we just call it training. There ought 'a be a better word. But whatever, this guy ain't no normal man because he obviously don't feel fear like a normal man. Somethin', maybe some kind of real intensive training, like we give to some Delta or SEAL guys, has made him cold. Stone cold. He might even be one of the best in the world at what he does. And that means he was in a unit that saw almost continual action. A unit that has cross-trained with some real heavy hitters, like Israel, the SAS, whoever. And that would put this man, our man, in a very narrow category. He might even be easy to find once we know where to look."
"You're getting all this from a knife technique?" Radford appeared irritated.
Kertzman was deadpan. "There's a few other things."
Radford shook his head. "Kertzman, even if this guy is real good, why does he have to be one of ours? He could be Russian. He could be Egyptian for all we know."
Shrugging, Kertzman replied, "Everybody else in this is American. We haven't seen anything to indicate any kind of foreign interest, no kind of power play. All the dead agents are ours. So I figure this is something internal." He paused, considering his own argument. "Yeah, that seems right when you think about it. I'd say it's probably safe to assume this guy is ours."
Radford challenged him. "What about the student? Bartholomew O'Henry? You know, Kertzman, if you want to conjecture, we can do it all day long. What if he's not really a language student at all? What if he's part of some foreign support system? What if he's the one who's doing all this? That would make a lot of sense. The woman and the professor might have d
iscovered him. And now he's attempting to eliminate them. The professor might have hired Sims and Myrick and the rest of them for protection."
Kertzman's stone-faced stare revealed nothing, but he pursed his lips as he considered the hypothesis. "No. I don't think so," he said after a moment. "I've studied that guy's file. I don't think he has the physical ability to pull this off."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because, like I said, real fighting ain't techniques and fancy moves. Real fighting is strength, speed, endurance, toughness. Who can last the longest? Hit the hardest? Who can take the most damage while putting the other guy through more than he can survive? That's combat. It's ugly. It's the meanest, ugliest thing on God's green Earth. And you've just got to be mad-dog strong, tough, able to take anything that comes to you while dishing out a whole lot more. It ain't pretty. And there ain't no rules. No, this student doesn't fit the profile. Not at all." He hesitated. "No, it ain't him."
Radford was silent a long time.
"You might be right, Kertzman," Radford said, and Kertzman was intrigued to sense a slight surrendering in the tone. "But you didn't answer my question. Why does this guy have to be active?"
"Because people this good never leave," said Kertzman in a flat tone, unyielding. "Sure, people like Sims and Myrick leave. That's no great loss. But we have too much invested in a guy like this. Too much money. Too many secrets."
Radford was probing the theory. "He still might not be active, Kertzman. He might be old. Retired."
"I don't think he's old," said Kertzman.
"Why?"
The pencil tapped on the desk.
Kertzman shifted, leaning forward. "An old guy couldn't have done this," he said slowly. "No. This guy is too young to retire and too good to quit." Kertzman nodded, convinced. "He's active."
Radford stared distantly at scattered reports. The pencil had abruptly fallen silent. No comments were offered, no responsibility accepted.
Reckoning Page 7