Tin Soldier: The Seven Sequels

by Sigmund Brouwer

  “Kyle Bowden,” Warwick said. “I’m sorry I didn’t place your face immediately. I’ve seen you during some subcommittee work, right?”

  “You’ve seen me in Vietnam,” Bowden said. “When you were the captain of Jesse Lockewood’s platoon, taking payments from gangsters in Saigon. The same gangsters you still have on your payroll over here. Then you blackmailed me into betraying my country and have used that leverage ever since to keep me as your CIA insider. How about let’s start there?”

  Warwick gave them both a tolerant, puzzled look. “Vietnam? I suppose we met there, if you say so. But I am a true patriot; therefore, your accusations are obviously false. And Vietnam was a long time ago, so forgive me for not remembering you.”

  Not so long, Webb thought, that Warwick wasn’t against playing the soldier hero to the fullest. There were dozens of photos of him in uniform as a much younger man. Framed medallions hung on the wall. On the top shelf of the low, wide bookshelf behind the congressman’s desk was some sort of bronzed base with a plaque, and on the base rested a hand grenade. Not the souvenir Webb would have chosen, but then, Webb wasn’t a congressman who had served seven terms already.

  “Yes, Vietnam was a long, long time ago,” Bowden said. “But some things still matter after all that time. Like the military information you were passing along to the North Vietnamese through the gangster connections you had in Saigon. Like when you forced me to give up the name of a private who found out you dealt in black-market diamonds. Any of that ringing a bell?”

  “I think,” Warwick said, “it’s time to call security.”

  He gave Webb an apologetic smile as he reached for his phone. “I’m sorry that you were dragged into this. I guess with an election coming up, my opponents will try anything.”

  “I wasn’t dragged into this,” Webb said. “I’m not from Albuquerque. And Aaron Sayers is not my father. That was just a way to get this appointment. My name is Jim Webb. I’m from Canada. My grandfather was David McLean. But I think you knew him in Vietnam as Sean Alexander.”

  There was flicker of movement across the smoothness of Warwick’s face. Enough for Webb to know in his gut that everything he had learned in New Orleans from Eric McAuley was true.

  “You can call security,” Bowden said. “But they won’t come. Not until I make the call. And then they’ll be coming for you. After all these years, I’m going down, but I’m taking you with me.”

  “I must say,” Warwick said, “all of this is crazy.” He smiled. “This is one of those reality shows, right? A prank show.”

  “Two words,” Bowden said. “Jesse Lockewood.”

  He nodded at Webb. Webb stood and reached into his right back pocket for a folded piece of paper, the printout of the Jesse Lockewood military ID from the photograph Webb had taken with his iPhone.

  Webb unfolded it, put it on Warwick’s expensive, empty desk and pushed it toward the congressman.

  “Two more words,” Bowden said. “Benjamin Moody.”

  Webb found the paper in his left back pocket and repeated the process. He watched Warwick examine the papers.

  “And this means?” Warwick said.

  “It means when this kid found those cards,” Bowden said, “he found the only proof in the world that Jesse Lockewood had tried to get a new identity. When he photographed those cards, it meant he still had the proof no matter what happened to the cards. I told you it would be a mistake to send someone to burn down that guy’s house in Tennessee. I told you it would be a mistake to send Quang Mai Loan’s brother to Montgomery to try to pick up the kid from Canada. It’s all caught up to us, so I cut a deal with the prosecutor. You’re the big fish. They were happy to let me roll over for reduced jail time. And I’m happy to pay you back for all these years of being your lapdog. Webb is here as part of the deal too. He gets to learn about his grandfather.”

  “Prank,” Warwick repeated. “Where are the television cameras?”

  Webb was still standing.

  Bowden stood too. He peeled off his suit jacket. And his shirt and pants. He stood there in baggy boxer shorts, with a sagging hairy belly, an image Webb hoped would never replay itself in his mind.

  “Not wired to record any sound,” Bowden said. He reached for the waistband of his boxers. “Unless you want me to pull down my—”

  “No!” Warwick and Webb spoke at the same time.

  Bowden began to dress.

  “Webb’s not wired either,” Bowden said as he hitched his pants. “Webb?”

  Webb peeled off his clothing down to his underwear, feeling self-conscious. He wished he had bet someone, somewhere, that he would be able to undress in a congressman’s office and not get arrested or kicked out. He would have made a lot of money.

  “You’ve made your point,” Warwick said.

  Webb pulled up his pants and pulled on his T-shirt.

  Bowden, shirt buttoned, had taken a chair again. Webb did the same.

  “Webb, tell our congressman here how it began,” Bowden said. “Tell him where you got that military identification that he wanted to destroy. How you found both pieces of identification in a Canadian passport that belonged to Sean Alexander. Along with the Vietnamese identification cards that belonged to Jesse Lockewood’s wife and her brother, who became a Born To Kill gangster here in the States and, like us, never stopped looking for Lockewood.”

  Bowden clapped his hand to his mouth in mock surprise. “Ooops. I guess I just did.”

  To Warwick, he said, “You know, I’m almost happy to go to jail after all these years. Words can’t tell you how much I’ve hated you since Saigon.”

  “I have nothing to say,” Warwick answered.

  “Then I’ll be happy to tell the story,” Bowden said. “It begins with Jesse Lockewood seeing you in your tent one night, counting diamonds by lantern light. Remember, payment from the North Vietnamese? It’s a story about Jesse agreeing to testify for the military police if they kept him safe from the gangsters. You remember, don’t you? When a grunt named Casey Gardner died in action, the CIA rigged it so that Jesse Lockewood’s identification went with Gardner’s body, and it looked like Gardner was a deserter. Jesse Lockewood got a new military identification card as Benjamin Moody, and that was supposed to keep him safe from any assassination attempts by the gangsters. Your gangster friends.”

  “Fairy tale,” Warwick said.

  “Then let me remind you how someone inside the CIA tipped you off about the identity change. Someone who had major gambling debts with the same gangsters that supplied you with diamonds as payment for passing on classified military information. Because you and I both know that the CIA operative was me. I can’t tell you how much I’ve hated myself for letting those gangsters take Lockewood out instead of me.”

  “Fairy tale,” Warwick repeated.

  “Except the gangsters blew it when they tried to throw grenades into a taxi when Jesse was on a two-day leave in Saigon. He bailed in time and ran, and he decided maybe he wouldn’t go along with a CIA offer to give him a new identity because the gangsters had found him so easily. He didn’t know who he could trust at that point—at least, who he could trust among the Americans. So he went to the Canadians. Their embassy.”

  “Everybody loves Canadians,” Webb told Warwick. “That’s just a fact.”

  Warwick’s body language suggested he didn’t find Webb amusing.

  “While we’re having this conversation,” Webb said to Bowden, “do we know yet why the Canadian embassy chose my grandfather to help Jesse and his wife escape?”

  “Sure,” Bowden said. “I just found out an hour ago. Our people made a few calls to your people. Sean Alexander was the perfect person for the Canadian embassy to use. He didn’t exist. You know that. Sean Alexander was just a name on a fake passport.”

  “It’s why my grandfather had a fake passport that bothers me,” Webb said. “A lot.”

  “To answer that, it took some serious conversations back and forth between Canada and th
e United States, serious conversations at a high level,” Bowden answered. “In Vietnam, your grandfather was a go-between, trying to negotiate a secret peace deal. The Americans couldn’t be seen even talking with the North Vietnamese. So, behind the scenes, Canadians were brought in, pretending to be businessmen. Your grandfather was not only serving Canada, but doing his part to try to help end all that bloodshed. He was given the job of making it look like Lockewood and his wife died trying to escape. He made it look so real, even Lockewood believed Sean Alexander was a traitor. But it worked. Lockewood was gone forever when he found another way to hide his identity. Except for the military cards that Sean Alexander kept, in case he needed his own protection from the CIA, there was no more record of Lockewood.”

  The relief was so intense, and the strain of worry so instantly vanished, that Webb felt like all the bones had been removed from his body.

  “Nice stories,” Warwick said. “Are we finished? Can I go back to my appointments?”

  “Not yet,” Bowden said. “You might want to try picking up the phone and asking Elizabeth if you have another visitor.”

  Warwick just frowned and shook his head. “All of this is so preposterous and without proof that I’ll just sit and wait for you to leave. And if you try to spread these stories, you’ll be facing libel and slander charges, and you’ll lose everything you own in lawsuits.”

  “Fine,” Bowden said. He stood and walked to the door. He opened it and waved for someone to join them.

  Eric McAuley walked in. He gave a slight nod to Webb, then turned an expressionless face to Warwick.

  “Warwick,” Bowden said. “You remember this man, right? Once upon a time, before the CIA listed him as a dead soldier, his name was Jesse Lockewood. He’s here to back up everything I just said.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Webb had been hoping Warwick would react with fear or surprise at the sight of Jesse Lockewood. It would have been great to tell Lee later, so Lee could have the satisfaction of knowing what it was like for Warwick when he first realized he’d have to pay for ordering Kyle Bowden to torch Lee’s house.

  Instead, Warwick smiled at Jesse as if Jesse had been scheduled to appear, then held up a finger as if to say “wait just a second.” This was not anything anyone in the office had expected, and in the group hesitation that followed, Warwick picked up his phone and punched a single button.

  It was quiet. The ringing of the telephone at Elizabeth’s desk in the outer office reached them clearly.

  “Yes, Congressman,” she said, her voice as audible as the ringing had been.

  “I need you for a moment,” Warwick said. “There’s a letter that has to be mailed right away.”

  Again, hesitation from Webb and Bowden and Lockewood.

  Elizabeth opened the door and stepped inside.

  Silence from the group. Wasn’t Bowden supposed to handle this? He was CIA.

  Later, Webb would learn that because Bowden was a desk guy at the CIA, he didn’t have much training in combat operations. Lockewood had thought it was Bowden’s operation, so he wasn’t about to lead on this, and Webb had thought the same thing. So because Bowden hadn’t acted, neither had Webb or Lockewood.

  “Here’s the letter,” Warwick said, reaching into his drawer.

  That’s when it occurred to Webb that Warwick might pull out a pistol. That’s the way it happened in the movies.

  But Warwick brought up a white envelope and waited for Elizabeth to cross the office for it.

  She frowned. Obviously, she felt the tension but had no idea what was going on.

  Bowden didn’t stop her. So neither did Webb or Lockewood.

  She stepped around the desk. Warwick held out the envelope. As she reached for it, he grabbed her wrist, spun her around and pulled her toward him.

  He wrapped his other arm around her neck and put her in a chokehold, using her body as a shield. As she gagged, with his free hand he groped behind him for the top of the bookshelf.

  No way, Webb thought, as his mind made the connection. No way.

  Webb’s body seemed to go into action with only one conscious thought.

  He’s going for the hand grenade.

  The large, expensive desk was a barrier between them. Webb launched himself over it, but it was too late.

  Warwick had managed to close his fingers over the hand grenade and pull it loose from its base. At the same time, he brought a knee up and rammed it into Webb’s chest as Webb’s upper body slid across the desk.

  It stopped Webb’s momentum, and he grunted in pain. His body was spread across the desk as Warwick twisted sideways with Elizabeth still in his grip. Warwick brought the hand with the grenade around in front of her, which left his left hand free to pull the pin from the grenade.

  It was a small sound. A slight tick of metal against metal.

  A sound that seemed as large as the impact of a freight train.

  Warwick dropped the pin as everyone froze. Including Webb on the top of the desk.

  “It’s given me great satisfaction over the years,” Warwick said in a conversational tone, “knowing I’ve had a live grenade to use any time I wanted to. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to lob it into a crowd of idiotic journalists.”

  Elizabeth was choking.

  “I’ll ease off the pressure,” he told her, “but if you try anything, I’ll crush your throat. Understand?”

  Elizabeth grunted and he gave her some air. Then he looked at Webb.

  “Get off the desk. You look ridiculous there.”

  Webb felt ridiculous too, as he rolled over sideways to land on his feet at the far edge.

  “Now,” Warwick told them, “first tell me I’ll never get away with this.”

  “We came in while you were gone for lunch and bugged your office,” Bowden said. “This meeting was set up so you’d incriminate yourself. I’d say you’ve done a good job of that. We’ve got our guys waiting in the hallway.”

  “Doesn’t that feel better?” Warwick said to Bowden. “Elizabeth and I are going for a walk. It’s nice that the office is bugged. Whoever is listening in on this will know that as long as I’ve got a good grip on the grenade, she’s safe. If something happens to me and I drop it, she’ll die with me. So if you have snipers in place, they won’t do any good. She’s going to stay with me until both of us are away from the office. I want a cab waiting on the street for us, and she’s going to stay with me until I’m on my private jet.”

  Webb thought he understood the danger of the grenade, but it wasn’t until he looked it up later that he found out how an armed grenade goes off, second by second.

  Squeeze the strike lever against the grenade. Pull the pin. Throw the grenade. The spring-loaded lever pops away from the body of the grenade. As the lever pops away, it throws the striker down on a percussion cap inside the grenade, throwing a tiny spark. The spark ignites a slow-burning fuse. Four seconds later, the delay material burns through. Detonator explodes. The primary explosion of the detonator sets off a secondary, much larger explosion around the sides of the grenade. The fragmented pieces of the body of the grenade create a shower of shrapnel moving at the speed of bullets, an outward-expanding ball of death like a shotgun blast.

  Elizabeth either didn’t know about this or was too mad to care. And, as Webb would also find out later, she’d been taking self-defense lessons.

  She wasn’t a small woman, and with a backward punch that barely missed her right ear, she popped Warwick in the nose with the square of her knuckles. At the same time, she stomped down with her heel on his instep. Any crunch of the small bones in Warwick’s foot was lost in a howl of pain as blood spurted from his nose.

  He lost his grip on her neck, and she turned around and kneed him in the groin.

  The grenade rolled loose. To Webb’s feet.

  A dozen thoughts ripped through his mind: Throw it out the window. No, what if the glass doesn’t break? No, what if the glass breaks and it explodes on the sidewalk and kills
people outside on the street? Okay then. Jump on it. Die a hero. No, who wants to die? How about shove Warwick on it so that his body takes the explosion? Yes! Hang on—no, that would be murder.

  All those thoughts took maybe two seconds to process, in a blur where Webb was going more on instinct than consideration. But there he was, holding a live grenade in his right hand, with Bowden and Lockewood diving for cover.

  Corner, he thought. Filing cabinet.

  Webb took two steps and rolled the grenade across the top of the filing cabinet; it fell into the corner behind the cabinet. Then he dove behind the desk, where Bowden and Lockewood were already piled on each other. It was a soft landing, with Bowden taking most of it.

  Everyone decided later that the filing cabinet probably would have been thick enough to absorb the blast. Filled with papers, it would have been like a metal-encased barrier with the equivalent of dozens of telephone books serving as padding. Everyone decided later that Webb had reacted superbly under the circumstances. And that he would have been a hero.

  Except the seconds ticked by. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight…

  Without a blast.

  Webb closed his eyes and held them closed. It felt great to be alive. Really, really great. With that realization, he felt some of his internal darkness slide away. He opened his eyes again. From his position on top of Bowden’s body, Webb saw that Warwick was lying on his stomach on the floor, moaning, one hand on his nose, his other hand clutching his groin.

  The grenade had not exploded. Elizabeth kicked Warwick in the butt. Hard. Enough to change the moan to a yelp.

  “I’ve always wanted to do that,” she said.

  Then she glared at Webb and Bowden and Lockewood as they untangled themselves and pushed themselves to their feet.

  “Fools,” she said. “Buying into his bluff like that. The jerk has never spoken a word of truth in his life, so why believe him about the grenade? And even he’s not stupid enough to keep a live grenade in his office. Not when children come in all the time for photo opportunities.”