“Tell me about your family,” she said after a few more moments of awkward silence.
Web sat back and put his hands behind his head, as he once more took several small breaths. Sixty-four beats a minute, Web, that’s all you need, man. Sixty-four smacks a minute. How hard can it be? He leaned forward. “Sure. No problem. I’m an only child. I was born in Georgia. We moved to Virginia when I was around six.”
“So who is the we here? Your mother and father?”
Web shook his head. “No, just me and my mother.”
“And your father?”
“He didn’t come. The state wanted to keep him awhile longer.”
“Was he employed with the government?”
“You could say that. He was in prison.”
“What happened to him?”
“Don’t know.”
“Weren’t you curious?”
“If I had been, I would have satisfied that curiosity.”
“All right. And so you came to Virginia. What then?”
“My mother remarried.”
“And your relationship with your stepfather?”
“Fine.”
Claire said nothing, apparently waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, she said, “Tell me about your relationship with your mother.”
“She’s been dead nine months now, so we don’t have a relationship.”
“What was her cause of death?” She added, “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“The Big B.”
Claire looked confused. “You mean the Big C? Cancer?”
“No, I mean the Big B, booze.”
“You said you joined the FBI on a whim. Do you think it could have been more than that?”
Web shot her a quick glance. “You mean, did I become a cop because my real father was a crook?”
Claire smiled. “You’re good at this.”
“I don’t know why I’m still alive, Claire,” Web said quietly. “By all rights I should be dead along with my team. It’s driving me crazy. I didn’t want to be the sole survivor.”
Claire’s smile quickly faded. “That sounds important. Let’s talk about that.”
Web’s hands ground against each other. Then he stood and looked out the window. “This is all confidential, right?”
“Yes,” Claire said. “Absolutely.”
He sat back down. “I went into the alley. I’m hauling butt with my team, we’re almost at the breach point and then . . . and then—” He stopped.
“And then I, shit, I froze. I couldn’t move. I don’t know what the hell happened. My team went out into that courtyard and I couldn’t. Then I finally get going and it feels like I weigh a thousand pounds, like my feet were in concrete blocks. And I dropped, because I couldn’t keep myself up. I just went down. And then—” He stopped, a hand went to his face, not the damaged side, and he pushed hard there, as though keeping things that wanted to come out from doing so. “And then the guns started. And I lived. I lived, and none of my team did.”
The pen sat idle in Claire’s hand as she looked at him.
“It’s okay, Web, you need to get this out.”
“That’s it! What in the hell can I add to that? I freaked out. I’m a damn coward!”
She spoke very calmly and precisely. “Web, I understand that this is extremely difficult to discuss, but I’d like you to go over the exact events leading up to you ‘freezing,’ as you referred to it. As accurately as you can remember. That might be very important.”
Web went through the details with her, starting from the moment the Chevy doors popped open to the point where he couldn’t do his job, where he had watched his friends die. When he had finished he felt totally numb, as though he had given away his soul as well as his pitiful story.
“It must have felt paralyzing,” she said. “I’m wondering whether you felt any earlier symptoms before it hit you so completely. Something like a drastic pulse change, rapid breathing, a feeling of dread, cold sweats, dry mouth?”
Web thought about this for a bit as he again went over in his mind every step he had taken. He started to shake his head in answering no, but then he said, “There was a kid in the alley.” He wasn’t about to reveal to Claire Daniels the importance that Kevin Westbrook was taking in the investigation; however, there was something that he could tell her. “When we passed him he said something. Something really odd. I remembered his voice sounded like an old man’s in some ways. You could tell from his appearance that life had not been exactly kind to him.”
“You don’t remember what he said?”
Web shook his head. “I’m drawing a blank on that, but it was something weird.”
“But what he said made you feel something, something beyond the usual pity or sympathy?”
“Look, Dr. Daniels—”
“Please, call me Claire.”
“Okay, Claire, I’m not looking to make myself out to be a saint. With my job I go into some real hellholes. I try not to think about all the other things, like the kids.”
“It sounds as though if you thought that way you wouldn’t be able to do your work.”
Web shot a glance at her. “Is that what you think might have happened to me? I see the kid and it snapped something in my brain?”
“It’s possible, Web. Shell shock, post-traumatic stress syndrome that induces physical paralysis along with a whole host of other physical debilitations. It happens more often than people think. The stress of combat is unique.”
“But nothing had happened yet. Not one shot fired.”
“You’ve been doing this for many years, Web; it can all accumulate inside you and the effect of that accumulation can manifest itself at the most inopportune moments and in the most unfortunate ways. You aren’t the first person to go into battle of sorts and have that kind of reaction.”
“Well, it’s the first time it’s happened to me,” Web said with an edge to his voice. “And my team had been through just as much as me, and none of them locked up.”
“Even though this was the first time it’s happened to you, Web, you have to understand that we’re all different. You can’t compare yourself to anyone else. It’s not fair to you.”
He pointed a finger at her. “Let me tell you what’s fair. What’s fair is me maybe making a difference that night. Maybe I could have done something, seen something that would have warned my guys, and maybe they’d still be living and I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you about why they’re not.”
“I understand that you’re angry and that life is often not fair. You’ve doubtless seen hundreds of examples of that. The point is how best for you to deal with what happened.”
“How exactly do you deal with something like this? It doesn’t get any worse than this.”
“I know it may seem hopeless, but it would be worse if you can’t work through your issues and move on with your life.”
“Life? Oh, yeah, that’s right, I guess I have something of a life left. You want to switch with me? I’ll give you a real deal.”
“Do you want to go back to HRT?” she asked flatly.
“Yes,” he said immediately.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m absolutely sure.”
“Then that’s a goal that we both can work toward.”
Web ran a hand up his thigh and stopped at the bulge of his pistol. “Do you really think that’s possible? I mean, at HRT if you can’t cut it mentally or physically, well, then you’re gone.” Gone, he thought, from really the only place he had ever fit in.
“We can try, Web, that’s all we can do. But I’m pretty good at my job too. And I promise that I’ll do all I can to help you. I just need your cooperation.”
He looked squarely at her. “Okay, you’ve got it.”
“Is there anything particularly troubling in your life right now? Any especially stressful issues out of the usual?”
“Not really.”
“You mentioned that your mother had died recently.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about your relationship with her.”
“I would’ve done anything for her.”
“So I take that as you were very close to her?” Web hesitated for so long that Claire finally said, “Web, right now the absolute truth is important.”
“She had her problems. Her drinking, for one. And she hated what I do for a living.”
Claire’s gaze drifted again to where Web’s gun rested under his jacket. “Not so unusual for a mother. What you do is very dangerous.” She glanced at his face and then quickly looked down. Web, though, had noted it.
“It can be,” he said evenly, and turned the damaged side away from her; it was a movement he had grown so adept at he usually didn’t notice he was even doing it.
“I’m curious about something. What did you inherit from her? Did she leave you anything that means something to you?”
“She left me the house. I mean, she didn’t leave it to me, she didn’t have a will. Under the law it went to me.”
“Do you plan to live there?”
“Never!”
Claire jumped at his tone.
He said quickly but in a calmer tone, “I mean, I’ve got my own house. I don’t need hers.”
“I see.” Claire made a note and then seemed to consciously shift gears. “By the way, have you ever been married?”
Web shook his head. “Well, at least not in the conventional way.”
“What do you mean?”
“The other guys on my team all had families. I felt like I had a bunch of wives and kids through them.”
“So you were very close to your colleagues?”
“In our line of work, you tended to hang together. The better you knew each other, the better you worked together, and down the road that could save your life. Plus, they were just great guys. I liked being with them.” As soon as he finished saying this, the fire in his belly returned. Web jumped up and headed to the door.
“Where are you going?” an astonished Claire called after him. “We’ve just started. We have a lot more to talk about.”
Web paused at the door. “I’ve talked enough for now.”
He closed the door behind him, and Claire made no move to follow. She put her pad and pen down and stared after him.
9
At Arlington National Cemetery, Percy Bates walked from the visitors’ center up the paved road that led to the Custis-Lee House. After Robert E. Lee had chosen his native state of Virginia and leadership of the Confederate forces over a similar offer from the Stars and Stripes at the outset of the Civil War, the federal government had responded to this rebuff by confiscating Lee’s home. Anecdotal history stated that the Lincoln Administration had offered the property back to the Confederate general during the war. All he had to do was come and pay the back taxes. In person. Lee, of course, had not taken Lincoln up on the offer and his estate had been turned into what was now the country’s most prestigious national cemetery. That bit of history had always made the Michigan-born Bates smile, although the mansion was now a memorial of sorts to Lee and was popularly known as Arlington House.
Bates reached the front of Arlington House and looked out over what many considered the finest view in all of Washington and perhaps the country. From here, the entire capital city lay at your feet. Bates wondered if old Bobby Lee ever thought this as he got up each morning and looked out.
The cemetery covered over six hundred acres of grounds and was dominated by simple, uniform white headstones. There were also some very elaborate memorials to the dead, erected by survivors or other grateful parties; however, the sea of white headstones, which at the right angle created the illusion of snow-covered ground even in summer, was what most people remembered from their visit here. Arlington National was the final resting place for American soldiers killed while fighting for their country, five-star generals, an assassinated President, seven Supreme Court justices, explorers, famed minorities and many others who qualified to be interred at this national shrine. There were well over 200,000 dead buried here and that number increased at the rate of eighteen bodies every weekday.
Bates had come here numerous times. On several occasions he had attended funerals of friends and colleagues. Other times he had come as a tour guide of sorts when his family had company in town. A favorite thing to do was watch the changing of the guard by members of the U.S. Third Infantry, who maintained around-the-clock vigil over the Tombs of the Unknowns. Bates checked his watch. He would be just in time if he hurried.
As he arrived at the tombs area, Bates could see that the crowd was already gathering, mostly out-of-towners with their cameras and kids. The guard on duty was performing his excruciatingly precise routine of marching twenty-one steps, pausing for twenty-one seconds, switching his rifle to his other shoulder and then marching back along the same narrow path.
Bates had often wondered if the rifle the guards carried was even loaded. However, Bates believed that if anyone ever tried to pillage or defile one of the tombs, he would be met with a swift and painful response. If there was sacred ground for the military in this country, this was it. Arlington Cemetery ranked right up there with Pearl Harbor.
As the changing of the guard started and the crowd grew and moved in for their photo opportunities, Bates glanced across to his left and then started working his way through the rows of tourists and down the steps. The changing of the guard was an elaborate ceremony and would take some time to fully complete. The spectacle drew just about everyone in the cemetery, but not Percy Bates.
He walked around the large Memorial Amphitheater that was situated adjacent to the tombs area. Bates continued strolling, crossed over Memorial Drive and walked around the Challenger Space Shuttle Memorial. Then he turned back and entered the amphitheater. He walked down to the stage area with its large columns, pediments and balustrades; moved over to a wall there and pulled out a map of the cemetery, held it up and studied it.
The man was hidden from Bates’s or anyone else’s view. He had a pistol in a belt holster and one hand rested on its grip even as he drew nearer to where Bates was standing. He had shadowed Bates around most of the cemetery, making certain that the FBI agent was alone. He moved closer.
“Didn’t think you were going to show until you gave me the high sign back there,” said Bates. The map completely hid his face from whoever might be watching.
“Had to make sure conditions were right,” said Randall Cove. He remained in hiding behind a section of wall.
“I made sure I wasn’t followed.”
“Whatever any of us can do, somebody out there can do better.” “Can’t exactly argue with that. How come you always like to meet in a cemetery?”
“I like the peace and quiet. I rarely get it anywhere else.” Cove paused and then said, “I got set up.”
“I figured as much. But I’ve got six men dead and the seventh one is a question mark right now. Did your cover get blown from the inside? Instead of killing you, did they feed you bad stuff to set up HRT? I need details here, Randy.”
“I was in that damn building myself. Went in as a potential player with those folks and wanted to check out their operation. I saw desks, files, computers, geeks running around spouting numbers, cash, product, the whole nine yards. With my own eyes I saw it. I don’t call up you guys on something like that unless I’ve seen it for myself. I’m no rookie.”
“I know that. But that building had zip in it when we got there. Other than eight trashed machine guns.”
“Right. Trashed. Talk to me about London. You trust him?”
“As much as I trust anybody.”
“What’s his story? Why is he still kicking?”
“I don’t think he knows. He says he froze.”
“Damn good timing on that.”
“He shot those guns up. Saved a little kid in the process.”
“That’s a real special little kid. Kevin Westbrook.”
“So I know.”
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