The Line bo-2

by Bob Mayer

  They’d been broken, some swiftly, some more slowly, depending on the strength of character each individual brought on R Day. By the end of the first day each new cadet had received a hair cut, been put in uniform, and marched in formation to Trophy Point where they’d sworn their oath of allegiance to the United States. By that time, half of them would have marched in step into the Hudson if told to do so, they were so disoriented. And instead of backing off, the pressure had increased through the years at the Academy until what resulted was a “graduate,” able to recite MacArthur’s duty-honor-country speech and the number and weight of the links in the Great Chain.

  But they were not only supposed to be able to recite facts. Trace knew. They were supposed live Duty-Honor Country And she had tried as best she could for thirteen years in the Army. But something had gone wrong, badly wrong.

  Trace curled her fingers around the rope blocking off the room and tried to remember who she was before she arrived at the Academy.

  Because she now realized she no longer was who she had been when she’d graduated. And since her four years at the Academy had taken her previous life from her, she felt totally empty and drained.

  Tears flowed for the second time in twenty-four hours, but these were not tears of anger, but tears of profound loss for the idealistic seventeen-year-old girl who had walked into a meat grinder in 1978 and seventeen years later finally realized she had gained nothing and lost everything.

  From the visitor center it was only 200 yards to the main gate of the Academy grounds proper. As Trace drove to the gate, she wasn’t surprised when the military policewoman on duty waved her through despite the fact she had no Department of Defense decal on the windshield of the rental allowing access to the post. Because it was such a tourist attraction. West Point was an “open” post, meaning that anyone could enter.

  Behind Trace, the MP’s head swiveled and noted the license tag. The MP dashed inside the small building that stood in the middle of the gate and picked up the phone.

  She dialed the duty NCO at the Provost Marshall’s office.

  On the other side of post, the duty NCO put down the phone and looked in the instruction binder he was issued when coming on duty. A new piece of paper had been paper-clipped to the front of it. The description of Trace’s car and its license tag number was there, with orders to be on the lookout and to report it if spotted to the phone number listed. The NCO noted that since the phone number had only five digits, it had to be on-post. He dialed and it was picked up on the first ring.

  “Major Quincy.”

  “Sir, this is Sergeant Taylor at the Provost Marshall’s office. We’ve spotted that red Beretta coming through Thayer Gate.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Not more than a minute. Do you want me to alert my patrols?”

  “Negative,” the major said.

  “Just order your people on patrol to look for it. If it’s spotted, your people are not to approach but simply to keep the car under observation and report to. you. You will immediately give me a call.

  Is that clear, sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I say again, you are only to report back to me. Your people are not to approach the vehicle or alarm the driver in any way.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The phone went dead. Sergeant Taylor was curious and also somewhat irritated with the officer’s attitude. He pulled out the reverse directory phone listing for West Point and looked up the number he had just called, wondering what office he had talked to. The five digits were listed under the office of the superintendent.

  Taylor’s irritation disappeared. Whatever was going on was at the highest levels possible at the Academy, and one thing Taylor had learned after three years of duty at the Academy: there was the law, then there was the super intendant law, and the second one had overuled the first one on more than one occasion in Taylor’s experience. He remembered the time an MP had caught a pair of male cadets, naked and in a rather awkward carnal position up at Redoubt Number 4. The two cadets had been gone from the Academy the very next day and the MP shipped off to Korea with orders to keep his mouth shut. The story never made the blotter report or the news and that was the way West Point wanted it.

  In the same manner suicides among the Corps of Cadets were totally blanketed with secrecy along with drunken accidents by senior cadets in their shiny new cars. Avoiding negative publicity was more important than anything else, even the law. Taylor wondered what the driver of the Beretta had done to draw the attention of the superintendant’s office.

  In fact, he wondered so hard about it that it reminded him of something else that the Provost Office sergeant major had told him and he picked up the phone and made another call.

  Trace was surprised by the number of cars going onto the post this early on a Sunday morning in front of her.

  She was part of a line of a dozen or so vehicles. Trace accelerated through onto Thayer Road, passing the Thayer Hotel on the right and Buffalo Soldier Field to her left. At the end of Buffalo Soldier Field, she came to a stop sign.

  The road to the right went down to the river, 200 feet below.

  Straight ahead was the cadet area, and to the left, the road wound its way up to Michie Stadium and Lusk Reservoir and the various housing areas.

  A small temporary sign indicated going to the left for the Scout Jamboree at Target Hill Field, and the other cars all turned in the direction, which helped explain the unusual amount of traffic. Trace went straight, deciding to go around the Plain before heading toward the cemetery. A low stone wall and concrete walk was on her right. As a pair of cadets jogged by. Trace thought of the hundreds of times she had made the run out to Thayer Gate and back from the barracks, a round trip of about two miles.

  Officers’ quarters crowded the hill to her left and then she came to a fork in the road. Straight ahead, the road dipped down, running between Mahan Hall and Thayer Hall. To the left, the road passed between the cadet barracks and the academic buildings. Trace turned left and very slowly drove by. Sunday morning was when the Academy was at its least active, and there was little sign of life as she passed New South Barracks, her home for her first two years. Not for the first time she wondered what sadistic mind had decided to cover every building with gray stone.

  Certainly not the most inspiring building material and with the current overcast sky, one that was sure to dampen even the most buoyant heart.

  Bartlett Hall, home to the hard sciences taught at the Academy, was on the right while old Pershing Barracks, still standing from the days of MacArthur, was to her left.

  It was there that Trace got her first real surprise on the grounds. The road, which used to continue straight ahead and go around the Plain, was gone. The Plain had been expanded since her time, and where the road had been there was now only smoothly cut grass. Her only option was to turn to the right and go by the library. Trace stopped the car, glancing in her rear-view mirror to make sure no one was behind her.

  She stared out at the green surface of the parade field, remembering sweating out there in the fierce summer sun, learning to march. About the only good memory she had of the Plain was her final parade just prior to graduation when she finally could believe that she would be out of the Academy after four long years, Trace continued’on, her mind and heart overwhelmed with memories. She had a job to do, but she found it difficult to not pluck at the scar tissue that surrounded her core. Whether positive or negative, the Academy was a part of her life.

  What she had learned after years of active duty and more recently, the revelations about The Line, still couldn’t totally eradicate the four years spent at her “Rockbound Highland Home.”

  Trace was surprised to hear the distant chatter of helicopter blades and she twisted her head to watch an aging Huey helicopter fly by, then dip down over the horizon in the direction of the river on the north side of the Academy.

  The road curved around, following the contour of the Plain, overlookin
g the Hudson River below. Trophy Point and Battle Monument went by on the right and Trace was reminded of the chapter in her manuscript that had started this whole mess.

  Old houses that were quarters for the permanent faculty at West Point, the heads of each department, lined the road to her left. She wondered which one Colonel Hooker had lived in during his long tenure as head of the history department, The entrance to the cemetery, directly across the street from the fire department, appeared on her right. The old cadet chapel had been transplanted here in 1910, stone by stone, after the present chapel had been built, and stood just inside the gate.

  Trace went past the entrance to the cemetery and continued to the post exchange parking lot. The cemetery was now off to her right, shielded from the parking lot by a line of eight-foot-high trees. Trace parked and sat still for a few minutes, collecting her thoughts. The PX wasn’t open yet.

  That was obvious from the fact there were no other cars in the lot. The post gas station was directly ahead and it too wasn’t open.

  Trace remembered Boomer’s statement about being paranoid, but she felt there was no reason why she couldn’t at least go into the cemetery and find out exactly where Custer was buried. Despite her time at the Academy, she had never entered the cemetery; she’d never had reason to.

  Trace left the car and walked through a gap in the trees at the edge of the parking lot. Among the grave markers in front of her, one immediately stood out: a massive concrete pyramid, at least twenty feet high. She followed the gravel road around, checking out the stones as she went. Many of the markers were relatively new, within the last several decades, so she knew she had to get to the older section of the graveyard.

  Passing the pyramid, which on the other side showed itself to be a mausoleum, she came upon another elaborate marker, this one consisting of several columns holding up a roof with an eagle on top. She recognized the name: Major General Daniel Butterfield, born October 31, 1831, died July 17, 1901. Butterfield, a graduate, was the man who had written the traditional military bugle call Taps among many other accomplishments in his life.

  Trace knew she was getting closer to Custer as the markers got older. A large tree hung over an obelisk at the edge of the next row of graves.

  A small placard was nailed high up on the tree and Trace walked up and read it: fag us sylvatica, pendula, a weeping beech,” it said, identifying the tree. Trace walked around the tree and looked to see over whose grave it wept. The bronze plaque on the base of the obelisk told all:

  GEORGE A. CUSTER LT. COL 7TH CAVALRY BVT. MAJ. GENL. U.S. ARMY BORN DECEMBER 15TH 1839 HARRISON CO. OHIO KILLED WITH HIS ENTIRE COMMAND IN THE BATTLE OF LITTLE BIG HORN JUNE 23RD 1673

  Trace pulled out the letter and looked. It said the diary was to the left of the base of the monument, between Custer’s and his wife’s grave. But there was no grave to the left, just the weeping tree.

  Trace went around the obelisk, to the other side. A bronze buffalo head stuck out of the side facing the tree.

  On the far side, a soldier on a horse was emblazoned, along with the family name of Custer at the base. To the left, a long, stone grave marker read:

  ELIZABETH BACON WIFE OF GEORGE A. CUSTER, MAJOR GENERAL U.S.A.

  APRIL 8, 1842; APRIL 4, 1933.

  The top edge of Mrs. Custer’s marker was on line with the front edge of her husband’s. The diary lay in between.

  The cemetery was on a level with the Plain, a hundred feet above the Hudson River. A hundred and fifty feet from Custer’s grave, there was a low stone wall, then the heavily wooded ground on the other side precipitously descended down to Target Hill Field at river-level where Trace had spent many an afternoon playing soccer in intramurals. She could hear the descending whine of a helicopter engine coming from that direction; it must be the Huey that had flown by while she was driving around the Plain shutting down. The sewage treatment plant for the Academy was also down there, and the smell of the plant was well known to cadets because every time they had to take their two mile physical fitness test run, the course went out past the treatment plant and then back.

  Trace looked about in the immediate vicinity of the grave. The cemetery was empty, and this spot wasn’t visible from either the PX parking lot or the building that housed the caretaker of the cemetery.

  To the left of the Custers, Trace was interested to see the name Robert Anderson, the commander of Fort Sumter when it was fired upon at the beginning of the Civil War. She wondered who else that had been such an integral part of the country’s history was buried here, but now was not the time. The PX would be opening shortly, and she needed to go in there and get the equipment to uncover the diary.

  The doors to the PX were unlocked At exactly at eleven, and Trace was the third person in. She went to the back of the store where the four seasons section was and quickly found what she was looking for — a small hand spade that she could easily fit into the pocket of her coat. In hardware she picked up a measuring tape and took her purchases to the front. She was required to show her ID card before paying, then she made her way out into the parking lot.

  The weather was still cold and gray with a low overcast sky. Trace could hear distant cheers coming from the vicinity of the track and field stadium down at river-level below the cemetery, next to Target Hill Field. She passed her car and slipped between the trees into the cemetery.

  She walked directly to Custer’s grave.

  There was still no one about, so Trace kneeled in the hard earth and pulled out the tape measure. Two feet to the left, on line with the front of the gravestone. She dug the point of the spade into the earth and began digging. She was grateful the ground wasn’t frozen or else it would have required dynamite to make any sort of penetration. Trace felt very exposed as she continued to dig and kept glancing about, keeping an eye out.

  In the PX parking lot an MP car pulled up to Trace’s rental car, noted the license tag, then drove away to park near the main PX itself. The MP in the car picked up his radio mike and called it in to Sergeant Taylor. Within four minutes a van pulled up, and a major — identified as Quincy by his nametag — and a young captain stepped out. The MP pointed out the car to them.

  Quincy glanced around, then pointed at the PX.

  “She must be inside.” He jabbed a finger at the MP.

  “You stay here and watch the car.” He grabbed the other officer.

  “Let’s go. Captain Isaac.” The two entered the PX and began a systematic search of the store.

  The spade hit something solid about ten inches down.

  Trace continued to excavate, adding to the small pile of dirt next to the hole. She brushed away with her fingers and exposed a red plastic surface. She carefully dug around, until she reached the edges — about ten inches long by eight wide. She pressed the point of the spade in along the sides, breaking the box free from the dirt. After four minutes, it came loose and she held in her hands a plastic box, the seams wrapped in duct tape. It was heavy, as if whatever it contained was solid and filled most of the space inside.

  “She’s not in here,” Captain Isaac said. They were standing at the checkout counters, having been through the entire store twice.

  Major Quincy looked out into the parking lot, noting the location of the car, and thinking furiously.

  “Could she be at the gas station?”

  Isaac shrugged.

  “Let’s check it out.”

  The two officers double-timed across the parking lot and after a brief look inside, insured that the object of their search wasn’t there.

  “Where the hell is she?” Quincy muttered.

  Isaac pointed.

  “The cemetery?” he guessed.

  “What would she be doing in there?” Quincy asked, moving before Isaac had a chance to answer. The two headed for the break in the trees.

  Trace shoved the dirt back into the hole, but the absence of the box left a depression there that would be noticeable to the first person passing by. She pulled her key c
hain out and flipped open the small knife attached to it and began cutting open the duct tape to see what was inside.

  “There she is!” a voice cried out.

  Trace looked up and she didn’t have to consider the situation very long. Two officers, their long black raincoats napping in the wind, were racing toward her. She tucked the box under her arm and ran in the opposite direction, straight for the wall enclosing the cemetery.

  She made it there with a fifty-meter lead on her pursuers. She looked down the rock-and-tree-strewn slope on the other side, unable to see the bottom. She knew it had to come out around Target Hill field, and she also knew that that was putting herself in a dead-end situation, but a glance over her shoulder convinced her that it was better than the one she was currently in. The two officers had drawn .45 caliber pistols from the pockets of their raincoat and the lead one — a major from the oak leaves on his collar — halted briefly and fired, the round cracking by. Trace threw herself over the wall and began scrambling downhill.

  Quincy and Isaac made it to the wall in time to see Trace disappear into the woods below.

  “Follow her!” Quincy ordered.

  “I’ll get the van and meet you there.” He turned and ran back to the PX parking lot.

  Trace cursed as she slipped on the steep slope. She dropped the box as she desperately grabbed with both hands for a low tree branch to arrest her fall. The box continued downslope on its own. Trace followed it at a slightly slower pace and reclaimed it when it lodged next to a small boulder.

  She could hear the yells from what must have been the scout jamboree at the stadium off to her far right. She glanced over her shoulder and couldn’t see any pursuit, but she assumed there had to, be. She didn’t know how they had found her. Maybe the damn checkout women in the PX were scanning IDS for all she knew. At this point it didn’t really matter.

  Trace tried to come up with a plan as she continued down. She knew that there was only one way out once she got to the bottom. Target Hill Field was a level area surrounded on two sides by the mountains and on the third by the Hudson. She would have to go to the right, past the sewage treatment plant. She also knew that whoever was after her also knew that and they could cut her off. She increased her pace, ignoring safety for speed.