Murder at the Pentagon

by Margaret Truman

  Her mind was so clotted with what she’d learned about Reich and his “mechanic” that she had trouble concentrating on the road and drove to Bolling in a fugue state.

  As she walked into her BOQ, the phone rang. She looked at the digital numbers on her answering machine that indicated the number of calls recorded. There were nine, including three from that morning. She waited until the obligatory four rings had sounded. The machine went into action, giving out her message. Then, through the speaker, came a male voice.

  “I’m trying to reach Major Margit Falk. This is Sergeant Davis. It’s important that I …”

  She yanked the receiver out of its cradle. “This is Major Falk. You’re the one who called my base locator and told me Captain Cobol wanted to see me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “But there is no Sergeant Davis at McNair Detention Center.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I know that. Davis is not my real name.”

  “Then what the hell is your real name?” she snapped.

  “Ma’am, I’m not looking for any trouble. That’s why I’m using a false name. I was a friend of Bob’s. We were—we were close once.”

  “Look,” Margit said, unable to put the reins on her cumulative frustration and anger. “Let’s skip the euphemisms. You say you were close. Do you mean you had a homosexual relationship with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “You delivered that note to my BOQ?”

  “Right.”

  Margit sat in a chair and wished she had a cigarette to light. She hadn’t smoked since high school, but she now understood the appeal. She said, “Okay, I’ve had enough of all the games. Why are you calling? What do you want to tell me?”

  “That Bob—Captain Cobol—was set up to take the blame for the murder of Joycelen.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He told me.”

  “Who set him up?” she asked.

  “The CIA. Elements within the CIA, as he put it.”

  “Could he prove it?”

  “No. He said they’d given him last-minute duty at the Pentagon that Saturday morning to put him in place at the scene of the murder.”

  “Who put him there? Name!”

  “He said Major Mucci made the change on the roster.”

  “Was he alleging that Mucci killed Joycelen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, Sergeant Davis, or whoever you are, I’m a little tired of hearing ‘He said,’ and, ‘He told me’ without attribution. You’re assigned to the detention center?”

  There was a pause.

  “Did you hear me?” she asked.

  “I was. I’m leaving the service.”

  “Why?”

  “Reg Thirteen-Thirty-Two. They don’t like us to dishonor the uniform.” There was, at once, sadness and anger in his voice.

  “Can we meet? After you’re discharged? When will that be?”

  “Tomorrow. They gave me a choice. Get out nice and quiet, or face a court-martial. Who needs that?”

  “Tell me how I can reach you,” she said.

  “I’ll call you again.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Bob told me you were okay, a stand-up lady. He said he trusted you.”

  She felt a small lump form in her throat, and talked through it. “Were you there when he hanged himself?”

  “Major Falk, he didn’t hang himself. They hanged him.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Did I see it? No. They sent a medic in the day before, who shot him full of something. He slept nearly twenty-four hours. Then they found him with a sash around his neck. No way!”

  “Thanks for calling,” she said. “Call me again.”

  She listened to her other messages. They were all from reporters wanting to follow up on the accident. Her fifteen minutes of fame. She could do without it.

  She adjusted the shower as hot as she could stand it and stood beneath the sharp needles of water in the feeble hope that it would cleanse her of everything that had happened in her life recently.

  It didn’t.

  Wrapped in a robe, she sat at her desk, pulled out a yellow legal pad and pen from a drawer, and wrote:

  Foxboro—Tells me we sold nuclear weapons to an Arab dictator to boost military budget. Bagman for Wishengrad with Joycelen. Wants me to spy for him in Pentagon. No thanks.

  Reich—Orders chopper I am scheduled to fly. Has a Company mechanic work on it before I go up. Malfunction. Reich was Cobol’s supervisor at CIA. Let him off the hook when discovered he was gay. Goes undercover. Surfaces just when I’m about to fly. Come on!

  Monroney—Says he has to talk to me. Tells me it’s important. Tells me I’m stepping on big toes. Where did he hear that? What does he want to say to me? Best way to find out is to let him say it.

  Mucci—Changed duty roster to make sure Cobol was in Pentagon morning of Joycelen murder. Sour person. Would do anything he was ordered to do. Good dancer. Creep!

  All the above—Foxboro exception, but barely—tied up with military. What about civilians? Christa Wren? No. Doesn’t have the resources to have me followed. Tony said car was government-issue. Still, best motive for murder is personal. Passion. Jealousy. Fed up with being abused? Can’t blame her.

  What about Joycelen?—Selling secrets to Wishengrad committee. Selling bigger secrets about nuclear weapons, if I can believe Jeff. I don’t. Joycelen. A brilliant whore? Or a dedicated American? Fed up with waste and excess? Did we give bomb to Arab? Enough to turn Joycelen? If so, he had redeeming qualities.

  She stared at what she’d written, then picked up the phone. Mac Smith answered on the first ring.

  “I just heard,” he said, excitement in his voice. “They had a piece on TV about a chopper coming down in the Reflecting Pool, and there you were. Are you all right?”

  “Physically, I’m fine,” she said. “It was hairy, but the only real damage was to the chopper, and to my ego. I got your message this morning. Sorry I didn’t return the call. I was here, but didn’t feel like picking up for anyone. Even you.”

  “The beauty of answering machines,” he said. “I’m not offended. I’ve done it myself. More than once.”

  “I have to see you.”

  “Because of the accident?”

  “Because I need to talk to somebody about what I’ve experienced the past few days. I can’t think of anybody better able to sort things out for me.”

  “I’m easily flattered.”

  “Not flattery. Haven’t you heard it gets you nowhere? Any chance of us going to dinner tonight? My treat.”

  “Annabel and I were just talking about going out. As usual, we have conflicting viewpoints about where to go. You can arbitrate.”

  “A place quiet, private, and without ears. Some sloppy restaurants suffer from bugs. In D.C., building permits automatically call for bugs in every light fixture.”

  “I used to think the same thing when I was trying cases in this town. The wrong people always seemed to know what was going on before the right people did. You’ve answered the question about where to have dinner. Right here at Chez Smith. No microphones in the light fixtures, although I can’t vouch for Rufus. Big ears. Can you head over now?”

  “On my way.”

  The delivery boy from the American Cafe, who carried what would be their dinner that night, arrived at Smith’s house as Margit walked up the street. “Give it to me,” she said, reaching in her purse and handing him money. “Keep the change.”

  Annabel answered the door, looked at the bags in Margit’s arms with AMERICAN CAFE printed on them, and said, “Moonlighting?”

  “The way things are going, I might consider it as a full-time career.”

  They spread the food on the kitchen table. Smith said, “Feel like talking about the accident?”

  “Sure.” She replayed it for them, concluding with the overheard conversation about Major Wayne Reich, reminding them that he’d been Cobol’s supervis
or at the CIA and had given Cobol a break when his homosexuality had been discovered.

  “What do you make of that?” Smith asked.

  “Reich brought along his own mechanic, who, according to the guys at Ops, checked out the one I flew.”

  “Do you think this mechanic deliberately tampered with it?” Annabel asked. Her wide eyes reflected her fear for Margit.

  “I’ll know more about that after they tear down the chopper and see what caused the tail rotor to have a life of its own. Then again, maybe they won’t give out the straight scoop, at least to me.”

  Smith asked, “Any other reasons to think the accident resulted from a deliberate act?”

  “No. Maybe yes.” She told them about her evening with Foxboro, and his claim that the Pentagon—at least a unit within it—had provided the bomb to the Mideast madman.

  She shifted to Monroney. “He’s a colonel at the Pentagon. We were stationed together in Panama and—we were close for a while. Anyway, he told me at the dinner-dance last night that he had to talk to me because he’d heard I’d been stepping on big toes. That was the way he put it to me.”

  “And?” Smith said.

  Margit continued. “A young lieutenant named Lanning who’d always been friendly—the one who found out for me who switched the duty roster to place Cobol at the Joycelen murder scene that morning, and who told me that the ‘HP-5’ designation on Cobol’s personnel file was top secret—gave me the cold shoulder at the dance. All I can figure is that he was told to stay clear of me.”

  “Could be,” Smith said. “You damn near died today. Anything more to support our worry that somebody deliberately caused it?”

  “Maybe there is,” she said. “I got a call before I came here. From a Sergeant Davis. That isn’t his real name, but he’s the one who called me the night Cobol supposedly hanged himself, and who delivered the note to me.” She described the conversation.

  Annabel, who’d left the room for a fresh supply of napkins, rejoined them. “Have you told Margit what Tony found out about Dr. Half in New York?”

  “I’ll take care of that now.” He said to Margit, “Tony couldn’t be here tonight, but I said we’d call him so that he could fill you in.” He dialed Buffolino’s number. The erstwhile D.C. cop came on the line. Smith handed the phone to Margit.

  “I didn’t come up with much,” Buffolino said. “What I did find out is that this Marcus Half is a controversial guy.” He laughed. “So what? You work for the CIA, you gotta be controversial.”

  “Wait a minute,” Margit said. “Half is a CIA psychiatrist?”

  “Not exactly. The way my friend tells me, the CIA’s got all kinds a’ civilian doctors cleared to treat agents. My friend says that if you’re an agent who knows secrets, and you have to go under the knife for an appendix or somethin’, the surgeon doin’ the cutting has gotta be cleared. And there’s another spook in the operating room to hear what you say while you’re out.”

  Margit knew that Cobol had been sent by the CIA to Marcus Half in New York, at least according to Cobol’s mother. Flo Cobol’s assumption was that before her son could be given his sensitive assignment, his psychological stability had to be determined.

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  “Well, this Dr. Half has made a pretty good name for himself in hypnosis. Lemme see. I made notes. Oh, yeah. Half didn’t invent the thing he uses—that was another shrink named Spiegel, my friend says—but Half is one of the gurus, at least where the CIA is concerned.”

  “What is this thing you’re talking about?” Margit asked.

  “Lemme see. Right. He uses a thing called the Hypnotic Induction Profile. The way I get it, you test people to see how hypnotizable they are. It’s like a chart. If you come up a ‘five,’ you’re a real patsy for a hypnotist. If you’re like a one, or a two, there ain’t nobody can make you take your clothes off.”

  “I see,” said Margit.

  HP-5, she thought. Could that be what the handwritten notation on Cobol’s personnel file had meant? Cobol’s hypnotic profile, as determined by visits to Dr. Half in New York? Was Cobol a “five” on the scale?

  “This is more interesting than you imagine, Tony. Anything else?”

  “Not really, Major, except that Half was in the news a couple a’ years ago. Maybe you remember. I never noticed. A CIA agent who was cracking up came to New York to see him, and ended up jumping out his hotel window.”

  “I do remember it,” Margit said.

  “My source brought me some articles about Half. He was accused of being part of a group of doctors playin’ around with trying to control people’s minds with drugs and hypnosis and crap like that. I don’t think anybody ever proved anything, but that’s what the stories said.”

  Margit nodded at Mac and Annabel. She said to Buffolino, “Good work, Tony. I’m impressed.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He laughed. “I wish my wife was. Oh, by the way. I checked out Joycelen’s two ex-wives. They hated his guts, but both have solid alibis. Well, got to run. Say hello to the professor and that gorgeous woman who was dumb enough to marry him.”

  Margit cracked her first smile since arriving. “I might not pass that comment along,” she said. “Thanks again. My best to your wife.”

  She told Smith and Annabel what Buffolino had said—excluding his final comment.

  “What do you make of it?” Smith asked. “If your thesis is correct—that the ‘HP-5’ on Cobol’s record indicates he was highly suggestible—do you think it played a role in his being accused of murdering Joycelen?”

  “It could, couldn’t it?” Margit said. “Cobol claimed to his friend, this Sergeant Davis who isn’t Sergeant Davis, that he’d been set up. He said the same thing in the note to me. I don’t know anything about hypnotism. Would it be possible to program him to take the rap?”

  “I thought he proclaimed his innocence to you,” Annabel said.

  “He did. How perfect is hypno-programming? Maybe you can get someone to act against their basic nature and morals through hypnosis, but when it comes down to facing a firing squad, the effect might wear off. I don’t know. I remember a psych professor talking about it. He said you don’t tell someone under hypnosis to do something wrong. You change the visual, is the way he put it. You don’t tell a loving husband to shoot his wife. But if the husband is highly hypnotizable, you can convince him that his wife is a raging killer bear when she comes through the door. Same thing with that old schooldays rumor that boys could hypnotize a girl to take off her clothes. She won’t do it—unless she’s told under hypnosis that she’s alone in a room, and it’s become unbearably hot in that room.”

  Margit slapped her hands against her thighs and let out a stream of exasperation. She said with energy, “That’s the problem with this whole thing. All kinds of tantalizing bits of information, but never enough to know anything for certain.”

  “What’s next?” Smith asked.

  Margit stood defiantly, hands on her hips. “I want to lay this out on the table for the right people.”

  “Who are the right people?” Annabel asked.

  “I can start with my boss, Colonel Bellis.”

  “Margit, do you think that’s wise?” Smith asked. “Maybe we should wait until you and Tony come up with more tangible information.”

  “I don’t want to wait. I can’t wait. I’ve been told I was thrown to the wolves by being assigned to defend Cobol, a sacrificial lamb. I was almost killed today because—and I know I can’t prove it—because somebody played with the helicopter I was flying, somebody who knew I was scheduled to fly. I have a boyfriend—strike that! former boyfriend—who wants me to spy for him and his senator to help prove what he claims was a sellout of this country by my own people. Some of these people have been following me day and night. I’m snubbed by a lieutenant who, until last night, kept stumbling over himself to be close to me. I’m almost splashed all over D.C. concrete. And I get this veiled warning about ‘stepping on toes.’ No. I t
hink somebody owes me an explanation, and I intend to ask for it. I’m not going to …”

  She fought emotions that threatened to overwhelm her, her fists clenched at her sides. “They won’t do to me what they did to my father.”

  32

  Helen Matthei, Bellis’s administrative assistant, looked up as Margit entered the colonel’s reception area at eight-thirty the following morning. “Good morning, Major Falk,” she said in her usual cheery tone.

  “Good morning, Helen. Is the colonel in?”

  “No.” She raised her eyebrows. “Called to a last-minute series of meetings. Which gives me a chance to catch up on those things I never seem to when he’s around.”

  “When is he expected back?” Margit asked.

  “Not until five.” Helen saw the disappointment in Margit’s face. “Anything I can do for you?” she asked.

  Margit said, “I really need to see him. It’s important. Could you pencil me in at the end of the day?”

  “I don’t know what his schedule is when he gets back, but I’ll leave a great big note on his desk.”

  “Thanks, Helen. I appreciate it.”

  “Glad to see you in one piece this morning,” Helen said. “That was some near miss.”

  “But only a near miss. Could have been worse. Thanks again. I’ll be in my office all day.”

  Had she lingered a few minutes more, she would have been there when Bellis called. Helen told her boss that Major Falk urgently wanted to meet with him, and that she’d told her he would be back at five. “I damn well want to see her, too,” he said. “Make it six.”

  After receiving Helen’s call confirming the six o’clock meeting, Margit hunkered down and tried to get back into the Project Safekeep files. It was difficult, not only because her thoughts were elsewhere, but because she now knew of the investigation. Would it involve her? Not likely. She hadn’t been on the project long enough to know anything, at least officially.

  Each time the phone rang, she thought it might be Jeff. Her thoughts were ambivalent. On the one hand, she wanted him to call and apologize—and mean it. On the other hand, the more pragmatic, and certainly wiser, side of her said that it was over, and that she was better for it.