KIA

by Thomas Holland

  “Think soes don’t cut it, Chief. And now we got us some sort of damn serial killer. Is that what we’ve got here at Campbell?” He sighed loudly and pinched the bridge of his nose. His body language suggested that he wasn’t finished speaking. “You think that incident over at Fort Knox is related?”

  Deveroux flicked a quick look at the floor and then brought his eyes up to face the general. “I have no physical evidence to connect the two, sir, but at the same time…at the same time, we got us two middle-aged Vietnamese men who both manage to get themselves a serious high-and-tight haircut. You ask me, I’d say, yes, sir, they’re connected. Surely are. Exactly how I can’t say, but they’re connected. Yes, sir.”

  “And your killer…is he on this installation? Is he one of ours?”

  “No way of knowin’, General, but my gut says, no. I don’t think he’s billeted here or on Knox either.”

  “Your gut?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s all I’ve got at this point.”

  General Anderson nodded slowly as he thought. “You say billeted…so you think he’s a green-suiter? Or was that a slip of the tongue?” he asked after a pause.

  “Slip, sir. No, sir, I have no reason to think he’s one of us. Not necessarily. Could be, certainly. Could just as soon not be.”

  “Why does your gut say he isn’t here?”

  Deveroux blew air into his cheeks, inflating them before slowly venting. “The distance mostly. We haven’t found anythin’ that links the two victims other than nationality. Neither had any family, and they don’t appear to have any business connections with each other. I’m still waitin’ on some word from the immigration folks about when they came to this country, from where…”

  “Chief, you’re aware that I asked for you to be assigned to this case personally.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Personally.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you know why?”

  Deveroux didn’t answer. No answer was expected. He waited.

  “You’re the man that brought down General Needley, that right?”

  “Sir,” Deveroux started to answer. “I…”

  Anderson held up a palm. “Tom Needley was a friend of mine. You aware of that?”

  Shuck Deveroux took a breath and held it, waiting for Anderson to continue. When he didn’t, Deveroux spoke. “General Needley hired and promoted his mistress to a high-rankin’ position in the government and defrauded the taxpayers of this country with bogus travel and expenses. He degraded the readiness of his command and wreaked havoc on the morale of his men.”

  “In your opinion.”

  “In fact, sir, and as bad as that may be, he showed a lack of integrity and character.”

  “And you have a zero tolerance for that, do you, Chief?”

  “I do, sir. Commanders are supposed to command, not their girlfriends.”

  Jim Anderson nodded slowly, his eyes on Deveroux. “Sounds like a job better suited to the inspector general’s office than CID.”

  “If it were as simple as a misuse of resources, yes, sir, you’d be correct, but General Needley’s actions endangered the lives of his men in Iraq. There’re two young men dead today. Kids that wanted nothin’ more than to be soldiers.”

  “You’re on record as saying that Tom Needley was responsible for their deaths.”

  “Yes, sir. I think you can blame General Needley—at least indirectly.”

  “But you couldn’t prove it.”

  Shuck Deveroux took another long breath. “I could.”

  “Say again.”

  “I could.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “The army didn’t.”

  The general leaned back in his chair and studied the CID agent. After a moment he smiled. “Taking down a well-connected general officer is not the best way to advance your career, Chief Deveroux.”

  Now Shuck smiled. The tension lifted. “You’re right about that, sir. Wife has made the same point on more than one occasion.”

  “But you did it anyway.”

  “Yes, sir. Didn’t have a choice. Look, sir, no disrespect, but I pulled two hardship tours without my family because of that case. I’m not much inclined to apologize.”

  “No one has asked you to, Chief.” Anderson paused. “Not me, anyhow. Must have been hard to leave your wife and kids. Boys, that right?”

  “Two, sir. Still fairly young. And yes, sir, it was hard.”

  Anderson nodded again. “Tom Needley put getting his oil changed above his duty to this country. If it’s any consolation, Chief, friend or no friend, he got off lighter than he deserved. My opinion.”

  “Thank you, sir. That’s the way I see it.”

  “But I believe I asked you a question. You know why I requested you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I asked for you because they say you’re the best we have. Are you, Chief Deveroux? Are you the best we have?”

  “Sir, I…”

  “Tell me, Chief, are you up to this or aren’t you?” There was a tempered edge to his voice that hadn’t been there when the conversation started, not malice as much as control.

  “To be honest, sir, I don’t know. This is big; bigger than anythin’ I’ve ever come by. Maybe too big. Maybe it’s time to call in some help here. The FBI maybe. I…I don’t really know.”

  General Anderson looked at Deveroux for several minutes without speaking, then he stood up and began walking behind his desk. Back and forth. He stopped and looked again at Deveroux. “I’ll answer my own question, Chief—if you won’t. I do know. I asked for you. You’re the horse I’m riding. We don’t need anybody to wash our laundry. Am I clear? Not the FBI. Not the fricking local police. Am I clear?”

  “Roger that.”

  “I hope I am. I better be. Now, I talked to General Proctor at Fort Knox this morning. He and I are in agreement. I also contacted your boss at Belvoir. We were at the Academy together. Called in some markers. We’re all on the same page of music. The two cases need one effort. One focus. Everyone’s comfortable with you—except for perhaps you, that is. Still…” He sat down and propped his elbows on his desk, interlacing his fingers under his chin. He paused again as he focused his thought before pressing on. His edge had softened. “I’m going to instruct Lieutenant Colonel Riggins to form a task force that will assume the responsibility for the investigations of both murders—the one at Fort Knox and the one here. It’ll be headquartered here. Belvoir’s blessed it. Full authority. Blank check. You’re to head up that task force, Chief Deveroux. You’re to get this monkey skinned, breaded, and pan-fried, and you’re to do it quickly. Whatever you need, you ask. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir, but…”

  “You will find the person who did this, and when you do, you will hold him still while I chainsaw his goddamn nuts off and serve them up on a salt cracker. We clear? I hope we’re clear on this. Nobody shits in my garden. Nobody.”

  “Roger that, sir. Sir?”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “Any guidance on who else will be on the task force?”

  The general smiled for the first time since the conversation had really started. “That’s your problem, Chief Deveroux. Dismissed.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Fort Campbell, Kentucky

  FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2008

  Shuck Deveroux was still completely lost. As best he could figure, the task force title was simply a way to formally acknowledge that he had jurisdiction for not one, but two murders, on not one, but two army installations. It was ironic that one of the biggest cases to drop in the CID’s lap since Jeffrey MacDonald, the biggest case in twenty years, certainly the biggest case in Deveroux’s career, came at a time when the office was understaffed and undermanned. Iraq and the War on Terror had siphoned off manning and resources like an open vein. The best that could be scrambled together on short notice were Dave Pagano, another agent named Jim Colvin, and a half dozen enlisted soldiers. More agents were on request, but
with the current priorities, the request was nothing more than a paper drill. In fact, Shuck knew that as important as this case was, if some leads didn’t start producing results soon, he was going to have a hard time holding on to the few men that he had.

  He looked at his watch. It was a little past sixteen hundred hours, and he was due in the general’s office again in less than an hour for what would be another encore performance of the “No, sir, General, I don’t have clue one, sir” show. At least he could now dilute the burden and say, “No, sir, General, the task force doesn’t have clue one.” There were two sides to every play on words.

  The task force had been active, even if it hadn’t produced much for the effort. Dave Pagano was kept busy shuttling back and forth to Fort Knox to coordinate the efforts there, while Colvin had shouldered through over three hundred interviews—somewhere in the vicinity of four hundred men were on the initial interview list—though none had proven the least bit useful. The enlisted men were gainfully occupied with the mounting administrative matters.

  Shuck’s desk was layered with large color photographs and scaled diagrams, all interleafed with one another. He’d been comparing the scene photos from the Patton Museum that had been sent over from Knox with those taken of the Buick down the road. There was an obvious connection between the two events; that was clear even before his contact at the INS had called. Deveroux didn’t remember a great deal from his junior class in basic statistics and probability, but he did know that if you put two middle-aged Vietnamese marbles, missing the tops of their heads, into a paper sack containing a couple of thousand black and white marbles, the odds of drawing just those two Vietnamese marbles back out of the bag were somewhere in the vicinity of one out of not-very-likely.

  And then there was the immigration and naturalization evidence.

  His INS contact had faxed him yesterday evening after work. It had taken several days and even more favors to search back that far, but it proved worth the wait. According to the immigration records, Mr. Ngon and Mr. Han had entered the United States on the same day, December 11, 1974, and through the same port of entry—Travis Air Force Base near Oakland.

  CHAPTER 22

  Thanh Lay Hamlet, East of Saigon, Republic of Vietnam

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1970

  The large, muscular body of ARVN Colonel Pham Van Minh spasmed twice, like a bluegill pulled onto a sunny dock; then he went absolutely still. The thumb-sized, copper-jacketed .45 slug had effectively removed the back of his head, and its sticky contents were now sprayed across the rear of the jeep like clumps of pinkish cottage cheese. Major Doan Minh Tuyen continued to sit, rock-still, in the rear seat, his eyes closed, the bright glistening clumps of Colonel Pham’s brain glued to his face and chest.

  The echo of the blast died away, but the ringing in Jimmy Lee Tenkiller’s ears didn’t. General Ngo Van Thu’s eyes had not left Tenkiller’s face. He didn’t even glance at the body of the man whose head he’d just remodeled, and he was still smiling as he eased the hammer down on the pistol. “Master Sergeant Tenkiller, now I will repeat myself. I believe you may have some items for me.”

  Tenkiller looked at the general and then at Major Doan Tuyen and then at the general. “You crazy sonofabitch,” was all that Jimmy Lee could think to say, and even then it came out as a broken whisper.

  “Perhaps this is so, Master Sergeant, I have heard this expression before, but also I am a man of limited patience. And I am now at my limit.” He took his eyes away from Tenkiller long enough to say something quickly and quietly in Vietnamese to the major. He then took hold of Tenkiller’s upper right arm, pinching it tightly and surprisingly hard for a man so slight, and led him away from the side of the jeep. “It is most unfortunate, the colonel’s sudden death. Yes, I think this is so. War, yes? And now I must give also the news to my sister.”

  The general saw the confusion on Tenkiller’s face. “You did not know, I see. Yes, Master Sergeant, Colonel Pham was my brother-in-law. We know each other since we were young schoolboys. Yes, it is sad. My youngest sister is now a widow, and I must tell her the bad information. Yes, this war is most unfortunate.” The general still held the pistol in one hand and Tenkiller’s arm in the other.

  “You crazy sonofabitch.” It was louder this time, more angry than awed.

  General Ngo Van Thu didn’t respond immediately. He had turned slightly and was watching Major Doan pull the body out of the jeep onto the ground. The major obviously was trying to touch the body as little as possible, but the late colonel’s uncooperative legs had wedged under the steering column in their death spasm, and the body was awkwardly cascading onto the ground, head down, like an enormous Slinky. Blood was everywhere. The general turned his attention back to Tenkiller.

  “It is unfortunate, and now you must decide what you are going to do.”

  Tenkiller pulled his arm free. “What, General? Are you going to shoot me too? Is that your plan, you bastard?”

  Ngo Thu smiled broadly as he removed his sunglasses. He looked down at the gun in his hand, his expression suggesting that he was surprised to find it still there. “You are my friend, Master Sergeant Tenkiller, my…good associate. Why would I wish to harm you…shoot you?”

  “Because you’re crazy…because I know too much. Because I just saw you murder your own goddamn brother-in-law, you crazy sonofabitch.”

  “Ahh.” General Ngo nodded slowly while he formulated his response. “You believe you have seen that?”

  “Of course I saw it.” Jimmy Lee Tenkiller sounded as wild as Ngo Thu was calm.

  “I am afraid you are mistaken, Master Sergeant. The heat, perhaps. No, my friend, that is not what happened. No. Major Doan and myself, so sadly, we saw you, Master Sergeant Tenkiller, kill Colonel Pham. We were without the power to stop you; you are a most violent man. And fast. You have yourself told me stories of your violence, have you not? And your speed, this is well known. So sad.” The general again turned his head slightly and looked at the progress Doan Tuyen was making with the body. “Yes. It was most unfortunate.”

  “Me? You’re out of your goddamn mind, General. No one is going to believe that.”

  “No? I think you are mistaken. They cannot but believe the evidence. There are witnesses,” he said, motioning to the major with a nod of his head. “And many other witnesses I can produce. Much evidence. And the gun is from your depot, is it not? Traceable? No, Sergeant Tenkiller, they will believe.”

  “Nobody’s gonna buy that. Why would I kill the colonel?”

  The general smiled again. “You are a wild Red Man, are you not? You have told me many stories of killing men and cutting their hairs off with your warrior’s tomahawk—have you not? You are a most violent man, I think, or do you boast too loudly?”

  “Those were just stories.”

  The general smiled.

  “Motive,” Tenkiller said. “Do you understand? Motive? I had no reason to. Without motive, nobody in the U.S. will believe…”

  “Look around, Master Sergeant.” Ngo Thu gestured to the abandoned huts. His voice took on the tone of a schoolmaster whose patience with a troublesome student was beginning to chafe. “I think perhaps you are not in the United States. No, you and my unfortunate brother-in-law were,” he started to answer quickly, but then paused while he searched for the English word that he wanted, “you were, I think, involved in an illegal activity. Gentlemen involved in these things sometimes argue and disagree. Sometimes violent things happen.”

  Tenkiller paused while he thought through what he was hearing. “And you, General, what about you? We’re all in this one together. Don’t forget that. I go down, and you go down with me. Don’t forget that. Maybe they will think I did it, but I can take you down too. Don’t forget that.”

  “Ahh, but it is you who forgets, Master Sergeant. You are who you are, but I am a general and a most trusted ally to your government. It would be most embarrassing for such a trusted ally to do such a thing as you say. Very embarrassing
for your government. No, for you this is most unfortunate.”

  Tenkiller didn’t respond. He looked over to see Major Doan Tuyen disappear around the side of one of the huts, pulling Colonel Pham’s large body behind him. He was headed in the direction of the village cemetery.

  “Master Sergeant Tenkiller, I am of little patience. Now, I believe you may have some items for me.”

  “Yes,” Tenkiller said. He struggled to keep his voice free of resignation. “But…I’ll need some more time…another week, maybe two, maybe longer. It won’t be easy.”

  Ngo Thu put his sunglasses back on and smiled.

  Jimmy Lee Tenkiller looked back into the general’s eyes. In the shiny teardrop-shaped green lenses he once again saw his own reflection.

  CHAPTER 23

  Columbia, South Carolina

  FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2008

  Penny Kegin had been thinking about it for some time, ever since that strange phone call almost seven months ago, but she hadn’t found the courage to act; hadn’t even found the courage to put the box away after the strange man had rummaged through it and taken some items. It had sat in the corner of Michael’s old room like a lump of brown undigested food. Her husband, Richard, had urged her to go through it, had said he’d leave her alone or go through it with her—whichever she wanted. He’d said it’d be cathartic.

  She’d been thinking about it.

  Why today was different from yesterday or the day before or the weeks and months before, she didn’t realize at first. Why today, after all the years, did she decide to look through it? Only later did she connect the dots of her subconscious. It was The Day. The date. Patrick had proposed to her on the eleventh of April his freshman year at the Citadel, on a clear bright morning on the steps of the Summerall Chapel. It had all seemed so absolutely magical then, he was so handsome and full of dash and life and promise, and now she couldn’t even conjure up his face without the help of a photo album.

  The box had arrived two weeks after the funeral. The scab that had started slowly to knit over was abraded raw by the forms and releases that she’d been forced to sign; abraded so raw that she hadn’t even cut the tape seal on the box. Instead she’d placed it in the attic with old suitcases full of his clothes and the footlocker with his cadet uniform and his saber—unopened—an emotional time capsule to be cracked at some future date when her children found the need to plumb their roots. She’d dutifully moved it from house to house, and had more than once toyed with the idea of giving it to Patrick’s parents after Richard and she had decided to marry, but by then the Kendricks were so feeble that it would have served no useful purpose but to awaken confusion and sorrow. In the end she had once again stowed the box away in the recesses of the attic as well as her mind.