by Lee Child
I leaned against the wall. It was smooth-painted concrete and it felt cold and slick. The building was silent. I could hear nothing except water in pipes and the faint rush of forced-air heating and the guard’s steady breathing. The floors were shined linoleum tile and they reflected the ceiling fluorescents in a long double image that ran away to a distant vanishing point.
I waited. I could see a clock in the guard’s booth. It rolled past midnight. Past five after midnight. Then ten after. I waited. I started to figure my challenge had been ignored. These guys were political. Maybe they played a smarter game than I could conceive. Maybe they had more gloss and sophistication and patience. Maybe I was more than a little bit out of my league.
Or maybe the woman with the voice had thrown my message in the trash.
I waited.
Then at fifteen minutes past midnight I heard faraway heels echoing on the linoleum. Dress shoes, a staccato little rhythm that was part urgent and part relaxed. Like a man who was busy but not panicked. I couldn’t see him. The rap of his heels on the floor was billowing out at me around an angled corner. It ran ahead of him down the deserted corridor like an early warning signal.
I listened to the sound and watched the spot where it told me he would appear, which was right where the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling met their reflections in the floor. The sound kept on coming. Then a man stepped around the corner and walked through the flare of light. He kept on walking straight toward me, the rhythm of his heels unbroken, not slowing, not speeding up, still busy, not panicked. He came closer. He was the Chief of Staff of the Army. He was in formal evening mess dress. He was wearing a short blue jacket nipped in at the waist. Blue pants with two gold stripes. A bow tie. Gold studs and cuff links. Elaborate knots and swirls of gold braid all over his sleeves and his shoulders. He was covered with gold insignia and badges and sashes and miniature versions of his medals. He had a full head of gray hair. He was about five-nine and one-eighty. Exactly average size for the modern army.
He got within ten feet of me and I snapped to attention and saluted. It was a pure reflex action. Like a Catholic meeting the Pope. He didn’t salute back. He just looked at me. Maybe there was a protocol that forbade saluting while wearing the evening mess uniform. Or while bareheaded in the Pentagon. Or maybe he was just rude.
He put his hand out to shake.
“Very sorry I’m late,” he said. “Good of you to wait. I was at the White House. For a state dinner with some foreign friends.”
I shook his hand.
“Let’s go to my office,” he said.
He led me past the E-ring guard and we turned left into the corridor and walked a little way. Then we stepped into a suite and I met the woman with the voice. She looked more or less like I had predicted. She was wearing civilian clothes. A dark suit so severe it was more formal than a uniform. But she sounded even better in person than she had on the phone.
“Coffee, Major?” she said.
She had a fresh pot brewed. I guessed she had clicked the switch at about eleven fifty-three, so it had finished perking at midnight exactly. I guessed the Chief of Staff’s suite was that sort of place. She gave me a saucer and a cup made of transparent bone china. I was afraid of crushing it like an eggshell.
“This way,” the Chief of Staff said.
He led me into his office. My cup rattled on its saucer. His office was surprisingly plain. It had the same painted concrete walls as the rest of the building. The same type of steel desk I had seen in the Fort Bird pathologist’s office.
“Take a seat,” he said. “If you don’t mind, we’ll make this quick. It’s late.”
I said nothing. He watched me.
“I got your message,” he said. “Received and understood.”
I said nothing. He tried an icebreaker.
“Noriega’s top guys are still out there,” he said. “Why do you suppose that is?”
“Thirty thousand square miles,” I said. “A lot of space for people to hide in.”
“Will we get them all?”
“No question,” I said. “Someone will sell them out.”
“You’re a cynic.”
“A realist,” I said.
“What have you got to tell me, Major?”
I sipped my coffee. The lights were low. I was suddenly aware that I was deep inside one of the world’s most secure buildings, late at night, face-to-face with the nation’s most powerful soldier. And I was about to make a serious accusation. And only one other person knew I was there, and maybe she was already in a cell somewhere.
“I was in Panama two weeks ago,” I said. “Then I was transferred out.”
“Why do you think that was?”
I took a breath. “I think the Vice-Chief wanted particular individuals on the ground in particular locations because he was worried about trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“An internal coup by your old buddies in Armored Branch.”
He was silent for a long moment, and then he said, “Would that have been a realistic worry?”
I nodded. “There was a conference at Irwin scheduled for New Year’s Day. I believe the agenda was certainly controversial, probably illegal, maybe treasonous.”
The Chief of Staff said nothing.
“But it misfired,” I said. “Because General Kramer died. But there were potential problems from the fallout. So you personally intervened by moving Colonel Garber out of the 110th and replacing him with an incompetent.”
“Why would I do that?”
“So that nature would take its course and the investigation would misfire too.”
He sat still for another long moment. Then he smiled.
“Good analysis,” he said. “The collapse of Soviet communism was bound to lead to stresses inside the U.S. military. Those stresses were bound to manifest themselves with all kinds of internal plotting and planning. The internal plotting and planning was bound to be anticipated and steps were bound to be taken to nip potential trouble in the bud. And as you say, there were bound to be tensions at the very top that led to moves and countermoves.”
I said nothing.
“Like a game of chess,” he said. “The Vice-Chief moves, and I countermove. An inevitable conclusion, I suppose, because you were looking for a pair of senior individuals in which one outranks the other.”
I looked straight at him.
“Am I wrong?” I said.
“Only in two particulars,” he said. “Obviously you’re right in that there are huge changes coming. CIA was a little slow to spot Ivan’s imminent demise, so we’ve had less than a year to think things through. But believe me, we’ve thought them through. We’re in a unique situation now. We’re like a heavyweight boxer who’s trained for years for a shot at the world title, and then we wake up one morning and find our intended opponent has dropped dead. It’s a very bewildering sensation. But we’ve done our homework.”
He leaned down and opened a drawer and struggled out with an enormous loose-leaf file. It was at least three inches thick. It thumped down on his desktop. It had a green jacket with a long word stenciled on it in black. He reversed it so I could read it. It said: Transformation.
“Your first mistake is that your focus was too close,” he said. “You need to stand back and look at it from our perspective. From above. It’s not just Armored Branch that is going to change. Everyone is going to change. Obviously we’re going to move toward highly mobile integrated units. But it’s a bad mistake to see them as infantry units with a few bells and whistles tacked on. They’re going to be a completely new concept. They’ll be something that has never existed before. Maybe we’ll integrate attack helicopters too, and give the command to the guys in the sky. Maybe we’ll move into electronic warfare and give the command to the guys with the computers.”
I said nothing.
He laid his hand on the file, palm down. “My point is that nobody is going to come out of this unscathed. Yes, Armored is going t
o be professionally devastated. No question about that. But so is the infantry and so is the artillery, and so is transport, and so is logistics support, and so is everyone else, equally, just as much. Maybe more, for some people. Including the military police, probably. Everything is going to change, Major. There will be no stone unturned.”
I said nothing.
“This is not about Armored versus the infantry,” he said. “You need to understand that. That’s a vast oversimplification. It’s actually about everyone versus everyone else. There will be no winners, I’m afraid. But equally therefore, there will be no losers. You could choose to think about it that way. Everyone is in the same boat.”
He took his hand off the file.
“What’s my second mistake?” I said.
“I moved you out of Panama,” he said. “Not the Vice-Chief. He knew nothing about it. I selected twenty men personally and put them where I thought I needed them. I spread them around, because in my judgment it was fifty-fifty as to who was going to blink first. The light units, or the heavy units? It was impossible to predict. Once their commanders started thinking, they would all realize they have everything to lose. I sent you to Fort Bird, for instance, because I was a little worried about David Brubaker. He was a very proactive type.”
“But it was Armored who blinked first,” I said.
He nodded.
“Apparently,” he said. “If you say so. It was always going to be a fifty-fifty chance. And I guess I’m a little disappointed. Those were my boys. But I’m not defensive about them. I moved onward and upward. I left them behind. I’m perfectly happy to let the chips fall where they may.”
“So why did you move Garber?”
“I didn’t.”
“So who did?”
“Who outranks me?”
“Nobody,” I said.
“I wish,” he said.
I said nothing.
“What does an M16 rifle cost?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Not a lot, I guess.”
“We get them for about four hundred dollars,” he said. “What does an Abrams M1A1 main battle tank cost?”
“About four million.”
“So think about the big defense contractors,” he said. “Whose side are they on? The light units, or the heavy units?”
I didn’t answer. I figured the question was rhetorical.
“Who outranks me?” he asked again.
“The Secretary of Defense,” I said.
He nodded. “A nasty little man. A politician. Political parties take campaign contributions. And defense contractors can see the future the same as anyone else.”
I said nothing.
“A lot for you to think about,” the Chief of Staff said. He hefted the big Transformation file back into his drawer. Replaced it on his desktop with a slimmer jacket. It was marked: Argon.
“You know what argon is?” he asked.
“It’s an inert gas,” I said. “They use it in fire extinguishers. It spreads a layer low down over a fire and prevents it from taking hold.”
“That’s why I chose the name. Operation Argon was the plan that moved you people at the end of December.”
“Why did you use Garber’s signature?”
“Like you suggested in another context, I wanted to let nature take its course. MP orders signed by the Chief of Staff would have raised a lot of eyebrows. Everyone would have switched to best behavior. Or smelled a rat and gone deeper underground. It would have made your job harder. It would have defeated my purpose.”
“Your purpose?”
“I wanted prevention, of course. That was the main priority. But I was also curious, Major. I wanted to see who would blink first.”
He handed me the file.
“You’re a special unit investigator,” he said. “By statute the 110th has extraordinary powers. You are authorized to arrest any soldier anywhere, including me, here in my office, if you so choose. So read the Argon file. I think you’ll find it clears me. If you agree, go about your business elsewhere.”
He got up from behind his desk. We shook hands again. Then he walked out of the room. Left me all alone in his office, in the heart of the Pentagon, in the middle of the night.
Thirty minutes later I got back in the car with Summer. She had kept the motor off to save gas and it was cold inside.
“Well?” she said.
“One crucial error,” I said. “The tug-of-war wasn’t the Vice-Chief and the Chief. It was the Chief himself and the Secretary of Defense.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded. “I saw the file. There were memos and orders going back nine months. Different papers, different typewriters, different pens, no way to fake all that in four hours. It was the Chief of Staff’s initiative all along, and he was always kosher.”
“So how did he take it?”
“Pretty well,” I said. “Considering. But I don’t think he’ll feel like helping me.”
“With what?”
“With the trouble I’m in.”
“Which is?”
“Wait and see.”
She just looked at me.
“Where now?” she said.
“California,” I said.
twenty-two
The Chevy was running on fumes by the time we got to National Airport. We put it in the long-term lot and hiked back to the terminal. It was about a mile. There were no shuttle buses running. It was the middle of the night and the place was practically deserted. Inside the terminal we had to roust a clerk out of a back office. I gave him the last of our stolen vouchers and he booked us on the first morning flight to LAX. We were looking at a long wait.
“What’s the mission?” Summer said.
“Three arrests,” I said. “Vassell, Coomer, and Marshall.”
“Charge?”
“Serial homicide,” I said. “Mrs. Kramer, Carbone, and Brubaker.”
She stared at me. “Can you prove it?”
I shook my head. “I know exactly what happened. I know when, and how, and where, and why. But I can’t prove a damn thing. We’re going to have to rely on confessions.”
“We won’t get them.”
“I’ve gotten them before,” I said. “There are ways.”
She flinched.
“This is the army, Summer,” I said. “It ain’t a quilting bee.”
“Tell me about Carbone and Brubaker.”
“I need to eat,” I said. “I’m hungry.”
“We don’t have any money,” Summer said.
Most places had metal grilles down over their doors anyway. Maybe they would feed us on the plane. We carried our bags over to a seating area next to a twenty-foot window that had nothing but black night outside. The seats were long vinyl benches with fixed armrests every two feet to stop people from lying down and sleeping.
“Tell me,” she said.
“It’s still a series of crazy long shots, one after the other.”
“Try me.”
“OK, start over with Mrs. Kramer. Why did Marshall go to Green Valley?”
“Because it was the obvious first place to try.”
“But it wasn’t. It was almost the obvious last place to try. Kramer had hardly been there in five years. His staff must have known that. They’d traveled with him many times before. Yet they made a fast decision and Marshall went straight there. Why?”
“Because Kramer had told them that’s where he was going?”
“Correct,” I said. “He told them he was with his wife to conceal the fact he was actually with Carbone. But then, why would he have to tell them anything?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because there’s a category of person you have to tell something.”
“Who?”
“Suppose you’re a rich guy traveling with your mistress. You spend one night apart, you have to tell her something. And if you tell her you’re dropping in on your wife purely to keep up appearances, she has to buy it. Maybe she doesn
’t like it, but she has to buy it. Because it’s expected occasionally. It’s all part of the deal.”
“Kramer didn’t have a mistress. He was gay.”
“He had Marshall.”
“No,” she said. “No way.”
I nodded. “Kramer was two-timing Marshall. Marshall was his main squeeze. They were in a relationship. Marshall wasn’t an intelligence officer but Kramer appointed him one anyway to keep him close. They were an item. But Kramer had a wandering eye. He met Carbone somewhere and started seeing him on the side. So on New Year’s Eve Kramer told Marshall he was going to see his wife and Marshall believed him. Like the rich guy’s mistress would. That’s why Marshall went to Green Valley. In his heart he knew for sure Kramer had gone there. He was the one person in the world who felt he would know for sure. It was Marshall who told Vassell and Coomer where Kramer was. But Kramer was lying to him. Like people do in relationships.”
Summer was quiet for a long moment. She just stared out at the night.
“Does this affect what happened there?” she said.
“I think it does, slightly,” I said. “I think Mrs. Kramer talked to Marshall. She must have recognized him from her time on-post in Germany. She probably knew all about him and her husband. Generals’ wives are usually pretty smart. Maybe she even knew there was a second guy in the picture. Maybe she was pissed off and taunted Marshall about it. Like, You can’t keep your man either, right? Maybe Marshall got mad and lashed out. Maybe that’s why he didn’t tell Vassell and Coomer right away. Because the collateral damage wasn’t just about the burglary itself. It was also about an argument. That’s why I said Mrs. Kramer wasn’t killed just for the briefcase. I think partly she was killed because she taunted a jealous guy who lost his temper.”
“This is all just guesswork.”