The Hill of the Ravens

by H. A. Covington

  Redmond was silently relieved that the old gentleman had elected not to pursue an obsessive political tirade that would have made it difficult for Don to wrestle him back on track. “Sir, I would like to ask you why as one of your last political acts, before you retired, you asked President Brennan to call off the War Prevention Department’s hunt for Trudy Greiner?”

  “Because she didn’t do it,” grunted the Old Man. “Trudy

  Greiner wasn’t the traitor.”

  “Magtig!” exclaimed Nel. “I mean, how do you know that,

  meneer?”

  “I got bored once Pragmatic Tendency threw my ass out,” grumbled the ancient curmudgeon. “I was sitting in a big fancy office down there in Olympia with no real power, waiting for my loyal comrades to work out the details of where and how they were going to bury me alive where I couldn’t embarrass them any more, with all my ranting and raving about duty and ethics and all the other things we’ve always tried to avoid like the plague. I had a lot of time on my hands. There was this little girl file clerk who believed all that propaganda crap about how I was this brilliant leader and philosopher king, yadda, yadda, yadda. She thought I was some kind of revolutionary god, and I was able to persuade her to feed me some special reading material against orders. Able to persuade her to do some other things, too, but we won’t get into that. Anyway, I spent my time catching up on all the things that went on when I was in prison, the stuff I missed out on while the fighting was going on. I took the trouble to actually read the raw case file on Ravenhill,” said the Old Man. “All the statements taken for the trial in absentia of Volunteer Gertrude Greiner on the charge of racial treason and collaboration with the enemy. I spotted something no one else ever had. The FATPO defector Arthur McBride stated that the head nigger in charge of the Federal ambush was informed of the Column’s location and projected route at almost exactly two o’clock on the morning of August first, after which he ordered his men out to the choppers and dropped them into the ambush zone at Ravenhill Ranch. You with me so far?”

  “Yes, sir, I know,” confirmed Redmond. “Sergeant Major McBride is still alive, and we have spoken with him. McBride was Charge of Quarters at the FATPO barracks and he heard Woodrow Coleman take the call on his wireless phone. McBride also stated that it was unusual for Major Coleman to be up and about, or at least up and about while sober, at that time of the morning. It was obvious to him that Coleman had been told something was up and he was waiting for the call.”

  “And where was Trudy Greiner at two o’clock that morning?”

  demanded the Old Man.

  “By all accounts, she was still at the safe house in Hoodsport, along with Murdock and the rest,” said Redmond.

  “Right. Now, Colonel, do you agree that as a working proposition we can take it that the statements given by the eight survivors are true, with the possible exception of one traitor who may be lying, if such a person exists?”

  “We more or less have to, sir,” conceded Redmond. “At this distance in time, their statements then and their recollections now are virtually all we’ve got by away of evidence.”

  “I agree. Now, there are some crucial times in those witnesses’ statements that we need to peg down. The first is the receipt of the call by the Federal commander at or almost exactly at two o’clock A. M.”

  “Sir, when I was reviewing the case file a few days ago at BOSS headquarters, I noticed the time element. Murdock’s decision to take Highway 119 and then cut off on the county road by Ravenhill Ranch before they reached Shelton must have been made either right at around two in the morning or before that, because the informer gave FATPO that information.”

  “Fine, I’ll buy that,” agreed the Old Man. “So the informer was in a position to know that exact route that the Column would take into Port Orchard. That could be any of them. But with Miss Greiner in plain view at two in the morning, the big question is, who made the call?”

  “The official version is that somehow Trudy Greiner found some excuse, slipped into the bathroom and make a hurried call tipping off Fattie while she was surrounded by men and women who would kill her if she was caught. It would have taken brass balls to do it, but everyone who ever knew her agrees that she was a fearless and resourceful young woman. I have since learned that at least insofar as anyone who was present can recall, this was impossible for her to do. Not only did Ed McCanless collect and turn off all cell phones, but Trudy’s phone wasn’t even working because the satellite serving her unit had crashed. I am also aware of some other discrepancies, but I’m sorry, I seem to be interrupting you, sir. Please proceed.”

  “You wear that green, white and blue ribbon, sonny,” pointed out the Old Man, “Although Jesus, you must have been young!”

  “Very young, sir,” agreed Redmond with a nod.

  “Back in those days, did you ever attend a meeting in a safe house?”

  “A few,” said Don. “Like the one I delivered papers to in

  Bellevue.”

  “And what was the very first thing the officer in charge ordered all the others to do?” asked the Old Man.

  “Turn off their cell phones and pagers, so an accidental incoming call or page didn’t tip off the enemy’s satellite monitoring or other electronic surveillance that there was anyone in the facility,” repeated Redmond patiently.

  “And after that he…?”

  “He also swept the personnel present for wires,” said Redmond. “Yes, sir, I thought of that. Just as he swept the whole house beforehand. Volunteer McCanless and Volunteer Frierson have both stated in no uncertain terms that they checked the house out from the ground up and it was clean, and that they ran metal and fiber-optic sensors over every participant in the meeting, beginning with Commandant Murdock as Murdock always insisted be done. We are assuming that is true, unless Frierson or else one or both of the McCanlesses are traitors and were lying.”

  “Right. On that particular night Ed McCanless, a particularly conscientious Volunteer, swears that he made damned sure this was done. Lars Frierson, equally conscientious, backs him up. I see no reason to disbelieve them. Have you any evidence that we should?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then we’ll take what they tell us at face value. Are we still on the same page?” asked the Old Man. “Sorry to come on like such a know-it-all and act like the great detective revealin’ the murderer in the drawing room at the end of the mystery, but I never get a chance to talk to anyone about anything serious these days.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So we agree that Gertrude Greiner did not make any kind of call at all from her own cell phone, then or later, because the communications satellite was down in every sense of the word and also due to NVA security precautions. We can also accept that no one

  was wired. That means that the communication with the enemy did not occur from the vicinity of the central meeting in the safe house. It came from someone who was not present at the meeting, and yet who was in a position to know the planned route and order of battle for the next day’s operation. Now, the Greiner gal left the safe house at what time?”

  “Approximately three o’clock in the morning,” said Redmond. “Which is the last time anyone in the NVA ever saw her. I would dearly love to know what she was doing during the four hours between the time she left and the time she was officially AWOL from the medical aid station at seven that morning. Any ideas on that, Mr. President Emeritus?”

  “One or two. But we’re still at three o’clock in the morning. Trudy Greiner has just left, the meeting has been dismissed. Whereupon the Column did what?”

  “They moved out, some in cars and others on foot. They moved overland about a mile to the lumberyard where the vehicles to be used in the attack were being held in readiness. The convoy was assembled there, seating was assigned, and so forth. The mortar truck and the McCanlesses’ Oldsmobile moved out one way, along with the Kenworth flatbed containing the mortar tubes. The two vans, the second truck, and the green pi
ckup scout vehicle went another.”

  “They left the lumberyard at what time?” “Approximately five-thirty A. M., sir.”

  “And Monkey Meat Coleman got the call at two A. M.?”

  continued the Old Man.

  “Two in the morning, yes, sir. As the Column were pulling out, he and his goons were already setting the ambush on the road past Ravenhill Ranch.”

  “Now go back to the court of inquiry transcript,” said the Old Man. “Look at McBride’s testimony. He said when his FATPO group were briefed before they left base and went down into the ambush that morning, they were told by Major Monkoid Coleman to be on the lookout for two vans, one blue and one white, and one Kenworth truck with wooden slat sidings.”

  “Yes, sir, I saw that. Those are in fact the vehicles that the

  Column used,” agreed Redmond. “So?”

  “Don’t worry, son, I ain’t wandering. I do have a point, but you seem to be missing it. I’ll pitch it again, a little bit slower. When Coleman got that call from the informer or someone who was hooked to the informer, what was he told to look out for?”

  “He was told to set his ambush for a green Dodge pickup truck scout vehicle, which Coleman ordered his men to let pass, and then a blue van, a white van, and the Kenworth truck which carried the…Christ in Heaven!” bellowed Redmond in sudden astonished chagrin.

  “Comes the dawn!” chuckled the Old Man.

  “What, Colonel?” asked Nel, uncomprehending. Redmond turned and stared at Nel.

  “How the hell did the informer know what color the pickup and the vans were?” demanded Redmond. “By everything we know, Trudy Greiner never went anywhere near the staging area with the vehicles. And if she did, it would have been after three in the morning, when she left the conference. Somebody would surely have seen her, including Palmieri and Saltovic and Leach. Surely at least one of them would remember her being there? But Coleman got the call at two A. M.”

  “Ergo, the informer was someone who had been involved in vehicle selection, transport, fueling and staging prior to the meeting in the Hoodsport safe house!” exclaimed the Old Man triumphantly. “Which Trudy Greiner was not. That wasn’t part of her job. We also know that whoever made the call was not in the meeting at the Hoodsport safe house. It is possible that the person who made the call was a secondary contact, but I myself have always been of the opinion that the person who called Coleman was the actual informant, mostly because of the incredible danger which would have been attached to bringing someone else into something like that. Not to mention having to share that humongous reward.”

  “I’ll need to go back to all of them now and find out who was involved in the preliminary staging and servicing of the convoy’s vehicles,” moaned Redmond. “Even if seven of the eight are telling me the truth, it may be impossible to determine after all this time who had actually seen the vans prior to the meeting.”

  “No need,” said the Old Man. “We can still do some elimination with what we’ve got. Time, place, and opportunity, son.

  Check the statements of Dr. Joseph Cord, and also of Lars Frierson, and also of Edward McCanless and Brittany McCanless. Bear in mind we are assuming for the time being that they are true, lacking any evidence that they are not. Cord and Frierson attended the entire meeting in the living room of that bungalow from beginning to end, so they could not have made the call. Ed McCanless was also there at all times in his capacity as security officer for the sitdown, and his wife was there as well, according to both their statements. They indicated that they arrived at the safe house that afternoon so they could go in first and make sure everything was hunky dory and then let Murdock and the rest know it was safe to move in. They specifically stayed away from the lumberyard where the heavy artillery was waiting, in case they were being followed or tracked by satellite. They probably at that point didn’t even know where most of the other members of the Column were. Frank Palmieri and Dragutin Saltovic did stage the mortar truck at the lumberyard along with the other vehicles, but as of two A. M. when the traitor called Monkey Meat and dropped the dime, they didn’t know that they were going to the target area separately. Whoever made the call knew that the mortar truck would be taking a separate route, but for reasons known only to himself neglected to mention the mortar truck at all when he ratted our people out to Fattie. So that rules Palmieri and Saltovic out. Cord did go to the lumberyard briefly, to run a final check on the loading and detonation system and the hydraulic lift to raise the mortars in position, after which he proceeded to Poulsbo with a carload of medical supplies. But the informer’s call had already been made at 2 A.M. So Cord, Palmieri, Saltovic, Frierson and the McCanlesses seem to be in the clear, as well as Trudy Greiner.”

  “That leaves Leach and Vitale,” said Nel in a neutral voice. “They were in the lumberyard area prior to the meeting breaking up and no one has accounted for their whereabouts at two A.M.”

  “Leach and Vitale were both just gun-toters then, Vitale a green kid just off the plane from Italy,” said the Old Man. “Yeah, it could have been them, maybe, but would they have known about the mortar truck splitting up from the main convoy and taking a separate route into town, any more than Saltovic or Palmieri? No one at the yard was actually informed of that disposition until Murdock and the officers arrived at a little past three. Call was made at two, gents, the

  call was made at two, and if it had been made by someone in or around the staging area they would have told Coleman to watch for the mortar truck as well. Whoever made it had some kind of prior knowledge of Murdock’s plan of attack on Port Orchard. Someone who was an officer or otherwise involved on a command level.”

  “Which to be frank, Meneer Staatspräsident, does not fit any of our survivors, with the half-assed exception of Doctor Cord who was a technician but not a strategist or field commander,” said Nel.

  “Nor does it fit Trudy Greiner for that matter,” commented Redmond. “She was support and liaison but had nothing whatsoever to do with actual military decisions or planning. My God! You mean to say, sir, that you believe the informant was someone else?”

  “Someone else in the Column who didn’t survive the ambush?” said Nel in horror. “Someone we don’t know about? Someone who thought he had a deal with the Americans to let him live, but who was betrayed? Cies, if that’s the case then we might never find out what the hell happened that day!”

  “Sir,” asked Redmond, “Do you have any idea at all who such a person might be?”

  “Yes,” said the Old Man. “Don’t worry, son, I won’t run the melodrama out. I can’t give you an actual name, but in a general way, yes, I think I know who it was. I think it was whoever Trudy Greiner went to meet after she left the Hoodsport safe house at three o’clock on the morning of August 1st. Someone who knew what was going to happen, and who either forcibly detained her from going to the aid station, or else persuaded her that she was about to be hopelessly compromised and she’d better desert if she wanted to live.”

  “How do you know any such person exists, Mr. President

  Emeritus?” asked Redmond.

  “It doesn’t take four hours to get from Hoodsport to Poulsbo, Colonel, not even in the dark. But more close to home, Volunteers always moved in pairs, son, whenever possible,” said the Old Man. “Especially when they were closing in on a target. It simply wasn’t a good idea to rely on loners not to lose their nerve, not to get lost, not to fuck up, or not to get caught or delayed through no fault of their own. Why did Trudy Greiner leave the house on her own that morning? That looks like a potentially dangerous violation in procedure to me. But was it? I don’t think she was violating

  procedure. I think she was meeting someone else for some purpose we don’t know, and she was doing it on Murdock’s orders.”

  “Leach and Frierson said they got that impression,” Nel reminded him.

  Redmond took a deep breath and spoke. “Mr. President, Bill Vitale told us the he overheard one small snippet of conversation betw
een Commandant Murdock and Volunteer Melanie Young, just before the Column pulled out at five, that indicated to him there might be some kind of rendezvous planned with the Port Townsend Flying Column. Can you shed any light on that aspect at all?”

  “No, I can’t,” said the Old Man. “Why don’t you ask that old hoss who’s sitting in my chair down in Longview House right now about that?”

  “There has never been any suggestion of any such thing,” said Redmond evasively. He felt a chill. He had a horrified suspicion he might know who Trudy Greiner had been meeting. Nel unwittingly came to his rescue.

  “But what about the million dollars?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Redmond said. “One almost insurmountable obstacle that we have yet to overcome, Mr. President Emeritus. The one million dollar certified check allegedly collected by Trudy Greiner first thing on the morning of August first, at the opening of business while the bodies of the Flying Column dead were literally still bleeding. Every which way we turn, we keep coming up against that.” “Do you know for a fact that million bucks was collected by

  Trudy Greiner?” asked the Old Man keenly. “Do you know for a fact that million bucks ever existed at all?”

  “No, sir,” said Redmond morosely. “It did occur to me. We do not know that for a fact. All we have is a few photostats of old Bank of America documents and computer files. We have no idea whether what we are looking at ever existed in the form of one million real, spendable dollars or not. Did Trudy Greiner end up with that money in her kick? If not, who did? We have no idea on earth, and at this distance in time we have no way to find out. That thought has bedviled me no end, believe me.”

  “Any ideas at all, son?” probed the Old Man.

  “None I want to speak of at the moment, sir, with all due respect,” said Redmond in growing despair.