by Brian Haig
I asked the operator to connect me to General Clapper’s number immediately. I didn’t really want to talk with him, either, but if I didn’t I was likely to get another of his late-night, cheery calls.
His dry-voiced, ever-efficient secretary answered on the first ring, and a moment later I heard his voice.
“How’s it feel to be famous?” He chuckled, which was easy for him, because nobody had bent him over and let him have it on the front page of a national newspaper that morning.
“I liked it better yesterday, when nobody ever heard of me.”
“What did you do to piss Berkowitz off?” he asked in an impressive display of worldliness.
“Does hanging up on him count?”
“It’s not the way I would’ve recommended you handle him.”
It wasn’t the way I wished I’d handled him, either, but I wasn’t going to admit that. Only the communists practiced public confessions, and look where it got them.
“So how’s the weather in Washington?” I asked.
There was a brief pause, then, “Hot as hell, frankly. Some folks are having second thoughts about having you head up this investigation. Nothing against you personally, Sean, but Berkowitz’s article struck home in certain quarters.”
“Anybody in particular having second thoughts?” I asked, biting my lip.
“I haven’t talked with him directly, but I’m told the President read the article and had to be peeled off the ceiling.”
“Oh, him,” I said with as much phony sangfroid as I could muster. “Anybody else? I mean, anyone important?”
“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs doesn’t sound too happy, either. And him, I did talk to.”
The phone went silent, and there was one of those long pauses that could only be termed as strained. Apparently Berkowitz had fired a much better-aimed shot than I’d thought. The moment of silence dragged on a little too long, until I finally figured out that it was Clapper’s subtly polite way of allowing me to make the choice of voluntarily turning over the reins of the investigation to someone else, presumably someone with a little more consequence on their shoulders. And I have to admit I seriously considered it, because no matter how you looked at it, there was no upside for me in this thing.
I couldn’t tell what Clapper was thinking, but I knew what I’d be thinking if I were him. I’d be praying the guy on my end of the line would say, hey, look, maybe this thing is a little over my head, and I’ve given it the old college try, but don’t you think it might be time to appoint a whole new posse, possibly headed by a general with lots of high-ranking deputies. Clapper, after all, was the poor sap who’d recommended me. It didn’t take a genius to know he was probably getting his ass whipped pretty hard right about now. To put it another way, General Clapper’s career was suddenly in my hands, and I can’t imagine that was a very reassuring thought for him.
Finally, I blurted out, “Look, General, I’ve started this thing, and I’d like to see it through.”
Without pause or hesitation, he said, “All right, we’ll try it that way. One thing, though, Sean. You work on how you deal with the press.”
“That’s fair,” I said, wondering why I hadn’t gracefully backed out. Berkowitz had unconsciously given me a painless opportunity, and it was a sure bet that no more of that variety was going to come along.
The next phone call was the one I least wanted to return, but I knew I’d better. I asked the operator to dial the number, and it was answered with “Drummond speaking,” in his normal, gruff voice.
I said, “Hello, Dad.”
“How ya doing?” he asked.
“Fine,” I answered very simply. “Just fine.”
“Saw your name in the paper.”
“I figured you would.”
“I didn’t know you’d been appointed to head the investigation,” he said, and while there was no recrimination in his tone, the statement stood on its own merits.
“I guess I forgot to tell you. I’ve been kind of busy.”
“Want some advice from an old soldier?” he asked.
“I guess that can’t hurt,” I said, which was a bald-faced lie. His advice usually stung like hell.
“Don’t lead with your chin. Oh… and watch your flanks.”
“Yeah, sure, Dad,” I said. This is the way Army fathers speak to their kids, in soldierly parables that actually sound kind of ridiculous.
“Well, I gotta run,” he grunted. “Your mother wants me to cut the lawn again. Third damned time this week.” Then he hung up.
Maybe I should explain a little bit about my father at this point. My mother didn’t want the grass cut. No way in hell. My father mowed and trimmed his lawn at least three times a week. He treated it like a brigade of little green troops that required his unyielding attention. It was the best-tended lawn in the neighborhood, if not the universe. If so much as one weed appeared, he pruned it out like an unruly soldier just begging for discipline. If even a single blade of grass had the temerity to rise above the others, the whole lawn got a punishing shave, with a pushmower.
He had been a hell of an officer in his day. He was tall and handsome and manly, and Jesus, was he tough. When I was a kid, even on Sundays and holidays he rose every day at five o’clock sharp, did about two hundred push-ups and sit-ups, ran about five miles, then made sure his larynx was in good working order by bellowing at my brother and me. He then marched purposely out of the house for another day of soldiering. There were years when we never saw him, like when he went to Vietnam, not once, not twice, but three times, which could only happen to a guy who was screaming and begging to go back there. Every time he left, a huge vacuum was created, which was instantly and happily filled by Mother, my brother, and myself. A year later he’d return, his chest heavier with more medals, and bludgeon his way back into the family.
It seemed to be commonly agreed that he was on his way to becoming a four-star general when cruel fate intervened in the last week of his third tour in Vietnam. He was a colonel by then, and was leading his brigade on a sweep, when he bent over to pick something up, and, no kidding, got shot right in the ass by some Vietcong with a nasty sense of humor and a crossbow.
Sounded kinda funny, but the doctors didn’t think so. He spent a year in the hospital as the doctors kept chasing infections and trying to repair the various internal canals that had been punctured. When they were done, his insides had been rearranged in some pretty nutty ways and his military career was over. No more punishing early-morning runs. No more daily dozens. No more troops to push around or medals to be earned.
He wasn’t bitter, though. He took a job selling cars, because he needed the kind of work where he could dash off at least once an hour to purge in a bathroom. And damn, did he sell lots of cars. He spent fifteen years pushing autos and crapping his brains out, until he ended up owning three dealerships and being worth a small fortune. His dealerships were something else, too. They were the tidiest, most orderly car lots anybody ever saw. Every car was spit-shined daily and lined up, dress-right-dress. The salesmen popped to attention and nearly saluted anytime they approached a potential buyer. I always got nervous when I stepped on one of his lots, but most customers seemed to like it.
My brother, who was a year older than me, knew from birth he didn’t want to be like my father. He grew his hair long, registered as a Democrat when he was only six, got tattooed, wore earrings, and was in trouble with the military police almost habitually. About three years ago, he sold the Internet company he founded and retired at the ripe old age of thirty-seven. He has about a hundred and fifty million in the bank and spends every day sitting in the backyard of his huge house, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean, smoking dope nearly every waking hour and laughing his ass off at the way it all turned out.
I was smarter than him. I followed in my father’s footsteps. I took an ROTC scholarship and chose a career that paid squat, that treated its people like cannon fodder, that had no qualms about ending a career over a stu
pid thing like a reporter with a nasty grudge against a tight-lipped Army lawyer.
I hadn’t had a good strong drink in over a week, and things being what they were, very badly wanted that rectified. Tout suite, as they say. I lifted up the phone and asked first Delbert, then Morrow, if they wished to join me downstairs in the bar.
Delbert begged off, saying he wanted to prepare his questions for tomorrow.
Morrow said, “Sure, be down in ten minutes.”
I’d be lying if I said this was a disappointing outcome.
I was on my first scotch on the rocks when Morrow arrived in tight jeans and a loose-fitting knit shirt. I decided on the spot that if this woman ever wanted to get out of the legal field, she could make a pretty good go as a model. Or, better yet, in my suddenly frenzied imagination, as a stripper. I wasn’t the only one who noticed, either, because there were lots of Italian men in the bar, and Italian men aren’t exactly reticent about showing their admiration of the opposite sex. They sure as hell weren’t pulling their punches when they saw her.
“So what will you have?” I asked as she slipped into the chair across from me, trying to act oblivious to the drooling fools who were whistling and catcalling in some strange tongue. I halfway expected her to order an Evian bottle with a twist of lemon or some such obscenely healthful drink.
“Scotch on the rocks,” she said, which nearly threw me off my chair.
I stuck my finger up for the bartender to send over one of the same, then turned back and decided it was time to reappraise Miss Morrow. I sniffed the air once or twice and the odor of lilies filled my nostrils. We were dealing with an oxymoron here. A man can always tell a lot about a woman from her choice of perfumes, and lilies are something I always associate with the wholesome, midwestern variety of her gender. The ones who stay virgins till they’re twenty-one. The ones who call their mothers every week and still send money to their old 4-H clubs. The ones who don’t go near scotch.
“That your normal drink?” I asked.
She sort of smiled. “No. Usually I’d just order an Evian with a twist of lemon, but I wanted to surprise you.”
I guess I blinked once or twice, and she giggled, apparently delighted that she’d beat me at my own game.
“Yeah, I usually drink Evian, too,” I finally said, thinking I was being witty.
“No, you usually drink scotch. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that you’ve never taken a sip from a bottle of Evian in your life.”
“And why would you bet that?”
“Because. Want to play a little truth or consequences?”
If I weren’t such an overconfident guy, I would’ve said no, right then and there. Instead, I stupidly said, “Sure. What’s the stake?”
“Point-by-point loser chugs a shot of scotch. Overall loser pays the tab.”
“All right,” I said, withdrawing a quarter from my pocket and flipping it. “Heads or tails?”
“Heads,” she said, and it came down heads, and I should’ve quit right then and there.
“Okay.” She smiled. “What’s your father do?”
“He’s a hairdresser,” I said. “Lives in San Francisco and works at one of those men’s hair parlors frequented by gays. He’s kinda fruity, too, but he had this one-time fling with a woman, and I was the result.”
“Drink!” she ordered me. “Your father is ridiculously heterosexual. In fact, if I was to guess, I’d say he was career Army.”
I wiped a few drops of scotch off my lips, stuck my hand up for the bartender to send over another, and did my best to hide my shock. “Why’d you guess that?” I finally asked, hating to think I was that easy to read.
“I wasn’t guessing. I was making a reasoned deduction. Sons of strong-willed men often become very rebellious and act like wiseasses. I know. A lot of them end up as my clients.”
“Okay,” I said, wanting an early victory to even the score, “where are you from?”
“Ames, Iowa,” she said. “I grew up on a farm, spent my childhood milking cows, plucking eggs from underneath hens, and praying desperately that I’d get into law school.”
“That’s true,” I declared. “Drink! And don’t forget the part about how you were crowned homecoming queen and almost married the captain of the football team.”
“You drink,” she ordered. “I’ve never been to Ames, Iowa, in my life. I’m from the Northeast, was born and raised in a city, and the closest I’ve ever come to a cow is digging into its broiled carcass on my plate.”
My mouth kind of fell open as I reached down for my shot glass. “Really?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“Really,” she said with a vague smile. “And for your information, I went to an all-girls’ private school. We didn’t have homecoming queens. Or a football team, either. We had a field hockey team, and I didn’t date the captain, because I was the captain.”
I gulped the scotch and considered the proposition that she had schemed on playing this game before she ever came down here. She must have deliberately doused herself in that lily-smelling perfume just to throw me off her scent. No play on words intended.
She still hadn’t touched a drop of her scotch. She grinned, then said, “Okay, why’d you leave the infantry and become a lawyer?”
I stared at the new shot glass that had just appeared and thought about that a moment. Finally, I kind of shrugged and admitted, “I guess I got tired of killing people. I went to war a couple of times and decided I really didn’t like it all that much.”
She studied me a moment, staring deeply into my eyes, and her face suddenly became very soft. Her eyes, which I already mentioned were abundantly sympathetic, acquired a few more notches of compassion. “Drink,” she said, almost remorsefully.
“Nah, you drink!” I shot back. “I had a great time at war. In fact, I nearly cried when they were over.”
Which actually was true. And which actually was why I became a lawyer. I developed this huge phobia that I would end up like my father, in love with combat. And maybe I’d end up just like him in another regard, too, with an arrow stuck in my rear end. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
“All right,” I asked, relishing my victory, “were you ever married?”
“That’s too personal.”
“No limits to this game, lady. This is a blood sport. Answer the question.”
“Okay, I was. My husband was also an Army lawyer,” she said and seemed suddenly very sad. “One day I came home early from a trip, and there he was, in bed with a twenty-year-old paralegal.”
“How long were you married?” I asked. Although the game has a one-question rule, I was taking advantage of the most supreme rule: to wit, that higher rank doth make its own rules.
Her eyes seemed fixated on something inside her tiny shot glass. “Three years. We met in my second year of law school and got married right after it was over. I guess I blame myself. I’ve always worked too hard and I… well… I, uh, I guess he felt neglected.”
“Drink!” I barked.
She looked at me in shock. “What?”
“You heard me! Drink!”
She gulped it down, then gave me this really cute, really spiteful look. “How did you know?”
“You said too much. You’re the type who likes to keep everything private.”
“All right. Were you ever married?” she asked.
“No.”
“Were you ever in love?”
“One question to a turn.”
“You asked two the last time.”
“Okay. I was in love once.”
“And why didn’t you marry her?”
“You’re over your limit.”
She gave me a pleading look. “I’ll drink the scotch and cede the round. Please. Just answer.”
“Drink first,” I insisted, and she did. “Because you can’t marry your dog, no matter how much you love her,” I said, giving her a perfectly evil smile.
She frowned. “That sucked.”
“So did the lily p
erfume,” I said, which nearly made her fall off her chair, she laughed so hard. “By the way,” I added, “it’s three to two, my favor. You pay for the drinks.”
She stuck two fingers up, the bartender grinned, and two more drinks instantly appeared. The bartender was Italian, and he obviously thought I was trying to get her drunk as hell before I took her upstairs and screwed her lights out. In America, that’s considered caddish behavior, bordering on rape. But this was Italy, where the rules are different. Here it’s considered delightfully good form, since nearly anything that results in a roll in the hay is probably good form. He gave me this fawning, jealous smile as he brought the drinks, and I gave him a manly nod of acknowledgment.
“What did you think of Sanchez?” she asked.
“Seemed a nice enough fella,” I admitted.
“I thought so, too.”
“Was he what you expected?” I asked.
“No. Not at all what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. I’ve defended a number of killers. He didn’t strike me as the type. Too soft maybe. Not aggressive enough.”
“He might not be a killer.”
“How do you get that?”
I sipped from my fourth glass of scotch in only twenty minutes and felt it starting to do fuzzy things to my brain. “I’d guess that something very strange happened out there among those nine men.”
“Strange like what?”
“Well, you need to understand something. This wasn’t combat like in Vietnam or Korea or World War Two, where whole units sometimes snapped and went into some kind of killing frenzy. Sanchez and his guys were under a very different type of strain.”
“So you don’t think it happened the way the newspapers are reporting?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t think it was anywhere near that uncomplicated.”
“Why?”
“Because they didn’t kill the Serbs right away. Because they waited two days after Akhan’s guys were killed, which was enough time for their emotions to cool. Because there were nine men in that team, and nine men don’t universally decide to do a rotten thing. Because when things like this happen, there’s nearly always circumstances lurking underneath that are damned hard to fathom if you weren’t there.”