Secret Sanction (12 page)

“I’ve examined the corpses,” I said. “Thirty-five of them.”

At that point our eyes met and we just sat and stared at each other for a moment. Sometimes, when you’re being bombarded with lies, a tiny morsel that sounds like the bald truth works its way into the conversation.Your ears almost tingle from the fresh sensation. And this was one of those moments.

I finally asked, “What did you do next?”

“We continued our E&E. I figured that once the Serbs found their column, that would slow them up for a while. So I began leading the team southward again. We were about fifty clicks from the border. I figured we could make it that night if we moved fast.”

“Were you still being followed?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t set any more flares, so there was no way to tell.”

“Why didn’t you set any more flares?”

“I think we were out of them.”

“You think?”

“I didn’t ask for a count, but I remember thinking we’d used our last one in the ambush.”

“Did you report to headquarters?” I asked, knowing damn well he had, because his report was noted in the communications log.

“Yes.”

“Did you report the ambush?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t want anyone second-guessing me.”

“I’m sorry, could you explain that?”

“I guess I knew they weren’t gonna be too happy about what we’d done. I just didn’t have time to get into all of that with them.”

“So what did you report?”

“That we were extricating.”

“Did you explain that you were being followed, that Serb columns were on the roads around you, that you felt your team was at risk?”

“No.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I thought I had things under control. I figured the ambush bought us enough time to get out of there.”

“And you still didn’t report the ambush after you returned. Why was that?”

“Look, I made a mistake there,” he said, looking suddenly repentant. “I admit that. I figured that no harm had been done, and I really didn’t see any reason to have to report it.”

I turned to Delbert and Morrow, both of whom were sitting with their chins resting on their hands, listening raptly to Sanchez’s tale. The underlying concept of the cover story was damned good. You could split hairs over what constituted self-defense, but the notion of a desperate team trapped behind enemy lines, surrounded by bloodthirsty Serbs—the same fellas who’d ambushed and shot down Scott O’Grady, who’d snatched three American peacekeepers in Macedonia—that was likely to elicit a sympathetic response from anyone.

“Do either of you have any questions?” I asked Delbert and Morrow.

They both shook their heads. Like me, they could spend hours interrogating Sanchez, but that would come later. First we needed to interview some other team members, look for incongruities, and then we’d come back.

Sanchez was still sitting with his hands folded in front of his mouth. His fingers were squeezed tightly together, desperately tight, like if he didn’t press them together they might fly off and start doing funny things on their own. I guessed he was feeling some tremendous anxiety over how his performance had gone over with us. I stared back expressionlessly.

“Thank you for your time, Captain Sanchez,” I said, turning off the tape recorder and putting some papers back in my oversize legal case.

He stood up and pushed his chair back into the table. He waited there, looking awkward, almost helpless. “Hey, Major,” he finally said.

“What?” I answered, standing and preparing to leave.

“We didn’t murder those Serbs. I swear we didn’t. When we left, there were still some of them alive.”

I nodded. It wasn’t a nod of agreement, just acknowledgment.

Chapter 9

A
n envelope had been slid beneath the door to my room when we returned to the hotel, and that irritating little red message light was blinking on the phone. I opened the envelope as I dialed the number for my messages, which was no easy thing with only two hands.

The envelope contained a fax that had been forwarded by Imelda. She had appended her own little note, which read,“Bastard!!” I couldn’t tell if that was directed at me or mankind in general, so I read on.

The fax was a copy of a
Washington Herald
story from the day before. It was written by none other than Jeremy Berkowitz, the same fella I’d hung up on, and it exposed the shocking revelation that the Army had turned over the investigation of perhaps the most serious criminal case in its history to a lowly Army major and two captains. The implication was that if the Army genuinely wanted to get to the bottom of this case, it would have appointed some heftier, more qualified officials to handle the investigating. My name was even mentioned a few times in the story—spelled wrong, which struck me as adding insult to injury.

Now I could’ve decided that Jeremy Berkowitz was a vindictive prick who was trying to get even with me for hanging up on him, but that would’ve implied a disturbing lack of professionalism on the part of a very famous journalist. And as it was, the story was pretty weak. I mean, really, who cared if the Army appointed a major to head up this investigation? If that’s the best Berkowitz could do, then bring him on.

There were three phone messages. One was from the same pushy, antsy special assistant to the President I met before I left Washington, and the second was from General Clapper, the chief of the JAG Corps. I was not about to call the White House operative. The way those guys are, you call them once and they never get off your back. Like a bad date that just won’t go away.

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 stupid 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.