The Accused (3 page)

Will dialed his office and got Hilda, his secretary. She and everyone in the office had been tremendously worried, she explained, since Cozumel was close to the terrorist activity at Cancún.

Will assured her they were fine.

“Any urgent messages for me?”

There was an awkward pause at the other end, and then Hilda responded, “Well…nothing that can't wait until you get back.”

“I know that tone of voice. Give me the bad news—what do I need to know?”

“Truly,” she said, trying to smooth things over, “it can wait, Will. Really, I think you ought to wait on this.”

“Come on, Hilda. I'm a big boy. If there is something, let me know right now.”

Will's tone and his conversation had caught Fiona's attention. She had stopped packing her suitcase and was staring intently at him.

“Look, Will, you are there on your honeymoon. For heaven's sake, take advantage of your time with your dear wife. Fiona deserves it. You certainly deserve it. That detective can talk to you when you get back.”

“Detective? What are you talking about?”

“See,” Hilda said with resignation. “You always get me going, and then I say something I shouldn't.”

“Out with it,” Will said. “Come on, what is it?”

After another slight pause, his secretary sighed and then began to explain.

“A detective from the DC police department called. It is about Audra. Said he's got some information on the guy who killed her. It doesn't change a thing. I don't even know why he called now. But he wanted you to know. Apparently, the person who did it was in prison and confessed to his cellmate. But now the guy is dead. And that is the end of the story. I wish I didn't have to tell you. And I'm sorry you asked me.”

Will sat down in a chair next to the telephone and ran his hand through his hair.

“Did they tell you anything else?”

“No. That was it. He wants you to call him when you get back to town, and he will fill you in on, I suppose, some more details.”

And then Hilda added a few words of advice.

“Will, you've got a beautiful, precious wife. Fiona loves you like crazy. All that with Audra is past. Let the dead bury their dead. I'm not saying this right, but I think you know what I mean.”

“Thanks,” he responded, but his voice was breaking a bit and was barely audible.

He hung the phone up and stared out into space blankly.

Fiona came over and sat down on the carpet in front of him, her hands on his knees.

“Tell me, darling, what is it?”

“Audra. A detective in DC called to say they found out who did it. The guy was in prison—for something else, I guess—he was killed. But before that, he admitted to his cellmate that he'd murdered Audra.”

Fiona looked into her husband's face, which was flinty and unmoved by emotion now. There was a hardness to his expression she had not seen before.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I know how hard it is every time you have to relive that.”

Will thought a minute and struggled for some diplomatic way to say what he needed to say. But euphemisms were not going to help.

“Look,” he started out. “When Audra died I went through the whole gamut. Shock. Soul-scorching grief. Emptiness. Anger. Resignation. Bitterness. Everything. But then something really surprised me. What was left after all of that.”

“Left?” Fiona asked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…that I had nothing but willful rage. Strange, isn't it? But I can't stand the idea that the animal who killed her is now dead. Because I had this lingering desire. This nasty, unforgiving prayer that someday I would meet the guy. And then I could take out my own revenge.”

He glanced at his wife with a tired, distant look. “That sounds pretty twisted, doesn't it?”

Fiona rose to her feet, and as she did, she bent forward and kissed her husband on the forehead. She had nothing to say. What she wanted to say—but didn't—was that, for a fleeting instant, Will had looked like someone else. Like a man who was still stuck in limbo between the past and the future—and who could not fully commit to the present…or to her.

Fiona turned and walked to the suitcase, her back to Will. She did it partly because she was stunned by her husband's words about revenge and rage. But mostly she did it so she could hide the tears that were now filling her eyes.

3

O
N
I
SLA
H
OLBOX, A TINY ISLAND
a few miles offshore from the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, Colonel Caleb Marlowe, commanding officer of BATCOM, was looking through the window of the Mexican federal police building. His face was as unmoving as granite. His eyes were searching the police grounds for the approaching military police detail.

Marlowe was forty-three, but beneath his camouflage utilities, he had the hardened body of a twenty-five-year-old athlete. Something in his eyes and the lines in his face, however, revealed the aging process that comes with command decisions over life, death, survival, and destruction. Now he was trying to figure out how to survive the tragic consequences of his command decision of the day before.

At the other end of the room, Master Sergeant Mike Rockwell and Staff Sergeant Billy Baker, both under Marlowe's command in the recent assault on the fleeing terrorists, were trying to remain at ease on a cheap plastic couch.

Baker leaned over and tried to ask Rockwell a question in a hushed voice. But his companion motioned for him to be silent, and then stood to his feet.

“Sir, permission to take a smoke break?” he asked, brandishing a cigar and a lighter.

Marlowe turned only slightly from his watch at the window, smiled, and nodded. The two men put on their covers, stepped outside, and closed the door behind them. There were a few members of the Mexican police lounging outside the barracks, leaning on their rifles.

Rockwell fingered his cigar and then slipped it back into his pocket. “I don't want you talking in front of the colonel.”

“All right, so tell me now. What's coming down? I have a right to know. I am a member of this unit,” Baker insisted.

“In a couple of minutes you are about to see the most decorated Marine I know—and probably the best warrior, pound for pound, in the American military—apprehended by a chaser detail. Some colonel from the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate is coming down here to put him into custody and take him back to Quantico.”

“What happened back at Chacmool last night—that was not his fault,” Baker protested.

“Colonel Marlowe was the ground force commander in that mission. When you are in charge, everything is your fault,” Rockwell countered, with no emotion.

“You're saying the colonel blew it?”

The master sergeant turned his head quickly and gave Baker a withering glare.

“After all you've been through, all your training, you still don't get it? Every one of us knew the risks. I've never seen anything go quite so bad, so quick, as it did back there in Chacmool. We were being played like a fiddle. But that doesn't change the fact that it looks like they're picking the colonel to pay the fiddler.”

“And you're sure about the identity of the people who took the fire inside that house?”

“The colonel went in himself—you saw that—and he made the ID and the body count. When I learned who we had hit in there, I just about puked.”

Baker just shook his head. Then he spoke up again.

“How long have you been with the colonel?”

“From the beginning,” Rockwell replied. “Back when they used to call him Colonel God and Guts.”

“Good description.”

“Well, you know what he's like. He's a fierce believer in the chain of command—the Commandant of the Marine Corps, the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of Defense, the President. The only difference is, his chain goes way up—all the way up to God Almighty. That is sort of where the buck starts and stops for him.”

Then Rockwell glimpsed the MP detail approaching the barracks. The two men hustled to the door and bolted inside, quickly taking
positions behind Colonel Marlowe and standing at attention. Marlowe straightened his utilities. The door swung open.

To their surprise, the detail was being lead by Lieutenant General Cal Tucker from the Pentagon. Behind Tucker was Colonel Ronald Stickton, followed by two chasers—members of the military police. The two chasers saluted Marlowe.

The colonel and his two unit sergeants snapped to attention.

“At ease, gentlemen,” General Tucker said. “Colonel Marlowe, step aside with me for a moment, please.”

Tucker stepped to the other side of the room with Marlowe. Before speaking, he pursed his lips slightly and clenched his jaw.

“Caleb,” he began, “this is not the kind of ending I wanted for all of this. I read the debriefing your men gave about the incident in Chacmool. It raises a whole lot of questions and doesn't give a lot of answers. From this point on, I have to be careful about what you and I discuss. You knew you were on your own when you accepted the second phase of that mission.”

Marlowe nodded silently.

“And in this mess you've got very little backup. I will do what I can, but that may not be very much. There are some issues here that are beyond my authority. They are detailing defense counsel back at Quantico for you. I think it is going to be Major Douglas Hanover—good man, good military lawyer. But if you take my advice, I think you also ought to retain your own civilian legal counsel.”

“Why is that, sir?”

“Just my recommendation,” Tucker replied.

Then he reached his big hand out and gave Caleb Marlowe a firm handshake.

“Good luck, son.”

The general wheeled around and exited the barracks quickly.

Colonel Ronald Stickton stepped quickly over to Marlowe's position and stood in front of him.

“Colonel Caleb Marlowe,” Stickton began in a loud and official tone, “you are hereby apprehended as authorized under the rules for courts-martial. After being taken into custody, you will be transported to the Marine Corps Base, Quantico, where you will be subject to a formal investigation under charges and specifications that I am now delivering to you.”

With that, Stickton removed the paperwork from his clipboard and handed it stiffly to Colonel Marlowe.

“These are the charges and specifications preferred against you. Two Charges, with four specifications under each Charge. The first Charge is Article 118, murder, with one specification for each victim. The second Charge is Article 119, manslaughter, specifications same.”

As Sergeant Baker heard the charges and specifications, he gave Sergeant Rockwell a slight side-glance. But the other man's gaze remained straight ahead and unbroken.

As Stickton recited Colonel Marlowe's procedural rights, General Tucker was halfway to the waiting helicopter at the small landing strip on the federal police grounds. His aide-de-camp stepped up and followed him.

“Jimmy,” Tucker said back to his aide, “get me the CG over at Marine Corps Base, Quantico, Brigadier General Landon.”

The aide nodded and followed the general to the helicopter. There he paused at the cockpit and yelled something to the crew chief.

As the helicopter departed, it drew the gaze of a small crowd of Mexican police. Some of them were chuckling and pointing as it rose up and finally disappeared out of sight.

4

W
ILL
C
HAMBERS WAS WAITING IN THE LOBBY
of the District of Columbia police department, just outside the office of Captain Jenkins. He could have talked to him on the phone about the matter of Audra's murder. But Will chose to come in person, thinking perhaps it would give closure. But now he was doubting that. Instead, he admitted to himself, his decision to meet directly with the police captain had more to do with his instincts as a trial lawyer. He wanted to eyeball the man—take in his demeanor, his gestures, his facial expression.

And in a face-to-face meeting, Will would be able to probe deeper. To find out what was not being discussed. To read between the lines.

Jenkins strode into the lobby. He was wearing a smartly starched white shirt. His badge was polished, and his pants were neatly pressed. He had the no-nonsense look of business about him—all police procedure.

He reached out his hand to Will.

“Mr. Chambers, I don't know if you remember me,” he began. “I think we spoke on the phone a few times during the initial investigation into your wife's death. I am sorry we have to meet again in such unfortunate circumstances. Won't you come in?”

Will nodded, shook his hand and followed him into his office.

The captain flipped open the file on his desk, leaned back slightly in his chair, and then folded his hands in his lap and began talking.

“How long had you and your former wife been separated at the time of her murder?”