The Death Trust (33 page)

“No, I mean a specific ‘The Establishment,’ Mrs. Scott—a secret quasi-government black-ops organization that kills people, among them possibly your husband and stepson.”

“Absurd,” said von Koeppen.

“Is that where you’ve been going with all this? You’re on the trail of some kind of international plot?” There was derision in Harmony Scott’s voice.

I wanted to tell her that, yes, that’s exactly what I believed. I believed Abraham was killed to protect some secret, and that Peyton was murdered as a warning to his father to keep it. I also believed that this mystery group, The Establishment, was cleaning house, cutting back the numbers on the need-to-know list, killing people father and son might have talked to—desperate to keep its existence secret. I wanted to tell her that I believed she was part of The Establishment, this organization, this club. Whatever, a member. My phone began to vibrate against my leg. I pulled it out and recognized the number on the screen. I excused myself and walked to a corner of the room. “What’s up?” I said. It was Bishop.

“Sir, we’ve managed to crack into the second Dungeon level. One of the programmers contacted us and gave us the key.”

“Great. What’ve you got for us?”

“Sir, you’re not going to believe this if I simply tell you about it. You have to see it.”

It was also, apparently, something we needed to see in a hurry. We concluded the interview without complaint from either Harmony Scott or von Koeppen, though I was certain the general would make one to Gruyere about us at the earliest opportunity. Masters and I made it back to Ramstein in record time.

THIRTY-TWO

B
ishop said, “I’ll pull it up for you.” On the screen between us was a ring of interlocking blue bars warbling with electricity generated by the computer’s graphics card. Bishop reached between us and his fingers tripped over the keyboard. Suddenly, a number of the interlocking bars circling on screen slowly detached themselves, revolved ninety degrees, and then broke away. The entire graphic was then gobbled up by the animated electricity. The door of the Dungeon had apparently been opened, revealing three folders on the otherwise clean desktop of the laptop. “Click the one on the left, sir.”

I did as the flight lieutenant suggested. The folder opened; inside it were half a dozen JPEGs. I double-clicked on one of them. A digital photo filled the screen.

“Shit,” Masters said quietly.

Yeah, I thought, make that a double shit. Bishop was right: I wouldn’t have believed it.

I clicked on the other JPEGs and different views of the same scene were revealed. I was familiar with the image, but I’d only seen it in black and white—or, more accurately, in the black and yellow of old newspaper print.

“Does this mean what I think it means?” said Masters.

“Yeah, I’d say it does,” I said. General Scott’s reflection was caught in the window of a nearby vehicle, a camera to his face and those body bags lined up on the tarmac. He’d snapped a photo of himself snapping a particularly sensitive photo.

I studied the photos. An unidentified U.S. Army soldier—a PFC—kneeled over one of the bags while two others were doing a head count, or a zipper count, or whatever is done to make sure the same number of corpses loaded on to the transport plane in Baghdad had been carried off at the other end.

“So now we’ve got General Scott taking photos and passing them along to a journalist, knowing full well he’s going to send the White House into a spin,” said Masters.

“And the journalist subsequently ends up dead,” I added. “What else have we got here?” I double-clicked on the second folder. Inside was one unnamed PDF file. “Any idea what this is all about?” I asked Bishop.

“No, sir.” He shook his head. “I’ve been trying to get into the next level.”

I double-clicked it. Another surprise. It was a report on OSI letterhead made some sixteen months ago. I scanned the cover sheet and summary. The investigating special agent was a Captain Toby Sumner, also stationed at Andrews. The case involved the theft of a batch of three hundred CAC cards. There were no charges brought, no arrests. “Can you print copies?”

“Sure,” Bishop said.

I skimmed the report again. What the fuck did all this have to do with anything? I’d been wrong about the case having reached its extremities—this was one goddamn universe that kept expanding. I clicked on the third file and found two Word files. I skimmed them. One appeared to be an overview of the various military development programs presently being funded. The other was information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, documenting the legitimate payments made by various armaments companies to practically every senator and congressman from New England to New Mexico.

“I’ll get you copies of these, too, sir,” said Bishop. I barely heard him. I hobbled to the Whiteboard, touched the print button, and ran off a copy of what had been written up. Then I wiped the board clean and said, “Okay, this is what we’ve got. Fourteen months ago, General Scott notices that there are several unauthorized flights shuttling to and from Riga, Latvia, and goes there to check them out. A couple of months later, Peyton Scott is murdered in Baghdad by a sniper. The autopsy is performed by someone who couldn’t possibly have done the job, and the reason given for the cause of death is a lie. The body arrives here at Ramstein. It’s reasonable to assume the general has been tipped off that something is wrong with it because he insists upon looking inside the body bag. He orders another autopsy to be performed in secret on Peyton’s body. The guy who does it dies soon after.

“Meanwhile, Scott heads to Baghdad to find out what really happened to his son. After that, he disappears for a couple of days. Then he surfaces in Riga.

“When the general arrives back at Ramstein, he’s a changed man by all accounts. He also has a new girlfriend with him, a Latvian, most probably traveling on false documents—a German passport. In the meantime, his wife, Harmony, is having an affair with his second-in-command, General von Koeppen.

“Things are falling apart for General Scott. He spends all his time gliding, mourning the death of his boy, Peyton, and he embarks on an Internet research program across a range of seemingly unrelated topics. He takes a highly sensitive photo of a row of body bags and gets it published in
The Washington Post,
which earns him a stern reprimand from his daddy-in-law, Vice President Cutter. Within a couple of months, he’s turned into a hearty stew when his glider forgets how to fly. I arrive, a murder investigation begins, and then his widow turns up with a ‘good-bye, cruel world’ note from the general that we all think is a fake. All the while we’re being ambushed, shot at, rocketed, and mugged, while too many people are dropping like flies in all kinds of convenient accidents.” I looked at the Whiteboard. It looked as if a four-year-old with ADD and a handful of pens had gone to work on it. But that was okay. Going through what we knew, piece by piece, had a crystallizing effect. At least, I hoped it would. “Have I missed anything?”

“Alu Radakov,” said Masters. “The Chechen people-smuggler. The man who sold Varvara to General Scott as a sex slave. Where does Radakov fit into all of this?”

I caught Flight Lieutenant Bishop raising an eyebrow. Four-star generals didn’t normally purchase people for sex—or any other reason, for that matter.

“Yeah, you’re right. I must be going soft. There’s the whole World War Two thing as well,” I said. Where the hell did that connect? There were also the payments made by the military-industrial complex to U.S. politicians—campaign donations, most likely—along with the list of new weapons currently under development. And now there was the business of this CAC card theft. Was any of this relevant to the general’s death?

My mind was a little like the Whiteboard—a mess. I glanced at the Rolex on my wrist and it reminded me of the ambushes in Baghdad and K-town. Whoever these people were, they’d made a mistake. Masters and I had survived. If we’d been killed in Baghdad, our deaths would’ve been written off as unfortunate strokes of fate. The attack on me outside the pensione could also have been seen as a mugging, just a random attack. I was still certain the people involved in these attacks on us were former Special Forces. If not for a little good fortune, we’d have joined Alan Cobain, François Philippe, and all the rest. Was this hit squad part of The Establishment?

“It’s time to call it a day, folks. I’m not thinking straight,” I said, realizing my thoughts were jumping all over the place. Any minute now, I was going to get flippant. Concussion always has that effect on me. It was getting late, and the mere thought of getting horizontal was making me giddy with happiness, but the egg on the side of my head left by the assailant with the pipe might also have had something to do with it.

Another random thought struck me. “Given that von Koeppen and Harmony aren’t U.S. military personnel, we’re going to need to bring the German police in on this if we’re going to get a look at their phone records.”

“We’ve worked with a couple of the local cops before,” said Masters. “They’ll be happy to play ball.”

I said, “Yeah, but will they cooperate?”

Special Agent Masters gave me The Look.

I cleared my throat and said, “Great. And Peter—if you get some time tomorrow, go have a talk with Captain Aleveldt. Ask him about those calls to von Koeppen. And take a peek into General Scott’s financials. In particular, dig around and see if he used a credit card to book any flights in the weeks after Peyton was killed. We’ve also got the widow’s permission to pick up General Scott’s computer and his files. Let’s get onto it first thing.”

“Yes, sir,” said the flight lieutenant, taking notes. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, there is. Go back through the air-traffic-control records. Look at all the flights to Riga in the six months before Peyton Scott’s death. See where the crews that flew those missions are now. If they’re not on the base, find out where they are and give them a call.”

“What do you want to know?” Bishop asked.

“Whether they’re still alive.”

An hour later, as the sun went down, Masters parked her purple Mercedes across the road from the Pensione Freedom. Life had returned to the street with the sudden burst of warmer weather. The skirts were seriously short. I could get used to Germany.

“How’re you feeling?” Masters asked.

“Fabulous,” I lied.

“Well, see you tomorrow.” She gave me a smile tinged with concern. “Sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, thanks. Tomorrow…” I said as I slid out. I stood on the sidewalk and waited for her to drive off. She motioned at me to go inside. We were concerned about each other’s safety. I told myself the danger had passed like an afternoon thunderstorm and that from here on things would be fine and sunny. The alternative would be to have a close-protection squad around us 24/7. But that would make investigating the case difficult, to say the least. Danger came with the territory, for both of us. I gestured at Masters to go, and watched her taillights join the line cruising the strip.

The aromas of various cooked meats drifted on the light breeze from the restaurants sprinkled along the road. My stomach growled, fought a minor skirmish with my head, and lost. What I needed more than food was sleep. I walked zombielike up the steps of the pensione. The frau was signing in a couple of customers at the front desk and didn’t look up from the paperwork as I shuffled by. I walked straight into the open elevator and listened to the whine of electric motors as it took me to my floor. It jerked to a stop and the doors wheezed open.

I made it to my room and lay down on the bed in my clothes, careful of the wound in my arm, breathing a loud sigh. The bed seemed to absorb me like water into a sponge. I thought about kicking off my shoes but I didn’t have the energy. In the room next to mine, the Canadian backpackers were playing music that sounded like a bunch of instruments being thrown down a stairwell. It pounded into my room laced with a whiff of marijuana. I didn’t mind the smell, although I wondered why the smoke detectors hadn’t picked it up and sounded the alarm. The music wasn’t so bad—it wouldn’t keep me awake. But there was an insistent banging at my door, and that would stop me from sleeping. “Okay, okay,” I said as I stood up. “Who is it?”

“It’s Anna.”

I opened the door. “I thought you might want this,” Masters said as she walked inside.

“What?” I said.

She handed me a folder. “I forgot to give it to you. Copies of all the general’s files—just in case you wake up and want something to read. Oh, yeah, and I also thought you might like a drink.” In her other hand was a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and two tumblers. “I never trust the glasses you get in these places. People spit into them. Got any ice?”

I was too tired to protest. And a drink would be good. I felt I’d earned it. I absolved myself of keeping the pact. “Yeah, I think so.” There was a small bar fridge tucked under a bench with one tray of ice cubes some thoughtful prior guest had organized. I took the Jack and the glasses and set them on the bench.

“Just rocks, thanks,” said Masters, settling against the windowsill as I cracked the bottle’s seal. “So what did Varvara tempt you with when she came to your room?”

“Scrabble,” I said. “Is that why you’re here? To tempt me?” I handed her a drink.

“We started off on the wrong foot, and I thought it would be good to have a drink and just talk, you know?”

I lifted the glass. The bourbon was cold but it went down warm. It invaded my stomach and the warmth spread, chasing a shiver into my arms. I liked that sensation, the feeling of the first drink. The only trouble was, for the last year or so, I hadn’t been able to say no to the next drink and the one after that and the one after that, until I forgot that saying no would be a good idea and I woke up not knowing what I’d said or done or who I’d fought and whether or not there’d be charges. My last drink had been with Arlen; a lifetime ago, it seemed.

“Feel good?” Masters said, holding up the glass.