A Knife Edge (31 page)

“You read them?”

“Nope.”

“Heard any talk?”

“No.”

The seal on the envelope was unbroken. I fixed that with my thumb. Inside were copies of the orders, six in all. I'd had to pre sent six copies of orders only once before in my career with the military, though back then I was green and keen and no one had shot my ass out of the sky, or any other part of me, for that matter. I skimmed the paperwork in no particular order.” Sweat beads popped on my forehead and my shirt felt clammy as I read and then reread the paragraphs that weren't pure template.

“Well?” Arlen asked.

“Well, what?” I said, breathing, trying to stay calm.

“What do they say?”

“To pack extra underwear.”

“So I heard right,” said Arlen.

“You said you hadn't heard anything.”

He put his hand on my shoulder and gave me the sort of look you might give someone who'd just experienced a death in the family. I got up and made it to the head just in time to park the contents of my stomach.

I had a drink of water and headed for my office. I needed to have a few moments on my own to think the orders through. I'd forgotten I had guests.

“Cooper,” said the Asian guy with the familiar New Jersey accent as I walked in. “Good of you to drop by.”

“Yeah, the Gulf agrees with him, wouldn't you say?” said his partner. The Asian guy nodded.

“Wu and De Silver, right?” I said. “But it has been so long, fellers. I'm going to need some help. Which one's which? You're Wu, right?” I said, pointing at the guy who was about as Asian as spaghetti and meatballs. The real Wu was sitting in my chair, doing a good job of appearing constipated. I took a couple of steps toward my desk, which was bare except for a phone, an in-tray, an eraser, a mug stuffed with pens, and Wu's boots. “You mind?” Wu swung them off, stood, and then meandered around the other side, squaring up my in-tray with the side of the desk as he passed it. Accountants. The guy was so anal his shit probably came out symmetrical. I sat in my vacated chair. “Good of you to warm it up for me. Now, what can I do for you gentlemen?” I said, resting my chin on a pyramid of fingers.

“We told you we were going to keep an eye on you, Cooper,” said De Silver, his hands loose in front of him like door security before they start brawling. His head was even cocked at the tough-guy angle. I almost laughed, but then I thought I'd better not if I wanted my expenses for the past few weeks reimbursed, an amount close to two thousand bucks. And all of it on my government Visa.

“Yeah, I remember you saying that the last time. And what has that eye you've been sharing seen, exactly?”

Wu and De Silver exchanged a glance. De Silver nodded. Wu stepped forward and leaned over the desk. “Uncle Sam is not your private bank, soldier.” He produced a copy of the expenses
form I'd filled in over the net when I was down in Florida and banged it on the desk. “One man does not consume two clam chowders, a basket of soft-shelled crabs, a couple of pounds of shrimp and scallops. And then there's the wine.”

“The meal was a legitimate expense incurred in the performance of my duty,” I said, parrying the thrust. The dinner at Salty's came back to me, unedited. Clare and I had discussed the Wright inquiry at length before going back to her house to play consenting adults. A snapshot of Clare came to mind. I saw her on top, holding me with both hands, the silver moonlight spilling through the bedroom window and flowing all over the bed.

“Something funny?” asked Wu.

“No, not funny.”

“Then why are you smiling?”

“None of your damn business, sonny,” I said.

Wu scowled.

De Silver droned on. “Also, there's the form itself. The DD 1351-2.”

“What about it?”

“You're
AF,
pal. That means you fill in forms with an
AF
prefix,” he said.

“The upshot is, Cooper, that we're not paying your expenses,” said Wu, more confident now.

“Y'know,” I said, “that's really great news.”

“And why's that?” said Wu, frowning, disappointed. Perhaps he'd been expecting that this bulletin might upset me.

“ ‘Cause I just got SPECAT orders from a four-star by the name of Howerton. You might have heard of him?”

Both nodded involuntarily, pure reaction to hearing the name of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “I'm supposed to be leaving tomorrow,” I continued. “But in order to fulfill this latest contract I have with both the President as well as the Constitution of the United States, I'm going to need a card that isn't frozen because of nonpayment. But if you bold warriors are game enough to prevent me from following my orders, I can only admire you, and thank you. Means I'll live longer. Of
course, I'll have to notify General Howerton about your problem with the number of soft-shelled crabs I ate as being the reason for my inability to follow his orders. I just know he'll want your serial numbers for verification purposes.” I pulled a sheet of paper from a drawer and a pen from the mug. “Why don't you just write them down here? I'd hate to make a mistake and get a couple of innocent clerks castrated in your place.”

I watched as De Silver chewed something off the inside of his cheek. SPECAT orders were classified, which meant they couldn't ask to see them and I would be breaking the law even giving them a peek. I could be bluffing, but, then again, maybe I wasn't. Also leaving an unpleasant taste in their mouths was the realization that on the expense form I would submit at the SPECAT mission's conclusion, only the amounts column would be filled out. There'd be no receipts provided, no details recorded or able to be verified. This was the GAO's worst nightmare—goddamn unsubstantiated expenses. I mean, just how many soft-shelled crabs would I be eating unchecked on the job this time? And then there was the wine … Both men glared at me, at the paper and pen, and back at each other. Wu finally spoke. “Then let's all just hope you don't make it back alive, Cooper.” As they stomped out of my office, Wu slammed the door shut. I almost felt sorry for their next victim.

A
n hour into the seven-hour bus trip south to Fayetteville, North Carolina, I was still staring disbelieving at the acronym soup that were my orders. There were two parts to the mission. The first part was not SPECAT I was to get to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, by 1500 hours the following day, whereupon I was to report to a Major Jay Cummins, B Company, 2d Battalion, 1st SWTG (A)—Special Warfare Training Group (Airborne)—for the purposes of attending MFFPC.

The second part was as vague as only SPECAT orders could be. The paperwork merely said I would be required to attend a JMAP, or Joint Military Appreciation Process, at the successful completion of the MFFPC, at a place and venue TBN. TBN, of course, meant NFI for no fucking idea. Knowing the Air Force, the NFI was as much theirs as mine.

I considered my immediate future, feeling like I'd been sucked into the maw of something carnivorous. MFFPC was the acronym for military free fall parachute course. Specifically, an MFF is conducted from anywhere above 10,000 feet—and sometimes as high as 30,000 feet. In MFF, the paratrooper free-falls—without the parachute deployed—to a specific altitude. The rip cord is then pulled so that the chute opens, ideally within two hundred feet of the designated height. In order to do
this, I would be jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, not that there was any such thing. Also, I'd read
Have a Nice Flight
from cover to cover twice, but I'd failed to locate the chapter covering this particular scenario. I kept telling myself that it wasn't falling I had a problem with; it was crashing. But that didn't seem to help a whole lot. I pulled the book from my carry-on and fed it to a trash can at the Greyhound terminal.

All the way to Fayetteville the differential under my seat whined like a spoiled kid in a candy store. I got about as much sleep as the guy with a head cold sitting across the aisle, which is to say none. I told myself the bus was still better than flying and got no argument.

The weather in Fayetteville when I arrived was cool without being cold, the skies a simpatico gray. The Army shuttle buses out to Bragg were regular but didn't begin till ten a.m., so I found a diner and had breakfast—a double serving of bacon with two eggs, two servings of toast, two cups of black coffee, and a toothpick. The food helped my mood; must have helped the skies too, which were clear and blue by the time I walked back out on the street and took a seat on the service to Bragg.

The bus was empty but for two guys and three women—all 82nd Airborne—coming back from leave. My fellow travelers knew each other and chatted easily. I didn't have to talk to anyone, which suited me fine. The bus meandered through farmland and pine forests. Nothing had changed here in forty years, except maybe for a few more subdivisions.

The base looked like every other one I'd ever seen, seemingly designed by the same slide rule in the Army's planning department. Columns and squares of young men and women sang in cadence while noncoms flogged them through another day designed to make them fit, hard, and willing. I saw myself among them, years younger and dumber, back before Afghanistan and Kosovo when I was on my way to joining the combat controllers. As I remembered it, this place was no picnic. The passage of time had done nothing to make me in the least nostalgic about the physical pain I went through back then to get jump wings.
Usually the sight of America's youth muscling up made me feel good, but this time it didn't. This time I knew what lay ahead.

*   *   *

Jay Cummins was a major in the Army and he had an office at the SWTG HQ. He'd had bad acne as a kid and he'd inherited early-onset male-pattern baldness from his parents, whom I'm sure he thanked for it every waking day. The major also looked extremely fit with a broad chest and bazookas for arms.

I knocked on the door frame. The guy was hunched over his keyboard, elbows tucked in, shoulders bunched up like he was squeezed into a box. “Major Cummins? Special Agent Vin Cooper,” I said.

Cummins glanced up from whatever he was concentrating on—losing a few more hairs, maybe—then stood and walked over to greet me with an easy smile. We shook hands and his grip was firm. On the breast pocket of his BDU was the badge of a master paratrooper.

“Cooper. You're early,” he said with a southern drawl so that “you're” sounded like “yower,” full of hospitality and grits. “That's good. We don't have much time with y'all. I was just going over your details. Take a seat.” He stuck his head out his door and called out, “Randy, you want to go get Uncle down here for me. Let him know Major Cooper's in the house.”

From behind the wall of another office, I heard Randy answer, “Yes, sir.”

“Have yourself a good trip down, Major?” Cummins asked.

“Yes, thanks,” I answered.

“You got your orders there?”

I nodded and handed over the thick envelope. He pulled out the paperwork and went through the copies one by one. “Good,” he said. “All six copies. At least we know someone in Washington can count. Also proves D.C. can haul ass when it has to. We were only told ‘bout you yesterday, and here y'all are.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, distracted. On his desk was a photo of his wife and a woman I guessed was his daughter. Both were pretty.
The daughter looked like her mom, rather than her father. Lucky for the daughter, I thought. I glanced around the office's gray walls. There were plenty of pictures, highlights from his career. Looked like he'd spent some time in Afghanistan and Iraq. He'd also jumped out of quite a few planes. Willingly, too, by the looks of things.

I tuned out while Cummins brought himself up to speed on a bunch of waivers designed to counter various regulations tripped, in the main, by my lengthy time out of special ops. There were also the physical examinations and qualifications I knew I had, most of which I also knew were out-of-date. My records had been doctored so that the rank and file wouldn't question my fitness and preparedness to train for and undertake the SPECAT part of my orders. The question I still wasn't sure about was, would I? At least in the short term, I'd play along. This MFF refresher was connected to Dr. Spears and, through her, somehow to the murder of Hideo Tanaka. The investigator in me was itching to know how and why.

“Just a little housekeeping, Major, before we get you started here …” He picked out a form from one pile, and put it on another. “So… we've got you staying on post. And the government will also be covering all your meals.”

Gee … All of them?

“Your gear has also been forwarded.”

“Gear?”

“Airborne Battle Uniforms, running shorts, PT uniform…”

“Any idea how long I'll be here, Jay?” I asked.

“Our advice from SOCOM is ten days. And you've got a lot to pack into it.”

SOCOM—Special Operations Command. Cummins had just supplied another piece of the puzzle. SOCOM had been responsible for putting me behind enemy lines on a number of unpleasant occasions in the past. Unpleasantness was SOCOM's specialty.

“Do you know what SOCOM has planned for you here, Vin?” asked Cummins.

Something told me it wasn't beach volleyball lessons. I shook my head.

Cummins rifled through the paperwork again. “Says here you've logged over three hundred jumps, around seventy of them MFF, fifteen of which were into hot combat zones.”

“Sounds about right,” I said.

“I read something in
Stars and Stripes
about you. Weren't you the guy shot down in a CH-47, rescued in another CH-47, and then shot down again, all in the same action?”

“ Uh-huh.”

“That was a good job you did.”

Except that everyone but me died. “Thanks,” I said.

“Well, with your record, we ain't gonna make you go back to square one here. Our job is to get you fit, and get your head into free-falling again so you're not a danger to either yourself or those around you. We're going to start you in the VWT to get your orientation right, skip the jump phase out at Yuma, and pretty much go straight for daylight jumps here, gear-free, starting at ten thousand feet. Assuming everything goes to plan, we'll get you out of a C-17 at around twenty-eight thousand by day six in a packet, ready to kick ass as you hit the DIP. How does that sound?”