The Artifact (10 page)

“Suppose some MP was in on the scam?”

Carr’s reply was surprisingly phlegmatic. “Guess you can’t rule that out.”

“First, I’d have to find the MPs that supervised the departure of Lieutenant Mitchell’s 2
^nd
Platoon Bravo.”

Carr hesitated, staring more intently into his drink as he continued swirling its contents.

“Second Platoon. They took a few more hits than the rest of them. Ran into a nest of jihads

in some Syrian, Jordan border town.”

Andrea perked up. “Not in Fallujah?”

“That’s what I heard.” She waited for him to continue. “Like I said, we were real tight on makin’ sure nothin’ was smuggled home.” He drained his drink and packed up the debris from his lunch.

“If you were in my shoes, Bill, trying to confirm or dismiss this theft allegation, what would you do?”

“Stumbling on a buried treasure is against the odds, but possible,” he said. “How’re you ever gonna’ prove that?” Carr seemed like an intelligent man, intrigued by the challenge of her question. “All scuttlebutt eventually gets to the Top. Concentrate on him, if you want to keep wasting your time.”

“General Callaghan?”

“Master Sergeant Stubbs, Callaghan’s Sergeant Major, Bravo HQ Company.”

Attired in a black shantung sport coat, white Oxford button-down, tan trousers and black kiltie loafers, Eddie DiBiasio walked into the Federal Hill coffee shop known to the local cognoscenti as “Il Caffé.” He nodded to the man wearing a white apron and baker’s cap behind the glass counter filled with brioche, crème stuffed Cannoli and other ethnic pastries as he strolled confidently toward the rear of the narrow room to stand in silence beside a booth upholstered in maroon vinyl in which a fat man of middle age and receding hairline sat reading
The Providence Journal
.

The fat man had not looked up from his newspaper when the customer bell above the entrance door had tingled the young man’s arrival, but knew that the movement of the heavy curtain on the egress from the back room meant that the person who entered had been observed and recognized by at least one pair of constantly suspicious eyes. Nor did the seated man glance up from the columns of newsprint he continued to scan through a pair of half-lens reading glasses when he spoke in his casual Sicilian dialect.

“What brings my favorite nephew out so early to expose that precious automobile to the perils of Rhode Island commuters?”

“The news about the Iraqi treasure, Uncle Vinnie,” Eddie answered in the same language. Although the customers of the small bakery were almost universally Italian, few ventured closer than ten feet from the corner booth in the rear of the shop without express invitation.

Vincent Tomassi closed the paper, folded and placed it on the bench beside him, then buttoned his double-breasted blue blazer that covered the polo shirt of saffron yellow stretched over his broad expanse of stomach. “Sit down, Eduardo,” he commanded.

Eddie interpreted the invitation as interest on the part of his uncle, or at least permission to proceed. “It has to be worth millions. According to the woman reporter, a bunch of army
stupido
has been sitting on it for months. We ought to be able to scoop it up and fence it off for practically full value.”

“
Stupido
, you think.”

The fleshy face and closely shaved cheeks of Vincent Tomassi were placid, his tone of voice thoughtful, as though considering this proposal for the first time.

Eddie suddenly realized he was on the defensive regarding his brainstorm carefully developed over the past week, his enthusiasm for it beginning to dwindle before the calm interrogation of his mother’s older brother. “There’s a risk, sure. But the payoff on this one quick hit could bring in as much pure profit as we see in a year.”

“The risk,” said the fat man, ignoring Eddie’s speculation. “Abducting a reporter, disposing of the woman whether or not she can help you.”

Eddie stroked the long black brilliantine hair combed back from his forehead, careful not to disturb the well-defined center part. “Maybe I jumped too fast,” he said in English.

His uncle nodded, also switching to English. “College boy. They teach you to think up there on that other hill or just memorize dates, recite poetry?”

“I was just trying to....”

The fat man waved a hand at the pastry counter. “Half-baked ideas are just as bad as a half-baked lasagna. You understand what I’m saying?”

“I understand, Uncle Vinnie.”

The fat man smiled at his nephew, switching back to Italian. “We must watch this woman until we are sure she can lead us to the treasure. Remain alert to Iraqi agents and others who will join the imbroglio.”

Eddie slapped a palm lightly against his forehead. “I should have guessed, Uncle Vinnie.”

Eddie had the good sense to remain silent when Vincent Tomassi turned toward the glass pastry case, barely lifting his hand with two raised fingers. The counterman immediately began drawing espresso from a silver urn into tiny cups.

“You have a good Sicilian brain, Eduardo. Despite the confusion of your college learning.”

Eddie acknowledged the barbed compliment with downcast eyes.

“The risks I mentioned are very real,” his uncle continued. “I do not wish the family to be drawn into a public light about this treasure.” He paused as the counterman placed steaming cups of foaming brown liquid and a plate of assorted cookies on the table and retreated.

“I discussed this venture with the consigliore after the television broadcast. We must exercise alert patience until this treasure is located and its value confirmed.”

“I understand, Uncle Vinnie.”

The fat man selected a pink cookie from the plate, dipped it in his espresso, placed the entire delicacy in his mouth and chewed slowly, as Eddie raised his cup to blow on the scalding drink.

“Tell Guido that you are to assist him as he sees fit.” Vincent Tomassi picked up the morning newspaper he had placed at his side on the bench. “The consigliore is a better teacher than the professors you had up there at Brown’s College.”

The younger man rose from the booth, smiling. “
Prego
, Uncle Vinnie.”

“Embrace your mother for me,” the fat man called after him.

Andrea shoved through the revolving doors of Watergate Towers looking like a combatant street peddler with trench coat draped over the wheeled suitcase dragging behind her, tote bag slung over her shoulder, ambling across the wide expanse of lobby to a bank of elevators. She was aware and disturbed that she was leaning more heavily on her cane this morning than yesterday. After her interview with Carr, she had taken the rented Ford directly to the return site at the airport. As she was driving up to the check-in gates, her foot had slipped off the brake pedal and she had rear-ended the vehicle parked ahead of her, causing substantial damage to both cars. Although no one had been hurt, Andrea was concerned about the cause of the accident: it was her left leg that had been giving her problems; why had her right foot jammed onto the accelerator? She tried to push that nagging question from her mind as she squeezed into the first ascending elevator to the NNC offices above, getting off on the floor below her own on which the station’s research department was located.

Sammy pecked at his keyboard, scooped up several sheets of printout from his desk, grabbed his half empty cup of coffee and followed her into the hallway. As soon as she closed the door of the tiny meeting room, Sammy asked, “What about Mitchell’s squad leaders?”

Andrea pulled her beat-up pack of unfiltered Pall Malls from the belly bag around her waist, shook one out and lit up with a butane lighter, blowing the smoke away from Sammy’s wrinkled nose.

“I called Bragg. Brooks has been transferred off the post. They won’t tell me where, and nobody else is authorized to give out that personnel info. Callaghan won’t take my calls again.”

“The only site I could find for casualties on the Web was the Iraq War Memorial,” Sammy said. “Probably one of the few sites Callaghan couldn’t pull off line because his Third Battalion data is an integral part of the whole.”

“What’s in it?”

“Cumulative statistics for all branches by name and major unit. Division and battalion for

the 82
^nd
, names, rank, no contact info.”

“Nuts!”

Sammy proffered the printout. “The 82
^nd
had 546 Killed In Action, since April, Third Battalion, 114.”

“How does that compare to other units?”

Sammy pulled a calculator out of his shirt pocket. “Wait a sec.”

He murmured the raw numbers as he pressed them into the device, then wrote the values on the printout. “KIA for the entire Division is roughly one percent. Callaghan’s Battalion, about one and a half.”

“That’s fifty percent more than the whole.”

“My calculations are ballpark. I’ll have to check other units for anomalies to confirm them.”

Andrea’s brow furrowed at some inner thought, and they stood in silence for several minutes as she absorbed the data. “How do we find out if there’s a concentration of casualties in Callaghan’s Bravo Company, ideally Mitchell’s Second Platoon?”

“Perpetrators who won’t ‘fess up and Mitchell who’s dead and can’t. Confirming a high casualty rate in one of the squads in his Second Platoon could point a pretty damning finger at that unit.”

“There’d be no bodies to bury. If they were able to insert the names on the KIA list after the initial compilation, families wouldn’t be notified, and the perps could arrange for e-mails to continue being sent home from Iraq....”

“I’ll handle Duncan.” She squashed her cigarette butt out in Sam’s empty coffee cup on the table. “You crank that list up to warp speed.”

“I don’t want to throw cold water on this, but I keep wondering why one of the thieves, somebody, hasn’t spilled the beans.”

Andrea shouldered her carryall, her expression reflecting irritation. “Because the perps stole the damned thing witnessed only by the Bedouins and haven’t told anyone else. Who’s going to call?”

“Someone suspicious, jealous. An informer would need a big incentive to make it worth his while blowing the whistle.”

Andrea’s eyes snapped wide open as the carryall slid from her shoulder. “A reward! Beautiful, Sam. Absolutely beautiful!” She turned to face him. “We could get the names of suspects, clandestine activity, stuff people held back from the MI investigation.”

“Leads.”

She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Sammy, if you didn’t prefer boys, I would lock that door and fuck your brains out here and now.”

“I do not prefer boys,” he said. “I like men. What do you think I am, a priest?”

CHAPTER SIX

Washington, DC

October 2004

She took the elevator up to the editorial floor, stalking down the narrow corridor, thrusting her wooden cane angrily onto the beige carpet. The news director’s secretary greeted her warmly and offered coffee as T.P. signaled through the glass enclosure of his office that his meeting with three staff members would be over shortly.

By the time she had finished her coffee in the reception area and settled into the leather armchair beside T.P.’s desk, she had calmed down appreciably.

treasure out of Iraq. If anyone saw anything suspicious or was bribed to look the other way it would have been an MP.”