The Enemy (44 page)

"This way," the Chief of Staff said.

He led me into his office. My cup rattled on its saucer. His office was surprisingly plain. It had the same painted concrete walls as the rest of the building. The same type of steel desk I had seen in the Fort Bird pathologist's office.

"Take a seat," he said. "If you don't mind, we'll make this quick. It's late."

I said nothing. He watched me.

"I got your message," he said. "Received and understood."

I said nothing. He tried an ice-breaker.

"Noriega's top guys are still out there," he said. "Why do you suppose that is?"

"Thirty thousand square miles," I said. "A lot of space for people to hide in."

"Will we get them all?"

"No question," I said. "Someone will sell them out."

"You're a cynic."

"A realist," I said.

"What have you got to tell me, major?"

I sipped my coffee. The lights were low. I was suddenly aware that I was deep inside one of the world's most secure buildings, late at night, face to face with the nation's most powerful soldier. And I was about to make a serious accusation. And only one other person knew I was there, and maybe she was already in a cell somewhere.

"I was in Panama two weeks ago," I said. "Then I was transferred out."

"Why do you think that was?"

I took a breath. "I think the Vice-Chief wanted particular individuals on the ground in particular locations because he was worried about trouble."

"What kind of trouble?"

"An internal coup by your old buddies in Armored Branch."

He paused for a long moment. "Would that have been a realistic worry?" he asked.

I nodded. "There was a conference at Irwin scheduled for New Year's Day. I believe the agenda was certainly controversial, probably illegal, maybe treasonous."

The Chief of Staff said nothing.

"But it misfired," I said. "Because General Kramer died. But there were potential problems from the fallout. So you personally intervened by moving Colonel Garber out of the 110th and replacing him with an incompetent."

"Why would I do that?"

"So that nature would take its course and the investigation would misfire too."

He sat still for another long moment. Then he smiled.

"Good analysis," he said. "The collapse of Soviet communism was bound to lead to stresses inside the U.S. military. Those stresses were bound to manifest themselves with all kinds of internal plotting and planning. The internal plotting and planning was bound to be anticipated and steps were bound to be taken to nip potential trouble in the bud. And as you say, there were bound to be tensions at the very top that led to moves and countermoves."

I said nothing.

"Like a game of chess," he said. "The Vice-Chief moves, and I countermove. An inevitable conclusion, I suppose, because you were looking for a pair of senior individuals in which one outranks the other."

I looked straight at him.

"Am I wrong?" I said.

"Only in two particulars," he said. "Obviously you're right in that there are huge changes coming. CIA was a little slow to spot Ivan's imminent demise, so we've had less than a year to think things through. But believe me, we've thought them through. We're in a unique situation now. We're like a heavyweight boxer who's trained for years for a shot at the world title, and then we wake up one morning and find our intended opponent has dropped dead. It's a very bewildering sensation. But we've done our homework."

He leaned down and opened a drawer and struggled out with an enormous loose-leaf file. It was at least three inches thick. It thumped down on his desktop. It had a green jacket with a long word stencilled on it in black. He reversed it so I could read it. It said: Transformation.

"Your first mistake is that your focus was too close," he said. "You need to stand back and look at it from our perspective. From above. It's not just Armored Branch that is going to change. Everyone is going to change. Obviously we're going to move towards highly mobile integrated units. But it's a bad mistake to see them as infantry units with a few bells and whistles tacked on. They're going to be a completely new concept. They'll be something that has never existed before. Maybe we'll integrate attack helicopters too, and give the command to the guys in the sky. Maybe we'll move into electronic warfare and give the command to the guys with the computers."

I said nothing.

He laid his hand on the file, palm down. "My point is that nobody is going to come out of this unscathed. Yes, Armored is going to be professionally devastated. No question about that. But so is the infantry and so is the artillery, and so is transport, and so is logistics support, and so is everyone else, equally, just as much. Maybe more, for some people. Including the military police, probably. Everything is going to change, major. There will be no stone unturned."

I said nothing.

"This is not about Armored versus the infantry," he said. "You need to understand that. That's a vast oversimplification. It's actually about everyone versus everyone else. There will be no winners, I'm afraid. But equally therefore, there will be no losers. You could choose to think about it that way. Everyone is in the same boat."

He took his hand off the file.

"What's my second mistake?" I said.

"I moved you out of Panama," he said. "Not the Vice-Chief. He knew nothing about it. I selected twenty men personally and put them where I thought I needed them. I spread them around, because in my judgement it was fifty-fifty as to who was going to blink first. The light units, or the heavy units? It was impossible to predict. Once their commanders started thinking, they would all realize they have everything to lose. I sent you to Fort Bird, for instance, because I was a little worried about David Brubaker. He was a very proactive type."

"But it was Armored who blinked first," I said. He nodded.

"Apparently," he said. "If you say so. It was always going to be a fifty-fifty chance. And I guess I'm a little disappointed. Those were my boys. But I'm not defensive about them. I moved onward and upward. I left them behind. I'm perfectly happy to let the chips fall where they may."

"So why did you move Garber?"

"I didn't."

"So who did?"

"Who outranks me?"

"Nobody," I said.

"I wish," he said. I said nothing.

"What does an M-16 rifle cost?" he said.

"I don't know," I said. "Not a lot, I guess."

"We get them for about four hundred dollars," he said. "What does an Abrams MIA1 main battle tank cost?"

"About four million."

"So think about the big defence contractors," he said. "Whose side are they on? The light units, or the heavy units?"

I didn't answer. I figured the question was rhetorical. "Who outranks me?" he asked again. "The Secretary of Defence," I said.

He nodded. "A nasty little man. A politician. Political parties take campaign contributions. And defence contractors can see the future the same as anyone else."

I said nothing.

"A lot for you to think about," the Chief of Staff said. He hefted the big Transformation file back into his drawer. Replaced it on his desktop with a slimmer jacket. It was marked: Argon.

"You know what argon is?" he asked.

"It's an inert gas," I said. "They use it in fire extinguishers. It spreads a layer low down over a fire and prevents it from taking hold."

"That's why I chose the name. Operation Argon was the plan that moved you people at the end of December."

"Why did you use Garber's signature?"

"Like you suggested in another context, I wanted to let nature take its course. MP orders signed by the Chief of Staff would have raised a lot of eyebrows. Everyone would have switched to best behaviour. Or smelled a rat and gone deeper underground. It would have made your job harder. It would have defeated my purpose.

"Your purpose?"

"I wanted prevention, of course. That was the main priority. But I was also curious, major. I wanted to see who would blink first."

He handed me the file.

"You're a special unit investigator," he said. "By statute the ll0th has extraordinary powers. You are authorized to arrest any soldier anywhere, including me, here in my office, if you so choose. So read the Argon file. I think you'll find it clears me. If you agree, go about your business elsewhere."

He got up from behind his desk. We shook hands again. Then he walked out of the room. Left me all alone in his office, in the heart of the Pentagon, in the middle of the night. Thirty minutes later I got back in the car with Summer. She had kept the motor off to save gas and it was cold inside.

"Well?" she said.

"One crucial error," I said. "The tug of war wasn't the Vice Chief and the Chief. It was the Chief himself and the Secretary of Defence."

"Are you sure?"

I nodded. "I saw the file. There were memos and orders going back nine months. Different papers, different typewriters, different pens, no way to fake all that in four hours. It was the Chief of Staff's initiative all along, and he was always kosher."

"So how did he take it?"

"Pretty well," I said. "Considering. But I don't think he'll feel like helping me."

"With what?"

"With the trouble I'm in."

"Which is?"

"Wait and see."

She just looked at me. "Where now?" she said.

"California," I said. The Chevy was running on fumes by the time we got to the National airport. We put it in the long term lot and hiked back to the terminal. It was about a mile. There were no shuttle buses running. It was the middle of the night and the place was practically deserted. Inside the terminal we had to roust a clerk out of a back office. I gave him the last of our stolen vouchers and he booked us on the first morning flight to LAX. We were looking at a long wait.

"What's the mission?" Summer said.

"Three arrests," I said. "Tassell, Coomer, and Marshall."

"Charge?"

"Serial homicide," I said. "Mrs Kramer, Carbone, and Brubaker."

She stared at me. "Can you prove it?"

I shook my head. "I know exactly what happened. I know when, and how, and where, and why. But I can't prove a damn thing. We're going to have to rely on confessions."

"We won't get them."

"I've gotten them before," I said. "There are ways."

She flinched.

"This is the army, Summer," I said. "It ain't a quilting bee."

"Tell me about Carbone and Brubaker."

"I need to eat," I said. "I'm hungry."

"We don't have any money," Summer said.

Most places had metal grilles down over their doors anyway. Maybe they would feed us on the plane. We carried our bags over to a seating area next to a twenty-foot window that had nothing but black night outside. The seats were long vinyl benches with fixed armrests every two feet to stop people fom lying down and sleeping.

"Tell me," she said.

"It's still a series of crazy long shots, one after the other."

"Try me."

"OK, start over with Mrs Kramer. Why did Marshall go to Green Valley?"

"Because it was the obvious first place to try."

"But it wasn't. It was almost the obvious last place to try. Kramer had hardly been there in five years. His staff must have known that. They'd travelled with him many times before. Yet they made a fast decision and Marshall went straight there. Why?"

"Because Kramer had told them that's where he was going?"

"Correct," I said. "He told them he was with his wife to conceal the fact he was actually with Carbone. But then, why would he have to tell them anything?"