The Night Crew (35 page)

Chapter Thirty-Five

The cops from Highland Falls took my statement, though having no understanding of the Al Basari court martials, they released me with the usual admonition to remain in contact until the case was closed.

I needed to see a doctor about medical treatment for my arm, but I needed treatment for my head first, so I wandered back down to Main Street and walked into the first establishment I could find with a liquor license, which happened to be called South Gate Tavern.

It was located only yards from the academy’s Thayer gate, and the décor was an interesting muddle of Irish paraphernalia and military accessories, and I even recognized most of the unit patches pinned to the wall behind the bar.

All around me, pictures were hanging on the walls, photographs of soldiers and officers currently serving at war, in Iraq or Afghanistan—though from some of the shots it was hard to distinguish which. Everybody deserves a hometown, but for soldiers whose lives are as transient as tumbleweed, I suppose a bar has to do.

A few of the faces were old enough to have lines and creases; most, however, looked young, eager, and unblemished by age, disillusion, heartbreak, or crushing disappointment. I don’t recall ever looking that young, idealistic, or free-spirited, and certainly the face I see in the mirror these days tells a different story; it looks a little worse for wear, shorn of the naiveté and innocence I wore the day I first swore the oath to protect the Constitution of the United States and to defeat all enemies, foreign and domestic.

I occupied a booth in the darkest corner of the bar where I sipped from my Scotch and brooded, occasionally glancing up to the faces on the walls.

To my left, I observed an enlarged photograph of a smiling, attractive young female soldier in battle dress who bore a strong resemblance to June Johnston. She was blonde, fit, fresh-faced, and pretty—a poster girl for the modern army recruiter, the prom queen transformed into a cold-blooded killer. A second lieutenant’s butter bar was pinned to the center of her battle dress, so probably she was a recent graduate of the officer factory less than a few hundred yards away. That accomplishment aside, I wondered what made her any different from June, Lydia, or Andrea.

Boys and girls. Apart, they are fine, but together in close quarters, you have the equivalent of dynamite and C4 with an unstable fuse. For the army, despite all its regulations and authoritarian leaders, sex is like kryptonite. You can order men and women to ignore the color of skin or even sexual orientation, and you can usually make it stick. But try ordering boys and girls not to screw and you have the equivalent of ordering salmon not to swim upstream.

Fate and circumstance had deposited five soldiers at Al Basari, five unique individuals who came into the army already shaped and twisted by their own life experiences, each guided by their own neuroses, pathologies, and psychological scars. And ultimately, they found one another and went on a journey together, a journey into madness.

This was not supposed to happen, not in an army that prided itself on discipline, order, and impermeable notions of brotherhood and sisterhood. But happen it did, and I found myself wondering what could’ve been done to keep their demons caged up, or at least to give the better angels of their nature a fighting chance against the darkness in their souls.

The truth is an army is no better or no worse than the society from which its members are drawn. Ours is a great nation, as is the society that forms its bedrock, which produces a great army. But occasionally, an odd duck slips through, and we all end up with mud on our faces. War does not change us, but it seeps through the weaknesses in our armor, it finds the faults and fractures of the human psyche that are already there. Amal Ashad, Nate Willborn, and the night crew were not predestined to do what they did, but those who were supposed to prevent such behavior never really stood a chance.

After my fifth Scotch, I pulled out my cellphone and the business card with Thomas Bernhardt’s private phone number scribbled in his pinched writing on the back.

He identified himself when he answered. I gave him my identity back.

He came right to the point and asked, “Have you solved the killing?”

“I have.”

“Good. Then who killed General Palchaci?”

“You. The United States government. Everybody who could’ve prevented this but did not.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Colonel? Have you been drinking?”

“Yes, but not nearly enough. You sent an army to win a war, Mr. Bernhardt, without the men and material required to do that job properly and to succeed. That prison was a nightmare, a disaster. It was so scandalously short of manpower that the officers and sergeants running the place never had a chance. It was chaos with each man and woman trying to do the work of ten. This scandal did not have to happen but you made sure it was inevitable.”

There was silence on the other end. When he did speak, Bernhardt snarled, “I do not have to listen to a drunken rant from you, Drummond.”

“Tomorrow that certainly may be true, but tonight, you’ll listen to whatever I have to say or tomorrow will be the end of the presidency. Is this clear enough for you?”

He thought about it a moment, then said, in a more enlightened tone, “Look, I understand what you’re saying, but this war is very unpopular with the American people. Congress is severely divided as to its wisdom. The federal budget is already under unbearable strain . . .” and he went on a long diatribe about all the pressures he and his boss had to endure not to do the right thing. I let him go on awhile because he’s a lawyer; that’s what a lawyer does.

But the first time he paused to catch his breath, I told him, “Fuck the politics. A soldier in a foxhole is not there to protect your president’s ass or ensure his reelection. He risks his life and limb, and his only expectation is that you give him everything he needs to win. Because you and your president failed to do that, one more American soldier died tonight.”

He responded to this news somewhat coldly, asking, “Is that so? Who is he?”

“Captain Nate Willborn. An intelligence officer. An interrogator at the prison.”

“Why did he die?”

“Because he murdered Palchaci, because he forwarded the photos to a reporter, and because, to keep them from exposing these crimes, he killed two good army lawyers.”

“Ah . . . I see.” There was a pause before he asked, “Well, how did he die?”

“I killed him.”

“Oh . . .”

“But if you’re inquiring about the technical determination of death, it may have been the bullet that blew most of his head off, though it’s certainly possible that the six rounds I pumped into his heart caused it to stop functioning. A coroner will figure it out. I’ll let you know.”

“Well . . . are you in any trouble? Are there, uh, any complications from his death?”

Instead of addressing his pressing concern for avoiding further scandal, I asked him, “Are you ready to hear the deal?”

“Uh . . . let’s hear it.”

“First, call General Fister, chief of the army JAG corps. Tell him to approve my request for resignation from this case, effective immediately.”

“I thought you said you would resign only if you couldn’t clear your client of involvement in Palchaci’s murder. Are you sure about this?”

“Despite every professional ethic I already violated, Mr. Bernhardt, I cannot keep secrets that might exonerate or mitigate my client’s guilt while I defend her.”

“I see. If that’s the way you feel . . .” He paused, probably confused by this reference to legal ethics. “Just be sure to word it damned carefully. Avoid any mention of Ashad, or how that led to your involvement in Willborn’s death.”

“I neither asked for, nor do I need, your advice on this matter, Mr. Bernhardt. I believe I’ve already demonstrated tonight that I know how to cover your president’s ass.”

He made no reply to this, but he couldn’t miss, or dismiss, the real meaning in what I was telling him. I had killed a man to protect the secret of what really happened at Al Basari. With the burial of Willborn, the truth would be buried with him.

“All right . . . well . . .” He cleared his throat. “Are there any other conditions?”

“You will offer each of the defendants, except Sergeant Elton, a one-year sentence, and a less than honorable discharge in lieu of the bad conduct discharge hanging over their heads. I really don’t care what Elton gets. It won’t be enough.”

“Jesus . . . Is this a joke?”

“The punchline will be my morning press conference. Be sure you and your boss have your TVs on.”

“For God’s sake, be realistic, Sean. One year? The President will be scorched by the press. The Iraqis will scream murder.
One year
. . . after what those people did. The whole world is watching . . . we can’t . . . I mean, that’s just . . .”

I interrupted his stammering. “The public will forget all about Lydia and her friends after I tell the press what I know.”

There was a moment before he said, “Well . . . I . . . Uh . . . I suppose I can manage this.”

“I did not ask you to manage it—I said
do
it.”

“Got it.” It’s not often that you get to boss around the right hand of a president, and a chance like this might never come around again—the chance for an overnight colonel’s eagle, the chance for a free sixty-day leave—but you have to know when enough is enough.

“One year,” he repeated as though the number stunned him. “Do you think their attorneys will accept that offer?”

As he was an attorney himself I should not have to explain this, but I replied, “Show them the video you showed me.”

“Yes . . . I suppose that’s sound advice.”

There was silence on the line for a minute. But if I could picture his face, I was pretty sure he was smiling so hard he couldn’t speak. In the morning he would march into his boss’s oval office, assure him the Ashad deal was back on track, and advise him to sign the paper to authorize a victory in the war.

When that silence was broken, it was Bernhardt, saying, “Listen, Sean, I know this is not exactly an auspicious start to our relationship, but you’ve impressed me on this case. The way you’ve handled this . . . I’d like to have you on my staff.”

I made no reply.

He said, “You know, you’d be a fool not to seriously consider my offer. It’s the White House, the chance to make a real difference. It’ll be good for your career.”

I told him, “I’ll think about it,” then I punched off.

I walked to the bar where I ordered one more Scotch for the road. I knocked it back, walked to the door, and left to break my own heart.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Katherine was standing in the hallway when I entered the home that had been our office for the past week.

Her arms were crossed. An expression of worry was on her face. She took in the sling on my arm. “Are you okay?”

“Never been better.”

“Is that arm broken?”

I replied in my most macho tone, “You should see the other guy.”

“O’Reilly’s people told us you were in an altercation. They said you killed a man.”

“He did try to kill me first.”

“How? More importantly, Sean, why did he want to kill you?”

“With a bat,” I replied, not exactly answering her question.

She stared at me.

“The same way he killed General Palchaci. He used different methods on Captain Howser and Major Weinstein, but he wanted to kill me for the same reason he killed them.”

“And what was that reason?”

“I have no idea,” I lied. “Apparently, he went to war and went mad. He became a sociopath. I was walking back here and he came running out of the dark with his bat. He just went nuts.”

This was a lot for her to take in; at first, she looked startled, but she always was quick and I could see her wheels starting to turn. With Katherine, as I said, this was always dangerous. She has an uncanny knack for knowing my thoughts.

I took a deep swallow, then said, “I have to inform you, Katherine, that I have tendered my resignation from this case. I’m leaving tonight.”

She looked shocked. But more than that, she appeared hurt and confused. “Don’t be ridiculous, Sean. I know that I’ve complicated things, but there is no reason for you to resign. Withdraw it . . . please.”

“The decision is final, Katherine.”

“Do you want to tell me why? I believe you owe me an explanation.”

“You don’t need me.” I looked away. “I have confidence in you, Katherine.”

Tears were now welling in her eyes. Her lips were actually trembling. I was feeling a little unsteady myself, and I knew I had to get this over with quickly, or I might never get over it. She looked as beautiful and sexy as I’d ever seen her.

She took two steps forward and threw her arms around my shoulders. “If this is about Nel, let’s talk about it.” She squeezed me tighter. “Don’t you at least want to stick around to hear who I want?”

She tried to look in my eyes, but I refused to look back. “You should marry Nel. He’s a fine man and he loves you. You deserve the life he’ll provide.”

“I don’t care about his damn money, Sean.”

“I know that. I’m just not the right man for you.”

She took a step back and looked down at the floor.

I told her, a bit more brusquely than I intended, “Ask Imelda to pack my duffel and have it shipped to my apartment in Arlington.”

I then bent forward and kissed Katherine on the forehead. She was still looking down at the floor when I closed the door behind me.

Too much Scotch was coursing through my veins to legally or safely drive back to DC, so I decided I would treat myself to a night in the Thayer Hotel, where I had stayed so many years before with my father for his class reunions. I would sleep late and rent a car in the morning. I might even request a Prius. Maybe I would charge it to Nelson. He owed me one.

As I passed through the Thayer Gate onto Academy grounds, I looked up and saw the West Point crest engraved in stone, the same crest my father wore on his West Point ring. Duty, Honor, Country—three simple words that are scalded into the hearts, into the minds, and indeed, into the souls, of every man and woman who graduates from West Point.

It is, in my view, a great motto for the Academy, and for the army, but also, it is a warning, a caveat emptor, for duty is boundless, and the nation and its army demand much of those who would wear its uniform. In return for a lifetime of low pay, shabby housing, frequent moves, authoritarian and often irrational bosses, a life of tremendous hardship, physically and emotionally, all the army asks in return is that you always answer the call of duty, even when the burden of that call entails great personal sacrifice.

But if you think about it, no man or woman, or, at least, no sane one, knows what they will be asked to give until it is actually too late, until you can’t get it back.

Maybe Katherine and I could’ve made a wonderful life together. She is a beautiful woman, a stimulating and enchanting partner, and she always keeps me on my toes, though that last part might have proven troublesome. At least our kids would have stood a good shot at being cute.

I thought I loved her and I believed her when she said she loved me; that’s always a good place to start. Still, we were profoundly different people in so many ways, and maybe those differences, no matter how hard we tried, would’ve led to a trainwreck.

Katherine, being a civilian attorney, has the luxury of always doing things her own way. It was one of the things I love and admire about her. She is not a saint, but she has the saint’s capacity to never compromise her beliefs, her ideals, or her principles.

But that, as I said, is a luxury. A soldier who happens to be a lawyer sometimes has to decide which comes first, being a soldier with the ageless imperative to always win our country’s wars, or acting every inch the lawyer with the sworn obligation to put your client’s interests above all other considerations. To honor one is to betray the other.

There was no way I could continue on this case, or continue with Katherine, not after what I had just done. I had concealed a crime, I had killed a man to bury that secret, and I had just fixed our case.

I knew Katherine would never understand this, and I knew I shouldn’t try to make her understand it.

As for Lydia, June, Andrea, and Mike, one year was certainly less than they deserved for all they had done over there. But no matter how flawed their behavior, they were in a war zone, they were there of their own volition, and that has to be taken into account.

But maybe I should have remembered to warn Bernhardt not to send them to the same prison.

I had enjoyed my time with the CIA but I think I had sensed, even before I took this case, that that chapter was coming to a close. It was never a great fit anyway. They live in a world of shadows, and yet, somehow, I kept getting sunburned. Much like the army, they are great people, and great patriots, and the American people should be thankful for all they do to keep us safe. I’m not sure they’ll do it better without me, but I know I’ll do better without them.

Anyway, the White House might be fun. I could tell Phyllis what to do, for a change. That has a certain appeal.