I didn't answer.
There was a little more back-and-forth with Wignall — a reiteration of questions and answers — but none of it of consequence. I stopped the recorder as I watched Wignall open the door. Butler was standing behind it, waiting. Or was he listening?
TWENTY-ONE
I drove through the town of Fort Walton Beach. In my head I went over the next interview, the one with SAS Staff Sergeant Chris Butler. Unfortunately I'd had barely fifteen minutes with the guy before Dortmund cut it short with the unit's movement orders. Butler and his men were required at Fort Bragg immediately. Butler politely excused himself, got up and left, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. I'd been in this game long enough not to disagree with a document bearing a lieutenant general's signature.
An hour later, I drove to the flight line. The wind whipping in from the beach was peppered with grit and raindrops. I watched the SAS unit ferry their gear from a couple of Humvees onto the tail ramp of a C-130. I couldn't help but notice that Butler didn't lift, he supervised. Protecting those ribs?
I stayed until all the gear was stowed and only the ground crew remained. As one of the aircraft's props began to rotate and I restarted the SUV's engine, a man walked back down the ramp and out from the deep shadow thrown by the transport plane's tail assembly. It was Butler. He waved at me.
It didn't feel like good-bye. It felt more like fuck you.
Heading back to OSI, I was pissed enough to consider an eleven-hour drive straight to Bragg. I could be a sore loser, especially when the players just up and leave the board before the game's over. Then I thought about it some more and decided chasing Butler was a bad idea. The Brit might only be spending a short time at Bragg — it might merely be the staging place for a mission elsewhere. I might get there and find them gone, jumped off to another destination. If that happened, I might feel like a moron.
My problem was that, in all probability, I had a murder case on my hands, only I had no real evidence and only hearsay to hand over to JAG. Evidentiary facts and maybe the odd reliable eyewitness or two — the only things that counted in a court-martial — were thin on the ground.
I picked up the recorder and hit play.
My voice: Take a seat.
Butler: Ta.
If I had a moment when Butler would be caught off guard, it was this. Last to be interviewed, he'd have asked his men where my line of questioning had gone, but he wouldn't know for certain whether one or none of his men had departed from the party line. My intention was to come out swinging.
My voice: So… why did you kill Sergeant Wright?
Butler: Wright killed himself. I thought I'd get angry denials, maybe a little outrage. Butler, though, was cool and self-assured. It was the reaction you'd expect from a man used to high-pressure situations.
My voice: Maybe it was an accident. You didn't mean to kill him.
Butler: Guv, I was just as shocked as any of the lads to find Wright dead.
My voice: What happened to your flashlight?
It got broken.
How?
Gear gets broken. A knock here, a bump there.
Take off your shirt.
I'd seen Butler without his shirt on back at the hacienda, but there had been a towel draped around his shoulders at the time that masked any injuries. Now he knew for certain someone had talked.
Through the small speaker, I heard the sound I knew to be that of his chair creaking as he stood, the slap of his webbing slipping its buckle, the faint rustle of fabric as he opened his buttons and removed his shirt. I'd seen bodies in a similar condition to Butler's, but mostly they were in a morgue. His torso carried numerous ugly scars, two of which I recognized as the entry scars made by bullets. He'd also been badly burned at some point. The skin at the base of his neck and around across his left shoulder was red and purple like boiled rhubarb. His left nipple had been completely sliced off by shrapnel — an old wound. Beneath the skin under his right arm was the yellow, purple, and black puddle of a deep bruise on the mend — the specific injury I was hoping to find.
My voice: How many ribs you got broken, Staff?
Butler: Two.
I was impressed. Butler moved easily, each movement economical and fluid, like he was in peak condition. This was one tough hombre.
My voice: Been to the hospital for an X ray?
Butler: What, and get sidelined?
You want to tell me about how you got it?
I know what you're thinking.
What am I thinking?
You reckon I plowed into Wright intentionally, and cut through his harness.
Is that what happened?
I'm not sure I know what happened. We all jumped together, but we all didn't walk away together. I didn't kill Wright. I reckon he knocked himself off.
Take me through the jump.
Will it help?
That depends.
On what?
On whether you're convincing.
The recorder picked up the sound of Butler putting his shirt back on. A night HALO drop. We were high — twenty thousand feet. A clear night, free of cloud, but black as a black cat's crotch. We planned to make the drop in close formation, which meant coming out the back of the C-130 in a packet. The formation was to be arrowhead, with myself at the lowest point and Wright at the highest so he could keep our reflective strips in sight and check that the formation was tight and right. Anyway, that was the plan. Coming out of the plane, Wright tripped. Looking back, he might have done it on purpose. In regaining his footing, he pushed a couple of the guys off the ramp. No big deal — we're all wearing parachutes. The rest of us tumbled out to try to make something of the drop anyway. When I looked down, I could only see two of the reflective strips. The formation was a lost cause — I had no idea where the other guys were. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I got rammed in midair. I'd been hit by one of my own people — and hard, hard enough to break ribs. And then I saw it was Wright. I recognized him right away — he was a lot bigger than any of the lads. I also saw he had his knife in his hand. As we dropped side by side, I watched him hack through his own thigh strap, saw him pull his rip cord. I was watching when he went one way and his chute bag and harness went the other. There was nothing I could do.
So it was Wright who rammed you?
That's right, mate.
Do you think this was intentional, or an accident?
Dunno.
I remembered wondering as Butler told me this whether Wright really had rammed into him intentionally, whether he wanted the SAS sergeant to see him cut his own thigh strap. This thought was strengthened as I listened to Butler again. But what would Wright's motive be for doing that? What would he hope to gain? Did he want Butler to witness his suicide, if that's what really happened? And, if so, why would he want Butler to watch?