“Why should I?”
“Because everyone keeps saying we're on the same team?”
“Jesus, Cooper,” he said, laughing sourly. “What goddamn shower did you come down in?”
“OK,” I said. “If you won't tell me what you know, I'll tell you what I think you found.”
“You sent me off on a fucking wild-goose chase, asshole,” he said, all the preppy Ivy League crap peeled back, revealing the genuine plastic core beneath.
“Can we talk?” I asked.
“Put a dick in your ear.”
“You got to Guam and found Al Cooke gone.”
“What makes you think that?”
I ignored the question. “Did you check his bank account?”
Chalmers chewed and pointed to a cheek with his knife, indicating he wasn't going to speak with his mouth full.
“If you did, I'm guessing you'd have found a large unaccounted-for sum of money, recently deposited.”
He swallowed. “Why would we check the man's bank account? Cooke was a potential witness, not a suspect.”
“You did read his statement? The one I provided with my case notes, the one he provided over the phone, the one you went all the way over there to check? Didn't the statement strike you as odd?”
Chalmers shrugged and shoveled what appeared to be engine parts in brown grease into his face. “You got somewhere else to be, Cooper?” he said. “I can think of a few places, if you can't.”
“Does CIA want to know what happened to Tanaka, or not?” I said. I tried to ignore the tough-guy act. I had to remind myself that Chalmers was CIA, not a cop. Unless the subject wore a hand towel or a trench coat, he probably wouldn't know what to do.
“Not,” he said. “We're after bigger fish. What makes you think you know more now than you did before Christmas, Cooper?”
A reasonable question. “Because I've just been in a room with you and Dr. Spears and a whole bunch of brass. That tells me a few things right there. One of those things has to do with a certain DVD. It scared Spears bad enough to make her pass it on to me and then get the hell out of Moreton Genetics. She came to that decision after I interviewed her about the relationship between Boyle and Tanaka. I saw it in her face.”
“Did you read her palm as well?” Chalmers shook his head and wiped his mouth with a napkin, which he tossed into the remains of his lunch. “Now, if you don't mind, fuck off.” He pushed his chair back and made like he was going to stand up. “Are you finished? Because I am.”
I was banging my head against a wall with this guy. His mind had the flexibility of a retiree with rickets. “I'm going to take another guess,” I said.
“My food tray can hardly contain its excitement. It's going to sit there all afternoon and listen to your bullshit,” he said, pulling himself up onto his crutches.
“That wallet found at the Four Winds supposedly belonging to Professor Boyle — five will get you ten Forensics have said it wasn't burned in the same fire that torched everything else around it. And that calls into question not only the identification of the body it was found under as being Sean Boyle's, but also makes me wonder who planted it.”
The slight hesitation in Chalmers's determination to leave told me I was right. Professional pride wouldn't let him ask me where these conclusions of mine had come from. I stood and tucked my card into his top pocket. “Just in case you get stuck,” I said as I walked out.
As I reached the exit, the cell buzzed against my leg. I pulled it out and reviewed the number before answering. “Arlen.”
“Hey, Vin. Where are you?”
“On thin ice, skating.”
“Well, bud, when you've stopped playin' around, you need to pay us a visit over here.”
“Andrews?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Your orders came through.”
“Already?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit.”
“Your old boss brought them over personally.”
“Chip Schaeffer?”
“Yep.”
Schaeffer must have left the Pentagon meeting and gone straight there. “I need to go home and change.”
“Chip told me to tell you to get ready to deploy immediately.”
“You know where to?” I asked.
“The orders are SPECAT.”
“SPECAT…” Special Category — no names, no destinations, lots of secrecy. Obviously Arlen knew, but he wasn't saying. A bad sign.
THIRTY-THREE
This time I was in and out of my apartment within twenty minutes. There was nothing to say good-bye to, except maybe the fridge mold. I didn't bother checking the e-mail, or the mailbox stuffing. I wasn't expecting anything anyway.
I saw that Kim and The 38th Parallel were still a week away from reopening, but there were signs of life in Summer Love, the vegan joint. A hippie, Summer herself probably, was mopping the floor. She glanced up and waved. I waved back. She had great legs and was attractive in an unshaved kind of way. Maybe I could get to like tofu burgers. Maybe I could take the tofu out. Maybe it was time to move.
The snow had stopped falling, though my fingers still ached, an indication the halt was only temporary. As I walked on to the street, a cab conveniently stopped a couple of doors away and a customer got out. I made the driver's day by taking him back into the city. Watching my breath condense on the window beside my face, I wondered what poo the Air Force had polished and put my name on. MFF? Jesus. I closed my eyes and settled in for a slow ride.
Forty minutes later I was sitting in an office at Andrews AFB, waiting for Arlen, staring at his gray filing cabinet. He walked in looking way too perky. “Having a good day?” I asked.
“Vin — how you doin', bud?”
“Having a ball. Before I forget, can you lodge this for me, please?” I put my will on his desk and said, “I'm leaving the Vegas casino to you.”
“Great, I could use one. You been in your office yet?” He picked up my will and put it in a tray with a bunch of other papers.
“No, why? What's in there?”
“A couple of suits over from the GAO, and they didn't look happy.”
I wondered if it was the same two guys. “Is one of them Asian?”
He nodded. “I take it you've tangled with them before?”
I nodded. Could this day get any worse?
“Man — you're a game son of a bitch. No one takes those General Accounting Office people on.”
“You got those orders there?” I asked.
Arlen opened a drawer and pulled out a thick envelope.
“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.”