“Major Revell!”
Anticipating the colonel’s summons, Revell had already started for the office. He turned back to Porter. The man seemed entirely crushed, drained. “Keep trying. Today is just a bad day. Perhaps you’ll get in the press corps yet.”
“I shan’t hold my breath. I would like to think it could happen, but do you know, I truly believe that if a scoop… if a scoop sat in the same room, I wouldn’t recognize it.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” Walking into the office, Revell pulled the door shut behind him, and faced the colonel.
TWENTY
“Did you keep a duplicate set?”
Lippincott had plunked himself in the general’s swivel chair. Now he helped himself to a substantial pinch of the general’s pipe tobacco. He sniffed the mixture, grunted disparagingly and put it back in its stained leather pouch.
He idly opened each desk drawer in turn as he spoke. “Or is there more than one lot of copies?”
“There is another complete record, including an expertly shot three hour video.”
“Clever bastard, aren’t you. I suppose if we send the MPs back they won’t find anything.”
“Can’t be sure, I would think it highly unlikely.” In a sliding tray immediately below the rear of the desk top, Lippincott found a tray of assorted pencil stubs.
“Look at this. You can tell a lot about a man by the way he looks after his pencils. Not a decent point on any of them. Very sloppy.”
Rummaging at the back of the tray Lippincott finally found a fresh pencil. “Good, 2H. I find HB’s have no flavour.”
“So what happens now. Do I go back to my combat company?”
“Not so fast, Major. At this precise moment you are getting a severe reprimand.” Looking around, Lippincott finally spat a sliver of gold letter embossed green paint into a waste-paper basket. “Consider yourself fucking lucky. Only one thing preventing them from putting you under close arrest, prior to a full court martial and the inevitable kicking of your ass all the way to the stockade.”
“The copies?”
“No, not your shitty copies. Having those is what nearly sank you for good. That was too tricky for the general to stomach. Too damned clever by half. What saved your miserable bacon was a memo from the eggheads in public relations.”
“They’ve never done anything helpful or useful before. Who woke them up, somebody offering free drinks?”
“Don’t despise them, Major. It’s those drunken lard asses who pulled you out of the fire. Almost out, that is. They have to think ahead, anticipate, you might say. Their thinking is that, despite all our efforts, this business might just, eventually, make the papers. We’re fighting tooth and nail to put a block on that, but… Well, how’s it going to look if the hero who uncovered the story has been busted and is doing ten.”
Sick of the whole business, with its double talk and the double standards that went with it, Revell simply wanted to get back to his company. After all this, the Zone appeared almost an attractive alternative.
“So everything goes back to normal. Like nothing has happened.”
“That’s it, business as usual.” Pulling a face, Lippincott threw the half-eaten pencil into the basket. “Tastes like chipboard. Can’t even requisition himself decent pencils. Yeah, as long as we can keep the lid on the story, there’s no harm done.”
“Except to a couple of thousand West German civvies and their kids. The lid was put on them all right.”
“Major, you can be a real tit. You think you’re the only one with feelings. I feel for them, even me, Ol’ Foul Mouth. In private the general does as well. He’s as mad about it as you and me. Maybe more, because he never gets out on the ground, knows he’ll never be able to throttle the fuckers with his bare hands as he’d like to. He has to be part of the cover-up operation, so he takes it out on us. Tough for us, but perfectly natural, you have to agree.”
“So the KGB get away with another one. Only this time we help them get away with it.”
“Hand me my attaché case will you?” Lippincott accepted it, and delved inside. From it he extracted a large thermos flask, a couple of Mars bars and a large bundle of pencils. He piled them all on the desk top. “Here it is.”
Pulling out a thick file, he tossed it to Revell. “It’s not what you would call light reading. Not in any sense of the word.”
Opening it, Revell read the title page to himself. “This a complete intelligence summary on the 717th. Why give me it, rubbing salt in the wounds?”
“Hardly, and you take good care of that, soon as you’ve finished reading it in fact.” Pushing the items back into the case, Lippincott kept the pencils until last, popping two into his pocket.
“That was put together for me by a friendly, if rather matronly type, in records. She has the hots for me. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not just you glamorous types who can get your end away. You’ll be grateful for the likes of her if you get turned into a one-armed wonder like me.” Lippincott had seen Revell’s quiet smile. “Just don’t you go getting sloppy when you dispose of that. It wouldn’t be so difficult to trace. The old photocopier in the filing room produces blemishes as distinctive as any fingerprint.”
“So why are you taking the risk.” While he listened Revell couldn’t resist flicking over the pages in his lap. From that brief survey it appeared a mine of information.
“Because I get this gut feeling when you’re up to something. I reckon, regardless of the consequences, you and your crazy outfit are going to hit the 717th. For you to stand half a chance of pulling it off, cleanly, you need all the assistance you can get. This is the best I can do, toward avoiding being pulled down with you if it all goes wrong. Can you use it?”
“There’s certainly good stuff in here. Strengths, equipment scales; even profiles on their CO and his officers.”
“You are going to raid them, aren’t you?” Until that precise moment, Revell had not made up his mind. He looked directly at the colonel. “Yes.” There was nothing to be gained by a denial.
“Shit, you haven’t even got the decency to be evasive, have you. No wonder those politicians hated you. I just hope to God you know what you’re doing. Screw up this truce and you’ll be responsible for so many deaths that the best efforts by the KGB are going to look like chicken shit. That’ll make you no better than one of them. You want that label, that sort of responsibility?”
“I have to accept it. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to do something.”
“You try, and screw up, and you won’t want to live with yourself.”
“I know that.” Just saying the words made Revell feel cold and hollow inside. Even now he was still trying hard to justify, to himself, what he was about to do. “Once the truce breaks though, that bunch of Warpac child killers could end up anywhere. Or the unit might be broken up to make reinforcements. This will be the only chance.”
Starting on a fresh pencil, Lippincott stayed quiet and sunk in thought for a while. “I can’t back you on this, you know that. The strings that would need pulling to protect you, if you survive, are way out of my reach. Shit, I wish I were going with you. How many… no, don’t tell me. What I don’t know I can’t damned well worry over. Go on, get out before I pull back that file, come back to my senses and blow the whistle on you.”
Revell hadn’t expected it, but the colonel replied to his salute. He was almost out the door when Lippincott called after him.