‘General, please excuse me, but a quick question.’
Hale looked at Peter and God bless Peter but he didn’t look awed or scared or overwhelmed. He just looked confident, like he was here to back up a colleague, someone he had worked with and whom he trusted. That look on his face warmed me almost as much as one of Miriam’s smiles.
‘All right, a quick question,’ he said.
‘In my debrief, I mentioned a German Luftwaffe pilot’s body, on a road by a river. Has that body been recovered?’
Hale looked over at the officers. ‘George?’
The officer called George flipped through a clipboard, looking at a sheaf of yellow message slips. ‘Yes, sir. Two days ago.’
‘How was it recovered?’
The officer looked over at me. ‘Excuse me?’
‘How was it recovered? Who went in there and took it out?’
‘An SAR unit,’ he said. ‘Search and rescue.’
‘They use helicopters, don’t they? Not ground vehicles.’
‘Not with the armistice in tatters,’ Hale said. ‘Look, young man, I should be there with the negotiations, not spending time with you—’
‘Site A—it’s at the end of that road,’ I said.
The general paused in mid-sentence. He swallowed. Looked at me—I was so glad I was not wearing the uniform of the British Army. ‘What makes you so sure?’
Good question. I hoped my answer would be just as good. ‘At the end of that road is a tourist attraction. I spotted a brochure for it, and one of the locals who helped me told me about it. Bronson’s Iron Works. One of the first open mines and forges in this part of the state.’
‘And?’ the general asked, putting about a ton of skepticism into that one word.
‘And it’s been disguised. The signs showing how to get there have been removed. And the road leading into the mine has been disguised and blocked, with an earth berm and some foliage. Not enough to fool a serious search operation but enough to fool most people. And I just had words with one of the militia people you’ve been negotiating with. He let something slip about me being out there and almost having found Site A. Something about falling into it. Sir, it just came together. The disguised road. The missing signs. And an open pit or mine.’
As I had been talking, one of the general’s assistants had been going through a series of file folders, holding them up to his chest like some paper accordion. Hale turned to him and said, ‘Henry?’
‘Sir, records show that the state park called Bronson’s Works was investigated almost two months ago. There was nothing to report. All clear.’
Hale turned to me, his face showing disappointment and anger and maybe just a little concern for me for trying to come up with something at such a late date. ‘Sorry, young man, it looks like you didn’t quite—’
‘Who did the search?’ Peter asked, arms folded.
Hale asked, ‘Excuse me?’
‘You heard me, General. A fair question. Who did the search? Who told you there was nothing there?’
Hale said to the aide, ‘Henry? You heard the man. Who led the search that told us there was nothing at the place called Bronson’s Works?’
Another flip-flip through the papers and folders. Then, looking as pleased as a dog treeing a squirrel, Henry held up a piece of paper.
‘One of the first investigators on the ground,’ he said. ‘A fellow called Jean-Paul Cloutier.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Before the UN convoy left the parking lot, the passenger door of a Land Cruiser opened and Charlie Banner, USMC, clambered in, M-16 in his hands, and sat next to Peter, who was behind the steering wheel. Charlie turned, grinned, and held out a hand to me. I was sitting in the rear.
‘M’man Samuel, good to see you,’ he said. ‘I’ve been meanin’ to look you up, but I had a shitload of things to do once I got back here, after the armistice broke down. You look pretty good.’
I gave his strong hand a firm squeeze, and he paid me the compliment of not trying to squeeze back. ‘Thanks, Charlie,’ I said. ‘You’re looking good yourself. Thanks for getting everybody out.’
‘Thanks for the warning,’ he said. Then he shook his head. ‘Too bad about Sanjay, though.’
Peter started up the Land Cruiser. ‘You did your very best, Charlie. Sometimes you can’t save ‘em all.’
‘Yeah, that’s the hell of it,’ Charlie said, snapping his seat belt shut. ‘Sometimes the ones worth saving you can’t, and the ones that ain’t worth keepin’ alive make it until they’re ninety or so.’
Miriam said, ‘It’s nice at least for us four to be together again, don’t you think?’
Charlie looked out at the other vehicles gathering in the hospital parking lot. ‘Where’s Karen? In another Toyota?’
Peter said, ‘If so, it’s one in California. She resigned her UN contract and headed back home. Can’t really blame her, can you?’
Out by the tent a cluster of uniformed men and one woman was standing. The militia negotiation team. It was hard to tell what was on their faces, but I could make out Gary just fine. I guess it was a bad idea but I couldn’t resist. I gave him a very cheerful wave as Peter put the Land Cruiser in drive and lined us up behind another UN vehicle. Gary didn’t wave back, but he did lower his head and talk to the militia woman. Oh well. So much for a defiant gesture.
Charlie shifted in his seat. ‘California. Nice safe place, so long as you live in one of the right cities. I hope she’s OK.’
‘Knowing Karen, she’ll be just fine,’ Miriam said.
Charlie turned his head. ‘What does that mean?’
Miriam slipped her hand into mine. ‘It means nothing. Nothing at all.’
As we drove along the state road, Peter said, ‘Now, this is what I call traveling in style. I wish we’d had this kind of set-up a couple of weeks ago. Nobody would have troubled us, not at all.’
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ Charlie said.
Even with Miriam’s hand held in mine, I was still nervous, a trembling anxiety of anticipation, like lying awake in bed at five a.m. on December 25th as a child, wondering what awaits you downstairs in the dark rooms. Charlie and Peter were right: it certainly was a pleasure to be traveling in style. We were in a convoy of about a dozen vehicles, with a couple of APCs up front and another two in the rear, providing security. There were a half-dozen white Land Cruisers, just like the one we were in, and two open-bed tractor-trailer trucks that were carrying a bulldozer and an excavator. Flanking our progress on both sides were two helicopters—gunships, it looked like—and as we went through the countryside I could sometimes spot people emerging from their homes and trailers, looking at us as we went by.
‘What do you think the militia are doing, back at the hospital?’ I asked.
Peter said, ‘Probably hoping that in all the commotion they can scarper out and go home. If you’re right, Samuel, and Site A is where you think it is, then the generals at The Hague are going to have a rough time of it.’
Miriam said, ‘Maybe the armistice talks will break down for a long while. Have you thought about that?’
Peter kept on looking straight ahead, at the rear of another Land Cruiser. ‘Most of the militias in the other states have signed up. These guys were trying to play games, trying to get their leaders back. Fine. Let them play all the games they want. By tomorrow, once the media gets a hold of Site A, they’ll be even more isolated and marginalized. The armistice will fall into place by default.’
Then Peter spared me a quick glance, and I knew what he was thinking. So much more was at stake than the armistice, or the respective futures of the militias and the UN intervention. So much more.