She nodded. “Do you have a last name, Dennis?”
“Let’s leave it at that for now.”
“How do you know Ronald Kubik?”
“I know him.”
“Vietnam?”
“Rather not get into it.”
“Do you mind if I smoke?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.” He flashed a genial smile, although his eyes did not participate.
“Well,” she said. “I’m glad all that’s cleared up. Where do you work?”
“Langley,” he said, his face a blank.
“Ah, the Agency. I might have guessed. I don’t imagine you want to tell me which division you’re in at the Agency.”
He shrugged and smiled. It just missed being a charming, boyish smile. “Can we get down to business?” His gray suit was wrinkled at the armpits, as if he’d been in it all day. This was not a man who worked in shirtsleeves. She guessed he was a fairly senior-ranking official at the CIA. “I assume you don’t know much about how the military works,” he said.
“I’m learning.”
He smiled again. “Like what you see?”
“I’m not planning on enlisting, if that’s what you mean.”
“Well, when a combat unit comes back to base after field action, it’s standard for the CO, the commanding officer, to file an incident report. In the army it’s called an After Action Report. So tell me something: I’m sure you guys have filed discovery and all that-did you get a copy of the After Action Report that Colonel Marks filed after the La Colina atrocity?”
“No. We’ve gotten boxes and boxes of papers, but that’s not in there.”
“And it won’t be. It doesn’t exist. I was just curious as to whether they faked something up. The point is this: when Detachment 27 returned to their hooch, Colonel Marks-now General Marks-filed what’s called an MFR. That’s a memorandum for the record. To tell his side of the story, his version of what happened. Three or four lines, handwritten. See, Marks is the sort of guy puts ‘take a dump’ on a list, okay? He maps out everything. There’s a saying in the army-MFR equals CYA. You know the expression CYA?”
“Yeah, we even cover our asses at Harvard Law School.”
He didn’t smile. “You want to get that MFR.”
“How?”
“Specify it in your discovery request.”
“You think we’ll get it?”
“Hard to say. Pentagon’s good at ‘misplacing’ things. Congress tried to get the Pentagon’s files on Guatemala, took ’em five years. Pentagon said they’d misplaced them.”
“Right. So we’re not going to get the MFR. What good’s it going to do us, anyhow? It’s just going to give the same old bullshit line about Tom-er, Ron-massacring a bunch of innocent people.”
“Maybe.”
Claire’s scotch-and-soda was just arriving, but Dennis was already slipping his olive trench coat back on.
“You must have a copy somewhere,” Claire said.
He flashed another orthodontically perfect smile. “Well, as a matter of fact, we might. But you wouldn’t believe what a mess our records are in. I could have one of my girls look. I’ll let you know if she turns anything up.”
“And what’s it going to prove?”
“It may or may not prove Marks is a liar. Look, no one’s going to testify against General Marks. But now maybe you won’t need that.”
Jackie was still up when Claire returned. They went into the small “rec room” off the laundry room for scotch and cigarettes. So much for her no-smoking-in-the-house rule. Civilization was crumbling.
“Ooh, spy stuff,” Jackie said. “Cool. This guy sounds like what’s-his-name, G. Gordon Liddy. You know, the Watergate guy who used to hold his finger over a lit candle to show how macho he was?”
“I think all bald spooks want to be G. Gordon Liddy.”
“Why’s he helping you?”
“That’s the big question. I guess it’s because he’s a friend of Tom’s.”
“From where?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“You think he’s telling you the truth?”
“We’ll see if he produces anything.”
“But it makes you all the more sure Tom’s telling you the truth.”
“There’s something about Tom’s intensity that tells me that. Independently. It’s the sound of truth spoken by a desperate guy. And he hasn’t lost his faith. You know, last time I visited him at the brig he told me he wanted to go to Mass, but they wouldn’t let him leave his cell. So they brought the chaplain to him.”
“Home delivery. Can’t beat it. You gonna put him on the stand?”
“I don’t know,” Claire said with heavy irony. “Plastic surgery, name change, false identity-I’m sure he’d make a great witness.”
“Oh, right.”
“Not just that. Fact is, I think he’d do well on the stand. I know he would. But if we put him on, all sorts of background stuff, bio stuff, becomes admissible. Stuff they cooked up, though we can’t prove it. What he did in Vietnam, was he a sort of government assassin who killed American deserters, did he do sicko stuff to dogs.”
“Dogs?”
Claire lighted another cigarette. “Funny, isn’t it, how we’re more revolted by killing dogs than human beings?”
“I figure U.S. soldiers in Vietnam were up to no good. Dogs are innocent.” She exhaled a plume of smoke through her nostrils. “Your secretary from Cambridge called. Connie. There’s a long list of people who want to hire you.”
“She told them no, I assume.”
Jackie nodded. “The Post called again. I think they’re really getting pissed off you won’t talk to them.”
“I don’t have to talk to a newspaper reporter.”
“They think they have a moral, God-given right to talk to you.”
A long silence passed.
“Claire,” Jackie said at last.
“Yeah?”
“If there’s a chance-even the remotest chance-that he’s guilty, that he’s the monster the prosecution says he is, do you really want him around Annie?”
“If he were guilty, of course not.”
“That’s good to hear,” Jackie said darkly. “Because for the last few weeks I’ve been under the impression that you’re a wife first and a mom second. Like, way second. Look at Annie, how’s she’s reacting. Look how you’ve been ignoring her.”
Claire looked at Jackie, saw the fury in her face. She’d never seen her sister so angry before. Then again, Jackie was fiercely protective of her niece. “I’m doing the best I can,” Claire said in a subdued tone. “I’m working night and day-”
“Oh, come on,” Jackie said brusquely. “You used to dote on her. Before all this happened. Now you barely talk to her. Jesus fucking Christ, Claire, you’re the only parent that girl has! She needs you really badly. More than your husband does. Your husband can get another lawyer. Annie can’t get another mommy.”
Claire stared in dull shock, unable to reply.
As she lay in bed for hours, Claire’s mind raced, in a disorganized, useless way. She cried for Annie, for the way she’d neglected her daughter. She didn’t get to sleep until well after two.
At three-thirty-seven in the morning the phone rang.
She jolted awake, fumbled for the phone, heart hammering. “Yes?” She stared at the red digital numbers on the bedside clock.
Complete dead silence on the phone. She was about to hang it up when a voice came on.
An odd, metallic voice, metallic and hollow. Synthesized. “You should ask yourself who really wants him put away.”
The voice was low-pitched and electronically altered.
“Who is this?” Claire demanded.
“Waldron’s only the point man,” the voice said. Then dead, flat silence.
“Who is this?” Claire repeated.
And the call was disconnected.
She was unable to go back to sleep for more than an hour.