CHAPTER THIRTY
In his baby-blue prison jumpsuit and manacles, Tom looked peculiarly vulnerable. His chasers, the two beefy brig guards, stood by, warily watching him examine a machine gun. They stood in a large empty room off one of the armories at Quantico.
The weapon, an M-60, was forty-four inches long and was sealed in a long plastic bag and tagged as evidence. Allegedly it was Tom’s gun, the one he’d used while serving with Detachment 27, the one he’d allegedly used to slaughter eighty-seven civilians. To Claire it was just a machine gun; she’d never seen one up close before.
She and Grimes waited in a couple of metal chairs in the armory while he turned it over and scrutinized it.
“Do you know,” Grimes said, “they call Quantico Camp Sleepy Hollow?”
“Why’s that?” Claire said without bothering to feign interest.
“Since it’s so quiet and wooded.”
“And so peaceful,” Claire said mordantly. “I want Embry back.”
“What?”
“You hear me. I want Embry back on the team.”
“What makes you think he’ll come back?”
“Because they’ve probably got him doing drug busts and drunk-driving stuff. He’ll jump at the chance.”
“He quit, don’t forget. We didn’t fire him.”
“We shamed him into quitting. We also wronged him. We accused him of leaking, when now we know they had the office bugged. We need him. We need an insider, you said so yourself. We need someone to interview and develop witnesses, do all the scut work that you and I don’t have time for.”
“Hey, you don’t have to convince me. Talk to him. I sure as hell won’t.” In a louder voice he called out to Tom: “That look familiar?”
“What can I say?” Tom said. “I mean, how do I know it’s mine? Seriously. I mean, it’s an M-60. We used M-60s.”
“Obviously we’ll have our independent examiner look at it, and the bullets and shell casings,” Claire said. “I don’t trust them.”
“I wonder why,” Grimes said. “There’s a serial number on there. Stamped on the receiver. Look familiar?”
“Grimes,” Tom said, “you don’t really think I can remember the gun’s serial number after all these years?”
“Just trying to help. I thought you covert-action boys file down the serial numbers so they never get identified in case they’re found.”
“Old wives’ tale,” Tom said. “We were part of the army-we need serial numbers just like everyone else to keep track of weapons. We were just fancy about it. We used sterile weapons-new guns purchased by the Panamanian or Honduran governments, so there’s no chain of custody.”
“Shouldn’t it be a simple matter to figure out whether this was the gun used to kill all those people?” Claire asked.
“Sure,” Grimes replied. “Run the ballistics, compare the shell casings and the bullets to the barrel of the machine gun, see if you got a match.”
“And if there’s a match?” Claire asked. “How can they prove Tom fired it?”
“If there’s a match,” Tom said wearily, “then it wasn’t my gun.” All of a sudden he sounded defeated.
“But were there records of who got which gun?”
He shrugged, studied the floor. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Each one of us was issued one machine gun, one rifle, one pistol. We used the same one every time. You had to sign it out.”
“So there’s records,” Claire said.
“Armory records,” Grimes said.
“But we don’t have them.”
“Haven’t come in yet. Maybe they don’t have them either.”
“If it’s exculpatory,” she said, “I bet they ‘lose’ them. Without the armory records, they don’t have a case.”
“It may be my weapon,” Tom said, even more slowly, covering his eyes with a hand, “but if it is… it wasn’t the one that fired the rounds. And if it’s the one that fired the rounds…” He made a sudden hiccuping sound. “Claire?”
She looked at him sharply. It was a sob, which he’d tried to stifle. He was weeping. The suddenness of it frightened her.
He lurched forward toward her. His chasers vaulted forward and grabbed him, threw him down on the floor. There was a loud crack: his skull hitting the floor. The guards seemed to take some satisfaction in it. He howled in pain.
“Jesus,” Grimes said.
“What are you doing?” Claire shouted.
“She’s my wife, for Christ’s sake!” Tom said. “I don’t have the right to touch her?” The guards were silent. “Claire, I want to talk to you! Alone!”
“We can’t allow that, ma’am,” one of them said.
“This is a legal visit,” she said. “We have the right to talk without you present.”
They moved Tom to the defense shop and waited outside one of the empty offices with Grimes while Claire and Tom talked.
By now Tom seemed to have regained his composure. “I’m sorry about that. It’s just that it’s sinking in.”
“What is?”
“What’s happening to me. United States v. Ronald Kubik. I think maybe I was in a state of denial. But this is real. This is happening. They’re never going to let me go. I realize that now. This is real.”
“I know what you’re feeling,” she said softly. Her chest felt tight. She wanted to cry on his shoulder but knew she mustn’t lose it; he needed to see strength and confidence, whether she felt it or not. “It’s a nightmare, a nightmare for all of us. But you’ve got to keep the faith. Grimes and I are doing all we can. We’re not going to let them get away with anything. I promise you.”
“Embry,” he said when he answered the phone.
“Terry.”
“Ms.-Claire. Hi.” He seemed glad to hear her voice. “How’s it going?”
“Same old same old,” she said. “We need you back.”
A long, long pause. “You figured out I wasn’t the leak.”
“I never thought you were.”
“Does Grimes want me back? Or is it just you?”
“Yes, he does too. Definitely.”
“But aren’t you guys always going to be suspicious? I mean, don’t you want me to take the polygraph?”
“How do we know you weren’t trained to beat it?” she said with a laugh.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Waldron was waiting not far from Claire, Grimes, and Embry in front of the secure-courtroom door at fifteen minutes before nine in the morning. When Claire arrived, he pounced.
“Ms. Chapman.”
“Major,” she said blandly.
“Are you ready to deal?”
Claire tried to conceal her astonishment. “Hadn’t given it a thought.”
“I wish I could believe that. I’ve been instructed to make you an offer. Personally, I oppose any kind of deal-I think you know that. I’m prepared to go for the death penalty, and I’m highly confident we can get it, in the current climate. But I’ve been asked to make an offer.”
“We’re listening.”
Embry and Grimes gathered around.
“We’re willing to drop to voluntary manslaughter-Article 119.”
“How many specifications?” Grimes demanded.
“One,” Waldron said. Grimes raised his brows. “Not eighty-seven. Same course of conduct.”
“Voluntary manslaughter’s fifteen years,” Embry put in.
“Here’s the crux of the deal,” Waldron said. “We’d insist on total nondisclosure. In writing, of course. If the government of El Salvador gets wind of this, there’ll be a major international incident. Sergeant Kubik will speak of the circumstances to no one, including the terms of this agreement and everything connected with these negotiations. No books, magazine articles, letters to the editor. No publicity whatsoever. No private conversations to anyone about the incident either.”
Embry and Grimes nodded. Claire simply watched Waldron, blank-faced.