“That’s impossible,” Claire said. “If he’s alive, he’s either in the army or out of it. Can’t be neither. Make sure there isn’t some dumb glitch, like a wrong middle initial or a spelling error or something.”
Devereaux glared at her. “Do I look like an idiot?”
“Don’t answer that,” Grimes said.
“All right,” Claire said. “Ray, I need whatever you got on Abbott, right now. You guys can stay up if you like, but it’s almost two A.M., and I’ve got to get some sleep if I’m going to be coherent with Abbott tomorrow morning.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
There was the light tap of a car horn, and Claire opened her front door. Grimes’s rusty silver Mercedes was sitting in her driveway. Saturday morning at six-thirty, and Thirty-fourth Street was deserted. The early-morning sunlight was pastel. A bird trilled musically, regular as a metronome. Her head ached and thudded at the temples. The daylight pierced her eyes.
“Rise and shine,” Grimes said, sardonic.
“I read over the Abbott stuff until almost four. I need coffee.”
“We’ll grab some on the way.”
In the lobby of the Madison Hotel they were joined by Ray Devereaux. He handed Claire a small Motorola cellular phone, spoke for a few minutes, and returned to the street.
They met Henry Abbott in the Madison restaurant. He was tanned and prosperous-looking, handsome in a vaguely sinister way. His silver hair was combed straight back from his square forehead. He wore gold wire-rim glasses. He was dressed in a gray suit, white shirt, elegant blue foulard tie.
He looked at his watch, a slim gold Patek Philippe, as they joined him at the small table. “You’ve got twenty minutes,” he said.
Grimes rolled his eyes but said nothing.
“Good morning to you, too,” Claire said, setting down her cell phone on the table in front of her. Caffeine and a fresh application of lipstick had made her feel marginally human. She introduced herself and Grimes.
“I have nothing to say to you,” he said. “No law says I have to talk to military investigators.”
“Then why’d you agree to meet us?” Claire asked.
“Curiosity. I wanted to see what you look like. I’ve read about you.”
“Well, now you know,” she said.
“She normally looks better,” Grimes apologized, “but she’s operating on less than three hours’ sleep.”
“We’ve got a couple of questions for you,” she said.
“Why the fuck should I talk to you? I’ve got a reputation to protect.”
I’ll bet, Claire thought. “Your CID statement is quite specific,” she said. “I’m sure they’ve provided you with a copy to refresh your memory.”
“I didn’t see what Kubik is supposed to have done anyway.”
“That’s not what your sworn statement says,” Grimes put in.
“Yeah, well,” Abbott said, and took a sip of coffee. A waiter came by and poured coffee all around. Claire took a grateful sip. The caffeine had an immediate effect, accelerating her heartbeat, causing prickles of sweat to break out at her temples.
“We know the real story,” she said. “All your statements are exactly the same, all you guys in Detachment 27. Which is too cute by half. As this case goes on, you run the risk of being locked into your statement, the one that was coerced out of you thirteen years ago. You don’t want that.”
“Are you tape-recording this?” Abbott asked.
“No, I’m not,” she said.
He dabbed at his mouth with a white linen napkin. “If, theoretically, I were to change my story, they’d charge me with lying under oath to the CID.”
So that was it. “They can’t,” she said. “You have no criminal liability in the military anymore, now that you’re discharged.”
“Says who?”
“The Supreme Court,” Grimes said. “Decades ago. You want to be the first guy who comes clean. You don’t want to be the last guy holding out, telling the lie.”
“And if I don’t?” He was exploring his options now, looking for wiggle room.
“Simple,” Claire said. “If you perjure yourself, you can be tried in federal district court for perjury. Under 18 U.S.C., you can get five years in prison. And when you get out, say goodbye to all those lucrative government contracts. They dry up right away.”
“Look,” Abbott said, exasperated. “You want a witness, I’m not your guy. I didn’t see him shoot-I was on the other side of that fucking shit-hole village manning the radio.”
“Yet you testified you saw him shoot.”
“Are you really that fucking naïve, or are you just pretending to be?” he snapped.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“Are we off the record here?”
“If you insist.”
“Well, I do insist. This is off the record. Don’t tell me you don’t know how the system works. The system works in favor of guys like Colonel Marks-excuse me, General fucking Marks. The system wants somebody to blame it on. Right after we got back to Fort Bragg, Marks called each of us in, before our interviews with CID, and says, ‘I’m preparing my statement and I want to make sure I have my facts straight. What is your recollection of what happened?’ And I say, you know, ‘I don’t recall one way or the other, sir.’ I was a good soldier. I knew what to say. But he wanted more than that. He says, ‘Didn’t you see Kubik suddenly raise his weapon and begin to shoot?’ I say, ‘No, sir, I didn’t.’ I mean, this was night, and I was like two hundred yards away. I saw someone fire. How the hell do I know who it was? He says, ‘Are you sure you didn’t see Kubik suddenly go crazy and start firing? Be sure about this, Sergeant. This’ll make or break your career. Kubik has violent tendencies. If you search your memory, I’m sure you’ll recall Kubik suddenly taking out his weapon and firing.’ Well, I wasn’t born yesterday, and I say, ‘Yes, sir, of course, that was it. That’s what he did, sir, you’re absolutely correct, sir.’ And that’s all it takes.”
Claire nodded as if he were simply confirming something she already knew.
“And let me tell you, I’ll deny all this on the stand. I’ve got to deal with the Pentagon every day. They buy billions of dollars of equipment from my company. And they don’t like snitches and turncoats. I got a meeting.” He stood up. “Was all that true, in the Post?”
“I didn’t see the Post yet this morning,” Grimes said. “What are you talking about?”
“You,” Abbott said to Claire. “You really do that? You probably don’t want to talk about it, do you?”
“Shit,” she said. “The Post found out why I’m in Washington, didn’t they?”
He looked puzzled. “You read it, didn’t you?” He popped open his metal briefcase, reached in, and pulled out a neatly folded copy of the Washington Post, which he dropped on the table in front of her.
She saw her photograph, small and below the fold, and the headline-A HARVARD PROFESSOR’S TAINTED PAST-and she felt the blood rush to her head.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Claire smoked.
Annie danced around the kitchen table, chanting: “What? What? What?”
Jackie told her, “Give us some privacy, babe.”
Claire stubbed out her cigarette. She pulled another from the pack, offered it to Jackie, was surprised when Jackie shook her head.
Annie grabbed on to Claire’s skirt. “What are you reading? Tell me. Tell me.”
Claire was too numb to talk.
Annie needed the reassurance of Mommy’s attention. Mommy, however, was a thousand miles away, and almost two decades.