“He was dead when you found him?”
“Not quite, sir. I knew he’d never make it, though. He tried to talk, but his mouth filled up with blood and he couldn’t get the words out. All he could manage to say was... well, it sounded like ‘Sm—’.”
“Sm—’?” Lansing knitted his eyebrows. “You mean ‘S’, ‘M’...’ something?”
“That’s what it sounded like, sir,” Daniels repeated. “ ‘Sm—’.”
“Thank you Specialist,” Lansing said. Turning to the MP he said, “I want you to keep everybody away from that car until a team from the CID lab department has a chance to go over every inch of it. Don’t let anyone take any metal scraps or mementos from that wreck.”
“Yes, sir,” the cop replied.
Lansing approached a small group of bystanders. “Are any of you from Benton’s section?” he asked, saluting a full-bird colonel even as he spoke.
“I am, sir,” said a muscular man dressed in fatigue trousers and an O.D. green tee shirt. Three chevrons with two rockers on his baseball cap revealed he was a sergeant first class.
“I’d like to talk with you privately, Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Major, I’m Colonel Gibb, post commander of Montgomery Barracks,” the full-bird declared. “Aren’t you going to discuss this incident with me?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll talk to you later this afternoon.”
“Major.” Gibb spoke with irritation. “This is my post.”
“I appreciate that, Colonel,” Lansing assured him. “But it’s my investigation.”
The Sergeant led Lansing through a side door entrance into the basement of the headquarters building. Entering a bleak corridor, they walked to an ultrasecurity door with steel bars and a sign declaring ‘S-2’. An S-2 section deals with Army Intelligence. S-2 material ranges from confidential to top secret-crypto. For this reason, S-2 was guarded by strict security measures.
“Please excuse my appearance, sir,” the Sergeant said. “I was working inside when I heard the explosion. Our air conditioning is shot and it gets damn hot in there.”
“Lieutenant Benton worked for S-2?”
“Yes, sir,” the NCO replied. “Do you think his car was sabotaged or could this just be a freak accident?”
“I’d like to know your opinion, Sergeant.”
“I don’t know why anyone would want to kill the Lieutenant.”
“Benton’s last words, actually his last attempted words, were ‘Sm—.’ Do you have any idea what that might mean?”
“He might have been talking about a certain project.”
“What project?”
“I’m really not at liberty to say, sir. You’ll have to talk to Captain Cross about it.”
“Cross?”
“The officer in charge of our S-2 section. He’s not here today. The Captain had to attend a security conference in Bamberg. He should be back this evening.”
“If Cross is the OIC and, I take it, you’re the NCOIC,” Lansing mused, “am I correct in assuming Benton was the executive officer for your section?”
“Yes sir.” the Sergeant shrugged, “The Lieutenant wasn’t a bad XO.”
“But not your sort of officer?” Lansing guessed from the NCO’s tone.
“He was a little too liberal to be a good military man. He thought the Salt Treaty was great and detente was wonderful. I figure the only commie you can trust is one that’s been dead for ten years.”
“You didn’t get along?”
“We just didn’t discuss subjects that could only lead to an argument,” the NCO explained. “We worked together, but we kept our mouths shut unless we had to talk about business.”
Lansing nodded. “Who else is in your section?”
“Two clerks. One of them, PFC Dinsdale, is still learning the ropes. His military occupation specialty is 78D20, but Headquarters Battery doesn’t need another legal clerk and we lost Spec. Four Lundy last week, so we got him.”
“Lost? You mean Lundy’s term of service ended?”
“No, sir. We would have broken in a new replacement before he left. Lundy was killed in an accident in the billets. He got drunk one night, fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck. Lundy didn’t drink much. I guess he wasn’t very good at holding his liquor. It’s a pity. He was a damn good soldier, by today’s standards.”
“Interesting,” Lansing said to himself quietly. “You said there are two clerks with S-2. If Dinsdale is a trainee, I assume the other has been here longer.”
“Yes, sir. Specialist Smothers has been with S-2 for more than five months.”
“Smothers?” Lansing raised an eyebrow, “Where is he now?”
“He’s also the section driver. He took Captain Cross to Bamberg.”
“I’ll want to talk with him,” the Major said grimly. “His name begins with ‘S-M’.”
“Yes, it does,” the NCO agreed with a nervous wince. “And, as a matter of fact, so does mine. My name is Edgar Smith.”
Captain Garrett W. Cross arrived two hours later. He was an athletic man in his early twenties with sand-colored hair and hard gray eyes. Although he treated Lansing with proper military courtesy, his manner was still brisk and businesslike.
“Sergeant Smith met me at the gate and explained why you’re here.” Cross told Lansing as he escorted him downstairs into the basement corridor once more. “We must discuss this matter privately.”
The captain moved to the barred S-2 door and unlocked it. He ushered Lansing inside before securing the entrance.
“I didn’t think my clearance was sufficient to enter another unit’s intelligence section,” the Major remarked.
“I’m authorized to clear you concerning a ‘need to know’ security matter.” Cross replied. “However, what I’m going to tell you must be regarded as strictly confidential. Not one word of this can appear in any written reports, documents or other official or unofficial papers.”
Cross led Lansing through a short corridor to a thick steel door. Unlocking the tomb-like entrance, the Captain and Lansing stepped into a small conference room with four metal chairs surrounding a Plexiglass table. Cross closed the door and slid a thick steel bolt into place before he spoke.
“How familiar are you with ABC warfare, Major?” he asked.
“ABC? That’s Atomic, Biological and Chemical, right?” Lansing replied.
Cross nodded. Slowly pacing along the artillery-red carpet, the Captain locked his hands at the small of his back as he continued. “To put it simply, we were conducting an investigation to determine the possibility of a special ABC device to be adopted for USAEUR defense purposes.”
“What sort of device, Captain?”
“All I can tell you is its codename was SMITTEN.”
“Germ warfare? Isn’t that contrary to the Geneva Convention?”
“Actually, we know the Soviets and the Chinese and many of our so-called allies are working on chemical/biological weapons. However, SMITTEN was not some sort of man-made plague, as one reads about in cheap spy novels. It was a project similar to the proposed neutron bomb.”
“You’re using the term was as if to indicate the past tense.”
“Indeed,” Cross confirmed. “SMITTEN was abandoned last month. Mind you, we were only considering the possibility of SMITTEN. We were not conducting chemical, biological or nuclear experiments in the Federal Republic of Germany or anything like that. To the best of my knowledge, there is no ABC research in progress by the USAEUR.”