“I’ll put you right through,” she said.
A moment later, Clapper said, “Hello, Sean.”
“Hi, General, having a nice day?”
“I haven’t had a nice day since I took this job. You know, Sean, this town is full of big, glitzy law firms that pay a million dollars a year to their partners. One more thing goes wrong, and I’m gonna be banging on their doors.”
“Geez, you really do sound depressed. Don’t you think that’s a little drastic?”
He did not chuckle, which I took as a bad sign. Either I was not as witty as I thought or his mood was really sour. Had to be the sour mood thing, of course.
“You’ve heard about this dead reporter?” he asked.
“You mean the guy who called me the other day?”
“Right. Did you actually meet with him?”
“He stopped by yesterday. We had some words. He went on his way.”
“The editor in chief of the Herald called the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He’s promising to raise hell until we catch whoever did this.”
“I don’t blame him. Poor guy’s standing at a urinal and the next thing he’s pissing and bleeding all over the wall while someone chokes him to death. What a world, huh? Listen, the reason I called is we might have a breakthrough. Actually, Delbert thought of it. We’d like to see if NSA or any of those other supersecret agencies might have any surveillance tapes or pictures of Zone Three that were collected between the fourteenth and the eighteenth.”
“It’s a good idea,” was all he said.
“Can you run the request, sir? You know those spook guys. A request from a major isn’t even going to make them peek inside their vault.”
“I’ll make the calls as soon as this meeting is over.”
“Thanks, General,” I said, then we both hung up.
I suppose I could’ve shared my suspicions of the Berkowitz murder with General Clapper, just like I should’ve shared them with Wolky. But the truth was, the moment Wolky said that Berkowitz was dead, I instantly lost trust in everyone I knew. I was sure Berkowitz’s murder was somehow connected with me. All that dark paranoia I’d managed to bury the night before came rushing back like a tidal wave.
Also, I was having a lot of difficulty working up any compassion or grief for the so recently departed Jeremy Berkowitz. The sum of my relationship with him was a smear job on the front page of his newspaper and a very blatant attempt to blackmail me into becoming his stooge. I had no idea who killed him, but I wasn’t having any trouble at all seeing why somebody would want him dead.
There were all these disparate dots out there; I had no idea how they all connected together, but some rotten sense told me they did. Besides, I figured that if NSA had overhead photos or tapes of what happened in Zone Three, then we were on the verge of a huge breakthrough. Personally, I was looking forward to getting copies of those pictures. Then I’d go back to visit Sanchez and crew. I was dying to see the looks on their faces.
There was a hard knock on the door, and I looked up to see Imelda enter with a piece of paper in her hand. She held it as though it were the holy grail.
“Hi,” I said.
“Here’s the damned bill to fix that damned hole you punched in the damned wall yesterday,” she announced, flapping the paper in front of my face.
“Oh that,” I said. “Clumsy me. That damn phone just flew out of my hands. I tried to grab it, but it was slippery as hell, and it just got away.”
“Don’t you smart-ass me, Major. You do the crime, you pay the fine,” she said, throwing the paper down on my blotter and handing me a pen. This was one of her favorite sayings, I might add.
“Two hundred dollars!” I bellowed.
She actually smiled. “That’s for the wall and to fix that damn phone.”
I scrawled my name on the bottom of the charge sheet that Imelda would give the local supply sergeant, who would have my pay docked two hundred dollars to handle the damage. Imelda stood there, her face all scrunched up in triumph. She shared the old noncom’s belief that Army property was sacred property. Those who defiled, damaged, lost, or misappropriated said sacred relics deserved to be stiffly punished. There was no use arguing or pleading.
I handed her back the charge sheet with a mutinous look on my face.
“By the way, there’s two men in civvies waiting to see you,” she said.
“CID?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded.
“Could you two please wait outside the office?” I asked Morrow and Delbert.
They left with Imelda, and were immediately replaced by two young, crew-cutted investigators, who, like most military men, wore cheap civilian suits and wore them badly. Their ties were something out of the Twilight Zone, and their shirts were polyester blend, no-iron specials; no doubt bought on sale at Kmart.
A pair of badges were flashed, and they quickly muttered their names. David something and Martie whatever.
“Sir, we were told by Captain Wolkowitz that you wanted to meet with us,” said Martie whatever.
“That’s right. Did he explain what I’m doing here?”
“Yeah.”
“Then he must have mentioned that Berkowitz was writing about my investigation?”
“He did,” said Martie.
“And as trained criminologists, I’m sure you recognize that’s what we call a point of coincidence.”
Martie, who sported a green paisley tie with a red-striped shirt, nodded thoughtfully, then said, “Speaking of points of coincidence, we understand Berkowitz did an article about you on the front page of his paper three or four days back.”
“Yes, he did,” I admitted. “And that’s why I killed him.”
Their heads snapped up in surprise.
“Just kidding,” I said. “I mean, he misspelled my name, but otherwise the article wasn’t objectionable. He expressed the view that the Army should have picked a more senior officer to head my investigation.”
“Did that make you angry?”
“You’re kidding, right? I wished I wrote it. Gentlemen, how would you like to be the one who has to decide what to do with those nine men at Aviano Air Base?”
“That bad, huh?” David asked. He was the nerdy one wearing spit-shined black Army dress shoes with a brown suit, bright red tie, and blue shirt. Positively hair-raising.
I looked at him like the good big brother he’d always wished he had. “David, I’ll be honest, I’m not having much fun. It’s a no-win situation.”
“Pretty rough, huh?”
I shook my head in pure misery. “I found rotten cabbage in my sleeping bag last night. Rotten cabbage,” I moaned. “Every night, it’s something.”
“Lousy bastards,” he mumbled, referring to the Special Forces guys who were running all over Tuzla. Remember how I mentioned that lawyers aren’t loved and MPs are despised? Well, CID investigators are legions below every other living creature on earth. They’re known for planting informers and tattletales inside units, and for skulking around and doing the undercover dirty work. They are the closest thing to a Gestapo a democratic army is allowed to have. I’d known troops to actually paint CID badges on the chests of targets at rifle ranges.
“Now I know how you guys feel,” I said with a commiserating headshake.
“Yeah, it’s rough,” agreed David, and Martie nodded along.
“If we get a chance,” I said, “maybe you guys can join me for drinks. I’d love to get some advice on how you handle all this pressure and strain.”
“Sure,” said David, beaming like a poodle that just got its fanny licked by a big, handsome Great Dane.
“So,” I said, reaping the treasures of my disgusting servility, “anything new turn up in the investigation?”
Martie said, “There’s not much to go on.”
I said, “Captain Wolkowitz mentioned that the garrote was manufactured. There are probably only one or two manufacturers who make them. If it were me, I’d get the name of that manufacturer and check to see who bought any in the past year or two.”