“Twenty years ago, you were a member of a Special
Forces unit in Panama. Is that correct?”
Hollinsworth shifted in his chair. He clearly wasn’t expecting this line of questioning.
“That’s right,” he said. “I was there for a little over a year.”
“You were with Operational Detachment Bravo, along with ten other men and women. Correct?”
“That’s correct,” he said, a hint of agitation dipping into his voice. “Did you just come here to confirm things we both already know?”
“Sorry to waste your time,” I said, “but Mr. O’Don-276
Jason Pinter nell and I did some background research on you and your squad before we came here. But we both know that what you read in the newspapers and what you experience in actual life can differ greatly.”
“That’s true. Fair enough.”
“According to military records, you and three other members of your squad were attacked by members of
Manuel Noriega’s military deployment, the PDF, on
January sixth, nineteen-ninety. Is that right?”
Hollinsworth’s eyes narrowed. He was no longer shifting but staring straight at me. I couldn’t tell if he was angry that I was dredging up old memories, glad that his near-death experience was still a topic of discussion, or furious to the point where he might rip my head off with his bare hands.
“That’s right.”
“One man was killed that day. Chester Malloy.” Hollinsworth nodded slowly, as his eyes softened.
“Were you close with Major Malloy?” Jack said suddenly. I turned to face him, but he was looking at Hollinsworth.
“I was,” the man said. “Our whole unit, Bravo, we trained together, fought together. I would have died for any one of them. And I wish I had been able to. But…”
Then Hollinsworth trailed off.
“But what?” Jack said.
“I have no problem giving my life for my country, or for one of my countrymen. But that day, we shouldn’t have been in a position for anyone to lose their life.”
“Why not?” Jack said.
“We knew not to mess around with the PDF,” Hollinsworth said. “A few weeks earlier, Second Lieutenant
Robert Paz was coming out of a restaurant in Panama City. He came across a PDF squad. He was alone. Now, any smart man or woman would have had the common sense to know when the right time is to fight, and that was most certainly the wrong time. We never got an official number, but civilian reports said that Lieutenant Paz was outnumbered at least eight to one.”
“He decided to fight,” I said.
“Not fight,” Hollinsworth said. “See, Paz was a member of a special unit nicknamed the ‘Hard Chargers.’
Their job was to actively provoke the PDF, to incite them either to violence against American troops or Panamanian civilians.”
“Why would they do that?” I asked.
“Because until then, we had no reason to go after
Noriega. Nothing official, anyway. Lots of innuendo, and we knew for certain he was trafficking in enough drugs to fill the Grand Canyon fifty times over. But you can’t overthrow every dictator that’s dabbling in illegal goods.
If that was the case we’d be at war with half the known world. No, we needed something more tangible. Something we could sell to citizens back home.”
“That’s where Paz came in.”
Hollinsworth nodded slowly.
“It wasn’t supposed to go like that, though. Hard
Chargers were never supposed to travel alone. Paz just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they recognized him.”
“So they killed him,” I said.
“Not immediately. Paz quickly realized that things were going to get out of hand, so he tried to run. But because the PDF had set up a legitimate roadblock, they felt they were justified in killing him. That’s the way
Noriega spun it. Have you heard of Franz Ferdinand?”
“Of course,” Jack said. “His assassination in Sarajevo was the primary catalyst for World War I.”
“That’s right. Well, Robert Paz was our Archduke Ferdinand. Until December sixteenth, nineteen eighty-nine, no members of the United States military had been killed by Panamanian forces. When Lieutenant Paz was killed, suddenly we had all the cause in the world. And on
December twentieth, the floodgates opened. We went into Panama with a vengeance, and we took Noriega out of power and that bastard has been rotting in prison ever since.”
“So how does this all play into Chester Malloy getting killed?”
Hollinsworth said, “Why are you so interested in this?
All of this happened almost twenty years ago and suddenly you want to know about it? I’m not buying it. What else are you looking for, Mr. Parker?”
I looked at Jack. He said to Hollinsworth, “We finish our interview, you can start interviewing us.”
He pursed his lips, said, “Fair enough.”
38
Morgan couldn’t believe how fast his heart was pounding. Even when he used to snort a few lines at a club then dance until his blood felt like lava, he couldn’t remember ever feeling quite like this. Those nights when he was high, there was always a sense of floating above the world, that the Morgan who was doing those things, saying those things, would wake up the next morning a different person.
The world didn’t really count when you were out of it. Everything you did could be explained. This, though, there was no explaining it. No justifying it. If he accepted what was being proposed right now, he would wake up tomorrow the same Morgan Isaacs, remembering every detail and never be able to wash it away.
Which is, perhaps, to his great surprise, the reason he didn’t feel the slightest hesitation.
The gun was heavier than he expected it to be. You always saw movies where guys swung guns around like they were made of tissue paper, aiming them sideways and backward and doing cool tricks. Not this gun, though.
He held it in his hand, and it felt just fine.
“This is a Glock 36,. 45 caliber handgun,” Chester said. He was looking at Morgan with dead seriousness in his face. Chester had been nice to him during the short time he’d known the man. A good conversationalist, even jokey at times, but right now Morgan got the feeling that if he even cracked a smile Chester would throw him out of the car.
They were driving uptown, passing by the glistening
Time Warner Center, the natural beauty of Central Park on the right as they drove up Central Park West. Morgan never spent a whole lot of time in the Park, or in any sort of nature. When he wasn’t behind a desk, he was at home with a beer or at a club throwing back martinis like they were iced tea. At first the idea of traveling all over the city to hawk his wares worried him. What if he didn’t like it? What if he couldn’t take all the time on the subway, didn’t want to deal with the asshole who often paid with crinkled twenties and smelled like dirty socks?
But when that money started rolling in, when he saw the smile on Chester’s face, Morgan knew he could hack it, and hack it quite easily.
“You sure you can do this?” Chester said. His eyes betrayed no sympathy; he was simply making sure that
Morgan was up to the task.
“Yes,” he said emphatically. “I am.”
“Well, all right then. Once we pull up to the building, the office is number A17. You’re going to walk straight past the receptionist. If she gives you a hard time, just tell her you’re going to the bathroom. Her name is Carolyn.
Don’t look at her, just walk right past and say, ‘Just going to the bathroom, Carolyn, thanks.’”
“Got it.”
“Once you enter the hallway past her desk, make a quick left, and it’s the third office on your right. You know who your target is.”
“I do. Why…”
“No whys,” Chester said. “Once it’s done, you run as fast as you can back here. The car will be idling in front of the entrance. The door will be open. You just climb in, hand me the gun, and we’re gone. The gun will be disposed of before the police arrive on the scene. And we want you to wear this,” he said.