Skibicki fell silent.
Boomer waited a little bit, then felt compelled to ask questions.
“Is that what Trace is after? The original diary?”
“I don’t know,” Skibicki said.
“If Rison sent her for proof, I imagine that’s what he would send her after. It’s what he must have been using all these years to keep The Line off his back and from tearing Special Forces apart.”
“But why is it at West Point?” Boomer asked.
“The purloined letter theory,” Maggie suggested.
“You know, hide it in the last place people would look for it.
Right at the place it all started.”
“What did Rison do with the diary back in 1969?”
Boomer wanted to know.
“Why didn’t he expose The “Expose The Line?” Skibicki repeated incredulously.
“We were trying to save our ass and Special Forces’ existence. The best Rison hoped for was a truce. A Mexican standoff.”
“What about Killibrew? What did he do with his copy?”
“Killibrew didn’t do shit with his copy,” Skibicki said, and for a moment Boomer mistook the bitterness in Ski’s voice as being directed at his former executive officer.
“Lieutenant Colonel Killibrew is officially listed as missing in action. Two days after I got the copy of the diary to him, he disappeared while on a flight from Nha Trang to the FOB. I find it rather curious that the plane he was on was a contract one flown by a were in the employ of the Company.
The mere pilot was supposedly lost in the crash also, but I wasn’t very surprised when I just happened to spot him two years later in Bangkok while I was on R & R.”
“Did the mercenary tell you what happened to Killibrew?” ‘ Boomer asked.
“Before he died, he did.” Skibicki looked Boomer in the eyes.
“They killed Killibrew, and that’s one of the reasons we’ didn do’ anything. Rison took care of the original and took care of dealing with The Line. They backed off and we backed off and that’s the way it’s been for twenty-six years until you showed up here in Hawaii and Trace started writing her book. And now the Colonel’s dead too.”
Skibicki parked the jeep on Radar Hill Road, one street removed from the tunnel. In between the two streets a lava ridge separated Boomer and him from their destination.
“We’ll leave it here. I want to see if anyone’s in the tunnel first and going up a dead-end street isn’t my idea of going in smart,” Skibicki said.
“The fake DIA guys have to have our names by now from the cops so I wouldn’t be too surprised to see company waiting for us.”
Boomer didn’t say anything. His mind was occupied with thoughts of Trace and what had happened to her today. He was less than thrilled about her going to West Point tomorrow, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it and that was what rankled him the most. He had thought he’d be getting her out of harm’s way by sending her back to the States.
They went up the ridge, getting down on their bellies as they came up to the crest. Peering over the top, they could see that the parking lot in front of the TASOSC tunnel was empty. Skibicki scanned the surrounding terrain in the fading light.
“Looks clear. Let’s go.”
They stood and made their way down to the vault door.
Skibicki picked up the phone that was on the concrete wall to the left of the door.
“What are you doing?” Boomer asked.
“On the weekend and at the end of each duty day the tunnel alarm is activated by the last person to leave. I have to call the Provost Marshall’s office to have them turn the alarm off.”
Skibicki dialed the number and talked to the duty sergeant.
Then he punched in the code on the numeric keypad and pulled the door open. There was a rush of air as the pressure equalized and they stepped in, letting the door lock behind them.
Skibicki led the way to his desk where he pulled out a large keyring.
“Keys to everything in here,” he said.
“So the enlisted people can clean everyone’s office,” he added.
They went to the end of the first tunnel and he opened Colonel Coulder’s office. Boomer watched as Skibicki began spinning the dials on the secure filing cabinet behind the commander’s desk.
“You have his combination?”
“Vasquez is security manager for the tunnel. She has all the combinations,” Skibicki said as the tumblers clicked and he opened the top drawer.
“So, naturally, that means I have all the combinations.” He quickly began scanning the folders inside.
“Since Coulder was in on the brief with Decker, I have to assume he’s in on whatever’s going on.
He’s a ring-knocker, too.”
Boomer searched the colonel’s desk while Skibicki worked the files. He looked up when Skibicki slapped a folder down on the desk.
“The rest of the President’s schedule. What wasn’t in the OP ORDER in the conference room.”
“And?” Boomer asked.
“The night of the sixth. After the President attends the fundraiser downtown. A national command and control exercise is scheduled.”
Skibicki considered the information he had just read to Boomer.
“We’ve been focusing on the ceremony in Pearl Harbor, but that sounds like a good time for The Line to make its move. They’ll have the President on their turf.
Most likely on Looking Glass,” he added, referring to the modified 747, E-4B command and control aircraft.
“I heard one of them was flying in, but I assumed that was simply because the Joint Chiefs were coming.”
“Maybe,” Boomer said.
“But I’ve got to tell you, despite everything that’s happened the past several days, I find it hard to believe that there is a plot against the President.”
Skibicki threw down the folder.
“You’re the one who said your mission you were on in the Ukraine was a setup.”
“Yeah, but there’s a big difference between that and a plot directly against the President. In the history of our country there has never been—”
“Fuck!” Skibicki exclaimed.
“Listen, Boomer, get your head out of your ass. First off, we’ve had the military go against the government numerous times before. Remember MacArthur during the Korean War? Some of the generals during the Civil War?
“You may have been behind the fence at Bragg for the past couple of years,” Skibicki continued, “but I’ve been out here in the real Army. People are not happy. They haven’t been happy for years. In fact, they’re downright pissed. Our benefits are getting eaten up by fat cats sitting in Washington. They’ll cut our benefits but not their own.
“We don’t have a contract guaranteeing any of the things we enlisted for. If Congress wants to change retirement benefits for the Army, they simply pass a law. As they did a couple of years ago by changing the base pay computation for retirement pay. Not a big deal by itself, but when you start adding in all the piddly shit over the past ten years, it comes to a lot. There’s been a betrayal of trust.
We put it on the line for this country, expecting that the benefits we enlisted under would be there when we retired and they’re not.”
Skibicki was on a roll. Boomer had never seem him so agitated.
“The President’s flying out here to make a speech at Pearl Harbor, over the graves of men who died because their peacetime military had been cut to the bone after World War I. It’s not so different today.
“Add it up. Boomer. The cutbacks. Hard Glass getting sliced. The Backfire incident. The bullshit missions that have killed soldiers and kept thousands away from their families for months on end: Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti. Pile on top of all that the MRA and you have a pile of C-4 just waiting for a fuse to be dropped in and ignited.