these cavalry types. The O Club in an hour?’
We carried our bags over to the Visiting Officers’ Quarters and
found our rooms. Mine looked pretty much the same as the one
Kramer had died in, except it was cleaner. It was a standard
American motel layout. Presumably some hotel chain had bid
for the government contract, way back when. Then they had
air-freighted all the fixtures and fittings, right down to the sinks
and the towel rails and the toilet bowls.
I shaved and took a shower and dressed in clean BDUs.
Knocked on Summer’s door fifty-five minutes into Swan’s hour.
She opened up. She looked clean and fresh. Behind her the
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room looked the same as mine, except it already smelled like a
woman’s. There was some kind of nice eau de toilette in the air.
We found the O Club without any trouble. It occupied half of
one of the ground-floor wings of the main building. It was a
grand space, with high ceilings and intricate plaster mouldings.
There was a lounge, and a bar, and a dining room. We found
Swan in the bar. He was with a lieutenant colonel who was
wearing Class As with a combat infantryman’s badge on the
coat. It was an odd thing to see, on an Armored post. His name
plate said: Simon. He introduced himself to us. I got the feeling
he was going to join us for dinner. He told us he was a liaison
officer, working on behalf of the infantry. He told us there was
an Armored guy down in Heidelberg, doing the same job in
reverse.
‘Been here long?’ I asked him.
‘Two years,’ he said, which I was glad about. I needed some
background, and Swan didn’t have it any more than I knew
anything about Fort Bird. Then I realized it was no accident
that Simon was joining the party. Swan must have figured out
what I wanted and set about providing it without being asked.
Swan was that kind of a guy.
‘Pleased to meet you, colonel,’ I said, and then I nodded to
Swan, like I was saying thanks. We drank cold American beers
from tall frosted glasses and then we went through to the
dining room. Swan had made a reservation. The steward put us
at a table in the corner. I sat where I could watch the whole
room at once. I didn’t see anyone I knew. Vassell wasn’t around.
Nor was Coomer.
The menu was absolutely standard. We could have been in
any O Club in the world. O Clubs aren’t there to introduce you
to local cuisine. They’re there to make you feel at home, somewhere
deep inside the army’s own interpretation of America.
There was a choice of fish or steak. The fish was probably
European, but the steak would have been flown in across the
Atlantic. Some politician in one of the ranch states would have
leveraged a sweet deal with the Pentagon.
We small-talked for a spell. We bitched about pay and
benefits. Talked about people we knew. We mentioned Just
Cause in Panama. Lieutenant Colonel Simon told us he had
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been to Berlin two days previously and had gotten himself a
chip of concrete from the Wall. Told us he planned to have it
encased in a plastic cube. Planned to hand it on down the
generations, like an heirloom.
‘Do you know Major Marshall?’ I asked him.
‘Fairly well,’ he said.
‘Who is he exactly?’ I asked.
‘Is this official?’
‘Not really,’ I said.
‘He’s a planner. A strategist, basically. Long-term kind of guy.
General Kramer seemed to like him. Always kept him close by,
made him his intelligence officer.’
‘Does he have an intelligence background?’
‘Not formally. But he’ll have done rotations, I’m sure.’
‘So is he a part of the inner team? I heard Kramer and Vassell
and Coomer mentioned all in the same breath, but not
Marshall.’
‘He’s on the team,’ Simon said. ‘That’s for sure. But you know
what flag officers are like. They need a guy, but they aren’t
about to admit it. So they abuse him a little. He fetches and
carries and drives them around, but when push comes to shove