would have been glad of the extra room. We took off on time
and I spent the first hour getting more and more cramped and
uncomfortable. The stewardess served a meal that I couldn’t
have eaten even if I had wanted to, because I didn’t have
enough room to move my elbows and operate the silverware.
One thought led to another.
I thought about Joe flying in the night before. He would have
flown coach. That was clear. A civil servant on a personal trip
doesn’t fly any other way. He would have been cramped and
uncomfortable all night long, a little more than me because he
was an inch taller. So I felt bad all over again about putting him
in the bus to town. I recalled the hard plastic seats and his
cramped position and the way his head was jerked around by
the motion. I should have sprung for a cab from the city and
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kept it waiting at the kerb. I should have found a way to scare
up some cash.
One thought led to another.
I pictured Kramer and Vassell and Coomer flying in from
Frankfurt on New Year’s Eve. American Airlines. A Boeing jet.
No more spacious than any other jet. An early start from XII
Corps. A long flight to Dulles. I pictured them walking down
the jetway, stiff, airless, dehydrated, uncomfortable.
One thought led to another.
I pulled the George V bill out of my pocket. Opened the
envelope. Read it through. Read it through again. Examined
every line and every item.
The hotel bill, the airplane, the bus to town.
The bus to town, the airplane, the hotel bill.
I closed my eyes.
I thought about things that Sanchez and the Delta adjutant
and Detective Clark and Andrea Norton and Summer herself
had said to me. I thought about the crowd of meeters and
greeters we had seen in the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle arrivals
hall. I thought about Sperryville, Virginia. I thought about Mrs
Kramer’s house in Green Valley.
In the end dominoes fell all over the place and landed in ways
that made nobody look very good. Least of all me, because I
had made many mistakes, including one big one that I knew for
sure was going to come right back and bite me in the ass.
I kept myself so busy pondering my prior mistakes that I let my
preoccupation lead me into making another one. I spent all
my time thinking about the past and no time at all thinking
about the future. About countermeasures. About what would
be waiting for us at Dulles. We touched down at two in the
morning and came out through the customs hall and landed
straight in a trap set by Willard.
Standing in the same place they had stood six days earlier
were the same three warrant officers from the Provost Marshal
General’s office. Two W3s and a W4. I saw them. They saw us. I
spent a second wondering how the hell Willard had done it. Did
he have guys standing by at every airport in the country all day
and all night? Did he have a Europe-wide trace out on our travel
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vouchers? Could he do that himself? Or was the FBI involved?
The Department of the Army? The State Department? Interpol?
NATO? I had no idea. I made an absurd mental note that one
day I should try to find out.
Then I spent another second deciding what to do about the
situation.
Delay was not an option. Not now. Not in Willard’s hands. I
needed freedom of movement and freedom of action for twenty
four or forty-eight more hours. Then I would go see Willard. I
would go see him happily. Because at that point I would be
ready to slap him around and arrest him.
The W4 walked up to us with his W3s at his back.
‘I have orders to place you both in handcuffs,’ he said.
‘Ignore your orders,’ I said.
‘I can’t,’ he said.
‘Try.’
‘I can’t,’ he said again.
I nodded.
‘OK, we’ll trade,’ I said. ‘You try it with the handcuffs, I’ll
break your arms. You walk us to the car, we’ll go quietly.’