Child, Lee – The Enemy

smugness fell away and they replaced it with a kind of winsome

frankness. .:]

‘We don’t really need to know,’ Vassell said. He leaned

forward and glanced at Summer like he wished she wasn’t

there. Like he wanted this new intimacy to be purely man-to

man with me. ‘And we have no specific information or direct

knowledge at all, but we’re worried that General Kramer’s

private arrangements could lead to the potential for embarrass

ment, in light of the circumstances.’

‘How well did you know him?’

‘On a professional level, very well indeed. On a personal level,

about as well as anyone knows his brother officer. Which is to

say, perhaps not well enough.’

‘But you suspect in general terms what his arrangements

might have been.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We have our suspicions.’

‘So it wasn’t a surprise to you that he didn’t bunk at the hotel.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t.’

70

‘And it wasn’t a surprise when I told you he wasn’t visiting

with his wife.’

‘Not entirely, no.’

‘So you suspected roughly what he might be doing, but you

didn’t know where.’

Vassell nodded his head. ‘Roughly.’

‘Did you know with whom he might have been doing it?’

Vassell shook his head.

‘We have no specific information,’ he said.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t really matter. I’m sure you know the

army well enough to realize that if we discover a potential for

embarrassment, we’ll cover it up.’

There was a long pause.

‘Have all traces been removed?’ Coomer asked. ‘From

wherever it was?’

I nodded. ‘We took his stuff.’

‘Good.’

‘I need the Irwin conference agenda,’ I said.

There was another pause.

‘There wasn’t one,’ Vassell said.

‘I’m sure there was,’ I said. ‘This is the army. It’s not the

Actors’ Studio. We don’t do free improvisation sessions.’

There was a pause.

‘There was nothing on paper,’ Coomer said. ‘I told you, major,

it was no big deal.’

‘How did you spend your day today?’

‘Chasing rumours about the general.’

‘How did you get down here from D.C.?’

‘We have a car and a driver on loan from the Pentagon.’

‘You checked out of the Jefferson.’

‘Yes, we did.’

‘So your bags are in the Pentagon car.’

‘Yes, they are.’

‘Where is the car?’

‘Waiting outside your post headquarters.’

‘It’s not my post headquarters,’ I said. ‘I’m here on temporary

detachment.’

I turned to Summer and told her to go fetch their briefcases

from the car. They got all outraged, but they knew they couldn’t

71

stop me doing it. Civilian notions about unreasonable search

and seizure and warrants and probable cause stop at an army

post main gate. I watched their eyes while Summer was gone.

They were annoyed, but they weren’t worried. So either they

were telling the truth about the Irwin conference or they had

already ditched the relevant paperwork. But I went through

the motions anyway. Summer got back carrying two identical

briefcases. They were exactly like the one Kramer had in his

silver-framed photographs. Staffers kiss up in all kinds of ways.

I searched through them on my desk. I found passports,

plane tickets, travel vouchers and itineraries in both of them.

But no agendas for Fort Irwin.

‘Sorry for the inconvenience,’ I said.

‘Happy now, son?’ Vassell said.

‘Kramer’s wife is dead, too,’ I said. ‘Did you know that?’

I watched them carefully, and I saw that they didn’t know.

They stared at me and stared at each other and started to get

pale and upset.

‘How?’ Vassell said.

‘When?’ Coomer said.

‘Last night,’ I said. ‘She was a homicide victim.’

‘Where?’

‘In her house. There was an intruder.’

‘Do we know who it was?’

‘No, we don’t. It’s not our case. It’s a civilian jurisdiction.’

‘What was it? A burglary?’

‘It maybe started out that way.’

They said nothing more. Summer and I walked them out to

the sidewalk in front of post headquarters and watched them

climb into their Pentagon car. It was a Mercury Grand Marquis,

a couple of model-years newer than Mrs Kramer’s big old boat,

and black rather than green. Their driver was a tall guy in

BDUs. He had subdued-order badges on and I couldn’t make

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *