out his name or his rank in the dark. But he didn’t look like an
enlisted man. He U-turned smoothly across the empty road and
drove Vassell and Coomer away. We watched his tail lights
disappear north, through the main gate, and away into the
darkness beyond.
‘What do you think?’ Summer said.
72
‘I think they’re full of shit,’ I said.
‘Important shit or regular flag-rank shit?’
‘They’re lying,’ I said. ‘They’re uptight, they’re lying, and
they’re stupid. Why am I worried about Kramer’s briefcase?’
‘Sensitive paperwork,’ she said. ‘Whatever he was carrying to
California.’
I nodded. ‘They just defined it for me. It’s the conference
agenda itself.’
‘You’re sure there was one?’
‘There’s always an agenda. And it’s always on paper. There’s
a paper agenda for everything. You want to change the dog food
in the K-9 kennels, you need forty-seven separate meetings with
forty-seven separate paper agendas. So there was one for Irwin,
that’s for damn sure. It was completely stupid to say there
wasn’t. If they’ve got something to hide, they should have just
said it’s too secret for me to see.’
‘Maybe the conference really wasn’t important.’
‘That’s bullshit, too. It was very important.’
‘Why?’
‘Because a two-star general was going. And a one-star. And
because it was New Year’s Eve, Summer. Who flies on New
Year’s Eve and spends the night in a lousy stopover hotel? And
this year in Germany was a big deal. The Wall is coming down.
We won, after forty-five years. The parties must have been
incredible. Who would miss them for something unimportant?
To have gotten those guys on a plane on New Year’s Eve, this
Irwin thing had to be some kind of a very big deal.’
‘They were upset about Mrs Kramer. More than about
Kramer himself.’
I nodded. ‘Maybe they liked her.’
‘They must have liked Kramer too.’
‘No, he’s just a tactical problem for them. It’s an unsentimental
business, up there at their level. They hitched themselves to
him, and now he’s dead, and they’re worrying about where that
leaves them.’
‘Ready for promotion, maybe.’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But if Kramer turns out to be an embarrassment,
they could go down with him.’
73
‘Then they should be reassured. You promised them a coverup.’
There was something prim in her voice. Like she was
suggesting I shouldn’t have promised them any such thing.
3Ve protect the army, Summer,’ I said. ‘Like family. That’s
what we’re for.’ Then I paused. ‘But did you notice they didn’t
shut up after that? They should have taken the hint. Coverup
requested, cover-up promised. Asked and answered, mission
accomplished.’
‘They wanted to know where his stuff was.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They did. And you know what that means? It
means they’re looking for Kramer’s briefcase too. Because of
the agenda. Kramer’s copy is the only one still outside of their
direct control. They came down here to check if I had it.’
Summer looked in the direction their car had gone. I could
still smell its exhaust in the air. An acid tang from the catalyst.
‘How do civilian medics work?’ I asked her. ‘Suppose you’re
ml’yl wife,call nineand oneI go one.’d°wn with a heart attack? What do you do?’
‘And then what happens?’
‘The ambulance shows up. Takes you to the emergency
room.’
‘And let’s say I’m DOA when I get there. Where would you
be?’
‘I would have ridden to the hospital with you.’
‘And where would my briefcase be?’
‘At home,’ she said. ‘Wherever you left it.’ Then she paused.
‘What? You think someone went to Mrs Kramer’s house last
night looking for the briefcase?’
‘It’s a plausible sequence,’ I said. ‘Someone hears that he’s
dead from a heart attack, assumes he was pronounced in the
ambulance or the emergency room, assumes whoever he was
with would have accompanied him, goes down there expecting
to find an empty house with a briefcase in it.’
‘But he was never there.’
‘It was a reasonable first try.’
‘You think it was Vassell and Coomer?’
I said nothing.
‘That’s crazy,’ Summer said. ‘They don’t look the type.’
74
‘Don’t let looks fool you. They’re Armored Branch. They’ve
trained all their lives to roll right over anything that gets in