‘I called Rock Creek,’ I said. ‘Asked a clerk to find their copy
of the order bringing me here from Panama.’
‘And?’
‘He said it’s got Garber’s signature on it.’
‘But?’
‘That’s not possible. Garber got me on the phone on New
Year’s Eve and was surprised I was here.’
‘Why would a clerk lie?’
‘I don’t think a clerk would. I think the signature is a forgery.’
‘Is that conceivable?’
‘It’s the only explanation. Garber couldn’t have forgotten he’d
transferred me here forty-eight hours previously.’
120
‘So what’s this all about?’
‘I have no idea. Someone somewhere is playing chess. My
brother told me I should find out who wants me here bad
enough to pull me out of Panama and replace me with an
asshole. So I tried to find out. And now I’m thinking maybe we
should be asking the same question about Garber. Who wants
him out of Rock Creek bad enough to replace him with an
asshole?’
‘But Korea has to be a genuine merit promotion, doesn’t it?’
‘Garber deserves it, no question,’ I said. ‘Except it’s too early.
It’s a one-star job. DoD has to bring it to the Senate. That
process happens in the fall, not in January. This was a panic
move, spur of the moment.’
‘But that would be pointless chess,’ Summer said. ‘Why bring
you in and pull him out? The two moves neutralize each other.’
‘So maybe there are two people playing. Like a tug of war.
Good guy, bad guy. Win one, lose one.’
‘But the bad guy could have won both, easily. He could have
discharged you. Or sent you to prison. He’s got the civilian
complaint to work with.’
I said nothing.
‘It doesn’t add up,’ Summer said. ‘Whoever’s playing on your
side is willing to let Garber go but is powerful enough to
keep you here, even with the civilian complaint on the table.
Powerful enough that Willard knew he couldn’t proceed against
you, even though he probably wanted to. You know what that
means?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do.’
She looked straight at me.
‘It means you’re seen as more important than Garber,’ she
said. ‘Garber’s gone, and you’re still here.’
Then she looked away and went quiet.
‘Permission to speak freely, lieutenant,’ I said.
She looked back at me.
‘You’re not more important than Garber,’ she said. ‘You can’t
be.’
I yawned again.
‘No argument from me,’ I said. ‘Not on that particular subject.
This is not about a choice between me and Garber.’
121
She paused. Then she nodded.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It isn’t. This is about a choice between Fort
Bird and Rock Creek. Fort Bird is seen as more important.
What’s happening here on the post is seen as more sensitive
than what’s happening at special unit headquarters.’
‘Agreed,’ I said. ‘But what the hell is happening here?’
122
NINE
I
TOOK THE FIRST TENTATIVE STEP TOWARDS FINDING OUT AT ONE minute past seven the next morning, in Fort Bird’s
mortuary. I had slept for three hours and I hadn’t eaten
breakfast. There aren’t many hard and fast rules involved in
military crime investigation. Mostly we depend on instinct and
improvisation. But one of the few rules that exist is: you don’t
eat before you walk into an army post-mortem.
So I spent the breakfast hour with the crime scene report. It
was a fairly thick file, but it had no useful information in it. It
listed all the recovered uniform items and described them
in minute detail. It described the corpse. It listed times and
temperatures. All the thousands of words were backed by
dozens of Polaroid photographs. But neither the words nor the
pictures told me what I needed to know.
I put the file in my desk drawer and called the Provost
Marshal’s office for any AWOL or UA reports. The dead guy
might have been missed already, and we might have been able
to pick up on his identity that way. But there were no reports. Nothing out of the ordinary. The post was humming along with
all its ducks in a row.
I walked out into the morning cold.
123
The mortuary had been purpose-built during the Eisenhower