Child, Lee – The Enemy

occur to you that not everyone on the post has to come through

the main gate? Doesn’t it occur to you that someone recorded

as not being here could have slipped in through the wire?’

‘Unlikely,’ I said. ‘It would have given him a walk of well over

two miles, in pitch dark, and we run random motor patrols all

night.’

‘The patrols might have missed a trained man.’

‘Unlikely,’ I said again. ‘And how would he have rendez

voused with Sergeant Carbone?’

‘Prearranged location.’

‘It wasn’t a location,’ I said. ‘It was just a spot near the track.’

‘Map reference, then.’

‘But’Unlikely”possible?’I said, for the third time.

‘Anything’s possible.’

‘So a man could have met with the shirtlifter, then killed him,

then gotten back out through the wire, and then walked around

to the main gate, and then signed in?’

‘Anything’s possible,’ I said again.

‘What kind of timescale are we looking at? Between killing

him and signing in?’

‘I don’t know. I would have to work out the distance he

walked.’

‘Maybe he ran.’

‘Maybe he did.’

‘In which case he would have been out of breath when he

passed the gate.’

I said nothing.

‘Best guess,’ Willard said. ‘How much time?’

‘An hour or two.’

He nodded. ‘So if the fairy was offed at nine or ten, the killer

could have been logging in at eleven?’

‘Possible,’ I said.

‘And the motive would have been to dead-end something.’

I nodded. Said nothing.

‘And you took six hours to complete a four-hour journey,

139

thereby leaving a potential two-hour gap, which you explain

with the vague claim that you took a slow route.’

I said nothing.

‘And you just agreed that a two-hour window is generous in

terms of getting the deed done. In particular the two hours

between nine and eleven, which by chance are the same two

hours that you can’t account for.’

I said nothing. He smiled.

‘And you arrived at the gate out of breath,’ he said. ‘I

checked.’

I didn’t reply.

‘But what would have been your motive?’ he said. ‘I assume

you didn’t know Carbone well. I assume you don’t move in the

same social circles that he did. At least I sincerely hope you

don’t.’

‘You’re wasting your time,’ I said. ‘And you’re making a big

mistake. Because you really don’t want to make an enemy out of

me.’

‘Don’t I?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘You really don’t.’

‘What do you need dead-ended?’ he asked me.

I said nothing.

‘Here’s an interesting fact,’ Willard said. ‘Sergeant First Class

Christopher Carbone was the soldier who lodged the complaint

against you.’

He proved it to me by unfolding a copy of the complaint from

his pocket. He smoothed it out and passed it across my desk.

There was a reference number at the top and then a date and a

place and a time. The date was January 2nd, the place was Fort

Bird’s Provost Marshal’s office, and the time was 0845. Then

came two paragraphs of sworn affidavit. I glanced through some

of the stiff, formal sentences. I personally observed a serving

Military Police major named Reacher strike the first civilian

with a kicking action against the right knee. Immediately subsequent

to that Major Reacher struck the second civilian in the

face with his forehead. To the best of my knowledge both attacks

were unprovoked. I saw no element of self-defence. Then came a

signature with Carbone’s name and number typed below it. I

140

recognized the number from Carbone’s file. I looked up at the

slow silent clock on the wall and pictured Carbone in my mind,

slipping out of the lounge bar door into the parking lot, looking

at me for a second, and then merging with the knot of men

leaning on cars and drinking beer from bottles. Then I looked

down again and opened a drawer and slipped the sheet of paper

inside.

‘Delta Force looks after its own,’ Willard said. ‘We all know

that. I guess it’s part of their mystique. So what are they going

to do now? One of their own is beaten to death after lodging a

complaint against a smart-ass MP major, and the smart-ass MP

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 *