the desk.’
We checked the gate log together. Operation Just Cause in
Panama had moved all domestic installations up one level on
the DefCon scale and therefore all closed posts were recording
entrances and exits in detail in bound ledgers that had pre
printed page numbers in the top right-hand corner. We had a
good clear Xerox of the page for January 4th. I was confident
it was genuine. I was confident it was complete. And I was
confident it was accurate. The Military Police has numerous
failings, but snafus with basic paperwork aren’t any of them.
Summer took the page from me and taped it to the wall next
to the map. We stood side by side and looked at it. It was ruled
into six columns. There were spaces for date, time in, time out,
plate number, occupants, and reason.
‘Traffic was light,’ Summer said.
I said nothing. I was in no position to know whether nineteen
entries represented light traffic or not. I wasn’t used to Bird and
it had been a long time since I had pulled gate duty anywhere
else. But certainly it seemed quiet compared to the multiple
pages I had seen for New Year’s Eve.
‘Mostly people reporting back for duty,’ Summer said.
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I nodded. Fourteen lines had entries in the time in column
but no corresponding entries in the time out column. That
meant fourteen people had come in and stayed in. Back to
work, after time away from the post for the holidays. Or after
time away from the post for other reasons. I was right there
among them: 1-4-90, 2302, Reacher, J., Mjr, RTB. January 4th
1990, two minutes past eleven in the evening, Major J. Reacher,
returning to base. From Paris, via Garber’s old office in Rock
Creek. My vehicle plate number was listed as” Pedestrian. My
sergeant was there, coming in from her off-post address to work
the night shift. She had arrived at nine thirty, driving some
thing with North Carolina plates.
Fourteen in, to stay in.
Only five exits.
Three of them were routine food deliveries. Big trucks,
probably. An army post gets through a lot of food. Lots of
hungry mouths to feed. Three trucks in a day seemed about
right to me. Each of them was timed inward at some point
during the early afternoon and then timed outward again a
plausible hour or so later. The last time out was just before
three o’clock.
Then there was a seven-hour gap.
The last-but-one recorded exit was Vassell and Coomer themselves,
on their way out after their O Club dinner. They had
passed through the gate at 2201. They had previously been
timed in at 1845. At that point their Department of Defense
plate number had been written down and their names and ranks
had been entered. Their reason had been stated as courtesy
visit.
Five exits. Four down.
One to go.
The only other person to have left Fort Bird on the fourth of
January was logged as: 1-4-90, 2211, Trifonov, S., Sgt. There
was a North Carolina passenger vehicle plate number written in
the relevant space. There was no time in recorded. There was
nothing in the reason column. Therefore a sergeant called
Trifonov had been on post all day or all week and then he had
left at eleven minutes past ten in the evening. No reason
had been recorded because there was no directive to enquire as
215
to why a soldier was leaving. The assumption was that he was
going out for a drink or a meal or for some other form of
entertainment. Reason was a question the gate guards asked of
people trying to get in, not trying to get out.
We checked again, just to be absolutely sure. We came up
with the same result. Apart from General Vassell and Colonel
Coomer in their self-driven Mercury Grand Marquis, and then a
sergeant called Trifonov in some other kind of car, nobody had
passed through the gate in an outward direction in a vehicle or
on foot at any time on the fourth of January, apart from three
food trucks in the early part of the afternoon.
‘OK,’ Summer said. ‘Sergeant Trifonov. Whoever he is. He’s