Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

couldn’t conceal the return time of the battle groups from the families. The

word would get out, and the Indians would hear it, and what would they be

doing then?

“Hi, Clarice.” Murray stood up for his luncheon guest. He thought of her as

his own Dr. Ruth. Short, a tiny bit overweight, Dr. Golden was in her middle

fifties, with twinkling blue eyes and a face that always seemed on the edge of

delivering the punch line of a particularly good joke. It was that similarity

between them that had fostered their bond. Both were bright, serious profes-

sionals, and both had elegant intellectual disguises. Hearty-fellow and

hearty-lady-well-met, the life of whatever party they might attend, but under

the smiles and the chuckles were keen minds that missed little and collected

much. Murray thought of Golden as one hell of a potential cop. Golden had

much the same professional evaluation of Murray.

“To what do I owe this honor, ma’am?” Dan asked in his usual courtly

voice. The waiter delivered the menus, and she waited pleasantly for him to

depart. It was Murray’s first clue, and though the smile remained fixed on

his face, his eyes focused in a little more sharply on his diminutive lunch

guest.

“I need some advice, Mr. Murray,” Golden replied, giving another sig-

nal. “Who has jurisdiction over a crime committed on federal property?”

“The Bureau, always,” Dan answered, leaning back in his seat and

checking his service pistol. Business to Murray was enforcing the law, and

feeling his handgun in its accustomed place acted as a sort of personal touch-

stone, a reminder that, elevated and important as the sign on his office door

said he was today, he had started out doing bank robberies in the Philadel-

phia Field Division, and his badge and gun still made him a sworn member

of his country’s finest police agency.

“liven on Capitol Hill?” Clarice asked.

“liven on Capitol Hill,” Murray repeated. Her subsequent silence sur-

prised him. Golden was never reticent about much. You always knew what

she was thinking-well, Murray amended, you knew what she wanted you

to know. She played her little games, just as he did. “Talk to me, Dr.

Golden.”

“Rape.”

Murray nodded, setting the menu down. “Okay, first of all, please tell me

about your patient.”

‘ ‘Female, age thirty-five, single, never married. She was referred to me by

her gynecologist, an old friend. She came to me clinically depressed. I’ve

had three sessions with her.”

Only three, Murray thought. Clarice was a witch at this stuff, so percep-

tive. Jesus, what an interrogator she would have made with her gentle smile

and quiet motherly voice.

‘ ‘When did it happen?” Names could wait for the moment. Murray would

start with the barest facts of the case.

“Three years ago.”

The FBI agent-he still preferred “Special Agent” to his official title of

Deputy Assistant Director-frowned immediately. “Long time, Clarice. No

forensics, I suppose.”

“No, it’s her word against his-except for one thing.” Golden reached

into her purse and pulled out photocopies of the Beringer letter, blown up in

the copying process. Murray read through the pages slowly while Dr.

Golden watched his face for reaction.

“Holy shit,” Dan breathed while the waiter hovered twenty feet away,

thinking his guests were a reporter and a source, as was hardly uncommon in

Washington. “Where’s the original?”

“In my office. I was very careful handling it,” Golden told him.

That made Murray smile. The monogrammed paper was an immediate

help. In addition, paper was especially good at holding fingerprints, espe-

cially if kept tucked away in a cool, dry place, as such letters usually were.

The Senate aide in question would have been fingerprinted as part of her

security-clearance process, which meant the likely author of this document

could be positively identified. The papers gave time, place, events, and also

announced her desire to die. Sad as it was, it made this document something

akin to a dying declaration, therefore, arguably, admissible in federal district

court as evidentiary material in a criminal case. The defense attorney would

object-they always did-and the objection would be overruled-it always

was-and the jury members would hear every word, leaning forward as they

always did to catch the voice from the grave. Except in this case it wouldn’t

be a jury, at least not at first.

Murray didn’t like anything about rape cases. As a man and a cop, he

viewed that class of criminal with special contempt. It was a smudge on his

own MumhiMxl thai someone could commit such a cowardly, foul act. More

prolessioniilly disturbing was the troublesome fact that rape cases so often

tame down in one person’s word against another’s. Like most investigative

tops, Murray dislrusted all manner of eyewitness testimony. People were

piMir observers it was that simple-and rape victims, crushed by the expe-

rience, often made poor witnesses, their testimony further attacked by the

(Icl’cnse counsel. Forensic evidence, on the other hand, was something you

could prove, it was incontrovertible. Murray loved that sort of evidence.

“Is it enough to begin a criminal investigation?”

Murray looked up and spoke quietly: “Yes, ma’am.”

“And who he is-”

“My current job-well, I’m sort of the street-version of the executive as-

•iMlttnt to Bill Shaw. You don’t know Bill, do you?”

“Only by reputation.”

“It’s all true,” Murray assured her. “We were classmates at Quantico,

und we broke in the same way, in the same place, doing the same thing. A

crime is a crime, and we’re cops, and that’s the name of the song, Clarice.”

But even us his mouth proclaimed the creed of his agency, his mind was

wiying. Holy shit. There was a great big political dimension to this one. The

President didn’t need the trouble. Well, who ever needed this sort of thing?

For goddamned sure, Barbara Linders and Lisa Beringer didn’t need to be

raped by someone they’d trusted. But the real bottom line was simple: thirty

years earlier, Daniel E. Murray had graduated from the FBI Academy at

Quantico, Virginia, had raised his right hand to the sky and sworn an oath to

God. There were gray areas. There always would be. A good agent had to

use his judgment, know which laws could be bent, and how far. But not this

far, and not this law. Bill Shaw was of the same cut. Blessed by fate to oc-

cupy a position as apolitical as an office in Washington, D.C., could be,

Shaw had built his reputation on integrity, and was too old to change. A case

like this would start in his seventh-floor office.

“I have to ask, is this for-real?”

“My best professional judgment is that my patient is telling the truth in

every detail,”

“Will she testify?”

“Yes.”

‘ ‘Your evaluation of the letter?”

“Also quite genuine, psychologically speaking.” Murray already knew

that from his own experience, but someone-first he, then other agents, and

ultimately a jury-needed to hear it from a pro.

“Now what?” the psychologist asked.

Murray stood, to the surprised disappointment of the hovering waiter.

“Now we drive down to headquarters and meet with Bill. We’ll get case

agents in to set up a file. Bill and I and the case agent will walk across the

street to the Department and meet with the Attorney General. After that, I

don’t know exactly. We’ve never had one like this-not since the early sev-

enties, anyway-and I’m not sure of procedure just yet. The usual stuff with

your patient. Long, tough interviews. We’ll talk to Ms. Beringer’s family,

friends, look for papers, diaries. But that’s the technical side. The political

side will be touchy.” And for that reason, Dan knew, he’d be the man run-

ning the case. Another Holy shit! crossed his mind, as he remembered the

part in the Constitution that would govern the whole procedure. Dr. Golden

saw the wavering in his eyes and, rare for her, misread what it meant.

“My patient needs-”

Murray blinked. So what? he asked himself. It’s still a crime.

“I know, Clarice. She needs justice. So does Lisa Beringer. You know

what? So does the government of the United States of America.”

He didn’t look like a computer-software engineer. He wasn’t at all scruffy.

He wore a pinstriped suit, carried a briefcase. He might have said that it was

a disguise required by his clientele and the professional atmosphere of the

area, but the simple truth was that he preferred to look neat.

The procedure was just as straightforward as it could be. The client used

Stratus mainframes, compact, powerful machines that were easily net-

worked-in fact they were the platform of choice for many bulletin-board

services because of their reasonable price and high electronic reliability.

There were three of them in the room. “Alpha” and “Beta”-so labeled

with white letters on blue plastic boards-were the primaries, and took on

the front-line duties on alternate days, with one always backing up the other.

The third machine,’ ‘Zulu,” was the emergency backup, and whenever Zulu