The Enemy

"When?"

"As he was leaving."

"Which was when?"

"He left here three hours before his flight."

"Eight o’clock?"

The captain nodded. "On the dot."

"I was told he was scheduled for night maneuvers."

"He was. That plan changed."

"Why?"

"I’m not sure."

I’m not sure seemed to be XII Corps’ standard-issue answer for everything.

"What’s the panic at Irwin?" I said.

"I’m not sure."

I smiled, briefly. "When were Marshall’s orders issued?"

"At seven o’clock."

"Written?"

"Verbal."

"By?"

"General Vassell."

"Did Vassell countersign the travel vouchers himself?"

The captain nodded.

"Yes," he said. "He did."

"I need to speak to him," I said.

"He went to London."

"London?" I said.

"For a short-notice meeting with the British Ministry of Defense."

"When did he leave?"

"He traveled to the airport with Major Marshall."

"Where’s Colonel Coomer?"

"Berlin," the guy said. "Souvenir hunting."

"Don’t tell me," I said. "He went to the airport with Vassell and Marshall."

"No," the captain said. "He took the train."

"Terrific," I said.

Summer and I went to the O Club for breakfast. We got the same corner table we had used the night before. We sat side by side, backs to the wall, watching the room.

"OK," I said. "Swan’s office called for Marshall’s whereabouts at 1810 and fifty minutes later he had orders for Irwin. An hour after that he was off the post."

"And Vassell lit out for London," Summer said. "And Coomer jumped on a train for Berlin."

"A night train," I said. "Who goes on a night train just for the fun of it?"

"Everybody’s got something to hide," she said.

"Except me and my monkey."

"What?"

"The Beatles," I said. "One of the sounds of the century."

She just looked at me.

"What are they hiding?" she said.

"You tell me."

She put her hands on the table, palms down. Took a breath.

"I can see part of it," she said.

"Me too."

"The agenda," she said. "It was the other side of the coin from what Colonel Simon was talking about last night. Simon was salivating about the infantry taking Armored down a peg or two. Kramer must have seen all of that coming. Two-star generals aren’t stupid. So the Irwin conference on New Year’s Day was about fighting the opposite corner. It was about resistance, I guess. They don’t want to give up what they’ve got."

"Hell of a thing to give up," I said.

"Believe it," she said. "Like battleship captains, way back."

"So what was in the agenda?"

"Part defense, part offense," she said. "That’s the obvious way to do it. Arguments against integrated units, ridicule of lightweight armored vehicles, advocacy for their own specialized expertise."

"I agree," I said. "But it’s not enough. The Pentagon is going to be neck-deep in position papers full of shit like that, starting any day now. For, against, if, but and however, we’re going to be bored to death with it. But there was something else in that agenda that made them totally desperate to get Kramer’s copy back. What was it?"

"I don’t know."

"Me either," I said.

"And why did they run last night?" Summer asked. "By now they must have destroyed Kramer’s copy and every other copy. So they could have lied through their teeth about what was in it, to put your mind at rest. They could even have given you a phony document. They could have said, Here you go, this was it, check it out."

"They ran because of Mrs. Kramer," I said.

She nodded. "I still think Vassell and Coomer killed her. Kramer croaks, the ball is in their court, in the circumstances they know it’s their responsibility to go out and round up all the loose paperwork. Mrs. Kramer goes down as collateral damage."

"That would make perfect sense," I said. "Except that neither one of them looked particularly tall and strong to me."

"They’re both a lot taller and stronger than Mrs. Kramer was. Plus, you know, heat of the moment, pumped up with panic, we could be seeing ambiguous forensic results. And we don’t know how good the Green Valley people are anyway. Could be some family doctor doing a two-year term as coroner, and what the hell would he know?"

"Maybe," I said. "But I still don’t see how it could have happened. Take out the drive time from D.C., take out ten minutes to find that store and steal the crowbar, they had ten minutes to react. And they didn’t have a car, and they didn’t call for one."

"They could have taken a taxi. Or a town car. Direct from the hotel lobby. And we’d never trace it. New Year’s Eve, it was the busiest night of the year."

"It would have been a long ride," I said. "Big fare. It might stand out in some driver’s memory."

"New Year’s Eve," she said again. "D.C. taxis and town cars are all over three states. All kinds of weird destinations. It’s a possibility."

"I don’t think so," I said. "You don’t take a taxi on a trip where you break into a hardware store and a house."

"No reason for the driver to have seen anything. Vassell or Coomer or both could have walked into that alley in Sperryville on foot. Come back five minutes later with the crowbar under their coat. Same thing with Mrs. Kramer’s house. The cab could have stopped on the driveway. All the action was around the back."

"Too big of a risk. A D.C. cabdriver reads the papers same as anyone else. Maybe more than anyone else, with all that traffic. He sees the story from Green Valley, he remembers his two passengers."

"They didn’t see it as a risk. They weren’t anticipating a story. Because they thought Mrs. Kramer wasn’t going to be home. They thought she would be at the hospital. And they figured no way would a couple of trivial burglaries in Sperryville and Green Valley make it into the D.C. papers."

I nodded. Thought back to something Detective Clark had said, days ago. I had people up and down the street, canvassing. There were some cars around.

"Maybe," I said. "Maybe we should check taxis."

"Worst night of the year," Summer said. "Like for alibis."

"It would be a hell of a thing," I said. "Wouldn’t it? Taking a cab to do a thing like that?"

"Nerves of steel."

"If they’ve got nerves of steel, why did they run away last night?"

She was quiet for a moment.

"That really doesn’t make any sense," she said. "Because they can’t run forever. They must know that. They must know that sooner or later they’re going to have to turn around and bite back."

"I agree. And they should have done it right here. Right now. This is their turf. I don’t understand why they didn’t."

"It will be a hell of a bite. Their whole professional lives are on the line. You should be very careful."

"You too," I said. "Not just me."

"Offense is the best defense."

"Agreed," I said.

"So are we going after them?"