Gone Tomorrow

I said, ‘We figured all along that only a dumb person would expect HRC to have meaningful information about Delta operations. And I think we were largely right. But a little bit wrong, too. I think a really smart person might legitimately expect it, with a little lateral thinking.’

‘In what way?’

‘Suppose someone knew for sure that a Delta operation had taken place. Suppose they knew for sure it had succeeded.’

‘Then they wouldn’t need information, because they’ve already got it.’

‘Suppose they wanted to confirm the identity of the officer who led the operation?’

‘They couldn’t get that from HRC. Just not possible. Orders and deployment records and after-action reports are classified and retained at Fort Bragg under lock and key.’

‘But what happens to officers who lead successful missions?’

‘You tell me.’

‘They get medals,’I said. ‘The bigger the mission, the bigger the medal. And army regulation 600-8-22, section one, paragraph nine, subsection I), requires the Human Resources Command to maintain an accurate historical record of each and every award recommendation, and the resulting decision.’

‘Maybe so,’ Sansom said. ‘But if it was a Delta mission, all the details would be omitted. The citation would be redacted, the location would be redacted, and the meritorious conduct would not be described.’

I nodded. ‘All the record would show is a name, a date, and an award. Nothing else.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Which is all a smart person thinking laterally really needs, right? An award proves a mission succeeded, the lack of a citation proves it was a covert mission. Pick any random month, say early in 1983. How many medals were awarded?’

‘Thousands. Hundreds and hundreds of Good Conduct Medals alone.’

‘How many Silver Stars?’

‘Not so many.’

‘If any,’ I said. ‘Not much was happening early in 1983. How many DSMs were handed out? How many DSCs? I bet they were as rare as hens’ teeth early in 1983.’

Elspeth Sansom moved in her chair and looked at me and said, ‘I don’t understand.’

I turned towards her but Sansom raised a hand and cut me off. He answered for me. There were no secrets between them. No wariness. He said, ‘It’s a kind of back door. Direct information is completely unavailable, but indirect information is out there. If someone knew that a Delta mission had taken place and succeeded, and when, then whoever got the biggest unexplained medal that month probably led it. Wouldn’t work in wartime, because big medals would be too common. But in peacetime, when nothing else is going on, a big award would stick out like a sore thumb.’

‘We invaded Grenada in 1983,’ Elspeth said. ‘Delta was there.’

‘October,’ Sansom said. ‘Which would add some background noise later in the year. But the first nine months were pretty quiet’

Elspeth Sansom looked away. She didn’t know what her husband had been doing during the first nine months of 1983. Perhaps she never would. She said, ‘So who is asking?’

I said, ‘An old battleaxe called Svetlana Hoth, who claims to have been a Red Army political commissar. No real details, but she says she knew an American soldier named John in Berlin in 1983. She says he was very kind to her. And the only way that inquiring about it through Susan Mark makes any sense is if there was a mission involved and the guy named John led it and got a medal for it. The FBI found a note in Susan’s car. Someone had fed her the regulation and the section and the paragraph to tell her exactly where to look.’

Elspeth glanced at Sansom, involuntarily, with a question in her face that she knew would never be answered: Did you get a medal for something you did in Berlin in 1983? Sansom didn’t respond. So I tried. I asked him straight out, ‘Were you on a mission in Berlin in 1983?’

Sansom said, ‘You know I can’t tell you that.’ Then he seemed to lose patience with me, and he said, ‘You seem like a smart guy. Think about it. What possible kind of operation could Delta have been ru

I said, ‘I don’t know. As I recall you guys worked very hard to stop people like me knowing what you were doing. And I don’t really care, anyway. I’m trying to do you a favour here. That’s all. One brother officer to another. Because my guess is something is going to come back and bite you in the ass and I thought you might appreciate a warning.’

Sansom calmed down pretty fast. He breathed in and out a couple of times and said, ‘I do appreciate the warning. And I’m sure you understand that I’m not really allowed to deny anything. Because logically, denying something is the same as confirming something else. If I deny Berlin and every other place I wasn’t, then eventually by a process of elimination you could work out where I was. But I’ll go out on a limb just a little, because I think we’re all on the same side here. So listen up, soldier. I was not in Berlin at any point in 1983. I never met any Russian women in 1983. I don’t think I was very kind to anyone, the whole year long. There were a lot of guys in the army called John. Berlin was a popular destination for sightseeing. This person you have been talking to is looking for someone else. It’s as simple as that.’

Sansom’s little speech hung in the air for a moment. We all sipped our drinks and sat quiet. Then Elspeth Sansom checked her watch and her husband saw her do it and said, ‘You’ll have to excuse us now. Today we have some really serious begging to do. Springfield will be happy to see you out.’ Which I thought was an odd proposal. It was a public hotel. It was my space as much as Sansom’s. I could find my own way out, and I was entitled to. I wasn’t going to steal the spoons, and even if I did, they weren’t Sansom’s spoons. But then I figured he wanted to set up a little quiet time for Springfield and me, in a lonely corridor somewhere. For further discussion, perhaps, or for a message. So I stood up and headed for the door. Didn’t shake hands or say goodbye. It didn’t seem to be that kind of a parting.

Springfield followed me to the lobby. He didn’t speak. He seemed to be rehearsing something. I stopped and waited and lie caught up to me and said, ‘You really need to leave this whole thing alone:

I asked, ‘Why, if he wasn’t even there?’

‘Because to prove that he wasn’t there you’ll start asking where he was instead. Better that you never know.’

I nodded. ‘This is personal to you too, isn’t it? Because you were right there with him. You went wherever he went.’

He nodded back. ‘Just let it go. You really can’t afford to turn over the wrong rock.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’ll be erased, if you do. You won’t exist any more. You’ll just disappear, physically and bureaucratically. That can happen now, you know. This is a whole new world. I’d like to say I would help with the process, but I wouldn’t get the chance. Not even close. Because a whole bunch of other people would come for you first. I would be so far back in line that even your birth certificate would be blank before I got anywhere near you.’

‘What other people?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Government?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Those federal guys?’

He didn’t answer. Just turned back and headed for the elevators. I stepped out to the Seventh Avenue sidewalk and Leonid’s phone started ringing in my pocket again.