The Enemy

“Why did he want you dead-ended? What was his motive?”

“He didn’t want me to find out who took the briefcase.”

“Why not?”

I sat down on the bed.

“Why did we never find the woman Kramer met in here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because there never was a woman,” I said. “Kramer met Carbone in here.”

She just stared at me.

“Kramer was gay too,” I said. “He and Carbone were getting it on.”

“Carbone took the briefcase,” I said. “Right out of this room. Because he had to keep the relationship secret. Just like we thought about the phantom woman, maybe he was worried there was something personal to him in it. Or maybe Kramer had been bragging about the Irwin conference. Talking about how Armored was going to fight its corner. So maybe Carbone was curious. Or even concerned. He’d been an infantryman for sixteen years. And the type of guy who gets into Delta, he’s got a lot of unit loyalty. Maybe more loyalty to his unit than to his lover.”

“I don’t believe it,” Summer said.

“You should,” I said. “It all fits. Andrea Norton more or less told us. I think she knew about Kramer. Either consciously or subconsciously, I’m not sure which. We accused her, and she wasn’t a

“We have no proof.”

“But we can get close. Carbone had a condom in his wallet, as well as the girlfriend photo. A buck gets ten it’s from the same pack as the one Walter Reed took off Kramer’s body. And another buck gets ten we can comb old assignment orders and find out where and when they met. Some joint exercise somewhere, like we thought all along. Plus Carbone was a vehicle guy for Delta. Their adjutant told me that. He had access to their whole stable of Humvees, any old time he wanted it. So another buck gets ten we’ll find Carbone was out in one, alone, on New Year’s Eve.”

“Was he killed for the briefcase? In the end? Like Mrs. Kramer?”

I shook my head. “Neither one of them was killed just for the briefcase.”

She just looked at me.

“Later,” I said. “One step at a time.”

“But Carbone had the briefcase. You said so. He ran off with it.”

I nodded. “And he searched it as soon as he got back to Bird. He found the agenda. He read it. And something in it made him call his CO immediately.”

“He called Brubaker? How could he do that? He couldn’t say, Hey, I was just sleeping with a general and guess what I found?”

“He could have said he found it somewhere else. On the sidewalk, maybe. But actually I’m wondering if Brubaker knew about Carbone and Kramer all along. It’s possible. Delta is a family and Brubaker was a very hands-on type of CO. It’s possible he knew. And maybe he exploited the situation. For intelligence purposes. These guys are incredibly competitive. And Sanchez told me Brubaker never missed any angle or any advantage or any wrinkle. So maybe the price of Brubaker’s tolerance was that Carbone had to pass stuff on, from the pillow talk.”

“That’s awful.”

I nodded. “Like being a whore. I told you there would be no wi

“Except us. If we get the results.”

“You’re going to be OK. I’m not.”

“Why?”

“Wait and see,” I said.

We carried our bags to the Chevy, which was still hidden behind the lounge bar. We put them in the trunk. The lot was fuller than it had been before. The night was heating up. I checked my watch. Almost eight o’clock on the East Coast, almost five on the West Coast. I stood still, trying to decide. If we pause for breath even for a second, we’ll be overrun again.

“I need to make two more calls,” I said.

I took the army phone book with me and we walked back to the greasy spoon. I checked every pocket for loose change and came up with a small pile. Summer contributed a quarter and a nickel. The counterman changed the pe

“Am I going to get past your main gate?” I asked him.

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“Willard’s chasing me. He’s liable to warn any place he thinks I’m going.”

“I haven’t heard from him yet.”

“Maybe you could switch your telex off for a day or two.”

“What’s your ETA?”

“Tomorrow sometime.”

“Your buddies are already here. They just got in.”

“I haven’t got any buddies.”

“Vassell and Coomer. They’re fresh in from Europe.”

“Why?”

“Exercises.”

“Is Marshall still there?”

“Sure. He drove out to LAX to pick them up. They all came back together. One big happy family.”

“I need you to do two things for me,” I said.

“Two more things, you mean.”

“I need a ride from LAX myself. Tomorrow, first morning arrival from D.C. I need you to send someone.”

“And?”

“And I need you to get someone to locate the staff car Vassell and Coomer used back here. It’s a black Mercury Grand Marquis. Marshall signed it out on New Year’s Eve. By now it’s either back in the Pentagon garage or parked at Andrews. I need someone to find it and to do a full-court press on it, forensically. And fast.”

“What would they be looking for?”

“Anything at all.”

“OK,” Franz said.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

I hung up and turned the pages in the army directory all the way from F for Fort Irwin to P for Pentagon. Slid my finger down the subsection to C for Chief of Staff’s Office. I left it there, briefly.

“Vassell and Coomer are at Irwin,” I said.

“Why?” Summer said.

“Hiding out,” I said. “They think we’re still in Europe. They know Willard is watching the airports. They’re sitting ducks.”

“Do we want them?” Summer said. “They didn’t know about Mrs. Kramer. That was clear. They were shocked when you told them, that night in your office. So I guess they authorized the burglary, but not the collateral damage.”

I nodded. She was right. They had been surprised, that night in my office. Coomer had gone pale and asked: Was it a burglary? It was a question that came straight from a guilty conscience. That meant Marshall hadn’t told them yet. He had kept the really bad news to himself. He had come back to the D.C. hotel at twenty past three in the morning, and he had told them the briefcase hadn’t been there, but he hadn’t told them what else had gone down. Vassell and Coomer must have been piecing it together on the fly, that night in my office, in the dark and after the event. It must have been an interesting ride home. Harsh words must have been exchanged.

“It’s down to Marshall alone,” Summer said. “He panicked, is all.”

“Technically it was a conspiracy,” I said. “Legally they all share the blame.”

“Hard to prosecute.”

“That’s JAG Corps’ problem.”

“It’s a weak case. Hard to prove.”