The night crew, p.29
The Night Crew, page 29
part #7 of Sean Drummond Series
“Were you?”
“My travel agent fucked up. I distinctly told her Bermuda.”
“You should fire her.”
“Instead, I referred her to everybody I don’t like at the office.”
He chuckled. “Where were you assigned?”
“Baghdad. I didn’t mind the insurgents nearly as much as the brass. War brings out the micromanager in all of them. It’s like they tell you how many shakes to give your dick after you piss.”
“Tell me about it.” He was looking around for the waitress hauling his next drink. “They were squeezing my balls so hard at Al Basari, I—” He spotted the waitress and stopped midsentence while she placed his drink on the table. He took a long swig, then completed that thought. “Like, we’d get a new prisoner, and the next morning the Colonel was already busting our balls. What do you have, why haven’t you broken this guy yet?”
I feigned ignorance and said, “I know very little about interrogations. Is that unreasonable?”
“Absurd. Most people over there don’t understand what we do, how interrogations work, and they demanded overnight results, like you give us a prisoner and we have some mind-reading machine and we can empty their brains. It doesn’t work that way. But I’m sure the colonel was getting his balls busted by the people back in the Green Zone—shit flows downhill, right?”
“And Al Basari was the gutter.”
“Not true. We had to get on our tiptoes to look up at the gutter.” He watched the cute waitress for a moment, then said, “Thing is, Ashad and I were getting the ringleaders of the insurgency. Hard men. They were usually older, more self-confident, definitely more dedicated and tougher than the foot soldiers.”
“So they were more difficult to break?”
He took another long, deep swig. I had the sense that he knew what I was up to, getting him tipsy enough to break down his pathological reserve, but maybe he was past caring. Or maybe, being an interrogator himself, he was enjoying the role reversal, the thrill of being the prey in the chase for a change.
I recalled how I always felt when I came back from war zones where life seems to move at a thousand miles an hour, where every little thing becomes a matter of life and death, you wonder if every drive is your last, every road, every building, and every dead dog looks like a host for the grim reaper, as, too often, they are. It’s exhilarating, the ultimate test of manhood, the biggest adventure a human being can experience. But also, it scares the shit out of you.
Then, suddenly, you are back in the good ole USA where the greatest concern is whether Britney Spears is wearing her underpants that day, or which stupid rock star or movie star overindulged in drugs and made a trip to the morgue. The human mind is a remarkably adaptive organ, but unlike the human body it does not slow down the instant it crosses the finish line; nor does it adjust well to the sudden decompression from praying you don’t get your dick blown off, to the pointless chatter and trivialized garbage that is modern American culture.
There is a period, a sort of turbo-lag in reverse, where the mind is still on the razor’s edge, overly attentive, hypersensitive, and ultra-starved for a burst of testosterone.
Indeed, I found it curious that Nate Willborn was already on orders to return for another tour of duty in Iraq, for the only way for that to happen was that he volunteered for a quick turnaround. This suggested that he either felt out of place here, or left unresolved issues back there, or both.
He finished contemplating my question and replied, “Every one of them was a bitch to break. Ordinarily, it could take months of methodical, back-breaking effort.”
“But surely, there had to be a reason the command assigned so many tough cases to your team. Don’t be modest, Nate. You were good at it.”
“It’s not about modesty,” he answered. “Ashad broke them.”
“But you and Ashad were a team,” I told him. “Ashad worked for you. Whatever successes he had, you both get credit. You both deserved credit.”
“Look, it wasn’t like that. We were a team in name only. He did his thing, I did mine.”
I took a sip of Scotch. I couldn’t tell if Willborn was sober enough that he was still trying to get his distance from what Ashad did over there, or if he was venting something deeper, something definitely more interesting. What I could tell was that he didn’t have a fucking clue that Amal Ashad was still alive, which seemed to confirm what he was saying; Ashad had been a solo act, and vice versa.
I told him, “Well, it’s too bad Ashad died.”
“Is it?”
“I wish I had a chance to meet him. The impression I have is that he could get anybody to squeal.” I smiled and added, a bit disingenuously, “I could use some pointers.”
Willborn put down his drink, planted his elbows on the table, and leaned forward. “He was a dangerous asshole!” he replied with a burst of vehemence I found surprising. “Arrogant, conceited, selfish, manipulative. He looked down at the rest of us because we weren’t born in Iraq, and didn’t graduate from some Ivy League tower. It was all about him. He didn’t believe in sharing. He took all the credit for everything.”
“Come now, Nate. He couldn’t have been that bad.”
“Of course, you never had to work beside him, so you have no way of knowing how . . . he could seem very nice and even charming, but he had his own agenda. He didn’t really care about anyone else but himself. He was—” whatever Nate was about to say, he seemed to realize that he was going on and he halted midsentence. He broke eye contact with me and looked around the room for the waitress. He even yelled, “Hey . . . what do I have to do to get another drink around here?”
But he was also self-aware enough to recognize that he had exposed a little more than he wanted about the relationship between himself and Ashad. After a moment, he said, in a quiet voice, “Look, I was very sad when he died. Getting blown to pieces that way . . . I guess . . . you know . . . well, nobody deserves to go like that.”
Actually, it sounded like Willborn thought Ashad got exactly what he deserved. Anyway, the waitress arrived carrying my steak dinner in her right hand, his pork chops in her left. She was just setting them on the table when he looked at me and complained, “I . . . uh, I’m not feeling very well.”
“Relax, Nate, the cure just arrived. Food will make you feel better.”
“I’m sorry.” He got to his feet. “I . . . I have to go back to my room. I think I’m going to be sick.” And with that, he spun around and rushed out of the restaurant.
The waitress looked at me. “Will your friend be returning?”
“He’s not my friend.”
“Oh . . . well—”
“And no, I think somebody disagrees with his stomach.”
She looked confused.
“Wrap it up in a doggie bag, and have it delivered to his room. His name is Willborn.” I added, “Let me put a note on it.”
While she packed Willborn’s dinner in a Styrofoam container, I scrawled out a quick note on a napkin to him, handed it to the waitress, then ate my dinner.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I was up at 5:00, after a troubled sleep, showered, shaved, dressed, and alert enough by 5:30 to notice that I was the only one stirring. I had not expected Katherine to awaken so early, but Imelda was a different story; her new civilian status was taking the edge off. I had sneaked in the night before, removing my shoes at the doorway, and tiptoed upstairs to my bedroom to avoid a late-night confrontation with Katherine, or another crusty lecture from Imelda. I have earned ribbons for fearlessness on the battlefield, but women are a different story.
I nearly walked past the doorway to Katherine’s bedroom, which was open, before I peeked in and saw that she was sound asleep. I did not want to awaken her, but I did want to see her, so I slipped quietly inside and stood and watched her, feeling somewhere between a guilty voyeur and a lovesick teenager.
She was on her side, arms akimbo, her long dark hair splayed out, framing her beautiful face, which was directed toward me. I noted that she did not snore: two points. Also, she slept on the left side of the bed, as did I: minus two. Her choice of sleep attire was a ratty old T-shirt and I did not even peek beneath the covers to discover if there was a commando under that outfit—minus two points for me.
But in repose, as she was, she looked serene, untroubled, and chaste, in fact, angelic, proving, once again, that those with an unsullied conscience are granted the gift of real rest.
I recalled the night we had shared a meal with Nelson Arnold, and the way he and Katherine had looked at each other. Clearly Nelson was totally infatuated with her, though I did not detect a reciprocal level of ardor emanating from Katherine. Still, despite the very large differences between them in age, wealth, social status, and background, they did appear to be entirely comfortable in each other’s presence. There were none of the difficulties or tensions that seemed to ignite every time Katherine and I laid eyes on one another.
Essentially, Katherine is a more cerebral person than she is a passionate one, at least in how she behaves and comports herself professionally. I have always suspected, however, that, in her case, it is more a product of self-control than libido. On the courtroom floor, she can be hot-blooded and fiery, and it would interesting, not to mention, fun, to find out which is the true Katherine.
But people are endlessly complex and there are no laws of nature to sort out romantic relations. Unlike magnets, opposites do not necessarily attract; sometimes they merely bash one another to death. But neither is absolute harmony necessarily a formula for smooth relations; very often, it only leads to emotional stagnancy and boredom.
I wanted to shake her awake and ask what she saw in Mr. Moneybags. But having now met him, he was everything most women dream of—handsome, filthy rich, smart, filthy rich, principled, filthy rich, and with a very pleasant personality. I wanted to demand that she pick up the phone and tell him that in a contest between an army officer who barely had a pot to piss in, who could offer her nothing but constant moves, frequent separations, lousy pay, and the ever-present chance of becoming a young widow, he, with a pot large enough for the whole world to piss in, could take a flying leap.
I looked down at her face and tried to imagine Katherine as an army wife. Indeed, the army is hard on the soldier, but it is murder for the wives or, these days, their husbands. Those mates who survive a full career tend to be strong-willed, resourceful, independent, and hardy. Katherine had all those qualities in abundance, yet I could not picture her wearing white gloves to the officer wives’ tea party, kowtowing to bossy generals’ wives, or enduring the petty politics and ritual ass-kissing that are as much a part of army life as parades and military funerals. Then again, the modern army is different than it was for my mother’s generation. The white gloves are gone, and while most of the generals’ wives I have met are humble and wonderful, a few are insufferable, and they do test you. But the army has long since adapted to the pushier mores of a new generation of ambitious, independent women like Katherine, who do not stand behind their man, but rather beside him. Still, Katherine being Katherine, I suspected she would push this newfound tolerance to its limits.
If Katherine were a more practical woman, there would be no contest—she would already be fitting Nelson’s yacht with new curtains and filling out the wardrobe closets with the newest French fashions. But the words Katherine and practical do not belong in the same sentence.
I blew her an air-kiss and wandered back downstairs, where I gathered some files, then down to Main Street where I found a restaurant that served breakfast, and awaited the CIA’s call.
It came at 8:00 a.m., and it was Margaret, still speaking in her asphyxiating monotone. I was in neither a chatty nor a convivial mood and abruptly named the place for our meeting, then rang off and spent the next hour reviewing the office log of Captain Howser, my deceased predecessor, before I got into the pukey yellow Prius and drove on post. A different MP was at the gate. I could swear I saw him laughing as I drove past.
I drove to, then parked in the lot directly to the rear of the small, picturesque Catholic Chapel, where, half a century before, Ma and Pa Drummond got a life sentence together, then I walked up a steep hill to the much larger and more visually impressive Cadet Chapel, where the Prods perform their pagan rituals. In the old days, chapel was mandatory for cadets, so every Sunday morning they were formed up like stiff-faced prisoners and marched to the morning service of their particular predilection. These days they are free to go or to sleep in, as they wish. But I have heard that attendance is not an issue. There are no atheists in the foxhole, the saying goes, and since most of these young men and women know they will graduate and march off to war, it probably doesn’t strike them as a waste of time to get an early jump on things.
I entered through the imposing wooden doors and walked down the broad center aisle, about midway to the altar. I had chosen this somewhat unconventional venue for our meet because it was public, but not entirely. It was a cavernous cathedral, gothic both in design and scale, capable of seating well over a thousand, and thus, three people could conduct a perfectly discreet discussion in plain sight, as long as the conversation didn’t become overheated—and no gunfire was involved.
Also, I hoped this comingled monument to religious and patriotic ardor would stimulate my guests to be on their best behavior. I could not imagine even the CIA would whack a US Army officer with the aroma of the pulpit filling their nostrils. On the other hand, if I was overestimating their moral sensitivities, at least it would be a short trip to my funeral. Last but not least, such a pious setting seemed ordained to be a place where only truth was spoken.
I was seated at 9:55 and, at 10:00 a.m., I heard the large wooden doors open.
I stared straight ahead, with my back turned to my punctual guests. I could hear their steps as they moved quickly toward me, a pair of high heels making quick clacking sounds like a malfunctioning machine gun, the other pair, much heavier and louder, like the clump of approaching artillery shells.
They eventually progressed to the middle pew where I was seated with my .45 pistol pointedly positioned in my lap.
A mellifluous male voice to my rear informed me, “You won’t need that gun, Colonel.”
I looked up and directly into the snub-nosed, saturnine face of Thomas Bernhardt, National Security Advisor to the president. He offered me a friendly wave and requested, “Please put that away. It makes me nervous.”
The woman beside him put out her hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you face-to-face, Colonel Drummond. I’m Margaret Martin.”
So much for my illusion about an ambience conducive to integrity—it was anything but a pleasure to meet each other face-to-face. I stood and stuffed the .45 into my waistband, then shook her hand. “Have a seat,” I offered.
While Mr. Bernhardt and Ms. Martin took a moment to squeeze into my pew, get seated, and arrange themselves, I used the opportunity to study my guests.
Thomas Bernhardt, as I knew from press coverage, was a corporate lawyer by training and by profession, who had advised the president about foreign affairs during the campaign and was rewarded with his elevation to his current position of West Wing Mandarin. This meant he either had something on the president, or he had the president’s ear, respect, and confidence.
His reputation was as a behind-the-scenes, fingerprintless fixer, a guileful troubleshooter, who, unlike many of his predecessors, eschewed the Sunday morning press circuit and kept himself off the front pages. I didn’t know if this was a commendable personal trait or a slick survival mechanism to allow his boss to hog all the press clippings. I had the thought, however, that this explained his presence here—to wit: make the Sean quagmire disappear without raising any waves.
I shifted my attention to Margaret Martin, who appeared to be about my age. She was dressed in a cool blue blazer, a shimmery white blouse, and a tight red skirt that went down to her knees—the standard attire of a life-long bureaucrat, which conveyed that she was feminine by gender without evoking any untidy male sexual fantasies. The red-white-and-blue color coordination seemed to be designed for me.
She also was moderately attractive and would’ve been more so had she chosen to wear makeup. She had what I would characterize as a pleasant face, only contradicted by a pair of narrow blue eyes that sparkled with calculation and worry. Those eyes had puffy black circles underneath them, indicating that she hadn’t gotten much rest, and the half-hearted, forced smile was because she now was looking at the festering boil that caused her insomnia.
As the senior official present, Bernhardt decided to kick things off, observing, “I think it’s fair to say that you’ve stuck your fist into a hornet’s nest, Colonel.”
I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but I had half a mind to remind him that they were the ones with their dicks in a wringer—and I had my hand on the handle. Given the professional sloppiness I had uncovered, they had to know one other truth; they were now less than a banana peel away from complete disaster. But instead of mentioning this unpleasantness, I merely nodded.
He continued, out of the blue, “How familiar are you with the history of the Second World War?”
“It occurred after the First, right?”
“Good guess.” He smiled and winked. “Have you ever heard the tale about Churchill and the town of Coventry?”
“Can you come to the point?” I replied, not really in the mood for a long-winded history sermon.
“Bear with me, Colonel . . . please. There is a point to this, and it’s relevant to what we’re here to discuss, I promise.”
Well, he did have a pleasant smile, and he said please, so it would be churlish of me to develop attention deficit issues. Also, he was about thirty paygrades higher than me. I can be easily influenced that way.
