The Night Crew, page 38
part #7 of Sean Drummond Series
“Under the circumstances, I think he should be regarded as a suspect in the murders of Captain Howser and Major Weinstein.” I then made the helpful recommendation, “You and the FBI should try to establish if Willborn was in Colorado the day Howser died, and the DC area the day Weinstein was killed.
“No shit. I think I figured that out on my own.” He bent toward me, and warned, “Here’s a little good advice, counselor. While, circumstantially, this looks like self-defense, it’s definitely something more than that.”
“I’m not following your logic, Chief.”
“Then let me make it clearer for you. You gave us the slip a few hours ago, getting rid of your protection, which might also be construed as eliminating any possible witnesses.” He asked, “Why did you give the shake to my boys?”
“Weren’t they behind me?”
“Don’t try that shit on me, Colonel. You know you did. You took them on a chase through post, then all those little shops in town you dodged in and out of.”
“Chief, I will not be held responsible for the incompetence demonstrated by your agents.” I shook my head. “I believed they had my back. I had no way of knowing otherwise.”
He fell back on his favorite conclusion and said, “Bullshit.”
“You said yourself that they are good boys, able to follow me without me even knowing it.”
He recognized his own words, and clearly did not enjoy having them thrown back in his face. His jaw became tight and his hands balled into fists. “I’m tempted to put you in cuffs and haul your ass down to the MP station on post where we can continue this discussion in a more conducive environment.”
“Ordinarily that would be an option, Chief. Except the killing occurred off-post, here, in Highland Falls, meaning neither you nor the army has the jurisdictional authority to investigate, or to produce charges against me. And if you take one step in my direction in an attempt to apprehend me, I’ll have you charged with assaulting and kidnapping a superior officer.”
He did not acknowledge this, as it was not in his interest to do so. But it was a reminder to him that he was dealing with every cop’s worst nightmare—a lawyer as a suspect.
But like the good cop he was, he had to get one last lick. “This isn’t over, Colonel. Army CID will offer the village police everything at our disposal.”
“Are you through?” I asked. “My arm requires immediate treatment in a hospital.”
O’Reilly was a good guy and I got no joy from treating him this way. Despite not being on the criminal end of things, so far his instincts and insights about what really happened were mostly spot on.
Poor Nate Willborn had gotten himself into something much bigger than he understood, maybe too big for anybody to understand, both back in Iraq, where he had killed a man and ignited a scandal, and then, here, at home, where he murdered two army lawyers to cover up what he’d done over there.
Along the way he had placed himself in a position where the fate of an entire war rested on whether he was discovered or not. Some three thousand men and women had already given their lives to the cause; tens of thousands more had lost limbs, other body parts, and in some cases, their minds. It did not seem fair or just—at least, not to me—that after everything they had fought and sacrificed so much for, the one chance for it to become a success should be thrown away because one army captain became upset with his lousy performance reviews and decided to take out his frustration on one stubborn Iraqi prisoner.
I did, however, feel some sympathy for Nate Willborn. He had voluntarily left the cool, leafy suburbs of Boston only to end up in the worst shithole on the planet, a madhouse in a country he did not understand, as part of a war he also did not fully understand. Around him Amal Ashad and Danny Elton and the rest of the night crew were going mad. It should surprise nobody that Nate Willborn caught a little whiff of that madness.
But once I decided that Nate Willborn murdered Palchaci and two army lawyers, it occurred to me that there really was no way to place him under arrest and on trial, at least not without exposing the continued existence of Amal Ashad and the cover-up of what really happened at Al Basari—throwing away the one good chance to win the war.
The truth was, I convicted Nate Willborn in my mind, and I then maneuvered him into a position where he saw no choice but to kill me. The discussion he and I had shared over dinner was a preview of how any competent prosecutor would present the case against him at a trial in front of a board of his peers; I was confronting him with the criminal narrative and the evidence that would be used against him. In turn, Willborn was revealing to me the alibis and lies he would employ to conceal his guilt. His defense was weak. It was full of holes large enough to drive a guilty verdict through, and I think he recognized this.
I’m a good lawyer: I certainly did my best to make him recognize it.
Of course, I gave him the time-honored chance, as any good lawyer or cop would do, to turn himself in, and try to work a deal.
But if I was honest with myself, it was an offer I knew he would never take. I knew he had killed two men in cold blood to conceal his crimes, I knew he had sat back and watched five American soldiers be pilloried and tried for a crime he committed, I knew he deserved to die, and I knew it would be better for everybody concerned if I pulled the trigger and blew the brains out of his head.
And, too, O’Reilly was right about another thing. I could have easily aimed my .45 to maim or disarm Nate Willborn.
Where he was wrong was in suggesting that was ever an option in my mind.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The cops from Highland Falls took my statement, though having no understanding of the Al Basari court martials, they released me with the usual admonition to remain in contact until the case was closed.
I needed to see a doctor about medical treatment for my arm, but I needed treatment for my head first, so I wandered back down to Main Street and walked into the first establishment I could find with a liquor license, which happened to be called South Gate Tavern.
It was located only yards from the academy’s Thayer gate, and the décor was an interesting muddle of Irish paraphernalia and military accessories, and I even recognized most of the unit patches pinned to the wall behind the bar.
All around me, pictures were hanging on the walls, photographs of soldiers and officers currently serving at war, in Iraq or Afghanistan—though from some of the shots it was hard to distinguish which. Everybody deserves a hometown, but for soldiers whose lives are as transient as tumbleweed, I suppose a bar has to do.
A few of the faces were old enough to have lines and creases; most, however, looked young, eager, and unblemished by age, disillusion, heartbreak, or crushing disappointment. I don’t recall ever looking that young, idealistic, or free-spirited, and certainly the face I see in the mirror these days tells a different story; it looks a little worse for wear, shorn of the naiveté and innocence I wore the day I first swore the oath to protect the Constitution of the United States and to defeat all enemies, foreign and domestic.
I occupied a booth in the darkest corner of the bar where I sipped from my Scotch and brooded, occasionally glancing up to the faces on the walls.
To my left, I observed an enlarged photograph of a smiling, attractive young female soldier in battle dress who bore a strong resemblance to June Johnston. She was blonde, fit, fresh-faced, and pretty—a poster girl for the modern army recruiter, the prom queen transformed into a cold-blooded killer. A second lieutenant’s butter bar was pinned to the center of her battle dress, so probably she was a recent graduate of the officer factory less than a few hundred yards away. That accomplishment aside, I wondered what made her any different from June, Lydia, or Andrea.
Boys and girls. Apart, they are fine, but together in close quarters, you have the equivalent of dynamite and C4 with an unstable fuse. For the army, despite all its regulations and authoritarian leaders, sex is like kryptonite. You can order men and women to ignore the color of skin or even sexual orientation, and you can usually make it stick. But try ordering boys and girls not to screw and you have the equivalent of ordering salmon not to swim upstream.
Fate and circumstance had deposited five soldiers at Al Basari, five unique individuals who came into the army already shaped and twisted by their own life experiences, each guided by their own neuroses, pathologies, and psychological scars. And ultimately, they found one another and went on a journey together, a journey into madness.
This was not supposed to happen, not in an army that prided itself on discipline, order, and impermeable notions of brotherhood and sisterhood. But happen it did, and I found myself wondering what could’ve been done to keep their demons caged up, or at least to give the better angels of their nature a fighting chance against the darkness in their souls.
The truth is an army is no better or no worse than the society from which its members are drawn. Ours is a great nation, as is the society that forms its bedrock, which produces a great army. But occasionally, an odd duck slips through, and we all end up with mud on our faces. War does not change us, but it seeps through the weaknesses in our armor, it finds the faults and fractures of the human psyche that are already there. Amal Ashad, Nate Willborn, and the night crew were not predestined to do what they did, but those who were supposed to prevent such behavior never really stood a chance.
After my fifth Scotch, I pulled out my cellphone and the business card with Thomas Bernhardt’s private phone number scribbled in his pinched writing on the back.
He identified himself when he answered. I gave him my identity back.
He came right to the point and asked, “Have you solved the killing?”
“I have.”
“Good. Then who killed General Palchaci?”
“You. The United States government. Everybody who could’ve prevented this but did not.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Colonel? Have you been drinking?”
“Yes, but not nearly enough. You sent an army to win a war, Mr. Bernhardt, without the men and material required to do that job properly and to succeed. That prison was a nightmare, a disaster. It was so scandalously short of manpower that the officers and sergeants running the place never had a chance. It was chaos with each man and woman trying to do the work of ten. This scandal did not have to happen but you made sure it was inevitable.”
There was silence on the other end. When he did speak, Bernhardt snarled, “I do not have to listen to a drunken rant from you, Drummond.”
“Tomorrow that certainly may be true, but tonight, you’ll listen to whatever I have to say or tomorrow will be the end of the presidency. Is this clear enough for you?”
He thought about it a moment, then said, in a more enlightened tone, “Look, I understand what you’re saying, but this war is very unpopular with the American people. Congress is severely divided as to its wisdom. The federal budget is already under unbearable strain . . .” and he went on a long diatribe about all the pressures he and his boss had to endure not to do the right thing. I let him go on awhile because he’s a lawyer; that’s what a lawyer does.
But the first time he paused to catch his breath, I told him, “Fuck the politics. A soldier in a foxhole is not there to protect your president’s ass or ensure his reelection. He risks his life and limb, and his only expectation is that you give him everything he needs to win. Because you and your president failed to do that, one more American soldier died tonight.”
He responded to this news somewhat coldly, asking, “Is that so? Who is he?”
“Captain Nate Willborn. An intelligence officer. An interrogator at the prison.”
“Why did he die?”
“Because he murdered Palchaci, because he forwarded the photos to a reporter, and because, to keep them from exposing these crimes, he killed two good army lawyers.”
“Ah . . . I see.” There was a pause before he asked, “Well, how did he die?”
“I killed him.”
“Oh . . .”
“But if you’re inquiring about the technical determination of death, it may have been the bullet that blew most of his head off, though it’s certainly possible that the six rounds I pumped into his heart caused it to stop functioning. A coroner will figure it out. I’ll let you know.”
“Well . . . are you in any trouble? Are there, uh, any complications from his death?”
Instead of addressing his pressing concern for avoiding further scandal, I asked him, “Are you ready to hear the deal?”
“Uh . . . let’s hear it.”
“First, call General Fister, chief of the army JAG corps. Tell him to approve my request for resignation from this case, effective immediately.”
“I thought you said you would resign only if you couldn’t clear your client of involvement in Palchaci’s murder. Are you sure about this?”
“Despite every professional ethic I already violated, Mr. Bernhardt, I cannot keep secrets that might exonerate or mitigate my client’s guilt while I defend her.”
“I see. If that’s the way you feel . . .” He paused, probably confused by this reference to legal ethics. “Just be sure to word it damned carefully. Avoid any mention of Ashad, or how that led to your involvement in Willborn’s death.”
“I neither asked for, nor do I need, your advice on this matter, Mr. Bernhardt. I believe I’ve already demonstrated tonight that I know how to cover your president’s ass.”
He made no reply to this, but he couldn’t miss, or dismiss, the real meaning in what I was telling him. I had killed a man to protect the secret of what really happened at Al Basari. With the burial of Willborn, the truth would be buried with him.
“All right . . . well . . .” He cleared his throat. “Are there any other conditions?”
“You will offer each of the defendants, except Sergeant Elton, a one-year sentence, and a less than honorable discharge in lieu of the bad conduct discharge hanging over their heads. I really don’t care what Elton gets. It won’t be enough.”
“Jesus . . . Is this a joke?”
“The punchline will be my morning press conference. Be sure you and your boss have your TVs on.”
“For God’s sake, be realistic, Sean. One year? The President will be scorched by the press. The Iraqis will scream murder. One year . . . after what those people did. The whole world is watching . . . we can’t . . . I mean, that’s just . . .”
I interrupted his stammering. “The public will forget all about Lydia and her friends after I tell the press what I know.”
There was a moment before he said, “Well . . . I . . . Uh . . . I suppose I can manage this.”
“I did not ask you to manage it—I said do it.”
“Got it.” It’s not often that you get to boss around the right hand of a president, and a chance like this might never come around again—the chance for an overnight colonel’s eagle, the chance for a free sixty-day leave—but you have to know when enough is enough.
“One year,” he repeated as though the number stunned him. “Do you think their attorneys will accept that offer?”
As he was an attorney himself I should not have to explain this, but I replied, “Show them the video you showed me.”
“Yes . . . I suppose that’s sound advice.”
There was silence on the line for a minute. But if I could picture his face, I was pretty sure he was smiling so hard he couldn’t speak. In the morning he would march into his boss’s oval office, assure him the Ashad deal was back on track, and advise him to sign the paper to authorize a victory in the war.
When that silence was broken, it was Bernhardt, saying, “Listen, Sean, I know this is not exactly an auspicious start to our relationship, but you’ve impressed me on this case. The way you’ve handled this . . . I’d like to have you on my staff.”
I made no reply.
He said, “You know, you’d be a fool not to seriously consider my offer. It’s the White House, the chance to make a real difference. It’ll be good for your career.”
I told him, “I’ll think about it,” then I punched off.
I walked to the bar where I ordered one more Scotch for the road. I knocked it back, walked to the door, and left to break my own heart.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Katherine was standing in the hallway when I entered the home that had been our office for the past week.
Her arms were crossed. An expression of worry was on her face. She took in the sling on my arm. “Are you okay?”
“Never been better.”
“Is that arm broken?”
I replied in my most macho tone, “You should see the other guy.”
“O’Reilly’s people told us you were in an altercation. They said you killed a man.”
“He did try to kill me first.”
“How? More importantly, Sean, why did he want to kill you?”
“With a bat,” I replied, not exactly answering her question.
She stared at me.
“The same way he killed General Palchaci. He used different methods on Captain Howser and Major Weinstein, but he wanted to kill me for the same reason he killed them.”
“And what was that reason?”
“I have no idea,” I lied. “Apparently, he went to war and went mad. He became a sociopath. I was walking back here and he came running out of the dark with his bat. He just went nuts.”
This was a lot for her to take in; at first, she looked startled, but she always was quick and I could see her wheels starting to turn. With Katherine, as I said, this was always dangerous. She has an uncanny knack for knowing my thoughts.
I took a deep swallow, then said, “I have to inform you, Katherine, that I have tendered my resignation from this case. I’m leaving tonight.”
She looked shocked. But more than that, she appeared hurt and confused. “Don’t be ridiculous, Sean. I know that I’ve complicated things, but there is no reason for you to resign. Withdraw it . . . please.”
