Casper stands up, a troubled look on his face.
Pelayo says, “Yes?”
“The Cornwall woman has departed. But the phone we left for her…it’s going in the wrong direction. It’s now in New Jersey. She’s going in the wrong direction.”
Pelayo smiles. “No, she’s sending us a sweet message. A nasty one, but a sweet one. She is telling us that she will do the job, but that she is a force to be reckoned with.”
He steps forward, gives Casper a comforting pat on the shoulder, noting a few flecks of blood on the back of his hand.
“But so are we,” Pelayo says.
CHAPTER 15
AS FAR as waiting rooms go, this one in Fort Belvoir is all right. Special Agent Rosaria Vasquez of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command has been in some real rat holes in her years of dedication to the service that she loves. Beat-up mobile homes with rusting sides and leaking ceilings. Apartment buildings built near railroad tracks, meaning she would have to pause her interrogation each time a freight train rattled through. Army-issued tents, the sides flapping, wind whistling by, sand getting into everything, the constant drumming roar of diesel generators and passing vehicles threatening her concentration as she diligently asked questions and waited for answers.
In all of those locations, she was doing her job: interrogating various Army enlisted men and women, NCOs and officers, chasing down crimes that are as old as humankind—rape, theft, homicide—as well as those only pertinent to her Army, from mishandling of classified documents to espionage.
Today’s interrogation is one of those belonging to the Army, the death of a prisoner in a foreign land, in the custody of an occupying force, said force being the Army of the United States. A CID unit in Afghanistan is up to its ears re-investigating that end of the case and Rosaria is here on the other end, conducting the first domestic interview with the supervising officer who ended up with a dead Taliban fighter in her custody.
This waiting area is small, with two chairs, a coffee table with today’s Washington Post and USA Today, and framed photos of Army personnel deployed across the world, from Afghanistan to Sudan. A door leads out into a hallway and another leads to the office of the commanding officer of her scheduled interviewee.
Both doors are closed.
Rosaria checks her watch.
It is 0840. Her appointment with Captain Amy Cornwall was supposed to have taken place forty minutes ago. Rosaria thinks a five- or ten-minute delay is reasonable, fifteen or more is insulting, and more than a half hour is a gut punch of insubordination.
Still, she waits. Patience and persistence are two of the many things she has learned in the CID.
Rosaria is a warrant officer in the Army, assigned to the 701st Military Group (CID) at Marine Corps Base, Quantico, Virginia, but is wearing civilian clothing—black slacks with a crisp plain white blouse and black jacket. CID investigators always wear civilian clothing, save for ceremonial duties or if they are in a combat zone.
There will be conflict aplenty during her visit here today at Fort Belvoir, but at least it’s not an official combat zone. Still, in a hip holster is her Army-issued SIG Sauer 9mm P228 pistol, and in her inside jacket pocket is her government ID and gold-and-blue CID badge.
Her black leather courier bag is on the carpeted floor, next to her chair.
She waits.
The door before her opens up and an apologetic Army major pokes his head out, his name tag saying WENNER, wearing the camouflage Army combat uniform.
“Special Agent Vasquez, Lieutenant Colonel Denton will see you now.”
“Outstanding,” she says, grabbing her dispatch case and following the slim, young-looking major into the lieutenant colonel’s office.
The office is twice as large as the waiting area, with the same type of framed photos as wall decorations. There’s a small black leather couch on the left that Major Bruno Wenner takes, and one wall is covered by filing cabinets. Three unlocked drawers have bright-red cardboard signs saying OPEN slid in just above the handles. There are two brown leather chairs in front of Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Denton’s desk. He doesn’t get up, just gives her a crisp nod.
She takes one of the chairs, and says, “Sir.”
“A moment,” he says, looking down through a pair of reading glasses at an open file folder, a telephone system before him, a computer terminal at his elbow. Denton has broad shoulders and a barrel chest, wiry gray hair, and a frowning weathered face. He seems to be about forty-five.
Rosaria waits. She knows the lieutenant colonel hates having her here, hates having her presence known on Fort Belvoir, quietly spreading the news that some sort of blemish has been placed on his unit.
He finally looks up. “Captain Cornwall isn’t here.”
“Yes, sir,” she says. “Will she be in at all today?”
Major Wenner speaks up from the other side of the room. “She’s…ah…she called in sick.”
Rosaria doesn’t turn her head to the major. She keeps looking at Lieutenant Colonel Denton. “Sir…I’ve come up here today from Quantico, expecting to meet with Captain Cornwall about an incident that occurred while she was on deployment in Afghanistan. This interview is vital to my investigation, sir. Is it my understanding that she could not make this appointment because she is ill? Sir?”
Lieutenant Colonel Denton’s eyes narrow. His eyebrows are the same gray color as his hair.
Major Wenner speaks up. “She is ill.”
Rosaria says, “Is she in a hospital? At some medical facility? Major?”
Some quiet seconds pass. Rosaria hears a jet overhead, probably heading to DC.
Major Wenner says, “I believe she’s at home, Special Agent Vasquez. And not at a medical facility.”
Rosaria can tell the lieutenant colonel’s executive officer is very good at his job, being the quiet intermediary, the one who calms the lieutenant colonel, who supplies information, excuses, and anything to make the office run smoothly and cleanly. Like the good mom, trying to smooth things over among squabbling siblings, although Rosaria has never known a real mom or dad in her life. Although she’s only just met the executive officer, she’s sure he’s popular among the personnel at this intelligence battalion.
“Colonel Denton…is that true?”
“If Major Wenner says it, then it must be true.”
“I see, sir.”
“You should consider yourself lucky that you’ve just wasted a morning drive,” he says sourly. “Three years ago, we were at Fort Gordon, in Georgia. It was a nice posting, until some bureaucrats and a congressman moved us here to Virginia in some high-class shuffle.”
Rosaria says, “I’ll certainly keep that in mind, sir.”
He abruptly closes the manila folder. “I suggest you come back tomorrow.”
Rosaria slowly picks up her leather bag. “At oh-eight hundred, sir?”
Lieutenant Colonel Denton stares at her. “My XO will advise you later today.”
“Very well, sir.”
She stands up and Denton says, “Call me old-fashioned and cranky, Special Agent Vasquez, but I don’t like seeing on-duty Army personnel wearing civilian clothes on my post.”
Rosaria says, “Then I won’t do it, sir.”