“See this?” I ask. “Old-time New York cop once taught me this…long time ago, when things were stretched thin and even retirees in the Reserves were being called up. You take a phone book, even a skinny one like this, and you can beat a suspect with it until he’s crying and begging for mercy, and for some reason, it doesn’t leave a bruise. No evidence you were tortured to get information.”
The old man stares at me with dignity and calmness, like one of those old Christian martyrs in the Coliseum, kneeling before a hungry lion to meet his fate.
I toss the book back into the drawer.
“Not the way I operate,” I say. “Before this little misadventure began, I was being investigated for doing something like this to an alleged farmer, all the way over in Afghanistan, ending in his death.”
I close the drawer hard, making a loud bang in the room.
I say, “I didn’t do it over there, and I’m not about to do it over here.”
CHAPTER 67
MAJOR BRUNO Wenner, executive officer to Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Denton of the 297th Military Intelligence Battalion at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, is preparing for his 0800 morning meeting with the colonel when the intercom in his office buzzes. He picks up the phone and it’s Mrs. Bouchard, the colonel’s civilian secretary, and she says, “The colonel wants to see you right now…and I’m sorry, Bruno, he’s in a pissy mood.”
“Thanks for the heads-up, Mrs. B,” he replies, before hanging up and grabbing a legal pad, his iPad, and the folder with the colonel’s schedule and other necessary paperwork for the day.
The usual morning meeting is set to begin in nineteen minutes, he thinks, as he hustles his way to his boss’s office. What could be so important?
Then a little chill settles around his heart, about something he did yesterday for Captain Ted Cooper, one of the intelligence officers assigned to the battalion. What he did wasn’t particularly illegal or against Army regulations, but still…the colonel likes to claim he runs a tight ship, and what Wenner did yesterday could be considered mutiny, even if this is an Army outfit and not the Navy.
He goes into Denton’s office, gets a sharp grunt as a greeting, and he sits down, carefully balancing the folder, legal pad, and iPad on his lap. Denton is reading a sheet of paper, shaking his head as he does so, and that little cold chill around Wenner’s heart starts getting chillier.
Denton looks up. “Bruno.”
“Sir.”
“It’s the little things that can cripple a unit, that can hurt a commanding officer, don’t you agree?”
He has no idea what Denton is going to say next, but the safest thing is just to play along. “Certainly, sir.”
“The minor things, the items and information that can slip through the cracks…They often can come back and bite an officer right in the ass, even if he had no knowledge of them. Even if they weren’t his fault. But because something untoward happened to somebody under his purview, he takes the ultimate responsibility. And the ultimate fall.”
Crap, Wenner thinks. Denton has found out about what he did for Captain Cooper. One of Denton’s big commandments for the officers and soldiers in his battalion is staying free of too much debt, and if he ever finds out anyone in his battalion is behind in car payments, mortgage, or credit card bills, he will throw a tantrum and possibly cripple an officer’s career. In the overall scheme of things, Denton is right to be concerned, because overdue bills make someone vulnerable to blackmail or extortion, but the way he always goes at it…
Captain Cooper had earlier come to him, pleading for help to stave off an imminent car repossession, and Wenner had lent him the necessary funds—with the typical tearful promise to make it all good with the next pay period—but Denton will be ripshit if he knows Wenner did this behind his back.
Wenner feels like his heart is now encased in a heavy block of ice.
Denton picks up the offending sheet of paper. “It’s like this, Bruno—I don’t like being surprised by…unexpected developments.”
“Sir,” is all he can come up with.
Denton purses his lips and says, “I have information here concerning our missing Captain Amy Cornwall.”
“Sir,” he says again, but this time, the word is full of relief and relaxation. So this will have nothing to do with his loan to Captain Cooper.
“Tell me the latest you know about her location.”
Wenner goes to his paperwork. “Yesterday she was at a Bank of America ATM in Kenedy, Texas, at 6:03 p.m. EST, where she withdrew four hundred dollars. Prior to that, she took part in a river rescue near a bridge on US 59. The Jeep Wrangler she was driving was bearing stolen license plates. Earlier…well, you’ll recall her assault on the Tennessee state trooper.”
Wenner pauses. He certainly recalls it well, for when he told the colonel that bit of nasty news yesterday, Denton exploded, yelling, face red, hand pounding the desk and then sweeping paper and folders to the floor.
“Go on,” Denton says.
“That’s all I have now, sir. CID out of Quantico is still working to find her. I’ve got a good working relationship with one of their XOs over there.”
Denton rubs at his eyes. “Then all they need is to go online and check the news out of Texas.”
“Sir?” Wenner feels a little worm of worry drop in for a visit. Something bad has happened in Texas, something bad enough to make the news.
“Two Mexican nationals were shot and killed in Three Rivers, a town adjacent to Kenedy,” Denton says, speaking in a low and surprisingly calm voice. “There was no immediate identification of the shooter, but a black Jeep Wrangler was seen leaving the area.”
Wenner can’t help himself. “Shit.”
Denton goes on. “So far our intelligence officer’s possible involvement in this horror show hasn’t made the news. But when and if it does…there’ll be a hammer coming down on the 297th Military Intelligence Battalion that will make the Abu Ghraib prison scandal look like a fraternity prank gone awry. Do you understand? I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone, and probably every line officer in the unit. The investigation into that Afghan prisoner Cornwall supposedly killed? Forget it. The American media don’t care about one more dead Afghan.”
He pauses. “But have something violent happen in this country, by what appears to be a rogue American military officer, brutally killing two innocent Mexican nationals…holy God, the media, the bloggers, the columnists…they’ll camp out at the base’s gates until I’m crucified, and you’ll be right there next to me. It’ll be more than a story, it’ll be a sociological event, representing the evil American military empire, the vicious nature of our intelligence services, blah blah blah. All because of one bitch who’s gone crazy.”
Wenner doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing. He knows he should probably stand up for Captain Cornwall, but this is neither the time nor the place, not with his commanding officer so spun up.
Denton asks, “Have I ever told you about my uncle Willard?”
Say what? Wenner thinks. “No, sir.”
“He was a nineteen-year-old draftee, sent to Vietnam, assigned to the Twenty-Third Infantry Division, the Americal Division.”