After an hour we moved down to the gate. We were still early and it was almost deserted. Just a few transit passengers, all shopped out, or broke like us. We sat far away from them and stared into space.
“Feels bad, going back,” Summer said. “You can forget how much trouble you’re in when you’re away.”
“All we need is a result,” I said.
“We’re not going to get one. It’s been ten days and we’re nowhere.”
I nodded. Ten days since Mrs. Kramer died, six days since Carbone died. Five days since Delta had given me a week to clear my name.
“We’ve got nothing,” Summer said. “Not even the easy stuff. We didn’t even find the woman from Kramer’s motel. That shouldn’t have been difficult.”
I nodded again. She was right. That shouldn’t have been difficult.
We boarded forty minutes before takeoff. Summer and I had seats behind an old couple in an exit row. I wished we could change places with them. I would have been glad of the extra room. We took off on time and I spent the first hour getting more and more cramped and uncomfortable. The stewardess served a meal that I couldn’t have eaten even if I had wanted to, because I didn’t have enough room to move my elbows and operate the silverware.
One thought led to another.
I thought about Joe flying in the night before. He would have flown coach. That was clear. A civil servant on a personal trip doesn’t fly any other way. He would have been cramped and uncomfortable all night long, a little more than me because he was an inch taller. So I felt bad all over again about putting him in the bus to town. I recalled the hard plastic seats and his cramped position and the way his head was jerked around by the motion. I should have sprung for a cab from the city and kept it waiting at the curb. I should have found a way to scare up some cash.
One thought led to another.
I pictured Kramer and Vassell and Coomer flying in from Frankfurt on New Year’s Eve. American Airlines. A Boeing jet. No more spacious than any other jet. An early start from XII Corps. A long flight to Dulles. I pictured them walking down the jetway, stiff, airless, dehydrated, uncomfortable.
One thought led to another.
I pulled the George V bill out of my pocket. Opened the envelope. Read it through. Read it through again. Examined every line and every item.
The hotel bill, the airplane, the bus to town.
The bus to town, the airplane, the hotel bill.
I closed my eyes.
I thought about things that Sanchez and the Delta adjutant and Detective Clark and Andrea Norton and Summer herself had said to me. I thought about the crowd of meeters and greeters we had seen in the Roissy- Charles de Gaulle arrivals hall. I thought about Sperryville, Virginia. I thought about Mrs. Kramer’s house in Green Valley.
In the end dominoes fell all over the place and landed in ways that made nobody look very good. Least of all me, because I had made many mistakes, including one big one that I knew for sure was going to come right back and bite me in the ass.
I kept myself so busy pondering my prior mistakes that I let my preoccupation lead me into making another one. I spent all my time thinking about the past and no time at all thinking about the future. About countermeasures. About what would be waiting for us at Dulles. We touched down at two in the morning and came out through the customs hall and walked straight into a trap set by Willard.
Standing in the same place they had stood six days earlier were the same three warrant officers from the Provost Marshal General’s office. Two W3s and a W4. I saw them. They saw us. I spent a second wondering how the hell Willard had done it. Did he have guys standing by at every airport in the country all day and all night? Did he have a Europe-wide trace out on our travel vouchers? Could he do that himself? Or was the FBI involved? The Department of the Army? The State Department? Interpol? NATO? I had no idea. I made an absurd mental note that one day I should try to find out.
Then I spent another second deciding what to do about the situation.
Delay was not an option. Not now. Not in Willard’s hands. I needed freedom of movement and freedom of action for twenty-four or forty-eight more hours. Then I would go see Willard. I would go see him happily. Because at that point I would be ready to slap him around and arrest him.
The W4 walked up to us with his W3s at his back.
“I have orders to place you both in handcuffs,” he said.
“Ignore your orders,” I said.
“I can’t,” he said.
“Try.”
“I can’t,” he said again.
I nodded.
“OK, we’ll trade,” I said. “You try it with the handcuffs, I’ll break your arms. You walk us to the car, we’ll go quietly.”
He thought about it. He was armed. So were his guys. We weren’t. But nobody wants to shoot people in the middle of an airport. Not unarmed people from your own unit. That would lead to a bad conscience. And paperwork. And he didn’t want a fistfight. Not three against two. I was too big and Summer was too small to make it fair.
“Deal?” he said.
“Deal,” I lied.
“So let’s go.”
Last time he had walked ahead of me and his hot-dog W3s had stayed on my shoulders. I sincerely hoped he would repeat that pattern. I guessed the W3s figured themselves for real badass sons of bitches and I guessed they were close to being correct, but it was the W4 I was most worried about. He looked like the genuine article. But he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head. So I hoped he would walk in front.
He did. Summer and I stayed side by side with our bags in our hands and the W3s formed up wide and behind us in an arrowhead pattern. The W4 led the way. We went out through the doors into the cold. Turned toward the restricted lane where they had parked last time. It was past two in the morning and the airport approach roads were completely deserted. There were lonely pools of yellow light from fixtures up on posts. It had been raining. The ground was wet.
We crossed the public pickup lane and crossed the median where the bus shelters were. We headed onward into the dark. I could see the bulk of a parking garage half-left and the green Chevy Caprice far away to the right. We turned toward it. Walked in the roadway. Most other times of the day we would have been mown down by traffic. But right then the whole place was still and silent. Past two o’clock in the morning.
I dropped my bag and used both hands and shoved Summer out of the way. Stopped dead and jerked my right elbow backward and smashed the right-hand W3 hard in the face. Kept my feet planted and twisted the other way like a violent calisthenic exercise and smacked the left-hand W3 with my left elbow. Then I stepped forward and met the W4 as he spun toward the noise and came in for me. I hit him with a straight left to the chest. His weight was moving and my weight was moving and the blow messed him up pretty good. I followed it with a right hook to his chin and put him on the ground. Turned back to the W3s to check how they were doing. They were both down on their backs. There was some blood on their faces. Broken noses, loosened teeth. A lot of shock and surprise. An excellent stun factor. I was pleased. They were good, and I was better. I checked the W4. He wasn’t doing much. I squatted down next to the W3s and took their Berettas out of their holsters. Then I twisted away and took the W4’s out of his. Threaded all three guns on my forefinger. Then I used my other hand to find the car keys. The right-hand W3 had them in his pocket. I took them out and tossed them to Summer. She was back on her feet. She was looking a little dismayed.
I gave her the three Berettas and I dragged the W4 by his collar to the nearest bus shelter. Then I went back for the W3s and dragged them over, one in each hand. I got them all lined up facedown on the floor. They were conscious, but they were groggy. Heavy blows to the head are a lot more consequential in real life than they are in the movies. And I was breathing hard myself. Almost panting. The adrenaline was kicking in. Some kind of a
