“General roustabout job, usually on the flight line. If he’s in maintenance, he’ll be the guy in the tractor, pulling air craft to and from the maintenance hangars. Something like that. “
“Okay, ‘lemme check current wants and warrants.
Hmmm. He’s lucky to have a government job, given this DUI record.”
“Oh yeah? A boozer?”
“Two offenses, one prior license suspension, now lifted.
But carrying nine points even now on his license. And on a motorcycle, too. Brave dummy, drinking and driving a bike.”
“Okay, thanks,” Train said. “Shoot me a summary this afternoon if you can. The locators were the urgent part.”
Train hung up as Karen came back downstairs, now in her uniform. “Who was that?” she asked, brushing her stilldamp hair as she came into the kitchen. He almost lost his train of thought. She looked divine, her complexion glowing, her damp hair suggestive of what she might look like after some more convivial physical activity. His speculation on the nature of which specific strenuous physical activity caused him to hesitate just long enough for her to raise an eyebrow in one of those “Hello, did you hear my question?” looks. He had to work at it to find his normal voice.
Damn woman noticed that, too.
“That was NIS database. Jack Sherman works down at the Marine Corps airstrip at Quantico. What do you say we go pay him a visit?”
“Yes, I think that’s next. I wonder, should we take the admiral along?”
Train shook his head. “I think not. There’s no love lost there. Besides, isn’t the admiral supposed to be meeting with the police auditors today?
Hell, maybe that’s why he’s on leave. No, I think we-move first, see what we’ve got here.
I’ve got pretty good locating data.”
“That was fast,” she said, looking around for her uniform hat and purse.
“They had him on file?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” he replied. “And you might not want to.
Let me get Gutter situated. Then we can I I go.
Because Train knew the base, they went in his Suburban.
On the ride down to Quantico, Karen briefed Train on what Admiral Sherman had told her about his son. Then she wanted to know more about sweepers. Train was quiet for almost a minute.
“Sweepers don’t officially exist, any more than the people they are used to control officially exist. I heard about them when I was on loan with the FBI, and even those guys talk about them as if they were myths. But supposedly there are only about a dozen of them, all embedded in deep cover at strategic locations around the world. Washington, Tokyo, London, Berlin-hell, probably even in Moscow. Wherever there might be a need for ‘wet work,’ as they call it, there’s probably a sweeper hidden in a hole somewhere. During the Cold War, the other side had them, too.”
“All men?”
“Don’t know. Probably not. These are individuals with no identities other than the ones they assume-people with a wide range of prepositioned assets at their disposal. I’m talking cars, safe houses, surveillance equipment, cash. Because if those people turn a sweeper on, they’re usually in a hurry or in a mess.”
“And they go after operatives who’ve gotten out of control somehow?” p “Not just any operatives: -They go after the operatives who kill people.
This isn’t everyday work. These are specialists who hunt down other specialists.”
“And do what?”
“I heard an FBI guy once say that the term of art was extinguish. They extinguish the runaway asset. Make the problem go away. Probably in such a manner as to attract zero attention.”
“Why not bring the runaway asset, as you call him, back for disciplinary measures?”
“How do you discipline an assassin, Karen? Take him to court? Look, I don’t believe the U.S. government keeps a big stable of assassins. But I do believe it keeps some, depending on the international climate and the nature of our country’s enemies at any given time. There are even fewer sweepers.”
“And you think Galantz is a sweeper?”
“My FBI friend does. And he says that the agency in question is going quietly ape-shit over the fact that this guy is killing civilians.”
“Well, if that’s true, why on earth don’t they tell the Navy and get Sherman off the hook?”
Train thought about that as he turned the big vehicle off the interstate and headed down toward the base. “That’s what’s puzzling me,” he said.
“Johnson said the Navy had been warned off-throug4 the DNI. But I don’t know whom he’s talked to. If it was Carpenter, the admiral sure as hell didn’t tell me-other than some mumbo jumbo about what he was going to order me to do.”
“And this is a guy with one hand and one eye? Isn’t that how Sherman described him?”
“A guy with one hand and one eye who crawled out of the Rung Sat secret zone with a regiment of VC on his U-all, endured a year in a Saigon jail, and lived to tell about it.
And if he’s been working for those people for twenty years, he’s an experienced sweeper. I think I’d prefer dealing with any number of KGB colonels.” -
It was Karen’s turn to be silent as they approached the main gate of the base and showed their identification. Train drove through the base, remembering his Officer Candidate School days at Quantico back in 1970.
The airstrip was primarily a helicopter operating area, situated at the base to provide helicopter training services to the various Marine basic-training operations. There was a single main strip paralleling the river, five main hangars, a maintenance admin area dominated by Quonset huts, a fuel farm, and a standard flight line and tower complex. Train drove down the flight-line perimeter road, staying clear of two Marine CH46E helicopters that were turning up on the pad in front of the operations building. He pulled up in front of the largest Quonset hut, which had a sign indicating that the maintenance division was housed inside. Even there, several hundred feet down the flight line from operations, the noise of the two helicopters was nearly overpowering.
Inside, they faced a counter that ran the width of the Quonset hut. They produced their identification, and Karen asked a bored-looking civilian woman to see the officer in charge.
“Do you have an appointment?” the woman asked.
Karen just looked at her.
“Do we need one?” Train asked, his tone of voice clearly expressing his incredulity.
“I’ll see if Mr. Myer is available,” the woman said. Train rolled his eyes at Karen as the woman headed reluctantly toward the back of the open room, where a large red-faced warrant officer sat. Karen just shook her head. The warrant officer saw the clerk and then Karen and Train, and he stood up. The clerk indicated that they should come back. The warrant remained standing in deference to Karen’s three stripes.
“We need to interview a John L. Sherman,” Karen said.
He supposedly works as a rigger on the flight line here?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the warrant said. “I know him.”
“What can you tell us about him?”
The warrant looked over Karen’s shoulder at the clerical area and lowered his voice. “He’s kind of a shitbird, Commander. Makes like a biker hood most of the time. He’s on the wrapper team.”
“Rapper team?” Train asked. The warrant looked over at him, sizing him up, big man to big man.
“Yeah. They fly the forty-six echoes in here that’re going to dopot-level maintenance up in Pennsylvania. We do the baseline check, strip the rotor blades, and then shrink-wrap the birds for the train ride up north.”
“Where can we find him?”
Myer turned back to Karen. “Best thing to do is to go down to the wrap hangar. Last one on the line. You wanna maybe just peek through the side door, make sure they’re done, before you go in there, okay? It’s messier’n shit in there when they’re wrapping.”
“This guy Sherman, he a real biker? A hard guy?” Train asked.
Myer snorted. “Naw. Real bikers would put a guy like that in panties and turn him out in a heartbeat. I can’t believe that guy was ever in the Corps, you know what I mean?”
