It was damned hard to disguise my disgust. This contemptible old codger was sitting back in the nice comfortable little nest he’d built for himself at West Point, refusing to lift a finger for “the finest young man I ever met.” I guess that’s what happens to a guy who spends a lifetime hiding in shadows. Pretty soon he’s got no more character than the shadow he’s hiding behind.
Anyway, I simply said, “You got it.”
“All right. Tell me what you want to know.”
“To start with, did you know he was gay?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“You suppose so? You mean you never talked about it?”
“No, never. We… well, we gravitated toward each other, like two tourists in an alien land.”
“Then how’d you know he was gay?”
“A sixth sense, I suppose. No, that’s not completely true. You see, Drummond, when you’re a gay soldier, you learn to act in a certain way, and you learn to detect the same act in others. I just looked at Thomas in class, around his peers. I knew.”
“But you never talked about it? Never discussed it?”
“No, never. We both knew, though. Right off the bat, as they say.”
“So you weren’t his lover?”
“I already told you that. Why would I go near him? Do you have any idea what they’d do if they caught me?”
“Did he have a lover while he was there?”
“No. I’m nearly certain of it. West Point is… well, it’s the holy temple of the Army. Whatever traditions or taboos you find in the Army, magnify them tenfold at this place. Thomas was remarkably self-disciplined. He was determined to make it through, too. He wasn’t going to take unnecessary risks.”
I decided to keep fishing. “What made him so damned determined?”
“What makes anybody determined? A deprived upbringing. Exacting parents. Virulent sibling rivalries. Overheated genes, maybe.”
“Which of those was it with him?”
“How the hell should I know? I told you, he’s very reserved. Mysterious even,” he said, only now, instead of sounding bitter, he seemed wistful. “I never met his family, and he certainly never talked about them. They never even visited, to the best of my knowledge. Maybe that’s a clue in itself.”
“Okay. Now, do you think he could’ve slung a belt around the throat of his lover and strangled him?” I asked, deliberately putting a hard edge on it.
He didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”
“Over what? Jealousy? Spite? Rage?”
“Nothing so tawdry, I assure you. As I said, he’s exquisitely disciplined.”
“Then what?”
Instead of answering, he asked, “Drummond, have you ever been in combat? Ever killed a man?”
Actually, before I became a lawyer, I’d spent five years as an infantry officer. In fact, I spent those five years in what the Army euphemistically calls a black unit, which means a unit so spectacularly clandestine its very existence is classified top-secret. The name of my particular unit was the “outfit,” which was shorthand for the 116th Reconnaissance Squadron. But what we did had very little to do with reconnaissance, and a lot to do with counter-terrorism during peacetime, and some fairly grisly, very hazardous things in wartime.
Gilderstone had no business knowing that, of course. I’d been in combat, though. Twice, in fact – in Panama and later in the Gulf. And I’d participated in a few interesting operations in between.
All I said was, “Yes,” and left it at that.
“Me, too,” he said. “A tour in Vietnam, a very long time ago. Until then, I’d never thought I could kill anyone. I thought I was above such primal savagery. I was too educated, too cultivated, too self-realized. Even when I got there, I thought I’d spend my tour with my M16 cradled in my arms, ordering others to kill. Of course it didn’t turn out that way.”
“No? How did it turn out?”
Instead of answering, he said, “Tell me about the first time you killed a man.”
I didn’t like this game, but since I was trying to coax him to trade confidences, I didn’t see that I had any choice but to play along.
“Okay, Ed. An open-and-shut thing. I had to get my team into a facility, and there was this guard, and he was in the way, so I killed him.”
“How?”
“That’s a stupid question, Ed. I killed him. End of story.”
“What weapon did you use?”
“A knife.”
“Did you sneak up from behind him?”
“Yes, Ed, I snuck up behind him.”
“Did you slap your hand over his mouth to keep him from yelling out?”
“That’s right.”
“Where’d you cut him?”
“What do you mean, where’d I cut him?” I asked, becoming exasperated by his ghoulish curiosity.
“Did you slice his throat open? Did you plunge the blade into his stomach? Into his heart? Into his back?”
“I put it in the lower part of his stomach. Okay?”
“And then you yanked it up?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why’d you choose that particular killing thrust?”
“It’s quick. It’s foolproof.”
“How so?”
“Because the stomach’s soft tissue, Ed. Because there’s no bones or ribs in the way. Because a strong upward thrust rips up a lot of vital organs, and tears open at least two major arteries.”
“Was that a deliberate choice on your part?”
I said, “Ed, I’m getting tired of this.”
“Was it?” he persisted.
“All right, yes. Why?”
“What were you thinking while he was dying?”
“I don’t know,” I lied, very irritated.
“Yes, you do know. What were you thinking?”
Now sounding grouchy myself, I said, “Look, Ed, I just want to know what would make Whitehall kill a guy. Drop the game.”
He said, “You’re standing just outside the facility. You’ve got one hand over his mouth, and with your other arm you’re holding him erect. Your bodies are so close you can feel his heart racing. You can smell the gases escaping from his bowels. Your two heads are so near you can hear his last dying breaths, his muffled groans of pain. It’s a very intimate moment. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking the same thing I’m thinking about you. I just wished the stubborn bastard would get it over with. I needed to get my team into the facility, so he just needed to hurry up and die.”
“Then you’re a cold killer,” Gilderstone said. “A paid assassin. I wasn’t like that, Drummond. That’s not the way it happened with me. I snapped. I exploded into a rage. I just ran into a bunch of underbrush and started killing indiscriminately, brazenly, wantonly. I still don’t know what triggered it. I started killing everything in sight.”
“That’s nice,” I said. “What’s it got to do with Whitehall?”
“Know what I did afterward?” he asked, doggedly oblivious to my protests and proddings.
“Okay, Ed. What did you do afterward?”
“I looked around at all the people I killed. There were maybe a dozen corpses, I have to tell you. I threw up.
