radio procedures and give away your position.”
“I still don’t get it,” Delbert said.
“The old-timers’ club sounds like a survivors’ union. A guy spends five or ten years, and he becomes eligible. He gets to spend the rest of his career with seasoned, battle-tested pros, the kind of guys who don’t make mistakes.”
“And something’s wrong with that?” Morrow asked.
“Maybe not. Your chances of survival go way up, since I’d suspect the First Battalion is very choosy about who it takes and who it turns down.”
The two of them nodded, and I decided not to expose everything else I suspected. Like General Partridge mentioned earlier, I’d done time in the infantry, whereas Delbert and Morrow put on their JAG shields straight out of law school. Some things you just gotta be there to learn.
We arrived at General Charles “Chuck” Murphy’s wooden building about ten minutes later. I could have ordered Murphy to come to my building, but there were limits to how much I wanted to shove people around. There’s a fine line between being a legal barbarian in search of the truth and being a spoiled brat, and I’ve always been a stickler for nuances.
Actually, I wouldn’t know a nuance if it hit me in the face, but I didn’t want to push my luck with Murphy. At least, not yet I didn’t.
As it was, Murphy actually met us at the door, which made me damned glad I hadn’t ordered him to come see me, because this courteous, meeting-us-at-the-door thing sort of evened it out.
I said, “Morning, General.”
He said, “You look like crap, Drummond. What’s the matter, not sleeping well?”
I put on my bitchiest pout. “It’s the damned accommodations here. I’m used to an air-conditioned hotel room, with a well-stocked bar and a big double bed. These damned tents and cots are killing me.”
He emitted a very manly, contemptuous chuckle, then led us inside and up some stairs to the floor where his office was located. A burly sergeant major, who looked as though he lived in a weight room, growled something as we walked by. I kept a wide berth and hoped he didn’t bite.
The general’s office was fairly spartan for a man of his rank, containing a long field table that was being used as a desk, two smaller field tables, two metal file cabinets, and two flags, one of the American variety and the other red in color, with a big white star in the middle. A visitor was supposed to be impressed by the austere, abstemious furnishings and believe that they somehow reflected on the humble nature of the man who worked in this office. I might’ve bought it except for the two silver-framed photographs carefully arrayed on the smaller field tables: One showed the President of the United States himself pinning a general’s star on Murphy’s shoulder, and the other a much younger Chuck Murphy in a football uniform, holding a ball, kneeling beside the Heisman Trophy and grinning like a kid who was cocksure the world was his oyster.
Five chairs had been neatly arranged in the middle of the floor, and he directed us all to have seats. With some difficulty, he lowered his large six-foot-five-inch frame into one of the chairs, crossed his legs, and folded his arms across his chest. It was a big chest, but he had long arms.
The empty chair was kind of mysterious, and I guessed that at one point he must’ve intended to have counsel there to represent him, then thought that might imply he had something to hide and therefore decided against it.
“I apologize,” he said. “I can only give you ten minutes this morning. We have an important operation going on, and my presence is required in the operations center.”
“No problem, General. You’re a busy man. We’ll make this quick.”
“Thank you.”
I paused briefly, then asked, “How long have you known Captain Sanchez?”
“I’ve commanded the group the past eighteen months. Terry was here when I arrived.”
“You approved his appointment as a team commander?”
“Yes, but it was a pro forma thing.”
“Why pro forma?”
“There are four battalions in Tenth Group. It’s hard enough to know all the colonels, lieutenant colonels, and majors. I recognize the names of most of the captains, but I’m afraid I don’t know them well.”
Now, if I was a more suspicious guy, I might have considered that a Rhodes scholar who’d graduated first in his class from West Point ought to have a more impressive memory than that. I might also have suspected that the general was a smart guy, and just like Will Smothers, also had caught a sudden case of selective amnesia.
I gave him a dubious look. “But was Sanchez maybe one of the ones you know well?”
“Not really. I’d recognize him on a street, but not much more than that.”
Delbert said, “Sir, could you tell us how much more than that?”
He scrunched up his face as though he had to go bottom-fishing to come up with anything. Finally, he said, “I know he’s married. I remember meeting his wife at a few of the Group functions. I know he did a good job on a few exercises, and I think I visited his team a month or two ago, before they went into Kosovo.”
Frankly this didn’t wash. And he apparently sensed our doubts.
“Look, if you’d like,” he swiftly added, trying to sound and appear gracious, “I’ll ask my adjutant to go through my log and see how many times I’ve met with Sanchez over the past six months.”
I wasn’t nearly as gracious. “That would be very kind, General, but why don’t you tell your adjutant to provide us the log and we’ll do the checking?”
He said, “That log is classified and can’t be released.”
“General, we all have top secret clearances with lots of strange little suffixes that allow us to look at whatever we want to look at. Right now, I’d like to look at your log.”
He appeared flustered for a moment or so, before that strong jaw pushed forward an inch or two. “If you don’t mind, Major, I’d like to talk to legal counsel before I comply.”
“Actually, sir, as the investigating authority, I am within rights to sequester that log. It is military property, and if I believe it is relevant to this investigation I can order you to turn it over.”
“I’d still like to seek advice.”
“Okay, do that, sir. But do it quickly, because I’d like to have that log before close of business today.”
His eyes got like little round ice cubes, but his lips were still smiling. “Any other questions?”
Morrow inched forward in her chair. “Could you tell us why the First Battalion is called the old-timers’ club?”
The general’s right eyebrow sort of notched up. “That? Well, it’s an old tradition with some of the sergeants in the Group. It’s harmless, really. It’s kind of a natural evolution to want to move up to a unit that has a little higher standards, that’s a little more challenging.”
“Is this encouraged within the command?”
“It’s sergeant’s business, handled by the sergeant majors within the Group. There’s no official policy on it.”
“Is it a good thing?” she asked.
“I think it has its advantages, yes. The men seem to like it. And I can tell you from my perspective, it’s a damned good thing to have one unit that’s totally reliable, that you can put in to handle the really tough missions.”
She shot me a quick sideways glance, a kind of triumphant look.
Delbert, the prosecutor, took his shot. “Sir, could you tell us who ordered the arrests of Terry Sanchez and his men?”
“I did.”
“What chain of events led to that decision?”
“When Milosevic and his people began holding daily press conferences, we realized that something had happened.”
“But how did you narrow it down to Sanchez’s team?”
“Simple, really. The corpses were found inside what we call Zone Three. That’s where Sanchez’s team was operating.”
“Did you order his team out?”
“I didn’t have to. They had extricated three or four days before I ordered their arrests.”
