“Only because they shipped me off before I could figure out how to go AWOL. I spent the whole time huddled in deep foxholes, praying nobody noticed me.”
“No offense, sir, but why would a guy wanta stop being an infantry officer just to become a lawyer?”
That’s another thing with the Army. What’s important on the inside can be quite a bit different from what’s important on the outside.
“Someone gave me a test and, wouldn’t you know it, turned out my IQ was over twenty. Bastards said I was too smart to be an infantry officer anymore.”
“No shit?” he asked, quite sincerely, too, which tells you miles about infantry officers.
“Yeah. Not a lot above twenty, just a little. You know the Army, though. Rules are rules.”
“You go to law school and all that?”
“Yeah, I went to law school and all that. You done asking questions?”
“No, sir, only a few more. Why you here?”
“Passing through, Private. I thought we already covered that.”
“Passing through to where?”
“To Europe.”
“Would that be… uh, Bosnia?”
“That’s where it would be.”
“Then what you doing here?”
“I’m supposed to catch a C-130 that leaves Pope Field at seven o’clock in the morning, and military air bases don’t exactly run like civilian airports, with connecting flights and all that stuff. As a result, I have to sleep here.”
A more truthful reply would have included the fact that I had an appointment in the morning with a general named Partridge, and only after he was through with me was I allowed to head for Bosnia. But Private Rodriguez, and thereby Sergeant Mercor, did not need to know all that. In fact, nobody but the general, myself, and a few very select people back in Washington needed to know all that.
“VOQ just ahead,” Private Rodriguez announced, pointing out the windshield at a bunch of long blockhouses.
“Thanks,” I said as we pulled into the parking lot, and I retrieved my duffel from the rear.
“No problem. Hey, one thing, sir. That Sergeant Mercor you spoke with, well, he really is a prick. If I were you, and I didn’t really have permission from the general, I’d get my butt on that airplane as early as I could.”
“Thanks for the ride,” I muttered.
That’s how business is done in the Army. I scratched his ass, so he scratched mine. Sounds simple, but it can be very protean in practice. I left him there and walked into the VOQ, checked in, and found my room. In less than a minute I was undressed, in bed, and asleep.
It didn’t seem like a full five hours later when the phone beside my bed rang and the desk clerk informed me that General Partridge’s military sedan was waiting in the parking lot. I showered and shaved with dazzling speed, then rummaged through my duffel for my battle dress and combat boots. This was the only appropriate attire when meeting with Clive Partridge, who truly was one of the meanest sons of bitches in an institution not known for producing shrinking violets.
The drive out to the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center, which is, among other things, the headquarters for the United States Army Special Forces Command, took slightly shy of thirty minutes. General Partridge’s driver, unlike Private Rodriguez the night before, said not a word. I chalked that up to his being grumped up about having to chauffeur a lowly major, instead of the four-star general he worked for. Headquarters guys get real fussy airs that way.
A sour-faced major named Jackson met me outside Partridge’s office and coldly told me to sit and wait. I reminded him that I had to be on a seven o’clock flight to Bosnia, and he reminded me that four-star generals outrank majors. I gave him a fishy-eyed look and instantly decided that maybe General Partridge deliberately surrounded himself with nasty people.
Twenty minutes later, Major Jackson stood up and led me to the hand-carved door that served as the final line of defense into General Partridge’s office. The door opened, I passed through, and marched briskly to the general’s desk. I stopped, saluted crisply, and introduced myself in that strange way Army guys do.
“Major Drummond reporting as ordered, sir.”
The general looked up from some papers, nodded slightly, popped a cigarette between his lips, and calmly lit it. My right hand was still foolishly stuck to my forehead.
“Put down that hand,” he grunted, and I did. He sucked in a roomful of smoke, then leaned back into his chair. “You happy about this assignment?”
“No, sir.”
“You studied the case already?”
“A bit, sir.”
“Any preliminary thoughts?”
“None I would care to expose at this point.”
He sucked hard on the cigarette again, so hard that nearly half of it turned into ash. He had thin lips, a thin face, and a thin body, all of which looked nicely weathered, very taut, and almost impossibly devoid of both body fat and compassion.
“Drummond, every now and again there’s a military court case that captures the attention of the great American public. Back when I was a lieutenant, the big one was the My Lai court-martial, named after that village in Vietnam where Lieutenant Calley and his guys butchered a few hundred defenseless civilians. Then came Tailhook, which the Navy botched past the point of redemption. Then the Air Force had that Kelly Flynn thing they dicked up in spades.”
The general surely knew that all military lawyers had these cases tattooed on their brains. He obviously was taking no small delight in bringing them up.
“It’s your turn, Drummond. You screw this one up, and generations of future JAG officers are gonna be sitting around in classrooms, scratching their heads and wondering just how this guy Drummond managed to mangle things so bad. You thought of that?”
“It has crossed my mind, General.”
“I imagine it has,” he said with a nasty grin. “You decide there’s not enough grounds for a court-martial and you’ll be accused of shoving the Army’s dirt under a rug. You decide there is sufficient grounds, then we’ll have us a nice little brawl in a courtroom with the whole world watching.”
He stopped and studied my face, and I was not the least bit sure which of those two options he wanted. I had a pretty good idea, I just wasn’t sure. He had that kind of face.
“You got any idea why we picked you?”
“Only a few vague suspicions,” I cautiously admitted.
This, actually, was my sly way of saying that I wanted to hear his opinion, since his was based on the fact that he helped select me. Mine, on the other hand, was the bitter rumination of a guy who thought he was being tossed into an alligator pond.
He lifted three fingers and began ticking off points. “First, we figured that since you used to be an infantry officer and you actually saw a few shots fired, you might have a little better understanding of what these men went through than your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, snot-nosed attorney in uniform. Second, your boss assured me that you come equipped with a brilliant legal mind and are independent by nature. Finally, because I knew your father, served under him, hated his guts, but he just happened to be the best I ever saw. If you got even a fraction of his gene pool, then there’s an outside chance of your being pretty damned good, too.”
“That’s very kind, sir. Thank you very much, and the next time I see my father, I’ll be sure to pass on the general’s regards.”
“Don’t blow smoke up my ass, Drummond. It’s not a good idea.”
“No, sir,” I said, watching him suck another mighty drag through those thin, bloodless lips.
“I’m treading on quicksand here. I’m the commander of the Special Operations Command, and am therefore responsible for those men, and for what they did.”
“That’s right, sir.”
“And when you’re done with your investigation, your recommendation on whether to proceed with a court-
