think on their feet in the most taxing circumstances, usually are the ones made responsible for those special functions upon which the survival of the unit depends. That was Machusco and Perrite.
“They’re scary,” Delbert said.
I nodded. “Every army, from the beginning of time, has attracted men like them. It’s a good thing, too. If there wasn’t an army for them to join, they’d be out on the streets looking for blood. This way, at least, they kill for the good of the country and for their comrades in arms.”
“How reassuring,” Delbert said with a really irritating, priggish twang.
“Actually, it is,” I told him. “That Desert Storm image of all those nice little knights in shining armor always was pure horsecrap. Nearly all the best soldiers out there, if you scratched the surface, they all had a little bit of psychopath hidden somewhere in there. With some of them, you didn’t have to scratch the surface real deep. A completely sane and balanced man is a fish out of water on a battlefield.”
Morrow coughed a few times, which was her subtle way of intimating that it was late, and all this philosophical talk was great, but did it really have anything to do with completing this investigation? Women hate it when men talk about cars and broads and war.
“Did any of us hear anything today that contradicted their main defense?” she asked, trying to steer us back on course.
“I didn’t,” Delbert said.
“That depends,” I replied. “They’re all vomiting out the same general concept, but they’re walking all over each other on the details.”
Delbert gave me a speculative look. “Maybe, but I sure wouldn’t want to try to prosecute them.”
“No?” I asked.
He began ticking down fingers. “One, they have a splendid justification for what they did. Two, they were the only witnesses. Three, as you admitted, they’re all telling the same story. Four, and most ominously, it’s an incredibly believable story.”
I said, “Then you think they’ve got a good defense?”
Delbert nodded, while Morrow said, “No, Major, not a good defense. They’ve got a great defense.”
“Aha, haven’t you overlooked one inconvenient little fact? What about those little holes in the heads of the Serbs?”
Morrow said, “Maybe Persico was right. Maybe the Serbs did it themselves to fabricate an atrocity.”
“Then why haven’t the Serbs blown the whistle on it?” I asked.
Delbert quickly said, “I don’t know. Maybe they’re just waiting to see what we do. Maybe they’re keeping that revelation in reserve, just in case we conclude that Sanchez’s ambush was justified.”
“Like blackmail?” I asked.
“Sure. It’s brilliant, if you think about it. We recommend against charging Sanchez’s team, then the Serbs convene another big press conference. They hand out the close-ups of the holes in the head and announce what our troops did to their people. We’d be stuck looking like we tried to cover it up. Better yet, the Serbs now know that we know. That’s probably why Milosevic was so willing to let us visit the morgue.”
“So you think that’s it? A setup?” I asked.
Delbert stood up and began pacing, a very distracting habit that seems to be common among lawyers. For some reason, many can barely utter a word unless they’re on their feet. It’s like the blood has to rush out of their brain before their lips can move.
“Who knows?” he said, gesturing with his arms as though this were a courtroom. “Maybe they were polished off by a roving band of Albanians who heard the shots and made it to the ambush site before the Serbs. The corpses were shot with M16s. The Kosovars are armed with U.S. weapons.”
“I suppose that’s another possibility,” I admitted.
“The problem is that all the possibilities are just conjecture. The most critical fact is that Sanchez and his team are the only surviving witnesses.”
“And the inconsistencies don’t bother you?” I asked.
“You mean that flare thing you keep bringing up?”
“Yeah. How about that flare thing?”
“To be perfectly honest, I don’t understand why you keep focusing on it. I don’t wish to be offensive, but I think it’s asinine. First of all, it’s completely irrelevant. Second, under similar circumstances, I doubt I could recall how many flares were set, and how many went off. I think those men were scared witless, running for their lives, physically and mentally exhausted, and in the midst of everything else, nobody was keeping a running diary of how many flares went off.”
“He’s right,” Morrow said. “Any experienced defense attorney would turn you into hamburger if you tried to bring that up in a courtroom.”
“You don’t think it impugns their integrity?”
“No, I think Delbert’s right. I think we can keep probing at little details, and we’ll find all kinds of tiny incongruencies, but it has to be something that’s tangible, something germane. On every important thing that happened out there, they’re in total agreement. And they are the only living witnesses. You can’t prosecute without witnesses.”
“So you believe they’re innocent?” I asked them.
Delbert said, “I believe we have to strongly consider that possibility. I’ve seen nothing that indicates otherwise.”
I looked at Morrow.
“Let’s just say I’m a lot less convinced they murdered those men than I was two days ago, before I heard their side. Don’t tell me you aren’t, too.”
I looked from her to Delbert. They expected me to say I thought the men were guilty as hell. So far I had not agreed with either of them on anything and, judging by their peevish expressions, they weren’t anticipating a precedent.
“What I believe is that every man I’ve talked to so far has lied to me. Some in small ways, others in large ways. Men lie for a reason. They had a week together to cook up a common defense. Hell, maybe they cooked it up while they were still out there and just improved on it in detention. Something doesn’t smell right.”
“You can’t convict a man on smell,” Delbert said.
“Well, yeah, actually you can,” I said, vaguely recalling the case of a notorious rapist who wore a mask, and although none of his victims was able to visually identify him, the fact that he had earned the nom de guerre of “Stinky” proved enough to undo him.
I stared at Delbert. “Have you ever had a near-death experience? Maybe when you were driving and someone ran a red light and nearly plowed into you?”
“Sure, everybody has.”
“Describe it.”
“It happened a few years ago. I was driving down 95 to Florida when a semi crossed lanes and came at me head-on.”
“Day or night?”
“Daytime.”
“Did you honk your horn?”
“It happened too fast. There wasn’t time.”
“What did you do?”
“I swerved hard to the right and went off the road.”
“Did you hit another car?”
“No. There was no other traffic.”
“Did you hit any trees?”
“I almost did, but I steered hard to the left and avoided them.”
“What kind of trees?”
“Scrub pine.”
“What color was the semi?”
“Red.”
“You remember all that clearly? There’s still a clear picture in your mind?”
