to Captain Akhan and his company, none of us wanted to slink back home with our tails between our legs.”
“Was your camp detected by the Serbs?”
“Not that I know of. We pulled up stakes about two days later. I remember, because that was the morning Sergeant Caldwell cut his foot with an axe. He was chopping firewood and opened up a deep gash. I had to stitch him up.”
“How did the ambush come about?”
“I don’t know, sir. I just remember that on that night, we pulled into a hasty perimeter. It was late and we’d been moving all day. Then the word went around to start checking ammo and cleaning weapons for a fight. Since I’m a medic, I didn’t have to clean my weapon or check my ammo, so I dozed off. Sergeant Caldwell woke me when it was time to move. He wanted me to give him some more aspirin, because his foot still hurt and we had to start walking again.”
I looked at my watch. It was seven o’clock and none of us had eaten since breakfast. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but the golden rule of the Army is that you have to feed your troops. I thanked Sergeant Graves for his insights and asked Imelda to please escort him back to his cell.
Morrow and I then walked out together. We didn’t say much until the van delivered us back to the entrance of the hotel. I guess we were both sort of entombed in our own thoughts. Until this point, we’d been handling a legal case with evidence and elements of proof and all the other cold, rational pieces that lawyers are trained to delve into. Now the fragments of an immensely human tragedy were coming together before our eyes, and that has a tendency to leave one disturbed.
“Dinner?” I asked.
“Who’s buying?” she parried.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“If we treat this like a date, I’ll buy. If it’s more in the line of a business meeting between associates, my hands are tied, and we go Dutch. Some guy left a tablet on a mount somewhere and it’s carved in stone someplace near the bottom: Thou shalt only pay for dates that show some promise of conquest.”
“Dutch it is,” she said, leaving me thoroughly dispirited as she headed up the stairs.
I got changed faster than her and rushed downstairs and got us a table. A good one, too, right in the corner, right beside the big picture window that looked out over the plains below. There were twinkling lights as far as the eye could see.
I didn’t spend any time studying the landscape. I guiltily and swiftly knocked down two long and tall glasses of scotch and decided not to mention that I’d started before her. My ribs hurt, though, and I owed them a nice surprise. I even had the waiter carry off the evidence before she joined me.
He was just escaping with the glasses when she glided through the entrance. If this wasn’t a date, she was a little overdressed, or underdressed, or both. She had on this short, clingy blue skirt that stopped about five inches above her knees and a perfectly lovely blouse with what is politely termed a plunging neckline. Suddenly, you could see just about everything she’d been hiding under those BDUs these past few weeks. I almost gasped, but I’m too cool for that, too. I limited myself to some heavy panting and a long, filthy, ogling stare.
I wondered what she was up to. Maybe she was trying to show me what I was missing out on. Like, hey, this could’ve been yours, all yours, if only you hadn’t suspected me of being Tretorne’s stooge. Or maybe it was some subliminal impulse inside her, like she was out to prove that Miss Smith back in Tuzla wasn’t the only one with what my grandfather would call a great set of gams. Now, I did know the precise meaning of the word gams, and Morrow had a perfectly sterling set, I assure you. Ever so long, ever so slim, tapering down to this wonderful pair of slender little ankles. A nice set of uptoppers, too. That was another of my grandfather’s favorite words. I knew what uptoppers were, too.
Her walk across the dining room attracted a flock of attention in the form of lots more ogling stares. Two Italian gentlemen even rushed over to pull back her chair. She sat down, said thank you very pertly, then both the men sort of stood there gaping, like nobody knew what to do next. I caught one of them peeking over her shoulder at her uptoppers, and I gave him an evil stare. He smiled at me, then retreated. The other man stood there until the waiter came to take our orders. Then it got a little crowded and he finally ambled back to his table. Some lady, I guess his wife, was there, and she started yammering at him in Italian.
I said, “Nothing like making a low-key, unobtrusive entrance.”
She smiled politely and blushed a little. “I had nothing else to wear. If I don’t get to a laundry soon, I’ll be out of clean underwear, too.”
I thought of ten cleverly lascivious retorts to that, but this was a business meeting between associates, no matter what my libido was screaming at that moment.
“No sweat,” I assured her, patting her arm like any good senior officer who’s concerned for the welfare of his troops. “It gets to be a problem, I’ll just loan you some of mine.”
She giggled kindly at that. “So, should we get a bottle of Chianti?”
“Go ahead,” I said. “I’ve got two broken ribs and a body that’s screaming for some genuine medication.” I looked up and winked at the waiter. “I’d like to start with two scotches, straight up.”
She said, “A glass of Chianti, please.”
Then there was this long, awkward silence. She smelled absolutely stunning. It wasn’t that sweet lily of the fields crap, either, but something much more pungent. Something musky and naughty.
It’s damned hard to think of something intelligently businesslike to say when you’re staring at a beautiful woman whose uptoppers are peeking out her shirt, your nose is getting hard from her smell, and your mind’s off in a boudoir wildly cavorting between some silk sheets.
Finally, she said, “Who do you want to start with tomorrow?”
I very reluctantly retreated from the boudoir and thought about that a minute. “Why not Sanchez?”
“You don’t want to wait until we know a little more?”
“What’s left to know?”
“Was there a mutiny? The ambush, whose idea was it? Why did they really do it? Why did they shoot the Serbs in the head?”
“And just who’s going to tell us about all that?”
“There are still five others we can pick from.”
“I just have this sense,” I told her, watching the waiter walk across the floor with our drinks. “The fastest way to all that is through Sanchez, and I think we have enough to get him to open up.”
The glasses were deposited on the table and I tried not to appear too desperate as I grabbed the first scotch, which was actually my third scotch, and knocked down a huge slug. Before I knew it, the glass was empty. They were the big, tall kind of glasses, too, and the bartender wasn’t one of those awful cheaters who waters things down. For some reason, my ribs had started to ache like hell. Must’ve been her perfume, I thought.
She was twirling her glass of wine with her slender fingers. “It’s a terrible story, isn’t it? It really touches your soul.”
“Yep,” I said, feeling the effects of that third scotch right quickly. “What did you expect, though? Did you really think we’d discover nine evil men who got together and decided to commit an atrocity?”
“No. I’ve just never handled a case like this. It’s confusing. Not very black and white.”
“But it is. You’re wrong, because they were wrong,” I said, starting on the next glass and hoisting up two fingers at the waiter to rush over with some reinforcements. “One of the reasons the Army insists on iron discipline is situations just like this. Officers are human, too. They screw up, and when they do, their men see it. The structure, the discipline, they have to remain. Persico’s an old soldier. He knew that. Hell, they all knew that.”
“I understand all that,” she said, still twirling her wineglass, “but Sanchez got all those men killed. I know what the rules say, but I can also see why those men didn’t want to follow him anymore. Besides, it sounds like he stopped giving orders. Almost like he went into a walking coma.”
My glass was now empty, and the waiter was there with the two fresh ones. I smiled at him quite happily.
Morrow said, “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “Just administering a little painkiller. Look, there’s going to be plenty enough blame to go around for everyone. Smothers never should’ve given Sanchez the job,” I said, taking another huge swallow. “Sanchez should’ve gutted it out when things went south. His men should’ve supported him. Even
