The emergency room was vacant. Three gurneys, in white sheeting, stood in a row ten feet apart, every inch of the wall behind them arranged with the tubings, masks, and rheostats of life-saving equipment.
“Mark was there,” Gordon said, pointing to the third gurney at the far end of the room. “I’ll wait for you outside.”
General Weir walked to the empty gurney and stood beside it, his eyes closed, his head bowed, trying to make a communion with his son, willing himself to accept the fact that on this spot, breathing this same antiseptic air, Lieutenant Mark Weir had ceased to be.
A voice behind him said, “Can I help you, sir? I’m the nurse on duty here.”
The general turned to see a stocky, fair-haired man, about thirty-five, standing near the door. Weir introduced himself and explained why he was there.
“I wasn’t on duty when the lieutenant was brought in,” the nurse said, “but I read the records this morning. Everything medically possible was done, sir, please believe that, but there was little chance. The bullets had penetrated the back and traveled through the lung cavities. There was bone splinter, tom tissue, heavy bleeding. Your son was unconscious, sir, if that helps. He didn’t suffer after the first few moments.”
Sergeant Gordon was already behind the wheel in the hospital parking lot when Scotty Weir slid into the passenger side.
“You lied to me, Gordon,” he said. “Why in hell would you lie to me about something like that?”
Gordon tightened his hands on the steering wheel until the knuckles turned nearly white. “Would it occur to you that I didn’t want to admit that my buddy was shot in the back when I wasn’t there? Does it occur to you that I didn’t want to even say those words?”
The sergeant turned the key in the ignition, made a sharp right and then maneuvered the car through the parking lot out to West Oak Street. He said, “Well, are you glad you know? How do you feel now that you know that Mark was bushwhacked, that your boy didn’t even see who shot him?”
“I feel like hell,” Tarbert Weir said. “Or I’m in hell. I think they’re the same thing.”
Chapter Twenty
Colonel Benton sat in his office on the fifth floor of the Pentagon Building, tapping his pencil on the report fanned out on his desk.
“How did General Stigmuller react?”
“He wasn’t at his best, sir. The Weir murder in Chicago seems to have hit him pretty hard, personal friends, you know. As you suggested, I delivered and analyzed the report for him in person,” Major Staub said. “He told me he’d relay our conclusions to General Weir. He’s been trying to reach him himself all morning.”
“Would this report have helped the lieutenant if it had reached him earlier?”
“No, not with the material we fed into the computer, sir. From official records and official Army papers, there is no connection between these four GIs. They served in different outfits, in different locations, and at different times. They all did leave West Germany on varying dates by way of the Frankfurt Main airport, but that’s routine, the country’s busiest point of egress, nothing to comment on there.”
“And yes, they were all black, all in uniform, and all ended their lives in Chicago,” the colonel said. “But we’ve got more than a third of a million troops in Germany and, as I reminded General Stigmuller, a lot of them are black, a lot of them are from Chicago. Coincidence perhaps, but not a pattern. I gave Stigmuller everything I could jam on those pages, right down to the demerits and good conduct ribbons — only one of those, incidentally — but there’s nothing there that ties the four men into the operation in which we’re interested.”
Major Staub was seated on a leather-cushioned window seat, a bright morning sun warming his back. “Colonel,” he said, “what do we know about Mark Weir’s death?”
“I’ve talked to Police Superintendent Clarence McDade in Chicago twice this morning. Weir was a service veteran, you know, but our interest in the matter is the welfare and sensitivities of his father, General Tarbert Weir, retired. McDade understood that, of course. There are no suspects as of this hour, but McDade’s people are exploring every angle. They’re taking a special look at recently paroled criminals, old arrest sheets, anything that Mark Weir might have worked on that would indicate a grudge killing...”
He paused and looked intently at Staub. “And to answer what is your real question, Merrill — no, we had nothing to do with it.”
He turned his attention to Captain Jetter. “And Froggie here has been keeping abreast of our other interests in Chicago. The picture is developing as we saw it. Sergeant Malleck has been his own efficient self. He made a few specific phone calls, we audited them. The new courier designate is now part of the operation, he is on schedule. We will continue to proceed as planned.”
Captain Jetter nodded and said with a slight smile, “And I’d like to add, sir, that sorry as I am for the young police officer and his family, I surmise the death of his son might just take General Weir off our backs.”
Benton turned to stare at the captain and all the manifestations of his hangover, the pulsing capillaries, the cold sweat, the sting of his reddened eyeballs, seemed to multiply.
“You surmise, Froggie, you’re telling me you surmise? You are ‘inferring on slight ground,’ you are ‘imagining without certain knowledge’? By definition, that’s what the word ‘surmise’ means. That word certainly doesn’t belong in any vocabulary used in this office, and sometimes I don’t think you do either.
“His son’s death, goddamn it, does not take General Weir off our backs. I surmise it might even jam him down our throats. He’s in Chicago now, according to McDade, at the Holiday Inn on Lake Shore Drive, and from this instant on, I want you to know where that man is every moment of the goddamn night and day until what we’re fostering is over and done with. Jesus, Froggie, grow up. Don’t ever surmise about Tarbert Weir, understand me?”
Sergeant Gordon ignored the uniformed doorman’s whistle and pulled his car into the no-parking zone under the canopy of the hotel. He pulled out his wallet and flipped to his badge.
“Gimme ten minutes,” he said to the doorman. “This is official business.”
He followed General Weir into the lobby, then down a hall to a bank of elevators.
“You’d probably have liked the Ambassador East or the Sheraton Blackstone,” the sergeant said, “but there’s a convention in town, fashion wholesalers, and they tied up all the good stuff.”
“This is fine,” Scotty Weir said. “I dropped my bag off in my room this morning and everything looked just fine.”
Electronic arrows above the elevators indicated a car was approaching lobby level. The doors slid open but Doobie Gordon put a hand on Weir’s arm and said, “I didn’t get an answer to my question, sir. Do you want me to pick you up in about an hour, or would you rather have Superintendent McDade meet you here?”
“Just tell the superintendent I appreciate his concern and I thank him,” Weir said.
“I couldn’t do that,” the sergeant said. “I’m under orders to arrange a meeting between you two. It’s much more than a public relations thing, sir. He’s almost as badly hurt as you are about Mark’s death. Being Army, you should understand. The lieutenant was one of our comrades. That’s what the superintendent wants to tell you, and he also wants to consult with you about funeral arrangements. It should be an impressive affair. The superintendent suggested some variations, but Mark filed his burial wishes with the department a couple of years ago.”