"Roddy Rodman," he began apologetically, "sorry to be calling so late, but I just got in and got your message."
"No problem, Colonel Rod—"
"Roddy," he fired back. He enjoyed the company of his ex-Air Force buddies, but dropping the rank was a way of distancing himself from his painful past. "I've been a civilian for a few years now, Clint. It's just plain old Roddy."
"Sorry, sir. I'm new at this. You'll have to bear with me."
"I know. It's sort of a culture shock. What's this information you mentioned?"
Black's voice turned cautious. "First, let me be sure you're who I think you are. The former Colonel Warren Rodman of the Spec Ops Command? Operation Easy Street?"
Roddy closed his eyes and got a brief flashback of a panel of stern-faced officers staring coldly as the verdict was read. It was a subject nobody had mentioned in quite awhile, something he hadn't chosen to dwell on either. He spoke the word that echoed in his ears. "Guilty."
That caught Black off guard. He stammered, "I didn't mean to… that is… "
"Don't worry about it. I've developed a pretty thick skin. I'm not even sure I still hate the Air Force."
"I can understand why you would. The reason I called, one of the people I worked with occasionally at the Pentagon was Lt. Col. Juan Bolivar."
Roddy could see the nervous figure on the witness stand, the troubled, dark eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses. "When did he get promoted?"
"Shortly after your court-martial. Were you aware that he died recently?"
"Bolivar died? What of?"
"He committed suicide. They found an empty pill bottle beside his bed. I believe it was a prescription sleeping drug called Dalmane."
"The hell you say." His first reaction was serves the bastard right. Then he began to wonder why the young officer would have done such a thing? Had his conscience finally gotten the best of him? Did he leave a note of confession that he had lied under oath? No, Roddy realized. He would have heard if that had happened.
"It was around three months ago," Black said, a note of sadness in his voice. "It was the main reason I chose to take my retirement now."
"Your retirement? I don't understand."
"Despite my dark skin, with a name like Clint Black a lot of people didn't realize I was part Hispanic. But Colonel Bolivar knew. He looked on me as the only fellow Mexican-American around there. He often stopped by to chat. When things recently got rough for him, he decided to confide in me. It really wasn't all that surprising. I'm a pretty good listener. They used to call me 'Dan Landers' around the intelligence shop. I didn't think much about it at first. Several times he mentioned that something had been bugging him badly. It got to the point that he knew he was going to have to do something, but he couldn't decide what.
"Colonel Bolivar was a bachelor. I knew he'd been pretty much of a loner. He finally asked if I would meet him one Saturday morning. It was at a shopping center near where I lived at Tysons Corner, Virginia. When he told me his story, it shocked the hell out of me."
Roddy dropped onto the chair beside the telephone and pressed the instrument hard against his ear. He hadn't listened to anything so intently since the day he had heard that court-martial verdict in Florida. "What did he say?"
"He apologized first for burdening me with his troubles but said I was the only one he felt comfortable talking to. He wanted my opinion of what he should do. Said he had confessed to his priest, but he didn't feel that was enough. Colonel Bolivar said he didn't know for sure just why it had happened, but that General Patton had not told him about that change in the communications channel you were supposedly briefed on."
"Patton hadn't told him?"
"That's right."
Roddy was incredulous. "He admitted he lied at my court-martial?" It was something he had always hoped for deep in his heart, but something he had never expected to happen. He tried to fight back the rising tide of elation he knew was premature.
"Yes. He said as soon as he arrived back at Andrews from the Persian Gulf, he was whisked off to General Patton's office. The General warned him to say nothing about the operation to anyone until he received further instructions. Then he got a call from a man who said he was acting on behalf of the General. He met with him over in Maryland, said it was a hide and seek thing like something out of a spy novel. The guy really gave him the creeps. He told the Colonel there had been an unavoidable screw-up, that he was supposed to have been instructed to brief you on a change in the alternate frequency for the national command channel. The man said if anyone questioned him, he was to confirm that General Patton had told him about the change, and he was to say he had relayed it to you."
"Damn." Roddy groaned, remembering Bolivar's performance at the trial. "I thought it sounded like he was repeating somebody else's words on the stand. Why the hell did he agree to do it?"
"He refused at first. Said he couldn't lie like that, even for General Patton. Then the guy got nasty. Told him if he didn't, his career was over. Said they would charge him with being gay. And, if necessary, they would come up with photographs to prove it. Colonel Bolivar denied he was homosexual, but said he had no doubt the man was capable of forcing him into some kind of staged situation. And that wasn't all. The Colonel's father worked at a military base in Texas. The man threatened to have his father fired as well. Said he might even come home some day and find his house burned to the ground."
Roddy had begun to feel a touch of sympathy for the tormented young officer. But his distaste for General Wing Patton was becoming unbearable. Patton was responsible for the death of Sergeant Barry Nickens and all the others. He also started having some misgivings about Chief Master Sergeant Clint Black.
"Didn't you feel any compulsion to report what he had said to somebody? Like the IG?"
"Oh, I thought about it plenty. I told the Colonel I was sorry, it was too big a problem for me to advise him on. I had enough trouble trying to decide what I should do myself. I thought about what might happen to Colonel Bolivar if I officially reported it. And, frankly, I had some thoughts about what it might mean for me. Like a visit from that shady character who had threatened the Colonel. But before I could sort it all out, I got the news he had committed suicide."
Roddy shook his head. "Did he leave any kind of note?"
"Yes. It said he had some unsolvable personal problems. Probably wouldn't have done you much good even if he had confessed the truth."
"Why?"
"The note wasn't signed. Wasn't even in his handwriting. Just printed out on his dot matrix printer."
"Shit!" There went his hopes. "That made it pretty moot for you, too, didn't it?"
"Made it my word against a dead man. I knew what I had to do, though. I really loved the Air Force, but I couldn't stay there any longer knowing what I knew about General Patton. That was one of the main reasons for choosing Guadalajara. I figured my wife and I would get as far away from it as we could, come down here and forget. I never dreamed I'd run into you. When I met you this morning, I realized what I had to say probably couldn't help. But I thought it might make things a little more understandable."
"You're damned right about that, Clint. And I thank you for having the guts to tell me."
Roddy lay in bed for a long time rehashing the dreadful ordeal from start to finish. Now at last he was able to fit all the distressing pieces into their proper places. And at last he knew the real culprit, the august General Wing Patton. He also knew that the tragic operation called Easy Street had claimed yet another victim, Lt. Col. Juan Antonio Bolivar.