My thoughts were interrupted by a now-curious Miss Warner, who grabbed my arm. “Do you know something about this?”
I summoned every ounce of innocence I could. “No, not really. I mean, bigots sometimes slip through our net, but I think you’re right. Probably just some crazy idea he had that didn’t pan out. I’d be willing to do some checking around, though.”
She looked disappointed. The edges of her lips sagged a little, and she said, “I have to admit that the first time you called, I thought this was what it was about. Hufnagel’s a good German name, and you said you were a sergeant. I mean, I thought it fit, and-”
As much as I didn’t want to arouse her suspicions, I glanced down at my watch and said, “Geez, look what time it is! Listen, I’ve got to take another interrogatory. Why don’t I give you a call, if I find something?”
She was no dummy. Her eyes got even narrower, almost squinty. “Yeah, why don’t you do that,” she said as I dashed away.
It is an old Army axiom that you should never defecate in your own mess kit, but I really couldn’t tell her about my old buddy Sergeant Major Williams. For one thing, she was a reporter, and all I had was a suspicion based on an odd coincidence. A suspicion with pretty strong legs, but still. Besides, I had other plans for my newest revelation.
The neat box Tretorne and Murphy had built around me had suddenly developed a fatal flaw. They’d lose all their leverage over me if I could prove Williams murdered Berkowitz. I rather looked forward to that. I still owed Williams for two false teeth and about a month of pissing blood out of my pummeled kidneys anyway. As for Tretorne and crew, I owed them something special, too. I’d rewrite my investigation summary and blow them all to pieces. I’d say I had great difficulty getting at the truth because of Tretorne’s plotting and Murphy’s conspiracy. I’d write about the director of the National Security Agency, who was in the cover-up so deep he’d even fabricated false evidence. I still wasn’t positive whether Clapper was in or out. His calls had been strategically timed, and that was suspicious, but not ironclad. Anyway, I’d find some way to take a whack at him, too.
Chapter 26
Lisa Morrow was still in a sulky funk when I got back to the office. She was seated at the desk outside my office and gave me a sulfurous look when I walked by. Give the girl credit. She was very tenacious.
I drafted a brief note to Sergeant Major Williams, then asked Imelda to please have one of her aides deliver it to him in the ops center. Then I left and went back to the MP station. Martie and David had been given a conference room in the rear, right next to Captain Wolkowitz’s office.
I knocked and someone called for me to come in. All three of them, Martie, David, and Wolky, were seated around a conference table. A large easel had been erected on a flimsy metal stand. On the easel was their own Chinese puzzle, with lots of little boxes filled with scribbled-in names, and lots of intersecting lines that connected this suspect with that suspect and this motive with that motive. It looked to me like a hopeless montage.
About two dozen empty white foam coffee cups were strewn around, and both Martie and David had loosened their ties and rolled up their shirtsleeves. The room reeked from the acrid smell of body odor. And my ever-acute nose also detected a fragrance of desperation. I’d smelled enough of it on my own body these past few days to recognize it.
I said, “Hi guys,” and gave them my cheeriest smile. At least somebody around here was getting less sleep than me.
Then I fell into a chair that allowed me to face them. “Any new suspects?” I asked.
Of course, they were not about to answer this question to a man who, only that morning, had been a suspect himself. And maybe still was in their fevered minds; General Murphy’s alibi notwithstanding. Martie stared back at me with clouded indifference.
“We’re making headway,” he said. He didn’t sound real convincing, though.
I said, “Oh good. Then I won’t waste your time by telling you who the killer is.”
Wolky was the first to recover and open his mouth. “Is this some kind of a joke, Major?”
“Actually, no. Did you ever get around to asking the Herald what stories Berkowitz was working on?”
“Of course,” Martie said. “All they said, though, was that he was writing about the Kosovo operation. They were too worried about disclosing sources and stories in progress to offer specifics. The only reason we knew your investigation was one of his subjects was because of the article he wrote about it. And, of course, you admitted it.”
“Well, turns out he was working on a third story, too. He was trying to uncover some neo-Nazi, white supremacist ring.”
All three of them were now bent forward, their hands poised on their chins, their eyes wide, and their mouths were hanging open a little. It made a lovely picture.
I added, “It seems a source told Berkowitz that a soldier stationed here might have been implicated in the Black church burnings that happened about a year back.”
Martie said, “How do you know this?”
“I have my sources, too.”
He started to say something and I cut him off at the post. “Don’t even think about it, Martie. I’m an attorney, remember? I can play attorney-client privilege games until we’re both toothless old farts.”
“So the killer contacted you and asked you to negotiate with us?” he guessed.
“Wrong. But I’m pretty sure I know who the killer is. Even if he didn’t do it himself, I’d bet anything he was at least implicated.”
Martie turned to Wolky. “You aware of any white supremacist activity here?”
Wolky shrugged his big shoulders and said, “Nope.”
This was no surprise because Tuzla was a temporary operational base. The MPs did not have the kind of grip on their population they would have at a permanent installation. Here, units floated in and out on a rotational basis, and their troublemakers passed in and out with them. Still, I was glad Martie asked. Now they knew they needed me.
I said, “Are you ready to hear my deal?”
“Deal? What do you mean, deal?” David asked. It was nice to see he had a voice too.
I leaned back in my chair, locked my hands behind my neck, and plopped my feet onto the table. “Well, for various reasons, your chief suspect is going to require special handling.”
David asked, “What reasons? What kind of special handling?”
“You can make the arrest. You will then lock him up in a quarantined cell, and nobody will be allowed to go near him. Someone will be here within a day to take him into custody. He’ll be whisked out of here, and aside from whatever assistance you may be required to provide to the people who take him, your relationship with this case will be over. You’ll forget all about it.”
All three of them were looking at me like I was nuts.
Martie said, “I never heard anything so weird.”
I said, “Take it or leave it. If you can’t live with it, I’ll get someone else to handle it.”
“What’s so special about this guy?” Wolky asked.
“I’m sorry, Wolky. I can’t tell you.”
“Who’s gonna take him into custody?”
“Guys in dark suits. They’ll have special orders signed by the Secretary of Defense. That’s all you need to know.”
You see, the truth was that the real reason Clapper had once been so agreeable about sending me to law school was because it solved a delicate problem for the Army. The outfit was only one of several “black units” on the Army’s rolls. Altogether there are several thousand secret warriors roaming around out there, and anywhere there are thousands of soldiers, guess what you get: troublemakers.
In fact, as you might imagine, that kind of duty attracts some real rogues. You could screen as hard as you wanted, but a few murderers, rapists, thieves, and sundry other lawbreakers always slipped through. When they did a crime and were apprehended, your standard-fare, open court-martial would have exposed not only them, but also the existence of their units. The Army’s answer to this ticklish conundrum was to convene a permanent “black court,” located at a tiny, secret base in northern Virginia. The military judge who sat over that court had a special clearance. The lawyers all had special clearances. The court was guided by military law, but its existence and its proceedings were every bit as closely guarded as the outfit or any other black unit. There was even a special “black review court,” to handle appeals. This, of course, was my unit, where I worked until I was yanked out to conduct this investigation.