“I know,” Train interrupted, keeping an eye on Pennington, who was starting to get worked up. Karen was supposed to stall him long enough for Train to make this one phone call. “But this one should be easy. I need you guys to pull up a specific investigation file.” He gave the administrator the cite number.
“What the hell, von Rensel. Aren’t you right there in JAG?”
“I am, but I need an external query. And then I need you to attach the report and E-mail it to me at this address, and I need this done ASAP, like anytime in the next ten minutes, if that’s humanly possible.”
“Ten minutes! That’s ridiculous! That’s-“
Train cut him off. “Two people have been murdered,” he said. “An admiral has been shot in the head, and his son has been shot in the stomach, and my car’s been burned up with me in it, and I think, you should really do this thing, and now would be really nice, okay?”
“Holy shit, why didn’t you say so?”
“I just did. Here’s the E-mail address. And this is a real fire, okay?
Get that thing over here right now.”
“Coming at you.” Train hung up. Pennington was stomping off across the office to his cubicle. Karen watched him go, and then looked over her shoulder at Train, who gave her the thumbs-up signal. She turned around and kept going on her PC. Train stood up and rearranged the privacy panel on his cubicle so that no one standing next to Karen’s desk could see him across the room, He heard-Pennington call one of the other commanders into his cubicle for a short conference, after which he came out and started telling the rest of the people in the office that there was going to be an urgent all-hands meeting across the way in the main conference room in five minutes. Nobody would even look at Karen or Train as the commander shepherded everyone else out of the office.
Pennington remained in the entrance to his cubicle, looking meaningfully at Karen, but she ignored him. Train ducked back into his own cubicle and waited for the E-mail banner.
Five minutes later, the office door burst open and Admiral Carpenter stormed in, followed by a worried-looking Mccarty. Train watched through a crack between the privacy panels, but he kept out of sight, resisting the urge to shake his PC monitor to make the E-mail arrive faster.
Carpenter went directly to Karen’s cubicle.
“Commander Lawrence, I am not amused,” he said.
“When I summon a staff officer, they damned well come to see me, not the other way around!”
Karen stood up respectfully and pointed down at her screen, where a large red ACCESS DENIED banner was displayed. “I want to see that investigation report,” she said.
“I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not talking to anybody until I’ve seen that investigation report.”
“What god damned report?” Carpenter shouted. “Pennington, out! “
An astonished Captain Pennington backed out of the office, giving Mccarty a “what the hell?” look. He got a nervous shrug in return. He closed the door behind him forcefully. Karen hadn’t budged.
“You know what report, Admiral,” she said. “The JAG investigation on the loss of the SEAL back there in Vietnam.
The one you told Mr. von Rensel you had seen, where . Sherman was adjudged to have done the right thing when he abandoned that man back there on the river.”
Carpenter started to say something but then faltered.
Train tapped his monitor with his fingers. C’mon, C’mon, he thought. She couldn’t hold this guy off forever.
“Sherman told us, Admiral. Before he was shot up there on that hill. He admitted seeing the SEAL. That’s not quite the story he told us before, but he admitted it to Galantz.
He also said that he did tell his bosses back there in Vietnam that he had seen the SEAL on the night of the incident, that they knew he had been left behind.”
“That’s not what the investigation says,” Carpenter declared.
An E-mail notice bloomed across Train’s screen, and he quickly switched screens to the communications program.
One message-from NIS-file attached. He accepted the message and then ordered the attached file copied for retransmission and forwarding. The system asked for the forwarding addresses. Train consulted the OPNAV directory and then sat down to type them out.
“Then let me see it, Admiral.”
“It’s classified. You’re not cleared.”
“It was over twenty years ago, Admiral. And after what 1, ve been through, I am more than cleared. In fact, I feel like telling the whole world about my fun weekend. Then everyone will be cleared.”
Carpenter stared at her, but then his expression changed.
“All right, Commander. Since you insist. Captain Mccarty will remove the lock.”
Karen got up, and Mccarty slid into her chair. After a minute on the keyboard, he got back up. “Call it up,” he said.
Karen sat back down and accessed the archive system.
This time, the file appeared on screen. Carpenter just stood there, looking as if this was just an enormous waste of time, the beginnings of a triumphant expression on his face: the admiral humoring the commander.
Karen began to scan the investigation report as fast as she could scroll through it. The basic letter report, followed by the appendices: the appointing order, the interview list, the findings of fact, the findings of opinion, the substantiatin documents. She was looking for two things: the Swift boat division commander’s statement and the all-important reviewing authority’s first endorsement.
There. The Divcom’s statement. Interview with Sherman.
The mining ambush. Subsequent actions to extract the boat from the kill zone. Damage to the boat. Injuries to personnel. A brief mention of the skipper thinking that he had seen the SEAL by the riverbank at the time of the engagement.
As Galantz had charged, and as Sherman had admitted.
Carpenter was looking at the screen over her shoulder.
“Well,” he said. “I guess it does say that So what?”
“That’s only part of it, Admiral,” she replied. “Now I want to see the final endorsement. Because whoever approved this investigation essentially covered up the fact that Galantz had been left behind.”
Carpenter stood back and took a deep breath, his eyes flitting from side to side for an instant. But then he gestured to Mccarty, as if to say, Beats me. Karen scrolled down through the document to the final section.
The final endorsement appeared on the screen. The reviewing authority, Commander Naval Forces, Vietnam. The major conclusion: concurring in findings of facts and opinions, with the exception that the COMNAVFORV did not concur that the SEAL had been at the rendezvous. That in the heat of an engagement, the skipper could not have seen the face of a man as mines were exploding and. heavy machine-gun fire laid down on the banks of the river. That the SEAL had, in all probability, never made it to the rendezvous. That the division commander was directed to take no further action with regard to the SEAL.
Carpenter again read over her shoulder. “Well,” he said, “I’m not sure that’s what I would have recommended.
Seems kind of coldhearted. But I guess that’s what they recommended, whoever they. were. Are we finished here, Commander?”
“Just about, Admiral,” Karen said. “I just want to see who signed this thing out.”
Carpenter again stood back. “I’m not sure why that Id be of interest, after so long a time. Most likely some’s who are long gone.”
Karen turned to look at him. “Are you sure, Admiral?
Because if the approving officers were still on active duty, and the Navy opens an investigation into why Admiral Sherman is lying in Bethesda with a gunshot wound, these names might be of burning interest within the flag community.”
Carpenter looked exasperated. “I think I’m getting bored with all this, EA. Why don’t you-“