And there are name plates in Paul’s honor, two affixed to chairs in Alumni Hall and one on a seat in the “Club Level” section of the refurbished Naval Academy stadium. Some grateful grad with a sense of humor even shelled out $1,000 to name a locker after Paul in the Roger Staubach Locker Room at Rickett’s Hall. Paul, ever modest, takes it in stride. When I tease him about his memorial locker, he smiles. “In my honor, Hannah, in my honor. When they start giving money in my memory, that’s when you start to worry.”
Captain Jack Turley, it turned out, was one of these grateful students. Two decades ago, Paul had coached him to a solid A in Double E-Electrical Engineering-and there was nothing Turley wouldn’t do for Paul, including inviting me to tour the Pentagon and allowing me to pick his brain, on short notice, too. Incredibly, we were on for Saturday, the following day. Naturally, Paul would be coming along, too. (Naturally.) And how about lunch? (How very kind.)
Since the senseless terrorist acts of September 11, parking at the Pentagon, always a problem, had become ill-advised, so we piled into the Volvo and drove to New Carrollton, where we planned to catch the Orange Line train into Washington, D.C. As Paul pulled into the long-term parking garage, I caught a flash of green in my side-view mirror. I gasped and squeezed Paul’s arm. “Look! There’s that green Taurus again. I swear he’s been following me.”
Paul glanced into the rearview mirror. “Where?”
I swiveled in my seat, but the Taurus had vanished. All I could see was a lineup of taxis at the Kiss-and-Ride and two Metro buses, spewing exhaust.
Paul rolled down his window, stuck out his arm for the ticket. “Do you know how many Ford Tauruses are being driven in the U.S. right now?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t know, either,” he chuckled as he steered the Volvo up the ramp that led to the second parking level, “but at the end of 2002, Ford celebrated the production of the five millionth Taurus.”
“You’re making that up just to make me feel better.”
“No, I looked it up.” He pulled into a parking space, hauled up on the emergency brake, and turned sideways in his seat to face me. He tapped my nose with the tip of his finger. “I’m not the only Googler around the house, you know, sweetheart.”
As Paul turned off the ignition and released his seat belt, I studied his profile, strong, solid, familiar. I knew he was trying to be reassuring, but if so, the move had backfired. Why had Paul taken the trouble to look up information about Tauruses? I wondered. Had he been seeing phantom Tauri, too?
Inside the station, Paul handed me a five dollar bill. We stood side by side at adjoining ticket machines, waiting while the machines inhaled our money, judged it acceptable, and spit out our fare cards. Neither of us said anything as we joined the line of people climbing the escalator to the platform-D.C. subway riders wouldn’t be caught dead simply standing to the right on the moving stairs-and scooted into seats on the train just as the doors were closing. Although I was sure they’d find it fascinating, I had no intention of sharing my run-in with the law with the other passengers, so Paul and I sat side by side, forearms mashed together, saying little, exchanging sections of the Baltimore Sun to pass the journey.
When the doors opened at L’Enfant Plaza, we hustled to the upper level, where we switched to the Yellow Line train that would head south through the city, briefly rise into the daylight as it crossed the Potomac, then dive back into the tunnel that would take us to the Pentagon.
“Have you ever been to the Pentagon before?” I asked Paul, breaking the silence as our train rolled into the underground Pentagon station.
“Never,” he replied as the doors slid open and we stepped onto the platform. “After all these years, you’d think I’d have made it over here, but no. I’m looking forward to it.”
On our way up the escalator, Paul explained that Captain Jack Turley served as the military assistant to one of several Under Secretaries of Defense whose offices were on the third floor of the labyrinthine building, in a VIP corridor only a few doors down from Donald Rumsfeld.
“But what does he do?” I asked as the escalator spit us out near the Pentagon bus stop.
“You’ll have to ask Jack,” Paul said, “but I imagine that he does whatever the Secretary asks him to.” He looped his arm through mine and led me around to the main entrance, where a line had formed in front of a kiosk. Security personnel sat at tables under an awning, inspecting handbags and briefcases. I was about to hand over my bag when somebody came pounding up behind us. “Sorry I’m late. Couldn’t find a cab.”
It was my lawyer, Murray Simon.
I hauled out my permagrin and arranged it across my face. “Murray, what a surprise.” Then I aimed a scowl at my husband.
“Sorry, Hannah,” Murray panted as he unbuttoned his overcoat. “I can tell from your expression how happy you are to see me, but Paul thought it was important for me to be here. You’re in trouble, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“How could I forget when you’re always popping up to remind me, Murray.”
“Hannah!” Paul hissed. “Murray’s here to help. There’s no need to be surly.”
“Maybe if you told me he was coming,” I hissed back, “I’d have been prepared.” As a child, I’d never liked surprises. As an adult, I still don’t.
After Security cleared my handbag and Murray’s computer case, Paul used his cell phone to call Jack, who arranged to meet us in the lobby on the other side of the Pentagon’s enormous stainless steel doors.
It was late February, so I’d expected service dress blues, but Jack was wearing khakis, the Navy’s year-round working uniform. Ribbons marched in orderly rows across his heart: a Defense Meritorious Service Medal, a Meritorious Service Medal with one gold star, which meant he’d won it twice, and a green and white Navy Commendation Medal with two gold stars. There were others, too, like the blue ribbon with two thin green stripes that told me Jack was an expert shot with a pistol, but I didn’t know what the others were, except one: the red, white, green, and black bar that meant he’d helped to liberate Kuwait. An impressive rack. Jack had certainly paid his dues.
Paul reached his former student in two strides, hand extended. “Jack! Good to see you, man!”
“Good to see you, too, sir.” Jack pumped Paul’s arm, then turned to me. “We met once, Mrs. Ives, at a tailgater one Homecoming game, ten, maybe fifteen years back. You probably don’t remember.”
“Surprisingly, I do,” I said, squeezing his hand. “It’s hard to forget that red hair.”
“Or the freckles.” He blushed, the tips of his ears turning pink. “Mother always swore I’d outgrow them.” He leaned forward. “She lied,” he whispered.
“And this is my attorney, Murray Simon,” I said, sweet as molasses.
Jack beamed. “Pleased to meet you, sir. I followed the Ted Barber case in the Post. Brilliant work, sir, simply brilliant.”
Ted Barber was a northern Virginia real-estate developer accused of murdering his wife, Melanie. Using Luminol, investigators had uncovered evidence of foul play in the stable of their Middleburg farm, but Melanie’s body had never been found. Murray’d gotten Barber off scot free. Keep your mouth shut, Hannah, and keep smiling, and maybe he’ll do the same for you.
Jack escorted us to Security and waited while a uniformed civilian peered at our drivers’ licenses and asked us our business. When we successfully passed that hurdle, we were directed to X-marks-the-spot, where we were photographed and issued yellow plastic ID badges. I was impressed; the whole process took no more than thirty seconds. Good thing, too, as I’d been holding my breath, worried sick that my record in JABS would start alarms whoop-whoop-whooping, and that any second brusque, burly guards would materialize to haul my ass out of there. But either the Pentagon didn’t share data with JABS or the data hadn’t caught up with them yet, because the security guard simply smiled, handed me my photo ID badge and said, “Have a nice day, ma’am.”