A Knife Edge

TWENTY

I woke in darkness, ran five miles in the dark, and had enough time left over to boil a couple of eggs before the sun finally rose, revealing a sky so blue and cloudless it could have been a dome of spray-painted metal.

The run had done me good. I'd missed doing regular exercise. Going for an extended jog around the place also gave me the chance to refamiliarize myself with the layout of Hurlburt Field while I thought about Sergeant Wright, Amy, Butler, and those dead cockroaches. I also thought about the DVD, about who might have put it under the hotel room door, and about what the pictures on it meant. Moreton Genetics was a high-security facility, as Dr. Spears had pointed out. Cameras were everywhere, inside and out. While I ran, I also ran these thoughts around my brain until they all started to run together like the colors in a four-year-old's painting, making even less sense than when I started.

After breakfast, I called Colonel Selwyn on her cell. She was already in. I met her at her office ten minutes later. She was at her desk, head obscured by a computer screen, filling in forms, keeping on top of the triplicate beast. “Morning. How's your man?” I asked.

She glanced up. “Hi — he'll live. But I don't know about his mother. I've had about three hours' sleep in the last twenty-four.”

She looked pretty good, I decided. Sleep deprivation agreed with her.

“You ever going to change out of that Hawaiian shirt? First thing in the morning, it kinda hurts the eyes, you know what I'm saying?”

“Just keeping that Christmas feeling,” I said. “A few things have come up,” I added.

“Like what?”

“I'm not sure yet. You did toxicology tests on Wright?”

“SOP. Screened for cocaine, barbs, alcohol, meth — that sort of thing. You know from my report he was clean. Why? What are you thinking?”

“Could be nothing, could be something. Can you test this for me?” I pulled the small plastic bag out of my pocket.

“What is it?”

“I'm hoping you'll tell me.”

Selwyn squeezed the pill into a corner of the bag and held it up to the light for closer inspection. “Looks prescription. Where'd you find it?”

“Under the refrigerator at Wright's house. They missed it when they cleaned the place out.” It wasn't necessary to tell her that I'd been billeted in his last place of residence.

“Was he there short term or long term?”

“Short term.”

“Whatever this is, it might not have been his. Could have been a previous tenant's.”

“I guess.”

“Like you said — could be something, could be nothing. I'll get it tested.”

“I found a photograph under there, too. Can you have a look at it?” I handed her the bag.

“Who's the woman?” asked Selwyn.

“Her name's Amy McDonough. I think she was Ruben's girlfriend. There's also this.” I pulled another evidence bag from my pocket. “Could be a piece of flashlight lens. Can you check it for me?”

“You found this under the fridge, too?”

“No. Out near the crime scene. In the general vicinity thereof.”

“What do you term ‘the general vicinity'?”

“Within a hundred yards of it.”

Selwyn shook her head, angry with herself. “I walked every square inch of that damn patch of swamp.”

I said nothing.

“What are you hoping for?” She was examining the piece of red plastic, frowning at it.

“A blinding flash of clarity wouldn't hurt.”

“Oh, right, one of them.” Selwyn held up the bag containing the pill. “I'll have to send this off. Might take a couple of days.”

The clock on the wall said I had to get my ass across to OSI. I was late. I had interviews to conduct.

I'd been getting the same answers for two hours. Butler's men repeated identical stories and even repeated a lot of the same phrases. And then it was Lance Corporal Brian Wignall's turn under the blowtorch, which, in this instance, was a bank of overhead fluorescent tubes, one of which buzzed. If I was an epileptic, it would be grand mal time.

Wignall had a broad Liverpool accent, sandy hair, and sandy skin. The muscles in his jaws worked when he talked, like they were chewing steel.

I went through the questions and he went through the responses — no deviation from the details related by his buddies. But, unlike his buddies, Wignall was uneasy. I asked about Wright's relationship with the squad generally, and with Butler in particular. I asked about Amy. I asked about the High Altitude Low Opening drop — Wright's last. What I got was that Ruben Wright was well liked by the men and by Butler. I got nowhere further on Amy. I got a mirror-image account of the drop. I got a bunch of half-truths and semi-lies.

The interview concluded, Wignall stood and took half a step. Then he stopped and turned, as if he was reluctant to leave. His fellow squad members had almost sprinted to get out the door.

“You're not going to get another chance like this, Wignall,” I said. “If there's something eating away at you, now's the time to tell me what that something is.”

Wignall took another halfhearted step toward the door.

“Y'know, I can always do it different — I could detain you. Start the interview later today, or even tomorrow,” I told him. “Maybe get your military attaché involved.”

Wignall's palms were sweating. He wiped one on the front of his pants.

“If you know something, sooner or later you'll spill it. Like I said, we can do it now when no one need know, or I can single you out for something long and drawn-out. That'll send a message to your buddies on the other side of that door — choice is yours.”

Wignall bit into the skin beside his thumbnail and peeled it away. “Staff Sergeant Butler is a very fit man.” He said it slow and steady, like he'd rehearsed it in his head.

“And…?” I said, motioning at the chair.

Before he sat, Wignall pulled something from behind his back and placed it on the desk between us. It was a flashlight, a military flashlight, the sort of flashlight paras use. Its low-light red lens was smashed. Part of that broken lens came loose and fell out onto the desk, making a tinkling sound.

“I liked Sergeant Wright,” Wignall said, going another round with his thumb, his front teeth sliding back and forth over a shred of skin. “He was a good man. A good soldier. I don't know what happened when he died — not exactly — but I can guess.”

“I can do my own guessing. Just tell me what you know.”

Wignall glanced at his watch, and then at the door again, weighing odds. His interview had been the shortest of the bunch. The question was written into the lines that appeared across his forehead and the glances at the door: How much time do I have before the others get suspicious?

“I'm not good at games, Lance Corporal,” I said. “If you have information that could help this inquiry along, you're obligated to provide it. I can guarantee you that you will not be named as an informant.”

After what seemed like an age of eye contact, he responded. “OK.”

The digital recorder was on the table between us. I pressed record.

“Is that necessary?” he asked, glancing back at the door, nervous.

“Don't worry about it. It's just more reliable than my notebook. Mostly, I can't even read my own handwriting.”

Wignall took a deep breath. “In for a penny…” he murmured. He hunched forward, hands clasped between his knees. The overhead fluorescent tube blinked on irregularly like a metronome with a busted spring.

“It was a night drop,” he began. “The skies were clear — a little high cloud above us at twenty thousand feet. Visibility was clear, as good as it gets. Between us and the DIP”—the desired impact point—”it was clean air. We were doing a High Altitude Low Opening jump.”

“Was this your first HALO with Sergeant Wright?”

“No. We'd done six or seven by then. We were in the groove.”

“What was the purpose of the jumps?”

“Training. Nothing special. We're doing more and more work with Special Forces from other countries these days, especially the U.S., of course. We do stuff with Delta, Seals, the CCTs… It's about making sure we do the same things and that we do them right.”

I knew that speech. I'd heard it enough times over the years — even given it myself on a couple of occasions. Without the accent, Wignall sounded like typical Special Forces — full of confidence for “The Mission.” With that Liverpool accent, though, I kept thinking he was going to break into “A Hard Day's Night.”

“Tell me about the last jumps,” I said.

“We were in a C-130, climbing. There was no talk, but only ‘cause you can't hear yourself think in a C-130, let alone hear what anyone's saying, right? The atmos in the plane between the lads was relaxed. It wasn't like what we were doing was anything out of the ordinary, though there was the tension between Sergeant Wright and Staff Sergeant Butler before we took off.”

“What was it about — the tension?”

“The Staff's not the easiest person to get along with. It's his way or the highway.”

That brought back a memory — we used to say it was the Wright way or the highway. But, in this instance, I believed there was more to it than professional ribbing. And she had red hair. “What about Amy McDonough?” I asked.

“Yeah, she was part of it. A big part of it, at least as far as Sergeant Wright was concerned. None of us was sure what sort of relationship he had with her — whether it was on or off between them. But we knew what Butler was up to, ‘cause he likes us all to know how successful he is with the birds. The Staff fancies himself as a bit of a ladies' man, if you know what I mean. He's the type who likes to get the business done quick so he can get down to the pub and brag to his friends about it. He was bonking Amy sideways, and everything else he could get his hands on. It's a thing with Butler, sir. He'd shag the bristles on a hairbrush.”

“You sound a little like you were offended by all this.”

“I'm a Christian. I don't agree with sex before marriage. It's against my religion.”

The words “you're kidding” nearly slipped out. Displays of Christian fervor from anyone other than a priest or a movie star collecting an Oscar always took me by surprise. I cleared my throat. “Do you know whether Sergeant Wright knew about Butler and McDonough?”

“No, but, you know…”

“No. I don't,” I said.

“Staff or Amy might not have told him they were together. Not in as many words, but the vibe was easy to pick up …”

Hmm. Interesting. I said, “So you're in the plane and nearly everyone's having a great time …”

“We jacked out of the aircraft's oxygen system three minutes from the jump, when the red jump lights came on, and switched to our own bottled oxy. The idea was for the stick to come out in a packet — all of us hanging onto each other as we exited the C-130. So we could keep a tight formation on the way down and all land together.”

I knew the routine. I'd done exactly this kind of thing myself before the issue between gravity and me got personal.

“We got ourselves set on the ramp. I remember looking out the back, into the night. It was pitch-black. No moon. We grabbed a handful of each other — a sleeve, webbing — and half walked, half shuffled down to the edge of the ramp. That's where the problem started. As half the packet fell out, Butler tripped and his stumble broke us up. We came out of the plane in dribs and drabs. No big deal, I thought, and it wasn't — not at first. We re-formed in the air, the lads getting themselves into position, making a V as we descended. Below me, I could see the green reflective strips on the back of the guys' helmets and chute bags. The way we rehearsed it, Staff was to be the point of the arrow, the lowest. Above and to his left was supposed to be Mortensen. Over his right shoulder, Billy Dortmund. Above Dortmund, Norris. Above Mortensen, me. Over all of us, in the center of the formation, was Sergeant Wright's station, observing. That's when I knew there was a problem. Below me, I should have been able to see three reflective strips — Mortensen's, Dortmund's, and Butler's. But I could only see two. One of the fluorescent strips was missing. It wasn't because we were dropping through cloud. The night was cloudless. I didn't know who was out of formation until I landed — it could have been Mortensen, Dortmund, or Butler.”

This was a departure from the events relayed by the other guys, and an important one. “So you're on the way down and you can see someone's not in the formation. Are you concerned at this point?” I asked.

“No, not really. I saw Butler stumble. It bugged me because I like these things done proper. But being able to iron out the kinks is why we train. Anyway, I deployed my chute at three thousand feet, and I hit the DIP light as a feather — a perfect drop, except for the fuckup at the beginning. At this stage, I knew it was Butler who was out of formation because I watched him land. If he'd been in formation, he'd have been first on the ground. Also, there was no Sergeant Wright anywhere to be seen. We waited around for a few minutes, but he didn't show. Any minute, I expected him to walk out of the bushes with his chute tucked under his arm, with an offer to buy us all a pint or three, but there was just silence. Something was wrong — we could all sense it, feel it in the air. I pulled my flashlight and started to sweep the area. Perhaps he was down and injured. There were trees on the edge of the DIP; he might have been hung up on one of them, I thought. The rest of the lads did the same, searching with their flashlights. The only one of us who didn't was Butler. He was having difficulty bundling up his chute. The way he was moving I thought he might have hurt his back or a shoulder. I didn't know at the time that his flashlight — the one you got there — was unserviceable, that the lens was broken.”

“Did anything set off any alarm bells at the time?”

“Honestly? No, sir. And not when we found Sergeant Wright's body, either. Accidents aren't unheard of — equipment fails. I could see he'd become separated from his chute harness.”

“Is that when you became suspicious?”

“More confused than suspicious, sir. I wondered how he got separated from his harness and then the concern began when the investigation started. The questions, Butler's evasion, especially then when you asked him about his flashlight. I went looking for it. I found it in our garbage can back at the house. Also, I've noticed that Butler's injuries haven't improved. I reckon he's broken a couple of ribs, though he's trying to hide it. Made me wonder why. And then we heard Sergeant Wright was cut out of his harness on the way down.” He paused and scrutinized me. “Is that what happened, sir?”

I didn't answer.

There was a little more back-and-forth with Wignall — a reiteration of questions and answers — but none of it of consequence. I stopped the recorder as I watched Wignall open the door. Butler was standing behind it, waiting. Or was he listening?