Mortal Allies

CHAPTER 50

The physical therapy was every bit as wicked as I had dreaded it would be. They actually transported me back to Walter Reed Army Medical Center on a medevac plane, keeping me happily doped up till we got there. Then the nazis at Walter Reed got their first look at me, took the drugs away, and my life turned into pure hell.

The Army’s idea of medicine can be summed up by that old maxim “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Phrased another way, “If you let a knife get dull, it takes a lot longer to resharpen than one kept sharp.”

If you want to hear more of these inane sayings, I could go on, because in my six-week stay at Walter Reed I heard about two million of them from the sadists who made me get up every morning and make my own bed, who brought me Jell-O and actually made me eat it, and thousands of other unspeakable things. My personal favorite was the 250-pound female nurse who showed up on my third day, deadly intent on rolling me over and giving me an enema. I put up one hell of a fight. I swear I did. But alas, I lost.

On my sixth night, an official State Department courier showed up with a handwritten note from the Secretary of State himself, thanking me for saving his life and inviting me to stop by for a private dinner after I got out of the hospital. I thought about sending back a note saying I was pretty busy and wasn’t sure I could make it. That lasted about a nanosecond. Like I’d ever turn down a free meal. And besides, I was dying to share my views about the world with the Secretary; and since I’d saved his life, he’d have to sit and politely listen. How often does life offer you a chance like that?

A few days later, I got a very nice note from Tommy Whitehall, thanking me profusely for everything I did. I can’t say we’d gotten to know each other well, and the circumstances of our relationship were certainly awkward, if that’s the right word to use. I did like him, though. And I thought he was a damned fine officer, too. If I were still an infantry officer, and I was getting ready to go into battle, I’d love to have a guy like Tommy on my flank.

A few days after that, I got an equally nice note from Allie saying she really enjoyed working with me and hoped I was feeling better. She actually gave me her address and phone number in case I ever needed anything. And I decided that maybe my first order of business once I got out of this hellhole was to go look her up and take her to dinner. I mean, she’s not the type I usually take to dinner, since she’s a little tall for me, and there’s that spiky hair, and I knew we’d draw some odd stares, but when you get right down to it, the honor and pleasure would be all mine.

Maria and Allie and Whitehall, and everything else about this case, had certainly forced me to do a lot of hard thinking about whether gays should be allowed to serve openly in the ranks. On the face of it, why not? Is this country really so rich in patriots that it can afford to turn down any Americans who volunteer to spend a few precious years of their lives in its service? And hey, do you ever hear anyone bitching about collecting taxes from gays who admit they’re gays? Right.

On the other hand, I’m just not sure us heteros can handle it. Maybe it’s our problem and not theirs. But it’s still a problem.

Imelda dropped by a few times. She brought my mail and a bottle of castor oil she insisted would cure all ills. She can be fusty and old-fashioned that way. The third time, she sat beside my bed and heckled me to quit faking it and get my ass back to work. She’d never admit it, but I knew she missed having me around.

And what about Imelda? Is she really gay? Nah, I don’t think so. I figured she was just trying to force some fresh air into my closed mind. If you really know Imelda, you know she’s not above a little playacting when it serves her. Like when she came by to see me in my hospital room that last time in Korea. She wasn’t checking on my health. She was there to get the doctor to wake me up, then guilt me into exerting one last breath of effort for Tommy Whitehall. See, Imelda’s that way. She does whatever it takes to get the job done. She’s old Army right down to her OD green undershorts. And if you think Katherine’s devious, Imelda could kick her ass at chess any day.

Then one day I watched on TV as the defense minister of North Korea paid a visit to the South Koreans, and every spinmeister on every talk show began yabbering about the surprisingly sudden breakthrough in relations between these two implacable foes. They called it a miracle, but it wasn’t any miracle.

I mean, North Korea’s lonely and broke and has millions of starving and unhappy people, and no matter how stubborn it is, any idiot can tell the clock’s running out on their future. What I figured was, Choi’s plot was a last-ditch attempt to have it their way. And had it worked, North Korea’s defense minister might still be visiting South Korea, only in a slightly different capacity – at the head of his three-million-man army. Of course, there were no guarantees it wouldn’t eventually end up that way, but the chances were suddenly much smaller.

On the second day of the fourth week, just when I thought I’d go crazy with boredom, I got my first glimpse of hope and salvation. She came waltzing into my room, wearing her usual pinstriped pantsuit with a bulging shopping bag under her arm. She didn’t say anything at first. Instead she grabbed a chair, went over and closed the door, then she actually propped the chair underneath the knob so nobody could peek in.

I sat up in bed and shyly hiked the sheets around my chest.

She walked over and fell onto the edge of my bed. “Hello, Attila.”

I smiled. “Hey, Moonbeam.”

She smiled back. “Wait’ll you see what I brought you.”

She reached into the bag and withdrew guess what? A magnum-size bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. No kidding, it was the biggest damned bottle I’d ever seen, and it was filled with that glorious, throat-searing golden liquid. It must’ve cost at least five or six hundred dollars, I figured. I rubbed my eyes and stared at it.

“Go ahead,” she told me, prodding the bottle in my direction. “I couldn’t afford it on my salary, but OGMM decided you deserved to be compensated for your out-of-pocket expenses.”

“Gee, I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, the Army’s got these fairly stiff regulations against accepting a gift that costs over fifty dollars. And from an organization like OGMM, to boot.” Then I yanked the bottle out of her hand. “Of course, when it’s compensation for legitimate expenses, I’m sure that’s a different thing.”

I swiftly screwed off the top and took a long gulp. My eyes actually glazed over and my throat felt like it was on fire.

“Where’s Tommy?” I asked when I could finally speak again.

“He’s home, on leave.”

“Uh-huh. He going to stay in or get out?”

“He hasn’t made up his mind. He has some bitterness. And he knows that if he stays, he’ll be under a microscope.”

“Yeah, tough decision. I guess he’s talking it over with your mom and dad, huh?”

It isn’t often that you surprise Katherine Carlson, but I got her on that one. I mean, I really got her. Her head reeled back and her mouth hung open.

“You knew he was my brother?”

“Hell yeah. The whole time,” I assured her.

“Liar.”

I shrugged. Of course, I should’ve known it when Ernie, Whitehall’s old cadet roomie, told me about that picture Tommy kept on his desk. That had to be a photograph of his sister. Or I should’ve seen the family resemblance any of those times we were together in those cells. I didn’t, though. Not until I saw them both through the camera’s eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not? Maybe I would’ve been more sensitive. Maybe I wouldn’t have stuffed my foot in my mouth so many times.”

“You? Sensitive? God, Drummond, give me a break.”

“Try me.”

“Okay, I was respecting an old oath.”

“Tell me about it.”

“When Thomas left for West Point, he made the whole family swear we’d stay away from him.”

“Why? Was he ashamed?”

“Maybe a bit, but we didn’t take offense. What we all decided was that he was actually ashamed of the Army, that it could be so closed-minded. The Army wouldn’t have approved of us.”

“Because your parents are hippies?”

“Certainly that. But when Thomas got older he really didn’t approve of their life, either. It just wasn’t for him. Remember that old TV series Family Ties?”

“What? Tommy was Michael J. Fox?”

She chuckled. “To a tee. Everybody in the commune was mystified by him. The rest of us were dressed in hand-me-downs, but Thomas always wore pressed pants and shined shoes. Whenever we played cowboys and Indians, the rest of us would fight to be the oppressed Indians, but Thomas always wanted to be the cavalry officer. Why do you think I call him Thomas, instead of Tom or Tommy? He insisted on it. He was just different.”

“And maybe he was worried about the fact you work for OGMM?”

“That, too.”

I nodded because she had a point. As much as I love the Army, it’s a pretty one-way organization. It’s famous for being one-way. Conformity and uniformity are almost synonymous with the word “Army.” Alternative lifestyles just aren’t real appreciated by the green machine.

I said, “That why you do it? That why you specialize in military gay cases?”

“It might be part of it. You didn’t think I was doing it because I was gay, did you?”

“Hell no,” I lied.

She smiled and chuckled because she knew I was lying.

I said, “So you decided to dedicate your life to crusade for your brother? Do I have that right?”

“Only partly. I love Thomas very much and I’m very proud of him. I don’t like the Army, but I can’t understand why this country won’t approve of him leading troops into battle. Him, and a few hundred thousand more just like him. I might’ve chosen this field anyway, but having my brother as an inspiration made it more personal.”

“And you figured, what? That if anybody ever knew the two of you were brother and sister, what with your work for OGMM, you might expose his sexuality?”

“That thought had crossed both our minds.”

“You still could’ve told me.”

“No, I couldn’t. It was even more critical to keep it private after he was arrested. If a court-martial board knew I was his sister, they would’ve discounted my advocacy as blind allegiance.”

She was right about that, obviously.

I said, “What about Whitehall? How’d he get that name?”

“Well, Carlson was the name of the commune where I was born, right? See if you can guess the name of the nearest town.”

“Let me see. Was it Smithsville?”

She punched me on the chin. As a trained lawyer my skills of deduction are razor-sharp.

I took another long sip to work up my nerve. I’d been anxiously waiting four weeks to clear this up. Finally I said, “Hey, about that morning.”

“What morning?”

“Christ, are we gonna go through this again?”

“Okay, about that morning…”

“That really was business. I swear it was. I was just trying to get your brother off.”

I probably could’ve said that any of ten other ways, but hey, a little spur in her conscience wasn’t going to hurt anything, right?

She looked me right in the eye and evaded the entire subject. “So have you heard anything about Bales? Or did he just disappear into the night?”

“Nah, they caught him,” I told her.

“Really?”

“Yeah. He was actually hiding out somewhere in the Philippines, using a false passport. But it seems he beat up a prostitute, and when the cops arrested him they notified the American embassy, and voila.”

“How’d you hear that?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“Okay. The second he got taken into custody he said he wanted a lawyer. You’ll never guess who he asked for.”

She started laughing.

And I said, “No, really. The chief of the JAG Corps himself called to ask if I’d take his case.”

“And did you say no?”

“What do you think I said?”

She smirked.

“I told him I’ll think about it.”

Her nose crinkled in this really cute way. Then she looked down at her watch, and she stood up and bent over and kissed me. Right in the middle of the forehead. A gushless, grandmother’s peck. Ouch.

Then she straightened back up and smiled at me very curiously.

She said, “You know, Sean, you really did a good job. And I’m not just saying that. There were moments when Allie and I really doubted you’d break this case, but you came through. I really was ready to cut a deal to buy us some more time.”

If she only knew the half of it. But I could never tell her about that other half, so instead I just blushed and said, “Yeah, well…”

Her smile broadened. “No, really, we couldn’t have done it without you. Or Buzz Mercer, either. As much as I despise the CIA, they sure pulled through on this one. Be sure to pass on to him how deeply appreciative we are.”

And in that instant, my mouth just fell open.

I gagged and stammered once or twice, and tried to force some air through my throat, but before I could say anything she shrugged and thumped a hand on her forehead and said, “Oh, right, of course. No need to remind me. Carol Kim, too. She certainly deserves some credit.”

I sputtered out, “How’d you… uh? Oh my God. The bugs? Those were yours?”

She nodded. “Don’t lose it on me now, Attila. We bugged your predecessor’s room too. That’s how we discovered he was leaking information to Spears’s legal adviser, which was actually why I fired him. As I told you before, you really have no idea how your side plays. When I asked for you, I certainly hoped I could trust you, but under the circumstances I had to be sure.”

And suddenly little pieces began falling into place.

Her grin broadened. “I don’t mean to rub it in, but we even bugged your hospital room. God, that little court scene was riveting. Tell me, what was the look on Golden’s face when Mercer finished his testimony?”

I knew what she was up to. She was trying to evade my explosion. I yelled, “My hospital room? You bugged my goddamned hospital room?”

She nodded.

“But how?”

“How what?”

“Don’t give me that crap! How in the hell did you bug my hospital room?”

“Well, I didn’t do it personally. Captain Bridges handled that. He’s a full, dues-paying member of OGMM, you know.”

I guess I looked pretty angry, because I was starting to lunge forward and say something when she reached down and put a finger on my lips.

“Look, before you get all worked up, just remember – if we hadn’t been listening, we wouldn’t have heard you call Mercer about the attempt at the Blue House, and Allie wouldn’t have been there to keep Choi from shooting you.”

And in that instant I suddenly realized how thoroughly Katherine Carlson had deceived me from the very beginning. She’d known everything I was up to. She’d manipulated and exploited me like a dumb mackerel on the end of her fishing line.

No wonder she hadn’t insisted on a change of venue when I’d discovered the bugs. It isn’t like her to give in so easily. Why hadn’t I been more suspicious about that? But they were her bugs. And after I’d ripped them out, and then run to her, she’d faked her little tantrum, then allowed herself to be talked out of it, then simply had them replaced.

But what about Imelda? Wasn’t she supposed to be having my room swept every day? Hell, she’d assured me two or three times that my room was clear. Then it hit me. She was in on it. And that probably meant I was wrong, that she also must be a member of… oh my God, OGMM.

I tried to think through all the ramifications and odd angles, but it was simply too vast and complicated to begin to contemplate. I’d been dancing in Katherine’s web from the beginning.

She’d known about the North Koreans. She’d known everything I’d discovered about the Itaewon station, even as I discovered it.

Which of course meant she’d known there’d been nothing romantic between Carol Kim and me, too. But she’d played it like a Broadway star, kissing and kicking and prodding me along at all the right moments.

And then another piece fell into place. I suddenly understood why she’d been so desperate to get the charges for committing homosexual acts and consorting with enlisted troops dropped. Of all the charges against her brother, those were far and away the least serious. So why those two? Because she knew her brother hadn’t murdered Lee, because he was her brother. Because she’d tracked my progress, and she’d overheard me getting closer and closer, and she’d figured that I’d eventually find out who actually murdered Lee, so she wanted to get her brother cleared of the only two charges that would stick regardless, the two crimes he’d actually committed.

All in all, it was staggeringly brilliant. I felt so profoundly stupid and used I almost sank through the mattress.

But why hadn’t she told me Melborne was a detective, or about his suspicions? Or that Whitehall was her brother? I mean, what was the harm?

And then I understood everything. Or nearly everything. Maybe her brother was in on it, too. Maybe Tommy Whitehall had deliberately held back from me, forcing me to come up to speed, forcing me to dig deeply into things I never would’ve checked if he and Katherine had just sat me down and told me everything they knew from the start. Tommy had waited until I was completely flummoxed and at a dead end before he told me about that key he’d given Lee.

See, Katherine knows me too well. I mean, this wasn’t just about trust, although that was no doubt part of it. She just knew how senselessly and remorselessly competitive I can be. She knew how hard I’d work to beat her out, to vie for her client’s loyalty, to prove I was a better legal brawler, a more thorough investigator, a tougher litigator. She knew I’d kill myself to get ahead of her. And I very nearly did. She set it up perfectly.

Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe she went to all these great lengths just to put me in my place, to show me she really was better than me.

Or maybe it was none of that, because if there was one thing she’d taught me, it was that I’d never really know what was in that beautiful, brilliant head of hers. The woman was a walking enigma on stilts.

I was still shaking my head in shock as she walked over and pulled the chair away from the door.

I said, “Hey? Why’d you put that chair against the door?”

She returned the chair to its place beside my bed. “I don’t know. I just did.”

She was pulling her bag over her shoulder and running a hand through that gorgeous hair of hers.

I said, “Y’know, someday they’re gonna let me outta this place.”

“Not if they do a psychiatric on you, Attila.”

“Yeah, maybe. But you know, I still have some vacation time built up. See, the last time I tried to take one, somebody ruined it.”

She put a finger on her lower lip and I swear to God, it was the most enchanting thing I’d ever seen. “So go to Bermuda. I hear they have Swedish stewardesses running all over the place.”

“Nah, that’s just what they tell the tourists. All they really got is burned-out secretaries with big puffy hairdos and Bronx twangs.”

She nodded, like, Yeah, that’s what she’d heard, too.

“Well, Attila, I hate to run, but I have to be in court in one hour.”

I guess I looked dispirited, or bewildered, or maybe suicidal. She studied my face a moment, then bent over and kissed me again. And right on the lips this time. Maybe it was only what you’d call a pity kiss, or maybe it was a full-blown conquest kiss, but like I said before, I’ll take it any way I can get it.

Then she walked out the door and was gone.

The truth was I knew damned well why she put that chair against the door. Of course, you have to know Katherine to really understand it. I mean, she knew before she even walked in the room that I was sexually comatose.

That chair thing, that was a teaser.

Or maybe it was a rain check, a signal that as soon as I got out of this place, I could put a chair against her door.

Not that I was sure it would ever work. She really is the most conniving, deceitful attorney I’ve ever met – you’ve got to believe me about that. The woman wasn’t first in the class for nothing.