The 6:20 Man

Chapter 7

The ride took thirty minutes. They were heading south, toward the city. Neither man spoke, and Devine knew better than to ask questions. First the NYPD and now the feds; he didn’t like all this personal attention.

They pulled off into a small town much like Mount Kisco, extremely affluent in some parts, just as extremely working-class in others. They drove to the very back of a nondescript office park where there was a single brick building. There were no cars parked out front and no signs on the building. The windows were blacked out and it looked abandoned.

The man parked and got out along with his colleague. He held the car door open for Devine and they walked up to the front of the building. The man flashed an RF card in the face of a reader port and Devine heard the door click open.

This was looking both way too official and far too clandestine. He figured neither boded well for him.

I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy.

The driver led the way inside, Devine in the middle, the other guy bringing up the rear. Devine would have expected nothing less. It was the way you transported either prisoners or soon-to-be prisoners.

Automatic lights came on as they walked through an open space.

Devine was led to an interior door. The man knocked and a voice said, “Come.”

The door was opened and the man motioned Devine in. He closed the door and Devine looked around the small space and then at the man sitting behind the desk.

“Sit down, Devine,” said the man. “We have a lot to go over, so pay attention. There is no time to waste.”

Devine sat.

The fellow looked like a well-worn slab of granite. His gray hair was bristly and cut short. His features were chiseled and fierce. The salt-and-pepper eyebrows swooped in all directions. The decades-old suit never had been expensive or of good quality when brand-new, but it was so unremarkable as to still be serviceable now. The red-and-blue-striped tie was too wide for the times, the collared button-down shirt a bit worn around the edges. He couldn’t see the man’s shoes from here, but if he had to guess, Devine would speculate they were black, and pedestrian, and shined to spit-polish perfection.

There was something about him, his bearing, the way he gave commands, because they were commands, the breadth of the shoulders, the ominous thickness of the hands.

He was now a suit who was once a soldier. Devine could just tell. And really still a soldier because it gets into your DNA and there is no way to separate it from you. It becomes you.

The man silently studied him.

Gauging the size of my balls.

Devine stared back, waiting. He had done this so many times with military superiors that it was second nature.

“Exemplary record at West Point. Then Infantry Officer Basic, Ranger School, Jump School, Stryker Battalion out of Fort Lewis. Line platoon company commander for a year and a half with a string of commendations. Made First Lieutenant right on schedule. Company XO for six months. Next up, line platoon commander, Ranger Battalion, so you’re Ranger tabbed and scrolled,” added the man, referring to the fact that Devine had graduated from Ranger School and been assigned to the Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment. “Promoted to Captain and got your silver bars right at the four-year mark. Bradley company commander out of Fort Stewart for eighteen months. Then Ranger Battalion out of Hunter Army Airfield. Ranger company commander, then staff officer. All along the way, tours of combat duty in Afghanistan and then Iraq, and special ops missions in ten other shitstorm countries, where if you messed up you get a flag on your coffin and a Dignified Transfer at Dover Air Force Base.”

Devine was impressed that the man had recited his military CV from memory. Some parts of it even Devine had forgotten.

The man leaned back in his chair and studied Devine. “You have shrapnel in your shoulder and leg, and they’ll stay with you until the day you die. You were picked up for 0–4 Major at the eight-year mark below the zone,” he added, referring to the Army’s esoteric promotion vernacular. “In due time you would have had the golden oak leaf on your uniform, Devine. And then you quit. I wonder why.”

The man didn’t ask it as a question. He had thrown it out as a statement. But still, Devine decided to try to answer.

“I did my time. I took my shots and pretty much all of them hit the target. They took their shots at me. Some hit, most missed. I moved on. It was time. I didn’t relish pressing my luck.”

“Don’t bullshit me, son. I don’t have the patience.”

“I’m not—”

“My name is Emerson Campbell. Retired Army two-star. Never got the third or fourth ones because I don’t play the political games necessary to do that. And so let me be clear, former Captain Devine, I know exactly why you left the service, and it has nothing to do with your luck running out.”

He opened a manila folder that was lying in front of him. He took out some photos and arrayed them in front of Devine.

He pointed to one picture. “Lieutenant Roy Blankenship. You knew him. You served together.” He pointed to another photo. “Captain Kenneth Hawkins. You knew him, served with him as well.”

“So what?”

“Patience, Devine. We’ve been interested in you for a while now.”

“Is that right?”

“Who do you think got you the room at that town house in Mount Kisco?”

Devine’s eyes widened at this. “A Realtor who was a friend—”

“Right. A friend of a friend. We have lots of friends, Devine, who do what they’re told.”

“Why did you care where I lived?”

“Let’s just say it was a convenient spot for us, considering we have this office nearby. And you take the train in. And you pass a certain house there every day, right?”

The man could only mean one thing. “Brad Cowl’s palace, you mean?”

“Palace, eh? You’re right. And I’m glad you pick things up fast. Maybe our time won’t be wasted.”

He took out another picture, clearly a morgue shot of the now deceased Roy Blankenship with ligature marks around his neck.

“He was killed, murdered, you also know that. Even though Army CID ruled it a suicide. The guy was cremated, evidence lost, a total clusterfuck. But you know who killed him. Kenneth Hawkins, his superior officer, his comrade in arms, did the honors. And you know exactly why he did it.”

“Says who?” muttered Devine. He was feeling sullen and trapped, because he was. And he also knew exactly where this was headed.

“Says the evidence. Hawkins murdered Blankenship and made it look like a suicide. He got away with it. Until he didn’t. As you know. But, to refresh your memory.”

He took out another photo of a very dead Kenneth Hawkins.

“And you know who killed Hawkins.”

“Do I?” Devine felt every muscle in his body tense. The nightmare had finally come home to roost. He could feel the walls of the small space close in around him.

Hey, it was a nice, if short, ride. But you’ve got to pay the piper. I guess I did shoot the deputy after all.

“You do, because you killed him,” replied Campbell.

“I didn’t kill him.”

“You two fought, out in the moonscape mountains of Afghanistan. He was badly injured from that fight. You walked away and left him. He died there. You could have saved him. You chose not to. How would you describe that?”

“You have no proof of—”

“We have proof of everything. Enough to take years of your life away. With that said, I’m going to make you an offer that is akin to your winning the goddamn lottery, son. Now, the choice for you is astoundingly simple. Those men outside are Army CID special agents. You can either go with them to be charged and thrown in the brig to await a military trial—”

Devine interrupted, “You can’t court-martial me. I’m a civilian now.”

“Civilian courts have ruled that military retirees can be prosecuted under military law for crimes committed after they left the service. In your case, the crime was done while you were in uniform. So there is no question that the Army will be the one prosecuting your case. And you will be convicted and sent to USDB for a very long time,” Campbell added, referring to the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the military’s max-security prison. “Unless you agree to work with us.”

“And who exactly is us?”

“The shop I now run. It’s a small office within the Department of Homeland Security, and has a joint operation agreement with the Department of Defense. It’s aptly called the Office of Special Projects. It has about five hundred operatives, of which I control fifty. I’d like to make you the fifty-first. It has a wide latitude of core interests, with the security of this nation driving all of them. When I took off the uniform I didn’t forget my oath — did you?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“A woman died at your place of employment.”

“Sara Ewes, yes.”

“You knew her.”

“I did.”

“The fact is, there is something going on at Cowl and Comely, Devine, something seriously not right. We have heard chatter, we have run down a few leads, but we have made no real progress. And we have no grounds to execute a search warrant or bring people in for questioning, and we’re light-years from federal prosecutors impaneling a grand jury. We need information, Devine. A lot of it. We need to ferret out whatever the hell is going on there. You are admirably suited to investigate this matter since you are already there. That is the reason you’re here. That is why we’ve been watching you. That is why you now live in Mount Kisco, and why you pass Cowl’s house every day. We want Brad Cowl badly. And we need your help to do it.”

“So, I’m to be your plant inside?”

“I don’t care what nomenclature you use. I just want results.”

“And if I do what you ask and I’m successful?”

“Then you will have accomplished the mission. And I will ask you to serve your country again as a member of the Office of Special Projects.”

“And when does this service end?” asked Devine.

Campbell glanced down at the photos of the dead men. “You ended Hawkins’s life about fifty years early. What is avoiding the consequences of that worth to you?”

“If you know all about it, as you claim to, then maybe you understand why I did what I did. I tried like hell to get CID to take a second look. I went through my chain of command and got stonewalled. Hawkins had friends at high levels, and the Army didn’t want the bad optics of one officer’s killing another.”

“I understand perfectly. I might have done as you did in the same circumstances. However, the law makes no exception. But I am giving you a chance to avoid the penalty that would befall anyone else in your situation. You might consider yourself the luckiest bastard on earth, hence my reference to your winning the lottery.” He paused. “So, what is your decision? Because I need it right now.”

“But I can’t promise that I’ll find out what you want me to. I can only promise to do my best. Will that cut it?”

“When does a soldier ever get a pass on trying to complete a mission? You either complete it or you don’t. You sure as hell know the United States Army doesn’t hand out participation trophies, son.”

“If Sara hadn’t been killed would you have just arrested me instead of making this offer?”

“I don’t answer pointless questions. Are you in, or do I call the CID boys to do their thing?”

It was a choice in name only. “I’m in,” said Devine.

Campbell took out a file from a desk drawer. “Excellent. Now, let’s get down to basics so you can better understand exactly what it is we want you to do.”

A good soldier apparently once more, Devine settled back to receive a briefing and his orders going forward.