The Death Trust

ELEVEN

We need to go see Harmony Scott,” I said as we turned onto the road. It was after eleven-thirty, and by the time we drove to K-town it would be well after midday.

“Okay,” said Masters, stopping and executing a three-point turn in a gap in the traffic, “but shouldn’t we at least phone ahead first?”

“What, and spoil the surprise?”

Masters glanced at me, this time without comment. She was getting used to my ways. We changed vehicles at the parking lot and took my rental. I made a protest about minimizing the wear and tear on Masters’s purple people-eater, but the real reason was that I like to drive. Being a passenger makes me feel like I’ve lost control, an admission Brenda’s Colonel Squeeze would have had a field day with. We drove through the security checkpoint and turned onto the open road.

“So what was going on with you back there?” said Masters.

“Back where?”

“In the morgue. I really thought you were going to lose it. What’s that all about?”

“Nothing.”

“Sure looked like something to me.”

I glanced at Masters. Was she enjoying herself? Yeah, she damn well was.

“I had oatmeal for breakfast and seeing the general like that, well…”

“Bullshit, Cooper. You’ve got issues with something. Why can’t you just give it up?”

Definitely enjoying herself.

Having a phobia about flying is not something an officer in the air force readily admits. I had good reasons for that phobia, too. And I was just starting to feel a little better about getting airborne — the trip across the Atlantic in the C-21 was proof of that. I only needed three sleeping pills to take me out rather than a handful. But then seeing General Scott’s glider smashed into fiberglass splinters, and then the general himself — the way he’d ended up — brought it all back, my last tour in Afghanistan. And the feeling was not pleasant. I remembered the ragged fighting on the mountaintop, firing out the back of a C-47 helo, protecting a bunch of injured U.S. Special Forces pinned down by Taliban fighters high in the mountains, me firing on them as they jumped and slid across the scree toward soldiers cut off from the main body, their knife blades slashing and glinting in the sunlight. And I remembered suddenly being knocked to the checker plate by a hit that felt as if a sledgehammer had driven a railway spike through my chest, and I was being whipped and thrashed around on the end of my lifeline like a trout fly, wheezing bubbles of foaming blood through the sucking hole in my chest, the helo in a vicious spin, going down, falling…

“I said are you okay?”

I realized suddenly that we had stopped and that I was sweating, hunched over the steering wheel, gripping it with white-knuckle anxiety. A truck flashed by with its horn blaring, raising in pitch as it swept past, trailing a vortex of air that rattled our windows and rocked the Mercedes. I also noticed that Special Agent Masters wasn’t enjoying herself so much anymore. I eased some pressure onto the accelerator pedal and we picked up speed. I checked the rearview mirror. I could easily have caused a pileup. “Yeah, I’m okay,” I said.

“No you’re not,” she said. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“You sure?”

“Look, maybe some night when we’ve drunk a bottle of something distilled in Kentucky.”

“Okay.”

“And we’re both naked in the Jacuzzi.”

Masters faced me and shook her head. “Don’t you ever give it a rest, Cooper?”

In this age of sexual harassment, I got away with that caveman comment because I’d just damn near killed both of us, and a little levity, even if sexual in nature, seemed like small beans. But the image of Masters and me naked in the hot tub persisted. In the cinema of my mind, she was sitting with her arms tightly folded across her breasts and a frown superglued to her face. Our relationship had thawed but the figurative water was still icy. But I was happy to stay in the tub because it took my mind off that morning in Afghanistan.

“So, the widow Scott,” said Masters when we reached the edge of K-town after several miles spent in silence. “What do you want to do?”

“I wouldn’t mind taking a snoop around outside. Do you think you can keep her occupied?”

“I’ll try. How much time will you need?”

“Five minutes — ten at the most. I want to have a look at General Scott’s car, the old Mustang.”

“You know, Major, you are incredibly sexist,” said Masters smugly.

“Am I? Why’s that?”

“Why couldn’t the Mustang be Mrs. Scott’s car?”

“Well, I guess it could, but I doubt it.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because its license plate says GLIDER.”