The Death Trust

TWO

Come in,” said Major General Winifred Gruyere when I appeared in the doorway. I did as I was asked. I stood at attention in front of her desk for some time, waiting for a further sign that she acknowledged my presence. In fairness, I don’t think this was some kind of tactic. She was sifting through files on her desk, like a seagull pecking among food scraps it suddenly realizes are cigarette butts — with initial interest followed by distaste.

I saw my name and number on one of those cigarette butts. Eventually the general picked it out and opened it. I gathered she had been going over the service records of a number of fellow special agents. Without looking up, she ran through a summary. “Special Agent Vin Cooper, rank of major. You studied history at NYU, graduated, and entered the service as a second lieutenant. You put in for the CCTs, the combat air-controller squadron, where you trained with SEALs, Marine Force Recon, et cetera. You saw action in Kosovo and received the Purple Heart.”

At this point, and for the first time, Gruyere lifted her eyes above the half-moons of her spectacles and locked them on to mine. She was trying to imagine whether the soldier standing in front of her was the same person she was reading about.

“I’ve read the citation your CO put in,” she said. “You should have received the Bronze Star.”

I felt like saying thank you, but didn’t, and continued to keep my eyes leveled on the bookshelf behind her.

“You then transferred to OSI. In Afghanistan you took down a drug gang. A local senior politician had been killed by a car bomb and it looked like a strike by the Taliban. You proved otherwise, that it was an operation mounted by a group of U.S. soldiers set on eliminating the competition. You were shot and wounded and received a second Purple Heart. I see you also survived a helo crash on that one. Seems you’re a hard man to kill, Major.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, giving her the response I thought she was looking for.

“Next came the episode of the brigadier general.” Gruyere shook her head. “Now, that was a sorry shit piece of business.”

I agreed. The asshole beat his gay lover’s head to jam because he caught him in an embrace with someone who turned out to be the young man’s half brother.

“So what the fuck’s gone wrong, Major? Seems to me you’re not the man you were.”

Swearing just sounds plain odd when it comes from the mouth of a woman old enough to be your grandma. “I don’t know, ma’am,” I said.

“That much is obvious, Special Agent.”

The general was possibly referring to the charge of assault against me. The man on whose face my knuckles played the anvil chorus happened to be a full bird colonel, which never goes down well on one’s record, even if the charges are eventually dropped because there are, as they say, extenuating circumstances. I’d caught the colonel in question in fellatio delicto with my wife, and I’m sorry, but rank does not extend to those privileges.

“Separation and divorce are never easy, soldier,” Gruyere remarked, breaking in on my trip down memory lane. She shook her head and continued. “Aside from the assault, says here you’ve been arrested three times in the past year for drunk and disorderly behavior.”

I’d forgotten about those items, possibly because, as the record said, I was drunk at the time. And I was sure it was only twice, but I kept that to myself.

“I’ll let you in on my problem, Major. I need an investigator, a very good investigator. A year ago I’d have said you were that man, but, going through this,” she motioned at the file on the desk in front of her as if it were kitchen trash, “I’ve got serious doubts. The trouble is, someone upstairs likes you. But I’ve got a feeling that, with you, we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.” She glared at me over her glasses. “Yeah, that’s what it feels like to me.”

I continued to study the bookshelf behind her. What friends upstairs? I wondered. As far as I knew, Arlen was it in the friends department, and he wasn’t so much upstairs as sideways in the room down the hall.

“At ease, Special Agent, and take a seat. Give me a reason to believe. Talk to me.”

I did as I was told and sat in the chair beside me. “General, I’ll be straight with you. I’ve had a hell of a year. Sounds like you’ve got the broad sweep of it there in front of you, but maybe not the details. My divorce came through yesterday and that closes the book on a few chapters I’d like to forget were ever written.”

“Major, cut the folksy shit and just reassure me you’re the man for the job.”

General officers, it seems to me, can occasionally be capricious, uncaring of the fates of mere mortals, and, although I knew why I’d been summoned, I thought it best to play dumb. I can be good at that. “What job, ma’am?” I asked innocently.

“If you don’t know why you’re here, Cooper, then you’re not half the investigator your record says you are. Or were.” The general tilted her head and looked at me as if I were a puzzle with several pieces squeezed into the wrong holes. “Dismissed.”

Gruyere then began shuffling papers. I’d played it badly. If getting me on the case was Plan A, I’d just managed to convince her to go with Plan B.

I cleared my throat. “Ma’am, General Abraham Scott, a seriously connected four-star, commanding U.S. forces in Europe, stationed at Ramstein Air Base, has been killed in a glider crash.”

“Well, so much for security,” Gruyere muttered to herself. “Who brought you in?”

“Major Arlen Wayne, General.”

“Did he tell you about Scott?”

“No, ma’am. Caught it on CNN.” That was a lie, of course, but an easy one for her to swallow.

“CNN! I might have known they’d get onto it eventually.”

Gruyere pursed her lips. She went back to shuffling her files, then said, “Well, Major, you seem to have been given the overview. There are additional details from the crash investigation team’s preliminary findings, as well as a summary report from OSI there on the ground. I don’t have to tell you what a shit storm this has caused in the Pentagon, General Scott’s connections by marriage notwithstanding. COMAIRNORTH — General Scott’s command — is a vital cog in the defense of the United States, as well as Europe. I don’t care what else you’ve got on your plate. Consider yourself reassigned.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You will be the SAC on this one.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“There’s a C-21 departing for Ramstein in eighty-six minutes. You’ll be on it. And, Special Agent, you’ll report directly and only to me. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Gruyere leaned forward. “You’ll be liaising with the author of the preliminary investigation, Special Agent Anna Masters. Dismissed.”

I didn’t move as I was expected to.

Gruyere sighed. “Something on your mind, Special Agent?”

“Ma’am, I was hoping to see a dentist this morning.” The Tylenol had worn off completely and I was chewing razor blades.

“They’ve got dentists in Germany, too. Can’t it wait till then?” Gruyere was getting impatient.

I shoved the tip of my tongue into the hole once filled with amalgam. It was huge and bottomless, like you could drop a stone into it and not hear it strike the floor. But the pressure applied by my tongue helped. Maybe I could get by with a double dose of those painkillers. “Yes, ma’am.”

Gruyere’s body language told me I’d answered correctly. “Don’t blow this one, Vin. It’s either the biggest case of your career, or the last.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, and Special Agent?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“For the third and final time, dismissed.”

I walked back into the sunshine. So I was to be SAC, special agent in charge. If someone was needed to take the fall, it’d be me who’d get the push. I should’ve been an acrobat.