The Line

CHAPTER 15

“Visiting hours end at five,” the nurse said, barely glancing up from her novel.

“I just flew in from Hawaii,” Trace said.

“Could I see Mrs. Howard for a minute.”

The nurse looked at her clipboard, looked at Trace, then stood.

“Let me get Mrs. Johnson, my supervisor.”

Trace fidgeted at the counter. She knew she should call Boomer and check in. Why had Rison said she would have to go to West Point? What was there? Trace knew she should have looked in the envelope he’d given her by now, but she just wasn’t ready.

A distinguished looking black woman appeared at Trace’s elbow.

“Excuse me, I’m Mrs. Johnson, the shift supervisor.

I understand you’re looking for someone?”

“Yes, Mrs. Howard,” Trace said, exasperated at the inefficiency, piled on top of what had happened today.

“Are you a relative?”

“No, I’m an old friend. I met her a couple of months ago and I was in the area, and I thought I’d stop by.”

“Ah, that explains it,” Mrs. Johnson said. She reached out and lightly laid her hand on Trace’s arm.

“I’m sorry to tell you that Mrs. Howard passed away last week.”

“Passed away?” Trace dully repeated.

Mrs. Johnson glanced at the nurse and gently drew Trace away from the counter.

“It was quite tragic. We think the fire must have started when Mrs. Howard fell asleep smoking in bed. We warn our patients about that, but there are some things you just can’t control.”

Trace didn’t remember Mrs. Howard smoking. As a matter of fact, she remembered Mrs. Howard having an oxygen tank next to her bed and using it often throughout their conversation. Not exactly something congruous with someone who would smoke in bed.

“This happened when?” she asked.

“Late Wednesday night,” Mrs. Johnson said.

“The body was shipped to New York. A distant cousin, I believe.”

She pulled out a notepad. “May I have your name please?”

Wednesday night. The men had broken into her house on Thursday morning, Hawaii time. That equaled early Wednesday evening East Coast time. Mrs. Howard’s name and address had been in the notes that had been stolen from her desk.

Trace remembered what Boomer had said about coincidences.

She turned and walked away from Mrs. Johnson, straight out the door, and got into the car and drove. If The Line was willing to kill an old lady in her sleep, this was not a place to be giving her name.

She didn’t notice Mrs. Johnson standing at the doors, writing down the license number of her car as she pulled out of the parking lot. The woman then walked back to her office and retrieved a file folder from a locked cabinet. She checked a card clipped to the front of the folder and dialed the number.

When the phone was picked up on the other end, she spoke quickly, excited to be taking part in something she had seen only on television.

“Agent Fields?” Getting an affirmative response, she rushed on.

“Someone stopped in to see Mrs. Howard and I’m calling you like you asked me to. She wouldn’t leave her name, but I did get her license number.”

Mrs. Johnson relayed the number and then answered questions posed to her by the man on the other end, describing Trace and the car as best she could. She was a bit disappointed when the man hung up on her with only a curt thanks. She’d expected more from the nice young man from the National Security Agency who had taken Mrs. Howard’s body and briefed her that this involved the country’s security and to call him if anyone showed up inquiring about Mrs. Howard.

Twenty miles away. Trace stopped at the first motel she could find, numbly signing the guest registration and taking the key. She carried her bags into the room and locked the door, making sure the deadbolt and chain were on. She stripped off her clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor, then her sweatshirt on top. She turned the shower on, the water steaming hot, and stepped in.

As the drops pounded on her skin she remembered the old lady, lying in her bed with a comforter tucked up around her frail chin, telling her story of war fifty years ago and the death of a young husband whose picture was in a frame next to the bed. And now she was dead. The tears came and Trace pounded the wall in her mixture of grief and anger.

Trace pulled Rison’s letter out of the pocket of the shirt she had worn under the sweatshirt. She was tucked up in the bed, the blankets pulled tight around her, the only light coming from the lamp on the nightstand. She could hear the rumble of traffic from’ the interstate.

She’d tried calling Boomer twenty minutes earlier, but there’d been no answer at Maggie’s house.

Trace slit open the top of the envelope and removed several pieces of paper. The cover letter was handwritten, the letters firmly formed. first became aware of the existence of a secret organization inside the Army in 1969 when I was in command of U.S. Special Operations forces in the Republic of Vietnam. I was approached by a classmate of mine — Brigadier General Matthew Broderine. The first two meetings I had with him at my headquarters in Nha Trang left me confused. I was uncertain why the assistant division command of the Americal Division wanted to talk to me and he did not make the purpose of his visits clear to me until our third meeting on April 12, 1969. In retrospect, I assume the first two meetings were to feel me out, although I would also have to say he did a very poor job of doing that based on the results of our third meeting.

I am attaching on the next page a verbatim transcript of that meeting.

I normally taped all personal and telephonic conversations in my office after having had several unpleasant experiences with the CJA. The original tape of the conversation and all copies were stolen — but that comes later.

Trace turned the page to a slightly yellowed document.

Trace rubbed her forehead. She turned the page and Rison’s writing continued.

They didn’t fool around. They did gut me and my organization, but all that’s history and you can find that story elsewhere. If you’re reading this, I’m most likely dead and you are Just finding out about the existence of The Line. And the thing you need is proof. I don’t have the tapes of that conversation, and even if I did, it would be claimed a forgery. But I do have proof. To find it, you’re going to have to go to West Point. Go to Custer’s grave. Exactly one foot to the left on line with the front edge of the base of his gravestone — between his and his wife’s grave — and one foot down, you’ll find proof. Godspeed.

Trace folded the pages and slid them back in the envelope.

At least she knew where she needed to go next. She picked the phone up and dialed Maggie’s number again.