The Enemy

I sat down in my chair and saw two slips of paper stacked square in the center of the blotter. The first was a note that said: Your brother called again. Urgent. This time there was a phone number with it. It had a 202 area code. Washington D.C.

“Don’t you salute senior officers?” Vassell said, from his chair.

The second note said: Col. Garber called. Green Valley PD calculates Mrs. K died approx. 0200. I folded both notes separately and tucked them side by side under the base of my telephone. Adjusted them so I could see exactly half of each one. Looked up in time to see Vassell glaring at me. His naked scalp was going red.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What was the question?”

“Don’t you salute senior officers when you enter a room?”

“If they’re in my chain of command,” I said. “You’re not.”

“I don’t consider that an answer,” he said.

“Look it up,” I said. “I’m with the 110th Special Unit. We’re separate. Structurally we’re parallel to the rest of the army. We have to be, if you think about it. We can’t police you if we’re in your chain of command ourselves.”

“I’m not here to be policed, son,” Vassell said.

“So why are you here? It’s kind of late for a social visit.”

“I’m here to ask some questions.”

“Ask away,” I said. “Then I’ll ask some of my own. And you know what the difference will be?”

He said nothing.

“I’ll be answering out of courtesy,” I said. “You’ll be answering because the Uniform Code of Military Justice requires you to.”

Vassell said nothing. Just glared at me. Then he glanced at Coomer. Coomer looked back at him, and then at me.

“We’re here about General Kramer,” he said. “We’re his senior staff.”

“I know who you are,” I said.

“Tell us about the general.”

“He’s dead,” I said.

“We’re aware of that. We’d like to know the circumstances.”

“He had a heart attack.”

“Where?”

“Inside his chest cavity.”

Vassell glowered.

“Where did he die?” Coomer said.

“I can’t tell you that,” I said. “It’s germane to an ongoing inquiry.”

“In what way?” Vassell said.

“In a confidential way.”

“It was around here somewhere,” he said. “That much is already common knowledge.”

“Well, there you go,” I said. “What’s the conference at Irwin about?”

“What?”

“The conference at Irwin,” I said again. “Where you were all headed.”

“What about it?”

“I need to know the agenda.”

Vassell looked at Coomer and Coomer opened his mouth to start telling me something when my phone rang. It was my desk sergeant. She had Summer out there with her. She was unsure whether to send her in. I told her to go right ahead. So there was a tap on the door and Summer came in. I introduced her all around and she pulled a spare chair over to my desk and sat down, alongside me, facing them. Two against two. I pulled the second note out from under the telephone and passed it to her: Col. Garber called. Green Valley PD calculates Mrs. K died approx. 0200. She unfolded it and read it and refolded it and passed it back to me. I put it back under the phone. Then I asked Vassell and Coomer about the Irwin agenda again, and watched their attitudes change. They didn’t get any more helpful. It was more of a sideways move than an improvement. But because there was now a woman in the room they dialed down the overt hostility and replaced it with smug patronizing civility. They came from that kind of a background and that kind of a generation. They hated MPs and I was sure they hated women officers, but all of a sudden they felt they had to be polite.

“It was going to be purely routine,” Coomer said. “Just a regular powwow. Nothing of any great importance.”

“Which explains why you didn’t actually go,” I said.

“Naturally. It seemed much more appropriate to remain here. You know, under the circumstances.”

“How did you find out about Kramer?”

“XII Corps called us.”

“From Germany?”

“That’s where XII Corps is, son,” Vassell said.

“Where did you stay last night?”

“In a hotel,” Coomer said.

“Which one?”

“The Jefferson. In D.C.”

“Private or on a DoD ticket?”

“That hotel is authorized for senior officers.”

“Why didn’t General Kramer stay there?”

“Because he made alternative arrangements.”

“When?”

“When what?” Coomer said.

“When did he make these alternative arrangements?”

“Some days ago.”

“So it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Do you know what those arrangements were?”

“Obviously not,” Vassell said. “Or we wouldn’t be asking you where he died.”

“You didn’t think he was maybe visiting with his wife?”

“Was he?”

“No,” I said. “Why do you need to know where he died?”

There was a long pause. Their attitudes changed again. The smugness fell away and they replaced it with a kind of winsome frankness.