The Enemy

“It’s weird,” I said. “That’s what it is. I never met this guy before. I’m absolutely sure of that. And he was Delta. Not too many gentle pacifist souls over there. Why would he be offended? It wasn’t his leg I broke.”

“Maybe it was personal. Maybe the fat guy was his friend.”

I shook my head. “He’d have stepped in. He’d have stopped the fight.”

“It’s the only complaint he ever made in a sixteen-year career.”

“You been talking to people?”

“All kinds of people. Right here, and by phone far and wide.”

“Were you careful?”

“Very. And it’s the only complaint you ever had made against you.”

“You checked that too?”

She nodded. “All the way back to when God’s dog was a puppy.”

“You wanted to know what kind of a guy you’re dealing with here?”

“No, I wanted to be able to show the Delta guys you don’t have a history. With Carbone or with anyone else.”

“You’re protecting me now?”

“Someone’s going to have to. I was just over there, and they’re plenty mad.”

I nodded. Brubaker.

“I’m sure they are,” I said. I pictured Delta’s lonely prison barracks, first designed to keep people in, then used to keep strangers out, now serving to keep their unity boiling like a pressure cooker. I pictured Brubaker’s office, wherever it was, quiet and deserted. I pictured Carbone’s cell, standing empty.

“So where was Carbone’s new P7?” I said. “I didn’t find it in his quarters.”

“In their armory,” Summer said. “Cleaned, oiled, and loaded. They check their personal weapons in and out. They’ve got a cage inside their hangar. You should see that place. It’s like Santa’s grotto. Special armored Humvees wall to wall, trucks, explosives, grenade launchers, claymores, night vision stuff. They could equip a Central African dictatorship all by themselves.”

“That’s very reassuring,” I said.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Why did he file the complaint?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

I pictured Carbone in the strip club, New Year’s night. I had walked in and I had seen a group of four men I took to be sergeants. The swirl of the crowd had turned three of them away from me and one of them toward me in a completely random dynamic. I hadn’t known who was going to be there, they hadn’t known I was going to show up. I had never met any of them before. The encounter was as close to pure chance as it was possible to get. Yet Carbone had tagged me for the kind of tame mayhem he must have seen a thousand times before. The kind of tame mayhem he must have joined in with a hundred times before. Show me an enlisted man who claims never to have fought a civilian in a bar, and I’ll show you a liar.

“Are you Catholic?” I asked.

“No, why?” Summer said.

“I wondered if you knew any Latin.”

“It’s not just Catholics who know Latin. I went to school.”

“OK, cui bono?” I said.

“Who benefits? What, from the complaint?”

“It’s always a good guide to motive,” I said. “You can explain most things with it. History, politics, everything.”

“Like, follow the money?”

“Approximately,” I said. “Except I don’t think there’s money involved here. But there must have been some benefit for Carbone. Otherwise why would he do it?”

“Could have been a moral thing. Maybe he was driven to do it.”

“Not if it was his first complaint in sixteen years. He must have seen far worse. I only broke one leg and one nose. It was no kind of a big deal. This is the army, Summer. I assume he hadn’t been confusing it with a gardening club all these years.”

“I don’t know,” she said again.

I slid her the slip of paper with 973 written on it.

“That’s our suspect pool,” I said.

“He was in the bar until eight o’clock,” she said. “I checked that too. He left alone. Nobody saw him again after that.”

“Anyone say anything about his mood?”

“Delta guys don’t have moods. Too much danger of appearing human.”

“Had he been drinking?”

“One beer.”

“So he just walked out of the mess at eight, no nerves, no worries?”

“Apparently so.”

“He knew the guy he was meeting,” I said.

Summer said nothing.

“Sanchez called again while you were out,” I said. “Colonel Brubaker was shot in the back of the head. A double tap, close in, from behind.”

“So he knew the guy he was meeting too.”

“Very likely,” I said. “One twenty-three in the morning. Bullet caught his watch. Between three and a half and four and a half hours after Carbone.”

“That puts you in the clear with Delta. You were still here at one twenty-three.”

“Yes,” I said. “I was. With Norton.”

“I’ll spread the word.”

“They won’t believe you.”

“Do you think there’s a connection between Carbone and Brubaker?”

“Common sense says there has to be. But I don’t see how. And I don’t see why. I mean, sure, they were both Delta soldiers. But Carbone was here and Brubaker was there, and Brubaker was a high-profile mover and shaker, and Carbone was a nobody who kept himself to himself. Maybe because he thought he had to.”

“You think we’ll ever have gays in the military?”