by Diane Capri
The noise level made communication with Gaspar difficult. I touched his arm and pointed to indicate where he should search and where I would.
General Clifton’s ACUs blended in with everyone else’s and it took me a minute to spot him on a covered, elevated platform erected on the east side high enough to see over the hay bale sideline observing the soldiers on the range. Standing next to General Clifton on his left side was his brother, Tony. An officer holding a megaphone and shouting instructions stood on General Clifton’s right side. Perhaps the instructions came from General Clifton, but it was impossible to say from this distance.
The megaphone distorted the officer’s halting delivery, but something about it was familiar. I’d heard it before. But I couldn’t place it.
Gaspar had moved a dozen yards away. When I captured his attention, we each headed for to General Clifton’s position, weaving between the others milling around inside and outside the restricted visitor’s area. Gaspar kept up as well as he could, but the gap between us seemed to grow.
The closer I got to the stage, the more familiar the megaphone voice sounded. And I saw another man I recognized on the platform, too. Standing slightly behind and to the left of General Clifton. Thomas O’Connor, compliance officer for Dynamic Defense Systems and current husband of Joe Reacher’s ex-wife.
The gang was all here. Exactly as the Boss had orchestrated, no doubt. But I still couldn’t fathom why.
When I’d moved to within twenty yards of him, something drew General Clifton’s attention my way. He turned his head toward me and his gaze met mine across the distance. He stared at me as if he couldn’t believe I was there, walking toward him. Which I wasn’t. I was walking toward Tony.
Then he bent his head to say something to the officer with the megaphone. He also said something to his brother and something to Thomas O’Connor. After that, he turned and moved in the opposite direction.
It was the last straw. I was done with this cat-and-mouse crap. Anyone in that big a hurry to dodge me was clearly worth chasing. Somebody was going to tell me what was going on here, and if I couldn’t get it out of the Boss or Finlay, then I’d go straight to the General’s mouth.
He hurried off the platform and down on the north side. He made better headway than we did. Crowds on our side of the stage were thick while those on his side were nearly nonexistent. I saw his head bouncing above the heads of the spectators on my side with each step, which made it easier to ghost him. He couldn’t see me through the crowds while he might have seen the taller Gaspar.
I looked back and found Gaspar, his progress was slowed by his gimpy leg. He cocked his head to signal that he saw me looking at him. I waved my arm to signal moving to the right and turned to weave through the crowd in that direction. I broke through the edge of the viewers and trotted around the periphery of the stage, moving steadily toward the general’s side.
General Clifton had three advantages. He’d managed a significant head start and his legs were a lot longer than mine, which accelerated his ground speed. Those were obstacles I could overcome. His biggest advantage was that he knew the terrain and I did not, and that wasn’t an obstacle I could leap across.
I pushed a little harder, striving to close the gap, but the distance between us widened. I was breathing harder than I should have been when I reached the empty stretch of the field on the other side of the platform. But I could see General Clifton clearly ahead of me now, headed north, toward the far end of the field.
The voice of the officer with the megaphone continued to nag me every time he shouted halting instructions to the soldiers in the shooting area, but I was focused on my quarry. Which was why I didn’t see Tony leave the stage and follow behind me. Gaspar might have tried to warn me, but I couldn’t possibly have heard him over the shooting and the cheering crowds and the distance.
General Clifton traveled along the hay bale partition, the only thing separating the live rounds shooting down the range on the west side from the open field on the east side. The hay bale fence ended about twenty yards ahead of him. When he reached the end, he stopped and turned to face me.
The rhythmic shooting continued. I glanced back. The stationary row of soldiers at the south end of the range commenced fire again toward the north end. I felt like I was running at slow speed along with the zipping bullets.
At this distance, the gunfire was slightly quieter. The intermittent rounds hit their targets ahead of me on the other side of the hay bales with a frequency that sounded like ten-pound popcorn exploding against a heavy gauge steel popper.
General Clifton waited at the end of the bales until I was within mutual shouting distance. He stood with both feet firmly planted shoulder-width apart, hands clasped behind his back. He allowed me to approach five yards closer before he held up his left hand, palm out.
I stopped. He lowered his left hand and it joined his right hand behind his back, which made me nervous.
My weapon was holstered. But so was his.
“Reacher isn’t worth it, you know,” he said, his voice barely carrying across the distance when spaced between the still-deafening rounds. “When you find him, he’ll be uncontrollable. Like he was when we discharged him. Like he was in 1990, when he and Summer decided to change the world. Like he was at West Point before that. Like he’s always been.”
“Not my issue, General. I don’t need to control Reacher. I’m only building the file.”
“And I’m only standing here for a chat.” He sneered. “Did you imagine you’d arrest me? Put handcuffs on me out here in front of my men?”
Arrest him? For what? “We could have a quieter chat somewhere else.”
“Did Cooper tell you what happened to Colonel Willard?” He cocked his head and bared his teeth in a feral smile. The exploding ten-pound popcorn sounds came again, this time in more frequent bursts of several shots at a time. The shooters had changed to firing different weapons.
Willard. I didn’t recognize the name. I’d met a lot of soldiers and I was hyper-focused on Clifton. “I don’t know Colonel Willard. Who is he?”
“He was a man who followed orders. Orders Reacher didn’t like. Ask Cooper. Or Finlay. Either one can tell you.” Clifton’s cold eyes and hard jaw telegraphed his contempt even from that distance. “They should have told you before they sent you into the field on this one, Otto.”
“What does Willard have to do with my assignment?”
I was barely listening. My mind was engaged in a complicated assessment of multiple variables surrounding our standoff. If he made a move for his weapon—which, for whatever reason, seemed entirely possible—I could shoot Clifton. Disable him, maybe. Likely my best option. It would work as long as he didn’t shoot me first.
But otherwise, he’d win any physical contest between us. If I could keep him talking until Gaspar arrived, we might do together what I wasn’t physically big enough or strong enough to do alone.
And I was still nervous about what he might be holding behind his back.
CHAPTER 31
Clifton’s stance was stiff, wide, unwavering. “This is your fault, Otto. As much as Cooper’s and Finlay’s. Just remember that. You should have refused.”
“Refused what?” I asked.
He glanced above my head and his eyes widened before he yelled, “Tony! Halt!”
I whipped my head around and saw Tony Clifton five yards behind me. He’d stopped, mid-stride, as ordered, staring beseechingly at his brother. In a flash, I drew my weapon and turned toward General Clifton again.
He stood as ramrod straight as he’d been taught in basic training all those years ago and tossed us a quick left-handed salute.
I thought for a split second that things might work out okay.
Everything happened swiftly and simultaneously after that as if Clifton had been waiting for a signal.
First, the megaphone voice rang out with new orders to fire. Multiple rounds hit their targets. The audience applauded and cheered and more ro
unds were fired.
My hearing was overwhelmed with so much noise that the surreal effect was one of hearing nothing at all.
General Clifton drew his right hand around from back to front at his waist and showed the grenade he’d been holding. Then he sidestepped to his right and moved fluidly to the other side of the fence. The live fire side.
I ran full out down the remaining length of the hay bale line toward General Clifton. Tony Clifton’s boots pounded the ground behind me.
When I reached the end and could see around the hay bales into the open shooting range, General Clifton was already ten feet away. I couldn’t reach him without running into the line of live fire.
I shouted, “Get the hell back here!”
Tony yelled, “Matt! Matt!”
But he ran in the opposite direction. Along the back of the row of targets. Live rounds were landing solidly as they were aimed by the highly qualified soldiers who didn’t expect Clifton to be behind the targets.
He was hit by the bullets passing through their targets and was bleeding, but he kept upright on his feet, staggering a few more steps.
He turned and looked at me and raised his left hand to his mouth, fingers bunched, and blew me a kiss as if to say, “Kiss off!”
Tony grabbed my arm. His rigid posture held us both anchored to the dirt.
A sudden coldness hit me like a sucker punch to my stomach. Cold radiated through my limbs.
As we watched wide-eyed, mouths gaping, his brother waited briefly for the rapid shooting frequency to commence, then slipped between the targets from the back to the front and stood directly facing the line of fire.
The man with the megaphone didn’t start to yell for what felt like a solid hour.
“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” he finally screamed over and over into the megaphone. The orders were picked up by a microphone somewhere and squealed out from loudspeakers around the periphery of the range, the parking lot, the crowds.
But it was far too late.
General Matthew Clifton’s body had jerked and twitched and bounced with the impact of at least a dozen rounds in a macabre dance like a marionette controlled by a puppeteer having a seizure.
As he fell to the ground, he opened his right hand and dropped the grenade.
I dove behind the hay bales, slammed prone to the ground and covered my head with both arms. Tony Clifton did the same.
The grenade exploded.
I felt the earth move under my belly and my body lifted off the ground and slammed back, hard. Dirt and debris were thrown into the air with great force. On the way back down, clods and rocks and sticks pelted my body for what seemed like a full minute or more.
When the shooting finally stopped and the debris finally settled, I felt all of my limbs to be sure nothing was broken. Then I crawled to the edge of the fence and lifted my head and looked onto the open shooting range.
General Clifton was twisted into an odd position on the ground. Blood stained his uniform. His right leg and left arm had been separated from his torso. Dead eyes stared across the open ground directly at me.
A hand landed on my shoulder from behind. Instinct took over. I jumped straight up in the air and turned around with my gun leveled center mass.
Gaspar knocked the gun aside before I could shoot him.
Thank God.
Tony Clifton had risen to his hands and knees. Wide eyes stared at his brother’s mutilated and bloody corpse. Tears coursed down his filthy face. He didn’t seem to notice.
I turned again to see the identifiable parts of General Matthew Clifton’s body on the ground in pools of blood and riddled with gunshots. Strangely, his head was intact and except for the dirt and sweat, his face seemed almost the same as it had in life. His expression was frozen in death and not the least bit horrified.
The shooting and the megaphone and the sound system and all other noises had stopped. An unnatural quiet surrounded everything. Or maybe my ears were damaged beyond the ability to hear what noises existed.
But in the silence I realized the owner of the distorted voice behind the megaphone.
I grabbed Gaspar’s arm and pulled him aside. He bent his head to hear me. “I know who killed Summer. And I know why.”
CHAPTER 32
“How is the Army explaining the incident?” Gaspar asked as we settled into the visitor chairs in Reacher’s old office at Fort Bird.
Major Tony Clifton’s once handsome face was gray and haggard. He’d aged two decades since we’d seen him last. The charming lines around his expressive eyes were deeper. He was wrung out and he looked it.
“Training accident. That’s all anyone needs to know.” He was seated across the desk. An untouched mug of coffee rested near his phone. He hadn’t offered us coffee today and no one brought any. “That’s how Matt wanted it.”
Gaspar shrugged, but I lowered my gaze.
General Clifton’s dress uniform had been tiled with every medal there was. He’d excelled in combat and in peacetime. He was as strong as any human could be, mentally and physically. He’d attended dozens of similar demonstrations and he knew the safe places as well as the unsafe ones. No one who knew General Matthew Clifton would believe he’d simply wandered into the line of fire and been riddled with bullets.
But even if people wanted to believe his death was an accident, one look at the body would’ve proven otherwise. The bullets alone wouldn’t have ripped his body apart like that grenade did.
“I’m sorry, Tony,” I said. If his family was okay with calling his suicide a training accident, I wouldn’t be the one to clear the record. “He wouldn’t have been sent to prison. He’d have received a suspended sentence, at the very most. There’s precedent for that and he certainly didn’t deserve worse.”
There was no evidence that the West Point friends he’d awarded the no-bid defense contracts to, like Thomas O’Connor, were less than the best contractors for the job. No evidence of kickbacks or overcharging. Everything I’d read about the new drones his cronies had presented was glowingly positive and the budget was strictly adhered to. In fact, it looked like O’Connor’s firm would bring the project in under budget. What General Matthew Clifton had done with the no-bid contracts was unethical, but the results had nonetheless been a rousing success by all accounts.
“He got the news the day before. Summer’s investigation had already resulted in charges against other officers. Matt knew what was coming. He knew the shitstorm that was coming his way and he refused to be subjected to it.” Tony’s shoulders sagged and his voice thickened. “He’d devoted his life to the Army. He should have been promoted this week to a three-star. He was headed to the Joint Chiefs. He simply wouldn’t accept anything less.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again because I had nothing more brilliant to offer.
He ran a flat palm across his face. “Matt didn’t have it in him to accept a reprimand or a demotion or be forced to retire or face disgrace. He really felt death was his only choice.”
In his shoes, I’m not sure I’d have had the courage to do what Clifton did, but I understood it. Soldiers and FBI agents, too, knew there were worse things than dying. “You discussed the matter with him, then?”
“Several times. I argued with him until I was hoarse. We worked behind the scenes to change the outcome, too.” He paused and looked at me directly and nodded slowly. “That’s why I sent you to Joe Reacher’s ex. Leslie Browning. I knew that would get you to her husband and Dynamic Defense Systems. You’d investigate independently and find out there was no harm, no foul. In fact, Matt got the Army a better result than we’d have managed any other way. His solution was expedient, too. He thought that should be enough. He thought the Inspector General would do the right thing, in the end. But that didn’t happen.”
“Rules are rules, Tony,” Gaspar said. “Every soldier knows that. Surely Matt must’ve.”
Tony hung his head. After a moment, he squared his shoulders and looked at me again as if he’d m
entally turned a corner of some kind, determined to carry on. “I’m sure you didn’t come all the way back here to Bird to offer your condolences. How can I be of assistance to the FBI today?”
Quick jolts of electricity ran through me. Those were the exact words I’d heard from Thomas O’Connor, too. The echo effect was eerie.
“Sheriff Taylor has a BOLO out on your Sergeant Church. We wanted to give you a heads up.” Taylor’s “Be On the Lookout” order had gone out an hour ago. He might have already found Church unless Church was on base. “Come into New Haven with us to observe the interrogation. You know Church better than any of the rest of us. Taylor could use your input.”
“On what charge?” Tony’s eyebrows shot north. Both of them at the same time. He leveled a glassy stare in our direction. “Sheriff Taylor has no jurisdiction over our soldiers. Neither do you.”
“The homicide was a shooting off the base,” Gaspar informed him. “The case is Sheriff Taylor’s bailiwick.” Gaspar didn’t mention that we were the ones who put the evidence in Taylor’s hands to support the arrest.
Tony’s response was quick and sharp. “Is this about the incident at The Lucky Bar the other night? Because Church wasn’t even there. He was with me.”
I leaned in and asked calmly, “What do you know about Sergeant Church’s integrity, Tony?”
Major Clifton leaned back and crossed his legs. “As much as I need to know. He’s Army. That makes him one of ours.”
“You know he’s a trained sniper, right?”
His curt nod gave no quarter. “Damned good one. Two tours in Iraq. More than three dozen confirmed kills. Member of the Marksmanship Unit for a while, too.” If the mention of this particular unit caused him any trouble so soon after watching his brother die at the unit’s hand, he gave no sign of it.
I pressed on, undaunted. “That’s a lot of expensive Army resources spent on Church. Why was he sitting at that desk out there bringing your coffee the day I arrived?”
