He got a case from the trunk of his car and removed a Nikon camera body and attached a micro lens. He plugged a Vivitar flash into the camera body and climbed back into the trunk. Holding the flash above his head, he focused the camera on the taillight assembly and fired off several pictures, moving the camera to get new angles. Then he put the camera away and using a pair of tweezers, he removed the scrap of blanket from the bolt and dropped it into a plastic evidence bag.
“I need to take a little bolt with me, too, ma’am. I’ll put in a replacement for you. Is that all right with you?”
“If it will help you get the criminals who stole my car, it is.”
“It’ll help. I can assure you of that. I need to print your car now, ma’am. I’m trying to find out if the thieves left any fingerprints.”
“Well, you go ahead. I’m going to wait inside. It’s cold out here.”
“All right, ma’am. I’d like to take a statement from you when I’m finished, if that’s all right with you.”
“What kind of statement?”
“Confirming this is your car and it was stolen that Friday night.”
“That’s okay with me. Just knock on the door when you’re finished out here.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Kerry went back to the staff car and got out his fingerprint kit. The chances he’d find their prints were slim, but he at least had to give it a try.
MAJOR VERNON had to wait two days before she went down to Walter Reed to test the vial of clear fluid Jacey had given her. Colonel Knight was out of town, testifying at a court-martial at Fort Bragg. When he got back, he called her and told her to come on down.
She called Melissa in General Slaight’s office and arranged for a travel voucher. The Institute of Pathology already had a sample of Dorothy Hamner’s blood on file from the tests they had run before. When she reached Walter Reed, Colonel Knight met her cab. They went straight to the lab.
She handed him the vial. “So you don’t think we tested for this stuff first time around?” he asked.
“I know we didn’t. We ran the standard drug screen, covering controlled substances. This isn’t controlled. They’re selling it right out in the open in New York State.”
“It’s some kind of designer drug, then.”
“I’m sure that’s what it is, sir.”
He twisted off the cap and took a sniff. “Interesting. It’s exactly as you described it on the phone. Odorless, colorless, and you said it was tasteless, too?”
“That’s what they say. I haven’t tried it myself.”
Colonel Knight took a Q-Tip, dipped it in the solution, and touched it on the tip of his tongue, quickly spitting into a sink and rinsing his mouth with water. He smiled. “Tasteless. Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
They removed a portion of the contents of the vial and fed it into a mass spectrometer, which would break the substance down into its elemental chemical parts. From there, they could use the complex techniques of organic chemistry to reassemble the individual chemical elements found in the substance into the components of the whole.
The mass spectrometer did its magic, and they took its results to the lab computer and started running them through chemical ID programs. It took them less than an hour to arrive at what Colonel Knight called “a preliminary but astounding conclusion.”
They were both huddled at the computer screen, going down the list of component substances that had been found in the clear liquid in the vial. “From the top, in general order of merit,” he joked.
“You mean from the mostest to the leastest,” she joked back.
“Yep. Okay, first we’ve got our old pal, H2O. Plain water comprises about a third of the substance by volume. Then we have one-four-butanediol, taking up a second third. We have a good hit of old-fashioned caffeine, and as a final kicker, we’ve got a small amount of epinephrine, such as might be found in a common cold remedy. No wonder they call it Cherry Bomb. If you took enough of this stuff it would go off like a bomb inside your head.”
“It’s not an upper, and it’s not a downer. . . .”
“It’s both, an industrial-strength speedball. This stuff one-four-butanediol is very close in its chemical composition to gammahydroxy-butyrate, the stuff they call Bute. Butanediol is only a couple of oxygen molecules of GBH. I would presume it would have the same knockout-drop effects of GBH. Let’s get these results to the blood lab and run a check on the sample you brought from Dorothy.”
They made a computer printout and gave it to a lab technician, who disappeared through the door to the blood lab.
“GBH isn’t a controlled substance in most states.”
“You’ll probably find that it’s illegal in New York, which is why they punted GBH and put out this one-four-butanediol mix. The New York authorities are playing catch-up ball, trying to stay ahead of the chemists who dream this stuff up.” A specialist in a lab coat approached Colonel Knight. “What have you got for us, Abby?”
“Sir, I’ve been in touch with New York City. They confirm there’s a new party drug that’s making the rounds. It’s got a bunch of names, but its main ingredient is an industrial chemical they said is totally legal and easy to come by. It’s called one-four—”
“Butanediol!” they chorused.
The specialist looked surprised. “Yes sir. There was a problem at one of those ‘rave’ all-night disco parties back in August in New York. Thirty people were taken to emergency rooms suffering from nausea, accelerated heartbeat, and respiratory problems. They all took it.”
“Did they describe the respiratory problems, Abby?”
“Yes sir,” she said, consulting her notes. “Labored breathing, sir.”
Colonel Knight looked over at Major Vernon. “In Dorothy, this stuff would be deadly.”
They went upstairs to the officers’ lounge and had a cup of coffee while they waited for the blood results. After about two hours, a technician from the blood lab appeared in the door.
“Come in,” said Colonel Knight. The lab tech handed him a computer printout. He tapped the page. “Look at this. There’s an incredible quantity of this stuff in her bloodstream, considering that she apparently took it the night before.”
“The amount of caffeine alone would trigger a reaction,” agreed Major Vernon. “But in combination with one-four-butanediol, it over-whelmed the prednisone. It’s no wonder her lungs were inflamed.”
“I don’t know how you account for the large amount in her blood-stream. It may be very slow to be expelled by the body. Whatever the reason, that’s one hell of a lot of junk in her blood. It was a death sentence.” He handed the printout to Major Vernon. “I think you’d better jump on a plane and get back to West Point. That young woman didn’t die of natural causes. This stuff killed her.”
Major Vernon tucked the results of both tests into her briefcase. It was Friday. She would get back to West Point too late to file her report, which she had been instructed to do with Colonel Bassett, since General Slaight had relieved both Lieutenant Colonel Percival and Colonel Lombardi from the Dorothy Hamner investigation. She was glad for the delay. Now that she had established Dorothy Hamner had been killed by a drug overdose, even if the drug was legal, those responsible would end up facing criminal charges, and her findings would come under attack. The weekend would give her the time to pull all her findings together and make her report a comprehensive document that would stand up to the toughest scrutinty.
CHAPTER 51
* * *
THE HEARINGS of the House National Security Committee were called for Monday at 1:00 P.M. General Slaight, Sam, and Colonel Bassett flew down to Washington on an Air Force C-21 that morning provided by General Meuller. Leroy Buck was waiting for them when their jet taxied to a halt on the tarmac at Andrews. All four of them climbed into the back of an awaiting Army van for the drive to the Capitol.
“I have some new stuff on Thrunstone and his committee,” said Buck after the van started moving. He pulled a file from his b
riefcase and handed it to Slaight. “I took the data the Pentagon folks gave you on the concentration of defense industries in the districts of his committee members and ran it through my computer. Here’s the way it comes out. There are defense contracts on about ninety-five billion dollars in their districts. That’s one-third the entire budget for the Department of Defense. Eighty percent of those contracts are held on matériel being built for the Air Force, Navy, and Marines. The way I figure it, his committee is spending about eight percent of its time worryin’ about the Army and the rest worrying about all that money and all those jobs comin’ into their districts via contracts for the other three services.”
“He’s going to say there are Army installations all over the country, and lots of them are in the districts of his committee members, and they can hardly be accused of being hostile to the interests of the United States Army.”
“He ain’t hostile to the Army. He’s just more accommodatin’ to the other guys, ‘cause there’s more money to be had with them.”
Bassett and Buck got reacquainted while Slaight studied Buck’s figures. He was certain they were correct. He was less certain that the Secretary of the Army was going to want him to throw them in the face of the Chairman of the House National Security Committee. He studied the text of his opening statement to the committee, but by the time the van pulled to a stop on Capitol Hill he was still unsure about what he was actually going to say when he addressed the Congress of the United States.
They had a meeting in the office of a friendly congressman in the Cannon Building with the legal and public-relations teams from General Meuller’s office. It was mercifully brief. They wanted to reemphasize Meuller’s wish that General Slaight stick to the “talking points” that had been discussed over the past few days. Slaight nodded his assent without saying much. Then the whole bunch of them traipsed across South Capitol Street to the Rayburn Building.
Room 2120 was a rather large hearing room with a three-tiered dais, needed to contain the committee’s considerable membership. Appointment to the committee was a coveted assignment. Nearly every congressional district in the country had a financial stake in the defense of the nation, so widely scattered were the military installations and defense industries paid for with defense dollars.
Buck prowled the corridors outside the hearing room, returning just as Thrunstone and the rest of the committee were filing into their seats from doors behind the dais. He studied the members of the committee and the staffers who hovered behind Thrunstone, feeding the chairman notes and whispering in his ear.
“See those two staffers on either side of Thrunstone?” Buck whispered. Slaight nodded. “I just saw them down the hall huddlin’ with Gibson not ten minutes ago. This is gonna be a totally scripted performance.”
Thrunstone gaveled the committee into session and opened the hearing with the statement The New York Times had predicted he would make. The time had come to reassess the nation’s priorities when it came to providing the leadership of the armed forces for the twenty-first century. The nation had entered upon a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity with the end of the Cold War. Because of a need to cut taxes and reorient budgetary priorities, the military budget would make up a smaller slice of the pie in the coming decade. The nation had always prided itself on fielding armed forces of “citizen soldiers.” Perhaps, said Chairman Thrunstone, the time had come to close down the “elitist and unnecessarily expensive” institution of West Point. He noted that the number of West Pointers among the Army’s senior three- and four-star general leadership had diminished greatly over the past twenty years, and that no West Pointer had served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in well over a decade. West Point was failing in its mission to provide the Army with leaders because large percentages of West Point graduates had resigned from the Army before becoming senior officers or reaching retirement age.
“If they cannot retain Military Academy graduates in the Army, why should the people of the United States be required to spend their hard-earned dollars on a place that is wasting scarce federal dollars? It appears that the Military Academy is providing the country not with top Army leadership, but with a bunch of money-hungry military yuppies instead.”
“Wonderful,” whispered Sam as the room buzzed. Thrunstone gaveled the committee into order. “That sets just the tone we were looking for.”
“It ain’t playin’ back in Peoria, I can tell you that much,” whispered Leroy Buck from behind them.
“I hope you’re right,” said Slaight.
Two new staffers showed up behind Congressman Thrunstone. One was a middle-aged man in a rumpled sport coat. The other was an attractive young woman with an expensive hairstyle.
Slaight turned around to the legal team from Meuller’s office. “Who the hell are they?”
“Give me a minute,” said one of the lawyers. She hurried across the hearing room. Slaight could see her whispering to a young woman seated in the press section. When she returned, she crouched behind Slaight’s chair. “The one on the left is Basil Embry. He’s a retired colonel, with a Reserve commission.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“The reporter from ABC told me a guy named Cecil Avery arranged for him to be a special advisor to Thrunstone for the hearing. His real job is defense manpower specialist for the Heritage Foundation. The woman is Sheila Rooks. She’s the head of the Center for a Responsible Defense, the right-wing think tank that’s done all the lobbying against women in the military.”
“Thanks,” said Slaight.
“Rooks runs one of Thrunstone’s PACs,” whispered Buck. “Embry raised big-time money for congressional Republicans in the last election.”
“Great,” whispered Sam. “Gibson’s pal Avery is helping to call the shots. Talk about stacking the deck.”
Thrunstone gaveled the committee into order. “The Chair calls General Rysam Slaight, Superintendent of West Point.”
Slaight walked to the witness table, raised his right hand, and was sworn in. Thrunstone peered down at him over his half-glasses.
“General Slaight, welcome to the hearing. Do you have an opening statement you wish to make?”
“No sir. I am prepared to take your questions.”
Thrunstone looked momentarily confused. “I was told by staff people from the office of the Secretary of the Army that you would be making an opening statement. You are certain you do not have any remarks you wish to make to the committee in advance of the questions we have for you?”
“Yes sir. I am ready for your questions, sir.”
Two staffers hurriedly conferred with Thrunstone as members of the committee whispered. Finally Thrunstone hit the gavel.
“General Slaight, I have become aware that there is a culture of weakness and political correctness which has infected West Point in recent times. I have been receiving complaints from officers all over the Army, many of them West Point graduates, that the Military Academy standards have fallen, and the effectiveness of the Army is being compromised because of this. These complaints are coming to me from all over the country. That’s why I called this hearing. Have you heard any complaints from Academy graduates, sir?”
“I’ve heard the usual grumbling that West Point went to hell in a handbasket since the day we did away with reveille formation, if that’s what you mean, sir.”
The gallery erupted in laughter, and Thrunstone had to gavel the room to order.
“I’ll assume you did not intend that remark as a joke, General Slaight.”
“It’s not a joke, sir. A great number of graduates object strongly to the changes that have been made at West Point. There is an especially strong objection to the presence of women in the Corps of Cadets. But I am certain that you are not here to question the wisdom of that decision, sir, since it was this committee which wrote the law allowing women into the nation’s service academies.”
Thrunstone removed his half-glasses and glared at Slaight. “General, you do not appear t
o be aware that there is a large body of opinion in this town that West Point is failing to serve its traditional role in setting high standards for the nation’s Army. I have seen some Army studies which show that less than forty percent of enlisted soldiers have confidence in the officers who lead them. The same studies indicate that only thirty percent of our young soldiers would feel confident going to war under their current leadership. West Point is charged with training the leaders these young soldiers have lost confidence in. We on this committee believe West Point is falling down on the job, and I’ll tell you why.” Thrunstone pointed a fat finger at Slaight. “West Point is bending to feminist pressures. You are demilitarizing the system at West Point, General. I have heard you have some female officers up there who are talking openly about eliminating the blood-and-guts aspects of West Point training. You’ve got separate standards for men and women. In the opinion of this congressman and a majority of this committee, West Point has been coddling women. That is why standards are being brought down across the board. I have heard from Army officers who have been on the staff and faculty up at West Point, and they have told me that West Point has become so politically correct that they don’t even recognize the place anymore. I do not like what I’m hearing. West Point is supposed to stand for something, General. It’s supposed to stand for duty and honor and country, but from what I’ve heard, the West Point of today stands for kindness and respect for others and harmonious cooperation. To me, that doesn’t belong at the Military Academy, it belongs at a civilian college that is not enjoying the support of taxpayer dollars. The way I see it, West Point is damaging the morale and effectiveness of our Army, and it’s damaging our nation’s defense, and we on this committee are not going to stand for it.”
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