“Still, he was close to Vinnie, and I’m surprised he didn’t come.”
“Maybe couldn’t,” Ace shrugged, “or knew not to.”
An awkward silence fell on the large room. Bob turned his head and saw Lieutenant General Stansky and Colonel Jeffers step inside the front door, followed by their top NCOs. Stansky’s cold blue eyes could freeze a waterfall. He stood there a moment scanning the crowd until his eyes finally came to rest on Bob Burke. The room was packed, but as Stansky suddenly stepped forward and headed toward Burke, the crowd parted like the Red Sea for Moses.
“Well, this should be interesting,” Ace muttered as he and Ernie backed up a step or two to allow the circle to widen.
“General… Colonel,” Bob nodded to both of them, while Stansky’s Command Sergeant Major, Pat O’Connor, peeled off and marched double-time to the bar to grab drinks.
“Great speech, Bobby,” Stansky began with no preliminaries. “As I always said, when I die, grab a West Point ‘ring knocker’ to give the eulogy. I hear they teach that touchy-feely crap up on the Hudson now, don’t they?” he nudged Colonel Jeffers.
“Yes, sir, it’s in the core curriculum, now,” Jeffers answered as O’Connor returned with their drinks. “It’s right up there with reading, writing, and knowing which fork to use.”
The only man in the room who might be shorter than Bob Burke, Stansky was a blunt, soldier’s soldier who had advanced through the ranks the hard way, starting as a skinny, highly decorated, twenty-year-old, 130-pound, Warrant Officer gunship and medevac helicopter pilot from the backwoods of Tennessee. In the last years of the Vietnam War he had four helicopters shot out from under him and Creighton Abrams personally awarded him the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest award the Army gave for bravery under fire, and pulled him out of the field over his vociferous objections, and packed him off to OCS. Always irascible and irreverent, Stansky had a special disdain for West Pointers, staff officers, and the occasional senior NCO who forgot where he came from. CSM Patrick O’Connor knew not to make a mistake like that. O’Connor was the only man in the room who looked as fit as Ace Randall, and had almost as many medals on his jacket as Stansky or Bob Burke.
The general raised his tumbler and said, “To Sergeant First Class Vincent Pastorini, a good soldier, who we were all proud to serve with. God bless him.”
“Hear, hear,” the others seconded the sentiment and pulled in closer.
Stansky looked surprised as he raised his glass again, sniffed the double shot of bourbon, and smiled. “This is really good stuff, Bobby! I grew up in those hills, and I know it when I drink it. I hear we have you to thank?”
“My privilege, sir.”
“Then, to good bourbon: God’s gift to eastern Tennessee, ’cause he sure as hell didn’t give it much else to work with,” the general said as he led them in another drink.
“Vinnie would’ve appreciated it, too,” Bob said.
“Vinnie? I don’t recall his taste being all that cultivated. I thought he ran more to Old Crow and Early Times, but I won’t argue,” Stansky laughed as he looked at Burke and studied him for a moment. “I hear you’ve done well in the telephone business since you left us, Bobby. We do so appreciate you remembering us poor folk back here on the Piedmont. After three years of undisciplined civilian sloth, does this mean you are ready to come back in?”
“Not quite yet, sir,” Bob laughed.
“Sounds like you’re getting more action on the outside now than the Army can offer, at least from what I heard about that little dust-up in Chicago a few months ago,” Stansky said as he cast a knowing eye around the small circle around him. “I don’t miss much, you know.”
“Oh, you can’t believe all the crazy stories you hear these days,” Bob answered.
Stansky ignored him and turned to Ernie. “You must be Detective Captain Travers of the Chicago Police Department. I understand you’ve been promoted to the Organized Crime unit. I’m sure that’s a much better place for a reserve MP colonel, but be careful hanging around these Delta scoundrels. They’ll have you on the other side of the bars, if you’re not careful.” Stansky stepped closer, chest to chest with Ernie. “By the way, I heard those three gunmen who assaulted Bobby and his young wife are out on bail already. Whether it’s New Jersey, Chicago, or the hills of Tennessee, I guess money talks, doesn’t it?
“No doubt about it, sir,” Ernie had to agree.
Finally, he nodded at the others, and pulled Bob aside for a slow, head-down walk around the perimeter of the room. “I got a backdoor copy of the ME’s Report from Dover and the CID’s findings,” he told him in a low voice.
“What did they conclude?” Bob asked, now acutely interested.
“The report pulls no punches. Vinnie didn’t fall off that ledge; he was thrown out the hallway window. But who did it? No one knows? They don’t know and the local cops don’t either, but those three clowns who went after you in Chicago were the only ones up there. Still, it’s impossible to prove anything, particularly when the local cops don’t want to bother.”
“Even if they aren’t guilty, I intend to hold them accountable.”
“I figured you would, but tread lightly,” Stansky warned. “The last time, you had a clear case for self-defense and everyone supported you. But if you let this thing become some kind of revenge killing for Pastorini, you’ll lose all that. Understand?”
“Roger that, sir,” he looked Stansky in the eyes, and both men nodded in agreement. “You seem very well informed, as usual.”
“You bet your sweet ass I am!” Stansky said as they circled back around to the rest of the group. “There isn’t much that goes on around here I’m not well informed about, or I’ll have his ass,” he threw a thumb over his shoulder toward CSM Pat O’Connor, who had been trailing behind. Then he cast his steely eyes on Bob Burke and Ace Randall again. “But what really pisses me off, gentlemen, is that I never get included in any of the fun anymore.”
“The heavy responsibility of rank, sir,” Bob commiserated with a smile.
“Spoken like a true civilian, Bobby,” Stansky laughed as he turned toward O’Connor and snapped his fingers. “Give him a card, Pat.” A white business card instantly appeared in the big CSM’s hand, which he handed to Bob. “Look, I know you’re going after them.”
“With all due respect, sir, you know something I don’t know.”
“Oh, you will,” Stansky corrected him. “Vinnie was one of ours, dammit! No gang of Sicilian street punks is going to get away with that.”
“And the business card?”
“A phone number, in case you ever need it, 24–7. Got that?” Stansky told him, as he locked his eyes on Bob’s, then Jeffers’s, Ace’s, and finally on Ernie’s. “I expect you’ll be in this one, too, Colonel Travers.”
“If he asks, like the rest of his men, sir.”
“He’s that kind of leader, isn’t he?”
“The best I’ve ever seen, sir, and I’ve seen a few.”
“Me, too, and the best damned combat officer I’ve ever had the pleasure to command. Still, it pisses me off that we lost him so he can go off and get rich… fixing telephones!”
“We design complex telecommunications software for…” Bob tried to correct him.
“Who’s fixing telephones?” Linda suddenly appeared at Bob’s elbow and pushed her way into their tight “man circle.”
“That infuriating husband of yours, my dear,” Stansky told her. “He’s back there fixing telephones, when he should be here, doing the important work of a nation.”
“Like rearranging the rubble in Syria or Libya? Or, making peace between the Shia and the Sunni in Iraq?” Bob loved the old man, but sometimes you gotta say what you gotta say. “But what finally pisses me off, General, is that no one in the Pentagon ever reads history, much less understands it. Vietnam, Iraq and Iran… Oh, hell, Kipling would have told them everything they needed to know about Afghanistan.”
“Then you should
be here helping to change that, Bobby, not off somewhere fixing goddamn telephones!”
After the general continued on his rounds through the large room, Bob did the same, finding himself in one conversation with old friends after another. He had put his cell phone in his hip pocket on vibrate, but was somewhat surprised to feel it ringing. He excused himself as he turned away and looked at the screen. The number was local, which surprised him, since almost everyone he knew in Fayetteville was here in the room.
“Burke,” he answered, curious.
“Major Burke, this is Sergeant Iversen again, Fayetteville Police Department. I hope I’m not disturbing you, but you asked me to get back to you on those two assailants.”
“Absolutely, and I appreciate it,” Bob said as he began walking toward the side door to escape the noise. “Did you get any ID on them?”
“No, and that’s the odd thing. We’ve come up with nothing, zip, zero. I expected that on the blood, but not on the fingerprints. Given all the things you and I discussed about how they entered the premises, the clothes, the zip locks, the knife, and all the rest, it just doesn’t figure that the perp would have no prints on record anywhere, civilian or military.”
Bob frowned. “No, I think I’m as surprised as you are.”
“When I got absolutely nothing back from the Feds, I made a few phone calls to some people I know. I got nothing but denials, and my contacts didn’t get anything either; but I began to sense it was more like no one would tell us anything, than that there was nothing to tell, like someone had put a block on those prints. You know what I mean?”
“I was hoping I didn’t, but I guess I do.”
“That’s why I called you. Normally, I’d never discuss a case like this with a civilian, but in this town, I’ve been around enough to know when I run into some ‘national security’ stonewalling. Hell, we even get that on traffic tickets. But somehow, I have a sneaking suspicion that you know a couple of people too, and maybe you can help me out.”
“Maybe. It’s probably worth a call or two.”
“I don’t mind telling you that the people I called were fairly high up on the totem pole, but maybe you can do better.”
Bob looked around the room and saw Stansky’s head on the far side. “I’m not saying I can, but let me see what I can come up with. I’ll call you back if I learn anything.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
As the afternoon wore on, the liquor flowed and tongues loosened; but as Bob circulated around the room, he spent much more time holding his glass than drinking from it. As he moved from group to group, he also kept one eye on General Stansky. Bob had one more thing he wanted to ask the general, but neither this crowd nor the general’s office was the place to do it. Finally, he saw Stansky and Command Sergeant Major O’Connor heading for the door. It took a few moments for him to catch up, but as they stood outside waiting for the general’s staff car to come up, Bob was able to close the gap.
The driver opened the rear passenger side door and as Stansky started to get in, Bob put his hand on the doorframe and asked, “Would you mind a quick question, sir?”
Stansky looked up at him and frowned. “It better be good. Get in. I’m late for a reception, and the general’s wife will pound lumps on his head if I’m any later.”
Bob hurried around to the other door and slipped inside. “I was surprised that my old Exec, Randy Benson didn’t make it here today,” Bob began. “He and Vinnie ran a number of ops together, even more than he did with me. I heard he left the Army shortly after I did, perhaps on some questionable terms, but nobody seems to know very much after that.”
Stansky looked at him and sighed. “Okay… Larry, let’s take a little drive. The ten-minute tour,” he told his driver, pausing to light a cigarette. “Frankly, I’m surprised you heard that much. That sneaky bastard Benson did indeed leave under some ‘questionable terms,’ as you so delicately put it. It was hushed up, but gone is gone and he ain’t coming back.”
Bob looked puzzled, so Stansky leaned closer, “Maybe a year and a half ago, he was detached to one of those goddamned, ‘independent’ CIA operational units that everybody seems to know about, but nobody can control. That was when some very valuable stuff went missing from The Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad — about $13 million in gold, coins, jewelry, precious gems — mostly Babylonian and Assyrian stuff. I don’t know a damned thing about ancient art, but that’s what they said.”
“I thought that museum got cleaned out back in ’03?”
“It did. Most of what was taken back then were small items that could be carried, or even stuffed in somebody’s pocket — call it your garden-variety looting. Those people didn’t have a clue what they had or even what to do with it. Probably buried it in their backyards. But over the next few years, the Iraqis managed to get over half of it back. They used some US money and bought it from the dumb schleps who grabbed it in ’03.”
“Sounds like the typical Baghdad ‘disorganized’ crime.”
“That’s right, until your Captain Benson, some of his Langley playmates, and some shady characters from Iraqi Military Intelligence pulled their little caper. Benson was maybe the number two or three man in the unit, most of whom were international mercs and ‘contractors.’ Contractors! Godammit, we have an Army post full of the best light infantry in the world, and those bozos at Langley go out and hire contract mercenaries to do their work for them — foreigners, misfits, rejects, you name it. They aren't very particular who they hire. Do you know why?”
“Deniability,” Bob answered. “It’s all off book.”
“No, it’s because they can find men who will do things our regular troops are told we don’t do. Have you ever talked to any of our people after they came back from one of those off book, CIA assignments? They’re ruined. They no longer have any concept of right or wrong, or what the American Army stands for. That’s why we’ll never win those wars. I was a twenty-year-old helicopter pilot in the Central Highlands, and believe me, I know. When an army loses its moral compass, it’s all over,” Stansky said, staring vacantly out the window.
“You’re beginning to sound like me, sir.”
“I know, and it scares the hell out of me. Anyway, Benson and his playmates were smart. The theft at the Baghdad museum happened late one Thursday night. Friday was the Muslim holy day, so when it reopened Saturday morning, they found the bodies of two museum guards, three dead Iraqi Military Intelligence agents, a bunch of empty display cases, and two empty safes. No one keeps a secret like that in a place like Iraq for very long. Obviously, it was an inside job, and sooner or later, a lot of fingers began pointing at Iraqi Military Intelligence, a Kurdish general, and a CIA contractor group in Mosul, which included our very own Captain Benson. There was an investigation, of course, but the CID couldn’t prove a damned thing. The people involved claimed they never left Mosul, and no one ever saw them in Baghdad.”
“Sounds like a well-planned op, and a better-planned cover-up.”
“You may have trained him too damn well. Anyway, three quiet months later, Benson rotated back here, put in his papers, and walked out the gate. So did most of the CIA contract people. The Army CID still wanted to hold them for questioning, but they had nothing. Besides, it had taken too long, and there were a lot of people in Washington and Baghdad who wanted the whole thing swept under the rug. You know how that goes.”
“Any idea where he went or what he’s doing?”
“As I understand it, he and the others are still in the Middle East, peddling their services to the highest bidder,” Stansky said as he turned and looked at him. “And you might as well know the really sick part. Vinnie Pastorini was assigned to that same unit at roughly the same time Benson was. To give him the benefit of the doubt, Vinnie’s alibi checked out a whole lot better than Benson's or the others did, so I hate to cast aspersions on the honored dead, especially one I liked, but who knows?”
Bob leaned back in the seat and shook his head, wondering.
Stansky picked up his briefcase from the floor of the car and opened it. “Here’s the CID’s report and the ME’s findings,” he said as he handed Bob the envelope. “They probably raise more questions than they answer, but you were there. Let me know what you think.”
“Corliss kept telling me he didn’t do it.”
“What would you expect him to say?”
“I know, but he didn’t have to say anything. And I hate to say it, but the guy’s too stupid and arrogant to lie very well.”
“All right, but if he didn’t do it… ?” Stansky shrugged. The two men stared at each other for a long moment, but neither of them came up with an answer. “By the way,” Stansky added. “You tend to pick up enemies like a Tennessee bloodhound picks up fleas. Who did you piss off up in Harlem?”
“Harlem?” Bob laughed. “That’s a new one on me.”
“This morning, I got a phone call from a black congressman up there who tried to squeeze me for some background information on you. He’s been on the House Armed Services Committee for decades. He rarely attends any meetings, and when he does, he sits at the far end in the back row and sleeps. I don’t think we’ve exchanged ten words over the years and he never supports us, but I guess he thinks he’s got some clout with me. Anyway, some fool in Washington gave him my direct line. When he told me what he wanted, I referred him back to Army personnel in Washington and told him to ask for your 201 file. He said he already did that, but almost everything was blacked out and redacted.”
“I’ve heard that one before,” Bob laughed.
“Imagine that?” Stansky laughed along with him. “Anyway, I told him you were a fine, upstanding officer. Then, I asked him who wanted to know. He hemmed and hawed, and finally told me some contributors of his in New Jersey who were considering your company for a big contract. Does that make any sense to you?” Stansky asked as his sedan pulled up at the front door of the conference center.
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