William Christie 02 - Mercy Mission

by William Christie

  No, Albert was one of the last of the dinosaurs. In any case, Welsh was immune to the sentiment. "Albert, since 1962 we've spent about a trillion dollars on missile defenses. It cost less to go to the moon. And, if you'll recall, we actually got to the moon; we still don't have any missile defenses. If your employers could ever manage to make one of their gizmos work, we might have something to talk about."

  "Rich, in years past the technology wasn't advanced enough to handle the mission. Now it is. A nuke is bound to get out of Russia sooner or later, and just look at all the unstable countries who can't wait to get then-hands on one. You can't deny it's a threat we'll be facing very soon, and we need to be prepared to defend ourselves."

  "Albert, ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads are designed to deter countries who also have them, or threaten ones that don't. If you were the dictator of your typical outlaw nation, would you spend billions building ICBMs knowing that if you ever worked up the balls to launch one at the U.S., thirty minutes later the entire land surface of your country would be a skating rink of radioactive glass? I think not. You'd build yourself a nice, big, crude, dirty nuclear weapon. Then you'd stick it into a packing crate, slap on a few postage stamps, and ship the whole thing air freight to the United States, through a third country. The 747 lands in Los Angeles and the bomb goes off. All the evidence is vaporized, and we'd never know who did it."

  "A real nightmare scenario," Albert conceded. And then, with a twinkle. "But we still have to worry about the missiles. At least we can fix that part of it."

  "You're probably right, Albert," Welsh said wearily. "Because while the Pentagon spends billions on missile defenses, the Defense Intelligence Agency cut the number of analysts working on counterterrorism for budgetary reasons." He stood up to signal an end to the meeting. "But don't think this hasn't been fun, Albert. Who knows, the Senator might even change his mind."

  Albert gave off a dispirited chuckle as they shook hands. "Rich, don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining."

  "You know me, Albert," Welsh replied with complete sincerity. "I would never tell you it was rain."

  Welsh didn't have a lot in common with his fellow Senate military aides. They were generally senior staffers older than his thirty-eight years. They held the obligatory Ph.Ds. in International Relations or Political Science, while Welsh only packed a humble bachelor's. They were usually adjunct professors at the local universities, self-anointed experts in defense issues, and in their learned pronouncements on everything from weapons technology to future force structures, almost always wrong.

  Welsh had gotten his national security education the hard way, on the ground as a Marine Corps infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  He resigned his commission a short time later. Unusually, he didn't blame the politicians for those fiascos. Their advisors—the professors with their theories, as Welsh contemptuously called them—were always going to come up with idiotic schemes. Positive they knew it all, they never knew any better. It was when the generals and admirals, who ought to know better, acted either like neutered little lapdogs, or worse, politicians themselves, that the troops always ended up dying.

  He briefly worked as a Congressional aide, then went to the Pentagon as a civilian employee in the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict.

  Welsh liked to say that once you've been shot at as the result of screwed-up national policy, it's hard to be detached about it again. At the Pentagon his frequently expressed opinion, that outstanding special operations troops were hamstrung by lousy intelligence support and a conventional military establishment that nearly always misused them, hadn't gone over well with the senior military men and civilian political appointees in his office. A universal concept in every bureaucracy is that it is better to be wrong along with the herd than right all by yourself. A skill Welsh had never been able to get the hang of.

  Senator Anderson had rescued him from the terrifying possibility of graduate business school with an offer to join his staff. Though interested, Welsh pointed out that he didn't have the usual credentials. The senator replied that he'd had a bellyful of the professors too. He wanted a smart grunt with common sense and experience, who would tell him the truth and not let the Pentagon get away with any nonsense.

  The military affairs post did have its interesting aspects. Welsh considered himself an advocate for everyone who packed a rifle or flew a plane, and worked hard to stay on top of things. He had a ready-made network of moles in the military, and knew all the Pentagon tricks.

  After walking Albert out to the hall, he headed back to his desk. There were six offices in the suite. The Senator and his chief of staff each had their own. Everyone else—the press secretary, the legislative aides, the Senator's personal secretary, the other secretaries and receptionists, the office assistants and summer interns—all roomed together according to the office hierarchy. Welsh worked with only two others, a major step up. In the Pentagon he'd shared an office with over twenty people.

  Phones were ringing, visitors were being evaluated as to their relative importance, and TVs everywhere were broadcasting C-SPAN. Not for the first time, Welsh was spooked by how much it reminded him of both the Marine Corps and the Pentagon. Always too much work that had to be done right now; smart, conscientious people having to spend all their time and attention on just getting it done, with not a spare moment to consider whether what they were doing was necessarily the best, or even the right, course of action.

  He'd almost made it back through his door when he ran into his fellow aide Jeannie Lamonica.

  "I just had a great meeting with a constituent," she announced brightly. "What was yours about?"

  "Missile defense," Welsh replied. Jeannie had a funny look on her face, so he asked cautiously. "What about you?"

  "Pig penises," she said.

  Welsh banged the heel of his hand against the side of his head, as if there was a little water in his ear that needed to come out. "Excuse me, Jeannie, I could have sworn you just said pig penises."

  "I did."

  "You're not usually so vulgar," Welsh observed. Jeannie was the type of person who wouldn't use the word shit even if she were standing in a vat of it and trying to describe the experience.

  "Constituent service will do it to you every time, Rich."

  Welsh was trying to keep from laughing. "Okay, so what position does our constituent want us to take on pig penises?"

  "He doesn't want them green."

  "I'd tend to agree," said Welsh. "Now, I'm no authority, but wouldn't it have been better to consult a veterinarian before bringing the problem to his Senator?"

  Jeannie finally started giggling. "Maybe I ought to break it down for you."

  "You have piqued my interest," Welsh admitted.

  "This man's company buys pig penises from packing houses," Jeannie explained.

  "I suppose it's a job like any other," said Welsh. "But still, why would anyone other than the original owner want the article in question?"

  "They sell them as pet treats."

  "I'm trying not to vomit. Go on."

  "They had approval for this from the Department of Agriculture. Then the USDA started dyeing them green."

  "I presume you're talking about the penises."

  "That's right. And in the words of our constituent: 'The discoloration rendered them unusable.'"

  Now Welsh couldn't keep himself from laughing. "And you kept a straight face through the whole meeting?"

  "Of course, he's a contributor. But it was very interesting. He's a man in love with his work."

  Welsh could just picture Jeannie sitting there in her conservative suit like a good Junior Leaguer, hands folded in her lap, not a hair out of place, as the guy went on and on about pig dicks. But there was something he was curious about. "Why are they dyeing them green?"

  "No one seems to know. That's why he wanted our help."

  "You know, Jeannie, ordinarily I'd
think you were pulling my leg, but no one could make up something like that."

  "Wait," she said. "You forgot to ask me the name of the company."

  "Okay, I can tell you've been waiting for this."

  "Su-ey, Incorporated."

  Welsh laughed so hard he almost swallowed his tongue. He had to lean a hand against the wall to support himself.

  Jeannie smiled sweetly and moved on to tell someone else.

  Then one of the secretaries called out, "Rich, the Senator wants to see you."

  The Senator's office was as large as all the others combined, but more cluttered. Hunting prints hung from the walls, along with the usual grip-and-grin photos taken with everyone who mattered. Portraits of the Senator's family were prominently displayed on the mantel, and political mementos were packed into every other open space. Welsh walked in and took a seat, still chuckling.

  The Senator was sixty-three years old, and a first-class weave was responsible for that distinguished thatch of silver hair. "All right," he said at the sight of Welsh. "What's all this about?"

  "Jeannie will kill me if I don't let her tell you," said Welsh. "But don't be surprised if a letter dealing with pork penises comes across your desk for signature one of these days."

  "What the hell?" the Senator exclaimed. Then something clicked in that formidable memory of his. "Oh, that guy! Now I remember. I met him at a fund-raiser and it was all he talked about. He wouldn't shut up. I almost had to have a state trooper pepper spray him just so I could get out of there."

  Welsh started laughing all over again.

  "Did you have any trouble getting rid of Albert?" the Senator asked, getting back to business.

  "I hardly even mussed his tail feathers," Welsh said weakly, wiping his eyes and finally regaining his composure. "But we haven't heard the last of it."

  "All the contractors and pressure groups come pounding on your door," the Senator pontificated. "And everyone who's against them just sits home and expects you to do the right thing."

  "If they can swing it," said Welsh, "their next move will probably be to give some company in Lexington a twenty-million-dollar contract for widgets, and you'll have to vote for the program."

  "I probably will too," the Senator admitted cheerfully. "I don't think a principled stand on the issue would be appreciated by any of my constituents whose jobs are riding on the contract. But that's what I like about you, Rich. Unlike a lot of the young people around here, you don't turn into an opera singer whenever I have to practice some politics."

  Senator Anderson frequently enjoyed acting like the old film version of the cracker-barrel country lawyer in the rumpled suit, though Welsh knew he'd been on the Law Review at Harvard. He was as much a fatuous windbag as the rest of his colleagues, but would shut the hell up and listen every now and then. As Welsh explained to his friends, you weren't talking about a normal human being: it was a politician for crissakes.

  The Senator was halfway through his first term after winning a special election to fill the vacant seat of his predecessor. A vocal champion of traditional family values, the predecessor had suffered a massive heart attack while being punished for his sins by a professional dominatrix known as Mistress Helga. Mistress Helga displayed both Teutonic efficiency and professional discretion by phoning the late Senator's chief of staff instead of 911. The two of them managed to clothe and transport the mortal remains from Mistress Helga's dungeon to a less compromising location before rigor mortis set in.

  Even so, the story got around. There wasn't a dry eye during the funeral, as several coincidentally accurate remarks made during the eulogy caused those in the know to weep tears of laughter.

  "Are you familiar with what happened to those Marines down in Guatemala?" the Senator asked, changing the subject with his usual blinding speed.

  "I've read about it."

  "What's your take on these killings?"

  Welsh's face darkened. "It's happened before. I'm sorry for the poor bastards, but from what I know about Marines, I'm sure they went to that restaurant all the time. So whenever someone needed to kill a few Americans to make a point, there they were. I'm also sure, being typical Americans, they never for a minute imagined anything like that could ever happen to them."

  "You may be right," the Senator said. "What some might call just a touch insensitive, but probably right. In any case, I want you to find out exactly what happened."

  Now Welsh was puzzled. "Isn't the FBI handling that?"

  The Senator handed him a thick binder. "They just came back from Guatemala, and this is the preliminary report. It also includes the report of the Guatemalan National Police investigation."

  "Then I don't understand, sir. Why do you want me to cover the same ground?"

  "One of the Marines who was killed, Corporal Thomas Richardson, was the son of the party chairman of the largest county in the state. And a good friend of mine."

  "I'm sorry, sir."

  The Senator waved it off. "Bill Richardson called me yesterday. He's not at all satisfied with what the Marine Corps has told him, and he asked me to look into it. So now I'm asking you. As I recall, you speak some Spanish, and of course I can count on you to do your usual thorough job."

  Welsh hated stroking of any kind. Just cut the shit and tell him what needed to be done. "You don't have to scratch behind my ears, sir. You pay me good money."

  The Senator thought that was funny and chuckled heartily. "Go over the report with a fine-tooth comb, talk to anyone you need to. Drop everything, give this your full attention. I also want you to go down to Guatemala."

  "Do you really think that's necessary, sir?" Welsh asked, a touch of desperation in his voice.

  "Yes, Rich, I do."

  Welsh got it. It was necessary to the party chairman of the largest county in the state. He could picture the Senator telling the kid's father that he had a top aide on it exclusively, was even sending him down to Central America. Going through those motions was far more important than actually finding out what had happened. Well, it was the way things worked, and he was going to Guatemala. "I'll get right on it, Senator, but there's something I'd rather ask you than anyone else."

  "What's that, Rich?"

  "How did the son of such a successful man come to be a corporal in the Marine Corps? You'd think he'd go in as an officer." Actually, Welsh thought they sounded like that class of people who would rather see their son become a Moonie than a U.S. Marine.

  "Thomas's father planned on him taking over the family law practice. The boy loved computers and things like that. He wanted to study engineering. Bill Richardson refused to pay for it, and couldn't grasp the fact that his son was as hardheaded as himself. So Thomas went to college on his own, but it didn't work out. He left after two years and joined the Marines."

  "I see."

  "Rich, if you can do this without having to bother the boy's parents, I'd appreciate it."

  Welsh took that as an order. "Not a problem, sir."

  "I'm flying home for the funeral this weekend, and I'd like to be able to tell the boy's father you've started."

  "I just started, sir."

  "Thank you, Rich."

  Chapter Three

  After spending the rest of the day researching both the killings and Guatemala, and being increasingly disturbed by what he found, Welsh took the Metro back to his apartment. It was in a building in Arlington, Virginia, on a hill within walking distance of Key Bridge. Just one bedroom, and it continually mystified him that no matter how many things he bought, the place always looked unfurnished.

  Since he was expecting a guest, dinner was a little fancier than usual. A personally modified variation of a dish he'd had in Benidorm, Spain. Chicken cooked with whole vegetables and a wine-based sauce in a clay dish. It was already prepared and waiting in the refrigerator; he only had to chuck it into the oven and set the table. Of course he was in the shower when the doorbell rang.

  Carol Bondurant was a petite, mostly serious brunette in he
r early thirties. She and Welsh had worked together in the same Pentagon office, and engaged in a continuous friendly flirtation that always hovered around the edges of mutual sexual harassment. They'd become lovers just before he left the Pentagon. She was currently working as a staffer for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

  Welsh cracked open a bottle of wine while the chicken cooked.

  "I got to shake hands with the Dalai Lama today," Carol announced.

  That put a grin on Welsh's face. No one was more susceptible to celebrity-itis than political operators. And Carol was still an idealist after working so long in Washington. Even though he enjoyed making a little sport of it on occasion, Welsh admired her for it. There was so little passion around, other than for shopping. "Yeah," he said. "That whole mob was clogging the halls all day. Any actors left in Hollywood to make movies, or were they all getting face time on Capitol Hill today?"

  "Now don't be like that. He's a true holy man, a great spiritual leader, and spokesman for non-violence."

  "He may be, but just don't put your hand in your coat around those nice Tibetan boys who surround him all the time. They were all packing heat, or my name isn't Welsh."

  "Your cynical side is showing again."