Costa seemed impressed. "I guess there's no harm, sir," he said grudgingly. "Especially since Rich is dead. And right now I don't really give a shit if they throw me out of the Corps or not."
Welsh quickly checked to make sure the recorder was running.
"There was this guy, sir," said Costa. "An American. Claimed he was a retired sergeant. Army," Costa added with a Marine's distaste. "Rich and I ran into him in a bar one night."
Welsh broke in. "You remember the name of the bar?"
"No, sir."
Welsh could have slapped himself for breaking Costa's rhythm. "Tell me about the guy."
"He picked us out as Americans right away. Tall, skinny guy, Southern accent, kind of old. Acted tough but friendly, you know; real country. He said his name was Brock, Tim Brock. I don't know if he was telling the truth or not. He came over to our table, introduced himself, and bought a round."
Costa seemed to be running out of steam. "He want to know anything?" Welsh asked.
"Just if we were in the Marine detachment." Costa rubbed his head and smiled ruefully. "We both had high and tight haircuts. It wasn't too hard to figure out."
"Did he ask you anything else?"
"Nothing he shouldn't ought to know," Costa said defensively. "He just bought us beers."
"But you thought there was something funny about him," Welsh said quietly.
"Rich really liked the guy," said Costa. "Which, to be honest, surprised the shit out of me. They hit it off, and Brock invited us out to dinner the next day."
"Did you go?"
"No, sir."
"But Richardson did?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did he see Brock again?"
"Yes, sir, a lot."
"Meals, beers?"
"Yes, sir." Costa looked slyly at Welsh. "You see, sir, Brock had spent a lot of time down there. He had money, knew a lot of people. A lot of bar girls," he added. "Real fine ones too."
"And he got Richardson laid," said Welsh, helping him along.
"Yes, sir." Costa seemed glad he didn't have to draw Welsh a picture. "Rich had never gotten a lot, you know, sir? He wanted it, but back here in the U.S., whenever the time came to close the deal he was too hostile, you know, usually drunk. He scared the ladies off."
"What about in Guatemala City?" Welsh asked. Now they were just a couple of jarheads shooting the shit.
Costa screwed up his face. "Nobody wanted AIDS, and the bar whores were nasty, I mean really foul. That didn't bother some of the guys, but I was always real careful."
Welsh smiled sympathetically. "And what about Richardson?"
"Before he met Brock, no. But like I told you, sir, the pussy Tim had on hand was really a cut above."
"Did you ever get invited along?"
"No, sir, not after I stayed away those first few times."
"And you never said anything because he was your buddy."
"Yes, sir."
"Didn't the detachment have a rule about going anywhere on your own?" It was the first thing Marines learned when going out on liberty. Especially in a foreign country.
"Oh, yes, sir, buddy system all the way."
"But it was kind of nice to have Richardson out of your hair."
"I guess so, sir," Costa said sheepishly.
"Richardson used to go off alone to see this guy Brock? A lot of times, you said?"
"Yes, sir. After a while I got a worried and told Sergeant Wentzel."
"Why?" Welsh asked.
"That guy Brock wasn't right, sir. It was making me nervous. I talked to Sergeant Wentzel and he was going to talk to Rich." Costa looked like he wanted to cry. "That's one of the reasons we all got together that day. We were going to relax a bit, and then Sergeant Perkins and me would go cruising and leave Sergeant Wentzel with Rich."
"You went to your sergeant hoping he'd handle the whole thing unofficially and keep Richardson out of trouble. Save him from a court-martial and getting sent home."
"That's it exactly, sir. But if I'd handled it earlier, maybe we wouldn't have been at the cafe that day."
"You were taking care of your buddy," Welsh said forcefully. "You don't know what would have happened."
Costa shrugged.
'Tell me if I'm wrong," said Welsh, "but Richardson sounds like one of those guys who's always trying too hard. You know what I mean."
"Yes, sir. In everything. He used to study books on electronics and computers on his free time. His locker was full of catalogs."
"You called him Rich," said Welsh. "But his first name was Brian. What's the story, didn't he like it?"
Costa smiled. "We gave him that nickname. He was always buying these investment magazines. And the way he acted. You could tell he didn't exactly grow up poor, if you know what I mean. He always had money."
"I never knew a corporal that wasn't always broke."
"He was funny. In most things he was really cheap. He used to drive me crazy; whenever he wanted to buy something he'd spend like this incredible amount of time shopping for the best deal. But sometimes he just threw his cash around. If I needed a couple of bucks until payday he always let me have it, sometimes more than I wanted."
"His dad was loaded, right?"
Costa seemed relieved that Welsh hadn't directly asked the question that was probably on both their minds. He stared at the table, and said, "Yes, sir, but he told me once that his old man cut him off when he quit college and joined the Corps."
"It's okay." Welsh was smiling, and his hangover had all but disappeared. "I think we're finished here."
"Am I in trouble, sir?" Costa asked.
"Not from me," Welsh told him honestly.
He called the office. And, to his great surprise, he got Senator Anderson right away.
"How did the interview go, Rich?" the Senator asked.
"Fine, sir," Welsh replied. He didn't want to give the Senator any details until he'd put the whole thing together and was sure he was right. "But I have a question I need you to ask Corporal Richardson's father."
"What question would that be, Rich?"
"Did Mr. Richardson sever all personal, and particularly financial, contact with his son after he left school and joined the Marines?"
"I don't need to call about that, Rich. I know for a fact that he did. And I can't begin to tell you how guilty he feels about it now."
The Senator had to make a quorum call, so Welsh hung up. Richardson's father wasn't the only one feeling guilty. If anyone wanted to call him a manipulative son of a bitch for the way he'd handled Costa, Welsh wouldn't have argued with them.
As he walked back to his car, Welsh was thinking that his few remaining illusions about an easy, relaxing, straightforward investigation had just gone right out the window.
Chapter Five
Welsh drove back to Washington, and as always it took a little longer than expected. You could reach the District to Columbia at 3:00 in the morning and still run into a traffic jam.
There were a load of telephone messages waiting for him in the office. Following his usual routine, Welsh shucked off his jacket, loosened his tie, opened his collar, put his feet up on the desk, and only then began sorting through them. Five were from the same person. The name didn't ring a bell.
The only information was the name and number.
Welsh strolled over to Marie, Senator Anderson's large, middle-aged, imperious, deceptively jolly private secretary. Marie had worked on Capitol Hill forever, knew everyone, and took shit from absolutely no one. But what made her so valuable to the Senator was that she never went around looking to give any either.
She protected Senator Anderson from both himself and others, maintaining good relations with everyone who was important to him. But if you made a habit of giving either of them any static, then God help you. One high-ranking legislator, whom Welsh considered an ego-maniacal prick of the first order, used any number of elaborate excuses to conduct his business with the Senator outside the office, such was his terror of running
into Marie.
There was a persistent rumor that her inviolable position came from being the Senator's first love. Few things were beyond the realm of possibility in Washington, but Welsh seriously doubted it.
He showed her the messages. "Marie, who is this guy?"
"I don't know, Rich. He wouldn't give me any information. He said it was personal. I really hate that," she said emphatically. "That you're-just-a-secretary attitude."
"I hear you," said Welsh. He turned to go back to his desk, but Marie was staring at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to say something else. For the life of him, Welsh couldn't imagine what that might be. He just stood there grinning nervously, totally embarrassed. "Ah, was there anything else, Marie?" he finally asked.
"No," she replied, as if she found the question surprising.
Welsh blinked a couple of times to reset his gyros, then slunk back to his desk. That happened a lot with Marie. He had no idea whether she was fucking with him or there really was some kind of psychic communication lag between them. No matter. His curiosity aroused, he picked up the phone and dialed the number on the messages.
After three rings the line clicked open. A secretarial-sounding female voice said, "482-1100."
Welsh was startled. Shit, he thought. There were very few organizations who answered their phone that way, but he knew of one. He gave the extension. "Thomas Kohl, please. Richard Welsh calling."
Evidently it was good enough. "One moment, please," the voice requested.
The phone clicked again. "Hello, Mr. Welsh, this is Thomas Kohl. Thank you for getting back to me."
A voice with a little New York edge to it, thought Welsh. Rough, but smooth. Or maybe slick was a better word. "What can I do for you, Mr. Kohl?"
"I'd very much like to speak with you on an important matter, in person. Will you be my guest at lunch? Either tomorrow, or whenever it's convenient for you?"
"What would we be talking about?"
"If you don't mind, I'd prefer to discuss that in person."
"Then perhaps you can give me some clue as to who you are. My mother doesn't like me to go out with strange men."
There was a rich chuckle on the other end of the line. "Forgive me. I'm a friend of Ed Howe."
Howe was the Central Intelligence Agency's head Congressional liaison. The CIA were also the people who greeted you with their telephone number when you called. "Then I assume you work for the same organization. I mean, other than the federal government as a whole."
"That's correct."
"Then am I also correct in assuming that Ed will recognize the name you gave me, if I call him?"
"He will. And that is my name, Mr. Welsh."
A little testy, thought Welsh. Nice touch of arrogance. Must have some rank. "Thanks for the invitation, Mr. Kohl. I have a call on another line right now; would it be all right if I called you back in about ten minutes?"
There was a pause. "That would be fine," Kohl said politely. He rang off.
Welsh didn't have a call on another line, as Kohl had known very well. He called Ed Howe. "Ed, I need to establish someone's bona fides."
"What are you up to now, Richard?" Howe asked indulgently. He was one of the last of the old-fashioned CIA patricians, having survived all the Company's purges only to be put out to pasture in Congressional liaison.
"Now, Ed, you guys never tell anyone anything, so why should I?"
Howe laughed. "All right, Richard, what do you need to know?"
"Is Thomas Kohl a colleague of yours?"
"What would make you think so?"
Welsh groaned. Howe was such a Secret Squirrel, he probably kept his golf handicap on a need-to-know basis. "I ran into him, and it's important to know if he's who he says he is. Also, he dropped your name."
"It's high time you broadened your horizons, Richard."
"Then he is one of the boys?"
"He's an old friend."
Welsh knew that was as much as he was going to get. "Thanks a lot, Ed."
"Any time, Richard." Howe hung up.
By this time Welsh was ready to start checking his #2 pencils for hidden microphones. He called Kohl back and set a lunch date for the following day. Then he made another call.
After work he drove to the Fredericksburg, Virginia, home of a friend from his days at the Pentagon. At that time Lieutenant Colonel Michael Longenecker, U.S. Army, had been assigned to a unit called Intelligence Support Activity, or ISA.
During the Iranian hostage crisis of the early 1980's, the Army created a unit it called the Forward Operating Group (FOG) out of frustration with the CIA's complete inability to put agents on the ground to support Delta Force's planned hostage rescue. Although the attempted rescue was a fiasco, the Army decided to retain the unit. They wanted to develop their own intelligence-gathering capability and agents, convinced that the CIA had neither the desire nor the capability to supply them with the detailed intelligence needed to mount special operations. As FOG expanded, it was given the name ISA.
ISA originally operated without the knowledge of the CIA, White House, or House and Senate Intelligence Committees—which is to say, in clear violation of the law. In 1983, several years after its establishment, President Reagan finally gave them official sanction.
That same year several scandals blew up around ISA. The unit was accused not only of exceeding its charter in several operations, but violating federal law by conducting intelligence gathering inside the United States. Three officers were also under investigation for fraud and diverting unit funds to personal use.
From ISA's point of view, they were so effective that they made the rest of the intelligence community, and particularly the CIA, look bad, thereby inviting jealous retaliation.
The CIA's opinion was that ISA were a mob of green-suited amateurs who operated with no oversight, controls, or sanction. And in the end, they got what they deserved, since the few who weren't out-and-out embezzlers at least padded every expense voucher they ever filled out.
In the end the CIA won. When the dust settled the three ISA officers underwent courts-martial, and the Activity was reined in and put under the thumb of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Like others in the special operations community they'd been called an ever-changing number of names like Centra Spike and Gray Fox. These days they specialized in electronic intelligence gathering. That is, intercepting battlefield radio, cell, and satellite phone signals.
For Welsh, the moral of the story was never to sneer at rumors of intelligence agencies no one had ever heard of.
Lieutenant Colonel Longenecker currently worked for the Army Intelligence and Security Command. He was marking time until he could finish out his twenty years and retire.
He was also an old Central America hand. ISA had been deeply involved in operations against various guerrilla armies in the region, and played a major role in helping to kill the cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.
They sat on lawn chairs in the colonel's back yard, under the protective shade of the trees. Longenecker cracked open two beers, and Welsh related the day's phone conversations.
The colonel was a blue-eyed blond Viking whose hair, no matter what he did with it, always stuck up in a Dennis-the-Menace cowlick. He was of medium height; one of those people who appear somewhat thin and frail until you see how much weight they can bench-press. He listened to Welsh solemnly and asked, "What are you working on now?"
Welsh told him about his assignment, but not what he'd found out so far.
"Kohl was the CIA Chief of Station in Guatemala," said Longenecker. "He's back working at Langley right now."
"Doing what?" Welsh asked.
His friend smiled and shook his head at such a stupid question.
Welsh held a Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance, which was above Top Secret, but Longenecker wouldn't give him anything he didn't need to know about. It was one of the many things Welsh liked about him. Of course, the reason he needed Longenecker and others like him was that the
Pentagon and CIA would only give him the absolute minimum, no matter the clearance. Which was the main reason security classifications existed, really—to keep from having to give out potentially embarrassing information. "Okay, Mike, then what do you think they want from me?"
Longenecker gave him a look of exasperation. "To know what you're doing, of course. What the fuck else?"
"But why?"
"Rich, I don't know. And that's no shit; I haven't heard anything. They must have some kind of interest in your investigation."
"Duh," Welsh said impatiently. "Okay, so you don't know. So what do you think?"
"It could be a lot of things. Guatemala's been the CIA's private preserve since the fifties. But nobody cares about keeping the Commies from taking over the world anymore. Now they care about human rights violations, torture, and mass murder. The Company's had so many scandals involving Guatemala, maybe they want to make sure you don't come up with another one."
"When I was doing research, I read about that guy Scanlan."
Longenecker shook his head. "Guy joins the Peace Corps, serves in Guatemala, falls in love with the place. Fine. But he gets married and flies back with his wife to set up some kind of model organic farming cooperative. A great hippy-dippy dream. But it's Guatemala, right? The superhighway for cocaine coming up from Columbia to Mexico. You've got Mexican cartels, Mexican guerrillas, ex-Guatemalan guerrillas turned gangsters, Guatemalan gang bangers who got deported from the U.S.. Run of the mill criminals. Antiquities thieves. You name it. Real good place to settle down, especially out in the bush. Very swift."
Welsh didn't offer any comment on that.
Longenecker continued. "So one day he's driving back from picking up supplies and gets stopped at an Army checkpoint. The soldiers search his truck, drink his beer, and hack him to pieces with their machetes."
"The troops went to jail, right?" Welsh asked.
William Christie 02 - Mercy Mission Page 4
