Imposter

by Davis Bunn

  Matt seated himself between Pecard and D’Amico. Met his father’s gaze. Held to his silence. Just like a hundred thousand times before.

  “That’s my boy. Never fails to disappoint.”

  Sol spoke then. Quietly. One word. “Paul.”

  “No, Sol. Not this time. We are one week from the election. There is no reason why my son couldn’t back off for that long.” His glare smoldered. “I just don’t get you. What is it, jealousy? You don’t like your old man moving up in the world? Rocks your tiny little boat to think somebody’s got more ambition than you have? More drive?”

  D’Amico said, “Sir, my name is Detective Lucas D’Amico.”

  “I’ll get to you in a minute.” Paul Kelly aimed a finger at his son. “Now you call? Now you insist on pulling us from a ton of work that can’t wait? There has to be some ulterior motive. Something that’s eluded me my entire life as your father.”

  Matt did not speak. The distance opened between them, the same protective detachment he had known all his life. He did not feel rage. At least, nothing anywhere near the surface.

  Paul Kelly slammed his fist on the papers. “For once in your life, you will answer me!”

  D’Amico came back with his steady calm. “It’s good to have you both together. Saves us all some time.”

  “I have called the mayor’s office, Detective. I have spoken with his deputy. He assures me that you are here without approval. I intend to bring harassment charges against you.”

  D’Amico crossed his legs. “Mr. Greene, could you tell me where you were on Sunday afternoon?”

  “Don’t answer that, Sol.”

  Sol replied, “Right here. Working.”

  “Can anyone confirm that?”

  “I can,” Paul Kelly snapped.

  “You were at the game, Mr. Kelly.”

  “I called him. Twice.”

  “On his cell phone or his office line?” D’Amico held up his hand. “Please understand, Mr. Kelly. This is an official police investigation. Your phone records can be subpoenaed. If you are found to have lied, you can be arrested for obstruction.”

  Matt’s father developed a tic beneath his left eye. He did not speak.

  “Mr. Greene, was anyone else—”

  “No. I was alone. But my own phone log will show a number of outgoing calls.”

  “This is insane.”

  “Paul.” Sol was in placating mode. But tired of it. “Let’s just get through this and move on, all right?”

  Matt said softly, “Barry Simms.”

  The two men on the other side of the desk froze.

  “Chopper pilot.” This from D’Amico. “From your expressions, gentlemen, I take it you knew him?”

  Paul Kelly cleared his throat. Tried to recapture his annoyance. “What about it?”

  “He was murdered,” D’Amico replied.

  The two men actually flinched. Sol asked, “When?”

  “Six months ago. He was attacked in the exact same manner as your wife, sir.”

  This time it was Pecard who leaned forward to look around Matt. Allen Pecard stared hard at D’Amico. As surprised as the two men on the other side of the desk.

  D’Amico pretended not to notice. “A decommissioned claymore mine was wired to his front door. The rest of his home was left utterly intact.”

  Paul Kelly rubbed his eye, trying to stop the twitch.

  Sol Greene asked quietly, “What do you want?”

  “Two things. The names of the other men in your platoon who came home. And any reason why somebody might be after you.”

  “Are you nuts?” Kelly rubbed harder at his eye. “That was thirty years ago.”

  “I realize that, Mr. Kelly.”

  “I haven’t seen any of them again. We weren’t best buddies. We were soldiers. I was their commanding officer. Sol was my number two.”

  “A couple of them wrote me,” Sol offered.

  Kelly’s hand dropped to the desk. “You never told me that.”

  “What’s to tell?” Sol kneaded a spot just beneath his rib cage. “I never answered.”

  “Who wrote you, Mr. Greene?”

  “Barry Simms wrote me a while back, maybe a year. And one of the enlisted men, Lonnie Eaton.”

  “Lonnie was a good man,” Paul Kelly said quietly.

  “He was getting married,” Sol said. “Again. Wanted us to come.”

  D’Amico gave them some space, then asked, “Anybody else make contact with either of you?”

  When Sol shrugged his response, Paul Kelly offered softly, “I got a letter once. Sort of.”

  Sol showed genuine alarm. “What?”

  D’Amico asked, “Who wrote you, Mr. Kelly?”

  “Nobody by name. It wasn’t signed.”

  “When was this, sir?”

  “A while back, I’m not sure. A year, maybe longer. I got a letter from the asylum.”

  Pecard’s chair creaked as he leaned forward.

  Sol had gone pale at the news. “Paul, you’ve got to tell me these things.”

  “What’s to tell? A nutcase wrote and didn’t even sign his name.”

  “This is part of my job.”

  “Your job is to get us through next Tuesday.”

  D’Amico asked, “So you received a letter from an inmate at Fort Howard?”

  “No. The other one up north. I forget the name.”

  Pecard said, his voice dangerously soft, “Perryville?”

  Sol looked over. “Remind me again who you are.”

  D’Amico pressed, “You received a letter from an inmate at the Perryville, Virginia, mental hospital. What did it say?”

  “Not really a letter. Didn’t say anything I could understand. Drawings of bombs and fire. Words scrawled in tight little circles. I didn’t even try to read it. I threw it away.”

  Sol muttered, “Good.”

  The two men were gone from the room. They did not look at each other. Nor at the people across the desk. Their gazes were dark and far-reaching.

  D’Amico said, “Who else came back from that last mission?”

  “Eight of us,” Paul Kelly said. “We took four chopper loads out. I brought eight men home. For that they gave me a medal.”

  “Seven now,” Sol said.

  “That’s right. Seven.” Paul Kelly shook his head. “Poor old Barry.”

  D’Amico asked, “The others?”

  Sol gave a toneless roll call. “Ace Keeler, Tim Vance, Peter Neally, Chad Campbell, Brett Shuford.”

  “Old Brett.” Paul Kelly shook his head. “Where was he from, Missouri?”

  “Arkansas,” Sol corrected softly. “The original Ozark whale.”

  D’Amico asked, “What happened out there?”

  Paul Kelly spoke to thirty years ago. “Only reason we’re here at all was Barry flew back for us. He’s the one who deserved to have the president pin that medal on his chest. Nobody else would land.”

  “Too hot,” Sol said. “They had us in enfilade. Blasting us from the hill we’d been sent to take. And the forests to either side. Sat where we couldn’t get to them and tore us apart.”

  “Told us it was lightly defended. Military intelligence.” Paul Kelly glanced briefly at his son. “What a waste. What a total waste.”

  Pecard took a breath. Said in a voice little more than a whisper, “You didn’t mention Porter Reeves.”

  D’Amico’s protest was halted by the expression of the two men across from him. They stared at Pecard in blank astonishment. Sol finally said, “Porter’s dead.”

  “He might be,” Pecard said. “But I have very good reason to believe he did not perish during that battle.”

  Sol had gone gray. “I saw him go down. He got taken out by a land mine.”

  “A man answering to Porter Reeves’s description was a POW,” Pecard said. “Guest of Hanoi Hilton.”

  Sol looked ashen. “You think or you know?”

  Pecard asked the two men, “Can you describe this Reeves for me?”
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br />   “You heard Sol. Porter’s dead.” Paul Kelly bolted to his feet. “This has gone far enough. You come in here bringing nothing but ghosts and news we don’t want to hear. You’ve got what you came for. Now get out.”

  They did not speak again until they were back on the building’s front steps. “Hold up there,” D’Amico said. “What was all that about?”

  “A man from Kelly’s platoon by the name of Porter Reeves was listed among the KIA that day. But after the pullout and the final prisoner exchange, one report had a Porter Reeves listed among the Hanoi Hilton survivors. Not the official report. Your official report was supplied by the Vietcong. But the returnees were asked about the other prisoners. Your military intelligence sought to piece together a report of their own. I have no valid record of anything more.”

  “What was your interest in this man?”

  Pecard hesitated, then shook his head. “It was all a very long time ago.”

  D’Amico closed the distance. “Whose agenda are you working on here?”

  “I’m on your side, Detective.”

  D’Amico squinted up at the sky, as though trying to pierce the gray veil looming over Eighteenth Street. He might have sighed the word feds. He asked Matt, “You okay?”

  “Yes.” After all, he had years of experience hiding his wounds.

  “I have to get back to Baltimore.”

  “I can get a taxi to Andrews.”

  Pecard offered, “I can take Agent Kelly.”

  “Walk with me, Matt.” D’Amico moved through the bustling foot traffic like the people weren’t there. “Can you ask your contacts to check for anything on the records of those guys who survived? Arrests, convictions, current known addresses.”

  “Sure. You want me to include this guy Porter Reeves?”

  “For what it’s worth.” D’Amico glanced back at where Pecard stood by his midnight-blue Grand Cherokee. Pecard gave no indication he was either aware or interested in their inspection. D’Amico said, “You think maybe you could ask about him as well?”

  The interior of Pecard’s Grand Cherokee was immaculate and smelled vaguely of cleanser. He drove smoothly through the coagulating traffic until rush hour turned the Beltway into a six-lane clot. Matt tried Connie’s phones—home, office, and cell. He left two messages saying he was sorry to break their date but he was called away and would phone when he could. Pecard waited until Matt shut his phone to ask, “When are you scheduled to depart?”

  “Two hours. Less.”

  “Then we shall need to try Plan B.” Pecard slid to the emergency lane, floored it, took the next exit, and headed overland. Traffic remained dense but was at least moving. They traveled into Virginia hill country, populated by million-dollar homes and hives of foreign cars. Matt’s thoughts weaved like the road.

  They crested a ridgeline. A bulldozer idled by a half-demolished farmhouse. Construction machinery was biting new furrows from the earth. A cheery billboard announced the new housing development was already sold out. In the distance a stand of walnut and maple blazed with the season’s flare. Matt’s gut crawled with nameless dread. For the future. For the past. For all he could no longer control or ignore.

  Matt took hold of the only fear he was willing to name. “Do you think my father had some hand in this?”

  “I personally can’t see either of them as culprits.” Pecard’s Ray-Bans gave Matt nothing. The silent observer—ever watchful, ever hidden. “Why did you elect to participate in that confrontation? Though participation hardly describes your reactions.”

  “I needed to be certain.” Matt turned his attention back to the winding road. “It’s good to be certain, isn’t it?”

  They did not speak again until arriving at the Andrews Air Force Base main gate. Pecard pulled in front of the Visitors Center and cut the motor. “Everybody has gifts. Some you’re born with. Some you learn from experiences you wish you never had. Yet they are yours just the same. But only if you claim them.”

  “You’re telling me to lie, is that it?”

  “Everyone lies, Agent Kelly. You certainly should be aware of this fact by now. In this world, truth is the odd man out. What you should be striving for is control. Not internal. This is where the world fails to understand the power of British subtlety. Internal control is merely the first step to dominating whatever situation you enter.”

  The same barely suppressed force Matt had sensed the first time they met emanated from this man. “Who are you?”

  “That, I fear, is an utterly incorrect question for you to be asking at this point in time.” Pecard started the car, gunned the motor, and slapped the gearshift into drive. “You have just failed a critical test, Agent Kelly. Kindly step away from my vehicle.”

  The Andrews waiting hall was a converted hangar in concrete and linoleum and hard plastic chairs. Almost everyone wore uniforms. Matt joined the long line snaking toward a military-style buffet. He selected an empty table next to a cluster of noncoms playing a noisy game of poker. Afterward he went back outside. The wind had freshened. The air smelled of jet fuel and coming rain. He tried Connie’s numbers again, got the same messages as before. He then called the Baltimore FBI office and asked for Bryan Bannister.

  When the station chief came on, Matt said, “I was wondering if you could give me some background information on Allen Pecard.”

  “The man is a living legend,” Bannister replied. “What else do you need to know?”

  “Pecard is becoming increasingly involved in our case.”

  “Which can only be a good thing for a recruit like yourself. What is that noise?”

  “A plane’s taking off.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Andrews Air Base.”

  “What?”

  “Hang on a second.” The jet roared by, then, “Who is Allen Pecard? Where does he come from? What are his qualifications? These should not be difficult questions.”

  Bannister was silent a moment. “Pecard is originally from London. He served in the SAS, their equivalent of Special Forces. Toward the end of our time in Nam he transferred over to Military Intelligence. Got himself wounded. Retired a major. He came out and went to work as a consultant. End of story.”

  “How did he come to work for us?”

  “Pecard is one of the best there is at armaments and explosives. We asked. He came.”

  Matt carefully chose his words. “It’s been suggested that he didn’t ever fully recover from his time in combat.”

  “Who told you that? Because I’m telling you they don’t come any finer than Allen Pecard.”

  “Who has he worked with?”

  “Everybody. Military police, ATF, us, DEA, the CIA, local cops. He’s the guy to call when you can’t figure out what’s gone off, or who did the deed.” Despite Matt’s calm, Bannister grew increasingly hot under the questions. “You listen up. I don’t care what tag Washington decides to hang around your neck. Chief investigator, senior case officer, king of Nepal. You’re still nothing but a green recruit. You want to get ahead in this game, you sidle up to Pecard and you take in everything he offers.”

  Bannister slammed down the phone.

  The brass was late. Matt was kept waiting in the concrete hall until after eight. The plane was a large Gulfstream—not old, not new. The exterior bore no markings save for the ID number on its tail. Nothing said it was military. When the boarding call finally sounded, Matt was the first on the plane and took the rearmost seat. Then the brass arrived—two two-star generals, one three-star, three bird colonels, one lowly major. Before the door shut, the military had their papers spread out and their heads together. The plane taxied and took off. No attendant wished them a nice trip. No pilot spoke over the intercom. The wheels thunked under Matt, and the plane soared through clouds and away from a swiftly setting sun. As soon as they leveled off, a pilot emerged from the cockpit and made his way back to offer Matt a sealed manila envelope. “I was told to give you this.”

  “Thanks.”

/>   “There’s a galley up front. We’re carrying a tray of sandwiches.” The pilot shrugged. “Sort of.”

  “Is the food that bad?”

  “Never met anybody who’s eaten on board and lived to complain, sir.”

  “Any chance of making a phone call?”

  “Phone’s in your armrest.” The pilot started away. “ETA’s oh-six-hundred, local time. Five-hour time difference from Andrews.”

  His seat was a cross between plush first-class and lumpy sofa. Matt wriggled about until the lumps fit his body, opened the folder, and read the contents carefully. Then he went to the galley, poured himself a Coke, went back, and reached for the phone.

  When Connie answered, he asked, “Did you get my messages?”

  “You think leaving me a half dozen voice mails is going to get you out of the doghouse? You stood me up!”

  “Is that a smile I’m hearing in your voice?”

  “Absolutely not. Where are you?”

  “Thirty thousand feet, somewhere over the North Atlantic, riding in an air force jet.”

  “Man, if I only had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that excuse.”

  “I’m really sorry about missing our date.”

  “Me too. When are you back?”

  “Soon as I can. I better hang up now.”

  “Call me when you’re settled.”

  “I don’t know when that will be, Connie.”

  “Call me anyway.”

  Matt replaced the handset and reopened the file. This time he made notes in the margin as he read. He set the papers aside and mulled over the data. But he was tired and the air was stuffy there at the back of the bus. He shut his eyes.

  His mind played through recent events like a jumbled collection of film clips. Connie, the Ravens game, working out with Vic, the meeting in the chief’s office, the confrontation with his father, Allen Pecard driving him to the airport. The nightmare.

  The next thing he knew, the pilot was shaking his shoulder. Hard. “You’re wanted on the phone.”

  For an instant Matt could not remember where he was. “What?”

  The pilot lifted his armrest and handed him the handset. “We’ve already started our descent. You need to finish this fast, sir.”