An Unlawful Order (The Chase Anderson Series) (18 page)

He shook his head. “That one I haven’t solved yet.”

“Speaking of solving mysteries—” She heard the falter within her voice and reached for the second glass of ice water.

He continued. “I think the mystery goes much deeper than a relationship between Melanie and your husband. How about that strange call I took yesterday? About how I should be investigating what your office isn’t releasing. Have you been withholding information, especially about the 81?”

How many times were they going down this road? “You’ve asked me this before. What more can I say?”

He glanced around the bar as if he thought it were possible someone had entered the back entrance without them hearing. Other than Marcus, the bartender, who was engrossed in something on the small television affixed above the bar, she and Shapiro were alone.

“But I get a sense
you
know more than you’re telling me. Go on,” she urged, hoping that whatever he had might offer a different explanation about Stone and Melanie.

“You’re right. I wanted to wait until we were face to face. The caller said there was a cover up going on at the base about certain defects within the 81, that maintenance and performance records were being altered before they were sent to the Pentagon.”

“You said
he
called, but you don’t know who?”

Shapiro shook his head. “He still won’t identify himself. Can you think who it might be?”

Her mind was drawing a blank. “This is all so baffling.”

“Remember the 81 flight we all went on together last year?”

She nodded. “Sure. You guys were even joking about it going down. Major White was our pilot.” Her mind was leaping for connections but couldn’t find but one. “That was the first time I saw Melanie.”

Paul’s faced screwed into confusion. She could tell he was recalling the day and couldn’t follow her.

“I was sitting up near the cockpit,” she explained. “I saw Major White wedge a photograph of Melanie in the corner of the windshield. Only I didn’t know it was Melanie, of course. I assumed it was Kitty, his wife.”

Paul looked perplexed. She could see that he, too, was working hard at making connections, tying up ends the way a reader attempts to do with information halfway through a novel.

“I’m so confused,” he said. “I always thought of Mel and me being pretty close. I remember asking her several times over the past few months who she was seeing—she’d tell me she had plans and stuff—but she said it wasn’t anyone serious, so I finally stopped asking. I never knew about Major Anderson or White.”

Chase leaned forward. “Paul, surely there are entries in her appointment book about her meetings with Tony White?”

“There are. They stopped a month ago.”

They were quiet for a moment. And then he blurted, “A year ago— I knew about that 81 media flight before you even called me at the paper.”

She’d been chipping away at the bottle label with her fingernail and looked up at him. “How?”

“Well, I can’t say for certain. It was a long time ago. But he called about a week before your office did. He said your office would be calling to extend an invite to all of us to ride aboard an 81. A dog-and-pony show, he called it. He said people from Washington were even coming out for it. He said I needed to look deeper at why and he hinted at a cover up back then. Why do you think I’ve been so relentless for a year about the 81?”

“That would mean he knew about the media show about the time Hickman gave me the order.”

“So that puts him pretty far up the chain of command, wouldn’t you say? He must be pretty close to Hickman. Who comes to mind?”

She needed to remind herself that Shapiro was still a reporter. Who knew what could end up on the front page?

“Why didn’t you me tell about this so-called cover up back then?”

He shrugged. “Wish I had. Truth is, I got a good story that day, even if it was a media circus of sorts. My editor was happy. Everything seemed all right with the 81. White was pretty cool, you know.”

She nodded.

“And I got busy with other stuff. “That was about the time the
Current
sent me to the Middle East for ten days.”

“Right, I’d forgotten you went over there. But I still can’t think of anyone who would jeopardize a career by talking to the media. Besides, it seems the idea was bounced around at a staff meeting. Could be anyone.” She knew better. She knew Hickman, alone with her in his office one afternoon, had given her the order to host a media event. “How many times have you talked to this source of yours?”

“Just the two times … if it’s even the same guy.”

“Sorry, but I just don’t get the cover-up part,” she said. “What’s to gain? If there’s something wrong, the Corps will scramble National AeroStar to get it fixed. We’d threaten them with pulling future contracts until they—”

Shapiro raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

“You don’t get it?”

She thought a moment, and then shook her head.

He leaned forward. “Someone’s afraid the Pentagon will do just that … pull National AeroStar’s contracts.”

“Who?”

Paul shrugged. “That’s what you and I are supposed to figure out.”

“You and … I? I’m just a public affairs officer. If this were true, and I can’t believe it is, you’d need somebody from N.I.S.”

“I did ask the caller yesterday why he didn’t just blow the whistle to N.I.S or call Washington himself.”

“And?”

“He said whistle blowers commit suicide. Then he said I should talk to you.”

Her mind raced to Melanie and her suicidal leap from Diamond Head, but she said, “Paul, this is crazy talk. First of all, while I’d like to think I’m a somebody, and I guess I’m a little flattered someone thinks so, truth is, I’m nobody. I’m just a captain. Second, nothing’s more important to the Corps than completing the mission. That means having the right combat equipment for the job. Nothing is worth risking the lives of our Marines.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Sounds good in theory. How about that Army colonel a little over a year ago in Florida who was convicted on federal bribery charges for defense contracts.”

“No
Marine’s
that greedy.”

He was shaking his head. “All that code of conduct crap you guys talk about. You think you’re above the Seven Sins? You know, that’s the problem with America right now. The same type of sentiment—that
we’re
God’s Chosen. It’s one thing to have an ideal to shoot for. Quite another to delude yourself into believing you’ve actually achieved the ideal. The reason it’s an ideal? It’s impossible. What about the Marines convicted of rape last year in Iraq? How about the ones convicted a few years ago of raping that twelve-year-old in Okinawa? If Marines are so good, why does every Marine base have a brig? Why does every base have a rape counseling service? I’m sorry, Captain Anderson. I’ll grant you the Marines are the best we’ve got, but even you guys have your share of bad apples.”

She couldn’t deny he was right. There had been others in other services who had been mixed up in fraud charges related to defense contracts, but not to the extent that lives had been endangered. At least, not that she knew about. He leaned over the table to get her attention. “How does the saying go … ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.’”

She looked up from the bottle. “Upton Sinclair.”

“Very good.”

She shrugged. “Liberal arts major, University of Virginia.”

“Go Cavs,” he said, lifting his bottle in a toast.

“In other words, greed is a powerful motivator.”

“Exactly. Even for a Marine.”

She sighed and glanced around for the restroom sign. As if reading her mind, Shapiro said, “You’ll need a key.” Over his shoulder at Marcus who was leaning against the bar with his back to them, he yelled, “Marcus,” and when Marcus looked over, “key.”

Marcus reached under the bar and withdrew a key that was chained to a heavy block of wood. “Outside, around the back,” he said to Chase.

Her feet were swollen, she guessed from too much sitting, the way they’d been swollen after the nineteen-hour flight to Iraq. Then, her feet had swelled within her boots so that she thought she might have to cut her way out of them. Instead, after being shown to a cot inside the women’s quarters she had stretched out with her feet propped on her seabag. Thirty minutes later she was able to remove the boots, change her socks, and make her way to the headquarters tent where she’d had reported to new boss, Lieutenant Colonel Gracida. He was sitting behind a metal desk, talking to a Marine whose back was to her. When she’d reported, the Marine who had risen to face her had been none other than Major General John J. Armstrong.

In the parking lot, her toe stubbed against something so hard she struggled to maintain her balance. She’d never seen well at dusk and was even now straining to see her way around the dilapidated building. The monkey pod trees overshadowed the parking lot and choked out the last rays of the sunset. She treaded carefully over the broken bits of asphalt, twice nearly twisting her ankle. Fitting. The asphalt, chipped away by so many monsoons, then neglected, like a marriage, like her marriage, apparently. How during each year one piece after another had been chipped away until there was hardly anything left of the foundation, hardly anything recognizable, hardly anything solid enough for rebuilding, though it had only been in the last month or so that she’d been willing to admit this to herself.

She took her eyes off the parking lot long enough to search the back wall for the restroom door and twisted her ankle. “Damn it,” she yelled, and counted to ten before applying her weight on the throbbing side of her body. It was humid, even for late October, or maybe it was all the heat of this injury, all the heat from every injury she had ever suffered, suddenly settling into her body. Regardless, she was sweating. She wiped her forehead, put her injured ankle to the ground, and took her next step.

She dropped the key on the bar and found Shapiro and the bartender had disappeared. She hobbled to the table to locate the purse she’d hung on the arm of her chair and the keys she’d left on the table. They were gone. So were the bottles and the glasses of ice water.

“Paul?” she called out, and waited for an answer. Nothing. She hadn’t been paying attention to anything on the walk back to the bar other than where she placed her feet, and so she went back to the front door to look for his Camry. There it was, parked as it had been all along. She walked back to the bar. The television was still on, and something about seeing it this way, gave her comfort that the moment was real. She used the heavy block of wood on the restroom key chain as a knocker and rapped on the bar several times. “Marcus?” Still no answer. She took a deep breath. Of course they had to be somewhere in this tiny building. A back room, maybe. Her mind raced with possibilities. How well did she know Paul Shapiro? Were he and Marcus in a back room, snorting coke? She honestly didn’t care what they were doing as long as she recovered her purse and keys.

She walked around the bar and discovered a side door that couldn’t be seen from the front entrance. The top half of the door was glass. A light was on. She pushed the door open and heard voices. “There she is,” Shapiro said, scooping out macaroni salad from a large container onto a plate. Her purse and the keys were on the counter beside him. She exhaled.

An enormous stainless steel refrigerator door shielded the upper half of the bartender’s body. He kicked the door shut with a foot. In one hand, he held a head of lettuce, in the other, two tomatoes. “Hungry?” he asked, smiling.

“Starving, as a matter of fact.”

“I only keep enough roast pork around here for a few sandwiches,” he explained. “Trying to get around the health codes. Our customers know where everything is.” He grabbed a knife from a drawer and sliced a tomato.

Shapiro nodded toward a giant bag of potato chips. “Open that bag, will you?” She opened the bag and inhaled the fragrance of oil, salt, and potatoes. She poured out chips onto three plates. “I was wondering what happened to you two.”

“Thought we’d run off with your purse, did you?” Shapiro was mocking her in front of Marcus, and her immediate reaction was to fire back when she caught herself, realizing he was only trying to throw Marcus off track, to convince him she was just another of his many girlfriends.

“No—” she stammered.

Marcus grinned at his buddy, which was obviously the reaction Shapiro must have wanted if he were to continue the ruse.

Chase and Shapiro carried their plates back to the table in the bar. Shapiro had invited Marcus to join them, but Marcus had plans to watch the Oklahoma–Texas football game on the television above the bar.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Chase was grateful for the pork sandwich, the macaroni salad, and chips, yet she was amazed she could eat at all, given what she’d just learned about Stone and Melanie.

She was suddenly aware of Shapiro’s stare. “What?”

“I can almost hear you talking to yourself.”

She covered her mouth to laugh. “I sure hope not.”

He laughed too and wiped his hands with a napkin, then he tossed it onto the table. “What are we going to do, Captain Anderson?”

Chase shook her head. “I wish I knew, Paul Shapiro.”

He discarded his empty plate on another table and folded his arms across his chest. “Okay, what do we know for certain?”

Chase raised her eyebrows and waited.

He continued. “Well, we know
someone
at the base believes there’s a cover up going on to keep the 81 flying. Melanie certainly thought so too, from what White had told her.”

“Do we know for certain that your source is
at
the base? Isn’t it just as likely he knows a lot of people there … someone who, as in the case of the 81 media flight last year, just talked about it?”

He rested both arms on the table and leaned forward. “Good point. Yesterday’s caller talked about altered maintenance records, though. Melanie told me White was furious about his hard landing, something even your office was never informed about.” He looked as if he were pausing to judge her reaction, for something she might now be willing to share. “Anyway,” he eventually added, “I say that puts our caller on the base, right?”