Secret Sanction (25 page)

“Why?” I asked.

“’Cause I read all your statements. They’re lying. They’re lyin’ their asses right off their faces. That captain . . . uh, Sanchez, right?”

“That’s right. Terry Sanchez.”

“Yeah. What I think is that man didn’t have the balls.”

“I’m sorry. The balls for what?”

“That warrant and those sergeants ran all over his weak ass. Read those statements. Those men were dissin’ him bad.”

“Maybe,” I said,“but what if the Army doesn’t really want me to find out what happened out there? What if the Army believes it would be much more convenient to just find them innocent and move on?”

“The Army doesn’t always know what’s best for itself.”

She was sitting there on top of her sleeping bag, hair messed up, wearing a wrinkled army green T-shirt, faded old gym shorts, and white socks. Frankly, she looked like a pretty shabby font of wisdom.

I said, “Thanks, Imelda.”

“No problem. Now quit snivlin’ and get your ass in gear.” “Yes, ma’am.”

I went into my office and shut the door. I could hear the sounds of Imelda pulling open drawers and riffling through files. After a few minutes, she walked in with her arms piled high with folders. She carried them to my desk and dropped them unceremoniously into a large heap.Without saying another word, she left.

I looked down at the stack. She had gathered all the transcripts of the statements we’d collected back in Italy. I rummaged through and found Chief Persico’s, then started reading. Then I worked my way through each of the other team members’ statements.

By six o’clock I was done. Imelda was right. There was a common theme that ran through all the statements. It was a lack of respect for Sanchez. In Persico’s case, it was nearly imperceptible, but it was there. He had heaped praise on his team leader, but he continually referred to the KLA commander as
Captain
Akhan. Sanchez was always just Sanchez.

Sergeant Perrite had been more blunt. There was that comment about Sanchez not knowing how to wipe his own ass without Persico being around to help him. But there was more than that. When Perrite and Machusco detected the Serbs on the hill, it was Persico they reported that news to. And maybe this was why Sanchez didn’t have a clue how many flares had gone off or what his rear security element was doing, or what they were seeing. The sergeants in the team were bringing everything to Persico as though he were the team leader, as though Sanchez was only along for the ride.

Now that I knew what to look for, in one way or another, that same thread wound its way through every statement. Delbert and Morrow had not probed very deep in their interrogatories, but the same flavor was there. Here were the Moore brothers, the twins, saying that Persico told them where to place themselves in the ambush. Persico gave them the order to fire and ignited the star cluster that told them when to cease fire. Graves, the medic, saying it was Persico who’d put him in his safe position half a mile behind the ambush, and Persico who instructed him where the linkup site was, in case things went awry and they all had to scatter. Butler, one of the two heavy weapons men, who carried the machine gun, saying it was Persico who checked his aiming stakes, who told him where to tie in his fire, who supervised the laying of the claymores. More of the same from Sergeant Caldwell.

Several times during the interrogatories, I’d asked Persico and Perrite how various decisions got made. Both their responses had been vague or uncomprehending. I should have suspected something right then and there. Persico had assured me that all the operational responsibility was on Sanchez’s shoulders, but as I read through the statements there was barely a hint that Sanchez was even present.

Delbert and Morrow came in at six-thirty. I decided not to mention a word about this to either of them. For one thing, both would simply see it as yet another wretched attempt on my part to look for guilt when all the evidence screamed innocence. For another, I didn’t want word of this making its way back up the mole’s chain. But, more important, the entire progress of the investigation now rested on what NSA’s satellite photos indicated. If the pictures showed a team cold-bloodedly murdering thirty-five Serbs, then we now had a fresh line of inquiry. If the shots showed Sanchez’s team running for their lives and desperately trying to fight their way out of a deadly noose, then the interesting observation I’d just collected was about as useful as a jockstrap in a girls’ locker room.

At eight a woman called on behalf of Mr. Jones. She had a sweet, singsongy voice, and she invited us to the NSA field station for a private showing in one hour. I closed the door to my office and spent my time in the most productive manner I could. I paced back and forth. I walked from wall to wall, then corner to corner, until I got bored with that. Then I just stared at the walls.

I didn’t want Sanchez and his men to be guilty, but I had passed the point where I could afford for them to be innocent. Right now, my whole career rested on my being right. Clapper’s threat of an inquiry into my conduct was looming like a nightmare. Murphy had timed his attack perfectly. If the tapes showed that Sanchez’s team was innocent, then I’d have to pack my bags and be back in Washington. I might be able to procrastinate for a day or two, arguing I had to close up some unfinished business, but right now any official inquiry would be stacked completely against me. Delbert and Morrow would say I seemed obsessed with finding Sanchez’s team guilty, despite a screaming lack of evidence. Then there were all these statements from Murphy’s boys. I would look like a crazed Captain Ahab, whipping and snarling at everyone in sight, all for the sake of some nonexistent whale. I wouldn’t be court-martialed, but my odds of practicing any more law in the Army were about as good as betting on a three-legged horse at Saratoga.

At a quarter till nine I went and collected Delbert and Morrow.We found our way to the Air Force’s C3I facility, and a guard directed us to a small metal building off to the left. There was no sign to identify it as an NSA building, I guess because they didn’t want anyone to know they were here.

Two uniformed guards stood at the entry, which, if you think about it, kind of defeated the whole purpose, because if you were into practicing a little espionage and you saw an unmarked, heavily guarded building right near the C3I facility, well, that might tend to make you a bit suspicious about what was inside there. All that brainpower, and these guys couldn’t figure out how much smarter it would be to position the guards
inside
the building.

At any rate, the guards obviously expected us, so we flashed our identity cards, and I showed the fellas that obnoxious set of orders the Secretary of the Army had provided me, then they ushered us right in.

There was a second doorway inside, constructed of heavy-gauge metal, and we had to push a buzzer. There was a camera in the ceiling corner, and someone inside probably peered through at us before there was a humming sound and I pushed the door open.

A woman, I guessed the same woman who called earlier, was waiting for us.

“Hi, I’m Miss Smith,” she said with a perfectly wooden smile. She had precisely aligned, gleaming white teeth that indicated either magnificent genetic breeding or a wonderfully talented family dentist.

It struck me that everybody who worked at NSA was either named Jones or Smith, or some other monosyllabic name.I mean, why couldn’t they all go by Gwyzdowski, or Petroblaski? Then at least you couldn’t really tell if they were tossing off aliases. Unless, of course, you ran into a whole flock of them all at once.

At any rate, Miss Smith could give the ever-impressive Miss Morrow a tight run for the money in ye olde looks department. The difference was that Miss Smith was wearing a very short skirt and a nice clingy blouse that made it more amply clear what you’d be biting into. The lovely Miss Morrow had all her wares camouflaged inside a set of baggy battle dress, although I must say that greens and browns and blacks went quite well with her complexion.

I said,“Very nice to meet you, Miss Smith. I assume you work with Mr. Jones?”

“That’s correct. I’m his administrative assistant.”

“Well,” I said, “welcome to Tuzla.”

“Oh, thanks,” she said with that same shiny smile. Apparently Miss Smith also had just arrived from Washington.

“So where do we go?” I asked.

“Here, follow me.”

She led us to the back of the small office and, voilà, there was a set of steep stairs that took us down into an underground compound.

Like a good tour guide, she talked as we walked. “We had this constructed underground because we had to shield the walls with lead lining. Modern microwave listening devices allow a sophisticated eavesdropper to read everything that passes through a computer. We, of course, have the most modern, shielded computers, but we still like to play it safe and get as much protection as we can.”

“That’s very smart of you,” I said, then mumbled, “like wearing two Trojans when you make love.”

“Yes, well, it’s expensive, but it’s worth it.”

“And what kind of strange things do you all do in this special facility?”

I was staring at the back of her blond head and couldn’t see her expression, but she didn’t answer for a very long moment. “Mostly target analysis for bombing,” she finally informed me, although she didn’t sound all that sure.

“Do you control any assets?”

“None that I know of.”

We had now reached the basement floor, and I sped up to walk beside her as she led us down a long, narrow passageway.

“That’s odd,” I remarked. “Someone ...maybe it was Mr. Jones, mentioned that the U-2s are controlled from this facility.”

“Oh, yes, of course that’s right. I’m sorry, I’m just an administrative assistant. I’m really not the person to ask about these things.”

“Au contraire.You’ve been very helpful,”I said, and she smiled at that, too. Miss Smith smiled a lot, I noticed. And she lied a lot, too.

We had reached another large metal door, and she deftly flicked a plastic card through a doorlock, then pushed open the door. Mr. Jones was seated at the end of a long table, coffee cup in hand. He had traded in his dark suit and tie for more casual garb. In fact, he was dressed much like Berkowitz had been, duck-shooting vest and all. To me, he looked pompous, but like I said, he was a handsome guy with a lot of muscles. He stood up and walked around the conference table, while I introduced Delbert and Morrow.

Jones did a quick, automatic handshake with Delbert, then a long, lingering, smiley one with Morrow. I might’ve been imagining things, but when he said “nice to meet ya” to her, it sounded like it came from the bottom of his heart, or maybe it was from somewhere closer to his groin. Whichever.

Then he looked over at me, and I was instantly reminded that we seemed to instinctively dislike each other.

“You mentioned you wanted to see the raw footage, Major. What we’ve got are thermals taken from seven hundred and fifty miles up. These are cutouts, of course, taken from a much larger panorama, then blown up about nine hundred times. Because they’re thermals, the shots are grainy. You can’t identify the figures.”

“You didn’t have any photographic satellites over Zone Three?”

“Turns out we didn’t. For reasons that are none of your business,we’ve been limiting Zone Three’s coverage.Thermal matches the requirements Tenth Group was requesting, so that’s it.”

“Then there are no actual photos in your archives?”

“Great deduction there, chief. Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be very satisfied with what we have.”

Jones invited us all to have seats, and I noticed that he positioned himself right beside Morrow. I therefore positioned myself right beside the lovely, still smiling Miss Smith. Poor Delbert was left to position himself right beside, well ...right beside poor Delbert.

The lights were dimmed by somebody in the rear projection booth, and then the film started.What we saw was all green, variously shaded, with a few tiny dots in brighter, almost translucent green. The particular group of dots we were looking at were gathered in a fairly small clot. One or two figures were moving around, but the rest were still. There were seven dots collected together, and two more some distance away.

Jones had a notepad in front of him, and he did the narrating. “This film was taken at one o’clock in the afternoon of the fourteenth. The grid coordinates correspond with the position Tenth Group gave us for Sanchez’s base camp. We assume that what you’re seeing here are afternoon activities in a base camp. Weapons cleaning, maybe eating, the usual base camp activities.”

He pointed a finger at the two green dots that were separate from the others. “See those two dots right there? We believe that might be Sanchez’s security element.”

We watched more of the same for two minutes before Jones said, “This tape runs for another fifty-two minutes. If you’d like, Major, we’ll run the whole thing, but all it contains is more of the same.”

“No, this is good enough,” I told him. “What have you got next?”

“Glad you asked. The next film was taken on the seventeenth. I don’t want to ruin the suspense, so I’ll ask the projectionist to go ahead.”

A silent moment passed as the projectionist changed tapes. I felt like drumming my fingers on the table or whistling, or leaping across the table and strangling Mr. Jones. I settled instead for sitting perfectly still. It wasn’t easy, but I’m a very disciplined guy.

Finally, a new flash of green tones appeared on the screen, and it took a minute to sort out what we were seeing. This one had a hell of a lot more of the small, bright green dots, all of which were moving, some slowly, some more quickly. I watched for two minutes and felt my heart land somewhere in the pit of my stomach.

Finally, the equitable Mr. Jones stood up and walked over to the screen. He began using his hands to point toward this and that as he said, “For those who are unfamiliar with our technology, these smaller green dots are personnel. The larger, brighter dots, like this one right here, are from stronger heat sources. In this case, they correspond to automobile engines.”