Vertical Run (24 page)

No watch. You gave it to your lady friend
.

He called out to the gas station attendant, “Excuse me, can you tell me the time?”

The attendant pointed mutely at a large-faced clock hanging above the cashier’s shack. 1:12.

Six hours’ time difference between New York and Switzerland. Nobody would be in the office yet. He’d have to wait at least an hour and a half before calling.

You’re really going to call him aren’t you? Bernie has—
had—
a word for that, pal
. Chutzpah.

Ransome thought he’d gotten to everyone Dave knew, lied to them, convinced them that Dave had gone dangerously insane. He had tapped every telephone, and put watchers on every doorstep. There was no place Dave could go, and no one to whom he could turn. Ransome wanted David Elliot to be alone, without a friend in the world.

Maybe, Dave thought, he was. Then again, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe there was one person whom Ransome had overlooked, one person whom Ransome didn’t view as a threat because he knew Dave would never call him, never in a million years.

Mamba Jack Kreuter.

Six general court-martials. Kreuter’s is the last.

For reasons of its own, the Army decides to try each man separately. Each faces a separate Board of officers, each is confronted with a different prosecutor, each is defended by a different Judge Advocate General attorney. Only the witnesses are the same.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice puts a premium on procedural efficiency. The same officers serve as both judge and jury. Delaying tactics and legal posturing are not allowed. Convictions are the expected outcome.

The first five court-martials take four days apiece, and are spaced two weeks apart. Their outcomes are as expected.

Dave spends his days and nights alone in the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters. The one time he visits the Officer’s Club, the bartender refuses to serve him. His fellow officers will not speak to him. When he goes out for his
morning run, everyone in uniform moves to the other side of the street. He is completely isolated, cut off from human contact, except when he is in the courtroom.

COLONEL NEWTON, PROSECUTOR
: Lieutenant, you are still under oath.

FIRST LIEUTENANT ELLIOT, WITNESS
: Yes, sir, I’m aware of that.

PROSECUTOR
: You have testified in this matter before?

WITNESS
: Yes, sir, five times.

PROSECUTOR
: Lieutenant, you have heard the Board read the charge sheet against Colonel Kreuter, have you not?

WITNESS
: Yes, sir.

PROSECUTOR
: On the date in question, on or about 1100 hours, you were in or near the village of Loc Ban, Republic of Vietnam.

WITNESS
: Yes, sir.

PROSECUTOR
: Who was in command of your unit?

WITNESS
: Colonel Kreuter, sir.

PROSECUTOR
: Describe the chain of command, Lieutenant.

WITNESS
: We had taken casualties, sir. Captain Feldman and First Lieutenant Fuller had been air-evac’d a day earlier along with three NCOs. The colonel and I were the only officers left. Colonel Kreuter ordered me to take command of team alpha and he led the baker team himself. First Sergeant Mullins was the ranking noncom, so he took the con for team charlie.

PROSECUTOR
: When you arrived at Loc Ban, what did you find?

WITNESS
: Very little, sir. It was barely a village, just a dozen huts in the middle of a rice paddy. Our helicopters had just dusted off the LZ and we …

LIEUTENANT GENERAL FISHER, PRESIDING OFFICER:
Twelve hooches, Lieutenant?

WITNESS
: Sorry, sir. Actually we counted fifteen.

PRESIDING OFFICER
: Be precise, Lieutenant. We’re dealing with capital charges.

PROSECUTOR
: Continue.

WITNESS
: Most of the villagers were out in the fields working.
They didn’t pay much attention when we landed. Like they’d seen it all before. So then Sergeant Mullins and his men rounded them up, brought them back to the huts. We knew an enemy patrol …

PRESIDING OFFICER
: Insurgents or North Vietnamese?

WITNESS
: At the time it was reported as Vietcong, sir. We knew that a VC patrol had been seen in the area the day before. So we questioned the villagers as to any enemy activity they might have seen.

PROSECUTOR
: What response were you given?

WITNESS
: A negative, sir. Everyone denied having seen any troops other than our own.

PROSECUTOR: HOW
did Colonel Kreuter react to that?

WITNESS
: He thanked them, and gave the village headman a carton of Winstons, sir.

PROSECUTOR
: What about First Sergeant Mullins?

WITNESS
: First Sergeant Mullins was angry, sir. He wanted to apply stronger interrogation techniques. When Colonel Kreuter ordered him not to, he recommended torching—I mean, burning the village.

COLONEL ADAMSON, BOARD OFFICER
: Lieutenant, you used the phrase “stronger interrogation techniques.” Can you be more explicit?

WITNESS
: Torture, sir.

PROSECUTOR
: Lieutenant, were these quote stronger interrogation techniques unquote common in your unit?

WITNESS
: Common, sir? No, sir, I wouldn’t say that.

PROSECUTOR
: But used?

WITNESS
: Yes, sir, on occasion.

PROSECUTOR
: By whom?

WITNESS
: First Sergeant Mullins, sir.

PROSECUTOR
: Under Colonel Kreuter’s orders?

WITNESS
: No, sir. Nor with his permission. Sergeant Mullins, sir, well, he often exceeded his orders. Colonel Kreuter had reprimanded him a number of times, and for some weeks prior to the episode at Loc Ban had been trying to get the sergeant reassigned to non-combat responsibilities. I think he was worried that the sergeant was getting pretty close to Section 8.

PRESIDING OFFICER
: For the record, Section 8 addresses general discharge from the service by reason of mental instability or incapability, untreatable in the context of active duty.

PROSECUTOR: DO
you remember and can you quote for this board the words exchanged by Colonel Kreuter and First Sergeant Mullins at the time?

WITNESS
: Not word for word, sir. But I do recollect the sense of the argument. Sergeant Mullins was convinced that the villagers were lying, and that they were collaborating with the VC. Colonel Kreuter replied that there was no evidence to that effect, and that the people looked like peaceful farmers to him. The sergeant said they were all liars the same as every Vietnamese was a liar. He said that if he could take his K-Bar knife to the village headman’s wife, the headman would tell the truth. The colonel ordered him to belay that, and then gave the command for everyone to move out. While we were leaving the village, First Sergeant Mullins said that if the villagers were lying, he would come back. He said he would crucify them one by one to the walls of their hooches. He screamed it at them, sir. He screamed it over and over until we were out of earshot.

PROSECUTOR
: Before we move on to the events of the evening, Lieutenant, I wish to ask you whether you experienced any friction with Colonel Kreuter on the occasion in question or any other occasion.

WITNESS: NO
friction, sir. If I may say so, I consider the colonel to be a fine man and fine soldier. I honor him, sir, and I always will.

PROSECUTOR
: Then there was no bad blood—

MAJOR WATERSON, DEFENSE OFFICER
: My client wishes to make a statement.

PRESIDING OFFICER
: The accused officer will not—

COLONEL KREUTER, ACCUSED
: I got me something to say.

PRESIDING OFFICER
: Sit down, Colonel. That’s an order.

ACCUSED
: What you going to do, court-martial me?

PRESIDING OFFICER
: Colonel—

ACCUSED
: I’m going to say this one thing, General,

whether you like it or not. Lieutenant Elliot is as honorable an officer as ever served under my command.

PRESIDING OFFICER
: You do yourself no service, Colonel. Be at ease.

ACCUSED
: No bad blood between us. There wasn’t then. There isn’t now. There never will be.

PRESIDING OFFICER
: I said at ease, Colonel.

ACCUSED
: And another thing—

PRESIDING OFFICER
: This court is adjourned for an hour. Major Waterson, counsel your client. Turn off that damned steno machine, Corporal.

Dave cruised along the avenues west of Times Square. During the twenty years that he had lived in New York, every mayor who had taken office had begun his administration with a pledge to renovate the area, drive out the riffraff, and bring decency and dignity back to the neighborhood.

Somehow or another, none of them ever quite got around to it. Not that it mattered. No one believes the mayor of New York anyway.

At this late hour the action was slowing down. The hookers were no longer patrolling their beats. Instead, they had gathered in small packs, leaning wearily against graffiti-coated walls, sharing cigarettes, and boasting of their pimps. The pimps themselves were out of their flashy cars, standing in their own circles, and negotiating such barters and trades as the day’s business conditions demanded.

The “Triple X-X-X” movie houses were closed, but the bars were still open, their garish neon brightly inviting imprudent fools to enter. Doors periodically opened to admit or eject hunted-looking nighthawks who might make it home safely to bed—but only because the predators were too glutted with earlier prey to stalk them.

Most of the drug hawkers were gone. The touts for the
“Girls! Girls! Girls!” and “Live Sex Acts on Stage!” joints were off the streets too. A few sailors, clustered together for protection, stumbled drunkenly down the sidewalk. Three teenage boys circled a trio of bored prostitutes. One boy finally worked up his nerve, and stepped forward. The prostitutes smiled. Dave drove on.

He stopped at a red light. A blue and white patrol car pulled up beside him. The driver glanced his way, and then turned to study the street.

Good. He didn’t even give you a second look. Shaving and dyeing your hair was an inspired piece of work. Even if I do say so myself
.

Dave’s stomach grumbled. It had been fourteen hours since his last meal. He was hungry. Worse, exhaustion was catching up with him. He needed coffee, the stronger the better.

There was an all-night cafeteria in the middle of the Forty-fourth Street block. Dave pulled out of traffic and squeezed the rent-a-car between a dumpster and a candy-flake, tangerine orange pimpmobile. He climbed out and stretched.

Three years earlier he and Helen had gone on a photo safari to Tanzania. It had been a luxury affair, managed by the exceptionally competent (and exceptionally expensive) firm of Abercrombie & Kent. Safely seated in mammoth Toyota Land Cruisers, Dave and the other tourists had oohed and ahhed as they passed by hunting lions, stalking leopards, and leering hyenas speckled with blood. As the Land Cruisers approached, the animals cheerfully went about their gory business, not paying the least attention to the sightseers. Nor would they—unless one of the plump pink bipeds left the protection of the truck. Leaving the truck changed the nature of the relationship. Leaving the truck made you meat.
Meat!

Dave barely had placed his foot on the sidewalk when a pair of prostitutes moved in on him. One wore a see-through net blouse and hotpants the color of lemon meringue pie. The other wore a Mickey Mouse tank top and a lime green miniskirt.

Citrus colors must be this year’s fashion among the demimonde
.

The one in the hotpants began to speak. The second hooker touched her on the shoulder and whispered something in her ear. Hotpants nodded, giving Dave a slightly pitying look. “Sweetie, you’re on the wrong side of town. The kind of trick you want hangs out over on Third Avenue in the lower Fifties.”

Dave gaped. The two turned to walk away.

It’s your new hairdo. It makes you look a little, well …

Dave rubbed his hand across his newly bald dome and smiled.

The air inside the cafeteria was thick and humid. An odor of strong coffee hung in the air, mingling with the smell of greasy meat and cigarette smoke. Most of the tables were occupied, and the place buzzed with low conversation.

Dave walked to the counter. “Large cheese danish, please.” The counterman needed a shave. His eyes were red, and he seemed to think his night would never end. “Outta cheese. They don’t deliver until 6:00, maybe 6:30.”

Dave nodded. “Have you got anything else?”

“Apple. But it’s stale. Like I say, they don’t deliver until 6:00 or 6:30.”

“I’ll take one.”

“No returns. No refunds.”

“Make it two. I need the carbohydrates. And give me a coffee. Black.” Dave paused, then added, “In a paper cup, okay?”