Chapter Fourteen
My oppo at Jackson was a guy called Sanchez. I knew him fairly well, and I liked him better. He was smart, and he was good. I put the call on the speaker to include Summer and we talked briefly about jurisdiction, but without much enthusiasm. Jurisdiction was always a gray area, and we all knew we were beaten from the get-go. Brubaker had been on vacation, he had been in civilian clothes, he had been in a city alley, and therefore the Columbia PD was claiming him. There was nothing we could do about it. And the Columbia PD had notified the FBI, because Brubaker's last known whereabouts were the North Carolina golf hotel, which added a possible interstate dimension to the situation, and interstate homicide was the Bureau's bag. And also because an army officer is technically a federal employee, and killing federal employees is a separate offense, which would give them another charge to throw at the perp if by any miracle they ever found him. Neither Sanchez nor I nor Summer cared a whole hell of a lot about the difference between state courts and federal courts, but we all knew if the FBI was involved the case was well beyond our grasp. We agreed the very best we could hope for was that we might eventually see some of the relevant documentation, strictly for informational purposes only, and strictly as a courtesy. Summer made a face and turned away. I took the phone off the speaker and picked it up and spoke to Sanchez one-on-one again.
"Got a feeling?" I asked him.
"Someone he knew," Sanchez said. "Not easy to surprise a Delta soldier as good as Brubaker was, in an alley. "
"Weapon?"
"Paramedics figured it for a nine-millimeter handgun. And they should know. They see plenty of GSWs. Apparently they do a lot of cleaning up every Friday and Saturday night, in that part of town. "
"Why was he there?"
"No idea. Rendezvous, presumably. With someone he knew. "
"Got a feeling about when?"
"The body's stone cold, the skin is a little green, and rigor is all gone. They're saying twenty-four or forty-eight hours. Safe bet would be to split the difference. Let's call it the middle of the night before last. Maybe three, four A. M. City garbage truck found him at ten this morning. Weekly trash collection. "
"Where were you on December twenty-eighth?"
"Korea. You?"
"Panama. "
"Why did they move us?"
"I keep thinking we're about to find out," I said.
"Something weird is going on," Sanchez said. "I checked, because I was curious, and there are more than twenty of us in the same boat, worldwide. And Garber's signature is on all the orders, but I don't think it's legit. "
"I'm certain it isn't legit," I said. "Anything happening down there before this Brubaker situation?"
"Not a thing. Quietest week I ever spent. "
We hung up. I sat still for a long moment. Seemed to me that Columbia in South Carolina was about two hundred miles from Fort Bird. Drive southwest on the highway, cross the state line, find I-20 heading west, drive some more, and you were there. About two hundred miles. The night before last was the night we found Carbone's body. I had left Andrea Norton's office just before two o'clock in the morning. She could alibi me up until that point. Then I had been in the mortuary at seven o'clock, for the postmortem. The pathologist could confirm that. So I had two unconnected alibi bookends. But 0200 until 0700 still gave me a possible five-hour window, with Brubaker's likely time of death right there in the middle of it. Could I have driven two hundred miles there and two hundred miles back in five hours?
"What?" Summer said.
"The Delta guys have already got me in the frame for Carbone. Now I'm wondering whether they're going to be coming at me for Brubaker too. How does four hundred miles in five hours sound to you?"
"I could probably do it," she said. "Average of eighty miles an hour all the way. Depends on what car I was using, of course, and road construction, and traffic, and weather, and cops. It's definitely possible. "
"Terrific. "
"But it's marginal. "
"It better be marginal. Killing Brubaker will be like killing God, to them. "
"You going over there to break the news?"
I nodded. "I think I have to. It's a question of respect. But you inform the post commander for me, OK?"
The Special Forces adjutant was an asshole, but he was human too. He went very pale when I told him about Brubaker, and there was clearly more to it than an anticipation of mere bureaucratic hassle. From what I had heard Brubaker was stern and distant and authoritarian, but he was a real father figure, to his men individually and to his unit as a whole. And to his unit as a concept. Special Forces generally and Delta in particular hadn't always been popular inside the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. The army hates change and it takes a long time to get used to things. The idea of a ragtag bunch of hunter-killers had been a hard sell at the outset, and Brubaker had been one of the guys doing the selling, and he had never let up since. His death was going to hit Special Forces the way the death of a president would hit the nation.
"Carbone was bad enough," the adjutant said. "But this is unbelievable. Is there a connection?"
I looked at him.
"Why would there be a connection?" I said. "Carbone was a training accident. "
He said nothing.
"Why was Brubaker at a hotel?"
"Because he likes to play golf. He's got a house near Bragg from way back, but he doesn't like the golf there. "
"Where was the hotel?"
"Outside of Raleigh. "
"Did he go there a lot?"
"Every chance he got. "
"Does his wife play golf?"
The adjutant nodded. "They play together. "
Then he paused.
"Played," he said, and then he went quiet and looked away from me. I pictured Brubaker in my mind. I had never met him, but I knew guys just like him. One day they're talking about how to angle a claymore mine so the little ball bearings explode outward at exactly the right angle to rip the enemy's spines out of their backs with maximum efficiency. Next day they're wearing pastel shirts with small crocodiles on the breast, playing golf with their wives, maybe holding hands and smiling as they ride together along the fairways in their little electric carts. I knew plenty of guys like that. My own father had been one. Not that he had ever played golf. He watched birds. He had been in most countries in the world, and he had seen a lot of birds.
I stood up.
"Call me if you need me," I said. "You know, if there's anything I can do. "
The adjutant nodded.
"Thanks for the visit," he said. "Better than a phone call. "
I went back to my office. Summer wasn't there. I wasted more than an hour with her personnel lists. I made a shortcut decision and took the pathologist out of the mix. I took Summer out. I took Andrea Norton out. Then I took all the women out. The medical evidence was pretty clear about the attacker's height and strength. I took the O Club dining room staff out. Their NCO had said they were all hard at work, fussing over their guests. I took the cooks out, and the bar staff, and the MP gate guards. I took out anyone listed as hospitalized and nonambulatory. I took myself out. I took Carbone out, because it wasn't suicide.
Then I counted the remaining check marks, and wrote the number 973 on a slip of paper. That was our suspect pool. I stared into space. My phone rang. I picked it up. It was Sanchez again, down at Fort Jackson.
"Columbia PD just called me," he said. "They're sharing their initial findings. "
"And?"
"Their medical examiner doesn't entirely agree with me. Time of death wasn't three or four in the morning. It was one twenty-three A. M. , the night before last. "
"That's very precise. "
"Bullet caught his wristwatch. "
"A broken watch? Can't necessarily rely on that. "
"No, it's firm enough. They did a lot of other tests. Wrong season for measurable insect activity, which would have helped, but the stomach
contents were exactly right for five or six hours after he ate a heavy dinner. "
"What does his wife say?"
"He disappeared at eight that night, after a heavy dinner. Got up from the table and never came back. "
"What did she do about it?"
"Nothing," Sanchez said. "He was Special Forces. Their whole marriage, he'll have been disappearing with no warning, the middle of dinner, the middle of the night, days or weeks at a time, never able to say where or why afterward. She was used to it. "
"Did he get a phone call or something?"
"She assumes he did, at some point. She's not really sure. She was in the spa before dinner. They'd just played twenty-seven holes. "
"Can you call her yourself? She'll talk to you faster than civilian cops. "
"I could try, I suppose. "
"Anything else?" I said.
"The GSWs were nine-millimeter," he said. "Two rounds fired, both of them through and through, neat entry wounds, bad exit wounds. "
"Full metal jackets," I said.
"Contact shots. There were powder burns. And soot. "
I paused. I couldn't picture it. Two rounds fired? Contact shots? So one of the bullets goes in, comes out, loops all the way around, comes back, and drops down and smashes his wristwatch?
"Did he have his hands on his head?"
"He was shot from behind, Reacher. A double tap, to the back of the skull. Bang bang, thank you and good night. The second round must have gone through his head and caught his watch. Downward trajectory. Tall shooter. "
I said nothing.
"Right," Sanchez said. "How likely is all that? Did you know him?"
"Never met him," I said.
"He was way above average. He was a real pro. And he was a thinker. Any angle, any advantage, any wrinkle, he knew it and he was ready to use it. "
"But he got himself shot in the back of the head?"
"He knew the shooter, definitely. Had to. Why else would he turn his back, in the middle of the night, in an alley?"
"You looking at people from Jackson?"
"That's a lot of people. "
"Tell me about it. "
"Did he have enemies at Bird?"
"Not that I've heard," I said. "He had enemies up the chain of command. "
"Those pussies don't meet people in alleys in the middle of the night. "
"Where was the alley?"
"Not in a quiet part of town. "
"So did anyone hear anything?"
"Nobody," Sanchez said. "Columbia PD ran a canvass and came up empty. "
"That's weird. "
"They're civilians. What else would they be?"
He went quiet.
"You met Willard yet?" I asked him.
"He's on his way here right now. Seems to be a real hands-on type of asshole. "
"What was the alley like?"
"Whores and crack dealers. Nothing that the Columbia city fathers are likely to put in their tourism brochures. "
"Willard hates embarrassment," I said. "He's going to be nervous about image. "
"Columbia's image? What does he care?"
"The army's image," I said. "Willard won't want Brubaker put next to whores and crack dealers. Not an elite colonel. He figures this Soviet stuff is going to shake things up. He figures we need good PR right now. He figures he can see the big picture. "
"The big picture is I can't get near this case anyway. So what kind of pull does he have with the Columbia PD and the FBI? Because that's what it's going to take. "
"Just be ready for trouble," I said.
"Are we in for seven lean years?"
"Not that long. "
"Why not?"
"Just a feeling," I said.
"You happy with me handling liaison down here? Or should I get them to call you direct? Brubaker is your dead guy, technically. "
"You do it," I said. "I've got other things to do. "
We hung up and I went back to Summer's lists. Nine hundred seventy-three. Nine hundred seventy-two innocent, one guilty. But which one?
Summer came back inside another hour. She walked in and gave me a sheet of paper. It was a photocopy of a weapons requisition that Sergeant First Class Christopher Carbone had made four months ago. It was for a Heckler amp; Koch P7 handgun. Maybe he had liked the H amp;K submachine guns Delta was using, and therefore he wanted the P7 for his personal sidearm. He had asked for it to be chambered for the standard nine-millimeter Parabellum cartridge. He had asked for the thirteen-round magazine, and three spares. It was a perfectly standard requisition form, and a perfectly reasonable request. I was sure it had been granted. There would have been no political sensitivities. H amp;K was a German outfit and Germany was a NATO country, last time I checked. There would have been no compatibility issues either. Nine-millimeter Parabellums were standard NATO loads. The U. S. Army had no shortage of them. We had warehouses crammed full of them. We could have filled thirteen-round magazines with them a million times over, every day for the rest of history.
"So?" I said.
"Look at the signature on it," Summer said. She took my copy of Carbone's complaint out of her inside pocket and handed it over. I spread it out on my desk, side by side with the requisition form. Looked from one to the other.
The two signatures were identical.
"We're not handwriting experts," I said.
"We don't need to be. They're the same, Reacher. Believe it. "
I nodded. Both signatures read C. Carbone, and the four capital letter Cs were very distinctive. They were fast, elongated, curling flourishes. The lower-case e on the end of each sample was distinctive too. It made a small round shape, and then the tail of the letter whipped way out to the right of the page, well beyond the name itself, horizontally, and exuberantly. The a-r-b-o-n in the middle was fast and fluid and linear. As a whole it was a bold, proud, legible, self-confident signature, developed no doubt by long years of signing checks and bar bills and leases and car papers. No signature was impossible to forge, of course, but I figured this one would have been a real challenge. A challenge that I guessed would have been impossible to meet between midnight and 0845 on a North Carolina army post.