Part 15 (1/2)
I unlocked the door for them and stepped back out of the way and let them go in. I went back and leaned on a car. In five minutes two of them came out, looking a little green. Max was one of them. After they breathed in some fresh air they went back in. Ten minutes later Max came out, another man following him with a notebook.
”-and I want unmarked trucks up here, with secure drivers. The biggest that can make that last hill and the curves. They'll take the long way around from here to Fort Bragg and go into cla.s.sified storage. Our people will look at the stuff there to see if there's anything new and different. Got that?”
”Got it.”
”I want to sneak a helicopter in here big enough to fly out with eleven bodies. They should bring body bags and some graves registration people. Secure people, of course.”
”Got it.”
”I want them taken to Home Town fastest. I want a priority on those pix and prints they're taking in there. They should be about ready to give them to you, and then you can take off. Who's got that black tin suitcase?”
”It's in the trunk of Red's car.”
”They'll fly back with us to Home Town, and when you're setting the other stuff up, make sure they get good people on E. and A. Take them off other stuff if necessary. Now read back, just the highlights.”
”Mmm. Unmarked trucks, secure drivers, cla.s.sified storage at Bragg. Bodies out on helicopter. Body bags and graves registration people, direct to Home Town. Priority on the pix and prints, and I take them in. Take black suitcase out with me... no, that goes with you. What I do is get Evaluation and a.n.a.lysis primed to go when it gets there.”
That was all. He went back into the warehouse. Max motioned to me, and we strolled across the flats. I told him I would show him where the airplane went in.
”So many of them,” he said. ”Jesus!”
”I know.”
”Are you all right?”
”I don't know what the h.e.l.l it is. Like some kind of combat fatigue. Look at my hand shake. It was a long time ago, and it all came back at once.”
”You went kind of crazy?”
”No. Not like that. I was pretty calm, actually. I mean you go along and you figure the odds of doing this and the odds against doing that, and whatever you do, you make it sudden and final.”
”You say three were in the Cessna? So you waxed eight of them.”
”Nine. There's one buried over a week ago. Nicky. They gave me the gun and told me to shoot him and I did. That was what started all the rest of it. Like letting some kind of bad spell out of the bottle. I thought it was a fake execution, so I fired and killed him.”
We got to the slope and looked down to where we could see bits of the airplane. ”I got all the records out of there I could find,” I said. ”And I looked everywhere for that G.o.dd.a.m.n missing arm. I looked high and low. I can't imagine how it hid itself so d.a.m.n well.” My voice was getting high and thin, but I couldn't seem to stop. ”Somehow we've got to find that d.a.m.n arm!”
”Hey,” he said. ”Hey, fellow. Take it easy, huh?” He turned me around and headed me back toward the cars. ”I'll have some of my guys go down there and find it.”
We walked in silence. ”How'd you get them all?”
I used as few words as possible.
He gave me a strange sidelong look. I've seen people at the zoo look at the big cats that way, as if they are wondering if the creature could bang right through those bars if he felt like it.
”You're going to have to come back for debriefing.”
”Debrief somebody who was never briefed?”
”It's just a word we use, McGee. I think they'll go at you for a week or more. It won't be bad. You'll get good food and rest. The motivation people will want to know just about every word those people spoke to you.”
”The one they should talk to is Sister Elena Marie. She used to be Bobbie Jo Annison, the evangelist.”
”We know. We'd like to talk to her for a long long time. And the people who pull her strings, and write her words. We think she's on an island off the south coast of Cuba. Maybe there'll be a lead in those papers. You shouldn't have gathered them up for us.”
”I did that when I was going to blow the whole place to rubble, buildings, people, and all. I was saving the papers for you and Jake. I collected all the money. I think I was saving that for myself. Some of it is mine, about nine thousand. Some twenty-seven thousand is theirs.”
”I can't understand why they didn't kill you out of hand. That's their style. That's their standard program. No infiltration. No way to do it.”
”I was looking for my daughter.”
”Daughter!”
”I'm sorry. I'm past making much sense.”
”We'll leave here soon. It's a strain on you, having to stay here.”
”Can we stop in San Francisco? I left my ID there, and my clothes.”
”Of course. You're not under detention.”
”For murder?”
”For self-defense. We'll let the record read there was a jurisdictional squabble and they fought among themselves. Look, you should be getting a medal, McGee. But what you are going to get is some very serious and earnest advice about keeping your mouth shut forever. I think you cut down their firepower and manpower some. If the doc.u.ments give us a lead to other camps, we can cut it down some more. But the summer timetable is probably still on. They can't keep their tigers waiting forever. And they have to have something to show the folks helping them from overseas. No matter how much security we lay on, they are going to create one h.e.l.l of a series of b.l.o.o.d.y messes from border to border and coast to coast. A lot of sweet dumb people are going to get ripped up. Headlines, speeches, doom, the end of our way of life, and so on. Terrorism is going to pay us one big fat b.l.o.o.d.y visit, McGee. But it will only be a visit. They underestimate our national resilience. Aroused by that kind of savagery, we can become a very tough kind of people. You are a pretty good example of that.”
”My luck was running, and I let it run.”
”They were supposed to be their best, huh? Educated abroad. Honed fine. During the debriefing, you'll have to go into infinite detail about the training, what you saw of it.”
”Everything I can remember.”
”They'll want to go into hypnotic drugs to make sure they pull everything out.”
”I'm in no position to object.”
He stopped walking and turned to face me. ”And when it is over and they turn you loose, all the information stops, then and there. You never get any more from us, and n.o.body ever gets any of what you have from you.”
”Except Meyer.”
”n.o.body!”
”Except Meyer.”
”I am serious, dammit!”
”Me too. So you better not turn me loose. There is no way on earth that I can keep from telling him every d.a.m.n detail of every d.a.m.n day I spent here. Can't you remember the clearance he used to have? You checked it out. Remember?”