Free The Enemy by Lee Child Page B

again. "Where you were all headed."
    "What about it?"
    "I need to know the agenda."
    Vassell looked at Coomer and Coomer opened his mouth to start telling me something when my phone rang. It was my desk sergeant. She had Summer out there with her. She was unsure whether to send her in. I told her to go right ahead. So there was a tap on the door and Summer came in. I introduced her all around and she pulled a spare chair over to my desk and sat down, alongside me, facing them. Two against two.
    I pulled the second note out from under the telephone and passed it to her: Green Valley PD calculates Mrs K died approx. 0200. She unfolded it and read it and refolded it and passed it back to me. I put it back under the phone.
    Then I asked Vassell and Coomer about the Irwin agenda again, and watched their attitudes change. They didn't get any more helpful. It was more of a sideways move than an improvement. But because there was now a woman in the room they dialled down the overt hostility and replaced it with smug patronizing civility. They came from that kind of a background and that kind of a generation. They hated MPs and I was sure they hated women officers, but all of a sudden they felt they had to be polite.
    "It was going to be purely routine," Coomer said. "Just a regular pow-wow. Nothing of any great importance."
    "Which explains why you didn't actually go," I said.
    "Naturally. It seemed much more appropriate to remain here. You know, in the circumstances."
    "How did you find out about Kramer?"
    "XII Corps called us."
    "From Germany?"
    "That's where XII Corps is, son," Vassell said.
    "Where did you stay last night?"
    "In a hotel," Coomer said.
    "Which one?"
    "The Jefferson. In D.C."
    "Private or on a DoD ticket?"
    "That hotel is authorized for senior officers."
    "Why didn't General Kramer stay there?"
    "Because he made alternative arrangements."
    "When?"
    "When what?" Coomer said.
    "When did he make these alternative arrangements?"
    "Some days ago."
    "So it wasn't a spur of the moment thing?"
    "No, it wasn't."
    "Do you know what those arrangements were?"
    "Obviously not," Vassell said. "Or we wouldn't be asking you where he died."
    "You didn't think he was maybe visiting with his wife?"
    "Was he?"
    "No," I said. "Why do you need to know where he died?" There was a long pause. Their attitudes changed again. The smugness fell away and they replaced it with a kind of winsome frankness.
    "We don't really need to know," Vassell said. He leaned forward and glanced at Summer like he wished she wasn't there. Like he wanted this new intimacy to be purely man-to man with me. "And we have no specific information or direct knowledge at all, but we're worried that General Kramer's private arrangements could lead to the potential for embarrassment, in light of the circumstances."
    "How well did you know him?"
    "On a professional level, very well indeed. On a personal level, about as well as anyone knows his brother officer. Which is to say, perhaps not well enough."
    "But you suspect in general terms what his arrangements might have been."
    "Yes," he said. "We have our suspicions."
    "So it wasn't a surprise to you that he didn't bunk at the hotel."
    "No," he said. "It wasn't."
    "And it wasn't a surprise when I told you he wasn't visiting with his wife."
    "Not entirely, no."
    "So you suspected roughly what he might be doing, but you didn't know where."
    Vassell nodded his head. "Roughly."
    "Did you know with whom he might have been doing it?" Vassell shook his head.
    "We have no specific information," he said.
    "OK," I said. "Doesn't really matter. I'm sure you know the army well enough to realize that if we discover a potential for embarrassment, we'll cover it up."
    There was a long pause.
    "Have all traces been removed?" Coomer asked. "From wherever it was?"
    I nodded. "We took his stuff."
    "Good."
    "I need the Irwin conference agenda," I said. There was another pause.
    "There wasn't one," Vassell said.
    "I'm sure there was," I said.