Honor and Duty (52 page)

He turned west off Upton onto Tower Road, going below the rim of the Plain toward the riverbank. Building 665 seemed dark and the Field House was empty. I looked across the black river at the shadow of Constitution Island, where the lights at Warner House twinkled distantly. George Washington had stood here with Thaddeus Kosciuszko, planning Forts Arnold and Putnam. After Benedict’s treachery, Arnold would be renamed Clinton. The river whispered like an ancient slumbering giant, breathing in ripples, its old shoulders slowly brushing granite banks.

Nothing was going on down here, except for a rendezvous.

Farren entered 665, the old Quartermaster building, a dark, massive, brooding shadow in the night. I waited one minute and silently entered the foyer through twin, rasping, vacuum airlock doors. I smelled sawdust. With poor night vision, I was happy for the faint flickering of a single fluorescent bulb in the tall ceiling. The dim lobby was filled with stacks of building materials. The tile floor was cold as ice and littered with nails and building debris, but I removed my shoes for silence. I avoided the bulk of construction to the left, and moved to the right around sawhorses, workbenches, radial saws, and piled lumber.

I turned into a hallway, entering darkness. I walked blind and stepped onto a stiff plastic floor-covering that crinkled. I froze. Sergeant Smith at Buckner always said, “Stay frozen.” This was easy; 665 was like the inside of an ice box. I regulated
breathing, becoming a part of the cold floor in a building that was as still as a mausoleum. Where was McWhiff?

In a few minutes, I was shivering and in possession of as much night vision as I could muster; shadows became things. I used my training and looked off-center, seeing unmounted signs that said “Indoor Ranges” and “Rifle & Pistol”—I realized that 665 was going to be the new consolidated range. I saw stacks of crates. One was open, and I put my hand inside: it was a gun box for .45 automatics. Two were missing from the suspension rack.

In the darkness I saw OD ammo boxes but no clips. I knew I would need a weapon. I stripped my gloves, drew a .45 from the open gun box and locked its slide open. I opened an ammo box, its hinges sharply complaining. I removed a single round from a box of fifty, slid it into the breech, and softly released the slide, automatically safetying it. The action was old, but I had one shot. I put a handful of .45 rounds into my overcoat pocket.

I heard sounds in the foyer.

I moved slowly toward the noise, the plastic covering softly crackling under my socks, the gun behind my right leg.

A steady parade of dark, parka-and-overcoated figures with red-lens flashlights quickly passed from the construction area through the rasping airlock doors, the flashlights switching off just before exiting. My heart tripped; there had to be twenty of them. Thirty feet from me, the last two figures stopped in the semilit foyer, sitting on lumber. I heard McWhiff say, “Listen, we don’t need guns.”

“Yeah, we do. We got mousechasers after us. Guns’ll scare ’em off. And it tells everyone we’re serious.” I recognized the voice. “Galen gives me the sweats. Asshole thinks he’s being followed. He’s getting hinky.”

“What ya gonna do, shoot Galen?” asked McWhiff.

“Nah. Just make ’im pucker.” The voice laughed. “This is the Army, Farren. Don’t turn soft on me.”

“I won’t.”

They stood and moved for the doors.

“Stop,” I said.

A brilliant flashlight exploded in my field of vision. I closed my eyes and jinked, too late, blinded. I unsafetied the gun.

“
Shit
, it’s Ting,” said Duke Troth. “You
asshole
! What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Chasing rats,” I said, my left hand shielding my eyes while
pretending that I could see, pointing my face at his voice. “Farren, bad times are coming. Get out, now.”

“Goddammit, he followed you! Shit, you sneaky yellow bastard.” The flashlight moved off my face. “He’s got a gun.” The flashlight came back to my head. Troth’s .45 glinted in the light, aiming for the beam splash in the middle of my face.

“Yo, Kai,” said Farren. “I don’t know why you’re following Galen an’ me, but jes’ drop it. Butt out, man.”

“Come with me, Farren,” I said earnestly.

“Hey,” he said, “this involves a helluva lot more’n you know. It’s for the good. It’s for our classmates. You should be helpin’ us. Otherwise, you’re gonna screw things up royal. You’re gonna hurt people you don’t wanta hurt. Just forget whatever the hell it is you think you know. Kai, jes’ walk away.”

“Can’t,” I said.

“Why not?” asked Troth. He was on the left, his flashlight quivering. My heart slugged like an old locomotive laboring up a high hill. If he shoots, I thought, I’m shooting back. Aim left, for the chest; don’t hit Farren, roll and reload in the hallway. My left hand covered my eyes and I tightened my gun grip, the trigger finger ready, trying to visualize the shot through the psychedelic splotches of illumination trauma left by the flashlight. You’ll be blind from his shot. No aiming—raise the gun, point, and shoot.

I licked my dry lips. My mouth was dust. “Walked away before. I let people get hammered. Knew bad times were coming and I didn’t tell. Two people died. And, I let a person in my family get hurt.” A person to whom I bore
lun.
I blew out a lot of tired air. “Been keeping secrets for free. Took a pledge on the river to do the right thing. So did you. C’mon, Farren. Come back to the Corps. Don’t do this to yourself.” I watched Troth, hoping he was as good a shot as he was honest.

I blinked as I saw Lucky Washington, his eye a slab of red meat, asking for my father’s gun. He was fourteen years old and was going to be stabbed to death that night.

Farren pleaded, “Hey, man, think about what you’re doing.”

“I am,” I said. “Thought about it all my life.”

Lucky wouldn’t leave 665. I knew why he was with me, and I cursed him because now I couldn’t shoot Troth. Troth was rat scum, but I couldn’t shoot him. I safetied the automatic. “I’m going to drop the .45, Duke. Watch your trigger finger.”

“Shit, don’t drop it, Kai!” cried Farren. “It’s the only thing savin’ ya.” He looked at Duke. Duke steadied his aim.

The sound of the gun landing on the old tile floor was like a baseball going through a plate glass window.

We faced each other for a few moments. They whispered intently. Then the flashlight went out and I heard the airlock doors open and close, and I was alone in the building, the gun at my feet.

Captain Martin was a broad-shouldered lawyer from Chicago with a big, deep voice and a sharply analytic mind. Like many of the Judge Advocates, or JAGCs, he was not a West Pointer. He had taught me the basics of issue analysis. He advised the Honor Committee.

After my final tour in his section, I thanked him for the clarity of his instruction, and told him I had appreciated his presence because he wasn’t white.

He smiled. “I’ve been black a long time now,” he said.

“I grew up in a black neighborhood. It’s been kind of lonely here,” I said. “This place is so—white-bread.”

“Aw, c’mon, man. There you go, jumping to a conclusion, just because I’m the single black officer on this faculty. Some, like your friend Alonzo Smits, think my being here makes this Harlem.”

“My friend?” I asked.

“Hey, I hear you play poker with him in his Q.”

“Captain Martin speaking, sir.”

“Sir, this is Cadet Kai Ting. Sorry for calling you in quarters. I have a confidential question.” I was whispering into the outside pay phone at the Admin Building, where I had a clear view of Thayer Road. My feet were frozen and I was actively shivering.

“Consider the attorney-client relationship formed,” he said. I could hear a pen scratching on a pad.

I took an icy breath. “Sir, I’m part of an Honor investigation into a cheating ring. I’m tasked with finding the ringleader. I got a suspect. I want to tape him in his room, talking to other suspects, without their knowledge or consent.”

“Okay,” he said, as if I had said, “the weather outside is frightful.” “State your probable cause and your emergency.”

I told him about the canned writ answers, the break-in of Maher’s safe, and the entire episode in Building 665.

“Good enough. What’s the issue, Kai?”

“Sir, whether I can wiretap and not violate the Code.”

“And not violate laws and regulations. Most police failures are products of failed creativity. Think: how else can you get the information you want?”

“Don’t know of another way, sir. I guess we could use torture. It’s an Academy procedure, but not for getting evidence.”

He chuckled. “You oughta see it from the faculty side. Okay. The privacy doctrine in the military is stunted. Wiretaps aren’t cool because they’re invasive and too broad. A federal wiretap law is coming. I know its direction. If wiretap’s your only avenue, minimize its use.” He paused. “Trigger a meeting of the suspects. Say something to one of the cheats that would compel them to meet. When they do, listen only to a discussion of the cheating. The moment the topic changes, switch off. I can’t advise indiscriminate monitoring or listening. You’d get one shot at it.”

“Perhaps, sir, you could use another metaphor.”

I called Major Maher and informed him of the evening’s events. He suggested I call CID, but we decided that calling them would kill our investigation into Honor. We’d rough it out. No cops.

“Try not to walk anywhere alone,” he said.

“ ‘Don’t walk alone?’ ” said Mike later when we met in Sonny’s room. “That’s pretty radical. No one’s going to shoot anyone.”

“We didn’t think anyone would cheat,” said Sonny. “Kai saw twenty guys in there. Twenty! And there’s no other way to explain why they were there. They weren’t practicing the obstacle course.”

“But only two guns were missing, right?” asked Mike.

“And Troth has one of them,” I said. “Let’s wire that cheap bigot’s room.”

“Troth’s still one of God’s children,” said Sonny.

I laughed. “Oh, yeah, sure he is, Sonny. Guy’s an asshole.”

“Not sure bad-mouthing him’s a lot better,” said Sonny. “Supposed to love our enemies.”

“Sonny,” I said. “That makes no sense. What gives?
You
want to be a doctor,” I said to Mike. “And now
you’re
a pacifist.”

“I’m not a pacifist,” said Sonny softly. “I believe in protecting the country. I believe in chasin’ down cheaters.” He studied
me. “I’ll kill the enemy. But I’m not gonna giggle while I’m doin’ it. I don’t think you’re supposed to hate Troth while we’re fighting him.”

“Love your enemy and blow him away,” I said. Mike grinned.

Sonny took a deep breath. “Look. I know you were in a buncha ca-ca back there. But don’t hate Troth. It matters what’s in your heart.”

“Well, I never found it in my heart to be in a study group with him, like you.”

“I was never in a study group with him,” said Sonny.

“He said you were.”

“That’s wrong.”

“Rap. Let’s wire him before he implicates George Washington.”

“Nah. George’d never do it. I’m worried about Dolley Madison.”

“Does she read Willa Cather and Thomas Mann?” asked Mike. He was still searching for the perfect, literate girl.

“She bakes a lot,” said Sonny.

Events were closing in on us. Troth knew I knew. “How soon can you build the wire?”

“Tonight, by call to quarters.”

“Oh, c’mon, Sonny, sooner.”

He climbed on a chair with his rifle and hit a ceiling panel with the butt. I didn’t know they could be removed. He threw me his rifle. From the hole in the ceiling he pulled down two cardboard boxes. I racked the rifle. He pulled the chair to his desk, and drew rapidly on a piece of paper.

“What’s this?” he asked, holding it up.

“That’s a piece of paper, with gafarga on it, shaped like elephant condoms.… No—as you were—they’re circuit diagrams.”

“This is our recording machine,” he said.

“Uh-uh. I’m no good at electronics, but this little piece of paper will not record anything. Trust me.”

He reached into the first cardboard box. “What’s this?” he asked, holding up a black metal box with two open sides.

“Black box,” I said. Mike laughed.

“And they say ya don’t know nothin’ about advanced steady-state electronics.”

“What’s this?” He extracted a metal pole from the same box.

“A whip. That’s a damn whip,” I said. “Don’t like whips.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Antenna,” he said.

“This?” He held up a doowhinghie.

“A doowhinghie, a poor little overworked doowhingie, that you beat with the whip, and then it goes into the black box, whimpering, never to be seen again.”

“And this?” he said, holding up a battery.

“Is a battery. C’mon, Sonny. Ask me something hard.”

“What are these?” They came from the second box.

“Wires—red, black, white, and green. Which are the national colors of Iraq and Kuwait. Gimme a harder question.”

“What’s the purpose of Juice?” he asked.

“Good question,” said Mike.

“Juice,” I said, “was devised by the Antichrist to reduce the numbers of English-lit types who can become West Pointers.”

Sonny made the sound of a buzzer. “
URRRHHH!
Wrong. Juice gives us Fender guitars, the Beatles, the Mamas and the Papas. Runs radio stations, lets ya use the phone to call for nighttime pizza drops at the Admin Building, allows ya to talk to Pearl Yee so you can get goofy, gives us ice cream in the Weapons Room on a warm summer night, and lights up Carnegie Hall for your vocal solos.”

“You’re not being sincere.”

“Juice, Kai, exists only to serve mankind.”

“Mankind oughta ask for some change back,” I said.

“Hey—ya wanna build this black box?” he asked.

“Oh, sure—and kill us all?”

Chad Enders authorized us to miss supper formation for the “business of the Honor Committee.” We went to East Barracks and entered Duke Troth’s room while Mike observed Troth in the mess hall. Standing on a chair and using masking tape. Sonny installed the mike, transmitter, and power source on the alcove divider beam. He used a long, thin low-resistance copper wire as the antenna, and laid that alongside the long axis of the beam, on its outer, upper edge, aiming it toward our barracks.