Secret Sanction (3 page)

Nor did it take more than a quick glance to see why so many juries and boards had fallen under her sway. I don’t know that I’d describe her as beautiful, although she certainly was that. She just had the most sympathetic eyes I ever saw, which as I mentioned before is not a real popular emotion in the Army, unless, that is, it happens to be pasted on a gorgeous female face. Then exceptions get made.

Delbert, on the other hand, looked every bit the soldier. Trim, fit, handsome, with straight, dark hair that sat perfectly in place without a single stray strand. He had one of those razor-sharp faces, and eyes that looked ready to pounce. I could see where a jury or a board would look at him and think only of their duty.

I would have liked to have talked with them, but the thing about riding in the rear of a C-130 is that once the engines kick in, the racket gets simply awful. Unlike civilian airliners that are packed with sound insulation, the Air Force saves money on all that crap by simply requiring its passengers to wear earplugs the whole trip. Pretty slick, if you ask me: Even if it is brought to you by the same fellas who are known for buying three-hundred-dollar hammers and five-thousand-dollar toilets. But like I said earlier, what’s important inside the military machine ain’t always the same as what’s important on the outside.

The thing about a transatlantic plane ride is that it gives you plenty of time to read and digest. And while I had assured General Partridge that I’d already familiarized myself with the particulars of this case, the truth is that in the past two days, between meetings with lots of very important Army officials, a meeting with a very antsy aide from the personal staff of the President of the United States, and assorted others, I barely had time to breathe.

I knew little more than had been described to me by these Washington people, and the interesting thing about that was that all of them seemed to be convinced these nine men had done nothing wrong. Nobody had said that outright, because that would’ve infringed on the code of neutrality the law demands in these things. But I’m a careful listener; I can sniff a subtlety or a nuance from ten miles away. If I was the more suspicious sort, I might even believe that all those powerful people in Washington knew something I didn’t. And I do happen to be the more suspicious sort.

My legal case was stuffed with a number of news articles, a few preliminary statements given by the accused, and a long-winded statement written by a Lieutenant Colonel Will Smothers, who was the direct commander of the accused.

I dug into them, and the facts were these. A Special Forces A-team comprising nine men from the Tenth Special Forces Group had been assigned to train a group of Kosovar Albanians who had been driven from their homeland by the Serbian militia. It was part of the effort to build up the Kosovar Liberation Army, or KLA. They spent seven or eight weeks training their recruits, then were given secret orders to accompany the unit they trained back into Kosovo.

A week later, the Kosovar unit attempted a raid on a village and all of them were killed. The A-team, against orders—make that
supposedly
against orders—took it on their own to seek vengeance, or justice, or something. They set an ambush on a well-known Serbian supply route and unleashed blistering fury on a Serb column containing thirty-five men.

The next Serb column to come down that route discovered their slaughtered brethren, found lots of expended American munitions and several pieces of discarded American equipment, informed their superiors, and, after several very dramatic press conferences, the international media became persuaded that some American troops must’ve done a terrifically bad thing.

The Army put two and two together and arrested the entire A-team, who were currently being held in detention at an air base in Italy.

Now here’s where the case gets both real interesting and real mawkish. The United States and NATO were bombing the hell out of the Serbs in a desperate attempt to coerce them into changing their stance toward Kosovo. As much as this sounded like war, and I’d bet it sure as hell felt like war, at least to the folks being bombed, the legal nicety of a state of war had not been declared. The rules of the Geneva Convention are written to cover a state of war, so exactly what laws were supposed to govern the behavior of these soldiers? Some lawyers love those kinds of questions. Others loathe them. I, for instance, fall squarely into the loathing category. I happen to be pretty simpleminded. Black and white are my favorite colors. Gray just doesn’t suit my mental complexion.

The second thing was that there were no survivors from that Serb column. Thirty-five men and not one survivor. Now those who know a little about land warfare know that for every man who gets killed in battle, there nearly always are one or two who get wounded. Believe it or not, there are people who actually study and compute these grisly things, and that’s how it comes out. There was a very nasty implication here.

Finally, the talk show pundits around the beltway were in high dudgeon. This was just the kind of incident that got them standing in long lines at TV studios, and they were trotting out all kinds of theories, from the frivolous to the absurd. The big question was what orders that A-team had been given. Every time the Pentagon spokesman got asked that question, or what limits were set on their behavior, he suddenly got deliciously vague and evasive, in the way all good spokesmen are trained to do. All he’d admit was that the name of the mission was Guardian Angel and that it was some kind of humanitarian thing. Jay Leno couldn’t resist that one. In one of his opening monologues, he awarded it the Most Regrettable Misnomer of the Year prize. The team had obviously not
guarded
their Kosovars real well, and it didn’t sound like the nine men in that A-team acted the least bit like
angels.

As I read through the documents, I could almost hear the jaws of the alligators snapping in hungry anticipation.

I read each document, then passed them on to Delbert. He read them, then passed them on to Morrow. We were becoming a smoothly oiled team. A regular lawyers’ production line. By the time we landed at Tuzla Air Base a nice tidy pile of papers was stacked on the seat next to Captain Morrow, and all three of the Army’s top legal guns were snoring loudly.

Chapter 3

T
his time there actually was a vehicle waiting by the ramp to transport us. In fact, there were two humvees; except that one was already filled with this huge brigadier general, in battle dress, with a natty little green beret tucked neatly on top of his head.

He was about six foot five, and anybody in uniform would recognize him instantly. He’d been an All-America tackle at West Point, first in his class, a Rhodes scholar, and was at this moment in time the youngest brigadier general in the United States Army. That’s a hell of a lot of ego-enhancers for any one man, if you ask me. It’s amazing that he could look in the mirror and not faint. The sum of my own lifelong distinctions was that I once got elected treasurer of my third-grade class. Unfortunately, my triumph was short-lived, since the election got overturned by the principal as soon as it was learned I had a D in math. I don’t mention that second part to too many people. I just let them keep thinking I served out my term with honor and distinction.

The guy in the jeep didn’t have to mislead anybody about anything. His name was Charles “Chuck” Murphy, and every few years or so,
TIME
or
Life
or
Newsweek
did a nice little feature article on him so that every American could track the career of their army’s most dazzling boy wonder.

At that moment, though, his face was clouded with anxiety. Or, as my mother would say, he seemed to be “brooding.” I always liked that word. It’s so much better than “anxious” or “unsettled” or “agitated.” When someone broods, it seems to me there’s a bit more inner turmoil, and it sinks a little deeper.

Anyway, anybody with any sense knew why, because the A-team that was in detention worked for him, which meant his fabulous career was now up for grabs.

It was obvious that he was about as happy to see me as he would a big-fingered proctologist, but there was nothing he or I could do about that. I therefore walked right up to him and gave him the same kind of snappy salute I’d given General Partridge, his four-star boss, only twelve hours before back at Fort Bragg.

“Major Drummond, sir.”

He actually returned the salute. “Welcome to Bosnia, Drummond. How many lawyers are with you?”

“Three of us, sir.”

“That’s it? Just three?”

“We’re heavy hitters,” I announced, giving him my most over-confident smirk.

“Okay. Stow your gear in the other humvee and follow me.” We did, and we peeled out of the airfield about thirty seconds later. We drove past about a mile of large tents built on concrete slabs, large metal containers, and a bunch of prefabricated wooden buildings. Tuzla Air Base had been made the supply and operations center for the Bosnian mission, and, when the situation in Kosovo boiled over, the military decided that it made sense to use it for that purpose as well. And if there’s one thing the military is really good at, it’s creating large, sprawling, impromptu cities out of thin air. Tuzla was a case in point. The place was laid out, dress-right-dress, with long, straight streets and none of that urban clutter or disorder you find in real cities. Lots of soldiers and airmen were walking around or lying around or doing minor chores, and a lot of them stopped and gawked as our procession drove by. Maybe I was imagining things, but I had the feeling we were expected. I had another feeling, too, because the looks we were getting weren’t real warm and friendly.

We finally came to a two-floored wooden building with a couple of flags out front. This was a signal that it was being used as a headquarters of some sort. Our humvees stopped and we all piled out and walked inside, where lots of soldiers were scurrying about frantically, or posting things on maps hung on walls, or jabbering on phones, or doing about anything to look busy, because the general was here and only a damned fool would choose this moment to look bored or idle.

We ended up in a meeting room in the back of the building with a large wooden conference table surrounded by some fancy faux leather chairs. General Murphy told us to sit, so we did.

His eyes marched across our faces and I guessed he was wrestling with how to approach us. Friendly or cold? Informal or stiff? One way or another, his future might well rest in our hands, so this was one of those momentous coin tosses you so often hear about. Should he scare the crap out of us, or make us love him?

He finally broke into what I would call a charmingly disarming smile. “Well, I can’t exactly say I’m happy to meet you, but welcome anyway.”

This struck me as a pretty ingenious compromise. “Thank you, General,” I said on behalf of the group.

“I’ve been told to offer you whatever assistance or resources you need.We’ve arranged a private tent for each of you. I’ve also had a building cleared for your use. Five legal clerks arrived last night from Heidelberg, and they’re busy preparing your facility as we speak. Is there anything else you need at this moment?”

“Nothing I can think of,” I answered. “Although if anything comes to mind, I’ll be sure to contact you.”

That was a wiseass crack, but I’d made my choice on how to approach him. Friendly just wasn’t in the cards.

His lips tensed ever so slightly. He studied my face, made an assessment, then got up and walked to the door. He opened it, and in marched a lieutenant colonel, a tall, lean, handsome sort with a nice little green beret perched on his head as well.

The general said, “Let me introduce Lieutenant Colonel Will Smothers, commander of the First Battalion of the Tenth Special Forces Group. Will’s going to handle your needs from day to day.”

Which was a very slick way of saying that he, General Murphy, wasn’t going to fetch any damned thing for me. It was masterfully done. It almost worked, too.

I said, “Excuse me, General. That won’t be acceptable.” “I’m sorry?”

“As the battalion commander of the accused A-team, Colonel Smothers is a possible suspect in this case. Please arrange another liaison, so there’s no possibility of polluting our investigation.”

Now here’s where it gets important to understand that Army lawyers aren’t held in particularly high esteem by
real soldiers,
which is to say those soldiers who serve in combat branches. Warfare is the business of soldiers, and lawyers talk a lot but don’t shoot a lot, so we’re seen as an inconvenience or an annoyance, or an evil, but certainly not as part of the brotherhood. Make that ditto with an exclamation point when it comes to Green Berets, who are a little more clannish and lofty than about anyone else in uniform. It’s a very rare day when you see a couple of lawyers and Green Berets standing at a bar knocking down a few brews and sharing a few yucks. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen that happen.

There were a few coughs and a bit of awkward foot-shuffling because this lieutenant colonel was suddenly being told right to his face that he might be a suspect. He might have been dimly aware of that possibility before that moment, but nobody had actually confirmed it. Nor was it too hard to extrapolate that General Murphy, the walking accolade, also might become a suspect.

This silly, oversize frown instantly erupted on Murphy’s bigjawed, handsome face. He said, “You think that’s necessary?”

“In my legal opinion, absolutely.”

“Then I’ll appoint a new man.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome,”he said.It didn’t sound real sincere though. In fact, by the time he said it, he had turned about and was halfway through the door. Actually, he kind of mumbled it. In fact, it might not even have been “You’re welcome.” It was two words though. And there was a “you” in there somewhere. I’ll swear to that. I did have the impression he wasn’t going to invite me over for drinks anytime soon.

My two legal colleagues wore befuddled expressions as a result of this swift display of one-upmanship, but this was neither the time nor the place to make my explanations.We got up and left the building and, after a short humvee ride, were deposited at another wooden building. This one was somewhat smaller than General Murphy’s headquarters. Actually, it was considerably smaller, since the military places a high premium on symbolism.