The General's Daughter (45 page)

The entire field training experience, as I remember too well, was a call to arms, a call to war, a call to bravery, and an
intentional imitation of a primitive rite of passage for young men. There were no women in the woods when I took my training,
and if there had been, I would have felt sorry for them and been frightened for them.

But the people in Washington and the Pentagon had heard and heeded the call to equality. It was a good call, a necessary call,
a long-overdue call. And certainly attitudes and perceptions had changed since I was a young man training for Vietnam. But
not everyone’s attitudes changed, and the move to equality proceeded at different paces in different sections of the national
life. There are glitches in the system, little pockets of resistance, situational behavior, primitive stirrings in the loins.
This is what happened on a night in August ten years before. The commandant of West Point did not announce that a hundred
women in the woods with a thousand men did not get raped during recondo training. And he wasn’t about to announce that one
did.

So the people in Washington, in the Pentagon, at the Academy, had reasoned with General Joseph Campbell. And, as he related
it to Cynthia and me, it certainly sounded reasonable. Better to have one unreported and unvindicated rape than to rock the
very foundations of West Point, to cause doubts about a co-ed academy, to cast suspicion on a thousand innocent men who did
not gang-rape a woman that night. All the general had to do was to convince his daughter that she—as well as the Academy,
the Army, the nation, and the cause of equality— would best be served if she just forgot about the whole thing.

Ann Campbell was given a drug to prevent pregnancy, she was tested and retested for sexually communicated diseases, her mother
flew in from Germany and brought her a favorite childhood doll, her cuts and bruises healed, and everyone held their breath.

Daddy was convincing, Mommy was not as convinced. Ann trusted Daddy, and, at twenty years old, for all her world travel as
a military brat, she was still Daddy’s girl and she wanted to please him, so she forgot she was raped. But later, she remembered,
which was why we were all sitting in the general’s office that evening.

So that was the sad story, and the general’s voice cracked now and then, got husky, got quiet. I heard Cynthia sniffle a few
times, too, and I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t feel a lump in my throat.

The general stood but motioned us to remain seated. He said, “Excuse me a moment.” He disappeared through a door, and we could
hear water running. As melodramatic as it sounds now, I almost expected to hear a gunshot.

Cynthia kept her eye on the door and said softly, “I understand why he did what he did, but as a woman, I’m outraged.”

“As a man, I’m outraged, too, Cynthia. Five men have a memory of a fun night, and here we are dealing with the mess. Five
men, if they were all cadets, went on to graduate and become officers and gentlemen. They were classmates of hers and probably
saw her every day. Indirectly, or perhaps directly, they were responsible for her death. Certainly they were responsible for
her mental condition.”

Cynthia nodded. “And if they were soldiers, they went back to their post and bragged about how they all fucked this little
West Point bitch cadet.”

“Right. And they got away with it.”

General Campbell returned and sat again. After a while, he said, “So you see, I got what I deserved, but Ann was the one who
paid for my betrayal. Within months of the incident, she went from a warm, outgoing, and friendly girl to a distrustful, quiet,
and withdrawn woman. She did well at the Point, graduated in the top of her class, and went on to postgraduate school. But
things were never the same between us, and I should have thought of that consequence of my behavior.” He added, “I lost my
daughter when she lost her faith in me.” He took a deep breath. “You know, it feels good to talk it out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know about her promiscuousness, and professionals have explained to me what that was all about. It wasn’t just that she
was trying to corrupt the people around me or to embarrass me. She was saying to me, ‘You thought nothing of my chastity,
my decision to remain a virgin until I was ready, so what I’m giving to every man who wants it is nothing you care about.
So don’t lecture me.’ ”

I nodded but could not and would not comment.

The general said, “So the years pass, and she arrives here. Not by accident, but by design. A person in the Pentagon, a person
who was closely involved with the West Point decision, strongly suggested that I consider two options. One, that I leave the
service so that Ann might decide to leave also or might decide that her misbehavior was no longer profitable.” He added, “They
were quite honestly afraid to ask for her resignation, because she obviously had something on the Army, though she never had
a name. My second option was to take this uncoveted command at Fort Hadley, where the Psy-Ops School has its subcommand. They
said they would have Ann transferred here, which would be a natural career assignment for her, and I could solve the problem
in close quarters. I chose the second option, though my resignation would not have been unusual after the success in the Gulf
and my years of service.” He added, “However, she told me once that if I ever accepted a White House appointment, or ever
accepted a political nomination, she would go public with this story. In effect, I was being held hostage in the Army by my
daughter, and my only options were to stay or to retire into private life.”

So, I thought, that explained General Campbell’s coyness regarding political office or a presidential appointment. Like everything
else about this case, this Army post, and the people here, what you saw, and what you heard, were not what was actually happening.

He looked around his office as though seeing it for the first time, or the last time. He said, “So I chose to come here to
try to make amends, to try to rectify not only my mistake but the mistake of my superiors, many of whom are still in the service
or in public life, and most of whose names you would know.” He paused and said, “I’m not blaming my superiors for putting
pressure on me. It was wrong what they did, but the ultimate decision to cooperate in the cover-up was mine. I thought I was
doing what I did for good and valid reasons—for Ann and for the Army—but in the final analysis, they were not good reasons,
and I was selling out my daughter for myself.” He added, “Within a year of the incident, I had my second star.”

At the risk of sounding too empathetic, I said, “General, you are responsible for everything your subordinates do or fail
to do. But in this case, your superiors betrayed you. They had no right to ask that of you.”

“I know. They know. All that talent, experience, and brainpower, and there we were meeting in a motel room in upstate New
York in the middle of the night, like criminals talking ourselves into a completely dishonorable and stupid decision. But
we’re human, and we make bad decisions. However, had we truly been men of honor and integrity, as we said we were, we’d have
reversed that bad decision no matter what the cost.”

I couldn’t have agreed more, and he knew it, so I didn’t say it. I said instead, “So for two years, you and your daughter
engaged in close-quarter hand-to-hand combat.”

He smiled grimly. “Yes. It turned out to be not a healing process at all. It was war, and she was better prepared for it than
I was. She had right on her side, and that made for might. She beat me at every turn, while I offered to make peace. I thought,
if she won, she’d accept my apology and sincere regrets. It tore me apart, as a father, to see what she was doing to herself
and her mother. I didn’t care about myself any longer. But I was also concerned for the men she was using…” He added, “Though
in some odd way, I was happy just to have her around on any terms. I missed her, and I miss her now.”

Cynthia and I sat quietly and listened to him breathe. Clearly, the man had aged ten years in the last few days, and probably
another ten in the last two years. It struck me that this was not the same man who had returned in triumph and glory from
the Gulf not so long ago. It was amazing, I thought, how even kings and emperors and generals could be brought down by domestic
discord, by the wrath and fury of a wronged woman. Somehow, amid all the sophistication and diversions of this world, we forgot
the basics: take care of business at home first, and never betray your blood.

I said to him, “Tell us about rifle range six, and then we’ll leave you, General.”

He nodded. “Yes… well, I saw her there on the ground, and… and I… I honestly thought at first that she’d been assaulted… but
then she called out to me… she said, ‘Here’s the answer to your damned ultimatum.’

“I didn’t understand at first what she was talking about, but then, of course, I remembered what they’d done to her at West
Point. She asked me where her mother was, and I told her that her mother didn’t know anything about this. She called me a
damned coward, then she said, ‘Do you see what they
did
to me? Do you
see
what they did to me?’ And I… I did see… I mean, if her purpose was to make me
see,
then she achieved her purpose.”

“And what did you say to her, General?”

“I… just called out to her… ‘Ann, you didn’t have to do this.’ But she was… she was wild with anger, as though she’d completely
lost her sanity. She yelled out for me to come closer, to see what they did to her, to see what she’d suffered. She went on
like that for some time, then she said since I’d given her some choices, she was going to give me some choices.” General Campbell
paused a moment, then continued. “She said she had a rope around her neck… and I could strangle her if I wanted to… or I could
cover this up like I did once before… I could come and untie her and take her away… take her to Beaumont House… to her mother.
She also said I could leave her there, and the MPs or the guards or someone would find her, and she’d tell the MPs everything.
Those were my choices.”

Cynthia asked, “And did you go to her and try to untie her, as you told us you did?”

“No… I couldn’t. I didn’t go near her… I didn’t try to untie her… I just stood near the car, then… I completely snapped. My
anger and rage at all those years of trying to make things right got the best of me… I shouted back at her that I didn’t give
a damn what they’d done to her ten years ago… I told her I was going to leave her there and let the guards or the MPs find
her, or the first platoon who came out to fire on the range or whoever, and that the whole world could see her naked for all
I cared, and—” He stopped in midsentence and looked down at the floor, then continued. “I told her she couldn’t hurt me anymore,
and then she started shouting this Nietzsche junk—‘whatever hurts you makes me stronger, what does not destroy me makes me
stronger,’ and so on. I said that the only hold she had over me was my rank and my position, and that I was resigning from
the service, and that she had destroyed any feelings I had for her and that she had more than equaled the score.”

The general poured himself some water from a carafe and drank it, then continued, “She said that was fine, that was good…
‘Let someone else find me—you never helped me… ’ Then she started to cry, and she couldn’t stop crying, but I thought I heard
her say… she said, ‘Daddy’…” He stood. “Please… I can’t…”

We stood also. I said, “Thank you, General.” We turned and made toward the door before he began crying, but a thought came
into my head, and I turned back to him and said, “Another death in the family won’t solve anything. It’s not the manly thing
to do. It’s very cowardly.” But his back was toward us, and I don’t know if he even heard me.

I
drove out of the Post Headquarters parking lot, went a few hundred meters, then pulled off to the side of the road. A sort
of delayed reaction to the interview came over me, and I actually felt shaky. I said, “Well, we know now why the lab people
found dried tears on her cheeks.”

Cynthia said, “I feel sick.”

“I need a drink.”

She took a deep breath. “No. We have to finish this. Where’s Moore?”

“He’d damned well better be someplace on post.” I put the Blazer into gear and headed toward the Psy-Ops School.

On the way, Cynthia said, as if to herself, “But in the end, the general did not abandon his daughter this time the way he
did at West Point. He left her on the rifle range in a fit of rage, but somewhere on the road, he realized that this was the
last chance for both of them.”

She thought a moment, then continued, “He probably considered turning around, but then he thought about what he would need—a
knife if the rope needed to be cut, clothing, a woman’s presence. Those attentions to detail that are drummed into us overcame
his shock and confusion, and he drove to Bethany Hill, to the one man on this post that he could trust.” Cynthia paused, then
asked, “When the Fowlers got there, I wonder if they thought that the general strangled her?”

I replied, “It may have crossed their minds. But when they got back to the house and told him she was dead… they must have
seen the shock and disbelief on his face.”

Cynthia nodded. “Would they… should they have cut her loose and taken the body away?”

“No. Colonel Fowler knew that moving the body would only make matters worse. And I’m sure that Colonel Fowler, with his military
experience, could determine that she was definitely dead. And as to any suspicion that he himself killed her, I’m sure he
blessed the moment when he, the general, or Mrs. Fowler herself suggested that she go along.”

“Yes, if it were Colonel Fowler alone, he’d be in a bad position.”

I considered a moment, then said, “So we know that, aside from the victim, four other people were out there—Colonel Moore,
the general, and Colonel and Mrs. Fowler. And we don’t think any of them was the murderer. So we have to place a fifth person
out there during that critical half-hour window of opportunity.” I added, “That person, of course, is the killer.”