Murder at the Pentagon (37 page)

“So, here we are,” Bellis growled. “You wanted a meeting. You’ve got it. The floor is yours.” He’d removed his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and loosened his tie.

Bravado is always so much easier in its contemplation. Margit had considered many ways to gently slide into her presentation to soften its impact. Bellis’s hard stare said to get to the meat of it—fast.

“Sir, there are many questions I need to have answered.”

His expression didn’t change. “Go on,” he said. “I’m listening.”

“I was almost killed yesterday.”

“I know that. I read the newspapers, watch TV. You did a hell of a good job averting a disaster.”

“Yes, I did.” She paused. “I’m still trying. I think my chopper was tampered with.”

“That’s a heavy charge. Who are you accusing?”

“No one specifically. A number of people knew I intended to fly yesterday.”

“Including me.”

“That’s right, sir. I don’t know who it was, but somebody was behind it.”

“Proof?”

“Not the kind that you, as an attorney, would accept. But there’s more.”

“I’m all ears,” he said, settling back and bringing his feet up on the edge of his desk. She resented the pose.

“A number of months before Dr. Joycelen was killed, a Major Wayne Reich at the CIA learned that Captain Cobol was a homosexual. As you know, that means dismissal from the service under Reg Thirteen-thirty-two. But Reich made an exception in Cobol’s case. He told him he could remain on active duty because he was such a good officer.”

Bellis’s expression was nonresponsive.

“Cobol had been sent to a CIA-cleared psychiatrist in New York named Marcus Half. Half, according to my information, was deeply involved in the CIA’s mind-control experimentation a number of years ago. He works with something called the Hypnotic Induction Profile. It runs on a scale from one to five. A ‘five’ means you’re extremely hypnotizable, maybe to the extent of being capable of being programmed.”

“Go on.”

“Somebody added to Cobol’s personnel file the symbol ‘HP-5.’ I think that meant that Cobol was a ‘five’ on Half’s hypnotizability scale.”

“You aren’t about to rewrite
The Manchurian Candidate
, are you?”

His comment struck her as unnecessarily snide, but she ignored it. “Major Anthony Mucci, an aide to Colonel Monroney in T and E, changed the duty roster for the Saturday morning Joycelen was killed. He put Cobol on it at the last minute. Convenient, wouldn’t you say?”

“Maybe necessary for staffing reasons.”

“I don’t think so. Mucci is wired into the CIA.”

Bellis smiled. “One of hundreds floating around these halls. The Pentagon has its own mole corps all over D.C.”

Margit said, “It’s my contention that Captain Cobol was
set up to take the rap for someone else in the Joycelen murder, and that the same person—or people—arranged to foul up my helicopter.”

“This Major Reich?”

“A good bet.” She recounted Reich’s visit to Andrews with his mechanic.

“Why do you think Reich, or anyone else, would want to kill you?”

“Because of what I’ve learned.”

Bellis drew a heavy breath, looked above her head at an antique wall clock, removed his feet from the desk, and sat up. “Why?” he asked.

“Why what, sir?”

“Why are you so damned driven to chasing what you only think is true about Joycelen and Cobol?”

She stiffened against an encroaching set of nerves and started to answer, but he interrupted. “You and this commitment, Major—this crusade you’re on—have become a nasty thorn in my side. I spent half of today in meetings because of you.”

“I’m sorry, sir. Meetings about me?”

“Right. I was ordered to straighten you out, get you off your white horse so you’d let Cobol and Joycelen stay where they are—in the ground.”

“I’ve been followed,” Margit said. “Were you made aware of that at these meetings?”

“I’ve known about that since it started,” he said.

“Sir, I—that disappoints me.”

“Why should it? It wasn’t my decision. It wasn’t done on my orders. But I am in the loop. At least that one.”

“I don’t like that my own people consider me so untrustworthy that they follow me day and night.”

“It doesn’t matter a hill a’ beans what your feelings are about it,” Bellis said. “It was considered operationally necessary.”

“And who made that determination?” Margit asked.

“To be truthful? I don’t know. But it sure as hell came from above me.”

She said, “Sir, you asked before why I feel this commitment to clear Cobol’s name. I know it isn’t in my job description to do that, but I promised Cobol’s family that I would do whatever I could to give them some dignity and peace. I can’t walk away from that commitment. And by the way, Colonel, I don’t buy for a second that Cobol hanged himself.”

Bellis stood and stretched, then yawned. He went to a corner cabinet, opened a small refrigerator, and took out a bottle of diet soda. “You, Major?” he asked over his shoulder.

“No, thank you.”

He returned to his chair. “Have you exhausted your list of accusations?” he asked.

“No. I’ve also decided that I was chosen to defend Cobol because I was considered expendable. Because I’m a woman. Because I wouldn’t make waves.”

“If I did assign you to the case for those reasons, I sure was wrong.” He checked the clock again. “It’s six-thirty,” he said. “We have until nine. Got any more to say?”

Margit’s brow furrowed. “Until nine?”

“The people I met with today told me to resolve this matter with you before the day was over. I told them I didn’t think I could, because Major Margit Falk has what I perceive to be an ingrained stubborn streak.”

She shrugged and avoided his eyes. “If I do, it’s never caused me to balk at an order.”

“A first time for everything,” he said. “I am ordering you to drop any further inquiry into Joycelen and Cobol.”

She bit her lip. “Sir, I respectfully tell you that I cannot do that.”

“See what I mean?”

“You knew that would be my answer.”

“Yes, I did.”

What happens at nine? she wondered. She asked.

“I told my colleagues that I was meeting with you at six, and would issue a direct order to drop what you’re doing. But because I didn’t have any faith you’d accept that order—
and, by the way, you do realize that by not obeying it, you face a dishonorable discharge for insubordination?”

The words hurt but came as no surprise. She nodded.

“I told them you’d probably refuse to follow my order, even if it meant your commission and career. I told them that if it came to that, the only thing it would accomplish would be to turn you into one angry civilian lady who’d go public with her accusations, get plenty of press, and occupy everybody’s time trying to refute your claims. I suggested that if my suspicions were correct,
they
meet with you tonight. It’s scheduled for nine. I suggest you attend.”

“Is that ‘suggest’ as in ‘order’?” Margit asked.

“I’ll leave it up to you.”

“I’ll be there,” Margit said.

“Quarter of nine. Right here. Before you leave this office, is there anything else you plan to vent? I hate surprises.”

Margit hesitated, but not long. She’d gone this far; might as well go the distance.

“Dr. Joycelen was murdered because he was a whistle-blower to Senator Wishengrad’s committee. He was selling information about Project Safekeep.”

“So I understand. Paid?”

“Yes, sir. But I was told something else, something much more important.”

“What’s that?”

“I was told—and I prefer to keep the source to myself—that the nuclear weapon tested in the Middle East was provided by us.”

Bellis’s face didn’t change. He said flatly “identify the source of this allegation.”

Margit ignored him. “Dr. Joycelen, I was told, had started to provide information to the Wishengrad committee about that charge.”

Bellis came around the desk, stood over her, and said, “I think our nine o’clock meeting has just moved from important to crucial.” He walked to the center of the room and stood with his back to her, hands on his hips, obviously deep in thought. When he faced her, he said, “Every bit of common
sense, every ounce of my training, tells me to place you under house arrest. But another side says that won’t be necessary, that you’ll be back in this office at quarter of nine. Which side should I go with?”

The words “house arrest” jarred her. She seemed to be making a habit of this lately—forging ahead, aware of the potential consequences. Unable to put on the brakes. She’d stepped over the line. No, leaped over it was more accurate. But facing house arrest? Dishonorable discharge for insubordination? How could this happen to her? Bellis was waiting for an answer. “I don’t need to be placed under house arrest,” she said. “I’ll be here.”

He fastened his top shirt button and pulled his tie neatly up to his neck. He opened the door. Margit thought of many more things to say but said none of them. He closed the door behind her with symbolic force.

Margit went to her empty office and slumped behind her desk. A flyer on it caught her eye. There was a DACWITS meeting at seven in the auditorium that she’d planned to attend. Might as well, she thought. It was more palatable than sitting alone until her scheduled execution.

As she entered the auditorium where hundreds of uniformed women had gathered, she wondered whether she’d be able to concentrate on the evening’s agenda. That didn’t prove to be a problem. The group was addressed by Representative Pat Schroeder, the Democratic congresswoman from Colorado who’d co-sponsored a bill some time back to amend the forty-year-plus exclusion statutes prohibiting women from serving in combat roles. The Senate, too, had looked favorably upon such a bill. But the Bush administration had referred the notion to the inevitable committee, in this case a “blue-ribbon presidential panel” that was to ponder it and report its findings some time in 1993—or 2003—or beyond.

“The fact is,” Schroeder said, “the military cannot do without its women, and that means in every conceivable role, without consideration of gender. In 1968 there were only
forty thousand women in the armed forces. Today, that number is well over a quarter of a million, and it’s growing rapidly. You’re well aware of the hypocrisy inherent in the statute that prohibits you from going into combat. Many of you have already been in combat—even if it was called something else.”

The audience applauded.

She continued. “You put your lives on the line in the Persian Gulf, and you gave your lives. Now, because of the threat of nuclear war in that region, it appears that you will again be called to serve side by side with your male colleagues, and you will do it with the same honor and excellence you’ve demonstrated in the past. I was extremely proud to have co-authored a crucial bill with Representative Beverly Byron, and potentially to have been able to play some small part in bringing about full equality for women who have helped defend this country’s Constitution since its inception.”

The applause was louder. Many rose to their feet.

Schroeder concluded her remarks by running down laws of other nations regarding women not only in combat, but in the military service itself. She mentioned Italy and Spain, which totally exclude women from military service. In Germany a handful of women are restricted to service in healthcare services. Canada and Denmark train women as fighter pilots; the British have moved in the direction taken by the Schroeder-Byron bill; and Israel conscripts women into its military forces and assigns them to combat units, but withdraws them if those units are sent into battle.

“Thank you for allowing me to be here this evening. The tireless work of this organization has proved instrumental in reaching the goal of allowing women to fight shoulder to shoulder with men. You are to be congratulated.”

Margit was, at once, stirred and saddened by what she’d heard. She believed in what the bill represented, and was especially proud of the air force, the only service that had openly embraced the notion of women in combat during recent hearings. At the same time, she was achingly aware that
she stood on the threshold of losing a career to which she’d been dedicated for so many years.

She checked her watch: eight-thirty. Time to return to Bellis’s office and face the music. Music? Face the enemy? She was sorely tempted to call Mac Smith and ask his advice. Show up? Walk away? No. It was beyond his kind of help. This was now her show, and the show must—would—go on. No esoteric legal issues involved. She was an air-force officer and had been called upon the carpet for disobeying orders, as tacit as they might have been.

She sat in Bellis’s empty reception area. He walked in at ten to nine and disappeared into his office. He emerged moments later. “Let’s go,” he said.

She fell in step, staying to his left and slightly behind as her lesser rank dictated. She wished her heels didn’t make so much noise on the bare floor as they headed for the second floor of E ring, where the Joint Chiefs’ suites were located. It was carpeted there, and quiet. Lights in the hallway had been lowered as an energy-conservation measure. A few people were still at work, but compared to the usual hustle-bustle of the Pentagon, the hall had a surrealistic, almost dreamlike, quality.

They stopped in front of a door on which a sign read
BRUCE A
.
MASSINGILL
,
UNDERSECRETARY FOR POLICY
. “Wait here,” Bellis said. He knocked, heard “Come in,” and went through the door, leaving Margit alone. He was gone for what seemed to her a long time. Then the door opened, and Bellis said, “Come in, Major.”

A captain and a bird colonel sat at desks in the reception area. The captain stood, went to a door and knocked, opened it slightly, and poked his head inside. “They’re here, sir,” he said. Without another word he pushed the door fully open and stood at attention as Bellis, followed by Margit, entered the undersecretary’s private conference room.

The lights in the large room were even lower than in the hallway. Seated at the far end of a highly polished and very long cherrywood table was Undersecretary Massingill. She’d
seen many pictures of him and had heard about his considerable power, as well as his overt enjoyment in exercising it.