Chapter 10

Sergeant First Class Raymond Wilson approached the desk and waited to be noticed.

He was an inch over six feet in height, weighed a bit less than two hundred pounds, and had thinning brown hair. He was 42 years old and had been a soldier for 24 of those years, but that period of his life was coming to an end. He had applied for retirement at the end of his current tour. The clerk looked up and waited for Wilson to speak. “SFC Wilson to see the General. He sent for me.”

The clerk glanced at a list of appointments, nodded once, then carefully checked off the name. “Let me see if the General is ready, Sergeant. Just a moment.” He came back after a short pause and said, “You can go in, Sergeant.”

Wilson knocked once, then opened the door. He marched to the front of the desk, came to attention, and reported. “SFC Wilson, Raymond, reporting to the General as ordered, Sir.”

General Adams returned the salute casually, then said, “Have a seat, Sergeant. Coffee?” When Wilson nodded, General Adams pushed a button on his intercom and said, “Fresh coffee for two, and then hold phone calls and visitors until I’m done.”

“Fresh coffee” to General Adams meant just that, coffee from beans ground and brewed within the last half hour. The general stocked the beans for himself, but also made them available to his staff. he had been heard to remark when questioned that “I can’t control the enemy, I can’t control the weather, and I can’t control my own damned chain of command, but by God I can control the coffee I drink!” As a result of his idiosyncracy, a coffee grinder and Mr Coffee machine occupied a small table in the outer office.

His aides ordered Kenya AA beans when the supply got low, submitting the charge to the general’s wife. She paid when the bill came due, just one more among her household expenses. The general expected to join her in Maryland when his Afghanistan tour ended.

His visitors didn’t complain; some had begun stocking their own gourmet beans in emulation of the general. The staff didn’t always buy the same kind of coffee. Some preferred Jamaica Blue Mountain, others liked Kona Gold, and one had found an obscure supplier in Panama that he swore by. As a result, a coffee subculture had grown up around the general. Aides and clerks traded information and sampled each other’s special brew. The general had been offered cups of the other brews, but declined. He preferred his own.

The insistence on having his own coffee, brewed fresh, was a symptom. General Adams chafed at his current assignment. More coordinator than commander nowadays, he spent his time assuring that his well-trained staff provided support for the units that did the actual fighting. Paperwork came in, got signed, and was pushed onward. It wasn’t much of a job for man who’d spent years as an active commander and troop leader. The necessary staff assignments he’d filled along the way had been distractions, temporary activities that took him away from what he considered the only real task of an officer, command of soldiers.

Adams had been an infantryman before being promoted to brigadier general. He still hoped to command a division, or failing that command of one of the major infantry posts. Such a tailgate assignment would be a nice cap to his career, but instead, the past three years had found him stuck in assignments like his current one, shuffling paper, and he feared he’d never again command combat troops.

General Adams had a squarish face, an impressive collection of wrinkles, and he maintained his head bald. It didn’t take a lot of shaving; most of his hair had gone within a few years of leaving the Military Academy. He’d been a football player at West Point, then worn a combat helmet for years, and it showed; like many who’d worn such, the hair follicles had been damaged to the point that he became prematurely bald. He still sported a fit, if blocky, shape.

Two black stars were velcro’d to the front of his uniform jacket. The second star had come with this assignment. General Adams sometimes wondered if the promotion had been worth it.

After Ray had had his first appreciative sip of the coffee, General Adams said, “I thought I’d give you something to do during your last two weeks in-country, and I’ve got a problem you might be able to help me with. You did good work for me back there at Bliss, even if you were a little unorthodox, and I’m hoping that unorthodox approach will help you find out more than my regular military police can.

“Two of my soldiers have disappeared, and I want you to find out what happened. They went missing from right here in the compound, apparently. One is a nurse, a lieutenant colonel, and the medical people are upset. She’s got special duty qualifications and is very good with patients, according to the chief surgeon. The other is a warrant who’s some sort of intelligence specialist. He’s attached to a support unit that handles convoy escort and patrols, and he seems to be pretty good at what he does. He’s led at least a dozen patrols since he got here and he generally works with pickup squads of short-timers that are waiting to be ordered home. He goes out, does what he’s supposed to do, and most of the time he avoids hostile contact, but they triggered an IED on his last patrol and two of his men were killed. He’s never been scratched.” General Adams thought about that. “Lucky. I could have used that luck in Vietnam!” The general had picked up more than his fair share of dings during his three tours in that country.

“Anyway, I knew you were getting short and I thought you might be able to find out something before you leave. Still planning on retiring?”

Ray nodded. “Yes, sir. I like working for you, but I’ve had enough time in the green suit. I’ll go back to college, finish up a degree, then do something else. I won’t need to work while I attend college; I’ll have my retirement pay and GI Bill and I’m not married, so that should be more than enough to take care of my expenses. As for a degree, I’d like to do something technical. I’ve got some ideas, but if they don’t work out I can always fall back on doing security consulting. I’ve certainly got enough experience to do that, and it should be relatively easy to pick up enough security planning classes for a minor if I major in a technical field.”

General Adams nodded. “Sounds like a plan. As to what I want, see what you can find out before you transfer out and get back to me. The medical folks are really bugging me about this nurse! Nobody seems to give much of a damn about the warrant, but I’d still like to know what happened to him! I don’t like my people disappearing from inside what’s supposed to be a secured compound. If there’s some way of getting in or out of here I need to know about it. It could be something a lot more serious next time. There are two personnel files on the table in the outer office. They’ll give you a place to start.”

SFC Wilson put his empty cup on a side table, and came to attention. General Adams returned his salute and picked up the file he’d been working on, then paused after Ray left. He thought for a moment, then buzzed in his clerk. “Get my aide, please.”

When Lieutenant Chilton came in, General Adams told him, “I just sent an old friend, Sergeant First Class Ray Wilson, on an errand. He was my security manager at Fort Bliss and he did good work for me, a lot more than you’d expect from a sergeant. He gets things done without making waves. He’s retiring after he returns stateside, so see that he gets what he needs from this command. You know the drill; he’ll maybe want a particular post to retire from, whatever. I wouldn’t want to find that the personnel officer was being unreasonable. If you have a problem get back to me, but otherwise I’m going to assume you can handle this.”

Lieutenant Chilton had been taking notes in a pocket notebook. He nodded, replied “Yes, Sir.” He replaced the notebook in his pocket, buttoned it, and quietly let himself out the door.

Ray took the two folders to his office and put them on his empty desk. He’d be turning his duties over to his replacement in two weeks, and his work had been completed with that in mind. The barren office was a clear sign that his job here was ending.

His career was ending too. Despite what he’d told the general, he hadn’t fully come to terms with closing out that part of his life. But it was time to move on, and he would adjust. He’d done so many times during his career.

There had been a few personal things on the walls or in the filing cabinet; they had been turned in to the supply office for shipment and had gone out the previous weekend. As a result, the office was now almost ready to be turned over. A few items remained; a battered briefcase contained a copy of his personnel file and his personal weapon, a holstered Sig-Sauer .380 with one in the chamber and magazine inserted, plus two spare magazines in the front of the clip-on belt holster, and a small collection of circulars and copies of his alert movement orders. They were the only personal things in the office, otherwise empty except for the government laptop computer he’d been issued and the standard office furniture of metal desk, chair, wastebasket, and file cabinet.

He locked the office behind him and picked up a cup of coffee and a pastry from the coffee bar. Carrying his snack, he returned, unlocking the office and closing the door behind him. There was really no reason to lock the office when he went for coffee, since there were no longer any sensitive or classified documents in the room but the habit was long ingrained and hard to break.

He looked at the two manila folders and started with the lieutenant colonel’s record. He scanned the file, reading rapidly, trying to get an overall picture of her, what she did and what she might have done that led to her disappearance. Name, military occupation specialty (MOS) and duty assignment, plus a thick file of orders transferring her around the Army over a career spanning twenty-plus years. Education, MS in nursing, plus a separate listing for additional professional certifications. There was an unusually thick file of commendations; this lady was apparently something special, a real water-walker. Nurses rarely went on to make full colonel or higher, since there were few duty assignments calling for that rank. This one had a good chance of doing so. She had the medical expertise and administrative experience that a selection board would consider. But there was nothing to indicate why she might have suddenly vanished. Someone with that kind of record wouldn’t just take off on a whim.

She was in her early 40’s and unmarried. Well, the Army had its share and more of unmarried and no-longer-married people. He laid the file aside and picked up the CW3’s. This one was considerably thinner. If this was to be believed, CW3 Tagliaferro had entered active duty with that rank. Long-service noncoms who made warrant often jumped directly to CW2, so maybe something like that had happened. Could he been a reservist or national guardsman, already a CW3 when he was ordered to active duty? There was no way to tell.

The MOS code was equally strange. The usual three numbers indicating warrant military occupations were there, 350 in this case, plus a string of letters appended to the numerical code. Wilson opened the laptop and called up the listing of the Army’s MOS codes and was left with a bigger puzzle. The MOS coded for “All Source Intelligence Technician”, a general listing for those with no specialty. But there was nothing to explain the extra letter codes at the end. There was no listing for an MOS of 350(S) for example, and no explanation for the other additions. Some kind of spook, then? CIC? CID? Maybe even CIA, using the uniform as a cover? They generally operated openly, but maybe this one was special? People understood they were CIA, even though their record might list them as an agricultural specialist or cultural affairs assistant.