Silken Prey

garage when Kidd showed up, driving a Mercedes SUV. Lucas said, “Fat ride. That’s spelled P-H-A-T.”
    Kidd: “Wrong century, pal. Phat was about 1990.”
    “That’s the second time one of you computer people told me I was outdated.”
    “Well, you gotta keep up,” Kidd said. He paused, looked up at the sky, then said, “You know, I take that back. Really, maybe you don’t need to keep up. Maybe keeping up is for idiots.”
    “Let’s take that walk,” Lucas said.
    They strolled up Mississippi River Boulevard, taking their time. Kidd asked, “You get anything out of those army docs?”
    “I had one of my guys look at them—he’s ex-army, an MP captain. He said Dannon and Carver are dangerous guys.”
    “He’s right,” Kidd said. He had his hands in his pockets and half turned to Lucas. “I want to tell you some stuff, but I don’t want it coming back to me, or showing up in court. It’s for your information—and I’m giving it to you because I trust you, and because you may need it.”
    “You didn’t stick up a 7-Eleven store?”
    “Worse,” Kidd said. “I stole military secrets.”
    “I got no problem with that,” Lucas said. “What’d they say?”
    “After I pulled those docs out of the record center, I did some more digging around,” Kidd said. “It turns out, there’s a classified report on what happened with Carver. There was no way I could get it to you by ‘mistake.’”
    “Okay.”
    “The short version of it is, he and a squad of special operations troops flew into a village in southern Afghanistan in two Blackhawks, with a gunship flying support. They were targeting a house where two Taliban leadership guys were hiding out with their bodyguards. They landed, hit the house, there was a short fight there, they killed one man, but they’d caught the Taliban guys while they were sleeping. They controlled and handcuffed the guys they were looking for, and had five of their bodyguards on the floor. Then the village came down on them like a ton of bricks. Instead of just being the two guys with their bodyguards, there were like fifty or sixty Taliban in there. There was no way to haul out the guys they’d arrested—there was nothing they could do but run. They got out by the skin of their teeth.”
    “What about Carver?” Lucas asked.
    “Carver was the last guy out of the house. Turns out, the Taliban guys they’d handcuffed were executed. So were the bodyguards, and two of them were kids. Eleven or twelve years old. Armed, you know, but . . . kids.”
    “Yeah.”
    “An army investigator recommended that Carver be charged with murder, but it was quashed by the command in Afghanistan—deaths in the course of combat,” Kidd said. “The investigator protested, but he was a career guy, a major, and eventually he shut up.”
    “Would he talk now? I need something that would open Carver up.”
    “I don’t think so,” Kidd said. “He’s just made lieutenant colonel. He’s never going to get a star, but if he behaves, he could get his birds before he retires.”
    “Birds?”
    “Eagles. He could be promoted to colonel. That’s a nice retirement bump for guys who behave. But, there’s another guy. The second-to-the-last guy out. He’s apparently the one who saw the executions and made the initial report. He’s out of the army now. He lives down in Albuquerque.”
    “I’ve got no time to go to Albuquerque,” Lucas said.
    Kidd shrugged: “That’s your problem. I’m passing along the information. He’s there, he apparently had some pretty strong feelings about what he saw. They might even have pushed him out of the army. Up until then, he looked like he’d probably be a lifer. Same general profile as Carver’s, but a few years younger. He was an E-6, a staff sergeant.”
    “You got a name and address?”
    “Yeah, I do. Dale Rodriguez is the name.” Kidd dug into his hip pocket, pulled out a sheet of white paper. “Here’s the address.”
    Lucas took the paper, stuck it in his own pocket. “How do I explain finding this?”
    “On those docs you got from the army records center, Carver’s last unit is listed. If you search for the unit on Facebook, you’ll find a half-dozen different guys listing it as part of their biographies. Rodriguez is one of them.”
    “Ah. I’ve got a researcher who is good with Facebook and all that.”
    “You might have to get in touch with all of them as a cover for contacting Rodriguez.”
    “That can be