The Enemy

hand.”
    “I was misinformed,” I said.
    “That doesn’t alter the fact, I’m afraid.”
    “Your witness is dead.”
    “He left a signed affidavit. That stands forever. That’s the same as if he were right there in the courtroom, testifying.”
    I said nothing.
    “It comes down to a simple question of fact,” the colonel said. “A simple yes or no answer, really. Did you do what Carbone alleged?”
    I said nothing.
    The colonel stood up. “You can talk it over with your counsel.”
    I glanced at the captain. Apparently he was my lawyer. The colonel shuffled out and closed the door on us. The captain leaned forward from his chair and shook my hand and told me his name.
    “You should cut the colonel some slack,” he said. “He’s giving you a loophole a mile wide. This whole thing is a charade.”
    “I rocked the boat,” I said. “The army is getting its licks in.”
    “You’re wrong, Reacher. Nobody wants to screw you over this. Willard forced the issue, is all. So we have to go through the motions.”
    “Which are?”
    “All you’ve got to do is deny it. That throws Carbone’s evidence into dispute, and since he’s not around to be cross-examined, your Sixth Amendment right to be confronted by the witness against you kicks in and it guarantees you an automatic dismissal.”
    I sat still.
    “How would it be done?” I said.
    “You sign an affidavit just like Carbone did. His says black, yours says white, the problem goes away.”
    “Official paper?”
    “It’ll take five minutes. We can do it right here. Your corporal can type it and witness it. Dead easy.”
    I nodded.
    “What’s the alternative?” I said.
    “You’d be nuts to even think about an alternative.”
    “What would happen?”
    “It would be like pleading guilty.”
    “What would happen?” I said again.
    “With an effective guilty plea? Loss of rank, loss of pay, backdated to the incident. Civilian Affairs wouldn’t let us get away with anything less.”
    I said nothing.
    “You’d be busted back to captain. In the regular MPs, because the 110th wouldn’t want you anymore. That’s the short answer. But you’d be nuts to even think about it. All you have to do is deny it.”
    I sat there and thought about Carbone. Thirty-five years old, sixteen of them in the service. Infantry, Airborne, the Rangers, Delta. Sixteen years of hard time. He had done nothing except try to keep a secret he should never have had to keep. And try to alert his unit to a threat. Nothing much wrong with either of those things. But he was dead. Dead in the woods, dead on a slab. Then I thought about the fat guy at the strip club. I didn’t really care about the farmer. A busted nose was no big deal. But the fat guy was messed up bad. On the other hand, he wasn’t one of North Carolina’s finest citizens. I doubted if the governor was lining him up for a civic award.
    I thought about both of those guys for a long time. Carbone, and the fat man in the parking lot. Then I thought about myself. A major, a star, a hotshot special unit investigator, a go-to guy headed for the top.
    “OK,” I said. “Bring the colonel back in.”
    The captain got up out of his chair and opened the door. Held it for the colonel. Closed it behind him. Sat down again next to me. The colonel shuffled past us and sat down at the desk.
    “Right,” he said. “Let’s wrap this thing up. The complaint is baseless, yes?”
    I looked at him. Said nothing.
    “Well?”
    You’re going to do the right thing.
    “The complaint is true,” I said.
    He stared at me.
    “The complaint is accurate,” I said. “In every detail. It went down exactly like Carbone described.”
    “Christ,” the colonel said.
    “Are you crazy?” the captain said.
    “Probably,” I said. “But Carbone wasn’t a liar. That shouldn’t be the last thing that goes in his record. He deserves better than that. He was in sixteen years.”
    The room went quiet. We all just sat there. They were looking at a lot of paperwork. I was looking at being an MP captain again. No more special unit. But it wasn’t a big surprise. I had seen it coming. I had seen it coming ever since I closed my eyes on the plane and the dominoes started falling, end over end, one after the other.
    “One request,” I said. “I want a two-day suspension included. Starting now.”
    “Why?”
    “I have to go to a funeral. I don’t want to beg my CO for leave.”
    The colonel looked away.
    “Granted,” he said.

    I