The Enemy

chaotic.”
    I looked out the window. Afternoon was fading fast. Evening was coming on. The world looked dark and cold.
    “Sixty miles,” I said. “The case was found sixty miles north of Bird. That’s an hour. They would have grabbed the agenda and ditched the case faster than that.”
    Summer said nothing.
    “And they would have stopped at the rest area to do it. They would have put the case in a garbage can. That would have been safer. Throwing a briefcase out of a car window is pretty conspicuous.”
    “Maybe there really wasn’t an agenda.”
    “It would be the first time in military history.”
    “Then maybe it really wasn’t important.”
    “They ordered bag lunches at Irwin. Two-stars, one-stars, and colonels were planning to work through their lunch hour. That might be the first time in military history too. That was an important conference, Summer, believe me.”
    She said nothing.
    “Do that U-turn thing again,” I said. “Across the median. Then go back north a little. I want to look at the rest area.”

    The rest area was the same as on most American interstates I had seen. The northbound highway and the southbound highway eased apart to put a long fat bulge into the median. The buildings were shared by both sets of travelers. Therefore they had two fronts and no backs. They were built of brick and had dormant flower beds and leafless trees all around them. There were gas pumps. There were angled parking slots. Right then the place seemed to be halfway between quiet and busy. It was the end of the holidays. Families were struggling home, ready for school, ready for work. The parking slots were maybe one-third filled with cars. Their distribution was interesting. People had grabbed the first parking spot they saw rather than chancing something farther on, even though that might have put them ultimately a little closer to the food and the bathrooms. Maybe it was human nature. Some kind of insecurity.
    There was a small semicircular plaza at the facility’s main entrance. I could see bright neon signs inside at the food stations. Outside, there were six trash cans all fairly close to the doors. There were plenty of people around, looking in, looking out.
    “Too public,” Summer said. “This is going nowhere.”
    I nodded again. “I’d forget it in a heartbeat if it wasn’t for Mrs. Kramer.”
    “Carbone is more important. We should prioritize.”
    “That feels like we’re giving up.”

    We went north out of the rest area and Summer did her off-roading thing across the median again and turned south. I got as comfortable as it was possible to get in a military vehicle and settled in for the ride back. Darkness unspooled on my left. There was a vague sunset in the West, to my right. The road looked damp. Summer didn’t seem very worried about the possibility of ice.
    I did nothing for the first twenty minutes. Then I switched the dome light on and searched Kramer’s briefcase, thoroughly. I didn’t expect to find anything, and I wasn’t proved wrong. His passport was a standard item, seven years old. He looked a little better in the picture than he had dead in the motel, but not much. He had plenty of stamps in and out of Germany and Belgium. The future battlefield and NATO HQ, respectively. He hadn’t been anywhere else. He was a true specialist. For at least seven years he had concentrated exclusively on the world’s last great tank arena and its command structure.
    The plane tickets were exactly what Garber had said they should be. Frankfurt to Dulles, and Washington National to Los Angeles, both round-trip. They were all coach class and government rate, booked three days before the first departure date.
    The itinerary matched the details on the plane tickets exactly. There were seat assignments. It seemed like Kramer preferred the aisle. Maybe his age was affecting his bladder. There was a reservation for a single room in Fort Irwin’s Visiting Officers’ Quarters, which he had never reached.
    His wallet contained thirty-seven American dollars and sixty-seven German marks, all in mixed small bills. The Amex card was the basic green item, due to expire in a year and a half. He had carried one since 1964, according to the
Member Since
rubric. I figured that was pretty early for an army officer. Back then most got by with cash and military scrip. Kramer must have been a sophisticated guy, financially.
    There was a Virginia driver’s license. He had been using Green Valley as