Something whispers to me there, some sort of idle fact, and I try to think it through and it slips away.

“But you’re not going to tell me, are you?”

I can only hear the drone of the traffic from the nearby interstate. In between our single beds is a scratched and dinged-up nightstand with a lamp and a telephone. There’s a drawer underneath and I slide it open, revealing a Gideon Bible and a very thin phone book. I pull the phone book out and show it to my new friend.

“See this?” I ask. “Old-time New York cop once taught me this…long time ago, when things were stretched thin and even retirees in the Reserves were being called up. You take a phone book, even a skinny one like this, and you can beat a suspect with it until he’s crying and begging for mercy, and for some reason, it doesn’t leave a bruise. No evidence you were tortured to get information.”

The old man stares at me with dignity and calmness, like one of those old Christian martyrs in the Coliseum, kneeling before a hungry lion to meet his fate.

I toss the book back into the drawer.

“Not the way I operate,” I say. “Before this little misadventure began, I was being investigated for doing something like this to an alleged farmer, all the way over in Afghanistan, ending in his death.”

I close the drawer hard, making a loud bang in the room.

I say, “I didn’t do it over there, and I’m not about to do it over here.”

CHAPTER 67

MAJOR BRUNO Wenner, executive officer to Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Denton of the 297th Military Intelligence Battalion at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, is preparing for his 0800 morning meeting with the colonel when the intercom in his office buzzes. He picks up the phone and it’s Mrs. Bouchard, the colonel’s civilian secretary, and she says, “The colonel wants to see you right now…and I’m sorry, Bruno, he’s in a pissy mood.”

“Thanks for the heads-up, Mrs. B,” he replies, before hanging up and grabbing a legal pad, his iPad, and the folder with the colonel’s schedule and other necessary paperwork for the day.

The usual morning meeting is set to begin in nineteen minutes, he thinks, as he hustles his way to his boss’s office. What could be so important?

Then a little chill settles around his heart, about something he did yesterday for Captain Ted Cooper, one of the intelligence officers assigned to the battalion. What he did wasn’t particularly illegal or against Army regulations, but still…the colonel likes to claim he runs a tight ship, and what Wenner did yesterday could be considered mutiny, even if this is an Army outfit and not the Navy.

He goes into Denton’s office, gets a sharp grunt as a greeting, and he sits down, carefully balancing the folder, legal pad, and iPad on his lap. Denton is reading a sheet of paper, shaking his head as he does so, and that little cold chill around Wenner’s heart starts getting chillier.