William McGivern - A Matter of Honor

The general’s face was impassive, but the eyes were dark with growing fury as he paced back and forth in front of the fireplace.

“Heroin,” he said, and the word was isolated like a bitter echo in the cold room. “Greed, lies, murder. Betrayal and corruption hiding behind the American flag. It must be stopped. My son wasn’t born for this, he goddamn well shouldn’t have had to die for it.” His voice was rough with emotion. “We ask you men to join us, to raise their hands in oath... There are certain trusts that cannot be betrayed, soldier. This is a matter of honor.”

He moved to stand directly in front of Lasari. “And you believe that if you could get back to Malleck, if you completed the circle, you could tell the military everyone who is involved?”

Lasari shrugged. “I believe so. At least every name, number and order that I personally saw or heard from Chicago to Ludensdorf and back, the whole loop.”

“You’ve kept a written record?”

“No. Nothing on paper, but I’ve got a freak memory. I know your identification number, for instance, 397-07-1991.” Lasari rattled off the nine figures easily. “I saw your ID bracelet in Philo Park.”

“You have a photographic memory, you remember everything?”

“Only what I want to,” Lasari said. “I don’t go through life memorizing billboards.”

For a moment the General was lost in thought. “It’s like a medical technique. Doctors put a chemical dye in the bloodstream and then trace it through the body’s circulating system to find cancers and malfunctions. You’re like that little red blood stain, tracking and marking every step of the way.”

He touched the duffel bag with the toe of his boot, then lifted it and tried the heft in his hand. “We can do it, soldier!” he said then. “ You can do it. Do yourself, do your country a favor. Go back to Chicago on schedule, complete that loop...”

“You’re offering me about the same deal as Malleck,” Lasari said hotly, “except that you’ve sweetened it with some patriotic talk.”

“Wrong,” the General said. “I’ll be in Chicago before you, I’ll alert the right people. And I’ll testify for you afterward. The Army will believe Scotty Weir, goddamn it. They’ll hear what we’ve got to say.”

He looked at his watch, then removed the Observer bands from a pocket and slipped them over his sleeves. “Get yourself together, Lasari, and I’ll bring the car around. You’re going back to the base. If there’s been an AWOL report on you. I’ll countermand it. This is one more time I put these stars to work.”

In the far courtyard Lasari heard the Mercedes engine turn over, then the sound of tires crunching on the snow. He put the passport, pills and matchbook in his pocket, checked the zipper on the duffel and looked around the room. There was nothing but a half mug of cold tea on the table to show anyone had been there.

The general was behind the wheel of the car, coming up the circle drive leading to the Schwartzwald, headlights on low, the glow pinpointing Lasari against the lodge. There was a sudden squeal of brakes and the general’s shout, “Look out there, soldier!”

As he threw himself to the snow Lasari heard bullets cracking around him as if he were the focal point of a three-way firelight. A bullet sliced through the empty air where he had been standing only seconds before. There were two more shots and something large and dark and full of pain fell to the ground a few feet from him. The Mercedes was still running in its own pool of light, surrounded by silence.

Lasari ran toward the fallen body near the front door. A moon had broken through the storm clouds with enough light to show the body of a big man in an open topcoat, lying face downward in the snow. Lasari used both hands to turn the body over and saw it was Herr Rauch, his collarbones smashed and his upper chest dark with waxy blood, a Mauser automatic still gripped in his hand.

Lasari felt through the man’s pockets. There were no papers, no wallet, nothing but a set of car keys, several fine linen handkerchiefs and a roll of breath mints.

Lasari ran to the Mercedes. General Weir had fallen to his knees and was leaning against the car, a hand to his chest. “It’s never as bad as it looks, soldier,” he said.

“I’ll get you to a hospital,” Lasari said.

“No. The German highway patrol will be by within the hour.” The general tried to rise but the effort was too great. “I’m giving the orders here. Take this car and get back to camp. Don’t break that loop, Lasari.”

“I can’t leave you here.”

“You’ve got to. Get those bastards, soldier.”

“How can I go it alone? Who can I trust? Who’ll trust me?”

“Call the States, use a public airport phone. Get John Grimes, my place in Springfield. He’ll need General Stigmuller and Sergeant Gordon, tell him I said so. And here, soldier.”

With ragged breathing and in obvious pain the General slipped his hand inside his tunic and took out a wallet, sorting through it with numbing fingers. Between bits of tissue paper he located the Medal of Honor, the Liberty head, stars and the single word Valor clearly visible in the moonlight. “Take it,” he said. “That will show them Scotty Weir sent you.”

Lasari hesitated only a moment. “I won’t need the car, general,” he said. “Let me help you out of this wind.” He switched off the Mercedes engine, then lifted Weir into the car on the driver’s side.

Back in the lodge Lasari took the skis off the wall racks, pulled a blanket from the couch and went back to the car.

“It’s never as bad as it looks,” the general said, barely audible, as Lasari bundled the blanket around him. Then he turned the headlights to bright, cradled the general’s head on a folded arm and arranged the body to lean against the steering wheel. A shrill wail sounded in the night as the general’s inert weight pressed against the horn.

Lasari strapped on the skis, picked up the duffel and glided over the snow to the top of the old ski run. There was just enough light to pick out the path down the mountain, lined on either side with pines and tufted with scrub growth. About six or eight miles down the trail, the general said, with twists and turns and unknown terrain ahead.

Lasari hoisted the duffel over his head, ignoring the painful spasms in his bruised chest, and tried a couple of tentative knee bends. It was not the challenge of the slope that worried him; it was the network of nerves that were tingling through the old wounds in his thigh and calf, a betraying sign of weakness or crippling fear.

Lasari pushed off and started down the slope, the cold wind bringing tears to his eyes and wetting his cheeks. It seemed to him a long, long time, dodging scrub and gliding past tall conifers, before the wailing sound of the Mercedes’ horn faded behind him into the night.

He halted with a sharp Christiana a few hundred yards above the maneuver area, where he could see lights and make out signs of movement.

Concealing the skis in deep brush, he took out the American passport and tore each page into a dozen pieces, letting the fragments mix with the wind. From his pocket he removed the bottle of pills ( “... take three,” Vayetch had said) and shook out six small capsules, washing them down with a mouthful of snow.

For the first time he noticed heavy blood stains on his tunic and spent several minutes rubbing at the spots with handfuls of snow, leaving crimson stains on the ground around him.

Lasari had begun the final walk downhill, duffel in hand, when the first wave of nausea struck him. He began to walk faster, breathing deeply and trying to focus on the lights below. The quantity of blood on his uniform had surprised and disconcerted him.