Brian Haig - Secret sanction

“Okay, let me elaborate a bit more. Aside from your sterling case records, you both took the mandatory classes in Law of War and the Geneva Convention when you went through the JAG School. You’re probably unaware of it, but you got the second and third highest grades ever awarded. Colonel Winston, whom you’ll remember taught both courses, described you as the two best minds he ever saw. Next to the guy who scored first, of course.”

“And was that you?” Morrow asked.

I shrugged and gave them my aw-shucks grin, and they both appeared suitably awed.

But, no, it wasn’t me. Not by a long shot. The same Colonel Winston called the Chief of Staff of the Army and bitched like a banshee the second he learned I’d been picked for this assignment. His exact words were that he remembered me as the biggest dunce he ever taught. But why discourage my troops before we even got our feet wet? Besides, another thing about lawyers is that they are eternally competitive creatures. Delbert was a grad of Yale and Yale Law, and Morrow went to UVA, then Harvard Law. It don’t get much more competitive than that. Wasn’t their fault, really-they were just that type.

Morrow’s eyes flicked nervously in Delbert’s direction before she coughed a little, then said, “By any chance, would you happen to remember which of us was second?”

See what I mean?

“Perhaps I should make one other point,” I said, and they both fidgeted with frustration because they really did want to know who was second. “At the moment, we are surrounded by the enemy. All these soldiers and airmen running around here, they’re wearing our uniform, but they’re different from us. They’re gonna smile and be real nice and polite, but don’t be fooled. They don’t like what we’re here to do, and they don’t like us. Those nine men sitting in that prison are their brethren. We’re outsiders who’ve been brought here to decide whether they should be tried and lynched. Also, there may be more men walking around this compound who might be implicated in this thing.”

“I think you’re overstating it,” Morrow said.

“Actually, I’m not. There are men on this base who wouldn’t mind if we got lost in the woods and gave them a chance to shoot us in the back of the head. And you know what? They could come back here, brag about it to everyone on this base, and be admired for it. As such, I will require each of you to carry a loaded pistol at all times.”

Morrow was looking at me incredulously. She was the dissenting type. I could tell.

I said, “You do know how to use a pistol, don’t you?”

“I fired expert with the pistol and every other weapon,” she starchly replied, and I can’t say that came as any surprise.

“Of course you fired expert as well?” I asked Delbert.

“Of course,” he said, nodding very energetically.

“Good. Personally, pistols scare the hell out of me. I can’t hit anything farther than two feet away.”

The two of them chuckled at my little joke and seemed to admire me for my self-deprecating humility. But it wasn’t a joke. I was dead serious. I think I was born with one of those hand-eye coordination problems. Anyway, I chuckled along with them. If they didn’t want to believe me, that was their problem.

“The point is,” I continued, “we’re completely on our own. There’s not a soul we can trust except one another, so carry yourselves accordingly. You’re already unpopular, so you’ve got nothing to lose. We’ve been given twenty-one days to get to the truth of what happened here, and more likely than not, it’s a very ugly tale.”

They didn’t believe me. They swallowed a few times and gave me a few false nods, but you could see it in their eyes.

Big deal. They’d learn.

I had fourteen years in the Army-the first five in the infantry, then three years at law school, six months at the JAG School, then the rest practicing military law. I’d prosecuted and I’d defended, and I’d developed the opinion that the best place to begin a murder investigation is at the morgue. There’s something about a pale body lying on a cold slab that gets your attention. It reminds you of the solemnity of your purpose. Somewhere connected to that body are a family and friends, and they miss the spirit that once inhabited that flesh. The lawyer is their last and only hope for justice. The body can’t vocalize, but it cries out for justice, plainly and dramatically.

I’d told them back in Washington that my investigating team was going to visit the morgue on the outskirts of Belgrade where the bodies were stored, only this turned out to be not quite so simple as it sounded. The problem was that the bodies were in Serbia, and we were still dropping lots of large metal canisters filled with explosives on that country’s villages and cities. So there were a few understandable complications.

I met with two stiff-necked foreign service officers back in Washington who lectured me like I was some kind of idiotic novice in international affairs. Well, I am a novice, but I am also a lawyer, and a stubborn one, and I was not about to back off. This was a case that crossed international boundaries, and I really didn’t care if the Secretary of State herself had to get on a phone and plead with Bad Boy Billy Milosevic himself to get us in. He’d let Jesse Jackson in. So why not us?

Well, there were a lot of peevish faces, but I guess I knew a little bit more about this stuff than those two State Department jerks, because a UN diplomat asked Milosevic if we could come, and he did not even hesitate.

He said yes. Of course he said yes. I knew he was going to say yes. See, he knew that our word was infinitely more credible than his, and he wanted more than anything for my team to verify that there were in fact thirty-five slaughtered bodies in that morgue. Still, his assent had its worrisome aspects. If he was willing to let us come see the bodies, then he must’ve been pretty damned sure that our boys killed them.

We all got a good night’s rest, and at five in the morning on day two of our investigation, Captains Delbert and Morrow, myself, and a pathologist, who’d flown in from Frankfurt the night before, all climbed aboard a snazzy Blackhawk helicopter and began our flight. The pathologist was sort of an odd-looking duck with a misshapen head, pale, almost translucent skin, and these hyper-looking, bulgy eyes. Appearances aside, I’d been assured he was one of the best.

The flight took about three hours, and we had to land and refuel once. The guys who refueled us were Serbian soldiers, and I won’t say they seemed too happy to see us. I didn’t take any offense, though. After all, our airmen were at that moment pounding the bejesus out of some part of their country.

Two sedans with Serb military drivers awaited us at the Belgrade International Airport. No one said a word as we drove through the city, going straight to the morgue. It was not the fancy-type morgue like you so often see back in the United States. In fact, it was a pretty grim, ramshackle, dilapidated old building, and I have to admit that seemed fitting, because most of the inhabitants were past caring about their accommodations.

A Serbian doctor named Something-o-vich met us at the entry and escorted us through a series of dark and dirty hallways, down some stairs, and into a gloomy cellar. American morgues are normally so clean and sterile you really could eat off the floors, if you were inclined to do such a ghoulish thing. This morgue stunk of rotting cadavers and was filthy from the rafters down.

The basement was cold and dank and had the kind of dim hanging lamps that tall people bang their heads against. I, thankfully, am a nicely compact five foot ten, so I survived right nicely. Poor Delbert is about two inches above six feet and he walks like he’s on a parade ground, with a stiff rod jammed up his you-know-what, so he picked up some nasty lumps on his forehead.