James Benn - The Rest Is Silence

“An overloaded bicycle could have made those impressions,” Kaz offered. “Maybe Crawford is selling off produce.”

“I don’t give a good goddamn about produce,” Harding said, slamming his fist on his desk. “Or bicycles or motorbikes. What I care about is that an American officer with the highest security clearance has been killed. Murdered, if Dawes is right about him being suffocated. We’re right back to where we started when I first sent you here. We have a single dead body in a top-secret area and too many unanswered questions. Where and why was Peter Wiley killed?”

“One possibility is he returned to Ashcroft House for some unknown reason,” I said. “That would explain the tire tracks being intact after the rainstorm.”

“It is logical,” Kaz said. “But it does not explain how he ended up in the Channel. We should talk to Lieutenant Siebert about the manifest.”

“Go ahead,” Harding said, lighting a Lucky Strike and tossing the matchstick into an overflowing ashtray. “When you’re done, head to Dartmouth. General Montgomery decided he needed his own investigation and sent an officer to question surviving personnel.”

“Montgomery? Why is he sticking his nose in?” I asked. General Bernard Law Montgomery was famous for his disdain for Americans and his extremely high self-regard.

“He’s got a right,” Harding said. “The landing force will be under his command during the invasion, so he wants to get to the bottom of what went wrong. At least he sent an American officer. You’ll find Major Brian McClure onboard LST 289 in Dartmouth harbor.”

“There is one other thing we should do,” Kaz said, bringing up the subject he and I had discussed on the drive over here. “We need to thoroughly search Lieutenant Wiley’s office.”

“I told you; I looked and saw nothing out of the ordinary,” Harding said. “The same as when you searched his room.”

“His room was not a secure location,” I said. “If he had anything to hide, something that would be a clue as to where he was, his office would be the safest place to leave it.”

“And you think you can find it when I couldn’t?” Harding said.

“It’s my job,” I said. “A cop is naturally suspicious of everyone. You’re probably too much of a gentleman to do a proper search anyway.”

“Okay, cut out the brownnosing, Boyle. Have a chat with Siebert, then get back here. I’ll take you in.”

“Thanks, Colonel. Is Big Mike around?” It would help to have another bluecoat in khaki in on the search, if only to distract Harding if he didn’t like us pawing through top-secret stuff.

“I had to send him to London earlier this morning with some reports. He should be back in a few hours. Now get out of here. I have more on my plate than one dead naval officer.”

Siebert was ensconced in an upstairs room that served as his office, bedroom, and dining room, by the looks of the dirty cups and dishes scattered about. It was even more of a mess than the last time we’d been here. Add hospital room to the list, thanks to the white bandage around his head and another wrapped around his wrist.

“What do you want this time?” Lieutenant James Siebert said. He had files stacked on files on the table in front of him. Wads of carbon paper filled a wastepaper basket, and his hands were grimy with the stuff. He’d evidently rubbed his eyes at some point, and he had the look of an injured raccoon.

“I want you to give us your full attention,” I said. “I’m sorry you were hurt, but I need some answers. You’re the officer in charge of assigning observers to Operation Tiger, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. He gestured vaguely in the direction of two mismatched chairs and winced, holding his bandaged wrist.

“We need to know which ship Lieutenant Peter Wiley was on,” I said.

“Wiley’s a pain in the ass, like I explained last time,” Siebert said. “He told me Harding gave him the okay to go along, and I assigned him to LST 507. Then when I didn’t see his name on the orders, I asked Harding about it. He chewed me out for not checking with him first.”

“Lieutenant Wiley is dead,” I said.

“What? How?” Siebert said, obviously surprised. “Jesus, I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have said that if I’d known.”

“He washed up on the shore with all the other bodies,” Kaz said.

“That’s not possible,” Siebert said. “He wasn’t on any list. I made sure of that after Harding got through with me.”

“He couldn’t have snuck on?” I asked. “The boarding must have been hectic.”

“No,” Siebert said, leaning back in his chair and working through the possibilities. “Individual observers had to present their orders when they went onboard, and then the names had to be checked against the personnel manifest. I guess he could have gone on with an infantry unit, but a naval officer would look out of place. He’d be spotted right away and questioned.”

“When was the last time you saw Lieutenant Wiley?” Kaz asked.

“Right before he went off on leave,” Siebert said. “I was glad to see him go, so he wouldn’t pester me anymore about Operation Tiger.”

“Did he say why he was so desperate to be on board?” I asked.

“No, he just insisted he had to. Said it was important for his work.”

“What was his job here exactly?” I asked.

“No idea,” Siebert said. “He did it behind a locked door in a guarded room. Not something you ask about around here.”

“Why did you go on the maneuver?” Kaz asked. “Was it important for you to be there?”

“Hell, no,” Siebert said. “I organized everything ahead of time. I could have stayed warm and dry, but I thought it would be fun. Can you imagine that? I went out on the 507 and ended up floating on a section of decking until a British destroyer came along at dawn. It was not fun.”

“Are these all the manifests?” I asked, pointing to the piles in front of Siebert.

“Shipping manifests, unit orders, departure schedules, all the paperwork required to get thousands of GIs onto a convoy of LSTs on time,” he answered. “These are the personnel manifests, by ship. All the individual brass and observers not part of a participating unit.” He handed a folder to me and I glanced through it. The original list was typed, but names had been lined out and others written in.

“This is a mess,” I said. “How do you know who went where?”

“Tell me about it,” Siebert said. “I was getting changes up to the day before the exercise. New units were added and squeezed out any room for extra men on some ships. Last-minute orders from generals and their staff, that sort of thing.”

“Did you look for Peter Wiley’s name in there?” I said.

“No. I would have been the guy who put him on the list. No reason to go searching through all this when I know I didn’t.”

“You’re certain no one else could have added his name?” Kaz asked.

Siebert looked irritated. “I locked this stuff up whenever I left the office,” he said. “I even took the manifests with me on that damn joyride, in a waterproof bag. There’s no way. I never thought anyone would be dumb enough to go against orders and add their name to the list, but it was a top-secret exercise, so I kept everything secure. Besides, names are checked on each boat as well. They have duplicate lists, so adding a name to my list doesn’t ensure you get onboard.”

“Listen, Lieutenant,” I said. “I have orders that would let me force you to go through those manifests standing on your head. So save us a lot of aggravation and do it, okay?”

“Harding told me about your paperwork from Ike,” Siebert said. “All right, even though I don’t see the sense of it.”