‘What about the money?’ she said. ‘Or did you just forget to mention it?’

Clearly, the state cops were more susceptible to her wiles than I was. When next we met, I’d have a word with Walsh about maintaining some backbone and not coming over all giggly when a good-looking woman patted his arm and complimented him on his weapon.

‘I haven’t figured that part out yet,’ I said.

‘You’re not dumb, Mr. Parker, so don’t assume that I am. Let me suggest what conclusions I think you may have come to, and you can disagree with me when I’m done. You believe that Proctor was storing items in his motel, possibly, even probably, drugs. You believe that the cash in his cabin was a payment for his services. You believe that some, or all, of the men who have died might also have been involved in this same operation. Joel Tobias makes runs in his truck back and forth across the Canadian border, so you believe that he’s the likeliest transport link. Am I wrong?’

I didn’t respond, so she continued talking.

‘And yet I don’t think you’ve told the police all of this. I wonder why. Is it because you feel some loyalty to Bennett Patchett, and you don’t want to besmirch his son’s reputation unless you absolutely have to do so? I think that may be part of it. You’re a romantic, Mr. Parker, but sometimes, like all romantics, you confuse it with sentimentality. That explains why you’re cynical about the motives of others.

‘But you’re also a crusader, and that fits in with your romantic streak. That crusading impulse is essentially selfish: you’re a crusader because it gives you a sense of purpose, not because it serves the larger requirements of justice or society. In fact, when your own needs and the greater collective need have come into conflict, I suspect that you’ve usually chosen the former over the latter. That doesn’t make you a bad person, just an unreliable one. So, how’d I do?’

‘Close on Proctor and Tobias. I can’t comment on the second bout of free analysis.’

‘It’s not free. You’re going to pay for my drinks. What have I missed about Proctor and Tobias?’

‘I don’t think it’s drugs.’

‘Why not?’

‘I talked to someone who’d know if there was an attempt to increase the local supply, or to use the state as a staging post. It would involve squaring things with the Dominicans, and probably the Mexicans too. The gentleman to whom I spoke would also look for his cut.’

‘And if the new players just decided to dispense with the niceties?’

‘Then some men with guns might be tempted to dispense with them. There’s also the question of supply. Unless they’re growing bud themselves across the border, or are importing heroin straight from the source in Asia, they’d have to deal with the current suppliers somewhere along the line. It’s hard to keep those kinds of negotiations quiet, especially when they might threaten the status quo.’

‘If not drugs, then what?’

‘There might be something in their military records,’ I said, avoiding the question.

‘I’ve looked into the records of the deceased. There’s nothing.’

‘Look closer.’

‘I’ll ask you again: what are they smuggling? I think you know.’

‘I’ll tell you when I’m sure. Go back to the records. There must be something. If you’re concerned about the reputation of the military, then having the cops uncover a smuggling operation involving veterans isn’t going to help. It would be better if the military could be the instigators of any action against them.’

‘And in the meantime, what are you going to do?’

‘There’s always a weak link. I’m going to find it.’

I paid the tab, on the assumption that I could run it past the IRS as a justifiable expense if I claimed not to have enjoyed myself, which was largely true.

‘Are you driving back to Augusta tonight?’ I asked Saunders.

‘No, I’m staying in the same place that you are,’ she said.

I walked with her across the road to the motel.

‘Where’d you park?’

‘On the street,’ she said. ‘I’d ask you in for a nightcap, but I have no booze. Oh, and I don’t want to. There’s that too.’

‘I won’t take it personally.’

‘I really wish that you would,’ she said, and then she was gone.

Back in my room, I checked my cell phone. There was one message: it was from Louis, giving me the number of a motel, and the room in which he was staying. I used the room phone to call him. The main building was locked up for the night, and I wasn’t worried about anyone listening in. Nevertheless, we kept the conversation as circumspect as possible, just in case.

‘We had company,’ he said after Angel passed him the phone. ‘Two for dinner.’

‘They make it to the main course?’

‘Didn’t even last until the appetizers.’

‘And after?’

‘They went swimming.’

‘Well, at least they did it on an empty stomach.’

‘Yeah, can’t be too careful. Now it’s just the four of us.’

‘Four?’

‘Seems like you have a new career in relationship counseling.’

‘I’m not sure my skills are up to helping you with yours.’

‘We find ourselves in that much trouble, we’ll make a suicide pact first. In the meantime, you need to get over here. Our friend has turned out to be quite the conversationalist.’

‘I promised the state cops I’d hang around until morning.’

‘Well, they’ll miss you, but I think you need to hear this more.’

I told him it would take me a few hours to get there, and he said that they weren’t planning on going anywhere. As I drove out of the lot, a light still burned in Carrie Saunders’s room, but I didn’t think that it burned for me.

IV

He’d spent too long in just about every vehicle the army had to offer, and knew their strengths and shortcomings, but he was eventually brought in to fill a vacant spot on Tobias’s Stryker squad.

There had been a lot of crap tossed at the Stryker, usually by the kind of shitheads who subscribed to gun magazines and wrote letters to them about the ‘warrior class,’ but soldiers liked the Stryker. The seat cushions sucked, the a/c was like the beating of fly wings, and there weren’t enough outlets to run DVD players or iPods for an entire squad, but it was superior to the Humvees, even the up-armored ones. The Stryker offered integral 14.5mm protection from anything the haji could throw at it, with additional cover from RPGs provided by a cage of armor eighteen inches from the main body. It had the M240 at the rear, and a.50 cal that rocked. By comparison, the Humvee was like wrapping yourself in tissue and waving a.22.

And that kind of stuff mattered, because against every rule that he had ever been taught about urban warfare, the army had them marking the same patrol routes at the same times every day, so the haji could set their clocks and, by extension, their IEDs, by them. By this point, it wasn’t a matter of if they were going to be hit on a given day, but when. The upside was that, following a hit, the vehicle was automatically returned to base for repairs, so the squad could rest up for the remainder of the day.

The transfer to the Stryker squad had been Tobias’s doing; Tobias, and the man named Roddam. Tobias had earned his sergeant’s stripes and was squad leader. He wasn’t a jerk, though: he even scored them some beers, and getting busted for drinking was a serious offense. You might pull an Article 15 for a fistfight, or borrowing a vehicle without permission, but alcohol and drugs merited judicial punishment. Tobias’s own neck was on the line over the beer, but he trusted them. By then, though, he had become familiar with the way Tobias operated, and he knew that the beers were a way of softening them up. Tobias had his own unique spin on Newton’s third law of motion: for every action, there was an equal or greater reaction expected. They would pay for those beers, one way or another, and Roddam was the one who was going to extract the payment.