Men.
They were men, thought Victor Fontine as he watched his sons thread separately through the guests in the bright sunlight. And twins, second. It was an important distinction, he felt, although it wasn’t necessary to dwell on it. It seemed years since anyone had referred to them as the twins. Except Jane and himself, of course. Brothers, yes; but not twins. It was strange how that word had fallen into disuse.
Perhaps the party would revive it for a while. Jane would like that. They were always the twins to Jane. Her Geminis.
The afternoon party at the North Shore house on Long Island was for Andrew and Adrian; it was their birthday. The lawns and gardens behind the house, above the boathouse and the water, had been turned into an enormous outdoor fête champêtre, as Jane called it. “A ruddy, grownup picnic! No one has them anymore. We will.”
A small orchestra played at the south edge of the terrace, its music serving as an undercurrent to a hundred conversations. Long tables heaped with food were organized on the large expanse of manicured lawn; two bars did brisk business at either end of the rectangular buffet. Fête champêtre. Victor had never heard the term before. In thirty-four years of marriage, he had never heard it.
How the years had flown! It was as though three decades had been compressed into a time capsule and shot through the skies at incredible speed, only to land and be opened and scanned by participants who had merely grown older.
Andrew and Adrian were near each other now. Andy chatted with the Kempsons by the canapé table. Adrian was at the bar, talking to several young people whose clothes were the only vague evidence of their gender. It was right, somehow, that Andrew should be with the Kempsons. Paul Kempson was president of Centaur Electronics; he was well thought of by the Pentagon. As, of course, was Andrew. Adrian, no doubt, had been cornered by several university students who wanted to question the singularly outspoken attorney who was Victor’s son.
Victor noted with a certain satisfaction that both twins were taller than those around them. It was to be expected; neither he nor Jane were short. And they looked somewhat alike, but not identical. Andrew’s hair was very light, nearly blond; Adrian’s was dark, auburn. Their features were sharp, a combination of his and Jane’s, but each with his own identity. The only physical thing they shared in common was their eyes: they were Jane’s. Light blue and penetrating.
At times, in very bright sunlight or in dim shadows, they could be mistaken for each other. But only at such times, under such conditions. And they did not seek them. Each was very much his own man.
The light-haired Andrew was in the army, a dedicated professional. Victor’s influence had secured a congressional appointment to West Point, where Andrew had excelled. He’d made two tours of duty in Vietnam, although he despised the way the war was fought. “Win or get out” was his credo, but none listened, and he wasn’t sure it made any difference. There was no way to win for losing. Saigon corruption was like no other corruption on the face of the earth.
Yet Andrew was not a spoiler within the ranks, either. Victor understood that. His son was a believer. Deep, concerned, unwavering: The military was America’s strength. When all the words were said and done, there remained only the power at hand. To be used wisely, but to be used.
For the dark-haired Adrian, however, there was no limit to be placed on the use of words, and no excuse for armed confrontation. Adrian, the lawyer, was as dedicated in his fashion as his brother, although his demeanor might seem to deny it. Adrian slouched; he gave the appearance of nonchalance where none existed. Legal adversaries had learned never to be lulled by his humor or his seeming lack of concern. Adrian was concerned. He was a shark in the courtroom. At least he had been for the prosecutor’s office in Boston. He. was in Washington now.
Adrian had gone from prep school to Princeton to Harvard Law, with a year taken off to wander and grow a beard and play a guitar and sleep with available girls from San Francisco to Bleecker Street. It had been a year when Victor and Jane had held their collective breath, though not always their tempers.
But the life of the open road, the provincial confines of a half-dozen communes palled on Adrian. He could no more accept the aimlessness of unprovoked experience than Victor had nearly thirty years ago at the end of the European war.
Fontine’s thoughts were interrupted. The Kempsons were heading over to his chair, excusing their way through the crowd. They would not expect him to get up—no one ever did—but it annoyed Victor that he could not. Without help.
“Damn fine boy,” said Paul Kempson. “He’s got his head on straight, that Andrew does. I told him if he ever wants to chuck the uniform, Centaur has a place for him.”
“I told him he should wear his uniform,” added Kempson’s wife brightly. “He’s such a handsome man.”
“I’m sure he thinks it would be disconcerting,” said Fontine, not at all sure. “No one wants to be reminded of the war at a birthday party.”
“How long’s he home for, Victor?” asked Kempson.
“Home? Here? Only for a few days. He’s stationed in Virginia now. At the Pentagon.”
“Your other boy’s in Washington, too, isn’t he? Seems I read something about him in the papers.”
“Yes, I’m sure you did.” Fontine smiled.
“Oh, then they’re together. That’s nice,” said Alice Kempson.
The orchestra finished one number and began another. The younger couples flocked to the terrace; the party was accelerating. The Kempsons floated away with nods and smiles. Briefly, Victor thought about Alice Kempson’s remark.
… they’re together. That’s nice. But Andrew and Adrian were not together. They worked within twenty minutes of each other but lived separate lives. At times, Fontine thought, too separate. They did not laugh together as they once did as children. As men, something had happened between them. Fontine wondered what it was.
Jane acknowledged for roughly the hundredth time that the party was a success, wasn’t it. A statement. Thank heavens the weather held. The caterers had sworn they could erect the tents in less than an hour, if it was necessary, but by noon the sun was bright, the promise of a beautiful day confirmed.
Not, however, a beautiful evening. Far in the distance, over the water near Connecticut, the sky was gray. Weather reports predicted scattered-nocrurnal-thunder-showers-with-increasingly-steady-precipitation, whatever all that meant. Why didn’t they simply say it would rain later on?
Two o’clock to six o’clock. Good hours for a Sunday fête champêtre. She had laughed at Victor’s ignorance of the term. It was so pretentiously Victorian; the fun was in using it. It looked ridiculous on the invitations. Jane smiled, then stifled a laugh. She really should control her foolishness, she supposed. She was much too old for that sort of thing.
Across the lawn between the crowds, Adrian was smiling at her. Had he read her thoughts? Adrian, her dark-haired Gemini, had inherited her slightly mad English humor.
He was thirty-one years old. They were thirty-one years old. Where had those years gone? It seemed like only months ago they’d all arrived in New York on the ship. Followed by months of activity that had Victor flying all over the States and back to Europe, furiously building.
And Victor had done it. Fontine, Ltd. became one of the most sought-after consulting firms in America, Victor’s expertise primarily aimed at European reconstruction. The name Fontine on a corporation’s presentation was an industrial plus. Knowledge of a given marketplace was assured.
Victor had involved himself totally, not merely for the sake of pride, or instinctive productivity, but for something else. Jane knew it, and at the same time knew she could do nothing to help him. It took his mind off the pain. Her husband was rarely without pain; the operations prolonged his life, but did little to lessen the pain.
She looked at Victor across the lawn, sitting in his hard wooden chair with the straight back, the shiny metal cane at his side. He had been so proud when the two crutches were replaced by the single cane that made it possible for him to walk without being so obvious a cripple.
“Hi, Mrs. Fontine,” said the young man with the very long hair. “It’s one terrific party! Thanks for letting me bring my friends. They really wanted to meet Adrian.”
The speaker was Michael Reilly. The Reillys were their nearest neighbors on the shore, about a half a mile down the beach. Michael was in law school at Columbia. “That’s very flattering!”
“Hey, he’s great! He wrapped up that Tesco antitrust in Boston when even the federal courts thought it was too loose. Everyone knew it was a Centaur company, but it took Adrian to nail it.”
“Don’t discuss it with Mr. Kempson.”
“Don’t worry. I saw him at the club and he told me to get a haircut. What the hell, so did my father.”
“You won, I see.”
Michael grinned. “He’s mad as a bull but he can’t say anything. I’m on the honors list. We made a deal.”
“Good for you. Make him live up to it.”
The Reilly boy laughed and leaned over, kissing her cheek. “You’re outta sight!” He grinned again and left, beckoned by a girl at the edge of the patio.
Young people liked her, thought Jane. It was a comforting realization these days when the young found so little to like, or to approve. They liked her in spite of the fact that she refused to make concessions to youth. Or to age. Her hair was streaked—God, more than streaked—with gray; her face was lined—as it should be lined—and there were no discussions of a skin nip here, or a tuck there, as so many of her friends had done. She thanked her stars she’d kept her figure. All things considered, not bad for sixty … plus, damn it.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Fontine?” It was the maid; she’d come out of the turmoil that was the kitchen.
“Yes, Grace? Problems?”
“No, ma’am. There’s a gentleman at the door. He asked for you or Mr. Fontine.”
“Tell him to come out.”
“He said he’d rather not. He’s a foreign gentleman. A priest. I thought with so many people, Mr. Fontine—”
“Yes, you were right,” interrupted Jane, understanding the maid’s concerns. Victor did not relish walking among his guests as he was forced to walk. “I’ll go see him.”
The priest stood in the hallway, his black suit ill-fitting and old, his face thin and tired. He appeared awed, frightened.
Jane spoke coldly. She could not help herself. “I’m Mrs. Fontine.”
“Yes, you are the signora,” replied the priest awkwardly, a large, stained envelope in his hand. “I have seen the pictures. I did not mean to intrude. So many automobiles.”
“What is it?”
“I have come from Rome, signora. I bring a letter for the padrone. You will see that he gets it, please?” The priest held out the envelope.
Andrew watched his brother at the bar with the longhaired students, dressed in their uniforms of denim and suede, medallions around their necks. Adrian would never learn; his audience was useless. They were fakes. It was not simply the profusion of unkempt hair and the offbeat clothes that bothered the soldier; those were only symptoms. It was the pretense that went with these shallow expressions of nonconformity. By and large they were insufferable; antagonistic people with unkempt minds.
They spoke so intensely, so knowingly, of “movements” and “countermovements” as though they were participants, shifters of political thought. This world … the third world. And that was the biggest joke of all, because not one in ten thousand would know how to act as a revolutionary. They had neither the commitment nor the guts nor the savvy.
They were misfits who threw plastic bags of shit when no one paid attention to their ravings. They were … freaks, and, Christ, he couldn’t stand the freaks. But Adrian did not understand; his brother looked for values where there weren’t any. Adrian was a fool; but then he learned that seven years ago. Seven years ago he had discovered just how big a fool his brother was. Adrian was a misfit in the worst sense: He had every reason not to be.
Adrian glanced up at him from the bar; he turned away. His brother was a bore, and the sight of him proselytizing to that particular audience was distasteful.
The soldier hadn’t always felt this way. Ten years ago when he’d gotten out of The Point he hadn’t hated with the vehemence he felt now. He didn’t think much of Adrian and his collection of misfits, but there was no hatred. The way the Johnson crowd began handling Southeast Asia, there was something to be said for the dissenters’ attitude. Get out.
Translated: Obliterate Hanoi. Or get out.
He had explained his position time and again. To the freaks. To Adrian. But no one wanted to hear it from a soldier. “Soldierboy,” that’s what they called him. And “shell-head,” and “missile-fingers,” and “blast-ass.”
But it wasn’t the names. Anyone who’d gone through West Point and Saigon could handle that. Ultimately, it was their stupidity. They didn’t simply turn off the people who mattered, they antagonized them, infuriated them, and finally embarrassed them. And that was the final stupidity. They drove even those who agreed with them into opposing positions.
Seven years ago in San Francisco, Andrew tried to make his brother see that, tried to make him understand that what he was doing was wrong and stupid—and very dangerous to the brother who was a soldier.
He’d gotten back from two and a half years in the Mekong Delta with one of the finest record sheets in the army. His company had the highest body count in the battalion; he’d been decorated twice, his first lieutenancy lasting a month before he was given his captain’s bars. He was that rare commodity in armed forces: a young, brilliant military strategist from an immensely wealthy, influential family. He was on his way up to the top—where he belonged. He was being flown back for reassignment, which was another way of the Pentagon’s saying: That’s our man. Keep your eye on him. Rich, solid, future Joint Chiefs material. A few more combat tours—in selected areas, a few short years—and it’s the War College.
It never hurt the Pentagon to favor a man like him, especially when it was justified. The army needed men from powerful families, they had precious few.
But regardless of what the Pentagon favored or the army needed, G2 agents had shown up when he got off that plane in California seven years ago. They’d taken him to an office and given him a two-month-old newspaper. On the second page was a story about an insurrection at the Army’s Presidio in San Francisco. Accompanying the article were photographs of the riot, one showing a group of civilians marching in support of the mutineering enlisted men. A face had been circled in a red pencil.
It was Adrian. It seemed impossible, but there he was! He wasn’t supposed to be there; he was in his last year at law school. In Boston. But he was not in Boston, he was in San Francisco harboring three convicted deserters who had escaped; that’s what the G2 men said. His twin brother was working for the enemy! Goddamn it, that’s what they were and that’s what he was doing! The Pentagon wouldn’t look upon that with a whole lot of laughs. Jesus! His brother! His twin!
So G2 flew him up north and, out of uniform, he had wandered the streets of Haight-Ashbury until he’d found Adrian.
“These aren’t men, they’re confused kids,” his brother said in a quiet bar. “They were never even told what their legal alternatives were; they’ve been railroaded.”
“They took oaths like everybody else. You can’t make exceptions,” Andrew had replied.
“Oh, come on. Two of them didn’t know what that oath meant, and the other one genuinely changed his mind. But nobody wants to listen. The judge advocates want examples, and the defense attorneys don’t want to make waves.”
“Sometimes examples have to be made,” the soldier had insisted.
“And the law says they’re entitled to competent counsel. Not barracks drinking buddies who want to look good—”
“Get with it, Adrian!” he interrupted. “There’s a war out there! The firepower’s real! Bastards like these cost lives.”
“Not if they’re over here.”
“Yes, they do! Because others will begin to wonder why they’re over there.”
“Maybe they should.”
“For Christ’s sake, you’re talking about rights, aren’t you?” asked the soldier.
“You better believe it.”
“Well, doesn’t the poor son of a bitch on patrol in a rice paddy have any? Maybe he didn’t know what he was getting into; he just went along because the law said he had to. Maybe he changed his mind. But he doesn’t have time to think about it; he’s trying to stay alive. He gets confused, he gets sloppy, he gets killed!”
“We can’t reach everybody; it’s one of the law’s oversights, an abuse built into the system. But we do what we can.”
Adrian would not give him any information seven years ago. He refused to tell him where the deserters were hidden. So the soldier said good-bye in the quiet bar and waited in a San Francisco alley until his brother came out. He followed Adrian for three hours through the acid streets. The soldier was an expert in tracking stray patrols in jungles; San Francisco was just another jungle.
His brother made contact with one of the deserters five blocks from the waterfront. The boy was a Black, with a growth of beard on his face. He was tall and thin and matched the photograph in Andrew’s pocket. His twin gave the deserter money; it was a simple matter to follow the Black down to the waterfront, to a filthy tenement that was as good a hiding place as any in the area.
The phone call was made to the military police. Ten minutes later three convicted deserters were dragged out of the filthy tenement, to spend eight years in the stockades.
The misfit network went to work; the crowds gathered screeching their epithets, swaying to their adolescent, useless chants. And throwing their plastic bags of feces.
His brother came up to him in the crowds that night and for several moments just stared at him. Finally he said, “You’ve driven me back. Thanks.”
Then Adrian had walked swiftly away to the barricades of would-be revolutionaries.
Andrew’s reflections were interrupted by Al Winston, nee Weinstein, an engineer with an aerospace company. Winston had called out his name and was making his way over. Al Winston was heavy into air force contracts, and lived in the Hamptons. Andrew didn’t like Winston-Weinstein. Whenever he ran into him he thought of another Jew—and compared them. The Jew he thought of was stationed at the Pentagon after four years under heavy fire in the worst sections of the Delta. Captain Martin Greene was a tough son of a bitch, a great soldier—not a flabby Winston-Weinstein from the Hamptons. And Greene didn’t gouge profits from cost overruns; instead he watched them, catalogued them. Marty Greene was one of them. One of Eye Corps.
“Many happy returns, major,” said Winston, raising his glass.
“Thanks, Al. How are you?”
“Be a lot better if I could sell you boys something. I get no support from the ground troops.” Winston grinned.
“You do pretty well off the ground. I read where you’re in on the Grumman contract.”
“Nickels and dimes. I’ve got a laser honing device that can be adapted to heavy artillery. But I can’t get to first base.”
Andrew toyed with the idea of sending Winston-Weinstein to Martin Greene. By the time Greene got finished with him, Al Winston would wish he’d never heard of the Pentagon. “I’ll see what I can do. I’m not in procurement—”
“They listen to you, Andy.”
“You never stop-working, Al.”
“Big house, big bills, rotten kids.” Winston grinned again, then stopped smiling long enough to get across his point. “Put in a word for me. I’ll make it worth your while.”
“With what?” asked Andrew, his eyes straying toward the boathouse and the Chris-Craft and the sailboats moored in the water. “Money?”
Winston’s grin returned, now nervous, awkward. “No offense,” said the engineer softly.
Andrew looked at the Jew, thinking again of Captain Martin Greene and the difference between the two men. “No offense,” he said, walking away.
Christ! Next to the freaks, he despised the corrupters. No, that wasn’t true. Next to the corrupters, he despised those who allowed themselves to be corrupted. They were everywhere. Sitting in boardrooms, playing the golf courses in Georgia and Palm Springs, lapping up the sauce in the country clubs of Evanston and Grosse Pointe. They’d sold their ranks!
Colonels, generals, commanders, admirals. The whole goddamned military establishment was riddled with a new brand of thieves. Men who winked and smiled and put their signatures on committee recommendations, on procurements approvals, on contracts, on overruns. Because there were understandings made. Today’s brigadier was tomorrow’s “consultant” or “Washington representative.”
Christ, it was easy to hate! The misfits, the corrupters, the corrupted.…
It was why Eye Corps was formed. A very small, select group of officers who were sick to death of the apathy and corruption and venality that pervaded every branch of the armed forces. Eye Corps was the answer, the medicine that would cure the sickness. For Eye Corps was compiling records from Saigon to Washington. The men of Eye Corps were putting it all together: names, dates, connections, illegal profits.
To hell with the so-called proper channels: up the chain of command. To the inspector general. To the secretary of the army. Who vouched for command? Who for the IG? Who in his right mind would vouch for the civilians?
No one they trusted. So they would do it themselves. Every general—every brigadier and admiral—anyone who tolerated any form of deviation would be smoked out and confronted with his crimes.
Eye Corps. That’s what it was all about. A handful of the best young officers in the field. And one day they’d walk into the Pentagon and take over. None would dare stand in their way. The Eye Corps indictments would hang like grenades over the heads of the high brass. The grenades would explode if the brass didn’t move out, leaving their chairs for men of the Eye Corps. The Pentagon belonged to them. They would give it meaning again. Strength. Their strength.
Adrian Fontine leaned on the bar and listened to the intense young students arguing, aware that his brother was staring at them. He looked up at Andrew; the soldier’s cold eyes held their usual veiled contempt and then glanced away as Al Winston approached, raising his glass to the major.
Andrew was beginning to wear his contempt too openly, thought Adrian. His brother had lost some of his well-known cool; things aggravated the soldier too quickly these days.
God, how they’d veered from each other! They’d been so close once. The Geminis … brothers, twins, friends. The Geminis were the best! And somewhere along the line—in their teens, in prep school—it all started to change. Andrew began to think he was better than best, and Adrian became less than convinced he was adequate. Andrew never questioned his abilities; Adrian wasn’t sure he had very many.
He was sure now. The terrible years of indecision were over; he’d passed through uncertainty and found his own way. Thanks in large measure to his very positive brother, the soldier.
And today, on their birthday, he had to confront his brother and ask some very disturbing questions. Questions that went to the core of Andrew’s strength.
Core? It was appropriate; the sound was right, the spelling wrong.
Eye Corps was the name they’d uncovered. His brother was on the list. Eight self-deluded elitists who concealed evidence for their own purposes. A small band of officers who had convinced themselves they should run the Pentagon through what amounted to sheer blackmail. The situation might have been comic except that the evidence was there, and Eye Corps had it. The Pentagon was not above being manipulated by fear. Eye Corps was dangerous; it had to be ripped out.
They’d settle for that. They’d hand over a blanket subpoena to the army lawyers and let them handle it quietly. As long as the army lawyers did handle it and did not cover up. Perhaps it wasn’t the time for demoralizing trials and long prison sentences. The guilt was so widespread and the motives so complex. But there was one irreducible condition. Get the elitists out of uniform; clean your military house.
Jesus, the irony of it! In San Francisco, Andrew had blown a crude whistle in the name of military law. Now, seven years later, he, Adrian, was blowing the whistle. Less crudely, he hoped, but the law was no less specific. The charge was obstruction of justice.
So much had changed. Nine months ago he was an assistant prosecutor in Boston, happy doing what he was doing, building a reputation that could lead to just about anywhere. Building it himself. Not having it given to him because he was Adrian Fontine, son of Victor Fontine, Limited; brother of West Point’s celebrated Major Andrew Fontine, immaculate warrior.
Then a man had called him in early October, asking him to have drinks at the Copely bar late in the afternoon. The man’s name was James Nevins and he was Black; he was also an attorney, and he worked for the Justice Department in Washington.
Nevins was the spokesman for a small contingent of harassed, disaffected government lawyers who burned under the tactics of the most politicized Justice Department in memory. The phrase “White House calling” simply meant another manipulation was taking place. The lawyers were worried, genuinely worried. Those manipulations were taking the country too close to the specter of a police state.
The lawyers needed help. From the outside. Someone to whom they could funnel their information. Someone who could organize and evaluate, who could set up and pay for a command center where they could meet privately and discuss their progress.
Someone, frankly, who could not be harassed. For reasons more obvious than not, one Adrian Fontine fit the bill. Would he accept?
Adrian hadn’t wanted to leave Boston. He had his work; he had his girl. A slightly mad, brilliant girl he adored. Barbara Pierson, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. Associate Professor, Anthropology Laboratories, Harvard University. She of the quick deep laugh, the light-brown hair and the dark-brown eyes. They’d been living together for a year and a half; it wasn’t easy to leave. But Barbara had packed for him and sent him on his way because she knew he had to go.
Just as he had to go seven, eight years ago. He had to leave Boston then, too. A depression had swept over him. He was the wealthy son of a powerful father; the twin brother of a man the army paraded in dispatches as one of the brightest young lights in the military.
What was left? For him? Who was he?
So he fled the trappings of a lifetime to see what he could find for himself. That was his. It was his own personal crisis; he couldn’t explain it to anyone. And he ended up in San Francisco where there was a fight, a struggle he could understand. Where he could help. Until the immaculate warrior came along and ripped the scene apart.
Adrian smiled, remembering the morning after the terrible night in San Francisco. He’d gotten roaring drunk and woke up in the house of a legal aid lawyer in Cape Mendocino sick and vomiting.
“If you’re who you say you are, you can do more than any of us,” said the lawyer in Cape Mendocino that morning. “Hell, my old man was a janitor at the May Company.”
In the seven intervening years Adrian had tried. But he knew he had only just begun.
“It’s a constitutional ambiguity! Isn’t that right, Adrian?”
“What? Sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.” The students at the bar had been arguing among themselves; now all eyes were on him.
“Free press versus pretrial bias,” said an intense young girl, stumbling over the words.
“It’s a gray area, I think,” replied Adrian. “Each case is judged by itself.”
The youngsters wanted more than he gave them, so they went back to yelling at each other.
Gray area. Saigon’s Eye Corps had been a gray area only weeks ago. Rumors had filtered back to Washington that a small cadre of young senior officers were regularly harassing enlisted personnel on the docks and in the warehouses, insisting on copies of shipment manifests and destinations schedules. Shortly after, in one of the numerous, halfheartedly pursued antitrust cases at Justice, there was a plaintiff’s allegation that records had been stolen from the corporation’s Saigon offices, thus constituting illegally obtained evidence. The case would be dropped.
The lawyers at Justice wondered whether there was a connection between the strange group of officers who scoured the shipment manifests and corporations under contract to the Pentagon. Had the military gone that far? The conjecture was enough to send Jim Nevins to Saigon.
The Black attorney found what he was looking for. In a warehouse in the Tan Son Nhut cargo area. An officer was in the process of illegally transcribing security-related information on armaments supplies. Threatened with charges, the officer broke, and Eye Corps was revealed for everything it was. There were eight officers; the man caught knew the names of seven. The eighth was in Washington, that’s all he knew.
Andrew Fontine headed the fist of those identified.
Eye Corps. Nice fellows, thought Adrian. Just what the country needed; storm troopers out to save the nation.
Seven years ago in San Francisco his brother had not given him any warning before the action started, and the sirens came screaming into Haight-Ashbury. Adrian would be more considerate. He was going to give Andrew five days. There’d be no sirens, no riots … no eight-year sentences in the stockades. But the celebrated Major Andrew Fontine would be out of the army.
And although the work in Washington was nowhere near completed, Adrian would go back to Boston for a while. Back to Barbara.
He was tired. And sick with what faced him in an hour or so. The pain was real. Whatever else, Andrew was his brother.
The final guests had left. The orchestra was packing its instruments, and the caterers were cleaning up the lawn. The sky was growing darker, as much because of the threatening clouds over the water as by the approach of nightfall.
Adrian walked across the lawn to the flagstone steps and down to the boathouse. Andrew was waiting for him; he had told the soldier to be there.
“Happy birthday, counselor,” said Andrew as Adrian came through the boathouse door. The soldier leaned against the wall beyond the boat slip, his arms folded, smoking a cigarette.
“Same to you,” answered Adrian, stopping at the edge of the slip. “You staying tonight?”
“Are you?” asked Andrew.
“I thought I might. The old man looks pretty bad.”
“Then I won’t,” said the soldier politely.
Adrian paused; he knew he was expected to speak. He wasn’t quite sure how to begin, so instead he looked around the boathouse. “We had some good laughs down here.”
“Did you want to reminisce? Is that why you asked me to come down here?”
“No.… I wish it were that simple.”
The soldier flipped the cigarette into the water. “I hear you left Boston. You’re in Washington.”
“Yes. For a while. I keep thinking we’ll run into each other.”
“I doubt it,” said the major, smiling. “We don’t travel in the same circles. You working for a D.C. firm?”
“No. I guess you might say I’m a consultant.”
“That’s the best job in Washington.” Andrew’s voice was laced with quiet contempt. “Who are you counseling?”
“Some people who are very upset—”
“Oh, a consumer group; isn’t that nice.” It was an insulting statement. “Good for you!”
Adrian stared at his brother; the soldier returned the look. “Don’t dismiss me, Andy. You’re in no position to do that. You’re in trouble. I’m not here to help you, I can’t do that. I’m here to warn you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” asked the major softly.
“A deposition was taken from an officer in Saigon by one of our people. We have a complete statement about the activities of a group of eight men who call themselves Eye Corps.”
Andrew bolted upright against the wall, his face pinched, his fingers stretched, curved, immobile. He seemed to freeze; he spoke barely above a whisper, spacing his words out. “Who is ‘we’?”
“You’ll know the origin soon enough. It’s on the subpoena.”
“Sub-poena?”
“Yes. The Justice Department, a specialist division.… I won’t tell you the individual attorneys, but I will tell you that your name heads the Eye Corps list. We know there are eight of you; seven have been identified, the eighth is at the Pentagon. In procurement. We’ll find him.”
Andrew held his position against the wall; everything about him remained immobile, except the muscles of his jaw, which moved slowly, steadily. Once again his voice was low, measured. “What have you done? What have you bastards done?”
“Stopped you,” answered Adrian simply.
“What do you know? What have you been told?”
“The truth. We’ve no reason to doubt it.”
“You need proof for a subpoena!”
“You need probable cause. We have that.”
“One deposition! Nothing!”
“Others’ll follow. What difference does it make? You’re finished.”
Andrew’s voice calmed. He spoke matter-of-factly. “Officers complain. Up and down the zones, officers complain every day—”
“Not this way. There’s no fine line between complaints and blackmail. It’s very defined, very distinct. You crossed over it.”
“Who have we blackmailed?” asked Andrew swiftly. “No one!”
“Records were kept, evidence suppressed; the intent was clear. That’s in the deposition.”
“There are no records!”
“Oh, come on, they’re somewhere,” said Adrian wearily, “But I repeat, who gives a goddamn? You’re finished.”
The soldier moved. He breathed deeply and stood erect against the wall. “Listen to me,” he said quietly, his voice strained. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You say you’re a consultant to men who are upset. We both know what that means; we’re the Fontines. Who needs resources when they have us?”
“I don’t see it that way,” broke in Adrian.
“It’s true!” shouted the soldier. And then he lowered his voice. “You don’t have to spell out what you’re doing, the Boston newspapers did that. You nail the big fellows, the vested interests, you call them. You’re good. Well, what the hell do you think I’m doing? We’re nailing them, too! You stop Eye Corps, you’re destroying the finest young senior officers in the field, men who want to rip out the garbage! Don’t do that, Adree! Join us! I mean that.”
“Join—” Adrian repeated the word in disbelief. Then he added quietly. “You’re out of your mind. What makes you think that’s remotely possible?”
Andrew took a step away from the wall; his eyes were steady on his brother. “Because we want the same thing.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Think, for God’s sake! ‘Vested interests.’ You use that a lot, ‘vested interests.’ I read your summation in the Tesco case; you repeated it continuously.”
“It applied. One company owning many, setting a single policy when there should have been competition. What’s your point?”
“You use the term negatively because that’s the way you find it. Okay, I’ll buy that. But I submit there’s another way to look at it. There can be good vested interests. Like us. Our interests isn’t ourselves; we don’t need anything. Our interests is the country and our resources are considerable. We’re in positions to do something. I’m doing it. For Christ’s sake, don’t stop me!”
Adrian turned away from his brother and walked aimlessly along the moist planks of the boathouse toward the huge opening that led to the open water. The waves slapped against the pilings. “You’re very glib, Andy. You were always very glib and sure and truly confident. But it’s not going to work.” He turned again and faced the soldier diagonally across the slip. “You say we don’t need anything. I think we do; we both need—want—something. And what you want frightens me because I’ve got an idea what your concept of finest is. Frankly, it scares the hell out of me. The thought of your ‘finest senior officers’ controlling the country’s hardware is enough to send me running to the library to reread the Constitution.”
“That’s arrogant horseshit! You don’t know them!”
“I know the way they operate, the way you operate. If it’ll make you feel better, you made some sense in San Francisco. I didn’t like it, but I recognized it.” Adrian walked back along the slip. “You’re not making sense now, which is why I’m warning you. Save what you can of your neck, I owe you that much. Get out as gracefully as you can.”
“You can’t force me,” said Andrew scathingly. “My record’s one of the best. Who the hell are you? One lousy statement from a disgruntled officer in a combat zone. Bullshit!”
“I’ll spell it out!” Adrian stopped by the boathouse doorway, raising his voice. “In five, days—next Friday, to be precise—a blanket subpoena will be served on the adjutant general of the Courts of Military Justice. He’ll have the weekend to negotiate his arrangements. Arrangements can be negotiated, but there’s one irrevocable condition. You’re out. All of you.”
The soldier started forward, then stopped, his foot on the edge of the slip, as if he were about to spring across, lunging at his enemy. He held himself in check; waves of nausea and fury seemed to pass over him and through him. “I could … kill you,” he whispered. “You’re everything I despise.”
“I guess I am,” said Adrian, closing his eyes briefly, rubbing them in weariness. “You’d better get to the airport,” he continued, now looking at his brother. “You’ve got a lot to do. I suggest you start with this so-called evidence you’ve been sitting on. We understand you’ve been collecting it for damn near three years. Get it to the proper authorities.”
In angry silence the soldier lurched in rapid strides around the slip, past Adrian, and out to the boathouse steps. He began climbing, taking the flatstone stairs two at a time.
Adrian moved swiftly to the door and called out, halting his brother on the border of the lawn.
“Andy!”
The soldier stood motionless. But he did not turn around, or speak. So the lawyer continued.
“I admire your strength, I always have. Just as I admire father’s. You’re part of him, but you’re not all of him. You missed something, so let’s understand each other. You’re everything I consider dangerous. I guess that means you’re everything I despise.”
“We understand each other,” said Andrew, repeating the words in a monotone. He started up across the lawn toward the house.