The Artifact (15 page)

Sam maintained his stance at the window, behind him the setting sun reflecting a fiery orange glow in the panes of glass in buildings facing west. “I can interview Stubbs.”

Andrea winced as she gave a tiny negative shake of her head within the restrictive collar. “I don’t know, Sam. I’ve been at this a while, sometimes get more from body language, their facial expressions than the spoken word.” Her expression took on a determined look. “No, I’m the investigative reporter, that’s my job. I need to get on this
toute de
suite
, Sam.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Durham, NC

October 2004

At 4:45 on a sultry fall day, Sammy rang the doorbell beside the screen door of the neat gray-shingled bungalow set back from a freshly-cut green lawn enclosed by a wooden fence of white pickets washed in muted sunshine. Colorful flowerbeds ran along each side of a flagstone path leading to recently clipped shrubs nestled against the redbrick foundation.

He stood on the front porch listening to chimes ringing inside the house, observing several white wicker chairs that formed a conversational grouping to his left, and a padded lover’s swing hanging from a stout ceiling beam to the right. The inner door opened abruptly, emitting a cool draft of air conditioning around a short black man with ramrod posture.

“Yeah, yeah,” Stubbs interrupted. “Catch your quarry off-guard and vulnerable. I’m about to have my supper now, so you’re out of luck. Got nothing to say to you anyhow.”

As the ex-soldier stepped back to close the door, Sam asked, “Would you mind if I waited until you finish eating? I flew all the way down from Washington and promise to be brief.”

Stubbs held the door half-closed, considering. “Wait if you want. I don’t know how much good it will do.”

More than an hour later, retired Sergeant Calvin Stubbs stepped through the house and screen doors, shutting them both carefully behind him. He stood there for a moment in silence, fists on narrow hips, scowling at the reporter as Sam rose from his top front step. Stubbs was dressed in starched khaki trousers, a pronounced crease ironed down the front of each leg, a narrow belt of burnished leather and cordovan loafers polished to a high gloss. In deference to the heat and humidity, his short-sleeve stonewashed shirt was a lightweight denim, also starched, with military creases front and back. He was probably in his late fifties, with a full head of tight graying curls cropped close to his skull and a thick black mustache, the closely shaved cheeks of his cocoa facial skin badly pockmarked.

“You told me this wouldn’t take long,” Stubbs said, making no move toward the wicker chairs.

“Right,” Sam assured him. “You were chief clerk, Bravo Company, Third Battalion during the Iraqi conflict in April ‘03 that correct, Sergeant Stubbs?”

The short man’s scowl was derisive. “Sergeant Major. All company clerks, reported to me. I worked directly for Colonel, General Callaghan. Troopers still address me ‘Top’, retired ten months.”

Stubbs emitted an honest laugh. “I handled every weekly report each one of our companies wrote up—-personnel, disciplinary, supply, transfer, vehicular, medical, accident. Then during Iraq: wounded, KIA, logistics, you name it. The Man rarely saw anything but my summaries. I recommended action on the admin stuff, he signed off on our replies and execution. Kept him informed, free to run his part of the war.”

“What reaction did you and the Colonel have regarding high rate of the KIA’s in Bravo Company?” Sammy asked. “Lieutenant Mitchell’s second platoon?”

Stubbs squinted at his interrogator. “Why pick on him?”

“Because word I got, he was pretty gung ho, volunteered his men to cover a big chunk of the western border to cut off Saddam’s escape route right from the get-go. I heard some of his patrols were pretty thin.”

“According to the Arab nomads, there were casualties on both sides during a firefight. That encounter took place in an area about 250 miles northeast of Baghdad patrolled by Lieutenant Mitchell’s Second Platoon.”

Stubbs puffed up his cheeks and blew out a stream of air. “You haven’t even asked me if I thought any artifacts had been stolen.”

“We’ve talked to a lot of different sources over the past few months,” Sam replied. “There is no question that some valuable artifacts were dug up and smuggled back home by U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division. Despite official and other self-serving denials.”

Stubbs hesitated several seconds. “Probably. Else why would the nomads make it up?”

This was the closest anyone in the military had come to an admission of culpability, regardless of whose. Sammy had all he could do to restrain from pumping a fist in the air.

“The excessive casualties, MIAs in Mitchell’s platoon makes them prime suspects. An ancient treasure gets dug up, troopers killed, some go missing.”

Stubbs nodded in a way that led Sammy to believe this was not the first time that connection had occurred to the astute NCO.

“I remember those boys were ambushed by jihad insurgents in Bir Melosa, according to Mitchell’s report,” Stubbs said, “MI checked out every single trooper assigned to Dark Dawn after we came stateside and the Iraqis lodged their complaint. How in blazes you expect to get somebody to ‘fess up now is beyond me.”

“The half million dollar reward we’re offering for information,” Sam said.

Stubbs grinned. “I’d take it if could.”

“Can you recall anything strange or unusual about 2
^nd
Platoon Bravo?”

Stubbs seemed to give the question serious thought. “I was at the ramp of the C-130 supervising my clerks checking Bravo Company boarding. All of a sudden Callaghan and Geoff come marching up like they was on parade, dress khakis, flat tops, ribbons, braid, jump boots spit and polished, the works. They come to a halt the other side of the ramp, stand there like a couple goal posts for a few seconds, then snap off salutes like they would for the president.”

Sammy extracted his clipping of the
Advocate News
from the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt. “Test your memory, if I may, Top. The April casualty report listed seven KIAs in Mitchell’s platoon, three missing. Those are heavy casualties.”

Stubbs moved from the spot he had occupied in front of his doorway since they had begun their conversation more than ten minutes ago. He stood on the edge of the stairs leading down to the flagstone walk below, looking out over his prize lawn and picket fence to the ranch house opposite, seeing none of it. “I handled those reports for the whole battalion. So many didn’t come back that first month.”

Sammy glanced up from the article frowning. Then held it out for Stubbs to see the highlighted names. “I copied this from
The Fort Bragg Advocate
.”

The ex-airborne Sergeant didn’t look at the paper. “Conté went section eight during one of their last patrols. PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Used to call it shell shock. Sent him right home. Handled the paperwork myself. Supposed to get processed at the main VA hospital in Atlanta, psychiatric unit. He damned sure didn’t get killed in action.”

“Sergeant Conté’s alive?”

“Least he was last April. Brains a little scrambled, maybe, but an MP report listed the man walked up the ramp into a transport in handcuffs, calm as you please, probably sedated to the gills.”

Andrea’s disposition had not improved one centimeter during the three days since coming home from the hospital. When Sam arrived at her condo straight from the airport, she was seated on her sofa, the wheelchair within reach, as she sipped from a tall glass of vodka on ice. She insisted on his comprehensive report on the Stubbs interview following a gruff greeting, even before he had a chance to take off his coat. Sammy deftly parried her impatience with small talk about his flight as he retrieved a bottle of club soda from the refrigerator.

The Thomas collar was still in place, and Andrea moved her head with caution. “If Conte’s alive, my gut tells me he’s one of the perps, pretending insanity and will tell us nothing. If he really is dead, we’d need to dig him up to prove it, which no one would allow.”

“Maybe I can find him,” Sam said.

“What about patient confidentiality?” Andrea asked.

Sammy smiled, moved across the room to the laptop on the scriptorium, perched on the edge of the delicate matching chair and turned on the computer. During the next fifteen minutes, Sammy hacked into current patient records, admissions and transfers made in the Atlanta psych section during the past year and a half.

He paused to look at Andy. “No record of Conté in Atlanta or anywhere else.”

Disappointment registered on Andy’s face as she shrugged and sipped from her glass, staring pensively at the opposite wall. “If they’re playing switcheroo, maybe they admitted him under some other name.”

Sammy laid the Second Platoon casualty list next to the computer and began typing names, reading them off aloud as he did so. “Alvarez, Hector J., Sergeant, MOS 2663455--negative.”

Sam frowned, but entered the name in the search box. “Mitchell, George B., Lieutenant, MOS 453678—
positive!”

Andy clapped her hands, yelling, “Gotcha!”

Sammy frowned, shaking her head at some thought swirling around in his brain. “Why use his name, maybe the leader of the GI perps?”

“Mitchell’s KIA, remember, a man nobody should be looking for.”

Sammy acknowledged her answer as he printed the data on Mitchell’s admission to the Atlanta psych ward in July, 2003, and the details on his transfer to Arizona six weeks ago. “A week after your broadcast,” he observed.

“So, instead of KIA as Callaghan’s mouthpiece Captain Brooks claimed,” Andy said, “Mitchell—or Conté, is actually stashed away in a VA psych ward in Albuquerque.”

“Seven KIA’s reported in the Web stats, four obituaries run in the
Advocate
; three troopers lost in the shuffle.”

“How many others and which ones,” Sam pointed to the sheet of paper he was still holding, “are alive and sane, secreting a priceless treasure in Alaska or some New York high-rise?”