only started to get better once I began helping Anna through her recovery a couple of times a day. Within a couple of months, I was ready to reassume active duty of the more military kind.
That, as I said, was quite a few months ago. Major Anna Masters had long since returned to Ramstein Air Base, Germany. I'd moved, too, out of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, and across the Potomac to a suite at the Pentagon. My orders said I'd been transferred to the DoD's investigation arm, into the exclusive ranks of those supersecret sleuths who handle the cases too sensitive for ordinary mortals. I had, apparently, made The Team. Months later, what these people did was still a secret, at least to me.
Captain Chip Schaeffer, my boss these days, was Navy and getting near retirement. When I first heard that my new immediate superior was a captin, I thought maybe I'd been demoted, a captain being inferior to a major—my rank. But, in fact, a Navy captain is equal to an Air Force colonel. Confusing, I know, but the military likes it that way. It keeps the real enemy—civilians—guessing. Rumor had it that Schaeffer headed up some extra-special investigation arm. The Team within The Team. But, from what I could see, his job entailed reading volumes of DoD documents and picking out procedural errors. He told me that I was his backup, only I had no idea what correct DoD procedure was and so had absolutely no idea what I was backing up. The captain understood this, which was why he never gave me anything to check.
All this was running through my head, so I asked for clarification. “Me, Captain? Am I going someplace?”
“You think I'm talking to the fish, Cooper? I'm old, but I ain't that old.” He sprinkled food flakes into the tank.
“No, sir. I don't think you're old, sir. So what's it about?” I asked.
“First things first, Cooper. Your resignation is not accepted. As for what it's about, and I take it you mean the case, we don't know. That's why we're sending you. Basically, what we have is an American scientist eaten by a fish.”
Yuck? The picture of a man being attacked by a giant clown fish flashed into my mind. I was also a little puzzled. It sounded like this scientist had met his death through misadventure, and accidents—ones befalling American scientists or otherwise—usually fell within the jurisdiction of local law-enforcement agencies.
I was about to ask why the DoD was involving itself when Schaeffer said, “The scientist works—or I should say, worked—for a company doing some research for us.”
That explained it. Research funded by the Department of Defense was usually highly sensitive, on account of it mostly having something to do with killing people—in the defense of our nation, of course, so that made it OK. “What was he doing for us?” I asked.
“ Need-to-know basis, Cooper, and you don't. For that matter, neither do I, which is why I haven't been briefed on it either. There are, however, a few more details in the file, the one with your name on it, on my desk. Read it before you get on the plane.”
I'm getting on a plane? I swallowed hard. I don't like flying, which I know is weird coming from an Air Force officer, but I had reasonable grounds for the problem: I'd been shot out of the sky a couple of times during my tour in Afghanistan as a combat air controller. Lately, I'd been doing some work on that issue with an Air Force shrink. It seemed I was about to give it a test.
Schaeffer cooed, “Out you come, fellas… chow time.” One of the clown fish made a tentative break from the submarine, tempted by the flakes sinking through the water, but it turned and fled back to the safety of the sunken sub when something spooked it, most probably the vision magnified by the water of the captain's approaching lips formed into the shape of a cat's puckered anus. Or was it a kiss? I really needed to get the hell out of there.
TWO
I sat and stared at the floor and recalled our last phone conversation. It went something like this:
“Japan,” I said.
“Where?” asked Anna.
“Japan. Yokohama, Japan.”
“What's it about?” she asked, and then said, “Never mind.” We both knew I wouldn't/couldn't elaborate. More of that need-to-know crap.