shrink, or his life coach.” He advised Brodie, “Just find the son of a bitch and get him back here to face charges.”
Brodie knew his boss well, and he was sure that Colonel Dombroski did care about Mercer’s reason for desertion—in fact, it was Dombroski himself who always told his investigators to remember the five W’s: who, what, where, when, and why. Clearly Dombroski had been given different marching orders by General Hackett. Brodie was sure of that. But why? It always came down to why. To motive.
Brodie changed the subject and asked, “Do you have anything new for me?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. Do you remember Robert Crenshaw? Guy from State who got killed in Peshawar last year?”
Brodie did remember. Robert Crenshaw was a State Department analyst stationed with the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, a northern Pakistani city within the tribal territories. Since Crenshaw wasn’t Army, his murder wasn’t CID’s jurisdiction, but the FBI had assisted the Pakistani authorities. The details of the case were memorable. His body had been found by local police in a bare apartment, tied to a chair with his throat cut. His body bore signs of severe torture, including, but not limited to, an extreme manicure. The perpetrator or perpetrators have never been found, but it was assumed to be the Taliban or al Qaeda who’d killed the American. Brodie replied, “I remember.”
There was a long silence; then Dombroski said, “I was thinking about Mercer, how this guy gets from the Afghan-Pakistan frontier to Caracas. Crenshaw was killed in early August 2017. The video of Mercer, his escape from the Taliban, is time-stamped July thirteenth, 2017.”
Brodie did not reply, but he put his drink down and sat up.
Dombroski continued, “I reached out to an Army contact I have at our embassy in Islamabad. Turns out Crenshaw wasn’t State. That was cover. He was a CIA officer, and he’d previously been stationed across the border in Kabul in the years before Mercer’s desertion.”
Brodie thought about that. Mercer escapes imprisonment in the tribal territories, resigns his commission in anger, and then a few weeks later in a city close to his last known location—the Taliban camp—an American spy is tortured and killed. Could be a coincidence. But maybe not. Brodie said, “We should have been given this information by General Hackett.”
“General Hackett might not have known.”
“General Mendoza did.”
Dombroski didn’t respond to that.
There was no world in which Army Chief of Staff Mendoza was kept in the dark on Crenshaw’s CIA affiliation after Crenshaw was tortured and murdered—not when one of his most lethal warriors was on the loose in the area. Had General Mendoza briefed General Hackett? Brodie didn’t really care if the guy who was withholding information from him had two stars or four. He was trying to put together a puzzle, and someone on their side was hiding some pieces.
Dombroski said, “If Mercer killed Crenshaw, the torture had to do with… maybe revenge, or getting something out of him. That’s why you torture people.”
“Usually. But what—?”
“I’m thinking that if it was Mercer, maybe Crenshaw revealed something under torture that took Mercer to Caracas.”
Brodie thought that was a bit of a stretch. But at least it sounded like Dombroski had suddenly recalled a few of the five W’s. Stanley Dombroski was not a political animal—he was a cop. But he often found himself caught between the world of Pentagon politics and honest police work—between bullshit and justice. No, Colonel Dombroski would never make general, and his Buddha belly and vertically challenged stature were not the primary reason for that.
“Brodie?”
“Still here.”
“This is all off the record.”
“Copy.”
“This was not part of our mission briefing.”
“No, it was not.”
Dombroski continued, “If there is a connection between Crenshaw’s murder and Captain Mercer, the Intel folks at the embassy in Caracas are aware of this, and they are now wondering what you’ve been wondering—why is Mercer in Venezuela?”
Brodie didn’t respond. Taylor had told him he was being paranoid about this case, but now Dombroski was feeding his suspicions.
Dombroski asked, “Was Worley pumping you for information about your assignment?”
“A little. We told him only what he needed to know. Have you dealt with him before?”
“No. He got in touch with me when I reached out to the military attaché office in the Caracas embassy. But I’d bet money on him being DCS.”
DCS stood for Defense Clandestine Service, the human espionage arm of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The Pentagon’s spooks. Brodie said, “Could be.”