The kid looked equally surprised, but he recovered quickly, smiled pleasantly, and they chatted back and forth for about three minutes; for all I knew, Phyllis was recruiting him to go back to Vietnam and overthrow the commies.
I quickly got tired of listening to a conversation I didn't understand, and I turned my attention to the menu--still no red meat, still no cold beer. I really wanted a hamburger. I really needed a beer.
Earlier that afternoon, I had made the quick trip to Arlington National Cemetery and located the grave of Major Mark Kemble. It was raining and windy, and I saluted his grave, and then knelt down and we had a long, amiable chat. Maybe Bian had found time to stop here before she fled, maybe not. So I told Mark that he would be proud of Bian, and I told him everything she had done, and I confided how jealous I was of him.
The kid was laughing at something Phyllis told him, and then he disappeared back into the kitchen. Phyllis mentioned to me, "He recommends the freshwater white fish. It's the house speciality." She then reminded me of how well she knew me and observed, "But you don't like fish, do you?"
I asked her, "How long have you known?"
"About the white fish?"
"I'm tired of the games, Phyllis."
"Humor me about the fish, anyway," she replied. "I was first introduced to it in Vietnam. Did you know I spent five years there? During the war, of course. I loved the country, and especially, I loved the people."
Phyllis is not much for small talk, so she was leading up to something, and I had to let it play out.
She looked at me and said, "I wish I could say I look back fondly on those years. I don't, though."
I was obviously expected to ask why, and I did.
"I could say because it was such a horrible and ill-conceived tragedy for our nation. That's how Americans look back on it. We lost fifty-eight thousand lives. I knew some of those people . . . I knew very many of them, actually."
"One of my uncles is on the wall. As are the fathers of several of my friends."
"Not many fathers are on the wall. They were mostly so young." She looked away for a moment, then said, "At least we were able to fit all our dead on a wall. They lost two million lives, and we left millions of southerners to a hellish fate. What about them?"
Usually, Phyllis's ulterior meanings are more nuanced and subtle than this. What it boiled down to was this: The two people at this table knew enough to possibly force a premature end to this war as well. She wasn't going to insult my intelligence by lecturing me about American honor, or the geostrategic stakes, or even my security obligations. I appreciated that. I know my duty, and I do it--most of the time. I would've told her to screw off, anyway.
So I told her something she already knew. "You knew about Bian from the beginning."
"I knew more than you knew."
"Then why?"
"Why did I let Bian into the investigation in the first place? Why did I allow her to go with it? Why didn't I confide in you?" She paused, then asked, "Or why did I let her slip away?"
She sipped her tea, obviously pleased that I had figured out this much. After all, no boss likes to think they hired a complete idiot--it makes them feel stupid. At the same time, she was testing me.
"Start with how you knew."
"Well . . . like you, I wondered why an MP officer was at a civilian murder scene." She added, "When I saw how very determined she was to become involved . . . Let's just say that aroused my curiosity all the more."
"Because, unlike me, you knew this was the second related murder."
She did not reply.
"Reason to be suspicious, right?"
"At least reason to dig a little deeper," she acknowledged. "From a background check at Army personnel I learned about her former job in Baghdad. General Bentson is an acquaintance. I called, and he told me the whole sad story."
"And you already knew how her fiance died?"
"Did I forget to mention that I'm in charge of that investigation, too?"
"In fact, I think you did fail to mention it."
"Well, I'm mentioning it now. We spun our wheels for two months, Sean. All the resources of the Agency, and we couldn't figure out who compromised this very sensitive