Nothing to Hide (A Roland March Mystery Book #3) by Bertrand J. Mark

Author:Bertrand, J. Mark [Bertrand, J. Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC026000, March, Roland (Fictitious character)—Fiction, FIC042060, United States, Federal Bureau of Investigation—Fiction, Houston (Tex.)—Fiction, FIC042000, Murder—Investigation—Fiction
ISBN: 9781441271006
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2012-06-30T14:00:00+00:00

Interlude : 1986

I ran into Magnum on base fairly regularly after our first conversation, but we always kept our distance. Sometimes I’d pretend like I didn’t see him. Other times he’d acknowledge me with a far-off nod. Though we never talked, over time we were coming to understand each other better. I was conscious of his presence even when he wasn’t there.

This was some kind of test, I decided. Magnum was keeping an eye on me to see what I was made of. After all, he had told me things he probably had no right to reveal. Had he divined something in me—some kind of trustworthiness or cunning—that suggested there was no danger in opening up?

“I’m a talent scout,” he’d said. And I was a willing recruit.

Whenever scuttlebutt on base touched on the doings of Magnum and his cabana boys, Sgt. Crewes reported everything in thrilling detail. He kept an ear to the ground, presumably on Shattuck’s orders, though he never said as much. According to the Spanish-speaking master sergeant, Magnum’s men were Uruguayans, or possibly Argentines. They were junior officers of similar rank to one another with the exception of César, who gave orders and never seemed to get his hands dirty. Unlike the others, César also had the run of the town. He’d been observed sampling the Leesville night life, such as it was, doling out hundred-dollar bills like he had an endless supply. The whole group had come direct from Ft. Benning, meaning they were School of the Americas alumni. Crewes had to explain to me what that meant.

Unfortunately the sergeant’s intel was low-grade product, spiked with implausible rumors.

“One of them’s missing,” he revealed one afternoon. “They’re keeping everything hushed up, but the word is, he took a nosedive out of a Huey.”

“One of the cabana boys? He fell out of a chopper?”

“More likely he was pushed,” the sergeant said, a gleam in his eye. “It’s all over base.”

By “all over base,” he meant the tight-knit circle of long-serving NCOs who were the only soldiers who mattered to Sgt. Crewes. I was incredulous.

“You’re saying one of them was thrown out of the copter—for what? To demonstrate how it’s done? Let me guess. Nobody actually saw this, but they heard it from someone who did. The Huey pilot will never turn up, and neither will the crew, but that doesn’t stop the word from getting around.”

“What’s your problem?”

I stiffened.

“Let me rephrase that,” he said. “What’s your problem, sir?”

“My problem is, you’re supposed to be a sergeant, but you gossip like an old woman.”

The words were out before I could stop them. I paused and swallowed hard, bracing myself from the reaction.

Crewes cocked his head like a pointer catching the scent of the fox.

“Oh,” he said to the air over our heads. “I think I know what the problem is now. Somebody has a crush.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s all those secret meetings,” he said, still talking to the ceiling. “Only the major already laid down the law on that point.

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