Secret Sanction by Brian Haig

barely worn, hardly faded, stiffly starched battle dress. That’s the thing about lawyers. Even when we try to blend in, we stick out like sore thumbs.
    We drove for about ten minutes and went straight to a small three-floor hotel located on a hilltop that gave us a stunning view of long, stretched-out plains that were dotted every now and again by tiny hills with castles or palaces mounted atop nearly every one. This being Italy, it was a wildly romantic setting. Aviano Air Base, where our suspects were being held, was three miles away.
    Delbert and Morrow immediately broke out their running togs and loped off down the road. Now that we were back in civilization, they meant to make immediate amends for all the carbohydrates and cholesterol they’d sucked down as a result of Imelda. I put on a bathing suit and went to sit beside the pool. This was the kind of place where I normally did my best thinking. It helped that several Italian women were lounging around in some of those half-an-ounce-of-cloth, let-the-cheeks-hang-out bikinis, which for me had a certain restorative effect.
    I had closely studied the file of Captain Terry Sanchez, the team leader, and was actually curious to meet him. What I had learned was that his mother and father were Cuban immigrants, part of the vast tidal wave who fled from Fidel Castro and settled in the lush cities of southern Florida. I was only guessing, but most sons of that wave were raised to be intensely patriotic, to have an almost surreal hatred of Fidel, and to try to lead their lives according to the macho mores of the Latin world. I hate to stereotype, but stereotypes have their use, especially those of the cultural variety.
    Sanchez was thirty-two years old and a graduate of Florida State University. He had earned his way through on an ROTC scholarship. His file contained an official photo, which showed him standing rigidly at attention in dress greens with a perfectly blank expression—the expected look of all military file photos, because the Army takes a dim view of smiley faces. He was medium height, medium weight, with dark hair, and eyes that struck me as sorrowful.
    His commander, Lieutenant Colonel Smothers, had described Sanchez as an outstanding officer. But like the rest of the performance reports in Sanchez’s packet, the two signed by Smothers put Sanchez squarely in the middle of the pack. So much for open disclosure.
    After I’d been sitting beside the pool for an hour, I saw two bodies steaming up the road, their arms flailing wildly and their legs kicking up and down with great fury. Morrow was in the lead, and the closer they got, the more wildly Delbert’s arms fluttered and whipped, as though he could pull himself through the air to catch up with her. Like I said, these two were very competitive creatures, and both were heaving like draft horses by the time they finally made it to my lounge chair beside the pool. Morrow had on a pair of those skin-hugging nylon runner’s pants, and I have to be honest, she fit into them like they were meant to be fit into. If I were Delbert, I would’ve stayed right behind her the whole way, simply because the view was majestic. But that was me. Delbert was too pure for that kind of stuff.
    “Have a nice run?” I asked.
    “Yeah,” Morrow heaved out. “Jus’”—puff, puff, puff—“great.” Delbert was bent over beside her and looked about ready to spill his guts.
    “How about you, Delbert?” I asked.
    “Nah”—puff, puff, puff—“I . . . uh”—puff, puff.
    “You what?”
    “Torn hamstring”—puff, puff.
    “Ah, I see. A torn hamstring, huh? Could that be why Morrow beat you?” I said, saving him the trouble of having to spell it out, which it didn’t seem he was going to be able to do for the next few minutes.
    Puff, puff—“uh-huh.”
    Morrow made no reply, only straightened up and made a very exerted effort to get her breathing under instant control. This took her only about six or seven