The Death Trust by David Rollins Page B

I’d worked on. What I needed was some distance. I was too close to the individual details and they were meaningless because of that, like those mounds and scratches on the ground in Mexico that become figures or animals or geometric patterns when they’re viewed from altitude. I also wondered how long I, or rather we—OSI—would have on our own before some other agency began sniffing around. Within half an hour I was in a cab to Ramstein. On the way there I left a message on Masters’s cell, telling her not to bother picking me up.
    Masters had done a good job securing the OSI block at the base. At the entrance stood a massive French MP who looked like a refrigerator with a two-day growth. He smelled of garlic and Gauloises. My swipe card got me in the front door and I walked up to two other NCMP people armed with M16 carbines covering the door to the windowless bunker that contained the general’s papers. I swiped the door and went in. Boxes were placed on gray Formica tables and there was a fair bit of paper scattered around, in the process of being catalogued. It appeared that the general had been pretty systematic with his filing, only much of his fastidiousness had been undone by our rush to relocate his records.
    I didn’t really know where to start, so I just sat down with one of the boxes and began sifting through the contents at random.
    Two hours later, Masters walked in with a cappuccino for us both. “Morning,” she said.
    “Morgen,” I replied.
    “How’d you sleep?”
    “Like a baby—”
    “Good.”
    “—with colic.”
    “Oh…Tooth still bugging you?”
    “Among other things.”
    The guarded way Masters looked at me when I said that told me she thought one of those other things was her onetime relationship with von Koeppen. Frankly, I hadn’t given it any thought. It was a long time in the past and had no bearing on anything. That’s if I took Masters at her word, and I had no reason to doubt her.
    She came over with the coffee and a newspaper. Without the camouflage jacket on, I could see she had a hell of a figure—athletic, but without the roidal gym-junkie shoulders or thighs that can turn a woman’s figure into a parody. She was wearing perfume, too—Issey Miyake, if I was not mistaken. My favorite. Her hair wasn’t tied back and it fell around her face and shoulders like ribbons of dark chocolate silk. “And, anyway, I wanted to get an early start—we’ve got a lot to do,” I said to get my mind off what it would be like burying my nose in her hair. I relieved her of one of the coffees.
    “The news is out,” she said. “Front page.”
    I turned the newspaper over. It was the Herald Tribune. The world was the usual insane mess with people happily blowing up themselves and each other all across the globe. I recognized a face. It was Scott, and he was smiling. “Accident Kills Top U.S. General,” said the headline. There were a few paragraphs about why he was a top U.S. general, and nothing about him being assassinated. “That was quick,” I said. “Von Koeppen must have had the Tribune over for tea.
    “My turn for show-and-tell,” I said as I handed her a small waxy slip of paper.
    “What’s this?” she asked.
    “A receipt.” It was difficult to read. The print was fine, and fading. “Aurora Aviation, for three thousand eight hundred and forty euros. We might not be able to find out who did the work on Scott’s glider, but at least we know who he bought those new bits and pieces from.”
    Masters nodded. “Good find.”
    I exchanged it for a yellowing press clipping, also from Scott’s files. “So’s this.”
    She frowned as her eyes flicked over the headline: “Death Row.” The picture accompanying it showed a long line of what were either body bags or sleeping sea lions lying on the tarmac behind the ramp of a transport plane. A couple of soldiers were carrying another one between them down the ramp, which narrowed the odds about what they were carrying,