For a company I’d literally never heard of before I met Merriwell, Distance had headquarters whose size astounded me. At least fifty acres served as a security perimeter for a network of low functional-looking buildings, designed with little regard to the lush hills behind them. The reception area was all marble but there was a hush to the place that seemed unnerving, especially in combination with the cameras that hung from most corners of the ceiling. After I signed in with the stoic receptionist, one of the cameras rotated to follow me back to my chair. I was sure I was being processed in facial recognition software against a database of terrorists. After a while, I received a clip-on badge, and one of Merriwell’s assistants emerged to escort me back.
The office to which she led me was vast. When I was US Attorney, I used to make jokes about the size of my office, saying that because the government didn’t pay much in salary, you were rewarded instead with square footage. But the space Merriwell inhabited had to be at least three times as large. You’d literally have trouble hearing someone on the other side of the room unless they shouted. Because the space was so huge, it had a somewhat barren quality. The furniture, for example, appeared to have been left over since 1960, teak Danish Modern, although I knew that stuff was coming back. Even so, Merry could have done more to warm the place up. Aside from the lone photo of his grandchild, there was not a picture in the place. The only decorations were awards the company had received over the years from DoD. I’d represented another defense contractor during my days in private practice and had been impressed by the deliberately nondescript character of the employees’ workspaces, especially the battleship-gray walls. I took it now that was an industry practice.
Merriwell, in his white shirt and sedate tie, greeted me warmly, then showed me to a twelve-seat conference table that absorbed a corner of the room. He looked even better than a few weeks back and now had that vital windswept color that comes from lots of sailing. He said he’d been spending quite a bit of time at his place on the Eastern Shore. That was where Rog’s weekend home was, too, and I suspected they passed time together.
I asked if they’d spoken this week.
“We’ve been missing each other. He told me he wanted to have a cup of coffee, but I was in West Africa until yesterday. I assume I’m about to find out what he has on his mind?”
I shrugged.
“The one thing he told me on the phone,” Merriwell said, “was that your investigation is nearing its end.”
“It is. We exhumed the Cave.”
“With what result?”
“Well, I guess from your perspective, Merry, I’d probably say it was good news and bad.”
“Okay,” said Merriwell. He thought. “I’m feeling more optimistic lately, so I’ll take the good news first.”
“No bodies.”
He nodded many times with his mouth pursed.
“Forgive me, Boom, but I have told you more than once to expect that.”
“Based on what?”
“I’m sorry?”
“What made you so confident that the Roma of Barupra weren’t all massacred?”
“I was promised that emphatically. I told you I spoke to my senior officers before you and I first met.”
“Which of your senior officers assured you the Roma weren’t murdered?”
I received Merry’s scowl, his faint brows drawn into his eyes.
“You know I can’t answer that, Boom.”
“I say it was Attila. She had control of the trucks that ended up taking the Roma from Barupra.”
“Well, now you seem to know more than I do.”
“I doubt that, Merry.”
“If you have questions about Attila, she’s probably the best person to answer them.”
“If she will.”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
“I was hoping you’d be able to explain that to me.”
He gave a slow, ponderous shake of the head to show he had no idea.
“And I suppose,” he said, “I should ask for the bad news.”
“We found about five thousand light arms—assault rifles, grenades, ammunition, RPGs, mortars—a true armory. The bulk of them were of Yugoslav manufacture, but bore laser markings indicating they’d been in NATO’s custody. Am I telling you anything you don’t know?”
“That there were five thousand weapons in what you call the Cave? Frankly, I’m astounded.”
I considered whether I believed him.
“Well,” I said, “I think we’re verging on things you do know about. If my deductions are correct, those weapons were stolen by some of the Roma from a convoy that Attila was running to the airfield at Camp Comanche. About a hundred of those stolen arms were then sold by the Gypsies to Kajevic, who ended up using them to wound or kill twelve of your troops. That fact, I sense, was not only tragic for you, but problematic. Because all of those arms—the ones Kajevic used, the ones in the Cave, the ones in the convoy—were part of about 500,000 weapons you were collecting to ship to Iraq whose ultimate disposition seems to be quite mysterious.”
Merry had watched me with his lead-gray eyes absolutely still.
“Perhaps I’m helping you understand, Merry, why Rog wants a coffee date?”
“Boom, I thought you told me this wasn’t official business.”
“It isn’t. The ICC prosecutes crimes against humanity, not weapons trafficking. Besides, you and I both know that it’s against the law for me to be investigating on US soil, or for you to be helping me. This is just one of those conversations between two guys that isn’t even happening.”
Merry looked at me askance as he continued reflecting.
I said, “You had to have known within hours of the casualties in Doboj that those soldiers were shot with weapons that had been stolen from NATO. Originally, when I learned that, I thought you had kept that information to yourself because it was so embarrassing—our only combat fatalities in Bosnia coming with ammo and small arms that had been taken out of our hands. Then, over time, I reconsidered and wondered if you were suppressing that information because the Roma’s theft and sale of those arms gave American soldiers such a strong motive to play vigilante and to go kill the Gypsies.”
Merriwell shook his head and said simply, “No.”
“We’ll come back to that,” I said. “But more recently, I’ve become aware of something else, which is why I referred to the guns in the Cave as bad news for you. The problem with acknowledging that our soldiers had been killed with light arms stolen from one of our convoys was that somebody—the press, the parents of one of those slain soldiers, a representative in Congress—one of those somebodies would inevitably ask why in the hell a convoy of NATO-seized weapons was headed to Camp Comanche in the first place. Where were those weapons being flown? Because those arms—the guns that killed our soldiers, the guns buried in the Cave, the guns in the convoy, all 500,000 small arms headed to Iraq—were what you guys really don’t want to talk about.”
“I understand what you’re suggesting,” said Merriwell.
“But?”
“But the disposition of the Bosnian weapons sent to Iraq remains a highly classified matter.”
“It’s eleven years later, Merry.”
“Revising security classifications was never my job, Boom, and it certainly isn’t now. I’m sorry. It goes without saying that this business”—a finger circled the room—“depends on not overstepping those boundaries.”
I’d heard a lot of that bullshit by now. I folded my hands on the table. I was never under the illusion that Merriwell and I had become friends, despite sharing some personal moments. I think we respected each other, but we’d always recognized that our roles were in some way antagonistic.
“I really didn’t come here to threaten you, Merry.”
I got an unwilling smile. “But you’re going to threaten me anyway. I’ll tell you right now that if you truly think I was engaged in arms trafficking, then you have no leverage at all.”