Middle Man by David Rich Read Free Book Online

time, interviewing a bloated colonel who did not want to talk to us about McColl, because, he asserted, the dead can’t defend themselves. We marched directly to the office we had been provided. Will worked the computer. No Arthur Hensel graduated from West Point or from Princeton. The service file that came up said he graduated from Middlebury College and worked as a civilian for DIA before joining the Army. Will found a medical file that listed him as wounded in action in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division. He found more, each with a different story. When he went back to the service personnel file, it said Arthur Hensel was forty years old and had graduated from University of California at Berkeley. Another version said Arthur Hensel joined as an eighteen-year-old private in Arkansas and served in Korea and Okinawa. Will, who knew every form and regulation, wanted to start filing paperwork to get at the truth.
    â€œHis name got put on other people’s files,” he said. “It’s a massive screwup.”
    But it was not a screwup. It was a plan, and a good one, better than some higher level of classification, which could be cracked. Maybe he was not Hensel at all. I could not even be sure how long he had been in the Army, whether he was due for promotion or was passed over and kept on under selective continuation. The mystery gave me confidence in him because it meant he was in control of his story and when he did give orders, they would be precise and specific; when he spoke, I would be hearing what he wanted me to hear without emotion or pomposity, anger or resentment. And it gave me a goal: Someday I would find out who he really was.
    Soon after the highways merged, the downtown skyline came into view, making the cloud canopy seem higher: Even the tallest buildings couldn’t pierce it. The taxi crept past a few car dealerships, warehouses, office buildings, and factories with ads painted on their sides, a low building advertising Morton Salt. I figured Major Hensel had information for me about the Montana shooting or Godwin’s shooting, so it would be a waste to try to fill the gaps myself. He occupied himself with his iPad. His belly filled his blue shirt and made the buttons work to keep it together. The suit, the shirt, the tie, made me think the Princeton identity or one just like it was true, but it could just as easily have been faked to throw the world off track. The thick temples of his eyeglasses blocked his eyes. I let my mind drift to salt and how it must be pretty much all the same, so the Morton people, way back, must have been brave to spend a lot of time and money giving salt a name. There must have been a salt war, though, with tears, bankruptcy, hope and deceit and stealing. Someone must have hated Morton and sworn revenge.
    The cabbie dropped us in front of a men’s store called Paul Stuart. The store was big and almost empty. Major Hensel looked over the salesmen and chose one with white hair and a mustache and told him to dress me like an investment banker, for work and for weekends. “Everything, shirts, belts, shoes and socks, the whole wardrobe. And, we’ll pay extra to have any alterations done immediately,” he said. “Whatever it takes. He’s flying out tomorrow.” That was news to me, but I nodded along as confirmation. “I’ll be back,” Major Hensel said, and he left.
    I was fresh meat, but the salesman was polite and soft-spoken and patient. He had polished the act. “Congratulations,” he said, “sounds like a promotion.”
    â€œYes. I’m very excited.”
    â€œWhich firm are you with?”
    â€œVoster M.E.A.,” I said. He nodded while he searched his memory for that firm. “Amalgamated,” I added, as if to help him out. He didn’t deserve it, but it just came out, and that lie was probably less hostile than claiming secrecy or, worst of all, answering, “The Marines.”