Gone Tomorrow - Lee Child [66]
Lila said, “My mother knew all about your army’s medals. They were held to be important, as criteria for classifying prisoners. Badges of honor, that would become badges of dishonor immediately upon capture. She knew that the VAL rifle would be worth a major award. But which award? Remember, there had been no declaration of hostilities. And most of your major awards specify gallantry or heroism while in action against an armed enemy of the United States. Technically whoever stole the VAL from my father was not eligible for any of those awards, because technically the Soviet Union was not an enemy of the United States. Not in the military sense. Not in a formal political way. There had been no declaration of war.”
I nodded again. We had never been at war with the Soviet Union. On the contrary, for four long years we had been allies in a desperate struggle against a common foe. We had cooperated, extensively. The World War Two-era Red Army greatcoat that Lila Hoth claimed to have been conceived under had almost certainly been made in America, as part of the Lend-Lease program. We had shipped a hundred million tons of woolen and cotton goods to the Russians. Plus fifteen million pairs of leather boots, four million rubber tires, two thousand railroad locomotives, and eleven thousand freight cars, as well as all the obvious heavy metal, like fifteen thousand airplanes, seven thousand tanks, and 375,000 army trucks. All free, gratis, and for nothing. Winston Churchill had called the program the least sordid in all of history. Legends had grown up around it. The Soviets were said to have asked for condoms, and in an attempt to impress and intimidate, they had specified that they should be eighteen inches long. The United States had duly shipped them, in cartons stamped Size: Medium.
So went the story.
Lila asked, “Are you listening?”
I nodded. “The Superior Service Medal would have fit the bill. Or the Legion of Merit, or the Soldier’s Medal.”
“Not big enough.”
“Thanks. I won all three.”
“Capturing the VAL was a really big coup. A sensation. It was a completely unknown weapon. Its acquisition would have been rewarded with a really big medal.”
“But which one?”
“My mother concluded it would be the Distinguished Service Medal. That one is big, but different. The applicable standard is exceptionally meritorious service to the United States Government in a duty of great responsibility. It is completely independent of formal declared combat activities. It is normally awarded to politically pliable Brigadier Generals and above. My mother was under orders to execute all holders of the DSM immediately. Below the rank of Brigadier General it is awarded only very rarely. But it’s the only significant medal a Delta captain could have won that night in the Korengal Valley.”
I nodded. I agreed. I figured Svetlana Hoth was a pretty good analyst. Clearly she had been well trained, and well informed. The KGB had done a decent job. I said, “So you went looking for a guy called John who had been a Delta captain and won a DSM, both in March of 1983.”
Lila nodded. “And to be certain, the DSM had to come without a citation.”
“And you made Susan Mark help.”
“I didn’t make her. She was happy to help.”
“Why?”
“Because she was upset by my mother’s story.”
Svetlana Hoth smiled and nodded.
Lila said, “And she was a little upset by my story, too. I’m a fatherless child, the same as her.”
I asked, “How did John Sansom’s name come up even before Susan reported back? I don’t believe that it was from a bunch of New York private eyes sitting around reading the newspaper and making jokes.”
“It’s a very rare combination,” Lila said. “John, Delta, DSM, but never a one-star general. We noticed it in the Herald Tribune, when his Senate ambitions were announced. We were in London. You can buy that paper all over