by David Archer
It was Michael Watkins.
Harry turned to the sheet of paper and unfolded it, and the words he saw written there caused him to forget the bottle and take out his phone. Harry Winslow had a number of calls to make, and there was no time to waste.
Too much of it had already been wasted.
1
“Daddy, wake up,” Sam Prichard heard his little daughter say, so he rolled over and grabbed her, pulling her up onto the bed beside him. She shrieked and giggled as he began tickling her, but then she pushed his hands away just enough to gasp out, “Daddy, Uncle Harry’s here!”
“Uncle Harry?” he asked, the surprise evident in his face and voice. The announcement brought him to full wakefulness in an instant, for the last time “Uncle Harry” had shown up unannounced, Sam had been involved in an international manhunt for a would-be dictator.
“Yeah,” his wife said as she stuck her head into the bedroom. “I told Kenzie to wake you up while I start breakfast. He’s in the living room.” She glanced down the hallway and then came into the room. “Sam, he’s been forced to retire, and I don’t think he’s handling it very well. Seems upset, you know?”
Sam grabbed her hand and pulled her down for a kiss, then let her go. “Tell him I’ll be right there,” he said, as he pushed Kenzie gently off the bed and rolled to a sitting position. The two girls got out while he went into the bathroom and took care of morning necessities, then pulled on a pair of athletic pants and a t-shirt he used for when he was hanging around the house.
Harry was on the couch when Sam walked in, and Indie was right; he looked like he'd aged ten years since they’d last seen him a little over a year earlier. There was something about him that almost suggested defeat, but Sam knew with certainty that “defeated” wasn’t a word in Harry’s vocabulary.
“Harry!” Sam said boisterously, and the old man got to his feet, showing that he was still as spry as ever. The two of them hugged the way men who love and trust one another do, and then Sam sat down beside him. “What’s this about retirement? I didn’t think you’d ever give up your work.”
“Wasn’t my choice, Sam,” Harry drawled. “Seems some smart-ass with a computer managed to find out that I’d been making some adjustments to my 201 file over the years. Apparently, there was a digital image of my original enlistment that showed my birth certificate, so they no longer believe I was only ten when I joined the Navy.”
Sam stared at him. “Just how much of an adjustment had you made, Harry?”
The old man grinned. “Let’s just say I managed to stay on the job for eleven years past mandatory retirement age and leave it at that, shall we? And that isn’t why I’m here, anyway.” He glanced toward the door that led to the dining room and kitchen. “Is there somewhere we can talk privately, Sam? It’s not that Indie can’t know about this, it’s just that I need to go over it with you, first.”
Sam looked at his old friend for a moment, then nodded. “Let’s go out to the office,” he said. “We can talk there for now.” He told Indie where they were headed, and the two of them walked down the hall to the room behind the garage.
Sam sat down at his desk and let Harry take the comfy chair in front of it. “Okay, Harry,” he said, “what’s really going on?”
Harry reached inside the leather jacket he was wearing against the late-autumn chill and extracted an envelope. He held it in his hand and looked at it for a moment, then looked up at Sam again.
“Three days ago, I walked my ass into the Director’s office and got handed my walking papers,” he said. “He told me about finding out how old I really am, gave me a speech about how I’d done more than my duty and should take the rest of my time to relax, and such, and sent me packing. I’ve got a pension that’ll keep me comfortable for the rest of my life, a couple of hidden nest eggs that even the gubmint doesn’t know about, and more free time than I can stand, but I’ve also got one of the most unusual problems I’ve ever even heard about. Sam, boy, I need to hire you.”
Harry started talking, then, and over the next few minutes he told Sam enough of the story to give him an idea of what he would be going up against: a woman and two children apparently died more than thirty years before, but there was now evidence that their deaths had been falsified. Photos of the children a few years older than they would have been when they died, a photo of the woman with a man who wasn’t her husband, and a note in her own handwriting that almost seemed like an attempt to explain but that left more questions than it gave answers.
“Harry,” Sam said after hearing the short version of the story, “you have any idea who could have put the envelope into your apartment?”
“Oh, probably about 100 names could easily spring to mind. Remember, Sam, I’ve spent my life in a world of people who can get in and out of places without leaving a trace. I checked the apartment; there was no sign of any forced entry anywhere, no scratches on the keyholes, absolutely nothing to suggest this could have been the work of any amateur. Whoever put that envelope on that table knew exactly what he or she was doing. We’re talking about a spook, Sam. The big question in my mind is the old how and why. How did this person come into possession of it, and why the hell did they bring it to me now?”
“I’m pretty sure that finding the answer to either one of those questions is going to answer the other one,” Sam said. “If we can find out the how, we’ll get the why; if we find out the why, the how will almost certainly become apparent.” He looked at Harry and raised his eyebrows. “What does the note say, Harry?”
Harry was still holding the envelope, turning it over and over in his fingers. He glanced down at it for a moment, then leaned forward and handed it to Sam.
Sam opened it and let the contents fall out onto his desk. An old policeman’s instinct made him want to avoid touching the photos and paper, in order to avoid contaminating any fingerprints that might be found, but he was sure Harry had already thought of that. If there were prints on it, Harry would already know whose they were, and he wouldn’t be sitting across the desk.
The first photo showed a young boy playing with a small dog. The boy appeared to be somewhere around ten years old, in Sam’s estimation. The dog was a dachshund, and the two of them seemed to be dancing around. “You ever own a dachshund?” Sam asked.
“No. Kathy always wanted one, though.”
The second photo was of a little girl. It was the kind of photo often taken in a department store, with the child posed in front of a fake backdrop of scenery. This one showed the girl in a bright yellow dress, holding a small parasol. The background was a field of sunflowers. The child had a happy smile on her face.
Sam looked at the third photo. A couple was sitting in beach chairs, and they seemed to be very happy together. The woman, who looked like she might be close to thirty, was looking at the man with eyes that were twinkling. Her hand and his were intertwined, their fingers linked together in the way couples do when they’re happy with each other. The man, who had short hair and the build of a professional soldier, was also smiling. The two of them were looking at each other, rather than toward the camera. It appeared to have been a candid shot.
“This is probably a stupid question,” Sam said, “but you’re certain that this woman is Kathleen? There’s no doubt in your mind?”
“Absolutely none,” Harry said. “Look at her left thigh, where it’s lifted the tiniest bit and you can just see the back. She had a pair of moles right there, and you can see them in the photo. Believe me, as illogical as it would be after seeing the photos of the kids, I’ve tried to convince myself that Michael just found himself a look-alike, but there’s no doubt, Sam. That woman in that photo is my wife.”
Sam looked at the photo for another moment, then dropped it on the desk and picked up the note. He unfolded it carefully and looked at the words that had been written almost thirty years earlier.
Harry,
I wish you could see them growing up. Harold is so much like you that it’s spooky so
metimes, and Lizzie has all the grace and poise of a royal princess. I look at them sometimes and wonder how they could be our children. Let’s face it, you and I were both a little rough around the edges in a lot of ways, but these two are about as perfect as perfect can be.
I miss you, Harry. The kids miss you, too, in some ways, though it’s been long enough now that they don’t truly remember you. Michael tries to keep me happy, and for the most part he does pretty well, but he understands that he can never be Harry Winslow. Let’s face it, you were a very tough act to follow.
I don’t know what I would have done without him. Michael came to my rescue when the world was falling in on me. He helped me accept that you were gone and when he explained the dangers to me and the kids, how could I refuse his help? It hurts to know that we had to walk away from everything we ever knew, but I guess that’s the price you pay for being in our world. I just count my blessings and thank God that I’ve still got the kids safe and sound, and while Michael knows I still love you, he makes it clear that he’s always going to be here for me. I guess I should just be grateful for what I’ve got.
I guess that’s all for now. I’ll write you again next month.
Love,
Kathy
Sam looked up at Harry. “I see what you mean,” he said. “She wrote this as if it was something she would mail out to you at the time, and yet it almost sounds like she didn’t expect you to ever see it at all.”
“I’m quite sure she didn’t,” Harry said. “I’ve read that note 100 times, and the only way I can make sense of it is to believe that she thought I was dead when she wrote it. That’s the only possibility I can see. See how she refers to me in the past tense, and talks about wishing I could see the kids grow up, as if that’s not a possibility? Then she mentions Michael helping her accept that I was ‘gone’ and coming to her rescue when the world was falling in, and something about dangers to her and the kids that she needed his help with. She said after that she had to leave everything they ever knew behind them, which sounds like witness protection or something, and then she talks about how she still loves me, even though she and Michael are obviously together.”
“Yeah, I caught all that,” Sam said. “And you’re right, that’s about the only interpretation that makes any sense. I’m just trying to figure out how she could possibly have believed that.”
“She believed it because it’s almost certainly what she was told, and God alone knows what kind of proof she might’ve been shown. Nowadays, they can use computers to make a picture look any way you want, but back then we had to do things the hard way. I thought it over, and it wouldn’t have been all that difficult for Michael to show her pictures of what looked like my dead body, but it wouldn’t even really take that. All he’d have had to do would be to hand her a CCL, a Command Condolence Letter. Nobody ever doubted those. When you got one, it meant your husband or father or brother or whatever was dead.”
Sam shook his head. “I see your point,” he said. “So, you think this guy Michael made it look to her like you were dead, then—what? Talked her into running away with him? Harry, that would mean she never even got to go to your funeral. How can any of this make any sense?”
“Remember the reference to danger? Every spook knows that there’s a risk to his family if the wrong people find out who he is; hell, you’ve gone through that yourself. Some of my missions were under deep cover, which means I stopped being Harry Winslow when the mission was assigned to me, and became somebody else. Some of those, if the people I went up against learned who I really was, Kathy and the kids really would’ve been in danger. Michael must have told her that I had been exposed and killed, and that he had to get her and the kids into deep cover of their own. Believe me, seeing me put into the ground wouldn’t be nearly as important to her as protecting those children.”
“Was there a plan for that kind of thing?” Sam asked. “Let’s say your cover identity really was compromised, was there some protocol in place to protect your family?”
Harry shook his head. “No, nothing official,” he said. “Needless to say, the first thing I did after I saw all this was to find out whatever happened to Michael Watkins, and that was a very interesting trip down memory lane, let me tell you. While I was in Cambodia looking for POWs, old Michael was transferred to the Foreign Asset Management section, Brazil Division. I remember that he went to Brazil, but after he had just helped me bury my entire family, he wasn’t exactly the guy I wanted to exchange Christmas cards with. We lost track of each other—I should say, I lost track of him rather quickly. When I got to digging into this, though, I found out that about six months after he left, he married a woman named Katherine Baker that he met in Brazil. A month later he retired and dropped off the face of the earth.”
“So the woman he married, you think, was actually Kathleen in a new identity. He took her and the kids to Brazil as part of some plan to keep them safe? Harry, forgive me, but it just seems odd that your wife would fall for that.”
“It’s a different world, Sam, boy,” Harry said. “People like me had to live with the knowledge that there was always someone out there who wanted us dead. There were at least two dozen loaded weapons hidden around the inside of my house, so that if the day ever came when some of those people tried to take me out, no matter where I was in the house I’d be able to reach a weapon. Kathleen knew where they were, in special hideaways where the kids couldn’t reach them. Now, you think about what it would be like for Indie if she had to live like that, and tell me whether protecting that little girl in there might be more important than seeing your body come home in a box.”
Sam chewed his bottom lip as he looked off toward the kitchen. “Okay, I’ll give you that point.” He turned back to look at Harry. “So, here’s the big question, Harry. You said you wanted to hire me. What do you want me to do?”
“Well, hell, Sam,” Harry said, staring at him. “What would you want if you were in my shoes?”
Sam looked into his eyes for a long moment, then smiled sadly. “I’d want to know if my wife and children were still living, and I’d want to find them.”
2
The two men got up and went into the house for breakfast, and Harry made a point of keeping little Kenzie entertained while they ate. As he often did on his rare visits, he had brought her a present: a set of magic tricks that, despite their simplicity, were actually quite amazing when he demonstrated them. Five-and-a-half-year-old Kenzie was fascinated by them, but got even more excited as she began to learn how they worked. She had mastered a couple of them by the time breakfast was over.
Afterward, with Mackenzie safely installed in front of the television, the three adults remained in the kitchen while Harry brought Indie up to speed. Like Sam, she was initially shocked at the thought of a woman who would vanish under such circumstances, but it wasn’t long before she was ready to accept it. “It makes sense, Sam, if you think about it,” she said. “I love you, but if it came down to being able to say goodbye to you as you were buried or keeping McKenzie safe? I’d be gone just as fast as she was.”
“Okay, I get that,” Sam said, “but would you take off with my best friend? If you look at the photo of the two of them, they look pretty cozy.”
“Look at the letter, Sam,” Indie said. “This is a note written by a woman to a husband she believes is dead and gone. She included some photographs that she would have liked to be able to show him, and since the kids are each several years older than when Harry saw them last, it’s a safe bet the picture of her and Michael was taken at around the same time. She’s had at least a few years of accepting that Harry is gone, and that her life with Michael is not any kind of betrayal, so as far as she’s concerned it’s all perfectly acceptable. She was, at least as far as she knew, a widow. Do you think she wouldn’t get married again someday? Or that she wouldn’t accept the very man who, as far as she knows, gave up his own private life to keep her and her children safe?”
Sam nodded. “I se
e your point,” he said. “Take a look at the last line, too. She talked about sending another letter the next month.”
“Yes. Basically, these are little short love letters to a husband she lost, the one she never expects to see again, and she probably intended them to go to her children, sooner or later. Maybe she felt they would help them understand just who their father had been.”
“That sounds remarkably like her,” Harry said. “That’s the sort of thing she would think of…”
“All right,” Sam said, “then let’s use that as our working hypothesis. Now we’ve got to figure out what questions need to be answered, and the first one that comes to mind is who could have done this? Who would have known enough about the situation to get hold of this letter and realize that it was meant for Harry? It has to be someone who knew both him and Kathleen, and somebody who knew that she thought he was dead, even though he wasn’t.”
“And then there’s the why,” Indie said. “Why bring this to Harry now? He hasn’t seen his wife or children in more than thirty years, so why would anyone want to open those wounds afresh? Is this just someone being cruel, or is somebody trying to actually put him back in touch with his family?”
“I’ve been asking myself that question since the moment I found it,” said Harry. “Even assuming whoever it was is trying to do something good, here, what sort of person would think this was a kindness? I’ve spent the last thirty-one years thinking Kathy and the children were dead, for God’s sake, and now this? And why isn’t there more information, like where I can find them? This is enough to drive an old man mad.”
“We’ll find out why,” Sam said, “when we find out who, and I think that’s going to be critical to the actual desired outcome. We want to know if they’re still living, and where. Harry, Kathleen was younger than you? How much?”