by Ronie Kendig
“Wounded women.” Sam rapped his knuckles against the table. “The one in Amish country is from there—lived with her grandmother. Was dating—”
“They don’t date. They court.”
“Whatever.” Sam scratched the back of his head. “The girl in the hospital outside DC has a twenty-four-hour private guard. I can’t get in there.”
“But Otto can,” Lowen said.
The guy’s slick smile made Sam want to punch him.
A sandwich tray slid across the table and stopped in front of Sam as Jeff joined them. “Back from your hunt?”
“Obviously.”
Jeff eyed him. “By your attitude, it didn’t go so well.”
“Waste of time,” Sam said.
“But both women were wounded the same day.”
“And two kids contracted measles in LA on the same day and ended up in the hospital. Doesn’t mean they’re connected.” Sam felt himself leaning forward, invading Lowen’s space. “It’s called a coincidence.”
“Then why would someone tip us off, give us their names?”
“To divert attention.” Jeff shrugged. “Sorry, I tried to warn you—”
Sam pounded the table with his fist. “I’m sick of this. I want answers. I want to know where she is.”
“What if she doesn’t want to be found?”
“I need her to tell me that.”
“No,” Lowen said. “I think we’re still missing something.”
“Yeah. Kinda figured that out, genius,” Sam said.
Light swung into the Green Dot as the door flung open. A man stumbled in, hair askew, shirt inside out, and papers clutched to his chest.
“Otto?” Sam was halfway to his feet when his cyber-genius friend spotted him and scurried toward them.
“You’re not going to believe this.” Otto dropped the wad of papers onto the table. “You told me to look into those ladies, right?”
Sam’s pulse thumped in anticipation. This could be it. “Yeah…?”
“Well, I did.” He scrambled to dig through the pile he’d just dumped. He snatched up one then two, then a third. He laid them out.
Though Sam’s irritation was high, he looked at the three. “Dossiers?” he asked, noting the picture, the vital statistics….
“Of a sort. I mean, I put them together. They aren’t official records. If you go to Las Vegas, Alaska, or the Caribbean, you won’t find these documents. I just thought—”
“Otto,” Lowen snapped.
“Right. Well, check them out. Closely.”
Sam, Jeff, and Lowen each took one. Sam had chosen the girl in Las Vegas—Jamie Hendricks. Saw her birth date, her school records. Medical records.
“What’s your point?” Jeff asked as he swapped dossiers with Sam. “I’m not seeing anything.”
“Exactly,” Otto said. “Their history is perfect. Too perfect, especially for someone who ended up on the street doing drugs.”
Squeezing into a chair, Otto hoisted a tablet onto the table and slid it over to Sam. “Look up her high school yearbook.”
Sam frowned. Glanced at the name again then tapped it into the tablet.
“Go to yearbooks. It’s there.”
So Sam did. Dug through the classes and found her. He shrugged.
Eyes gleaming, Otto took the tablet back. “So, I noticed something weird in the picture. Pixilation was off or something. I dug in and got a friend to check it. My friend says the picture isn’t original to the page. The color and pixels are different. So my friend went to the school and looked at a copy of the yearbook—a real copy.” Otto handed over a piece of paper. “She’s not there.”
“Amish girl is a little harder because they don’t think it’s right to take pictures or something,” Otto went on, “but running her face through recognition software, something popped up.” He had this sinister laugh that almost made Sam’s skin crawl. “Facebook can be a jealous boyfriend’s best friend.”
The geek had better not be talking about me.
“Someone posted this high school picture.”
Sam stared at the picture, his mind revving.
“If she’s Amish,” Otto asked triumphantly, “why is there a high school picture of her from New York?”
“I see where you’re going, but there could be very simple explanations. Maybe Amish girl went to visit friends in New York? Maybe her parents were ill or something and she had to stay with an aunt or uncle for a short while.” Sam wouldn’t jump to conclusions.
“But I’d think she’d be more likely to stay with Amish friends or relatives within the Amish community than to send her out into the world.”
Otto tapped the picture. “Look closely. Amish girl is wearing a work uniform. She wasn’t just visiting. She lived there. Worked at a pizza joint. Really?”
“They’re not against hard work,” Lowen said.
“The comments indicate the girl is named Téya Reiker.”
Sam, Lowen, and Jeff said nothing.
“What about Vegas girl?” Otto went on. “Her yearbook picture?”
“Maybe Vegas girl was accidentally left out of the yearbook but they added her in digitally once the technology became available,” Sam conjectured.
Lowen nodded. “I’ve seen that happen.”
“Oh, come on,” Otto cried, tossing up his hands.
Sam wagged a paper at him. “Look, this is good information, but it’s frayed. And not enough to string together a realistic theory or to mobilize.”
“What if I told you Ashland Palmieri doesn’t exist?”
Sam eyeballed the guy.
“Beyond the information on her record, there is no other record of her anywhere, except here in Manson.” Otto motioned to Jeff. “How did you pay her?”
“With a check. Twice a month.”
“Where did she cash it?”
“Stamp on the back when they’re returned says Manson Community Bank.”
Otto gave a knowing nod. “All local. All know her. Outside of this community and outside that vital records information, she doesn’t exist. No credit cards. No phone bills. No car.”
And I thought she was just environmentally conscious.
“Look,” Sam said, feeling as if he sat on the verge of a huge breakthrough related to Ashland, but… “This broken data trail gets me exactly nowhere in recovering Ashland.”
“I think we should be careful,” Jeff said. “Her disappearance is really solid. If she’s still alive—”
Sam stiffened but said nothing.
“Whoever is hiding her,” Jeff continued, “whether she’s doing it or someone else, it could be very dangerous to find her.”
“Dangerous to whom?” Lowen asked.
“Any and all of us.” Jeff remained calm.
“Or her,” Sam put in.
“So we give up?” Otto asked, his voice squeaking.
“No, we continue hunting but we stay low. Off radars. Whatever trouble found Ashland, we don’t need it finding us.”
“I’d like to know who tipped us off about those girls,” Lowen said. “I can almost feel it—there’s a connection here.”
“Agreed.”
“Otto,” Sam said. “Check into that Amish chick, the other name that showed up.”
Otto nodded. “Already working on it.”
“I’ve got to get going,” Lowen said as he stood. He lifted the picture of the Amish girl and stacked it in with his stuff.
Was that an accident, him taking the picture?
Lowen tucked it away. The move seemed deliberate and bothered Sam.
“Hey,” Sam said, “d’you mind leaving the picture? I want to go over it.”
“What?” Lowen asked, his expression almost blank. Rehearsed.
Did he really want to do this? Sam came to his feet, knuckles on the table as he nodded to the papers sticking out. “We need those.”
“Oh. Right.” Lowen’s laugh was hollow. Fake. “Catch you later.”
Sam sat down, watching L
owen exit the Green Dot. Something was…off about that guy.
“A problem?” Jeff asked.
“Don’t trust him,” Sam admitted.
“He’s a reporter,” Otto said with a laugh. “It’s probably better that you don’t. Anyway, I need to jet. I have real work to do. You know, the kind that gets appreciated by those who ask me to do it.”
“Those people probably pay you, too.”
Otto sniffed. “I have to leave someone to do all your dirty work.”
Sam almost smiled. “Thanks, Otto, I mean it. We’re getting close….” And yet the closer he got, the farther away he felt from Ashland. Or whoever she was. Or wasn’t.
He and Jeff watched as the geek hurried to the counter and ordered a sandwich before leaving.
“You doing okay?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“Haven’t even touched your bacon cheeseburger sub.”
Sam glanced down at the sub.
“Need to add an olive the way Ashland did?”
With a soft snort, Sam shook his head.
“So, traveled to Pennsylvania and DC and got pretty much nothing. Then our powwow with the others only adds confusion. Quite a winning streak.”
“And to top it off”—he tugged a ticket out of his pocket and flung it on the table—“I got a ticket.”
Jeff chuckled and lifted the paper. Something metal clattered across the table.
Sam’s heart vaulted into his throat when he saw the ring. He slapped a hand out to stop it, but—
Jeff beat him to it.
Hand on Jeff’s, Sam held his gaze. “Leave it.” Warning heated the words and Sam’s temper.
“You were going to propose?”
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington County, Virginia
28 May – 1430 Hours
The noonday sun stood sentry over the Marine guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He paced back and forth, meticulous and precise in every step, every twitch of every muscle as he carried that M14 rifle, handmade by the Tomb Guards. He marched twenty-one steps south, down the black mat laid across the Tomb, then turned and faced east—toward the Tomb for twenty-one seconds. Upon completing that, he pivoted north, changed the weapon to the outside shoulder and waited twenty-one more seconds. The Guard then marched twenty-one steps back down the mat. Then faced east for another twenty-one seconds before he turned south and changed the weapon yet again to the outside shoulder and waited another twenty-one seconds. Never twenty-two nor twenty.
Always twenty-one. The highest military honor—the twenty-one gun salute.
As that Guard stood fast over a fallen soldier, Marine, airman, or sailor until the changing of the guard, so the brigadier general who waited by the fountain would stand guard over the lives of the Zulu members.
The four-star general joined him at the fountain, his eyes hidden today behind a pair of aviator sunglasses. “A lot of hands are digging into your mess.” He kept his voice low, no doubt out of respect for the setting. For the dead.
“Indeed,” the brigadier said. “Too many, but I think we can bring it under control.”
“Do what you have to. There is a lot more involved than your remaining three gryphons and their handlers.”
The brigadier pulled himself straight at the mention of the code name for the female operators. The legendary creatures with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion; the head and wings of an eagle; and an eagle’s talons as its front feet were known for guarding treasure and priceless possessions. Just as the female special operators would be doing in protecting U.S. interests abroad.
“Understood.”
“Do you?” The four-star snapped toward him. “You seem very cozy with the commander. And you look the other way regarding the INSCOM analyst’s meddling. And what of that Navy SEAL?”
“They are all digging in the wrong areas.”
“But they’re digging. And it only takes one of them hitting a fault line to bring the entire mountain down. That cannot happen. Things are too tenuous right now.” He let out a ragged breath. “Six years and it could all come crashing down.”
“Could, but won’t. We’ll get a collar on this.”
“We are too close to shutting him down. You realize that, don’t you?”
“I do.” Gunfire cracked the air, a funeral ending with the startlingly loud gun salute. They stood silently, respectfully, until the quiet returned.
“I want them shut down—the meddlers.”
The words were not as innocuous as one might believe. This was no ordinary phrasing. This was the four-star’s way of telling him to neutralize the threats. But he wasn’t ready to kill curious people, people who cared about someone and wanted the truth, wanted justice. “Sir, I can contain this.” Though he wasn’t sure he could. He’d tried. Hard. “I’ve already made inroads in blocking their access.” That much was true. Rerouting searches. Providing false hits. False information. He had an entire team watching the movement of those in Manson and Washington, and Francesca Solomon in Alexandria. “The colonel is aware of the threats.”
“I can’t have this unload on him now. Not after all these years. We’re too close.” He faced him and patted his shoulder. “You weren’t afraid to make the hard calls in Afghanistan. Don’t be now.”
“No, sir.”
“Whatever it takes. Whatever you need.”
Boone
Reston, Virginia
28 May – 1630 Hours
“Her vitals are fine, have been for the last week or so,” the female doctor in the white lab coat said as she stood in the hall with Boone. “Overall, things are looking good.”
“Then why is she still unconscious?”
“That’s a question science can’t answer. Her body is repairing itself, and often, the brain after a traumatic injury will also contribute to a reparative ‘downtime.’ At this point, only Keeley’s body will know when it’s time to wake up.”
“So she will wake up? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I…” She hedged.
“Okay,” Boone said. “Understood.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m a soldier, ma’am. I’ve seen men die.”
She touched his arm, her dark face filled with compassion. “Seeing one of your buddies die is not the same as seeing someone you love die.”
“Maybe,” Boone said, adjusting his ball cap, “but it’s not far from it.” He gave her a curt nod. “Thank you, ma’am.” He had no idea if she believed him. And he didn’t care. Because Keeley wasn’t going to die. She’d pull through, just as she had when that chunk of metal hit her when the warehouse blew in Misrata.
Boone navigated the hallway, which was more congested than normal. At the far end, he spotted Rusty. No matter how long the guy had been here, how many nights he’d put in, Rusty always stood ready. Alert. Prepared. There had to be a way to convince him to come back and help Zulu.
Rusty shook his hand. “The doc tell you?”
“What, that she’s sleeping on the job?”
Rusty smirked. “No, I meant about the general.”
Boone frowned. “What about him?”
“He was here a couple of hours ago, asking about Keeley, about her prognosis.”
Now why would the general come down here to check on her? They’d given him detailed reports, including copies of the doctor’s notes, her charts, and Boone’s personal comments. “Did he say why?”
“No, just asked, went in, and stood with her for a few minutes. He did ask if she’d been moved since coming here.”
“Moved?”
“Yeah, dunno. I told him she’d been downgraded from CIC, then he left.”
“General Solomon?” Boone’s mind couldn’t get past their CO coming in here and asking questions. Did he not trust them? Was something going on? Had a threat or complaint been lodged?
“Yeah. No mistaking him.”
“Was he alone?”
“To my knowledge,” Rusty sa
id with a nod.
Thinking, Boone stared through the window to where Keeley lay. It didn’t make sense. “Unsettling.”
“Never met a soldier who wasn’t unsettled when a general came through.”
“Hooah,” Boone muttered. Then he remembered a quirk about Trusty Rusty. He paused, glanced at the man he’d grown to respect pretty fast. “What do you think?”
Amusement tweaked his blue eyes. “I think he’s weighing options. She’s been here a while. We’ve already had one person snooping around.”
“The SEAL.”
Rusty nodded. “I’d like to think I don’t miss much, but what if I have?” He angled his head to the side, toward Keeley’s room. “What danger is she in, if I didn’t catch something?”
Balling his fists did little to calm Boone. “Anything else?”
Again, Rusty smiled with his eyes. “Have you thought of relocating her to the bunker? Doc says she’s okay, that this coma…they don’t know how long it’ll last, so can’t she be monitored at the bunker?”
“I don’t have medical skills like that.”
“Find someone who does. Pay them.”
“And compromise the bunker?” Boone shook his head.
“How much more is compromised with her exposed to a constant stream of medical staff and strangers. It’d be much easier. What about that house you’re restoring?”
“Only the lower level is ready. I’m bunking in what should be the laundry room.”
“Does it have a living room?”
Boone eyed him, his heart ramming against his ribs. “You’re saying bring her out there.”
“Not saying anything.”
Now Boone smiled. “Trace won’t let me until she’s ambulatory. You should come back to the bunker and help me convince him to do it now. Heck, just come back to the team, Trusty.”
Taking a step backward, Rusty lowered his gaze.
“What would it take, Trusty? You sit here and babysit Keeley. What’s different about going to the bunker and babysitting the others?”
“They’re active. She’s not.”
“But you’re top dog at threat assessment. You have instincts unlike—”
“I’m not returning,” Rusty said, finality in his words. “Sorry, sir. No disrespect intended.”
“I’m not a ‘sir,’ not anymore. I just wish you’d reconsider. We need you.”