Donna Giannini had been good people, Pike reflected. The best. He had gotten to know her well when she and Riley had come to him for help the previous year after running into trouble with rogue elements of the Witness Protection Program. He had known Dave Riley from his time in the Special Forces; years earlier, under Pike’s command, Riley had run direct action missions into Colombia to destroy cocaine factories. The two had kept in touch over the years.
Pike had been happy about the two of them being together. He knew they’d had plans: Riley was going to finish out his twenty years next spring, then retire, move up to Chicago, and go back to school. That was something Pike had heartily approved of. It was as if Riley had come out of his shell and become alive, ready to start a new life after the trials and darkness of his life in the Special Forces. But now — now, Pike didn’t know what was going to happen to his friend.
Pike had been relieved when the detective assured them that the second man wouldn’t be brought in alive. He’d feared that Riley would stay in Chicago and exact his own vengeance. At least now he could get Riley out of town without tripping over bodies.
Riley turned from the grave and looked out over the cemetery. He seemed reluctant to leave, but the inevitable was sinking in. “All right,” he finally said. “Let’s go.”
They walked slowly over to the rental car, each lost in his own thoughts. As Pike got behind the wheel, Riley slumped down in the passenger seat and looked out the window, keeping the fresh mound of dirt in sight until they turned a corner. Then he faced front. “I put in my papers,” he said, as flatly as if he were announcing the sun coming up.
“You what?” Pike said, surprised.
“I’m on terminal leave. I’ve got enough days of leave saved up to run me through my retirement day next year. I was going to stay on active duty and cash in my leave when I retired — to pay for my first year of school — but that no longer is neces. .” Riley paused, and Pike kept his eyes straight ahead on the rain-soaked road, not wanting to see the tears.
“What are you going to do?” Pike finally asked. ‘Take some time to—”
“I don’t want time and I don’t want to think,” Riley snapped. He turned to his old friend. “Sorry, sir. I know it might be too much to ask, but do you have any jobs I might be able to do?”
Pike ran a security consulting firm, with clients all over the United States and overseas. He was glad that Dave was turning to him for help. “Hell, yeah. I’d love to have you come work for me.”
“Just keep me busy,” Riley said. He looked over his shoulder one last time. “Just keep me busy.”
Chapter 2
The National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis consists of seventeen acres of paper hidden underground with an eight-story office building housing other federal agencies above it. Papers tucked away in the building range from old social security records to the original plans for Fat Man, the first nuclear bomb. The U.S. government runs on paper, and the National Personnel Records Center is the temporary storage place and clearinghouse for every imaginable type of government record.
Unclassified records are in folders placed inside cardboard boxes, which are stacked on rows and rows of shelves. The secure “vault” contains all the classified records. Every scrap of paper produced by the numerous organizations, and every piece of paper relating to any person who ever worked for the government, are kept in the Records Center. Personnel records are normally kept for fifty-six years, organizational records for twenty-five unless marked for longer keeping. Once that time limit is up, files marked as permanent records are moved to final storage in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Nonpermanent records are held until the time limit stamped on them, at which time they are reviewed for either destruction or movement to the Archives.
At the moment, it was organizational records that held the attention of Sammy Pintella. Actually, it would be fairer to say they occupied the time but not the interest of Sammy. Her tall, slender form was perched on the edge of a metal folding chair next to a line of rollers. She sported short red hair, cut almost punk style, and a freckled complexion. Her expression betrayed supreme boredom with her job.
A cardboard box of army unit histories would come rolling down to her every thirty seconds. She would look in and quickly scan the contents under the bright glare of the fluorescent lights overhead, making sure the material matched the computer printout she had taped to the edge of the platform. She had a good memory and referred to the printout only every dozen or so cartons. Satisfied that the box held what the printout said, she’d send the box on its way to the other end of the conveyer, where a pimply faced college freshman would remove the box and place it on a pallet. Once the pallet was full, it would be taken by forklift to the loading dock. When enough pallets accumulated, a tractor trailer would be filled and sent to the National Archives.
Sammy had been at it for almost two hours now and had finished six cart loads. She enjoyed working alone and she didn’t talk to the men who brought the carts or took away the pallets. The Records Center was a giant library of tempting unknowns to her. She could get lost in the stacks for hours on end, looking through various files, reading the stories of people and organizations that the tides of time had swept away or carried on to different places. The assembly line work bored her but had to be gotten out of the way so she could disappear back into the stacks tomorrow.
Two divorces, no children, and thirty-six years on the planet gave Sammy a different attitude from the college students who worked part-time in the unclassified stacks. This job was her sole means of support, and she was glad to do it in a place where she could be alone most of the time. Getting paid to deal with the records of people she’d never meet and places she’d never go suited her just fine.
She flipped open the lid on the next box and was so benumbed by the endless, bland file folders that she almost pushed it on to oblivion. But in the back she spotted the edges of some black and white photos stuffed into one of the folders. That was unusuaclass="underline" typically the histories were dry recitations of the barest facts — just enough to satisfy the army regulation requirements. Curious, Sammy reached in to pull the file. That brief halt caused the first disruption of the afternoon as the next box crashed into the one in front of her.
“Hold it!” Sammy yelled down to the front end worker. “Take a break.”
The slider shrugged, sat down on the edge of his cart, and pulled out a dog-eared paperback to read. The man on the other end took the time to restack his boxes, preparing the pallet for the forklift.
Sammy opened the folder and laid out the photos on the conveyer belt. The twelve photos showed a desolate winter landscape and bundled-up men working on some sort of structure dug into the snow. Several photos obviously had been posed seriously; in others the men were goofing off for the camera.
Sammy picked up one photo. About forty men were gathered around a crude sign drawn on cardboard: B COMPANY ETERNITY BASE. Behind the men, all that could be seen rising above the snow was a metal shaft with a door in the center. Farther in the background, three massive mountains rose from the ice-covered landscape, blotting out most of the horizon.
Sammy flipped the picture over. The date was printed on the bottom edge: 17 NOVEMBER 1971. She retrieved the folder and looked at the faded labeclass="underline" 67TH ENGINEERS. UNIT HISTORY 1971. LT. FREELY, HISTORIAN.
She turned it back to the front. Eternity Base. Sammy frowned. She’d never heard of such a place. After working here for eighteen years, ever since graduating high school, she thought she’d seen just about every type of army record that existed and was more familiar with army terms, units, and bases than most generals. She checked the rest of the folders in the box, but they were just the normal histories of other army units in 1971, none of them appearing particularly interesting or containing pictures. Sammy put the folder to the side.