“The notification alone would attract unwanted attention.”
“Possibly, sir. But not nearly as much as that Global Hawk drone that crashed near Salisbury, Maryland, just a few months ago. That was also a training flight. Or that was the official version, anyway.”
“Are you doubting the official version, Captain?”
“No, sir.”
“Too risky. Even if we got approval, we’d be looking for what, a needle in a haystack?”
“You’d be surprised what sort of filtering and ID capabilities you can wring out of state-of-the-art cameras and the newest image recognition software, especially if you can program in image data for a car’s specific make, model, and color. These are the same tools scientists are using to pick out endangered seals from all the other black dots on the Arctic ice cap, sir.”
This at least made Hagan pause. But only for a second or two. Then he shook his head.
“No. I’m not ready to go there. Especially when we’re not even sure they’re still on the Eastern Shore.”
“Yes, sir. Although one other piece of evidence suggests that they are still there, sir.”
“Yes?”
“It concerns Steve Merritt. In searching various records and databases I uncovered a tenuous connection to the DOD contractor IntelPro. Probably a little unconventional, for a journalist, but I guess it wasn’t all that surprising because he’s done several past stories referencing them, or some of their people, one of them as recently as six months ago. But it was intriguing to me for two reasons.”
Hagan didn’t look particularly pleased, but he remained silent, so Riggleman kept going.
“For one thing, the company’s training facility is on the Maryland Eastern Shore. They sometimes host journalists for various dog and pony shows, so that could be a potential destination, at least for the journalists. Find them, and we probably find Cole. Secondly, as I’m sure you’re already aware, sir, IntelPro has connections to several aspects of the Air Force UAV program, particularly in overseas theaters. That would be another reason that Captain Cole might seek them out.”
“That’s a dead end.”
“Excuse me, sir?” Had Riggleman heard him correctly?
“I said that’s a dead end. It’s not worth pursuing.” Hagan looked down at his desk, pushing some stray papers into a pile. “I’m …” He paused, searching for a word. “I’m acquainted with some of their people. Or with some of their methods, to put it more accurately. And if Captain Cole or, well, anyone from the Air Force attempted to establish any sort of unauthorized contact with them, they’d let us know. Immediately. So you can consider that base covered.”
“Yes, sir. But if he’s using an alias—”
“Besides, Captain. You already have an additional tool at your disposal. The one I gave you last time.”
Riggleman was pretty sure he knew what the general was referring to, but it wasn’t a topic he was eager to pursue, especially not when he was already feeling rattled. Never before had Hagan told him that an avenue of inquiry was off-limits. It was yet another first for this strange investigation, and now he was about to be asked to telephone a source who, try as he might, he knew virtually nothing about.
Riggleman had spent two hours the previous day searching for any information at all about the name and number that the general had given him at their initial consultation. He had come up empty. Completely. That, too, had never happened before, and he was not at all comfortable with the idea of seeking help from someone who was practically invisible.
“Well, come on, Captain, surely you know what I’m talking about?”
“Harry Walsh, you mean.”
“No need to say the name aloud. We’re both aware of it. But I believe the time has come to put his services to use.”
“Unless—”
“Unless what, Captain?”
“Well, I do have a few other possibilities. A couple of eggs I’ve been sitting on that are just about due to hatch.”
Actually, he had nothing of the sort. He’d briefed the general on everything he’d learned and every stratagem he’d employed to find out more. But maybe with a little extra time he could come up with a new lead. Anything seemed preferable to seeking help by calling into a void, an abyss, a deep shadow in which almost anything might be hiding.
Hagan thought it over for a second, folding his hands on the desk. Then he nodded.
“All right then. I’ll give you the weekend, Captain. But you’d better have some results for me by first thing Monday morning, preferably conclusive results. Otherwise, you’d better have already contacted the source we, uh, previously discussed. And I don’t want you waiting until the last minute before you see me to do so. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get moving, then.”
“Yes, sir.”
He left, feeling more pressure than ever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
With the return of sobriety, Cole had begun dreaming every night — vivid replays of the world he’d inhabited before the crack-up. Carol and the kids were there. So were Zach and Sturdy. The reenactments seemed to last for hours, and were so uncannily accurate that he was exhausted upon awakening, as if he had begun living two lives at once.
The dreams’ only variance from archival accuracy was the regular appearance of the girl with one arm, although for whatever reason, the sleeping Cole was never the least bit surprised to see her. The dream version of the girl wore Western clothes and a placid demeanor, unbloody and very much alive in her various poses — watching from the corner of the ground control station while Zach and he piloted a Predator, peeking over the shoulders of Danny and Karen as they hammered away at PlayStation consoles, sitting at the kitchen table while Carol chatted on the phone.
Once she nodded to him from the doorway of a convenience store while Cole pumped gas into his truck before driving out to Creech. She was drinking from a can of Coke. He nodded back. It all felt comfortably routine, almost conspiratorial, as if they were cooking up some plan together. She always turned up in places where she wasn’t supposed to be, and each time it made him wonder later, after he woke up, why she had been in that house at Sandar Khosh. It, too, was the wrong place for her, although he still didn’t know how he knew this.
That night in the pool house his dreams revisited a moment from the aftermath of the missile attack which had occurred about eight hours after he’d arrived home in Summerlin. The dream began with Cole seated in a vinyl lawn chair, his mind a blank. A voice called out to him urgently.
“Darwin! Darwin! Did you see it?”
Cole clenched his fist to throw a punch, then realized the voice was Carol’s, not Wade Castle’s.
“What?” he croaked. “See what?”
“You missed it? Oh, Darwin. Karen scored. Her first goal ever!”
Cole stood slowly. Looking around he found himself at the edge of a soccer field, surrounded by other parents in similar poses. Everything smelled of mown grass, sprinkler water, and sweating children. A sunny day in a green schoolyard. He felt like an old grump trying to awaken from a twelve-hour snooze, knees creaky, butt sore. To get into the spirit of the moment, he clapped. His hands tingled as if they’d gone numb, and something foreign and unwelcome rose up in the back of his throat. He coughed and spat, landing the gob between his feet. Looking down, he was mildly surprised to see he no longer wore military boots or a green flight suit. Nikes and blue jeans. Now when had that happened?
He looked up just in time to see Carol shaking her head, then he turned back toward the field, where Karen was being mobbed by her teammates near the mouth of the goal, a squirming bundle of nine-year-old girls in white shorts and bright red jerseys, all smiles and screams and ponytails.