Eager now, Lucas and I examined the other documents. There was a letter from the CIA, also dated ten years ago. LETTER TO: Richard K. Drake, it read. SUBJECT: Discharge from the Agency. I read the two-paragraph note. According to this, the CIA would formally process Drake’s discharge upon his “return to the United States,” and per procedure for “compromised agents of your expertise,” appropriate steps would be taken to ensure a “safe, expedient transition” into civilian life. The letter promised the same assistance for Drake’s family. It was CC’d to a woman named Amelia Ramoo, Director of Operations.
“This shit’s right out of a Le Carré novel,” I said. “Instant, government-approved history. They gave Grace—er, Drake—a fresh slate ten years ago.”
“The same year the murders began,” Rachael said.
Lucas gave a low whistle. Another sheet was in his hand now.
“Your bad boy just got worse,” he said. “Skipping the commercials, getting to the good stuff. Letterhead: ‘Smith, Whitmore & Gifford: Albany, New York.’ Says here, ‘…if they could find a body, they would extradite and press charges.’ Ten years ago.”
He tapped the paper. “Oh, and the ‘they’ are the Russian authorities.”
Now Rachael gave me a nudge. The dog tags swung from her fingers, clinking on their chain. “This isn’t English, Z. Cyrillic, I think.”
I gazed at them. Russian authorities, Russian dog tags.
“Don’t you have a Russian buddy at the paper?” I asked her. “Tech reporter. Nicky-something?”
“Nicolina,” she said, frowning. “She’s Bulgarian, but she’s old enough to speak the language.”
I nodded. “That’s fine. Keep holding them, just like that.” I fished my cell phone out of my pocket and navigated to the camera. I snapped a closeup of the dog tags and asked Rachael for Nicolina’s cell phone number. I attached the photo to a text message asking for help, and sent it.
“We’ll get the name of our unknown soldier soon enough,” I said. “Could be that body Lucas just read about.”
Rachael shook her head. “This doesn’t make sense. You’re the CIA. You’ve got a badass spy guy who’s clocked in enough time to get a new identity… but then he starts killing people when he goes back to civilian life. Would you allow that? I mean, if these guys are like they are in the movies—”
“—then you whack the loose cannon,” Lucas said. “Totally. Convention of the ‘rogue agent’ genre.” He tore open another sealed envelope at the bottom of the stack.
“Maybe it’s not like the movies,” Rachael said.
I nodded. “Or maybe they knew he wasn’t the killer.”
“Huh,” Lucas said. He passed me one of three forms from the envelope. This was paper-clipped to a second sheet of paper. “Birth certificate,” he said.
“And death certificate,” I replied, gazing at the second page. “Oh man, this is weird. The birth certificate is for a ‘Lucinda,’ but death certificate says, ‘Veronica Grace.’”
Rachael peered over my shoulder. “The whole family got instant histories. The pink slip said so.”
She began to type on her laptop. “Screw this. I’m Googling this guy.”
I nodded. “Name change, right. Wife was in a car accident, on… shit. Lucas, what’s that discharge letter say? What date?”
“October 7,” he replied.
“About a month after Drake came back to the States,” Rachael affirmed. The computer screen glimmered in her spectacles. “Poor bastard. At least he was there to take care of the kids.”
“Kid, singular,” Lucas said, reviewing another sheet. “The ‘daughter-formerly-known-as Jennifer Drake’ died in that accident, too. ‘Crushed cranial…’ ah, gross-o. Wormy-squirmy. I does not want.”
He tossed the papers onto the trunk, his expression sour.
“Drake killed ’em. Must’ve,” he said. He pointed to the photo booklet. “That’s why he scratched out their faces. It’s a hit list.”
I leaned back into the couch. “No. When Grace—shit, when Drake—could still see, he believed that if he looked at you, you’d be marked for death. He was protecting them.”
Lucas shook his shaggy head. “Then why scratch out their faces at all, if they were already dead?” he asked.
Protection in the afterlife? I wondered, but didn’t say it.
Rachael glanced up. “Okay. Zero hits for ‘Richard K. Drake’ and ‘Central Intelligence Agency,’” she said. “Same goes for Times and newswire archives. Your patient’s true identity has been scrubbed… at least in the databases I have access to.”
I nodded. “But we’ve got a hint at what he did back then. Probably stationed in Russia—”
“Soviet Union,” Rachael corrected.
“—okay, the Soviet Union, and he probably killed someone,” I said.”We’ve got a medal. We’ve got a wife and kids, but they’re all dead. What else…”
“The boy’s not dead, bro,” Lucas said. He stood up and paced, restless. “Well, he’s not a boy anymore, but he’s still alive. Birth cert was in the envelope, but nothing about his death.”
I leaned forward, groaned again, examined the document.
“Daniel Drake,” I said. “Aw hell, but his name’s changed now. Rache, is there… ?”
“I’m on it,” she said. “Pass that over here. I’ll need his DOB, middle name, social.”
I leaned over, kissed her neck, told her to work her sorcery.
Daniel Drake. The key to a lock. The only living connection to a blind man’s past.
As Rachael pried her way into Daniel Drake’s life, Lucas and I sipped Dogfish Head beers and viewed the footage he’d recorded at the blind man’s apartment that afternoon.
I was amazed by the images on the screen. Even there, in the darkness of Grace/Drake’s spartan living room, Lucas had artfully composed each shot: rule of thirds, depth of field (as much as the Handycam could accommodate, anyway), the proper balance inside the frame that coaxed the eye, unconsciously, to focus on specific objects. Without words, he’d masterfully told a story, and evoked a mood so spooky, I felt myself transported back there, breathing the place’s stale air, praying for light.
The kid had it. He really did. But he’d make a lousy documentary filmmaker. The things I’d wanted him to record—the names of the CDs on the bookshelves—had been all but obfuscated in the name of artful angles and evocative cinema.
Lucas didn’t seem to notice this as he watched. I didn’t have the heart to mention it.
The movie concluded, we learned what Rachael had found so far. Remarkably, public records indicated my patient’s son had changed his name back to Daniel Drake less than a year after his father had returned to the United States.
Rachael had scored Daniel Drake’s address and a New York driver’s license number minutes after she’d queried his name in her online resources… but she had pressed on, conducting an impromptu background check, cross-reffing with criminal records.
As she did this, the cell phone in my pocket vibrated and played skeleton song. Text message. I flipped the phone open and read the message from Nicolina, Rachael’s friend.
DOG TAG NAME READS, “PIOTYR I. ALEXANDROV,” Nicolina’s message said. RANK: LT. COLONEL. HOPE THIS HELPS, SEND <3 TO RACHE.
I scribbled the name “Alexandrov” in the open notepad on our steamer trunk, and shared the news.
“We’ll follow up on that later, babe,” Rachael said, peering over the screen of her laptop. “I’m busy… and so are you. Get crackin’ on Drake’s other stuff.”
Right. Papa Drake’s effects from The Brink. Lucas and I exchanged a quick grin—we motherless Taylor boys knew who ran this operation—and began to examine them.