“Let me guess. You got there and there was someone already at the embassy, shouting about a circle of trust.” I knew enough that I could fill in the blanks at this point.
“He burned those people alive. I did all I could to save one of them.” He looked at Mackenzie. “Charlie.”
“But why would Mills want to set you up like that?”
“At first, I thought he was purely motivated by greed. He could continue to make arms deals, but I had confronted him about it and spooked him. The Liberian deal was already in place, so what better way to silence me than to go over there and kill me in the fire, all the while making it look like I was the one responsible for all those deals. But that didn’t sit right with me. I needed to know more.
“By the time I had figured out this much, I had been presumed dead, my name dragged through the mud. Hell, Harrison had done such a thorough job, all the compelling physical evidence pointed to me as the man behind those arms deals…including bank accounts. I had nothing to go on, but I just knew it had to be him. It was my word against his, so I would need something more. Thankfully, Chaplain Slattery still had some contacts who could access information for me. For years, I had Harrison followed, had access to information in his accounts, his emails, monitored his phone calls… I hoped we’d find something, but we couldn’t. Nothing at all. And it was eating me up to see him simply living his life while I had to remain in hiding. So I thought maybe if I sent him a message that I was still alive and knew what he had done…”
“How? I thought he went missing?” I inquired.
Francis nodded. “He did. It was shortly after Magdalena’s death.” He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “I stalled, always thinking I was missing something, that maybe he wasn’t the one behind it all. Hell, all I had to go on was my gut that he set me up. For years, I continued searching for a needle in a haystack when I should have trusted my gut from the beginning and confronted Harrison when I had the chance. If I had, I can’t help but wonder if things would have turned out differently. If my Magdalena wouldn’t…” His voice trailed off.
“Dad, you can’t blame yourself–”
“But I do, Serafina! Every day, I wake up wondering if I had opened my eyes sooner, had pressed the issue, had come out of hiding and followed my gut, maybe things wouldn’t have spiraled out of control. I know Charlie confronted Harrison about his investigation into the embassy attacks. This was just weeks before he was institutionalized. Then Charlie spoke with your mother. She told me about it, asking me whether she should tell him what she knew. I told her it was her decision but to be safe and meet in a neutral place. She never made it to that meeting. I know in my heart she didn’t have an accident. Someone didn’t want her to go to that meeting and give Charlie any information that could lead him on the right path. And now he’s on the chopping block, too.”
“So you think Charlie’s being set up?” I asked. From the beginning, Charlie had been a loose cannon to me, his intentions always confusing and open to several interpretations.
“I think this guy is ready to do anything, including killing, to silence anyone who could point a finger at him.”
“Like my mother?”
He nodded. “And Harrison.”
“Wait. What are you talking about?” Mackenzie asked loudly before lowering her voice. “So he’s not the one behind it all?”
“It would appear not. I think Harrison was just a puppet, doing what he had to in order to survive, including silencing anyone who could potentially incriminate him…until now.”
“So he is dead,” I stated.
“Possibly. He went missing back in March, so–”
“Wait a minute,” I interjected. “I thought you said he went missing shortly after your wife’s death.”
“That’s what I thought, as well,” Galloway said. “I was beside myself with remorse, thinking my only shot at some real answers was gone. I didn’t even consider the possibility that he made himself disappear.”
“How did you figure out he was still alive?”
“I didn’t. Father Slattery has been by my side since day one. He knew me probably better than anyone else at Fort Bragg. I grew up Catholic, but didn’t really follow the religion much until I met your mother, Serafina. She went to confession regularly on the base and grew close to Slattery. And so did I. He had been just as involved in trying to put the pieces together, although he still had connections at the base who could access the information needed. I didn’t have that luxury. I couldn’t stick my nose out too much for fear of being found.”
“So how did he find out Mills was still alive?” I asked.
“Charlie.”
“Charlie?!” Mackenzie exclaimed. “How?”
“I have no idea how he figured it out, considering he was locked up at Walter Reed at the time, but he did. He always was able to see things no one else could. Charlie’s therapist was a friend of Slattery’s and before Charlie escaped Walter Reed, he shared things. Notebooks full of what would appear to anyone else to be the scribblings of a mad man. But to a man trained in special ops, it was more than that. Charlie was suspicious of Mills and had been tracking him, probably because of the timing of his disappearance and Magdalena’s death. He had always seen patterns where no one else could and he saw this. He found that Mills was alive and had been recruited by the CIA to work a deep cover mission. The CIA made Mills disappear on paper and gave him a completely new identity. Even his family assumed he had died. He walked away from all of it. Why? He loved his family, so there must have been something going on to make him accept that mission and give up his life and family.”
“Doesn’t sound like it was too deep of a cover if you know who he is,” Mackenzie argued.
“And I would never have found out if it wasn’t for Charlie. He knew. I don’t know how, but he found out that Harrison disappeared for a year, reappearing as Benjamin Collins…”
My eyes flung to Francis, shock apparent at the mention of the man who had contacted our company to find Galloway in the first place. “What did you just say?”
“Name sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” he asked smugly.
All I could do was nod.
“Benjamin Collins is Harrison Mills, and he has done a damn good job of hiding his true identity. I watched him for weeks, in awe at how he had adapted to a new life. Hell, he must have even gone so far as to get plastic surgery on his face to hide his true identity. I’ve tried to figure out what his mission was, but his cover is so deep, it’s been nearly impossible to determine what it is. Finally, after months, I sent him an unmarked package with something in it that would tell him, without question, I was still on to him, I was alive, and I knew who he was. You could imagine his surprise when he opened it.”
“What was it?” Mackenzie asked.
“A package of Beeman’s bubble gum.”
“And what was the significance of that?” I asked.
“You know how in the field, rank is sometimes forgotten? Especially at night when you’re sleeping in shifts or you’re all eating, faced with the reality that no one is immune from a bullet, regardless of the number of stripes on your sleeves?”
I nodded.
“Well, one night, we were somewhere in the Middle East, staring at a cloudless desert sky. As we listened to shells being fired in the distance, he told me a story. He was a little kid, and he and a friend had shoplifted a pack of gum. He was caught and, instead of owning up to it, he told the shop owner his best friend said he had paid for it. He thought nothing would happen, that all the shop owner would want is for his friend to apologize. Well, the following day, his friend wasn’t in school. He had been detained for stealing a pack of gum. Apparently, his father was the police chief and wanted to make an example out of him. He told me how horrible he felt for betraying his best friend. The Beeman’s gum was a message saying I knew he was alive and I knew he had betrayed me. I didn’t know what I hoped to get out of it. Maybe I wanted him to come clean and finally grow the balls to name who had scared him to the point that he ruined his life, but that didn’t happen.”