“That’s what I keep telling myself but it’s been ten days. I should be old news.”
“Right. Well, come with me. We’ve got a scanner set up. We’ll make sure you’re clean.”
He’s startled to discover an automated security checkpoint beyond the next door. He follows True through a body scanner, while his coat rides a belt through an X-ray machine.
“Got anything, Friday?” True asks, addressing the walls.
“No, True. You and Mr. Dushane are clean.”
A wall screen shows a slowly rotating three-dimensional image of Miles’s body. Highlighted details include the zipper on his pullover shirt, the rivets in his boots, and the titanium plate that held his left wrist bone together after a bad break—but no more hidden electronic devices. Some of the tension goes out of his shoulders.
“Are you okay?” True asks, a worried note in her voice.
“Post-traumatic jitters.”
“You getting any help with that? Counseling?”
He shrugs. “Been busy looking into things. That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
“Sure. We’ve got a shielded conference room. Come. I’ll make you some coffee.”
Lincoln comes into the conference room just as the coffee finishes brewing. He’s wearing a tan ReqOps polo shirt and brown slacks—the same thing he wore the night of the reception. Miles suspects he has a closet full of the same shirts and slacks, and that he wears them as a uniform. Some guys like that strategy; it saves them the mental energy of picking out clothes every day.
Miles stands up and they shake hands across the table. Coffee is poured, pleasantries exchanged, then Miles gets to the point of his visit. He says, “I’m going to guess you’ve been hard on the trail of Jon Helm, or Shaw Walker—whichever you want to call him.”
“That’d be a fair assessment,” Lincoln agrees. “And the evidence we have from multiple sources supports the identity of Shaw Walker, so that’s what we’re going with.”
“Can I ask, have you been able to contact him?”
He watches Lincoln trade a look with True, who sits at the end of the table cradling her coffee mug in two hands. Lincoln says, “We’re not in direct contact and we haven’t been able to pin down his location.”
“He’s a ghost,” True adds.
Miles nods. “I did an initial search for him. Didn’t come up with anything. So I decided to focus on Burma, research the incident and reach out to my contacts. See if I could shake loose any leads.”
Lincoln draws back. True puts her mug on the table with a sharp crack. Miles’s heart skips with trepidation. “What?” he asks. “You know something?”
Lincoln nods at True, agreeing to some unspoken question. She says, “Friendly warning: If Chinese intelligence picks up on inquiries like that, they might not react well.”
“Chinese?” Miles is incredulous. “What the hell do the Chinese have to do with Shaw Walker?”
“We’ve heard a theory that Chinese intelligence knew Shaw was in Nungsan, and they hit the site anyway, because they wanted to make sure there were no survivors.”
“You’re kidding,” he says blankly.
“Nope.”
“Shit. Maybe that explains the surveillance.”
“Most of our people are under surveillance too,” True says. “Whoever it is, they’re not trying to keep their interest a secret.”
“It’s a threat,” Lincoln agrees. “I think it’s Variant Forces, letting us know we’re mapped, that we’re targets.”
Miles draws a deep breath, focusing on slowing his heartbeat. “Okay, well, Variant Forces isn’t going to like this next bit. A friend gave me a lead. She remembered reading a story about a missionary priest held in Burma along with an American prisoner. I finally found the piece in a restricted archive.” He turns an uncertain gaze on True. “It profiles a priest who gave up his Catholic faith after witnessing what happened to Diego Delgado.”
True shrugs. Not the reaction Miles expected. “It’s bullshit,” she says. “I’ve heard that kind of thing before. People claim they’ve talked to an eyewitness, someone who was there—it makes them feel important. But push them on it and their facts don’t hold up; they can’t produce the witness.”
Miles understands her skepticism. Diego Delgado’s horrifying death—bound and bleeding and burned on a cross of steel pipe—set the Cloud boiling with useless analyses, pointless criticisms, rebukes, mockery, and of course with posts celebrating the defeat and death of an American soldier. Millions of words spent in reaction; no value in any of it. But what he’s found is different.
He says, “I know it sounds farfetched. I dropped it to the bottom of my research list because I figured it would be a fabricated propaganda piece, if I could find it all. But when I was out of other leads, I went looking—and it was an interesting read. The village isn’t named—I don’t think the priest ever knew the name—but the details felt right. And the description of the American soldier brought in along with Diego—it struck me as a plausible description of Shaw Walker. He can’t be seen on the video. His name was never released in association with that operation, so how could anyone know about him unless they were there?
“But I wanted corroboration before I went farther. So I contacted Rick—you know, Rick Hidalgo from Ranger School. He knew Walker. I read him the description. He said it was accurate, down to the ‘infidel’ tattoo on his chest and the Rogue Lightning tattoo on his upper arm.”
True looks shell-shocked, just like she did after he’d first pointed to Shaw Walker’s picture as the face of Jon Helm. In contrast, Lincoln’s expression has gone icy. “You should have called me,” he growls. “Not Rick.”
“I wanted to make sure I really had something before I brought it to you.”
Miles eyes True, worried how all of this will affect her, but Lincoln has already moved on. “When was the article originally published?” he asks.
“Six years ago.”
“Does it name Shaw?”
“No. The priest—his name is Daniel Ocampo—he just calls him ‘the American.’”
“How did Ocampo escape?” True wants to know. “Or was he ransomed?”
“He says he was left in a cage in the forest. Left there to die. But the American escaped somehow, found him, freed him from the cage. Daniel called it a miracle.”
True looks doubtful. “I thought you said he lost his faith.”
“He’s not a priest anymore. I guess it was the kind of miracle that convinces a man to change his faith.”
“Have you found Ocampo?” Lincoln asks.
“I found the writer, Reynaldo—Rey—Gabriel. I talked to him. He said Ocampo is back living in the Philippines. I asked him to put me in touch. He said no, that wasn’t going to happen. Ocampo was in and out of trouble with the government for a few years after he got back. He was part of a leftist party, pushing for land reform, the rights of the poor, that sort of thing. He wound up in jail. He’s out now, with a wife and kid. That’s made him cautious. He’s still involved in politics but behind the scenes. He doesn’t do interviews and he doesn’t like being reminded of Burma.”
“So it’s a dead end,” Lincoln says.
“No. Rey Gabriel talked to him, told him that I was trying to learn more about the American soldier who was there with him… and that I was in touch with Diego Delgado’s parents and they had questions too. That tipped the balance. He’s agreed to talk. Rey says he wouldn’t have done this for anyone else. Even so, he’ll only talk if it’s face to face, and not for publication.”
True turns to Lincoln. “I need to go down there.”
He gives her a slow nod. “Yes. If it all checks out. I want to talk to him too. You and me. And Alex?”