“You have everything?” he asked, as Trace stuffed the sweatshirt into her overnight bag. Trace had spent the afternoon getting her leave approved and Boomer had stayed with her the entire time. Skibicki was back in the tunnel trying to unearth new information.
“I guess so.”
“Let’s roll,” he said grabbing the keys for her truck.
Boomer watched the rear-view mirror the entire way to Honolulu International Airport, but he didn’t spot anything.
He parked in the short-term garage. Boomer showed his special federal ID to the guard at the security gate and he was allowed to pass with the Browning High Power hidden in its shoulder holster. They arrived at Trace’s departure gate with a half hour to spare. Boomer choose seats for them where they could watch the center of the terminal.
“Am I off on a wild goose chase?” Trace asked, leaning back in her seat and regarding Boomer with skeptical eyes.
“And yes, I know people have died. But the more I think about it, the crazier this all sounds. You’re talking about the military taking action against the government. We’ve never had anything like what you suspect in the history of this country. I know the MRA isn’t very popular, but hell, there’s always been unpopular stuff going on.”
“When I arrived in 10th Group for my first Special Forces assignment, my company commander was a fellow named Major Stubbs,” Boomer said.
“When I went for my in processing briefing with him, he gave me a couple of books to read. He told me that being in Special Operations meant that I had to think differently and I also had to understand the history of covert operations.”
“This have anything to do with what I asked?” Trace asked, fingering her ticket and watching the waiting area.
“Bear with me a minute,” Boomer said.
“I was thinking about this because of that chapter in your manuscript, the one about Patton and the Second World War. One of the books I had to read was about covert operations in Europe during that war. The tide of the book. Bodyguard of Lies, came from a quote by Winston Churchill. He said: “In wartime, Truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”
“I’ve heard it said that truth is the first casualty of war,” Trace said.
“Maybe it’s just misplaced,” Boomer replied.
“Anyway, anyone who’s studied World War II has heard about the city of Coventry and how Churchill had advance warning of the bombing raid there but didn’t inform the populace of Coventry because doing so would tip off the Germans that the Brits had broken the German secret cipher with Ultra. That’s one case where the bodyguard was the truth being withheld. But in this book, the author spent a lot of time talking about the Resistance in France and the Allies’ SOE, Special Operations Executive, the American contribution of which was called the OSS, Office of Strategic Services, from which both Special Forces and the CIA draw its lineage.
“The SOE sent agents into occupied France to work with the Resistance, particularly wireless operators to relay information back and forth. Of course the Germans weren’t too keen on that and ran counter-operations and managed to scarf up quite a few of these wireless operators along with their radios and ciphers. The Germans then set up a false network. Communicating back to Britain as if the agent was free and doing his or her job.
“After the war there were a lot of accusations that the SOE parachuted agents into Resistance nets that they knew had been compromised.
Particularly female agents.”
“Why women?” Trace asked.
“The feeling at the time was that the Germans would not believe that an English gentleman would sacrifice a woman in such a manner.
Deliberately giving her false information in training, then handing her right over to the Germans to eventually give up that false information as truth under torture prior to being executed.”
“Jesus,” Trace whispered.
“Is that true? Did that happen?”
“The author of the book said there was no proof,” Boomer said. He snorted.
“Of course there was no proof.
Who would have been stupid enough to document such a thing? Everyone wants proof, when all they really need to do is look at what really happened, instead of what they hoped happened.
“What I took from the book was that those radio operators had three security checks. The first was a cipher to encrypt the message. If they were captured before they could destroy their cipher, then that could be compromised and used by the Germans without the receivers in Britain knowing. The second was a security check — a code word’ each agent had memorized that was supposed to be in every message. If the code word wasn’t there, the SOE people in England knew the message was being sent under duress.”
Boomer looked at Trace.
“There were numerous messages sent that lacked these code words, yet the SOE handlers still sent agents into those nets. The excuse they used after the war was that they thought the radio operator had forgotten to include the safety code word. Can you believe that?” He didn’t wait for an answer.
“I’m sitting in an attic in occupied France transmitting valuable information to England and I’d forget to use the security code word that would verify my message as legitimate? Not likely.”
Boomer shook his head.
“The third one though, is the most damning. Every radio operator who sends Morse code, which is the mode they used then and we still train on in Special Forces, has what we call a’fist.” That’s each individual’s way of tapping the key. If you listen to someone long enough, their fist is like their personal signature and it can’t be duplicated. Quite a few of those messages that came back setting up drop zones for new agents not only lacked the proper security codeword, but the radio people at SOE headquarters could tell that the fist was not that of the radio operator they’d worked with in training.”
Boomer’s voice hardened.
“No matter how much they deny it, they knew at SOE headquarters that some of their nets had been compromised and they still sent people into them.
“After reading all that,” he continued, “there was one damn thing I was sure of, and it was the reason Major Stubbs had me read that book: I learned never to trust the’ official story. I think there’s a good chance The Line exists, and I think we’ve got to give that chance our best shot.
If we’re wrong, no harm no foul, but if we’re right…”
He left it at that.
He reached into his pocket.
“There’s something I didn’t tell you last night when I told you about what happened in the Ukraine.” He laid a plastic military ID card in Trace’s lap. It was smeared with dried blood.
“I took that from one of the bodies at the ambush site. I didn’t show it to Decker.”
Trace looked at it, reading the name through the red film. john k. stubbs. She raised her eyes to meet Boomer’s.
“I had known he was working some kind of NATO deal.
Most of the officers who work those sensitive assignments are Special Forces because of their background and training,” he said.
“The man who taught me not to believe what I’m told died because I believed the bullshit they were feeding me over there in Turkey. I can’t let this rest, not after that and what happened at your house.”
The waiting area was Beginning to empty as Trace’s flight began boarding. Boomer put the ID card back in his pocket and stood. Trace threw her overnight bag over her shoulder.
“I understand,” she said. She turned for the gate.
“Take care of yourself and be careful,” Boomer said walking with her, both stopping just short of the gate.
Trace stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him.
“You take care of yourself. Let’s hope this turns out to be for nothing.”