Brett Battles - No Return

“Yeah,” Casey said. “Briley was killed while on duty in the Pacific during a training exercise near Australia. His body was never recovered.”

“When did this occur?”

“Thirteen months ago. Lemon was assigned to a ship in the Persian Gulf, but was killed while on a mission in Iraq. The report I found claimed there was little left of the body, and he had to be identified by DNA.”

“That’s odd.”

“It gets odder. The two other names on that list, Brian Faith and Cameron Bruce?”

“The ones marked ‘Available,’ ” Wes said.

“Right. As far as I can tell, neither man is serving in the military.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“I realize that. So I did down-and-dirty checks on all five men. Know what I found?”

“Just tell me.”

“The three men who died? Their histories are remarkably similar. All were from small Midwest towns, but had no family living there anymore. All had similar educational backgrounds and credit histories. And, this is interesting, each had been in the service approximately the same amount of time before they died.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh, one more thing. None of them ever existed.”

Silence.

“I think you need to tell me that again,” Wes said.

“Lieutenants Adair, Lemon, and Briley are not real people.”

As crazy as things had gotten, what Casey had just claimed took things to a whole new level. “But I met Adair’s children. They were at Commander Forman’s house.”

“Whoever’s kids they were, they weren’t Lieutenant Adair’s.”

Could they have just been props ? “How do you know about Adair for sure?”

“This is what I do, remember?” Casey said. “I look at this kind of information all the time. I know what it should look like. People’s lives are messy, even the most organized ones. These guys have backgrounds that are just too perfect. Sure, there are flaws on their records, but the flaws are perfect, too.”

“And you’re sure?” Wes asked, still finding it hard to believe.

“If it had been only one of them, I might not have picked up on it. But when I looked at all three, the patterns were obvious.”

“What about the other two? Faith and Bruce?”

“Since I didn’t have as much to go on with them, and the names are not entirely unusual, I wasn’t able to track them down. But I’d be willing to bet, given time, I could uncover a history for each man that mirrored the others.”

Wes stared at the horizon, stunned.

“Are you there?” Casey asked.

“Yes. Sorry,” Wes said. “Why would they say Adair died in the crash, then?”

“My only guess would be that it had something to do with SCORCH. Maybe there was a problem with it that caused the crash. Given the upcoming vote, maybe that commander you talked to decided it was necessary to hide what happened.” He paused. “I don’t know. It’s the best I could come up with.”

“No,” Wes said. “That’s good. There’s something there, but we’re missing pieces.”

“Like who was really flying the plane.”

“That, for sure. What about that name I gave you? Jamieson?”

“I only had a little time for that. Not the most common name in the world, but certainly not that unusual, either. There are over thirty in the Navy alone.”

“I was afraid of that,” Wes said.

“There are also three professional baseball players, several dozen doctors on the West Coast alone, the CEO of a telecom company.…” Wes could hear pages flipping. “There’s also a Senator Jamieson from somewhere back East.”

“A senator?”

“Yeah. That one definitely stands out. I could find an Internet cafe and check him out if you want.”

“No,” Wes said, not wanting to get his friend any more involved than he already was. “You’ve done plenty. Find someplace to lay low, and don’t show your head until you get my message.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

The Ridgecrest Public Library was just a stone’s throw from the park. Wes skipped the Internet terminals for the time being. If it turned out he needed to get on the Web, he’d save that for last.

Instead, he found a dedicated computer containing the library’s catalog and began his search there. Not surprisingly, there were hundreds of references to the senator in the library database. Wes made note of the latest guide to the U.S. Congress, three magazine articles, and the obligatory, ghost-written autobiography.

He located the guide first. The page on the senator was mostly a recap of his voting record through the guide’s publication date, short descriptions of bills he had sponsored, and a three-paragraph biography.

Senator Sean Jamieson was sixty-one, widowed, and the father of three children. He’d started out in Washington as a member of the House of Representatives when he was only thirty-three. Eight years later he won the Senate seat of a retiring lawmaker, and had remained in that office since then. Over the years, he’d been a member of many different committees, including Transportation, Finance, and Governmental Affairs. According to the bio, for the last two terms he had served on the Armed Services Committee and the Appropriations Committee.

That caused Wes to pause. Appropriations. The bill that included funding for SCORCH was up for a vote with them. If the system had been the reason the test flight had gone down, it could cripple the bill’s chances. He read further, trying to discern how the senator might vote on the measure, but there was no clear indication.

He returned to the computerized index and looked for anything pertaining to the bill, then cross-referenced entries for both the bill and the senator. There were several, all news articles. According to the index, most of the articles had been digitized and were available on one of the library terminals.

Wes hesitated. If he didn’t get on the Internet, he would be okay, right? He decided to chance it, and found an empty terminal close to an emergency exit.

The first five articles only mentioned the senator in passing. In the sixth article it became clear the senator had some doubts. But it was the seventh that contained a direct hit.

“There are many questions remaining about several of the programs covered in this bill,” Senator Jamieson said during the Appropriations Committee hearing today. While he didn’t point out any particular program, he has previously voiced his concerns with projects such as SCORCH, which he believes has not yet proven itself reliable

.

Jamieson, a former Army Ranger with a long family history in the military, has continued to advocate for not only a strong military, but a smart one. One, as he

says, that

“

doesn’t waste money on projects that will not serve our modern military needs

.”

Jamieson and SCORCH.

But so what? Wes thought.

All right. The senator wasn’t the biggest fan of the system. And potentially he was one of the on-the-fence votes. But why would Lars have written his name on the paper? It had to be something else, didn’t it?

Wes reread the article, then an unexpected thought hit him. He grabbed the piece of paper where he’d written down the locations of the references for the senator, then headed into the stacks. Thankfully, the book he was looking for wasn’t checked out. He pulled it down and began thumbing through it.

On page 229 he stopped.

Slowly he looked from side to side, sure that someone had to be standing nearby ready to grab him. But the aisle was empty.

As he looked down at the book again and confirmed what he’d already seen, a chill ran up his spine.