David Golemon: Legacy

“No orders, Colonel. You are to continue your duties here. Others are working on this; your Group has done enough. When needed more directly, you will be notified. I must stress that you need to keep all this in this conference room. The leaders of the world are now cooperating in finding a way to fend off an invasion if it comes, hopefully utilizing some of the technology our ancestors left for us and Matchstick dreamed about.”

“That’s all we have for now,” Niles said, and closed the link with Europa.

Collins looked at Everett.

“The damn worst-case scenario has just been handed over to a group of people who can’t even agree on how to feed a small country like Somalia without screwing it up.”

“Yeah,” Everett said, “and then we’ll be asked to get our asses shot off when everything goes to shit.”

“Such is the way of the world,” Sarah said, and then finally greeted Jack with a kiss after everyone had left the conference room but Everett, who ducked out when he saw the two together.

“Welcome home, short stuff.”

“Believe me, I’m never leaving it again.”

Jack, Sarah, Everett, Mendenhall-jet lag and all-Ryan, Virginia, Charlie Ellenshaw, Pete Golding, and Niles stood around the open grave as the minister gave Lee his final farewell while Alice just stared straight ahead. They were still silent as the minister walked away.

“You know, he deserves more than this,” Niles said. “The president couldn’t even make an appearance because of secrecy. I mean, what the senator did in the war years, and what he did with the Group-”

All eyes went to Niles as he held on to Alice’s hand and arm with his own.

“If only the people of this country could know what he did in their name, I think-”

“Now, now, let’s not get carried away, Niles dear. Garrison wasn’t after praise or adoration. If that was what he wanted he would have done something else with his life.”

“What was the senator really after, Alice?” Jack asked as he placed an arm around Sarah.

At first none of them thought Alice was going to answer. She raised her head toward the blue sky.

“I guess he was after what we all are in the end. Peace. The truth maybe. An honesty that is very rare in everyone nowadays.” She looked at the faces around her as she eased the brand-new fedora onto the casket below the ground. She smiled again. “He sold everyone here on how important the Group was and made sure every one of you was a believer-a believer in finding that truth he always sought.”

They all looked around, trying to keep their emotions in check. It was Carl Everett who broke the ice. He walked up to Alice and held out his arm.

“Would you care to join me for a drink, young lady, so we can toast an American icon?”

Alice smiled. She looked at Niles and patted his hand and then she took Everett’s strong arm. He was dressed in his Navy summer whites and looked the part of the masculine man that he was.

“I never turn down the Navy, Captain. Hell, if that old man hadn’t hung around so long, I would have been in San Diego waiting for the fleet to come in.”

They laughed as Everett escorted Alice from Lee’s burial site. As they filed away, Jack and Sarah stayed behind. Collins watched Alice laughing at someone’s small joke when she turned and looked back at the grave one last time. Jack saw the sorrow etched in her eyes and knew that no matter how she hid it, the death of Garrison Lee was the death of her very world.

“Hey, are you awake, Colonel?” Sarah asked.

“Sure,” he said as he finally smiled.

“You wanna go drink with our friends?”

“You bet. But they’re your friends, not mine; I don’t like any of them except Alice.”

Sarah shook her head at the feeble way Jack pretended he hadn’t been affected by Lee’s passing. But looking at Jack, she knew that Lee may not have passed on at all. As long as Colonel Jack Collins was breathing, some of Garrison Lee was still with them.

Sarah pulled Jack along, in a hurry to catch up with their friends of the Event Group.

On a small hilltop overlooking the grave and surrounded by two dozen plainclothes security men, a small being watched from the arms of his old friend Gus Tilly.

Matchstick had stopped having his dreams, but now he knew as he looked down upon the resting place of Garrison Lee that Earth’s chances of survival had just been lessened by the loss of this single man.

War was close at hand and there was little the world could do to stop it.