Chapter 5 - My Wife Knew the Truth
We listened to Rebecca's tape inside the Freightliner.
Not at CID headquarters.
Not in Mercer's office.
Inside the truck.
Maybe that wasn't logical.
But Rebecca had spent enough nights sitting in that passenger seat to make the cab feel like neutral ground.
Emma sat on the bunk.
Mercer sat in the passenger seat.
Agent Grant stood outside the open door.
I found an ancient cassette player inside the storage box.
Rebecca had wrapped it in plastic.
Of course she had.
My wife planned for everything.
Even twenty years after her own death.
I pressed play.
Static filled the cab.
Then her voice.
“Thomas, if you're hearing this, you're going to be angry with me.”
My heart stopped.
Twenty years disappeared.
I could see her leaning against our kitchen counter.
Dark hair tied back.
Coffee in one hand.
That look she gave me whenever she had already made a decision and knew I'd object.
Emma covered her mouth.
She hadn't heard her mother's voice since childhood.
Rebecca continued.
“And Emma, if you're listening too, I'm sorry I couldn't tell you myself.”
Emma started crying.
Quietly.
I reached for her hand.
She took it.
“Your father thinks protecting people means carrying everything alone. This is one of the reasons I loved him. It is also one of the reasons I wanted to hit him with a frying pan at least twice a week.”
Emma laughed through tears.
Even Mercer smiled.
Then Rebecca's tone changed.
“After Blackwood, your father was investigated. Most of what happened hurt him deeply, and he wanted nothing more to do with the Army. But I never believed the official story.”
I closed my eyes.
“You didn't know Rebecca was investigating?” Mercer asked.
I shook my head.
The tape continued.
“I worked as a legal clerk at Fort Campbell when I met Thomas. I knew enough about records to notice things that didn't make sense.”
Emma looked at me.
“You never told me Mom worked on base.”
“You never asked.”
She gave me a look.
“Bad answer.”
Even in the middle of everything, I almost smiled.
Rebecca's voice continued.
“The radio transcript used against Thomas had been retyped three days after the mission. It was not the original field log.”
Mercer leaned forward.
“What?”
“The original was listed as damaged during transport.”
Mercer muttered, “I never knew that.”
“Neither did I,” I said.
Rebecca continued.
“I found the name of the communications officer who authenticated the replacement transcript. Captain Adrian Voss.”
Grant's attention sharpened.
“But that alone proves nothing. What matters is a requisition form I found six months later. Voss requested secure transport records for Blackwood forty-eight hours before the official investigation began.”
Mercer looked at me.
“He was preparing.”
Rebecca's voice became quieter.
“I copied what I could. Thomas never knew. I hid the copies because by then someone had broken into our apartment twice.”
My head snapped toward the player.
“What?”
Emma stared at me.
“You didn't know?”
“No.”
I felt sick.
Rebecca had been afraid.
And she hadn't told me.
Maybe she understood me better than I understood her.
“I didn't tell Thomas because he would have gone after whoever was responsible. He already carried too much anger and too much guilt.”
She was right.
“I sent one copy of the documents to someone I trusted.”
Mercer looked at the player.
“Who?”
Rebecca answered.
“James Holloway's mother.”
I stopped breathing.
Mrs. Holloway.
Margaret Holloway.
I had gone to her house once.
Two months after leaving the Army.
She had opened the door and looked at me like she knew exactly who I was.
I tried to apologize.
She slapped me.
Then she hugged me.
For nearly an hour.
I never went back.
Rebecca continued.
“Margaret believed Thomas. More importantly, she told me something the Army never knew.”
Static.
Then Rebecca's voice returned.
“James kept a field notebook.”
Mercer whispered, “Oh my God.”
“The notebook was among personal effects returned to the family, but several pages had been removed.”
Emma leaned closer to the cassette player.
“Margaret said James sometimes wrote duplicate notes using carbon sheets because he didn't trust his memory after long patrols.”
Grant opened the truck door wider.
“Did she say where the duplicates were?”
Rebecca did.
“Inside the lining of his baseball glove.”
Silence.
I actually laughed.
Holloway.
Of course.
He had carried that old glove everywhere.
Said one day he'd teach his son to throw a curveball with it.
He never got that son.
“Margaret kept the glove,” Rebecca continued. “I told her never to give it to anyone unless Thomas contacted her and used the phrase James gave him during Blackwood.”
Emma looked at me.
“What phrase?”
I knew.
I hadn't spoken it in twenty-seven years.
Mercer waited.
I said it quietly.
“Home plate is always ninety feet away.”
Emma blinked.
“What does that mean?”
“Holloway used to say it whenever things got complicated. His way of saying some truths don't change just because you're scared.”
Grant asked, “Is Margaret still alive?”
“I don't know.”
Emma already had her phone out.
Two minutes later, she found an obituary.
Margaret Holloway had died six years ago.
My hope dropped.
Then Emma kept reading.
“She had a daughter.”
“What?”
“James's sister. Sarah Holloway Bennett. Lives in Iowa.”
Grant immediately began searching official databases.
Mercer looked at me.
“Tom, if that glove still exists—”
“I know.”
The tape wasn't finished.
Rebecca's voice came again.
“One more thing.”
We all looked at the player.
“If Adrian Voss ever comes looking for the band, the paper inside it is probably not what he's afraid of.”
My skin went cold.
“The paper is only the key.”
Mercer frowned.
“Key to what?”
Rebecca answered.
“The metal disk.”
Emma looked at me.
The object Agent Grant had seen inside the band.
“I don't know what it contains,” Rebecca said. “I only know James's mother told me her son carried a miniature storage device issued to certain reconnaissance teams. James told her before deployment that it was designed to survive water, heat, and impact.”
Grant whispered, “Micro data module.”
Mercer stared at her.
“Those existed?”
“Experimental units did.”
Rebecca continued.
“If Thomas still has the band and that device is inside it, then someone placed it there before he came home.”
My mind raced.
Holloway had put the band into my palm at the crash site.
Had the device already been inside?
Had I simply never felt it?
“Which means,” Rebecca said, “James wasn't just giving Thomas something to remember him by.”
Static crackled.
“He was giving him evidence.”
The tape clicked off.
Nobody spoke.
Emma wiped her eyes.
Then looked at me.
“Mom knew.”
“More than I did.”
“She protected you.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
I looked at Rebecca's handwriting.
“She protected the truth.”
Mercer's phone rang.
Grant's phone rang almost simultaneously.
They exchanged a look.
Grant answered first.
After thirty seconds, her face hardened.
“They found Agent Morales's vehicle.”
“And?”
“No band.”
Mercer finished his call.
His expression was worse.
“What?”
I asked.
“Voss disappeared.”
Emma stood.
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“His hotel room is empty. His phone was left behind.”
“Did he run?”
“Maybe.”
Grant said, “Or someone wants it to look that way.”
I looked at the cassette.
At Rebecca's handwriting.
Then Emma's phone vibrated.
She glanced at the screen.
“Unknown number.”
“Don't answer,” Grant said.
Too late.
Emma had already tapped it.
“Hello?”
No one spoke for several seconds.
Then Emma's face changed.
She put the call on speaker.
A man's voice came through.
Old.
Weak.
Terrified.
“Thomas Carter?”
I leaned toward the phone.
“Who is this?”
“You don't know me.”
“Then how do you know my daughter?”
“I saw the video.”
“Who are you?”
The man took a shaky breath.
“My name is Peter Lang.”
Mercer froze.
I knew the name too.
Lieutenant Peter Lang.
Blackwood communications section.
Officially dead twenty-four years ago in a boating accident.
“I was there,” the voice said.
“At Blackwood.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What do you want?”
“To tell you what happened.”
I stared at Mercer.
Lang whispered the next words.
“Adrian Voss didn't change your extraction coordinates.”
My heart stopped.
“Then who did?”
A long silence.
May you like
“Daniel Mercer did.”
And every eye in the truck turned toward the three-star general.
