Chapter 3 - THE LETTER FROM A DEAD MAN|
Colonel Mercer saw the change in my face before I could hide it.
"Captain, are you feeling all right?"
"I'm eighty-one, Daniel."
"That isn't an answer."
"It usually works on my doctor."
He smiled, but the worry stayed in his eyes.
I folded my napkin and reached into my purse again.
Inside was a cream-colored envelope with no return address.
The paper had been folded so many times that the corners had begun to soften.
I placed it between us.
Mercer looked at the writing.
His expression changed.
"Where did you get this?"
"It arrived at my house three weeks ago."
"Who sent it?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out."
He opened the envelope carefully.
Inside was a single sheet of yellowed paper.
The message was written in uneven block letters.
QUINN, THEY LIED ABOUT THE TWENTY-FOURTH MAN.
THE RECORDS WERE CHANGED.
ASK WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BLACK MEDICAL CASE.
DON'T TRUST THE MAN WHO KEEPS THE ARCHIVES.
At the bottom was a signature.
E. HOLLOWAY.
Mercer stopped breathing for a second.
I watched him read the letter again.
Then he lowered it onto the table.
"Edward Holloway?"
I nodded.
"Sergeant Edward Holloway."
"That can't be possible."
"That's what I said."
Mercer looked toward the photograph on the wall.
"Holloway was killed during the evacuation."
"That's what the official report says."
"And you were there."
"Yes."
"Did you see him die?"
I closed my eyes.
For fifty-six years, I had believed I knew the answer.
But memory is a strange thing.
It doesn't always preserve events in the order they happened.
Sometimes it saves a sound.
Sometimes a smell.
Sometimes the last words of somebody you couldn't save.
"I saw Edward wounded," I said.
"He had shrapnel in his chest."
"I remember."
"He was conscious when we loaded him onto the helicopter."
Mercer leaned forward.
"And then?"
"And then we were attacked again."
The dining hall seemed to fall away.
For a moment, I was twenty-five years old.
The air smelled of wet earth, burning fuel, and antiseptic.
Rain hammered against the canvas roof of our temporary medical station.
The radio screamed.
Men shouted coordinates.
A helicopter pilot kept yelling that he couldn't hold his position.
And Edward Holloway lay on a stretcher, clutching a black medical case against his chest.
"Keep this safe, Captain," he told me.
I remembered his eyes.
They were brown and unusually gentle.
"What's in it?" I asked.
"Something people will kill to get back."
Before I could answer, an explosion threw me against the side of the aircraft.
That was where my memory became broken.
There had been smoke.
Someone screaming my name.
A hand pulling me upright.
Then the helicopter lifting into the rain.
And Edward Holloway was gone.
I opened my eyes.
"I never saw his body," I whispered.
Mercer sat perfectly still.
"Captain, why wasn't that in the report?"
"Because somebody told me the casualty team had recovered him."
"Who?"
I hesitated.
"Major Richard Bell."
Mercer's jaw tightened.
"Bell was the officer who signed the original evacuation report."
"Yes."
"He died twelve years ago."
"I attended his funeral."
Mercer rubbed his forehead.
Across the dining hall, Sergeant Reese was standing near the exit, talking to Major Voss.
Their conversation appeared tense.
Voss was gesturing toward his phone.
Reese shook his head.
Then both men looked in our direction.
Mercer noticed.
"Excuse me a moment."
He stood.
But I caught his sleeve.
"Daniel."
"Yes?"
"Don't tell them about the letter yet."
He studied me.
"Why?"
"Because the person who sent it knew exactly which day I would come here."
"How?"
I looked down at my bowl.
"Every year, on the anniversary of that evacuation, I come to this dining hall for chili."
Mercer glanced toward the wall.
The date beneath the photograph was October 29.
Today was October 29.
"That's why you're here?"
"Partly."
"And the other reason?"
I looked at him.
"Because I wanted to see whether the memorial had changed."
Mercer turned toward the photograph.
"What do you mean?"
"The last time I visited, there were twenty-four names beneath that picture."
His brow furrowed.
"There are twenty-three now."
I nodded.
He walked quickly to the wall.
I watched him count.
He counted again.
Then he came back.
"You're right."
"Do you know whose name is missing?"
He shook his head.
"Edward Holloway," I said.
The words hung between us.
Mercer reached for his phone.
But before he could make a call, Private Parker approached.
"Sir?"
Mercer looked up.
"Yes, Private?"
"I'm sorry to interrupt."
"Go ahead."
She glanced at me.
"I think I know something about the missing name."
Mercer straightened.
"Explain."
Parker twisted her hands together.
"I was assigned to help organize the dining hall during the memorial renovation last month."
"What renovation?"
"The historical display."
She looked toward Major Voss.
"He supervised it."
I felt a cold sensation travel down my spine.
"What did you see?" I asked.
Parker swallowed.
"There was another plaque."
"Another plaque?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Where is it?"
"I don't know."
She hesitated.
"But I heard Major Voss tell the workers to remove it."
Mercer's expression hardened.
"Why?"
Parker lowered her voice.
"He said the Army had finally corrected an old mistake."
"Did he explain which mistake?"
"No, sir."
She glanced around the room.
"But I took a picture before they removed it."
Mercer held out his hand.
"Show me."
Parker unlocked her phone.
She scrolled through several photographs.
Then she stopped.
I leaned forward.
The photograph showed the memorial as it had stood for decades.
Twenty-four names.
A small brass inscription beneath them.
And a sentence I remembered helping write.
THE LAST MAN WAS NEVER FOUND, BUT HE WAS NEVER FORGOTTEN.
My hands began to shake.
Because that wasn't what the original inscription had said.
The original had read:
THE LAST MAN WAS TAKEN FROM US, BUT HIS SACRIFICE SAVED THE OTHERS.
Someone had changed the story before.
And someone was changing it again.
Mercer looked at Parker.
"Send that photograph to me."
"Yes, sir."
"Do not delete the original."
"Understood."
I touched the little brass pin on my coat.
For the first time in fifty-six years, I wondered whether Edward Holloway had actually died that day.
I wondered whether the black medical case had survived.
And I wondered why someone would go to the trouble of removing a dead soldier's name from a dining hall wall.
Then Parker spoke again.
"Ma'am, there's something else."
I looked up.
"Yes, dear?"
She glanced toward the entrance.
"Yesterday, a man came asking about you."
"What man?"
"He was old."
"How old?"
"Maybe eighty."
My heart began to pound.
"What did he look like?"
"He had a cane and a scar beside his left eye."
I gripped the edge of the table.
Edward Holloway had gotten that scar when a piece of metal struck him during our first month overseas.
I had stitched the wound myself.
"Did he give you a name?"
Parker nodded.
"He said to tell you that he was sorry he didn't come home."
I couldn't speak.
Mercer leaned toward her.
"What else did he say?"
Parker's face went pale.
"He said the people who buried the truth were still watching."
At that moment, my phone vibrated inside my purse.
The screen showed an unknown number.
I answered.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then a weak, familiar voice said my name.
"Quinn."
My eyes filled with tears.
"Edward?"
There was a long silence.
May you like
Then he whispered four words that changed everything.
"Don't trust the colonel."
