Chapter 7: The Shepherd Comes In
The diner was called Patsy's.
It sat on a corner in a part of Pittsburgh that hadn't been renovated yet — a laundromat on one side, a shuttered hardware store on the other.
The neon P in the sign had burned out.
The parking lot had three cars in it.
Captain Reeves stayed with the car.
Director Marsh went in first, alone, to check the room.
She came back out two minutes later.
"He's here," she said.
"Back booth.
Ray is with him."
Dad nodded.
He looked at me.
"You don't have to come in," he said.
"I know."
I got out of the car.
The diner smelled like coffee and fried onions.
A woman behind the counter didn't look up.
There were two other customers, both alone, both facing away from the back.
Director Marsh had chosen her entry point well.
Victor Hale was older than his photograph.
He was heavyset, as the image had shown, but what the security camera still hadn't captured was how tired he looked.
Not sleepy.
Tired in the way of someone who has been carrying something for a very long time.
The man beside him — Ray Kowalski, I assumed — was wiry and white-haired, with the watchful eyes of someone who had spent decades noticing exits.
Victor looked up when Dad approached.
He didn't speak for a moment.
Then: "You got old."
"You got heavy," Dad said.
Victor laughed.
It was a short, rough sound, like a door that hadn't been opened in years.
He slid over in the booth.
Dad sat across from him.
I sat beside Dad.
Director Marsh took the end, nearest the aisle.
Ray said nothing.
He watched Director Marsh the way a cat watches a dog it hasn't decided about yet.
"You have the documents," Dad said.
It wasn't a question.
Victor reached under the table and produced a manila envelope.
Thick.
Sealed with two strips of tape.
He set it on the table but kept his hand on it.
"Before I give this to anyone," he said, "I want to know who's been running searches on our names."
"We're trying to identify that," Director Marsh said.
"That's not good enough."
"Victor—" she started.
"I went underground because someone pulled my full operational file six months ago.
Not my cover file.
My real file.
The one that only exists in three places, and two of those places are supposed to be permanently sealed." He looked at Dad.
"Someone with very high clearance is looking for us.
And I don't think they're looking to say hello."
"Do you have a name?" Dad asked.
Victor's hand moved on the envelope.
"I have something better," he said.
"I have a transaction record.
Whoever accessed the files did it through a federal terminal.
The access was scrubbed, but not perfectly.
I have the terminal ID and the timestamp." He tapped the envelope.
"It's in here.
Along with everything else."
"Everything else meaning what?" Director Marsh asked.
"The full operational record for the program.
Every mission.
Every operative.
Every protected family." He paused.
"And the mission that was never officially logged."
The diner was very quiet.
Dad looked at Victor steadily.
"You kept a record of that."
"I kept a record of everything.
That was my job." Victor met his eyes.
"Including what happened to Flight 1184."
I didn't know what Flight 1184 was.
But Director Marsh went very still beside me.
And my father's hand, resting on the table, curled slowly into a fist.
"That file was destroyed," Dad said.
"The official copy was," Victor said.
"I made a second one.
I've been sitting on it for thirty years because I didn't know what to do with it." He finally pushed the envelope across the table.
"I'm giving it to you because you're the only person in that file who I know for certain is still on the right side."
Dad looked at the envelope.
He picked it up.
"I'll need a few hours with this," he said to Director Marsh.
"We have a secure room at the field office—"
"I'll read it here," he said.
May you like
"Order coffee.
This is going to take a while."
