Chapter 14 - THE DOOR
Walter remembered the bunker in fragments.
Thomas was wounded but conscious.
Margaret was treating him.
Enemy fire moved closer.
Raymond arrived with the withdrawal order.
There was room in the last vehicle for four.
Six people remained.
Walter ordered two local interpreters into the truck.
Thomas told him to go.
Walter refused.
Then Voss appeared outside the bunker.
Alive.
Walter chased him.
That was the mistake.
He left Thomas and Margaret inside while he pursued Voss for less than two minutes.
An explosion hit the bunker.
Walter returned to flames.
He could not enter.
He pulled the steel door shut because ammunition inside had begun cooking off.
He believed everyone within was dead.
Margaret and Thomas escaped through a rear service trench Walter did not know existed.
Crewe's message turned the act into murder.
Walter had indeed closed the door.
But not on living men he knew were alive.
Still, another truth hurt.
Walter had abandoned Thomas's side to chase Voss.
Anger had made the decision.
Not orders.
Not fear.
Anger.
"If I hadn't gone after him..."
Margaret stopped him.
"Don't."
Walter snapped, "You don't know."
"I was there."
She told him Thomas had ordered Walter to chase Voss.
Walter had forgotten.
That should have absolved him.
It did not.
Because Walter remembered ignoring Thomas's second instruction.
If Voss gets away, let him.
Walter had chased him anyway.
Thomas survived despite Walter's choice, not because of it.
Michael listened.
Then said, "I don't forgive you for things you didn't do."
Walter looked at him.
Michael continued, "And I'm not blaming you for things Thomas chose."
It was the first clean line anyone had drawn in forty-four years.
Then federal agents found Alan Crewe.
Dead in an abandoned veterans hall.
A pistol lay beside him.
On the wall behind the body someone had written:
HAYES HAS THE LIST.
(To be continued)
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