Chapter 3 - THE THINGS MEN SIGN
Walter told Daniel about the report in pieces.
He had been thirty-one, a major attached to an intelligence-supported evacuation mission later buried under layers of administrative language.
Operation Night Glass.
Thomas Bennett handled communications.
Robert Voss commanded the field team.
Margaret Shaw was their medic.
Raymond Cole was a young lieutenant who carried orders between the field team and command.
On October nineteenth, everything broke.
Walter remembered gunfire.
A burning truck.
Thomas bleeding near a communications shed.
Voss missing.
Then an explosion.
Walter woke in a military hospital with shrapnel in his thigh and two broken ribs.
An intelligence officer brought casualty reports.
Thomas Bennett: deceased.
Robert Voss: deceased.
Margaret Shaw: presumed deceased.
Three civilians: unidentified.
Walter signed.
Daniel asked, "You saw all of them dead?"
"No."
"Why did you sign?"
Walter could have blamed morphine.
He could have blamed classified orders.
Instead he said, "I wanted to go home."
Daniel stared at him.
Walter continued.
"I was tired. I was hurt. They told me it was finished. I wanted it to be finished."
That answer changed Daniel's expression.
Walter was not asking to be admired.
At Harrison's, police questioned Richard.
Richard admitted an elderly stranger had paid him five hundred dollars to call a number if Walter met anyone named Bennett.
Richard said he thought it involved an inheritance dispute.
Emily asked why he had not told Walter.
Richard snapped that his restaurant was behind on rent and five hundred dollars was five hundred dollars.
Walter did not call him evil.
That irritated Richard more.
The disconnected number traced to a defunct veterans nonprofit.
Its former registered director was Michael Bennett.
Daniel stared at the record.
"My father never ran a nonprofit."
Walter looked at the burned message.
Someone had been using Michael's name too.
The lie was not buried in 1982.
May you like
It was still alive.
