“Dad, you can’t blame yourself–”

“But I do, Serafina! Every day, I wake up wondering if I had opened my eyes sooner, had pressed the issue, had come out of hiding and followed my gut, maybe things wouldn’t have spiraled out of control. I know Charlie confronted Harrison about his investigation into the embassy attacks. This was just weeks before he was institutionalized. Then Charlie spoke with your mother. She told me about it, asking me whether she should tell him what she knew. I told her it was her decision but to be safe and meet in a neutral place. She never made it to that meeting. I know in my heart she didn’t have an accident. Someone didn’t want her to go to that meeting and give Charlie any information that could lead him on the right path. And now he’s on the chopping block, too.”

“So you think Charlie’s being set up?” I asked. From the beginning, Charlie had been a loose cannon to me, his intentions always confusing and open to several interpretations.

“I think this guy is ready to do anything, including killing, to silence anyone who could point a finger at him.”

“Like my mother?”

He nodded. “And Harrison.”

“Wait. What are you talking about?” Mackenzie asked loudly before lowering her voice. “So he’s not the one behind it all?”

“It would appear not. I think Harrison was just a puppet, doing what he had to in order to survive, including silencing anyone who could potentially incriminate him…until now.”

“So he is dead,” I stated.

“Possibly. He went missing back in March, so–”

“Wait a minute,” I interjected. “I thought you said he went missing shortly after your wife’s death.”

“That’s what I thought, as well,” Galloway said. “I was beside myself with remorse, thinking my only shot at some real answers was gone. I didn’t even consider the possibility that he made himself disappear.”

“How did you figure out he was still alive?”

“I didn’t. Father Slattery has been by my side since day one. He knew me probably better than anyone else at Fort Bragg. I grew up Catholic, but didn’t really follow the religion much until I met your mother, Serafina. She went to confession regularly on the base and grew close to Slattery. And so did I. He had been just as involved in trying to put the pieces together, although he still had connections at the base who could access the information needed. I didn’t have that luxury. I couldn’t stick my nose out too much for fear of being found.”

“So how did he find out Mills was still alive?” I asked.

“Charlie.”

“Charlie?!” Mackenzie exclaimed. “How?”

“I have no idea how he figured it out, considering he was locked up at Walter Reed at the time, but he did. He always was able to see things no one else could. Charlie’s therapist was a friend of Slattery’s and before Charlie escaped Walter Reed, he shared things. Notebooks full of what would appear to anyone else to be the scribblings of a mad man. But to a man trained in special ops, it was more than that. Charlie was suspicious of Mills and had been tracking him, probably because of the timing of his disappearance and Magdalena’s death. He had always seen patterns where no one else could and he saw this. He found that Mills was alive and had been recruited by the CIA to work a deep cover mission. The CIA made Mills disappear on paper and gave him a completely new identity. Even his family assumed he had died. He walked away from all of it. Why? He loved his family, so there must have been something going on to make him accept that mission and give up his life and family.”

“Doesn’t sound like it was too deep of a cover if you know who he is,” Mackenzie argued.

“And I would never have found out if it wasn’t for Charlie. He knew. I don’t know how, but he found out that Harrison disappeared for a year, reappearing as Benjamin Collins…”

My eyes flung to Francis, shock apparent at the mention of the man who had contacted our company to find Galloway in the first place. “What did you just say?”

“Name sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” he asked smugly.

All I could do was nod.

“Benjamin Collins is Harrison Mills, and he has done a damn good job of hiding his true identity. I watched him for weeks, in awe at how he had adapted to a new life. Hell, he must have even gone so far as to get plastic surgery on his face to hide his true identity. I’ve tried to figure out what his mission was, but his cover is so deep, it’s been nearly impossible to determine what it is. Finally, after months, I sent him an unmarked package with something in it that would tell him, without question, I was still on to him, I was alive, and I knew who he was. You could imagine his surprise when he opened it.”

“What was it?” Mackenzie asked.

“A package of Beeman’s bubble gum.”

“And what was the significance of that?” I asked.

“You know how in the field, rank is sometimes forgotten? Especially at night when you’re sleeping in shifts or you’re all eating, faced with the reality that no one is immune from a bullet, regardless of the number of stripes on your sleeves?”

I nodded.

“Well, one night, we were somewhere in the Middle East, staring at a cloudless desert sky. As we listened to shells being fired in the distance, he told me a story. He was a little kid, and he and a friend had shoplifted a pack of gum. He was caught and, instead of owning up to it, he told the shop owner his best friend said he had paid for it. He thought nothing would happen, that all the shop owner would want is for his friend to apologize. Well, the following day, his friend wasn’t in school. He had been detained for stealing a pack of gum. Apparently, his father was the police chief and wanted to make an example out of him. He told me how horrible he felt for betraying his best friend. The Beeman’s gum was a message saying I knew he was alive and I knew he had betrayed me. I didn’t know what I hoped to get out of it. Maybe I wanted him to come clean and finally grow the balls to name who had scared him to the point that he ruined his life, but that didn’t happen.”

“How long ago was this?”

“About two years.”

I nodded. “I can finish the story. Collins, or Mills, not knowing what else to do, eventually contacted my security company with the directive to find you and bring you to justice, knowing you could claim you weren’t responsible all you wanted, but all the physical evidence still pointed to you.”

“If he even wanted to bring me to justice,” Galloway said. “A desperate man will do whatever he needs to save his neck, and saving his neck may just mean slitting mine. Not to mention, this case was deemed closed years ago. I have a feeling he used his position in the CIA to get you to do his dirty work, then silence me.”

“You really think he would have killed you over this?” Mackenzie asked.

“I don’t think, little bug. I’m fairly certain of it. And that’s where we still are today. Unless I find who’s really pulling the strings here, it’s my word against what everyone’s been led to believe.”

“And where is Mills now?” I asked.

“That’s the million dollar question, son. His ex-wife and her husband have been murdered, their deaths attributed to Charlie. His son took a leave of absence from his job back in March…around the same time you lost contact with the man you knew to be Benjamin Collins, I presume.”

“Sounds about right,” I muttered.

“I just think there’s something fishy going on here, and that Mills isn’t the one ultimately responsible for all of this. I could be wrong, but I’ve learned to always trust my gut. Whenever I haven’t, I’ve regretted it. So if my gut tells me to look for someone other than Mills, we look for someone other than Mills, someone with tremendous resources to pull something like this off.”

“Who do you think it is?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but it must have some sort of connection to my time in Bosnia. I plan on going through my notes of everyone I ever came into contact with over there, every asset we had, to get to the bottom of this.”