Chapter 2 - Number 317
The lock clicked.
General Mercer moved faster than I expected.
He swept the photograph into the folder and pushed it toward me.
"Inside your jacket."
"Sir—"
"Now."
I obeyed.
The door opened.
Colonel Adrian Voss entered.
I knew him by reputation, not personally. He worked in administrative oversight and had spent most of the ceremony standing near senior leadership.
His gaze went from Mercer to me.
Then to my hand.
The ring was gone.
"Problem?" Mercer asked.
Voss smiled.
"The ceremony is waiting."
"We'll return shortly."
Voss didn't move.
"Sergeant Hale, are you all right?"
"Yes, sir."
"What were you discussing?"
Mercer's expression hardened.
"That isn't your concern."
Voss finally looked away.
"Of course."
He left.
Mercer locked the door again.
"Who was that?" I whispered.
"Someone who shouldn't care about your grandfather."
That answer didn't help.
Mercer sat down.
I remained standing.
"Sir, I need you to tell me what's happening."
He nodded.
"Your grandfather served in a unit whose existence was restricted for decades."
"What unit?"
"Officially? None."
He pointed toward my jacket.
"The photograph."
I removed it.
Seven men.
Grandpa stood third from the left.
Mercer pointed to a younger version of himself.
I recognized the eyes.
"We were sent where conventional units couldn't be acknowledged."
"Special operations?"
"Something adjacent to that."
"What does 317 mean?"
Mercer looked at the ring.
"Thomas's operational designation."
I almost laughed because the idea sounded impossible.
Grandpa?
The man who watched baseball with the volume barely audible?
The man who spent twenty years repairing fences for neighbors who couldn't pay?
Operational designation?
"Why wouldn't he tell us?"
"Because he gave his word."
"For thirty years?"
"For life."
Mercer explained carefully.
The unit had conducted recovery, intelligence, and rescue missions during the final decades of the Cold War and afterward.
Some missions were politically sensitive.
Some officially never happened.
Grandpa had been their communications and extraction specialist.
But according to Mercer, that description barely captured what Thomas did.
"He brought people home," Mercer said.
"Soldiers?"
"Soldiers. Civilians. Intelligence personnel. Once, an entire medical team."
I stared at Grandpa's photograph.
"Why does my family know nothing about this?"
"Maybe Thomas wanted it that way."
Then I remembered Dad's papers.
The arguments.
Grandpa refusing to sign things.
"What was in the folder?"
Mercer hesitated.
"Records."
"What kind?"
"Enough to prove Thomas's service."
"Then why did you hide it when Colonel Voss entered?"
Mercer didn't answer immediately.
That was my answer.
Something was wrong.
He finally said, "Because some records connected to Thomas were requested recently."
"By whom?"
"I don't know."
"When?"
He looked directly at me.
"Two days after your grandfather died."
My skin went cold.
Only a handful of people knew immediately.
My parents.
Hospital staff.
Me.
"Who requested them?"
"The request came through a legitimate channel, but the authorization was unusual."
"Was it my father?"
"No."
"Then who?"
"I'm trying to find out."
I thought about the house.
Sold in three weeks.
Dad had been desperate to get Grandpa to sign documents before his death.
"What did my grandfather own?"
Mercer frowned.
"Besides his house?"
"I don't know."
That was exactly the problem.
My parents had behaved as though Grandpa's modest property was the only thing that mattered.
But what if it wasn't?
Mercer opened another section of the folder.
Most pages were heavily redacted.
One contained a list of names.
Beside Thomas Hale:
Beside Nathan Mercer:
Five others had numbers.
"These rings identified us when conventional identification could compromise a mission."
"You had one?"
Mercer nodded.
"Lost mine during an extraction."
"Are the others alive?"
His face darkened.
"Two."
"Including you?"
"Including me."
I looked at the seven young men.
Grandpa had outlived almost all of them.
"Who is the other?"
Mercer tapped one name.
Daniel Reeves.
I remembered the funeral.
The old man with the cane.
"Was he at Grandpa's funeral?"
Mercer looked surprised.
"Describe him."
I did.
Mercer leaned back.
"That sounds like Reeves."
"He wouldn't tell me how he knew Grandpa."
"That sounds like Reeves too."
For the first time, Mercer almost smiled.
Then I asked the question that had been growing in my mind.
"Could Grandpa's death have anything to do with this?"
Mercer's expression changed immediately.
"No evidence suggests that."
It was the responsible answer.
It wasn't reassuring.
Grandpa had been eighty-one.
He had heart problems.
His death wasn't mysterious.
But the timing of that records request bothered me.
Mercer told me to keep the ring out of sight.
"Why?"
"Until I know who requested Thomas's file, discretion is sensible."
I put it into my pocket.
The ceremony resumed.
I barely heard any of it.
That night, I called my mother.
"Did Grandpa ever talk about his military service?"
Silence.
"Why?"
"Just answer."
"He was in the Army."
"What did he do?"
"I don't know."
"Did Dad know?"
Another pause.
"Claire, why are you asking?"
"Someone recognized his ring."
Her breathing changed.
Tiny.
But noticeable.
"What ring?"
"The silver one."
"You should have left that at the house."
I sat upright.
"Why?"
"It's old junk."
"Then why do you care?"
"I don't."
"You just told me I should've left it."
"Claire—"
"Mom."
She hung up.
I stared at my phone.
Then it rang again.
Dad.
"Stop asking questions about Thomas."
My heart began pounding.
"Why?"
"Because he's dead."
"Someone requested his military records two days after he died."
Silence.
That silence told me more than words.
"Dad?"
"Who told you that?"
"Did you know?"
"Come home this weekend."
"Answer me."
"Not over the phone."
The call ended.
I didn't sleep.
The next morning, General Mercer called me into his office.
His expression was grim.
"I found the records request."
"And?"
"It didn't come from your parents."
Relief lasted less than a second.
"Who?"
"Someone using credentials belonging to a retired officer."
"Who?"
Mercer turned his monitor toward me.
The name appeared.
Daniel Reeves.
The old man from Grandpa's funeral.
Before I could speak, Mercer's phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then looked at me.
"Reeves is downstairs."
My pulse jumped.
Mercer slowly stood.
"He says Thomas left something for you."
The office door opened.
Daniel Reeves stepped inside carrying a sealed envelope.
May you like
Across the front, in Grandpa's handwriting, were two words.
FOR CLAIRE.
