Disclaimer: Everything in the Twilight universe belongs to Stephenie Meyer.
AN: Thanks readers and reviewers! As usual, I am indebted to edward-bella-harry-ginny for pre-reading, suggesting, and betaing this chapter.
Recap: Bella has confessed to McCarty and Edward about Mystery Man's visits. As Edward sweeps her apartment for bugs or surveillance devices, she discovers her colleague Danny Bradford has been killed.
I settled onto the couch, absently picking up the newspaper from the seat beside me. I noticed it fluttered since my hands were still shaking, and I forced them to hold it steady. I hadn't had time to read it before heading out in the morning, but a shoe sale ad was circled on the back of the local section. I guessed Jessica had looked over the paper while she had waited for her date. Just above the ad, a tiny briefs headline caught my eye. "Virginia Professor Dies in Hit and Run" was the headline. The paragraph was about Dr. Daniel Bradford, psychologist.
Ch. 12. Film Noir
Out of nowhere, Edward was handing me a glass of water, doing his impression of the magical appearing man. I was still frozen over the newspaper. My eyes swiveled up to his face.
"I knew him," I said, pointing to the paper. Somehow, more eloquent or more useful words were escaping me.
"Who? Daniel Bradford?" Edward was reading the paper upside down, effortlessly. Even in the midst of my freak-out, I was impressed.
"Yes; we had the same research advisor," I answered. That didn't explain things either.
"I'm sorry," he said, a wrinkle appearing in his pale, aristocratic brow. He cautiously set the glass of water down on the coffee table. I could tell he was confused, but in my numb state I couldn't determine how to communicate my distress. Relating facts was the easiest option.
"He came to me on the metro, the day we got back from Afghanistan. He was upset; he said people were using him and he wanted to warn me." I tried to convey the seriousness of the situation, but my words seemed flat. "He was scared, Edward. He came looking for me. He said he'd left his cell phone, he'd changed his clothes, and he kept changing taxis. He didn't want them to follow him."
"Did he say who they were?" asked Edward sharply. He was beginning to understand.
"No. Do you think it was really an accident?" I was hoping.
"No," he answered. "Although stranger coincidences have occurred before," he muttered, shooting me a strange look.
"What do I do?" I asked.
"Nothing, for now. If he was involved in the same fishing expedition you've been dragged into, he may have been killed for his erratic behavior." Edward looked at me with concern. "The apartment is clean, so I'm going to call the car, Major."
"Yeah, okay, do nothing," I responded. Edward tugged lightly at the paper, and it slipped out of my fingers. He dropped it on the coffee table, and then sat beside me on the sofa.
"Major Swan," he started.
"Bella. My friends call me Bella," I told him as I stared ahead into the kitchen. My voice sounded flat to my ears. "I call you Edward, right?"
"Right. Bella, look at me." Edward's voice was very soothing, and I turned slowly to see his intense gold-tinted eyes. "Relax." He was so close, I could smell his luscious cologne. My eyelids felt heavy. "I won't let anything happen to you. Do you believe me?"
"Yes. I believe you, Edward," I murmured. He was leaning toward me, and I mirrored him. He shut his eyes tightly for a moment.
"Good," he said briskly, clapping me on the shoulder. I was immediately alert. What in the world had he just done? And where did he go? "What do you do for fun Maj—uh, Bella?" Edward asked from across the room; he was now wandering around my living room looking at…well, there wasn't much to see.
"I like to run," I said. It was the first thing that came to mind. In fact, I didn't much like it, but running had been a necessary evil since high school.
"I do as well," he told me with a smile. "What else?"
"Are you distracting me?"
"Is it working?" He gave me a grin, reminiscent of the one he'd had after nearly being blown to kingdom come. I couldn't help but smile back.
"I suppose. So what do you do for fun, besides run?"
"I asked first," he challenged.
"Hmm. I used to love reading the classics."
"Like Homer and Virgil?"
"Uh, well, I have read Homer. But I was thinking more like Bronte and Austen."
"Oh, hmm. I have read those, but they didn't do much for me," he admitted.
"Not a fan of romance, I take it?" I asked. He shrugged.
"Never saw much point, although I suppose I could be convinced." The end of that sentence was softer, almost an afterthought.
"Your turn," I cajoled. "What else do you do besides run?"
"Perhaps we'll take it up later," Edward hedged. "The car is here." He waved his phone at me.
oOoOoOoOoOo
Back at the facility, I sat numbly and listened as Edward explained the situation with Danny to Col. McCarty. Edward was fairly dispassionate in his description, but the colonel glared at me a few times.
"I'm sorry you lost a friend, Major Swan, but could you please let me know if you have any other potentially dangerous secrets?" Col. McCarty was clearly torn between aggravation and sympathy.
"I can't think of anything else, sir," I said dully. The office fell silent; I didn't look up, but I imagined the two were sharing one of their message-laden looks. They were worse than an old married couple. "Well, I suppose there's the party the senator is throwing."
"Senator James is throwing a party and you're going?" asked McCarty. A pencil snapped in his hands, and he tossed the broken pieces over his shoulders. I related the plans Col. Brown and Sen. James had developed for me to be the public face of the new Veteran's package in the upcoming defense bill.
"I suppose the best part was when Sen. James offered his son up as my date," I added wryly.
"No," Edward stated emphatically. "Not if you're talking about Maj. Victor James."
"I didn't accept," I said in annoyance. I glared at Edward again.
"Maybe we can send Rodney with you," Col. McCarty mused.
"I have my own date, thanks. I appreciate the charity," I spat. What was up with getting me a date? Did I really seem that hard up?
"Who is that?" asked Edward sharply. "Someone from your office?"
"No, a friend from Washington. Someone who went to school with me." We glared at each other now, a standoff finally broken by a loud sigh from Col. McCarty.
"All right, take Major Swan to the computer room and check over the surveillance footage from her apartment. I'll see if I can find out which unit Bradford was assigned to. Dismissed." Col. McCarty was shaking his head and picking up the phone as we left.
"So, you have a friend flying out to DC to take you to a party," Edward said. He was practically marching me down the hall, but he hadn't glanced at me once.
"Yes." I didn't think he deserved the backstory. I was still mad at him and McCarty, and I had no reason to forgive any time soon. I knew I couldn't outwalk him down the corridor, so I settled for keeping my eyes forward. Hence, my complete surprise when he grabbed my arm to stop me. The look on his face was difficult to decipher.
"Does your friend know the dangers you've attracted to yourself? Does he know what he's walking into? Do you think he can protect you?" Edward demanded in a hiss. I couldn't answer right away. Was I naïve to think that Ben would be safe while here? I struck back defensively.
"We're going to be in a very public place. There will be senators and congressmen and who knows else there. I think we'll be just fine. And, no, he doesn't know what I'm in the middle of because, in case you forgot, I signed documents which prevent me from telling him anything about it." At this point, I had actually backed Edward to the wall, and I was jabbing him in the chest with my finger. He was looking at me in shock, but then his eyes narrowed. He grasped the hand that I was using to poke at him.
"You're going to injure yourself, Major." I looked at his long fingers enveloping my hand and felt my skin pebble in response to his touch. I slowly withdrew my hand from his.
"Were you taking me somewhere?" I asked in a shaky voice.
Without another word, Edward led me to a hallway I'd not seen before down on the same floor as the cafeteria, the bunk rooms, and the gym area. He opened a nondescript door, and suddenly I felt like I was on the set of a television show. There were flat screen tvs and computer monitors everywhere.
"It's like a Best Buy came along and puked the high tech section out," I muttered.
"You like?" asked Shannon. She was typing on a keyboard and wearing a headset. "I've got the relevant parts of the building surveillance queued up. Watch that screen." She pointed to the central flat screen, a monstrous sixty-inch LCD panel. "The first segment is from the night of your first encounter."
The screen showed the hallway on my apartment floor rendered in black and white, slightly grainy video. A time stamp rolled slowly in the lower left corner. The picture jumped with static, and then a figure in a hoodie over a tracksuit walked confidently to my door. As the person turned my door handle, they looked towards the camera, giving us just a peek at the face.
"That's Major Crowley," I said in disbelief.
"You know him?" asked Edward, his voice clipped.
"Yeah, he's on the task force with me at the Pentagon. He works in the same office with me."
"Don't commit to that yet," Shannon warned as she manipulated the video with a touchscreen panel.
"No, that's definitely him," I insisted. What was going on? Static hit the picture again, and then I had that odd feeling you get when you see yourself on video. I watched as on-screen I walked to my door, unlocked it, and disappeared through. The screen jumped as Shannon fast-forwarded to when Tyler left my apartment, although his face was never visible on his exit.
"Here's the video from earlier this week," Shannon announced. It was very similar to the video from the first visit. Again, there was a brief instant where Tyler's face turned toward the camera, giving us a glimpse of his features.
"Notice anything odd?" asked Shannon.
"Not really," I admitted. "Unless you count the fact that my coworker is sneaking into my apartment." I felt sick. I thought he was a nice guy; a bit aloof, but nice.
"The video time-stamp doesn't match exactly," said Edward. "Every time the static hits, the video loses or gains a fraction of a second."
"How can you even tell?" I demanded. "Never mind. Pretend I didn't ask." When Edward grinned at me, I rolled my eyes.
"The time loss is good. Let me do a close-up of his face." Shannon fiddled with something on the computer, and we got a good look at Tyler's face as his head turned.
"There's no shadow from his hood," Edward said. After he said that, it was obvious that Tyler's face was a little too clear, considering how the hood drooped.
"You always get these things," pouted Shannon. "Col. McCarty is much more fun."
"Did I hear my name?" asked McCarty, entering the room. "Of course I'm more fun than Edward."
"The video's been tampered with, sir," Shannon announced formally. "The job is amateur, but the information we want has been effectively destroyed. Sir."
"Good work, lieutenant. I didn't expect it would be easy." McCarty shared another of those weighty glances with Edward.
"So it isn't Major Crowley?" I asked, uncertain.
"We can't rule that out completely. It is possible they pasted his own face over his face on the video," Edward replied.
"That's just weird," McCarty said, frowning at Edward. "What, is that like a purloined letter?"
"Not exactly. Did you even read that story?" Edward was shaking his head in disgust at the colonel. The entire situation was so surreal.
"Back to my office. We have some things to discuss," ordered McCarty, ignoring Edward's gibe.
Once we were back in McCarty's office, the colonel called for Heinz to join us. McCarty described the situation to Maj. Heinz, leaving out the fact that he and Edward suspected something from the beginning.
"I don't like it," Edward began. "They've already killed this Prof. Bradford. They have compromised Maj. Swan's home and her office. They used her coworker's image on the surveillance video. She's in too much danger. I think we should pull her out of the Pentagon and keep her here."
"What?" I nearly burst with my anger. "That's ridiculous. I have a life. I have important work at the Pentagon." My anger from earlier combined with this new annoyance making my temper blaze out of control.
"Which will never be completed if you're dead," Edward shot back. His jaw was set, his eyebrows were bunched, and he was using his height to his advantage. I felt like something was going seriously wrong with me because in the midst of the red haze of my anger, I kept thinking that angry Edward was hot. Living with Jess had warped my mind. I thought I could feel my temperature rising as I watched his nostrils flare and a muscle in his cheek jump.
"Unfortunately, she's right," Col. McCarty interjected. "This business with Sen. James has raised her profile. She can't step down now."
"Nothing has happened yet with that," Edward argued back, breaking eye contact with me. I released a relieved breath, wishing I could as easily dispel the mixture of anger and desire towards Edward and disgust with myself. "They'll find someone else to champion this Veteran's package."
"We'll never catch them if we hide her," Heinz stated. I was angry and Edward was livid, but Heinz was emotionally disconnected and objective. McCarty looked at each of us in turn, and then sighed. There was no good argument against Heinz's suggestion. Of course, I was a little smug that Heinz's plan meant that I got my way.
"This is going to be dangerous," announced Col. McCarty. "You've heard what they offered Maj. Swan – a guarantee of her bill passing Congress. That means we're dealing with influence. Catching whoever is behind this is the least of our worries. Even when we know who, how, and why, the tough part is going to be escaping with our lives and Edward's secret intact. What we need to do is use Maj. Swan to convince these people that there's nothing to see and that they can move along."
"Without killing her," Edward added firmly.
"Well, of course without killing her." McCarty looked like he was about to put Edward in time out. "To that end, we have a new official mission. I'm calling it Operation: Stop the Swan Song." He smiled with pride.
"You did not just say that," I muttered. The two halves of my life had now officially joined as Maj. Newton and Col. McCarty's senses of humor converged.
oOoOoOoOoOo
I spent the entire weekend at the facility, for my safety, according to Edward. It was my first time spending the night in the spartan single I had been assigned. It resembled a hospital room with its lack of amenities and tiny bathroom, but it was a lot less pleasant. There were repeated strategy meetings regarding my protection from suffering Danny's fate; I found these tedious since they tended to devolve into a power struggle between Edward and Major Heinz. The colonel was home with his family leaving me as the only buffer between the two. I rapidly found excuses to spend time with Franky or Shannon and Rodney when I saw either of the two majors heading in my direction. I had little to do since my official reason for being with the team was now pointless. And I needed separation from Edward. His volatile presence was making it difficult for me to think objectively about my life and career.
"What exactly is going on with you, Major Edward and Major Heinz," asked Franky at one point as she spotted me in the weight room. "Did you develop an allergy to them?" With no TV or books or internet or phone in my room, I had settled on punishing exercise as the way to lure sleep and thereby speed the weekend.
"Am I that obvious?" I asked with resignation during an exhale as I executed an inclined chest fly.
"Not just you. We rarely see Edward here at 'home,' and now he's haunting the mess hall and the gym," she answered. "That's eight. Take a break." I let my arms fall back and dropped the dumbbells to the floor.
"Ugh. Well, let me just say there's a mess going on and I'm desperately wishing I had no part in it." I wasn't sure how much of the situation or the plan McCarty was planning to reveal to the rest of the team.
"No problem." Franky smirked. "Speaking of." I looked up to see Edward standing in the door, an unreadable expression on his face. "Lawnmower pulls next."
Monday morning, Col. McCarty convened the entire team and revealed Operation: Stop the Swan Song. Rodney christened it STSS. He revealed that Danny had been serving as a psych consultant for a different special forces team and had completed his final report hours before his death.
"Should I try to go to his funeral?" I asked.
"No," Edward said emphatically as we exchanged our now customary glares.
"It could flush someone out of the woodwork," Heinz suggested. "We could be on-site, keep her safe."
"Would you have gone if he hadn't contacted you last week?" asked McCarty. I considered his words.
"I think I would have sent a card to his family and called my old boss to talk."
"Then that's what you're doing," the colonel stated.
The rest of Monday followed suit. I quickly lost track of the details. I was not a special forces operative, after all; I was intruding on their turf. At the end of the day, McCarty assigned Edward to take me home.
"How?" I asked. "Last week you made me babysit him."
"Oh, I've designated this an operation. Edward can operate solo if he's officially working a mission," McCarty said with an evil glint in his eye.
The car ride to my apartment was silent, at least for the first five minutes. I still had no clue who drove the batmobile, but Edward was sharing the backseat with me. He was dressed in his olive tee and camo pants, and in spite of my peevishness, I kept finding my eyes drawn to him. I managed to avoid looking him in the eye, though.
"Look, Bella, I'm sorry. I know you think I've been rude—" began Edward.
"Rude?" I interrupted in disbelief. "No. I don't think you've been rude. I think you and McCarty have put me in a horrible position to satisfy your curiosity about some random order which may or may not be targeting you. I think a colleague of mine is dead and I could be next. I think your solution to putting me in this position is to encourage me to destroy the rest of my career."
"You have quite the temper," he commented drily. I glowered at my opaque window. "Don't you see I'm trying to stop you from being killed?" Edward's tone was frustrated.
"I'm in the same army you're in, Edward. Last I knew, I agreed to give my life for this country as well."
"This is not a combat situation, and you know it. Stop being stubborn and let me help you. Let the team help you. You're right; I am mostly responsible for getting you into this mess. Let me fix this." At that point I made the mistake of looking up into his eyes. Even in the darkened car, I could see his iridescent irises set against his pale features. He was, as usual, devastating, and he was using every asset to his advantage. My eyes dropped from his eyes to his lips, just as they parted. "Please, Bella." His breath washed over me, a sweet scent which was surprisingly cool. I realized we had both leaned in slightly, bringing our faces closer together. I nodded, uncertain as to what I had just agreed. He raised one hand and brushed the back of his knuckles lightly down my cheek. "We're here."
"Are you coming in?" I asked.
"No, but I'll be keeping an eye on you. You will be safe, Bella," he replied. I left the vehicle, walking slightly unsteadily toward the elevator. The further I moved from the car, the more clear-headed I became while at the same time I became more confused. What was happening here?
My apartment was blessedly free of annoying men, whether mysteriously unknown or just mysterious. I flipped on the tv at a high volume and raided my freezer for ice cream. I could already tell I was going to hurt everywhere by morning and took a prophylactic ibuprofen. I pulled out a trashy novel and spent the remainder of the evening in denial.
Tuesday morning, I managed to pass a card shop on my way to work. I picked up a sympathy card for Danny's parents. I was early enough into my office that I beat even Angela. I worked steadily at my desk through the morning. At noon, I bit the bullet and picked up the phone.
"Molina speaking."
"Dr. Molina, it's Bella," I said sadly into the phone.
"I told you that if you want me to call you Bella, you'll have to call me Joe. Otherwise, you'll be Dr. Swan to me," he replied. They were the same words he'd used when congratulating me after my successful dissertation defense. Grief that had been suppressed by the stress of the weekend surfaced rapidly at the sound of his voice.
"Okay, Joe," I began before the tears hit. "I'm so sorry," I choked out. "This is hitting me pretty hard."
"I'm not surprised, Bella. He was too young, and his death is a tragedy." Dr. Molina's comforting voice soothed me enough that I could regain some of my equilibrium. "We're organizing a memorial service here, nothing big, but Danny's parents agreed to come. Do you think you can come next Tuesday?"
"I'm not sure, but I think I can make it. I'll have to talk with my CO." I sniffled quietly.
"Of course. I'll have Kelly email you the details. We're still working out time and location. We want to use the Memorial Chapel, if possible." Kelly was his stalwart secretary.
"Thank you. Let me know if you think there is something I can do," I answered.
"Certainly. Take care, Bella."
I was blowing my nose into a tissue when Angela poked her head into my office.
"Is everything all right?" she asked, giving me a concerned look.
"One of my grad school friends died in a car accident," I told her with a last sniffle.
"Let's get some lunch," she encouraged me.
"Yeah. I can't go far though. I've got a lot on my plate right now." I stood, feeling my quads protest. "But I've definitely got to eat." I needed ibuprofen in a bad way.
I told Angela at lunch about Danny and found that sharing my memories of him relieved some of the grief. We switched at some point to Ben and his impending visit. He'd be staying with me Thursday night until Sunday afternoon. As we wandered back through the halls to our office, it hit me for the first time that Edward would likely be surveilling me while Ben stayed at my place, and I had a rush of unease.
"I was going to bring Ben by the Pentagon and to see Arlington National Cemetery on Friday," I told Angela. "Would you like to meet us for lunch?"
"Oh, I don't want to intrude," she said shyly.
"Intrude? We're definitely NOT together," I assured her. "I'll have more than enough alone-time with Ben."
"If you're sure," she replied.
"I'm sure. I know you'll enjoy meeting him," I told Angela sincerely.
"Okay, just let me know where to meet you."
I returned to my office with my mail in hand, reading the memo on top about tomorrow's staff meeting. Apparently, I was going to be the main topic. I groaned. No wonder I'd been getting funny looks in the halls. This job was turning out to be something entirely different than advertised. I put down the memo and saw on my desk that I'd been left another manila envelope. A tendril of dread started to eat its way up my abdomen.
The envelope, marked "top secret" in red, stamped block letters, was large and very old; I could tell its age by its worn edges and the appearance of the string closure. It was crammed full; it was over an inch thick, and my fingers twitched with the need to examine the contents. I glanced over at my closed office door; I knew Mike could barge in at any moment. I didn't have the time to safely examine the envelope. I slipped it into my bag, and pulled up a document on my computer. I did my best to go through the motions of working, but although my eyes were on the computer screen, my entire conscious mind was desperately imagining the contents of the envelope.
I jumped several inches when my office door banged open.
"What's up Swan, trying to take flight?" Mike snickered.
"I was concentrating," I snapped back. It was true; I just wasn't concentrating on the screen.
"Whatcha working on?" he asked, oblivious to my annoyed tone. He sat on the edge of my desk and peered over my shoulder at the screen.
"I swear, Major Newton, you have no concept of boundaries." I was acutely aware of my bag at his feet. I willed my eyes to stay away from it. I was fairly certain I had closed it all the way. Besides, what would he even think of a manila envelope in my bag? All our work was unclassified. There were no restraints on taking our work home.
"Sorry. I thought you might be working on this. I found some statistics you might want," he apologized, looking like a kicked puppy.
"No, I'm sorry. I'm not having the best day. The staff meeting, you know?"
"Oh, right." He brightened and then helped me locate the statistics on our server.
In the end, Mike was very helpful, and I had a reasonably complete report by the end of the day despite my distractions. I waited in my office until everyone was gone, claiming I had a few more comments to type on the report. When the office was emptied, I locked my door and pulled the envelope from my bag. The smooth paper even felt old, the quality perceptibly different from envelopes I was used to handling. I unwound the string closure to the envelope and slid the contents out onto my desk. The stack was primarily paper, memos or letters, but there was a flat, black square box, about five inches by five inches. I examined the papers first.
The top sheet was a memo from early 1940, clearly typed on an old-fashioned type-writer and signed with a real fountain pen. The paper was foxed around the edges and had a yellowish tinge. It was from an Arthur Stallings in the State Department to President Roosevelt, thanking him for recognition for stopping a German spy ring. What could this have to do with me? The next memo was dated March 1941, also from Stallings to Roosevelt. This was another thanks for approving his project. What project? I flipped to the next page, labeled "Soldier X Project." This struck me as mostly propaganda, various techniques for combating the Axis powers with experimental weaponry. The following pages were descriptions of fantastical weapons which I knew had never existed. The last page labeled "Soldier X" was a sketch I recognized as Captain America, and next to it was scribbled the name "Steve Rogers." My hands froze.
I opened a browser window on my computer, and put "Steve Rogers" into the search engine. I should have known, considering Ben's impressive comic collection. Steve Rogers was Captain America's "real" identity. No wonder Edward used "Rogers" as his alias. I shook my head. He didn't really seem like the comic book type.
The next page was dated in the mid-fifties, and was from Colonel Roger Miller to President Eisenhower. The comments were as vague as the ones written by Stallings, but now the package had two links to Edward. I flipped pages, discovering all the remaining pages were from Miller to various people, but there was nothing explicit in the notes. The dates progressed from the first in the mid fifties to the last in the mid seventies, and his rank continued to increase along with the date. I couldn't remember his date of retirement off-hand, but it seemed it would have been after the final memo.
I picked up the last object from the envelope, the square flat black box. I removed the lid, and a folder paper fell out. It looked like it had once been the label on the box; the typed label merely said "Soldier X." The object in the box was a reel of 8 mm film.
By seven that evening, I was uncharacteristically speeding in my mini Coop towards Hampton. I was probably the only person I knew who actually owned an old-school 8 mm film projector, courtesy of Charlie. All our family videos were actually made with his 8 mm movie camera; I think he must have picked it all up at a flea market when Renee was pregnant. The oldest film we had was of Renee at First Beach looking like she had a beach ball under her sundress. Even pregnant and bloated, she was beautiful, and Charlie had captured her essence despite his crappy camera skills. I had them converted to DVD at some point in grad school, but I'd been unwilling to part with the paraphernalia which had been his. The movie equipment wasn't part of his job or part of the training sessions he'd done to get me ready for ROTC. It was just family.
I spent most of the drive trying to decide what I was going to say to Jess when I got there and wondering if someone from the team was following me. I couldn't for the life of me come up with an excuse to cover an emergency film festival in my old bedroom. I looked over at the passenger seat again; I was convinced the reel would vanish like leprechaun gold before I could view its contents. When I entered the old apartment, it was almost ten, pretty late for a Wednesday night, but Jess was nowhere to be found. The apartment was dark and quiet. I hurried to set up the projector and shut and locked my door. Oh, Lord, I hoped this wasn't a porno.
I projected directly on the back of the white door, a rectangle of color appearing. There was apparently no sound with the recording, so I heard only the whirring of the projector. I sat on my bed and watched as an older man spoke to a younger one in front of an obstacle course. They were both in army uniform. Behind them, young men were running the course, most looking fairly fit. The talking men were both squinting into the sun. I had no idea who they were or what this meant, but I guessed the era was approximately World War II. The movie changed to an indoor setting, a man with a goatee, glasses, and a white coat talking animatedly in front of what looked like the set of a B movie. There were bubbling flasks and a still, and behind all that a console with dials. I wanted to laugh. I had driven for three hours like a bat out of hell to see this? The scene changed again to the obstacle course, but clearly on a different day or at a different time. It was overcast or else nearing nightfall. The older man was on screen again, this time talking to someone I thought I recognized. The contents of the manila envelope had jogged my memory, I suppose; it was a very young Roger Miller. I guessed he was no more than twenty, so this was definitely World War II. My extensive research back in college on the life of the general had led me to a few early photos; it was definitely him. He was a nice-looking young man. He was in the same uniform as the men who'd been running the obstacle course.
The final scene lasted only about ten seconds, but was of the older man talking to the other young man again. Behind them and to the right, almost off the edge of the frame, Roger Miller was talking with another young soldier, someone I would recognize anywhere, anytime. It was Edward.
AN2: So what does an army psychologist make of that?
I made a blog, originally to record some of the Soldier X facts in one place, although I threw some TCW/AoA and Masen and Swan on there as well, along with teasers). It's at gleena34 dot blogspot dot com (listed as my homepage on the ff profile). You can also catch me as gleena34 on twitter.