The Darkness - Jason Pinter [99]
Chester handed Morgan a folded piece of paper. The
young man opened it. It was a money order for $50,000,
made out to him.
"Just in case anyone asks, you've been doing some
contracting work on the side," he said with a grin. "You'll
get the second half once it's done. And Morgan?"
"Yeah?"
"Make sure nobody asks."
Morgan nodded, then folded the slip back up and
slipped it into the inside of his coat pocket. It felt good
to have it there, and it would feel even better tomorrow
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when he deposited a hundred thousand dollars into his
bank account.
Those debts, the ones that had nearly crippled him for
so long, would be wiped clean by the end of the month.
"You ready?" Chester said.
"Ready?" Morgan said with a smile. "I'm bored. Let's
do this."
39
"Go on," I said.
"Our troops invaded Panama because of Paz's death,
but because he ran from a PDF blockade the Panamanian
government claimed they did nothing wrong. So folks
back home in the States began to feel the same way, especially when more people started dying on both sides
of the conflict. Two weeks after Paz's death, a marine
unit was supposed to infiltrate a Noriega drug lab, but
instead they found themselves trapped in an alleyway
where they were ambushed by the PDF. They all managed to get out alive, but there were some on our side that
wondered if they were given the wrong directions on
purpose."
I said, "That they were led into a trap in the hopes
they'd be killed to strengthen the cause for the invasion."
"Exactly," Hollinsworth said. "Nobody knew for sure."
"That day in January," Jack said, "when your squad
was attacked...the same thing happened, didn't it?"
I could see Hollinsworth struggling to remain passive,
remain calm, but there was something behind those eyes that
he was unable to hide. It wasn't grief or sadness; it was rage.
"I know we were set up," Hollinsworth said. "We were
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scheduled to join up with a Ranger regiment. I was given
directions, instructions on when and where we'd meet. But
by the time we got there, it was just us and the armed guard.
By the time the survivors got back to the base, Chester was
dead. And the Rangers had no idea what the hell I was
talking about. The military discharged me a month after
that, and I went back to school to get my master's degree.
I never saw anyone else from our squad again."
"So Chester Malloy was killed that day," Jack said,
"but Rex Malloy and Eve Ramos lived."
"Rex, Chester and Eve were close," Hollinsworth continued. "The whole squad was like a family, but those
three were the tightest. When Chester died, it hit Rex and
Eve hard. Some of us thought Chester and Eve might have
been seeing each other behind closed doors, but we never
knew for sure."
I felt something then, a twinge, a faint bell going off.
I decided to go after it. I had a feeling we were close
to the truth.
I pulled my cell phone from my pocket, searched
through my e-mail in-box and found the message. Clicking on it, I opened the attachment. When it finished loading, I handed it to Williams Hollinsworth.
"Do you recognize that person?" I said.
Hollinsworth squinted, adjusting his glasses to view
the grainy shot better.
"It's hard to tell, with the angle and the picture quality
being, well, substandard. But if I had to guess...no...it
couldn't be." He looked at me. "Chester Malloy?"
"Close," I said. "You knew both Malloy brothers. Look
at the ear."
Hollinsworth took another glance, then nodded. "I
remember Rex's ear. We used to call him Potato Head
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because his ear looked like a mashed potato. But everything else is wrong. The hair. Rex's hair wasn't blond."
"You're right there," I said. "Rex's wasn't. Chester's
was. Rex Malloy is alive, and he's taken on his brother's
look, his dress, even coloring and styling his hair like
Chester used to."
"Okay," the professor said, "so you say. But so what?
I haven't seen Rex Malloy in almost twenty years."
"About a week ago," Jack said, "Rex