I got back into the Mustang, trying to figure out what I could do or who I could do it to. My most pressing thought as I drove to town was how bad my shoes smelled and how much my feet hurt. Underneath that discomfort I wondered how Gisborne had known I was at the silo. My best guess was that when I touched the Sea-2-Sea fence, besides zapping me it sent a message to the company’s computers. They might have cameras in the fence posts—I’d been so startled that I hadn’t taken the time to check for surveillance.

Back at the B and B, I bundled all my filthy clothes into the washing machine the owner provided her guests, scraped the mud off my shoes, then took a long, hot shower. After that it seemed like a good idea to draw the curtains and lie down. I was dozing off when I started thinking about Colonel Baggetto: What had really brought him to Lawrence, and then to the missile silo?

Lying in the darkened room, I called the university’s military office, identifying myself as a freelance writer for the Douglas County Herald.

“We heard that a colonel from Fort Riley gave a guest lecture to the cadets this morning. Is he still on campus? His name is . . .” I pretended to be looking at notes. “Baggetto. Dante Baggetto. We’d love to do an interview with him, find out what he thinks about—”

The secretary who’d answered cut me off. “We didn’t have any special lectures here this morning. Maybe the colonel was meeting privately with the staff. If you’ll hold for a minute, I’ll check. What did you say your name was?”

“Martha Gellhorn.” It was the first journalist’s name to pop into my head. Fortunately, the secretary didn’t seem to be a student of women’s history.

I drowsed while she checked. “Sorry, Martha, but none of the girls report any visiting birds in their logbooks today. Who told you he was here?”

“One of the cadets.” I burrowed deep in my mind for the kid who’d been with Baggetto at the hotel last night. “Marlon. Marlon Pinsen.”

I could hear the woman typing at the other end, and then she said sharply, “Martha, you need to start double-checking your sources. We don’t have anyone enrolled in the ROTC program named that, and I don’t even find him in the university’s student database. This is sloppy journalism, and it doesn’t help either of us.”

“And you should always call back a paper before volunteering information to strangers.” I hung up.