“He’s stepping down,” Everard said. “No shame in that either. Guy is sixty-eight; he’s given a lot of service to this county.”

“That’s all very noble,” I objected, “but I want to get back to the colonel. He says he was infiltrating CARE-NOW, but aside from letting Dr. Roque get killed and Dr. Hitchcock fight for his life with those contaminated soil samples, he stood by while Roswell’s terrorists put Cady and me in the silo to die. I know you’re not supposed to break cover, but how many bodies were you actually going to let stack up before you decided to break rank?”

“I did my best,” Baggetto said through stiff lips. “I sent a signal to the First Infantry, and they marshaled a battalion. That was the unit that came to batter down the Level One missile-bay door.”

“And now you’ll go to Washington and get a promotion and a nice new assignment. I’ll write my senator and beg him to make sure you don’t come back to the Midwest,” I said.

“Pinsen and Roswell are in federal custody,” Everard said. “That should count for something. Dr. Kiel helped dismantle that horrifying lab in the missile silo. Sea-2-Sea is donating the fifteen acres around the silo to a nature preserve. But I’m with you. Not that my senators pay any attention to me, but maybe I’ll go on Change.org and get a petition going to send Baggetto to some outpost overseas where he can do the least harm. Nepal, maybe, or one of those places near Russia that end in ‘-stan.’”

The colonel didn’t seem to think this was as funny as Everard and I did. He collected his adjutant and left, not even offering me a token salute.

61
The Sisters Grow Up

I got better. Lotty flew back to Chicago. I showered, collected my street clothes from the cleaners, picked up my luggage from the B and B, where the owner had packed it in her garage. I went to one of the many spas on Massachusetts Street, where they trimmed my hair and cut and shaped my nails. I looked more like an ordinary person, less like a battlefield casualty.

Lou and Ed let me spend my last few days in Lawrence on their farm, where the wind across the hills helped clean the misery of the last month out of my brain.

One evening I went to see Cady Perec, who was back with Gertrude.

“Vic, my whole world is upside down right now, but Gram is the woman who raised me and read me my bedtime stories. I feel like I’m living on a fake birth certificate, but I don’t want to be Magda and Dr. Kiel’s child. I feel like I belong to Jenny.”