“I won’t get caught. Get better soon. And come back to Atlanta.” I walk through the glass doors of the terminal, then turn back to see Gus still standing there, watching me go.

I GRAB A highly overpriced plastic-wrapped turkey sandwich from a kiosk in the airport and head to the gate for private planes, where I learn Tyler and Sean are getting the Learjet refueled. I check the time and realize the boys at the DoD are due for their call, so I pull out my phone.

“OIG, this is Manning.”

“We gotta stop meeting like this,” I say.

There’s a pause, maybe five seconds of dead air, and I’m about to ask Manning if he lost his voice or what, when another voice comes on the line, older, rougher, like the speaker smoked half a pack a day for a decade. “Miss Faulkner?” this older voice says.

“That’s Miz Faulkner.”

“You want to know about your father.”

I watch a 737 make an ungainly landing, the wheels smoking, the jets shrieking in reverse as the pilot tries to slow the plane. “I want to know why he called and why you all ignored him.”

“I believe you know why he called, Ms. Faulkner,” the voice says.

The 737 shoots down the runway, its fin like a giant shark’s, but it finally starts to slow. “I’m assuming you don’t want to say because this is being recorded.”

“Come to Washington,” the voice says. “I can give you a copy of your father’s file.”

“Not a chance.”

The voice sounds disappointed. “Ms. Faulkner, you reside at 412 Busbee Court in Denver, Colorado. We could have you picked up whenever we want.”

The address he rattled off is a fake, an electronic smokescreen Caesar created for me a while ago. Still, the fact that they found that in an hour’s time is a little unnerving. “Have me picked up for what?” I say. “Let me guess, national security issues?”

“We’re not interested in you. Not in that way.”

“There are other ways?”

“Come to Washington, Ms. Faulkner. We—”

“I am not coming to D.C. Just tell me what I want to know and I’ll go away.”

Pause. The 737 is taxiing to the terminal. I half expected the airport fire crew to rush out to the plane with sirens and fire-retardant foam. Watching the plane roll slowly to a gate is anticlimactic and oddly satisfying.

“Someone was thinking about career advancement,” the voice finally says. “That someone was poised to be offered a high-level position in the government. Your father’s story could have derailed that, so it got buried. And after your father died …”