Getting to a computer terminal at the nice library takes some work on my part, since they require a library card and PIN to get access to a computer, but some sweet-talking and showing my Armed Forces identification card persuades the cheerful young lady librarian with a strong Texas accent and black hair to let me in. She’s a bit overweight but wears it proudly, with tight black slacks and a bright-red blouse.

God love the South. I grew up in chilly Maine, and I long ago gave up the soft bigotry most northerners have for those living below the Mason-Dixon line, for I’ve found most of them unerringly charming, polite, and, in the army, stone-cold killers.

I sit down at one of the terminals and make sure my companion is sitting behind me. “You know,” I tell him, “I can’t keep on saying ‘Hey you’ when I’m talking to you.”

Of course he says nothing.

“You don’t look like him, but you have the charm of an older Cary Grant,” I say. “So I shall call you Archie. Archie, stay put while I get to work.”

I dig in and decide to start where my destination is going to be, Beachside, Florida. I’ve never heard of the town, and as I start Googling my way hither and yon, I learn a lot. It’s a very new town, a “planned community” for retirees, for budget travelers, and for corporate retreats. I get a map of the streets and arrange to have it printed out at a nearby printer. The population is about three thousand or so, and…

It has no police department.

Interesting.

It has a top-of-the-line full-time fire department, but any law enforcement requirements are fulfilled by the Walton County Sheriff’s Department.

So how and why did this little town spring up on the Gulf Coast of Florida?

There’s not much about its history or construction, but I do find a throwaway line in an old story that makes me sit back and swallow hard.

The place was mostly financed by a bank.

A bank in Mexico.

First Republic Global Bank, NA, based in Guadalajara.

The same bank that owns the Learjet that took away Tom and Denise.

I let my fingers float across the keyboard, look to my rear, and Archie is sitting there, quiet and calm.

“Time for a gamble,” I say, and I go to Gmail and sign into my personal email account to see what information might be waiting for me, and to also do something else dangerous, but necessary.

Good God, look at all those unread messages that have piled up in the past few days…with a good chunk from Major Bruno Wenner, pleading and then demanding to know where I am and what’s going on. If Wenner is using my personal email account in addition to my standard Army account, he and Colonel Denton must be really going berserk.

Then there’s the regular email mishmash of spam, a couple of messages from old friends of mine in the service, and some reminders from Amazon and Staples.