French understood the need for self-protection, but could no longer hide from the more difficult truths. Too much of his son remained: the memory of his birth, the smallness of his hand. Rising in silence, he carried his guilt to the study, where he kept things dark, and dialed his partner’s number from feel. “Are you still up?” he asked.

“Definitely.”

“I’m coming over.”

On the crosstown drive, French was as much cop as father.

Could he have done it?

Not possible.

But maybe …

It came down to a single thing.

“Hi, Ken. Sorry. I know it’s late.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Burklow stepped back to let him inside, then made drinks without asking. “Here. You look ragged. You okay?”

“It just hit me, is all.”

“Jason, you mean?”

“Everything.”

French kept his wife out of it. Her regression to near-infantile contentment was too personal to share.

“So.” Burklow sat across a low table, his long, heavy frame cradled in a worn leather chair. “What can I do for you?”

“A favor.”

“Ask it.”

The response was automatic and honest. If French killed a man, Burklow would scream and fret, but, in the end, he’d help bury the body. It was that kind of friendship. “You spoke to me once of a friend at the Defense Department. He told you there’s war and then WAR, and that Jason fought the second kind.”

“Chris Ellis. He’s high up.”

“A good friend?”

“Good like you’re good. Is he the favor?”

“It’s time I knew more about Jason.”

Burklow immediately stood, tall and unsmiling. “Wait here.” He went to the back bedroom, and came back with a manila envelope tucked beneath his arm. He dropped it on the table between them.

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

INTERNAL USE ONLY

Beneath those words were Jason’s name and rank and serial number. “Jason’s military records.” Burklow sat again and picked up the whiskey. “I knew you’d want them.”

“But … when?”

“I made the call yesterday. Drove up last night to collect them.” French leaned away, as if afraid of so much unadulterated insight into the life of his oldest living son. “Most of it is classified. If you get caught with it, we’re both screwed, and I mean federally.” He sipped again. “Are you sure you’re ready for what’s inside?”

French had been sure, but now was not. People said twenty-nine kills, but it could be fifty or a hundred; and both men understood enough of war to know it could be even worse than that. Friendly fire. Civilians. Black ops.

Not all kills were clean.

“After we found her,” French said. “Tyra, I mean. I asked the medical examiner what could make a good man do bad things. What could break a man so horribly and irretrievably? He said it would be something big.”

“And you’re thinking, War.”

“Do you know anything that’s bigger?”