No Return

20

Wes’seyes popped open at just after 6 A.M. on Saturday morning. With no shoot that day, he tried to go back to sleep, but that wasn’t happening. So he rolled onto his side and stared at Anna for several minutes, hoping she might sense his gaze and wake up. That, apparently, wasn’t happening, either.

With a groan, he flipped over, crawled out of bed, and shuffled to his computer. He knew what he’d seen out at the Pinnacles, and it wasn’t the guy the Navy was trying to force-feed everyone. If he could only find a little more proof, then maybe he could convince Lars of that.

The first thing he did was fire off an email to Casey back in L.A., then he opened Google Images in his browser and typed in the search parameters: “China Lake pilots.” Over one million hits came back. He started flipping through the thumbnail pages quickly, scanning for the face he remembered from the crash.

A few minutes later, the icon for his email program began bouncing on his toolbar. It was a response from Casey.

The best site is called Drew’s Military Action Site. You’ll need a user ID and password to get in. Try BAN4KOOL, password onit47.

Why are you looking for military photos?

Wes typed in a quick reply.

Just some background stuff. Thanks for the help

.

Drew’s Military Action Site was basically a database of military history. Wes went immediately to the Photos section. Depending on what search parameters he put in, Wes could access photos tagged “pilots,” “Navy pilots,” pilots assigned to China Lake, or pilots assigned to any other post by branches, divisions, groups, and the like.

He did China Lake first, but found nothing useful, so he widened his search to all Navy pilots. He moved rapidly through page after page of shots-some solo, some group. Then he stopped suddenly, his index finger a mere fraction of an inch above the forward arrow key, and stared at the screen.

It was a group shot. Twenty people, mostly men. And in the middle row, third from the left, was the man from the crash.

He was sure of it.

He looked for any information associated with the picture, but there was none.

Scrolling back, he checked other group shots. Most had information and names listed below them. What the hell?

He tried to move the picture to his desktop, but the image was locked and could not be dragged off. A problem, but not nearly as annoying as not finding any information with the picture. He took a computer snapshot of his screen, then opened the new image in Photoshop and cropped out everything but the group picture itself.

Once he’d saved that, he blew the picture up until the resolution deteriorated and the man’s face became unrecognizable. He was only able to magnify the picture a couple of times before this happened. He backed it down until the man’s face was clear again and saved it as a separate file, then stared at the image.

He wasn’t crazy.

He hadn’t been seeing things.

The man he knew he had tried to pull from the crash had been real.

He didn’t have the guy’s name, but he had his picture.

This he could show to Lars. The picture in conjunction with the video loop should be more than enough to prove he was right. At the very least, it would be enough to convince Lars he should look into it a little deeper. And once he did, he’d find out that Wes wasn’t the one who was making things up.

There was one other thing he could do, too. A backup, just in case.

He opened a new email and attached the photo to it. In the message body, he wrote:

Casey,

Trying to identify third man from the left in the middle row. Any chance you can help? Best if you keep this on the sly, and not just from the company. Will explain later.

Wes

After he hit Send, the knot of frustration that had been gnawing at the back of his mind began to unravel. The situation had worked him up more than he’d expected.

But now he knew the truth. Now he’d be listened to.