The Edge

Chapter 4

The next morning Devine walked into a private care facility in northern Virginia with Emerson Campbell to visit Curtis Silkwell.

“Clare still visits him every week here,” said Campbell as he held the door for Devine.

“Not so heartless then,” replied Devine, drawing a tortured scowl from the other man.

“Heartless enough,” Campbell shot back.

A nurse led them to a room in a secure “memory care” unit. The space was small and sparsely furnished and held, at least for Devine, a sense of marching in slow motion, a wait for the inevitability of death.

After the nurse left them, both men turned their attention to the frail figure in the bed. There were no tubes hooked up to him, though there was a machine monitoring his vitals.

“He’s comfortable, in no pain, so they tell me. They’re going to have to put a feeding tube in soon,” said Campbell grimly. His voice carried a level of distress Devine had never heard before. “He’s not eating. He doesn’t think to when he’s awake. Just stares at the offered food and then goes back to sleep. And when they do get some food in him, things get clogged and he has to be aspirated. He has a DNR in place and pretty soon they will wind things down.”

They looked down at the shrunken, sleeping patient.

“I remember a six-two, two-hundred-and-twenty-pound wall of a man,” added a hollow-voiced Campbell. “Leading his men into one hell after another and coming out victorious on the other side. Won every medal and commendation the Marines offered. He should have had a shoulder full of stars but he refused to play the necessary games.”

“Same as you,” noted Devine.

“He was more deserving,” replied Campbell.

“To my mind, every person who puts on the uniform and picks up a weapon in defense of their country is deserving.”

Silkwell stirred under the sheet and his eyes opened. He looked at neither of them, his unfocused gaze playing across the ceiling for a few moments before the eyes closed once more.

“He stopped recognizing me months ago,” said Campbell. “The doctors say the progression is accelerating. No chance of recovery. Fucking disease.”

Campbell led Devine out and quietly closed the door behind them before facing off with the younger man.

“I brought you here, Devine, because I wanted you to see a true American hero. And he deserves to have his daughter’s murderer brought to justice.”

“You have no confidence in the police up there?”

“Since it’s a two-person department with few resources, no, my confidence level is not high. And if Jenny’s death is connected to her work at CIA it comes under the feds’ umbrella, not the locals’. But you have to snoop around first and find out something we can hang our jurisdictional hat on.”

“So I’m to find the killer and ascertain if any secrets have been stolen?”

“If you find the killer we have lots of experts who can help us determine the secrets issue, or whether her death was retribution for something having to do with national security.”

“The sister and brother who live up there in the old homestead, I suppose they’re suspects? I told you Clare informed me Jenny was going up there to finish some old business.”

“Yes, family, friends, strangers, foreigners — everyone is a suspect right now.”

“And what if the killer is long gone by now?”

“We’ll attack that bridge if we come to it.”

Outside the facility, Campbell shook the younger man’s hand. “I have no higher priority right now. Good luck. Many things tell me you’re going to need it.”

Campbell was driven off in a government SUV.

Devine stood in the parking lot for a few moments glancing back at the building where a doomed man didn’t even know his eldest daughter had not survived him.

He knew this was personal to Campbell. And while Devine had to maintain a professional objectivity, he knew a certain element of this mission was now personal to him as well.

In his book a dying warrior deserved no less.