Chapter 1 - The Photograph From Yesterday
Sergeant Mason Reed took one look at the black seal and decided I was lying.
I had been standing outside Fort Calder’s main checkpoint for less than a minute.
Civilian clothes.
No appointment.
One sealed military envelope in my hand.
“I need to give this to Colonel David Hale.”
Mason looked at the envelope.
Then at me.
“Who sent it?”
“I don't know.”
“Who are you meeting?”
“Colonel Hale.”
“Does he know you're coming?”
“No.”
That was apparently the wrong third answer.
Mason snatched the envelope out of my hand.
“Then you're done.”
He threw it into the gravel.
I stared at him.
He planted his boot directly on top of it.
“Take your fake orders and get off my base.”
“They aren't my orders.”
“Don't care.”
“They're addressed to Colonel Hale.”
“Anybody with a printer can put a name on an envelope.”
“Then pick it up and verify it.”
His face hardened.
Behind him, another guard shifted position.
Mason shoved me backward.
Not hard enough to knock me down.
Hard enough to make the point.
I stepped forward again.
“Get your foot off it.”
“Leave.”
I bent toward the envelope.
He grabbed my arm.
I turned and hit him.
One punch.
Bad decision at a military checkpoint.
Effective decision in ending his grip.
Mason staggered backward.
Three rifles came up immediately.
I stopped moving.
Raised both hands.
Nobody had to tell me twice.
Mason held one side of his face.
“You're finished.”
“Probably.”
Then a voice came from inside the gate.
“What happened?”
Colonel David Hale was walking toward us.
I recognized him from the base website.
Fifty-nine.
Gray at the temples.
The expression of a man who had spent decades entering rooms where everyone else became quieter.
Mason pointed at me.
“She assaulted checkpoint personnel.”
Hale looked at my raised hands.
Then at Mason.
Then down.
The envelope was still in the gravel.
His attention caught on the back.
Black seal.
Small.
Circular.
A broken white square stamped through the center.
He stopped walking.
That reaction was immediate enough that I noticed.
Hale bent down.
Picked up the envelope.
His thumb hovered over the seal.
“Where did you get this?”
“It arrived at my house this morning.”
“From whom?”
“No return address.”
His eyes lifted.
“Why bring it here?”
“It says DAVID HALE, FORT CALDER.”
Mason scoffed.
“You drove onto a military installation because somebody mailed you a mystery envelope?”
“I drove to the gate.”
Small distinction.
Important one.
Hale turned the envelope over again.
“Was there anything else in the package?”
“No.”
“Your name?”
“On the outer mailing label.”
“What name?”
I frowned.
“Rachel Carter.”
Hale looked at me differently.
“Carter?”
“Yes.”
Something moved behind his eyes.
He broke the seal.
Mason started:
“Sir, security should—”
“Sergeant.”
One word.
Mason stopped.
Hale opened the envelope.
One photograph slid into his hand.
Old-looking paper.
Slightly yellowed.
No writing on the visible back.
He turned it over.
Whatever he saw erased every question he had been about to ask me.
“Hale?”
He didn't answer.
He stared at the photograph.
Then at me.
Then behind me toward the roadway outside the installation.
He angled the photograph so I could see.
I froze.
It was me.
Or someone who looked exactly like me.
Standing at this checkpoint.
Same concrete barriers.
Same gatehouse.
Same chain-link fence.
Different clothes from the ones I wore now.
The photograph looked old.
The scene wasn't.
A temporary construction barrier visible near the gate had yesterday's date painted on the side.
Hale knew that too.
His voice became very quiet.
“Why does this show you standing here yesterday?”
I looked from the photograph to the checkpoint around me.
“I've never been here before.”
Mason gave a disbelieving laugh.
I ignored him.
Hale didn't laugh.
He studied the image again.
Then turned it over.
Along the bottom edge was the same broken-square mark as the black seal.
His face tightened.
I asked:
“What is that symbol?”
Hale looked at me.
“Before I answer, I need your father's name.”
That bothered me.
“Why?”
“Rachel.”
“Thomas Carter.”
Hale shut his eyes.
Only for a second.
When he opened them, I already knew.
“You know him.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
May you like
Hale looked at the impossible photograph.
“Your father used to make images like this for me.”
