Epilogue
B ones placed his palm flat on the scanner, the reader confirmed his identity, the air lock hissed, and the giant blast door inched open. At nearly ten thousand feet elevation, the former nuclear bunker was well hidden among the mountains of Colorado. Bones had retrofit it last year after Freetown was blown up in the event that we needed to move everyone to high and safe ground. Once an underground retreat for America’s leaders, now it was an empty, well-stocked ghost town awaiting habitation. Every few months we came up here, poked around, marveled at the sheer sight of something dug down into the earth, and then talked about how glad we were that we didn’t need it, because needing it would mean something had happened that caused us to need it. Which would undoubtedly be bad. Bones had awakened me early and we’d set out. He wasn’t strong enough to make the hike to the Eagle’s Nest, but if we rode the chairlift, he could walk the ridgelines. So the three of us—him, me, and Gunner—had watched the sun come up over the Collegiates. And while a lot of things are wrong with this world, witnessing the sun light up the skyline over the Rockies is not one of them.
The loss of his venerable Sig 220 was felt sorely by Bones. It had gotten him out of more than one bad spot. It had gone “bang” when he needed it to, and it had never failed him. While he was very much a fan of the CZ, and appreciated it, his hand had been wrapped around the grip of the Sig so long that anything else felt awkward. Knowing this, I contacted the manufacturer and explained our dilemma. Save the fact that I could not tell them he was alive. I told them it was for me. In memory of. Bones had a bit of a storied reputation among the Sig folks, so their response was quick. The custom shop cooked up a singular creation. A Sig 220 Legion made special for Ezekiel Walker. They even stamped “Bones” on the slide. They made one change not before seen on a Legion. A lanyard loop. The lanyard loop saw wide acceptance on 1911s and Browning High Powers through World War II and earlier iterations as far back as World War I. Originally intended for use among cavalry, since bouncing around on a horse or crawling through a trench was a good way to lose a pistol. As it turned out, so was traversing a dungeon in Majorca. The loop was a thoughtful nod toward the history and résumé of all the storied .45s and early 9mms that came before. Bones started as a .45 man, and even now, after all the developments in ammunition, he was still a .45 man. You could take the .45 out of his hand, but not the .45 out of the man. It was a thing. Bones had taken to the new sidearm and was in the process of breaking in a new Milt Sparks VM2. Maybe the best holster ever created.
Gunner and I followed down a long corridor of lights through a series of giant caverns and hallways and intersections. The bunker was designed to hold a small city. Some two thousand people. The insides accommodated movement of large numbers of people. Two walking through made the entire place seem cavernous. Which it was. Not to mention the echo.
We made it to the server room. The brains of the place. Bones once again held his palm to the scanner, it confirmed his identity, and the glass doors slid open following another air lock hiss. He leaned on his walking stick, catching his breath, and stared at the servers. “Just before he took his own life, Frank told me two things. The first might make our job a little easier.” He pointed at the servers. “We’ve been stumbling over ourselves, wracking our brains trying to find Frank’s data vault. Where he kept the trillions of bytes that contained all his secrets. All the info he used to leverage and blackmail world leaders, rock stars, actors, politicians. We didn’t look here, where it’s been all along.”
“What?”
“This is an intranet. No hardline to the outside world and the internet, therefore it can’t be hacked remotely. Frank knew it would be safe here. So once he knew I’d retrofit this space, he worked twenty-four seven to dump all the data. Tedious work. He had to physically stand here and upload all that data. Took some time I should think.”
I looked at the rows of black boxes and multicolored cables that daisy-chained the untold amount of terabytes together. “You mean the key to Frank’s generals was sitting right here, under our nose, the whole time?”
“Evidently I wasn’t the only one hiding a secret in plain sight.”
Just as Bones had kept the birth certificate safe with Frank all those years, Frank had kept all his data safe with Bones. Maybe identical twins do tend to think alike.
“What do you think we’ll find?”
“Bunch of stuff we probably don’t want to know.”
“You think Maynard is in there?”
He nodded. “It’s why he never accepted the nomination while Frank was alive. Frank couldn’t have someone more powerful, or equally as powerful, working for him. It evened the odds too much. Plus, in Frank’s world, Maynard was more useful as the power behind the throne. Not the power on it. Power on a throne draws attention. Power behind it does not. Soon as Frank died, Maynard executed a plan he’d hatched long ago.”
“Kidnapping Ashley’s kids?”
“Taking out his opponent. Clearing the way. That way he could run unopposed. Assure victory. Ashley just happened to be the one standing in his way at that particular time.”
“You got the team on it?”
“Eddie, Jess, and BP are headed up here now. Gonna spend a few days digging into the code.”
“Think we can ID Frank’s generals?”
He nodded. “Not to mention the chips Frank installed. Eddie thinks he can make sense of it. Which, honestly, is the easy part.” He shook his head once. “Tearing down their playhouse? Not so much. Powerful people don’t like it when you take away their power.”
“Or their money. Or freedom.”
Bones nodded.
We exited the bunker. I gathered some dry wood and sparked a fire, and the two of us plus Gunner stood staring into the flames, warming ourselves as the sun began burning off the cold. We were for silent several minutes. Finally, Bones said, “Got plans tonight?”
A rhythm had returned to life at Freetown. I wouldn’t say “normality,” but at least I woke in the same bed every morning with Summer wrapped around me like a vine. Which was just fine with me. “Date night. You?”
He weighed his head side to side, trying to find the right words. Which I found telling. “Eagle’s Nest. Wanted to show it to Cat before she leaves.”
Cat had become Bones’s way of referring to Sister Catalonia. “And the wine?”
He smiled but didn’t look at me. “Something dusty.”
“I’ve been accused lately of being a little thickheaded when it comes to anything romantic, but that sounds like a date to me.”
A nod. “Me too.”
“You wrestled that out with God?”
Another long silence. Finally, he looked at me. A content half-smile. “He didn’t say no.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Of all the people on planet earth, you deserve happiness. I’m pulling for you.”
I was about to speak when my phone dinged. An encrypted message on the Signal app. I studied it.
Bones pried. “Who?”
“Ariel.”
“A good man.” He studied my face. “But it’s not a social call, is it?”
I studied the picture and shook my head once.
“Bad?”
“It’s not good.” I held up the screen and showed him a picture of Ariel’s daughter. Below it, the one-word message read, “Help. ”
Bones was in no condition to jog, but we jogged anyway, Bones grunting with every bump. I spoke over my shoulder. “You explain it to Summer for me.”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
That was unusual. “Why not?”
“’Cause I’m going with you.”
“But you’re in no condition to—”
He held out a stop-sign hand. “I didn’t walk out of that watery grave to let you leave me here.”
“I can handle it.”
Another shake. “You can come with me, but I’m not not going.”
I knew this, but I just wanted to hear him say it. “And the Eagle’s Nest?”
“Have to wait.”
“Will she?”
He shrugged and continued grunting. “Don’t know.”
Minutes passed. He sounded like somebody getting punched in the gut. I raised an eyebrow. Unlike Bones, I might have been in some of the best shape of my life. “Starting to feel your age?”
He kept grunting but kept his eyes focused on where his feet needed to touch down next.
We jogged another mile as I marveled at the man running alongside me. Bones had physical strength for sure, but he had an inner strength that was unmatched. I’d never seen its equal. I was pretty sure he had a red cape tucked down inside his shirt. “What was the second thing Frank said?”
Bones was quiet a minute. His face told me he was back in the dungeon, his back pressed to his brother’s chest. Only seconds remaining. We reached a peak in the ridgeline. All of Colorado spread out before us. We could see eighty or ninety miles in any direction. “He said, ‘I love you.’”
The inconceivability of that struck me. I didn’t think Frank capable of that.
Bones began jogging again .
“You think he meant it?”
A nod. “I do.”
We rounded the last corner to the Eagle’s Nest, loaded into the ski lift, closed the door, and began the ride down while Bones pulled on a KUIU down puffer so he didn’t cool off too quickly. He sat opposite me, barely breathing, staring off into the horizon. When he spoke, he did so beneath the surface. “It’s what we fight for.”
We rode down in silence as the weight of his words hit me. I didn’t believe Frank capable of love, yet Bones had. All along. He had never quit believing. The picture focused. Bones had walked back down into hell, out across the battlefield, to rescue the one dumb sheep that got itself lost. And when he found it, he put it on his shoulders and walked it home. Bones had done that. He’d done that with his brother. He’d done it with Frank.
My back was sore from the recent ink: Maria, Francisca, Margarida, Ruth, Sadie, Miriam . For each of them, I wondered how long before their love returned. Their hope. Their willingness to trust. They were young, and I was hopeful, so I felt strongly that it would. I just didn’t know when. In some ways, it already had. As we descended out of the clouds, I sat and studied Ezekiel Walker. My friend. Bones. There in that thin air, I saw what I’d not expected again: my mentor taking me back to school. One more time.
“Bones?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Not dying.”
He chuckled. “Not sure I had much to do with that.”
“You sure I can’t convince you to let me go solo on this one, and you spend the evening at the Eagle’s Nest?”
Bones considered this. A minute passed. “Maybe I could take a later flight. Join you when you’ve reconned and put a plan in place.”
I smiled. “You gonna get down on one knee? Girls like it when you do that stuff.”
Bones sucked through his teeth and raised an eyebrow. “Don’t know. Honestly, I’m not sure I know how to ask a nun not to be a nun anymore.”
“Maybe you should just start by taking her by the hand and asking her to go for a walk, or ride, up this mountain.”
“Good idea.”
“But don’t forget the wine.”
He did not look amused. “Believe it or not, unlike you, I do have a romantic bone in my body.”
“Why is everyone always accusing me of not knowing diddly about romance? For the record, I do write love stories for a living.”
“Yeah, about that.”
“What about it?”
“Summer says it’s her favorite. Your best yet. Read it in one sitting.”
“She says that about all of them.”
“What’s it called?”
I smiled. “ The Piece Keeper .”
His lip curled. “That’s a dumb name. Why’d you call it that?”
“Because when my world shattered and I couldn’t hold all the pieces scattered about the floor, I found that Summer could. Piece by piece, she put me back together.”
“Okay, maybe it’s not such a dumb title.”
“And because when I look across Freetown, I see all that was once lost now restored. Returned. Made whole. I see the smiles. I hear the laughter. I realize you did that. You dreamed it. You hoped it. You risked everything for it. You took all the broken pieces and crafted a mosaic we call Freetown.”
He sat quietly a second. “You should definitely keep that title. It’s a good title.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
We reached the landing, unloaded, and found Clay sitting in the truck with the engine running, waiting to ferry us to the runway. Any minute spent saying goodbye to Summer was a minute spent not trying to find Ariel’s daughter. The clock was ticking. I’d have to call her from the air and rain-check date night. We jumped in, and Clay rushed us to the basement where we loaded gear and then to the tarmac where the plane sat waiting. With one addition. Summer stood there zipped up in a puffer, bracing herself against the cold.
Summer stood between me and the plane. I tried to explain. “I was gonna call.”
She nodded as the pilots finished their pre-check. “Two things.”
I nodded. Waiting.
She looked up at me. “Find her. Do whatever, and I do mean whatever, it takes.”
I studied her. Summer. Once again standing on the wall. Taking all comers.
She shook her head once. “Don’t take any foolishness off anybody. If they bow up, knock ’em down.”
The jets sounded. I nodded. I had a good idea what she’d say next, but I just loved hearing her say it. “And two?”
She placed one palm flat across my heart, the other flat across my cheek. “Murphy Shepherd?” I could feel her breath on my face. Her eyes were bright. Full of light. “I need you to bring David Bishop home... because he’s the keeper of my heart.”
Then she kissed me, and I boarded the plane.
To find the one. And bring her home. Back to the ninety-nine.
And the Shepherd.