Page 141 of Rangers Last Promise

Hampton looks toward the mirror again.

Tate's SUV is closer.

So is Wolf.

“You were one of the seventeen contractors.”

“No.”

“We found the personnel sheet.”

“Then you found what they wanted investigators to find.”

“Your name was on it.”

“So were sixteen others.”

“Who were they?”

“Most of them didn't exist.”

Twenty-three never existed.

Now people don't exist either.

I'm beginning to hate numbers.

“How many were real?”

“Six.”

“Who?”

“Hampton. Miller. Three private contractors. And a man named Daniel Kane.”

The name hits me.

“Kane?”

Hampton looks at me.

“You remember him.”

Of course I remember him.

Grant’s journal.

Kane is going to get us all court-martialed if he doesn't stop running his mouth. Wolf nearly punched him tonight. Trigger took bets.

“Kane was a Ranger.”

“On paper.”

Cold spreads through me.

“What does that mean?”

“He was placed in your unit six months before the ambush.”