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It was easy to find; everything else in the duffel was clothing. The case felt as though it was full of sand. Valentine lifted it with an effort.
"Open it," Post said.
Valentine saw reams of paper inside. It was like a miniature file cabinet. Three manila folders filled it, marked (in order of thickness, most to least) "Queries/Replies," "Descriptions," and "Evidence." Valentine caught an inky whiff of photocopier chemicals.
Valentine had a good guess about the contents of the briefcase. Post had been looking for his ex-wife almost from the moment they stepped into the Ozarks. Valentine knew the details; Post had talked about her now and then when the mood hit, since the time Valentine met him while posing as a Quisling officer on the old Thunderbolt. William Post and Gail Foster had grown up in the Kurian Zone and married young. He joined the Quisling Coastal Marines, became an officer, fought and worked for the Kurians, in an effort to give them a better life. But the man she thought she'd married was no collaborator. As Post's career flourished their marriage dissolved. Gail Post became convinced he'd gone over to the enemy, and left. They'd always talked of trying to make it to the Ozark Free Territory, so Post assumed she'd come here.
Valentine opened the folio marked "Descriptions" with his forefinger. Mimeographed sheets headed MISSING-REWARD had a two-tone picture of a fair young woman with wide-set eyes, photographed full-face and profile. Perhaps her lips were a little too thin for her to be considered a great beauty, but then Kurian Zone identification photographs rarely flattered.
Post was a dedicated correspondent. Valentine guessed there had to be two hundred letters and responses paper-clipped together.
"There's three sheets on top of the Evidence folder. Take them out, will you Dave?" Post said. His head sank back on the pillow as though the effort of speaking had emptied him.
Valentine knew wounds and pain. He took out the pages-bad photocopies, stamped with multiple release signatures-and waited.
"I found her name. She was here."
"That's a damn miracle," Valentine said.
Post nodded. "I had help. Several new organizations were set up after you guys got the Ozarks back to reunite families. Then there was still the Lueber Alliance."
Valentine had learned about LA his first year in the Ozarks. Better than forty years old, it collected information on people lost in the Kurian Zone. Rumor had it the names numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
"Lueber found that first list for me," Post continued.
The page had a list of names, a shipping manifest with train car allocations-thirty to a car, relatively comfortable transport by Kurian standards.
Valentine didn't see a destination for the list. He flipped to the next page.
"That's just an old census. Showed she lived near Pine Bluff before Solon's takeover. Also Leuber."
Valentine had gone to a war college in Pine Bluff when the commander of Zulu Company offered him a position as lieutenant. He looked at the picture again, trying to associate it with a memory from the town. Nothing.
The third page was the strangest of all. It was a photocopy of a list, and the names were handwritten. Fifty names, numbered 401 to 450. TESTING STATION 9-P was the legend up at the top. Gail's name was in the middle, along with her age. His eyes found it quickly thanks to an X in the column marked "result." All the other names had blanks in the "result" column. Someone had handwritten "She's gone for good" at the top corner, though whether this was a note to Post or not none could say.
"What's this?"
"That's the oddball. Got it about a month ago. It came in an envelope with just my address on it."
Valentine looked at the attached envelope. Post must have received it just before they moved into the Love Field positions. Valentine could remember a change in Post, a resignation, but had attributed it to the strain of the siege.
He examined the document's envelope. Typewritten, obviously with a manual typewriter. Valentine deciphered the stamp-Pine Bluff again. But the post number wasn't the one for the war college. The Miskatonic? The researchers there studied the Kurian Order, probing unpleasant shadows and gruesome corners.
"No cover letter?"
"Nothing."
"How can I help?"
Post took a moment, either to gather thoughts or breathe. "You know people. The"-he lowered his voice, as though fearing comment from the blind man in the next bed-"Lifeweavers. Those researchers. Intelligence. I'd like to know what happened to her after she was taken. No matter how bad the news."
People herded onto trains seldom came to a happy end. Valentine had been in Solon's meetings, heard about "payments" in the form of captives going to the neighboring KZs. "You sure? Maybe you don't."
"She's still alive in my head," Post said.
"Exactly."
Post's lined eyes regained some of their old liveliness. "No, not that way. I always knew she was alive, even when I thought you were just another CM. Can't say how I know. A feeling. I still feel it. You know about feelings like that."
