‘And what happened?’ Reacher asked.
There was a long moment of silence.
‘He didn’t come back,’ Hobie said.
The silence was like a weight in the room. Somewhere a clock was ticking. It grew louder and louder until it was filling the air like blows from a hammer.
‘It destroyed me,’ Hobie said quietly.
The oxygen wheezed in and out, in and out, through a constricted throat.
‘It just destroyed me. I used to say I’ll exchange the whole rest of my life, just for one more day with him.’
‘The rest of my life,’ his wife echoed. ‘For just one more day with him.’
‘And I meant it,’ Hobie said. ‘And I still would. I still would, Major. Looking at me now, that’s not much of a bargain, is it? I haven’t got much life left in me. But I said it then, and I said it every day for thirty years, and as God is my witness, I meant it every single time I said it. The whole rest of my life, for one more day with him.’
‘When was he killed?’ Reacher asked, gently.
‘He wasn’t killed,’ Hobie said. ‘He was captured.’
‘Taken prisoner?’
The old man nodded. ‘At first, they told us he was missing. We assumed he was dead, but we clung on, hoping. He was posted missing, and he stayed missing. We never got official word he was killed.’
‘So we waited,’ Mrs Hobie said. ‘We just kept on waiting, for years and years. Then we started asking. They told us Victor was missing, presumed killed. That was all they could say. His helicopter was shot down in the jungle, and they never found the wreckage.’
‘We accepted that then,’ Hobie said. ‘We knew how it was. Plenty of boys died without a known grave. Plenty of boys always have, in war.’
‘Then the memorial went up,’ Mrs Hobie said. ‘Have you seen it?’
‘The Wall?’ Reacher said. ‘In DC? Yes, I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. I found it very moving.’
‘They refused to put his name on it,’ Hobie said.
‘Why?’
‘They never explained. We asked and we begged, but they never told us exactly why. They just said he’s no longer considered a casualty.’
‘So we asked them what he is considered as,’ Mrs Hobie said. ‘They just told us missing in action.’
‘But the other MIAs are on the Wall,’ Hobie said.
There was silence again. The clock hammered away in another room.
‘What did General Garber say about this?’ Reacher asked.
‘He didn’t understand it,’ Hobie said. ‘Didn’t understand it at all. He was still checking for us when he died.’
There was silence again. The oxygen hissed and the clock hammered.
‘But we know what happened,’ Mrs Hobie said.
‘You do?’ Reacher asked her. ‘What?’
‘The only thing that fits,’ she said. ‘He was taken prisoner.’
‘And never released,’ Hobie said.
‘That’s why the Army is covering it up,’ Mrs Hobie said. ‘The government is embarrassed about it. The truth is some of our boys were never released. The Vietnamese held on to them, like hostages, to get foreign aid and trade recognition and credits from us, after the war. Like blackmail. The government held out for years, despite our boys still being prisoners over there. So they can’t admit it. They hide it instead, and won’t talk about it.’
‘But we can prove it now,’ Hobie said.
He slid another photograph from the folder. Passed it across. It was a newer print. Vivid glossy colours. It was a telephoto shot taken through tropical vegetation. There was barbed wire on bamboo fence posts. There was an Asian figure in a brown uniform, with a bandanna around his forehead. A rifle in his hands. It was clearly a Soviet AK-47. No doubt about it. And there was another figure in the picture. A tall Caucasian, looking about fifty, emaciated, gaunt, bent, grey, wearing pale rotted fatigues. Looking half away from the Asian soldier, flinching.
‘That’s Victor,’ Mrs Hobie said. ‘That’s our son. That photograph was taken last year.’
‘We spent thirty years asking about him,’ Hobie said. ‘Nobody would help us. We asked everybody. Then we found a man who told us about these secret camps. There aren’t many. Just a few, with a handful