Free I Minus 72 by Don Tompkins

filing intelligence reports. I
was back in town for a review and had the list in my office safe.
He borrowed the list from me and when he didn’t return it within
the hour, I asked him where it was. He said something about
probably leaving it in the file folder he had returned to admin.
Wasn’t really a big deal because everyone in admin was cleared, but
I didn’t want any list of people I controlled lying around, even if
was only a partial list. I went to pick it up and the admin officer
pulled it out and gave it to me. He must have inserted the note
about it being removed. Is there a name on the note?”
    Sam was so excited she almost shouted.
“Grant, it‘s signed, LTJG T.R. Mason.”
    “Bingo! Okay, thanks. Great work. Gotta go .
. . I’ll call you on the way back.” Sam was working out great, he
thought, a big help.
    Even though he sat in the President-elect’s
office while using the secure phone, he was startled when a voice
behind him said: “Colonel, it’s good to see you again. You haven’t
changed too much; hair a little grayer, less of it.” Mason
chuckled.
    Thurmond stood up and moved from behind the
President-elect’s desk. “It’s good to see you, too, sir. Thanks for
making time for me.” They both smiled as they shook hands.
    “I assume this is about the subject that
brought you back on active duty?” Mason asked.
    “Yes, sir. I just need a few minutes of your
time.”
    The President-elect sat down and motioned
for Grant to do the same. “Time is something I have very little of
these days. I’m really sorry, but I can only spare you fifteen
minutes, one of which we’ve already used up. By the way, hope you
don’t mind my eating a sandwich while we talk. The only time I have
to eat during the day is to squeeze meals in between meetings.
Wonder if it will get any better when I’m President?”
    Grant, not wanting to waste any more time,
leaned forward, placed his hands on his knees and got right to it.
“Sir, I just received some information that may help us keep this
short. During the time when you were admin officer for the DIA
department, I picked up a list of names from you that had
inadvertently been left in a file folder. The person in my group
who reviewed the list used it as a bookmark and forgot to remove it
when he returned the folder to admin. After I picked it up, you
made a notation in the file folder saying the list had been
permanently removed.”
    “Yeah, it makes sense that I would. It was
standard procedure. I can’t say that I remember the actual
incident, though. Hmmm. Wait a minute, I do remember something
about that. It was highly unusual for anyone to permanently remove
anything from the file folders. Our process was to count every page
both when a folder was checked out and when it was returned. Any
differences would be noted on the inside front of the file folder.
I can’t recall if there was any notation of the folder containing
an extra page when it was returned. Do you remember who checked the
folder back in? Was it me? Each folder should have a list of the
names of both the person who checked it out and in and the admin
duty officer who gave it to them and then received it back from
them.”
    “Sir, I don’t have a clue who checked it in.
I have the file now, though, so I can look to see if anything was
noted. I’ll do that as soon as I get back.”
    “Colonel, you should know that, uh, there
were times when the files were merely looked through to see if we
could spot any pages out of order and every page wasn’t always
counted. That was strictly against policy, but, in the rush of
things, it happened sometimes. That may have happened in this case.
Damn, I sure hope I wasn’t the one who checked it back in,” Mason
said shaking his head slightly.
    “Sir, the important thing now is that we may
know why your name was on that piece of paper they found near one
of the bodies. We have to assume that someone on that list knew you
saw his name. Did you