Page 140 of Rangers Last Promise

“What place?”

“Site Seventeen.”

My pulse changes.

“Seventeen was a file.”

“It was both.”

Of course it was.

“Explain.”

Hampton drives through a gap in the fence and onto the service road.

The truck fishtails before the tires catch.

“Operation Twenty-Three created File Seventeen. The physical records were moved to a temporary storage site after the operation was shut down.”

“Why?”

“To make them disappear.”

“Who ordered it?”

“People far above Fred Miller.”

“Names.”

“You always were impatient.”

“And you always talked too much without saying anything.”

Hampton almost smiles.

“Grant used to say that.”

“Don't.”

His expression changes.

“You think you're the only one who lost him?”

I turn toward him.

“You helped send us into that valley.”

“I tried to stop it.”

“That's not what Miller said.”

“Fred Miller spent fifteen years hiding because he followed an order he knew was wrong.”

“And you?”

“I spent fifteen years staying alive because I refused one.”

That silences me.