Echoes

Chapter 6

Two days later, the Captain popped his head in the door, to say he had some information. Leah tried to contain her emotions as he grabbed himself a cuppa and sat down. "Spoke to my buddy. This Lieutenant Ghost is a bit of a hard one to pin down" he said bluntly. 

"Not surprising with some of these spec ops. Anyway, he said the mission reports are heavily redacted, so no Ghost mentioned. But, one of his guys said his unit had support from a couple of SAS operatives about six weeks back. He remembered a Lieutenant Ghost. Big guy, skull mask, pretty terrifying" he explained.

Leah felt her heart jolt at hearing the description, and listened eagerly as he continued "A local terrorist cell had planted explosives in two residential blocks and they'd been sent in to clear the buildings of civilians. All he knows is that one device was defused, but the other detonated. He wasn't aware of any spec ops being KIA, but he did remember the SAS Captain, Price, he said his name was, called for an emergency medical evac"

Leah frowned at the information getting so close to what she wanted to know, but missing the vital details "Wouldn't they have reported a special forces operative killed in action, in the mission debrief?" she asked feeling confused.

"Not if they left the field of combat still breathing. Chances are, the lieutenant was seriously injured and taken for treatment, but later died of his injuries. That would explain why he wouldn't be listed as KIA as part of that mission" he explained.

Leah nodded, trying to calm the multitude of frantic questions that were forming in her mind. "So there'd be no way to trace where he was taken or where he was buried?" Leah queried feeling dejected.

"The nearest functioning base with a hospital is over the border. Best bet would be to find Captain Price and ask him directly. Sorry I couldn't get you more answers Leah" he concluded.

"No, thank you for checking it out for me. I'll see what else I can find" Leah commented.

Although Leah was disappointed at not finding what she really needed to know, Captain Jacobs had at least been able to confirm some of the details that Simon had told her. Her heart felt heavy as she thought about him being trapped in the explosion and having to be air lifted out and she hoped that he hadn't suffered in his final moments. Deciding to explore more options, Leah checked through what databases she had access to from her office, and immediately started running searches on Lieutenant Ghost.

Unsurprisingly, after an hour, her search had come up with nothing. She smirked at the irony "I'm expecting to find a Ghost in the records. He said he didn't exist" she whispered with a dry laugh. With most of her work complete for the day, she decided to go ahead and run a search on Captain Price, figuring, that if he was Simon's Captain, then it may lead her to other areas to investigate.

Contrary to Ghost, the Captain was recorded in the database for several entries. He was mentioned in several mission briefings and even on some training schedules, which got her thinking out of the box. She had access to the military transport database, so wondered if she could pinpoint where Captain Price was usually located and start searching from there. Running his name through military transport, she was met with numerous entries. "Well the Captain certainly gets around" she murmured, feeling a glimmer of hope.

Starting the process of reading through some of the transport logs, Leah noticed that the Captain had made the majority of his journeys through a base on the Texas border. Making her wonder if it might be his and Simon's home base. Trying to think of a way to narrow down her search, she filtered her results to Medical flights only.