Page 156 of The 9th Man

“It did.”

Jillian Stein had assured him Daniels would appear, and come he did. She’d also made clear that she could handle him.

But he wasn’t so sure.

“How did you two connect?” Daniels asked Stein.

“One of those fortuitous events,” Rowland said. “For us both.”

“Benji called,” Jillian said. “After all the years, all the negativity, he finally needed me. He and I hadn’t spoken in years. He despised me for quitting the army. He wanted it to be my career. Like him. Me? Not so much. Too little pay for too many risks. So I got out and he disowned me. I needed his help a few years ago, and he told me to stick it. But when he was dying, and there was nobody else, the old fool called me. I was all the family he had left.”

“Lucky for him,” Daniels added.

“Lucky for me, actually,” she said. “At least that’s the way I looked at it. When I got to him, he was pretty apologetic. He wanted to make amends. He told me all about what he and Simmons were doing. What they’d discovered. What they were planning with a book that had been sold to a publisher. He told me about Eckstein and Thomas Rowland. I called some friends still in the military, who made some calls, who found out that Mr. Rowland was an important man. I figured he might be interested in what was coming his way.”

“And I was,” Rowland said. “Most interested. By then Stein and Simmons had made contact with me for a comment on their book. When Ms. Stein found me, I was able to cultivate a friend on the inside.”

“But only Simmons knew where to find Eckstein. That missing link out there had to be closed.”

“Quite right. And we used you to help make that happen,” Rowland pointed out.

“I have to admit,” Jillian said. “You’ve changed from back in Hawaii. I thought you were still that happy-go-lucky Ranger who managed to land a job in the intelligence business thanks to your president-uncle. But you’re different. More focused. More intense.”

“And you’re not the same person I knew in Hawaii. Pathological. Psychotic. A murderer. I grossly underestimated your fallacies. I apologize.”

“Always the perfect gentleman. Seems I’m the one who got the better of you.”

“If that’s the way you see it.”

She smirked. “Care to enlighten me?”

Daniels pointed Rowland’s way. “You never figured Jack Talley would turn on you, did you?”

“I was genuinely surprised by that, and it changed things drastically. Thankfully, with Ms. Stein in place, Jack’s duplicity was not a problem. She ended his employment. Permanently. And, as you know, she also took down David Eckstein.”

“But you both missed the most important part.”

Really? “Do tell,” Rowland said.

“There’s a book. A completed manuscript. A nice neat package with everything in one place. Eckstein told us about it.”

“I must admit,” Rowland said, “I would have preferred to have that in my possession. If it surfaces, my lawyers will deal with it. Even if the book makes it to publication, it will be shelved with the hundreds of others that all have postulated the so-called truth behind the Kennedy assassination. Yes, there will be a momentary blip in public relations. But it will pass and be forgotten as unproven speculation. The kind of thing you might see on the Discovery Channel for entertainment. Not in the history books as fact.”

“With a little disinformation campaign thrown in to discredit all involved. Right?” Daniels asked.

“Of course. That always helps. People today love to believe the worst about others. Such a sad state of affairs.”

“The problem,” Daniels said, “is this is not like all those other theories. Far from it, in fact. That book has some solid forensics to go along with the science and math, which all point straight at you. So does the photographic evidence. Straight to you.”

“There are no photos,” Rowland said.

“But there are. You know three photos are missing from the national archives. I suspect you, or your father, had them purged long ago. But I found the originals. Less than two days ago I was sitting at a kitchen table, talking to the person who took them. A person who vividly remembers that day. I have those three photos.”

“You’re a liar.”

Daniels slowly reached back, found his phone, and tapped. The younger man then displayed the screen for him to see.

Oh, God. They did still exist.