After Finn left his office Lew thought about what Master Chief Jackson had said that morning. Just a man. And we’re gonna find him.
Maybe so, thought Lew as he woke up his computer. But his own quarry—the childhood version of Finn X—was proving difficult to track down. He had not heard back from Harry Holbrook, the old psychiatrist at Great Lakes, who apparently was still on his fishing trip. And even Indy had not yet been able to unearth anything further about the man’s pre-military background.
Lew figured it was time to go on a fishing trip of his own.
Unlike the rank and file of the Lincoln’s population, key personnel in medical had access to the ship’s dedicated high-speed Internet service, which enabled them to conduct efficient online research on medical, pharmaceutical, and other topics.
Lew began looking.
No last name. No arrests, no police record. No known hospital stays or prior medical records. Schooling unknown.
Lew thought back over what Van Ness had said.
Drug kingpins. Chinese mafia.
He began combing the San Diego newspaper archives for pieces on the street trade, starting a few years before Finn enlisted. For the next hour, he kept reading, finding nothing.
Then, a story. A sixteen-year-old, arrested in connection with a DEA raid on a known Triad connection. In a sidebar titled “Teens on the Docks” the writer mentioned a few of the kid’s associates, including another sixteen-year-old who went by “F/X.”
The Hollywood term for “special effects.” Classic SoCal nickname.
He looked back at Jackson’s notes from his original interviews. His observation about how the SEAL had replayed that altercation he’d witnessed outside Shiflin’s ready room with such startling precision. An uncanny skill of mimicry. Special effects. It fit him.
F/X.
Finn X.
For the next two hours he searched every archive, every database, every story on the drug wars or life on the docks or troubled teens that he could find for references to a kid going by the tag F/X.
Not counting the Triad-related drug bust story, he found exactly three.
First up was a story about the shady goings-on alleged to be taking place on several Santa Catalina Island boat tours. According to that piece his quarry had done an eight-month stint at age fifteen on a dive boat called “the Frieda.” No details.
The second was another drug-related story that mentioned that same teenage associate. This one provided no new information, but it did at least offer independent confirmation that this kid had existed.
The third was a puff piece about a summer swim contest for youngsters. One of the day’s races was won by a thirteen-year-old identified in the story as “going by the name F/X.”
This story had photos.
Lew manipulated the browser, enlarging the window in an effort to see the boy more clearly. The crude, pixilated quality of the scanned newsprint didn’t help.
He sat back in his chair and squinted at the image.
Chief Finn at thirteen?
Possibly.
He copied the photo and pasted it into a separate file, then sat back to think.
As far as he could tell the trail went cold at that point. He’d found no trace of the boy before that swim race at thirteen. Not in Southern California anyway. It was as if he’d dropped out of the sky at the age of thirteen.
He sat back again and thought about the SEAL’s odd reaction to the Line Crossing ritual up on the flight deck.
“Where did you come from, F/X?” he murmured. “And what happened to you?”