21

Mars sat in the living room with the lights out for a long time after Jim Baker left.

More than he had been prepared to admit to Baker, he agreed that what had happened to Baker in Vietnam was relevant to what had happened to Andrea Bergstad. At the perimeters of Mars’s consciousness was a vague awareness of talk about Campbell being a ladies’ man. What he couldn’t remember hearing was anything specific about young girls.

If they had been able to prove that it was possible for Campbell to be in Redstone on that October night in 1984, Mars would have felt like they’d scored a direct hit in making the connection. Instead, what they had was what sounded like conclusive evidence that Campbell was not in Redstone on that night.

Mars decided to put conclusive evidence on hold and think about motives. In October of 1984, Alan Campbell was one political season away from becoming the junior senator from Minnesota. Why the hell would he get himself involved in abducting a teenage girl?

The answer to that question seemed simple. The teenage girl had become a problem for Campbell.

She was talking about her relationship with Campbell.

Mars thought about that. It didn’t really work. If Andrea Bergstad had talked about her relationship with Campbell, that would have surfaced before now. And, if Andrea Bergstad had talked about her relationship with Campbell, abducting her would be the last thing you’d want to do. It would just complicate Campbell’s involvement when the abduction was investigated.

Maybe Andrea Bergstad had started to put pressure on Campbell. Maybe the romance was wearing off, and Campbell wanted to take preemptive action to end the relationship in a way that would prevent her being a problem in the future.

That made more sense. But it didn’t answer the question of how Campbell could have been in Redstone at the same time he was eating beans with Republicans in Duluth.

Mars got up and walked back out to the terrace, taking comfort from the warm, humid air. He stared out at the city, appreciating the sight of the City Hall clock tower. He’d loved working in that building, even if the people and politics he’d shared that space with had made it impossible for him to stay at the Minneapolis Police Department.

He thought back to Jim Baker’s thirty-two-year-old story. A story that had seemed remote, unconnected, to Mars’s nineteen-year-old story. Now he was certain the two stories were connected. If he just could find a way to do it.

Severe dark, Mars thought, recalling Baker’s words. A situation of utter darkness. A situation that left you adrift, mentally, physically, emotionally.

“I can relate to that,” Mars said out loud. The extraordinary thing about this case was that understanding what had happened thirty-two years ago, nineteen years ago, kept slipping further out of reach the more they knew.

“I’m missing something,” Mars said out loud.

That was obvious. But what Mars meant was that he could feel that he was missing something. That meant the thing he was missing was within reach. It was there. It was something he already knew, that he hadn’t yet connected. He just needed to concentrate.

Concentrating didn’t happen. He was tired, his brain was still permeated by Baker’s story. So he gave up trying to force the missing connection. Instead he thought about the first thing he needed to do tomorrow.

That, at least, was easy.

He needed to drive down to Redstone and talk to Sig Sampson. They needed, the two of them, to sit in Sig’s cool, dark den and bang heads over what Sig knew about Alan Campbell and Andrea Bergstad. They needed to …

The connection came. Just like that. It came from the image of Sig Sampson, sitting in his den, fingering the .308 cartridge.

The image burned the fatigue off Mars’s brain like a flash fire.

He went into Chris’s room and turned on the computer. Then he did a Google search on “Marine Sniper” and “Ammunition.”

It took scrolling through the first two entries to find what he wanted to know. “This,” Mars said, “is getting to be the case that Google got.”

There was no way he was going to bed now.

He looked at his watch. Nearly 2:00 A.M. Three hours to drive to Redstone. That would get him there too early, but it was better than staying here, pacing the floor.

Remembering that he’d told Nettie he’d be at the office by seven, he called her office phone and left a message. Then he took the elevator down to the garage.

He was on the road to Redstone before 2:30 A.M.