The Deadline (29 page)

He touched Gilmartin’s cold hand.

He was gone.

Neeley Gilmartin died on a Wednesday, having never awakened again.

That afternoon, Morgan took the old man’s money and paid his hospital bill.  What was left, a little more than seventeen thousand dollars, he put in an envelope for Celestina and her fatherless children.

Morgan had arranged for a military burial at the Black Hills National Cemetery, not far from the long-gone railroad town where Gilmartin had been born seventy-three years before.  A Navy honor guard escorted the old man to his grave among the orderly ranks of white headstones, and fired a salute while a bugler sounded taps.  A Navy captain gave Claire the freshly folded flag and she hugged it tightly.

Kate Morning wiped away her tears and put a garland of yellow tickseed on Gilmartin’s casket.

High above them, a red-tailed hawk circled against the azure sky, riding a column of rising warm air.

Free.

Note to the Reader

The USS Terror (CM-5) was an authentic American warship in the Pacific Theater during World War II.  In the smoky dawn hours of May 1, 1945, off Kerama Retto, a Japanese kamikaze slipped through the minelayer’s defenses and crashed into the communications deck. Its two bombs exploded after impact, killing 41 and wounding 123.  To this day, seven sailors are missing in action from the May Day attack, according to the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (Navy Department).  In 1971, the USS Terror, winner of four battle stars in World War II, was sold for scrap.