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HE GRABBED A STRANGER IN THE DESERT, NEVER REALIZING WHO WAS WATCHING HIM

Chapter 2

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Tears rolled down his weathered cheeks.“I buried an empty coffin because they wouldn't even let me see his body.”Daniel's face tightened.The old man continued.“They told me he was a hero. They gave me a flag. They shook my hand. They told me I should be proud.”He let out a broken laugh.“And then they sent me home to an empty house.”Daniel lowered his eyes.“I know.”“No,” the old man said. “You don't know.”He stepped closer.“You don't know what it feels like to sit at a kitchen table with two cups of coffee because you spent forty years making breakfast for someone who will never come home.”Daniel's eyes filled with tears.The officer beside them slowly lowered his hand from his radio.The old man noticed Daniel's expression and whispered the question he had carried for more than a decade.“Did my son die alone?”Daniel looked at him.And the answer nearly destroyed him.“No,” he said. “He didn't.”The elderly man covered his mouth.Daniel swallowed hard.“He wasn't alone.”The old man began to cry.For a long time, neither man spoke.Then Daniel reached beneath his shirt and removed the identification tag.He held it in his palm.“This belonged to Michael,” he said. “He gave it to me during the last night we spent together.”The old man stared at the tag.“Why would he give it to you?”Daniel's voice became almost inaudible.“Because he knew I was going to survive.”The elderly man shook his head.“Tell me everything.”Daniel looked toward the transport vehicles, where several soldiers were waiting beside a row of equipment cases.Then he looked back at the man standing before him.“My name really is Daniel Carter,” he said. “But I was not born with that name.”The old man's expression changed.Daniel continued.“Michael was my older brother.”The world seemed to stop.The elderly man stumbled backward.“No.”Daniel's eyes filled with tears.“Yes.”“No. I had one son.”“You had two.”The old man stared at him as if the ground beneath his feet had disappeared.Daniel took a trembling breath.“My mother died when I was very young. After that, my father raised us alone. He was a military man, and he believed that weakness was something a person should be ashamed of.”He paused.“He was wrong about a lot of things.”The old man looked away, struggling to understand.“My father was killed in an accident when I was seventeen. Michael was twenty-one. He was already serving, and I was the one left behind.”Daniel's voice grew rough.“He used to call me every Sunday. Even when he was exhausted, even when he was deployed somewhere he couldn't tell me about, he called.”A faint, painful smile crossed his face.“He always asked whether I was eating properly. Whether I was studying. Whether I had enough money. He would tell me to stop worrying about the future and take care of the things in front of me.”Daniel looked at the old man's hands.“Then, one Sunday, the phone didn't ring.”The elderly man stood motionless.“The military informed our family that Michael had died during an operation. They told me almost nothing. I was young, angry, and convinced that someone had made a mistake.”Daniel swallowed.“I spent years trying to find out what had happened. Eventually, I enlisted.”The old man's eyes widened.“You joined the military because of him?”Daniel nodded.“I thought if I learned how things worked, I might find the truth.”He looked down at the identification tag again.“I found more than I wanted to know.”The old man whispered, “What truth?”Daniel did not answer immediately.Instead, he asked a question of his own.“Did Michael ever tell you about a mission that went wrong near the northern border?”The elderly man's face went still.“No.”“Did anyone from his unit ever visit you?”“One man came to the house,” the old man said slowly. “A young officer. He told me Michael had saved several men before he died.”Daniel nodded.“That part was true.”The old man waited.“But there was more,” Daniel continued. “Michael's unit had been ordered to escort a convoy through a remote area. The information they received said the road was secure.”His hands curled into fists.“It wasn't.”The old man stared at him.“The convoy came under attack. Communication failed. The unit was separated, and several soldiers were trapped behind damaged vehicles.”Daniel's voice became quieter.“Michael was one of the men who could have escaped.”The elderly man shook his head.“He wouldn't have left anyone behind.”“No,” Daniel said. “He wouldn't.”A gust of wind carried dust between them.“Michael went back for a wounded soldier. Then he went back for another. By the time he reached the last man, the route out was almost completely blocked.”
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HE GRABBED A STRANGER IN THE DESERT, NEVER REALIZING WHO WAS WATCHING HIM

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