Airtight by David Rosenfelt Page B

officers and others he encountered during his military career.
    The service record itself was scary, as much because of what it didn’t say as what it did. There were large gaps that did not detail where he was or what he was doing for months at a time. Instead the only listings during these periods categorized him as being TAD, which I knew to mean Temporarily Assigned Duty.
    Having served in the military myself, I had no doubt what this really meant, and the dates confirmed it. He was Black Ops, meaning he was put into both Iraq and Afghanistan before we entered those countries. They would have been mostly reconnaissance missions, to prepare for our full-scale military entrance.
    While Black Ops are there to scout the enemy, terrain, etc., they are quite prepared to engage any hostile forces they might meet. If they are captured, the US Government will not acknowledge their existence, which in and of itself is not that significant, since they would certainly be killed anyway.
    Suffice it to say that our government uses very few wimps for these missions. They send the toughest of the tough, the most well-trained, disciplined soldiers we have. That was who Chris Gallagher was, and that was who Bryan and I were up against. And if Iraq and Afghanistan did not prove daunting for him, it was unlikely that New Jersey would fill him with fear.
    Gallagher joined the Marines at the age of twenty-three, and was trained as a communications and electronics expert. Eighteen months later he applied for Force Recon status, which involves training in everything from parachute jumping to underwater demolition to enhanced combat techniques in extraordinarily difficult conditions.
    His psychological evaluations seemed unremarkable, though they were filled with words like “resolute,” “determined,” and “purposeful.” The only relative he listed or apparently ever mentioned was his brother, Steven. Their parents were long deceased.
    Nothing about Gallagher, or anyone else for that matter, frightened me physically. I think I was born without the “personal danger” gene; I just never get fearful about my own physical safety. It’s not necessarily a good quality for a cop.
    Physical fear is as important as physical pain. People who can’t feel pain aren’t able to be protective; for instance, their skin could be being burned and they might not know it. In a similar fashion, fear acts to help one avoid dangerous situations, and my lack of fear is a negative for that reason. I don’t instinctively avoid danger; instead I must force my mind to be logical about it.
    But I can feel fear for others, and I was feeling it big-time for Bryan. He always had the fear gene; we were very different in that way. He once confessed to me that it was a major reason why he didn’t follow me and my father into police work. And at the moment he had to be really, really scared of what was going to happen, so I was scared on his behalf.
    One of the most disappointing things about the information Julie had given me on Gallagher was his lack of connections to anyone but his brother. I had hoped for friends, or other relatives, who he might be in contact with. They might have led me to Bryan; they might even have been helping to keep him captive. But at least for the moment, that avenue was closed.
    I decided to focus on something more upbeat, though pretty much anything would have qualified. I again dove into the Appeals Court cases, since I needed to pick one to focus on. I wasn’t necessarily looking for the one most likely to tie in to the Brennan murder, but rather the one I could make Gallagher believe. They might have been one and the same, but maybe not.
    I narrowed it down to two possibilities, and then chose the one that made the most sense. It was a case in which the town of Brayton was suing to prevent a company from doing something called fracking on land adjacent to the town. Fracking, which was the extrication of natural gas from shale, was