Flower Girl: A Burton Family Mystery Read Free

done just that."
    I did not flinch. I was thinking that Reddy may have met a worse end.
    Agent Newsome continued, "Four months ago Burton failed to check in after his last assignment and he's been officially declared to be off the reservation. No one, and I mean no one, seems to know where he is or even if he’s still alive."
    There, he said it, maybe Reddy is hurt or worse, dead.
    "He’s gone rogue," Agent Rapier said. "He vanished from our radar after being assigned to several covert assignments. Normally we don’t reveal these details about our agents, but he recently listed you as his beneficiary on his personnel docs and retrieving Burton and making sure he is OK  is a high priority. He is a valuable asset."
    It struck me as careless of Reddy to reveal to the government that he had a daughter. He is so secretive about his comings and goings.
    However, I let it drop, asking instead, "Tell me how he's a valuable asset. I don't even know where he lives. He hasn't been here for months. If I hear from him, I'll tell him you dropped by and inquired about his whereabouts."
    "Thanks," Agent Newsome replied. "Actually, we also have a second objective. We’re here to recruit you. Frankly, we’re having this discussion with you to let you know we are sincere in an offer we are about to make to you, recovering Agent Burton would be a bonus."
    The words asset and recovering seemed very cold to me. Agent Newhouse cut into my thoughts, saying, "Let me tell you why we value Agent Burton and then I will get to that offer I just mentioned."
    Richard Francis Burton was raised on a mixture of Catholic values and benevolence a la his childhood idol, Dr. Tom Dooley - the doctor and humanitarian whose efforts in Viet-Nam and Laos in the 1950's saved many lives. He enlisted in the Marines at 18 after a short stint as a minor league baseball player. He served as U.S Marine Gunnery Sergeant. Three deployments to Iraq. Numerous tours of duty including US Embassy guard postings in Nairobi and Kuala Lumpur. Two years based at Camp Pendleton as a sniper instructor. His service jacket shows a bronze star with two clusters and a silver star for valor and two purple hearts.
    I began inadvertently to smile as my chest swelled up with a sense of pride as Agent Newhouse continued.
    First wife’s name, Anne Burton 1965-1986 (Maiden name: unknown). She was 19 when they married and moved into  quarters at Camp Casey in South Korea; she died the following year, on 2 June 1986. Cause of death, malaria, which also took the life of her stillborn fetus, verified by attending physician Dr. Evel Park, Sr..
    I felt a lump in my throat and swallowed hard. Dr. Park had told me a third of the truth, my mother had died from malaria; however, the 2d of June matched the dates annually when my dreams of the man in black came back to haunt me at an early age, and my father is still alive and I'm supposed to be dead. I was in shock.
    I missed whatever Agent Newhouse said for the next minute or so, then she added, "That all happened before we hired him."
    I also wondered, perhaps for different reasons than the CIA, where he disappeared to, why, and why so frequently. However, while I took all this information in, I wasn't emotionally ready for the onslaught, not quite yet.
    When the agents turned to his military background and personal life, I came back to life. I learned that morning that he was a sniper and a hero. As to his personal life, 2 June was the date of my mother's and my deaths; However, I am still alive. Also, he had a second wife and maybe a son or daughter, meaning maybe he was absent so much because he was with his other family. I felt strangely jealous.
    I had to ask; however, I whispered, "Who was his second wife? Any children?"
    Agent Newhouse replied, "We are pretty sure he was married to a Philippine girl a few years later and they may have had a daughter, but it hasn’t been verified."
    Next, I suspected that the CIA