Chapter 7

The command quarters were a two-story brick building on the north edge of the base, the residence reserved for the officer in command of the installation. Ridley had lived there for eighteen months, long enough to have ordered new curtains for the living room and installed a small wine rack in the kitchen. He had entertained there — senators, generals, a deputy secretary of something or other — always with the careful management of his reputation, always with the sense that the rooms were proof of his place in the world.

He stood in the living room now, alone, the evening sun slanting through the west windows, casting long shadows across the hardwood floor.

The JAG officer had come and gone. She had been young, efficient, and had delivered the terms of his suspension in a voice that suggested she had done this many times. He was to remain on base. He was to have no contact with any personnel involved in the incident. He was to surrender his uniform, his identification, and his access cards to the provost marshal by 0800 the next morning.

He was not under arrest. He was not, yet, charged. But the word "suspension" hung in the air like a verdict.

His uniform jacket sat over the back of a chair. He looked at it — the white tunic, the gold shoulder boards, the dense ribbon rack across the chest, the proof of thirty-one years of careful climbing — and he felt nothing.

The doorbell rang.

Ridley stood still. He had told the orderly to redirect all visitors. There was no one left who would bother him, no one left who owed him anything.

The doorbell rang again.

He walked to the door and opened it.

Gordon Pike sat in his wheelchair on the front step. The old man's bald head was bare; his gray cardigan was buttoned over his thin chest; his lap blanket was folded across his bony knees. His eyes — pale, watery, patient — looked up at Ridley from a face like crumpled paper.

"Admiral," Pike said. His voice was cracked and soft, the voice of a man who has spent decades not needing to raise it.

"Mr. Pike," Ridley said. "I'm afraid I'm not receiving visitors."

"I know," Pike said. "I came anyway."

Ridley looked at him. There was nothing about the old man to suggest threat — he was thin, frail, seated, a man who had to be pushed everywhere by a caregiver at the VA facility. The chair had appeared on the parade ground that morning, parked at the far right edge, a fixture that everyone ignored.