Richard took a step forward, desperate now.
“Sir, I must insist—”
Shepard turned on him so sharply that Richard stopped mid-sentence.
“You will insist on nothing until I understand why one of the most classified assets ever attached to my command is being escorted off your parade field like a trespasser.”
The words didn’t explode.
They froze.
Classified asset.
Attached to my command.
Every officer within earshot heard them. Every officer understood enough to know they understood nothing at all.
Richard looked at me with naked disbelief.
“No,” he whispered. “No, that’s impossible.”
I almost laughed.
He had said that once before, years earlier, at Thanksgiving, when Ethan mentioned that I spoke Arabic.
Impossible, Richard had said, because waitresses from nowhere didn’t learn languages like that.
People like Richard loved the word impossible. It protected them from realities that made them feel small.
Shepard faced the crowd.
“This ceremony is suspended for fifteen minutes,” he announced. “Command staff only in the west conference room. Captain Calloway, you will accompany us.”
Then his eyes cut to Richard.
“You too.”
Richard’s face twitched.
“Sir?”
“You wanted attention,” Shepard said. “Now you have it.”
We walked across the parade ground in a silence so complete that I could hear the snap of flags overhead.
Nobody clapped.
Nobody whispered.
Nobody dared.
As I passed Ethan, I expected him to say my name.
He didn’t.
So I didn’t slow down.
Inside the administration building, the air-conditioning hit my skin like cold water. The hallway smelled of floor wax, old coffee, and polished brass. A young lieutenant nearly dropped his clipboard when he saw Shepard walking beside me instead of ahead of me.
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