Chapter 8 - The Academy Grounds
The parade deck at Annapolis was covered in six thousand chairs, all of them white plastic, all of them wet from the morning rain.
Three thousand midshipmen in their blue dress jackets stood in long, silent rows along the perimeter, their bayonets catching the sharp, midday sun like rows of silver needles stuck into the grass.
In the front row, behind the red-and-white barrier rope, sat forty people who didn't look like politicians or board members.
There was a woman from Dayton, Ohio, holding a small boy in an oversized coat that had belonging to his father.
There was an old man with a wooden leg sitting in a wheelchair, a blue baseball cap with USS FORRESTAL stitched across the front resting on his knees.
And there was the sixteen-year-old apprentice machinist from Ohio—his left hand wrapped in thick, white bandages—sitting between his mother and a chaplain from the Third Fleet.
He saw me when I came up the wooden steps behind the podium.
He didn't salute—he didn't have his cover on—but he lifted his good right hand and touched his forehead once, his fingers trembling slightly as he met my eyes.
I nodded to him.
General Vance sat three seats to my left, his raincoat folded over his knees, his brass buttons shining like new dimes in the sun.
"The President's two minutes out," Vance said without moving his lips. "He's going to offer you the desk at Norfolk."
"I don't want the desk, General," I said.
"I know you don't," Vance said. "That's why he's going to offer it to you. Politicians love giving good tools to people who won't use them to break things."
The helicopter came over the trees behind the chapel—not the green SAR birds I was used to, but the heavy, white-topped Sea King with the presidential seal painted five feet wide on the side.
The noise was deafening—that long, rhythmic thump-thump-thump that shakes the teeth inside your skull—as it settled onto the grass behind the library.
When the doors opened, the crowd didn't clap.
They rose—all six thousand of them—their white chairs scraping against the wet gravel with a sound like a heavy wave hitting a shingle beach.
The President was taller than I thought he'd be.
He had no coat on despite the fifty-degree wind coming off the Severn River, his sleeves rolled up two turns, his tie flying over his left shoulder as he walked across the grass toward the wooden platform.
He didn't speak to the senators. He didn't speak to the four-star admiral who was standing near the microphone with a leather folder under his arm.
He walked straight to the second row of steel chairs on the stage.
He stopped in front of me.
He looked at my face—at the small, dark scab under my ear where the hydraulic fluid had burned the skin, and at the way I was standing with my right leg locked straight to keep the wound from pulling through the dress trousers.
"Major Carter," he said. His voice was deeper than it sounded on the television—rougher, lined with thirty years of public speaking and too many early flights.
"Mr. President," I said, bringing my hand up to the brim of my cap.
He didn't return the salute. He reached out with both hands, grabbed my right hand—the one with the black sand still under the thumb—and squeezed it until the knuckles clicked.
"Your father's name is Charles?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Is he here today?"
"No, sir," I said. "He was... unable to attend."
The President looked at General Vance, who gave a single, almost imperceptible shake of his head.
May you like
The President turned back to me, his eyes small, dark, hard as iron rivets under his grey eyebrows.
"Then he missed a hell of a story," he said.
