Linda smiled because he wanted her to.
Her smile trembled at the edges.
“Let’s see how a ‘General’ handles a real bullet,” Silas said.
He put a mocking weight on the title.
As if the word itself was a costume.
As if he could strip it off me with ridicule.
In Washington, the room on the other end of the line had already moved from silence into action.
A three-star general who had known me for eleven years slammed his fist onto the table hard enough to rattle headsets.
“Track that GPS,” he barked.
A communications officer confirmed the location.
A legal adviser demanded the feed be preserved.
Someone else said the local chain of command was compromised until verified.
Every phrase was clipped.
Every verb mattered.
Locate.
Confirm.
Record.
Dispatch.
In the kitchen, Silas heard only himself.
That was always his weakness.
Men like him mistake volume for control.
