Chapter 12 - An Unwelcome Visitor
Three days into my new assignment, while I was reviewing a decrypted field report from the Indo-Pacific theater, my office intercom buzzed.
“Colonel Hayes?” my administrative assistant’s voice came through the speaker. “You have a visitor at the E-Ring security checkpoint. It’s... Commander Michael Hayes.”
I paused, pen hovering over my notepad.
For a moment, I considered telling security to turn him away. In the old life, I would have felt a spike of anxiety or the lingering urge to justify myself to my brother. But standing here, wearing the uniform that had weathered decades of real storms, Michael felt less like an intimidating shadow and more like a ghost from a past I had already outgrown.
“Send him up, Sergeant,” I replied evenly. “And have security escort him directly to my office after the standard visitor screening.”
Twenty minutes later, the heavy frosted-glass door of my office swung open.
May you like
Michael stood on the threshold. Gone was the arrogant, polished swagger he had worn at the park podium. His dress uniform was neat, but his shoulders were hunched, and his face was pale with exhaustion. The reality of what had happened in Jefferson Memorial Park—and the subsequent internal review triggered by General Vance’s appearance—was crashing down on his career.
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