Chapter 17
Evans didn’t say a word for the first three miles. He kept his massive, grease-stained hands locked onto the steering wheel at ten and two, his eyes narrowed against the glare of the highway. The interior of the truck smelled of old tobacco, stale coffee, and the sweet, metallic tang of WD-40—the permanent aroma of an old master sergeant who lived in the maintenance pits.
“You could’ve told me, kid,” Evans said finally, his rough voice breaking the silence as he turned down the gravel road leading toward her garage apartment.
Maya looked out the side window, watching the jagged shadows of the pine trees trace rhythmic patterns across her lap. “I signed a non-disclosure agreement with a Tier 1 attachment, Chief. If I whispered a single word about Jericho to anyone outside the loop, the DIA would’ve had me in a federal penitentiary before sundown. It wasn’t my secret to tell.”
“Yeah, well,” Evans grunted, pulling the truck to a halt in front of the old wooden stairs leading up to her unit. He killed the engine, the sudden silence of the woods rushing into the cab. He turned his heavy head to look at her, a rare, soft expression of respect softening his weathered face. “I figured it was something like that. But seeing that four-star plate pull into my motor pool just to give Ross the boot? That’s the finest piece of logistics work I’ve seen in twenty-six years of service.”
He reached over the seat, lifting a heavy cardboard box from the floorboards and setting it on the center console. Inside were her personal files, her extra uniform items from the parts cage, and the small, sweating can of cola that Jax had left on her desk that morning.
“The boys in the shop wanted me to give you this,” Evans said, pulling a heavy iron wrench from his pocket. It was an old, American-made Craftsman combination wrench, its surface dark with years of motor pool grease, but someone had used a dremel tool to carefully engrave a small, crude downward sword and a broken chain into the handle. “Jax spent his lunch break doing it. He said if you’re going to the White House, you need a piece of real equipment to remind you of the people who actually know how to fix things.”
Maya reached out, her fingers closing around the cold, heavy iron. The weight of the tool was grounding, a physical token from the ordinary soldiers who had looked out for her when she was hiding in the dark. A sudden, unexpected warmth flared in her throat, the first real tear she had allowed herself in two years threatening to break from the corner of her eye.
“Tell Jax his cap is still out of regulation,” Maya said, her voice catching slightly as she tucked the wrench into her duffel bag.
“I will,” Evans smiled, a wide, leathery grin that showed his tobacco-stained teeth. “Now get upstairs and pack your trash, Sergeant. The General doesn’t like to be kept waiting, and you’ve got a date with history.”
The hotel room in Arlington, Virginia, looked out over the gray, shimmering expanse of the Potomac River, with the white marble pillars of the Lincoln Memorial visible in the distance through the heavy glass.
Maya sat on the edge of the king-sized bed, her dress blue uniform laid out beside her like a suit of ceremonial armor. The silver and purple patch of Task Force Jericho sat proudly on her left sleeve, the metallic threads catching the low, amber light of the late afternoon sun. On her right shoulder sat the standard American flag, its golden borders crisp and sharp.
The room was silent, but it was a different kind of silence than the one she had lived with in North Carolina. It wasn’t the heavy, suffocating quiet of a hiding place; it was the tense, electric stillness that comes before a major offensive.
In less than three hours, she would be standing in the East Room of the White House. The President would place the Distinguished Service Cross around her neck, and the citation of Task Force Jericho would be read into the Congressional Record, permanently stripping away the black ink that had erased her teammates from the world.
But the medal wasn’t the reason her hands were shaking as she pulled her hair into a tight, regulation bun.
A soft, hesitant knock sounded at the heavy wooden door of the hotel room.
Maya stood up, smoothing the front of her uniform jacket. She took a deep, steadying breath, consciously forcing her heart rate down using the tactical breathing exercises she had learned during her training at Fort Bragg. In for four, hold for four, out for four.
She walked to the door, turned the brass handle, and pulled it open.
