The Point

by John Dixon

  * * *

  —

  BY THE TIME they had filled their plates with burgers, coleslaw, and salad, Scarlett’s stomach was growling again, and she understood that her father had served under Rhoads a million years ago, in the first Gulf War. Rhoads had relied heavily on Scarlett’s father, whom he continued to call Charlie and to whom he again referred as a hero. Scarlett’s father looked happier than Scarlett had ever seen him, and her mother looked almost tearfully proud.

  “Scarlett,” Rhoads said, “I’d like to talk to you about the Harvard of the military: West Point.”

  Scarlett nodded, chewing a big mouthful of burger and slaw.

  “Have you ever heard of Operation Signal Boost?” Rhoads asked.

  Scarlett shook her head.

  “Each year,” Rhoads said, “West Point receives fifteen thousand applications from highly qualified individuals. Valedictorians, star athletes, legacy kids whose brothers, fathers, and grandfathers were all members of the Long Gray Line…every last one of them with a personal recommendation from a senator or congressman. Yet we ultimately accept only 9 percent of these applicants.”

  “Wow,” Scarlett said, not bothering to put much into it. “Hey, Mom, could I have another burger, please?”

  “I run Operation Signal Boost,” Rhoads said. “We keep an eye on top military families around the country, watching for young people of high potential who, for one reason or another, would not officially qualify for West Point yet could, we believe, succeed there given proper structure and support.”

  Her mom turned with wide eyes and looked at Scarlett’s father, who stared at Rhoads.

  Rhoads smiled broadly. “Scarlett, how would you like to attend West Point?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you,” Rhoads said, and laughed. “No application or congressional recommendation necessary.”

  “But I—”

  Rhoads waved her off. “We know you’ve been in trouble. We know your grades have been…erratic. But we know other things, too: your IQ score, your athletic ability, the service your family has paid this nation. Operation Signal Boost is all about channeling raw potential.”

  Scarlett leaned back, grinning nervously. This was insane. West Point? Her? “I really appreciate it, but no.” She stood. “I’d make a terrible soldier.”

  “Scarlett,” her father said. He sat very straight, and his eyes were wide and intense like those of a choking man. “Sit down right now.”

  Scarlett lowered herself into the seat but didn’t bother to push back to the table. Rhoads was a lunatic if he thought she was going to go to West Point and ruin her life.

  “Honey, at least hear him out,” Mom pleaded, reaching for Scarlett’s hand.

  She pulled it away. “No. Look, Colonel, like I said, I really appreciate it, but—”

  “Colonel Rhoads made you an amazing offer,” her father said. “Show some respect.”

  Scarlett stood again, suddenly angry. “I told you yesterday,” she said, finally finding the strength to glare back at her father. “I’m not joining the Army. Period. I don’t care if it’s West Point. It’s still the Army, and I’m done taking orders!”

  Her father rose to his feet. “Don’t raise your voice in this house, young lady. Now sit down and—”

  “Scarlett,” Rhoads said. Somehow his voice, though quiet, cut through the shouting. “Would you do me a favor, please? Give me five minutes. Outside. I’d hate for you to turn us down without understanding what you’re saying no to and why I’m so confident that you’d make a great cadet.”

  Scarlett was shaking with anger but not at Rhoads. “All right,” she said. “Just the two of us, though.”

  Rhoads smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  BE NICE TO THE GUY, Scarlett thought, leading Rhoads out to the backyard, but give it to him straight and be done with it: You’re wasting your time. I’m no soldier.

  But no sooner had they stepped into the midday sun than Rhoads knocked her off balance, saying, “Tell me about Senator Ditko’s party.” His smile was gone. He stared, waiting.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Rhoads frowned. “Come on, Scarlett. Do you really want to play this game?” He reached inside his jacket, withdrew a square of paper, and handed it to her. “Unfold it.”

  She hesitated. Her fingers felt ice cold. Then, slowly, she opened the paper, and the iciness from her fingers spread up her arms and filled her body. She managed to shrug her shoulders, though inside, she was howling. “So what? Is this supposed to be me?”

  “It is you, Scarlett. A police sketch artist’s rendition, anyway. You were seen.”

  Scarlett shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Senator Ditko already identified you,” Rhoads said, “to me, anyway. He’s agreed not to share that information with the police, FBI, or Homeland unless I give him the green light…which all depends on the conversation we’re having right now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Rhoads spread his hands. “Commit to the program. Four years plus four more active duty.”

  “Eight years?” she said. “You must be crazy.”

  “Those eight years will pass one way or the other,” Rhoads said. “It’s your choice: the program…or whatever happens. The bomb squad is cooperating for now, backing our gas main story, but the truth will come out sooner or later if I step away.”

  Scarlett felt frozen in place. “So if I don’t join, you’ll have them haul me off to jail?”

  Rhoads shrugged. “These are volatile times, Scarlett. You’ve seen the news. The paranormal terror attacks have people jumpy. We did a pretty good job muting Springfield, Round Rock, Mobile, and a dozen small-town tragedies…but then Atlanta happened.”

  He didn’t have to clarify. The web had been buzzing over the attacks for months, crying government cover-ups, but Atlanta had been a full-on horror show with gruesome footage playing night and day on the major news networks. All those people, more than a hundred of them, bursting spontaneously into flames as if someone had soaked them in napalm and struck a match.

  “America is clamoring for answers,” Rhoads said. “One more Atlanta and we’ll see the Salem Witch Trials reborn coast to coast. Crazed with fear, this country will eat itself alive. That’s something the U.S. government will not allow. If you refuse my offer, I can’t support you. Your capture will take pressure off the agencies, and the public will finally have its scapegoat. Paranormal terrorism will finally have a face—yours.”

  “Mine?” She couldn’t believe this. “I’m no terrorist.”

  “I know that,” Rhoads said, and offered a wistful smile, “but this would be the story of the century. Do you think the network news will give you fair treatment? Or do you think they’ll sensationalize the story for all it’s worth?”

  “I don’t believe it,” Scarlett said. “I don’t believe you.” But Rhoads didn’t look like he was lying. She just didn’t want to believe him.

  “Senator Ditko will be all too happy to prove me right. All I have to do is walk away. He’ll have you in handcuffs before you can say Guantanamo Bay.”

  Over the years, she had been chewed out by principals, grilled by cops, and chastised by judges. Through it all, she’d kept her cool even when the judge had sentenced her to lockdown, but this was trouble on a whole different level. No way out. No coming back. Nothing.

  She had the urge to spill everything and be done with it but slammed on the brakes at the last second. “I want to talk to my lawyer.”

  “Makes sense,” Rhoads said, “but can you really trust Mr. Tiliakos?”

  That knocked her off balance again. Rhoads knew about Tiliakos, the cut-rate lawyer she’d used to get out of an underage drinking rap and two more serious charges. Well, he’d gotten her ou
t of one of the more serious charges, anyway. The second time, Tiliakos had fumbled the ball, and Scarlett had caught two months in lockdown.

  “You really trust Tiliakos with your life? We’re not talking underage drinking this time.”

  Scarlett pictured Tiliakos, the guy quick with a smile and a joke, but…

  Her mind leaped to the time when she’d been sitting in a small room, waiting for the cops. Just Tiliakos and her in there, Scarlett half drunk, wondering how bad it was going to be this time, Tiliakos sitting there, scrolling through his phone. Then she’d smelled the fart. Just the two of them in there, and she hadn’t cut it, but Tiliakos hadn’t said word one. No excuse me, no grin, not even a lawyer joke, and Tiliakos had a million of those. He just sat there in the stink, scrolling through his phone, silent as a hanged man.

  “No,” Scarlett told Rhoads, sure of it. “I won’t trust him with my life.”

  “Great,” Rhoads said. “Frankly, there isn’t a lawyer on earth who could save you this time.” His smile beamed. “Only I can do that.”

  The walls of the world were pressing in on her, crushing everything she’d ever hoped or dreamed or believed.

  “Look, Scarlett,” Rhoads said. “I know you didn’t intend to hurt anyone. Sometimes collateral damage is impossible to avoid. I’m offering you a way out. This has to be your choice and yours alone. I won’t lie and tell you that West Point will be easy, but I will make this trouble disappear, and I’ll help you control that power of yours so that you never hurt an innocent person again.” Rhoads laid a hand on her shoulder. “Well, what do you say?”

  R-DAY

  United States Military Academy, West Point, New York

  A SUCCESSION OF OFFICERS WELCOMED the 1,300 new cadets and their families seated in Eisenhower Hall Auditorium. The Winters sat in the middle, adrift in a sea of eager candidates and proud families.

  At different points over the weeks since Colonel Rhoads’s visit, Scarlett had experienced a puzzling range of emotions: fear, incredulity, remorse, even excitement. This morning, she felt wary but determined.

  The officers talked about the past and the future, about the Long Gray Line, their name for the unbroken succession of West Point graduates stretching now over 200 years, including great generals, even presidents, soldiers like Grant, Lee, Patton, MacArthur, and Eisenhower, all of them dedicated to the three-word West Point code that seemed to Scarlett an American Bushido: Duty, honor, country.

  Scarlett had never been much of a team player. Motivational speeches had never motivated her. Patriotism, embodied in her father, was a mixed bag: admirable, sure, but from her experience kind of like a drug, providing a necessary high to its cabal of dedicated users, who would sing its praises in a shared argot that set them apart from mainstream society as they went about their bloody way, killing and dying for a country that everybody loved and nobody much liked anymore. So yeah, a mixed bag.

  But this place, West Point, this granite fortress atop a high plateau, with its epic topography, the green slopes plunging as sharply as Scandinavian fjords to the Hudson far below, all beneath the bluest sky Scarlett had ever seen, rattled her irreverence. She could feel the academy’s proud history coming off the gray stones of its buildings, which reminded her of castles, the realm of American knights. There was an undeniable gravity all around her, and an electric optimism emanated from both the institution and its people, this place somehow inextricable from the Long Gray Line it had produced. Together, they had offered great sacrifice in the name of duty, honor, and country. Those three words united the living and the dead, the past, the present, and the future, untethering the Long Gray Line from time and lashing it to an eternal promise to the academy, the Army, and the nation.

  She was surprised to feel a tentative glimmer of pride sparking to life within her just to be associated with the Long Gray Line. That was absurd, of course. She didn’t belong. She hadn’t earned her way here. But she was here nonetheless, part of something much greater than she’d ever expected. It was a surprise, feeling this way. She’d expected to retain her characteristic cynicism. But here, in this place, surrounded by these people and all this history, cynicism seemed suddenly weak and childish, like a crutch. These people had dispensed with irony and sarcasm, rolled up their collective sleeves, and gotten down to the business of creating the best Army officers they could make, and they’d been doing this for 200 years. One serious tradition, the Long Gray Line. She felt a little rocked, truth be told, and as she sat there, her burgeoning optimism played tag with self-doubt. How could she measure up? How could she possibly keep up with these fiercely attentive recruits, this gathering of valedictorians, sports stars, school presidents, and Eagle Scouts?

  The ceremony ended, and the officer announced, “You have ninety seconds to say your good-byes.”

  She hugged her mother, who cried and told Scarlett that she loved her. Scarlett and her father shook hands awkwardly. Her mother reminded her to call home when she could, Scarlett said that she would, and then she joined the flood of cadets leaving the auditorium, grinning with unexpected excitement. Maybe she could do this…

  * * *

  —

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, she stood in a tightly packed line of new cadets, thinking, What have I done?

  The stone-faced junior glaring at them was just as crisp as her uniform. The stone-faced cow, Scarlett reminded herself, recalling the West Point word for a third-year cadet. She was already sick of the lingo, the cuteness of it, everybody here playing a game, but serious, too, shouting at the new recruits, burying them with information, telling them to hurry, move, go.

  Now the stone-faced cow had them at attention. “New Cadets, from this second forward and for the next four years, you will move with a purpose. You will clench your fists, lock your arms straight, and swing them at your sides. You will keep your head straight and your eyes forward. When you pass upperclassmen, you will greet them with the regimental motto, and when you are in formation, you will stand at the position of attention. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Scarlett chorused with the others, but the optimism she’d felt in the auditorium was long gone, replaced by a burgeoning sense of dread. Everybody here was so serious. Standing at attention, marching everywhere, everyone wearing the same uniform, echoing code phrases like a bunch of militant parrots. How did they do it?

  Up and down the hall, upperclassmen were reading the same riot act to squads of new cadets. Most of the new recruits were twitchy with nerves. Nobody smiling, nobody cracking jokes, nobody rolling eyes, nobody even talking. They were to speak only when spoken to by a superior. Even then, they had only four responses: Yes, sir or ma’am; No, sir or ma’am; I don’t know, sir or ma’am; and No excuse, sir or ma’am.

  Insanity.

  How could she possibly deal with this for four years?

  How didn’t matter. She had to. Rhoads had made that clear. If Scarlett washed out of West Point, she’d go straight to lockdown, awaiting the results of a reopened investigation, and ultimately would spend a long, long time in prison.

  The day rushed forward, line to line, station to station, everything go-go-go, stand here, do this, say that, the upperclassmen a bunch of high-strung nitpickers, messing with the new cadets every step of the way.

  Scarlett traded in her street clothes and personal effects for black shorts, a black T-shirt, and dog tags. Each new cadet received a big blue bag into which went the clothing and equipment issued at each station. The bags grew heavier and bulkier and more awkward with every acquisition. People dropped them, spilled stuff, got chewed out. For Scarlett, the physical stuff wasn’t so bad, but her head was spinning, and she had a lot of trouble remembering to say stuff the right way. The upperclassmen rode her hard, rode everybody hard. She knew that they were following a script designed to shake up the new cadets, but it still rattled her cage. She felt jumpy, off balance, un
certain.

  There were no breaks. The tension never let up. They remained with a squad, supervised at all times, every second planned and observed.

  Scarlett’s squad marched into Lee Barracks and entered a buzzing space where twenty barbers stood upon a calico carpet of shorn locks. The barbers were civilians. Some talked. Some didn’t. They moved with the quick efficiency of sheep shearers. A middle-aged woman with baggy eyes and a blue apron called Scarlett to the chair and ran her fingers through her hair, saying how nice it was. Scarlett thanked her, remembering to call her “ma’am,” and ninety seconds later, most of her hair was gone. “Well,” the woman said, her fingers moving along Scarlett’s scalp, “you sure are hiding a lot of scars under that pretty hair.”

  Scarlett looked in the mirror. Her hair had hung to the small of her back. Somehow, the sight of her new pixie cut made this situation real in a way that nothing else had to this point. She was in the Army. No more street clothes, no more long hair, no more nothing. From here on out, life would consist of shouting four responses, standing at attention, and marching with her fists swinging at her sides.

  The new cadets each received a knowledge book and the stellar news that they would have to memorize all of it, as in every word, verbatim. Grim news for a girl who’d never quite managed to memorize the two dozen ice cream flavors she’d spent two summers scooping. At a flip, Scarlett saw songs, West Point trivia, quotes from famous officers, a glossary of cadet slang, and a long Q&A section on West Point lore and tradition that reminded her of the catechism book one of her old boyfriends, a Catholic, had shown her. Some of the answers were a full paragraph, and they needed to know every last word by heart. Whenever they were waiting, whether to fill out a form, eat, or take a leak, they should be reading their knowledge book.

  Grand.

  Upperclassmen marched them into Central Area, a paved courtyard surrounded by high gray buildings that looked now to Scarlett less like castles and more like prison walls. The sun beat down as the cadre explained how to stand, how to speak, how to listen, delivering these instructions in a breathless cadence, sounding like impatient hard-bitten auctioneers.