Another cadet passed by, saluting smartly.
“Thanks, Melissa. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Yes sir. Good evening, sir.”
Quarters 100 was visible in its white clapboard glory across the Plain. As he strode across the grassy expanse of the parade ground, he tried to remember if he had ever entertained, even for an instant, perhaps as he bent into an icy wind one night on his way to see The Graduate over in the old theater in the gym, a fantasy that one day he would return to West Point as Supe.
He chuckled to himself. Never.
CHAPTER 8
* * *
ASH PRUDHOMME was waiting for Jacey in her room when she returned from supper. They had been seeing each other for about two years, and during that time, she had come to realize that he was a lot more than the sum of his parts, which were deceiving, to say the least. He was the son of a New Orleans grocery owner, and he had grown up in the apartment over the store in the French Quarter. It was a small place, as groceries went, but it had an excellent meat counter and a top-notch selection of wines and imported beers, so anybody who knew anything about food in the Quarter frequented Prudhomme’s. Ash hadn’t thought much about a military career when he was growing up, but when a West Point cadet came to his high school on a recruiting trip, he had been won over.
Adjustment to West Point discipline hadn’t been easy for a boy from the French Quarter, but Ash had made the transition after a few dozen hours walking the area as a plebe convinced him that buckling under and doing what he was told was preferable to walking punishment tours with a rifle on his shoulder. Still, West Point hadn’t completely stripped him of his Cajun ways. “You can take the boy out of the bayou, but you can’t take the bayou out of the boy,” was the way he put it to Jacey when she commented on his love of musicians like the Radiators and the Neville Brothers and Dr. John and Boozoo Chavis. Ash was the lead singer in one of the West Point rock and roll bands, and he had succeeded in teaching them some Zydeco songs, which they played to the distinctive two-step beat of Louisiana’s Cajun country. The band was called Talent Show, after an old Replacements song that was also part of their repertoire. Being the singer for the band gave Ash a certain panache among his classmates, but he wasn’t a guy who lacked much in that department anyway. He had the joie de vivre that seemed to be inbred among denizens of the Crescent City. Jacey’s own mother was evidence enough that New Orleans imbued in its citizens a sense of style and love of the good life. “Let the good times roll” wasn’t a cliché. Like West Point, it was a way of life.
It didn’t surprise Jacey to find Ash seated behind her desk in the semidarkness of early evening. They usually got together and went for a jog before supper, but Dorothy’s death had canceled that. She closed the door and put her cap on the top shelf in the closet, turning around to find herself in his arms. He kissed her and rubbed his nose against hers.
“You got time for something other than, like, a run up to the reservoir?”
“Not really,” she replied. She felt his hands squeezing her ass and wriggled free. “C’mon, Ash. Someone might see us. It’s PDA.”
“I just love that phrase. PDA. Public display of affection, like there’s something wrong with a guy touching a girl.”
“You weren’t exactly just touching me back there.”
“I can’t help it. You’ve got a delicious ass.”
She switched on her desk lamp and sat down. There was a yellow phone-message slip on her desk from the Charge of Quarters. “Oh, jeez, my dad called.”
“This is gonna be weird, with your dad being the Supe. Everybody’s gonna be watching us.”
“You don’t think I’ve thought about that?”
“Hey! Hey! I’m not trying to start something.” He pulled her toward him, kissing her.
“All the more reason you ought to learn to control your restless little libido,” she retorted, releasing herself from his grasp.
He grinned. “I can see right now we’re gonna have to scat out of here on the weekends, big time. Just between you and me, getting out of here and being alone with you is number one on my agenda.”
“Just remember we’ve only got every other weekend. I’ve got to trade off with Belle. One of us has to be here, even on weekends.”
“Bummer,” he joked. “Why couldn’t you have gotten company training officer, or another diddly-shit job?”
“Real funny, Ash. You’ve heard the complaints that I got company commander because the Tactical Department was filling its female quota.”
“C’mon. Gibson picked you because you’re qualified.”
“Yeah, but it’s gotten so hard to know what’s what anymore. People are complaining that things have gotten to be way too PC, and I’m starting to agree with them.”
“Everybody knows you stand at the top of the class in the company, Jace. I haven’t heard anybody saying you pulled down CO because you’re a female.”
Jacey sat down on the bed next to him. “Yeah, but now I’m starting to hear I got my stripes ‘cause they knew my father was going to be appointed Supe this year.”
“Everybody knows that’s bullshit. You told me your old man and Gibson don’t get along.”
There was a soft tap at the door and Belle walked in. “You two got your clothes on?”
“We were talking about Dorothy,” said Jacey.
“I figured,” said Belle.
“What do you think happened?” asked Jacey.
“All I know is, she was one strac chick,” said Belle. I don’t see her dropping out there today from the heat.”
“I know. We’ve had parades on days that were a lot hotter,” said Jacey. “I heard only three people dropped out there today. Remember that parade last year in May when twelve people dropped? And how many of them died? Zero.”
“Nobody’s ever died at parade,” said Ash. “This is so bizarre.”
“Well, we knew Dorothy, and we know she didn’t die because today just happened to be her day.”
Ash glanced at Belle, and the two of them nodded their assent.
“Something bad happened to Dorothy,” said Jacey. “I’m going to find out what it was.”
Belle grabbed her bathrobe and a towel and headed for the sinks. Ash lingered for a moment. “This is a weird way to begin firstie year, huh?”
“It sure is.” She held his hand as they walked to the door. “She was one of us, Ash. She’s not going to die in vain.”
He looked into her eyes for a long moment as they stood at the closed door, and for a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her, but then he just nodded slowly, and he turned and left.
The phone rang. She knew who it was before she picked up.
“Hi, Jace. How’s my doll?” asked her father.
“I’m okay, Daddy.”
“Your mother’s worried about you. So am I. It’s a terrible thing, what happened to your company-mate. I’m sorry you find yourself in the middle of it.”
“Please don’t worry. I’ll be all right. I mean, it’s still such a shock.”
“I know it is, Jace. We’re doing everything we can to find out what happened to her.”
“Can you tell me anything, Daddy? I mean, do they know what killed her?”
“We won’t really know what happened until the full autopsy report is in. But they’ve determined this much. She didn’t die from heat-stroke.”
“I didn’t think the heat killed her. None of us did. Dorothy wasn’t . . .” She searched for the right word. “Weak. She wasn’t weak.”
“I’m sure we’ll get the whole story in a few weeks.”
“It’s so weird, Daddy. I mean, I feel so alone.”
“You’re a company commander, Jace. You have been put in charge of other people’s lives. When it comes right down to it, you’re the one who’s on the spot. It’s a natural feeling, Jace. People are precious. When they leave so suddenly, they take part of you with them.”
“I guess part of it’s because you�
��re the Supe. If I lean on you, people are going to think I’m weak.”
There was a long pause as her father gathered his thoughts. “Well, we knew this wasn’t going to be easy.”
There was another pause as each of them tried to think of what to say next. Finally Jacey said, “Thanks, Daddy. Don’t worry about me. I’m going to be okay.”
“Just remember that you can pick up the phone anytime, and I’m here. So is your mom.”
“Bye, Daddy.” She hung up the phone.
If it wasn't the heat, it had to be something else.
CHAPTER 9
* * *
THE LECTURE by the Chairman of the Honor Committee was scheduled for nine P.M. in Thayer Hall’s South Auditorium. Slaight waited until the plebe class was seated before slipping into an empty seat in the back row. Every eye in the room was focused on the stage, so the entry of the Superintendent had gone unnoticed.
The Commandant of Cadets walked to the center of the stage and stood at parade rest, his feet spread, hands crossed behind his back.
“My name is Brigadier General Jack Gibson, and I’m the Commandant. It’s both my duty and my pleasure tonight to introduce to the plebe class the Chairman of the Cadet Honor Committee. His name is Cadet Jerry Rose. He is a cadet captain from the Second Regiment. He comes from the heartland of our nation, from the state of Missouri, and I have known him since he was a yearling honor rep. It is one of the jobs of the Commandant to oversee the administration of the Cadet Honor Code, in concert with the Chairman of the Honor Committee. I want you to remember everything Mr. Rose has to say to you tonight, for what he tells you tonight may be the most important words you will ever hear in your life.” He turned to his right. “Mr. Rose. The plebe class is yours.”
Rose strode purposefully from the wings to the center of the stage. At five feet eight inches, Rose was hardly an imposing figure, but he spoke with authority and conviction about West Point’s most treasured asset, its Honor Code.
“As we begin the academic year, you plebes should understand one thing very clearly. The days of your training on the Honor Code during Beast Barracks are over. As of this moment, you are all members of the Corps of Cadets, and you will live by the strictures of the Code just like every other class here at West Point. This means you will not lie, cheat, or steal, and you will report anyone you know to have done so, even your own roommate. Now I realize that this may seem to be a harsh and unforgiving system, but you are in the Army now, and you live in a harsh and unforgiving world. The Honor Code is the thing which binds us together in the Corps of Cadets. Without honor, you will not succeed in our world. Without honor, you cannot assume the burdens of command which await you upon graduation. Without honor, you cannot fight and win the nation’s wars. Without honor, you are nothing.”
With that, Rose turned and strode from the stage. His lecture had been so brutal and brief it seemed as if the air had been sucked out of the room. The auditorim was utterly silent, and the plebes sat in their seats, staring rigidly at the empty stage until an announcement over the P.A. ordered them to return to the barracks.
As Slaight walked alone across the Plain back to Quarters 100, he found himself glad to see that the Honor Code was being treated with the same seriousness it had been when he was a cadet. There were many mysteries concealed beneath the layers of cadet life within West Point’s walls. Cadets drew themselves close within the Corps and concealed from others the secrets of West Point life. The Honor Code and the way it was enforced by cadets at the Academy was perhaps the biggest secret of them all.
West Point could be a very deceiving place. On the surface, things looked almost perfect: lawns groomed, hedges trimmed, houses and barracks stately and imposing, well-groomed cadets striding purposefully back and forth to duties and class. But Slaight knew it was what happened just beneath the impressively ordered surface of the Academy that made the place tick—or fail to tick. The Honor Code was the heartbeat of the Academy. In a strange way, it required the gentle ministrations one tendered a good friendship, and like any good friendship, it was a two-way street. Without the cadets’ mutual dependence on the honor of one another, the Honor Code would simply cease to exist, and so would West Point.
Slaight had heard worried talk among West Pointers over the years that West Point was turning into just another college. Many traditionalists were convinced that allowing women into West Point had ruined the place. But to presume that males had a hammerlock on the cadet motto, “Duty, Honor, Country,” was to presume that it was necessary to exclude females in order for men to maintain their grip. Slaight found that notion not just silly, but dishonorable. The twenty-year history of the success of women at the Academy had proven the old grads wrong.
When Slaight reached the front porch of Quarters 100, he found Sam sitting outside. She pointed across the Plain behind him. A steady procession of cadets wearing their dress gray uniforms walked slowly through the sally ports. Slowly the grounds outside Central Area were filled with the entire Corps of Cadets, silent and still and gray.
Then came the mournful tones of taps, played by two buglers, one echoing just a phrase behind the other. The Corps of Cadets stood at attention and saluted to mark the passing of Dorothy Hamner, a fellow cadet. When the cadets lowered their salutes and turned and walked silently back through the sally ports into the barracks, Samantha said, “That was remarkable.”
“Yes, it was,” Slaight agreed.
Later, as he finally closed his eyes the night of his first official day as West Point’s new Superintendent, his sleep was fitful, interrupted by the kinds of dreams that left you wondering in the morning if you had slept at all.
Elsewhere at the Academy, the sleep of others was similarly interrupted, but not by dreams.
CHAPTER 10
* * *
THE ARMED FORCES Institute of Pathology was on the campus of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, out on Georgia Avenue in northwest Washington, D.C. Major Elizabeth Vernon had always found the building curious because it was windowless, built in the late 1940s as the nation’s first atomic-bomb-proof building and envisioned as a model for future governmental buildings downtown. The invention of the hydrogen bomb quickly made such an innocently conceived notion obsolete, and it was the obsolescence of the pathology building that amused her. To think there was a time when men thought they could build bunkerlike structures that would withstand the splitting of the atom!
She parked her rental car and headed for Colonel Phillip Knight’s second-floor office. He had been stationed at the Pathology Institute for most of his career. In addition to having trained Major Vernon, he was also responsible for the schooling of most of the pathologists in the Army, so he hadn’t been surprised when she called him a few days previously and sought his help in the case of the young female cadet who had died during a parade at West Point.
Major Vernon saluted when she entered Colonel Knight’s office, but he waved her off and reached across his desk to grasp her hand firmly in both of his. “Liz! How great to see you!” He wore rimless half-glasses that gave him a look far more scholarly than his demeanor, which was rather jolly and carefree. She recalled that he had a couple of kids in college, one of whom was probably in med school by now, wanting to follow in her father’s footsteps. She had been over to the Knights’ for dinner a few times, and remembered the dinners fondly. Both Colonel Knight and his wife cooked, and their dinner parties were an odd mix of very fussy, elaborate food and an atmosphere so relaxed it bordered on chaotic.
“I’ve been pretty good, sir.”
“Your return to West Point must be agreeing with you. You look well. Have a seat.” She sat down and laid her briefcase on the desk. “You’ve got a problem, I understand.”
“Yes sir. As I told you on the phone, I’m pretty well stymied on this one.”
“Why don’t you fill me in on what you’ve got so far.”
She opened the briefcase and removed the file on Dorothy Hamner. “Twenty-one-year-old
female in apparent good health. No recurring medical problems to speak of in her three years at the Academy. Goes out to parade on a hot day—”
“How hot?”
“The temperature was recorded as ninety-six degrees on the day of her death.”
“Wearing the woolen cadet dress uniform, I presume?”
“Yes sir, wool full dress gray coat over cotton trousers.”
“And that silly hat.”
“Yes sir.”
“Were there any symptoms reported by fellow cadets previous to her death?”
“Not that morning in barracks. The only symptoms that were reported were those immediately preceeding her loss of consciousness. Shortness of breath, gasping. One cadet said her eyes bulged.”
“You said her blood tests appeared to be normal.”
“Yes sir.”
Colonel Knight stood. “Let’s get down to the lab.” He led the way downstairs to the well-equipped pathology lab Major Vernon remembered from her training. Several technicians in white lab coats were working across the room. Major Vernon opened her sample case, and the colonel took the first slide and slipped it under the microscope. He peered into the eyepiece and whisded softly.
“That was taken from the lower left lobe, but the rest of the samples look pretty much the same, sir.”
“This is extraordinary inflammation. Are you certain there was no history of asthma?”
“Yes sir. I checked all of the Academy’s medical records and spoke with her family physician on the phone.”
“Let’s have a look at another.” She handed him a second slide and he viewed it for a moment before looking up. “If the rest of the lungs look like this, there’s little doubt she suffered a massive respiratory failure. The question is, why? Let’s have a look at those blood results.”
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