I set my coffee mug down on the chestnut table.
Admiral Mercer walked to my side, setting the brass transit down on the wood with a soft, steady clink:
“Arthur’s line holds true, Damon,” the Admiral said softly.
Running up from the garden terrace along the shoreline trail, his broad shoulders square, his hand-welted leather field boots stepping onto the cedar decking with that clean, athletic cadence of an honest naval officer whose spirit is whole, proud, and free...
Came Captain Garrett Stone.
Whole.
Standing tall in the open sunlight.
He wore clean work fatigues, carrying a newly polished mahogany shadow box containing Arthur Mercer Senior’s original, hand-stitched geodetic survey notebooks and the corporate seal of the newly nationalized Atlantic intelligence transport division. In his eyes burned the honest, untroubled devotion of an officer who had stood by his Commander through fourteen months of shadow watch.
Garrett walked straight to our table, setting the shadow box on the wood with a proud, confident click.
