Arthur leaned in, his eyes bright with a secret joy. “Don’t you worry about us, Kira,” he whispered, his voice gaining a strength I hadn’t heard in years. “I’ve spent eighty years waiting to see a Collins take command. You go finish what you started. Give ’em hell.”
“I intend to,” I said.
I stood up and looked at my mother. She was watching me with a mixture of awe and profound grief. I realized then that she wasn’t just losing her husband; she was losing the delusion that had protected her from the truth of her own life. She had traded her daughter’s respect for a bully’s “peace,” and the bill had finally come due.
“Kira…” she started, her voice breaking. “I… I didn’t think you’d ever become… this.”
“Neither did I, Carol,” I said. “But that’s what happens when you have to learn to protect yourself because no one else will.”
I turned to the agent. “Clear the room. Move the civilians to the transport. Leave him.” I gestured toward Rick. “He’s no longer a concern of the state.”
As the agents began to escort my mother and Arthur out, I felt a sudden, sharp clarity. For thirty-eight years, I had carried the shame of this house like a pack full of lead. I had let Rick’s voice live in the back of my head, telling me I was “slow to launch,” even as I was launching satellites into orbit.
I reached into my bag and pulled out my dress cap. I placed it on my head, the brim low and sharp, the silver embroidery of the oak leaves catching the light. I wasn’t hiding anymore.
I walked past Rick one last time. He didn’t look up. He was staring at the spot where the water had spilled, his world reduced to a damp patch on an old carpet.
“The silence is over, Rick,” I said, my voice echoing in the now-empty room. “Try not to choke on the gravy.”
I stepped out onto the porch. The cold air hit me like a splash of water, crisp and honest. I climbed into the back of the Suburban, the door closing with a heavy, pressurized thunk that silenced the world outside.
As we pulled away, I looked back at the house. In the upstairs window, a single light was flickering—the TV in my childhood bedroom, still on, still broadcasting a game that no one was watching. The red and blue lights of the escort faded into the night, leaving only the steady, rhythmic pulse of the secure terminal in my hand.
The images of the North Pacific were back on the screen—cold, dark, and dangerous. But for the first time in my life, the house behind me felt even colder.
CHAPTER 5: THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
The interior of the Suburban was a sensory vacuum. The thick, armored glass reduced the suburban chaos of Virginia to a silent, slow-motion film. Outside, neighbors peered through their blinds at the motorcade, their faces pale circles of curiosity. Inside, the cabin smelled of new leather, ozone, and the high-octane electricity of a mobile command center.
My terminal chimed—a low, melodic tone that signaled a direct patch through the “Gold Line.”
“General Collins,” the voice came through the encrypted headset. It was the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon. “The President is back on the line. We’re patching him through to your vehicle’s secure uplink now.”
A split second of static, then: “Kira, give me the ground truth.”
“Mr. President,” I said, my voice steady despite the adrenaline still humming in my veins. “The P8s have successfully bracketed the leads. The Russian commander has realized he’s lit up like a Christmas tree. They’ve dived, but they’ve turned north-northeast. We’ve signaled that any further encroachment into the Alaskan ADIZ will be met with kinetic interception. They’re running for the shelf.”
“Good,” the President said, and I could hear him exhaling, a sound of immense weight being momentarily lifted. “You made the right call on the flash scramble. If we’d waited for the traditional chain, they would have been within striking distance of the coast before we had eyes on. You saved us a very messy morning, General.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll be on-site at the Pentagon in ten minutes to oversee the transition to the night watch.”
“Take a breath, Kira. And… I apologize for the interruption. I know you were with family.”
“It was an educational dinner, sir,” I replied, a ghost of a smile touching my lips. “In many ways.”
I ended the call and leaned back into the headrest. The world was righting itself, one coordinate at a time. But as the car accelerated onto the highway, the digital map on my terminal wasn’t the only thing on my mind. My thoughts kept drifting back to the dining room—to the snatch of the phone, to the moment the “High-Ranking Military Commander” Rick had mocked became the woman who held his life in her hands.
The “mistake” he had made wasn’t just grabbing a phone. It was the fundamental error of the bully: he mistook silence for weakness. He thought because I didn’t roar, I didn’t have teeth. He thought because I paid the bills without asking for thanks, I was a servant.
I looked at my reflection in the darkened window. The three silver stars on my shoulders gleamed in the passing streetlights. I thought of my mother. She would be at the hotel by now, sitting in a room that cost more than Rick’s truck, surrounded by men who treated her with more respect in five minutes than Rick had in twenty years. I wondered if she would finally wake up, or if the light of the truth would be too blinding for eyes that had lived in the dark for so long.
“ETA five minutes, General,” the driver said.
Up ahead, the Pentagon loomed—a massive, concrete fortress of secrets, glowing under the floodlights. It was the only place I truly felt at home. In that building, I wasn’t a daughter or a spinster or a “failure to launch.” I was a piece of the machinery of the state, a protector, a lion.
I reached into my pocket and felt the phone. It was quiet now. The red glow had faded, replaced by the standard green of a secure standby. The crisis in the Aleutians was simmering down, moving from the realm of potential fire to the realm of diplomatic cables and back-channel warnings.
But for Rick, the crisis was just beginning.
I thought about the federal agents I’d left behind to “sweep” the house. They wouldn’t be gentle. They would be thorough. They would check every drawer, every hard drive, every corner of Rick’s pathetic, fraudulent life to ensure no classified information had been compromised during his little “detox” stunt. By the time they were done, Rick wouldn’t just be homeless; he would be a man without a shadow.
The motorcade swept through the security gates, the bollards dropping into the ground like submissive hounds. I stepped out of the car and felt the cold wind of the Potomac. It didn’t feel biting anymore; it felt like a clean slate.
I adjusted my cap, the brim perfectly level. I was back in the world of steel and logic.
As I walked toward the entrance, I felt a vibration in my hand. It wasn’t an alert. It was a text message on my personal line—a line only one person had.
I opened it. It was from Grandpa Arthur.
“The view is fine, Kira. The planes look like stars. Sleep well, General. The watch is yours.”
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