On the broad, covered cedar back deck of my restored home overlooking the deep-water channel where the naval patrol cutters and civilian sailboats glided clean, smooth, and free toward the Gulf…
Sitting at a long twelve-foot reclaimed chestnut trestle table with an open set of regional land surveys and a steaming ceramic mug of dark-roast chicory coffee…
Was Elena Mercer.
I was thirty-five now.
I had assumed the permanent Chancellorship of the Sovereign Admiralty Trust six months ago, while retaining my commission as Senior Strategic Advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The paralyzing trauma of those three years in Qatar, the horror of walking into that upstairs bedroom to find my mother bound and starving, and the heavy burden of forty years of family secrecy had completely metabolized into an un-shakeable, eighty-year architectural peace; my strength had completely returned, rooted in the bedrock of an un-broken command.
I wore an unadorned cream-colored linen work shirt, comfortable dark denim trousers with copper rivets, and clean leather field boots.
